Infocult: Uncanny Informatics

1-900 old media horror

Atlas Obscura has a delightful look back at an old horror medium: paid phone scary calls.  Nightmare on Elm Street's beloved villain started the craze, with phone numbers fans could call to hear evil commentary, and then others followed:

other hotlines [started] offering creepy audio, like 1-900-660-FEAR and 1-900-909-EVIL. Some were similar to Freddy’s ghost story service. Other 900 numbers were more creative with the technology. Ads for 1-900-490-DEAD promised to connect callers to “the phone zombies” and a chance to speak to one live (as “live” as zombies can be, anyway), 1-900-900-DARE gave your “horror-scope,” and on “Creep Phone” (“THE PHONE NUMBER NIGHTMARES ARE MADE OF”) you could record your own “screaming monster message” to be broadcast to “millions” of other “monsters and madmen,” which basically sounds like a precursor to Twitter. Some horror hotlines even served as an early interactive marketing tool for scary movies. In TV spots for Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers, fans were challenged to “Save Michael’s Next Victim,” a kind-of dial-your-own-adventure where the caller ran for their life through Haddonfield for $2 per minute.

Old media, now.

(thanks to Jesse "the call was coming from the graveyard" Walker)

Operation Doppelgänger

I'm fascinated by how people turn to the Gothic and horror to describe their world, even when things are not horror per se.

Today's example comes from the world of election interference.  Germany is heading into a major election and charges Russia with trying to subvert it.  Either Germany or Russia has given the effort a classic codename:

At the center of the effort to influence German voters is Doppelgänger, a Kremlin-backed operation, according to the German Office of Foreign Affairs. The campaign uses fake news sites, sleeper accounts, and AI-generated content to spread false narratives and erode trust in Western institutions.

It's not a bad name in this case, as the m.o. seems to be about imitation:

These sleeper websites mimic legitimate media outlets and remain inactive until a politically sensitive moment — such as an election — when they begin publishing false stories that spread rapidly through coordinated social media networks.

The uncanny double is, of course, unsettling and its appearance usually yields a grim outcome.

Sinkhole devours human driver in Japan

Happy new year from Infocult!  We celebrate by noting another story of Gaia's long way on humanity via sinkholes.  This time the incident occurred in Yashio, Japan. 

The hole suddenly opened in a busy street and a truck driver plunged right in.

One woman described hearing a thunderous boom, running outside and seeing a hole where the road had been: “I could still see part of the truck at first, but then it kept sinking … and sinking … and then it was just gone.”

 

Apparently the news reports were filed before rescue, so they include details like police are in touch with the driver, who is face down in dirt.

Beware Gaia's campaign!

Today's terrifying robot

Robots in fictional and actual forms have charmed people for centuries, while also eliciting dread.  Today's story concerns a way of, shall we say, bringing humans and robots closer together?

A smiling face made from living human skin could one day be attached to a humanoid robot, allowing machines to emote and communicate in a more life-like way, say researchers. Its wrinkles could also prove useful for the cosmetics industry.

The living tissue is a cultured mix of human skin cells grown in a collagen scaffold and placed on top of a 3D-printed resin base. Unlike previous similar experiments, the skin also contains the equivalent of the ligaments that, in humans and other animals, are buried in the layer of tissue beneath the skin, holding it in place and giving it incredible strength and flexibility.

Let's take a look:

Cheers!

The corpse that wasn't

One of the essential aspects of horror is the set of anxieties we have around death - specifically, dead bodies. We find them horrifying yet also attractive, alien but so clearly us, as separate from our being as we can imagine and yet our universal state.

Today's real-life Gothic occurs in this vein.  A Nebraska woman died in hospice.  Locals were making funeral arrangements... only to find the person breathing.  Some frantic activity ensued, including a rapid trip to hospital, where the poor woman eventually died.  For good.

