The Weird and Wonderful World of Wikipedia

[Paddy™]

[ This is a list I was compiling on another forum from numerous sources and user submissions. I'll add links to this post as you submit them. ]

If you're bored and feel like going on a Wikipedia adventure, here are the strangest, weirdest or just most interesting articles the place has to offer, hand-picked by individual users.

Note that Wikipedia generally doesn't censor its articles, so some of them may contain NSFW images.

[ A ]

Spoiler below!

Acoustic Kitty | A CIA project from the 1960s involving the use of spy cats.
Ancient Egyptian burial customs | Egyptian funeral rites, including practices such as mummification.
Ant dairy farmers | These ants literally farm aphids for their "milk".
Antikythera mechanism | An ancient mechanical computer.
Albert Fish | A sadistic rapist, serial killer and cannibal of children.
Alien hand syndrome | When your hand has a mind of its own.
Allegory of the Cave | Philosophical story about reality.
Ancient astronaut theories | Stupid but fascinating theories about, well, ancient astronauts.
Aokigahara | A forest which features heavily in Japanese mythology.
Apert syndrome | A congenital birth defect. Includes images you might find upsetting.
Armin Meiwes | The German cannibal who ate a consenting adult.
Aum Shinrikyo | Japanese religious terrorists.

[ B ]

Spoiler below!

Baghdad Battery | An ancient battery.
Baigong Pipes | Pipe-like formations whose origins are disputed.
Behavior-altering parasites and parasitoids | Mind-control insect zombies.
Belgian UFO wave | A series of triangular UFO sightings over Belgium.
Blepharoplasty | Eyelid surgery.
Bloop | A once unidentified underwater sound recorded by the NOAA.
Bog body | The corpses of ancient peoples found in bogs, highly preserved because of the unique environment of bogland. Contains images you might find disturbing. See also: List of bog bodies.
Book of Kells | A famous Celtic rendering of the four Gospels.
Brain in a vat | Philosophical musings about reality.
Brazen bull | An execution device in which a victim is cooked alive.
Breaking wheel | A torture/execution device for smashing limbs.
Bunny Man | Urban legend about a ghost living under a bridge.

[ C ]

Spoiler below!

Capgras delusion | When you believe your loved one has been replaced by an imposter.
Carl Tanzler | Classic boy meets girl fairytale.
Cecil Hotel | A Los Angeles hotel with an unusual history and past guest list.
Chandre Oram | Man with tail. Kinda.
Charles Bonnet syndrome | Vision-impaired people having visual hallucinations.
Charles Domery | A Polish soldier who couldn't stop eating.
Charles Ingram | A British man who cheated his way to winning the top prize on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
Chijon family | A South Korean cannibal gang.
Children kept in captivity | Self-explanatory.
Cock and ball torture | Sexual practice involving the abuse of male genitals. Contains... images.
Collective unconscious | Carl Jung's theory about an inherited unconscious.
Concrete-Encased High School Girl Murder Case | Teenagers indulging in a bit of recreational torture/murder.
Cargo cult | A kind of religion which casts the veracity of all others into serious doubt.
Cleveland Torso Murderer | An unidentified serial killer.
Conservapedia | Until I was assured this was real I thought it was a Stephen Colbert-style parody.
The Cure for Insomnia | A 3 and a half day long movie featuring poetry, porn and heavy metal.

[ D ]

Spoiler below!

David Parker Ray | Serial killer/torturer with a $100,000 torture chamber.
David Reimer | A young boy with a ruined penis is reassigned as a girl, but doesn't quite take to it.
Death by sawing | Self-explanatory, really.
Death of Sharon Lopatka | A woman goes online to invite a man to murder her.
Dehomag | IBM's involvement in the boosted efficiency of the Final Solution.
Deep-sea gigantism | The deeper you go the bigger they get.
Delphine LaLaurie | A high society cunt who tortured black slaves.
Dnepropetrovsk maniacs | Teenage serial killing duo responsible for the "3 Guys 1 Hammer" video.
Donohue syndrome | A birth defect also known as Leprechaunism.
Dream argument | Philosophical musings about what can be considered reality.
Dyatlov Pass incident | Nine ski hikers die.

[ E ]

Spoiler below!

E. coli long-term evolution experiment | A 20-year experiment on evolution.
Ectopia cordis | Born with your heart on the outside of your body.
Exploding head syndrome | Brain screams.
Elizabeth Báthory | An incredibly sick bitch from the olden days who features prominently in black metal lyrics.
Emerald cockroach wasp | A wasp which "uses" cockroaches in its reproductive cycle. Horrendous stuff.
Emu War | A 1930s plan to control the emu population - with machine guns.
Encephalocele | A severe birth defect which causes the brain to be developed outside the skull.
Experiments in the Revival of Organisms | The movie Disney has been ripping off for decades.
False awakenings | Dreaming that you've woken up.

[ F ]

Spoiler below!

