A four-year-old made national headlines when he accidentally sneaked past his mother and protective fences at the Cincinnati Zoo in 2016. Unfortunately, the little boy found himself smack dab in the middle of the gorilla enclosure with a 450-pound silverback gorilla named Harambe. Zoo officials eventually had to shoot and kill the animal to protect the child (tranquilizing it could have caused an adverse, violent reaction). Some argued that the gorilla was actually trying to protect the child, although police were worried about his less-than-gentle dragging of the boy across the enclosure. The moral of the story? Keep an eye on your children at all times, especially at the zoo.

As for Harambe, the gorilla's death has unexpectedly sparked a rabid fan base, inspiring countless memes, artwork, and various other forms of Internet media. Much to the Cincinnati Zoo's chagrin, Harambe's martyrdom has motivated Internet users to troll the zoo's social media presence. The Cincinnati Zoo has since shut down their Twitter account in an attempt to make #justiceforharambe stop trending.

Video obtained by PETA Asia from January 2017 shows a pen full of sun bears begging for food. In the video the bears appear emaciated and skeletal. One report said the bears were so hungry they resorted to eating their own feces. 

This isn't the first time the Bandung Zoo in West Java, Indonesia has come under fire. In May 2016, news outlets reported a elephant named Yani died after being chained up at the zoo. Some said they could hear Yani crying. She was covered in bruises and was reportedly paralyzed before her death. 

You can’t always trust people you meet online. When a young woman looking for an apartment stumbled on a Craigslist ad for a female roommate, she jumped at the chance to check the place out. When she got to the house, she was greeted by a creepy man claiming to be the landlord. Red flags didn't really start to go off for the young woman until the “landlord” became eager to show her the basement. She then faked a phone call and left the showing. This turned out to be a real stroke of luck as, according to the Redditor who posted the tale:

"The house had been foreclosed over six months earlier and the property had been abandoned. When the police investigated, they found that the closed room the "landlord" didn't want her to look in was where the man had been staying. There was a pile of old dirty blankets, rotten food, and empty gallon jugs everywhere. More creepy was he had plastered ripped up pages from porno mags on ALL the walls in the room (where do they even find porno mags!?). 

The really scary part of this was the basement. The man had tied a thin piece of fishing twine at about shin level across the stairs about halfway down. The basement was empty except another pile of old blankets, a broom handle wrapped in leather belts, and a small box with a few rolls of assorted tape (duct, electric, etc)."

Curiosity can get the best of you, and sometimes it can put you into a dangerous situation. When a group of friends from Wales, UK decided to check out what was inside a cement bridge, they were horrified at what they found.

Inside the dark, narrow walls of the bridge they discovered a room seemingly belonging to a very deranged individual. The Redditor's own words describe the situation best:

"In front of me was a single fold-away chair positioned facing a wall. On the wall was a partially torn page from a newspaper, or a magazine, showing a fully naked lady in an erotic position. The reason I don't just refer to it as 'porn' is because something was different about it; I can't put my finger on it but it seemed more sinister than sexy, if that makes any sense.

More disturbingly the eyes of the woman on display had been cut from the page. Removed with precision, not just hastily ripped off. The scene that lay before us had rendered us completely speechless, and an overpowering sense of panic could be felt collectively. That was when we found the condom. The horrendous, gut-wrenching, blood-drenched condom."

Understandably, OP and his friends high-tailed it right out of there.

Although it offers a glimpse into a beautiful underwater world, scuba diving can be seriously dangerous if you're not careful. Some of the worst scuba accidents occur because of inexperienced divers making small mistakes. When diving, you always have to be alert and aware of your surroundings. The worst thing that you can do when you realize something is going wrong is to panic. That's practically a death sentence when you're scuba diving, so always be careful.

Even then, remaining calm might not be enough. Some of the divers who perished on this list were incredibly experienced and well-prepared, but still couldn't do anything to prevent their own deaths.

Below is a list of some of the worst cave diving accidents and wreck diving accidents that have occurred over the years. If this list teaches you one thing, it's to never take scuba diving lightly. It might be the last thing you ever do. 

