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In the world of fake news, shams, and bogus claims, it’s hard to tell a fact from fiction. And you simply get used to doubting things. You read "unicorns exist" and the mind detects deceit. But what if I tell you they’re just bulky and we call ‘em rhinos? Sounds about right.

So when someone on r/AskReddit asked what fact sounds fake at first but is actually real, redditors rolled up their sleeves. 26K upvotes and 14.3K comments later, we have the finalists of these mind-boggling facts ready down below. Get ready to get that trivia muscle pumped up for the next game after quarantine is over. After you're done, take a look at our previous lists of crazy-sounding facts here.

#1

Ancient sailors believed that cats were magic and would often risk their own lives, even in an "every man for himself" situation, to save a cat from a sinking ship. All ships had at least one ship's cat as cats would eat the rats that have always plagued ships. The ship's cat would often be given a rank and sailors would generally take excessively good care of their cats.

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#2

Cheetahs can't roar. They meow like house cats.

SpeedyTrooper Report

#3

Because the number of possible combination of genes isn't infinite, there are probably at least 7 humans that looks the same as you.

Paperpod Report

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troufaki13
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I pitty my doppelganger... Such an ugly face is a shame to be duplicated!! :'D

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April Simnel
Community Member
3 years ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I met one of mine when I was 10, a visiting cousin of one of my neighborhood friends. We were the same thinness and height, with the same sort of curly hair and skin color, face shape, everything. We even both wore glasses for nearsightedness. It was so weird to see what I looked like to other people.

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Christine Holl
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Someone found my doppelganger and tagged me in the pictures of twitter. Was pretty bizarre seeing "me" like that.

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Rissie
Community Member
3 years ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

This is not true. Not because the math doesn't check out, but because the math is not applicable. Within your own community you actually look more alike to people close to you because of how we procreate. So you are more likely to have black hair if you live in Nigeria and blonde if you live in Sweden. And so with so many more features. So a few are actually set within families, communities, countries etc. But within those actually very much alike looking ethnicities and communities, the amount of possible gene combinations are still in the same order of magnitude. But the basics (ethnicities) make for a smaller group in which these occur. If we would totally randomly find partners all over the world it would become more likely to create doppelganger and adhere to the mathematics by actually creating one large group of humans that randomly combine genes. And even then there are epigenetics to consider. Google the infinite monkey problem to understand more of it.

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Rissie
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Fun fact, it's also why someone who grew up between say a white community might feel all others of a different ethnicity look somewhat alike. It's because we are so used to the common features, we look at more details in people in our daily lives. But I'd a big feature is different, we tend to focus on that and are no longer able to see the details. It's why a mom can identify her identical set of twins with ease and why a globalisation makes it easier to get around that mechanisme because we are actually exposed more regularly to different people with explicitly different features from our close community. It's why I can spot a Dutch person even before they start talking or walking if I meet them anywhere on this planet (of course behavior plays a part too). While for an American or Australian that same person could just as easily be German or French.

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Jim Ellington
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Except genetics is not solely responsible for one's physical appearance. Environment, upbringing, and epigenetics have something to do with it to varying degrees. Plus, if you want to nitpick, even the same exact combination of genes is no guarantee of exact sameness - identical twins always have minor variations and different freckles, moles, and birthmarks.

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Aliquid
Community Member
2 years ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Twins raised in different environments often look noticeably different. Not to mention cloned animals don't even look exactly the same.

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Melissa Yee
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

No wonder I keep getting people coming up to me asking if I know them or met before. I just thought I must have a familiar face..lol

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MRK
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Sorry doppelgangers, maybe we'll get better looks next life around ;)

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Cee Mor
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

doppelgangers...I know of at least 3 who look like me...weird

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Mama Panda
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

That would explain all of those folks saying they saw me somewhere that I wasn't!

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Caroline
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I'd love to see them, just to see how I'd look with a different haircut, different weight etc...like a real Photoshop lol.

