This is Why the Liberty Bell Has a Crack

Few artifacts generate as many questions as the Liberty Bell. Housed in Philadelphia, the bell famously features a crack that has caused many to wonder about its origin over the years.

The Liberty Bell was first introduced in 1751, but it actually was called the State House Bell. Created for the steeple of the Pennsylvania State House, it earned its more famous nickname nearly 100 years later.

Over time, it has served many purposes and remains an important piece of American history.

Photo Credit: Pixabay

Originally commissioned by the Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly, the bell features an inscription that says, “Proclaim LIBERTY Throughout all the Land unto all the Inhabitants Thereof.”

From a size perspective, the bell is actually quite larger than most people expect. It checks in at 3 feet high with a circumference of 12 feet.

Constructed with about 70 percent copper and 25 percent tin, it weighs in at almost 2,100 pounds. Despite its massive size, it still managed to get a crack in it around the time of its initial use in 1752. According to Stephen Fried, a journalist and historian who teaches at Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania, the crack resulted in a whole plan to fix the famous bell.

Fried said,

“A replacement bell was ordered immediately from England, but in the meantime, local founders John Pass and John Stow melted down the busted original, added some metal of their own, and made a copy.

That copy is what we know as the Liberty Bell, but the foundry in England also sent a replacement, and both hung in the new State House tower.”

Of course, the Liberty Bell earned its time-tested name in 1835, when it first appeared in a pamphlet published by the New York Anti-Slavery Society.

Photo Credit: Pixabay

Some historians believe the bell got cracked that year when it was rung to signal the death of John Marshall, the Chief Justice of the United States.

Less than a decade later, repairmen actually widened the crack in an effort to fix the bell. Unfortunately, that proved unsuccessful.

Photo Credit: Pixabay

Nowadays, the Liberty Bell resides at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. And while some still want to fix it, it has gone unchanged and still remains a powerful symbol.

Have you ever visited Philadelphia to see the Liberty Bell? Have you traveled to see historic American landmarks or buildings?

Tell us about your travel experiences below!

The post This is Why the Liberty Bell Has a Crack appeared first on UberFacts.

July 15, 2020

This is Where the Saying “Take It With a Grain of Salt” Comes From

When someone tells you to take something with a “grain of salt,” you should be skeptical about what you’ve heard, because your source may be unreliable.

A grain of salt is tiny. It is also a reflection of not putting too much belief in something that has already proven itself worthy of reservation.

But where does the association between salt and skepticism come from? We’ll tell you what we know, but you take this information with a grain of… well, you know.

Photo credit: Pixabay

The phrase itself goes all the way back to 77 A.D. It’s earliest recorded use comes from Roman naturalist and philosopher Pliny the Elder, who created an antidote to poison in his Naturalis Historia—it called for figs, walnuts, rue (an herb), and a “grain of salt.”

It didn’t appear to have a symbolic meaning until a few hundred years later.

In the 17th-century, Anglican Bible commentator John Trapp included it his A Commentary on the Old and New Testaments as a metaphor concerning his own writing.

Just what its meaning was to Trapp, however, is still unclear.

Photo credit: Pixabay

Over the years, the phrase continued to make its way through the English language in literal and figurative speech, but wasn’t used in its current incarnation until just after the Second World War.

It was then that became widely used by Americans and the British, who slightly altered the phrase to a “pinch” of salt.

In 1948, English author F.R. Cowell first included it with this particular meaning in his book, Cicero & the Roman Republic. According to Cowell, Cicero and those around him “took more than the proverbial pinch of salt before swallowing everything written by these earlier authors.”

Photo credit: Pixabay

Do you use this idiom or know of others with equally fascinating origins?

Let us know in the comments below!

The post This is Where the Saying “Take It With a Grain of Salt” Comes From appeared first on UberFacts.

July 15, 2020

This is Where the Saying “Take It With a Grain of Salt” Comes From

When someone tells you to take something with a “grain of salt,” you should be skeptical about what you’ve heard, because your source may be unreliable.

A grain of salt is tiny. It is also a reflection of not putting too much belief in something that has already proven itself worthy of reservation.

But where does the association between salt and skepticism come from? We’ll tell you what we know, but you take this information with a grain of… well, you know.

Photo credit: Pixabay

It didn’t appear to have a symbolic meaning until a few hundred years later.

In the 17th-century, Anglican Bible commentator John Trapp included it his A Commentary on the Old and New Testaments as a metaphor concerning his own writing.

Just what its meaning was to Trapp, however, is still unclear.

Photo credit: Pixabay

Over the years, the phrase continued to make its way through the English language in literal and figurative speech, but wasn’t used in its current incarnation until just after the Second World War.

It was then that became widely used by Americans and the British, who slightly altered the phrase to a “pinch” of salt.

Photo credit: Pixabay

Do you use this idiom or know of others with equally fascinating origins?

Let us know in the comments below!

The post This is Where the Saying “Take It With a Grain of Salt” Comes From appeared first on UberFacts.

