YouTube shows you videos it thinks you'll like. But YouTube also has a darker side. Some channels never cross your feet.
They hide in the shadows and their content probably shouldn't be online. Today, we'll dive into disturbing YouTube channels that shouldn't exist. We'll start with the strange ones and work our way to the most bizarre.
So, I want to wish you guys a very merry Christmas and it would mean the world if you subscribe because the growth of this channel would be the best Christmas gift for me. I'm Visual Adventure. You are awesome.
Hi Walter, it's me, Patrick. This YouTube channel had one of the weirdest names ever. Hi Walter, it's me, Patrick.
It was created in April 2008. The channel description read, "My videos to Walter, my friend, which cannot seem to find me. " But that raised more questions than it answered.
Who was Walter? Who was Patrick? And why was Patrick reaching out in such a public way?
In October 2009, the first video appeared. But when people watched it, it didn't feel friendly at all. It felt like Patrick was a deeply disturbed person.
The video was titled, "Hi Walter, I got a new girlfriend today. " It began with Patrick talking about his day. >> "Hi Walter, I was at the mall today and guess what happened?
I met the most wonderful girl. " >> He said they walked around, looked at jewelry, and had a nice time. Suddenly, the story got dark.
>> I brought her back to my place, and I know I know she hates cameras, Walter, [music] but I'm going to show you around anyway. You ready? >> Patrick got up and opened the door.
That's when viewers sighed. A woman was inside the room. Patrick locked her there.
The moment the door opened, she looked like she was about to yell something to the camera, but Patrick rushed in and slammed at the door. Then the video ended. The clip made it seem like Patrick met this woman at the mall and was now holding her against her will.
For years, the creepy [music] clip sat on YouTube with less than 20,000 views. Viewers thought it was fake. But in 2016, someone took a closer look and he concluded that the video was evidence of a real crime.
The viewer named the Gemini Tiger raised concerns. [music] He believed the woman in the video might be Kayla Berg. She was a Wisconsin teen who disappeared in 2009.
For starters, the lady in the video resembled Kayla. Kayla was last seen wearing a strap top. The woman in the video was wearing one, too.
Kayla went missing in August 2009. Patrick uploaded his video in October, just 2 months later. The theory spread fast.
Eventually, it reached Kayla's mom. Someone showed her the video and asked if the girl in the video could be her daughter. and after seeing it, she said it sounded and looked like her.
[music] That response brought more attention to the video. Within days, the views jumped from 20,000 to hundreds of thousands. News outlets picked it up.
Social media spread it everywhere. Eventually, [music] the police released a statement. The Antiggo Police Department is actively investigating the origins of this video.
If anyone has information, please contact us. Before long, they found out who was behind the channel. Police traced the video to a comedy group called 2150 Studios.
[music] When officers reached out, the group explained everything. The video was staged. It was meant to be a dark comedy [music] skit.
Patrick was an actor. The woman in the room was also an actress. They had no connection to Kayla Berg.
And the timing of the upload was pure coincidence. Police had to release [music] another statement. They said the video had no connection to the disappearance of Kayla.
But by then, people couldn't shake [music] what they felt. The video didn't seem like a joke. It just felt disturbing.
Today, the Hi, Walter channel is still [music] online. It has only one video. And sadly, Cayla Berg has never been found.
This next channel looked fun in the beginning, then it went [music] so wrong that it became headline news. Joshua Brown. Joshua Brown started his YouTube channel in 2010.
[music] Brown loved cars and motorcycles. Most of his videos showed him on road trips. >> All right.
Well, we got a river crossing here. This is my first. >> The trouble started when he bought a new car, [music] the Tesla Model S.
For Brown, it was extra special. The car came with Tesla's breakthrough self-driving [music] system called autopilot. It could steer, change lanes, and move through traffic on its [music] own.
From that moment, Joshua's channel focused on one thing, what autopilot could do. His first Tesla video came out in October [music] 2015. Brown sat back while the car drove by itself.
>> Uh jeez, car is doing it all itself. I'm going to do with my hands down here. >> But some viewers weren't impressed.
One comment said, "This doesn't look safe at all. " Viewers were [music] right to be worried. Brown was ignoring Tesla's safety rules for autopilot.
>> Autopilot features are [music] intended for use with a fully attentive driver who has their hands on the wheel. >> Brown probably trusted [music] the technology too much. Video after video showed the same pattern.
Brown depended on the system and became less attentive. [music] And one day it almost cost him everything. In early 2016, Brown posted a video titled Autopilot Saves Model S.
The clip showed him driving down the highway. Suddenly, a truck cut into his lane. Before he could react, the Tesla swerved on its own and avoided the crash.
Brown praised the car in the video description, writing, "I am very impressed. " "Excellent job, Elon. " It became his biggest video with 3 million views.
