The experience of just being alive is as wonderful as it is terrifying. The odds of our tiny planet spinning around a giant fireball being just right for habitation are minuscule, yet here we are. And while the world is a beautiful place, some aspects of it are truly horrifying (humans are to thank, in most cases).
Ignorance really is bliss, but curiosity often wins. Would our lives be easier if we weren't aware of the scary and disturbing things happening? Maybe, maybe not. Those things would still exist, whether we knew about them or not, but once you learn something, there's no way back. But hey, maybe then you could do something to change it.
One Reddit user wanted to learn some horrifying facts that shouldn't be true but are, and people made sure to deliver. Over 13k comments later, Bored Panda selected the most disturbing and chilling answers. From scary animal facts to the worst crimes humans have done, and continue to do - the facts on this list are eye-opening. Scroll down and upvote the most interesting entries, and if it gets too heavy, we have plenty of cat lists on hand.
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*Anyone* can have a child. We have tests for driving cars, you have to have certain qualifications for multiple professions, and yet there are absolutely no tests, checks, exams, nothing to make sure you're suitable to raise a human being before you bring a thinking, feeling person into the world
Of course, I don't know what the hell such a test would look like, but the existence of abused children who grow up into messed up people who may or may not perpetuate such abuse is just...sad
No 👎 Im sorry but this is a terrible idea. The reality is that there’s plenty of us who were abused by those that would have passed a test with flying colours - they know the right answers but twist themselves in reality. My dad and ex step mom were very charming, successful people. They were monsters behind closed door. Having a test really doesn’t matter. Education, mental health support, and lessening the largest stressors that lead to a large portion of abuse is far more effective.
In 2009 a paralyzed Belgian awoke from a **23-YEARS-LONG** coma, and it was discovered he was fully conscious and could hear everything around him the entire time.
Like.. What. The. Actual. F!?!? Just imagine lying there not being able to move for two decades but also being aware of your surroundings. That's all kinds of messed up nightmare fuel right there.
Since 1978 in the US, the average CEO's pay has increased 937%, while that of the average worker has increased 5.7%.
There is more actual lemon juice in lemon-scented Pledge spray than there is in Country Time Lemonade.
so if i want a lemon taste that is strong but don't have a lemon, I should spray lemon-scented pledge spray in my mouth? sounds good.
Being gay is illegal in 69 countries.
In 7 of those countries homosexuality is punishable by death.
It's heartbreaking that this is true. I'll NEVER UNDERSTAND why some people hate someone based on something that they can not change. It's absolutely ridiculous!!!
The existence of people who believe that the earth is flat, despite the overwhelming amount of evidence that it isn't.
The final moments of Andreas Prodromou, one of the flight attendants on Helios 522 that crashed in Greece in 2005. The pilots failed to flip a switch on the plane that would allow the plane to pressurise itself, not noticing it was switched to manual rather than auto. During the flight, the pressure in the cabin dropped, meaning the passengers and crew were slowly being drained of oxygen, and they soon lost consciousness. Andreas Prodromou managed to find a back up supply of oxygen, and even though he was suffering from hypoxia too, for a while he was the only one conscious as everyone was passed out and slowly dying around him.
As he held a UK pilots license, he entered the cockpit and sat down in the empty captains seat (Im not sure why the captain left his seat) in what investigators believe was an attempt to save the plane, but unfortunately his training was not enough, as he was only trained to fly small planes, not Boeing 737’s like the accident flight. He also called “Mayday” FIVE TIMES into the radio, but because it was tuned to the wrong airport, nobody could hear him. Soon after he entered the cockpit, the plane ran out of fuel, and the engines flamed out, so even if he could’ve flown the 737, there still was nothing he could’ve done. The plane crashed into the hills outside Athens, killing all on board.
Being the only one conscious whilst your colleagues and passengers die around you, not knowing what’s going on, and trying to help but not being able to do anything is just nightmare fuel to me.
A lone pilot was flying in Australia in 1978. He reported to air traffic control that he was accompanied by an aircraft above him. When asked to identify the aircraft, he replied "It isn't an aircraft". His plane disappeared, and was never to be found again.
Google fired two of their leaders in the AI ethics team for publishing articles about the dangers of an AI Google supported:)
When you have scurvy, all your old scars and wounds open up, due to the vitamin needed to maintain scar tissue.
So for me for example, I had my jaw dislocated and my gums cut open from check to check to remove wisdom teeth.
If I got scurvy I would bleed uncontrollably from the inside of my mouth out.
What would be your most horrifying scar?
