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August 7, 2020
The Odd Origins Of Everyday Phrases
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In these crazy times, our minds and imaginations are sure to be “running amok.” We’re ready to go out and “paint the town red!” We get the gist of what these everyday phrases imply, but where did they actually come from? You’ll be surprised to learn that the backstory of these common sayings can get a bit morbid and weird.
Minds Running Amok
“Running amok,” originated back in the 18th and 19th centuries as a medical term. Tribesmen in Malaysia began exhibiting truly erratic behavior, running rancid on brutal and impulsive killing sprees. European visitors of this area declared these seemingly random outbreaks as a peculiar mental affliction that they called “amok.”
The term stemmed from the “Amuco,” a band of Javanese and Malay warriors who were known for their routine of indiscriminate violence. Amok is now defined as a psychic disturbance characterized by depression, followed by a manic urge to murder.
It was once thought to be the result of possession by evil spirits. Of course, in present-day, we now better understand this mania and it remains a diagnosable mental condition. But, needless to say, we certainly hope your imagination is not exactly “running amok.”
Let’s Paint the Town Red
Used in our everyday language, “painting the town red,” is basically slang for going out and having a grand old time. While its origin story is a bit more destructive, it does stem from a common past and present-day denominator: alcohol.
In 1837, the Marquis of Waterford had a bit of a mischievous and iconic night of drunkenness. Like any good friend out at the bar, he encouraged his group to follow his lead throughout a night of drinking in the English town of Melton Mowbray. Waterford and his friends did quite a number on the sleeping town—everything from vandalism to knocking over flowerpots, breaking out windows, and, quite literally, painting the town.
The group painted the doors of several homes, a tollgate, and a swan statue with a bright shade of red. Of course, upon a sober wake-up call, the pranksters paid their damages for the wild night out, and made history as the posse who quite literally, “painted the town red.”
For the Diehard Fans
Today, we refer to super fans and know-it-alls as “diehard” when it comes to their niche interests. However, in its earliest incarnation back in the 1700s, “diehard” was a bit more somber than who knows more than who about their Harry Potter House.
The expression was used to describe condemned men who struggled the longest when hanged. And if that wasn’t gruesome enough, the phrase later became even more popular in 1811 during the Battle of Albuera. In the midst of the fight, a wounded British officer urged his troops to fight on by yelling “Stand your ground and die hard…make the enemy pay dear for each of us!” This unit suffered 75% casualties during the battle and went on to be known as “the Die Hards.”
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The Buzz On Slovenian Stress Relief
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This Week
[August 3-August 9, 2020] A milestone at the mile marker, the buzz on Slovenian stress relief, and the inside scoop on new penguin poop—all round-up in this week’s weird news from Ripley’s Believe It or Not!
A Milestone at the Mile Marker
Earlier this year, Judge Jill Karofsky won an election to earn her seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. And, as if her win wasn’t enough of an accomplishment, her swearing-in ceremony was certainly one for the books. Over the course of 34 hours, Karaofsky ran a total of 100 miles in an ultra-marathon across south-central Wisconsin. Around mile 35 of her journey in Basco, Wisconsin, she stopped mid-run to officially become the court’s newest member. Karofsky had been training to run this route as part of an official ultra-marathon, but due to the pandemic, the race was canceled. She decided to make the journey anyway as part of her new job celebrations.
Just now @judgekarofsky has been sworn in as the newest Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice. Karofsky is holding an outdoor swearing in ceremony 35 miles into a 100 mile run. @SpectrumNews1WI pic.twitter.com/pCZKyohE3E
— Jeffrey Dahdah (@jeff_dahdah) August 1, 2020
The Antarctic Scoop on The Poop
A study recently published by scientists at the British Antarctic Survey has reported that there are now eleven more colonies of emperor penguins present on the continent than previously reported. Scientists used aerial imagery from Europe’s Sentinel-2 satellite mission to look for smudges on the ice that indicated large amounts of guano, or penguin poop. Aerial photographs and the evidence of bird spottings have proved a very successful method in locating emperor penguin breeds. As these birds live in remote areas where temperatures can drop as low as -58 degrees Fahrenheit, their colonies are not regularly accessible by researchers. A reliable assessment of local and global populations are necessary for conservation bodies to decide what actions are needed to protect the species, said Yan Ropert-Coudert, an ecologist who heads the biological sciences section of the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research.
