50 Times People Had No Clue What They Were Looking At, But The Internet Had Their Back (New Pics)

For most people, feeling unsure about the things right in front of them is at least a little bit frustrating and a whole lot confusing. This uneasy feeling of uncertainty can lead to worry and distress because, more often than not, we humans tend to assume the worst. So the not-knowing and living in anxious anticipation is hard for people, and we are almost programmed to hate it. In fact, one study has revealed that our stress levels max out when uncertainty is highest. The volunteers in the experiment were asked to play a game where they had to overturn rocks. If a snake appeared under one of them, they would get a painful electric shock. The results showed that people would rather definitely get an electric shock now than know there's a possibility to get shocked later. Or in other words, uncertainty is more stressful than predictable negative outcomes.

In part, that’s one reason why people are so eager to find out the meaning and purpose behind bizarre objects they encounter. To learn more about uncertainty and how it affects our day-to-day lives, we reached out to Frank T. McAndrew, Ph.D., the Cornelia H. Dudley Professor of Psychology at Knox College. "Novelty in our environment (i.e., new or mysterious things) automatically grab our attention for good evolutionary reasons," he told Bored Panda.

Interestingly, we are hardwired by evolution to focus on the unusual things in our surroundings and try to associate them with threat or safety. "Something new in our environment may potentially be very good (something else to eat or an object that might prove useful to us in other ways) or very bad (a dangerous thing that we should avoid)," McAndrew added. "In either case, people who paid attention to new things did a lot better over time than people who ignored them, and we are the descendants of the people who were curious."

According to the professor, when we can’t figure something out and cannot determine if it’s good, bad, or neutral, we become uncomfortable. "Our inability to categorize it will eat at us because we do not know how to deal with it, and this can be paralyzing if it is something that we cannot easily avoid," he explained. That’s why people go out of their way to escape feeling psychological discomfort and hope to be in control again.

When asked if it’s possible to cope with these anxious feelings and even tame them, McAndrew told us it’s unlikely that we want to overcome them in the first place. "Being uncomfortable with uncertainty is a very adaptive thing, and it helps us remain vigilant in situations where we need to do so," the professor said.

"People differ from each other in how comfortable they are with uncertainty, and someone who is not at all tolerant of uncertainty will be more stressed out than they should be over even moderate levels of uncertainty. I am not sure that there is too much that can be done about this, as it is a personality thing and personalities are very hard to change," McAndrew noted.

At least we can feel a dash of comfort knowing that once we encounter a random object, we can turn to the 'What Is This Thing' online group on Reddit and hope they will quickly release us from relentless questioning. Ever since it was created in 2010, it has been steadily growing and helping thousands of people solve their puzzles. With the tagline “For the identification of mysterious objects”, the moderators state that "if you have an object and you don't know what it is, this is the place for you to search for an answer."

We previously managed to get in touch with one of the moderators who looks after the group. They told us there are several reasons people become amateur detectives and set out on a mission to discover the meaning behind obscure pictures posted online. The first one is when people encounter interesting and novel items, they can’t help but feel curious and want to get a chance at cracking the case. Another reason would be the "thrill of the chase" — folks simply want to show off their great research skills.

"Many [people] have unique and obscure knowledge and they like to use it. Get enough of them together and they cover most things," they told Bored Panda.

Luckily for us, the moderator also revealed that only under 10 percent of 'cases' remain unsolved, so it’s very rare that members of the community wouldn't know anything about the unidentified things posted on the page. "A majority of things are solved within 15 minutes of posting," they added. So if you have an unusual object archived in your photo gallery that you still ponder about to this day, be sure to share your findings with the online group, and we are willing to bet that they’ll know the answer right away.