10 Of The Most Spectacular Holes In The Earth

10:Y-40 Deep Joy

Photo credit: Apnea Evolution

Do you remember trying to touch the bottom of the deep end of a public swimming pool as a child? Imagine touching the bottom of a pool roughly 10 times deeper, and you have the Y-40 Deep Joy Pool, located in Montegrotto Terme, Italy. Part of the Terme Millepini Hotel, the Y-40 is recognized as the deepest swimming pool in the world, featuring a vertical shaft that drops down to 42 meters (138 ft) deep and contains 4.3 million liters (1.1 million gallons) of water.
The Y-40 is far more than simply a deep hole for diving enthusiasts. The deep shaft is only part of the large pool, which features flat areas at varying depths, including a more traditional 1.3-meter (4 ft) shallow end, as well as several artificial underwater caves. The pool water itself is derived from local hot springs and kept at an average of 33 degrees Celsius (91 °F), allowing divers to swim without a wet suit. It is also possible to see the deeper parts of the pool without getting wet, as the Y-40 features a transparent viewing tunnel at a depth of 5 meters (16 ft), similar to those found at aquariums.

9:Eiksund Tunnel

 

Photo credit: Fairy Heart

The Eiksund Tunnel in Norway runs under Vartdals Fjord and connects Hareidlandet Island with the mainland. It was opened in 2008 as part of the Eiksundsambandet Project, which included other tunnels and a bridge meant to provide a permanent route between Hareidlandet and the rest of the country. Like many other tunnels in the world, Eiksund greatly reduces both drivers’ dependence on ferries and travel time in general. It travels deeper underwater than any other tunnel, reaching 287 meters (942 ft) below the surface at its deepest point, making it the deepest place underwater that it is possible to drive a car.
Construction of the 7.8-kilometer (4.8 mi) tunnel required the excavation of 660,000 cubic meters (23 million ft³) of rock, enough to fill a football field 175 meters (574 ft) high. Running under a fjord, Eiksund also features steeper gradients than most tunnels. This is said to deter some drivers, possibly due to a proven link between steeper tunnel gradients and accidents.

8:Dragon’s Breath Cave

Located in Namibia’s Kalahari Desert, Dragon’s Breath Cave is named for the humid air that is felt emanating from its entrance. In 1986, it was discovered that this humid air was due to a large underwater lake about 60 meters (197 ft) underground. With its surface spanning approximately 2 hectares (5 acres), the lake in Dragon’s Breath Cave is the largest underground lake in the world that is not locked under a glacier. The lake is not easily accessible, leaving its maximum depth still unknown. The deepest point measured so far is 91 meters (300 ft).
The extremely clear, still waters of the lake are also home to one of the rarest fish in the world, the golden cave catfish. This air-breathing species is only found in Dragon’s Breath Cave, feeding on whatever organic matter falls into the water. There are only an estimated 150 catfish in the lake, leaving them classified as critically endangered. The fish themselves lack pigment, and have small, useless eyes that are covered in skin due to the lack of any natural light.

7:Great Pagosa Aquifer

Photo credit: David

The Springs Resort and Spa in Pagosa Springs, Colorado features a number of geothermal soaking pools. For years, travelers have flocked to the pools for the reported healing effects of the high mineral content of their waters. The content is high enough that visitors are warned that drinking the water straight from the pools can have a laxative effect. Decanting the water after allowing it to settle is recommended.
These pools are fed by the Great Pagosa Aquifer, known locally as the “mother spring.” This natural hot spring is far too hot to be bathed in directly, averaging 55 degrees Celsius (131 °F) at the surface. Underground pipes carry the mother spring’s water to the resort’s various soaking pools, kept at a more manageable temperature range of 28 degrees Celsius (83 °F) to 46 degrees Celsius (114 °F). Still, soaking sessions are recommended to not exceed 10 minutes.
The mother spring averages 8 meters (25 ft) deep, but toward its middle, the geothermal waters rise from a much deeper opening. This hole at the bottom of the spring has been officially measured at 305 meters (1,002 ft), making the Great Pagosa Aquifer the deepest geothermal hot spring in the world. It should be noted that this is the official measurement, but not the true depth, which remains unknown. The measuring line ran out at 305 meters (1,002 ft), having not yet touched the bottom.

6:El Zacaton

El Zacaton, in Tamaulipas, Mexico, is recognized as the world’s deepest water-filled sinkhole. The 116-meter-wide (381 ft) hole is ringed by steep, 20-meter (66 ft) cliffs leading down to the surface of the water, which has been measured as deep as 319 meters (1,047 ft). A true sinkhole, El Zacaton was created by volcanism heating and acidifying the groundwater below the eventual site of the hole, causing it to rise and dissolve the limestone above it. This volcanism keeps El Zacaton’s waters at 30 degrees Celsius (86 °F).
El Zacaton is named for the zacate grass growing on what is possibly its most unique feature: floating islands. The sinkhole’s volcanism may be responsible for these islands via carbon dioxide carrying minerals to the surface. The islands are light enough to be pushed around the surface by wind.
The sinkhole is also a notable location for both diving and scientific research. Most divers enter Zacaton via a 17-meter (56 ft) underground tunnel from a nearby spring as opposed to descending the cliffs at the surface. Several scuba diving records have been set there, though in one tragic case, a diver died as it was too dark for his partner to see that something was wrong (only the unfortunate diver’s light could be seen). Unique extremophile bacteria have also been found in Zacaton’s depths, feeding on sulfur.

5:Superconducting Super Collider

Today, the Superconducting Super Collider (SSC) is not as impressive as it sounds. Had it been completed, it would have been a gigantic particle accelerator, its 87-kilometer (54 mi) circumference encircling the town of Waxahachie, Texas, south of Dallas. Unfortunately, the SSC went extremely over budget very quickly during its construction.
The project was approved in 1987 with an initial estimated cost of $4.4 billion, funded primarily by the US Department of Energy and the state of Texas. By 1993, the estimated total cost for the SSC’s construction had risen to $11 billion, at which point the US Congress officially ended the project. Approximately $2 billion had already been spent by then, with 24 kilometers (15 mi) of tunnel already dug. Today, the tunnels collect rainwater.
The scrapped Super Conducting Supercollider has been dubbed “the most expensive hole ever dug in human history.” It has also been argued that, had the SSC came to fruition, the Higgs particle would have been discovered earlier and may have helped the US maintain predominance in the study of particle physics.

4:Vrtoglavica Cave

Photo credit: JakobZ

Vrtoglavica (alternately spelled “Vrtiglavica”) Cave is located near the Italian border in the Julian Alps of Slovenia. Its ice-covered entrance lies 1,900 meters (6,234 ft) up Mount Kanin.
Vrtoglavica means “cave of vertigo” in Slovenian, and for good reason. A narrow, nearly vertical passage descends into the mountain, dangerous to traverse as its walls are smooth and also covered in ice. Eventually, the passage widens considerably into a very deep pit.
Vrtoglavica Cave isn’t notable for being the largest, longest, or deepest cave, but for containing the longest uninterrupted vertical drop of any cave in the world. It is possible for an object (or caver) to free-fall 603 meters (1,978 ft) before striking the bottom. This shaft also contains one of the longest underground waterfalls in the world, roughly 420 meters (1,378 ft) long, which flows from one of a number of horizontal passages that extend from the walls. The water from the fall reaches the bottom of the pit where it flows deeper underground.