July 15, 2020

People Suggest Some Super Creepy Deep Dives, If You’re Looking for That Kind of Thing…

I freaking love creepy shit. I watch murder shows, listen to true crime podcasts, drink up paranormal investigations, and am morbidly fascinated with crap like the bodies on Mount Everest.

So let me tell you, I’m taking notes along this list of creepy deep dives just waiting to be explored.

17. If you’re not easily squeaked out.

Parasites.

Disgustingly interesting, and scary AF.

16. This one is dar, even for me.

Go watch the documentary “Three Identical Strangers”.

A story about triplets who were separated at birth.

It starts out wholesome and very quickly becomes dark

15. Welp, never going there.

NASA has radio transmission made by every planet in our solar system essentially giving the planets “sounds”. Saturn screams.

Here is a link for your listening discomfort.

14. Really anything on cults.

Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple.

13. Caves are a nightmare all their own.

Definitely the tale of that guy who died in the nutty putty cave upside down unable to be rescued as it would have involved breaking his legs.

Never thought I’d get creeped out by an infographic, but here you go.

https://i.imgur.com/BkmpH9v.jpg

12. It really will haunt you forever.

People dead on Mt. Everest.

It’s too cold and dangerous to get them down, so… they… just… stay… up…. there.

O_O

11. Oh yeah she’s definitely unable to contact people for SOME reason.

The wife of the leader of the church of scientology has not been seen for over 10 years, the higher ups of the organization claim she is dedicating all her time to the church.

But the fact that ever since she got in a big fight with her husband 10 years ago, none of her family members had seen or contacted her indicates foul play.

10. Failure is one way to describe it.

The Nazino affair, aka, Cannibal Island.

Back in the 30’s, some bigwigs in the USSR wanted to do what amounted to a collectivization experiment on an unsettled island, so they rounded up 6000 mostly randomly snatched up city folk and dumped them on a undeveloped island with almost no food or supplies or shelter, with guards stationed around the island ordered to shoot anyone who tried to leave.

Within 3 months, roughly 2/3rds of the islands population was dead, with many of the survivors resorting to eating the dead (and in some stories, butchering still living people). Eventually, the experiment was deemed a failure and they removed the survivors off the island, and records about the experiment got buried until the 1980’s

9. It’s really the last great frontier, right here on earth.

The bloop, deep sea gigantism, and other deep sea sounds.

While many have been debunked, the idea of godzilla sized shit running around down there is fun/scary.

8. I’m never eating cornflakes again.

Cornflakes.

The inventor of corn flakes made it bland and boring so people wouldn’t get excited and have sex or masturbate.

He also ran a sanitarium, put carbolic acid on little girl’s privates so they would never derive pleasure from sex , and put wires on boy’s penises so that when they had an erection it would cause them pain… among other things. He believed in some crazy crap.

7. It’s really horrifying what people are capable of.

Human experimentations done by various militaries and governments.

6. And this was some people’s JOBS.

Torture methods between 14th and 18th centuries.

5. DO NOT listen to the transcripts.

Toy Box Killer.

David Parker Ray probably tortured and killed more than 50 women inside his soundproof trailer.

He was never convicted of murder.

4. I need this to be an unsolved mystery.

Room 1046 is a pretty creepy unsolved case, basically an un identified man was brutally murdered in his hotel room after he had been sat there, alone, in the dark, all day.

Throw in some mysterious phone calls and strange behaviours and it’s a pretty interesting story

3. This story never gets less jaw-droppingly horrible.

Zhejiang-Jiangxi campaign which was led by the Japanese as a revenge for the Dollitle raid.

Here is what Wikipedia says about it: “After the raid, the Japanese Imperial Army began the Zhejiang-Jiangxi campaign (also known as Operation Sei-go) to prevent these eastern coastal provinces of China from being used again for an attack on Japan and to take revenge on the Chinese people. An area of some 20,000 sq mi (50,000 km2) was laid waste. “Like a swarm of locusts, they left behind nothing but destruction and chaos,” eyewitness Father Wendelin Dunker wrote. The Japanese killed an estimated 10,000 Chinese civilians during their search for Doolittle’s men. People who aided the airmen were tortured before they were killed.

Father Dunker wrote of the destruction of the town of Ihwang: “They shot any man, woman, child, cow, hog, or just about anything that moved, They raped any woman from the ages of 10 – 65, and before burning the town they thoroughly looted it…None of the humans shot were buried either…” The Japanese entered Nancheng, population 50,000 on June 11, “beginning a reign of terror so horrendous that missionaries would later dub it ‘the Rape of Nancheng.’ ” evoking memories of the infamous Rape of Nanjing five years before. Less than a month later, the Japanese forces put what remained of the city to the torch. “This planned burning was carried on for three days,” one Chinese newspaper reported, “and the city of Nancheng became charred earth.”

When Japanese troops moved out of the Zhejiang and Jiangxi areas in mid-August, they left behind a trail of devastation. Chinese estimates put the civilian death toll at 250,000. The Imperial Japanese Army had also spread cholera, typhoid, plague infected fleas and dysentery pathogens. The Japanese biological warfare Unit 731 brought almost 300 pounds of paratyphoid and anthrax to be left in contaminated food and contaminated wells with the withdrawal of the army from areas around Yushan, Kinhwa and Futsin. Around 1,700 Japanese troops died out of a total 10,000 Japanese soldiers who fell ill with disease when their biological weapons attack rebounded on their own forces.

