Most people use TikTok to watch funny, silly, short videos, memes, trends, and viral dances. But we now know that the app has a dark side, and your ‘for you page’ can hide some truly eyebrow-raising mysteries.
Let's return to the shadowy side of TikTok, looking at haunted houses, cyborg celebrities, and unexplained midnight intruders, as we scroll through some more TikTok mysteries that the internet wasn’t prepared for!
Spooky Baby Monitor
Every parent knows how difficult it is to get a newborn baby to go to bed, and once they finally fall asleep, all you can do is pray that nothing disturbs them. But when one parent watched the footage, captured on their baby monitor’s video feed, it was the parent who wound up witnessing something disturbing.
This might look like a scene from paranormal activity, but it’s actually a TikTok from Lexi Bruner, showing the moment a terrifying figure appeared next to her cousin’s crib in the dead of night. Luckily, the baby slept through the encounter, but the 18 million viewers were forced to suffer through some sleepless nights, as they argued over whether the face was a home invader, a demon, or the tooth fairy. These viewers were terrified, but two weeks later Lexi posted a reassuring update, explaining that the horrifying figure was her.
She explained that the video started out as a family prank, as Lexi snuck up to her cousin’s crib while her aunt was watching the baby monitor. As the monitor’s night vision lit up Lexi’s face, with sensitive enough hardware to pick up eerie reflected infrared light glowing in her eyes, her aunt was horrified.
The prank worked so well, that Lexi uploaded the footage onto TikTok to see if she could trick her friends too. The video went viral, and Lexi was soon inundated with thousands of messages, urging her to take the baby and burn the haunted house to the ground. When she finally posted her explanation, most of us were relieved that Lexi wasn’t in any danger.
Katy Perry's Eye Glitch
Let’s move on now to someone who’s sold millions of records, but can’t seem to keep her circuitry running without a few glitches. A TikTok shows the moment that Katy Perry’s teenage dream turned into a nightmare, as her eye started glitching out while performing in 2022.
As videos of the incident went viral, Katy’s fans urged her to go to the hospital or see an optician. At the same time, a group of conspiracy theorists jumped onto the video, using it as evidence that Katy and other A-List celebrities are robots, who are built by the deep state to manipulate and control us.As people argued over whether Katie needed urgent medical care or a software update, the pop star came forward to
explain the situation. It turns out, her on-stage act includes a section in which she pretends to be a Barbie doll, and she was intentionally imitating a doll with a broken eyelid for the performance.
The effect was pretty creepy, but Katy’s fans all breathed a sigh of relief, as they realized their favorite singer wasn’t going blind. The conspiracy theorists weren’t satisfied though, pointing out that Katy’s excuse is exactly what a deep state robot would say if it was caught malfunctioning.
TikTok Searching For Sofia Juarez
Let’s move from that insane conspiracy theory to something far more serious, as we check out a TikTok that became a lead in an 18-years-unsolved missing child case. In 2003, a 4-year-old girl called Sofia Juarez walked out of her home in Kennewick, Washington, headed onto the street, and disappeared, never to be seen again.
The search for Sofia was huge, involving the FBI and hundreds of volunteers, but tragically, the case eventually went cold, as the authorities ran out of suspects to investigate. By 2021, it looked like the cops had no more leads to follow until a video was uploaded onto TikTok.
In this interview, a 22-year-old woman living on the streets of Culiacan, Mexico explains that she was kidnapped as a child, and she doesn’t know where she originally came from. After the TikTok was posted, some eagle-eyed viewers noticed that the woman shared a resemblance to Sofia, and before long the internet went into a frenzy, claiming that she’d finally been found.
The people of Kennewick were delighted, as the police reopened their investigation, and contacted the authorities in Mexico. However, as the video went viral, the police were contacted by a couple claiming to be the 22-year-old woman’s parents. They explained that their daughter was mentally ill, and she wasn’t kidnapped as a child, having been born in Mexico. This was a concerning development, but the police were reluctant to simply take the family’s word for it. So, they spent months tracking down the woman herself, before conducting a DNA test to definitively solve the mystery. As the cops waited for the test results, the world watched on with bated breath until it was announced that the woman was definitely not Sofia Juarez. Sadly, the lead was another dead end. Tragically, this mystery didn’t have a happy ending, but it did show how powerful social media can be at spreading information, and the Kennewick PD asked people to share any potential leads that they find in the future, reminding us that Sofia might still be out there. And who knows, maybe social media still has hope of providing that missing link?
Unidentified Creature In West Hollywood
From Dracula to The Blob, Hollywood is home to some pretty iconic monsters. However, in 2021, Hollywood’s A-List ghosts and ghouls received some competition, after a TikToker spotted an unidentified creature, flying above West Hollywood.
