Top 10 Creepiest Things Caught on Live TV
#10: The Haunted Dolly
Top 20 Creepiest Things Caught on Live TV
Here’s one that’ll rock the boat: On ITV’s “This Morning”, a couple were being interviewed about alleged strange activity surrounding a china doll they’d gotten from a thrift store. This included scratches on the husband and sporadic fire alarm bursts. Whilst the hosts were rightly skeptical, viewers were more convinced; they observed the doll start to rock in its chair during the interview, seemingly of its own volition. The doll was on the show again just a few weeks later, but this time with a new owner. It’s no surprise the toy changed hands so quickly; we’ve all seen enough movies to know that keeping possessed dolls around is a BIG no-no.
#9: The Disappearing Airport Lady
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Luggage goes missing all the time at terminals, but human beings? Not so much. Yet that’s what appeared to happen during an interview for Danish network TV2’s Sports Center. At an airport baggage claim, just behind the gentleman on camera, a blonde woman seemed to vanish into thin air as another traveller passed in front of her. Freaky stuff for viewers who saw it live, but a logical explanation does exist. The “ghost lady” was identified as Danish handball player Trine Jensen. Under close analysis, she can be assumed to have walked in tandem with the passing woman, creating an optical illusion. In the moment however, it seemed like a paranormal phenomena right out of the X-Files.
#8: Talk Show Possession
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There’s certainly more to this girl than meets the eye. On a talk show in 2016, Taiwanese model Thippawan Chaphupuang made an appearance and claimed to have been possessed by an evil bloodthirsty ghost while holidaying. This entity, known as a “Pop”, was said to hunger for animal blood and human flesh. The confused hosts then watched as Chaphupuang began to exhibit strange behavior - muttering to herself and screaming. Most viewers were disturbed by Chaphupuang’s behavior, but not so much sold on it; many called it suspiciously convenient that “Pop” took hold on live television. Regardless, it hardly made for comfortable viewing.
#7: Alien Lights Over Milwaukee
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It was only a matter of time until aliens came up. During a live Fox6 news broadcast, a group of mysterious lights were seen floating above the Milwaukee night sky. The news team was understandably alarmed, and quickly began to speculate as to the cause, with explanations ranging from fireworks to shooting stars and finally… aliens. It’s a strange sight at first glance, certainly enough to cause some confusion, and maybe even a little concern. But it only took about half an hour to shoot down E.T. expectations. An alternative angle closer to the activity shows it to be nothing more than a flock of seagulls reflecting the bright lights of the city. That’s right: Close encounters of the BIRD kind.
#6: The Australian “Mayday” Incident
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While not technically a live event, these issues with broadcasting happened in real time. During the airing of an episode of the documentary series “Mayday”, the audio from a previous news broadcast somehow replaced some of the original show’s audio. This eerie new soundtrack was a looping sound byte of a Halliburton truck driver reacting to his convoy being ambushed in Iraq. For six freaky minutes, everyone at home watching was subjected to the driver repeating “Jesus Christ, help us all, Lord” over and over. The fact that this was coinciding with footage relating to a passenger train crash made a deeply unsettling end result. The creepiest part is nobody knows exactly how it happened. Mayday indeed!
#5: The Running Shadow
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So we’ve gone through aliens...now how about moving shadows? During the broadcast of a soccer game at the Hernando Siles Stadium in 2014, cameras caught a glimpse of what appeared to be a moving dark figure. Although it was running at full speed, people in the crowd didn’t seem to notice. What made this incident all the more creepy was the fact that the figure can be seen moving through fans and even a barrier. While some theorize that the figure was in fact a soccer player double exposed on camera, to this day the cause of this mysterious apparition remains unknown.
#4: The Vrillon Hoax
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Across the pond in 1977, something even more bizarre occurred: the UK’s Southern Television had their evening news interrupted by a six minute audio message of apparent extraterrestrial origin. The unsettling booming voice coming through claimed to represent the “Ashtar Galactic Command”. These “aliens” offered humanity a peaceful alliance if they renounced their corrupt ways and weapons of war, speaking cultishly of new ages and promises of transcendence. The channel apologised for the outlandish signal intrusion, chalking it up to a hoax. It would indeed be strange if aliens broadcast a message to just one channel. Those responsible have never come forward. Dare we look up to the sky and wonder?
#3: Justin From “Big Brother 2”
Slimeball Justin Sebik was frequently violent and confrontational with other contestants during his tenure on Big Brother. But the act that finally got him kicked off the series went way beyond typical reality show conflicts. Justin famously, and quite rightly, got evicted for disturbing behavior involving fellow housemate Krista. After some drinks, the two began kissing and flirting, when Justin suddenly held a kitchen knife up to her throat and asked if she'd be mad if he killed her. The drama didn’t end there; a year after being kicked out of the house, Justin was arrested and charged with assaulting his girlfriend. To say Krista and the other housemates dodged a bullet is a massive understatement.
#2: Gary Stollman
The lengths people will go to make themselves heard! In the middle of a 1987 broadcast Gary Stollman walked onto the KNBC set behind TV reporter David Horowitz and pointed a gun at his back, ordering him to read a statement concerning paranoid theories that the CIA cloned Stollman’s father. The blindsided presenters were clearly horrified but Horowitz was able to keep his cool throughout. The statement ended with the admission that the firearm was a bb-firing replica before Stollman calmly placed the toy on the desk, apparently having never intended to harm anyone. The incident resulted in Horowitz spearheading a campaign to ban realistic toy firearms.
#1: The Max Headroom Hijack
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In 1987, two television stations in Chicago were hijacked in perhaps the most surreal act of video piracy ever recorded. Both instances featured an unidentified man dressed as obscure TV personality Max Headroom dancing to distorted audio. The second video, significantly longer, saw the man rambling incoherently in a distorted voice and being swatted on the behind by an offscreen accomplice. Responses to the rubber-grinned menace ranged from bemused to horrified, and the perpetrators of this seemingly random act were never identified. The segments lasted no more than a couple of minutes, but have gone down as among the most notorious incidents in television history. That face isn’t an easy one to forget!
