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Though the sensation has probably been around since our ancestors developed emotions, it wasn't until the middle of the 19th century that we started describing the uncanny as something that gives us "the creeps." Charles Dickens, who enriched the English language with plenty of new words and expressions, is credited with the first use of the phrase in his 1849 novel 'David Copperfield,' to mean an unpleasant, tingly chill up the spine.

A few days ago, Reddit user Mimiqttt set out to find out what the definition means to different people, and posted a question on the platform, asking, "What are some creepy facts you know?" From natural phenomena to the biological workings of our bodies, here are some of the most popular answers they've received.

#1

35 Creepy Facts About The World That You Might Be Better Off Not Knowing Hearing is the last sense you lose before dying.

d**konajunebug:

My dad is a retired EMT/Paramedic/fire-fighter. Years ago he told be about a guy in cardiac arrest that they brought back to life. The guy ended up coming by the station a few weeks later to thank my dad personally because he had heard - while dead - someone say it was time to call it but my dad said to keep trying.

That story has terrified me. To know you’re dead, but not quite dead, and hear other people call it before you’re fully gone. Geesus, no thank yo.

HorrorPusherr , Kindel Media Report

#2

35 Creepy Facts About The World That You Might Be Better Off Not Knowing One of the most common places to find a dead body is on the toilet. Cause when they're alive and not feeling well, the first thing they do is go to the toilet thinking it could be a bowel issue.

pumpkinthighs , Grant Hughes Report

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#3

35 Creepy Facts About The World That You Might Be Better Off Not Knowing When you have a kidney transplant, they don’t remove your original organs, and the Transplant does not go in the place of your old organ.

Source: have had three kidney transplants in my lifetime. I have a total of five kidneys in my body.

Blackthorne519 , RF._.studio Report

#4

35 Creepy Facts About The World That You Might Be Better Off Not Knowing Due to human artificial selection, dogs are evolving eyebrows.

Light_of_Niwen , Helena Lopes Report

#5

35 Creepy Facts About The World That You Might Be Better Off Not Knowing Your eyes have their own immune system that works separately from your body’s immune system. If your body’s immune system found out it would attack your eyes. I read this here and at my last eye appointment I asked if it was true. The eye doctor said “Yeah, it’s kinda weird” and I was like “Kinda?”

McSmackthe1st , cottonbro studio Report

#6

35 Creepy Facts About The World That You Might Be Better Off Not Knowing Ducks become cannibals due to boredom, of all f*****g reasons.

PenCreepy2451 , Kristi Evans Report

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#7

35 Creepy Facts About The World That You Might Be Better Off Not Knowing If you get skinned alive, you'll die from hypothermia, not blood loss.

gamedev_9998:

If you were burned alive, you'll die from suffocation, not from the fire itself.

wish-com_gaster , Klara Kulikova Report

#8

Your immune system can just decide that the rest of your body is offensive and goes on the attack. I have this with psoriasis which started as flaky skin and now has become psoriatic arthritis where my fingers, hands and feet are unreliable because my body decided that my body is a foreign object.

F**k you my body!

Petulantraven Report

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#9

35 Creepy Facts About The World That You Might Be Better Off Not Knowing I believe around 5-10% of the ocean has been explored. We have the technology to study space but it’s not advanced enough to see what’s down there (due to water pressure and darkness and stuff)

OffBeatBerry_707 , Maël BALLAND Report

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#10

Some species of Vultures can projectile vomit if they feel threatened.

Missing-Digits:

It is called defensive vomiting and I was an unwitting victim of it once. It is HORRENDOUS!!!

Feraltravelling Report

#11

35 Creepy Facts About The World That You Might Be Better Off Not Knowing There are about 40 supervolcanoes in the world that have yet to erupt. One supervolcano is in Yellowstone National Park and has a magma chamber that is large enough to fit the entire city of Tokyo inside it.

There's no indication we're due for a super eruption in our life time, but the thought it could happen still creeps me out.

BansheeBallad , Jordan Corrales Report

#12

35 Creepy Facts About The World That You Might Be Better Off Not Knowing For every 9 people on death row 1 is found to be innocent. Sometimes after death and sometimes after the innocent was on death row for 30 years.

Loud_Advertising_947 , RDNE Stock project Report

#13

Just after their WWII surrender, the Japanese government created a system of brothels in case American soldiers thought of taking out frustrations on Japanese women. After the rate of STI's shot up among American GI's the Army made the Japanese government shut them down, the number of *reported* r*pes went up by 800%. Take note that Japan is a very traditional society with plenty of stigma about reporting rape so the actual numbers were probably even more horrific.

YukariYakum0 Report

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#14

35 Creepy Facts About The World That You Might Be Better Off Not Knowing The only double-hanging of women to be carried out in modern times was the execution of the Finchley baby farmers. Amelia Sach and Annie Walters would "adopt" unwanted babies for a fee. Then, supposedly, find homes for them. They did not find homes for the babies.

