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"I need to go to sleep but I can’t put my phone away because of this thread," someone commented in the now-viral Reddit thread. In it, hundreds of people are sharing their replies to "What is the scariest/creepiest theory you know about?" Ranging from theories about space travel to death, the answers are all sorts of intriguing.

"I came into this thread unafraid of death, I’m leaving petrified - thanks!" someone commented and we can't help but agree! More than 65k people liked the thread, prompting it to go viral on the social media platform. Therefore, as always, we encourage you to vote for the theories you found the most interesting! In addition to this, if you have a scary or creepy theory you know about, share in the comment section down below!

More info: Reddit

#1

May or not be a “theory”, but the first thing I thought of was that feeling you get when you’re on top of a building and think “what if I jumped?” Or when you’re driving and think “what if I just swerve into traffic.”

Well it’s actually got a name: L’appel du vide. French for “The call of the void.” I always thought the idea of some ethereal presence calling you towards darkness... creepy.

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Foxxy (The Original)
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I have those kind of thoughts “what if I walked in front of a train” and stuff like that when I have suicidal thoughts. I have no intent on doing it, I just think about what if?

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#2

We’ve all pretty much heard of Uncanny Valley (the creeped out anxious feeling when you look at something that’s humanoid but there’s something clearly wrong with it. Like the wax figures at Madame Tussaud’s or that AI robot Sophia)

But my favorite theory to come out of it is that we get that strange feeling because somewhere along human evolution we’ve learned to be wary of things that look human... but aren’t.

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#3

More of a story than a theory, but it correlates to some of these and makes me think some could be real. When I was younger I had this little stuffed animal dog I named rocky. One night, my younger sisters and I (who all slept in the same room so we could hangout together) were messing around, and I two handed over head tossed rocky into the wall directly in front of my bed. He hit the wall, slid down behind whatever was in front of my bed, and was NEVER seen again. I immediately went to go get him and he just wasn’t anywhere. We tore the whole entire small room apart. We all saw the event occur. Over time the room has been completely emptied out, everything in it rearranged, walls painted, everything- and no rocky. He just completely phased out of existence. Makes me think he glitched out of the system or something.

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

I once had a passport that disappeared that way. The room I last saw it in was totally emptied several times, but I never found it back. Had to have a new one made.

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#4

If you're scuba diving above a coral reef, and you know that there SHOULD be fish all around you, but you don't see any, it's most likely that they have learned that for some reason it's important not to be seen.

And since you're a newcomer to this environment, chances are it's not you they're hiding from.

EDIT: the number of scuba divers saying they've experienced this and then noticed a shark nearby is alarming.

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Foxxy (The Original)
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Pretty much anytime your in the ocean there are sharks swimming nearby. We are no their food source so generally don’t bother coming near enough to do any harm. They are no out to get us, it’s just that sharks explore using their jaws which unfortunately has a lot of razor sharp teeth that will do a lot of damage. Very very rarely has a person been eaten by a shark, most of the time the person is let go once the shark realises we are not tasty and the person dies from drowning, shock or blood loss.

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#5

Our “world” is out perception of our surroundings in our 3 dimensional life. It’s possible that we are living amongst beings, things and events that we cannot experience because we are 3 dimensions and they are not.

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

A famous Victorian school teacher wrote “Flatland: a Romance of Many Dimensions” (which Carla Sagan has cited in his docs) It illustrates how a one dimensional being would see the world, just lines. And when a 3D sphere visits, he can only see a line. I think about this often actually. I find it fascinating to think of all the other dimensions we cannot perceive. I think about insects, and how they perceive our world, like a fly with a thousand eyes. Their view of this many faceted world is not wrong, it is their 3D world. So who’s to say that our view of the world is The “correct” view, and not the way an insect sees it? I dunno, just food for thought

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#6

If the human body senses trauma it is unable to combat, it will switch off metabolism, pump endorphins, and slip into a pain free dissociative state.

In essence, shutting down. Its been seen in air crashes and lots of places really.

Basically your body can switch itself off.

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

my body takes it to a new level. I suffer from Neural Basal reactions. When I have sudden pain (pinch my finger, cut myself etc...) My brain shuts down and I pass out... usually resulting in some secondary injuries that I often do not feel right away or at all. I also tend to stop breathing in these episodes and wake up hyperventilating.

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#7

The Gaian Bottleneck theory. Basically the reason we've never encountered or been contacted by aliens is because they're all dead. Every alien species that evolved to form advanced societies eventually outgrew their planet and destroyed themselves. Like we are.

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

even if they found us, they probably see the dinosaurs or nothing when th're looking at us right now. the light needs a looot of time to travel

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#8

Cosmology can be disturbing.