In Texas, a beautiful diving spot known as Jacob's Well has developed a reputation as one of the most dangerous places to dive in the country.  Although alluring, at least eight divers have lost their lives in Jacob's Well, with perhaps the worst being young Richard Patton. The Southwest Texas State University student was looking for a way to move from chamber to chamber in the cave, and ended up getting stuck in a false chimney that looked like a way out. 

In parts of this underwater cave system, the floors are covered in fine gravel or silt and if a flipper so much as brushes the surface, the stirred-up sediment completely obscures a diver's vision, effectively blinding them.

Free-diver Diego Adame recorded his terrifying near-drowning in the caves, after he lost a flipper and had to jettison his weight belt in a dash for the surface.

Don Dibble, a nearby dive shop owner who is usually the one to pull the remains of dead divers out of the cave, attempted to seal of the depths of the well by installing a gate to stop people from going too deep. Shortly after, he found the gate destroyed with a note saying "You can't keep us out." Although extremely dangerous, it seems the cave is too alluring to stay away. 

While on a tour in Bali, Indonesia, a group of seven people were separated from their boat while out diving. Bad weather was to blame, and the two instructors and five Japanese women floated in open water for 28 hours before eventually reaching a rocky islet where they were rescued two days later. During that harrowing ordeal, one of the women died, with her body being found 30 kilometers from the islet, while one of the instructors went missing in the open water.

The whole thing received even more scrutiny when it was discovered the company that took the group out on their dive was operating with an expired permit. 

In April 2000, Russian diver Yuri Lipski geared up to dive at one of the world's most beautiful diving spots, the Blue Hole. Located on the east coast of Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, the spot has become a must for divers who want to see the coral-lined, 394-foot-deep sink hole.

Lipski ended up dying at around the 300-foot mark. When you go that deep, your body is often subjected to nitrogen narcosis, a mental state that starts off similar to extreme drunkenness, but can eventually cause severe mental symptoms like hallucinations, paranoia, confusion, vertigo, and eventually death.

Lipski's body and found that the diver had been recording at the time of his death. The footage is on YouTube, and it's highly disturbing to watch the diver start to panic and thrash around. In the end, he removes his breathing apparatus and the recording stops. 

During one of his many dives at Dutch Springs recreation area, 38-year-old Eugene Fleysher accidentally drowned. He was found unresponsive in the water after ascending from around 30 feet. An autopsy report revealed that his equipment was poorly maintained and maladjusted, which only highlights the importance of always checking your gear before diving. Fleysher is just one of at least 16 people who have died in that same spot over the last 30 years. 

In Norway, five friends embarked on a dangerous mission to explore a deep cave system in Norway. Going past the 100-meter mark, one of the divers got stuck in a passage and signaled for help. His friend in front of him turned back and did everything he could, but horrifically had to watch his friend die in front of his eyes. The accident caused another diver to panic - which is the worst thing you can do while diving - and he died, too.

After the survivors made it back, the authorities deemed a retrieval mission for the dead bodies to be too dangerous. But that didn't stop the original divers from planning a secret, extensive rescue mission, and seven weeks later, they went back into the dangerous cave system and successfully retrieved their fallen friends. 

No matter how much experience you have diving, one small mistake or error can lead to your death. Diver Tom Pritchard was working on attaching a mooring line to the famed wreck of the Andrea Doria, which had come loose, when he suddenly vanished. Pritchard had close to 1,000 dives under his belt and the divers working with him had said Pritchard had a reputation for being incredibly careful and detail-oriented when it came to his dives.

In the end, it didn't matter. When the other divers surfaced, they immediately noticed Pritchard was not with them. The Coast Guard was called to sweep the area, but found nothing, and the captain of the ship that Pritchard was on had to make the difficult call to not let the divers go back down immediately to look for Pritchard. The Andrea Doria wreckage has always been dangerous and has claimed more than 15 lives due to its unstable nature. As his remains still haven't been found, we might never know whether Pritchard died from equipment failure, a medical emergency, or if some part of the ship simply collapsed around him. 