A Clucking Curious Case
Doctors at University of Leuven in Belgium recently faced an extremely curious and rare case when a 54-year-old woman entered their hospital. The unnamed woman suffered from zoanthropy–a delusion in which the patient believes they are an animal. In this case, the woman was exhibiting chicken tendencies, from pecking and clucking to crowing like a rooster. This brief delusion came to a halt following a generalized epileptic seizure, after which the woman had no recollection of her behavior.
A Well-Balanced Lap
Aside from her many Olympic medals and extraordinary talent, swimmer Katie Ledecky just proved that there is simply nothing she can’t do. The five-time Olympic gold medalist posted a video on her Instagram as part of the iconic Got Milk campaign. She can be seen swimming one lap while balancing a tall glass of chocolate milk on her head–not a bobble, mistake, or drip spilled into the pool. It’s safe to say, Ledecky just set the bar incredibly high for all future athletes and their tall glass of milk.
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A post shared by Katie Ledecky (@katieledecky) on Aug 3, 2020 at 9:53am PDT
The Buzz on Slovenian Stress Relief
When the work-from-home blues and stressors come full circle, it seems there’s only one way to ease your mind–bees! In Slovenia, a common relaxation technique comes in the form of thousands of buzzing bees. The country has a very long, appreciative history when it comes to these black and yellow friends. In fact, TIME reports that one in every 200 Slovenians is a beekeeper! The sound of their buzzing wings is a traditional form of anxiety and stress relief for everyone from school children to firefighters. Apiaries, where beehives are kept, blanket the nation, including its schoolyards. We may stick to the traditional “rain falling,” and “ocean sounds,” but you bee the judge of this unconventional method!
August 6, 2020
Debunking The “Curse Of The Pharaohs”
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In the low-budget horror flick, The Mummy (1999), Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz team up to thwart the curse of an ancient priest-turned-mummy, Imhotep. The mummy wreaks havoc on the modern world, bringing back the ten plagues, before his final send-off into nonexistence. A reboot of the 1932 film (of the same name), starring Boris Karloff as Imhotep, grossed $416.4 million worldwide.
Many sequels and spin-offs would follow. They include The Mummy (2017) starring Tom Cruise. Cruise plays a hapless soldier of fortune who stumbles across the ancient tomb of an entrapped Egyptian princess. In the process, he unleashes an unwanted romance with deadly consequences. Think the ancient Egyptian version of Fatal Attraction… without the bunny.
What do these movies have in common? The iconic “Curse of the Pharaohs.” But were all Egyptian tombs hexed? It’s time to debunk this common misconception.
Egyptian Tombs and the Afterlife
Building a tomb in ancient Egypt represented a massive undertaking. It required an immense investment of time, labor, and wealth. As a result, those who could afford tombs got to work on them as soon as possible. That way, their final resting places were ready when fate intervened. As for the Afterlife, Egyptians called it A’aru or the “Field of Reeds.” In a nutshell, it represented Egypt 2.0, complete with an ever-shining sun, crops burgeoning with produce, and the life-giving waters of the Nile River.
Egyptians believed humans consisted of three parts, the ka, the ba, and the akh. The ka represented the life force or “double” of the deceased, and it resided in the tomb after death. To survive, the ka needed to receive offerings. Ba referenced what we might call the “soul,” symbolized by a human-headed bird. This entity flew around during the day, retiring at night to the tomb. Finally, the akh or “spirit” traveled to the Underworld for Final Judgment and entrance into the Afterlife. All three aspects of the individual played essential roles in Egyptian cosmology.
Within this construct, the tomb chapel provided a location where the ka and ba resided. It also represented a place family could visit and bring offerings during special festivals. Like people today, the ancient Egyptians longed to be remembered and honored, even in death. As a result, preserving the tombs of the dead represented a major preoccupation.
