This listicle was rejected by Cracked.com for being ‘hella specific’ but the facts unearthed are too alarming to simply be left forgotten on the slush pile:
There’s always something lurking back there, in the very deepest recesses of the freezer unit. Usually it’s half-forgotten foodstuffs – leftovers in a plastic tub or a Sara Lee pie about four years past its sell-by date. Then of course there are those frequent occasions when a hapless cop stumbles on a frost-bitten collection of dismembered body parts. Alongside them, however, are a bizarre handful of items that would blow the mind of even the most fastidious serial killer, items such as:
1: A DEAD LION
Indiscreet health inspector Ian Brightmore hit the headlines across the UK recently when he revealed that the strangest thing he’d ever happened across in a restaurant kitchen was a frozen lion, supposedly donated by the local zoo so the owner could feed his dogs. Luckily, even though the lion was kept in the same area as food meant for sale to punters, the owner got away with it, as it was his only infringement.
Some rival papers smelled a rat (which should have been the least of this particular restaurateur’s problems), but a subsequent investigation by the Guardian found that the story was indeed true, although, after being pressed for more info, Brightmore would only admit that it happened “a long time ago” at a “different type of food establishment” – as if that makes things any better.
2: THE HEAD OF THE WORLDS OLDEST EUROPEAN EEL
Sweden was left dealing with almost unbearable tension when it was revealed that scientists would be unable to perform on autopsy on the country’s oldest eel – because it no longer had a head. A local official went as far as searching down a well to find its skull, only for it to turn up in the freezer the rest of the poor fish had been kept in all along.
3: A MISSING PERSON
A woman in Tulsa was reported missing after her family heard nothing from her for four days. They searched her apartment and found no sign of her, and it wasn’t until another search the next day that they realised she was trapped in her freezer, having climbed in there for unclear reasons – but alive and well.
4: DEADLY VIRUSES
Even scientists put off the chore of defrosting their freezers, and staff at a research facility in Washington were left red-faced when they discovered a cardboard box dating from the 50s that contained vials of the smallpox virus. Smallpox was eradicated in the 1980s, and the only surviving examples were supposed to be in Atlanta and Russia. Further investigation also uncovered hundreds of other vials that nobody was missing, all packed with deadly diseases. Which only leaves you wondering what was in the boxes they did know about.
5: FIVE FROZEN OWLS
A man in Essex was arrested after police discovered his freezer was packed with rare birds, including five endangered owls. Despite initial suspicions that he was working on a macabre update of festive song The Twelve Days of Christmas (probably), it seems more likely he was involved in the supply chain of black-market taxidermy: notorious, of course, as the most sinister of all black markets.
And finally…
6: AN ALIEN
Authorities in China didn’t see the funny side when farmer “Mr Li” claimed to have the body of an alien in his freezer, captured after it had been killed on an electric fence. Li subsequently admitted he had made the creature from rubber, bone glue and wire. However, he felt his motives were pure because he and his friends “believe aliens exist and we want to make more people believe that aliens exist.” Unfortunately he was arrested and charged with “fabrications” which “disturbed the public order”, which, as you can see from his expression, seemed harsh even to the alien.
James JW Robinson 