In what has got to be one of the most horrific ways to die, two divers met their tragic ends while diving in Thailand. Even though they were in the proper diving zone, upon surfacing, two men were hit by a passing speedboat, cutting one of them in half and sending the other man sinking below the surface. To survive the dangers of diving only to be cut in half by a reckless boat driver is a cruel fate, and just shows how careful you need to be of your surroundings at all times.

A Florida father and his 15-year-old son got new scuba diving equipment for Christmas, and immediately went out to Eagles Nest Sink underwater caves in Weeki Wachee, Florida, to test it out. The father was an experienced diver, but the son was not certified yet, and both were not experienced when it came to cave diving. After entering the cave around 11 am on Christmas morning, their bodies were found that evening around 8:30 pm. At least six other divers have lost their lives in the same cave system.

Friends Don Shirley and Dave Shaw went diving almost 1,000 feet underwater in Bushman's Cave in South Africa when seeking to recover the remains of Deon Dreyer, who had died in the cave a decade before. More people have walked on the moon than have descended to such depths.

Video footage recovered later revealed that Shaw lost his light at depths and became entangled in the lines he was using to hoist Dreyer's body. 

Meanwhile, an equipment failure led to Shirley accidentally receiving too much oxygen, which can have serious or even fatal effects. Then he developed a helium bubble that caused him to lose consciousness and let go of the guideline that told him how to get back out of the caves. He was spinning, disoriented, vomiting, searching for the line in total darkness, and not even knowing which was was up towards the surface.

Eventually Shirley righted himself, but he still had to wait in the water for another 10 hours, slowly ascending, because going up to the surface more quickly would have given him the bends, a possibly fatal condition when divers get "bubbles" of air in their blood from returning to the surface too fast.

However, Shaw's body eventually floated to the surface, attached to Dreyer's, so in death, he did achieve his purpose.

(A riveting and terrifying audio account of the story is available on from NPR's This American Life.)

In this harrowing tale, a boyfriend recounts how the love of his life almost died due to negligence from her instructors. While taking diving lessons, the man's girlfriend felt she was being harassed by the instructors, who wouldn't teach her the simple maneuvers she felt she needed to learn. During one of the dives, the girl's regulator (the device you hold in your mouth to breathe oxygen from your tank) was laden with sand, which caused malfunctions while she was underwater.

She took off her regulator and reached for her "octopus" (a back-up regulator) to help her breathe, but her instructor stopped her from doing so and forced her to try again with her own regulator. It caused the girl's stress to get even worse, and when the boyfriend tried to come help, the instructor pushed him away. As the girl was choking, the instructor tried shoving the regulator into her mouth, but missed and just hit her in the face instead. This shocked her and caused her to inhale water, so the boyfriend grabbed the girl and took her to the surface.

When they reached the top, the instructor started yelling at her that they needed to continue her training while she was literally throwing up water and begging for her life. She was hospitalized and was close to death for quite awhile. Miraculously, she pulled through, but now suffers from memory loss, depression, and a fear of water.

Imagine pretending to be sick or injured just to receive attention. While it seems strange, there's actually a psychiatric disorder called Munchausen syndrome that describes people who do just that. And, in some cases, the person with Munchausen inflicts injury or illness on someone else - often a child - for the same reasons. 

Munchausen by proxy is a sadistic disorder that causes caregivers to hurt others for their own benefit. Because the perpetrators are frequently mothers, it is usually a long time before doctors or authorities suspect anything at all. Although the motive is generally to elicit emotional sympathy and attention - not murder - there are many true stories of Munchausen by proxy that end in death. 

These true Munchausen by proxy cases are horrifying and sad, and these stories can seriously mess with your head. 

Blanca Montano was only 21 when she was arrested for harming her two children. In February 2011, she had both kids admitted into an Arizona hospital. Soon, Montano’s son drastically improved and was released. Her newborn daughter, however, only became sicker over the course of her hospital stay. She was diagnosed with an array of rare conditions that worsened, nurses noticed, after time spent alone with Montano. 