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Ross Hamilton
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I keep getting approached by people who are sure they know me, but I have no idea who they are. My social circle is the size of a 5 pence coin, so I am certain that I have a doppelganger in my town somewhere. I am a nondescript middle-aged bald white guy, so I probably look like somebody else.

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John Kach
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Actually not, it depends on your race, the Asian race has the lowest genetic diversity and then the Caucasian race has the highest. Don't think that it is racism, Asians do not all look the same, they are close to the same. 7 is a mean number. Actually, for Europe, we can even find people with nobody who looks similar under precision view. Of course, under high precision, any multicell organism is different excluding some plants.

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Marilyn Ransberry
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I have never seen anyone that looked like me but I was in a restaurant once where strangers were staring and then came over to say that I looked exactly like the woman’s mother and even dressed like her.

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Tim
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

That's one out of every thousand. I'll need citations.

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Mateo Buysse
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Do they take into account age difference and environmental factors ?

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Carrie Perrine
Community Member
3 years ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Yep. I have one that lives 30 minutes away from me with the same 1st name as me also. I've never actually met her but I have had people ask me if I worked in a couple of different places ever since I was 18 (34 now). She also is the complete opposite of me she butts into everyone's business and is a b***h. Lately she has been causing a lot of issues with other chicks and their families badly enough that I have gotten a couple of threatening messages from 2 different people that backed off once they realized they had the wrong girl.

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Karen Johnston
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I've always gotten that "you look just like...." my whole life. This is probably why. I'm very ordinary looking.

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Ottmar Straub
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

well their outlook depends from the state their soul is in - guess all seven still look quite different

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Pavlina G
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Ok. I knew this! I mean maybe I'm a lucky freak but I've moved all over the world and i swear I'm like she looks like that girl from Aus, or he looks just like that guy from Phuket.....

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Heather Moritz
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I once met someone who looked almost exactly like my dad, even down to the clothes he wore..it was SO weird!!

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Carol Burrows
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I don't believe this. I've read too many articles that tell me human distinctiveness is also a function of DNA content outside of genes, and that while the possible combination of genes isn't infinite, it is a much larger number than would support this fact.

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Jace
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Yeah and there are recognizable archetypes among the rest of the population. I always see a lot more similarities between people. The so-called infinite variety of unique snowflakes notion has been nonsense to me for ages.

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the players
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

it's an old Sicilian saying (setti su i facci, seven are the faces)

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Ron Carey
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

We are not just our genes; are environment and diet , accidents and infections will all have an influence on how you look ....so yes we are all individual ‚ You might have someone similar somewhere sometime....maybe!

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K. aka letmeplaywithkittens
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Foxxy, you sound like a great mother and a person with a big heart. That would surely show up in the way you physically shine. I know you were joking, but I wanted to say I appreciate your thoughtfulness anyways.

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e Hagen
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Probably!?? Horsefeathers!The likelihood of someone looking like like you in all 8 facial aspects are 1 in a trillion! The chance of a "Doppelganger" (someone who looks exactly like you) is 1 in 136!

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Coleonema
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Look like you, the chances of them looking and having the same names as you... If you find someone like that you should also try your luck at the Lotto

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#4

The sun is so loud, if space was filled with air instead of being a vacuum, we'd be hearing screeching sun noises at 125 decibel at all times.

OsirisRexx Report

#5

T-Rex (~64 million years ago) is nearer to now in years than it is to Stegosaurus (~151 million years ago)

Images depicting them fighting are very very wrong.

OMGItsCheezWTF Report

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#6

The founders of Adidas (Adi Dassler) and Puma (Rudolf Dassler) are brothers.

..and their HQs are literally next door to each other in Germany.

