These 50 Images Seem Normal Until You Learn The Horror Behind Them

See this little girl scribbling on a chalkboard? Aaaw-

Actually, this is a c****************p survivor, when asked to draw "home".

Raw footage from the 2004 tsunami is incredibly eerie. seeing people just watching as the tide comes in and having no idea what's about to hit them... Really terrifying.

This is one that always stuck with me, just the way you have this bustling city in one frame, and the same city scythed clean with nuclear fire in the next. It's hard to imagine that level of devastation, a blast that burned civilians into the pavement and left shadows that would still be there decades later.

Hiroshima - Before And After Bombing

The toddler in the photo is James Bulger.

He is being lead away from his mother by one of the two 10 year old boys who abducted and would later m****r him.

Here's a paragraph from Wikipedia; At the trial it was established that at this location, one of the boys threw blue Humbrol modelling paint, which they had shoplifted earlier, into Bulger's left eye. They kicked and stomped on him, and threw bricks and stones at him. Batteries were placed in Bulger's mouth. Police believed some batteries may have been inserted into his anus, although none were found there. Finally, a 22-pound (10.0 kg) iron bar, described in court as a railway fishplate, was dropped on him. Bulger suffered ten skull fractures as a result of the iron bar striking his head. Dr. Alan Williams, the case's pathologist, stated that Bulger suffered so many injuries—42 in total—that none could be isolated as the fatal blow.

Here's a shadow permanently cast of someone caused by the nuclear blast at Hiroshima.

This photo, taken at 7 PM, May 18th, 1980 in the forests of Washington state.

In the photo is David A. Johnston, star vulcanologist for the United States Geological Survey, camped at his trailer at his field post.

Less than 24 hours later, Johnston, the trailer, and everything else within ~30 miles would be obliterated by a lateral blast from Mount St. Helens’s eruption, making Johnston the first US Government Vulcanologist to be k****d in the line of duty.

His last words were a radio call to the USGS station in Vancouver WA, which you can find recordings of online:

“Vancouver! Vancouver! This is it!”

The car in that picture contained a b**b that blew up just moments after this picture was taken. The people in the picture survived, but they guy who took it did not.

Lisanne Froon and Kris Kremers managed to document getting lost in the jungle in Panama. They kept going past the marked easy trail instead of turning around went down the other side of the mountain, they wound up lost with no real hiking/camping supplies in dense, sparsely populated wilderness. At least one of them survived for a week. That photo is one of the last touristy ones, but they're probably already lost in it without realizing.

In this photo a man took of his wife diving, you can probably see another diver on the sea floor. That's Tina Watson. A few minutes before this photo, her husband turned off her air supply and held her underwater until she drowned. He then went up to the surface and told the other divers she was "in trouble", and you can see someone else swimming to try and save her.

EDIT: He did serve 12 months in prison in Australia for Manslaughter, as a plea bargain (Neither he nor the court knew if he was going down for m****r). When he returned home to Alabama, the US courts tried to get him on the grounds that he'd planned the m****r there, but he got off due to lack of evidence. Australian authorities refused to help with the American trial, as they'd broken an extradition clause not to push for the death penalty.

Edit 2: changed some info people have corrected me on. Also, the manslaughter charge managed to stick because despite apparently being a trained rescue diver, he made no evident effort to save her, or share his own functioning tank. Also one witness says he saw Gabe Watson "engaged in a bearhug with his flailing wife".

A charming photo of some women, mostly clerks and secretaries, eating bowls of blueberries while being entertained by a man on the accordion.

And a group of men drinking and laughing at a picnic table.

The kicker? All of these photos are of guards and staff at Auschwitz during their days off. The atrocities of the camp were taking place less than a mile away.

The entirety of the album is called [Laughing at Auschwitz]. If it weren't for the photos of some of the men in uniform, you would think it was a f*****g summer camp.

Josef Fritzl enjoying himself on holiday while his daughter was still trapped in his cellar at home.

Tyler Hadley k****d his parents before he threw this party at his house. They were dead in their bedroom when this picture was taken.

Looks like an ordinary school photo. Top left are the kids who shot up the Columbine school (yes they're pretending to "shoot" at the camera).

A photo of a cute girl, right? this is Genie (not her real name, but that's what she is called in the public sphere. real name was kept secret.) from the time she was an infant, around 20 months old, her father kept her in a single room, strapped down to a potty chair facing the wall. she had no human interaction beyond her parents until the age of 13, when she was rescued.

The my lai villagers picture. might not fit exactly since the picture shows the terrorized villagers right before they were gunned down, so not exactly seemingly normal. but, one often overlooked aspect is the young woman buttoning her shirt, which is interpreted as evidence that she was r***d right before the photo.

Moments before getting struck.

This home video of Jeffrey Dahmer, casually saying to his dad that he should eat at home more often. However, at the time this video was filmed, Jeffrey already k****d 7 men (and ate some of their body parts).

This picture of Elizabeth Smart (far left) taken while she being was held captive by her kidnapper (pictured far right).

Smart was missing for 9 months. the picture was taken some time in the middle of that period, at a party the kidnapper crashed with Smart. She was made to wear the veil in order to keep from being recognized in public.

Chernobyl Elephant's Foot, a formerly molten mass of corium from the reactor core meltdown. It still emits radiation today that can k**l you if you hang around it too long, but not as much as back in 1986. They had to use a set of mirrors in order to get photographs of the mass.

Demon Core. This is a recreation photo of an accident that occurred with the infamous "demon core". Physicist Louis Slotin was conducting an experiment to verify the exact point at which a subcritical mass of fissile material could be made critical by the positioning of neutron reflectors. Basically, the two half spheres would be adjusted around the core and the core activity would be measured.

The risk was that if the spheres were allowed to close, the core would instantaneously form a critical mass. To keep them from closing, he pried the top core up with a screw driver. Unfortunately the screw driver slipped, a critical mass formed, and (near) instantly gave him a lethal dose of radiation. He shielded the other people in the room and was the only fatality.