We have so much vitamin c infused in our foods, you would actually have to try very hard to get scurvy. It's rare enough, that a lot of doctors wouldn't recognize the symptoms, because they've never had to treat it before.
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Wouldn't be much of me left, honestly. I'd just disintegrate! I've had over 30 surgeries including a full spinal fusion with prior ligature release through my thoracic cavity on the right.
Full spine fusion! Ugh sorry you have to go through that. I have had major spinal surgery and couldn't imagine a full.
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Oh! Oh, no no no nonononononononononononononono... New Fear unlocked.
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my most horrifying scar.....well my arms would be bleeding so much. but i cant imagine people who have gotten their head cut open.....
Honey I'm sorry to hear that. If you need someone to talk to, I'll try my best to listen..
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Does this include internal scars? Cause I'd bleed profusely internally if this happened
probably, since i'm pretty sure scurvy just effects scar tissue in general
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s**t, I've had a C-section and back surgery at the same level. That would be quite interesting
You could send your lower half to the fridge to fetch snacks!
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This reminds me about tattoos. Our immune system keeps the ink there. I wonder what happens to people with tats and auto-immune diseases.
I have an autoimmune disorder, my 3 old tattoos appear not to have gotten any worse (all over 25 yrs old and faded anyway)
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Several strech marks on most muscle bases would rip and a knife cut on my left side chest would start bleeding. My hands probably would be bloody all the time as well given how many scars I have on them
mine would probably be the entirety of my ankles due to the sheer amount of both mosquito bites and cat scratches because my cat attacks my feet in my sleep
I have a messed appendicitis scar that wasn't quite healed enough to stay closed without the staples and it split open one night in my sleep. So i had this nasty lookinh gash where you could see into my abdomen. Luckily it was basically just the skin and the fat under the skin that still needed to heal and close funny. But the result is that I have a really ugly scar and because of the way it healed it also sort of distorted my that part of my abdomen. If that opened up again becuase of scurvy I think i'd just give up
I've gotten a massive back surgery scar on my back and small scars all over my body 😐 brb gonna go eat ten oranges
The one from my first brain surgeries, in 2013. The scar goes from the top left side of my head to my right temple, and no hair has ever grown in that area since.
My 40 cm scoliosis scar, 10 cm on my bottom, and a few small ones; I'll be gone in minutes.
I have a two-inch scar on my stomach from falling out of a tree (I made a post about it here called Pine Tree Girl lmao.) I'd 100% die while staring at my stomach acid.
There were some complications during my second endometriosis surgery so they had to perform the same incision as they do for a c-section. Though I've had three oral surgeries and I didn't use wax nearly as much as I should have when I had braces so my mouth in general would be in pretty bad shape. Unfortunately, my arms wouldn't look too good either.
Mm… definitely my knees, my arms and legs would be bloody polka dots, probably my nastiest would be the the giant scrape that goes down my forearm, you could almost see the bone. Fun times.
Definitely being stabbed by a butcher knife in the arm. That sucker opening back up would suck.
Umm so I have like 200 scars and though all but about 6 of them are rather insignificant, if all of them opened at once that would be the most horrifying I think
EEEK! For me it would be the left side of my face would peel open from my ear to my eye socket and down to my nostril. I would have a big hole in the back of my neck on the right side and I would have a large open cross shaped wound over the middle of my spine. I would literally look like i'de been mauled by a large animal. :(
My ballsack would open back up (27 stitches) and I would cry and then die lol
As someone who knows someone with scurvy all her scars are doing just fine. And she has a few.
Circumcision? That would be a rough one for a lot of us. Any internal injury that had healed as well.
I had a liver transplant. My scar is a Y cut in my stomach. That would be very problematic.
Let's see, I've got scars from a spinal fusion plus another fusion due to hardware failure with both incisions being approx 12-14", hysterectomy incision was around 4" long, 3 different abdominal surgeries with incisions of 2.5-5", 3 laparoscopic abdominal surgeries with incisions of 0.25-0.5" with 14 incisions total.... I'll never get to be a pirate now.☹️😢🦜
Bleeding from my mouth (wisdom teeth removed), head (brain surgery), and knee (got a nasty cut in 4th grade that left a scar ever since).
I've had two knee replacements and a hip replacement. That would be horrible!
Compound fracture of both bones so my tibia and fibia snapped and pushed through my skin. I held my foot up at a very odd angle. I would hate to have that scar open up. Or the ones on my face where a dog lacerated my face. Plastic surgery fixed it a bit. However . . .