Typically, the only monsters you find in Hollywood are on the silver screen and in positions of power, so when Rachel Lindsay spotted this creature flying 300ft above LA, she was pretty shocked. As Rachel’s TikTok went viral, other eyewitness accounts started appearing online, along with outlandish theories that the figure was a demon or a UFO.
Luckily, others had a more rational explanation, noting that the monster actually looks suspiciously like a bundle of Halloween ‘spider-balloons.’ That theory would explain the figure’s knotted legs, and its ability to float through the sky. Furthermore, the sightings occurred in early November, around a week after Halloween.
Unfortunately, before the theory could be proved, the shape disappeared into the clouds. However, most online commentators seem to agree that the creature was indeed just a bundle of balloons, possibly even part of a movie set filming in the area. While nothing was ever officially confirmed, if the floating shadow was indeed Halloween decorations, then it did a great job. Instead of just scaring trick-or-treaters, they horrified 2 million people on TikTok and half the population of West Hollywood.
Cops Run From Graveyard Scream
Hollywood’s flying spaghetti balloon monster was pretty strange, but there have been even stranger cases of alleged monster encounters on TikTok. The video below from 2022 shows the moment that two cops arrive at a cemetery in the dead of night, before hearing a bloodcurdling scream in the distance.
The cops decided to protect and serve themselves by running away, leaving the 2.6 million terrified viewers to wonder what creature could make a noise that horrible. The scream definitely conjures up images of zombies, skinwalkers, and banshees, but in reality, the creature behind the shriek looks more like a grandma.
It turned out, after some thorough digging, the horrific scream had been edited onto the footage of the cops, and the audio was originally taken from a prank that TikToker David Lawson pulled on his grandma back in 2019.
Grandma Lawson’s admittedly extreme reaction to the lights being suddenly turned off went viral, and her scream was so terrifying, that other content creators started laying it over unrelated footage to create horrifying videos. The scream was so unnerving, in fact, that some have claimed it’s not even a real scream, and is in fact, the result of someone using an Aztec Death Whistle, an ancient device that sounds like in the clip below.
Seeing as the original footage of the cops in the cemetery seems to have been buried deep under the wave of edits like the first TikTok clip, it’s hard to say how deep the rabbit hole of fakery goes. However, some commenters claim that in the unedited footage, the cops were actually running from the sound of gunfire, which makes a little more sense.
Couple Finds Cursed Box
When you picture a haunted house, you probably see cobwebs, possessed dolls, and spooky ghosts. However, when the couple behind the TikTok account GeeBeeTV saw a creepy house go on sale at a local auction, all they saw was a great investment. They purchased the home, aiming to renovate it and sell it for profit.
Typically, the scariest thing a house flipper can find is black mold, but as the couple tore through a wall underneath the stairs, they discovered something far more sinister, a hidden passage containing a damaged bible, hanging from a hook.
Over the next few days, they made some more horrifying discoveries. In the attic, they found a makeshift cross, and a black and white photo of a family with their eyes scratched out. They then found two boxes hidden under the attic’s rafters and floorboards; a trinket box marked with the words ‘Do Not Release’ in Welsh, and a larger container sealed with wax.
The couple opened both containers, discovering a lock of hair, a necklace, and a burnt Ouija board. They then looked inside the house’s chimney, finding a postcard, crystals, and a letter from the 1940s, written in Thai, that explained that the house was haunted after a previous homeowner bought a cursed trinket box in a market in Bangkok.
These videos amassed over 100 million viewers, but some of these netizens had grown suspicious, noting that the couple could’ve easily planted all their findings. Instead of addressing these comments, however, the couple ignored them, instead announcing that they’d booked flights to Bangkok. When the couple arrived in Thailand, they headed to the market mentioned in the letter and started asking about the box, where they were shouted at by a shopkeeper, and later stalked by a group of unknown men. This series of sinister encounters prompted them to burn the box immediately, an action that they claimed would ‘lift the curse’ on their house and end their story.
As the couple’s horror story crossed continents, GeeBee’s audience was pretty divided on whether the series was staged. The claims that it was fake were bolstered when the couple returned home and sold the story to the Discovery Channel, allowing them to adapt it for TV. The couple still claims their story was real, but whether the TikToks were fact or fiction, their 260 million views prove that it was a pretty gripping mystery either way.
Mysterious Set Of Hands In Video Terrifies TikTok
Let’s move on now, to a TikToker who walked past a mystery without even noticing. Back in 2020, a TikToker called Sakura got her friend to film an innocent video for social media, and when she watched it back later that day, she discovered a dark secret hiding in the background.
When Sakura zoomed in on the clip, she noticed a pair of hands grasping the edge of the nearby cliff edge. As Sakura shared her discovery on TikTok, her video racked up millions of views and some attention from mainstream news sites, as Sakura’s fans urged her to return to the hill to see if she could find out who the mysterious hands belonged to.
