If you think that you have seen it all, that the Internet cannot possibly surprise you anymore - you may want to think again after reading the following story. It has it all: heavy metal, a skeleton and an unusual way of remembering a loved one.
The bizarre story begins with a heavy metal enthusiast from Tampa, Florida, looking for a way to commemorate his beloved uncle Filip, who died more than 30 years ago.
"Prince Midnight," as he calls himself on heavy metal forums online, came up with the idea of combining his love for metal music with the memory of his dead uncle - literally - and used Filip's remains to build a functioning electric guitar.
Maybe we should go back a step or two.
Sharing his story with MetalSucks.net, Prince explained that his uncle's skeleton had been used in anatomy classes at a local college for the past two decades.
At some point, however, Filip's services were no longer needed and his remains were sent back to the family. Defining themselves as Orthodox Christians, the family refused to cremate the remains, which ended up remaining in a box for quite some time.
For Prince, that just didn't feel right. Taking matters into his own hands, Prince decided to come up with a solution, but struggled to find a suitable one. "I didn't know what to do at first," he told MetalSucks. "Bury them? Cremate them? Put them in the attic? All seemed like poor ways to memorialize someone who got me into heavy metal."
And just when he was about to give up, Prince came up with the idea that he believed would reflect Filip's life best. “I decided to turn Uncle Filip into a guitar."
But the process turned out to be more challenging than he originally anticipated. "I did a lot of research and no one has ever made a guitar out of a skeleton. So, I did it. I started out consulting with two guys in Dean Guitars’ wood shop in Tampa, but they got cold feet," he said.
Prince is sure that this is "how he would want it," noting that the one-of-a-kind guitar “plays perfect and sounds awesome.”
Who knows? Maybe Prince was always a fan of soul music but didn't know it.
If you are sitting there thinking "this is just too good to be true," you may be right.
Shortly after the human guitar story started circulating the Internet, a CBC report questioned the story, indicating that it may be an elaborate hoax planned by a known figure in Tampa's heavy metal scene.
According to CBC, two local reporters have questioned the story's credibility, pointing to a suspicious resemblance between Prince and "a local punk rocker/performance artist with a penchant for fooling newspapers."