Well, that sounds horrible! I will avoid scurvy at all costs! I have had seven surgeries and do not want any of those scars to open. Plus, I have had some stitches for wounds and tons of scars from a life well lived. I have an entirely different opinion of those old-time sailors and how they suffered.
When I was little I had (the big C) and now I have a giant port scar right by my heart.imagine all the blood considering how close it is to the heart!
Probably my c-section ones and the one on my arm from where the surgeon found a blood clot forming during my carpal tunnel release surgery.
Oh noooo I had emergency c section with twins......I needed transfusion because they nicked organs... Yeah I'd look like something from a rob zombie movie... Sht I also cannot eat fruit because of this surgery I have IC....I'm going to have a scurvy death....
They covered scurvy on Doc Martin. An elderly gentleman lost his wife a few years back and he didn't know how to cook, so he was essentially living on canned beans and canned pasta.
My first thought would be Id have bleeding tits which is kinda horrifying but also funny in a weird way. Then I remembered my head injury when I was 5 and the nearly 11in scar that runs pretty close to my center part but hides under my hairline. Id be a walking horror movie
this horrifies me. id be bleeding from just below the pants line bc of the double ovarian hernia i had wen i was a kid, from my back due to a botched mole removal job, my knee from wen a liscense plate cut off a chunk of skin on my knee while standing up( still dont understand how it happened too close to the car i guess), my hand bc of a snake bite scar, probably my face even tho the scars arent visible anymore from wen i fell face first on the driveway due to a seizure, my lips wen i fell and chipped my front teeth as a kid and there r probably more scars from injuries i got from falling due to seizures.
I gave birth 3x - many stitches down there - guess death would be fast
My 3 c-sections. My gallbladder removal is not too bad cuz it's just 3 little holes, but my uterus would fall right out
I won't give any spoilers, but if this thought scares you, don't watch The Terror 😳 I'm still scarred (pun intended) years later!
Mine would either be the stab wound on my side, or the cut that I got to the back of my head
A big ol giant c section scar. I would literally be disemboweled if I got scurvy 😆
I have scars on both of my wrists, one of them was cause by pins from my broken wrist surgery. The other one i have, is a cut i accidentally gave my self with scissors got ten stitches for that one. I would essentially bleed to death suicide style. (Not actually unless it was movie drama
i have a huge scar across half my stomach from a surgery i had as a baby
I have a plate and 8 screws in my right leg from when I broke my ankle in 4 places when I was 15. That is probably my most significant scar. I'm 32 now so the scar is very much faded at this point but I would not want that to reopen
My arms and legs boutta look like someone grabbed a shredder (I need help)
had my gallbladder removed laparoscopically...so I'd have little holes in my tummy open up....
My most horrifying...well I've had three injuries to my head (that have never gotten stitches actually) that have healed over and left scars. 2 of which had to be glued, one was left to heal on its own. One of the glued ones you can't see the scar much anymore. But the others would bleed so much bc they're head injuries
Well... i would just be a mess of interals and blood. I've had a lot of surgeries
Mine would be my C-section scar. I’ve also had a few laparoscopic surgeries done as well.
When I was in 6th grade, an older boy and I got into a fight, and he literally clawed out a chunk of my flesh behind my left ear. So guess what it will look like...
not my head-so how did i get that scar? Well i was annoying my sisyer and got hit in the head by a toy
i would have so many scars open up. my ocd makes it so i uncontrollably pick at my skin until it bleeds. my arms, legs, face, and back would be a bloody mess.
Surgery scar from sternum to below belly. My stomach would open in half right down the middle.
My abdomen would split open, I have a bikini line scar and one going down from my belly button, both have been reopened at least five times each.
Virtually everybody has the capacity to kill, they just haven’t been put under the circumstances where it would be a preferable option.
this is just like saying everyone can potentially eat sh*t but normally you wouldn't want to...
When you get a sunburn, your cells are dying to avoid becoming cancerous
in the NT (Australia) I remember seeing a government warning that crocodiles inhabit the area. Among the few bullet points of advice on the sign, the last one read "If they see you, it is already too late"
How dark the BTS of the Wizard of Oz is. In Judy Garland's(Dorothy) own words "... they had us working days and nights on end. They'd give us pep-up pills to keep us on our feet long after we were exhausted. Then they'd take us to the studio hospital and knock us cold with sleeping pills- Mickey sprawled out on one bed and me on another. Then after four hours they'd wake us up and give us the pep-up pills again so we could work another seventy two hours in a row. Half of the time we were hanging from the ceiling, but it became a way of life for us."
