Behind some of YouTube's most fascinating channels are mysterious stories of creators who suddenly disappeared, stopped uploading, or abandoned their online presence without explanation. From unsettling final videos to strange disappearances and unexpected controversies, discover the disturbing reasons why these once-active YouTube channels were left behind. What really happened to these creators? Some stories are more unsettling than you might expect!
#YouTube #AbandonedYouTubeChannels #DisturbingStories #YouTubeMysteries #InternetMysteries #CreepyYouTube #MysteriousDisappearance #UnsolvedMysteries #ForgottenChannels #DarkInternet #CreepyStories #InternetHistory #YouTubeCreators #LostMedia
#YouTube #AbandonedYouTubeChannels #DisturbingStories #YouTubeMysteries #InternetMysteries #CreepyYouTube #MysteriousDisappearance #UnsolvedMysteries #ForgottenChannels #DarkInternet #CreepyStories #InternetHistory #YouTubeCreators #LostMedia
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00:00Michael Cravey was a 28-year-old YouTuber from Gainesville, Florida, better known online as
00:04Thomas Brinkley. His channel was relatively small, with around 1,900 subscribers and over 270 videos
00:11covering a wide range of topics. Some of his uploads were fairly ordinary. He posted personal
00:17vlogs, talked about video games, and even made a tutorial showing men how to cut their own hair
00:21with scissors. By it, mixed in with these everyday videos was some rather unusual content.
00:27Michael frequently discussed politics and historical events, rarely taking the accepted
00:32version of events at face value. And in some of his videos, these discussions took a much stranger
00:37turn. One subject he kept returning to was the 2012 Aurora Movie Theater shooting in Colorado,
00:43where James Holmes killed 12 people and injured dozens more. Michael questioned what had really
00:48happened that night, and in one video made a claim so bizarre that it revealed just how far his
00:52thinking had spiraled. Outside YouTube, Michael filled his time working on modifications for
00:56the video game Deuce X Invisible War, which explored themes of secret organizations and global
01:01conspiracies. By it, these weren't just theories Michael liked discussing. His own channel description
01:07revealed just how far his beliefs had gotten. Instead of a typical introduction, Michael had filled
01:11it with a long list of bizarre claims about major historical events, including the sinking of the
01:16Titanic, the September 11 attacks, and the moon landing. He believed these events were connected to
01:20hidden political agendas. And these weren't just things he mentioned in passing. Michael would make
01:25lengthy videos discussing these theories in considerable detail. He spent a significant
01:30amount of time talking about the September 11 attacks, questioning the official account,
01:34and arguing that the whole event was part of a much larger conspiracy.
01:37He's going to come up and there's, they're going to act like he's, they don't know each other. All three
01:41of these guys know each other. All right. And man in black one has now put his hand up to
01:46his ear as though he had a earpiece in. We're going to watch this again. That hand comes up, reaches
01:53for the ear. There's some minor communication between these two right before they spin around. And boom, all three guys
01:58are looking down the road. Why? Because they had just received audio information that there's stuff coming down the road.
02:04Okay. So they're all connected in the same earpiece. That's kind of
02:07strange that all three of these guys would be in the same earpiece. By it, his theories about the Aurora
02:11shooting went even further. Michael believed intelligence agencies had orchestrated the attack
02:16to justify stricter gun control lies and that James Holmes had been recruited into the operation only
02:20to be left taking the blame. What made his videos particularly strange was that Michael didn't just
02:25believe he had uncovered the truth about the Aurora incident. He was convinced that his own research had
02:29seriously disrupted the operation and in one video made an extraordinary claim about just how much damage he'd caused.
02:35I feel like I have to say this. I literally reached my hand into the rib cage of the Aurora
02:44thing and those
02:46related entities and grabbed a hold of the beating heart and ripped it out. Okay. Like the only way that
02:57you will even know how big of a deal the Aurora thing crashed in their face is if you like,
03:05go through my channel religiously. What I mean here is that I obviously, if I was right, was catching the
03:14attention of the powers that be and doing so in a way that it was freaking them out. Michael also
03:20began
03:20suspecting that powerful people were deliberately preventing his videos from reaching a wider audience.
