Topic: Strange and unusual

Crushable Weekends Need A Drink(ing Game)

Hey, kids. I have some sad news for you: This is my last weekend as Crushable’s faithful Weekend Editor. It’s been a good run, but alas, it’s time to say goodbye. You’ll still be able to catch me over at BettyConfidential, though, so it’s not goodbye forever; it’s just a change of scene. That said, though, I’ll miss you all, and I’ll miss our weekend extravaganzas. So let’s make sure Crushable’s former weekends go out with a bang, shall we? This– obviously– calls for a drinking game! More »

11 Somewhat Questionable Halloween Costumes for Pets

Can anyone explain the concept of Halloween costumes for pets to me? Because I have tried– believe you me, I have tried– but I just. don’t. get them. Sure, humans may think they look cute, but somehow, I just can’t get beyond the fact that pet costumes are, in actuality, a cruel and unusual punishment that should only be reserved for the most drastic of occasions. This is why I have trouble dealing with these 11 pet costumes. Is it just me? Or does anyone else find them somewhat questionable, too? Please tell me I’m not alone here… More »

Creepy Things That Seem Real But Aren’t: The Dyatlov Pass Incident

Creepy Things That Seem Real But Aren’t is a series that looks at modern urban legends, bringing you a new tale each week.

At the end of January 1959, a Russian cross-country ski team ventured into the Northern Ural Mountains. Their expedition was intended to be a week-long skiing adventure, with the goal to reach a mountain in the Urals called Oroten. But though they set out from Vizhai—the last inhabited settlement that fat north—on January 27, they never came back. Or at least, they didn’t come back on their own. Numerous attempts have been made to reconstruct the events that had led to what has now become known as the DYATLOV PASS INCIDENT, with varying degrees of success. The trouble, you see, wasn’t that the team disappeared. It was the state they were in when they were found. More »

Creepy Things That Seem Real But Aren’t: The Staircase

Creepy Things That Seem Real But Aren’t is a series that explores modern urban legends, bringing you a new tale each week.

There is a doorway in a building on the campus of an unnamed university. The door and its frame are made of reinforced steel, and it locks with an electro-release lock mechanism. At first glance, it appears to be nothing more than a janitorial closet. But the door will not open unless it is a certain number of electricity is applied while the door’s key is inserted and rotated counter-clockwise. Lest this opening procedure seem overly complicated, however, be assured that it is not. For if the door were easy to open, there is no telling how many countless individuals would have fallen prey to what lies behind it.

For behind it lies an anomaly known only as THE STAIRCASE. More »

The Great American Road Trip: 13 Haunted Locations to Visit in the United States

It’s always been a dream of mine to take a road trip across the United States, stopping at every supposedly haunted location that I can along the way. Why? I’m morbid that way, but you’ve probably already figured that out about me. America is full of deliciously spooky locations, you see, and I want to see them all. They’ve got some pretty creeptastic stories attached to them. Want to hear them? Come on. You know you do. It’s almost Halloween, after all. More »

Some Proposed Plots for the Texts From Last Night Television Show

You’re all familiar with Texts From Last Night, right? That hilarious and often uncomfortable website dedicated to preserving for all of time those embarrassing texts that probably wouldn’t have been sent were it not for the consumption of rather a lot of one or more substances? Good. Because they’re going to make a television show out of it, and I need your help figuring out how this is going to work. More »

Creepy Things That Seem Real But Aren’t: The Montauk Project

Creepy Things That Seem Real But Aren’t is a series that explores modern urban legends, bringing you a new tale each week.

At the eastern end of Long Island’s southern point, there is an abandoned air force base. In the base sits an enormous radar dish. The dish, which had been installed by the government many years ago, was intended to provide warning of incoming Soviet threats from the Atlantic during the height of the Cold War. But as is the way with such things, as technology advanced, the dishes were rendered obsolete, and the site was closed in 1969. The area, called Montauk Point, has since become a public park.

But the radar dish is still there. And there are… stories. Tales of something going on, something bigger than the ghosts, real or metaphorical, that haunt every abandoned air force base and army site. Because you see, the experimentation with electromagnetic shielding hadn’t ended with the Philadelphia Experiment. It continued. And that continuation was known as THE MONTAUK PROJECT. More »

Creepy Things That Seem Real But Aren’t: Ghostwatch

Creepy Things That Seem Real But Aren’t is a series that explores modern urban legends, bringing you a new tale each week.