For instance, I recently learned of dead end trips. There are some destinations that you shouldn't try for. It's possible to travel so far away from where you started, that the expansion of the universe will exceed the speed you were travelling at.

You can't return home, because home is receding faster than you can travel.

You can't reach your destination, because it too is receding faster than you can travel.

You can no longer get anywhere, only get further away from everything.

You cannot reach any destination, even if you travel forever.

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#9

Humans are scared of things that mimic them too perfectly, the theory is that we developed this because there was a super predator of some sort that would mimic us and kill us. But we never knew what happened to it

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#10

"There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened." - Douglas Adams

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#11

That there is no secret society controlling everything, and humans by themselves are destroying humanity and themselves. And it's just easier to think that it's someone else behind all the evil .

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

Uh... that is what I actually believe...? It seems to me that current as well as historic events make the most sense if you assume that no one has control over everything. Sure, there's people who try, but even in tight dictatorships you get rebels and unforeseen random events. I definitely think that conspiracy theorists are overwhelmed with the unpredictability of the world and hang onto whichever theory puts their "preferred enemy" into the group of control... it implies a) everything bad that happens is due to the people I already think of as bad, b) I'm definitely and always one of the good people, c) I'm so special for catching on, d) even if I don't control events now, I might in the future if I fight my enemy. I definitely think of it as lazy, both in respect to self-awareness (you don't need to question yourself) and level of intellectual difficulty (it turns highly complex issues of the world into simple black-and-white problems).

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#12

The theory that we're all quantum immortals and when someone dies in our reality for them they just keep on going in a reality where they didn't

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#13

That we have so little data about the deep dark parts of the ocean and don’t truly know what lurks there

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

It might be sunshine and rainbows and Narwhal parties! Jk, we know enough about physics to know that’s not possible. But still- why do the things in the deep ocean have to be bad? Because our imagination. That’s it.

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#14

It's scary that there are thousands of serial killers out there at any 1 given time who often just blend in with the rest of society and live normal lives. Many will never be caught.

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#15

If you die by being beheaded the last thing you might see is your decapitated body.

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#16

That humans almost went extinct. 70,000 years ago a volcano in Indonesia erupted. There’s theories that we have a genetic bottleneck around that time. Took our population down to 10,000-3,000 (like the size of one small town). Lots of fresh genetic material died with those who were lost and the resulting inbreeding could have resulted in some genetic diseases that have made their way into humans today. Without this event, we may have advanced faster and be healthier people today.

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#17

Not a theory but reality. Schizophrenia can happen to anyone, at any age, even to perfectly healthy people. Imagine being normal and then waking up one day and seeing and hearing things that aren't actually there. That is really scary and creepy.

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

My brother (35) has paranoid Schizophrenia. He is awake the whole night and sleeps the whole day. I told him once, it would maybe be better if he's awake when we all are to spend more time together (my kids love him much), and that he maybe should try to change that. His answer was: yes, I know. But I'm too scared to sleep at night.... Broke my heart.

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#18

I had a professor in college who taught physics and he explained why we will likely never come across aliens. The universe is about 14 billion years old. Over the course of that time, it’s likely that intelligent life, besides life on earth, has existed. However, 14 billion years is an INSANELY long time. Other life forms have probably risen and fallen thousands of times over. Extreme dynasties with technology we can only dream of having have probably existed. Life forms could have lasted hundreds of thousands of years and still not even be close to our timeline. The chances of other intelligent life forms existing at the same time as humans, in the 14 billion years the universe has hosted a possibility for life, is really unlikely. Statistically, intelligent life to have formed, prospered, or even existed at the same time as humans is extremely small simply due to the absolute drop in a bucket that we are on terms of time. We may very well be completely alone in the universe.

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

It's not merely time that is the issue, but also space, which is mindbogglingly huge.

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#19

Ok this one is rough so please bare with me,

So the common time travel question is would you go back and kill baby hitler?

Well imagine if that was you, to us in the current timeline you would be a hero that killed someone truly evil before they had chance to corrupt or endanger anyone but to the people of that time you are a monster, a baby killer.

They couldn’t exactly explain to people, I was sent from the future to kill this baby to save hundreds of millions of lives. No-one would believe him and would just assume he was some nutcase, or maybe they’re not allowed to tell anyone as per the agreement with the future government?

It makes you wonder all the people through time that have been called monsters for killing babies, what if they were just heroes from the future saving us all? They couldn’t tell anyone either?

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truthmonster00 avatar
Truth Monster
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Hitler was just the lightning rod. Chances are, someone else would have become the lightning rod if you murdered baby Hitler. Hitler is still a terrible human, I'm not excusing him at all.

