Major Crimes and True Crime

A couple smashed through their balcony railings and fell 25ft to the pavement below while having an argument.   Footage shows Olga Volkova and Yevgeny Karlagin, both 35, struggling on the balcony of their second-floor home in St Petersburg, Russia, on Saturday morning, May 29. While the pair were arguing, they smashed into the balcony railings which suddenly broke and caused the couple to fall onto the concrete below Ms Volkova was wearing underwear with a robe or blanket wrapped around her when they fell, while Mr Karlagin was fully dressed. The pair were rushed to hospital with “serious” injuries, reported local media.  Bot are said to have suffered broken limbs but they are not in a critical condition. Eyewitnesses said they saw the pair, who have a young son, arguing at around 10am before they were hurled from the balcony. Witness Denis told Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper: ‘I was walking with my colleague and filming the historic street view. ‘I noticed the row a...

In 1973, two men went to police claiming to have been abducted by aliens. The police thought they were lying, so they left the men alone in the room with a secret recording device. To their surprise, they continued taking about what happened and how terrified they were. On the evening of October 11, 1973, 42-year-old Charles Hickson and 19-year-old Calvin Parker told the Jackson County, Mississippi Sheriff's office they were fishing off a pier on the west bank of the Pascagoula River in Mississippi when they heard a whirring/whizzing sound, saw two flashing blue lights, and observed an oval shaped object 30–40 feet across and 8–10 feet high. Parker and Hickson claimed they were "conscious but paralyzed" while three "creatures" with "robotic slit-mouths" and "crab-like pincers" took them aboard the object and subjected them to an examination.

Elephant went on a rampage during a transport and knocked out power to a whole neighborhood, but cameras later showed why his heart broke. A rural neighborhood lost power overnight after an elephant being moved to a new sanctuary started pulling down streetlights and damaging power lines along the road. At first, people thought he was simply enraged. But sanctuary staff later explained the elephant had been recovering from an injury for months, and during that time, he had formed a deep bond with another elephant in the rehabilitation area. On his final day there, cameras captured the two elephants standing together, holding trunks like they somehow understood goodbye was coming. Then he was loaded into the transport truck. As the truck moved through town, the elephant became restless, reaching out toward poles and streetlights, pulling them down one by one until the area went dark. Workers spent the morning fixing the damage, and officials said the move had gone wrong because the...

I saw this old picture from 1945 and it really stay in my head. It is from a place called Dora-Mittelbau. Most people don't know but this camp was actually inside a mountain in tunnels. The prisoners had to build V-2 rockets there. It was dark and wet and very cold and thousands of people died because they had no food or sun. When the American soldiers from the 104th division finally got there in April, they were so shocked by all the bodies they found. In the photo you see a man who survived and he is dragging a guard through the dirt by his hair. It looks very violent but those guards were so mean to them for years. If you look at the back of the photo the US soldiers are just watching. They don't stop the survivor. A man named Ragene Farris who was a medic there said the camp was so horrible that no words can explain it. The soldiers let the man do it because they were disgusted by what the Nazis did. It is a very sad part of history but it shows the moment the Master R...

Woman screamed after a wolf walked into a diner, then collapsed before anyone could run. In Arizona, customers at a small roadside diner froze when a wolf suddenly walked through the open front door. People backed into booths, workers rushed behind the counter, and for a few seconds, everyone thought the animal had come in to attack. But the wolf didn’t lunge. It stumbled. Then collapsed on the floor. That’s when the fear turned into confusion. One worker noticed the wolf was panting hard, barely lifting its head, and staring toward the drink station like it had come inside for water. Carefully, keeping distance, staff slid bowls of water toward it until the wolf began drinking. Moments later, wildlife officials arrived and confirmed the animal was suffering from heat exhaustion. They safely removed the wolf, treated it with fluids, and later released it back into the wild. Customers said they would never forget the moment a wild wolf entered a diner, not looking for food but for ...