Shunroku Hata, the commander of Japanese forces involved of the massacre of the 250,000 Chinese civilians, was sentenced in 1948 in part due to his “failure to prevent atrocities”. He was given a life sentence but was paroled in 1954.”

It is only a small part of what war crimes Japanese committed in WWII but nobody seem to remember them

2. Read the comic at your own risk.

Elan School.

Basically this school was a pseudo-cult/Stanford Prison Experiment type place disguised as a send away school for behavior correction.

There is a webcomic series by someone who escaped. Im on break at work else Id link it

It’s since closed but it went for under the radar for years and years.

Iirc a few people died there from the harsh treatments they were given.

1. That’s one way to die.

The true story that was the inspiration for the song “The Way” by Fastball.

It’s based on Lela and Raymond Howard, a Texas couple in their 80’s. They were planning to go to a festival they went to every year just 15 miles from their home, but they were both suffering from mental decline. They took off that morning without telling anyone. They never came home.

Three days later they got pulled over 500 miles away from home. Not once but twice. Neither officer was aware they were reported as missing persons at that time. They were let go with a warning, even though Lela couldn’t remember where she lived. The search intensified, authorities in multiple states were looking for them, it made national news and tips came rolling in but none led to their discovery. The early news of the search inspired the song and it was written before they were found.

Lela and Raymond were ultimately discovered by hikers a couple weeks after their disappearance. The car was at the bottom of a 25-ft cliff. Raymond was deceased in the passenger seat, Lela was deceased a short distance from the car holding her purse and car keys. She opened the passenger door for her dead husband before crawling away and dying of her own injuries. The car went off the cliff at about 50 mph and there were no skidmarks indicating that she even tried to stop. Presumably she didn’t see the cliff or got confused or something and just… drove right off it.

You guys. YOU GUYS. I’m already gone.

Which one of these are you going to research first? Let me know in the comments!

The post People Suggest Some Super Creepy Deep Dives, If You’re Looking for That Kind of Thing… appeared first on UberFacts.

July 15, 2020

People Suggest Some Super Creepy Deep Dives, If You’re Looking for That Kind of Thing…

I freaking love creepy shit. I watch murder shows, listen to true crime podcasts, drink up paranormal investigations, and am morbidly fascinated with crap like the bodies on Mount Everest.

So let me tell you, I’m taking notes along this list of creepy deep dives just waiting to be explored.

17. If you’re not easily squeaked out.

Parasites.

Disgustingly interesting, and scary AF.

16. This one is dar, even for me.

Go watch the documentary “Three Identical Strangers”.

A story about triplets who were separated at birth.

It starts out wholesome and very quickly becomes dark

15. Welp, never going there.

NASA has radio transmission made by every planet in our solar system essentially giving the planets “sounds”. Saturn screams.

Here is a link for your listening discomfort.

14. Really anything on cults.

Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple.

13. Caves are a nightmare all their own.

Definitely the tale of that guy who died in the nutty putty cave upside down unable to be rescued as it would have involved breaking his legs.

Never thought I’d get creeped out by an infographic, but here you go.

https://i.imgur.com/BkmpH9v.jpg

12. It really will haunt you forever.

People dead on Mt. Everest.

It’s too cold and dangerous to get them down, so… they… just… stay… up…. there.

O_O

11. Oh yeah she’s definitely unable to contact people for SOME reason.

The wife of the leader of the church of scientology has not been seen for over 10 years, the higher ups of the organization claim she is dedicating all her time to the church.

But the fact that ever since she got in a big fight with her husband 10 years ago, none of her family members had seen or contacted her indicates foul play.

10. Failure is one way to describe it.

The Nazino affair, aka, Cannibal Island.

Back in the 30’s, some bigwigs in the USSR wanted to do what amounted to a collectivization experiment on an unsettled island, so they rounded up 6000 mostly randomly snatched up city folk and dumped them on a undeveloped island with almost no food or supplies or shelter, with guards stationed around the island ordered to shoot anyone who tried to leave.

Within 3 months, roughly 2/3rds of the islands population was dead, with many of the survivors resorting to eating the dead (and in some stories, butchering still living people). Eventually, the experiment was deemed a failure and they removed the survivors off the island, and records about the experiment got buried until the 1980’s

9. It’s really the last great frontier, right here on earth.

The bloop, deep sea gigantism, and other deep sea sounds.

While many have been debunked, the idea of godzilla sized shit running around down there is fun/scary.

8. I’m never eating cornflakes again.

Cornflakes.

The inventor of corn flakes made it bland and boring so people wouldn’t get excited and have sex or masturbate.

He also ran a sanitarium, put carbolic acid on little girl’s privates so they would never derive pleasure from sex , and put wires on boy’s penises so that when they had an erection it would cause them pain… among other things. He believed in some crazy crap.

