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50 Terrifying Photos If You’re Feeling Like Getting The Heebie-Jeebies (New Pics)
There was a time when most folks truly thought it implausible for something you see on a screen to be terrifying. Then came films like The Ring or just your run of the mill “cursed images” article to show that, actually, our brains are perfectly good at feeling scared.
We’ve gathered some creepy, unsettling images from across the internet for you to make yourself feel scared, if that’s your cup of tea. So get comfortable, preferably under some blankets, upvote your favorites and be sure to share your thoughts in the comments section down below.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
In Honor Of My Mother, I Present To You: Her Knit Self Portrait
RELATED:
#2
Applying A Window Sticker
#3
A Painting Of My Sister
There is something strange about the way that a simple static image can unsettle us, even when we are saturated with continuous digital content. We flick through thousands of images and memes every day, and yet sometimes one seizes us unexpectedly, leaving us with a shiver disproportionate to what's on the screen. Logically, we know it's merely a set of pixels arranged in a certain way, but our minds don't operate on cold logic most of the time, especially when it comes to visual input.
Part of the discomfort comes from how far our minds are wired to react to faces, patterns, and subtlety. Human beings evolved to instinctively rapidly scan an area for threats, so we're always set up to look for things that don't quite seem right.
#4
Wasp Nest Around Spotlights
Beak Hookage 3 months ago
On the plus side, intruders are going to keep far, far away. You do NOT want to mess with someone who has a demon guarding their property.
#5
Sydney Ferry Worker
#6
Dug This Up In A Church Graveyard During Renovation
A twisted face, mismatched eyes and the rest of the expression, or an unsettling background, these all tiny details ring alarm bells in our unconscious before we even realize it. And that's why photos can become creepy without us even understanding why.
#7
I Took My Daughter's Screens Away For A Week And She Ended Up Drawing This
StrangeOne 3 months ago
Maybe... maybe get her checked out. And keep her away from devices for a while.
#8
This Fisherman With A Deep Sea Wolf Eel
#9
The Face Of A Tapeworm Under An Electron Microscope
Static photos are also creepy because they leave space for our imagination. A picture that suggests something is off, maybe a dark figure lurking in a doorway or a child staring straight at the camera, leaves our imaginations to fill in the specifics. What's going on leading up to this photo? What's going on after? The quiet is eerie precisely because nothing is happening, nothing is answered. While a video lays before us the whole progression, an image is a snapshot, and it is in these gaps that our imagination fills in, carrying us sometimes into the darkest possibility.
#10
Opening In Pavement
#11
Hermit Crab Using A Human Skull As A Shell
Caffeinated Ape 3 months ago
Maybe the prior owner would have had a different opinion, but if a hermit crab wants to use my vacated skull for a home they're welcome to it.
#12
Remoteness Warning Sign In Australia
Smeghead Tribble Down Under 3 months ago
This isn't creepy, this is necessary. And common sense. A good suggestion is to also take a large bed sheet (white) with S.O.S clearly painted on it, just in case. Can be easily seen from the air. And always, always, always take more water than you think you'll need.
There's the phenomenon of the uncanny valley, too. Images that try to depict something familiar but don't manage, like AI-generated faces, mannequins, or images Photoshopped for unrealistic beauty, occupy this sense of unease between real and not real. Our brains want things to be in definite categories: human or not human, safe or not safe. When an image is in between, it puts us on edge, like an itch we can't scratch.
#13
Abandoned Hospital
#14
Signage On A Machine At Work
#15
One Of My Kindergarten Students Drew This
Cultural associations add another layer. A simple photo of an empty hallway might feel normal to one person, but to someone who’s seen countless horror movies, it carries the weight of every jump scare that ever happened in a dim corridor. Digital media doesn’t exist in a vacuum, it taps into all the stories, symbols, and fears we’ve absorbed over a lifetime. Sometimes we’re not reacting to the image itself, but to the library of associations our brain pulls up in the background.
#16
A Friend Went For A Walk The Other Night And Saw This Woman Just Standing On A Roof
#17
The 13-Mile Long Abandoned Pennsylvania Turnpike
No motor vehicles are allowed on the property, but bicycle riders are free to use it at their own risk. The trail requires helmets and lights.
#18
Desperately Needed A Toilet And Was Directed To This…
And then there's the fact that static photographs deprive us of sound, movement, and context, in a way that makes them all the more haunting. A fuzzy person in a video can be dismissed as an optical illusion when we see them move, but a photograph is frozen there forever. It doesn't explain, it doesn't tell us anything, it just haunts us. That's what gets us to keep looking, uncomfortably, long after we've scrolled on.
