Nighttime is for horrors and discovering how frightening the world really is. We aren’t talking about ghosts and other paranormal phenomena. They haven't YET been added to the library of proven scary facts. We are here to take a look at the scientifically proven horrors. The ones that we can’t deny or run away from. And unfortunately (or luckily for all you dark copers out there), there are many creepy facts about humans and the Earth we live on.
Human bodies might work in creepy ways, but they can’t beat the frightening things our minds have done. For example, one of the scariest facts on our list touches upon the horror movie Poltergeist. This might come as a shocker to you, but the corpses you saw in the movie — those were actual human remains. With this scary fact in mind, you might watch the movie from a different perspective. Or never watch it again.
However, to truly make your sleep feel more like a nightmare, you should know the dark facts about Earth and its inhabitants. Crows, for example, can remember and recognize human faces. On the other hand, some scary facts touch upon geography. Mount Everest, the highest mountain above sea level, is also the world’s highest graveyard. Approximately 150 bodies are resting on this giant of a mountain. All of whom will likely never be recovered.
Ready to get scared? If so, turn off the lights, cozy up in your bed, and delve into the scary and disturbing facts we have compiled below. Also, we advise you to stick till the end because, throughout the post, we explore how scary facts affect sleep and why the ocean might be the most terrifying place on Earth!
This post may include affiliate links.
Why Dark Facts Are Scarier at Night?
Horror and darkness mix rather perfectly. Scary facts can evoke terror and horror because that’s simply how our brain works. Creativity plays an important part here because we start to imagine fictitious things. Our minds start imagining things that are simply not there… or are they?
Imagine for a moment a situation. You are in your room, alone in the house. You start reading through some dark facts we have compiled. You brush them off as “goofy” and “not scary.” But your ears pick up noises outside your door. You start thinking, “What was it?”, “Who made those sounds?” and your body trembles. That’s because your brain has been hijacked by fear.
Both horror movies and games work on the same principle. However, scary facts are way more interesting because they’re true to the bone. Thus, if you are looking for a quick pass to a nightmarish night — these facts are the way to go.
Tooth-in-the-Eye Surgery. Surgeons put a tooth in a blind person’s eye to restore their sight. It was pioneered in the 1960s, and it actually works and it’s still being done today.
You really need to google this, it's strange and really cool at the same time.
Real corpses were used in the 1982 film Poltergeist.
They were bought from a medical supply center and were much less expensive than making props.
There are bodies of over 150 dead hikers on Mount Everest, and they’are used as landmarks.
There is just too much visitors and pollution on Mt. Everest these days.
The Turritopsis Dohrnii jellyfish is officially known as the only immortal creature in the world. It lives forever.
Climate change is making spiders bigger.
A haunted radio station from Russia has been broadcasting a dull monotonous tone for twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, for the last three-and-a-half decades. Every few seconds it’s joined by a second sound, like some ghostly ship sounding its foghorn.
How Do Disturbing Facts Impact Our Sleep?
Knowing why disturbing facts are scary, you might want to understand how they impact your sleep schedule. It’s not a myth that horror genre-related stuff (scary facts included) worsens sleep. However, to prove the myth practically, watch a horror movie or read some terrifying facts before sleep. The likely outcome is that fear will kick your fight-or-flight response into overdrive, signaling the body to release adrenaline (if you get scared, of course).
If you missed a few biology classes, adrenaline is a hormone our bodies produce. It’s usually released in dangerous or stressful situations. It activates our “fight or flight” response and keeps the body on high alert. Truly horrific facts, when read at night, will quickly trigger the production of this hormone.
High alert mode can heavily disturb your sleep because adrenaline keeps you up and makes you feel moody and slightly annoyed. So, the next time you decide to read a scary collection of facts, don’t expect to fall asleep early. Just make sure to get around 8 hours of sleep the next day.
Dogs like squeaky toys because they mimic the screams of their prey.
This always makes me think my one dog immediately rips out squeekers to silence their screams. He's a good boy though
Two Scottish surgeons originally invented the chainsaw to assist childbirth.
Locked-In Syndrome is a condition in which a patient is fully aware but is stuck in a coma-like state.
The film 'A Nightmare on Elm Street' is based on a real story reported in the LA Times. A boy was terrified to go to sleep, and when he did, he died while screaming about a nightmare.
"Somniphobia is the extreme fear of sleep. People with somniphobia may worry or obsess throughout the day about how they can avoid sleep. They may be afraid of what happens when they do fall asleep, such as having a nightmare or sleepwalking."
While Ted Bundy was a psychology major at the University of Washington, he worked at Seattle's Suicide Hotline Crisis Center.
Ducklings can engage in cannibalistic behaviors when they're bored.
