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The experience of just being alive is as wonderful as it is terrifying. The odds of our tiny planet spinning around a giant fireball being just right for habitation are minuscule, yet here we are. And while the world is a beautiful place, some aspects of it are truly horrifying (humans are to thank, in most cases).
Ignorance really is bliss, but curiosity often wins. Would our lives be easier if we weren't aware of the scary and disturbing things happening? Maybe, maybe not. Those things would still exist, whether we knew about them or not, but once you learn something, there's no way back. But hey, maybe then you could do something to change it.
One Reddit user wanted to learn some horrifying facts that shouldn't be true but are, and people made sure to deliver. Over 13k comments later, Bored Panda selected the most disturbing and chilling answers. From scary animal facts to the worst crimes humans have done, and continue to do - the facts on this list are eye-opening. Scroll down and upvote the most interesting entries, and if it gets too heavy, we have plenty of cat lists on hand.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
*Anyone* can have a child. We have tests for driving cars, you have to have certain qualifications for multiple professions, and yet there are absolutely no tests, checks, exams, nothing to make sure you're suitable to raise a human being before you bring a thinking, feeling person into the world
Of course, I don't know what the hell such a test would look like, but the existence of abused children who grow up into messed up people who may or may not perpetuate such abuse is just...sad
AndThenICommented 2 years ago
No 👎 Im sorry but this is a terrible idea. The reality is that there’s plenty of us who were abused by those that would have passed a test with flying colours - they know the right answers but twist themselves in reality. My dad and ex step mom were very charming, successful people. They were monsters behind closed door. Having a test really doesn’t matter. Education, mental health support, and lessening the largest stressors that lead to a large portion of abuse is far more effective.
RELATED:
#2
In 2009 a paralyzed Belgian awoke from a **23-YEARS-LONG** coma, and it was discovered he was fully conscious and could hear everything around him the entire time.
Like.. What. The. Actual. F!?!? Just imagine lying there not being able to move for two decades but also being aware of your surroundings. That's all kinds of messed up nightmare fuel right there.
#3
Since 1978 in the US, the average CEO's pay has increased 937%, while that of the average worker has increased 5.7%.
#4
There is more actual lemon juice in lemon-scented Pledge spray than there is in Country Time Lemonade.
rosegoldmindset 2 years ago
so if i want a lemon taste that is strong but don't have a lemon, I should spray lemon-scented pledge spray in my mouth? sounds good.
#5
Being gay is illegal in 69 countries.
In 7 of those countries homosexuality is punishable by death.
Becca Kuehn 2 years ago
It's heartbreaking that this is true. I'll NEVER UNDERSTAND why some people hate someone based on something that they can not change. It's absolutely ridiculous!!!
#6
The existence of people who believe that the earth is flat, despite the overwhelming amount of evidence that it isn't.
#7
The final moments of Andreas Prodromou, one of the flight attendants on Helios 522 that crashed in Greece in 2005. The pilots failed to flip a switch on the plane that would allow the plane to pressurise itself, not noticing it was switched to manual rather than auto. During the flight, the pressure in the cabin dropped, meaning the passengers and crew were slowly being drained of oxygen, and they soon lost consciousness. Andreas Prodromou managed to find a back up supply of oxygen, and even though he was suffering from hypoxia too, for a while he was the only one conscious as everyone was passed out and slowly dying around him.
As he held a UK pilots license, he entered the cockpit and sat down in the empty captains seat (Im not sure why the captain left his seat) in what investigators believe was an attempt to save the plane, but unfortunately his training was not enough, as he was only trained to fly small planes, not Boeing 737’s like the accident flight. He also called “Mayday” FIVE TIMES into the radio, but because it was tuned to the wrong airport, nobody could hear him. Soon after he entered the cockpit, the plane ran out of fuel, and the engines flamed out, so even if he could’ve flown the 737, there still was nothing he could’ve done. The plane crashed into the hills outside Athens, killing all on board.
Being the only one conscious whilst your colleagues and passengers die around you, not knowing what’s going on, and trying to help but not being able to do anything is just nightmare fuel to me.
#8
A lone pilot was flying in Australia in 1978. He reported to air traffic control that he was accompanied by an aircraft above him. When asked to identify the aircraft, he replied "It isn't an aircraft". His plane disappeared, and was never to be found again.
#9
Google fired two of their leaders in the AI ethics team for publishing articles about the dangers of an AI Google supported:)
#10
When you have scurvy, all your old scars and wounds open up, due to the vitamin needed to maintain scar tissue.
So for me for example, I had my jaw dislocated and my gums cut open from check to check to remove wisdom teeth.
If I got scurvy I would bleed uncontrollably from the inside of my mouth out.
What would be your most horrifying scar?
