Images That Raise More Questions Than Answers

VanishedVoyage

Images That Raise More Questions Than Answers     #ImageOrigins #DigitalMystery #TracedAndExposed #UncoveringTruth #SecretsInPixels #WhoTookThese#ImageOrigins #DigitalMystery #TracedAndExposed #UncoveringTruth #SecretsInPixels #WhoTookThese

Transcript

00:00The Russian Sleep Experiment

00:03Even for those who haven't been a part of the online horror community for a long time,

00:07these two photographs from the iconic creepypasta known as the Russian Sleep Experiment will

00:11probably look familiar.

00:13For over a decade, the Russian Sleep Experiment has ranked high on the list of the most infamously

00:17scary stories on the internet, with its influence reaching far beyond the limits of the online

00:21horror community.

00:23But despite its mass popularity, many people still don't know the origin of the disturbing

00:27images linked to the story.

00:29According to the creepypasta, during World War II, a group of researchers from the Soviet

00:33Union locked five unwilling prisoners of war in a cell and exposed them to a stimulant

00:38gas that was designed to keep them awake for 30 days, leading the prisoners to slowly slip

00:42further and further into insanity.

00:45Although the focus of the experiment was supposed to be on the effects of sleep deprivation,

00:49the legend says that after about 15 days of exposing the prisoners to the gas, the scientists

00:54opened the doors to the cell and found that the test subjects had inflicted horrible injuries

00:58on themselves, and had even started eating their own flesh.

01:02As the story goes, the prisoners had to be forcibly removed from the cell, and in the

01:05process they became violent, taking the lives of some of the scientists.

01:10Disturbingly, despite the mental and physical damage the prisoners had endured for the last

01:1415 days, they desperately begged the scientists to put them back on the stimulant gas to avoid

01:19falling asleep.

01:21As per the creepypasta, the test subjects all ended up losing their lives.

01:25The story of the Russian sleep experiment became a classic in the online horror space, almost

01:29immediately after it was uploaded to the creepypasta website in 2010.

01:33But from my research, its origins date back to even earlier than that.

01:36On August 8th, 2009, user Rip747 posted the story on his personal wordpress blog, claiming

01:43that his brother had emailed him a link with the story, and that neither of them knew who the

01:46original author was.

01:48It's very likely that the story existed even prior to this post, but without the name of

01:52the author or any other information, it's almost impossible to pinpoint the exact origin.

01:58Later that same month, the story was uploaded to the miscellaneous board of the bodybuilding

02:02forums website by user Falconpunch, and almost exactly a year later in August 2010, user Orange

02:08Soda uploaded the story to the creepypasta wiki page.

02:11Although the story earned its very own page on the creepypasta website just 6 days after

02:15was posted by Orange Soda, it wasn't until years later that the urban legend was linked

02:20to the images so famously associated with it.

02:23In March of 2013, the story got its own website, and later that same year the story was read

02:27aloud in a video posted by the YouTube channel I Read Creepypastas, which was possibly the

02:32first time the black and white images were used in connection to the legend.

02:36One of the images shows a group of four men standing against a wall wearing different

02:40types of gas masks, with the men in the image representing the Russian scientists in the

02:44fictional story.

02:46The other photograph shows a horribly emaciated humanoid creature with sunken, deteriorated

02:51features staring eerily into the camera with a terrifying smile.

02:55Since its upload, I Read Creepypasta's video has received over 34 million views on YouTube,

03:00which has led even more users to search for the original author of the story.

03:04In 2015, a British writer known as Holly Ice published a book named Russian Sleep Experiment.

03:10Many people believed that she was the original author of the Creepypasta story, but she later

03:14revealed that she had only used the original Creepypasta as inspiration.

03:18As I was digging in various online forums for possible clues regarding the original author

03:23of the Russian Sleep Experiment, I found a Reddit thread in which user NothingCrazy claims

03:27ownership of the story, stating that the myth was originally posted to 4chan.

03:32However, as the user doesn't offer any proof, it's difficult to confirm whether this is

03:36true or not.

03:37It's possible that we'll never know who wrote the original story.

