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Are you one of those horror junkies who spend their free time watching horror movies and listening to true crime podcasts until late at night? Welcome to the club, our twisted friend!
We’ve all seen some crazy stuff. From creepy-crawly insects to serial killers and haunted houses, there’s nothing we won’t watch if it’s on the screen in front of us. But as frightening as these movies and shows are, some scary facts about our world make reality way more disturbing than fiction could ever be. For example, did you know that Aztec priests offered still-beating hearts to the gods, freshly severed from sacrificial victims? Or that safety coffins were invented because so many people got accidentally buried alive? Or again, that there’s a museum in Pennsylvania that displays mutations, tumors, and anomalies for everyone to see?
Well, you already know the world is full of creepy things, but it’s better to remind ourselves of how much from time to time, right? So here we are with tons of other disturbing facts for you to enjoy! You might be surprised by how many of them sound like urban legends but are actually true.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
Brain-eating amoeba exists, and they live in our waters.
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#2
There are over 200 bodies on Mount Everest, and they’re used as landmarks.
Frando Bone 3 years ago
I can confirm this from first-hand experience. Having said that, the Chinese govt has made great effort in relocating many back down to basecamp.
#3
There are more vacant homes than homeless people in the USA.
#4
Locked-In Syndrome is a scary condition where you are conscious while in a coma.
#5
Crows are so intelligent they can recognize a human face, even hold funerals for their dead.
Kookamunga 3 years ago
And if you make friends with a crow, they'll bring you presents. crow-gifts...46b72b.jpg 
#6
Teratoma is a tumor made up of several different types of tissue, such as hair, muscle, teeth, or bone, and can occur anywhere in the body, including the brain.
CalicoKitty 3 years ago
Obligatory "do not look this up if you don't enjoy looking at bloody mutated lumps". Meaning "monstrous growth", the form you're imagining is mostly found in females and derives from the ovum. Usually, these are benign. In males, the teratoma is usually found in the testicle (as they derive from sperm) and is usually also aggressively cancerous (yay!). On occasion, teratomas may be congenital, which is how you get them in weird places like in the brain or attached to your tailbone. A common alternate name for the teratoma is the "dermoid cyst", and that's what a lot of women who get them removed know them as. It gets worse, of course, because the function of a germline cell is to create whole new human. So if a teratoma decides it's going to be some advanced form, well. That's how you get eyeballs. Or malformed fetus-things.
#7
As recently as 1999, it was widely believed by medical professionals that babies could not feel pain until they were a year old.
#8
Your cat might sense when you are dying.
Disgruntled Pelican 3 years ago
The nursing home my mom used to work at had a cat and the staff always knew that someone had a day or two left because she would refuse to leave their room.
#9
According to the FBI, the number of serial killers, that are still not caught among the USA, varies from 25 to 50.
#10
Doctors treated women “hysteria” through a “pelvic finger massage.”
Benita Valdez 3 years ago
And then created vibrators. Atleast ine good thing came out of that horrible treatment of women
#11
Even after decapitation, human heads stay conscious for a while.
#12
In 2007, a woman died after drinking more than a gallon of water in three hours. She did it to win a Wii.
Benita Valdez 3 years ago
Hyponatremia or water intoxication. This can also happen in dogs sadly. Unfortunately I knew a dog who had this happen because it ate too much snow over the past winter. It was so sad; she was just a puppy. Always keep an eye on your pups in the snow
#13
Fatal familial insomnia makes it impossible for someone to sleep for months.
#14
People can die with no discernible cause of death. We're talking about sudden arrhythmic death syndrome (SADS).
#15
Around 8% of young people are thought to hear voices at some stage in childhood. This makes hearing voices about as common for young people as having asthma or dyslexia.
Dario Tijerino 3 years ago
Ok this happened to me at 10. Have asthma, though all those voices told me random stuff like “the witches will save u”
#16
The Asian giant hornet’s sting is so painful that one entomologist described the sensation of being stung as feeling "like a hot nail being driven into my leg".
#17
The Mutter Museum displays various mutations, tumors, and anomalies of human anatomy.
#18
Mike the Headless Chicken was alive for 18 months after being decapitated.
Puppy prints ️ 3 years ago (edited)
This is a cool story. I did a paper on it once. Basically, Mike only had part of his head cut off. The part that wasn’t cut off contained the brain stem and his left ear. he was still able to walk and eat small foods, and his owners made a lot of money off of showing him. He died because mucus got stuck in his throat and his owners couldn’t help him in time. (let me know if i need to fix anything) hope this helps!
