Two identical murders with no apparent link, a mysterious voice that saves a life, and
a freak wind that transported a girl miles away.
Did these stories actually happen, or are we having fun with our imaginations?
Join us as we find out what's fact.. or fiction.
The line that divides the factual from the unreal has long since blurred, the tales we
once thought fantastical now implanted as truth.
To decipher verity from the imagined, you must break from the ordinary and consider
a universe where the outlandish prevails.
Can you expand your mind to see beyond our perceived reality?
Can you decide what's fact or fiction?
Two seemingly normal women connected only by having the same names meet grizzly ends
just days apart from each other.
Was this all just a coincidence, or was something more sinister at play?
Story # 1: The Mary Morris Murders It was an uneventful fall of 2000 in Houston,
Texas, when 48-year-old Mary Lou Morris left her suburban home to go to her work as a bank
loan officer.
She kissed her husband and children goodbye as they finished breakfast at the kitchen
table, without knowing that this would be the last time she’d ever see her family.
It was the afternoon by the time Mary’s husband had realized that something was wrong,
and when he still couldn’t get in touch with her after 5pm, he called the police to
report her missing.
It wasn’t long before a motorist made the gruesome discovery of Mary’s body on a secluded
road just three miles from her home.
Her body had been so badly burned that she was identified by using tooth fragments, and,
sadly, police had no leads to a suspect.
While Mary’s family and friends were still grieving from the shocking incident, another
family was about to experience the exact same fate.
Just three days later, another Mary Morris lost her life in a similarly violent manner.
39-year-old Mary McGinnis Morris, a nurse, was also found dead in her car on a remote
road a few miles from her home, and although the scene had been made to look like a suicide,
police immediately identified the scene as a setup.
But, the difference in this case, is that there were immediately two suspects: the husband
going after her hefty life insurance policy, and a disgruntled co-worker who blamed Mary
for his firing.
Twenty years later and the cases are still shrouded in mystery, but the prevailing theory
is that the first murder was a hit gone wrong and that the second Mary Morris was the intended
target all along.
After all, what are the chances of two women with the same names being murdered just days
apart in a city of only two million people?
Is it possible that two seemingly normal women could meet such grizzly ends just days apart
from one another in the same fashion?
Is this story too coincidental to be true?
Maybe it was a mistake of identity and the wrong Mary was killed - but would a hitman
be so careless?
We'd love to know your thoughts in the comment section below, and be sure to vote now using
the on-screen poll.
Our next tale brings us to Essex in England, and teaches us all to listen to that weird
feeling in the pits of our stomachs.
Story # 2: Seconds From Death It was late one Friday night in the dead of
winter of 1991 when Mike Smith and his wife Linda were driving home from a family gathering.
Sleeping in the back of their small hatchback car was their three-year-old son, Samuel.
It had been snowing all afternoon and as the young family drove down the A12 towards their
home in Chelmsford, it was becoming harder to see through the flurries of white that
were now enveloping their little car.
Mike and Linda were chatting quietly about their day when suddenly Mike went quiet and
his face grew pale in the moonlight.
Linda was asking what was wrong when Mike began rolling down his window.
Linda asked him what was going on and why he was letting snow into the car and freezing
their young son, but before Mike had the chance to answer, their car smashed into a parked
van.
The van had broken down and no lights were on, so it was impossible to see in the heavy
snowfall.
After a second of silence, Samuel began to scream and Linda and Mike started to smell
gasoline.
The couple tried to open their doors but the force of the accident had jammed them shut.
Linda screamed as she realized they were trapped and that the leaking fuel could ignite at
any second.
Realizing his window was down, Mike bursted into action, climbed through the tiny opening
and helped his wife and son to safety.
Like any typical action movie, just as the family made it to safety, the car ignited
into a rolling mass of flames.
The following day, safe and warm at home, Linda asked her husband why he opened his
window so late at night and in such cold conditions.
He told her that he had a strong feeling that something terrible was about to happen, and
that he needed to open the window immediately.
And it was that feeling, that saved the lives of his entire family.
We all know about those gut instincts, but to make a decision that quickly that winds
up saving 3 lives?
Out of all things, why did he think to roll down the window?
It would seem you'd want the windows up during a snowstorm, no?
We'd love to know your thoughts in the comment section below, and be sure to place your votes
while we get ready for our third and final story.
This time we're heading off to China.
A young girl was having a typical fun with her friends, when suddenly a freak incident
occurred that she was lucky to survive.
Story # 3: Blown Away Songjiang district, close to Shanghai is an
unremarkable place that most people outside of the area have never heard of.
The population of 1.5 million live in a humid, subtropical climate with four distinct seasons,
and other than an occasional thunderstorm the weather is as predictable as everything
else in the town.
It was 1992 when nine year old Wang Xiu Ying was playing in the local park with her friends
after school.
There was a strong breeze that day which is often the case in early Autumn, but the weather
was otherwise pleasant and calm.
The group of children were playing hide and seek when suddenly and seemingly out of nowhere,
a tornado touched down on the very ground that the kids were playing on.
Before any of them could react, it tore through the park and picked up everything in its path,
including Wang Xiu Ying.
Horrified onlookers were powerless as the twister plucked the tiny girl from her hiding
place behind a bench, and carried her high up into sky until she was no longer visible
to those watching.
The tornado disappeared from sight as quickly as it had appeared, and panic quickly consumed
the entire district.
Wang Xiu Ying’s parents were informed of the incident and everyone assumed the worst:
that the little girl was lost forever.
The rest of the afternoon passed in a blur of shock and sadness, as the community came
together to support the family of the innocent life that had presumably been lost.
But, later that day, a call came that seemed to be a miracle: the little girl was alive.
She had been found in a tree two miles away from the park she had been playing in.. and
the weirdest part.. she had suffered no injuries whatsoever.
There are plenty of stories of people surviving the impossible, but is a nine year old girl
really capable of living through a terrifying two mile ordeal inside a tornado?
How is it possible that she was found unharmed in a tree, with no cuts or bruises at all?
Maybe it isn’t possible, and we simply concocted the story to throw you for a loop.
Let us know what you think right now by using the on-screen poll, while we get ready for
moment we've all been waiting for.. the reveal.
Are you ready to find out if you can decipher between fact or fiction?
Let’s look back at tonight's three stories and find out which were born from reality
and which were fabrications of the imagination.
Do you remember our first story of the two Mary's?
Do you believe that a hitman could be so careless as to kill the wrong person?
Whatever you may believe, we can tell you that this story is 100% true.
Just like in our story, two women named Mary Morris were both killed in October of 2000
just days apart.
To this day, police believe it to be the sloppy workings of a hitman and no suspects have
ever been arrested.
Next, we head back to England and the tale of the Smiths.
Did Mike's gut instinct give him the opportunity to save his entire family from a fiery death?
Whether you believe in intuition or not and while this story is entirely plausible, we
can tell you that this story is entirely false.
We based this story on nothing but our imaginations.
Finally, we have the incredible tale of Wang Xiu Ying and her 2-mile journey with a tornado.
Could she really have survived such a horrifying ordeal at the hands of Mother Nature?
If you think we made this tale up, you'd be absolutely.. wrong!
It’s entirely true, though the identity of the little girl still remains a mystery.
Her story is chronicled in "The Book of Lists: The Original Compendium of Curious Information",
which you can find, right now, on Amazon.com.
How well did you do in tonight's video?
Did you look past the deception of our world and define the oft-blurred line that struggles
to separate lies from the truth?
Let us all know in the comment section below and should you find the urge to test your
perceptions again, be sure to subscribe and join us next time when we ask you to decide
what's fact... or fiction.