News on the books bound in human skin front

Meanwhile, in the world of anthropodermic bibliopegy, we learn that Harvard University has taken a big step with one of their books.  Their library has removed the skin from one book for ethical reasons:

After careful study, stakeholder engagement, and consideration, Harvard Library and the Harvard Museum Collections Returns Committee concluded that the human remains used in the book’s binding no longer belong in the Harvard Library collections, due to the ethically fraught nature of the book’s origins and subsequent history

The book is Des destinées de l'ame, by Arsène Houssaye. The official statement goes into some detail about ethical issues:

In the course of its review, the library noted several ways in which its stewardship practices failed to meet the level of ethical standards to which it subscribes. Until relatively recently, the library has made the book available to anyone who asked for it, regardless of their reason for wishing to consult it. Library lore suggests that decades ago, students employed to page collections in Houghton’s stacks were hazed by being asked to retrieve the book without being told it included human remains. In 2014, following the scientific analysis that confirmed the book to be bound in human skin, the library published posts on the Houghton blog that utilized a sensationalistic, morbid, and humorous tone that fueled similar international media coverage.   

Harvard Library acknowledges past failures in its stewardship of the book that further objectified and compromised the dignity of the human being whose remains were used for its binding. We apologize to those adversely affected by these actions. [emphases in original]

A very non-Gothic act of curation.

(thanks to Jesse "Bookmonger" Walker)

A train accident leading to severed body parts and potential cannibalism

Once more America serves up real-world Gothic.  A train struck and killed a pedestrian near Bakersfield, California. Then another person stopped by to take the victim's leg.

The video shows the man in a red hooded sweatshirt and black pants leaning over... a large, ragged object. He turns around and erratically laughs at the person recording the scene, then staggers away. A second scene in the video appears to show the police response and the man waving the leg at the officers.

What to do with a severed leg?  Well, Infocult readers will be unsurprised to think "cannibalism."

KGET published a censored version of the video with words bleeped out and the image of the leg blurred out. A voice can be heard on the video saying, "He's eating that s**t!" in English and then in Spanish. Some of the news videos edit out the portions where it looks like he might be eating the leg.

Here's the video: 

 

(thanks to Steven "prefers wings" Kaye)

Sinkhole strikes Sweden

The Earth continued her campaign against the human race this week. The latest attack took place in Sweden, as a sinkhole caused by a landslide opened up, injuring people and destroying property.

a sinkhole 500 meters (1,640 feet) wide... opened up on the E6 highway, which runs from southern Sweden to Norway, not far from Sweden’s second largest city of Goteborg.

Police said at least four cars and a bus skidded off the road and crashed, and three people were hospitalized. Several buildings and facilities were damaged, including a Burger King restaurant.

Gaia could not be reached for a comment.

(thanks to Steven "Deep Ecologist" Kaye)

The bleeding eyes of Dracula

Researchers raised the intriguing idea that Vlad Tepes might have bled from his eyes.  The inspiration for Dracula may have had haemolacria.

It begins with several historical letters, and analyzing them carefully:

They used a plastic EVA film studded with strong cation and anion exchangers and certain hydrophobic resins, which extracted proteins and small molecules from the surfaces of the three letters. Those proteins and molecules were then analyzed via mass spectrometry. The team focused in particular on the oldest, most degraded proteins, reasoning that those were most likely to be from Vlad himself.

All told, the team identified 100 ancient human peptides—31 of which were deemed of particular interest—and an additional 2,000 peptides from bacteria, viruses, insects, fungi, and green plants. Those 31 human peptides were related to blood proteins or the respiratory system, as well as ciliopathy or retinal diseases, or inflammatory processes, per the authors. One of the letters from 1475 contained three peptides specifically associated with proteins of the eye's retina and tears. The authors thus concluded that Vlad III may have suffered from a medical condition known as hemolacria, in which a person sheds tears of blood, as well as skin inflammation and respiratory illness.

(thanks to Steven "Here's looking at you!" Kaye)

Homicidal sinkhole reopens - in Florida, of course

Ten years ago a Florida sinkhole yawned wide and devoured a man.

This week it opened again.

No fatalities so far, this time.

(thanks to Steven "It's the Pits" Kaye)

The latest body snatching crime

Federal authorities broke up a criminal enterprise which gave us today's real-life Gothic: a body part theft and sale ring.

How did this work?  One leader of the outfit was Cedric Lodge, 5"who managed the morgue for the Anatomical Gifts Program at Harvard Medical School."  He stole body parts and got entrepreneurial with them: 

Lodge allegedly allowed buyers to enter the morgue and look through cadavers, essentially shopping for the body parts they wanted to purchase. Shoppers sometimes bought them directly, transporting them out of the state on their own. At other times, Lodge shipped them or brought them to his home in New Hampshire, where he had help selling them from his wife, Denise Lodge, 63, who is also charged.