Making Mummies
Besides crafting tombs to stand the test of time, ancient Egyptians preserved the dead through a gruesome embalming process that lasted for 70 days. Special priests officiated over the preparation of the corpse for treatment and wrapping.
They carefully removed the brain through the nostrils, meticulously avoiding damage to the face. The organs were also taken out and placed in canopic jars to prevent rapid decay. After drying the body, adding fake eyes, and plumping up sunken areas with linen and other materials, priests wrapped each corpse in hundreds of yards of linen.
Much care and effort went into the preservation of the dead and the preparation of their burial chambers. It’s little wonder that 19th-century authors, steeped in Gothicism, Orientalism, and Occultism, let their imaginations run wild after reading about Egyptology’s latest findings.
Gothicism, Orientalism, and Occultism
Jane Louden’s novel The Mummy (1827) first described an ancient Egyptian rising from the grave. Other authors soon contributed to a burgeoning “mummy” literature, including Louisa May Alcott with “Lost in a Pyramid or the Mummy’s Curse” (1869) and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle with “Lot 249” (1892). By the early 20th-century, movies about Egyptian mummies were all the rage. They included The Mummy (1911), The Egyptian Mummy (1914), and The Eyes of the Mummy (1918).
Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon at the door of the burial chamber. Photo by Harry Burton (1879-1940) / Public domain
When British archaeologist Howard Carter discovered King Tut’s tomb in 1922, European and American audiences devoured mummy maledictions like candy. After all, every Egyptian tomb contained one, right? Sorry to rain on the linen-wrapped parade, but not so much.
Egyptian mummy texts were actually rare. What’s more, they’re written in a legalistic way that can be downright anticlimactic. They have more in common with “No Trespassing” signs than bona fide jinxes. Of the few tomb inscriptions that do exist, most simply caution about what we’d term “karma,” or the idea that one bad turn leads to another. Boring!
“No Trespassing” Signs in Ancient Egypt
There are some “colorful” tomb warnings, though, such as that from the tomb of Penniut at Aniba. It cautions that trespassers will end up “miserable.” As for something approaching the fire and brimstone curses we see in movies today? Those are much harder to find.
One inscription dating from 1295-1069 BC begs visitors to respect the deceased’s final resting place. The author warns, “Watch out not to take (even) a pebble from within it outside. If you find this stone you shall transgress against it.” But when it comes to the meat of the curse? The text states, “Great lords of the west will reproach him [anyone who disturbs the tomb] very very very very very very very very much.”
Adverbs aside, we’d call this “curse” underwhelming.
More Bland Curses
When it’s all said and done, curses on Egyptian tombs prove incredibly rare because the act of grave desecration was simply unthinkable. Even mentioning the crime in writing could be construed as dangerous.
The private tombs of the Old Kingdom era, however, do include a couple of exceptions. At the sarcophagus of Ankhtifi, you‘ll find the words, “Any ruler who… shall do evil or wickedness to this coffin… may Hemen not accept any goods he offers, and may his heir not inherit.” (Hemen referred to a local deity.)
The mastaba of Khentika (called Ikhehki) contains slightly more persuasive language, “As for all men who shall enter this tomb… impure… there will be judgment… an end shall be made for him… I shall seize his neck like a bird… I shall cast the fear of myself into him.”
Again, where are the flesh-eating scarab beetles, incurable diseases, horrifying plagues?
Rare Exceptions to the Rule
After the Old Kingdom, the practice of leaving warning inscriptions on tombs faded away. However, the few that do appear get interesting. They invoke the destruction of Sekhmet or the fury of Thoth. In Valley of the Golden Mummies, famed archaeologist Zahi Hawass records one such text, “Cursed be those who disturb the rest of a Pharaoh. They that shall break the seal of this tomb shall meet death by a disease that no doctor can diagnose.”
Now, that’s more like it!
