10 interesting facts about zombies

The theme of zombies is now so popular that there is even an absolutely official International Zombie Day – October 8th.

Someone sincerely believes that we (that is, humanity) will nevertheless arrange for ourselves a grandiose “self-cutting”, if not by unleashing a global nuclear war, then by dangerous experiments with viruses and human genes.

And someone just likes to tickle their nerves, sitting down in the evening in front of the monitor with a plate of sweets and watching how cine people and zombies recklessly engage in mutual “genocide”.

Zombies are, apparently, our subconscious irrational fear from the series “What happens if the body is deprived of the soul, and all its other functions are left?”

And in general, people have been scaring each other with stories about the walking and aggressive dead since the time of Ancient Sumer (and this, for a moment, 3500 years ago). Let us recall, for example, Tibetan rolangs, Indian vetals, Japanese busos, Scandinavian draugs, etc.

But if once people were really afraid of these creatures to a nervous tremor, now zombies are just an element of pop culture.

What do we all know about them from movies and TV shows? That a zombie can only be killed by damaging its brain; that if a person is bitten by a zombie, then he, too, will become a zombie in a couple of hours; that in a matter of weeks, 90% of people will become infected with a zombie virus; that this process is possibly reversible, and so on.

Here are 10 real zombie facts for you:

10 Mary Shelley, with her novel Frankenstein, can be considered a pioneer in the literature on this topic.

As you know, in 1818, Mary Shelley’s novel “Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus” was published in England, in which the scientist Victor Frankenstein (in an attempt to learn the secrets of living matter) creates some terrible thing from parts of different human bodies – but, nevertheless, alive and even a primitive thinking one is a creature.

That is, it turns out that Frankenstein’s monster was both dead and alive. Why not zombies (albeit with a “stretch” in the form of some kind, but reason)?

By the way, even before the appearance of this literary work, some scientists actually conducted experiments on the revival of dead bodies (just at the turn of the XNUMXth and XNUMXth centuries, the basic principles of electricity were discovered).

So, on January 18, 1803, a certain Giovanni Aldini (possibly the real prototype of Victor Frankenstein) staged a public demonstration in London of the “revival” of the body of the executed murderer. By connecting a 120-volt battery to it, Aldini “made” the corpse twitch, open its eyes and make faces (from this sight, some people in the hall fainted).

9. The phenomenon of zombification exists in wildlife

Quite often, by the word “zombie” we mean not only the walking dead, but also quite living people whom someone convinced (by words, through video or by any other “non-physical” methods) to act only this way and not otherwise.

But as it turns out, the very idea of ​​controlling another being is not a human invention at all.

So, in nature there is a fungus-parasite Cordyceps, able to control its carrier ant. Cordyceps infects the unfortunate insect with spores and “forces” it to climb the nearest plant to a height of up to 30 cm. Here, the ant attaches itself to the leaf, and the fungus literally grows through it, using the body of the “owner” as an incubator, and its chitinous shell as protection . The ant naturally dies.

By the way, sometimes ants “zombify” themselves. We all observed that they usually move one after another. So: if they accidentally close the chain in a circle, then they run “in a round dance” until they are exhausted to death.

8. Voodoo cult practiced in the Caribbean today

Despite the fact that, as we have already said, legends about the walking dead existed in most countries of the world, the source of modern zombie horror stories is the Caribbean Islands (and most often the island of Haiti).

Voodoo cult (with which, in fact, the term “zombie” is associated: translated from the Bantu language – “dead man’s soul”) is practiced here to this day. Imagine – in the criminal code of Haiti there is even a special article number 249, which prohibits turning people into zombies and equating this action with murder.

According to local beliefs, bokor sorcerers, who own black magic, are able to resurrect the dead and turn them into wordless slaves. Most of the population of the Caribbean sincerely believes in this, and therefore tries not to “grieve” the Bokors in any way, not wanting to one day become a “walking corpse” (because sorcerers are very “touchy”, and besides, they have great influence in these parts, and Therefore, it is very problematic to bring them to any responsibility).

7. The term “zombie” was first coined by William Seabrook.

In 1929, New York Times reporter William Seabrook published The Island of Magic, a book about his visit to Haiti. Describing the life and life of the Haitians, Seabrook devoted a rather large chapter to the Voodoo cult, where he assured that he personally saw the process of “creating” the “walking dead”, which he called “zombies”.

But, unlike the modern idea of ​​zombies – aggressive and bloodthirsty creatures, Seabrook’s “animated corpses” even aroused sympathy: they were apathetic, weak-willed, deprived of memory, but they understood the simplest commands and performed some meaningful actions.

Bokor sorcerers used them as a free and uncomplaining labor force, able to work on plantations and other hard work for years, without days off and almost without food.

By the way, American soldiers who served in Haiti from 1915 to 1934 added fuel to the fire of the rapid spread of horror stories about zombies. They also listened to stories about the black magic of Voodoo, and then retold them when they returned home. Since then, zombies have entered American popular culture.

6. There are officially registered cases of zombification of people

To believe in zombies or not is a personal matter for everyone. But there are official documents that recorded very strange cases, indirectly proving that the phenomenon of “zombie” (whatever it is explained by) does take place.

The most famous of these incidents happened to Clervius Narcissus. In 1962, he suddenly fell ill after a major quarrel with his brother, and died 3 days later. He was immediately buried (after all, the climate of the Caribbean does not contribute to the long “storage” of the dead).

And after 18 years, Clervius returned home … His case is unique in that, unlike other zombies, he retained his memory (although he spoke and moved mechanically and monotonously).

