From assassinating the Queen of England to building an anti-Muslim death ray, these insane plots were foiled before they could ever be carried out.

1. A plot to derail Her Majesty’s train

Photo (not of the visit in question) courtesy of the Library and Archives of Canada via Flickr.

While on a royal visit to Australia in 1970, a gang of Australian Irish Republican Army sympathizers allegedly tried to assassinate the Queen by derailing the royal train, according to the Daily Mail.

Apparently in possession of the train’s schedule, the perpetrators pushed a wooden log onto the tracks of a narrow bend, just as the train was approaching.

The conductor hit the brakes, but the train still slid 700 yards along the track. Had it not been driving unusually slowly at the time, the incident could have been fatal.

Following investigation, the incident was covered up and not mentioned in media until it surfaced recently. The perpetrators were never caught.

2. A plot to murder a U.S. Attorney

Photo of cult members greeting the Rajneeshee’s Rolls Royce copyright of Samvado Gunnar Kossatz via Wikipedia.

The Rajneeshee cult, which existed in Oregon during the ‘80s, became infamous for two things:

Its leader’s obsessions with Rolls Royces, and the cult’s bioterrorist attack in which more than 700 people were poisoned with Salmonella sprinkled over the salad bars of various restaurants around their county.

The latter occurred in 1984; in 1985, a U.S. attorney was assigned to investigate the cult – so they decided to kill him. Armed with silenced weapons, the group planned to gun him down inside the parking garage of the federal building he worked at, according to CNN.

Due to internal power struggles between the cult’s leader and the insane plot’s mastermind, however, the plot was never carried out. No arrests were made at the time but the perpetrators of the plot have since returned from their hiding places abroad and confessed to the crime.

3. A $16 plot to rob a bank

Photo courtesy of Juanma Pérez Rabasco via Flickr.

In September, 2013, a bank robber posing as an engineer strolled into a Santander bank in London and attached a $16 KVM (keyboard video mouse) device to a bank computer.

The device would have given the thieves access to the computer, potentially allowing them to steal millions of pounds from Santander, according to the BBC.

However, the plot was stopped before they could act when an employee reported the unusual device.

4. A plot to murder Bieber

Photo courtesy of Daniel Ogren via Flickr.

Operating from behind bars, a New Mexico criminal named Dana Martin hatched a plot to kidnap, castrate, and murder Justin Bieber along with his bodyguard and two other people in Vermont, according to ABC News.

Two recently released prisoners, who Martin knew from prison (where he’s serving 978 years for rape and murder) were to capture Bieber in between two concerts in New York in 2012.

They headed for Vermont first – with pruning shears in their trunk – but after missing an exit near the Canadian border they were stopped by border patrols, where one of them was arrested on an outstanding warrant.

The other was released but arrested after officials overheard a phone call between him and Martin discussing the plotted murders.

5. A KKK member’s plot to build a death ray

Screencap from the Weinstein Company movie Django Unchained via YouTube.

In June 2013, two men – one of them a self-described member of the Ku Klux Klan – were arrested for allegedly planning to build a lethal radiation gun, according to Salon.

The gun, which was described by Glendon Crawford (the KKK member) as “Hiroshima on a light switch,” was intended to be concealed inside a van in order to stealthily target Muslims with lethal doses of radiation.

However, the two men caught the attention of the FBI in 2012 when Crawford contacted various Jewish organizations asking if Israel would be interested in financing the device.

While the device was never built, investigators said the plans for it were functional. The pair is currently charged with conspiracy to provide material support for terrorism in the use of a weapon of mass destruction.