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Have you ever seen a horror movie that left you feeling disappointed? Perhaps the plot wasn’t scary enough, or the actors just didn’t convince you that it was real. To be fair, it’s quite difficult to pull off a creepy film successfully. But the best place to start is with a compelling storyline. And the easiest way to find one is by pulling one from history.
Redditors have been discussing some of the most unsettling stories about the past they know, so we’ve gathered a list of them below. We’ll warn you right now, pandas, that you might not want to read this article right before bed. But we hope you enjoy learning more about the past, and be sure to upvote the tales that you think more people should know about!
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#1
I think what happened at Lake Nyos in 1986 qualifies. Basically, a landslide caused the volcanic lake to belch up carbon dioxide which then asphyxiated 1700 people in the surrounding area.
Kira Okah 4 hours ago
This and another lake have permanent degassing pumps in order to prevent a recurrence (lakes Nyos and Monoun have both had limnic eruptions). A third, Lake Kivu is afaik being kept an eye on, because it too is likely to have limnic eruptions but the size of the lake makes degassing it not only very expensive but also would be at a cost to the environment due to the amount of dissolved CO2.
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#2
Creepy s**t? Okay. How about H. H. Holmes. This crazy m**********r built a hotel specifically to fulfill his lust for m****r. I don't really trust wikipedia anymore but this seems to be in order.
#3
The "Rochester Mirage" is pretty wild.
An atmospheric event happened over Lake Ontario in 1871 that essentially acted like a giant lens. It amplified the view of Toronto across the lake. (It's normally well out of sight.) Observers could actually see buildings and carriages moving around on the other side of the lake.
The phenomenon has been documented in other places too, and is referred to as Fata Morgana.
#4
The Wreck of the Titan was a book published in 1898, which accurately mirrors the wreck of the Titanic: giant ship, hits iceberg, not enough lifeboats, same size/dimensions/passengers, etc - *14 years before the Titanic sank*.
Kira Okah 4 hours ago
The author was a shipbuilder and expert in maritime trends, the danger of icebergs was very much already known about, as was the lack of enough lifeboats at the time. It's not that surprising that someone who knows about North Atlantic ships and sailing would understand the dangers of the route and the ships.
#5
Rasputin, he just would not die......until he died. But still it took way more doing than should be humanly possible.
EDIT: OK. So apparently, according to a whole mess o' people down below here, Rasputin died from a single gun shot to the head. The stories were made up to make him into a monster or something.
There are unconfirmed reports though, that he may well have been Russia's greatest love machine. More on that later.
Michael Largey 7 hours ago
Forget about Obama Care. I'll take Rasputin Care - it'll protect you from almost anything!
#6
Not exactly supernatural. But, creepy enough to inspire books, films, and the game Silent Hill, Centralia, PA.
The town that was condemned and abandoned in 1992 due to a 50+ year burning mine-fire that still burns today.
#7
As far as man-made events go, Mao's "Cultural Revolution" - basically, turning a nation of one billion people into a giant pseudo-religious cult - deserves more attention.
Michael Largey 7 hours ago (edited)
A major superpower being ruled by a clueless aged dictator leading a giant pseudo-religious cult can really happen folks, believe it or not.
#8
I wrote about 200 lines of code including some functions, and new calling protocols. It compiled the first time, it run in all scenarios with no errors, so I checked it into the repository and was done.
One and done, and will never happen again.
#9
Here in Argentina, in 1989, was a case of two girls that where found n**e and dead in a bathtub. The autopsy showed up that they were dead for at least two months.
...BUT... Many people claimed to have seen the girls alive just two days before. One of the girls was at a hospital because she had a fever.
None of the girls had taken the medicine that the doctor gave for the fever. They where not suffocated, nor intoxicated by carbon monoxide, nor electrocuted.
Fast foward 4 months. A judge decides to came back to the case. The investigation came back and found that the bathtub, that was emptied and deinfectated, incubated again lots of cadaveric fauna and was filled with water... They had theories about this, nothing confirmed.
Fast foward A YEAR. An investigator came with an hypotesis: the girls where injected right at the heart with poison from a black mamba, which accelerate the decomposition proccess. But we are in Argentina... where in the hell can you get a black mamba in Argentina?
It came out that the oldest brother of one of the victims had a reptile house with two mambas. The judge ordered that he had to be captured... but they never found him, and he's still a fugitive to this day.
They then went to the morgue to investigate the hearts of the girls (whose bodies where freezed for the investigation) to confirm the poison hipotesis...