#19
Rented A Cabin A Few Years Back For A Birthday Party. Just Looked At This Pic And Thought It Was Strange. Anyone Else See It? It Was Night Time And Pitched Black So I Had The H**h Beams On
#20
The Hilo Tsunami Of 1946
This chilling image captures the final moments of the unknown person at the bottom left.
#21
My Friend Works On A Fishing Boat And Just Sent Me This Abomination
Lastly, disturbing digital media reminds us just how much power mere images continue to wield over us. In a world saturated with moving images, special effects, and near-constant information flows, one immobile picture can still link us up to something primal.
#22
This War Memorial Has Blank Spaces For Future Conflicts
#23
The Creepy Photo Taken Just Before The Dyatlov Pass Incident
Pieter LeGrande 3 months ago
Looks a lot like my buddies on a ski tour a few weeks ago several kilometres north of Mount Jagungal on a blizzardy afternoon.
#24
Welcome To My Basement
It's illogical, works on instinct, and unsettles us in ways that are irrational but deeply human. That tension between knowing it’s “just a picture” and feeling its weight anyway is exactly why certain images stay with us, surfacing unexpectedly in the quiet moments, like when we’re trying to fall asleep in the dark.
#25
4 Children For Sale
August 4, 1948 - Chicago, Illinois: They're on the auction block. These small children of Mr. and Mrs. Ray Chalifoux of Chicago, Illinois. For long months 40 year old Ray and his wife, Lucille, 24, waged a desperate but losing battle to keep food in the mouth and a roof over their heads. Now jobless and facing eviction from their near barren flat, the Chalifoux have surrendered to their heart breaking decision. Photo shows mother sobbing as the children pose wonderingly on the steps. Left to right: Lana,6. Rae, 5. Milton, 4. Sue Ellen, 2 years old.
#26
This Dog Freaking Out (At Another Dog)
#27
The Path I Walk To Go To Work
PeepPeep the duck 3 months ago
It was like this in Melbourne when I’d finish work at 5am. You’d almost wait for a pack of zombies to start walking through like a Michael Jackson film clip
#28
Found This At An An Antique Flea Market , I Should Have Bought It
#29
An Abandoned Funeral Home In The South. This One Had Human Cremains And A Hearse Left Behind
#30
Known As "The Pioneers Defense," This Creepy Historical Image Was Captured In 1937 By Russian Photographer Viktor Bulla
Mel in Georgia 3 months ago
AI summary: While there was no formal "Leningrad Pioneer Defence Academy," the term likely refers to the civil defense drills conducted for young members of the Vladimir Lenin All-Union Pioneer Organization in the 1930s. These drills trained children in defensive measures in anticipation of a potential conflict. A notable example is a 1937 drill in Leningrad where young pioneers wore gas masks.
#31
The Laundry Room In The Hospital I Work At. I Hate Going To The Basement After The Workers Leave For The Day…
#32
Ok, Fine. Message Received. I Won’t Cross There
#33
My Nephew Refuses To Go To Our Local Park Because He's Terrified Of This Thing
#34
The Human Dolls Of Anatoly Moskvin
Anatoly Moskvin is a Russian former journalist, college professor, and self-dubbed "necropolyst" with expert knowledge of cemeteries. For years, his hobby of collecting dolls hid a macabre obsession that drew upon his particular interests: digging up the dead and making dolls out of their corpses.
#35
A Chilling Message From The Lipstick K****r
#36
Standing Under Starship
#37
The Nuclear Shadows Of Hiroshima
World War II, Human shadow on bank steps, in Hiroshima after the explosion of the atom b**b in August 1945.
#38
A Soldier During The Battle Of Passchendaele In September 1917 With A Dazed, Thousand-Yard Stare, A Frequent Symptom Of "Shell-Shock"
joann fielding 3 months ago
And that limb in the background the hands are holding doesn't look too good, either. :(
#39
I’ll Never Unsee This
Pieter LeGrande 3 months ago
I assume someone sneezed while standing over the toilet bowl, lost his dentures and they had to shift it to get them back. A quick rinse and she'll be right.
