6 Creepy Urban Legends That Happen to be True (Part 3!)
#3.
The Chainsaw Suicide
The Legend:
This one has gotten bounced around in "news of the weird" columns for decades, with the variation that the guy either saws off his own head on a bet, or as an accident, or as the most incredibly gruesome (and honestly kind of awesome) form of suicide possible.
But honestly, is this even physically possible?
The Truth:
Apparently so.
David Phyall, a 50-year-old British man, really really didn't want to leave his apartment block, which was set to be demolished. Alternative accommodations were offered to him 11 times, but David just wasn't taking. One by one, all his neighbors moved out, leaving him the sole holdout rattling around in a condemned apartment building all on his own.
Something had to give and it turned out that something was going to be David's vertebrae. See, he had a plan that was definitely going to cost him his safety deposit, and make a hell of a chore for the cleaning staff. David tied a chainsaw to the leg of a table, laid down with his neck against it, set the saw on a 15-minute timer, then took a stiff drink.
David's plan, and head, went off without a hitch.
Phyall's apartment block. We're thinking maybe he overreacted a little.
A superior asked the police Sergeant that found David if discovering the body was a shock to him. "In some ways it was sir," replied the Sergeant reportedly.
He was promptly fined by the British police for being too bloody excitable and not showing proper stiff upper-lippishness in the line of duty.
#2.
Shrunken Heads
The Legend:
Head shrinking has been the subject of legend, jokes and old Looney Tunes sight gags for ages, but the practice couldn't actually be real, could it? It's just one more bit of bullshit white people made up about folks a shade darker than them, right? Well...
The Truth:
Head shrinking was in fact a real thing, practiced mainly by tribes located around the Amazon River basin. For those looking to throw the perfect head shrinking party, here's the recipe:
Make a cut on the back of the head, then painstakingly peel all the skin and flesh from the skull. Sew the eyes and mouth shut, then boil the flesh up good, dry it with hot rocks, then mold it back into a head-like shape. Viola! A handy miniature version of the guy you nailed with that arrow last week! While head shrinking was real, it was quite rare even amongst the tribes that practiced it, that is until collecting shrunken heads became the Pogs of the late 19th century. The shrunken head trade actually became big business, with numerous South American and Polynesian tribes (most of whom never shrunk heads in the first place) going to war with one another just to collect heads.
In a tactic that was amazingly dickish even by white people's extraordinarily low standards when it came to dealing with natives, traders would give the tribes guns in exchange for the shrunken heads, ensuring a steady supply of new product.
Pictured: A large collection of shrunken heads and one horrible human being.
The sale of shrunken heads continued in the United States for years until it was finally officially outlawed sometime in the 1940s. Yes, as late of the 40s people still thought it was cool to trade human face jerky. By the way, wondering what price was put on a human life back then? How about 25 bucks a pop?
#1.
The Body Farm
The Legend:
There are tales of isolated patches of land, covered with unburied corpses. Some of them posed, or even stuffed in car trunks, all rotting in the midday sun. Is there a serial killer on the loose? Has the gravediggers' union gone on strike again?
The Truth:
It's real, and it's completely legal.
You won't see much mention of this on CSI since it would take away from the usual 30-minutes devoted to David Caruso putting on and/or removing his sunglasses, but body farms are becoming an increasingly important tool for forensic scientists. These patches of land have bodies scattered over them by scientists so they can study how bodies decay under a variety of conditions.
Think checking out the local body farm sounds like a fun weekend excursion? Well if you live around Knoxville, Tennessee; San Marcos, Texas; or Cullowhee, North Carolina, you're in luck, because that's where the country's three body farms are located.
The one found in Knoxville is the oldest and most elaborate, covering two and a half acres and containing 40 to 50 bodies at any one time. If there's not one near you yet, just wait, as scientists are looking to start new body farms faster than Wal-Mart opens new stores, with some hoping for a future with a body farm in every state.
Please enjoy this video of a kindly, grandfatherly type showing off his collection of molding cadavers and discussing wearing human skin gloves.
Nathan Birch also writes the always disgustingly cute webcomic Zoology.
Do you have something funny to say about a random topic? You could be on the front page of Cracked.com tomorrow. Go here and find out how to create a Topic Page.
With Halloween right around the corner, allow us to show you some costumes to avoid in 20 Costumes That Will Earn You a Halloween Beating and The 30 Most Unsettling German Halloween Costumes.
And stop by our Top Picks to see our shrunken head collection (provided by our interns).
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My real grandfather was killed by a elevator. It slammed shut on his neck. Then the ambulance was hit by a eighteen wheeler..
ReplyWhy would an ambulance pick up a body? I think you mean coroner.
And here I was just worried about elevators breaking and sending me plummeting to my death.
ReplyAnother reason not to ride 'em.
Number 6 reminds me of 30 Minutes or Less. Now I know where they got the idea for the movie. It actually seems a bit tasteless now...
ReplyWasn't there an episode of CSI that was devoted to a body farm (I know that there was an episode of one of the L&Os where the victim was dumped and posed in one but I'm not quite sure about the CSI franchises)?
Reply#5 THEN WHO WAS PHONE
ReplyI NOT KNOW
LIFE WAS GIVING THEM A MESSAGE. Or that is a freaking scary butt dial.