3:Woodingdean Well

In 1858, in the town of Woodingdean, England, plans were drawn up for a new building to be constructed and added to a nearby industrial school for troubled juveniles. A source of water was required, but it was decided that pumping water in from elsewhere was not cost-effective. The construction of Woodingdean Well began, supplemented with adult laborers from a nearby workhouse to further lower the costs. All digging was done by hand, with buckets of earth hand-winched up to the surface.
The initial plan was for a 122-meter (400 ft) brick-lined well. After two years of digging, the well had reached 134 meters (438 ft) below the surface (and slightly below sea level), and still no water had been found. At this point, horizontal shafts were dug in four directions, also without success. The men in charge of the project refused to admit defeat, and ordered a new vertical shaft started at the end of one of the horizontal ones.
This shaft was dug for another two years with men working 24 hours a day to dig and lay bricks. The only light was from candles, and conditions were such that many men worked naked in the cramped shaft. Finally, on March 16, 1862, a bricklayer noticed that the ground at the bottom was beginning to slowly rise upwards. He and the other workers spent a tense 45 minutes climbing up and out of the well before water rushed upward, finally signaling success. After four years of stubborn digging, Woodingdean Well had reached 392 meters (1,285 ft) deep, making it the deepest hand-dug well in the world.

2:Gastein Healing Cave

Photo credit: www.vacacionesbulgaria.com

The Grand Park Hotel and Spa in Austria’s Gastein Valley features the largest pain management center in the world. Patients afflicted with chronic pain diseases such as arthritis, fibromyalgia, and gout, as well as many other chronic illnesses, flock to the Heilstollen, meaning “healing cave gallery,” located inside Radhaus Mountain. Many of them testify that their sessions in the cave provide long-term relief from their pain. The Gastein Healing Cave reports a success rate of 90 percent.
The secret to the Heilstollen’s success? Naturally occurring heat, humidity, and radon gas. Exposure to radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer.
Patients are taken roughly 2 kilometers (1.2 mi) into the mountain for 60-minute sessions in one of five chambers with conditions ranging from 37 degrees Celsius (98.6 °F) and 75 percent humidity to 41.5 degrees Celsius (106.7 °F) and 100 percent humidity. The radon is ingested through the lungs and skin, where it releases alpha radiation, which is said to stimulate cellular repair mechanisms and reduce inflammation as well as release endorphins. The hot climate of the cave’s chambers is said to further enhance the radon’s effectiveness. Patients are advised to drink plenty of water before the session due to the heat, and pregnant women are not allowed into the cave.
No level of radon gas is considered safe. Despite this, the Gastein Healing Cave is a well-accepted form of therapy and has been in operation since 1952. German and Austrian health insurance plans even cover sessions in the cave.

1:TauTona Mine

TauTona (meaning “great lion” in Setswana) is a South African gold mine which has been in operation since 1962. In 2006, work began to expand the mine, adding additional shafts to its original 2-kilometer (1.2 mi) main shaft. By 2008, the project was completed, with TauTona’s new lowest point at 3.9 kilometers (2.4 mi) below the surface, making it the deepest mine in the world. An elevator ride from the surface to the bottom takes roughly one hour.
The impressive structure contains roughly 800 kilometers (500 mi) of tunnels with 5,600 miners working them in dangerous conditions. One danger is the temperatures that the mine can reach at its record depths. The air temperature can reach 55 degrees Celsius (131 °F), while the rock face reaches 60 degrees Celsius (140 °F). Air conditioners are used to maintain a comparatively cool temperature of 28 degrees Celsius (82 °F).
In recent years, TauTona’s gold output has dropped considerably, from 13,437 grams (474 oz) in 2006 to 5,358 grams (189 oz) in 2012, at least partially due to increased seismic activity halting production and necessitating a review of mining practices. Luckily, the price of gold has largely increased since 2006.

10 Fascinating Cultures That May Soon Disappear

10The Korowai

Photo credit: Lobillo/Wikimedia

The primitive Korowai have a long tradition of cannibalism, but it’s their tree houses in southeastern Papua, Indonesia that make them fascinating. A family of up to eight people will live in a wooden house with a sago-leaf ceiling that’s built 6–12 meters (20–40 ft) above the ground on a single tree. Sometimes, a house rests on several trees with wooden poles adding support.
The Korowai live in the trees to avoid imagined attacks after dark by walking corpses and male witches on the ground. Each house physically lasts about a year. But they’re so critical to each person’s identity that time is defined by the houses that a person has lived in. For example, a unit of time may be described by the number of houses that fell apart during it. An event such as a birth, death, marriage, or killing happened at the time of a specific house. An era consists of a series of events that occurred when a series of houses were inhabited.
The Korowai usually die before middle age because they lack any kind of medicine. There are about 3,000 tribe members left. Wearing only banana leaves, these hunter-gatherers eat bananas, sago, deer, and wild boar.
Until the 1970s, when anthropologists came to study them, most Korowai didn’t know that outsiders existed. But in recent decades, the younger Korowai have drifted away to settlements built by Dutch missionaries. Soon, only old tribe members will remain in the trees. Their culture is expected to disappear within the next generation.

9The Samburu

Photo credit: Moongateclimber/Wikimedia

For hundreds of years, the Samburu roamed semi-arid northern Kenya in search of water and grass for the livestock that are their sole source of food. The Samburu are now threatened by intense droughts, and they face an ever greater threat from the Kenyan authorities. The police rape the Samburu, beat them, and burn their houses down.
The recent harassment began after two American wildlife charities bought Samburu land and gave it to Kenya to create a national park. The charities believed that they were purchasing land from a private owner, possibly former Kenyan president Daniel arap Moi. Thousands of Samburu families were forced to relocate or live like squatters on the edge of their disputed land. The Samburu are now challenging their violent eviction in court.
But life for young Samburu girls is brutal within their tribe, too. A systematic rape ritual called “beading” is supposed to prevent promiscuity in girls, some as young as six years old. A close male acquaintance, often a relative, who wants an early promise of marriage will contact the child’s parents and put a necklace of red beads on the girl. “Effectively, he has booked her,” says Josephine Kulea, a Samburu woman. “It’s like a [temporary] engagement, and he can then have sex with her. ”
The girls are forbidden from getting pregnant, but no contraceptives are used, so many become pregnant despite the taboo. The infants who don’t die naturally are killed or given away. If a girl keeps her baby, she won’t be permitted to marry when she’s an adult.
Kulea has tried to rescue some of these girls by placing them in a shelter and moving their babies to orphanages.