MC1787 Report

#7

That most of the oxygen on earth doesn’t come from trees. It’s comes from plankton in the ocean

z0mbie55 Report

#8

Distance from USA to Russia 4 kilometers

This fact is always amusing.

alexanderdanyluk Report

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#9

One horse is actually 15 horsepower.

epicface2304 Report

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zims
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

When you team them up their horsepower goes exponential, too

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#10

Pocahontas and Shakespeare lived during the same time

rance_kun Report

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Kaisu
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Sometimes it's hard to kind of understand when different historical things happened. Like for an example, when Jesus lived, the Stonehenge was already a ruin

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#11

President Coolidge got sent a raccoon for Thanksgiving one year, but instead of eating it, he granted it a pardon because it was "cute"

LargeBigHuge Report

#12

Lyrebird's imitations will seriously sound exactly like the thing they're trying to imitate. If they imitate a chainsaw, you will think it's a chainsaw. It sounds like a perfect recording.

Skwissgaaar Report

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#13

Jack the Ripper was still active when Nintendo was founded

Daviernex Report

#14

A lot of the earliest war gods were actually goddesses.

mindfeces Report

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mph seti
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Before the three main Abrahamic faiths took over the western world, there were lots of Goddesses. It's a shame...

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#15

There isn’t a single bridge across the amazon river.

BobMightBeCool Report

#16

Astronomer here! The coldest place we know of in the universe is actually... on Earth!

To explain further, the coldest places we know of that naturally occur in the universe are inside dark nebulae with little to no star formation, and thus no starlight to heat things up. The coldest one known so far is the Boomerang Nebula, where the temperature has been measured as low as 1 degree above absolute zero (−272 °C or −458 °F). However, we regularly get below this temperature in labs on Earth! Specifically, absolute zero is at –273.15°C (or –459.67°F) and labs on Earth regularly get to within a tenth or even a hundredth of a degree of that.

Pretty cool!

Andromeda321 Report

#17

It takes about 3-4 generation before your entire existence is completely forgotten (assuming you don't invent the cure for cancer or discover the fifth dimension or anything like that)

Vortex04119 Report

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Caroline
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I think it's sad to think that one day I'll be completely forgotten. I know it's life and it's normal, but still.

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#18

Netflix was founded before Google

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#19

Iran arrested 14 squirrels on suspicion of espionage

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#20

Orcas are a natural predator to moose

chrisv267 Report

#21

You can fit all the planets in our solar system touching end to end between Earth and the moon.

rrnr357 Report

#22

There is no Date between 03-Sept-1752 to 13-Sept-1752,

Checkout the September Calendar of 1752. 11 days are missing in the Calendar.

This is due to the fact that we converted our Calendar from Julian to Georgian calendar on 2nd of September 1752.

baton912 Report

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Wendy Warner
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Not cool for the people who had their birthday between the 03 and 13/09/1752 ...

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#23

It takes 2 years for a pineapple to grow.

BobMightBeCool Report

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Ben Smith
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

It’s an odd looking plant too. Tastes amazing though....but NOT ON PIZZA.

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#24

The guy who sang Peanut Butter Jelly Time died in a police shootout. Also, his brother in law was there trying to talk him out of shooting himself. You know who that brother-in-law was? F***ing Snoop Dogg

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#25

The Ethiopian calendar is seven years behind the rest of the world. Edit; yeah guys it's still 2013 there

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troufaki13
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3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

A little heads-up guys: 2020 is gonna be one helluva year!! Be prepared!

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#26

One ten inch pizza is more pizza than two seven inch pizzas.

RRuruurrr Report

#27

Every Canadian is allowed to get a free Canadian flag from the government. However, if you ordered a flag today you would get it in about 110 years.

Idee574 Report

#28

Chickens are one of many species of birds that dont have penetrative genitalia. Read; cocks are cockless. The method of reproduction they use is commonly called a "cloacal kiss" and you can think of it as chickens scissoring, because "bumping holes" is the grossest possible way to phrase chicken sex.

Also chickens are not a flightless species like lots of people think and are generally totally capable of short flight.

Daiiga Report

#29

A typical cumulus cloud actually weighs 1.1 million pounds (498,951 kg)

NoC0nnection Report

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chi-wei shen
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Let's say it is 500,000 kg. In light of the variable weights that's precise enough.

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#30

That ants don't take fall damage

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