What happens after we say cheese? The subjects of the following photographs probably didn’t predict the answer to be a morbid plot twist. We have all seen post-tragedy photos of terrible accidents. Yet, there is something particularly ominous and haunting about photos taken before disaster.
Think smiling families, groups embarking on explorations, and daring stunt attempts, not in the least expecting to be caught in a natural disaster or a horrific plane crash. Some of these pictures appear so unassuming and cheerful that it makes what followed all the more horror story-like.
William Shakespeare famously said, “Men at some times are masters of their fate,” but as you will see in the following photos taken before disaster, this is not always the case. Scroll down below with caution to see the Bored Panda round-up of some of the most creepy images that precede unfortunate events.
#1 Mount St. Helen Eruption
On May 18, 1980, Robert Landsberg, a freelance photographer, was just four miles away from Mount St. Helen. He had spent some time in the vicinity, exploring the beautiful vistas prior to the fatal event. This photo, showing the wall of ash that formed after the eruption, was the last one he took. Landsberg managed to hide the film with the photos before disaster struck on it under his body, leaving this as a piece of documentation of the events.
Image source: Smartin53
#2 The Crew Of The Challenger Space Shuttle
This is one of the last pictures before the disaster of the Challenger shuttle. The image shows all of the seven Challenger Shuttle crew members as they are boarding the vessel on January 28, 1986. The Challenger broke apart 73 seconds into its flight, ultimately killing all of the seven crew members.
Image source: NASA
#3 1976 Ebola Outbreak
Mayinga N’Seka, a nurse, is depicted here during an Ebola outbreak In 1976. The outbreak happened in Zaire, where 318 cases and 280 deaths were documented (88% fatality rate). Her dedication meant that she eventually contracted the disease herself and passed away not long after.
Image source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
#4 The Omagh Bombing
The Omagh Bombing was a car bombing that occurred on August 15, 1998, in the town of Omagh in Northern Ireland. It was carried out by the Real Irish Republican Army. The blast took away the lives of 29 people, including that of a woman pregnant with twins, and injured over 200 others. The man and the child in the image that precedes unfortunate events survived, but the photographer didn’t.
Image source: Wesley Johnston
#5 The Tragedy Of Keith Sapsford
On February 20, 1970, a 14-year-old Australian teen named Keith Sapsford snuck into the Sydney Airport and hid in the wheel well of a plane en route to Japan. Keith was described as a curious kid, and this was his attempt at an adventure. However, soon after the plane took off, a tragedy struck, and Keith’s 200ft plunge to death was accidentally documented by John Gilpin, an amateur photographer, who happened to be testing his new camera lens at that time and took this haunting photo before a disaster.
#6 Columbine High School Massacre
On April 20, 1999, a shooting and an attempted bombing took place at the Columbine High School in Columbine, Colorado. The photos taken before disaster show William “Dave” Sanders guiding over 100 students out of the cafeteria to safety. While he did save those students, he was later shot twice in the chest and did not survive.
Image source: acolumbinesite.com
#7 Uruguayan Flight 571
This is the last image of the infamous Uruguayan Flight 571, right before it crashed in the Andes on October 13, 1972. 27 out of 45 people survived the initial crash. However, they were eventually forced to cannibalize the dead to stay alive. Out of the 27 who survived the crash, 16 were rescued 72 days later.
Image source: Mr_Funnybone
#8 The Malaysia Airlines Flight 17
Dave Hally took one last photo of his wife and their 4-year-old daughter aboard the MH17 flight that was supposed to take them on their dream vacation from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. The plane was shot down shortly after its take-off while flying over a Russian-controlled part of eastern Ukraine. The tragedy took the lives of all 283 passengers and 15 crew members, and this is one of the last pictures before the disaster.
Image source: Dave Hally
#9 The Crash Of The 235 Flight
A dash cam captured the moments right before TransAsia’s flight 235 crashed in the Keelung River in Taiwan. The plane carried 58 people, and only 15 of them survived. The crash was deemed to be the mistake of the pilots.
Image source: CBC News
#10 The Eagles Of Death Metal Concert
Gilles Leclerc and Marianne Labanane took a selfie at the Bataclan Theatre while waiting to see the performance of The Eagles of Death Metal. Moments later, four terrorists stormed into the theater and started shooting, ultimately killing 90 people. Gilles was killed in the attack, but Marianne, shielded by Gilles, survived.
Image source: Mon frère Gilles Leclerc
#11 The Tragedy Of Robert Overcracker
Robert Overcracker was a professional stuntman who wanted to raise awareness for the homeless. So, in 1995, he decided to drive a jet ski over Niagara Falls to get the needed attention. One of these photos taken before disaster caught the moment as his parachute failed to deploy, ultimately sending Robert to his demise.
Image source: confluencer
#12 Last Moments Of Harambe
Harambe, a 17-year-old silverback gorilla, was shot after an incident involving a kid falling into his enclosure. The tragic events sparked a lot of talk on the internet, with many condemning the conduct of the zookeepers, saying the gorilla was shot without justification. In the image, you can see the last moments before Harambe’s death in Cincinnati Zoo in 2016.
Image source: ABC News
#13 Moments Before A Bear Attack
West Milford took this photo on what was supposed to be a calm and relaxing hike in New Jersey. In fact, West was killed by the bear minutes after taking one of these haunting images that precede unfortunate events.