7. It’s really horrifying what people are capable of.

Human experimentations done by various militaries and governments.

6. And this was some people’s JOBS.

Torture methods between 14th and 18th centuries.

5. DO NOT listen to the transcripts.

Toy Box Killer.

David Parker Ray probably tortured and killed more than 50 women inside his soundproof trailer.

He was never convicted of murder.

4. I need this to be an unsolved mystery.

Room 1046 is a pretty creepy unsolved case, basically an un identified man was brutally murdered in his hotel room after he had been sat there, alone, in the dark, all day.

Throw in some mysterious phone calls and strange behaviours and it’s a pretty interesting story

3. This story never gets less jaw-droppingly horrible.

Zhejiang-Jiangxi campaign which was led by the Japanese as a revenge for the Dollitle raid.

Here is what Wikipedia says about it: “After the raid, the Japanese Imperial Army began the Zhejiang-Jiangxi campaign (also known as Operation Sei-go) to prevent these eastern coastal provinces of China from being used again for an attack on Japan and to take revenge on the Chinese people. An area of some 20,000 sq mi (50,000 km2) was laid waste. “Like a swarm of locusts, they left behind nothing but destruction and chaos,” eyewitness Father Wendelin Dunker wrote. The Japanese killed an estimated 10,000 Chinese civilians during their search for Doolittle’s men. People who aided the airmen were tortured before they were killed.

Father Dunker wrote of the destruction of the town of Ihwang: “They shot any man, woman, child, cow, hog, or just about anything that moved, They raped any woman from the ages of 10 – 65, and before burning the town they thoroughly looted it…None of the humans shot were buried either…” The Japanese entered Nancheng, population 50,000 on June 11, “beginning a reign of terror so horrendous that missionaries would later dub it ‘the Rape of Nancheng.’ ” evoking memories of the infamous Rape of Nanjing five years before. Less than a month later, the Japanese forces put what remained of the city to the torch. “This planned burning was carried on for three days,” one Chinese newspaper reported, “and the city of Nancheng became charred earth.”

When Japanese troops moved out of the Zhejiang and Jiangxi areas in mid-August, they left behind a trail of devastation. Chinese estimates put the civilian death toll at 250,000. The Imperial Japanese Army had also spread cholera, typhoid, plague infected fleas and dysentery pathogens. The Japanese biological warfare Unit 731 brought almost 300 pounds of paratyphoid and anthrax to be left in contaminated food and contaminated wells with the withdrawal of the army from areas around Yushan, Kinhwa and Futsin. Around 1,700 Japanese troops died out of a total 10,000 Japanese soldiers who fell ill with disease when their biological weapons attack rebounded on their own forces.

Shunroku Hata, the commander of Japanese forces involved of the massacre of the 250,000 Chinese civilians, was sentenced in 1948 in part due to his “failure to prevent atrocities”. He was given a life sentence but was paroled in 1954.”

It is only a small part of what war crimes Japanese committed in WWII but nobody seem to remember them

2. Read the comic at your own risk.

Elan School.

Basically this school was a pseudo-cult/Stanford Prison Experiment type place disguised as a send away school for behavior correction.

There is a webcomic series by someone who escaped. Im on break at work else Id link it

It’s since closed but it went for under the radar for years and years.

Iirc a few people died there from the harsh treatments they were given.

1. That’s one way to die.

The true story that was the inspiration for the song “The Way” by Fastball.

It’s based on Lela and Raymond Howard, a Texas couple in their 80’s. They were planning to go to a festival they went to every year just 15 miles from their home, but they were both suffering from mental decline. They took off that morning without telling anyone. They never came home.

Three days later they got pulled over 500 miles away from home. Not once but twice. Neither officer was aware they were reported as missing persons at that time. They were let go with a warning, even though Lela couldn’t remember where she lived. The search intensified, authorities in multiple states were looking for them, it made national news and tips came rolling in but none led to their discovery. The early news of the search inspired the song and it was written before they were found.

Lela and Raymond were ultimately discovered by hikers a couple weeks after their disappearance. The car was at the bottom of a 25-ft cliff. Raymond was deceased in the passenger seat, Lela was deceased a short distance from the car holding her purse and car keys. She opened the passenger door for her dead husband before crawling away and dying of her own injuries. The car went off the cliff at about 50 mph and there were no skidmarks indicating that she even tried to stop. Presumably she didn’t see the cliff or got confused or something and just… drove right off it.

You guys. YOU GUYS. I’m already gone.

Which one of these are you going to research first? Let me know in the comments!

The post People Suggest Some Super Creepy Deep Dives, If You’re Looking for That Kind of Thing… appeared first on UberFacts.

July 15, 2020

If You’re Looking to Get Lost in Creepy Rabbit Holes, Try These 15 Topics on for Size

If you’re someone who loves reading, watching, or just learning about the creepy underbelly of this wacky world we live in, chances are you’re always on the lookout for something new you haven’t encountered before.

I know that’s true for me, but I don’t know, y’all – some of these suggestions sound like they might even be a bit much for me!

15. This freaks me out every single day.

Human trafficking.

