18 Forensic Scientists Share What Was Their Most Shocking Finding

Hollywood often portrays forensic science in a fascinating light. Many people have likely aspired to work in a lab and analyze delicate evidence after watching an episode or two of CSI.

But it can be a different story once you’ve done the actual work. You will likely have noteworthy answers to Reddit questions like this: “What was the most shocking thing discovered in your lab?”

As usual, those who’ve had firsthand experience, or know someone who has, delivered some of the most shocking responses. Prepare to read stories about babies testing positive for illegal substances, toys lodged inside internal organs, and oddly shaped kidneys.

Enjoy scrolling, but perhaps having a meal while doing so isn’t a good idea.

This post may include affiliate links.

18 Forensic Scientists Share What Was Their Most Shocking Finding That he WAS the father.
I’m a bookkeeper/billing guy at a clinic and we tested a baby to see if he was the father.
Mom and dad were both blonde hair, wife had blue eyes, both looked super white.
Kid was REALLY black. Was tested earlier and he didn’t have a condition, he was just black.
The dad wanted a paternity test cause when you have two white parents and a black kid, raises some questions.
Turns out the mom had a black grandfather that didn’t show up in their skin and that she didn’t know about.
Kid was biologically theirs, but just looked totally different.

anon , Drew Hays / unsplash (not the actual photo) Report

Final score:

244points

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Serial pacifist 2 months ago (edited)

Wow, I can understand father’s suspicion.

126points

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18 Forensic Scientists Share What Was Their Most Shocking Finding So, not forensics (entirely), and not me. I had a professor in college that was pursuing her doctorate while working at the Mayo Clinic.

Year after year, a man came in to be tested for a disorder/disease that [ended] his father at that very hospital. Year after year, he tested negative. But every year, he got tested in an effort to stay ahead of it. Because, genetics.

One year, he tested negative as usual, but the staff had an idea. They cracked open the archives, dug his father's file out & put it next to his. DNA wasn't even close.

Poor guy has no idea his late father was never his biological father at all. And the hospital has no right or obligation to inform him.

anon , Polina Tankilevitch / pexels (not the actual photo) Report

Final score:

180points

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XenoMurph 2 months ago

No obligation, but come on, tell the poor dude. Or refuse his money for the test at least. "We can't in all honesty take your money because there is no risk factor here. No, we can't tell you why."

126points

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18 Forensic Scientists Share What Was Their Most Shocking Finding In doing my MSc in forensic pathology and anthropology, there is a final practical exam component. The examiner hauled in a large cardboard box. The type/size you would store documents in.

When dumped on the table, it looked like a broken plant pot. No piece was bigger than 1.5 inches diameter. He then goes "could you find all the pieces of *example of bone* and reconstruct it please?

Turns out it was a ~16 year old girl whose boyfriend had caved her head in with a stone and cut her into tiny bits before burying her in a field.

Only reason she was found was because her decomposing flesh caused the plants right hear her body to be oddly large and lush for a dry forgotten field.

anon , Blue Bird / pexels (not the actual photo) Report

Final score:

132points

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Earthquake903 Premium 2 months ago (edited)

Scumbag boyfriend. Eta: Sorry if this comment isn't venomous enough for some of you. Judging by the comments below, there are many dissatisfied comment readers. But I've gone figuratively nuclear in my comments on bad people before, like Dennis Rader, and I got mocked for it. So, it appears some comment readers just can't be satisfied.

117points

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18 Forensic Scientists Share What Was Their Most Shocking Finding I attended an autopsy where the subject being examined had one large kidney that extended to both sides of his body instead of having 2, one on each side of his body.

anon , Jonathan Borba / unsplash (not the actual photo) Report

Final score:

119points

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Serial pacifist 2 months ago

Are you kidneying me?! (I’ll see myself out).

143points

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18 Forensic Scientists Share What Was Their Most Shocking Finding I only just started here so what’s shocking to me is probably super minor but i had a decedent that died and was found with multiple bottles of isopropyl alcohol around her with straws in them. She literally was sipping isopropyl alcohol through straws. It obviously [ended] her, but i cannot get past the thought of that. How serious of an addiction do you have that doing something like that makes sense? Just the thought of doing that makes my stomach turn.

anon , Donny Fuego / pexels (not the actual photo) Report

Final score:

107points

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linda collins 2 months ago

Nurse here. It is quite common for patients with a drink problem to drink the alcohol spray or gel while they are in hospital.