03:25In another upload, he warned his viewers to trust only what he said in his videos, claiming that Twitter and
03:29other powerful organizations were trying to silence him.
03:33Okay, so this is actually very, very serious. Basically, I'm being massively abused by the power
03:42structure apparently. Twitter apparently is involved. Twitter, you know, but it's all one big grid.
03:51Basically, do not trust anything coming from me outside of me on video.
04:02By this point, Michael seemed convinced that his videos had made him a target. The paranoia eventually
04:07grew strong enough that he started leaving chilling warnings in his YouTube descriptions,
04:11telling his followers to retaliate if they kill him. And on the morning of March 3rd, 2014,
04:17Michael would find himself in a situation eerily similar to the one he'd been fearing. Only,
04:21things would unfold very differently from how he'd imagined. At around 6.30am, Michael left his home,
04:27leaving behind a note saying he was going for a drive around Gainesville. Half an hour later,
04:31he arrived at the University of Florida, where an employee named Clifford Preston was sitting in
04:35his car with his wife, Becky, in a parking lot near Lee Hall. He approached the couple,
04:39and asked Clifford whether he had a gun. Clifford told him he didn't, and Michael walked away.
04:44By it, moments later, he returned, this time asking about a man named Mike Potter. Clifford had no
04:50idea who he was talking about, and before he could make sense of this strange encounter,
04:54Michael suddenly pulled a folding knife from his pocket and attacked him. Though Clifford was
04:58stabbed multiple times, he fortunately survived. By then, Michael had already left the scene in his
05:03black Jeep. A few hours later, he crashed into a vehicle before fleeing on foot toward a nearby
05:08shopping plaza. Shortly after 10am, an officer spotted Michael outside a Best Buy store. Only now,
05:14he was carrying a hatchet. The officer ordered him to drop it, but Michael refused and instead began
05:19advancing toward him with his hatchet raised. He was shot at the scene, and later died from his
05:24injuries at the hospital. Michael's fear of his own death had become a reality, but the
05:29circumstances were nothing like what he'd spent years warning his viewers about. Still, some of
05:33Michael's more devout followers believed he'd been silenced for his conspiracy theories, but others
05:38suspected something far more likely. Michael was very clearly off the deep end when it came to his
05:43beliefs, and many thought his actions were a clear sign of a man's deteriorating mental state
05:48finally hitting its breaking point. And one detail from the stabbing made that possibility
05:52particularly disturbing. A witness recalled seeing Michael laughing as he chased Clifford with a knife.
05:58She initially thought the two men were joking, until she saw Michael brutally stab him before her
06:03own eyes. Although, it's still unclear whether Michael's obsession with conspiracies drove his mental
06:08decline or whether his declining mental health fueled that obsession in the first place. Today, Michael's
06:13channel is still up, sitting abandoned with hundreds of old videos documenting his increasingly disturbing
06:18beliefs. Yet, his most view to upload remains a simple haircut tutorial, offering a glimpse into
06:24his ordinary life before his own thoughts consume the man he once was.
06:32Christian Palma was a 24-year-old Mexican rapper who ran a YouTube channel called QBA Official.
06:38He had grown up in Santa Cecilia, a troubled neighborhood in Guadalajara, Mexico, where drugs,
06:43poverty, and violence were part of everyday life. He'd been passionate about music since he was a
06:48teenager, and in November 2015, he began uploading his songs to YouTube under the stage name QBA.
06:54Most of his music was about the struggles of street life, often touching on the dangers and
06:58hardship of growing up in a rough neighborhood. And his music seemed to resonate with people.
07:03Over the next few years, Christian built up a considerable following, with some of his music
07:07videos attracting millions of views. By April 2018, he had more than 120,000 subscribers
07:13on YouTube, and was becoming a recognizable name in Mexico's underground rap scene.
07:17He'd even started getting invitations to perform in different cities, and it seemed like his dream
07:21of making a living from music was coming together.
07:24Despite his growing popularity, Christian was struggling financially.
07:28Even with millions of views, his YouTube channel reportedly earned him no more than $300 a month.
07:33And with a wife and children to support, that wasn't nearly enough.
07:36So, alongside his music, Christian took on whatever work he could find, from construction and tattooing,
07:42to repairing cars at a local shop. The workshop was run by a man known as El Cochi.