Even Elon Musk re-shared it on Twitter. Brown's channel took off. He got more views and more subscribers.
That near miss made him trust autopilot even more. He believed the technology would protect him every time. Fortunately, he was wrong.
Months later, Brown was driving down a Florida highway. Autopilot was on. A large white truck crossed the road in front of him.
This time, the Tesla didn't break. The news [music] reported what happened next. >> Joshua Brown died on May 7th after he engaged the Tesla's autopilot mode and a tractor trailer drove across the highway, colliding with his car.
It was the first demise linked to Tesla's autopilot system. Investigators later reviewed the crash. What they found was alarming.
That day, Brown drove for 41 minutes. Autopilot handled the car for 37 of those minutes. During the trip, the system warned Brown to take control seven separate times, [music] but he ignored every warning.
There was also another issue. >> Tesla says the car's system could not differentiate between the truck's white side and a bright Florida sky. >> Simply put, the AI sensors mistook the white trailer for the bright sky.
That's why the car didn't stop. After the incident, people returned to Brown's YouTube channel. They left comments under his old videos.
RIP, man. Sorry that Tesla couldn't save you the [music] second time. Another wrote, "Thoughts are with your family.
You risked your life in the name of science and innovation. But not everyone was kind. Some blamed Brown for putting too much faith in technology.
Joshua Brown's channel is still online [music] today. It's just videos of cars and motorcycles. But knowing what happened, the content [music] now feels deeply unsettling.
The guys behind this next channel didn't understand the concept of danger, and their content went way too far. TGF Bro. The TGF Bro channel started in May 2012.
It was created by two friends, Jay and Romel. Most of their videos were challenges and their first upload was the laughter challenge. >> One of us drinks the water and the other one has to make them laugh while the water's in the mouth.
>> It got nearly a million views. After that, their challenges kept getting worse. [music] Soon they were eating very spicy peppers.
Then they drank disgusting smoothies. The views increased, but the channel still wasn't blowing up the way they wanted. So, they pushed the limits even more.
The most reckless stunt began with a dumb idea. One night I was in bed and I said to my girlfriend Chlo, I was like, "Imagine if I cemented my head in a microwave. " >> Jay wanted to cement [music] his head inside a microwave.
And he actually went through with it. As you might expect, it didn't go well. The microwave got stuck.
After nearly an hour of trying to remove it, someone called 911. >> He has a microwave stuck to his head. I know this sounds like a prank call, but he was trying to film a YouTube video.
>> Firefighters arrived and freed Jay. Later, Jay and Romel uploaded the video. and went viral with over 8 million views.
But viewers were angry, not entertained. One comment read, "What frustrates me [music] the most is that the time paramedics have spent with you may have affected someone else's survival. Even Jay's mom was so upset that you refused to speak to him for months.
The firefighters who rescued him also tweeted. They said they were seriously unimpressed. After all the backlash, Jay apologized.
People assumed he learned his lesson. They were wrong. " In March 2020, the channel posted another controversial video.
In it, Jay and Romel hired a driving instructor to teach them how to drive. >> This is Rich. He's kindly giving me and Romel a driving lesson.
>> What the instructor didn't know was that the lesson was a setup. As soon as they got in the car, the boys ignored all of the driving instructor's instructions. The driving instructor snapped and his reaction was caught on camera.
When the video was posted, it got 10 million views. But once again, viewers were furious. The main issue was that it happened on a busy road, so viewers felt it put others at risk.
One comment said, "I'm [music] honestly surprised nobody reported them to the police. " Well, someone did report them. Weeks later, police arrested Jay and Romel.
They were forced to delete the video. And in 2022, [clears throat] a judge finded them each [music] £1,000, which is a little over $1,000. And this time, the boys really did learn their lesson.
In January 2024, Jay made a Reddit post titled, "TGF [music] is no more. " He said, "Life was becoming unbearable with all the trouble we dealt with over the years, not to mention the mental health issues. So they decided to end the channel, but after 3 years, they have literally just posted again.
This next creator believed some people were aliens in disguise. Sherry Shriner. Most people laugh at conspiracy [music] theories, but in 2008, a woman named Sher Shriner took them seriously.
[music] So seriously that she built a YouTube channel around them. Her channel description sounded like a warning. It listed [music] UFOs, aliens, reptilians, fake humans, the new world order, and alien agenda.
Sherry [music] believed these hidden forces secretly controlled the world and she was determined to expose them. Her first video featured a [music] man named Stuart Harrison. He claimed he had inside information about rituals happening inside governments.
Stuart Harrison aka Watchman X bringing you what I hope you will find to be an exciting revelation regarding what is going on right now around the seats of power in England. >> Sherry presented his claims as proof. Soon [music] she posted more videos with similar claims, but her audience stayed small.
Only a few thousand people watched. Then Sherry raised the stakes. She started talking about lizard people.