03:40But Creepypasta aside, what are the origins of the disturbing images that became linked

03:44to the Russian Sleep Experiment?

03:46Although many people assumed that the image of the test subject sitting on the edge of the

03:49bed was a real photograph from a World War II prisoner of war, the reality is actually

03:54much less disturbing.

03:56If the black and white filter is removed from the image, the prisoner starts to look a lot

03:59less like a person and a lot more like a sculpture or a decoration.

04:04And as it turns out, that's pretty much exactly what it is.

04:07In 2005, a Halloween decoration company named Morbid Enterprises created a humanoid animatronic

04:13by the name Spasm as a part of their preparations for the Halloween season.

04:18When activated, the animatronic shook violently and emitted a disturbing groaning sound.

04:23Up until 2015, the figure of a deranged prisoner in a straitjacket could be bought in Halloween

04:27stores or online, but the product has since been discontinued.

04:31Spasm's terrifying appearance and exaggerated features made it the perfect candidate for

04:36a test subject in the story of the Russian Sleep Experiment.

04:39As for the photograph of the four men in gas masks, the first occurrence I found of this

04:43image was on a 2008 Amazon listing of a picture frame in which the black and white picture

04:48was featured as a sample image.

04:50It's unclear why this particular photograph was used, but because the listing was taken

04:54down several years ago, there's really no useful information on this page.

04:58The only explanation for the photograph I found was on a historical archive website called

05:03Grainger.com.

05:05In 2013, the image of the four men was uploaded with the caption, World War I Gas Warfare, American

05:11soldiers demonstrating the different types of gas masks worn by, left to right, US, British,

05:16French, and German troops.

05:19The image dates back to 1917.

05:21Ultimately, the way in which two completely unrelated images that were taken 100 years

05:26apart were used to complement a story about a fictional experiment carried out during World

05:30War II is a testament to the endless creativity of the online horror community.

05:35Although the story behind the image is obviously fake, the fact that most of the articles

05:39written about the Russian Sleep Experiment today are attempts to investigate the validity

05:43of the story or to debunk it as a hoax says a lot about the story's effectiveness.

05:47Whereas most creepypastas are usually immediately written off by mainstream media as obvious hoaxes,

05:52the story of the Russian Sleep Experiment has received attention from news outlets worldwide.

05:57Without the mass notoriety of the disturbing images linked to this story, it's safe to

06:01say that the creepypasta genre wouldn't be as popular as it is today.

06:07In the early 90s, the show Barney and Friends aired for the first time on PBS, and it didn't

06:13take long for the purple dinosaur to become a favorite among the show's young preschool

06:17audience.

06:18Thanks to the show's emphasis on the value of friendship and the cast of iconic characters,

06:23Barney has become a pop culture icon whose legacy endures to this day.

06:27Although Barney is usually associated with innocence and happy childhood memories, there

06:31is one particular image on the internet that portrays the friendly dinosaur in a much creepier

06:36light.

06:37The image in question shows a small, happy looking child in a red and blue jacket standing

06:41on the grass, while an unsettling figure of what appears to be a person in a Barney costume

06:46lurks in the background.

06:49Barney's lifeless black eyes, distorted smile, and generally off-putting appearance have disturbed

06:54many viewers into scouring the corners of the internet in search of an explanation for

06:58the eerie photograph.

07:00Like many creepy pictures, the origins of the image can be traced back to the online forum Reddit,

07:04where it was posted in the r slash creepy subreddit in 2016 by user Radioactivit with the caption,

07:10A creepy photo of my friend when he was young.

07:13The caption on the Imgur page the user links to reads,

07:17My friend was going through some of his photos of his younger self and found this gem.

07:21Upon closer inspection, it appears that the image was taken from a photo album.

07:26After dozens of people commented on the creepy nature of the image on the original post,

07:30the uploader posted the comment,

07:32I don't know a whole lot about the photo, currently my friend is at work, but once he

07:35gets home I'll bug him to tell us everything he knows.

07:38Unfortunately, the post was never updated, and no new information on the image ever came

07:42to light.

