Since the beginning of the internet, there have always been things you just shouldn’t google. Whether they were hoaxes, gross pictures with seemingly innocuous names, or hotbeds of malware. While many of the old hoax and track sites aren’t even live anymore, there are still many things you just shouldn’t google. Many notorious historical events of the 20th century have a tragic side of human carnage, much of which is preserved on film. From the desecrated remains at the Massacre of Nanjing to the countless artistic attempts to recreate Ed Gein’s famed human lampshade, these internet searches will require a great deal of eye bleach if you dare to look them up.
16. The Rat King
Most people are probably only aware of rat Kings thanks to the extended 30 Rock joke in which Liz Lemon and her on-and-off-again boyfriend Dennis Duffy are in danger of becoming a human version. Alec Baldwin’s character, Jack Donaghy, cautions Liz that if her and Dennis’ lives become too intertwined, they will fuse and become a unified rat king. This warning motivates Liz to cut the troublemaking Dennis out of her life for good.
In reality, rat kings actually are a reality, not just a metaphor for a bad relationship in a comedy series. While rat kings have been depicted in art and literature since at least the 1500s, there wasn’t confirmed X-Ray evidence of the existence of a rat king until 1963. In that year, Dutch farmer P. van Nijnatten found a rat king which consisted of 7 rats all stuck together by the tail. An X-Ray confirmed that their tales had been mangled and broken and resulted in the fused creature.
It is believed rat kings are formed when rats come into contact with some sort of bonding or adhesive agent that causes their tails or limbs to become stuck together. The rats react with panic and often break appendages or cause other injuries that, as they heal, cause the rats to become further entangled to a point where they are permanently stuck together as one creature.