#11
Virtually everybody has the capacity to kill, they just haven’t been put under the circumstances where it would be a preferable option.
Joy JoyJoy 2 years ago
this is just like saying everyone can potentially eat sh*t but normally you wouldn't want to...
#12
Pigs can dispose of a body with relative ease
#14
in the NT (Australia) I remember seeing a government warning that crocodiles inhabit the area. Among the few bullet points of advice on the sign, the last one read "If they see you, it is already too late"
Kraneia The Dancing Dryad 2 years ago
you want terrifying? Watch this. The more you watch the worse it gets https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtSnns0jvZo
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Jason 2 years ago
They move so much faster than people realize. Especially over short distances
BewilderedBanana 2 years ago
I think that should read "if you see a crocodile, it's already too late". Coz you have no way of knowing if a croc has seen you and it is, therefore, already too late. Either way, you can always use the universal croc-deterrent and say "after a while", and run. The croc will politely wait a while before giving chase. This won't work on alligators of course - the correct form in that case would be "see you later"
PeepPeep 2 years ago
I just came from Jabiru for a holiday, it’s super intense seeing them up close in the wild, the sound made me feel like I was In Jurassic park movie.
Shark Lady 2 years ago
It's Australia, that last point could relate to a lot of their wildlife.
Carrie Roettger 2 years ago
There's a lake where I live and it used to have a beachy family would swim at forost of my kids childhood. At some point there was a sign put up warning that there were alligators in that part of the lake and that it was a crime to harm, harass orolest them. We spent years laughing about that sign and then obliviously trooping into the lake. It wasn't until after they closed the beach to swimming that it hit us that we were probably swimming with alligators the whole time. Not a really stellar parenting moment for us lol.
Carole Knowles 2 years ago
That’s Aussies for ya! When you live somewhere that literally anything can kill you you don’t mess about with small print just cut to the chase!
Jessica Cifelli 2 years ago
Well it's Australia so that's par for the course... along with killer sharks, snakes, jellyfish, and enormous spiders and other terrifying bugs
Bookworm 2 years ago
While scary... I'm not sure that's true. Like any other predator, if they aren't hungry and you don't do anything to set them off (like fall in the water), they're unlikely to waste the energy to come after you as long as you keep a very respectful distance. I think the sign is trying to make a point about crocodiles being ambush predators and masters of camouflage, and people needing to behave as though there's a crocodile nearby even if they can't actually see one, but they could have phrased that better instead of trying to be cute about it.
Spannermonkey 2 years ago
Pretty sure that's supposed to be "If you see them, it's already too late."
HelluvaHedgehogAlien 2 years ago
Crocodiles or alligators? I remember seeing this somewhere else but with alligators
Upstaged75 2 years ago
There are no alligators in Australia. Only crocodiles.
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Joolee 2 years ago
Glad to not live in places where beasts will eat, sting or otherwise kill you
Becky Samuel 2 years ago
In that case, you must live in a place where the environmental destruction is so massive that all predators have been removed, leaving a collapsed ecosystem. People in the USA are considerably more likely to be unalived or hospitalised by an animal than people in Australia.
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#15
How dark the BTS of the Wizard of Oz is. In Judy Garland's(Dorothy) own words "... they had us working days and nights on end. They'd give us pep-up pills to keep us on our feet long after we were exhausted. Then they'd take us to the studio hospital and knock us cold with sleeping pills- Mickey sprawled out on one bed and me on another. Then after four hours they'd wake us up and give us the pep-up pills again so we could work another seventy two hours in a row. Half of the time we were hanging from the ceiling, but it became a way of life for us."
#16
Snails have thousands of teeth.
Powerful Katrinka 2 years ago
For some reason, this doesn't bother me at all. In fact, I'm glad to know that snails have teeth.
#17
You could die at any moment without any notice and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it.
#18
Human trafficking makes 150 billion a year in money
Becca Kuehn 2 years ago
Sad and Infuriating There are people who are raped repeatedly on a daily basis.
#19
There are more slaves today than there were during the transatlantic slave trade era.
#20
An estimated 1.5 billion disposable masks entered the oceans last year, and that's on top of a dramatic increase in other single use plastics.
Ed Brandon 2 years ago
We're the disease that really needs curing, and we're well on our way to doing so. Shame we have to take so much with us as we go down, but the earth will be fine in the end.
#21
Antibiotic resistance
#22
There are 18 genocides taking place right now on this planet, and dozens have happened since WWII ended.
#23
The Indian Cheetah and Sumatran Rhino were among some of the species that went extinct in 2019 along with;
Chinese paddlefish.
Yangtze giant softshell turtle.
Spix Macaw.
Catarina Pupfish.