07:43Other than the original Reddit post, there isn't really a lot of context on the image anywhere

07:47else, and all we can assume is that the creepy Barney figure was somebody's attempt

07:51at a costume, perhaps for a birthday party or something else.

07:55Some of the comments on the post seem to echo that theory, but if that's not the case,

08:00then what exactly is going on in this unsettling image, we'll likely never know.

08:06Shadow Woman

08:08On July 10th, 2020, Reddit user GrizzlyPanda5 uploaded an unsettling image that immediately

08:13sparked an online frenzy, with hundreds of users desperately searching for the origins

08:18of the strange photograph.

08:19The image shows two children looking down from a window.

08:22The girl smiles innocently, but the boy next to her stares at the camera with an emotionless

08:26expression.

08:28Behind them stands the dark silhouette, or shadow, of a woman staring into the distance

08:32with a pair of eyes that, for some reason, are the only visible features on her entire

08:37body.

08:38As most viewers noticed, the lighting of the image obviously doesn't make any sense.

08:42Even though the woman is standing behind the children, she's close enough to the window

08:45for the light to make her features visible.

08:47In this case, all we see is a shadow and a creepy pair of eyes.

08:51While researching the origins of the photograph, I noticed the name Tales of Terror from Tokyo

08:55coming up repeatedly in connection to the image on various online forums.

09:00Tales of Terror from Tokyo is a Japanese horror TV show that aired from 2003 to 2005, and according

09:06to several users, the origin of this particular image can be traced back to one of the episodes

09:10on the show.

09:11However, this isn't exactly true.

09:14Although there is a connection between the image and the show, it didn't come directly

09:17from an episode in the series.

09:20As it turns out, the image is actually from a scene in a Japanese short film whose title

09:24translates to, Only the Two of Us.

09:27Only the Two of Us was released in 2005 as a spin-off to the original Tales of Terror

09:31from Tokyo series, and follows the story of a high school tutor and her student who find

09:35themselves trapped in a series of disturbing paranormal events.

09:39In the scene that this image was sourced from, a girl walks past an apartment complex and waves

09:43of the children looking down from the window.

09:46Seconds later, the mysterious shadow appears behind them.

09:49It's worth noting that the shadow's eyes in the reddit image were not a part of the original

09:53scene, and were most likely edited in by the uploader to make the image more disturbing.

09:58Due to its obscure origins and generally disturbing quality, this creepy picture has come to be recognized

10:03by many as one of the most infamous cursed images of the decade.

10:08The Wooden Bathtub

10:11This bizarre image of what appears to be a man covered in a questionable brown liquid

10:15inside a wooden bathtub has been circulating on various websites and online forums for the

10:20past few years, and has become a classic in the cursed image genre.

10:24The photograph was originally posted in the dank memes from Site19 subreddit by user ermyboy,

10:30along with the caption, SCP-106 in a docile state within containment.

10:36It's worth mentioning that this entire subreddit is dedicated to posting memes about the SCP Foundation.

10:42If the term sounds unfamiliar, SCP Foundation is a collaborative internet-based fiction project

10:47about a fictional government agency that secures, contains, and protects the population

10:52from strange monsters, thus the acronym SCP.

10:56The roots of the fictional SCP Foundation can be traced all the way back to 4chan, and it's

11:01basically an evolved version of the creepypasta website.

11:04If you go far enough down the rabbit hole, you'll find some pretty complex and detailed

11:08entries written by random people on the internet.

11:11Part of the allure of the website is that anyone can get an account on the SCP wiki and write

11:15a horror story about a fictitious monster framed as an entry in the agency's database, which

11:20is a big part of the reason why SCP Foundation has gained such a massive following.

11:25Every entry in the database is given a number to classify it, and according to the website,

11:30SCP-106 corresponds to a character known as the Old Man.

11:34As the name suggests, SCP-106 is described as an elderly humanoid that has the power to

11:39corrode anything it touches.

11:41In the SCP lore, the Old Man is usually depicted with a layer of brown, mucus-like liquid, which

11:47might explain the reference to the character in the original image posted on Reddit.

11:51Although we don't know anything about the man portrayed in the wooden bathtub image, there

11:55seemed to be several clues across various websites as to where the picture was taken.

