ShortHand: How Likely is a Zombie Apocalypse?

Rage-inducing viruses that spread through bites; a flesh-eating fungus that controls its host like a puppet; deadly pathogens trapped for millennia in Arctic ice… sometimes nature is more gruesome than fiction.From the Walking Dead to the Last of Us, stories of contagion are never far from our screens. So what are the closest real-life scenarios that could turn our world into a full-on zombie wasteland? (And, what makes insects go on a sex-crazed, amphetamine-fuelled rampage until their literal butts fall off?) This is the ShortHand.--Patreon - Ad-free & Bonus EpisodesYouTube - Full-length Video EpisodesTikTok / Instagram

Somehow, perhaps the worst deep-sea diving disaster in history – one that led to two men being crushed, three men boiling to death, and one man being liquified and shot out of a five-inch hole – happened above sea level.How? Well, join us off the coast of Norway for a little explosive decompression – and find out what can happen when the pressure of diving just gets too much…--Patreon - Ad-free & Bonus EpisodesYouTube - Full-length Video EpisodesTikTok / Instagram

In the summer of 2017, 26-year-old Anna Sorokin was arrested in Manhattan with a stack of unpaid hotel bills and fraudulent loan requests in her wake. She’d been calling herself Anna Delvey: an uber-wealthy German heiress. In reality? She didn’t have a penny to her (fake) name.Armed only with an untraceable accent and a passion for fashion, Anna tried to pull the designer wool over the eyes of some of America’s biggest financial institutions, in her bid to secure multi-million-dollar loans… And the worst part? She almost got away with it. Was Anna a con artist? An inspirational Robin Hood in high heels? An insufferable wannabe? Or all of the above? --Patreon - Ad-free & Bonus EpisodesYouTube - Full-length Video EpisodesTikTok / Instagram

Tens of millions of dollars flowed onto the canvas from the tip of Wolfgang Beltracchi’s brush. His talent? Unquestionable. His methods? Perfect. His ability to recreate the works of other artists? The greatest there has ever been.Alongside his wife Helene, Wolfgang Beltrachhi sold an unknown number of paintings, passed off as the work of 20th-century artists, to some of the most respected galleries and collectors in the world. In the process they made millions of dollars, and created a scandal so deep that, even today, nobody wants to touch it.--Patreon - Ad-free & Bonus EpisodesYouTube - Full-length Video EpisodesTikTok / Instagram

Intimate and explicit images of A-list celebrities – that’s what the world woke up to on the 31st of August 2014. “The Fappening” saw thousands of leaked celebrity nudes dumped onto 4chan, Reddit, and Twitter. It gave unprecedented access to the most overtly private images anyone could imagine – but how on earth did it happen? This week on ShortHand we’re taking a deep dive into the grubby world of AnonIB and leaked-nude “collectors”: users who hoard and circulate explicit images without the subject’s consent – celebrity or not. So how do these images come to be online? And how do we stop it from happening? --Patreon - Ad-free & Bonus EpisodesYouTube - Full-length Video EpisodesTikTok / Instagram

Mystery, mayhem, and death followed Michael X all the way back to Trinidad.Hacked to death and left in shallow graves, the bodies of Gale Benson and Joseph Skerritt were found at Michael X’s house.  Whispers of black magic and rumours of espionage rippled through the island.How could a young, wealthy British socialite like Gale Benson end up buried alive in the Caribbean? And why would Michael X want her dead?--Patreon - Ad-free & Bonus EpisodesYouTube - Full-length Video EpisodesTikTok / Instagram

Malcolm X was a true revolutionary, Michael X was an imposter.This con man realised that politics was a lot easier than poetry and rose to the top of the British Civil Rights Movement. All the while violently exploiting the Windrush generation he claimed to be fighting for.John Lennon and Leonard Cohen were his biggest fans. They donated thousands to Michael X's projects that never actually happened. The press hung on his every word, quoting him as the most powerful black man in Europe.By the time Michael X's ego unravelled, it was too late for socialite Gale Benson to escape from his web. They would both pay the ultimate price for his lies.--Patreon - Ad-free & Bonus EpisodesYouTube - Full-length Video EpisodesTikTok / Instagram

On the night of 14th April 1912, the ‘unsinkable’ RMS Titanic struck an iceberg and sank into the icy depths of the Atlantic Ocean – killing almost all of its passengers. But the real question is: would you make it through that fateful night? In this special 114th-anniversary ShortHand, we walk through your realistic chances of survival after boarding the doomed ship… And with your sex, class and circumstances all tipping the balance on some seriously sketchy odds, you’d better grab a life jacket just in case.--Patreon - Ad-free & Bonus EpisodesYouTube - Full-length Video EpisodesTikTok / Instagram

When two fighter jets came to check on the unresponsive Helios Flight 522, they were stunned at what they saw: all 115 passengers, lying motionless in their seats. Even worse – the pilot’s seat was empty, and the co-pilot lay slumped over the control panel. The commercial plane was drifting along at 34,000 feet, on autopilot – and fuel was running out. This is the ShortHand.--Patreon - Ad-free & Bonus EpisodesYouTube - Full-length Video EpisodesTikTok / Instagram

The lead suspect in the Gilgo Beach Killings - 62 year old former architect Rex Heuermann - has now pleaded guilty.So, with a trial off the table in the Long Island Serial Killer saga, join us for an update on what investigators found that finally nailed Heuermann - forcing him to confess. Then stick around and revisit our two-part episode on this harrowing case that haunted Long Island for decades.Plus, join us on next week’s Under the Duvet - over on Patreon - for a look at the impact this has all had on Heuermann’s own family.--In 2010, Shannan Gilbert made a series of frantic 911 calls as she ran through the streets of Oak Beach, Long Island, screaming: “They’re trying to kill me”. Then she vanished. A few months later a body was found - but it wasn’t her. And neither were the next 9 sets of human remains they found along Ocean Parkway. Now, over a decade later, with the arrest of Rex Heuermann - the police believe they’ve found the elusive Long Island Serial Killer.But the questions still stand; Why did it take so long to catch him - and was this the work of a lone serial killer, or multiple men using the same dumping ground? We’ll look at Heuermann’s family life, his background - and delve into the 33-page bail document that offers us an in-depth look at how investigators finally caught this notorious, modern American serial killer.--Patreon - Ad-free & Bonus EpisodesYouTube - Full-length Video EpisodesTikTok / Instagram