From KFC chicken mutants to lab-grown love bugs, urban legends featuring bizarre animal experimentation (and the resulting grotesqueries) are six for a nickel. This Monday, Wednesday and Friday, Weird Things takes a look at the top-shelf stuff – Real animals. Actual experiments. Monday we looked at a general history of animal experiments. Wednesday we explored the quest to breed humans and apes.

Today: Operation Dumbo Death

Hop on the Internet and search for “bizarre animal experiments.” Undoubtedly, the most ubiquitous result will be the story of several Oklahoma-based scientists who decided to see how an elephant would react to a massive injection of LSD. If you haven’t heard about this before, here’s what happened: the elephant died. But I don’t want to talk about that.

I want to talk about an earlier age – an age when folks didn’t have the time or inclination to play Dr. Feelgood with Stampy because they were too busy figuring out how to execute him. In the early 1900s, the hay-day of the American circus, death at the claws of performing animals was not uncommon. Many circus creatures were abused, and even those that weren’t were subjected to the constant stresses of daily performances, screaming crowds and, often, monotonous rail travel. When a lion freaked out and went claw bonkers on a trainer, the humane (read: easy) solution was a loaded pistol. For a giant, tough-hided elephant, though? (Keep in mind that the modern percussion hand grenade was still undergoing design refinements.)

This very question arose in 1903 when Topsy the (abused, homicidal) elephant, a popular attraction at Coney Island’s Luna Park, claimed her third victim. While no one questioned that the immense animal had to be put down, there was much debate as to the method. Hanging was suggested, but ultimately ruled inhumane by the ASPCA. It looked as if Topsy had been granted a stay of execution. That is, until Jersey native Thomas Edison enthusiastically stepped up with a solution: Alternating Current (AC) electricity. See, this new system of electricity, pioneered by the eccentric genius Nikola Tesla, was in direct competition with Edison’s Direct Current (DC) system, and Edison had taken to publically electrocuting stray animals with AC current as a means by which to prove AC power’s deadly potential. On January 4th, 1903, Topsy was fed a bowl full of cyanide-laced carrots (as a weakening aid), restrained using a ship’s hawser and fried by a 6,600 volt charge. Though Edison would ultimately lose his scientific war with Tesla, he won his battle against Topsy the elephant. He even committed the victory to film, which was later released with the unapologetically blunt title “Electrocuting an Elephant.”

Remember how folks suggested hanging Topsy, but the ASPCA intervened on the elephant’s behalf? Mary the elephant, an animal travelling the country with Charlie Sparks’ “Sparks World Famous Show,” wasn’t so fortunate. On September 12th, 1916, in Kingsport, Tennessee, Mary threw a little tantrum, during which she crushed a circus employee’s head. Tennessee freaked. People demanded elephant justice. Surrounding towns, fearful of violent stomping deaths, refused to host Sparks’ show if Mary wasn’t executed. Newspapers immediately joined the panicked rabble, publishing erroneous claims that Mary had a long history of head-mashing conniptions. The next day, a reluctant Sparks travelled with Mary to Erwin, Tennessee, home of a sturdy railcar-mounted industrial crane. The first attempt to hoist Mary to her death proved unsuccessful – the chain snapped and Mary her hip. On the second try, Mary was fatally hanged, and was then buried beside the train tracks.

Soon it was the 1960s. A team of Oklahoman researchers decided to share the love and good feelings with their elephant buddy. They loaded a hypodermic full of psychotropic chemicals and all of a sudden, there it was – the humane way to execute an elephant: lethal injection.