The internet is full of dangerous ideas, we know that well. From stupid challenges with laundry detergent pods to youtubers who put their heads in microwave ovens, there is always something that represents a mortal risk for whoever tries to do it. And speaking of microwave ovens, in recent years more than thirty deaths have been recorded linked to the manipulation of their transformers to create Lichtenberg figures or "wood fracking," using thousands of volts under very precarious conditions...
The list of deaths by selfies and similar incidents on Wikipedia is chilling. We also cannot forget the case of the young woman who accidentally killed her boyfriend with a Desert Eagle while filming a video for her YouTube channel. People die trying to share things on the internet... but also die trying to reproduce what they see there.
That automatically installs a question: What is the deadliest project on the Internet? Big Clive reminds us of the existence of the so-called wood fracking or fractal engraving, a process used to create Lichtenberg figures. The video lasts just over fifteen minutes, but it's worth watching every second. The warning is real, and nobody should try to do this:
Lichtenberg Figures, the Viral Project That Keeps Killing People
The theory tells us that the first step to create a Lichtenberg figure is to cover the surface of a piece of wood with a saline solution (electrolyte) that drastically reduces its resistance. The second is to take a very high voltage source and apply it to two electrodes, using the wet piece of wood as a "bridge" between both. Once the electrolyte evaporates, the wood begins to burn forming striking patterns. The most "popular" source of high voltage for a project like this is the transformer of a microwave oven due to its wide availability... and that's when things start to go wrong.
Big Clive also shares the story of a woman who saved her life by a miracle, but ended up with a completely mutilated hand from the electricity. Add to that the news published by Univision in April of this year, which confirms the death of two people in Wisconsin. TikTok has been one of the main social media platforms in viralizing Lichtenberg figures, and many videos simply show beautiful patterns, without explaining the risk involved in creating them.
That is the goal Big Clive achieves with his video. By describing at a technical level the process by which a person loses their life trying to reproduce Lichtenberg figures, it becomes impossible to deny their dangerousness. With these voltage levels, there is no resistance: Our skin is pierced immediately, and the interior of the human body has much higher conductivity than we think. As if that weren't enough, the transformer is silent (it doesn't transmit any kind of feedback during operation), and its galvanic isolation prevents the reaction of protection mechanisms such as GFCI outlets.
Between 2017 and 2022, 33 deaths linked to Lichtenberg Figures have been reported in the United States alone.