8The Loba

Photo credit: Boernie Fischer

Hidden in the harsh terrain of the Nepalese Himalayas is the former Tibetan kingdom of Mustang, also known as Lo. To enter its capital, Lo Manthang, is to step back in time to a 14th-century walled city steeped in a purely Tibetan Buddhist culture.
Mustang was closed to most foreigners until 1992 and was only accessible by foot or on horseback until recently. We’re now learning about its history from ancient texts, painted murals, and other religious artifacts discovered in Mustang caves built into steep cliffs.
The people of Mustang, called the Loba, live off the land with almost no modern technology and few educational opportunities for their children. But the Loba do have a history of cultural resistance against Chinese rule. When the Dalai Lama sought refuge in India in the 1960s, CIA-backed resistance fighters (called the Khampas) made Mustang their base. Eventually, the CIA stopped its support, and Nepal was pressured by China into taking military action against the Khampas. The Dalai Lama called on the Khampas to surrender. The few who didn’t committed suicide, and the resistance was formally over. China has closely watched this region ever since.
Now, China is funding a new highway between the cities of Lhasa in Tibet and Kathmandu in Nepal that will make Mustang part of a major trade route. While some of Mustang’s people welcome modernization, their leaders are concerned that their Tibetan Buddhist culture will be lost forever, especially as more residents leave the area for better jobs and education elsewhere.

7The San

Photo credit: Ian Sewell

We’ve previously looked at the San’s religious beliefs, their language and even their giraffe dance. Now, we’re going to examine the possible extinction of Africa’s first people.
The government of Botswana evicted these hunter-gatherers from the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR) in the name of conservation while permitting diamond mining, fracking, and tourism. The San (or Bushmen) were forcibly resettled into camps with goats or cattle to become herders, a lifestyle they don’t understand. Unemployment is rampant.
As Goiotseone Lobelo described it, “The police came, destroyed our homes and dumped us in the back of trucks with our belongings and brought us here. We are getting AIDS and other diseases we didn’t know about; young people are drinking alcohol; young girls are having babies. Everything is wrong here.”
The San fought the government in court and won the right to return to CKGR. But government officials only granted this to the few whose names were in the court documents. The government has also banned all hunting except on ranches or game farms, which effectively destroys the San way of life.
According to Jamunda Kakelebone, another displaced San, “Our death rate is increasing. They want to develop us. To eradicate us. Our people die of HIV and TB. When we were on our own, our death rate was low. Old people died of age. Now, we go to funerals. It’s terrifying. In 20 years, it’s going to be bye-bye, Bushmen.”

6The Awa

Before their territory was invaded, the nomadic Awa tribe had lived in harmony with the Amazon rain forest in Brazil for centuries. They were hunter-gatherers who made pets of orphaned animals. They shared mangoes with parakeets and their hammocks with coatis, which are similar to raccoons. The women sometimes breastfed monkeys and even small pigs.
Then, in 1967, American geologists on a survey mission accidentally landed their plane on the world’s largest iron ore deposit, which was in the Carajas Mountains. That led to the Great Carajas Project, a huge mining operation backed by the World Bank and industrialized nations such as the US and Japan. The Awa’s territory was invaded by loggers, ranchers, and settlers, who destroyed large swaths of the rain forest for the minerals and other resources there.
The invaders also killed many of the Awa, sometimes by shooting them and other times by giving them gifts of poisoned flour. There are only about 350 Awa left, 100 of whom have no contact with outsiders.
Finally, under pressure from rights groups such as Survival International, the Brazilian government launched Operation Awa to evict the invaders and return the dwindling Awa to their land. The question is whether Brazil will make sure the loggers and ranchers don’t return.

5The Cocopah

The Cocopah (which means “River People”) are fighting to preserve their dying culture against governments that manipulate the tribe’s access to water. These natives farmed and fished for over 500 years in the delta of the lower Colorado River, which lies in Arizona in the US and the states of Baja California and Sonora in Mexico. At one time, this people numbered around 22,000, but now they’ve dwindled to about 1,300. Only 10 native speakers remain. Traditionally, there was no written language.
Starting in 1922, the US and Mexico diverted most of the Colorado River away from the delta where the Cocopah lived. Two million acres of wetlands dried up, crippling the tribe’s ability to farm and fish. Then, during the 1980s, the US managed El Nino flooding by opening dam reservoirs, sending floodwaters surging through the delta and destroying the Cocopah’s homes. The tribe was forced to move to El Mayor, which had no water rights or arable land.
A couple of years ago, the US and Mexico agreed to let about 1 percent of the Colorado River flow to the delta in an effort to restore the wetlands. But even if that works, the Cocopah face another problem.
In 1993, the Mexican government created the Alto Golfo de California y Delta del Rio Colorado Biosphere Reserve, a conservation project that soon restricted the Cocopah’s fishing so much that they couldn’t make a living. Many members of the tribe left to find jobs elsewhere. As 44-year-old Monica Gonzalez says, “Sometimes I think our leaders talk about the Cocopah as if we had already died, but we are alive and still putting up a struggle.”

4The Mursi

Photo credit: Maurits Vermeulen

A tribe of less than 10,000 people from southwestern Ethiopia, the Mursi are known for the lip-plates worn by their women. Lip-plates are a symbol of social adulthood and potential fertility. At 15 or 16 years old, a girl has her lower lip pierced, inserting a wooden plug to hold the cut open until it heals. Over the next several months, the girl will stretch her lip with a series of increasingly larger plugs. The most persistent girls will eventually wear lip-plates of at least 12 centimeters (5 in) in diameter.
Although the Mursi are considered nomads by the Ethiopian government, they’re actually quite settled. Depending on the rainfall, they may move to find a place with water to grow crops like sorghum, beans, and maize. They also need grasslands to feed their cattle—which are not only a food source, but also a currency to trade for grain and to validate social relationships like marriage.
In recent decades, the Ethiopian government has begun large-scale development of the Mursi’s land into national parks and commercial irrigation schemes. Thousands of the tribe have been evicted. Aid agencies agree that abuses such as beatings and rapes have occurred, but not in a “systematic” way. It’s possible that some international aid to Ethiopia, though intended for local road construction and other services, is being used by the government to forcibly resettle the Mursi. This will likely destroy their traditional culture.

3The Tsaatan

The Tsaatan’s affection for and dependence on their reindeer makes them unique. The reindeer give them milk and cheese as well as transportation across the frigid mountains and taiga (a swampy forest) of their homeland in northern Mongolia.
There are only about 500 Tsaatan left. Disease and problems from inbreeding have caused their reindeer to dwindle, too. So the Tsaatan no longer wear reindeer hides or use animal skins to cover their tepees. They’re nomads, moving every five weeks to find lichen for their beloved animals.
The tribe has an uneasy relationship with tourists. Too many visitors come without an interpreter, litter the environment, and take photos as if the Tsaatan are in a zoo. It’s also important to them that tourists ride horses that won’t hurt the reindeer.
But the Tsaatan’s biggest problem is that their 3,000-year-old culture may not survive past this generation. Without the government assistance that they once relied on, the Tsaatan are struggling. The children turn to computers and other technology to prepare them to live in the modern world. Younger people are leaving the taiga for the cities, and the older Tsaatan are afraid they’ll be left alone.