Annnd this is the final touch: all of the sudden, the hearts dissapeared. They could never find them.
This is to this day one of the most interesting mysteries in our country.
#10
We evolved spooky skellingtons inside us.
#11
The Teleporting of Gil Perez
On October 24, 1593, Gil Perez was doing his guard duties at the Governor’s palace in Manila. Chinese pirates had assassinated the governor — Gomez Perez Dasmarinas — the night before, but the guards still guarded the palace and awaited the appointment of a new governor. Tired, Gil Perez decided to lean against a wall and rest for a moment. When he opened his eyes, he was in a completely unfamiliar place. Unsure how to react, he continued to do his guard duties until he was approached by someone who started asking him questions and telling him that he was somewhere that it was impossible for him to be. Gil was in Mexico City’s Plaza Mayor.
When questioned, Gil Perez gave the story of his supposed teleportation and the death of his country’s governor. The assassination was unknown to those in Mexico City, but Gil Perez was reportedly wearing the uniform of the palace guards in Manila. He was placed in jail because it was thought he might be a deserter and/or a servant of the devil. After two months, a ship arrived from the Philippines, bringing news of the governor’s death. They said that they knew Gil Perez, though they did not know he was in Mexico City. The last time they had seen him was on October 23 at the palace.
The authorities in Mexico City decided to release Gil Perez and send him home. As there is no other account of Gil materializing anywhere, it is assumed that he never spontaneously teleported again. It was lucky for him that, if the story is true, he did not wind up in a country where Spanish was not spoken or worse, in a harsh terrain like the ocean, desert or arctic tundra. Some sources say that the story was not told until 100 years after it reportedly occurred. Other sources say that authorities documented the occurrence immediately. Without details like this, it is hard to say if the story is any more suspicious than its science fiction premise already suggests.
#12
Dyatlov pass. A bunch of hikers went on an expedition to the Ural mountains in Russia. They never returned and a search party found them mutilated and naked. They also broke out of their tent with knives and some were found with orange skin. The wounds were similar to radiation poisoning. One hiker was even missing a tongue. The official report i believe said an avalanche k****d them. The funeral was closed casket.
#13
In 1908, **something** exploded over Siberia. It's known as the Tunguska event.
It lit up the sky and knocked down *millions* of trees.
There have been numerous papers and theories about what it was - the most likely explanations are that it was a small comet or a meteorite.
#14
In Edgar Allan Poe's only novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, published in 1838, Richard Parker is a mutinous sailor on the whaling ship Grampus. After the ship capsizes in a storm, he and three other survivors draw lots upon Parker's suggestion to k**l one of them to sustain the others. Parker then gets cannibalized.
In 1884, the yacht Mignonette sank. Four people survived and drifted in a life boat before one of them, the cabin boy Richard Parker, was k****d by the others for food.
Source
#15
Here is an account where two men went to the police claiming they had been abducted by aliens. According to the sheriff who interviewed them, They seemed genuinely scared to him when telling the story so he got the idea to leave them alone in the room to talk amongst themselves. little did the alleged abductees know, the room had a hidden mic in the room to record their conversation. they went on to talk to each other about how terrifying the experience was, totally convinced that what they described really happened despite being left completely alone.
#16
My favorite would be The Black Dahlia M****r. It's seriously twisted.
Michael Largey 7 hours ago
Don't search out the details unless you have a very strong stomach. And maybe not even then.
#17
Edward Mordake - Born with a face on the back of his head, said it whispered evil things to him when he slept. He k****d himself when he was 23. Creepy.
#18
Not historical really but... y'all heard of Elisa Lam? She was recorded on a elevator camera before her unexplained death. She was hiding and acting insane, and there is no way she could have made it up to the roof where she was found floating in a tank. Video. Wikipedia Article.
Spencers slave no more 2 hours ago
The roof was easily accessible via the exterior fire escape, despite the hotel management saying it wasn't. The water tank, which hotel management said was closed, was in fact open when the maintenance man went to check it after guest complaints of low pressure and a foul odour. Elisa's autopsy found no evidence of foul play, no alcohol or illicit substances in her body and, importantly, none of her prescription medications were in her body either. A verdict of accidental drowning whilst in a psychotic state was the official finding.
#19
Creatures crawled out of the oceans from the deep, evolved, multiplied to an obscene abundance, has ravaged the Earth for centuries, and is plotting their parasitic plans for other planets. Seems pretty creepy to me.
astheshadowsfall 2 hours ago
If you don't view progress as progress, and don't want your legacy involved, simple, stop procreating.