At this point, you’re likely wondering, “But what about the curse on King Tut’s tomb?” According to 20th-century newspapers, countless individuals associated with the archaeological dig met tragic ends in the weeks and months following its discovery. Despite the sensational headlines peddled by journalists, the vast majority of individuals involved with the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb did just fine. In fact, they lived long lives.
That said, rumors of a curse sold plenty of newspapers, and they also served another function. They helped protect tombs, such as Tut’s, from actual grave robbers. Some researchers even claim that Carter disseminated the mummy’s curse to the media to keep people away.
Illustration from The Tomb of Tut-Ankh-Amen, by Howard Carter and A. C. Mace, illustrations and photographs by Harry Burton – “Plate I: Statue of King Tut-Ankh-Amen; one of the Statues Guarding the Inner Sealed Doorway”
But as for the kind of bad joojoo we see in the movies? Perhaps, Canadian Egyptologist and archaeologist, Donald B. Redford, said it best. When Charlotte Booth, author of The Boy Behind the Mask, asked about the pharaoh’s curse, Redford declared it, “unadulterated claptrap.”
By Engrid Barnett, contributor for Ripleys.com
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August 5, 2020
Can Pigs Make A Body Disappear? Almost.
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The day began like any other.
It was autumn, 2012, in coastal Coos County, Oregon, and a 69-year-old farmer named Terry Vance Garner had gone out to feed his hogs.
He never returned.
Concerned, his family went looking for him, and what they found was a gruesome sight. There, in the pig enclosure, were his dentures and pieces of his body.
Either because of attack or by medical emergency, it seemed Garner had fallen and been overwhelmed by the 700-pound hogs, which then consumed his remains—almost all of him. It was a terrifying revelation.
“Those animals were his life,” Terry’s older brother Michael Garner, 75, told the Register-Guard newspaper.
“For all we know, it was a horrific accident, but it’s so doggone weird that we have to look at all possibilities,” Coos County District Attorney Paul Frasier told the newspaper.
Weird, yes. But not at all uncommon. It’s a fact: Pigs eat people.
In 2019, a Russian woman fell into an epileptic emergency while feeding her hogs. She was eaten alive, and her remains were found in the pen.
In 2015, a Romanian farmer died of blood loss after being attacked by his hogs. And a year prior, a 2-year-old toddler from China was eaten when he wandered into a hog enclosure.
In 2013, a mob boss was still alive when he was fed to hogs by a rival family. In fact, it’s been whispered for years that the Mafia uses hogs to help them dispose of bodies.
All awfulness aside—we know a hog will eat a human. But, can they really make a body disappear? There’s one problem with answering this question: If a person disappears, there’s no way to prove one way or the other where they’ve gone—or how.
The thing is, it seems pigs will eat a lot—but there’s always a little bit left behind.
In 2003, two brothers were convicted of murdering two hunters, David Tyll and Brian Ognjan, even though their bodies were never found. Many think the two killers—Raymond (J.R.) Duvall, and Donald (Coco) Duvall—fed the bodies to their hogs.
The book Darker than Night: The True Story of a Brutal Double Homicide and an 18-Year Long Quest for Justice, outlines the theory, which admittedly was divulged by a controversial witness who said the men told her they’d used the pigs.
Still, it seems most of these situations end up with people being arrested when some remains are found. Like Terry Garner’s dentures, there are always some leftovers.
Oregon serial killer Susan Monica murdered two men, dismembered them and fed them to her hogs. But she was caught when remains were found on her 20-acre farm.
So hogs won’t eat everything?
The TV Tropes website seems to verify this, explaining that a pig will “eat meat if they are able to come by it. Fact of the matter is, pigs can eat almost anything they can chew. (They’ve even been known to eat pork if they find it.)”
The site goes on to say, however, that pigs cannot chew the larger bones of the human body, but that they will break them into smaller bits to make them more manageable. Human hair and teeth, on the other hand (or hoof), are not digestible to hogs and will get left behind.
“But,” the site concludes, “it should be a simple matter to shave your victims’ heads and pull out their teeth before chow time, right?”
