Creepy Encounters: 47 Moments That Left People Speechless

It's not always clear what makes a thing creepy. We might see an old-timey telephone that doesn't work in the woods and come up with all sorts of terrifying explanations. Or worse – we might not have an explanation at all, which would drive our fears even more.

If you ever come across such a phone in the woods, it's most likely a wind phone. There's nothing inherently creepy about it: it's essentially a grieving tool. Japanese man Itaru Sasaki created the first ever wind phone in 2010. He set up an obsolete rotary phone in his garden to talk with his cousin who passed away from cancer.

When an earthquake and a tsunami hit the coast of Japan in 2011, Sasaki put his phone booth on a windy hill for other people to use as well. Many people lost their loved ones to the natural disaster. The town that was hit the worst, Otsuchi, is one of the two cities with the highest rate of missing persons.

Sasaki's phone allowed people to process their grief as they talked through it with the loved ones they lost to the tsunami. Today, there are many wind phones all over the world: some of them fancy photo booths like Sasaki's, and others just a simple rotary phone installed on a tree trunk. Either way, their function is more wholesome than creepy.

What would you think upon finding a book from the 1800s with dozens of locks of hair between the pages? Something related to true crime would probably be the first thing that comes to mind. But the explanation might be much simpler and down to earth.

In the 19th century, people would save a lock of hair from their deceased loved ones as a funeral tradition. What's a bit more creepy is that they would keep them in their jewelry: under glass in brooches or rings. Sometimes, women would even wear bracelets and necklaces made out of woven hair directly against their skin.

One pic on this list might give you more than just regular heebie-jeebies: the heave-worthy clusters of earthworms. It sure doesn't look appetizing, but there is a legitimate reason why they do that.

According to a study by the researchers at the University of Liege in Gembloux, Belgium, it's how the worms make group decisions. They use touch to communicate and decide to travel in the same direction. 

Walking through a green-lit street at night can seem creepy. But there is a reason why cities may opt for green streetlights instead of regular off-white: it helps migrating birds. A 2005 federal study found that artificial light disorients birds that migrate during nighttime.

White and red (wavelength) light disrupts their magnetic orientation the most. Green light does less so because of its shorter wavelength. And blue is the most neutral since it has the shortest wavelength.

We also often get scared by seeing figures that aren't actually there. Whether it's due to certain lighting or just things positioned in a certain way, our brain often tells us that we're seeing either a face or a human body. Our tendency to see faces everywhere is called pareidolia. And, as researcher Mark Hamilton explained to Bored Panda previously, it's part of our self-preservation mechanism.

When you wake up from a nap and think that that hanger is actually a person, it might be your survival instinct kicking in. "Our research points to the fact that it might be because of the need to quickly parse and identify animal faces," Hamilton explained pareidolia to Bored Panda. "Possibly for things like avoiding predators and catching prey."

Interestingly, we might not be the only species that scares ourselves silly. "Other research that we reference in our paper shows even rhesus monkeys experience pareidolia," Hamilton added. "Pareidolia happens very quickly in the brain, a sign that it's a deep-rooted evolutionary artifact." Whether the monkeys get scared by the faces they perceive remains to be studied.

What did you think of this collection of creepy pics, Pandas? Have you ever come across something as unsettling and scary yourself? Don't hesitate and share it with us in the comments! And if you're looking for more eerie content, check out some haunting pictures here, here, and right here!

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