#20
I've been reading about The Carrington Event - a massive solar storm that struck the earth in 1859.
From History.com: "On the morning of September 1, 1859, amateur astronomer Richard Carrington ascended into the private observatory attached to his country estate outside of London. After cranking open the dome’s shutter to reveal the clear blue sky, he pointed his brass telescope toward the sun and began to sketch a cluster of enormous dark spots that freckled its surface. Suddenly, Carrington spotted what he described as “two patches of intensely bright and white light” erupting from the sunspots. Five minutes later the fireballs vanished, but within hours their impact would be felt across the globe.
That night, telegraph communications around the world began to fail; there were reports of sparks showering from telegraph machines, shocking operators and setting papers ablaze. All over the planet, colorful auroras illuminated the nighttime skies, glowing so brightly that birds began to chirp and laborers started their daily chores, believing the sun had begun rising. Some thought the end of the world was at hand, but Carrington’s naked eyes had spotted the true cause for the bizarre happenings: a massive solar flare with the energy of 10 billion atomic bombs. The flare spewed electrified gas and subatomic particles toward Earth, and the resulting geomagnetic storm—dubbed the “Carrington Event”—was the largest on record to have struck the planet."
A similar storm today, it is believed, would send us (briefly) into complete electronic and electrical darkness.
BarBeeGirl 3 hours ago
When I read the Wikipedia article on this, it mentioned similar (albeit not as strong) storms including 2024. That year stuck out with me because I remember when our skies were lit up by the Aurora Borealis (northern lights) for the first time in my memory. In fact they were seen as far south as Puerto Rico. If this keeps up, we may have to rename the Northern Lights to simply The Lights
#21
Amazed I haven't seen anyone bring up the Lead Masks Case yet.
Two Brazilian electricians k****d themselves in a very bizarre fashion for reasons that seem completely incoherent.
When a small team of police and firefighters arrived on scene, they noted the bodies' odd conditions: The two males were lying next to each other, slightly covered by grass. Each wore a formal suit, a lead eye mask, and a waterproof coat. There were no signs of trauma and no evidence of a struggle in the surrounding area. Next to the bodies, police found an empty bottle of water and a packet containing two wet towels. A small notebook was also identified, with cryptic instructions, in which was written, "16:30 estar no local determinado. 18:30 ingerir cápsulas, após efeito proteger metais aguardar sinal máscara" The phrase has been translated to English as, "16:30 (04:30 PM) be at the agreed place. 18:30 (06:30 PM) swallow capsules, after effect, protect metals, wait for mask signal".
#22
Jacques Bergier, a chemical engineer and assistant to French atomic physicist André Helbronner, was approached by a mysterious man who only went by the name Fulcanelli. He met with the man and the man said following (among other things):
"You're on the brink of success, as indeed are several other of our scientists today. Please, allow me, be very very careful. I warn you... The liberation of nuclear power is easier than you think and the radioactivity artificially produced can poison the atmosphere of our planet in a very short time, a few years. Moreover, atomic explosives can be produced from a few grains of metal powerful enough to destroy whole cities. I'm telling you this for a fact: the alchemists have known it for a very long time..."
This conversation tool place in 1937, 8 years before the first nuclear explosion. Nobody has been able to confirm the real identity of Fulcanelli. According to Fulcanelli, nuclear weapons had been used before, by and against humanity.
#23
The fact that some of the people that perpetrated the Ho**caust are still alive.
#25
When you really think what is out there. In space. How can there be no end to it.
#26
Zhang Xianzhong. He started his conquest of China only by k*****g those who objected to his rule. Then he told his armies to start massacring people in outlining villages that swore fealty to Zhang. He put to death any man who didn't follow that order. Then he just had his troops k**l people at random. Finally, sitting upon a throne made of severed feet and ears, he ordered his army to fight to the death as a few loyal servants carved this into a stone:
"Heaven brings forth endless things to benefit man.
Man has nothing with which to repay Heaven.
K**l. K**l. K**l. K**l. K**l. K**l. K**l.".
#27
At a nuclear power facility in Japan in 1999, there was an accidental release of radiation that ended up poisoning three workers. One of them, Hiroshi Ouchi, was brought into the hospital and the doctors set out to keep him alive for as long as possible, because they didn't often get the chance to study a person with radiation poisoning. They managed to keep him alive, in horrible and constant pain, for almost three months. He wasn't able to speak after the first ten days. By the time he finally died after eighty-three days, he basically had no skin left, all of his organs had been replaced in function by machinery, and his body had been dying cell by cell the entire time.