2The Ladakhis

Photo credit: Michael Hardy

Imagine the most idyllic culture you can. Patience, tolerance, and honesty are held above all other values. People always help one another, and there’s no money but also no poverty. Lying, stealing, aggression, and arguments are almost unknown. Major crimes simply don’t exist. Everybody is irrepressibly happy. You’re imagining the actual Ladakh culture that existed for centuries before the modern world intruded to destroy it like the serpent in the Garden of Eden.
Of course, life wasn’t really perfect. Set high in the Himalayas in the northern Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh is a barren desert in the summer and a frozen moonscape in the winter. With few resources and no modern technology, the Ladakhis established farms, supplemented by herding. Ladakh was almost completely isolated until a road was built in 1962 to connect this area with the rest of India. But modernization didn’t have a major impact on this society until 1975, when tourism slithered in.
Then, like Adam and Eve after eating the fruit, the Ladakhis saw their nakedness (or, in this case, their primitive lifestyle) and became ashamed. They compared themselves to the free-spending tourists and the glamorous people they saw in films and on TV. For the first time, they felt poor and inferior. Their self-sustaining culture and their family structure began to break down as they chased happiness through material wealth.
As they modernize, they’re becoming selfish, competitive, frustrated, and argumentative. They’re becoming intolerant of other religions, dependent on the government, insecure, and alone in a crowded world. They’re becoming us.

1The Huaorani

Photo credit: Kate Fisher

The Huaorani have a long history of using deadly spears and blowguns against everyone else in their Amazon rain forest home in Ecuador. For them, revenge is a lifestyle.
Energy companies want to drill in the Amazon rain forest to extract the huge reserves of crude oil that lie beneath the Ishpingo-Tambococha-Tiputini (ITT) area of Yasuni National Park. Despite environmental concerns, it’s coming down to a battle between the Ecuadorian government and the Huaorani. Both sides have alternated between high-minded words and possible ransom demands whenever it suits their purposes.
In 2007, Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa proposed that governments around the world give Ecuador $3.6 billion in exchange for Ecuador not drilling the ITT. In 2013, when it became clear that world leaders weren’t paying up, Correa went to Plan B, drilling for oil. He also abandoned his commitment to protect Amazon tribes from drillers by denying that the tribes exist. Correa claims to need the Amazon oil revenue to help the poor.
As for the Huaorani, some claim that they’ll fight to the death with blowguns, machetes, and spears if oil companies drill on their land and threaten their way of life. But the Huaorani are no military match for the government.
Weya Cahuiya, who represents a Huaorani tribal organization, says, “Every time the oil companies expand, they divide us. There are fights between families because some people get things and others don’t. The government needs to pay us. All of us. They need to respect us and if they want to come in, they have to pay us or we’ll kill them.”

10 Weird Historical Coincidences

10 The “My Way” Killings

People in the Philippines love karaoke. The country is full of karaoke bars, and singing is a large part of their culture. For the most part, karaoke is a playful activity, but some people have taken it very seriously. On more than one occasion, people in the Philippines have been murdered while performing Frank Sinatra’s 1969 song “My Way.” The deaths have been called a coincidence by some because the song is a popular karaoke tune, but many Filipino karaoke bars have banned the song.
In some places, the term “videoke rage” has been used to describe deaths. In one case, 29-year-old Romy Baligula was shot to death by a security guard after he wouldn’t stop singing the song. The song has been known to spawn riots and many people refuse to sing it because of the trouble it might cause.

 

9 July 11, 1991

On July 11, 1991, a wave of unexplained UFO sightings occurred over Mexico City. The events were witnessed by thousands of people and investigated by the Mexican government. Coincidentally, the UFOs were seen during a total solar eclipse.
During the eclipse, people in Mexico City reported a large metallic disk in the sky. The object was videotaped by multiple people and broadcast on the news. The event was one of the first widely reported UFO sightings in Mexico City, and since that time, the area has become a hotbed of unexplained activity.
The connections between the solar eclipse and the UFOs have caused some to speculate that the aircraft were predicted by the Dresden Codex of the Maya calendar. The calendar identifies the July 11 eclipse as the Sixth Sun of Quetzalcoatl and says it will bring about changes and cosmic awareness. In 2010, a story appeared on the Internet that suggested the United States was keeping the events of July 11, 1991 hidden from the public. It also suggested that the US government was fighting a secret war against aliens near the continent of Antarctica.

8 Chris Benoit And Wikipedia

In June of 2007, professional wrestler Chris Benoit murdered his family and committed suicide. Benoit was a popular member of World Wrestling Entertainment, and the news of his death shocked people all over the world. Over a three-day period, Benoit strangled his wife and suffocated his seven-year-old son. He then used a weight machine to hang himself. In the wake of the tragedy, it was revealed that Benoit had previously been accused of abusing his wife and was prone to fits of rage. Some felt he might have experienced a case of “roid rage,” been a severe alcoholic, or had brain damage.
In a strange coincidence, 14 hours before the police discovered the bodies of Benoit and his family, his English Wikipedia page reported on the death of Nancy. It said: “Chris Benoit was replaced by Johnny Nitro for the ECW World Championship match at Vengeance, as Benoit was not there due to personal issues, stemming from the death of his wife Nancy.” The event has been called an “unbelievable hindrance” by the police, who seized the computer of the man who posted the information.
Chris Benoit did not leave a suicide note, but sent out a series of texts before killing himself that said: “My physical address is 130 Green Meadow Lane, Fayetteville Georgia 30215.” The circumstances surrounding his death may have been bizarre, but the evidence points to Benoit murdering his family, despite what some might think.

7Windshield Pitting And Operation Castle

Starting in April of 1954, people in Bellingham and Seattle, Washington started to report unusual holes, pits, and dings in their car windshields. The reports quickly spread to different areas of the state and thousands of people were affected. At first, it was thought to be the work of vandals, but after parking garages and secluded neighborhoods were targeted, the reports began to spread.
By April 15, 1954, close to 3,000 windshields were affected, and police released a statement indicating that 95 percent of the cases were caused by public hysteria. Others put forth the theory that the damage was being caused by the infestation of flea eggs, cosmic rays, or nuclear fallout.
On March 1, 1954, the United States started Operation Castle—a series of high-yield nuclear tests carried out at Bikini Atoll, a group of islands located in the Pacific Ocean. They are approximately 7,700 kilometers (4,800 miles) from Seattle. The initial test of Operation Castle was named Castle Bravo, and it was the first dry fuel thermonuclear hydrogen bomb detonated by the US.
After Castle Bravo was set off, it became clear that the US government had misjudged its power. It was approximately 1,000 times more powerful than each of the atomic bombs used during World War II and the nuclear fallout surrounded the island and spread quickly. The event was the most significant case of accidental radiological contamination in US history.
After Castle Bravo was detonated, five more nuclear tests were carried out in the area. The amount of nuclear fallout released into the atmosphere was difficult to measure because the data was skewed by previous explosions. By coincidence, the timeline for Operation Castle falls directly in line with the 1954 Windshield Pitting Epidemic. The city of Seattle is located in a region where it is possible that nuclear fallout from Bikini Atoll could have hit.

