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The Real Abandoned Overlook Hotel
Unlike the fictional Overlook Hotel in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, this hotel is really named the Overlook. The abandoned hotel is located in the small, wine growing town of Bernkastel-Kues in Germany. Aside from the fact that it has been unoccupied for about 13 years, there is no information as to why the hotel was closed. All of the furniture remains and it looks as if everyone there simply left. There are rumors that the hotel is haunted. According to urban explorers who frequent the spooky site, cameras malfunction, sounds can be heard throughout the premises and items seem to move around the hotel by themselves.
(Source: flickrhivemind.net)
Strange Insects
- Devil’s Flower Mantis - one of the largest types of praying mantis, they can measure up to 13 centimeters in length and have a range of coloring that allows them to mimic the Devil’s Flower, a type of orchid.
- Pipevine Swallowtail Caterpillar - before transforming into a beautiful fluorescent blue butterfly, its an armored, blood-red caterpillar with tinted visor shades for eyes and a quadruple row of blunt horns running across its body.
- Scorpionfly (Mecoptera) - neither scorpion or fly, what looks like a scorpion’s stinger on the insect is actually its genitals.
- Calleta Silkmoth Caterpillar - with a massive color range and dangerous looking barbs, this caterpillar is something most predators avoid.
- Giant Prickly Stick Insect (Extatosoma tiaratum) - as the largest known stick insect, it reaches lengths of 20 centimeters. It is covered with large thorny spikes which double as camouflage and defensive armor.
- Goliath Beetle - can grow more than 4 inches in length and weigh about 100 grams in their larval stage. It is alleged to be mostly vegetarian.
(Source: listverse.com)
Strange Vintage Advertising
“Heavens! What will keep these children quiet?” A canister of tobacco that’s what. The creepy twin babies are smiling at each other holding cans of tobacco. And the second picture, why would Jockey show a small boy put a gun in his underwear? If your little man’s a packin’, Jockeys “keep their fit”. And to finish the trio, why does America’s No.1 Glamour Gal have a pack of Sno-Balls for a head? Because “these well-stacked Sno-Balls have more than sex appeal…”
(Source: pzrservices.typepad.com)
Twice the Scare
This two headed albino milk snake was born last year in Florida. The condition is known as Polycephaly and occurs when monozygotic twins fail to separate completely. Most organisms with this condition will not live for long, but occasionally you will get cases like this one, where the snake seems healthy enough and can live for years.
The heads act independently of one another, and will fight over food given the opportunity.
(Source: bubblews.com)
Piebald Ball Python by JAMills
Literally, a snake ball.
Creepy Vintage Ventriloquist Dummy Portraits
These are Vaudeville era performers with their creepy ventriloquist dummies. The first one actually looks like he might be funny, but I can’t say that for the rest. Some are eerily unsettling and others are just plain scary. Perfect fodder for the Twilight Zone or your nightmares.
(Source: gotopublicschool.com)
The Fish with Human Teeth
This is not a Photoshop job. This is the very strange smile of a sheepshead fish. Like humans, these fish have both incisors and molars — perfect for masticating an omnivorous diet. Apparently, they also taste good.
Sheepshead fish are a common North American marine species that span from Cape Cod and Massachusetts through to Florida and the Gulf of Mexico to Brazil. Preferring coastal habitats around rock pilings, jetties, mangroves, reefs and piers, they can grow up to around 91 cm in length and weigh up to 9.6 kg. They have five to seven distinctive black, vertical bars running down their silvery bodies, which is why the sheepshead is also called the convict fish.
(Source: blogs.scientificamerican.com)
Two-Headed Bull Shark Confirmed Rarest in the World
A two-headed bull shark found in the Gulf of Mexico is all too real according to scientists with Florida Keys Community College (FKCC) and Michigan State Community College. The scientists have confirmed that the shark, discovered in April 2011, is the first of its kind and is a single shark with two heads and not conjoined twins.
The shark was found by a fisherman when he opened the uterus of an adult shark. It died shortly thereafter and was brought to the marine science department at FKCC, where it was then transported to Michigan State.
“This is certainly one of those interesting and rarely detected phenomena,” MSU assistant professor of fisheries and wildlife Michael Wagner said in a statement from the school Monday. “It’s good that we have this documented as part of the world’s natural history, but we’d certainly have to find many more before we could draw any conclusions about what caused this.”
(Source: nbcmiami.com)
The Haunted Tomb of Captain Buck
In the town of Bucksport, Maine, there stands a cursed memorial where Captain Buck is buried. The tomb of the town’s founder, Colonel Jonathan Buck, features a mysterious stain — the image of a woman’s stocking foot or boot. The leg stain on the memorial, according to legend, came about when Colonel Buck burned a witch and her leg rolled out of the bonfire. Apparently before she died, she cursed at Buck that he would always bear the mark of his horrible deed. His heirs tried to clean the foot off the stone and are said to have replaced the monument twice but the foot kept coming back.
The legend of the Mysterious Tomb of Bucksport varies depending on who tells it. In one version, instead of burning her, he had her hanged. In another, she wasn’t a witch at all, just unfortunate enough to be pregnant with his child, and the witch execution was an easy fix to his inconvenient problem.
The legend grew over the centuries, fully forming as a tourist attraction when locals started selling postcards. Tourists started pouring into town to see the ghostly smudge. The town, recognizing a good thing, upgraded the Cursed Tomb experience in recent years. There is a little parking area next to the cemetery, and a wheelchair-friendly concrete ramp leading up to the cursed monument. You can photograph it through a wrought iron fence.
(Source: bucksportmaine.gov)