Horrifying moment an enraged hippo attacks its zoo keeper after he tried to break up a fight between two territorial bulls in their enclosure in China Terrifying footage shows the zoo keeper slip over as the hippo closes in on him This is the horrifying moment an enraged hippo started charging at its zoo keeper after he tried to break up its fight with another territorial bull in their enclosure. Heart-stopping footage shows the man - who had entered the enclosure to feed the animal - scrambling out of the pen in a desperate bid to avoid a fatal attack at the Changsha Ecological Zoo in China's Hunan province. Amid the rush to run for his life, the zoo keeper slips over on the wet concrete surface entrance with the hippo ready to launch what could have been a devastating assault. With the furious hippo baring its huge teeth in a threatening display, the man uses his arms and feet to prevent the hungry animal from closing in on him.  The hippo momentarily left its keeper alone a...

ORIGINALLY, HOOPER WAS MEANT TO DIE  When the shark attacks Hooper's cage, there's live footage of a real Great White with a rope hanging from its mouth. This shark's mouth is clearly much smaller than the shark's mouth when it attacks the boat moments later. These scenes were filmed by noted shark photographers Ron Taylor and Valerie Taylor with the help of shark expert Rodney Fox specifically for the movie.  Because the Great White sharks they filmed would be smaller than the mechanical shark in the movie, they constructed a smaller version of Hooper's shark cage. Inside the cage they alternately used a small mannequin or a little person. One of the sharks they attracted got caught in the cage's cables and tore it apart trying to escape. The footage was so good that they changed the script to reflect the destroyed cage and Hooper escaping by hiding on the ocean floor. However, the small person used in the scene refused to go back in the miniature cage, wh...

This photo was taken in 1890 inside the Whitechapel Workhouse in London — the same street where Jack the Ripper killed just 2 years earlier. Look at the women on the benches. They are not prisoners. They are poor. In Victorian England, if you had no money, no husband, no job, you were sent here. Their job today is picking oakum — tearing apart old, tar-covered ship ropes with their bare fingers to make new ropes for the Royal Navy. Their fingers bleed. The tar burns their skin. But if they stop, they get no food. The woman in the black dress with the cane is the matron. She will hit any woman who talks. Silence was the rule. From 6 AM to 8 PM, they sat here in this freezing stone hall with one tiny window, tearing ropes. See the children next to them? They are 6, 7 years old. In 1890 London, a child in a workhouse had to work too. No school. If a mother entered the workhouse, her children were taken from her and sent to a different room. She could only see them on Sunday for 1 hou...

On April 14, 2014, An Australian rock climber spent the night trapped in the boulder problem known as Squeeze Rock at Mount Arapiles. If you don’t like tight squeezes, this problem is not for you. The 24-year-old was forced to spend the night in “very cold” conditions as rescuers worked to free him.  Luckily for the 24-year-old, and unlike Ralston who had to amputate his own arm, his girlfriend was on hand to call authorities and he survived the 10 hours ‘wedged’ inside the rock with his limbs intact. Ambulance Victoria officers said the man was “extremely hypothermic” and said shampoo, olive oil and other slippery liquids were used to rescue him. The man’s hips got stuck around 10 p.m. on Monday night and was freed around 8 a.m. the next morning. State Emergency Services volunteers, Victorian police, the Country Fire Authority and local rescue specialists were on hand to help paramedics with the rescue. It was worried the climber would fall victim to crush syndrome, a dangero...

As news of Pearl Harbor broke in Tokyo, diplomatic immunity vanished. American staff frantically burned codebooks as Japanese police locked the gates, turning the U.S. Embassy into a prison. Ambassador Joseph C. Grew, along with his staff, their families, and a handful of American journalists, found themselves sealed inside. For the next six months, the roughly 65 internees lived under strict confinement. The Japanese government cut off all direct communication with the outside world, allowing contact only through the neutral Swiss legation. As the Japanese winter set in, fuel was strictly rationed, and food supplies dwindled, forcing the staff to survive on whatever provisions they had stockpiled. While the embassy staff endured the cold, neutral nations brokered an intricate diplomatic swap between the warring powers. Switzerland and the International Red Cross negotiated an agreement to exchange Allied diplomats and civilians trapped in Asia for Japanese diplomats and citizens ...