Police were alerted of the hospitals suspicions, and an investigation revealed that Montano had intentionally poisoned her daughter, causing the infections in order to garner attention and sympathy.

Once Montano and her child were separated, the infant’s condition improved drastically. Montano was arrested for child abuse.

Hope Ybarra, a former chemist, was a mother of three suffering from her third bout with cancer. She blogged about her illness as well as her daughter's terminal cystic fibrosis. So when Ybarra became pregnant with twins and subsequently lost them 5 months into the pregnancy, the family and their community were absolutely wrought with grief.

It wasn’t until the police got involved that the truth began spilling out in massive, sadistic waves: Hope was clear of any and all cancer, her daughter did not suffer from cystic fibrosis, and there was never a pregnancy with twins. Ybarra had poisoned her child with pathogens, tampered with sweat tests to ensure the medical results she wanted, and even periodically drained the child’s blood. This last step caused the most bodily harm and, on one occasion, caused her daughter to go into anaphylactic shock.

Hope was tried and convicted of child abuse and sentenced to eight years in prison. 

Beverley Allitt, better known as the Angel of Death, is one of the most notorious female serial killers of all time.

Allitt trained as a nurse in England where her reputation was less than pristine. She was frequently absent as a result of a string of “illnesses," and was once caught smearing feces on the walls of a nursing home. She later worked in the children’s ward at Grantham and Kesteven Hospital in Lincolnshire. It was during this time Allitt began abusing her patients.

Once her killing spree began she took the lives of three patients in only a month, including seven-month-old Liam Taylor and 11-year old Timothy Hardwick, a cerebral palsy patient. Allitt was overlooked until two more children were murdered and another nine abused under her watch.

Allitt was found guilty of murder and attempted murder. She is serving 13 life sentences - the most severe sentence ever given to a woman.

In 2008, Leslie Wilfred called her husband Chris from a Georgia hospital room with news that their twins were stillborn five months into Leslie's pregnancy. A service was held for the twins with photos of their ultrasounds and two matching teddy bear-shaped urns. Family and friends gathered to mourn and show their support.

Leslie and Chris Wilfred had four children from previous relationships, all of whom suffered from a slew of psychological and medical conditions, according to their parents. Their drama-filled history raised suspicions with the Georgia Division of Family and Children Services. It all came to a head after the babies' deaths and resulted in a full-blown investigation.

While filing through her computer, police discovered Wilfred had ordered the urns five days before the “death” of her children. Investigators also discovered that Wilfred had her tubes tied before marrying Chris, she was never pregnant with twins, and her other claims made about her actual children's terminal health issues were not true. 

Wilfred was sentenced to eight years in prison and 30 years of probation for child abuse.

Mommy blogger Lacey Spears went to prison for murdering her five-year-old son with fatal levels of sodium. 

Spears was giving her son high levels of sodium through a feeding tube that caused him to become very sick. She said her son Garnett had numerous illnesses and documented his medical setbacks and progress on a blog called "Garnett's Journey." During this time, he was in and out of 20 different medical facilities, none of which were given information about Garnett's other hospital visits.

Then, in 2014, the sodium reached such a high level, Garnett was placed on a life flight to another hospital. Unfortunately, his brain suffered irreparable swelling and he was pronounced brain dead on January 23, 2014. 

Suspicions about Spears arose among the medical personnel. They launched an investigation and searched her home. Police found medicine bottles sitting behind a canister of salt, and later recovered two bags of breast milk that Spears used to feed Garnett through his feeding tube with fatal levels of sodium in them. 

She was found guilty of depraved-indifference murder of a child and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Marybeth Tinning had eight biological children and one adopted son. None of these kids lived past the age of four.

Although prosecutors are convinced Tinning murdered several - if not all - of her children, she was only convicted of murdering her youngest daughter, whom she smothered with a pillow on December 20, 1985.

In a parole board meeting she said she did not murder the others but that they died from sudden infant death syndrome. The only explanation she provided to the board was that she was so traumatized by the death of her other babies, she was convinced her youngest was dying too, so she killed her instead.

