40 Times People Found Lowkey Horrifying Pictures From The Past And Just Had To Share Them Online (New Pics)
Chills run down your spine, the little hairs standing up as if to applaud a wonderful performance, all the while a beating drum plays in your ears, your heart picking up the pace. You stare unblinkingly, eyes wide, forehead scrunched up in flustered unknowing. Should you run? Should you hide? Should their smile be as wide?
A sense of the creeps is both unsettling and intriguing. It brings forth a sense of morbid curiosity, leading into a dark hole that is difficult to escape from. And so, dear readers, Bored Panda's back to bring you more of the creepiest pictures from the recent past, as shared by the Reddit community called Creepy Old Pics.
They’re joyful, they’re satisfying, and they make you question the reality you live in. What could be better? Make sure to upvote your favorites as you’re scrolling through this list. What’s the creepiest thing you’ve ever seen? Let us know in the comments below! But now, grab your teddy bear, turn off the lights, and let’s get into it!
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Found This Old Photo Inside The Wall In The Attic
The past holds a lot of lessons and a lot of nostalgia, but there’s something about the pictures shared on r/oldschoolcreepy that make you do a double take, realizing the amount of disturbing yet oddly fascinating things our ancestors partook in. Such as having demons sitting on you whilst you sleep halfway off your bed. Seems like this would give you a sore back, love…
However, ‘creepy’ doesn’t mean the same thing as ‘scary,’ although they belong to the same family of feelings. So what actually defines the sensations we get when we look at these pictures: the limbo between deciding whether to fight, fly, or just ignore and move on with life? To answer this, we need to hit the history books (not literally).
Penny Auction At Foreclosed Michigan Farm (1936). At Penny Auctions Farmers Would Conspire To Offer Low Bids, Resulting In A Low Return To The Creditor. The Final Buyer Would Then Return The Property To The Destitute Farmer Hangman Nooses Served As A Warning To Squirrely Bidders
This Isn't How It Looked In My Memory-1980s
Charles Dickens is credited with the first use of the phrase “the creeps” in his 1849 novel David Copperfield, to mean an unpleasant, tingly chill up the spine. The phrasing of such feelings quickly caught on in society, with psychologists and thinkers of the time putting on their thinking hats to try and figure out the core of creepiness, as well as its existential value.
Ernst Jentsch set out the concept of the uncanny, which was later elaborated on by Sigmund Freud in his 1919 essay ‘Das Unheimliche,’ which explores the eeriness of dolls and waxworks. For Freud, the uncanny locates the strangeness in the ordinary. What does that mean exactly? Well, let’s dive deeper.
Santa Got Ahold Of The Good Snow This Year
Colorized Photo Of Rasputin With Tsarina Alexandra Fyodorovna, Her Children And Their Nurse, 1908
My Wife Grew Up Staring At This Picture. No One Can Remember If There Was A Person Behind The Kids, Or A Trick Of The Light
One of the most recent studies conducted was by Frank McAndrew, professor of psychology at Knox College in Illinois. He decided to explore the boundaries of this very familiar feeling by conducting a preliminary survey, which asked more than 1,300 people “what is creepy?” Surprisingly, the answers were fairly straightforward.
Subjects felt more creeped out when a person was not able to follow social norms and cues, with the biggest factor of whether someone was considered creepy being unpredictability. “So much of [what is creepy] is about wanting to be able to predict what’s going to happen, and that’s why creepy people creep us out—because they’re unpredictable,” explained McAndrew.
“It’s about the uncertainty of threat. You’re feeling uneasy because you think there might be something to worry about here, but the signals are not clear enough to warrant you doing some sort of desperate, life-saving kind of thing,” McAndrew stated, continuing to say that being creeped out is different from fear or revulsion.
Patient Brutally Restrained In A Mental Institution, France Circa 1900
They used to institutionalize women even at the whim of her husband. Hysteria, rebelliousness, or even refusing to have sex with her husband. We’ve always been a patriarchal society unfortunately.