#19
In 1973, two men in a small submarine experienced a malfunction in the sub. The sub slowly started sinking. Although the men were able to radio for help, they knew they only had enough oxygen to survive for three days. When the rescue team finally found them, they only had 12 minutes of oxygen left.
#21
The FBI has reported that approximately 40 percent of USA's homicides go unsolved.
#22
H.H. Holmes, America’s first serial killer, constructed a “Murder Castle,” a hotel with secret compartments and gas chambers to murder unsuspecting visitors of the Chicago World Fair. He confessed to 27 murders, but is suspected of many more.
Abigail Howell 3 years ago
This actually isn't entirely true, he did in fact own a hotel in Chicago, and murdered multiple women, as well as one of the women's children, but he never had secret torture rooms. He did have secret rooms, but they were used to hide furniture that he had stolen. The press (yellow journalism) during this time played a large part in exaggerating the stories of his "murder hotel", purely for the sake of good headlines.
#23
Aztec priests, using razor-sharp obsidian blades, sliced open the chests of sacrificial victims and offered their still-beating hearts to the gods.
#24
We only have good information on less than 5% of the world’s oceans, and maybe sparse information on another 10%.
#26
Postpartum psychosis can happen overnight.
#28
Babies grow hair in the womb that spread to cover their entire body and are called Lanugo.
#29
Disneyland’s famous Pirates of the Caribbean ride used real skeletons. And some people, including former Disney employees, insist that a few of them are still being used.
#30
The dust specks you see floating around is mostly dead skin cells.
#32
1 in 50 people in the United States has an unruptured brain aneurysm, which is a bulge or ballooning in a blood vessel in the brain.
CalicoKitty 3 years ago
And that's how you get a haemorrhagic stroke. Aneurysm goes pop, blood goes everywhere. The other form of stroke, ischemic, is caused by blockages from blood clotting (often in narrowed vessels), like a heart attack, but in your brain.
#33
Scaphism is an ancient form of execution where the victim was trapped between two boats, fed and covered with milk and honey and left to be devoured by insects.
Ian Richardson 3 years ago
Thanks to the Irish podcaster Blindboy Boatclub for this being catapulted into the zeitgeist. He has a short story all about it
#35
Vampire moths are real and they can drink human blood though skin.
#36
Ancient Romans believed that drinking gladiator blood not only would give them strength and vitality but also cure epilepsy.
#37
Pigs will eat anything, and that includes humans.
#38
Most species of Horned lizards can shoot blood from their eyes.
#39
The Catacombs of Paris hold the bones and remains of nearly six million people.
#40
When a person dies, their sense of hearing is the last to go.
#41
Dance marathons, also known as endurance contests, were events in which people dance or walk to music for an extended period of time. Couples would compete to see who could dance the longest, often for cash prizes. Unfortunately, sometimes people would drop dead from exhaustion on the dance floor.
#42
During mummification, ancient Egyptians removed the brain through one of the nostrils.
#43
A single golden poison frog has enough poison to kill 10 grown men.
#45
1.2 trillion gallons of sewage, stormwater, and industrial waste are dumped into US waters every year.
#46
Within three days of death, the enzymes from your digestive system begin to digest your body.
#47
A rat’s teeth can gnaw through substances as hard as lead sheeting and cinder block.
#48
In the 1920’s, the American domestic terror group Ku Klux Klan had a youth chapter called the “Ku Klux Kiddies.”
#49
The “sleepwalking defense” has been used in order to have defendants acquitted for murder.
#50
Mobile phones are seven times dirtier than toilet seats.
Carden Blackthorne 3 years ago
I get so sick of this. Everybody needs to stop comparing things to toilet seats. Most of us clean our toilet seats so compulsively that they're one of the cleanest things in the damn house.
#51
It takes the death of 27,000 trees daily to make toilet paper for humans.
Oerff On Tour 3 years ago
But because Poplar trees (the main source for paper) grow so fast, and are so easy to replicate, they are more abundant today than we cut them
#52
Our bodies swell up like balloons after death, due to the release of gases and liquids.
Tabitha Frost 3 years ago
It happens with whales too! So, please don't approach dead whales, it's dangerous.
#54
The birthday effect is a statistical phenomenon where an individual's likelihood of death appears to increase on or close to their birthday.