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

Yeah. The German people were fed up, and there were certainly others in Germany with that ideology at the time.

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

But why kill a baby... you have the means to travel through time... just take the baby from Germany and leave him with a family on some remote island...if he still manages to be evil... you can still travel in time and repeat...

mgraber11 avatar
Mike Symse
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Ah but think about this. If you went back in time and killed Hitler, you may end up eliminating your own existence or someone close to you. Why? Erasing something as profound and hugely historical as the reign of Nazi Germany would cause everything to be different today. It’s too many variables to even calculate. Think of how many couples met during that war. Got married. Had children. Maybe you’re one of those children. Well, Hitler dies at birth? That’s that for you. You’re never born. Neither are your own children. Or theirs. Or theirs. Or theirs.....

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

If someone killed baby Hitler we in the present wouldn’t know about Hitler because it never happened.

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

There's an interesting short story I had read about tine traveling back in time to kill Hitler, but at the very moment you think the character is going to kill Hitler, he instead teaches Hitler how to paint properly. So instead of becoming the monster he instead became a successful artist (which is what Hitler thought he was going to become).

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

Would you happen to have a link to that story? Would love to give it a read

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anneking68 avatar
StrawberryParfait
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Or, you could take baby Hitler and raise him in England. Then maybe he becomes one who helps defeat the other fascist who would have evolved in Germany during that whole period.

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cybermerlin2000
Community Member
3 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Think about all the things we have gained from World War 2. We have jumped ahead in technology. Electronics and communications. Computers. Mechanical engineering. Alternate fuels and jet engines as well as advances in medicines. All because we needed to survive and had to evolve and adapt as fast as possible. Would we be where we are today if Hitler wasn't born? Also, you don't really need to kill baby Hitler. Just travel back in time and stop him from being conceived at all. No hero's no villains but think about this. If you get rid of Hitler then no one would need to build a time machine to stop him so you would probably not get sent back in time thus allowing Hitler to be born. Ooh! Paradoxical time loop!

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

The paradox applies here. If you kill tiny Hitler, then Hitler's brand of fascism doesn't arise; another does. And you end up with a different result, which means you don't think of Hitler as a causative force, and have no reason to go back in time to kill little Hitler. It'd be someone else, and the shape/face/details of the horrors would be slightly different ---- perhaps less focused on Jews ---- who knows? So... Yep.

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

What if hitler turned out to be hitler because someone tried to kill him and failed leaving him with trauma. Also on this note, in books and movies, people trying to avoid prophecies wich makes the prophecy comes true, can’t the person who tells the prophecy just stay quiet

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

What if hitler killed someone who was going to be worse, and future people went back in time to save him so that he could kill the even worse person?

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

The has other ramifications. Yes, many millions of people dies because of that man. But enough time has elapsed that, due to the events of the past, millions more have been born (including myself) that WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN if the events of Hitler's life has never transpired. So yes, in theory, you'd be saving many lives, but canceling out many others. Quite a time traveling quandary.

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

Very interesting question! There's a great book by Stephen Fry called Making History, where the protagonist tries something very similar, with very unexpected results. (Although possibly not so unexpected if you consider Truth Monster's comment that he was just a lightning rod... )

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Adam
Community Member
1 month ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

The other side to this one is what if Hitler was the lesser evil ? What if killing him paves the way for someone much MUCH worse ?

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Shravani
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

i think that even a minute change changes everything in the future, so if u kill hitler some of us might exist, the world would be so different .

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Janzel Marc Macapagal
Community Member
1 year ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

That's why, there is something that states that you shouldn't be involved with time. Because everything just happens for a reason. You might be a hero for saving millions but you have to sacrifice yourself, and what if there's another person during hitler's time that would do the same but he couldnt because hitler already did the deed. See, it will be complicated over time so let's just things happen in their own way because it's out of our control when time is being and fate is being involved.

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Silvia John
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Just because you murdered Baby Hitler doesn't mean there wasn't anyone else out there doing exactly the same thing. He had people by his side who were just as cruel. Perhaps then they would have risen.

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Reyn-Guo
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

You forgot about the time paradox! If you go back in time to kill Hitler as a baby and actually succeed, you have removed the purpose of your future self to go back in time and kill him because he never existed and that's even if you exist in the future. It's possible that such a large change in history would have never seen your parents meet, marry, and result in your birth, in which case, you do not exist to change anything. For want of better words, it's a circular impossibility. The only time travel I see as remotely possible is travel into the future to bring back warnings to the past to be avoided if even that's possible.