Indochinese tiger.
Elita One 2 years ago
The Spix's Macaw isn't extinct. It was labeled extinct in the wild, all the remaining birds were captured and taken to a facility to be put in a breeding program. The program has been very successful and some of them have been released back into a secluded, heavily monitored and guarded area back in Brazil.
#24
Over 150 dead bodies of climbers are still on Mount Everest.
Tucker Cahooter 2 years ago
Some of them even serve as landmarks for other climbers e.g. Green Boots
#25
Some monks used to endure a spiritual practice whereby they eliminated all their body fat through diet and exercise, ate wood lacquer tea to kill off internal bacteria, then sealed themselves in a tomb holding a string attached to a bell. A year after the bell stopped ringing, the tomb was opened and if the monk’s body was found to be uncorrupted they were revered as a saint; if not, they were re-buried.
The process took years and as they continued the monks required more and more help from their brothers until they entered the tomb. And the whole time you’d hear bells ringing from the nearby tombs as the monks inside slowly wound down the last days of their lives, voluntarily poisoned, starved, and buried alive for a chance at sainthood.
#26
Something is eating the Milky Way galaxy - no, it isn't the plot for a Star Trek episode, it's really happening.
In 2009, researchers found a cluster of galaxies moving at an extraordinary speed towards a small patch of sky between the constellations of Centaurus and Vela. Some unknown force is tearing away chunks of the galaxy, and astronomers still have no clue what exactly is causing it. It's been named 'Dark Flow.'
There is something big out there, far bigger than anything in our known universe. Such a behemoth would impose a kind of “tilt” on the universe, causing matter to move in one particular direction – as observations of the dark flow suggest. Could be anything - upto and including another universe.
Shyla Bouche 2 years ago
Well, considering the earth only has about six billion more years, I don't think humanity is in a position where we need to worry about this.
#27
If a person gets bitten by an animal who has rabies, he will continue to live on a normal life for 12 weeks, and after the symptoms develop, there is no way he's making out alive. You'll know you're gonna die.
Icecream Sarang 2 years ago
People do survive rabies. Though rare, placing the person in an induced coma and letting the virus run its course has been known to work.
#28
An unbelievable number of people who die of dehydration do so with a fair amount of fresh water in their possession.
#29
In Mississippi and some parts of Florida, there is a Bacteria in the water at the coast that will literally eat your flesh off of you. Florida is much safer than Mississippi though. At least, in that aspect.
There is a mosquito in Florida that, when it bites you, can make your brain swell inside your skull and can possibly kill you.
#30
For me the fact that maybe we'll never know what hapenned to flight MH370 is kinda disturbing at least
#32
Within three days of death, the enzymes from your digestive system begin to digest your body.
#33
You might feel like the healthiest person in the world and yet still randomly die in your sleep. Sudden arrhythmic death syndrome is just one example. There are tons of small obstructions and irregularities that your heart could be suffering from that go completely unnoticed by you, your friends, and your doctors. You might be at an increased risk of just passing on when you go to bed tonight, and no one would even suspect as much until you actually died.
#34
you have a higher chance of dying to a swarm of bees than of winning the lottery
#35
There are many countries in the world where you can be put in prison or killed by the state for non-violent speech.
Shark Lady 2 years ago
Just look at Iran, peaceful protesters have been arrested and not seen again.
#36
There is a parasite that will eat your brain. It's called [Naegleria fowleri] and it lives in warm water lakes in the sand and silt in the shallows. It will swim up your nose and proceed to eat your neurons and your brain. Usually symptoms occur around 4 hours after infection and include headache, sensitivity to light and nausea. If you experience any of these after swimming in a lake you need to go to the hospital ASAP. If undiagnosed, you'll be dead within 24 hours. To diagnose it, you'll have to get a spinal tap and pray the tech working knows what to look for.
#37
The supervulcano under yellow stone is still active and can errupt. The chances are very low but If it does, It can cause devistation in whole USA. Spreading ashes over the whole Country and parts of Canada.
#38
- Long-dormant bacteria and viruses, trapped in ice and permafrost for centuries, are reviving as Earth's climate warms
- Gamma-ray bursts can kill all life on earth without any warning
- Asteroids can mess earth up
Mary August 2 years ago
And there is little I can do about #2 and #3 so I don't waste my energy worrying about them.
#39
The average American consumes over 150 pounds of sugar every year.
That’s approximately 187g of sugar per day for my metric system friends.
#40
UK is trying to ban protests deemed "annoying".
What do you think ?