6 Sirente Crater And Triumph Of The Church

During the reign of Emperor Constantine, Christianity became the dominant religion of the Roman Empire. It remains unclear what caused Constantine to favor Christianity and the event has become known as the Triumph of the Church. During his childhood, Constantine was exposed to a form of Christianity by his mother Helena but wasn’t baptized until shortly before his death. Officially, Constantine and Licinius legalized Christian worship in A.D. 313.
The Sirente crater is a seasonal lake located in central Italy. It’s pretty much in the middle of nowhere. In the late 1990s, the area was studied by Swedish geologist Jens Ormö, who suggested that ridges near the site indicated the crater was formed by a bolide collision. A study performed by the Sirente Crater Group concluded that the lake was created by the impact of a meteor with the force of a small nuclear bomb.
However, other scientists have pointed to a lack of evidence for a collision and hypothesized that the lake was formed by human excavation. The area is littered with small pieces of exploded bombs and grenades, which has caused some to wonder if explosives might have played a factor.
The existence of the Sirente Crater has caused people to re-examine why Constantine converted to Christianity. Jens Ormö has noted that Constantine and his army were once camped only 60 mi (97 km) from the Sirente crater before the Battle of the Milvian Bridge. The coincidence between the two events is speculative, but still interesting.

5 Violet Jessop

Violet Jessop was an ocean liner stewardess that survived three separate disasters on Olympic-class ocean liners, including the sinking of the RMS Titanic. The three ships were the largest and most luxurious boats of the early 20th century, but coincidentally, they experienced horrible accidents early in their careers.
Violet Jessop was an Irish emigrant who worked her first job as a stewardess with the Royal Mail Line on the Orinoco. On June 14, 1911, Jessop was on the RMS Olympic when the boat crashed with the cruiser HMS Hawke. At the time of the accident, the Olympic was the largest civilian liner in the world. It took heavy damage and flooding in the crash, but was able to make it back to Southampton.
On April 10, 1912, Violet boarded the RMS Titanic on the ship’s maiden voyage. Four days later, the boat hit an iceberg and sank in the North Atlantic. During the sinking, Violet was asked to set an example for the people who did not speak English and were having a hard time following directions. She was able to board the 16th lifeboat and given a baby to look after.
After the outbreak of World War I, Jessop worked as a stewardess for the British Red Cross. On November 21, 1916, she was onboard the HMHS Britannic when the ship hit a mine and sank in the Aegean Sea. The Britannic was the largest ship to be lost during World War I, and 30 people died in the tragedy. As the ship went under, Jessop was forced to jump off her lifeboat and was pulled under the water. She hit her head on the ship’s keel, but was able to surface and be rescued. Before the Britannic was lost, Jessop made sure to grab her toothbrush because it was the one item she most missed in the aftermath of her Titanic experience.

4 Eleanor Rigby

“Eleanor Rigby” was released by The Beatles on August 5, 1966, which was a week before the band’s last commercial tour. In 1966, McCartney gave an interview about how he came up with the lyrics for the song. He said that he originally came up with the idea of “Father McCartney” but figured it was inappropriate to use his dad’s name, so looked in the phone book and found “McKenzie.” Ultimately, the name “Father McKenzie” was used in the song’s lyrics.
McCartney came up with the name “Eleanor” from actress Eleanor Bron and “Rigby” from a store in Bristol named Rigby & Evens Ltd, Wine & Spirit Shippers. In 1984, Paul was quoted: “I just liked the name. I was looking for a name that sounded natural.” In the 1980s, a grave was discovered in St. Peter’s Parish Church in Woolton, Liverpool, with the name Eleanor Rigby on it. Even more coincidentally, a few yards from Eleanor’s grave is another tombstone with the last name “McKenzie” on it.
The cemetery is located near the spot where Lennon and McCartney first met, and the two spent a lot of time in the cemetery sunbathing as teenagers. In response to the news that there was a gravestone with the name Eleanor Rigby, McCartney said that he might have been subconsciously influenced by the name on the gravestone. The coincidence is one of the most famous in rock history and gave momentum to the “Paul is dead” conspiracy.

3 Death Of Ahmad Shah Massoud And 9/11

Ahmad Shah Massoud was a military leader in Afghanistan who was assassinated on September 9, 2001—two days before 9/11. At the time of his death, Massoud was the head of the United Islamic Front (Northern Alliance) and strongly opposed the Taliban. He was a central figure in the resistance against the Soviet Union in the 1980s and became a hero in Afghanistan after the war.
On September 9, 2001, two men posing as journalists killed Ahmad Shah Massoud in a suicide bombing. The culprits placed a bomb in a camera and blew it up while meeting with the military leader. One of the assassins died in the explosion, and the other was reportedly shot and killed while trying to flee the scene. Despite an attempt by the Northern Alliance to keep the news quiet, Massoud’s death was almost immediately reported by the BBC and North American news outlets.
Several months before 9/11, Ahmad Shah Massoud gave a speech to the European Parliament that warned against a major terrorist attack in the United States. It is thought that he was murdered by Al-Qaeda to help protect Osama bin Laden and the Taliban in the wake of 9/11. Osama likely felt he could take control of the Northern Alliance with Massoud out of the picture. Al-Qaeda has never taken responsibility for the assassination.

2 Peshtigo And Great Chicago Fires

On October 8, 1871, the Midwestern United States experienced an enormous firestorm that burned 6,100 square kilometers (2,300 sq mi) of land around Peshtigo, Wisconsin. The event is the deadliest fire in US history and killed 1,500 to 2,500 people. On the same day, the United States experienced the Great Chicago Fire, the Port Huron Fire, the Holland Fire, and Manistee Fire.
The 1871 firestorm was caused by strong winds and forest fires. After gaining enough energy, the blaze quickly developed into a massive wall of fire that reached a speed of 160 kph (100 mph) and produced tornado-style winds. The fire was so hot that sandy beaches were turned to glass, and people were incinerated. The fire jumped over the waters of Green Bay and destroyed 12 separate communities in the area. It tossed rail cars and houses into the air and left thousands of people with nothing.
Some 400 kilometers (250 mi) south of Peshtigo, Wisconsin, the city of Chicago experienced one of its largest fires in history on October 8, 1871. The Great Michigan Fire also started on October 8th and burned a large number of cities in the area. When looking over the destruction, some have come to wonder what triggered the fires.
The coincidence has caught the attention of a group of researchers who have proposed that the fires were all started when Comet Biela broke up over the Midwest. Meteorites are not known to start or spread fires, as they are cold to the touch when reaching the ground. However, it has been suggested that the methane in comets could potentially ignite if the object is large enough and hits a dry patch of land that has experienced forest fires. Others have suggested that an airburst over a forest fire–riddled area could cause a massive firestorm. On October 8, 1871, people all over Wisconsin reported seeing a series of spontaneous ignitions, balls of fire, blue flames, and a lack of smoke usually representative of a firestorm.

1 Chelyabinsk Meteor And 2012 DA14

On February 15, 2013, an asteroid entered the Earth’s atmosphere over the southern Ural region of Russia and exploded. The event was witnessed by thousands of people and became the largest known airburst since the 1908 Tunguska event. The blast produced a light brighter than the Sun, and the shock wave was felt by people all over the area. The energy of the explosion was equivalent to 20-30 of the atomic bombs used at Hiroshima.
The asteroid was not detected by the authorities before the airburst, and the event surprised many people. It wounded 1,500 and damaged over 7,000 buildings. The meteor was caught on tape by multiple sources, which shows a giant fireball in the sky—followed by an enormous explosion of light. It was reported that the meteor made the ground hot, and the city smelled like gunpowder after the explosion. The event was an extremely rare occurrence and the only time in history that a meteor has been known to cause human injury.
Approximately 16 hours after the Chelyabinsk Meteor hit Russia, another asteroid named 2012 DA14 came within 27,700 km (17,200 mi) of the surface of Earth. The asteroid gained a new record for the closest passage to Earth for an object of its size (30 meters or 98 ft).
Despite the incredible rarity of the Chelyabinsk Meteor and close approach of DA14, it has been determined that the asteroids are in no way related because they had significantly different orbits. The coincidence is just crazy because the two events are so rare.

