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Wikipedia was launched in 2001 and has been growing at different rates ever since. As of October 2025, its English version has over 7,080,000 articles. However, not all of them are safe for work.
Last week, Reddit user Herequeerandgreat asked people to share the most disturbing entries they’ve stumbled upon in the online encyclopedia. Whether it’s due to the Halloween season or some internal human morbid curiosity, the discussion has caught on.
We went through thousands of comments and hand-picked the controversial ones, on the off-chance you're looking for a topic for your next rabbit-hole deep dive. Proceed at your own risk.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
"War Crimes" in general. Then "Japanese War Crimes".
I like to think that I have a pretty strong stomach. I have a morbid curiosity. I enjoy horror and true crime..and I've seen more gore/shock images than I ever should have, but the descriptions and photos of what happened there made me physically ill when I first encountered them.
The fact that Japan as a whole has never really had to recognize or reckon with what happened there and in other places makes me really upset. Yes, the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were horrific war crimes in themselves...but they don't erase Japan's guilt. You can be both a victim AND a perpetrator.
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#2
Sandy Hook Elementary.
Reflxing:
Still can’t believe that happened and how it caused absolutely no change. 6 year olds are so little.
#3
"Unit 731." I thought I’d seen dark stuff before, but that one genuinely made me close my laptop and go for a walk.
But as Wikipedia's database is growing, so is people's skepticism toward online resources. Earlier this year, a survey of 2,000 U.S. adults found that only 41% of them believe the content they consume online is accurate, fact-based, and created by a real human.
Another 78% agree that the internet has "never been worse" when it comes to differentiating between what's real and what's artificial.
Social media posts (48%), news articles (34%), and chatbots (32%) are the top three most suspected sources when it comes to AI-generated or misleading content.
#4
I can’t stand The Nutty Putty Cave and the story. Horrible and devestating tale. Just reading the story makes me claustrophobic.
#5
Josef Friztl is up there.
ManMan36:
I remembered hearing that name somewhere and decided to look it up. I wish I didn't. Good god he might be one of the most evil people alive.
Stingray-556:
How the hell didn't the wife find out what was going on in the basement in 24 years, not a week but 24 whole years.
#6
War crimes in the Russo-Ukrainian war.
The fact that this kind of barbarism exists in modern societies while russians openly threaten to cross european borders after Ukraine falls.
Those polled believe that 50% of the news stories and articles they come across online have some element of AI, whether it be images or the actual written content.
But perhaps the most concerning part of the results was that less than a third (31%) of respondents are confident in their ability to differentiate whether, for example, a product or service review was written by an AI or an actual human being.
#7
Little bit of a different flavour from the rest of these:
Timeline of the Far Future
I defy you to read through the whole thing for the first time and not end up disturbed.
vampire-mom:
I actually find this stuff really comforting. I spend so much time worrying about the damage we are doing to the earth that the knowledge that someday human beings will be extinct and the earth will heal and give rise to new species and the cycle will begin a new really settles something in me. even knowing the earth itself will die and its atoms will join the fabric of the universe in a new way and then the universe itself will die before another big bang happens and we get to do it all over again just feels right to me.
#8
List of youngest mothers. No longer exists on wiki. Makes sense since you couldn’t protect the names of the children.
Minute-Phrase3043:
I remember this. Stumbled upon this as a teenager. I was horrified to see the list. And that was when I didn't know as much about the damage pregnancy would cause them. I never want to look at that list again.
#9
Fatal insomnia is my pick.
Medium-Escape-8449:
Every time I have trouble sleeping for like one night I convince myself it’s this.
Russia is a stark example of how even states can exploit online information systems to manipulate public perception. Researchers have documented how Russian operatives used a network of automated sites, known as the Pravda network, to flood the internet with propaganda targeting Western audiences beyond the war in Ukraine.