Tinning is serving 20 years to life at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility.

Not only did Lisa Hayden-Johnson get the empathy and support that came with having a sick child, she also received monetary benefits. Hayden-Johnson didn't turn down any of the lavish gifts offered to her for having "the most ill child in Britain." After her son was born prematurely, Hayden-Johnson began forcing him into a wheelchair for his "cystic fibrosis," feeding him through a tube in order to avoid triggering his "life-threatening allergies," and adding glucose to his urine to convince doctors his "diabetes."

Meanwhile, she was invited to meet with royalty at a charity event for critically ill children, collected thousands in disability payments each month, and received free tickets, vacations, and charitable cash donations. That all came crashing down when doctors became suspicious of Hayden-Johnson and demanded her son receive further testing to determine the root of his various illnesses. Hayden-Johnson tried to put off the testing by saying she was sexually assaulted, but eventually it was discovered it was all a big sham. 

After six years of abuse and lies, Hayden-Johnson was tried and convicted of child abuse and perverting the cause of justice in October 2009. She served 39 months in prison.

Like the others on this list, Dee Dee Blancharde played the part of a sweet and devoted mother to her sickly teenage daughter, Gypsy. That is, until a status update appeared on Blancharde's Facebook page that read "That b*tch is dead!" and Blancharde was found murdered in her home. 

It turned out her teenage daughter Gypsy was actually a healthy 23-year-old woman who said her mother had forced her to play ill. In 2015, Gypsy snapped and met a man online named Nick Godejohn who agreed to kill her mother. 

Gypsy was convicted of murder and given the minimum sentence of 10 years.

Jennifer Bush, the daughter of Kathy Bush, endured more than 40 medical procedures and 200-plus hospital visits in the early '90s between the ages of two and eight. Her mother insisted she was seriously ill and needed to be fed through a tube. Medical personal began suspecting that Bush had tampered with her daughter's medications and proceeded to launch a full investigation.

In 1999, Kathy Bush was found guilty of child abuse and sentenced to five years in prison - three of which she served. Despite having two brothers and a father, Jennifer was placed in foster care, an experience she describes as "traumatic." Nineteen years later, Jennifer and her family - including her mother - have been reunited. She insists that her mother never abused her.

Nurses at two separate hospitals in England started raising suspicion about a mother of four after finding two sets of DNA in her daughter's urine samples. 

Although the initial test results did not find the child suffered from any kidney issues, each of her urine samples had blood in them. This raised concerns among doctors and eventually resulted in the child undergoing a painful and risky procedure to determine the status of her kidneys. The results found that nothing was wrong.

Suspicious, the nurses searched the room and found a cup of blood left behind by the mother and two syringes of blood in the toilet. As it turned out, she was placing her own blood in the samples, contaminating the results - which explained the two sets of related DNA. 

The mother eventually pled guilty to willfully assaulting, ill-treating, and neglecting a child in a manner likely to cause suffering or injury.
 

Loosely based on serial killer Ed Gein.

Loosely based on a group of Cambodian refugees in the 1970's who were suffering disturbing night terrors after fleeing to the United States. Their nightmares were so terrifying, they began refusing to sleep.

Based on the story of serial killer Aileen Wuornos who killed seven men in Florida while maintaining that they were all acts of self-defense. 

Loosely based on Wisconsin serial killer Ed Gein.

Inspired by the alleged demonic possession of Robbie Mannheim.

Based loosely on the relationship between serial killer Ted Bundy and criminal profiler Robert Keppel.

Based on the experiences of the Perron family as investigated by paranormal detectives Ed and Lorraine Warren.

The Location

The Edinburgh Castle in Scotland that sits atop the famous volcanic "Castle Rock" has been continuously occupied since about the 9th Century BC. The first royal castle on the site was constructed by King David I in the 12th Century, and it remained the seat of the Scottish King until the ascension of James VI to the throne of England in 1603. After that, it remained an essential Scottish fortress and military stronghold, and played a part in numerous important historical battles. Today, the site is Scotland's most popular paid tourist attraction, and one of the most iconic images of the country.

