this post was submitted on 03 Jul 2023

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What are the most unsettling Wikipedia articles you know? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago by rustyfish@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

NSFW 39 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Murder cases, freak accidents or articles triggering just good old existential crisis. Give me your worst.

top 37 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] quixotic120@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prion

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuru_(disease)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naegleria_fowleri

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unusual_deaths ranges from creepy to absurd

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_unsolved_murders good rabbit hole

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_Keyes

Reddit had a sub called creepywikipedia for this kind of thing. It shut down for the protest and stayed shut down. Might be worth recreating by someone more inclined than myself, who is very lazy

[–] _thisdot@infosec.pub 1 points 1 year ago

There exists an article about death during sex and the first notable case is a Pope!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_during_consensual_sex

[–] voidhearts@lemm.ee 0 points 1 year ago

After watching the "Kung Fu Kapers" episode of The Goodies, Alex Mitchell, of King's Lynn, Norfolk, England, laughed continuously for 25 minutes and then fell dead on his sofa from heart failure due to what doctors discovered years later, via his granddaughter, was a genetic condition called Long QT syndrome.

Yikesssssssss

[–] jadedctrl@sopuli.xyz 2 points 1 year ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobotomy

[–] decadentrebel@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

CreepyWikipedia specialized in collating unsettling Wiki entries, but they are one of the few indefinite participants in the blackout.

I made a Lemmy alternate over here: !creepywikipedia@lemmy.world.

[–] CommunityLinkFixer@lemmings.world 2 points 1 year ago

Hi there! Looks like you linked to a Lemmy community using an URL instead of its name, which doesn't work well for people on different instances. Try fixing it like this: !creepywikipedia@lemmy.world.

[–] rustyfish@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Cool! Thx very much!

[–] punkcoder@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Human experimentation with Syphilis without their knowledge.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_Syphilis_Study?wprov=sfti1

[–] zerocool0124@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Government mind control programs.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MKUltra

[–] masterspace@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 year ago

I always found these Wikipedia articles underwhelming, but listening to the CBC podcast and behind the bastards episodes on the specific victims of the program and how the scientists at McGill intentionally destroyed their brains purely through psychological torture is incredibly heart wrenching.

Also interesting that there's evidence that the Unabomber was a victim of some of the mkultra program.

[–] Cavemanfreak@vlemmy.net 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If you're even remotely claustrofobic you should probably stay out of this one.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nutty_Putty_Cave

[–] DoucheAsaurus@kbin.social 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The internet historian has a great video on Nutty Putty Cave.

https://youtu.be/nnI_oZKxzl0

[–] kartoffelsaft@programming.dev 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That video is actually about sand cave, not nutty putty. Still worth a watch though.

[–] DoucheAsaurus@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

Damn you're totally right, I guess I confused it with the other cave that demands human sacrifice.

[–] original_reader@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

Effects of climate change

[–] Lantech@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byford_Dolphin

explosive decompression in 1983 that killed four divers and one dive tender, as well as badly injured another dive tender.

excerpt:
Investigation by forensic pathologists determined that Hellevik, being exposed to the highest pressure gradient and in the process of moving to secure the inner door, was forced through the crescent-shaped opening measuring 60 centimetres (24 in) long created by the jammed interior trunk door.

[–] progenyofthestars@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Shadow_Etched_in_Stone
Human Shadow Etched in Stone (人影の石, hitokage no ishi)[2] is an exhibition at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. It is thought to be the residue of a person who was sitting at the entrance of Hiroshima Branch of Sumitomo Bank when the atomic bomb was dropped over Hiroshima. It is also known as Human Shadow of Death[1] or simply the Blast Shadow.

[–] magic_lobster_party@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_vacuum_decay

It’s about a hypothetical event in quantum field theory that potentially can erase the entire universe as we know it.

[–] Xariphon@kbin.social 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is always the one I go to to really freak people out. The idea that there's no way you can influence it so you shouldn't actually worry about it takes a while to set it.

