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.

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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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#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.