You Don't Want to Know: The grisly, jaw-dropping and most macabre moments from history, nature and beyond

by James Felton

In 1988, 12-year-old Jessica Fleming arrived home at her parents’ and grandparents’ house in Nebraska when she saw her grandfather walking a goose with a leash. That’s not really something you ignore; either something amazing had happened or Grandpa Gene was on track for an intervention. She approached and soon realised that the leash was the least of their problems, for the goose – named Andy, like geese often are, shut up – was wearing a pair of people trainers. Her grandfather had found Andy on his sister-in-law’s farm, and, upon seeing that the goose had no feet, decided to intervene. At first, as your mind would, Gene leapt to the idea of attaching a skateboard to one of the goose’s stumps and letting it push itself around the farm like some sort of deranged mashup between Untitled Goose Game and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skateboarding. The skateboard idea failed, because it was fucking insane. Gene moved on from this setback and instead put the goose in tiny baby shoes. Before he knew it, Andy the goose had mastered people shoes and was running around all over the place. Jessica, who was a tween and embarrassed about her family already, wasn’t too happy that she now had to explain to her friends, ‘Yes, we’ve got a goose with shoes on, don’t . . . don’t look at it,’ as it waddled its way into the room. Not much happens in Hastings, Nebraska, I’m forced to assume, as news of the goose soon hit the front pages of the local press. At least I hope nothing happens in Hastings, Nebra...