Snails have thousands of teeth.
For some reason, this doesn't bother me at all. In fact, I'm glad to know that snails have teeth.
You could die at any moment without any notice and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it.
Human trafficking makes 150 billion a year in money
Sad and Infuriating There are people who are raped repeatedly on a daily basis.
There are more slaves today than there were during the transatlantic slave trade era.
An estimated 1.5 billion disposable masks entered the oceans last year, and that's on top of a dramatic increase in other single use plastics.
We're the disease that really needs curing, and we're well on our way to doing so. Shame we have to take so much with us as we go down, but the earth will be fine in the end.
Antibiotic resistance
There are 18 genocides taking place right now on this planet, and dozens have happened since WWII ended.
The Indian Cheetah and Sumatran Rhino were among some of the species that went extinct in 2019 along with;
Chinese paddlefish.
Yangtze giant softshell turtle.
Spix Macaw.
Catarina Pupfish.
Indochinese tiger.
The Spix's Macaw isn't extinct. It was labeled extinct in the wild, all the remaining birds were captured and taken to a facility to be put in a breeding program. The program has been very successful and some of them have been released back into a secluded, heavily monitored and guarded area back in Brazil.
Over 150 dead bodies of climbers are still on Mount Everest.
Some of them even serve as landmarks for other climbers e.g. Green Boots
Some monks used to endure a spiritual practice whereby they eliminated all their body fat through diet and exercise, ate wood lacquer tea to kill off internal bacteria, then sealed themselves in a tomb holding a string attached to a bell. A year after the bell stopped ringing, the tomb was opened and if the monk’s body was found to be uncorrupted they were revered as a saint; if not, they were re-buried.
The process took years and as they continued the monks required more and more help from their brothers until they entered the tomb. And the whole time you’d hear bells ringing from the nearby tombs as the monks inside slowly wound down the last days of their lives, voluntarily poisoned, starved, and buried alive for a chance at sainthood.
Something is eating the Milky Way galaxy - no, it isn't the plot for a Star Trek episode, it's really happening.
In 2009, researchers found a cluster of galaxies moving at an extraordinary speed towards a small patch of sky between the constellations of Centaurus and Vela. Some unknown force is tearing away chunks of the galaxy, and astronomers still have no clue what exactly is causing it. It's been named 'Dark Flow.'
There is something big out there, far bigger than anything in our known universe. Such a behemoth would impose a kind of “tilt” on the universe, causing matter to move in one particular direction – as observations of the dark flow suggest. Could be anything - upto and including another universe.
Well, considering the earth only has about six billion more years, I don't think humanity is in a position where we need to worry about this.
If a person gets bitten by an animal who has rabies, he will continue to live on a normal life for 12 weeks, and after the symptoms develop, there is no way he's making out alive. You'll know you're gonna die.
People do survive rabies. Though rare, placing the person in an induced coma and letting the virus run its course has been known to work.
An unbelievable number of people who die of dehydration do so with a fair amount of fresh water in their possession.
In Mississippi and some parts of Florida, there is a Bacteria in the water at the coast that will literally eat your flesh off of you. Florida is much safer than Mississippi though. At least, in that aspect.
There is a mosquito in Florida that, when it bites you, can make your brain swell inside your skull and can possibly kill you.
For me the fact that maybe we'll never know what hapenned to flight MH370 is kinda disturbing at least
Within three days of death, the enzymes from your digestive system begin to digest your body.
You might feel like the healthiest person in the world and yet still randomly die in your sleep. Sudden arrhythmic death syndrome is just one example. There are tons of small obstructions and irregularities that your heart could be suffering from that go completely unnoticed by you, your friends, and your doctors. You might be at an increased risk of just passing on when you go to bed tonight, and no one would even suspect as much until you actually died.
you have a higher chance of dying to a swarm of bees than of winning the lottery
There are many countries in the world where you can be put in prison or killed by the state for non-violent speech.
Just look at Iran, peaceful protesters have been arrested and not seen again.
There is a parasite that will eat your brain. It's called [Naegleria fowleri] and it lives in warm water lakes in the sand and silt in the shallows. It will swim up your nose and proceed to eat your neurons and your brain. Usually symptoms occur around 4 hours after infection and include headache, sensitivity to light and nausea. If you experience any of these after swimming in a lake you need to go to the hospital ASAP. If undiagnosed, you'll be dead within 24 hours. To diagnose it, you'll have to get a spinal tap and pray the tech working knows what to look for.