It’s far more widespread than most people realize, and extends beyond sex trafficking.

If more people learned the warning signs that a person is being trafficked, they would be in a position to do something about it.

14. I don’t think I’ll be Googling this one.

Issei Sagawa.

Wealthy Japanese man kills, fucks, and eats a french woman in France.

Gets released after being found legally insane, then makes a career back home in japan profiting off his crime. He does writing, artwork, and is a celebrity there.

Really shows the dark side of Japanese culture.

13. Just a few nightmares.

The Tunguska Event.

Not really creepy in a traditional sense, but if you imagine that (back then) they had no idea what had occurred, and went on to discover 770 sq mi of forest completely flattened with no explicable explanation, I’d be having a couple nightmares certainly

12. That’s a lot of mystery creatures.

Cambrian life. At this point in Earth’s history (541-485 mya) most living things looked nothing like anything that now exists.

There’s the “Tully Monster,” an animal that has paleobiologists in debate over whether it was a vertebrate or not (it’s thought to be related to lampreys); Opabinia, which had five eyes and looks like a cross between a lobster and a vacuum cleaner, and Anomalocaris, basically a chitinous floating death ship that arrived to eat all the much smaller animals of the time. Last, let’s not forget Pikaia, a little wormlike thing that is our distant ancestor.

New discoveries are made all the time, and scientific theories constantly shift to adjust to the existence of the latest mystery creature. They get neglected by the media in favor of dinosaurs, but Cambrian life is just as fantastic!

11. Like how they find unexploded bombs all over England.

The sheer number of unmarked gravesites along the Oregon Trail.

Several friends of mine have found bodies of pioneers in their backyards and property.

10. Their minds are always fascinating, that’s for sure.

Usually, it’d be declassified documents on serial killers, their activities, and their motives.

It fascinates me to know what’s going on in the heads of these seemingly deranged nut-jobs and why they’re committing these atrocities.

9. I remember this case and the details are awful.

I would submit Gertrude Baniszewski for the murder of Sylvia Likens, though I hesitate to call it “interesting.” More like disturbing as shit and immensely sad.

In short, the movie “The Girl Next Door” (2007 horror film, not the 2004 movie) was based off this murder. Gertrude locked Sylvia in the basement, and her, her daughter, her son, and a few neighborhood kids tortured Sylvia to death over the course of several months.

Gertrude and her older daughter got life; the kids got 2 to 21 years. Gertrude was eventually fucking paroled, which as an attorney (though, to be fair, not a criminal attorney) has always sat with me as an indictment against our justice system.

Gertrude would live another five years, in an entirely undeserved freedom, before dying of lung cancer in 1990. To date, Gertrude Baniszewski is the only person I can say, with no remorse, that I’m glad got fucking cancer.

The case if anyone is interested. It is not light reading.

8. There were a lot of people murdering inn patrons back in the day.

The Bloody Benders of Labatte, Kansas

A family of serial killers operating in the mid-late 1800s murdered travelers at their roadside inn.

7. This list is quite a wild ride.

The list of people who have “died” via absentia, Unit 731, the strange case of Elisa Lam, the Tulsa Race Massacre, what happened to the pioneers on Roanoke island, why my mom calls valid points and reasoning “Back talk”, and where my dad went.

6. This should keep you busy for awhile.

1) Serial killers.

2) Unsolved missing person cases.

4) Rare genetic disorders.

5) Alien abduction reports.

6) Human medical experimentation.

7) Anything the CIA has declassified.

8) The Hum.

9) Spontaneous human combustion.

10) Cases of alleged “demonic possession”.

11) Rare mentally illness.

12) Heat death of the universe.

5. I’m not sure I want to know.

A rabbit hole called Cicada 3301.

It is one of the internets biggest mysteries, and it really creeped me out when I started looking into it.

A series of clues was left around the world for people to find and piece together using things like coordinates and reddit.

4. You might learn a thing or two.

Down the rabbit Hole playlist on YouTube.

I like that he gets outside the usual “spooky” topics that have already been beat to death by a million other YouTubers. I had never in my life heard of the Austrian Wine Poisoning controversy. I was riveted for the entire video. I became a big fan of Vaporwave music after I learned about it on that channel.

If you know anyone else of comparable quality and diversity of topic, please let me know. Fredrik Knudsen and Ben Minnotte’s “Oddity Archive” are my two favorite YouTube channels.

3. You never hear about this kind of thing happening in Canada.

Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka serial killer story in Canada – three murders and several rapes.

So heartbreaking – one of the girls mothers locked her out of the house as she missed curfew, Leslie called a friend to see if she could stay over and the friend’s mother said no. Paul Bernardo picked her up that night.

Karla Homolka “gave” Paul her little sister as a Christmas gift and ended up killing her with tranquilizers she stole from work.

Karla was totally involved in everything, but pretended she was a battered woman and only got 12 years.

Also, I love anything about the Zodiac Killer – super interesting stuff!

2. This is all kind of a mind f*ck.

Lost media.

The thought of something either existing but lost to the sands of time or something never meant to be is both creepy and terrifying.