A Suffragette Is Force-Fed In Hm Prison Holloway In The UK During Hunger Strikes For Women's Suffrage, Circa 1911
Jacob Miller (1829-1917), Shot In The Head At Chickamauga In 1863 And Walked It Off
When you’re creeped out, your brain and your body are telling you that something is not quite right and you’d better pay attention because it might hurt you, as compared to feelings of fear/revulsion that manifest clear responses of fight, flight, freeze, and fawn, all thanks to hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline.
However, the physical sensations that come with the creeps sometimes mimic those of the spooks. In 2012, researchers from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands found that when subjects felt creeped out, they felt colder and believed that the temperature in the room had actually dropped. The chills anyone?
That physical response further heightens your senses and, as McAndrew stated, “You don’t know how to act but you’re really concerned about getting more information… It kind of takes your attention and focuses it like a laser on this particular stimulus, whatever it is.”
A Baby Found During The Clean Up Of The Chernobyl Accident Is Pushed In A Carriage By A Liquidator, 1986
On The Feast Of St. Nicholas In The Town Of Bad Mitterndorf, Austria. St Nicholas Parades Through The Village On A White Horse Followed By The Krampus, Who Warn The Kids To Be Good, Or Else
Violet "Queen Of Sinking Ships" Jessop Who Was On The Olympic When It Crashed, Titanic When It Hit An Iceberg, And The Britannic When A Mine Sank It, All Within The Span Of 5 Years. Coincidence?
From a developmental perspective, this sort of deduction could be useful in elongating our existence. McAndrew explained: “We’re predisposed to see willful agents that mean us harm in situations that are ambiguous, but this was an adaptive thing to do. Our ancestors saw a saber-toothed tiger in every shadow and a slithering snake in the motion of the swaying grass because it was better to be safe than sorry.”
Therefore, we avoid things that give us the chills. Unless, of course, we’re playacting as such, similarly to the way we enjoy horror films. “It’s going to trigger a lot of things that scare and startle you, but deep down you know there’s no danger,” McAndrew said. “You can have all the creepy biological sensations without any real risk.”
However, humans have proven time and time again that we can’t fully trust our judgment. Psychologist Julia Shaw argues that, when it comes to creepiness, one important feature to note is attractiveness. People that are conventionally attractive are seen as trustworthy overall, which, as we’ve seen in the cases of Ted Bundy and Richard Ramirez, is a very big oversight.
1930’s Baby Rattle
The Twins That Inspired The Twins Of Tim Burton's Miss Pergerine's Home For Peculiar Children, C. 1900s
Those dudes freaked me the eff out in the movie and these dudes are doing the very same thing to me.
Cleaning Day At A Church In Leipzig, Germany (1920)
Should we or should we not trust our feelings of the jeepers creepers? It depends on your situation, but I will always say, a gut feeling is not one to be ignored. But for now, dear reader, I hope you’re safe and sound, snuggled under some blankets with a hot cup of cocoa, enjoying these creepy pictures.
Don’t forget to upvote the spookiest ones, and I shall see you in the next one! Have a good one!
Denken Sie An Die Kinder
Disney Sends This Guy Out Everytime Some Kid Talks About Bruno
Vibration Therapy, A Treatment For Headaches In The 1890s
New Year In A Psychiatric Hospital, Moscow, 1988. Photographer: Pavel Krivtsov
Not Sure What Was Going On Here
There's a Harry Potter and a sorting hat joke somewhere in this picture. It's 2:30AM for me right now so someone find the joke in this, I'm half delirious with insomnia
Old Photo Of (Twins? Sisters?) With One Scratched Out. Cant Help But Wonder At The Context - Likely Late 1800's Early 1900's
Maybe photo were used in documents or something, so they scrached other person. In past people often used any photos for documents - at least there I live
The Catholic Church With The Nazi Third Reich
Ted Bundy With Carol Bartholomew As He Helped With The Dishes After A Birthday Party, 1975
People like him is why I’m not afraid of superstition or monsters under the bed. The really dangerous creatures are right in the open and walk among us.