The operation extended to Wikipedia as well. Russia's human contractors edit articles to include links to Pravda network sites, exploiting the platform's credibility and the fact that many AI systems give special weight to Wikipedia content. Because Wikipedia serves as a trusted source for AI training data, these manipulations allowed false narratives to spread further and faster, affecting the answers that chatbots provided to users on topics such as the Ukraine conflict. (Experts warn that this approach is highly scalable and inexpensive compared with traditional influence operations. The same methods could be used by other actors—from political operatives to commercial competitors—to skew AI outputs in their favor.)
So the bottom line is that, even though it's fun to click around Wikipedia and fall down rabbit holes, at the end of the day, each of us is responsible for verifying the information we consume.
#11
Cyclopia. It's a birth defect in which the brain fails to divide into two hemispheres. It's incompatible with life, as babies with Cyclopia are either stillborn or [pass away] shortly after birth. As the name implies, these babies have only one eye, and some of them don't even have a nose.
#12
I believe the David Parker Ray.
Wikipedia page used to contain the audio file for his tape he would play to his victims. I know for certain there are snippits of the transcript still on there and just reading his words are absolutely disgusting.
I also had a year long phase when I was like 16 where I was really interested in historical fires and human crushes. But those are stories that have made me more aware of my surroundings, I am much more cautious in crowds, and it's also very interesting to see how tragedies force safety innovation. For example, the Victoria Hall crush in 1883 lead to the invention of push bars on doors.
#13
There may be far worse, I don't dive into wiki like I used to but Peter Scully's is one of the worst I've read.
Edit: Apologies to anyone who has already read it and a little shook or upset. But a PSA moving forward there is quite a lot of triggering things in this so read at your own discretion.
Diligent-Tomato-6288:
Peter Scully/ Daisy's destruction
Glaring reminder that we are actually in hell.
#17
Adam Britton
When I read about his crimes, I truly almost vomited. I was in a dark daze for a while.
Rude_Literature7886:
I hope he never makes it out of jail.
#18
I don’t think anybody will read this far down but once I accidentally read the whole entry on the Donner party and it gave me nightmares.
#19
Ian Watkins (Massive trigger warning for CSA).
jarred_pard:
Ian Watkin‘s wiki is bad but tame compared to the actual court transcripts (do not read unless you want to be seriously disturbed and a little [messed up] from the experience)
#21
The Byford Dolphin (incident). Goes into the description of the rig in the beginning. You’ll need to look at the incidents and accidents section for the disturbing part.
ReleaseExternal:
I’ve seen the footage of this incident. It happened so quickly. I can’t imagine being stuck in that situation, hoping for rescue that would never come. Absolutely heartbreaking and a disgraceful choice on the company's part.
#24
Paul Bernardo.
GEF110F14F15:
Here’s a terrifying fact for you; Paul Bernardo is allowed parole hearings. No one in their right mind would ever let that sick monster outside his cell ever again but the fact that the idea of him walking around in the outside world was even considered should scare anyone.
#25
Lawrence Bittaker and Roy Norris.
Odd_Environment_3001:
What Shirley Lynette Ledford went through is one of the worst things I've ever read. I sincerely hope she and the other victims are resting in utmost peace. Something about this case got me -- usually pretty good at keeping mental barriers up but reading about what happened to her has seriously haunted me for months.
#29
Probably not the ‘most’, but I read the entry on Vlad the Impaler and think about it more often than I’d like to.
#30
Ted Bundy. Couldn’t sleep after that. Just shocking what humans are actually capable of, although I hardly consider him human, more of a demon from hell.
#34
Youngest mother, Lina Medina. I have no words for it. (edited for clarification, youngest mother covers it better than childbirth).
