A Blog of Weird, Bizarre and Creepy Things

The Poe Toaster is an unofficial nickname given to a mysterious person (or more probably two persons in succession, possibly father and son) who, from approximately 1949 until 2009, paid an annual tribute to American author Edgar Allan Poe by visiting the stone marking his original grave in Baltimore, Maryland in the early hours of January 19, Poe’s birthday. The shadowy figure, dressed in black with a wide-brimmed hat and white scarf, would leave three roses and a partially-filled bottle of French cognac, then disappear into the night. Onlookers gathered annually in hopes of glimpsing the elusive Toaster, who did not seek publicity, and was rarely seen or photographed.

According to eyewitness reports, and notes accompanying offerings in later years, the original Toaster visited the tomb from 1949 until his death in 1998, after which the tradition was passed to “a son.” Controversial statements were made in some notes left by the post-1998 Toaster, and in 2006 an unsuccessful attempt was made by several onlookers to detain and identify him. In 2010 there was no visit by the Toaster, nor did he appear in 2011, triggering speculation that the 60-year tradition had ended.

Submitted by youdonthavetoshout

(Source: Wikipedia)

Cry Baby Lane is a made for TV movie which premiered on Nickelodeon on the night of October 28, 2000. The film was never re-aired or released on video and soon disappeared from the face of the earth, and it was believed to be because of complaints from parents who found the film to be too scary and inappropriate for children.

Over the years, the film slowly got it’s name as “The scariest film of all time”, sparking the interest of horror fans around the world - with an increasing demand for a copy of the film.

Having been lost for over a decade, a recent copy of the film was found available on the internet in 2011. (You can find the full feature film on youtube).

Submitted by bonskii

Submitted by maced-intheface

“Firmly in the category of “things somehow made more terrifying by a ridiculous name,” the Dancing Plague was an actual disease that killed people. In 1518, in Strasbourg, France, Frau Troffea started dancing in the street. After six days, others began to join in; after a week there were 34. By the end of the month there were 400, though at that point most of the people started dropping dead of exhaustion, starvation and strokes. From dancing.

The whole thing just kind of ended and, despite almost five intervening centuries, modern medicine has no explanation for why 400 French people suddenly danced themselves to death. Many theories have been offered, such as ergotism (poisoning by a certain type of fungus) and mass psychogenic illness, but they have some issues.

MPI is the first runner-up for the most plausible explanation, but it would have required 400 people to all develop the exact same “mass hysteria” of dancing at a staggered pace over a month, which is pretty unlikely. In the case of ergot poisoning, one of the common side effects is loss of muscular control, which makes complex movements (like dancing) impossible.”

Submitted by czigany

(Source: Wikipedia)

Erected in 1845, the home was originally a two family and was later made into a single family by Andrew J. Borden.

Andrew J. Borden bought the house at 92 Second Street to be close to his bank and various downtown businesses. The Bed & Breakfast is named after Andrew J. Borden’s youngest daughter, Lizzie. Although she was tried and acquitted of the crimes she was ostracized by the community of Fall River.

Since the murders on August 4, 1892 the house has been a private residence. Now for the first time the public is allowed not only to view the murder scene, but is given an opportunity to spend a night (if you dare) in the actual house where the murders took place.

(from: www.lizzie-borden.com )  Read More About the Murders

submitted by desolationave

The Japanese answer the phone “Moshi Moshi”, but it isn’t appropriate to just say “moshi”, you have to repeat it again. This is because in Japanese belief, it is said that a ghost cannot say moshi twice. If someone says “moshi” to you and you turn around, it is a spirit that will steal your soul once you turn around. To avoid this, people say it twice, to check that over the phone the person you are talking to is indeed a person, and not a ghost.

Submitted by elyison

The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary is a legendary zoophyte of central Asia, believed to grow sheep as its fruit.  The sheep were connected to the plant by an umbilical cord and grazed the land around the plant. When all the plants were gone, both the plant and sheep died.

Although it owed its currency in medieval thought as a way of explaining the existence of cotton, underlying the myth is a real plant, Cibotium barometz, a fern of the genus Cibotium.  It was known under various other names including the Scythian Lamb, the Borometz, Barometz and Borametz, the latter three being different spellings of the local word for lamb. The ‘lamb’ is produced by removing the leaves from a short length of the fern’s woolly rhizome. When the rhizome is inverted, it fancifully resembles a woolly lamb with the legs being formed by the severed petiole bases. The Tradescant Museum of Garden History has one under glass.

Whole Wikipedia Page here

Submitted by sewsewdef

Unit 731 was a covert biological and chemical warfare research and development unit of the Imperial Japanese Army that undertook lethal human experimentation during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) and World War II. It was responsible for some of the most notorious war crimes carried out by Japanese personnel.

The test subjects were selected to give a wide cross section of the population and included common criminals, captured bandits and anti-Japanese partisans, political prisoners, and also people rounded up by the Kempetai for alleged “suspicious activities”. They included infants, the elderly, and pregnant women.

Prisoners of war were subjected to vivisection without anesthesia.Vivisections were performed on prisoners after infecting them with various diseases. Scientists performed invasive surgery on prisoners, removing organs to study the effects of disease on the human body. These were conducted while the patients were alive because it was feared that the decomposition process would affect the results.The infected and vivisected prisoners included men, women, children, and infants.

Prisoners had limbs amputated in order to study blood loss.Those limbs that were removed were sometimes re-attached to the opposite sides of the body.Some prisoners’ limbs were frozen and amputated, while others had limbs frozen then thawed to study the effects of the resultant untreated gangrene and rotting.

Some prisoners had their stomachs surgically removed and the esophagus reattached to the intestines. Parts of the brain, lungs, liver, etc. were removed from some prisoners.

Submitted by vitabread