Stardust she/her 2 years ago
Fun fact: there’s a hypothetical type of matter known as “strange matter” made up of strange quarks as opposed to regular matter made up of up and down quarks. Strange matter is so stable that if it touches a bit of regular matter, it may convert the regular matter to strange matter leading to a release of energy and more strange matter that goes and infects more matter
Stardust she/her 2 years ago
There’s a very small chance that a field known as the Higgs field could be in a false vacuum which means that we think it’s at the lowest possible level of energy but it’s actually more higher. If that’s the case then there may be a sudden drop in the energy to a more stable state that will create a sort of bubble of destruction that grows at the speed of light, detsroying all matter on the way. Inside the sphere, there may be a different universe operating on different laws of physics.
Load More Replies...
Bluetoyou 2 years ago
Texas Parks and Wildlife on the Saturday morning show said over ten years ago that there are alligators in every body of water in the state. Even the lake in the middle of Dallas and Grapevine lake to name a few.
freakingbee 2 years ago
grapevine lake is sooo dangerous even without alligators
Load More Replies... Rinoboyrich 2 years ago (edited)
UNfun Facts: Since we know that quantum states can change (wave vs. particle) merely by being observed, some scientists believe that looking back at the beginning of the universe can trigger the total collapse of the universe. Some also believe that the Hadron collider experiments could disrupt the Higgs boson effect for the tiniest moment (think .000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 of a second or less), altering the behavior of the universal constants in that moment, and destroying the entire universe instantly. Hope that helps!
Junebugjump! 2 years ago
I missed an opportunity to post! The sound of lava is like crushed glass!
Junebugjump! 2 years ago
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/09/21/magazine/voyages-travel-sounds-from-the-world.html
Load More Replies...
Rinoboyrich 2 years ago
There’s a “Your mother…” joke in there somewhere…
Load More Replies... 
Delight Disaster 2 years ago
Not for reading before bed - avoid if you don't want those can't sleep freak out moments
albernistuff 4sale 2 years ago
Go view "Through the wormhole" series. Set aside a budget for therapy if you do. Took me years to recover from the existential angst.
Rinoboyrich 2 years ago
That movie was funded by therapists in an effort to increase business…
Load More Replies... Disgruntled Pelican 2 years ago (edited)
Yeaahhh...my depressed and anxiety riddled äss should not have read this so early in the day...
Jp@nda 2 years ago
Eh at least i know what I'm going to have anxiety about today instead of just being anxious about everything lol
Load More Replies... Stardust she/her 2 years ago
Fun fact: there’s a hypothetical type of matter known as “strange matter” made up of strange quarks as opposed to regular matter made up of up and down quarks. Strange matter is so stable that if it touches a bit of regular matter, it may convert the regular matter to strange matter leading to a release of energy and more strange matter that goes and infects more matter
Stardust she/her 2 years ago
There’s a very small chance that a field known as the Higgs field could be in a false vacuum which means that we think it’s at the lowest possible level of energy but it’s actually more higher. If that’s the case then there may be a sudden drop in the energy to a more stable state that will create a sort of bubble of destruction that grows at the speed of light, detsroying all matter on the way. Inside the sphere, there may be a different universe operating on different laws of physics.
Load More Replies... Bluetoyou 2 years ago
Texas Parks and Wildlife on the Saturday morning show said over ten years ago that there are alligators in every body of water in the state. Even the lake in the middle of Dallas and Grapevine lake to name a few.
freakingbee 2 years ago
grapevine lake is sooo dangerous even without alligators
Load More Replies... Rinoboyrich 2 years ago (edited)
UNfun Facts: Since we know that quantum states can change (wave vs. particle) merely by being observed, some scientists believe that looking back at the beginning of the universe can trigger the total collapse of the universe. Some also believe that the Hadron collider experiments could disrupt the Higgs boson effect for the tiniest moment (think .000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 of a second or less), altering the behavior of the universal constants in that moment, and destroying the entire universe instantly. Hope that helps!
Junebugjump! 2 years ago
I missed an opportunity to post! The sound of lava is like crushed glass!
Junebugjump! 2 years ago
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/09/21/magazine/voyages-travel-sounds-from-the-world.html
Load More Replies... Rinoboyrich 2 years ago
There’s a “Your mother…” joke in there somewhere…
Load More Replies... Delight Disaster 2 years ago
Not for reading before bed - avoid if you don't want those can't sleep freak out moments
albernistuff 4sale 2 years ago
Go view "Through the wormhole" series. Set aside a budget for therapy if you do. Took me years to recover from the existential angst.
Rinoboyrich 2 years ago
That movie was funded by therapists in an effort to increase business…
Load More Replies... Disgruntled Pelican 2 years ago (edited)
Yeaahhh...my depressed and anxiety riddled äss should not have read this so early in the day...
Jp@nda 2 years ago
Eh at least i know what I'm going to have anxiety about today instead of just being anxious about everything lol
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