It feels like it never existed, and yet it did, and due to human error it was never documented or finished.

Sometimes we don’t know if it even really existed.

And yet, lots of it we do know. Remnants through small clips, screenshots, or even just the word of god.

But there’s a good chance we’ll never find them.

Might as well try, though…

1. Please take the warning seriously.

The Bjork Stalker.

Ricardo Lopez was an exterminator with aspirations of being a famous artist one day. He was very reclusive, insecure and lonely. He retreated into a fantasy world and became fascinated with the lives of celebrities, particularly the Icelandic singer Bjork. His fascination soon grew into an obsession and he began stalking her.

Upon finding out that Bjork was engaged to an African American celebrity by the name of Goldie, he became enraged about one, the fact that she was engaged and two that her fiance was a black man. He decided it was his mission to kill her or cause her some kind of physical and emotional harm as punishment. He began constructing a homemade acid bomb that he would mail to her house in London to disfigure or kill the singer. He also planned to commit suicide with the belief that he would meet Bjork in heaven where they could both be happy.

Lopez recorded his entire plan to kill Bjork and his motivations with a video camera and you can find the videos on YouTube. If you watch them you can actually witness his mental deterioration and descent into insanity.

Lopez sent the acid bomb to Bjork’s house and then recorded himself shaving his head, painting his face red and green and then committing suicide by shooting himself through the roof of his mouth. His final words being, “This is for you.”

Fortunately, the police investigated Lopez’ apartment soon after his suicide and the FBI got involved. The package was intercepted by British authorities and the bomb was safely detonated in an isolated location.

Bjork is fortunately still alive and well.

The interesting thing about this case is that it provides an in depth look into the mind of a deranged stalker because of Lopez’ recordings and is a creepy, heartbreaking and also quite fascinating psychological study.

If you’re interested in looking more into the case, the link to a YouTube video that comprises of most of his video taped ramblings and his eventual suicide will be provided. I should warn you, it’s quite disturbing.

It’s always stunning, and not necessarily in a good way, to be reminded what humans are capable of, don’t you think?

Do you have a topic you’d add to the list? Make your own suggestions in the comments!

The post If You’re Looking to Get Lost in Creepy Rabbit Holes, Try These 15 Topics on for Size appeared first on UberFacts.

July 15, 2020

If You’re Looking to Get Lost in Creepy Rabbit Holes, Try These 15 Topics on for Size

I know that’s true for me, but I don’t know, y’all – some of these suggestions sound like they might even be a bit much for me!

15. This freaks me out every single day.

Human trafficking.

It’s far more widespread than most people realize, and extends beyond sex trafficking.

If more people learned the warning signs that a person is being trafficked, they would be in a position to do something about it.

14. I don’t think I’ll be Googling this one.

Issei Sagawa.

Wealthy Japanese man kills, fucks, and eats a french woman in France.

Gets released after being found legally insane, then makes a career back home in japan profiting off his crime. He does writing, artwork, and is a celebrity there.

Really shows the dark side of Japanese culture.

13. Just a few nightmares.

The Tunguska Event.

Not really creepy in a traditional sense, but if you imagine that (back then) they had no idea what had occurred, and went on to discover 770 sq mi of forest completely flattened with no explicable explanation, I’d be having a couple nightmares certainly

12. That’s a lot of mystery creatures.

Cambrian life. At this point in Earth’s history (541-485 mya) most living things looked nothing like anything that now exists.

There’s the “Tully Monster,” an animal that has paleobiologists in debate over whether it was a vertebrate or not (it’s thought to be related to lampreys); Opabinia, which had five eyes and looks like a cross between a lobster and a vacuum cleaner, and Anomalocaris, basically a chitinous floating death ship that arrived to eat all the much smaller animals of the time. Last, let’s not forget Pikaia, a little wormlike thing that is our distant ancestor.

New discoveries are made all the time, and scientific theories constantly shift to adjust to the existence of the latest mystery creature. They get neglected by the media in favor of dinosaurs, but Cambrian life is just as fantastic!

11. Like how they find unexploded bombs all over England.

The sheer number of unmarked gravesites along the Oregon Trail.

Several friends of mine have found bodies of pioneers in their backyards and property.

10. Their minds are always fascinating, that’s for sure.

Usually, it’d be declassified documents on serial killers, their activities, and their motives.

It fascinates me to know what’s going on in the heads of these seemingly deranged nut-jobs and why they’re committing these atrocities.

9. I remember this case and the details are awful.

I would submit Gertrude Baniszewski for the murder of Sylvia Likens, though I hesitate to call it “interesting.” More like disturbing as shit and immensely sad.

In short, the movie “The Girl Next Door” (2007 horror film, not the 2004 movie) was based off this murder. Gertrude locked Sylvia in the basement, and her, her daughter, her son, and a few neighborhood kids tortured Sylvia to death over the course of several months.

Gertrude and her older daughter got life; the kids got 2 to 21 years. Gertrude was eventually fucking paroled, which as an attorney (though, to be fair, not a criminal attorney) has always sat with me as an indictment against our justice system.

