Things that are utterly bloody fascinating

[ElizabethBest]

Let's hear it please - I love a good wikipedia rabbit hole. I'll start - The Willard Suitcases. Over 400 suitcases of possessions were found in an attic at the Willard Insane Asylum belong to patients who had died whilst inpatients so never left. The New York State Museum started a project to document the cases and their contents, and you can learn all about it and see the cases on their website.

I watched a whole programme on this, it was really fascinating.

This thread is amazing! So many good suggestions here.

I like a good maths/logic puzzle. I remember watching the Royal Institution Christmas lectures years ago on TV and learning about the Monty Hall problem. It’s about mathematical probability not working quite how you’d expect it to. I know that sounds boring but it really isn’t, and I found the lecture on YouTube which explains it really well:

RE the 'mystery' of who built the pyramids and who 'really' wrote the works of Shakespeare, it just boils down to the imperialist mindset, classism and racism in the end. I start my history PHD in September and though I went in a completely different direction I really wanted to name it 'just because white people couldn't do it, doesn't mean the aliens did'😄

Really great thread, can I suggest this project for people to take a look at belowthesurface.amsterdam/ - cataloguing 20,000 items found in the canals of Amsterdam, from Gameboys to ancient coins. It is so interesting I could look at it all for hours.

Sadly the videos are not in my Youtube library. The explorer is exploring storm drains/tunnels in London. The person randomly climbs down drains in the streets of London. I will keep searching. I watched it before Christmas, I wish I could remember. Sooooo fascinating. I will post again if I find the link.

There was something like that at the Tate, an exhibition of things found in and around The Thames. Lots of cool stuff catalogued.

There's a place in Turkey called Karahan Tepe which is 12,000 years old.
It's incredible and only just being learned about.

But there are carvings there so amazingly well preserved it's hard to fathom.

It's over twice as old as Giza!

www.spectator.co.uk/article/does-an-unknown-extraordinarily-ancient-civilisation-lie-buried-under-eastern-turkey/

This should be a classic thread @MumsnetTowers! Bit less weighty but I personally love the rabbithole of personal accounts of getting involved and having to extricate themselves from pyramid schemes, seeing the way these things slowly get their talons into well meaning people. Elle's Poonique Blog is a good place to start. There's a Forever L*ving one expose too but can't remember the name of it.

I love this thread! It's going to keep me very busy...
I find this amazing, feels like the people in the film are looking at US from the past, especially the 3 little boys halfway through...

Oh this thread is going to take time 😂

This thread is a breath of fresh air!

I knew a nun who rescued a woman from a mental hospital in the 1970's.

The woman had been raped as a child, had a baby at 14 or 15 - which 'proved' she was a sex maniac and she spent nearly fifty years in the asylum.

Despite being institutionalised, she lived twenty happy years with the nuns, spending her time knitting baby clothes. Her chance of a life was stolen.

I have never ever been interested in barbed wire before, but that article, together with the concept of ownership was interesting.

that is just heart breaking

@MrsMorton wow I graduated from Birmingham dental school in 1990, I'm not practising anymore; there was also a paternoster in the library on the main campus, techincally you weren't supposed to take dental cabinets on paternoster but everyone did as main lifts took too long.. have you seen the photos of the old hospital on 28dayslater, fascinating!

I find disused railways fascinating. I can spend many hours with the National Library of Scotland's side by side maps, looking at how places looked say in 1920 and now, and tracing old railway lines.

I also like running/cycling along old railway lines.

Today I watched Tim Gunn's "Architecture the Railways Built" and he visited the Manchester version of the New York High Line. Who knew I'd turn into a railway geek in my middle age!

My friend lived in a grand Victorian street full of large houses. Back in the 1970's an elderly lady knocked on the front door, explained that she had been the maid there decades earlier and asked if she could see her old room, one last time.
She came in, did the tour, explained the bell system in the scullery, had a cup of tea and was never seen again.
I wonder if she was having to move out of the area, move into a care home or was passing and fancied tea and cake. My friend's mum has dementia and lives in a care home herself now, but can still remember 'the visit'.

Paternosters are fascinating too, you see one on Babylon Berlin.

My mum and I both have a recurring dream about a horizontal lift with brick walls. We both feel sure that it actually exists/existed but are not sure where. I have it in my head that it was between the Spooner and Yeo buildings in Dingles in Plymouth, but I will probably be told I have dreamt that too

There was a whole racket in Ireland. You can read about it here en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdalene_Laundries_in_Ireland There's a film 'The Magdalene Sisters' which used to be on Netflix I think. I watched it on the edge of my seat. Those asylums were still running in the mid-1990s.

I find the subject of sasquatch utterly intriguing. They exist but it's fascinating how so many people deny it, governments included.

And the Great Vowel Shift, a change in the way that we pronounce words. Nobody is quite sure why it happened, but it’s why a lot of English words appear to have obscure spellings

Yes this fascinates me too. Pity we don't have recordings from back then :)

Can you show evidence that they exist?

I've only read up to page 4 so this may have been posted but I periodically go down a rabbit hole of looking at unsecured webcams - sites like
this one.

Most of them are gardens, security cams. But I find the shops etc fascinating - you can filter by country/location and watching people live in a say a corner shop in Minnesota is just oddly addictive. I also used to sometimes go back to a restaurant kitchen in Lincolnshire 😂I once spent a long time coming back to one in a family kitchen in America. I thought I could work out the address based on the view/where the camera was and somehow tell them their kitchen was public. Never managed it.

Sasquatch Chronicles.

Totally love looking at photos of abandoned St Peter's Semenairy in Scotland. Wonderful example of modern architecture.

My mum grew up in a semi 4 bed & they still had the servant bells in the kitchen. I really wish I’d taken a photo of them. Front door, dining room & front room. Think there was also one for the main bedroom.