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.
#1
Brain-eating amoeba exists, and they live in our waters.
Image source: wikipedia.org
#2
There are over 200 bodies on Mount Everest, and they’re used as landmarks.
Image source: smithsonianmag.com, Nanda Ram Gharti
#3
There are more vacant homes than homeless people in the USA.
Image source: self.inc
#4
Locked-In Syndrome is a scary condition where you are conscious while in a coma.
Image source: wikipedia.org
#5
Crows are so intelligent they can recognize a human face, even hold funerals for their dead.
Image source: nationalgeographic.com
#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.
Image source: wikipedia.org, Ed Uthman
#7
As recently as 1999, it was widely believed by medical professionals that babies could not feel pain until they were a year old.
Image source: wikipedia.org
#8
Your cat might sense when you are dying.
Image source: Kristyn R. Vitale Shreve, Monique A.R. Udell, EVG Kowalievska
#9
According to the FBI, the number of serial killers, that are still not caught among the USA, varies from 25 to 50.
Image source: worldatlas.com
#10
Doctors treated women “hysteria” through a “pelvic finger massage.”
Image source: taipeitimes.com
#11
Even after decapitation, human heads stay conscious for a while.
Image source: theconversation.com
#12
In 2007, a woman died after drinking more than a gallon of water in three hours. She did it to win a Wii.
Image source: cbsnews.com
#13
Fatal familial insomnia makes it impossible for someone to sleep for months.
Image source: wikipedia.org, cottonbro studio
#14
People can die with no discernible cause of death. We’re talking about sudden arrhythmic death syndrome (SADS).
Image source: wikipedia.org
#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.
Image source: voicecollective.co.uk
#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”.
Image source: wikipedia.org
#17
The Mutter Museum displays various mutations, tumors, and anomalies of human anatomy.
Image source: muttermuseum, Smallbones
#18
Mike the Headless Chicken was alive for 18 months after being decapitated.
Image source: wikipedia.org
#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.
Image source: bbc.com, United States Navy
#20
Medical errors cause around 250,000 deaths every year.
Image source: James G Anderson, Kathleen Abrahamson
#21
The FBI has reported that approximately 40 percent of USA’s homicides go unsolved.
Image source: isp.illinois.gov
#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.
Image source: allthatsinteresting.com
#23
Aztec priests, using razor-sharp obsidian blades, sliced open the chests of sacrificial victims and offered their still-beating hearts to the gods.
Image source: history.com
#24
We only have good information on less than 5% of the world’s oceans, and maybe sparse information on another 10%.
Image source: oceana.org, Maël BALLAND
#25
Some fish have human-like teeth.
Image source: livescience.com
#26
Postpartum psychosis can happen overnight.
Image source: nhs.uk
#27
As many as 80 million bacteria are transferred during a 10 second kiss.
Image source: Remco Kort, Martien Caspers, Astrid van de Graaf, Wim van Egmond, Bart Keijser & Guus Roeselers
#28
Babies grow hair in the womb that spread to cover their entire body and are called Lanugo.
Image source: wikipedia.org
#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.
Image source: atlasobscura.com, Muallim Nur
#30
The dust specks you see floating around is mostly dead skin cells.
Image source: nerdist.com, Anastasia Shuraeva
#31
Your house pet will probably want to eat your dead body.
Image source: nationalgeographic.com
#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.
Image source: hospital.uillinois.edu
#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.
Image source: allthatsinteresting.com
#34
Your bed can have up to 10 million dust mites.
Image source: Ohio State University
#35
Vampire moths are real and they can drink human blood though skin.
Image source: wikipedia.org
#36
Ancient Romans believed that drinking gladiator blood not only would give them strength and vitality but also cure epilepsy.
Image source: Ferdinand Peter Moog, Axel Karenberg, Oană Andrei
#37
Pigs will eat anything, and that includes humans.
Image source: farmingbase.com
#38
Most species of Horned lizards can shoot blood from their eyes.
Image source: wikipedia.org, Patrick Alexander
#39
The Catacombs of Paris hold the bones and remains of nearly six million people.
Image source: wikipedia.org
#40
When a person dies, their sense of hearing is the last to go.
Image source: University of British Columbia
#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.
Image source: historylink.org, National Photo Company
#42
During mummification, ancient Egyptians removed the brain through one of the nostrils.
Image source: si.edu
#43
A single golden poison frog has enough poison to kill 10 grown men.
Image source: nationalgeographic.com
#44
“Prosopagnosia” is the inability to recognize faces.
Image source: wikipedia.org
#45
1.2 trillion gallons of sewage, stormwater, and industrial waste are dumped into US waters every year.
Image source: dosomething.org
#46
Within three days of death, the enzymes from your digestive system begin to digest your body.
Image source: mcgill.ca
#47
A rat’s teeth can gnaw through substances as hard as lead sheeting and cinder block.