Top 10 Snipers in History

10

Thomas Plunkett

died in 1851

Was an Irish soldier in the British 95th Rifles. What makes him on of the greats is that he shot a very impressive French general, Auguste-Marie-François Colbert.
During the battle at Cacabelos during Monroes retreat in 1809, Plunkett, using a Baker Rifle, shot the French general at a range of about 600 meters. Giving the incredible inaccuracy of rifles in the early 19th century, this was either a very impressive feat, or one hell of a fluke. Well Plunkett not wanting his army buddies to think he was a bit lucky decided to take the shot again before returning to his line. So he reloaded his gun and took aim once again this time at the trumpet major who had come to the generals aid. When this shot also hit its intended target, proving that Plunkett is just one badass marksman, he looked back to his line to see the impressed faces of the others in the 95th Rifles.
Just for comparison the British soldiers were all armed with ‘Brown Bess muskets’ and trained to shoot into a body of men at 50 meters. Plunkett did 12 times that distance. Twice.


9

Sgt Grace

4th Georgia Infantry

The date was May 9th 1864, when Sgt Grace, a Confederate sniper, achieved what was considered to be an incredible shot at the time, and what is definitely the most ironic demise of a target in history. It was during the battle of Spotsylvania when Grace took aim with his British Whitworth Rifle. His target was General John Sedgwick (pictured above) and the distance was 1,000 yards. An extremely long distance for the time. During the beginning of the skirmish, the confederate sharpshooters were causing Sedgwick’s men to duck for cover. Sedgwick refused to duck and was quoted saying “What? Men dodging this way for single bullets? What will you do when they open fire along the whole line? I am ashamed of you. They couldn’t hit Elephants at this distance.” His men persisted in taking cover. He Repeated “They couldn’t hit elephants at this distance” Seconds Later Grace’s shot hits Sedgwick just under his left eye.
I swear you couldn’t write it. Sedgwick was the highest ranking Union casualty in the civil war and upon hearing his death Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant repeatedly asked “Is he really dead”.

8

Charles ‘Chuck’ Mawhinney

1949-

103 Confirmed Kills
Was an avid hunter as a kid and joined the Marines in 1967. He served in the U.S. Marine Corps during Vietnam and holds the record for number of confirmed kills for Marine snipers, exceeding that of legendary Marine sniper Carlos Hathcock. In just 16 months he killed 103 enemies and another 216 kills were listed as probable’s by the military, only because it was too risky at the time to search the bodies for documents. When he left the Marines he told no-one of his of his role during the conflict and only a few fellow Marines knew of his assignments. It was nearly 20 years before somebody wrote a book detailing his amazing skills as a sniper. Mawhinney came out of anonymity because of this and became a lecturer in sniper schools. He was once quoted saying “it was the ultimate hunting trip: a man hunting another man who was hunting me. Don’t talk to me about hunting lions or elephants; they don’t fight back with rifles and scopes. I just loved it. I ate it up.”
A routinely deadly shot from distances between 300 – 800 yards, Mawhinney had confirmed kills of over 1000 yards, making him one of the greatest snipers of the Vietnam war.

7

Rob Furlong

A former corporal of the Canadian Forces, he holds the record for the longest confirmed sniper kill in history at 1.51 miles or 2,430 metres. That’s the length of about 26 football pitches.
This amazing feat occurred in 2002, when he was involved in Operation Anaconda. His Sniper Team consisted of 2 Corporals and 3 Master Corporals. When a three man Al-Qaeda weapons team moved into a mountainside position he took aim. Furlong was armed with a .50-caliber McMillan Brothers Tac-50 Rifle and loaded with A-MAX very low drag bullets. He fired and missed. His second shot hit the enemies knapsack on his back. He had already fired his third shot by the time the second hit, but now the enemy knew he was under attack. The airtime for each bullet was about 3 seconds due to the immense distance, enough time for an enemy to take cover. However the dumbfounded militant realised what was happening just in time to take the third shot in the chest.

6

Vasily Zaytsev

March 23, 1915 – December 15, 1991

242 Confirmed Kills
Zaytsev is probably the best known Sniper in history thanks to the movie ‘Enemy At The Gates’. It is a great film and I wish I could say it was all true. However the truth only goes as far as the battle of Stalingrad. There was no Nazi Counter-Sniper Specialist in real life. Well not to the extent of the film. Here’s the truth. Zaytsev was born in Yeleninskoye and grew up in the Ural Mountains. His surname means ‘hare‘. Before Stalingrad, he served as a clerk in the Soviet Navy But after reading about the conflict in the city he volunteered for the front line. he served in the 1047th Rifle Regiment. Zaytsev ran a sniper school in the Metiz factory. The cadets he trained were called Zaichata, meaning ‘Leverets’ (Baby Hares). This was the start of the sniper movement in the 62nd army. It is estimated that the snipers he trained killed more than 3,000 enemy soldiers
Zaytsev himself made 242 confirmed kills between October 1942 and January 1943, but the real number is probably closer to 500. I know I said there was no counter-sniper, but there was Erwin Kónig. Was alleged to be a highly skilled Wehrmacht sniper. Zaytsev claimed in his memoirs that the duel took place over a period of three days in the ruins of Stalingrad. Details of what actually happened are sketchy, but by the end of the three day period Zaytsev had killed the sniper and claimed his scope to be his most prized trophy. For him to make this his most prized trophy means that this person he killed must have been almost as good as Zaytsev himself.

5

Lyudmila Pavlichenko

July 12, 1916 – October 10, 1974

309 Confirmed Kills
In June 1941, Pavlichenko was 24 and Nazi Germany were invading the Soviet Union. She was among the first volunteers and asked to join the infantry. she was assigned to the Red Armies 25th infantry Division. From there she became one of 2000 female snipers of the soviet.
Her first 2 kills were made near Belyayevka using a Mosin-Nagant bolt action rifle with a P.E. 4-power scope. The first action she saw was during the conflict in Odessa. She was there for 2 and a half months and notched 187 kills. When they were forced to relocate, she spent the next 8 months fighting in Sevastopol on the Crimean Peninsula. There she recorded 257 kills and for this feat she was cited by the Southern Army Council. Pavlichenkos’ total confirmed kills during WW2 was 309. 36 of those were enemy snipers.

4

Corporal Francis Pegahmagabow

March 9, 1891 – August 5, 1952

378 Confirmed kills
300+ Captures
Three times awarded the military medal and twice seriously wounded, he was an expert marksman and scout, credited with 378 German kills and capturing 300+ more. He was an Ojibwa warrior with the Canadians in battles like those at mount sorrel. As if killing nearly 400 Germans wasn’t enough, he was also awarded medals for running messages through very heavy enemy fire, for directing a crucial relief effort when his commanding officer was incapacitated and for running through enemy fire to get more ammo when his unit was running low.
Though a hero among his fellow soldier, he was virtually forgotten once he returned home to Canada. Regardless he was one of the most affective snipers of world war 1.