The Mask Worn By Edward Paisnel, The Notorious 'Beast Of Jersey' When Attacking His Victims, C 1957
Still From British Movie "First Men On The Moon" From 1919. Now A Lost Film
Quick! Everyone! Get on my Nope Bus!!!! Next stop is Fukthatizan!!
She Waits For The Second Coming
Bizarre Old School Disney Cosumes
My Grandpa And His Sister 1946
Three French Circus Performers From Around 1900-1930
Austro-Hungarian Sailors Wearing Anti-Flash Protection Gear, Designed To Protect The Wearer From Short-Duration Flame Exposure And Heat, 1916
The Original Cast Of J.b. Priestley's 1939 Play "Johnson Over Jordan". It Is About A Dead Man Looking Over His Life From Limbo, And Requires The Cast To Wear Elaborate Masks
Go To Sleep....if You Can
Mole People?
Reminds Me Of The Shining... 1910s
"Man Shrouded In A Cloak Standing On A Tiled Floor" From The Clonbrock Collection Circa 1890
Dressed As The Michelin Man, Pre -1920s
A Trio Of Contortionists, London 1894
Old Halloween Photo
"Peregrinación" By Graciela Iturbide. Chalma, 1984
Department Store Mannequins Wearing Disney Character Costumes, 1937
So two ghastly Mickeys, a terrifying Donald Duck, a wolf in a dressing gown and...... Two cows? Were there two cows that got killed off or something?
The Kamloops Indian Residential School Ran By The Catholic Church (1937)
My Guy Aint Mcfrickin' Around
Child Labor Workers In The Early 1900's ;
1957
For anyone else struggling to read (some words may be wrong, my eyes blurred!): You don't have to be grown-up to think breakfast is a pretty ghastly meal some mornings. Even five year old young ladies need a bowl full of fruit-colour, fruit-flavour Trix to change their morning outlook from grim to gay. When you're five (give or take a few years either way) you kind of fall in love with Trix and the way its bright fruit colours wink up at you through the milk. You become quite attached to the way that sparkly fruit flavour keeps demanding another spoonful, until pretty soon you're down to the bottom of the bowl. That's why Trix were born. To make good grain nourishment more fun. Mum note: How do you know what Trix can do, till you pour more?
Lon Chaney In ''he Who Gets Slapped'' (1924)
🟣 I Thought He Liked Shakes. 🟣
Glasgow School Of Art Student Performance - Early 1900s
Barney At One Of My Birthday Parties In The 90s
Baby Cage - 1934
Old Ronny
Children Reaping The Harvest. Finland, 1930s. [563x725]
Audrey Hepburn Photographed By Richard Avedon In New York, 1967
Father And His Twin Sister, Halloween Early 50's
'andor Weininger As Clown' (Name Of The Photograph, Taken By Irene Bayer-Hecht), 1926
Thanks. No sleep for me tonight, and I shall check inside the walls, under the bed, and even inside the mattress before dawn…
Bad Santa
Strange Picture Of A Girl & Her Doll
Circus Clown, 1934
Buster Brown Ad, 1907
I Wouldn't Want To Find Myself Driving Next To This Unholy Trinity, Caught On Film In 1938
𝔠𝔬𝔠𝔥𝔢𝔪𝔞𝔯𝔢
Before Elf on a Shelf they had Feet on a Teat. Easy to see why it wasn't a big seller
First {known} Photo Of A Human
My Grandmother Was Once Hunted By Ed Gein
Psychiatric Asylum - Kalamazoo, Michigan, USA (1870)
Police Search Through Serial Killers Leonard Lake And Charles Ng's Property In Wilseyville, June 1985. The Bunker/Dungeon Where The Female Victims Were Held Is On The Right. Ng Was Already On The Run By Then As Lake Was Already Dead From Swallowing Cyanide While In Police Custody
They recorded the audio of their poor victims. I really feel for the officers who had to listen to those tapes. They were only caught because Ng was caught shoplifting