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Laura Silverstein
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Unfortunately, even if Hitler had been eliminated as a baby, due to the social, political, economic, etc conditions leading up to the time he would have risen up, there probably would have just been a power vacuum which someone else could have filled

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your socially awkward cousin
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

this is just reminding me of that one scene where rhodey suggests killing baby thanos

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

You just reminded me of an episode of The Twilight Zone, "Cradle of Darkness", but the time traveler(Katherine Heigl) kills the wrong baby.

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

There is a thing called the 'Let's Kill Hitler Paradox'. If someone went back in time and killed Hitler, he never would have done those terrible things right? But if he never did those terrible things, then there would have been no reason to go back in time and kill Hitler. But then, that means Hitler was never killed by a time traveller, so he lived and did the terrible things so someone went back in time and...etc, etc. Also, I think that if any Government creates (maybe they already have) time travel, they should keep it secret, because I bet that the moment they made it for public use, some tool would create a universe destroying paradox.

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

but then you're a monster because how would you know that he would be an asshole when he grows up?

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

Everything he did would then be erased from the timeline, so... people would ask what you did in the past and you would have to tell everyone that you used your time-traveling trip to kill a baby.

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

I don't understand why they put Hitler in the form of a child that someone is supposed to kill. Why not just be the Dr. who is taking care of him in WW1 after Hitler was gassed? One could accomplish the same, and no one would care as the explanation would be that he died of his wounds.

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

If you went back in time and killed baby Hitler, you would then be changing the future, and just might possible cease to exist right then and there.

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

By inserting yourself in a different timeline, the now-future is unknowable. You may well have killed baby-Adolf, future democratic and humanitarian icon.

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

Okay, let's take this slowly: If you go back and kill baby Hitler, then THE Hitler who was so bad never existed for those people in the future so therefore you couldn't be a great person for killing him.

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

My parents only met because an air raid stopped a train. The passengers waiting for it got to talking among themselves, & a handsome soldier asked a pretty land-girl for a date... If their son went back & stopped WW2 he wouldn't be born, so WW2 would happen away. He would succeed only in creating a Moebius-strip of alternating timelines.

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

There are many unknown monsters called humans ..if they were never born or 'eliminated at birth' by some future testing for potential..we would live in an idyllic world

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

But it's the old time traveling question. If you killed baby Hitler, you would alter historical events and you probably would not have been born.

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

He wasn't born evil. It was the norm at that time to blame the countries problems on another race. He used racism to gain power. Sounds familiar?

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

Hitler was a messenger boy in WWI, and cycled in the trenches. One day the trench got hit by a shell and exploded and he survived by shrapnel. Few inches to the left and he would have been killed. And, during Operation Valkyrie, if they hadn't moved to the bunker and the bag wasn't moved to the other side of the table leg, he would have been killed. Just watch the movie Valkyrie.

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

Haven't these people watched Dr Who? Something's are fixed points in time and can't be changed

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

What about baby Jesus? Herodes killed lots of babies to get this one.

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

Lemme just fix this. By doing this, it’s likely that rather than our future changing, you would create another timeline where Hitler never became Hitler

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

They could have told us... but no one has used that as a reason to explain why they did it.

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

What if in the future, we’ve tried this several times, but our stupid 12 Monkeys machine keeps messing it up??

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

So time travel with a few copies of books explaining who Hitler was going to be.

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

Also, a world today would change completely, some people will be born or alive, that aren't now or do not exist at all, some of people that exist now would never be born. Problem is butterfly effect. You would create a whole new world and the world you left would disappear. PS not to get me wrong, I am of course, against Nazis and Hitler, it's just scientific thinking that by doing anything in past would probably change today's world quite a lot, more than you can imagine.

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

Worse Theory. Hitler is the result of the Time Corp killing the worse, equally evil, but competent, alternative. The reason Hitler survived so many assassination attempts is because agents from the original worse timeline keep trying to restore it and are being fought back. Whenever you hear about a new weird plot to kill Hitler that failed, it’s not just new to you, it’s new to our history.

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

Every move changes history forever. Forgot Keys inside? person in front of you gets in wreck and dies instead of you. Because you forgot your keys people around you lives change forever.

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

"please bare with me" - Hmmm, it's so suden, shouldn't we at least go out for dinner first, get to know each other?

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

Physics have proven we can't change the past -as it's already written- but we can travel back and enjoy the views :D

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#20

The dark forest theory. This explains the Fremi paradox, why we haven’t seen any other advanced life forms despite the vastness of the universe. Other advanced life forms don’t send out signals into the rest of the universe because they’re worried that something more advanced and dangerous is going to find them first. There’s another idea that other civilizations know there’s something out there but don’t send any signals because it has no reason to not wipeout the entire planet.