Image source: earthkind.com, DSD
#48
In the 1920’s, the American domestic terror group Ku Klux Klan had a youth chapter called the “Ku Klux Kiddies.”
Image source: history.com
#49
The “sleepwalking defense” has been used in order to have defendants acquitted for murder.
Image source: wikipedia.org
#50
Mobile phones are seven times dirtier than toilet seats.
Image source: London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, Freepik
#51
It takes the death of 27,000 trees daily to make toilet paper for humans.
Image source: pocketmags.com
#52
Our bodies swell up like balloons after death, due to the release of gases and liquids.
Image source: medicalnewstoday.com
#53
Every 18 minutes, someone has a brain aneurysm that ruptures.
Image source: shorephysiciansgroup.com
#54
The birthday effect is a statistical phenomenon where an individual’s likelihood of death appears to increase on or close to their birthday.
Image source: wikipedia.org, Kampus Production
#55
Scientists have found a new kind of tarantula with a horn on its back in southeastern Angola.
Image source: livescience.com
#56
“The Devil’s Bible” exists, and it’s a contract between a monk and Satan.
Image source: wikipedia.org
#57
2019 was the second warmest year in NOAA’s 140-year climate record.
Image source: noaa.gov
#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.
Image source: wikipedia.org, Public Domain
#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.
Image source: medicinenet.com, cottonbro studio
#60
The Zoroastrians, an ancient Persian religion followers, leave their dead in special towers to be eaten by birds of prey such as vultures.
Image source: bbc.co.uk
#61
Being buried alive accidentally occurred so often that people invented “safety coffins.”
Image source: dustyoldthing.com, Christian Henry Eisenbrandt
#62
A person will shed around 75 pounds of skin in a single lifetime.
Image source: sciencefocus.com
#63
Women in the 18th century used lead as makeup.
Image source: theconversation.com
#64
There might be a haunted Russian radio station that has been broadcasting the same tone for 45 years.
Image source: wikipedia.org
#65
An estimated 41% of adults in the US face health-care debt, ranging from under $500 (16%) to $10,000 or more (12%).
Image source: kff.org
#66
Did you know that the American actress Glenn Close was raised in a cult?
Image source: wikipedia.org, U.S. Embassy Montevideo in Uruguay
#67
Wes Craven’s “A Nightmare on Elm Street” is based on a real story.
Image source: en.wikipedia.org
#68
Isla de las Muñecas or the “Island of the Dolls” is one of the most haunted places in the world.
Image source: nypost.com
#69
Decorations made from human bones adorn the interior of the Sedlec Ossuary.
Image source: cnn.com
#70
18th century doctors believed that bloodletting was necessary to “balance” one’s health.
Image source: wikipedia.org
#71
The Judas Cradle was a means of torture where the victim was forced to sit on pyramid-shaped wooden device.
Image source: medievalchronicles.com, Scott Clark
#72
Microscopic mites live on our eyelashes.
Image source: webmd.com
#73
Doctors used the teeth of dead people to make dentures.
Image source: lsuhsc.edu
#74
You can actually fit all the planets in the Solar System in the space between the Earth and the Moon.
Image source: futurism.com
#75
Lady Bugs are known to eat their own larvae to ensure the survival of the other larvae.
Image source: biomedcentral.com, Dastan Khdir
#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.
Image source: wikipedia.org
#77
More than 99% of the four billion species that have evolved on Earth are now extinct.
Image source: ourworldindata.org
#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.
Image source: wikipedia.org
#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.
Image source: bbc.com, Nicolas Perrault III
#81
The average person consumes around 38 ounces of mucus every day.
Image source: mdlive.com
#82
Charles II watched William of Orange consummate his marriage.
Image source: thevintagenews.com, John Michael Wright
#83
Muscovite palaces and courts had professional foot-ticklers.
Image source: insidetonight.com
#84
Corpses recovered from bodies of water decay faster.
Image source: aftermath.com
#85
Mice and rats can spread at least 35 different diseases to humans.
Image source: pestworld.org
#86
In the Middle Ages, people used to eat mummies for medicinal purposes.
Image source: theconversation.com
#87
Your coffee mug probably has fecal matter on it.
Image source: ndtv.com, Vinícius Estevão
#88
The Vent Haven Museum houses vintage ventriloquist dummies.
Image source: venthaven
#89
King Charles II drank alcohol mixed with pulverized human skulls.
Image source: atlasobscura.com
#90
The Roman Emperor Vespasian taxed the trade of urine.
Image source: nationalgeographic.com, shakko
#91
Rat Kings are real and they’re more interesting than you might think.
Image source: wikipedia.org
#92
Museo delle Anime del Purgatorio displays documents signed by haunted souls in purgatory.
Image source: shortpedia.com
#93
The most haunted island in the world is Poveglia, Italy.
Image source: wikipedia.org, Angelo Meneghini
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