#38
The Hypothetical explanations for the paradox heading of the Fermi Paradox page always gives me a sense of existential dread with the sheer number of progressively more unhinged and desperate attempts at trying to explain it:
> * Extraterrestrial life is rare or non-existent
> * Extraterrestrial intelligence is rare or non-existent
> * Extraterrestrial intelligence is relatively new
> * Periodic extinction by natural events
> * Intelligent alien species have not developed advanced technologies
> * It is the nature of intelligent life to destroy itself
> * Only one intelligent species can exist in a given region of space
> * Civilizations only broadcast detectable signals for a brief period of time
> * Alien life may be too incomprehensible
> * Expansionism is not the cosmic norm
> * Alien species may have only settled part of the galaxy
> * Alien species may isolate themselves in virtual worlds
> * Artificial intelligence may not be aggressively expansionist
> * Lack of resources needed to physically spread throughout the galaxy
> * Information is cheaper to transmit than matter is to transfer
> * Other species' home planets cannot support industrial economies
> * Intelligent alien species have not developed advanced technologies
> * Developing practical spaceflight technology is very difficult or expensive
> * Humans are not listening properly - Radio signals cannot be straightforwardly detected at interstellar distances
> * Humans have not listened for long enough
> * Intelligent life may be too far away
> * Intelligent life exists buried below the surfaces of ice planets
> * Advanced civilizations may limit their search for life to technological signatures
> * Everyone is listening but no one is transmitting
> * Alien governments are choosing not to respond
> * Communication is dangerous
> * Earth is deliberately being avoided
> * Earth is deliberately being isolated
> * alien life is already here, unacknowledged and/or deliberately concealed.
#39
The pages on child marriage laws.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_marriage
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_marriage_in_India
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_marriage_in_the_United_States.
#40
Hisashi Ouchi (yes, an unfortunate last name) is pretty disturbing. He suffered from severe radioactivity poisoning and his body fell apart while doctors tried to keep him alive for 12 weeks.
#42
Armin Meiwes, went down this rabbit hole from the song "Mein Teil" from Rammstein. By far the most disturbing Wikipedia page I've read, similar feeling to coming across a 4chan post.
#43
V-coding. It describes what often happens when you place trans women in men's prisons. You could probably guess what happens, but it is worse.
#49
I was looking for Albert Fish and Junko Furuta and they were stated. Horrific reads embedded in my brain for all time. Not sure if stated yet, but the Hello Kitty case - Fan Man-Yee in Hong Kong.
#50
Most definitely Udag Hussein. Guy was an absolutely terrible person who shouldn’t have gotten away with any of the things he did.
#52
Most recent? Wikipedia entry about Yu Menglong. What it revealed about the people who effectively owned him is just awful.
#53
A lot of the listed ones are definitely up there.
One that’s tangentially rough is punk rock figure GG Allin. His early life is succinctly disturbing.
#54
Tarrare.
This is nowhere near as bad and evil as most of the ones posted here, but it is disturbing in its own way. This man was basically a real-life ghoul.
#55
Not the most, but definitely disturbing is the one on Élan School, especially if you read the comic book by Joe Nobody who allegedly went through the institution.
#60
Perhaps not as graphic or as consequential as the others mentioned here, but for it was the New Mexico State Penitentiary riot in 1980. Just reading how it all went down really stuck with me.
#62
The Norweigan black metal band "Mayhem" Wikipedia page had me reading for hours its a series of wth after wth.
#68
Election of 2000 in the state of Florida.
ChironXII:
Yeah, that one's kinda lost the punch of realizing democracy was basically just a gentlemen's agreement all along, due to recent history, unfortunately.
What do you think ?
Gavin Johnson 4 months ago
The paedophile formally known as Prince Andrew. When that all makes its way into the sunlight it’ll be both tragic and interesting. The Royal Family enabled his nefarious ways and QEII will rightly be outed as a hateful individual for bankrolling his evasion from justice. They are toxic.
Gavin Johnson 4 months ago
The paedophile formally known as Prince Andrew. When that all makes its way into the sunlight it’ll be both tragic and interesting. The Royal Family enabled his nefarious ways and QEII will rightly be outed as a hateful individual for bankrolling his evasion from justice. They are toxic.
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