07:47But after some time, El Cochi offered him a different job, paying around $160 a week.
07:53It was considerably more than Christian was making on YouTube, so he accepted.
07:57What he didn't know was that this job would eventually put him at the center of one of Mexico's
08:02most disturbing criminal cases. On March 19, 2018, three university students, Javier Salomon Aceves,
08:10Jesus Daniel Diaz, and Marco Francisco Garcia, were heading home after filming a school project
08:15near Guadalajara. But on their way back home, their vehicle broke down, leaving them stranded on the road.
08:20And while they were waiting, several armed men arrived, pretending to be police officers.
08:25They forced the three students into their vehicles and drove away.
08:28This would be the last time the three boys were ever seen alive. Over the next few weeks,
08:33thousands of people took to the streets, demanding an explanation for their disappearance.
08:37And as investigators began piecing together their final movements, they discovered that
08:41the students had unknowingly found themselves caught in a conflict between two rival drug cartels.
08:46The house where they'd been filming their school project ad was being watched by members of the
08:50Jalisco New Generation Cartel, who believed it was being used by a rival gang called Nueva Plaza.
08:55So, when the three students left the property, the men mistook them from members of the rival
08:59cartel and took them hostage to a nearby house, where they were beaten and interrogated for
09:04information they knew absolutely nothing about. One of the students lost his life from the beatings
09:09during the interrogation, while the other two were killed shortly after. But the cartel now needed
09:14someone to dispose of the bodies. And that person turned out to be Christian. His boss,
09:20El Cochi, wasn't just running an automotive workshop. He was also involved with the Jalisco
09:24New Generation Cartel, and the better paying job he'd offered Christian had nothing to do with
09:29repairing cars. Instead, Christian had been recruited as what the cartel called a cook. His job was to
09:36dispose of the bodies of people killed by the cartel, using acid to destroy their remains.
09:40In the early hours of March 20th, Christian was called to a house where the three students' bodies
09:45had been taken. He later admitted to dissolving the remains in acid, and claimed he'd done this
09:50to other victims on two previous occasions. On April 22nd, 2018, he was arrested. And when
09:57investigators learned about his YouTube channel, his music began attracting attention for an entirely
10:01different reason. For years, he'd been rapping about the terrible gang violence, killings, and the
10:06darker side of street life. By it now, some of those songs seemed to hint at the very things he
10:12himself had been doing away from the camera. The legal proceedings would drag on for another six
10:16years, until May 16th, 2024, when Christian and four other men, including his former boss El Cochi,
10:23were sentenced to 75 years in prison for their connection to the student's disappearance.
10:28Today, Christian's YouTube channel is still up, filled with videos that now serve as a disturbing
10:32foreshadowing of the crimes he would eventually become involved in.
10:39On September 26th, 2006, a teenager named William Norton from Joplin, Missouri created a YouTube
10:45channel called Wildebeest88883333. Will enjoyed making videos, and his channel gave him a space to
10:53share his experiences and experiment with filmmaking. His uploads covered just about anything that
10:58interested him, from comedy sketches to vacations and everyday moments with his friends. There wasn't
11:04really one particular theme to his channel. Will simply enjoyed filming the things he'd experienced
11:09and sharing them with others. And, as he grew older, filmmaking became something he wanted to
11:14pursue beyond YouTube. But, while most of his videos captured the fun parts of his life,
11:19one of his uploads stood out for a particularly disturbing reason. On May 12th, 2009, Will uploaded a
11:25video titled, I Nearly Died, in which he described the frightening experience while trying to get to
11:30school during a storm.
11:31It's May 8th, 2009, and today, I nearly died. I wake up this morning and it is storming like crazy.
11:37I can hear the hail on the roof. I look out my window, the pool is going crazy because there's
11:41so
11:41much water flowing into it. The trees are crazy. It's still, it's dark outside and it's like 720.
11:46So, I get ready really fast and I rush to school out the door and then I'm leaving for school
11:51and
11:51there is just tons of rain. And it's like, every street is just like one entire puddle. You could just
11:57see
11:57metal business signs just crumpled up in balls. It was crazy. And they were flying everywhere.