122points

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18 Forensic Scientists Share What Was Their Most Shocking Finding My friend's wife works in one. Getting blood samples from babies that tested positive for [illegal substances] was apparently fairly common, but the most recent shocking discovery was that the building's plumbing was done in such a way that chemical disposal could back flow into the water fountain drain, and management didn't really care.

gritwoodser , National Cancer Institute / unsplash (not the actual photo) Report

Final score:

102points

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Bookworm 2 months ago

Tell the local news, I bet they'd care

109points

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18 Forensic Scientists Share What Was Their Most Shocking Finding I was working in the lab late one night, well one thing led to another and we

DID THE MASH WE DID THE MONSTER MASH.

InjuredAtWork , Louis Reed / unsplash (nott the actual photo) Report

Final score:

99points

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Bookworm 2 months ago

It was a graveyard smash!

79points

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18 Forensic Scientists Share What Was Their Most Shocking Finding Years ago when I was working as a DNA analyst, our lab received a limp caesar salad from a local restaurant, take out box and all. Apparently, the guy who ordered the salad said that it was served with blood in it. The restaurant owner said not possible and that the customer must have bled in it so that he wouldn't have to pay. The customer then decided to promptly bring his salad to our lab along with his DNA sample to prove that it wasn't his. Turns out that it was and he unknowingly bled into his salad somehow.

Oh, there was also that one time a dad sent in a bunch of his daughter's soiled feminine hygiene products in to the lab to test for semen.

Most shocking thing though was the time a bunch of DNA samples came. To make a long story short: one large vehicle, lots of [illegal substances], two strung out horny couples, one condom being passed back and forth (yes...flipped inside out), and two pregnant couples uncertain about the paternity of each baby.

cjmd3 , Raphael Nogueira / unsplash (not the actual photo) Report

Final score:

99points

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Beak Hookage 2 months ago (edited)

Fathers obsessing over their daughter's sexual activities are some of the biggest sick creeps on earth. I mean really.

257points

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18 Forensic Scientists Share What Was Their Most Shocking Finding Not a scientist, but my last job involved scientific testing equipment and sending results to the legal team of the company. Using an XRF gun I found that almost 50 percent of this large companies inventory contains above the legally allowed amount of lead, and various other harmful chemicals. (At a company whose product most people will touch on a daily basis). The legal team sure had their work cut out for them.

nryporter25 , Testalize.me / unsplash (not the actual photo) Report

Final score:

91points

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Bewitched One 2 months ago

Uh what company

39points

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#10

18 Forensic Scientists Share What Was Their Most Shocking Finding I was working as a scanning electron microscope technician for the R&D branch of a private company when the head scientist gave me a unknown sample to cut up and investigate. There were a bunch of layers of paint on it and he wanted to know what elements were present. Most of the layers showed up as normal elements (O, Al, Cr, etc) but one layer had a peak at Pr (Praseodymium) which is so rare that I forgot that it was even an element. I thought I was going crazy but my engineer double-checked it and it was definitely there. Turns out that Praseodymium is used in certain military grade paints.

jablair51 , Public Domain Pictures / pexels (not the actual photo) Report

Final score:

90points

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CF 2 months ago

From wiki: "Praseodymium is a chemical element; it has symbol Pr and the atomic number 59. It is the third member of the lanthanide series and is considered one of the rare-earth metals. It is a soft, silvery, malleable and ductile metal, valued for its magnetic, electrical, chemical, and optical properties. It is too reactive to be found in native form, and pure praseodymium metal slowly develops a green oxide coating when exposed to air."..Some uses include "yellow-orange "Praseodymium Yellow" stain for ceramics, which is a solid solution in the zircon lattice. This stain has no hint of green in it; by contrast, at sufficiently high loadings, praseodymium glass is distinctly green rather than pure yellow." Can also be used to make powerful magnets and certain types of welder's goggles.

92points

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#11

18 Forensic Scientists Share What Was Their Most Shocking Finding Not super shocking compared to others but the first time you see a computer covered in blood full of bullet holes it is moment you do not forget.