People were genuinely concerned that
Sakura had witnessed an accident, however, before the police could get involved, Sakura uploaded another TikTok that was part update, part confession. She explained that she worked for Buzzfeed, and her boss had tasked her with creating a viral mystery video. Sakura had climbed up the hill with two friends to create the clip, asking one of them to crouch behind a small ledge in the background and place their hands on a rock above them. It turned out, the mystery man was just hanging out with Sakura, instead of hanging on for dear life.
Needless to say, people felt pretty betrayed by this reveal, commenting that BuzzFeed should stick to making ‘Which Disney princess are you’ quizzes, instead of hoax videos.
Creepy Airbnb
Usually, a week off work is the perfect way to unwind. But vacations aren’t always relaxing, and in 2021, a TikToker called Keezy proved it, after his Airbnb turned from the perfect holiday home to a full-on horror house. In a series of TikToks, Keezy explained that he and a friend booked an Airbnb in Richmond, Virginia.
Unnervingly, when they arrived, their hosts voiced their disappointment to discover that the pair of guests weren’t women, as they’d assumed they were due to their unisex names. It was a weird introduction, but the owners showed their guests around the Airbnb anyway, taking them to their rooms. Later on, Keezy decided to hit the hay, but as he tried to sleep, he was repeatedly awoken by a rustling noise behind an air vent in his room. Keezy managed to get some shut-eye eventually, but the following morning, he quickly grabbed his phone to investigate the vent. What he found was unbelievably creepy.
In the light of day, Keezy could see that the air vent concealed a small room, with enough space to hold a person or more. He realized that the owners could’ve been watching him through the vent all night, so, he grabbed his friend and left the Airbnb, finding somewhere else to stay. Keezy felt like he’d avoided a potentially dangerous situation, noting how disturbing it was that the owners of the Airbnb were upset that their guests weren’t women. Unfortunately, Keezy hasn’t publicly shared any answers from Airbnb about the incident, so it isn’t clear whether the owners were planning on watching women while they were sleeping, or worse.
Masonic Cave Mystery
Oregon is known for its beautiful landscape and incredible wildlife. However, America’s beaver state is also home to some deeply perplexing secrets. Back in 2021, a TikToker called Saiyannou shared some bizarre footage, captured in a remote part of Oregon, revealing a cave with a strange symbol above the entrance.
The footage shows a cameraman creeping inside, discovering a set of old wooden bleachers, and a pile of children’s shoes mixed with what seemed to be animal bones.
Saiyannou shared the footage to TikTok, where commenters identified the cave’s symbol as the mark of the Freemasons, the largest secret society in the world. This might sound like evidence of a conspiracy, but strangely, the local Masonic group is actually pretty public with their usage of the cave, known as Malheur Cave. The Oregon Freemasons hold an annual meeting there, which they post about on Facebook. Until recently, the Masons allowed members of the public to freely enter the cave, but in 2019, they sealed it with a large metal gate, after a group of vandals tried to set fire to their bleachers.
But before you conclude the gate was just a means to hide the dark truth within, here’s an important question, where was this gate in the 2021 footage we saw? Here’s where this story takes a baffling turn. I spent hours trying to find some information about the original video. And, eventually, I found what I was looking for. It turns out, the clip of Malheur cave was originally uploaded in 2016 by a
YouTuber named Water Skipper. At least, the first part of the TikTok footage was. Through my research, I was shocked to discover that the part with the shoes and bones actually came from a
totally different video, from a totally different channel, and a totally different cave!
This secondary footage actually showed the interior of McCoy Mine in Nevada, and had been spliced with the Malheur Cave footage by the TikToker, seemingly to build a narrative about the untoward activities of Freemasons. Just goes to show, you should pretty much not believe anything you see on TikTok! While this fakery is pretty annoying, there are still a lot of unanswered questions about the McCoy Mine footage, posted in 2019, with no updates on the discovery ever shared since, let’s just hope that, too, was an elaborate fake.
Hellhole Cave
So, the Freemason den might not be as spooky as it initially seemed, but other caves on TikTok are legitimately scary. Caving is an extreme sport that involves crawling through some of the most claustrophobic spaces imaginable, and one of the most popular caves amongst TikTokers is the Hellhole, a cavern in Santa Cruz that’s marked with an ominous entrance.
The cave is a maze of tight crawl spaces and steep caverns, including the ‘hall of faces,’ a chamber containing horrifying sculptures made out of clay. Some of the faces are decades old, and nobody knows the identity of the intrepid cave explorers that made them. But if you want to see the mysterious artwork firsthand, you’ll have to insanely crawl deep underground.
The Writings On The Wall
Let’s head out of the wilderness and check out some mysteries a bit closer to home. TikTok is full of Urban Explorers, who spend their time creeping through abandoned houses, hospitals, and factories to see what they can find.
