Hello horror fans - and welcome back to the scariest channel on YouTube - Top 5 Scary
Videos - that dark, dank basement of a top 5 list video series where we collate the creepiest
tales of cultural significance and present them to you in a nice, neat package.
What’s going on guys - as always, I’ll be your spirit guide Jack Finch - as we creek
open the door, click on the drawstring light and creep down those rickety old wooden steps
- as we cautiously take a look at the Top 5 Scariest Things Found In A Basement.
Ahh - there’s a reason that the basement features so prominently throughout horror
literature.
The cellar, the hidden crypt - the dark underbelly of what lurks beneath.
As kids - we know that horror lies waiting in the darkness, and that culminates - for
many of us - with a fear of the basement.
Well - in surprisingly many cases - that fear is vindicated in some absolutely terrifying
stories of people finding out exactly what lurks below.
Let’s take a look, shall we?
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Kicking off at Number 5 - A Cemetery
Yep - you heard that correctly.
Now, the trope of a home being built atop a burial ground or a Pagan sacrificial site
is commonly prevalent in horror literature and cinema - mainly lending itself to the
rapid expansion of the modern era and the ignorance of ancient history.
In cinema - we’ve got Pet Sematary, Amityville Horror and Poltergeist, as well as many more
- but, as I say time and time again - sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.
That’s exactly what happened in 2003 when Wisconsin women Helen Weisensel found a child’s
skull after attempting to repair the foundations of her basement.
Initially she thought it was evidence of an unsolved murder, but when surveyors later
found a literal cemetery spanning beneath her basement things got a little weird.
It turned out that the skull belonged to a male that was buried in 1840 - and there were
countless disturbed graves just sitting and waiting patiently beneath Helen’s basement.
The good news though - is that she’d lived there for 20 years and hadn’t yet been possessed
by a poltergeist, so she must have been doing something right.
Next up at Number 4 - A Nest of Snakes
We’re going back to the USA again, a small town in Idaho where couple Ben and Amber Sessions
had recently purchased what they believed to be their dream home.
Yeah, be careful what you wish for.
Soon after moving into the house, husband Ben started finding snakes in the yard.
At first it was a few - not too big of a deal right?
This is rural Idaho.
But then, Ben found over 40 snakes slithering in his yard in a single day.
He literally had to shovel them out by the bucketload.
Then - things took a turn for the worse - and the couple started hearing rustling in the
walls.
Mice?
No.
It was like a slithering sound, a buzzing barrage of slithering movement - kind of like
the walls were..
Moving.
Well - that’s when Ben went down to the basement crawlspace the next morning, and
after he slid away a panel in the foundation - he stepped back in horror.
The wall was filled with snakes.
Turns out - their dream home was actually built on a terrifyingly gigantic hibernaculum
- a literal hive of hundreds of snakes, living and breeding and feeding on the houses warmth.
In an even sadder turn - they had to abandon the house and file for bankruptcy - not before
the estate agents that sold them that house tried to put it back on the market for the
next unwitting victim, though.
Those damn estate agents.
Coming in at Number 3 - Ben Franklin’s Skeletons
Old Benjamin Franklin - the first American and a Founding Father of the United States,
inventor of the bifocals and the Franklin stove - he’s got nothing to hide, right?
Well, it turns out that he had quite a few skeletons in his closet - well, basement actually.
In 1998 - conservationists back in England began making repairs on Franklin’s London
home 36 Craven Street, when they stumbled upon a pretty bloody discovery.
It turned out - in the basement of the house - more than 15 bodies - 6 of which were children
- were buried in a secret, windowless room.
However - although I’m not entirely convinced, it’s widely considered that Ben Franklin
wasn’t harboring evidence of some horrific homicide - but may have actually been covering
for his friend, William Hewson - Franklin’s friend and academic protege that was running
an anatomy school at the time.
In the 18th century - human dissection for scientific purposes was still ethically frowned
upon - and students had to acquire cadavers illegally, this included paying graverobbers
to dig up remains of the newly deceased.
So, Ben Franklin was just being a good friend, right?
Either that or he was a sadistic mass murderer.
Next up at Number 2 - Mummified Children
Ehh - yeah.
You’re going to be seeing a pattern with our next two points.
Pretty morbid stuff.
Back in 2010 - two women, Gloria Gomez and Yiming Xing found three large trunks in the
basement of the once-grand Glen-Donald apartment in Los Angeles.
After opening them, they found what appeared to be a hoard of antique treasure - a gleaming
crystal bowl, stacks of beautiful books - including an original copy of Peter Pan - and two leather
doctors satchels.
Thinking they were worth a hell of a lot of money, they started digging deeper - but when
they found a small bundle of newspapers in the satchels, they shrank back in horror at
was was wrapped inside them.
The mummified remains of two babies.
It turned out that the trunk was owned by a Scottish-born nurse by the name of Janet
Mann Barrie - a strange coincidence as the same initials of the author of Peter Pan.
The possibility of her being related to the author was explored, but detectives found
no such connection.
Through DNA evidence, detectives found that the corpses were the children of the nurse
- and although the case is closed, the explanation for the babies death will likely never be
discovered.
And finally - at our Number 1 point - A Mummified Corpse
See - I told you we were sticking to a theme.
Imagine exploring your newly purchased house - making your way to the lower levels - and
then discovering a literal mummified corpse, sat on a chair staring at you.
Well - that’s exactly what happened to Jorge Giro - who’d purchased a home in the seaside
town of Roses, Spain.
It turned out that the previous owner had mysteriously disappeared - but that actually
meant she’d passed away peacefully but had no one to check in on her.
I mean - it’s actually insane that no one had checked the house before selling it at
auction - and this is where it gets even crazier.
No one knows how long the corpse had sat there - but the mortgage payments to the house had
ceased six years prior.
Six years - just sat there mummifying in the salty sea air - serendipitously waiting for
Jorge to discover her.
Well - let’s hope there was no curses involved, eh?
Unfortunately, that’s all we’ve got time for in today’s video - cheers for sticking
around all the way to the end.
As always, it’s been a pleasure making this Top 5 Scary Video for you all - if you’d
like to continue on with your horror binge please, feel free to hit that playlist floating
shortly above.
As per usual, I’ve been your host Jack Finch - you’ve been watching Top 5 Scary Videos
- and until next time, you take it easy.