For years, the reptilian theory [music] has circulated online. It claims that some rich and powerful people are actually shapeshifting lizard people in disguise. [music] Sherry didn't just repeat the theory, she expanded upon it.
>> The reptilians have been dominating Earth uh for the last hundreds of years, thousands. She even accused famous people by name. Queen Elizabeth, Barack Obama, Beyonce.
According to Sherry, they were all reptilians pretending to be human. Her audience didn't laugh. [music] They believed her.
They were desperate to protect themselves from the evil lizard people. That fear soon turned into a business opportunity. Sherry started selling something called Orgon.
Orgon is a small rock made from mixing metal shavings, quartz [music] crystals, and resin. She claimed it could ward off reptilians and dark entities. You know that Orgon is definitely a weapon for his army to get busy doing in these last days.
>> A small Orgon pendant cost $34. Larger pieces cost up to $288. The money poured in.
Her channel was no longer just spreading ideas. It was fueling paranoia, and it was only a matter of time before it led to a serious tragedy. [music] Steven Mo and his girlfriend Barbara Rogers were devoted followers of Sherry.
They trusted everything she said. Then in 2017, Sherry turned on them. It started when Barbara made a Facebook post saying that she liked eating raw meat.
Sherry saw the post and reacted right away. She said the only types of people who crave raw meat are those influenced by dark forces. She accused Barbara of being a reptilian [music] super soldier.
Sherry's other followers took this accusation seriously. They began targeting Barbara online. Steven saw the harassment and stood up for his girlfriend.
He uploaded five videos defending Barbara and calling Sherry a fraud. But that [music] only added fuel to the fire. For weeks, Steven and Barbara were under a non-stop attack.
Steven struggled to handle the stress. Then, in July 2017, something terrible happened. Barbara called 911 in panic.
She said [music] it was just the two of them alone in a room. Steven picked up a weapon. Somehow, it ended up in Barbara's hands.
It accidentally went off. [music] Steven didn't make it. Barbara was arrested and charged.
She was sentenced to 15 to 40 years in prison. Sherry wasn't directly involved in the incident, but her conspiracy theories created the chaos that led to this tragedy. In late 2017, Sherry's health was failing, but she never admitted it.
Instead, she claimed dark forces were attacking her. Sherry passed away from heart issues a year later. She was [music] 52.
Sherry was gone, but her channel is still online, and her theories continue to spread. This next case is heartbreaking from start to finish. David Sardisen.
In August 2018, [music] someone created a YouTube channel called David G. Sardisen. Right away, people noticed something was off.
The channel only had about a thousand subscribers, [music] but it somehow had over 8,000 videos, and all those videos were posted within [music] 2 years. That meant the person behind the channel uploaded about 11 videos a day. [music] Most creators can't keep up with one video a week.
Things got more mysterious when people actually watch the videos. [music] They all looked similar. A TV was hanging on the wall.
A show was playing and someone [music] was filming while lying in what seemed like a bed. The camera never moved. The room [music] never changed.
And the person recording never said a word. Most of the time, the TV show was Wheel of Fortune. It [music] seemed like the channel was stuck posting different episodes of Wheel of Fortune.
But one day, the video started to change [music] and viewers finally understood what was really going on. From 2019, the new videos showed a different room. The walls were plain white.
The light was brighter. A curtain divider stood beside the TV. It was obvious what kind of room this was.
>> That curtain next to the TV, a clear indication that David wasn't filming at a house anymore and that he was likely filming from a hospital room. Other viewers noticed it, too. David was now recording from a hospital bed.
Then came another change. The recordings began to shake. At first, it was slight.
Later, it became constant. By late 2019, the camera never stopped trembling. Viewers also heard new sounds.
There were soft beeps and repeated clicks. One comment said, "You can hear some sort of life support in the background. [music] Everything started to make sense.
" But maybe David's health got worse and worse, something that the shakiness of the camera could signify. Maybe this led him to be transferred to the hospital. If that was true, then thousands of people were watching David's health decline in real time.
[music] Then on November 6th, 2019, he posted his final video. It was another short clip of Wheel of Fortune. The camera never stopped shaking.
After that, the channel went silent. Weeks [music] passed with no new uploads. Subscribers were curious and concerned.
In November 2019, someone figured out what happened. An obituary was posted for David Glenn Sardis. [music] It said he passed away and thanked the nurses on the second floor of St.
Vincent's for taking care of David. Now, the theory was confirmed. [music] David was recording his final moments.
Viewers saw him move from his bedroom to a hospital bed. They [music] watched his strength fade through the shaking camera and now he was gone. The viewers of our next channel thought they were watching a kidnapping happen in real time.
Allan tutorial. In 2011, a man named Allan started a channel called Allan Tutorial, but he was teaching things that didn't make sense. The first video was titled How to Leak on a Piece of Paper.