Good advice. Just remember all of this the next time you eat bacon.
By Ryan Clark, contributor for Ripleys.com and host of Ripley’s Believe It or Notcast
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August 4, 2020
1967: The Night Of The Grizzlies
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Twenty-seven-year-old Bert Gildart, a ranger at Glacier National Park, found the mauled body of Michele Koons. Mangled beyond belief, Koons’ body made Gildart question everything that he knew about grizzly bears. It was the summer of August 1967, and since the park’s opening in 1910, dangerous encounters between grizzlies and humans were almost nonexistent. Yet, as Gildart looked at what remained of Koons’ body, a resident of San Diego who worked in one of the park’s gifts shops, he knew the impossible had happened.
Two grizzly attacks on two 19-year-old girls in different areas of the park by different bears at nearly the same moment.
Incredibly, Gildart was investigating the second mauling of the previous night. What had caused the attacks of August 12th? To this day, the strange coincidence still can’t be fully explained. Here’s what we do know and how it has changed national park management.
Terror at Trout Lake
The night of Saturday, August 12th, lightning lit the skies of Glacier National Park. Hours before, Koons and her friends had hiked to Trout Lake, passing a group that warned them about a bear. Yet, the young campers proved unphased. In the 57 years that had passed since the park’s opening, no grizzlies had ever killed a human within the park.
The campers included Paul Dunn, Ron Noseck, Ray Noseck, and Denise Huckle. Koons also brought her dog Squirt along, a violation of the park’s regulations, even at the time. Soon after making camp, a hungry, emaciated sow approached them. She stole some of their food before retreating to a nearby log jam. To be on the safe side, the campers moved their sleeping bags to the lake’s shore. They also lit a bonfire to keep the bear away. Eventually, the campers fell asleep, and the fire died down.
That’s when the bear returned.
A Fight for Survival
Huckle would later tell rangers that she awoke to a bear sniffing her sleeping bag. She felt its hot breath on her hair and scalp. Paralyzed, she waited for the bear to leave. Unfortunately, when the bear came to Koons, the young San Diegan had a different reaction. She started screaming, and the other campers darted out of their sleeping bags.
A frantic scene ensued with the campers climbing into nearby trees. But Koons’ sleeping bag zipper was stuck, and her yells only enraged the bear. The other campers called from the trees, begging her to escape her sleeping bag and climb into a tree. She replied that the bear was ripping off her arm. Her last words were, “Oh my God, I’m dead.”
The campers stayed in the trees until dawn. When they finally came down, they sprinted to the nearest ranger station. Gildart responded to their frantic call for help.
Hunter or Hunted?
With fellow ranger Leonard Landa, Gildart found Koons’ body about 40 yards away from the campsite. Then, Gildart and Landa set out to find and kill the sow. They were searching for a bear that had long troubled the area around Trout Lake and Lake McDonald. A week before, it had chased a group of girl scouts, only backing off after taking their food. Yet, park management did nothing. Rules were lax in the 1960s with a hands-off approach, even towards the most menacing individuals.
Landa and Gildart spent the rest of the day searching for the hunter to no avail. The next morning, though, they faced a rude surprise. The hunters were being hunted. Just 30 feet away from the ranger station, they saw a bear raised on its haunches, looking out over the lake. Landa headed for their rifles.
Incredibly, the bear started towards Gildart, a highly unnatural behavior for wild bears who usually scattered at the sight of humans. But this one was afraid of no man, including the rangers. Gildart and Leonard acted quickly, shooting the animal in its tracks. They called in a forensic expert to verify whether or not the sow had killed Koons. After slicing the bear’s stomach open, the expert retrieved a ball of blond hair. No doubt remained.
The forensic expert also determined that the bear had glass embedded in its teeth, the result of consuming garbage. This condition made it difficult for the bear to eat. As a result, the 20-year-old sow was desperately thin, weighing just over 200 pounds.