TollinginPolitics , ThisisEngineering / unsplash (not the actual photo) Report

Final score:

81points

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G A 2 months ago

"Damn it-that will teach you for giving me an Error 404 message!"

70points

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#12

18 Forensic Scientists Share What Was Their Most Shocking Finding Horseshoe kidney. There were several autopsies going at once and when it was discovered every doctor dropped what they were doing and cake over to look. So I’d suspect the odds are higher than 1:500.

anon , Nevit Dilmen / wikipedia (not the actual photo) Report

Final score:

81points

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Beak Hookage 2 months ago

*And* you got cake!

44points

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#13

18 Forensic Scientists Share What Was Their Most Shocking Finding Candle in an old mans bladder.

sagegreenpaint78 , Stilfehler / wikipedia (not the actual photo) Report

Final score:

73points

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Beak Hookage 2 months ago

I have many questions I do not want answered.

164points

Karina 2 months ago

There are many "informational" but graphic videoes out to explain without words 😁

12points

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Svenne O'Lotta 2 months ago

The answer to all of them is "sounding"

10points

Shark Lady 2 months ago

I don't recommended you read the book "In Rude Health"

4points

Colleen Glim 2 months ago

If you gotta ask, you prolly don’t wanna know. This is one of those times

2points

Vyxsin (she/her) 2 months ago

I asked, and believe me when I tell you, you don't want to know! Don't Google it, don't Bing it don't even continue to think about it. So how about that Buck Bokai?

0points

Pedantic Panda 2 months ago

John Wick?

24points

Yort 2 months ago

And it seemed to me that you lived your life like a candle in the bladder

14points

Saphyre Fyre 2 months ago (edited)

(about Shark Lady's comment) In Rude Health: The Funniest and Most Explicit Stories from the NHS...From the man with a device lodged far inside his body whose batteries refuse to run out, to a woman with a plunger super-glued to her vagina, In Rude Health recounts real life tales from the coal face of the NHS. From doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, psychiatrists and dentists come a range of eye-popping, side-splitting acts of misadventure that have had the medical profession weeping into their face masks as they attended to members of the great British public in their hour of need. In Rude Health is a riotous account of the weird, the warped and the whacky ways we end up in the hands of the medical profession.

14points

Jess Smith 2 months ago

I don't want to read the jacket of that book...but I'm also morbidly curious. (Oh god, imagine if you swallowed an alarm clock!)

4points

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Paul C. 2 months ago

He.....fell on it? 😘

7points

Serial pacifist 2 months ago

He blew it out for his birthday…

6points

Robert T 2 months ago

Did he have a burning pain when he went to the toilet?

4points

Pyla 2 months ago

Aren't there easier ways to reach the prostate? Asking for a friend.

3points

harshtart 2 months ago

Maybe he asked his wife 'where should I put this candle' one too many times...😀

1point

tresgatos72 2 months ago

Maybe he was looking for enlightenment (I'll show myself out)

1point

D. Pitbull 2 months ago

... uhh... how - emphasis on the 'ow' part?

1point

Michael None 2 months ago

Like a birthday candle or a stick candle?

1point

Jubum 2 months ago

I hope it wasn't a big Christmas candle

0points

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UncleJohn3000 2 months ago

"For it is written, it is better to stick a candle in your bladder than to hear the stream hit the tiles in the darkness."

1point

Marsha Hultberg 1 month ago

Hate that have a vivid imagination...

0points

Cybele Spanjaard 2 months ago

Ok I will ask HOW did he get it there? It is most likely a birthday cake sized one..they are small.(.ish)

0points

Jude Laskowski 2 months ago

Why?

0points

Doofnuts 2 months ago

Dementia maybe? I hope. Oh god!

0points

ShyWahine 2 months ago

Um, Yeah- I DON'T wanna know.....

0points

UncleJohn3000 2 months ago

This comment has been deleted.

0points

Sunny Day 2 months ago

E-D self treatment?

0points

Saphyre Fyre 2 months ago

This comment has been deleted.

0points

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#14

18 Forensic Scientists Share What Was Their Most Shocking Finding This is my grandfathers story. While he was working in Forensics he had to take a body found at a bottom of a lake. After checking it out he apparently found that there was a hot wheels car lodged in the left lung. He assumed that they must have swallowed it while they were underwater.