5 News Stories That Are the First Minutes of a Horror Film

5 Mysterious Giant Holes Are Popping Up in Siberia

Recently Siberia -- which is like Russia, but without Putin running the show -- was attacked by several invisible missiles ... or so you'd guess, because that would be one of the saner explanations for this:

Out of nowhere, a giant mysterious hole emerged in a remote part of northern Siberia. Every cryptozoologist from the Bigfoot Fan Club to leprechaun enthusiasts turned their less-than-skeptical eye to this strange phenomenon. Only to have it happen again, and again, and again.

All over the remote parts of Siberia, or what scientists are calling "the end of the world," large holes have been found in the Earth where only days before there was solid ground. Even weirder, a giant Bugs Bunny has yet to pop up out of any of them. If we listen to movie logic, we could easily extrapolate the data and determine that there's a Lovecraftian horror carefully punching out holes in the Earth from its underground chamber. That, or Satan is getting ready for a visit and he can't decide which part of Siberia is worthy of his big entrance.

If you actually want a less than horrific explanation for the holes, scientists think the Earth itself is farting, and these are our planet's new buttholes.

Speaking of buttholes ...

4 30,000 Monkeys Terrorize India's Capital

In New Delhi, India, monkeys are a part of daily life in the way obesity is a part of Western civilization -- always there staring you in the face. Despite being the capital of the nation, New Delhi has always had more than its fair share of monkeys roaming the streets, stealing, vandalizing, and terrorizing people. But Indians weren't taking this lying down -- they had developed a way to fight back against the small red-faced rhesus monkeys ... with larger tame monkeys called langurs. But there's one problem -- back in 2012, India made it illegal to own a langur, them being an endangered species and all.

So what was the city to do about the 30,000 monkeys roaming the streets, attacking people willy-nilly, straight up killing New Delhi's deputy mayor at one point? Well, with langurs out of the picture, the city hired langur impersonators who could duplicate the langur calls in the hopes that the rhesus couldn't tell the difference. Try to figure out which is scarier for everyday New Delhi residents: existing at the beginning of the real-world rise of the apes, or the fact that your fellow humans appear to have crossed to the other side.

3 Mysterious Woman in Black Walks Across Appalachian America

If you're unfamiliar with Johnny Cash's songs that aren't "Walk the Line," "Ring of Fire," or the ever popular "Everybody Loves a Nut," he once sang a haunting ballad about a dead man executed for a crime he didn't commit. And the lover he left behind visits his grave while wearing a long black veil. Here are the lyrics, just in case you're looking for a downer:

She walks these hills in a long black veil
She visits my grave when the night winds wail
Nobody knows, nobody sees
Nobody knows but me

Now that you know this folk/country song exists, get a gander at the real-world version of a Southern ghost story:

The Woman in Black has been popping up across the Appalachian South, and no one quite knows what to think of her. In a climate that easily tops the 100-degree mark in July, the woman is clad in heat-attracting black from head to toe and walks everywhere she goes. And "everywhere she goes" includes Tennessee, Ohio, Kentucky, and both of the Virginias. The only thing we know for sure is that her fans have created a Facebook page that's almost 80,000 followers strong and that people who've encountered her say she gives them a "peaceful feeling" and that she's got a "glow around her" and that she's a "straight up angel from heaven" (sources pending).

The truth might be even closer to the Johnny Cash song than anyone realizes. After seeing her picture, a man named Raymond Poles stepped forward and claimed that the woman is his 56-year-old sister, Elizabeth, a mother of two and an Army vet who lost her husband in 2008 and her dad in 2009. After getting treatment to deal with her grief for a while, she apparently decided "Never mind," scored some black clothes, made a bag, and just started walking.

2 Scientists Are Opening a Big Hole Full of Dead Prehistoric Beasts

For over 100,000 years, one sinkhole in Wyoming caused the deaths of thousands and thousands of ancient animals. It's not hard to understand why all these extinct animals went extinct -- if you've got a fucking 85-foot drop in your backyard that keeps eating up all your friends, you probably should stay away from that hole or make sure nobody falls into it again.

The 15-foot-wide opening, cleverly named the Natural Trap Cave, is being prepared by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management so scientists can examine the various critters and skeletons deep below, the most interesting of which were from the last glacial period around 25,000 years back. And to prepare, the paleontologists have been working out at the local climbing wall in order to make a quick escape from the inevitable giant skeleton made out of woolly mammoth pelvises.

1 The Monster Was Inside You All Along

No one is under the impression that our insides are pristine. For the entirety of our lives, we pretty much act as the host to a multitude of bacteria and viruses taking residence along and inside our bodies, rent-free.

But last week, scientists discovered a new virus that they had never before encountered, which at first might not sound like that big of a discovery. After all, we're discovering new shit all the time, and when that new shit is so tiny that you need a microscope to see it, it's not much of a surprise that we haven't seen it until now. However, what makes this discovery interesting is where exactly they discovered this virus -- inside the human gut. In 50 percent of all people.

The researchers from San Diego State University who discovered it named the virus crAssphage (capitalization theirs, because scientists have been reading Cracked too much lately for their humor). The fact that this thing lives in half of the human population and hasn't been discovered until now doesn't exactly mean it's benign -- sure, it could be waiting for the perfect moment to flip the "kill the person next to you" switch, but it could also be the cause of any number of diseases or illnesses that we've yet to completely explain. Or, an alien.

The third part of XJ's epic science-fiction novel is out now on Amazon. The first $0.99 novella can be found here, with Part 2 out here. Or leave a review and get a free copy! Poke him on Twitter and follow him on Facebook.