Plenty of us Pandas are real fans of horror stories, right? Spooky movies, scary novels (hello, Mr. King!), and thrilling, chilling radio plays set our teeth on edge and give us goosebumps that will last all night. But do you ever wonder about real-life creepiness? Reality can often be scarier than whatever nightmarish things our imaginations come up with… and here’s the proof.
Redditor u/Vacancier1807 started up a thread that’s perfect for the post-Halloween period. They asked people to share some very (emphasis on very) creepy facts. Internet users obliged and what follows are some truly terrifying real-life facts that will keep me awake thinking about them for many nights to come.
Scroll down for the creepiest facts, as shared on this r/AskReddit thread.
However, a note of warning: this post and the sense of impending doom it brings with it might not be for everyone. If at any moment you feel like it’s all too much for you, then I cordially invite you to check out my wholesome and soothing gardening article on Bored Panda right over here.
#1
Bacteria and viruses can be frozen for millions of years and still be viably infectious, and having never encountered humanity before, could have no end of catastrophic results should they be uncovered and manage to infect a person or animal.
Not to worry though, it’s not like millions of ancient pathogens are currently trapped in permafrost which is now melting bit by bit each and every day...
371points
#2
One reason why crows and ravens are associated with death is because they would often follow armies as they marched into battle. Being both carrion birds and extremely intelligent, they realized that a large group of armed men marching in one direction meant that there would be a tasty meal of corpses to eat soon afterward.
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354points
#3
The smell of a freshly cut lawn is actually a chemical distress signal released from the grass as it's cut.
You're smelling the souls and screaming of the innocent.
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315points
Even though these facts aren’t for everyone, a lot of you Readers might be unable to stop scrolling and reading. It’s hard to take your eyes off spooky facts and stories. I recently spoke about our fascination with horror and Halloween with Lee Chambers, an environmental psychologist and wellbeing consultant from the UK.
"The whole ethos of Halloween and the flirting with evil and death is fascinating because it is a place we rarely go as humans, especially in today's safe and sanitized world," Lee told Bored Panda.
#4
Female mummies in Ancient Egypt were always more decomposed than their male counterparts. They discovered that this was because male bodies were embalmed a lot sooner than female bodies. Female bodies were kept at the family home until they started to decompose in order to avoid necrophilia at the embalmers.
291points
#5
The bottom of Lake Superior is cold enough that the bodies of dead sailors just...remain. They don't really decompose because it's at freezing temperatures, so they instead get a coating of adipocere, which is liquid body fat, hardened around them.
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266points
#6
Blobfish in its natural habitat looks like a normal fish, but it lives so deep under water that it doesn't use a normal gas bladder to keep itself balanced. Instead, it has a spongy skin that is slightly less dense than water, which becomes damaged and bloated when fishermen bring it up too quickly.
It's not really the ugliest fish. It has just experienced something worse than one of us being thrown into outer space. Between sea level and space, there's one atmospheric pressure of difference. Between sea level and 2000 feet under water, their upper limit, there's 60 atmospheres of difference.
250points
Psychologist Lee explained that during Halloween we get to explore darker sides without anyone judging us. What’s more, we get to test our emotive responses to fear in a safe, controlled manner.
"We can get the adrenaline rush of being scared, all while knowing we are in control and can exit the situation if it’s too much. We also cognitively know it’s not real, so we can trigger ourselves and test how we respond to threats, giving us the ability to practice coping mechanism for difficult times in life," Lee said.
#7
Rosemary Kennedy was JFK’s sister. She suffered from oxygen deprivation at birth and that unfortunately stunted her mental growth. She had a pretty decent childhood, but as she grew older she began to act out. Afraid that her behavior would risk his political career, her father, Joseph, agreed to have her lobotomized. Her mother, Rose, was against it and forbade him from doing it. So he did it behind her back when she went on a trip.
After the operation, Rosemary’s already low IQ was lowered even further, to the point she could no longer walk or communicate. Her family had her locked up in an institution and basically disowned her. They never visited and never publicly acknowledged her anymore. Rosemary died at the age of 86.
Her mother never for gave her husband for what he had done.
After the operation, Rosemary’s already low IQ was lowered even further, to the point she could no longer walk or communicate. Her family had her locked up in an institution and basically disowned her. They never visited and never publicly acknowledged her anymore. Rosemary died at the age of 86.
Her mother never for gave her husband for what he had done.
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246points
#8
If you get a blood transfusion and get the wrong type of blood, one of the symptoms is 'a sense of impending doom.'
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232points
#9
Crocodiles can gallop like horses. I don't like knowing this so I am cursing you people with this knowledge as well. Fortunately, alligators cannot.
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229points
"We can explore the taboos of negative emotions like fear in a playful way, see where our limits lie, and do it in a supportive environment with other people. Getting scared and mastering our fear with scary entertainment and curated shocks can make us feel like we can take on all sorts of challenges, and can even feel like therapy when we take into account the physiological rush we get and the feeling of having survived."
#10
If the sun exploded right now, you would be blissfully unaware of it for just over eight minutes while the energy travels at the speed of light to get to you.
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228points
#11
Elmer McCurdy was a failed old west “outlaw.” His preserved body was put on display in a traveling carnival and years later he was eventually assumed to be a mannequin until he was used on set for the TV show the Six Million Dollar Man.
His arm accidentally fell off during the shoot, revealing bone and muscle and that he was a corpse, not a mannequin.
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226points
#12
Cockroaches have been recorded eating human flesh, both living and dead, as well as fingernails, eyelashes, feet, and hands. The American cockroach and German cockroach are more likely to bite humans than other species.
Pretty sure Australian cockroaches do something equally creepy, but as an Australian who plans to sleep at some point in the future, I'm not going to google it.
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220points
#13
There is a genetic disease called fibrodisplaysia ossificans progresiva. When tissue is damaged, it is replaced with bone.
Growths form underneath their skin and their joints lock solid So over time those affected slowly become encased in a prison of bone just beneath their own skin.
They usually have to choose between sitting or standing up for the rest of their life. By the end of their life they have to drink every meal through a straw and can barely move
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217points
#14
It wasn't until 1987 that the American Academy of Pediatrics declared it unethical to operate on newborns without anesthesia. Until surprisingly recently, the medical community felt it would be dangerous to give infants anesthesia and/or believed that they didn't feel pain.
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216points
#15
Mount Everest is covered in frozen corpses because removing them is very unsafe and time consuming. They are easily viewed from the climbing routes and some are used as trail markers.
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205points
#16
The Colombian serial killer Pedro Alonso Lopez, who is known as the Monster of the Andes, raped and murdered over 300 girls from Ecuador, Peru and Colombia. However, after he was caught and imprisoned for 18 years, he was put in a psychiatric hospital. There he was reviewed, declared to be sane and was set free, in spite of his blatant avowal that he fully intends to kill again. Since he was released in 1998, nobody knows where he is or what he’s doing. ( He is supposed to be 71 years old at present).He is known for being the most prolific killer ever.
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192points
#17
Eventually there will be more dead people on Facebook than alive.
Wow thanks for the award.
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186points
#18
Either somebody knows where Malaysia flight 370 went missing to, or nobody does. Both are equally terrifying.
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184points
#19
If you stifle a sneeze there’s a chance you can damage organs in your head, including eye blood vessels, rupturing your eardrums, and possibly rupture a brain aneurysm. Which means there’s a small chance stifling a sneeze can kill you. Better to be the loud ass with the sneeze that can be heard around the world than a dead loud ass cause someone told you to stifle that sneeze
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182points
#20
More than 7000 people die annually due to the doctor's bad handwriting.
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180points