3

Adelbert F. Waldron

March 14, 1933 – October 18, 1995

109 confirmed kills
He holds the record for the highest number of confirmed kills for any American sniper in history. However it is not just his impressive kill record that makes him one of the best, but also his incredible accuracy.
This excerpt from ‘Inside the Crosshairs: Snipers in Vietnam’ by Col. Michael Lee Lanning, describes just what I’m talking about:
“One afternoon he was riding along the Mekong River on a Tango boat when an enemy sniper on shore pecked away at the boat. While everyone else on board strained to find the antagonist, who was firing from the shoreline over 900 meters away, Sergeant Waldron took up his sniper rifle and picked off the Vietcong out of the top of a coconut tree with one shot (this from a moving platform). Such was the capability of our best sniper.” Nuff Said.
If there was a scale of difficulty for shots like these, it would be next to impossible to beat. well lets try to do that anyway.
Here’s ‘white feather’….

2

Carlos Norman Hathcock II

May 20, 1942 – February 23, 1999

Nicknamed ‘Lông Trung du Kich’ (‘White Feather Sniper’)
93 Confirmed kills
Hathcock has one of the most impressive mission records of any sniper in the Marine corps. Lets forget about the dozens of shooting championships he won, during the Vietnam war he amassed 93 confirmed kills. The Vietnam army put a $30,000 bounty on his life for killing so many of their men. Rewards put on U.S. snipers by the NVA (North Vietnamese Army) typically amounted to….say $8.
It was Hathcock who fired the most famous shot in sniper history. He fired a round, over a very long distance, which went through the scope of an enemy sniper, hit him in the eye, and killed him. Hathcock and Roland Burke his spotter were stalking the enemy sniper, (which had already killed several Marines) which they believed was sent to kill him specifically. When Hathcock saw a flash of light reflecting off the enemies scope he fired at it in a split second pulling off one of the most precise shots in history. Hathcock reasoned that the only way that this was possible, would have been if both snipers were aiming at each others scopes at the same time, and he fired first. However, although the distance was never confirmed, Hathcock knew that because of the flight time, it would have been easy for both snipers to kill each other. The white feather was synonymous with Hathcock (He kept one in his hat) and he removed it only once for a mission. Keep in mind that he volunteered for this mission, but he had to crawl over 1500 yards of enemy territory to shoot an NVA commanding general. Information wasn’t sent until he was on-route. (He volunteered for a mission he knew nothing about) It took 4 days and 3 nights without sleep of inch-by-inch crawling. One enemy soldier almost stepped on him as he laid camouflaged in a meadow. At another point he was nearly bitten by a viper, he didn’t flinch. He finally got into position and waited for the general. When he arrived Hathcock was ready. He fired one round and hit the general through the chest killing him. The soldiers started a search for the sniper and Hathcock had to crawl back to avoid detection. They never caught him. Nerves of steel.

1

Simo Häyhä

December 17, 1905 – April 1, 2002

Nicknamed ‘The White Death’
705 confirmed kills (505 with rifle, 200 with submachine gun)
Was a Finnish soldier who, using an iron sighted bolt action rifle, amassed the highest recorded confirmed kills as a sniper in any war…ever!!
Häyhä was born in the municipality of Rautjärvi near the present-day border of Finland and Russia, and started his military service in 1925. His duties as a sniper began during the ‘winter war’ (1939-1940) between Russia and Finland. During the conflict Häyhä endured freezing temperatures up to -40 degrees Celsius. In less than 100 days he was credited with 505 confirmed kills, 542 if including unconfirmed kills, however the unofficial frontline figures from the battlefield places the number of sniper kills at over 800. Besides his sniper kills he was also credited with 200 from a Suomi KP/31 Submachine gun, topping off his total confirmed kills at 705.
How Häyhä did all this was amazing. He was basically on his own all day, in the snow, shooting Russians, for 3 months straight. Of course when the Russians caught wind that a shit load of soldiers were being killed, they thought ‘well this is war, there’s bound to be casualties’. But when the generals were told that it was one man with a rifle they decided to take a bit of action. first they sent in a counter-sniper. When his body was returned they decided to send in a team of counter-snipers. When they didn’t come back at all they sent in a whole goddamn battalion. They took casualties and couldn’t find him. Eventually they ordered an artillery strike, but to no avail. You see Häyhä was clever, and this was his neck of the woods. He dressed completely in white camouflage. He used a smaller rifle to suit his smaller frame (being 5ft3) increasing his accuracy. he used an iron sight to present the smallest possible target (a scoped sight would require the sniper to raise his head for sighting). He compacted the snow in front of the barrel, so as not to disturb it when he shot thus revealing his position. He also kept snow in his mouth so his breath did not condense and reveal where his was. Eventually however his was shot in the jaw by a stray bullet during combat on March 6 1940. He was picked up by his own soldiers who said half his head was missing. He didn’t die however and regained consciousness on the 13th, the day peace was declared.
Once again total kills…. 505 sniper + 200 submachine = 705 total Confirmed Kills…all in less that 100 days.

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10 Dark Truths About The Modern Writing Industry

The classic image of a writer is a hard-working, hard-drinking lone wolf who breaks big stories and rakes in a fortune. But while we don’t really expect every journalist to be Tom Wolfe or every author to be Ernest Hemingway, there’s still a huge gulf between reality and what most of us imagine professional writing to be like.

10 Battery Farming

Ask almost any hopeful young journalist where they want to be in a few years’ time, and they’ll tell you something along the lines of: “In a respected newsroom, chasing big stories.” What they will never say is “trawling Buzzfeed and Upworthy, looking for any old nonsense we can spin into an article.” Yet that fate awaits a great many of them.
Since traditional papers are losing money, their online outfits are desperately looking for easy stories. They post whatever will bring in the clicks, which usually means grabbing existing popular content. The Daily Mail is a particularly bad offender, and one reporter quit its Australian division earlier in 2014, disillusioned by its practice of “churnalism.” Aggregators such as the Huffington Post operate almost exclusively by repurposing others’ content.
More traditional newsrooms have it almost as bad. For plenty of young writers, “reporting” means rewriting press releases at high speeds for very little money, which local news sites then buy and present as fact. On the plus side, at least your real name won’t appear on it.

9Combative Click-Bait

Photo credit: Salon.com

Have you ever stumbled across an article with a title so obnoxious that you knew the author was a moron without having to read it? That moronic writer probably hates their title as much as you do, for the very good reason that they didn’t write it.
In newsrooms, the job of titling an article falls to the subeditors. Their job is to get as many people to click as possible by coming up with an arresting headline. At best, your work sits below a juicy title that attracts readers genuinely interested in your work. At worst, it sits below an actively misleading title that aims to attract readers by offending them.
For example, earlier in 2014, a writer for Pajiba.com wrote a piece entitled “Walter White, Jamie Lannister, and How We Morally Process Murder and Rape Differently.” The essay noted that rape elicits greater disapproval than other crimes in fiction, causing conflict in fans who wish to root for antiheroes. When Salon.com reprinted the story, they assigned it the headline “Why the ‘Game of Thrones’ rape scene caused fans to respond in the worst possible way.” This wrongly implied that the article criticized fans for reacting to rape (or for refusing to acknowledge it).
In 2009, the UK’s Daily Star newspaper printed a story asserting that a celebrity charged fees to attend events. This claim was questionable, but the headline was considerably worse—it read “Peaches: Spend night with me for £5k,” implying that the celebrity in question was a prostitute. She sued for libel.