12:02There were so many ambulances of police cars out and then they were directing traffic. I've never
12:06like had it so bad where the cops were actually directing traffic where to go. Anyway, I made it
12:11safely home and I think I'm just going to go take a nap for the rest of my life because
12:16I didn't die.
12:17I, oh my gosh, my, yeah, I'm done. I am done. I'm never driving in weather again, ever.
12:24Will had narrowly escaped that day. By it, just two years later, he would find himself in another
12:30disturbingly similar situation. As he got closer to finishing high school, Will had been accepted
12:35into Chapman University to study film and media arts, something he'd wanted to pursue for years.
12:40On May 22nd, 2011, Will attended his high school graduation ceremony. By it, as he and his father
12:46were driving back home, the weather in Joplin began to take a turn for the worse. Dark clouds had
12:51gathered over the city and a powerful storm was approaching. For Will, it was an unsettlingly
12:56familiar situation to what he had experienced two years earlier. By it, this time, his vehicle
13:01was caught directly in the path of a massive tornado right before they reached home. It was a multi-vortex
13:07EF5 tornado, the seventh deadliest and most destructive in US history. It tore through the
13:13city with winds reaching over 200 miles per hour, destroying homes, businesses, and anything else that
13:19came in its way, including the car that Will and his father were in. When rescuers arrived,
13:23they found Will's father severely injured and trapped inside the wreckage of the car.
13:27He was rushed to the hospital where he had to stay for nearly two weeks,
13:31but Will himself was nowhere to be found. He was reported missing and his family spent the next
13:36five days searching for him, checking hospitals and following up on reports from people who thought
13:41they might have seen him. Sadly, on May 27th, his family received the tragic news. Will's body was
13:47found in a pond near where their car had come to rest. As it turned out, when the tornado tossed
13:52his vehicle through the air, Will's seatbelt had snapped and the powerful winds had pulled him
13:56through the sunroof. His father had tried to hold onto him, but the force of the tornado was too much
14:00for him to handle alone. Today, Will's YouTube channel sits abandoned, its many uploads standing
14:05as a reminder of the cheerful life he once lived. But among them, his I Nearly Died video now serves
14:12as a truly disturbing foreshadowing of the tragic events that were to come.
14:20George Alfred Sedini was a 48-year-old computer programmer from Scott Township near Pittsburgh,
14:26Pennsylvania. On March 1st, 2008, George published his first video on his YouTube channel,
14:33MOSB46PGH. The video was titled, How George Pittsburgh Lives. It was essentially a tour of his
14:39home where George walked around filming different rooms, pointing the camera at furniture and
14:43electronics while describing what he was showing. He spoke in a rather flat, matter-of-fact tone,
14:48rarely showing much emotion. This is my house from the street. Here is my car. This is a two-bedroom
14:57brick
14:57ranch, conveniently located. My car is an 07 Ultima. I paid $79,000 for this in 1996. That's considered
15:10a lot, believe it or not. Here's my big screen TV, 32-inch. It's my computer. The computer is connected
15:21to the stereo, which I listen to my mp3s and everything else.
15:25At the time, there was nothing particularly unusual about the video. It was simply a man
15:30showing viewers around his house. But just over a year later, it would take on a much more disturbing
15:36meaning. Looking at the video, there's one important detail that provides some context
15:40about George's personal life. At one point during the tour, George briefly pans his camera over two
15:45books lying on his coffee table. One of them is titled, How to Date Young Women for Men Over 35.
15:51The title of the book was unsettling on its own, but the extent of George's fixation on it was
15:56even more concerning. Apparently, he claimed to know the entire thing, word for word.
16:02George had been struggling to find a romantic partner, and this book was a part of his attempts
16:06to change that. He even attended dating seminars, where he was given an assignment to make his home
16:10more appealing to women. And that first YouTube video he uploaded was part of the assignment.
16:15The idea was to show what his home looked like and whether it was a place women would want to
16:19spend their time. Okay, couch and chair, they match. The woman will really be impressed.
16:27Extra computer here, they're networked. I'll show you the Cat 5 connections downstairs.
16:34Okay, there's, looks pretty clean. I'm sure she'll be impressed.