Feral child | A child who grows up in isolation, away from human contact.
Fetal abduction | The phenomenon of the removal and abduction of unborn children.
Fetus in fetu | Babies born "pregnant" with foetus-like growths. Includes an image you might find upsetting.
Forbidden Plateau | A haunted hill.
Freddie Scappaticci | A British spy known as "Stakeknife" who infiltrated the IRA.
Fritz Haarmann | German serial killer who operated before WWII.
Fritzl case | Josef Fritzl keeps his daughter and their offspring prisoner for decades.

[ G ]

Spoiler below!

Giant's Causeway | Hexagonal rocks in Northern Ireland which are allegedly interesting.
Genu valgum | Also known as "knock-knee", a condition of the legs.
Gloria Ramirez | A woman dubbed "the toxic lady" because of her blood's effects on her doctors/nurses.
Gravity hill | A hill which appears to defy the laws of nature, but doesn't.
Guinea Pig (film series) | Japanese horror movie series, one of which was thought to be real by Charlie Sheen.

[ H ]

Spoiler below!

Harlequin-type ichthyosis | A severe birth defect.
Head transplant | Self-explanatory.
Heaven's Gate | Suicidal religious cult.
Heavener Runestone | A stone with some strange carvings.
Hello Kitty murder | A woman is abducted, tortured, decapitated and the head placed inside a Hello Kitty doll.
Hinterkaifeck | A murder mystery Shakespeare would be proud of.
Hollow-Face illusion | A profoundly bizarre optical illusion.
Human placentophagy | The human consumption of placenta.
Human reactions to infrasound | Self-explanatory.
Hurler syndrome | A severe birth defect.

[ I ]

Spoiler below!

Infibulation | The act of sewing labia and foreskins shut. Contains photos of the end result.
Iron maiden (torture device) | An upright coffin lined with spikes.
Issei Sagawa | Japanese cannibal who escaped a lengthy prison sentence and is now a minor celebrity.
Information Awareness Office | Post-9/11 Big Brother surveillance.

[ J ]

Spoiler below!

James Dallas Egbert III | A suicidal teenager.
Jerusalem syndrome | A mental disorder which affects an unsettlingly large numbers of tourists in Jerusalem.
Jonestown | Another suicidal religious cult.
John and Lorena Bobbitt | How to cure a rapist.
John Murray Spear | A spiritualist who wanted to create an electrified Messiah.
Judas cradle | Torture device on which victims' anuses and vaginas were repeatedly impaled.

[ K ]

Spoiler below!

Kaoru Kobayashi | A Japanese sex offender who kidnapped, raped and murdered 7-year-old Kaede Ariyama.
Kaspar Hauser | A kid who claimed to have grown up in a cell.
Kensington Runestone | Possible evidence that Scandinavians reached America in the 14th century.
Kobe child murders | A 14-year-old murders two fellow children in Japan.
Kuru | A disease which makes you laugh until you die.

[ L ]

Spoiler below!

Lead Masks Case | Two inexplicably dead electricians with weird outfits.
Lina Medina | The world's youngest MILF.
Lingchi | An abolished form of brutal capital punishment from China.
List of animals with fraudulent diplomas | Demonstrating the incredibility of "diploma mills".
List of common misconceptions | Everything you know is wrong. Except this.
List of paradoxes | A list of mind-melting challenges to your very perception of reality.
List of parasites of humans | Self-explanatory.
List of paraphilias | A list of sexual kinks/fetishes.
List of phobias | Self-explanatory.
List of school pranks | Self-explanatory!
List of serial killers by number of victims | I can't believe this competition is still ongoing!
Liquid breathing | Remember the rat in the movie The Abyss?
Lotus birth | When the umbilical cord is left attached after birth until it separates naturally.
Luka Mognotta | Canadian porn actor, animal abuser, murderer, cannibal, necrophile and wannabe celebrity.
Luis Garavito | A Columbian rapist and serial killer.

[ M ]

Spoiler below!

Mad Gasser of Mattoon | A series of gas attacks or a case of mass hysteria?
Mamoru Takuma | A Japanese mass murderer responsible for the Osaka school massacre.
Man-eating tree | Self-explanatory.
Marvin Heemeyer | Pissed off businessman in a modified bulldozer.
Mary Tofts | Woman gives birth to rabbits? Dr. House would never have fallen for this shit!
Max Headroom broadcast signal intrusion | A now legendary hacker hijacking of a television broadcast.
McGurk effect | An interaction between hearing and vision and how one can override/combine with the other.
Mellified man | Turn yourself into medicine!
Michael Larson | This man memorized the pseudo-random patterns of a game show prize board.
Michael Malloy | Michael "Durable Mike" Malloy: the [almost] indestructible Irishman.
Micropenis | A tiny little penis. The article contains three photographs showing the phenomenon.
Mike the Headless Chicken | Colonel Sanders' worst nightmare. The article shows a photograph of a living, headless chicken.
Monkeys in Space | Self-explanatory.
Montauk Project | The US government dabbles with time travel.

[ N ]

Spoiler below!

National Thanksgiving Turkey Presentation | A bizarre last minute pardon for poultry.
Nayirah (testimony) | An infamous and totally fabricated testimony which generated support for the first Gulf War.
Nazi concentration camps | The camps used by the Nazis during WWII.
Nazi talking dogs | The Nazis tried training dogs to speak.