Several states away, one Candace Chapman Scott did something similar for an Arkansas mortuary:

Scott allegedly sold brains, hearts, lungs, genitalia, large pieces of skin, and other body parts to Pauley, as well as the corpses of two stillborn babies. The babies were supposed to be cremated, but according to The Washington Post, at least one of the grieving families received fake ashes after the real remains were sold to Pauley, who then shipped them to Minnesota in exchange for five human skulls.

Who is this Pauley?  An intermediary, "a central figure in the scheme."

MacLean and Taylor resold their ill-gotten remains to Pauley. Records indicate Pauley made 25 payments to Taylor totaling $40,000. Meanwhile, in June or July 2021, MacLean shipped Pauley human skin and requested Pauley tan it to create leather. Pauley subsequently sent her a picture of the leather, and MacLean agreed to pay Pauley not with money but with more human skin.

And who is this MacLean?

MacLean is the owner of "Kat's Creepy Creations" in Peabody, Massachusetts. An artist's Facebook page with that name contained images of human skulls and morbid dolls. The description reads: "I am an artist of horror, macabre, oddities, and everything creepy. I love creating things that shoc[sic]." An Instagram account with the same name appeared to have been removed Thursday. According to the indictment, MacLean paid Lodge $600 for two dissected faces in 2020—she picked up her purchases directly at the morgue.

Overall, "a 'heinous crime' that involved the desecration of stillborn babies, faces, brains, hearts, skin, genitalia, bones, and other body parts in exchanges that netted defendants thousands of dollars."

Body snatching is one of the older and more durable Gothic tropes.

(thanks to Steven "all organic" Kaye)

Mysterious sphere appears on Japanese beach

A mysterious iron ball washed up on a Japanese beach.

Popular reactions sketch out our era's attitudes and obsessions:

There were suggestions it resembled something from the popular manga series Dragon Ball, while others believed it was a UFO that had fallen from the sky.

TV footage of the object prompted speculation on social media, coming so soon after Japan said it “strongly suspected” several Chinese spy balloons had been spotted over its territory in recent years.

Naturally this would make a fine opening for an alien invasion story.

 

Fear the Easter eggs!

There are many ways we've generated to fear digital media.  Today the New York Times offered an usual one, urging you to dread... Easter eggs.

No, not the actual eggs, but the practice of hiding clever hints in stories.  

Nick Haramis offers an interesting historical sketch, touching on Britney Spears fans, Atari history,  and including one of my favorite strange books, the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (1499).  Then things turn dark.

Scouring for these narrative tricks is addictive — for one thing, they flatter consumers’ sense of themselves as nobody’s fool. In today’s media landscape, across the political spectrum, it can seem as if only dupes would take what they’re shown at strict face value.

Swiftly we see addiction raised, which sounds like a serious charge in these days of fearing social media and mobile devices. Added to that is flattery, which, from my reading of the New York Times, is a good thing aimed at celebrities and the rich, but a problem when pointed at the hoi polloi. 

Then Haramis wraps things up with a full charge:

Really, an Easter egg enthusiast is often just a conspiracy theorist with popcorn. Toeing the line between fandom and fanaticism, peering safely down the rabbit hole into the QAnonification of mainstream culture, can be thrilling. That is, until it’s not...

It seems staying after a Marvel movie's credits to glimpse Thanos is just the first step on the way to rioting on January 6th. Looking for an obscure game level is how you become the Q-shaman.  Consumers beware!

Another day, another set of internet-dreading media

We're almost done with 2022, but people still like creating stories about the scary digital world.

Today's example comes from The Incidental Economist, who notes a set of disturbing headlines about digital technology threatening our children!  Until we look at the actual study, that is, if we can. Enjoy:

(thanks to Ted Major)

Dreading the darkweb

A new scholarly study finds that British media painted a deeply skewed, and scary, view of the darkweb.

Here's from the abstract:

Through an extensive content analysis conducted on 833 articles about the deep Web published between 2001 and 2017 by six British newspapers, we demonstrate that these technologies were predominantly associated with crime, crypto markets and immoral content, while positive uses of this technology, such as protecting privacy and freedom of speech, were largely disregarded.

They go on very well: "The consistent association by the British press between the deep Web and criminal and antisocial behaviors is exemplary of a recent “apocalyptic turn” in the imaginary of the Web, whereby Web-related technologies are perceived and portrayed in more negative ways within the public sphere."

Recommended.