16:38But despite his efforts, George was still struggling to find a relationship. And in the next video he
16:44uploaded, his loneliness became much more apparent. This time, he recorded a message from his basement
16:49titled, Hide From Emotion. It was an incredibly sad video where George explained how he dealt with his
16:55loneliness by going on long drives and keeping himself busy with mundane tasks, just to get through
17:00the day. It is easy for me to hide from my emotions for one more day. Take a long drive
17:07in the car,
17:08listen to some music, daydream, or just do some mundane tasks around the house that really doesn't
17:16need to be done, that's not too important. And there you go, one more day. And one more day turns
17:21into one
17:22more year. But while this was his last video on his channel, George's online presence was far from over.
17:28On his personal website, georgesedini.com, he had been keeping a blog where he mostly wrote about
17:34the same struggles. But unlike his YouTube videos where he appeared relatively calm,
17:38his blog entries revealed just how frustrated he'd become. On May 18th, 2009, he wrote,
17:44Women just don't like me. There are 30 million desirable women in the U.S. and I cannot find one.
17:51Not one of them finds me attractive. These problems have gotten worse over a 30-year period.
17:56All through the years, I thought we had the ability to change ourselves. I guess that is incorrect.
18:01As time went on, his post became even more disturbing. He was no longer just writing about
18:05his loneliness and frustration. He had begun referring to something he was planning to do,
18:10and his apparent determination to go through with it. On August 3rd, 2009, he wrote,
18:15I took off today, Monday, and tomorrow to practice my routine and make sure it is well polished.
18:20I need to work out every detail. There is only one shot. Also, I need to be completely immersed
18:25into something before I can be successful. I haven't had a drink since Friday at about 2.30.
18:30Total effort needed. Tomorrow is the big day. Unfortunately, I talked to my neighbor today,
18:35who is very positive and upbeat. I need to remain focused and absorbed completely. The last time I tried
18:41this in January, I chickened out. Let's see how this new approach works. The next day, on August 4th,
18:472009, at around 8.15pm, George entered the LA Fitness Center in Pittsburgh carrying a duffel bag
18:53full of weapons. He made his way into a women's aerobics class, where he turned off the lights
18:58and opened fire on the people inside. The incident took the lives of three innocent women while badly
19:04injuring nine others. George himself also lost his life. During the investigation, police recovered
19:10notes from George's gym bag and home, which revealed more of the same anger and resentment
19:14he'd expressed on his website. George had spent nearly three decades trying to find companionship,
19:19and over time, his frustration had grown into a deep resentment toward women. In his writings,
19:24investigators also found that he'd been planning the attack for months before finally carrying it out.
19:29Looking back, George's YouTube channel takes on a much more disturbing meaning. It captures a man
19:35making some of his last attempts to find companionship, before his loneliness and growing
19:39resentment slowly stripped away what was left of his sanity. Today, his channel remains abandoned,
19:44with just two videos offering a glimpse into the life he led before the horrific attack.
19:52On October 3rd, 2010, a strange video was uploaded to the YouTube channel Star Hitschnaz,
19:58titled, America, Your Last Memory in a Terrorist Country. It showed a masked man burning an American
20:04flag in what appeared to be a remote stretch of desert. The video runs for about seven minutes,
20:09before ending without providing any context or explanation. The description underneath it only
20:14makes it even more bizarre. It's a long wall of text filled with strange arguments that seem to follow
20:20some kind of logic, but make very little sense. If there's no flag in the constitution, then the
20:25flag in the film is unknown. There's no flag in the constitution, therefore the flag in the film is
20:30unknown. If you protest the government, then there's a new government from protesting. There's not a new
20:35government from protesting. Thus, you aren't protesting the government. The man behind the channel
20:40was Jared Lee Lofner, a 22-year-old college dropout who spent most of his time alone posting conspiracy
20:46theories and anti-government rants on different forums online. In hindsight, Jared's behavior in
20:51this video takes on a much more disturbing meaning, considering what he would go on to do just three
20:56months later. Growing up, Jared seemed like an ordinary kid. His friends remembered him as someone
21:01who rarely got angry, while his high school girlfriend described him as a sweet and caring guy.
21:05He was also passionate about music. Jared had played the saxophone since fifth grade,
21:10and by high school had become quite skilled at it. By it, around 2006, things began to change.