8Malicious Editing

Photo credit: Daily Mail

As bad as the title of an article might be, we generally expect the actual text to be the writer’s work. We assume that any edits are minor, perhaps for accuracy. After all, no major news site would intentionally alter content to turn the author into a hate figure, would they?
Sorry, we meant that’s exactly what they’d do. In 2010, the Daily Mail bought a piece from a severely ill, housebound freelancer about how writing had saved her self-esteem and given her the confidence to reject welfare. The Mail rewrote the piece as “Middle Class and Hooked on Benefits,” removed all mentions of her illness, and made her sound like she was addicted to the government teat.
In another case, they interviewed a woman about starting a business in the countryside. They spun it into an article about women fleeing the city “in a quest for rural romance,” featuring entirely made-up quotes painting her as an adulteress.
These are far from the only examples. Editors will routinely make a writer’s opinions more extreme or remove shades of nuance to get those all-important outraged clicks.

7Bullying

In a comprehensive survey of UK news outlets, the Press Gazette uncovered an extreme culture of bullying. Rather than encouraging teamwork, editors forced reporters to steal one another’s stories. Female journalists reported that their promotion prospects were frequently tied to whether they’d have sex with their boss. One in five women reporters had been physically assaulted by their colleagues.
When the National Union of Journalists published the full results of the survey, they found that over 70 percent of all respondents on national papers had been bullied. On local papers, the figure was nearly 100 percent.

6‘Expert’ Advice

Ever turned to the Internet for advice on your finances, career, or your love life? Whoever wrote the article probably had even less knowledge than you do.
Across the web, a staggering number of specialist columns are cheaply written by people who know nothing on the subject. The website Textbroker, for example, will commission content for your website for 1.3 cents a word. And by “commission,” we mean they turn your order into an assignment and throw it open to their in-house writers, who fight to claim it and write it up as quickly as possible. The articles run around only 500 words, and the company pays all but their top writers just around a cent a word, so if writers want to make any money at all, they have little time for thorough research. The most valuable skill for writers in such a position is to make their ignorance sound like knowledge.
The result: an Internet awash with useless advice. Content mills such as eHow, according to contributors themselves, have a tradition of publishing incorrect information from freelancers who care little about the content. Even today, with content farms on the way out, most short-form articles you’ll find are being written by people with zero interest in the subject. Never take advice from an unsourced or anonymous article on the Internet.

5Nepotism And Privilege

Of course, not every writer starts out at a content farm or low-paying website. Some graduate with top-quality journalism degrees and a burning passion to be the next Bob Woodward or Carl Bernstein. But unless they’ve got the connections, they won’t likely hit the big time.
Journalism, like so many other industries, is built on contacts. Frequently, those contacts are Mom and Dad. Wealthy parents often parachute their kids into comfy internships, while talented graduates with no connections are left out in the cold.
Yet even if these unlucky saps manage to land a placement, they may not be able to get anywhere. An internship takes so much unpaid, full-time work that only the most privileged can afford to keep it up for more than a month or two. The result is an increasing number of journalists who all come from the same backgrounds, creating an echo chamber where you’ll never hear an alternative voice.
In the UK, things have gotten so bad that a government study concluded that journalism was the third-most socially exclusive profession, with only 10 percent of all reporters coming from a working-class background.

4Working For Free

Many industries ask potential employees to do a little bit of unpaid work. (Note: This never happens when you write for Listverse.) But content writing goes a step further. Try and get in at ground level, and you may be working for free forever.
Take Bleacher Report. In just five short years, it became the third-biggest sports news site on the Internet after Yahoo and ESPN. Every day, their owners are pulling in more than one million unique visitors, generating tens of millions of dollars a year. Yet they pay their writers squat. Not a penny.
Instead, prospective sports journalists earn “points.” Earn 12,000 and you get promoted to “featured columnist” and still earn nothing. You then have to earn an additional 14,000 points before they’ll even consider granting you an interview. Writing five full articles a week will earn you 50 points.
In short, their business model is a gigantic middle finger in the face of journalism. Yet it’s so successful others follow it, too. WhatCulture offers fixed rates to some writers, but it otherwise pays according to clicks, which can work out very well for a writer or extremely poorly. The Huffington Post, meanwhile, pays so little that the Los Angeles Times once compared it to “a galley rowed by slaves and commanded by pirates.”
It’s not just the writers who suffer in this scenario. By linking payment to views and productivity, websites ensure that their columnists try to crank out the most controversial articles in the fastest possible time. The result is an Internet overflowing with junk, while real, competent writers are priced out of the market.

3Dictated Content

Photo credit: Paramount Pictures

Writers often don’t choose their topics. Much of writing consists of sticking to a tight editorial vision that may be the exact opposite of what you believe.
This doesn’t just apply to journalists and columnists, either. For example, Hollywood screenwriters rarely get to choose what they write about. Instead, marketers meet to toss around ideas, liaise with a producer, and finally send the writer a pile of notes. Even people like Joss Whedon have to put up with this. Marketers forced the writers of another big franchise, Indiana Jones, to insert Shia Labeouf’s character to appeal to kids, thus making an already awful film even worse.
Crawl down the writing ladder, and you’re even less likely to be doing things your way. Instead, you may find yourself sacrificing your time and sanity to write up a story you have zero interest in.

2Abuse

Whether you find yourself writing for a national newspaper or a popular tech site, you’re guaranteed to face some insults. In some ways, it goes with the territory. But not all abuse is equal. If you’re a female journalist, expect to be deluged with messages calling for you to be raped, dismembered, and killed.
Although studies have suggested that male public figures suffer worse online abuse than female public figures in general, female writers get more hate on Twitter than male counterparts. In fact, journalism is the only field where women receive more abuse on Twitter than men. Race is also a factor, with Jewish and ethnic minority writers routinely being stalked, harassed, and threatened.
The obvious answer is to simply write your articles and pretend that social media doesn’t exist. But modern writing requires a social media presence. It’s how you translate that blog into a book deal.

1Everyone Thinks They Can Do It

Go to any large site and select any random article. Commenters underneath will moan about how they could do better. Perhaps some of them could. But most have never tried. When you actually put pen to paper, you realize that writing—even if it’s an unpaid column for Bleacher Report—is hard.
Here at Listverse, a typical article takes writers a number of hours to produce, not counting time for editing. At somewhere like Cracked.com, it takes even longer. By the time you work your way up to the New York Times, you could be spending weeks writing up a single story. At the same time, you’re calling on years of experience and practice to involve the reader and make them want to keep on reading.
Writing a good article is as difficult and rewarding as building your own furniture. Unfortunately, it’s often less impressive. On a resume, “freelance writer” may be code for “sits at home eating cheese puffs with no pants on.” To family and friends, it means, “They get up at 11:00 AM while I do a real job.”
That said, if you want to chase that dream of being a writer, click here and we can help you get started. Even if you have no experience or connections, we’ll pay you $100 for your original, quality work on a topic of your choosing.