I was most shocked by "bored"....I thought it would have been at least hungry lol
When you die the last sense to leave your body is the ability to hear.
So I can therefore hear if someone says "Yes, he's finally dead!" so I'll know who to haunt. Lol
More than 80% of our ocean is unmapped, unobserved, and unexplored.
it’s a pretty good thing, when you see the condition of the known areas
How Many Creepy Things Are in the Ocean?
Humans are natural explorers. Thus, something we can’t explore gets shrouded in mystery. The more mysterious the place — the creepier it is. You might not know it, but only 20% of the ocean has been explored. Thus, it’s no wonder why so many creepy things and facts come from this place.
While we might label space as the most mysterious thing, that title goes to the oceans. With 80% of the ocean still unexplored, what we know now is already creepy. For more creepiness, check out creatures found in the deep seas. It’s a guaranteed way to get a mild case of insomnia.
So, regarding how many scary things are in the ocean, the answer is simple — a lot already, and much more hidden. Someday, we might explore 100% of the ocean. By that time, we will be indeed frightened to our cores.
Technically it’s not impossible to die from holding in a sneeze. Some injuries from holding in a sneeze can be very serious, such as ruptured brain aneurysms, ruptured throat, and collapsed lungs.
Horned Lizards can defend themselves by squirting blood out of their eyes.
Alien hand syndrome is a phenomenon in which one hand is not under control of the mind. The person loses control of the hand, and it acts as if it has a mind of its own.
King Charles II drank alcohol mixed with pulverized human skulls.
Well how else are you supposed to consume the strength of your enemies?
Some ants turn into zombies via parasitic fungus which manipulates their brains.
It’s called Cordyceps fungi, and affects a lot more than just ants
Arrhythmic death syndrome is a sudden condition where someone seemingly healthy dies suddenly with no apparent cause of death.
During the mummification process, Ancient Egyptians remove the brain through one of the nostrils.
People with Cotard's syndrome believe that parts of their body are missing, or that they are dying, dead, or don’t exist. They may think nothing exists.
Criminologists estimate that there's a 1-in-3 chance police will never identify your killer if you're murdered in the US.
Fatal familial insomnia makes it impossible for someone to sleep for months.
You’re more likely to die on your birthday. The chance someone will die on their birthday is 6.7 percent, which is higher than any other day.
Is that somehow tied to risk, maybe they do more risky activities on their birthday.
Some female spiders allow their young to eat them alive.
In some European cultures it was customary to place the dried or desiccated body of a cat inside the walls of a newly built home to ward off evil spirits or as a good luck charm.
Humans produce about 1.5 quarts of mucus every day.
And if you get seriously sick, you can produce a disgusting amount more. Several years ago, my dad got hit with pneumonia and tuberculosis and in one day they removed over a gallon of fluid from his lungs. It was disturbing but not as much as the fact that the hospital missed that he had TB during that stay. Eventually it was figured out and we met some very lovely people from the board of health
Indian followers of the Zoroastrianism don't bury or burn their dead. Instead, they leave the bodies exposed to the rays of the sun, and the corpse is consumed or devoured by birds of prey — vultures, kites, crows.
An estimated 6.5 million people in the United States have an unruptured brain aneurysm, or 1 in 50 people.
The U.S. military is missing six nuclear weapons.
Based on a 2006 report by the National Academies of Science’s Institute of Medicine, in the U.S. alone poor handwriting on prescription notes leads to over 7,000 deaths and 1.5 million medical errors.
At least in New York, they are electronically submitted to pharmacies. The doctor inputs all the information into the computer and directly sends it; this reduces errors, eliminates script pad theft and reduces patients ability to illegally obtain drugs.
Despite making up close to 5% of the global population, the U.S. has more than 20% of the world’s prison population.
Decorations made from human bones adorn the interior of the Sedlec Ossuary.
The “Bone Church” contains the bones of around 40,000 different people. These bones are all arranged in different forms, such as garlands, altars, and even a chandelier.
A homicide archivist Thomas Hargrove estimates that there are over 2,000 serial killers at large right now.
The Pirates of The Caribbean ride at Disneyland used to have real skeletons as props. When it was first built in the 1960s, designers asked UCLA’s anatomy department for authentic materials. The real skeletons have since been given a proper burial.
Apparently one of them is still real, one of the skulls iirc. I could be wrong as this may just be an urban legend ofc. xP
'A Sense Of Impending Doom' is frequently reported by patients as an early sign of mismatched blood type transfusion.
At least 20 detached human feet have been found on the coasts of the Salish Sea since 2007.
People (mostly sailors) falling over board and fish and other animals eating bits. The feet are protected within the shoes and left till last. Which is why they sometimes have time to wash up on shore. Where they wash up has more to do with tides and wind then anything else.