The local psychiatrist Lamarck Douyon, wanting to expose the false Clairvius, interviewed him (compiling questions with the help of the sister of the “revived dead man” and his other relatives, who, by the way, immediately and unconditionally recognized him).

But the “imposter” answered correctly, remembering even his own funeral to the smallest detail. Clairvius said that all these years he worked on a sugar plantation and was able to leave only after the death of a bokor sorcerer, who turned him into a zombie (perhaps at the request of Clairvius’ brother).

In addition, there are documents about the return to their native lands 29 years after the “death” in 1907 of Felicia Mentor (in a state of complete insanity and without memory), Natagetta Joseph (6 years after the funeral in 1966), Francis Ilius (“deceased » three years ago – in 1979), etc. They say there were similar cases in the 1990s.

5. Perhaps zombies are “created” with nerve agents.

Naturally, any doctor will rightly say that the “walking dead” (from the point of view of science) is an impossible phenomenon. After the death of the brain, a person can be “technically” alive, but he will definitely not be able to walk (and even more so, work!)

How then to explain the above cases? This question was asked very seriously in 1982 by Dr. Wade Davis. He specially went to Haiti, where by hook or by crook (as well as flattery and wads of money) he managed to talk several bokors and their entourage and even get “samples” of drugs that these sorcerers use in the rite of “revival” of the dead.

As a result, the composition of all 8 products brought by Davis turned out to be different (and several of them turned out to be useless dried grass). But the trip paid off: in most of the “not useless” samples, tetrodotoxin, the strongest natural nerve poison, was found.

Knowing perfectly well that the bokors would hardly just take and give him their secrets, Davis nevertheless suggested that by accurately measuring the right dose of the drug, the sorcerer is able to put a person into a state of lethargy for about a day.

During this time, he will be buried, and then it’s a matter of technology: dig out the coffin and take away a completely “ready” slave. But do not forget to constantly “feed” him with substances that suppress the will.

4. The first film about the “living dead” (“White Zombie”) was released in 1932, but director J. Romero is considered the “father” of zombie horror

After the publication of the book by William Seabrook and the appearance of many stories about zombies from American soldiers, the cinema, of course, could not miss this “tidbit” (and, potentially, very box office) topic.

And in 1932, the first film about the “walking dead” was released – “White Zombie”, in which the plot was built around the resigned and dumb zombie workers at the Haitian sugar factory.

The film’s budget was minimal – 50 thousand dollars, but at the box office it collected 8 million. “This is a real “gold mine”!” directors exclaimed. Movies about zombies began to shoot a lot and often.

But this genre gained real success only in 1968, after the release of the first zombie horror from George Romero called Night of the Living Dead. It was then that the audience saw “those same” monsters, obsessed with only one goal – to eat the living (which is why J. Romero is called the “father of zombies”).

And then there were his own “Dawn of the Dead”, “Diaries of the Dead”, etc. To date, more than 500 zombie films have already been made.

3. 19.08.2001/XNUMX/XNUMX in Sacramento (California) for the first time there was a “parade of zombies”

Who are the most fanatical fans of the zombie genre? Naturally, this is youth. And where the youth, there is “movement”. If I love watching The Walking Dead movies, why can’t I look like them? At least sometimes. This is how the first zombie mobs, zombie walks and, finally, zombie parades appeared.

Technically, the first zombie event took place back in 2000 in Milwaukee (USA) at the Gen Gon game festival, but there were only about 60 people there, and the idea itself came up spontaneously.

But the first organized “zombie parade” actually took place in August 2001 in Sacramento. Since then, something similar has been happening everywhere (and in some places every year).

The first zombie parade in Russia took place along the Moscow Arbat in April 2009. Now they are in almost all major cities of the country (and are gradually becoming more “realistic”).

2. In 2003, Max Brooks developed a guide on how to survive the zombie virus epidemic.

Americans in general are very serious about the idea of ​​a zombie apocalypse (some people even build special bunkers for their families, equipped with the most necessary means and stuffed with a considerable supply of provisions, with the aim of at least the first weeks of the zombie epidemic to “sit out” there more or less comfortably) .

And so, in 2003, the writer Max Brooks took and wrote the most real (and very detailed!) Guide on how to behave if “Day Z” does come: what you definitely need to have at hand, where to run, where hide, what weapons (as well as improvised means) can be used against zombies, and how to kill them for sure, what to move on, with whom to have (or not to have) to deal with in the process, so to speak, of survival, etc.

By the way, this book was translated into Russian a long time ago. But, to be honest, from the point of view of the Russian reader, it is slightly primitive, and in places, hmm … not entirely logical. Oh, what to take from them (Americans) …

1. The US has a CONOP 8888 plan – a briefing to the Strategic Command in the event of a zombie apocalypse

Some scientists (especially, of course, Western ones) do not categorically reject the very possibility of something like a zombie epidemic, because new viruses appear on our planet all the time (and old ones sometimes mutate quite significantly). Moreover, people have almost “multiplied humanity by zero” more than once with their own experiments.

What if one day the rabies virus (or even the banal flu) mutates so much that it will force people to literally gnaw at each other? Brrr… What a horror!

Just in this case, the brave warriors from the United States have a special plan to localize the virus and protect the population. CONOP 8888 outlines step-by-step what the US Army should do when Z-Day arrives.

And, by the way, it also says that some countries (including Russia, and especially its “trans-Ural” part, because of the low population) are quite safe during a zombie apocalypse. And that’s great news, isn’t it? Although … But who among us is afraid of them at all, these zombies?