The Unthinkable Happens Twice
On the same night that Koons was mauled to death by a grizzly on the shores of Trout Lake, the unthinkable happened 20 miles away at Granite Park Chalet. Eighteen-year-old Roy Ducat and 19-year-old Julie Helgeson set up camp a quarter-mile away from the Granite Park Chalet. Both worked at the East Glacier Park Lodge. Like Koons and her friends, Helgeson and Ducat received a warning before making camp that night.
Why? The spot they chose sat by a path frequented by bears. Young and in love, the couple decided to take their chances as they snuggled in a single sleeping bag.
Ducat would later tell rangers he awoke to Helgeson, whispering for him to remain quiet. A bear was nearby. Despite doing everything right, the bear attacked, pouncing on Helgeson. Next, it went after Ducat, biting and clawing him mercilessly. He stayed as still as possible despite the onslaught. Once the bear stopped, Ducat scrambled to his feet, sprinting to a neighboring camp for help.
In the meantime, the bear dragged Helgeson into the woods. Ducat and the campers heard her retreating screams. After a frantic search, they located her 400 feet away. She was in shock and suffering from severe blood loss. They managed to get her to the Chalet and onto a makeshift operating table. There, she died at 4:12 am before a helicopter could airlift her out. Puncture wounds to her lungs and throat contributed to her death. Ducat would survive despite horrific injuries.
Understanding the Unthinkable
In the aftermath of these two vicious attacks, people groped to explain the inexplicable. What had triggered the bears? Theories abounded, from Koons’ screams to the lightning storm and even the fact one victim had been menstruating. Despite a lack of evidence, the last theory took off like wildfire. It impacted female rangers’ ability to work in the field for decades. Fortunately, this myth has since been debunked.
The answer to the question of what had triggered the bears was much more insidious. Trash.
To the shock of rangers and biologists, they learned that the Granite Park Chalet indulged in evening garbage “bear feeds” to attract tourists. The events brought dangerous grizzlies into close (and regular) company with humans. It led the creatures to associate humans with food. And in a more literal sense, it brought bears down the path where Ducat and Helgeson had set up their impromptu campsite.
But the park mismanagement didn’t stop there. Backcountry hikers and casual campers left garbage everywhere. According to Jack Olsen in his book Night of the Grizzlies, the campground near Trout Lake “looked like a battlefield strewn with K rations.” It created a dangerous recipe for disaster.
Because of the attacks, many thought grizzlies would be eradicated from the contiguous United States. Some even called for their extinction. Writing at the time, Olsen observed, “The grizzly will almost certainly be banished into Canada and thence to Alaska to live out his last years as a species.” But then something remarkable happened.
Reworking the National Parks
At the leading of Dave Shea, a biologist and Glacier Park ranger at the time of the attacks, park practices got overhauled. The Granite Park Chalet halted all garbage feedings. Backpackers, hikers, and campers were urged to leave no trace. Those who resisted were escorted from the property. Nearby Yellowstone National Park also began to change its management practices. Where once park managers had lined garbage dumps with bleachers for visitors to watch grizzlies feast, now bear safety precautions became paramount.
In the months that followed the vicious attacks at Glacier National Park, both parks pioneered the bear-smart outdoorsmanship in use today. They installed bear-proof garbage cans and steel cables to hang food bags. They separated cooking areas from sleeping areas, and they collected mountains of rubbish. An aggressive education program also began, teaching the public about the dangers of feeding and interacting with bears. Almost overnight, park practices transformed. Yet, the problem would take decades to remedy.
Trash-addicted bears no longer sought natural food sources. Glacier and Yellowstone collected dozens of dangerous, starving individuals who searched camps for food. Between 1968 and 1973 alone, more than 189 Yellowstone grizzlies died during encounters with humans. Yet, the decades of focus on rubbish management eventually paid off. Glacier and Yellowstone are among the most pristine national parks in the country, and the chances of being attacked by a bear remain at an all-time low. Nonetheless, with both parks seeing on average of four million visitors per year, bear safety remains paramount.
By Engrid Barnett, contributor for Ripleys.com
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Source: 1967: The Night Of The Grizzlies
August 3, 2020
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