Welcome to issue 3 of isle of wéired news – bringing you the weirdest news from around the world.
In this issue: we have digitally resurrected soldiers from Russia; an exorcism from India; AI generated “miracle” prayers from Brazil; psychic scapegoats from the USA; a fake bleeding statue from Italy; and 49 fake visits by Jesus from France.
Resurrection for only £25
In a phenomenon known as “digital ressurection”, artificial intelligence (AI) is being used to create videos of Russian soldiers, killed during the invasion of Ukraine, saying farewell to their families from beyond the grave.
The videos can cost as little as £25 for a short animated clip. And for another £25, the dead can be made to speak.
The videos tend to follow the same format: the soldier, to the soundtrack of a popular ballad, embraces his loved ones before ascending to Heaven.
For many Russian families, the bodies of their loved ones have not been returned to them, so the videos have, in their own strange way, provided a sense of closure for some.
Yelena Kirghizova lost her husband, an officer in the Russian army: “For a long time, everything was shrouded in mystery. His body was never returned to us, there was no funeral, no opportunity to say good bye.”
Anna Korableva, the founder of Final Meeting, is largely responsible for the pheneomenon in Russia. “People usually don’t value what they have in life enough, they don’t say they love each other enough, they don’t embrace enough. From the feedback I get, they feel lighter when they see it on video, they get to talk one more time. I’ve received a lot of requests from women who said I did not get to say goodbye before (their husband) left, or they quarrelled and then he died.”
There have been mixed reactions to the videos. Though they may provide closure for some, others find them eerie and unsettling, and they have been likened to seances. In Ukraine, the videos are seen as glorifying the war.
“I think AI is a powerful tool and it’s important to use it responsibly and for good,” says Anna Korableva. “I know there are a lot of opinions. I’ve received a lot of abuse and curses in my private messages … but I think if these videos help someone, it’s worth doing.”
Source(s): Calgary Herald, 10 November 2025
Possessed by her aunt
On Sunday, 2 November 2025, in the small town of Manarkad in the district of Kattayam, India, a 24-year-old woman was subjected to a ten-hour exorcism following accusations that she was possessed.
The woman, who cannot be named, says her troubles began with the death of her aunt: her in-laws became convinced that she had been possessed by the spirit of the dead aunt – and called upon the services of a sorcerer.
“They claimed that since my mother’s sister passed away a month ago, her spirit had entered my body,” she said. “Whenever I spoke to my husband or smiled, his mother would get worried and call the sorcerer. The sorcerer told her that my actions were due to the spirit inside me.”
This then led to the woman being subjected to a number of rituals, performed without her consent, which culminated in the exorcism of 2 November.
The woman passed out during the ordeal. When she regained consciousness, she was in incredible pain and covered in burns.
Police have arrested her husband and four others.
Source(s): The Free Press Journal, 9 November 2025
Miracle cures only £10
Brazilian police have arrested 35 people in a scam that involved selling AI-generated “miracle prayers”.
Potential victims were found using social media. The gang’s leader would post inspirational messages and prayers online and invite people to contact him to receive a “miracle” or a “divine revelation.”
Those who responded to the posts would be cold-called by members of the gang, who would wheedle enough information out of their victims to then sell them personalised prayers that would cure their illness and improve their lives.
The prayers cost about £10.
Some were so impressed with the prayers that they bought more. And others, who believed they were actually receiving supernatural help, paid more for their prayers.
Police believe the scammers may have been operating for two years.
Source{s): The Sunday Times (Malawi), 9 November 2025
Kim’s psychics get it wrong
Kim Kardashian, the “American media personality, socialite, and businesswoman”, is blaming psychics for her failure to pass the bar exam – a professional qualification required to practice law.
Via Instagram, she told her followers: “I’m just letting you guys know that all of the f***ing psychics that we have met with and were obsessed with were all f***ing full of s***. They all collectively, maybe four of them, have told me I was gonna pass the bar. They are all full pathological liars. Don’t believe anything they say.”
To be fair, the California Bar exam is one of the toughest in the USA. And Ms Kardashian has adopted a non-conventional approach in her quest to become a lawyer: choosing to serve an apprenticeship at a law firm instead of going to law school.
Additionally, her approach to learning appears to rely heavily on her AI study buddy giving her the answers, as revealed in an interview with Vanity Fair magazine: “So, when I am needing to know the answer to a question, I’ll take a picture and snap it and put it in (ChatGPT). They’re always wrong. It has made me fail tests all the time.”
Source(s): The Free Press Journal, 10 November 2025; Gwinnett Daily Post, 12 November 2025; The Borneo Post, 13 November 2025; “Kim Kardashian”, Wikipedia, accessed 16 November 2025
Crocodile tears? Pig’s blood, actually!
Gisella and Gianni Cardia are to go on trial in Italy next year for faking apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary and making false predictions of catastrophes in order to elicit donations from their followers.
Gisella claimed that a statue of the Blessed Virgin in Trevignano Romano cried tears of blood and was sending her messages.
These messages included predictions that an earthquake would destroy Rome and that the Catholic church would be taken over by communism.
Gisella had bought the statue in 2016 in Medugorje, Bosnia-Herzegovina, another place of pilgrimage following appearances of the Blessed Virgin Mary to six children there, beginning in 1981.
Gisella’s claims brought hundreds of pilgrims to Trevignano Romano each month to pray at the statue. Many of the pilgrims made donations – thought to total about £322,000 – that they believed were being used to fund a centre for sick children.
The police began investigating the pair after a private investigator declared that the blood was from a pig.
The Catholic church later declared Gisella Cardia a fraud.
Gisella’s Lawyer, Solange Marchingoli, said: “As paradoxical as it may seem, she actually feels relief, believing this is an opportunity to reveal the truth of the events with tranparency and to definitively put an end to all forms of speculation, misunderstanding and controversy.”
Source(s): The Guardian (USA), 13 November 2025
Bad news for Madeleine
In the 1970s, Madeleine Aumont claimed that Jesus appeared to her 49 times in Dozulé, France, and gave her messages and prayers and instructed her to build a massive cross on a hillside in the town.
Aumont’s claims have always been controversial, and on 12 Nov 2025, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, the arm of the Catholic Church responsible for religious discipline, declared that these claims were not genuine: “The phenomenon of the alleged apparitions … is to be regarded, definitively, as not supernatural in origin, with all the consequences that flow from this determination.”
Cyrille161, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
In his letter confirming the findings of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández wrote: “The Cross does not need 738 meters of steel or concrete to be recognized,” the Dicastery declares. Rather, the Cross “is raised every time a heart, moved by grace, opens itself to forgiveness; every time a soul converts; every time hope is rekindled where the situation seemed impossible; and even when, by kissing a small cross, believers entrust themselves to Christ.”
Source(s): Vatican News, 12 November 2025; The Fiji Times, 14 Nov 2025