The supervulcano under yellow stone is still active and can errupt. The chances are very low but If it does, It can cause devistation in whole USA. Spreading ashes over the whole Country and parts of Canada.
- Long-dormant bacteria and viruses, trapped in ice and permafrost for centuries, are reviving as Earth's climate warms
- Gamma-ray bursts can kill all life on earth without any warning
- Asteroids can mess earth up
And there is little I can do about #2 and #3 so I don't waste my energy worrying about them.
The average American consumes over 150 pounds of sugar every year.
That’s approximately 187g of sugar per day for my metric system friends.
UK is trying to ban protests deemed "annoying".
I find protests annoying, too. *protests protests* Darn it all, now I'm annoyed and my arms hurt from holding up this sign.
Note: this post originally had 47 images. It’s been shortened to the top 40 images based on user votes.
Fun fact: there’s a hypothetical type of matter known as “strange matter” made up of strange quarks as opposed to regular matter made up of up and down quarks. Strange matter is so stable that if it touches a bit of regular matter, it may convert the regular matter to strange matter leading to a release of energy and more strange matter that goes and infects more matter
There’s a very small chance that a field known as the Higgs field could be in a false vacuum which means that we think it’s at the lowest possible level of energy but it’s actually more higher. If that’s the case then there may be a sudden drop in the energy to a more stable state that will create a sort of bubble of destruction that grows at the speed of light, detsroying all matter on the way. Inside the sphere, there may be a different universe operating on different laws of physics.
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Texas Parks and Wildlife on the Saturday morning show said over ten years ago that there are alligators in every body of water in the state. Even the lake in the middle of Dallas and Grapevine lake to name a few.
grapevine lake is sooo dangerous even without alligators
Load More Replies... UNfun Facts: Since we know that quantum states can change (wave vs. particle) merely by being observed, some scientists believe that looking back at the beginning of the universe can trigger the total collapse of the universe. Some also believe that the Hadron collider experiments could disrupt the Higgs boson effect for the tiniest moment (think .000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 of a second or less), altering the behavior of the universal constants in that moment, and destroying the entire universe instantly. Hope that helps!
I missed an opportunity to post! The sound of lava is like crushed glass!
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/09/21/magazine/voyages-travel-sounds-from-the-world.html
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Not for reading before bed - avoid if you don't want those can't sleep freak out moments
Go view "Through the wormhole" series. Set aside a budget for therapy if you do. Took me years to recover from the existential angst.
That movie was funded by therapists in an effort to increase business…
Load More Replies... Yeaahhh...my depressed and anxiety riddled äss should not have read this so early in the day...
Eh at least i know what I'm going to have anxiety about today instead of just being anxious about everything lol
Load More Replies... Fun fact: there’s a hypothetical type of matter known as “strange matter” made up of strange quarks as opposed to regular matter made up of up and down quarks. Strange matter is so stable that if it touches a bit of regular matter, it may convert the regular matter to strange matter leading to a release of energy and more strange matter that goes and infects more matter
There’s a very small chance that a field known as the Higgs field could be in a false vacuum which means that we think it’s at the lowest possible level of energy but it’s actually more higher. If that’s the case then there may be a sudden drop in the energy to a more stable state that will create a sort of bubble of destruction that grows at the speed of light, detsroying all matter on the way. Inside the sphere, there may be a different universe operating on different laws of physics.
Load More Replies... Texas Parks and Wildlife on the Saturday morning show said over ten years ago that there are alligators in every body of water in the state. Even the lake in the middle of Dallas and Grapevine lake to name a few.
grapevine lake is sooo dangerous even without alligators
Load More Replies... UNfun Facts: Since we know that quantum states can change (wave vs. particle) merely by being observed, some scientists believe that looking back at the beginning of the universe can trigger the total collapse of the universe. Some also believe that the Hadron collider experiments could disrupt the Higgs boson effect for the tiniest moment (think .000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 of a second or less), altering the behavior of the universal constants in that moment, and destroying the entire universe instantly. Hope that helps!
I missed an opportunity to post! The sound of lava is like crushed glass!
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/09/21/magazine/voyages-travel-sounds-from-the-world.html
Load More Replies... Not for reading before bed - avoid if you don't want those can't sleep freak out moments
Go view "Through the wormhole" series. Set aside a budget for therapy if you do. Took me years to recover from the existential angst.
That movie was funded by therapists in an effort to increase business…
Load More Replies... Yeaahhh...my depressed and anxiety riddled äss should not have read this so early in the day...
Eh at least i know what I'm going to have anxiety about today instead of just being anxious about everything lol
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