He explained what [music] to do. >> You're going to need a pad of paper, white paper. You need a fork, but or or you could use scissors.
Then he let liquid drip onto the paper. It wasn't clear if it was water or something else. That was the entire tutorial.
But somehow the video went viral with over a million views. So Allan kept posting. He uploaded how to make mail into [music] square.
Then how to make a windmill. Each tutorial was stranger than the last and Allan never showed his face. Then one video made viewers fear he might be in real danger.
In June 2011, Allan uploaded a new tutorial. Halfway through the video, a loud banging started [music] off camera. Allan froze.
He sounded scared as he spoke to whoever was banging on the door. >> Who? Yeah.
Doing tutorial. I'll be done in a minute. >> But the pounding didn't stop.
It got [music] more aggressive. When viewers watched the video, they were concerned. Then someone noticed a strange tag on the video.
It read, [music] "Dad. " Viewers wondered if this was a cry for help. But Allan didn't explain.
He just uploaded another tutorial [music] as if nothing was wrong. However, each new video became harder to understand. Allan's room started to change.
His belongings were scattered across the floor. Soon after, he uploaded locked out of room tutorial. This time, he wasn't filming inside his room.
>> Somebody got locked out of my room. Somebody uh packed up all my stuff. >> It looked like Alan lost access to his home.
For the next 2 months, Alan only filmed outdoors. He looked cold, hungry, and tired. He scavenged for food and water >> and then dangled with water.
you. Okay, you dangle the water. Oh, got it.
Perfect. >> Viewers felt like they were watching someone struggle in real time. In November [music] of 2013, the situation escalated again.
Alan uploaded a new video. His face wasn't showing, but viewers could see his arms and legs and they looked dirty. Not only that, it seemed Allen was filming from the back of a moving truck.
At this point, viewers were worried. Some even thought Allan was kidnapped. Then, in December 2014, Allan posted his final [music] video.
The clip showed him breaking through a wall. Then he crawled through the opening and escaped. After that, the uploads stopped.
For years, no one understood what they [music] witnessed on that channel. The mystery lasted until 2021. That's when filmmaker Alan Resnik revealed he was behind the channel.
He explained what really happened. >> It was very fun as a project for me to do. I didn't really tell anybody about it when I was doing it, and people just stumbled upon it.
>> He admitted that the Allen tutorial channel was performance art. them and everything was staged. [music] >> And the reaction from that was was what was so exciting and that fueled me making more of it.
The channel posted 63 videos and pulled [music] in 37 million views. It was strange, disturbing, and completely fake. [music] The viewers of this next channel knew that the end was coming.
Leather Smoke Me. Leather Smoke Me was created in [music] 2006. The channel was run by a man named Dave and his first video made people stop and stare.
[music] It was titled Gas Mask Smoking. We can't go into detail about what he was doing, but the video title tells you what you need to know. He [music] was puffing through a mask, and it didn't look safe.
But it got views, so Dave kept going. [music] Over time, he uploaded over 200 videos doing the same thing. At this point, viewers had two questions.
Who was this man? And why was he doing this? They got their answers when Dave finally introduced himself.
In March 2008, [music] Dave posted a different kind of video. It was titled a bit about me. It was the first time he spoke straight to the camera.
>> Been on a net since uh 1991. Started smoking at the age. Have enjoyed every one of them.
>> Then he finally explained what his channel was really about. Dave wasn't making videos for everyone. [music] His content was for people who enjoyed watching someone puff.
And the comments proved it. The more viewers praised Dave, the more extreme [music] his videos got. Eventually, it began to affect his health.
Over the next four years, Dave's appearance changed. [music] He appeared unwell. By 2010, the difference was hard to ignore.
Then, the uploads mysteriously stopped. Months passed with no new videos. Dave finally returned in May 2011.
In the video description, he explained [music] what happened. Hey guys, after a six-month battle with cancer, I'm still here and still puffing. Now, he even had a medical bandage under his chin.
But instead of slowing down, Dave kept filming the same old content, and some viewers encouraged him to continue. Months later, Dave posted his final video. He looked weak.
His hands shook as he puffed. Weeks later, a comment appeared under one of the videos. I wanted to let Dave's friends on here know that he passed [music] away last night.
He will be missed. That was the end. More comments followed.
Rest in peace, man. Sad to see someone go like this. Dave's videos are still online, and those who enjoy that kind of odd content are still watching.
Some people will do anything [music] for views, but views come and go. Your health, your safety, and your life, those don't come back. [music] So, don't trade at what's permanent for what's temporary.
Visual venture. Wait, before you guys go, I have a video where I talk about YouTube channels abandoned for disturbing reasons. I talk about a pilot who intentionally crashed his plane for views, a live streamer who tried to cover up a murder, and a hiker who vanished near Area 51.
Click here to watch it. Love you guys. Peace.