[ O ]

Spoiler below!

Omayra Sánchez | A girl trapped after a natural disaster is unable to be saved.
Operation Minstead | One of the worst rapists to ever walk the earth.
Operation Paperclip | Nazi scientists have their uses, apparently.
Out-of-place artefact | Artefacts which turn up where they shouldn't.
Oxana Malaya | A feral child who was raised by dogs.

[ P ]

Spoiler below!

Paris syndrome | Japanese immigrants and tourists don't enjoy Paris as much as they think they will.
Paul Bernardo | A Canadian serial killer and rapist.
Penile subincision | A form of penis modification as fucked-up as it sounds. Contains a photo of a split cock.
Penis panic (Koro) | A syndrome which causes people to fear that their genitalia is shrinking/disappearing.
PlayStation Network outage | The Sony PlayStation network is shut down by hackers
Pope Lick Monster | Half man, half goat and half sheep? The fat fucker!
Pricasso | An artist who paints using his penis, scrotum and buttocks.
Project ARTICHOKE | Mind control research.
Project MKULTRA | Mind control research.
Pykrete | A form of ice stronger than steel?

[ Q ]

Spoiler below!

Quantum suicide and immortality | A thought experiment involving quantum mechanics.

[ R ]

Spoiler below!

Richard Kuklinski | Also known as The Iceman, he was an extremely successful contract killer.
Risks to civilization, humans, and planet Earth | Self-explanatory.
Roanoke Colony | A short-lived American colony which later became California.
Robert the Doll | The story of the "cursed" doll which inspired the Child's Play movie(s).
Robert Wadlow | The tallest (confirmed) man who ever lived.
Roman dodecahedron | A puzzling Roman object.
Russian Woodpecker | A strange soviet shortwave radio signal which broadcast between 1976 & 1989.

[ S ]

Spoiler below!

Saint Patrick's Battalion | Irish immigrants who switched sides during the Mexican/American war.
Sailing stones | Some bizarre chess game played by nature.
Salish Sea human foot discoveries | Human feet found on the beach.
Sasebo slashing | An 11-year-old girl murders a 12-year-old girl with a Stanley knife.
Sati | Outlawed Indian tradition of a widow burning herself to death on her husband's funeral pyre.
Scissor Sisters | Two Irish sisters who brutally hammered/knifed a man to death.
Sedlec Ossuary | A church decorated with thousands of skeletons.
Shakespeare authorship question | There was a second penman on the grassy knoll.
Shankill Butchers | Sectarian mass murderers from Belfast.
Slow Down (unidentified sound) | An underwater sound recording which has yet to be explained.
Solway Firth Spaceman | A photograph showing a "spaceman" in the background.
Starchild skull | A human skull with some unusual features.
Stendhal syndrome | Extreme panic attack-like reactions to art/natural beauty.
Strappado | Torture method designed to dislocate the shoulders.

[ T ]

Spoiler below!

Tama (cat) | A cat who holds the position of Super Station Master at Kishi train station in Japan.
Taman Shud Case | An unidentified dead guy.
Tanganyika laughter epidemic | An outbreak of hysterical laughter.
Tarrare | A French soldier with a bottomless gut.
Tecaxic-Calixtlahuaca head | The head of a figurine found in Mexico which doesn't appear to belong there.
Teratoma | Tumour with tissue or undeveloped organ components in it. Contains inoffensive images.
Teresa of Ávila | A sainted nun who featured prominently in the Spanish renaissance.
Thalidomide | The drug given to pregnant women which severely deformed their babies.
Therac-25 | A really shit radiotherapy machine.
Texas Slave Ranch | A ranch in Texas which... well, you get the idea.
Toynbee tiles | Strange messages embedded in asphalt all around the Americas.
Trepanning | Primitive, superstition-driven brain surgery.
The Troubles | The Northern Irish conflict.
Tsutomu Miyazaki | A serial killer/necrophile/cannibal who was a fan of the Guinea Pig movies.
Tsutomu Yamaguchi | Bomb-proof Jap. Survived both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs.
Tuskegee syphilis experiment | Unsuspecting black people used as human guinea pigs in the U.S.

[ U ]

Spoiler below!

Unit 731 | Infamous Japanese biochemical warfare experimentation camp from WWII.

[ V ]

Spoiler below!

Virgin boy egg | A delicacy where eggs are boiled in prepubescent boys' urine, because Chinese medicine.
Vish Kanya | Female assassins who made themselves immune to poison and then sexed their victims to death.
Voynich manuscript | An ancient & mysterious handwritten manuscript.

[ W ]

Spoiler below!

Waco siege | The BATF slaughters the Branch Davidians.
Who put Bella in the Wych Elm? | Graffiti referring to a body found inside a tree.
Wunderwaffe | The German "wonder-weapons" program which began in WWII.

[ Y ]

Spoiler below!

Year and a day rule | A law which states that you aren't a murderer if your victim doesn't die for a year and a day.

[ Z ]

Spoiler below!

Zapatista Army of National Liberation/EZLN | Non-violent leftist group in Mexico.