A mystery cell phone containing evidence of brutal murders, a tale of lost love and chance
reunions, and a strange plague straight from the pages of a medieval fairy-tale.
Are our far-fetched stories taken straight from the history books or are they simply
stories from the depths of our writers’ minds?
It's time to test your ability to decipher between 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?
It sounds like the plot from a horror movie.
A young female backpacker found a cell phone that contained evidence of a series of brutal
murders.. or did she?
Story # 1: Cell Phone Horror When 18-year-old Hannah Sheldon left her home
in rural England to pursue her dream of traveling the world, little did she know that one of
her first stops would have the potential to put her off leaving the safety of her own
home ever again.
After finishing her A-level exams in the summer of 2017, Hannah and her friends wanted to
blow off some steam so they did what many graduates do and planned a once in a lifetime
around-the-world backpacking trip.
Their route would take in Asian adventures, Central American beaches and the ultimate
backpacker lifestyle of Australia.
Their first stop was Bangkok, Thailand, and Hannah and her two best friends couldn’t
wait to start their adventure.
Their first month in Thailand and Cambodia were perfect and the girls were tanned, happy
and relaxed.
Their next stop was Vietnam and as they hopped in a taxi from the airport in Hanoi there
was a palpable air of excitement.
En route to their hostel, Hannah noticed a cell phone in the back of the car that didn’t
belong to their group.
They tried to tell the taxi driver but he didn’t understand English, so the girls
decided to take the phone to try and work out who it belonged to.
Once they’d checked into the hostel they headed to the bar, and while the other girls
went to socialize, Hannah began looking through the phone for evidence of the owner.
There was nothing on it, though, other than one six-minute video.
Hannah started watching and it took a second for her to realize what she was witnessing:
the murders of four men.
The men were middle-aged and wearing stained and torn clothing.
They were in a parking lot on their knees with their hands up in surrender, pleading
with whoever was behind the camera.
Suddenly, someone out of sight shouted something and gunfire erupted.
The men fell one by one to the ground.
The video focused on the lifeless bodies for a full minute before shutting off.
Hannah’s friends found her still clutching the phone, weeping gently over what she’d
just witnessed.
Could you imagine finding a random phone that contains video of a brutal murder?
Doesn't it seem a little far-fetched that a murderer would be so careless to leave behind
such evidence - or to film the act to begin with?
Then again, we do live in a bizarre world where technology is everywhere.
Let us know what you think right now in the comment section below and by voting using
the on-screen poll, while we prepare for our 2nd story for tonight.
Next up is a tale that proves just how long true love can last, and how it’s never too
late for a second chance.
Story # 2: Soviet Love Sixty long years had passed since Kia Popov
last saw Albert.
He was the love of her life, and the three days that they spent together after their
wedding were the happiest of her life.
But then, sadly, she was forced to kiss him goodbye and send him off to rejoin his Red
Army unit.
Kia waited patiently for him, but one day without warning the entire Popov family was
branded enemies of the state and was internally exiled by Stalin’s regime.
They had no forwarding address to leave, and no opportunity to return.
It was hopeless, and the young couple thought that they had lost one another forever.
When Albert finally had a chance to visit his village on a break from army duty, he
found that Kia was gone.
He was devastated and did everything that he could to find his bride, but came up empty-handed.
The young couple was devastated by their separation, but they both eventually re-married because
of intense pressure from their families.
They never forgot about each other though, and each of them thought of the other on a
daily basis, despite being married to other people.
Little did they know that their wish, one day, would come true.
Sixty long years after the couple was torn apart, they both happened to be visiting their
old town on the same day.
Kia was standing outside their old house, where the couple had lived for the three days
after their wedding.
Then, suddenly, Albert drove up and got out of his car.
They locked eyes, and despite how much time had passed they still recognized one another
immediately.
Their first embrace was an emotional one, and they stayed up all night talking, only
to discover that they both were recently widowed.
Not long after they would remarry, and, to this day, they are living happily ever after
by each others' side.
This beautiful story restores faith in the purity of true love, and it proves that you
should never give up hope.
But, does that mean it really happened?
The world is a big place, so what are the odds that they happened to visit the same
location on the same exact day, 60 years later?Let us know what you think in the comment section
and by using our onscreen poll while we get ready for our third and final tale of tonight.
Plagues have killed millions over the course of history, and almost every nation on Earth
has been affected at some point.
But Germany experienced a plague like no other: a techno-plague.
Story # 3: Death by Dancing In 1998, 32,000 gathered in a field in Hamburg
for a techno festival.
DJs flew in from all over the world to play for the crowd over the weekend, and it was
one of the greatest parties that the city had ever seen.
That is, until something weird happened that would land 212 people in the hospital.
The weekend started out as normal: on a Friday morning, excited revelers pitched their tents
and sat in the sunshine drinking beer and chatting with friends.
The DJs were set to start that afternoon and the campsite was buzzing with excitement.
As the sun set on that first day, the field was alive with the sound of bass and the sight
of thousands of people moving with the music.
Saturday started off the same way: with more sunshine, more music, and more dancing.
The day went well, and as the headline act finished his set at midnight, most people
began the walk back to the campsite to continue the party there.
But not everyone left: around 400 people stayed, and they continued to dance without any music.
At first, organizers thought that alcohol or drugs might be to blame, so they tried
to move the group along, but it was as if they were all in a trance.
They continued to dance with blank looks on their faces, their eyes hollow and glassy.
Organizers became worried after an hour or so, and to be safe, they called for medical
assistance.
Nobody, though, could stop the group from dancing.
As the sun rose on Sunday, they were still moving, almost like zombies.
Full of worry for the revelers, organizers canceled the final day of the festival to
focus on solving the dancing plague which had fallen upon their event.
Police came, as well as more medical personnel, but still, nobody could stop them.
It was three days before the dancers began to collapse from exhaustion and dehydration,
and seven people suffered strokes and heart attacks.
Over half of the dancers needed hospital treatment, and to this day, nobody could figure out what
happened at that techno party in Germany 20 years ago.
Germany is renowned for its love of techno, but did that love go too far and almost result
in the deaths of several party goers?
Was it a bad batch of drugs, or perhaps an untraceable bug that was to blame?
Or did we concoct this tale simply to throw you in a loop?
Once again, let us know what you think in the comment section right now and vote by
using the on-screen poll.
Now, let's get ready for the 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.
First, we’re going back to Vietnam and the murder video on a mystery cell phone.
Did Hannah inadvertently find evidence of a murder on her trip of a lifetime, or is
this story lifted straight from the pages of a horror novel?
We’re happy to report that this story is, in fact...
fiction.
Next, we’re back in Soviet Russia for the love story of a lifetime.
Was Kia and Albert's love cut short, only to reignite 60 years later?
We’re happy to report that yes, the couple did finally find each other in 2008.
Anna and Boris are their real names, and they said in an interview that they’ve never
quarreled since they've been reunited, because time is too precious to waste on silly fights.
Finally, we’re descending on the field in Hamburg, where 400 people were overcome with
an unstoppable urge to dance.
Did this event really happen?
Well actually.. no it didn’t.
There was no techno party and no revelers were hospitalized due to their unstoppable
dancing.
Though we did draw inspirations from true events.
In 1518 in Strasbourg, more than 400 people were found dancing for over a month.
Several people died of exhaustion and historians still have no idea what caused the event.
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.