The Legend

Or, I should say, "The Legends." Because of the location's key significance in Scottish history, there are too many ghost stories circulating about the place to even compress into anything less than an essay. And I have THINGS to do.

So in brief...

- A ghost "drummer" can be heard throughout the castle whenever it is about to be attacked. (Obviously, this hasn't happened in a while...) Prior to the 1650 siege of the castle by Cromwell's forces, the drummer was spotted and identified as the ghost of a headless boy.
- The dungeons, where numerous prisoners were held and tortured, are thought to be populated by some restless spirits. One spirit, a prisoner in the dungeons during his life time, is said to have attempted to escape in a wheelbarrow full of dung, only to perish on the craggy rocks below when the barrow was emptied off of the cliffside. Today, it's thought that he still haunts the castle, causing visitors to sense his presence and smell the faint residue of... yeah, dung.

But Is It True?

Well, probably not.

BUT STILL, there's more evidence pointing towards Edinburgh Castle being haunted than almost any other place on Earth. In 2001, Dr Richard Wiseman conducted a study in the castle, testing the reactions of people who had never before heard the legends of its haunting to exploring the castle. 51% of the subjects reported experiencing something supernatural in areas that were previously identified as "haunted." In other areas, only 35% of subjects reported supernatural goings-on. Among the reports were strange light effects and the sensation of something tugging at your clothes. 

Hanks and his son Truman were on their way to a typewriter shop when they spotted Girl Scouts selling their delicious cookies. Hanks bought four boxes and donated $20 on top of that. And then he hung out and took pictures with people who also bought cookies. At first the Los Altos Scout moms didn’t recognize Hanks because he was wearing the grand celebrity disguise of a baseball cap and sunglasses. But his familiar voice eventually got their attention. “I never realized how distinctive his voice is. It was right out of a movie,” an impressed mom said. And of course everything was shared on Twitter for posterity.

Hanks doesn’t worry so much about how he’s coming across on the red carpet. He chooses to focus on his wife instead. He takes his own shots of Rita Wilson on his phone according to the Huffington Post.

Hanks and his Green Mile co-star were close. Hanks told a story actor’s memorial service that Duncan had once told him. It brought tears to everyone's eyes.

On Oct. 6, 2015, Hanks found a student named Lauren’s student ID in a park. He took to Twitter to let her know he had it and his office would return it to her. That same day, Lauren’s friend Hannah recognized her friend and responded to Hanks. 
  
Lauren didn’t have a Twitter account and found out via her professor that Hanks was looking for her. The lost ID landed her on Good Morning America. She explained to GMA that she lost it when she was on a run and after she pulled out her phone to take a selfie. Hanks eventually mailed the ID back with a note attached.

Martin was accepting an honorary Oscar from Hanks when the latter thought it would be a good time to grab a selfie. Definitely captures the moment for him and everyone else.

The Army inducted Hanks into the Ranger Hall of Fame in 2006 for his accurate portrayal of a World War II army ranger in Saving Private Ryan. Unfortunately, Hanks was unable to attend the ceremony according to reports.

We really hope this one is true. He (may have) signed this fan’s autograph with a Buzz diss. It does seem like a very Hanksian thing to do. 

In order to turn his limo into a Rolls Royce that would take him and wife Rita Wilson to the 64th Annual Emmy Awards, Hanks taped (using packing tape) his Emmy for producing Game Change to the hood of a Lincoln town car. The Emmy was Hank’s fifth. He then reportedly tweeted, “How I'm getting around these days! Hanx.”

After meeting a random fan in a restaurant, Hanks and the fan posed for some pretty funny pics, at the fans' request. The fan pretended to be passed out drunk in a North Dakota diner while Hanks made fun of him. When one of the photos surfaced, it instantly went viral. The other shots reveal that the two were having some fun. 
 
In 2012, reddit user groucho29 posted a link to the pictures, saying, “my friend met Tom Hanks, stole his glasses and pretended to be wasted.”