There’s a science fiction book based on this and I think this quote explains it better than I can:

“The universe is a dark forest. Every civilization is an armed hunter stalking through the trees like a ghost, gently pushing aside branches that block the path and trying to tread without sound. Even breathing is done with care. The hunter has to be careful, because everywhere in the forest are stealthy hunters like him. If he finds another life—another hunter, angel, or a demon, a delicate infant to tottering old man, a fairy or demigod—there's only one thing he can do: open fire and eliminate them”

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#21

That you might be aware of everything happening to you during surgery, the anesthesia keeps you from moving and causes you to forget.

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

Nice creepy theory! But just as a comfort for anybody who might be taking this too seriously: we know very well that this is not the case. We can clearly show which brain regions are active when people are in pain, and they are not active when people are anesthized. Don't worry!

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#22

During the Challenger accident from 1986, whenever the shuttle exploded, the ground crews had the astronauts EKG’s and vital scans....after the explosion, the astronauts were still alive. Theory has it that they were cognizant the entire time until they crashed in the ocean.

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

It is a known fact that the astronauts were not killed by the explosion itself. The theory is that they died after cabin depressurization and oxygen depletion.

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#23

The theory that scented candles starting getting poor reviews at the same time COVID hit the US. Makes you wonder how many people have mild COVID before we even knew about it, pairing the lack of taste and/or smell as one of the main symptoms associated with mild COVID cases.

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

The other option is that, because people were at home much more, the scent was less noticable (you grow used to familiar scents) so people thought the candles smelled less. Though I think the OP has the more likely idea ...

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#24

Some people have had some strange NDEs (Near Death Experiences). Going through websites cataloging them can be a trip. I'm willing to attribute some of them to brain damage and some as "legit" though I'll never be able to tell which is which.

Death bed visions give me a warmer sense of security. I can't imagine how peaceful it must be to die and see your deceased loved ones there to ensure you make it safely to the other side.

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#25

The universe could be dying, and we'd have no way to know until we just suddenly vanish from existence.

There could be a sort of quantum energy wave, can't remember what it's called because it's been so long since I read about it. Zero point collapse, maybe? Vacuum bubble burst? But whatever it is, it's an energy wave that starts at some point, and spreads outward at the speed of light, annihilating any matter, energy, and even spacetime in its path.

Because the wave travels at the speed of light, it is invisible. We would have no way of seeing it coming, because any light emitted by it would hit us at the exact same time that the wave itself hits us.

So, all of a sudden, the sun might just vanish from existence. We wouldn't notice because the sun's light from eight minutes ago would still be reaching us. Eight minutes later, the earth just vanishes from existence. No warning. No trace.

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

Well, this is unsettling. But how can space and time be wiped out?

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#26

The theory that the last moments of consciousness before death can feel like a literal eternity, and where your mind can create entire realities from blissful to horrifying. So in a way the threat of enduring a hellscape of eternal suffering is very real no matter what you believe.

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#27

Spontaneous combustion. I watched a strange but true episode about this as a child and was convinced I'd randomly burst into flames one day. I'm over it now but that was my top fear for a long time.

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

I was afraid of that too. About at the age where I also thought that quicksand was a much more common problem than it actually is. Maybe that was just also one of the common story tropes in the 80s, and we picked it up as real?

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#28

The theory that there is an infinite number of parallel universes branching out at each moment with all possible outcomes for each situation.

Let's say this is true and you play Russian roulette. Five out of six of possible "you" would live and one would die but no matter how many times you play there would always be versions of you that would survive. This would give those versions of "you" the illusion of immorality. This would mean that no matter the risks you would take, there would always be some version of you that would survive.

If this is true, it would mean that you could live your life completely free of the fear of death and take on any risk. But the only way to know if this is true is to expose yourself to high odds of deaths, repeatedly.

Also this would mean that as time passed there would always be a more decrepit and invalid version of you surviving, maybe forever...

Anyways that or lizard people.

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#29

The first man in space (some Russian cosmonaut whose name I can't remember) was not the true first. The actual first was a cosmonaut whose mission was unsuccessful and he either died in orbit or on reentry. Once it became apparent that he was doomed the Russian authorities cut off communications, leaving him to die in isolation, and covered up the existence of the mission.

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#30

I saw a theory that we truly live through our entire again in the moments before death, but that it's a loop. When you reach your moment of death during your moment of death, you relive it again. And again. And again. Trapped in a loop with no difference, no awareness, forever.

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

The thing about this, is you don’t know if you are living through that right now

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