[–] magic_lobster_party@kbin.social 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There’s also no way for us to see it coming. Once it happens somewhere in the universe it will approach us at light speed destroying everything in its path. The moment we have a chance to even learn about its existence it will kill us faster than the billionaires in the sub.

[–] Xariphon@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

I mean, I'm kind of okay with that? We all die eventually; I would rather mine be going from "alive" to "not" all at once, without the "prolonged illness and/or other suffering" phase in the middle.

[–] nivenkos@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dos_Erres_massacre

The details are horrific.

All supported by the USA too.

EDIT: The US + Israel provided the weapons - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efra%C3%ADn_R%C3%ADos_Montt#Support_from_US_and_Israel

[–] masterspace@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Guess who trained those Guatemalan commandos? It was a program run by the CIA out of Border Patrol facilities, largely staffed Border Patrol staff since they could speak Spanish.

So now you have refugees fleeing Guatemala's history of intense violence, being abused at the border and turned away by the very same agency that destabilized their country to begin with.

The US has so much fucking blood on its hands and owes so many reparations to the rest of the world for the damage it's done.

[–] Zippy@lemmy.world -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The US prosecuted any American citizens involved in this. The US supports many small nations and without that support, many fledgling nations would fully collapse and be far worse off.

I don't live in a world where perfection is possible. In a war torn country, there will always be individuals who will do evil shit. Even on the more good side. Do you think not a single Ukraine soldier has not done something immoral or illegal? Yet we support them.

I wish there were no conflicts in the world but we need to grow up and realize there will be serious misconduct. And that is the cost of trying to encourage stability. The thing I take away from this is that the US did prosecute any of their citizens that were involved in this. As they should.

[–] nivenkos@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Do you think not a single Ukraine soldier has not done something immoral or illegal? Yet we support them.

This isn't the winning argument you think it is...

The US should stop playing world police. And usually it was for propping up United Fruit, etc. with dictatorships, not actually helping those small nations.

[–] Zippy@lemmy.world -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You think there would be security in the Middle East if the US stepped fully away? It is silly to think Russia and now China would be fully in control of most of those countries as well as South America. I suspect in an alternate universe, the world likely would have experience WWIII by now if the West just let other major powers do what they want.

[–] piderman@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

Do you think there would be as many problems in the Middle East if the US hadn't stepped in there begin with?

I think it's the world superpowers' responsibility to defend us from each other, and especially from the US. They have destroyed so, so many regimes.

And it's ironic that you mention World Wars when both of them started on Western soil between Western countries. It's not obvious to me that what we need is more Western countries.

[–] Tautvydaxx@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_core

[–] mister_flibble@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago

Obligatory relevant xkcd

[–] DessertStorms@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

Ok, I might need a minute to scroll through my bookmarks

Edit, ok, here we go (this is just from my bookmarks and what feels most "unsettling" to me. I could sit here and link for hours to more things I have "saved" in my head, but I'll leave it at this for now):

List of people who disappeared mysteriously: pre-1910
List of people who disappeared mysteriously: 1910–1990
List of people who disappeared mysteriously: 1990–present
Bonus addition in edit: List of people who disappeared mysteriously at sea
Feral child
I have quite a few pages on serial killers, but this is probably more efficient than listing individuals: List of serial killers by number of victims
A handful of individual cases though:
Murder of Junko Furuta
Murder of Sylvia Likens
Murder of James Bulger
Murder of Shanda Sharer
Hart family murders
On the larger scale:
List of genocides
List of massacres
Blackbirding
Zong massacre
Home Children
Starlight tours
On the existential front:
List of impact craters on Earth
Observable universe and Cosmological horizon which make you realise that the endless and abundant expanse of space we see is only a tiny little portion of the actual universe.

[–] spicy_biscuits@kbin.social 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyatlov_Pass_incident

I know this isn't the most disturbing Wiki article out there, but this is the creepiest one I know of that I can stomach. Also, it's an interesting case, despite its morbid and eerie nature.