Image source: West Milford Police
#14 Nicholas Mevoli After His Last Free Dive
Nicholas Mevoli, a professional free diver, was attempting to dive 236 ft deep. He successfully completed the dive, surfaced, gave the OK sign, tried to speak, and then passed out. He never regained consciousness and died the same day from a pulmonary edema (a fluid buildup in the lungs).
Image source: Lia Hyun-Joo Barrett
#15 Last Picture Of Ayano Tokumasu
This unsuspecting family snapped the last moments of Ayano’s (dressed in red) life. In the following moments, Ayano threw herself over the railings outside Niagara Falls to her death.
Image source: LoraxlRose
#16 Archduke Ferdinand And His Wife Sophie
The last picture of Archduke Ferdinand, the heir of the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife Sophie, was taken about an hour before the assassination of the Archduke took place. The killing was done by a Bosnian-Serb nationalist, Gavrilo Princip, in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and his actions ultimately triggered the beginning of WWI.
Image source: commons.wikimedia.org
#17 Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 182
In 1978, Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 182 from Sacramento tragically crashed into a small private Cessna 172. After the collision, the 182 fell down, and this image captured the moment before it hit the ground. 137 people on the airplanes were killed, as well as 7 watching the event take place on the ground.
Image source: Hans Wendt
#18 Japan Air Lines Flight 123
Japan Air Lines Flight 123 was supposed to be a domestic flight from Tokyo to Osaka, Japan. On August 12, 1985, the Boeing 747 suffered a severe malfunction 12 minutes into the flight, and after flying for another 32 minutes under minimal control, crashed near Tokyo. Out of 524 people on the flight, only 4 ultimately survived.
#19 Christopher McCandless’s Last Self-Portrait
Christopher McCandless (the man from “Into The Wild” story) was an American adventurer. His last adventure took place in the Alaskan bush, where he stayed in an abandoned bus for over 100 days. His decomposing body was found in 1992 by moose hunters, with starvation later determined as the cause of his death (although that’s still debated). This is one of the last pictures before disaster.
Image source: Chris McCandless
#20 Pavel Kashin’s Deadly Trick
Parkour enthusiast, Pavel Kashin, is depicted in this photo while attempting to perform a trick that ultimately led to his death. He was trying to do a backflip to the wall but soon lost his balance and fell to the ground.
#21 James Dean Before His Crash
James Dean, a Hollywood actor, is pictured here filling up the tank of his Porsche 550 Spyder not long before he crashed it and died on September 30, 1955. Although the car was totaled, the salvageable parts were sold, only to cause several accidents later on. This spurred the myth that the car was actually cursed.
Image source: Corbis
#22 One Of The Last Known Pictures Of Titanic Afloat
Titanic, the biggest cruise liner of its time, sank on April 15, 1912, after it collided with an iceberg. There were an estimated 2,224 passengers and crew aboard. More than 1,500 of them did not survive the collision.
Image source: vintag.es
#23 The Concorde Crash
On July 25, 2000, Air France flight 4590, a Concorde passenger jet bound for New York from Paris, crashed shortly after its takeoff. The plane’s engines caught on fire, and the crash took the lives of 113 people in total. Although it was the only fatal accident in 27 years of Concordes being operated, they were all grounded after the crash, soon to be retired and never to fly again altogether.
Image source: Toshihiko Sato
#24 Diana, Princess Of Wales
One of the last photos of Diana, Princess of Wales, was taken by paparazzi chasing her car on the fatal night of the crash that took her and Dodi Al Fayed’s lives. She’s seen in the back of the car with her head turned. In front on the left is her bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones, and on the right, the driver Henri Paul (who was later found to be driving drunk). This is one of the photos taken before the disaster on the night of August 31, 1997, just before the fatal crash.
#25 George Mallory And Andrew “Sandy” Irvine On Their Mount Everest Conquest
George Mallory was an experienced mountaineer, and this wasn’t his first attempt to scale the summit of Mt. Everest in 1924. However, this attempt was fatal. And while the body of Andrew “Sandy” Irvine has never been recovered, Mallory’s remains were found 75 years after his demise by an expedition set for this task in 1999.
#26 Paul Walker
In this image, you can see Paul Walker, a beloved Hollywood actor known for his role in the Fast and Furious series, climbing into the car that eventually crashed, taking his and his driver’s lives in 2013.
Image source: Splash
#27 The Fatal Show Of The Great White
The photo was taken moments before a tragedy struck at the Great White band concert at The Station nightclub in West Warwick, R.I., on February 20, 2003. The pyrotechnics seen on stage are about to set the whole club in flames and kill more than 100 people.
Image source: John Johnson’s Video Archive
#28 The Televised Trial Of R. Budd Dwyer
R. Budd Dwyer was the treasurer of Pennsylvania between 1981–87 before being accused of bribery and withholding taxes. He shot himself on his televised trial, watched by millions. This is one of the last images of him.
Image source: imdb.com
#29 Joseph Avery’s Niagara River Crash
The reason why this photo is so blurry is because it was taken on July 18, 1853. In the image, you can see Joseph Avery, the sole survivor of a boat crash that killed two other passengers, clinging to a rock to be saved. He stayed this way for 18 hours, and when the rescue boat came, it capsized just as he boarded it, ultimately ending Avery’s life. It’s probably one of the oldest photos taken before disaster.
Image source: LOC
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