Gertrude would live another five years, in an entirely undeserved freedom, before dying of lung cancer in 1990. To date, Gertrude Baniszewski is the only person I can say, with no remorse, that I’m glad got fucking cancer.

The case if anyone is interested. It is not light reading.

8. There were a lot of people murdering inn patrons back in the day.

The Bloody Benders of Labatte, Kansas

A family of serial killers operating in the mid-late 1800s murdered travelers at their roadside inn.

7. This list is quite a wild ride.

The list of people who have “died” via absentia, Unit 731, the strange case of Elisa Lam, the Tulsa Race Massacre, what happened to the pioneers on Roanoke island, why my mom calls valid points and reasoning “Back talk”, and where my dad went.

6. This should keep you busy for awhile.

1) Serial killers.

2) Unsolved missing person cases.

4) Rare genetic disorders.

5) Alien abduction reports.

6) Human medical experimentation.

7) Anything the CIA has declassified.

8) The Hum.

9) Spontaneous human combustion.

10) Cases of alleged “demonic possession”.

11) Rare mentally illness.

12) Heat death of the universe.

5. I’m not sure I want to know.

A rabbit hole called Cicada 3301.

It is one of the internets biggest mysteries, and it really creeped me out when I started looking into it.

A series of clues was left around the world for people to find and piece together using things like coordinates and reddit.

4. You might learn a thing or two.

Down the rabbit Hole playlist on YouTube.

I like that he gets outside the usual “spooky” topics that have already been beat to death by a million other YouTubers. I had never in my life heard of the Austrian Wine Poisoning controversy. I was riveted for the entire video. I became a big fan of Vaporwave music after I learned about it on that channel.

If you know anyone else of comparable quality and diversity of topic, please let me know. Fredrik Knudsen and Ben Minnotte’s “Oddity Archive” are my two favorite YouTube channels.

3. You never hear about this kind of thing happening in Canada.

Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka serial killer story in Canada – three murders and several rapes.

So heartbreaking – one of the girls mothers locked her out of the house as she missed curfew, Leslie called a friend to see if she could stay over and the friend’s mother said no. Paul Bernardo picked her up that night.

Karla Homolka “gave” Paul her little sister as a Christmas gift and ended up killing her with tranquilizers she stole from work.

Karla was totally involved in everything, but pretended she was a battered woman and only got 12 years.

Also, I love anything about the Zodiac Killer – super interesting stuff!

2. This is all kind of a mind f*ck.

Lost media.

The thought of something either existing but lost to the sands of time or something never meant to be is both creepy and terrifying.

It feels like it never existed, and yet it did, and due to human error it was never documented or finished.

Sometimes we don’t know if it even really existed.

And yet, lots of it we do know. Remnants through small clips, screenshots, or even just the word of god.

But there’s a good chance we’ll never find them.

Might as well try, though…

1. Please take the warning seriously.

The Bjork Stalker.

Ricardo Lopez was an exterminator with aspirations of being a famous artist one day. He was very reclusive, insecure and lonely. He retreated into a fantasy world and became fascinated with the lives of celebrities, particularly the Icelandic singer Bjork. His fascination soon grew into an obsession and he began stalking her.

Upon finding out that Bjork was engaged to an African American celebrity by the name of Goldie, he became enraged about one, the fact that she was engaged and two that her fiance was a black man. He decided it was his mission to kill her or cause her some kind of physical and emotional harm as punishment. He began constructing a homemade acid bomb that he would mail to her house in London to disfigure or kill the singer. He also planned to commit suicide with the belief that he would meet Bjork in heaven where they could both be happy.

Lopez recorded his entire plan to kill Bjork and his motivations with a video camera and you can find the videos on YouTube. If you watch them you can actually witness his mental deterioration and descent into insanity.

Lopez sent the acid bomb to Bjork’s house and then recorded himself shaving his head, painting his face red and green and then committing suicide by shooting himself through the roof of his mouth. His final words being, “This is for you.”

Fortunately, the police investigated Lopez’ apartment soon after his suicide and the FBI got involved. The package was intercepted by British authorities and the bomb was safely detonated in an isolated location.

Bjork is fortunately still alive and well.

The interesting thing about this case is that it provides an in depth look into the mind of a deranged stalker because of Lopez’ recordings and is a creepy, heartbreaking and also quite fascinating psychological study.

If you’re interested in looking more into the case, the link to a YouTube video that comprises of most of his video taped ramblings and his eventual suicide will be provided. I should warn you, it’s quite disturbing.

It’s always stunning, and not necessarily in a good way, to be reminded what humans are capable of, don’t you think?

Do you have a topic you’d add to the list? Make your own suggestions in the comments!

Photo Credit: did you know?

Source 1 Source 2

10. I love this!

Cheech and Chong for President and Vice President! Think it might happen…?

Photo Credit: did you know?

Source 1

Now we’d like to hear from you!

In the comments, please tell us about something really interesting that you’ve learned recently.

Share a link, a photo, or just tell us about it.

Thanks in advance!

The post Facts We Think You Will Find Very Interesting appeared first on UberFacts.