In the early-to-mid 1980s, years after AIDS was known to be in Canada (1982), the Canadian Red Cross wasn’t screening donated blood for HIV. About 2,000 Canadians were infected with HIV from tainted blood products.
Same in France...A friend of us died from being transfused, infected her husband, their daughter became an orphan. Pure tragedy
When we die, the enzymes and bacteria that were so useful to us digest us from the inside out.
Many crocodile species can gallop, and they are fast.
In the 1920’s, the American domestic terror group the Ku Klux Klan had a youth chapter called the “Ku Klux Kiddies.”
Depression-era craze of Dance Marathons in which couples would compete to see who could dance the longest, often for cash prizes, unfortunately led to some people dropping dead from exhaustion on the dance floor.
A human head remains conscious for around 20 seconds after being decapitated.
Harvard owns a book that's bound in human skin.
"Brain-eating" amoeba has infected at least 40 people in the U.S. over the past decade. The single-celled organisms go by the scientific name Naegleria folweri, and may infect people who swim in lakes or rivers.
And the chances of you recovering from it are slim. Of course, that also depends on when you go to the doctor and they diagnose you. There are three stages of Naegleria fowleri: cyst (1), trophozoite (2), and flagellate (3). If they catch it in one of the later stages… sorry. The amoeba causes an infection that causes swelling in the brain, then death. There are no known treatment that are 100% effective, but according to the CDC, “Recently, two people with Naegleria infection survived after being treated with a new drug called miltefosine that was given along with other drugs and aggressive management of brain swelling.” It’s also really important to be careful what water your swimming in, because the amoeba enters your body through the nose or an open wound I’m pretty sure. A lot of the times it’s lake or pond water. Believe me, this isn’t something you want. Between 1962 and 2019, 4 out of 128 people survived. Please be careful.
A chicken named Mike lived for 18 months after his head had been cut off.
Yes this is true. I read this some time ago. What needs to be understood is the brain stem was intact, allowing primitive functions to resume. ('Mike' the chicken finally died when it's owner couldn't find the eyedropper to feed it down it's throat.)
If the sun blew up right now, you wouldn't know about it for another eight minutes.
H. H. Holms, America’s first serial killer, constructed a “Murder Castle,” a hotel with secret compartments and gas chambers to murder unsuspecting visitors of the Chicago World Fair. He confessed to 27 murders.
More than 99% of the four billion species that have evolved on Earth are now gone.
Tarantulas have been found to "swim" in both the wild and in captivity.
John Douglas, a former chief of the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit and author of Mind Hunter notes that “A very conservative estimate is that there are between 25 and 50 active serial killers in the United States” at any given time.
& evidence aka bodies being found & MOs being consistent actually points more to that number being double actually
The last use of a guillotine in France was the same year the first Star Wars movie premiered. 1977
Vampire moths feed on the blood of mammals, including humans. They can suck blood for up to 50 minutes.
Your pets might eat you when you die, and perhaps a bit sooner than is comfortable.
They still need to eat. If I can't feed my boys then they can help themselves
Your jaw is strong enough to crush your own teeth with its pressure.
Emperor Nero profited off of human urine. Emperor Nero imposed a urine tax, charging merchants who sold urine.
The Asian giant hornets have a bite that can leave craters in the skin or even cause death.
Rodents' teeth grow continuously throughout their lives.
Babies can grow mustaches in the womb that then spread to cover their entire body in hair called Lanugo. The body hair keeps them warm and helps regulate body temperature. Don’t worry, they shed it before birth.
It’s very possible your office coffee mug has fecal matter on it.
As well as your keyboard, mouse, mobile phone, kitchen bench, and your face.
NASA astronaut will consume about 730 liters of recycled urine and sweat during his yearlong mission.
If you think about it, this is exactly how the water cycle on earth works. There will be none or the urea or anything more than water left after the cycle. "Ewwww" said the teenage cheerleader.
Ancient Romans believed that drinking blood would let them absorb power.
Well how else could you obtain their power? I mean I guess you can eat their flesh but then you may not gain all their power
Women in the 18th century used lead as makeup. This makeup contains vinegar, water, and white lead, which was the pigment that gave the mixture its color.
Just like the girls that would put the radium in their mouth to paint clocks
About 40 supervolcanoes are dotted across the globe and we're about 24,000 years overdue for an eruption.
The “sleepwalking defense” has been used in order to have defendants acquitted for murder.
Aztec priests believed that human sacrifices could stop droughts and famine.
We still have people using shark fins and rhino horns so I wouldn't be so quick to judge.
For centuries, doctors thought that medicines made with human flesh, blood, or bone could be effective in curing all kinds of ailments, from epilepsy to headaches. This practice was called “corpse medicine.”
“The Devil’s Bible” is a real thing, and it’s a contract between a monk and Satan.