Edit: I also forgot to mention the fact that Hiroshi technically died two or three times over the course of his "treatment", if you could call it that. His heart failed multiple times in maybe four or five minutes. But they revived him each time.
#28
My Oma (German for grandma) is crazy religious. We were daily church goers and it wasn't until I was old enough to leave the house that I finally got to choose my own beliefs.
Oma was obsessed with constantly having someone praying in the chapel at our local church. In her mind, god required that someone had to be praying next to the tabernacle 24/7. No one ever wanted to take the 2-5am shift, so of course Oma always volunteered and forced me to go. But she didn't just pray, she would lay prostrate on the hard a*s ground for 3 hours, arms and legs out like a cross, face down and require that I do it too. I was only 10 or 11 at the time but even then the whole thing really freaked me out.
At about 3am on one of these mornings, I was laying on the ground feeling like a crazy person when all of a sudden someone starts belting out a super ominous song on the old organ in the church. I jumped up and sprinted around the corner curious to see who else was at the church. Not a soul in sight and the organ just kept playing over and over. Oma said it was the "angels"...to this day the thought of that song still scares the s**t out of me
Edit: for those calling Oma crazy...she really wasn't. She was and is admittedly fanatical about what she believes, but she isn't insane. It's hard to explain, but it's the way she grew up. We're lucky enough to live in a time where people tend to be more open minded and have a chance to be exposed to a litany of different belief systems through the internet and their peers. Many people didn't grow up with that opportunity and because of it are very closed minded. While I don't believe what she believes, if I become even a tenth the person she is I would be ecstatic. I watched her take in homeless people off the street, feed them, house them, give them work. I watched her care for a blind woman she met while volunteering at a nursing home like this woman was her own family, eventually taking her home with her and becoming her full time care giver with no compensation. I'll knock the beliefs and practices all day, but there is no substitute for the type of kindness and goodness she possesses. I refuse to believe that she could have such an insight into what it means to truly be a part of the human race and be insane at the same time.
#29
Maybe not the creepiest in history, but locally, we had a really bizarre crime take place. A man and his girlfriend lived above a voodoo shop in New Orleans and out of the blue, k****d her, and chopped her up. He even seasoned her as if he was preparing a meal. However, there was no evidence of actual cannibalism taking place. He ended up committing s*****e from the guilt over what he had done a couple weeks later. It occurred right before Halloween too, which made it especially creepy. Link to story.
Disclaimer: The details are morbid. Might not be the best lunch time reading.
#30
The Sea Peoples, and their destruction of every major civilization along the Eastern Mediterranean during the late Bronze Age.
Nobody is quite sure where they came from, or if they migrated to the areas they conquered or not. All the historical records we have on them are sparse - the Egyptians are the source of most of our knowledge on the invasions.
Some historians theorize that the reason for the later end of the Bronze Age in Europe is because of them.
#32
The Mary Celeste was found off the coast of Portugal completely abandoned without any trace of what happened.
Fun fact, the ship was built near where I grew up and I've been to the place where it was built many many times.
#33
Albert Fish was pretty d**n scary.
He would take kids and k**l them, and then he would eat them as part of his cannibalistic ways. After all of that, he'd write letters to the kid's parents, telling them how they tasted and how much he enjoyed it.
Nathaniel He/Him Cis-Het 7 hours ago
Look up the Albert Fish xray. Or do not, if you are squeamish.
#34
Amelia Dyer how they haven't made a horror movie about this woman is beyond me.
Dragon mama 6 hours ago
She was wretched and terrible but I'm not surprised there is no movie. She was just one of many baby farmers. The real story isn't one woman's behavior but the beliefs and norms of Victorian culture that led to such circumstances
#35
The disappearance of Glenn Miller. He boarded a US Army plane headed from England to France in 1944, and we never heard from again. Nobody knows what happened, and they still have not found any evidence of his plane.
It would be like Taylor Swift just suddenly vanishing.
Michael Largey 7 hours ago (edited)
Does Taylor Swift fly in a military plane in a combat theater like Miller was doing?
#36
The Nuclear B**b explosion. imagine being in that moment when you heard the news that a single b**b can destroy a city. W*F.
Michael Largey 6 hours ago
Many of us went through a moment or two when we heard the news that a single airliner could destroy a skyscraper.