#40
This Flyer For An Organization At My College
#41
This Image In The Restaurant Will Haunt Me Forever
#42
Kirby From H**l
#43
I Just Found A Tooth In My Luggage While Traveling…
#44
My Sister Found A Cell Phone In A Ziplock Bag Buried In Her Garden This Afternoon
#45
My Cousin Got Send This In Her Phone
#46
Aren't Ya Gonna Come Down? (Digital Edit)
#47
This Thrifted Tee
Luke Branwen 3 months ago
This is something that someone who's hidden a body on Highland Ave. would say.
#48
What Is This?
I found this missing person‘s at a parking lot at Best Buy. I thought it was another normal missing persons flyer, but until I took a closer look I noticed the weird picture the description and the additional info. Is this some promotion for like a movie or an ARG?
#49
Protoclone, The World's First Bipedal, Musculoskeletal Android
#50
Poorly Lit Mcdonald’s Play Place
Beak Hookage 3 months ago
From within a voice whispered. "Wanna come play? We have so much fun in here.."
#51
When 9 Pillars Of Light Appeared In The Night Sky Above A Coastal Japanese Town
UKGrandad 3 months ago
They're caused by light reflecting off ice crystals in the atmosphere and back through gaps in the clouds. The light source is the high-intensity lights used by fishing boats to attract fish. You can see the glow of the boats' lights along the horizon, and they're so bright that they are illuminating the bottom of the clouds.
#52
Found This In The Basement Of My New Home
Pieter LeGrande 3 months ago
As they say in the ad: call the cops it may be that one little snippet that puts away a serial kidnapper.
#53
Bunny Statue At My Mom's Senior Center
#54
Took This Pic On A Abandoned House A Few Years Ago. Didn’t Expect The Surprise
#55
Found In The Woods
I was walking in the woods near Copenhagen and stumbled upon this weird artefact thrown in the bushes. I put it on the trail for a photo and left it there for someone else to be creeped out. I wonder if I should have kept it?
Blue Bunny of Happiness 3 months ago
Is the middle bit a representation of what I think it is?
#56
Was Leaving My House At 6am And Found This In The Dew On The Front Steps
#57
Weird "Are You Dreaming" Sign Found In Psychologist Waiting Room
#58
I Pass This Every Single Day
#59
I Work Graveyard At The Mall Alone This Was In The Middle Of The Floor At 4 Am This Morning
#60
My Husband Just Sent Me This... It Was Taken On His Way To Work This Morning
#61
Reporting An Ad On Facebook Marketplace Gives The Option Of "Knows Too Much"
#62
Went To My Home Office And Found The Ceiling Like This
It's the only one moved
#63
Since Everyone Seemed To Like That Creepy Doll Donation So Much Here Was The Second Creepiest Weird Thing I Ever Found In A Shelf Full Of Paintings
#64
The Trophy Heads Of The Māori
Long before European colonizers arrived in New Zealand, the native Māori people were preserving the severed heads of the fallen. Known as mokomokai, the heads were chopped off, boiled, smoked, dried in the Sun, and dipped in shark oil before being displayed or paraded around like trophies.
#65
Bison Hunting
Pieter LeGrande 3 months ago
If it moves, k**l it; if it doesn't, chop it down. Not sure people have changed much - there's just not a lot left to k**l or cut down.
#66
Mickey Is Always Watching From Behind The Mask
#67
The Real-Life "Shining" Hotel
Though its story remains lesser-known, the hotel that inspired The Shining is just as chilling as its fictional counterpart.
Ron Man 3 months ago
That's a faked image, or at least not an honest one. The Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, CO inspired the story. It's a beautiful and well cared for hotel. See the pic I attached. Stanley_f7...4d6b2a.jpg 
#68
The Ghost Pilot - 1987
In 1987, Mrs Sayer was visiting air airfield in England with her friend. She thought it would fun to take a photo of her sitting in the cockpit.
When the image was developed, there was a man sitting in the pilot's seat who hadn't been there when the photo was taken. A long lost pilot? No one is sure.
#69
The Unsettling Implications Of Putting A Cage Around A Grave
#70
A Ghost Petting A Deer On The Side Of A Road
#71
The Last Moments Of Regina Kay Walters
Just before Rhoades unalived 14-year-old Regina Kay Walters in an Illinois barn in early 1990, he took a series of photos of her cowering in fear as he moved in closer. Authorities found this photo and a collection of others like it inside Rhoades' home after he was finally caught several months later.
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What do you think ?
Yrral Spavit 3 months ago
Making things up to proclaim outrage? I know its terribly fashionable but really?? https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/heebie-jeebies.html
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Yrral Spavit 3 months ago
Making things up to proclaim outrage? I know its terribly fashionable but really?? https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/heebie-jeebies.html
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