For two days, people had walked past the same patch of dirt without realizing that frightened eyes were watching them. Only the little dog's head was visible. His body was buried beneath heavy soil and broken debris beside an old wall. He couldn't stand or turn around. He could barely move his head. When a rescuer finally noticed him, the dog didn't bark. He just looked up. The rescuers knew they couldn't pull him out. They didn't know how badly he was trapped underneath the dirt, so they began digging slowly by hand. Every few minutes, they stopped to make sure the soil wouldn't collapse. Someone gave him a few drops of water. The little dog sniffed the rescuer's hand. It was a tiny sign, but it showed that he was still fighting. Little by little, they cleared the dirt around his body. First, they saw his shoulder. Then one paw. Then another. Finally, a rescuer was able to slide an arm underneath him. They carefully lifted him from the hole. His legs t...

Security staff were shocked after cameras caught an octopus luring a seagull toward its tank. After closing hours at the aquarium, staff had finished feeding the animals and left for the night. However security footage captured a seagull that had been left behind inside the building. At first, the bird seemed to be searching for scraps, until an octopus noticed it nearby. Instead of eating the fish left in its tank, the octopus left one piece outside its enclosure near the edge, almost like it was bait. The seagull hopped closer, pecking at it, completely unaware of what was about to occur. The moment the bird finished and was about to fly off, the octopus reached out and grabbed it. Security watched in shock as the seagull flapped wildly, barely managing to pull free before flying out of the area. Researchers who saw the incident said they weren’t surprised. Octopuses are known for being intelligent, patient, and terrifyingly good at problem solving. The security guard had a sim...

A very tragic event occurred in France, in 1944, when the seven Canadian soldiers were engaged in intensive fighting. German tank force captured them. They were not dealt with as prisoners of war, but carried to an old stone monastery to which the Germans were utilizing a base. What followed was planned and extremely cold in nature. The German commander was extremely brutal. He did not kill them all together. He used to confine them in a small room with a lock and would take them out one by one into the garden. This was to enable the rest of the men to hear all that. Every soldier was forced to wait inwardly and he knew very well that he would be the next. They were able to listen to what was occurring with their fellow men outside. They were shot in the back of the head one by one as they were brought into the quiet garden. The trial was nonexistent and the opportunity to defend was non existent. The bodies were then put together and the soil was only once or twice thick. Other t...

Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya was a young bold woman of the Soviet Union in the time of the World War 2. She was 18 when the Nazis assaulted her country. Late in the year 1941 German soldiers approached Moscow dangerously close. Zoya finalized in an underground movement called partisans. Their task was to destroy the German on the rear of the lines and they accomplished it by setting fire to where the soldiers slept or stored their rations. This was essential work during that time of the year since winter was coming. When Zoya was about to torch a building in one of the villages, she was detained by German wartime troops on November 27, 1941. During two days they continued torturing her. They, too, used to whip her, and walk her about barefooted on icy nights. Zoya remained a strong woman. She not only did not give them certain handy information but she even offered them an alias, Tanya. Then on November 29, 1941 the Germans strangled her so as to terrorize the villagers. They signed a ma...

A camera installed on the rooftop of a building in Lima captured a gray cat who was extremely thin, to the point where her ribs were visible. She had been motionless for hours, lying on her side on the concrete. At eight in the morning, a crow perched on the edge of the roof with a piece of bread in its beak. Crows don’t usually share their food or feed other animals. According to what biologists know, the normal thing would have been for it to eat the bread and fly off. But the crow walked over to the cat, placed the bread right in front of her nose, and took a couple of steps back. It stayed there, head tilted, until the cat lifted her muzzle and began to eat. Seven minutes later, the crow returned with another piece of bread. The camera recorded that it made the same trip four times in a single hour, bringing bread from an unknown place, while the cat ate slowly, her head still resting on the ground because she didn’t have the strength to stand up. The next day, a neighbor revi...