July 14, 2020

Let’s Take a Look at the Infamous Exploding Whale Incident of 1970

When kids are in high school, many of them think history class is the worst. One of the reasons for this, I’m sure, is that the worst teachers gravitate to that subject, but listen.

If teachers taught the parts of history that are actually interesting, I’m convinced it would magically turn into everyone’s favorite subject.

So, if you’ve never heard of the exploding whale incident of 1970, prepare to be amazed.

Image Credit: YouTube

It’s been nearly 50 years since someone thought “hey, dynamite seems like a good way to get this dead whale off the beach,” and now a beautiful park on the Oregon coast has been dubbed “Exploding Whale Memorial Park.”

That whale may not have died well, but at least he’s being remembered, eh?

It was November of 1970 when an 8-ton sperm whale beached itself. It had already expired when it was found, and the case was turned over to the Oregon highway division. The Navy advised them to blow the whale up, aiming it toward the ocean, where plenty of smaller animals would be delighted at the already-cooked meal.

They set to figuring out how much dynamite might be required to accomplish such a grisly feat, and, well…in the end, I think they probably wished they’d consulted a few experts.

Image Credit: YouTube

Like businessman Walt Umenhofer, perhaps, who was trained in using explosives during World War II. He happened to be driving near the scene at the time (in his brand-new car), and told the highway division he didn’t believe they’d gotten their calculations right. They’d stuck about 20 crates under the carcass, and he advised them to go with a lot fewer maybe 20 sticks) if they wanted to push it out to sea – or a heck of a lot more if they wanted to vaporize the entire thing.

Project manager George Thornton waved him off, telling reporters “well, I’m confident that it’ll work, the only thing is we’re not sure how much explosives it’ll take to disintegrate this thing.”

Image Credit: YouTube

The answer was more than they had, because when the whale exploded, massive pieces of blubber flew everywhere – onto buildings, cars in parking lots, and people suddenly caught in an unexpected and gory blubberstorm.

One journalist, Paul Linnman, said at the time that “explosions in the movies usually look like a blast of fire and smoke. This one more resembled a mighty burst of tomato juice.

Image Credit: YouTube

Poor Walt Umenhofer, who I assume was too disgusted to muster an “I told you so,” watched his car get smothered in whale debris. It caved in the roof and he required a shovel to remove all of the parts.

“My insurance company’s never going to believe this,” he said afterward.

The project manager refused to admit any mistake, saying that an unknown hole under the whale was what caused gawkers to be sprayed in whale innards.

Basically, you can see why this incident would grab kid’s attention in schools – perhaps part of a math lesson, even, about how to calculate force needed per ton or something? I’m not a math person, but I guarantee this story would have caught my attention.

For now, though, I applaud the people of Oregon for realizing there was never really any other name for this beach.

Live in infamy, giant sperm whale. You’ve given us more than we’ve deserved.

The post Let’s Take a Look at the Infamous Exploding Whale Incident of 1970 appeared first on UberFacts.

July 14, 2020

NASA Will Name Its Headquarters After Its First Black Woman Engineer

This is great!

NASA is taking “one giant leap for mankind” by honoring the first black woman engineer in its history.

The organization is naming its headquarters in Washington, D.C. after Mary W. Jackson, one of the “hidden figures” who helped the United States blast off into space decades ago.

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons

The move comes amidst a growing awareness and protests against racism and police brutality. NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine said naming the building after Jackson is just one more step in bringing these “hidden” figures come out of the shadows and into the light.

“Mary W. Jackson was part of a group of very important women who helped NASA succeed in getting American astronauts into space. Mary never accepted the status quo, she helped break barriers and open opportunities for African Americans and women in the field of engineering and technology.

(The building) appropriately sits on ‘Hidden Figures Way,’ a reminder that Mary is one of many incredible and talented professionals in NASA’s history who contributed to this agency’s success. Hidden no more, we will continue to recognize the contributions of women, African Americans and people of all backgrounds who have made NASA’s successful history of exploration possible.”

Jackson got her start at NASA working at Langley’s Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, in the early 1950s. At the time, she worked in a segregated division — the West Area Computing Unit. She earned degrees in math and physical sciences in 1942 and held positions as a bookkeeper, math teacher and U.S. Army secretary before starting her career in aerospace.

Photo Credit: NASA

At Langley, Jackson was one of the “human computers” who worked at the agency, aka a research mathematician. She advanced in her career at NASA, conducting experiments in a 60,000-horsepower wind tunnel.

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons

On the recommendation of her supervisor, she entered a special training program to become an engineer (it’s worth noting that she had to get special permission to join white students in the program). She later became NASA’s first blake female engineer.

She retired in 1985 and died in 2005. In 2019, Congress posthumously awarded her the Congressional Gold Medal.

Now, she’s also being bestowed with yet another honor: the name of NASA headquarters. Whenever anyone visits or makes plans to visit the building, they’ll be reminded of her enduring legacy.

What do you think of this move by NASA?

Let us know in the comments!

We’d love to hear from you!

The post NASA Will Name Its Headquarters After Its First Black Woman Engineer appeared first on UberFacts.