21:15Following a breakup with his girlfriend, Jared reportedly became depressed and began using
21:19drugs and alcohol. His behavior at school also grew increasingly erratic. He disrupted classes,
21:25clashed with teachers, and began expressing strange anti-government views. Eventually,
21:30he dropped out of high school and struggled to hold down a job. He later enrolled at Pima Community
21:34College, where he continued attending classes despite repeated incidents involving campus police.
21:39By it, by September 2010, his behavior had become difficult to ignore.
21:43On September 29th, administrators discovered a video Jared had uploaded to YouTube showing him
21:48walking around campus and making some disturbing allegations toward the school.
21:53All right, so here's what we're doing. We're examining the torture of students. We are looking at students
22:01who have been tortured. This is Pima Community College, one of the biggest scams in America.
22:10The students are so illiterate, that it affects their daily lives. This is my genocide school,
22:18school. Or I'm going to be homeless because of the school.
22:26All the teachers that you have are being paid illegally and have a legal authority over the
22:34Constitution of the United States under the First Amendment. If the student is unable to locate the
22:42external universe, then the student is unable to locate the internal universe.
22:48Jared's claims were difficult to follow, with one bizarre argument leading into another. The video
22:53came during a dispute with one of his instructors, who had told Jared he would receive only half
22:57credit for submitting an assignment late. The comment sent him into an angry outburst that ultimately
23:02led to his suspension from college. The administration later sent him a letter stating that if he wanted
23:07to return, he would need a mental health evaluation confirming he wasn't a threat to himself or others.
23:11By it, Jared refused the evaluation and withdrew from college altogether. With a history of being
23:16fired from several jobs, Jared was now spending most of his time at home with his parents, becoming
23:21increasingly isolated from the people around him. And it was during this period that Jared returned to
23:26YouTube, creating another channel called Class It Up 10, where he uploaded five videos filled with
23:31strange claims about the government, mind control, and a new currency he wanted to create.
23:35Unlike his other channel, however, these uploads were text-based. Jared repeatedly used something
23:41called syllogisms, which is a form of logical reasoning where a conclusion is supposed to
23:46follow from two statements. By it, the way he used them was bizarre. In one video, Jared argued that if
23:52he was thinking about creating a new coin under his control, then he must also be thinking about
23:57starting a new currency system. He then repeated the first statement and presented the second as his
24:01conclusion, without ever explaining how simply thinking about creating a new coin could logically
24:06lead to starting an entirely new currency system. These increasingly disorganized thoughts offered a
24:11disturbing glimpse into Jared's state of mind. And just three weeks after his final video, his isolation
24:17and mental decline would reach a breaking point, and he would carry out an attack that changed dozens of
24:22lives forever. On the morning of January 8, 2011, Congresswoman Gabby Giffords was meeting with members
24:28of the public outside a Safeway supermarket in Tucson, Arizona, when Jared quietly joined the gathering.
24:33And this gathering was not chosen at random. Jared's specific focus on Gabby Giffords went back to
24:39a 2007 town hall meeting where he asked her the question, what is government if words have no meaning?
24:44When the Congresswoman gave a brief, dismissive response to the odd question, he viewed it as
24:49proof of the government's deceitful nature. In his unraveling mind, Gabby Giffords became the
24:54personal face of the entire authority structure he hated and distrusted. So, at the 2011 public meeting,
25:01Jared did the unthinkable. Jared opened fire on the crowd, killing six people on the spot and wounding 13
25:08others. Gabby was one of the wounded and would ultimately survive. After his arrest,
25:13Jared underwent a psychiatric evaluation, which revealed that he had been suffering from severe
25:17delusions and hallucinations. He also had developed an irrational distrust of his own lawyers and
25:22struggled to understand the court proceedings or assist in his own defense. Jared was suffering from
25:27schizophrenia. And in May 2011, a federal judge ruled him mentally incompetent to stand trial and
25:33ordered him to undergo treatment. After several months of treatment, Jared pleaded guilty to 19 federal
25:38charges in August 2012. He was later sentenced to seven consecutive life terms with
25:43the possibility of parole, along with another 140 years in prison. Today, Jared's YouTube videos
25:49are still up, presenting a visual documentation of a man's twisted descent into madness, ultimately
25:54leading to the deaths of six innocent people.