I had a run-in with a particularly asshole-ish elevator. The scene: Timberwood Apartments, Kulpmont, PA. I was something like 9 or 10 years old and I decided it would be fun to play a game of "chicken" with the elevator doors. I would put my arm in the doors and see who would pull back first: me or the doors. One time, I decided to throw my arm in there just as the doors were about to touch. The sensors must have malfunctioned, or they got sick of me being a douche bag, so the doors just closed anyway, nearly breaking my arm, and the elevator started going up. It took all of my strength to pull my arm out and put my heart back in my chest. I had to then go to the hospital for x-rays. The elevator, as far as I know, was never under suspicion and never repaired, making it the best criminal in the history of my hometown.
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ReplyWhen my Grandpa died I didn't delete his number from my phone. My Grandma inherited his phone but I didn't know that. Imagine the scene: doing the dishes, singing, and then the phone rings... I nearly fainted but I still answered the call which means I clearly couldn't stand a chance in a horror movie... I would be that side-character you know the 'are you stupid don't go in there! ehh there she goes' b***h every horror movie has :D :D
ReplyThe body farm was actually on CSI.
Replyand Bones.
That's because he original series, was actually a fairly interesting show at one point. And then they ruined it with drama.
I actually do live in Cullowhee and yes there is a body farm though only people who need to know where it is know where it is though I think its on my road somewhere
ReplyWell… that's scary.
Number 5 was probably just this: when the train crashed, the rubble fell on his phone, somehow falling in exactly the right spot to get it to dial them.
Reply Hide All See All 4 RepliesWhatever the reason behind it, it's still really creepy. So are those body farms.
The poor woman who had to witness the poor guy who got chopped up in that elevator-yikes. I bet she'll need some serious therapy for a few years.
Different phone numbers though... and that many times? Still pretty chilling...
maybe the phone had some kind of "auto dial all the numbers" kind of setting and it happen to push that button? hell my purse calls people call the time lol
Seems more logical to me that he was making those calls as he was dieing. I mean when they found him the phone was near him, so isn't it possible that his last act on earth was to try and contact his family?
It's obvious in #5 Charles was calling to say his goodbyes. Why the f**k the family members didn't answer the call?
ReplyThey were answered, but all they heard was static. Birch was making a joke about them not being answered.
I prefer the old "Shrunken Head Apple Sculpture Kit" from the 70's. No one was killed except a few apples. Fun, if creepy, little project, and featured Vincent Price on the box and in the commercials! I wish they'd bring it back.
ReplyI live in Erie, Pennsylvania and at the time, I lived about 1/4 mile where Brian Wells was killed. Since the crime, it has been learned that Wells was in on the whole thing, except he was under the impression that the bomb would be fake. When he arrived to the TV tower, he discovered that it was real and they forced him to put it on at gunpoint. The shop teacher who built the bomb died shortly after his arrest of heart failure and the woman, Marjorie Deihl-Armstrong, is still undergoing treatment to, hopefully, make her competent to stand trial.
ReplyThe most messed up thing about this whole scenario is that the bomber plot WASN'T EVEN THE MAIN EVENT. It was a fundraiser to pay off someone to kill Deihl-Armstrong's father.
"You won't see much mention of this on CSI..."
Reply Hide All See All 4 RepliesActually, there was a CSI episode where a murderer tried to hide his crime by dumping the victim's corpse at a body farm. The body was discovered, however, because everything at a body farm is meticulously documented because the whole point is to gather data about what happens when a body decomposes in varying conditions, so the techs were pretty quick to spot a new corpse.
That was Criminal Minds...or it probably happened in both :P
It was Law and Order: SVU, actually.
Bones had a body farm episode too...the fun part was watcing Brennan (Emily Deschanel) geek out at it.
It was Bones.
I've never seen a chainsaw with a timer on it.
ReplyMy assumption is that it was an electric Chainsaw plugged into an outlet timer.
Really, really shouldn't have watched that video while eating lunch.
ReplyI live in Knoxville, Tennessee, and actually attended the University of Tennessee for my undergrad work. UT and Dr. Bill Bass started the Body Farm in the early 80's, and Dr. Bass is *still* one of the most influential forensic scientists in the world. (He's now in his 80's or 90's) I've known many people who've been to the Body Farm, and have heard all the stories. What people *don't* know...is that under Neyland Stadium, which is on the UT campus, there are several hundred bodies there as well. Under the stadium in the old UT athletic dorms (from the early 1900's) are the offices and department for the Anthropology Department. As such, they have many, many, many sets of human and animal remains lying about being studied or in storage under the football field. ;) There are even jokes that circulate about whether or not these unofficial "visitors" should be included into the spectator tallies at the football games. This makes UT the most awesome university in the south as far as I'm concerned. ;)
ReplyNeyland Stadium looks like a garbage truck workers' convention.
I live in Knoxville too and almost EVERYONE knows about the bodies below Neyland Stadium. That's old news hun :P
That grinning, mummified face at about :30 will haunt my dreams forever.
ReplyI've been to a body farm in Virginia as part of ballistics research, and trust me it is not pleasant. While it is somewhat cool and very scientifically interesting it is also a HORRIBLE stench and (when you see the kids and babies) quite sad.
ReplyYeah, I was wondering about the smell. He's walking around so casually, I was a little puzzled as to how he was able to cope with the smell so easily. Then again, he's been in forensics for so long that I guess he must just be used to it, or something.