12:00On a Russian social media website called VK, which is similar to Facebook, a user named

12:04Alexander Belikov posted an image of himself submerged in a brown liquid in a wooden tub.

12:10Obviously, the pictures were taken from different angles, but based on the shape of the tiles

12:14on the walls, the wooden bathtub, and the overall aesthetic of the room, it's highly

12:18likely that the two images were taken in the same location.

12:22According to Alexander Belikov's post, this image was taken in some sort of spa or healthcare

12:26center in Poland, where one of the available therapeutic procedures is to be submerged in

12:31a bathtub full of mud that's heated up to 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

12:35This type of treatment is actually not uncommon in the holistic space, and in the past couple

12:39of decades, mud therapy has become pretty popular due to its multiple health benefits.

12:44Although this image has been creeping people out since its original upload, it's really

12:47just a picture of a man taking a mud bath at a holistic health center.

12:51The man's abnormal face expression could be due to the effects that were added to the image

12:55before it was posted, but it's also possible that the image was planned to be creepy or funny

12:59by the man and the person taking it.

13:03If you've ever gone digging around for creepy images on the internet, there's a good chance

13:09you've heard of the name Eyeless Jack at some point.

13:12Even if you haven't, there's still a high chance you've come across this chilling image

13:16of a man in a tight, dark hoodie and a white mask with large black holes for eyes towering

13:21over what we can only infer to be a bed.

13:24The image of Eyeless Jack first emerged on the online forum 4chan on June 7th, 2010,

13:29when a user named Arnon published a post titled Nightmare Fuel, which contained images of disturbing

13:34creatures from video games and various other sources.

13:38One of the images that was featured in the post was the original picture of Eyeless Jack,

13:43which has continued to haunt viewers since its original upload in 2010, and it's not too

13:47hard to see why.

13:49Although the image was reposted all over the internet from the moment it was first made

13:52public, it wasn't until 2012 that an official story was written to go along with the picture.

13:58The story itself was written by a wakia user named Adzel5000, which includes a fictional

14:03first person account of an encounter with Eyeless Jack.

14:06The original account reads,

14:08I was staring face to face with a creature with a black hoodie and a dark blue mask, with

14:13no nose or mouth staring down at me.

14:15The thing that scared me the most was that it had no eyes, just empty black sockets.

14:21The creature also had some black substance dripping from its sockets.

14:25According to the original story, Eyeless Jack was once a normal 19-year-old kid named Jack

14:29Nyriss, who was used by a cult as a human sacrifice in a terrifying ritual that involved

14:34the removal of his eyes and a liquid mixture of tar and blood being poured into his sockets.

14:40As the myth states, something went horribly wrong during the sacrifice, and Jack was turned

14:44into the creature in the image.

14:46The creepypasta associated with the picture mentions that after the sacrifice, Eyeless

14:50Jack became a serial killer with the ability to sneak into people's houses and surgically

14:55remove their kidneys without them waking up.

14:58According to the urban legend, by the time people would wake up the next morning, Eyeless

15:01Jack would have already eaten their kidneys.

15:04As it usually happens with creepypastas, the horrifying story of Eyeless Jack quickly gained

15:08traction across various online platforms, leading hundreds of users to expand on the original

15:13version and create their own adaptations.

15:16Although the image quickly became one of the most popular mainstream creepypastas in history,

15:20the actual creator of the original image was still a mystery.

15:23It wasn't until February 2020 that Twitter user PirateCashew claimed to ownership by posting

15:28the original image with the caption,

15:30My friend took it and uploaded it anonymously, and someone took that and used it for Eyeless

15:34Jack.

15:35I did not find out about it until like a couple years ago.

15:39This is the unblurred background version to prove it, never been posted before.

15:44PirateCashew is an artist and digital creator from the UK, with a decent sized following

15:48on Twitter, and it's intriguing how one of her random creations inadvertently ended up

15:52turning into one of the most valuable pieces of internet history in the horror genre.

15:57To this day, users have continued adding their own twists on the story of Eyeless Jack, solidifying

16:01the characters status as the face of one of the most widely known creepypastas of all time.

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