Usually, all these TikTokers discover are empty beer cans and rubble, but occasionally, these explorers also encounter graffiti with dark, cryptic messages. Some of these captured messages have consisted of ominous warnings that something sinister is lurking inside the walls, creepy messages of childlike requests for help, and occasionally very morbid statements.
You would’ve thought being warned would prompt these Urban Explorers to head home. However, most explorers and viewers alike agree that the messages are pretty much always left either by other urban explorers aiming to give their content more clout, or merely by bored teenagers. And, after all, bored teenagers are too distracted by chaotic, obnoxious TikToks to pose any real threat.
Man Finds Secret Rooms Behind His Bookshelf
Most of us spent the COVID-19 pandemic laughing at Joe Exotic and baking banana bread, but the richest members of society had a slightly different experience. Freddy Goodall is a TikToker who owns a 500-year-old manor house in Sussex, England.
He’s known for posting videos about the home’s chandeliers, ballrooms, and the secret passageways he’s always seeming to uncover. This all started in the lockdowns of 2020, when Freddy found some old photos of his house, including a picture of his library. The library was largely unchanged, however, the room clearly had an extra door, that was now covered with a bookcase.
When Freddy examined the bookcase, he discovered that its wooden back was actually a hollow panel concealing a secret tunnel. Over the next few days, Freddy started to explore the space, finding a maze of derelict tunnels that contained dust, cobwebs, and an old safe, engraved with the words ‘Do Not Open’.Despite that ominous engraving, Freddy was pretty excited, recruiting a friend to help break the safe open with a wrench, a drill, and a blowtorch. Unfortunately, Freddy’s small tools didn’t cut it, literally, so he was forced to slowly drag the safe out of the tunnels and into his garden, allowing his friend to cut it open with an angle grinder.At this point, Freddy’s series had clocked up over 11 million views, and as he examined the safe’s contents, his newfound fans were on the edge of their seats. The viewers hoped the safe would contain jewelry, cash, or maybe something more sinister, but sadly, Freddy’s next TikTok explained that all he found was a few books and letters from the 1830s containing general information about the house and its occupants.
It seemed the ‘do not open’ message was either a misdirect, or a prank, as there was nothing unpleasant inside at all. Freddy was pretty happy with
the discovery, but lots of his viewers were hoping for a slightly more exciting conclusion to the saga. But, real life isn’t always extreme, and I’d take this good, honest content over extreme, exaggerated lies any day!
Rosie the Shark
From lolcats to Doge, animals have dominated the internet since the dawn of social media. Despite this rich tradition, the animal-obsessed side of TikTok has grown slightly darker over the last few years, after several accounts started posting videos of an unnerving shark, found abandoned in a tiny aquarium.
This shark’s twisted smile was seen by millions of people on TikTok, who were horrified by the creature’s appearance, questioning whether it was dead or alive and where it came from, as the origin of the bizarre creature grew into a full-blown TikTok mystery. It turns out, this online shark tale starts in 2018, when an Australian YouTuber called Luke McPherson decided to explore an abandoned zoo called The Wildlife Wonderland. Luke wasn’t expecting much out of his trip, but, as he crept through the zoo, he found a 16-foot shark, floating in an algae-covered tank. After a brief panic, Luke realized that the animal was long-dead, so, he filmed it and posted it onto YouTube, where it received over 17 million views.
Abandoned Australian Wildlife park. Decaying, left to rot. by Lukie Mc Before long, viewers identified the shark as ‘Rosie,’ a dead Great White that had been preserved in formaldehyde and displayed in the Wildlife Wonderland. Rosie was a fan favorite, but when the zoo closed in 2012 due to animal welfare concerns, she was left all alone, as all the living animals were rehoused. In the years since, a number of trespassers had opened Rosie’s tank, lessening the preserving effects of the formaldehyde. As a result, Rosie’s body started to slowly decay until Luke’s video caught the attention of Tom Kapitany, a wildlife enthusiast who owned a nearby exhibition center called Crystal World. Tom didn’t want Rosie’s body to go to waste, so, he acquired the shark from the former owner of Wildlife Wonderland, craned her out of the zoo, and emptied her tank of contaminated Formaldehyde, before transporting her all the way to
Crystal World’s parking lot.
This whole operation cost over $200,000, and Tom has spent the last 3 years filling Rosie’s tank with an expensive preserving chemical called glycerin and getting the permits to build her a permanent display center. Rosie’s a pretty expensive pet, but Tom has never given up on his shark, and soon, Rosie will be the star of a full-blown exhibition where you can read her story, learn about shark conservation and shoot some TikToks to scare and confuse millions of people online!If you were amazed at these TikTok mysteries, you might want to read
part 1 of this series. Thanks for reading!