Ghost Hunters, Most Haunted, Paranormal State, Ghost Adventures… These days, television is full of paranormal programming that purports to track ghostly phenomena, and each and every one of them swears up, down, left, and right that they’re the real deal. But in 1992, these types of shows were far from the norm. So when the BBC decided to air a 90-minute special on Halloween that claimed to be a live, on-air investigation of ongoing poltergeist activity at a house in Northolt, a neighborhood in west London, the public’s reaction was a great deal less jaded than our own would have been—especially given how the tragic events of the night unfolded. The program was called GHOSTWATCH, and it would go down in history as one of the BBC’s biggest mistakes. More »

Video: Sour Patch Kids Attack Method Man

For reals, yo. More »

What We're Reading:

Creepy Things That Seem Real But Aren’t: The Black-Eyed Children

Creepy Things That Seem Real But Aren’t is a series that explores modern urban legends, bringing you a new tale each week.

On January 16, 1998, a journalist named Brian Bethel posted a message to a ghost-hunting newsgroup prefaced with the following text:

“Ghosters:

Well, believe it or not, the Ram Page follow-up still languishes unfinished on my hard drive. I don’t know when I’ll have it done, and I’ll probably have to break it up into multiple posts to get it in any way manageable. Patience, I pray.
But since a lot of people seem to be requesting this one, here’s some info on those darned black-eyed kids.
I’ve just woken up from a mega nap. It’s 1 a.m. I’ll never get to sleep again. So why not write, eh? I guess I was exhausted from too many forays onto Sixth Street in Austin at my reporting conference.

Enjoy. Or whatever.”

Whatever the Ram Page follow-up was has been lost to history; but the important part is that second paragraph. This, you see, was the beginning of the legend known as THE BLACK-EYED CHILDREN.
More »

Creepy Things That Seem Real But Aren’t: The Hanged King’s Tragedy

Creepy Things That Seem Real But Aren’t is a series that explores modern urban legends, bringing you a new tale each week.

The author of the play is unknown. It first appeared in print in 1640 in quarto form, a publication format issued in 1452 and used to great extent during the golden age of Renaissance drama. Its publisher, a William Cooke, disappeared from historical record shortly after the quarto’s appearance. The play does not appear in the Stationer’s Register, the official record book that documented publication copyrights in the 16th and 17th centuries; nor does it have an entry in the records of the Master of the Revels, which logged performance dates and information.

There is something very, very wrong with this play.

It is called THE HANGED KING’S TRAGEDY. More »

Dinner-in-a-Movie Cinemas Are the Greatest Invention Ever

Today, Gentle Readers, I’m going to introduce you to a wonderful invention. I’m not sure if this wonderful invention has a name, but I usually call it Dinner-in-a-Movie. Admittedly, this is a rather clunky moniker, but I like it, and here’s why: Why would you do dinner-and-a-movie when you can do dinner IN a movie? Because that’s exactly what this wonderful invention is: A hybrid creature that is simultaneously cinema and restaurant. And there need to be way, WAY more of these in the world, because they’re AWESOME. More »

Creepy Things That Seem Real But Aren’t: The Philadelphia Experiment

Creepy Things That Seem Real But Aren’t is a series that explores modern urban legends, bringing you a new tale each week.

Morris K. Jessup was perhaps an unremarkable man. Born near Rockville, Indiana on March 2, 1900, he seemed set on a scientific path from an early age: An interest in astronomy eventually led to a Bachelor of Science degree in the subject from the University of Michigan, which in turn led to a Master of Science degree earned during a time working at the U Mich-run Lamont-Hussey Observatory. But though Jessup began working on his doctorate in astrophysics, he ceased working on his dissertation in 1931 and never earned the degree. He spent the rest of his life working in decidedly unscientific jobs, including a substantial time as an automobile-parts salesman. But selling car parts wasn’t the only thing Jessup did with his time: He was also largely acknowledged as the most original extraterrestrial hypothesizer of the 1950s, and his 1955 book The Case for the UFO made waves in the extraterrestrial hypothesis community. So when mysterious letters started appearing in his mailbox insisting of the existence of a government experiment geared towards exploring the effects of new and unusual technology on Navy vessels, Jessup was understandably intrigued. That experiment would become infamous. It was referred to as THE PHILADELPHIA EXPERIMENT. More »

Gallery: A Guide to Hunting Found-Footage Monsters

Have you been noticing the growing trend of found-footage films popping up in cinemas? Yeah, us too. What’s that? You want to hunt them down? Well, we think you’re crazy, but okay. Fine. Here’s a guide to the most commonly-found monsters in the found footage genre. Don’t say we didn’t warn you. If one of them eats you, it’s TOTALLY not our fault.
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