Sad.....pic From Circa 1948
Portrait Of The Dancer/Choregrapher, Bronislava Nijinska By Man Ray. 1922
Weird Pumpkin Dude (From The Pearl And The Pumpkin)
Bookmark Promoting The Novel *666* By *amityville Horror* Author Jay Anson. 1980
Model Of A Plague Doctor
Diane Arbus: 'Child With A Hand Grenade, Central Park', 1962
Prussian Landwehrmann Tanning Rat Skins In A Dugout During Wwi. C. 1914-1916
Mickey Mouse Club House Just Got A Whole Lot Sexier Guys ;)
Halloween ‘77 🎃
A Photo By Charles Van Schaick, Taken In A Small Turn-Of-The-Century Wisconsin Town
"A Woman Fast Asleep With Her Head Hanging Down, A Devil Is Sitting On Her Stomach And A Horse Peeps Through A Curtain; Representing Her Nightmare. Stipple Engraving By M.j. Schmidt After J.h. Füssli (Fuseli)."
Dripping Dolls's Heads In A Factory, Photographed By Merlyn Severn, 1947
Nope .. nope ... nope ... Can you imagine being the first one opening and having to go through this room with the lights out ... until you can turn a light on?
Roger Waters, 1980's
Creepster Bunny
Supper Heroes
Ay, What The Frog Doin? Haha, Funny Vine Joke. I'm Sorry For That
"Don't be nervous!" the giant frog said while standing above me
The 'Face' We Show The World
The Snake Woman Saite Layton, Cole Bros. Circus, 1947
Scarecrows Playing Football, 1976
Mark Coulthurst Stands On The Bow Of His Boat, The Investor, Early September 1982. After This Picture Was Taken, He Along With His Wife, Children And Four Crewmen Would Be Later Killed During The Night Of The 5th. Then The Boat Was Soon Found Engulfed In Flames Once The Fog Had Cleared
The murders are still unsolved. They arrested one man but they had zero evidence against him. He ended up being released and to this day they have no answers. Pretty messed up considering the killer went back to the boat several times after the murders. They tried to sink the boat and when that didn’t work they set it on fire.
The Michelin Man
Cleaning Out My Grandma’s House - Some Old Halloween Costumes
The Tinman, Dorothy, And The Scarecrow From The 1902 Stage Production Of The Wizard Of Oz
Pagan Dancers From Stravinsky's Rite Of Spring, 1913
A Sign Featuring A Grinning Peanut Is Held Up By A Jimmy Carter Supporter At The 1976 Democratic National Convention
That mouth is Carter's mouth. He is a hero. In his 90s, still actively working for the betterment of American people.
Older Picture Of A Clown Giving Us The Kubrick Stare Is A Bit Unnerving
Adorable Then, Terrifying Now
My Face When The Cereal Hits Different
Some Family Members From Way Back In The Day!!
A Very Unsettling Ticket Booth At Casino Pier In Seaside Heights, New Jersey (1978)
Getting Wet Feet?
This is not an "old school pic", it's an Midjourney AI generated image.
I don't get why people are scared of dolls. And assuming you never met John Wayne Gacey personally, I don't get clowns either. These are cool, don't get me wrong. But dolls and clowns are not scary. Like at all. The one of the poor woman one the mental institution, however...
Nearly ALL of these pics look like something author Ransom Riggs would, and probably DOES, have in his "peculiar" series.
I don't get why people are scared of dolls. And assuming you never met John Wayne Gacey personally, I don't get clowns either. These are cool, don't get me wrong. But dolls and clowns are not scary. Like at all. The one of the poor woman one the mental institution, however...
Nearly ALL of these pics look like something author Ransom Riggs would, and probably DOES, have in his "peculiar" series.