$cagsy 3 years ago
I read yesterday that there is a simple reason for this and assuming you're otherwise healthy it won't happen to you. The reason is that when people are nearing the end, they hold on and rally in order to make it to special occasions like birthdays etc. perhaps so they can see their whole family one last time. So please don't worry, if this is correct then birthdays shouldn't be too scary.
#55
Scientists have found a new kind of tarantula with a horn on its back in southeastern Angola.
#56
“The Devil’s Bible” exists, and it’s a contract between a monk and Satan.
Bouche Clay 3 years ago
The sinner's Bible also exists. They left out the word "not." Guess which commandment.
#57
2019 was the second warmest year in NOAA’s 140-year climate record.
#58
A book written 14 years before the 1912 sinking of the Titanic may have predicted the ship’s tragic demise. The novella titled "The Wreck of the Titan: Or, Futility" was about an unsinkable ship hit by an iceberg.
Your Local Forza Enthusiast 2 years ago (edited)
"tell me you're a time traveler without telling me your a time traveller."
#59
The average person sweats between 0.5 - 2 liters an hour during physical activity. But according to some studies, people may lose a minimum of 3 liters a day, even without moving around all that much.
#60
The Zoroastrians, an ancient Persian religion followers, leave their dead in special towers to be eaten by birds of prey such as vultures.
#61
Being buried alive accidentally occurred so often that people invented “safety coffins.”
#62
A person will shed around 75 pounds of skin in a single lifetime.
#63
Women in the 18th century used lead as makeup.
CalicoKitty 3 years ago
Lead carbonate. The lead would slowly cause lead poisoning, leading to blemishes which were then covered up with more lead. White lead was used as a pigment for a looong time. It also tastes sweet, which led (heh) to children eating paint chips. Delicious.
#64
There might be a haunted Russian radio station that has been broadcasting the same tone for 45 years.
#65
An estimated 41% of adults in the US face health-care debt, ranging from under $500 (16%) to $10,000 or more (12%).
#66
Did you know that the American actress Glenn Close was raised in a cult?
#67
Wes Craven’s “A Nightmare on Elm Street” is based on a real story.
$cagsy 3 years ago
Not so much 'based' on a true story as 'inspired' by a true story. Writer and director, Wes Craven, read a story in the LA Times about Hmong refugees in the 1970s. The article said that they were plagued by terrible nightmares and afraid to sleep because of it. That's where the 'true' part ends. Thankfully.
#68
Isla de las Muñecas or the “Island of the Dolls” is one of the most haunted places in the world.
#71
The Judas Cradle was a means of torture where the victim was forced to sit on pyramid-shaped wooden device.
Emma Dakin 3 years ago
adding weights to the ankles to cause the victim to slowly get shafted by the point at the tip of the pyramid. I saw one at the Amsterdam torture museum.
#73
Doctors used the teeth of dead people to make dentures.
#74
You can actually fit all the planets in the Solar System in the space between the Earth and the Moon.
#75
Lady Bugs are known to eat their own larvae to ensure the survival of the other larvae.
#76
When the movie trailer for The Exorcist first came out in theaters, people were too scared, so eventually they stopped playing the trailer in theaters.
#77
More than 99% of the four billion species that have evolved on Earth are now extinct.
#78
The cosmological theory of the Big Rip posits that as the universe continues to expand at a faster and faster rate, the force will pull galaxies further from each other, then galaxies will be pulled apart, followed by the planets and objects from their stars, the stars themselves, planets, and so forth until even nuclei in atoms are separated.
#79
An average of 4.8 and 12.7 million tonnes of plastic enter the oceans every year.
#80
People used hollowed human skulls as bowls and cups back in ancient England.
#81
The average person consumes around 38 ounces of mucus every day.
#82
Charles II watched William of Orange consummate his marriage.
#83
Muscovite palaces and courts had professional foot-ticklers.
#87
Your coffee mug probably has fecal matter on it.
#88
The Vent Haven Museum houses vintage ventriloquist dummies.
#89
King Charles II drank alcohol mixed with pulverized human skulls.
#91
Rat Kings are real and they're more interesting than you might think.
who stole my bamboo 1 month ago
its when rat tails are intertwined or merged making a ball of rats
#92
Museo delle Anime del Purgatorio displays documents signed by haunted souls in purgatory.
#93
The most haunted island in the world is Poveglia, Italy.
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