Wikipedia:Unusual articles/Death

Death[edit]

Don't panic – you're in a safety coffin.

Atacama skeleton	Remains found in Chile that caused much speculation about ancient aliens for 10 years, until they were discovered to just be of a foetus.
Badge Man	Unknown figure reportedly visible atop the grassy knoll in the Moorman photo of the Kennedy assassination.
Black Volga	The car that makes people disappear in the Eastern Bloc. Its equivalent on the other side of the Iron Curtain is the black helicopter.
Mercy Brown vampire incident	One of the best documented cases of vampire investigation.
Richard Chase	The only way to stop the Nazi-controlled UFOs from poisoning your macaroni and cheese is to inject yourself with animal blood and eat human brains.
Coffin birth	When a pregnant woman dies, the decomposition of her body can result in a gas build-up that causes the fetus inside her to be expelled.
Collyer brothers	When packratting was taken to a tragic extreme.
Death by coconut	You can die if a coconut falls on your coconut.
Death by GPS	Turn-by-turn directions to the afterlife.
Death during consensual sex	These two are not related to each other. Usually.
Death erection	These two are not related to each other. Usually.
Death from laughter	Don't laugh – it's happened.
Death by misadventure	Death probably due after one saying "Hold my beer, and watch this!"
Death by vending machine	A penny wise and several hundred pounds foolish.
Defenestration	The time-honoured tradition of throwing people out of windows.
Disappearance of Frederick Valentich	An Australian pilot disappeared in the ocean, having seen a strange object above his aircraft. No trace of either his body or the aircraft have been found.
Dyatlov Pass Incident	A group of Russian hikers attempt to escape an unknown horror on "Death Mountain."
Euthanasia Coaster	A roller coaster intended to kill its passengers.
Execution by elephant	An unusual form of capital punishment used throughout history. (See also History of elephants in Europe.)
Fan death	A persistent urban legend in South Korea, where the media – and even medical professionals – regularly report on people dying because they left a fan running in a closed room.
Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead	An early catch phrase used on Saturday Night Live, based upon the dictator's lengthy death.
Ghost bike	Bicycle rider in memoriam.
Hammersmith nude murders	Murders that involved the other unidentified serial killer named Jack, with the title "the Stripper".
The Hands of Che Guevara	Documentary about the search for the severed hands of the Latin American guerrilla fighter Ernesto Che Guevara, who was captured and executed by Bolivian Special Forces in October 1967.
Hell money	Apparently, the Chinese afterlife is subject to hyperinflation.
Sogen Kato	Believed to be the oldest living man in Tokyo... until the discovery of his 30-year-old mummified corpse.
Kennedy curse	Apparently John F. Kennedy was not the only Kennedy to meet an early demise-far from it.
Kick the bucket	A heated argument lies behind the origin of this idiom.
Lampshades made from human skin	They probably wouldn't even be that good at diffusing light.
Ricardo López	An obsessed fan who attempted to kill Icelandic singer Björk by a letter bomb rigged with sulfuric acid.
Henry Lee Lucas	Claimed to be the most prolific serial killer in history, confessing to over 600 murders. Later recanted almost all of them.
Children of Llullaillaco	Two incredibly well preserved cadavers of two Incan children found next to the Argentina–Chile border.
List of expressions related to death	"Go home in a box", "go bung", "hop the stick", ...
List of people who died on the toilet	You could say they died on the throne.
List of entertainers who died during a performance	"And for my last act...I shall die and not come back to life!"
List of postal killings	"Don't let Walter Hobbs deceive you; this life is not all shiny bins and fun", ...
List of selfie-related injuries and deaths	Extreme cases of people being unaware of their surroundings.
Lead Masks Case	Two electricians tried to contact aliens with psychedelic drugs and masks made out of lead. They died shortly after.
London Necropolis railway station	Single tickets only, unless you're a mourner or other visitor.
Lord Uxbridge's leg	The grisly afterlife of a leg lost during the Battle of Waterloo, formerly owned by Henry Paget, 1st Marquess of Anglesey.
Maschalismos	The act of mutilating the dead to prevent them from rising again.
Michael Malloy	Like Rasputin, but homeless, drunk, and Irish.
Elmer McCurdy	A dead criminal whose mummified body was bought by carnies and used as a prop for decades, its later owners not even knowing the corpse was real.
Ken McElroy	"Nobody saw nothing" taken to its logical extreme.
Micromort	A quantitative death risk equivalent to one in a million.
Mordred	Mordred is back for revenge—watch out!
Murder of Vivianne Ruiz	The first recorded "Jane Doe" in Australia, and a murder with enough twists and turns to be a legal drama. The case for the defence (unsuccessfully) contended that a bloody fingerprint found on a newspaper shoved down the victim's throat was actually tomato juice.
Herbert Mullin	Haven't had any earthquakes recently? Thank this man.
Oliver Cromwell's head	This English political leader's head has an interesting journey after its owner is posthumously executed, more so than the one he cut off himself.
Richard Paul Pavlick	Plotted to kill then president-elect John F. Kennedy via suicide bombing, but delayed it upon seeing Kennedy with his family.
Poe Toaster	Not a kitchen appliance, but a mysterious figure who paid an annual tribute to American author Edgar Allan Poe.
Post-mortem photography	Back in the early days of photography it was common to take pictures of recently deceased loved ones, propped up to look as if they were alive.
Death of Gloria Ramirez	One of the most bizarre unsolved deaths ever documented. The media nicknamed her the "Toxic Lady".
Refrigerator death	A cool way to die.
Republican marriage	A form of execution in which a naked man and woman are tied together and drowned. (What did you think it was?)
Rookwood Cemetery railway line	A former railway line that served a cemetery near Sydney.
Safety coffin	Coffins manufactured just in case their tenant is not actually dead before being buried.
Salish Sea human foot discoveries	Dismembered feet keep washing up.
Frane Selak	Dubbed the luckiest/unluckiest man to exist, cheated death seven times and also managed to win the lottery!
Sky burial	It's not really a form of burial. Also known as jhator which means "giving alms to the birds."
Sokushinbutsu	A practice of self-mummification among Buddhist monks.
Space burial	Around 150 people have had their remains interred in space. Or would that be ex-terred?
Spontaneous human combustion	The sudden burning of a person's body without any apparent source of ignition.
Suicide booth	A common feature in the world of tomorrow.
Suicide of Sunil Tripathi	"The perpetrator of the Boston Marathon bombing was... a student who'd already been dead for a month! We did it, Reddit!"
Tamam Shud case	A dead man is found on an Australian beach with no identification and a bizarre fragment of a book in his pocket. To this day, his identity and cause of death are still unconfirmed.
Carl Tanzler	A radiographer who became obsessed with a dead TB patient, had her exhumed, and lived with her corpse for 7 years.
Toilet-related injuries and deaths	As if constipation wasn't enough.
Uttar Pradesh Association of Dead People	A group of Indians suffering more from theft than cardiac failure. Its founder managed to run for political office despite having been declared dead for over a decade.
Lal Bihari
Joyce Vincent	A woman who sat dead in her home with the TV and heater running and Christmas presents on her lap for three years until her corpse was found.
Video-Enhanced Grave Marker	Graves with video screens and speakers on them.
Xin Zhui	A remarkably preserved Chinese mummy from 163 B.C. with all features and soft tissue still intact.

See also