Codex Gigas, “The Devil’s Bible” is the largest Latin manuscript known to the world. It contains a full-page portrait of Satan. People believe the manuscript contains the contract of a monk who sold his soul to Satan in the 13th century in order to escape execution.
It’s a large manuscript, all in Latin, containing several books, including the Bible, a medical text, works by Josephus and common prayers. It’s estimated that the minimum amount of time it would have taken to complete it is 20 years. A legend later arose that a monk who broke his vows was sentenced to death, and in order to avoid his penalty he promised to write a book containing all human knowledge in one night, ultimately selling his soul to Devil to help him.
In a month, we ingest the weight of a 4x2 Lego brick in microplastic.
I've been hearing this for a while now. So...what is so harmful? Is it because a microplastic particle can obstruct a capillary? Plastics are not harmful unless burnt, therefore releasing toxic gasses.
Lady Bugs larvae use cannibalism as a survival tactic. Lady Bugs are known to eat their own larvae to ensure the survival of the other larvae. Think of it as population control on a smaller scale.
The Champawat Tiger was responsible for an estimated 436 deaths in Nepal and the Kumaon division of India, during the last years of the 19th century and the first years of the 20th century.
A person will shed around 40 pounds of skin in a single lifetime. Just like snakes, humans shed their skin too, but at a much slower pace. Accumulated, however, your shed skin will amount to almost half the average body weight.
Some species of fish have human-like teeth.
In the 1800s, dentures were made out of the real teeth of deceased people.
'Foot binding' practice in China only started to decline in the 20th century.
The FDA allows up to 4% of a can of cherries to have maggots (and 5% if they are brined or Maraschino).
Maggots are perfectly fine to consume, just insect protein. And if that isn't enough for you, the canning process involves very high temperatures that kill anything you need to worry about. And if that still isn't enough for you, insects are actually healthier for you than most livestock. Provided it's cooked properly. Just like livestock.
More than 80 million bacteria can be exchanged in one kiss.
And the vast majority of bacteria are utterly harmless, with some small amount being beneficial, and some being harmful.
The golden poison frog has enough poison to kill 10 to 15 people. Its skin is coated in a deadly poison called alkaloid toxin. One milligram of this poison can kill around 10 to 15 humans.
Only in the wild as they get their toxin from their diet. In captivity, if fed a non toxic diet they are harmless.
4,400 Unidentified bodies are recovered each year with approximately 1,000 of those bodies remaining unidentified after one year.
18th-century doctors believed that bloodletting was mandatory to “balance” patients' health.
Research has shown that after decapitation there is still activity in the brain for 4 to 30 seconds.
The peanut butter contains an average of 1 or more rodent hairs per 100 grams.
I'm 99% sure in my house that it contains way more than an average of 1 cat hair though. xD
Being buried alive accidentally occurred so often that people invented “safety coffins.” Doctors often misdiagnosed ill patients, and this was common in 17th century England.
Cosmologists theorize the constant expansion of the universe could cause it to tear apart. This theory is called The Big Rip.
Scientists say 'black holes' exist in the ocean.
No, they don't. The study uses the term 'black holes' as a clickbait analogy to note that mathematical similarities obviously exist among all vortices, whether in vacuum, atmosphere, or water.
A body decomposes four times faster in water than on land.
False false FALSE. The process is actually slower, mostly due to lack of oxygen (which helps break down remains) in the water as opposed to on land. Though once removed from water, the bodies decomposition will likely accelerate.
Here’s a silly one: male parrots regurgitate on females they are attracted to. It’s like saying “I’M SO HOT FOR YOU BABE, WHENEVER I SEE YOUR FACE I WANNA TOSS MY COOKIES!!” 🦜💘🤮. . . The science at work here is the bird is demonstrating his ability to be a good provider. He is willingly bringing up food from a storage pouch in his throat (called a ‘crop’) to feed his would-be girlfriend. Regurgitation and vomit are not the same thing in the avian world. A mother parrot can similarly feed babies with food from her own crop. Birds appreciate a free meal even if it’s been pre-chewed for them!
The majority of these have been used numerous times in different posts.
Here’s a silly one: male parrots regurgitate on females they are attracted to. It’s like saying “I’M SO HOT FOR YOU BABE, WHENEVER I SEE YOUR FACE I WANNA TOSS MY COOKIES!!” 🦜💘🤮. . . The science at work here is the bird is demonstrating his ability to be a good provider. He is willingly bringing up food from a storage pouch in his throat (called a ‘crop’) to feed his would-be girlfriend. Regurgitation and vomit are not the same thing in the avian world. A mother parrot can similarly feed babies with food from her own crop. Birds appreciate a free meal even if it’s been pre-chewed for them!
The majority of these have been used numerous times in different posts.
