Infocult: Uncanny Informatics

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.

Another mysterious severed foot appears

Another severed human foot has appeared, and police turn to the public for assistance with a very Infocultish mystery.

Sgt. Aaron Pomeroy with the Richmond Police Department said the foot was found Saturday at 2:45 p.m. on Point San Pablo Beach, north of Richmond-San Rafael Bridge. It's a right foot, likely a size 6 or 7 that belonged to a woman or small man, he said. 

We at Infocult have been following mysteriously separated body parts for a while.

(thanks to Steven "No Achilles Heel" Kaye)

Wisconsin Gothic

The American state of Wisconsin offered today's case of real-life Gothic.  Police arrested a "renegade nurse" and charged a facility with cruelty over horrendous and fatal mistreatment of a man.

The summary:

a renegade nurse cut off a man's foot without his consent and wanted to have it stuffed in her family's taxidermy shop and put on display to warn children to "wear your boots" in cold weather.

The details make things worse.  The unfortunate man was already in awful shape, as "frostbite... left his feet blackened and necrotic."  In the facility, it was time for horror:

According to a criminal complaint, the man's foot at that point was hanging on by a tendon and roughly two inches of skin. However, a nurse who changed his bandages said he could still wiggle his toes the day Brown cut off his foot, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Still, nursing home staff failed to notify hospice or a doctor of the man's condition after the fall, even though the man was so delirious he could not take his morphine pills, according to the inspection report.

On May 27, Brown unilaterally decided to amputate the foot for his "comfort," despite other nurses advising her against it. When Brown entered the man's room with two nursing aides to change his bandages, she "cut the victim's tendon, which amputated his right foot completely," using bandage scissors. One of the nursing aides would later testify to state officials that the man "felt everything and it hurt very bad."

Things got worse from there.  First, what the nurse wanted to do with the... materials:

Brown reportedly put the foot in a biohazard bag and placed it in a freezer. A nursing assistant at the facility told investigators that Brown later pressured her to retrieve the foot because Brown wanted to preserve it in her family's taxidermy shop and display it with a sign saying, "Wear your boots, kids."

Then how the enterprise responded:

Leadership at the nursing home, meanwhile, failed to respond to the incident properly, according to the state report. According to federal regulations, the nursing home should have reported the incident to state authorities within 24 hours. But, it took the nursing home a full week to report the incident. At that point, an anonymous complaint had already alerted the state, and the man had died.

Such a cluster of horrors in one horrendous story: body horror (both the decay and the amputation), violation of deep trust, and inhumane treatment of the sick.

(thanks to Steven "no scissors" Kaye)

A vampire's face, reconstructed, allegedly

What might a vampire look like?

A partnership between a business and the military offered an interesting answer to this Gothic question.  Parabon NanoLabs and the Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory started with the remains of a 19th century Connecticut man whose unusual burial suggested the locals considered him a vampire.  Researchers then proceeded:

Based on DNA analysis, the researchers predicted that Barber had fair skin, brown or hazel eyes, and brown or black hair, per a statement from Parabon. Then, using the predictions and a 3-D image of the skull, a forensic artist reconstructed Barber’s face.

Behold the resuit:

 

(thanks to Jesse Walker)

Denying devil worship, or today in Gothic politics

Today in Gothic politics, a note from Brazil:

Take a look at point 2.

A quick run to Google Translate for "Lula nao tem pacto nem jamais conversou com o diabo" yields "Lula has no pact nor has he ever talked to the devil."

Why deny it?  Apparently rumors and slurs flew. There was at least one metaphorical charge of devil dealing.  Lula's present campaign has had to deny any Faustismo.

An AI dreams of the Isle of the Dead

AI drawing programs are all over the place today, and naturally some have turned them to dark ends.

As a sample, let me share some versions of "Isle of the Dead," drawn by Stable Diffusion.

The rise of Loab: an AI generates a new monster

An AI wrangler created a monster, which apparently kept haunting their subsequent work.

Her name is Loab.  She appears as a "devastated-looking older woman with defined triangles of rosacea(?) on her cheeks."

Apparently Loab persisted in a lot of the creator's work: "her combined traits are still a cohesive concept for the AI, and almost all descendent images contain a recognizable Loab."  And it became an obsession:

I was ripping Loab apart, and putting her back together. She is an emergent island in the latent space that we don't know how to locate with text queries. But for the AI, Loab was an equally strong point of convergence as a verbal concept. And really, it was usually stronger!

One commentator sees Loab as a historical horror moment: "I knew it was only a matter of time before someone found the first cryptid in latent space. . ."

Loab may be with us for a while:

Even when her red cheeks or other important features disappear, the "Loabness" of the images she has a hand in making is undeniable. She haunts the images, persists through generations, and overpowers other bits of the prompt because the AI so easily optimizes toward her face.

Welcome, you terrifying creature, to the haunted internet.

The dawn of the necrobotic age

Some technological advances spring from natural inspiration. We can look to flora, fauna, and the inanimate world for all kinds of ideas.

It was only inevitable that some mad robot scientists decided to imitate spiders.

Turning dead spiders into mechanical grippers may be some people's idea of a nightmare scenario, but it could have tangible benefits. Spider legs can grip large, delicate, and irregularly shaped objects firmly and softly without breaking them. 

So, in collaboration with mechanical engineer Daniel Preston, Yap and her colleagues at Rice University discovered a way to make a dead wolf spider's legs unfurl and grip onto objects.

 

To try out the idea, the team modified dead spiders to grab each other.

Naturally, "[t]hey called this new type of robotics 'necrobotics'."