#37
The lost colony of Roanoke, Virginia. The British came back to the colony after 3 years (in 1590) to find the colony completely deserted. There was no trace of the 128 people who had lived there, and there was no sign of a struggle or battle. All they found was the word "Croatoan" carved into a fence post.
#38
In a small Colorado town earlier this week, a drone had mysteriously flown itself around the town.
It videotaped a local mother changing, returned to the garage of it's enthusiast, deleted evidence of the video but had uploaded the footage to the internet before doing so. The whole town had heard news of the incident and the enthusiast found himself in a very hairy situation.
The enthusiast stated that the only person that had access to the drone at the time was his son, Butters. But Butters was forbidden from using the drone so he therefore couldn't have done it.
It has been said that drones... are spooky.
#39
I think the creepiest thing I have read about so far is the civil war in Liberia, it involved large amounts of child soldiers who were taken from their families, d*****d and convinced/forced to do war atrocities.
So basically during this war there were roving gangs of d*****d up youths who would perform human sacrifices and eat people, apparently they also cross-dressed or wore outrageous outfits thinking they would be protected by them.
Vice interviewed a warlord from that time 'General B**t-Naked" (yes that was his name). You can tell this guy is a psychopath because of how friendly and slick he is, just to imagine that he ate the hearts of 14 yr old children before battle sends chills down my spine.
astheshadowsfall 1 hour ago
There is a song "Combat" by the band 'Heaven Shall Burn', that this entry reminds me of.
#40
I'm extremely frightened of Kitum Cave, the birthplace of Marburg Virus and possibly Ebola Zaire. I don't know why. I read *The Hot Zone* when the Ebola epidemic in Liberia was starting to get out of control and the way the book talks about that cave, and that family of viruses...it's kind of horrifying.
#41
The Philadelphia Experiment.
"There are no reliable, attributable accounts, but in most accounts of the experiment, the destroyer escort USS Eldridge was fitted with the required equipment (for invisibility) at the Philadelphia Naval Yard. Testing allegedly began in the summer of 1943, and it was supposedly successful to a limited degree. One test allegedly resulted in the Eldridge being rendered almost completely invisible, with some witnesses reporting a "greenish fog" appearing in its place. Crew members supposedly complained of severe nausea afterwards. Also, it is said that when the ship reappeared, some sailors were embedded in the metal structures of the ship, including one sailor who ended up on a deck level below that where he began and had his hand embedded in the steel hull of the ship as well as some sailors who went "completely bananas." At that point, it is said that the experiment was altered at the request of the Navy, with the new objective being solely to render the Eldridge invisible to radar. None of these allegations have been independently substantiated.
The conjecture then alleges that the equipment was not properly re-calibrated, but in spite of this, the experiment was repeated on October 28, 1943. This time, the Eldridge not only became invisible, but she physically vanished from the area in a flash of blue light and teleported to Norfolk, Virginia, over 200 miles (320 km) away. It is claimed that the Eldridge sat for some time in full view of men aboard the ship SS Andrew Furuseth, whereupon the Eldridge vanished from their sight and then reappeared in Philadelphia at the site it had originally occupied. It was also said that the warship went approximately 10 minutes back in time.
Many versions of the tale include descriptions of serious side effects for the crew. Some crew members were said to have been physically fused to bulkheads while others suffered from mental disorders, some rematerialized inside out, and still others supposedly simply vanished. It is also claimed that the ship's crew may have been subjected to brainwashing, in order to maintain the secrecy of the experiment.".
#42
Sixteenth-century flying saucer battle.
#43
This isnt historical but I thought I'd share. I went to a lake with my buddy to go fishing and camping for the weekend. All was fine til about 2 am. We could hear footsteps walking all around our tent. We figured it was an animal but didn't want to look outside encase it was a bear, who would eat us like a tent burrito.
Eventually the noises stopped and we went back to bed. Then we could hear human voices. It was inaudible but was definitely people. We went outside the tent and looked around, but couldn’t see anything. We stayed outside the tent for a while as we could still hear the voices. The voices died down and we went back in the tent, and then we heard loud footsteps outside the tent. The tent started shaking afterwards while the footsteps continued. We were petrified as this went on for about 5 minutes.
I finally got the balls to check what was going on, if the voices were kids trying to scare us. That's when I saw it. There was a floating light orb in the distance. I convinced my friend to join me and follow it, as everyone knows white people seek danger when something has gone amuck. We followed the orb which was about 100 feet in front of us and then we saw it drop into the ground. It went into a rock. I went to pick it up, but it wasn’t a rock. It was a rock lobster.
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