The_Patriot , Marco Fortes Report

#15

35 Creepy Facts About The World That You Might Be Better Off Not Knowing Cotard’s syndrome is a condition where you just think you’re dead or don’t exist. People who have it sometimes stop eating because they think they’re dead.

PurdueJohn:

Similarly there are high anxiety conditions of depersonalization and derealization, where someone doesn't believe the world around or them exists or are real at all, or that they don't exist themselves. My daughter had this when she was young. Quite unsettling.

BlueCanary434 , Pixabay Report

#16

35 Creepy Facts About The World That You Might Be Better Off Not Knowing Youngest "woman" (I use that term loosely) to give birth was 5 years old.

Sassysewer , Michael Morse Report

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#17

35 Creepy Facts About The World That You Might Be Better Off Not Knowing Today there are more slaves in the world that at any other time in history.

Separate_Mango_666 , Zulmaury Saavedra Report

#18

When salmon begin their famous spawning run, they shut down unnecessary systems so they can channel all of their energy into swimming upstream to mate. That includes the immune system, so spawning salmon are highly susceptible to disease and infection. They basically start to rot before they die. You can see many discolored salmon during their run, and there are even some missing pieces of their bodies.

I read about this last year. We are recent transplants to the PNW, so this is all new to me. My daughter and I went to a nearby creek this week to see if the salmon were still doing their thing. Sure enough, we saw one swimming upstream with a big, gaping hole in its back, complete with visible flesh and stringy white things protruding from it. It was awful, but we couldn't look away, either.

She asked me not to cook salmon for dinner this week. It's one of my favorite meals, but...yeah, I'm good for now.

my_ghost_is_a_dog Report

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#19

35 Creepy Facts About The World That You Might Be Better Off Not Knowing When a star dies it explodes and releases a gamma burst and it destroys all in its path, if one goes off near Earth it’ll lead to extinction and there's no warning because it happens immediately.

wetlettuce42 , Pixabay Report

#20

35 Creepy Facts About The World That You Might Be Better Off Not Knowing mummy brown--or Egyptian Brown--is an old pigment that the pre-Raphaelites used for paintings. it's a rich color that was made from myrrh, pitch, and the decayed flesh of humans (yup, mummies). artists, for a very long time, did not know the contents of said pigment and we're turned off by it by 1915 because they found it gross and despicable.

still, a plenty of famous works feature a paint that is essentially dried-up human tissue.

Garbouliak , Daian Gan Report

#21

35 Creepy Facts About The World That You Might Be Better Off Not Knowing Hundreds of people die every year… from being strangled by their bedsheets.

GlitzBlitz:

I had a heavy blanket that was pretty much coming apart at the seams. The lining was detaching from the blanket itself.

I woke up one morning and found my son’s head/neck completely entangled in the detached lining. I shook him in a panic and he woke up confused but fine.

It looked like if someone had actually taken the thing and tried to strangle him with it. I threw that thing straight in the garbage.

bender0x7d1 , Anna Nekrashevich Report

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#22

Statistically the person who is most likely to kill you at any given time is living with you right now.

BestTyming Report

#23

35 Creepy Facts About The World That You Might Be Better Off Not Knowing Drinking too much water can kill you. some people who have survived drowning later die because of water intoxication. solution is simple, give them salt or electrolyte fluids to balance their sodium ph in the body.

The34Zero , Maurício Mascaro Report

#24

Sewer treatment plants have lifesaver rings around the treatment tanks, in case someone falls in.

mycreativenamehere Report

#25

35 Creepy Facts About The World That You Might Be Better Off Not Knowing Carmine, a red food dye commonly used in food and makeup, is made of COCHINEAL INSECTS.

LemonMeringue26 , Leonardo Luz Report

#26

In a strange and semi creepy coincidence, Robert Lincoln, son of Abraham Lincoln, was saved from falling off a train platform and being run over by Edwin Boothe, brother of John Wilkes Boothe.

Infamous-Piece3783 Report

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#27

35 Creepy Facts About The World That You Might Be Better Off Not Knowing When you eat figs you are quite likely to be also eating the mummified carcass of a wasp.

stilloldbull2 , Pixabay Report

#28

35 Creepy Facts About The World That You Might Be Better Off Not Knowing At any given time, there are 40-50 active serial killers in the United States.

Prince_Pancake69 , cottonbro studio Report

#29

Sometimes if their diet is lacking protein deer will actually search out birds nests on forest floors, stamp the chicks, and then eat them.

There's a type of be called a vulture Bee that feeds on decomposing flesh, they have wild looking hives, and they will in fact make honey from the dead flesh. Honey that is referred to as "meat honey". The honey is in fact edible according to researchers.

TheBattyWitch Report

#30

35 Creepy Facts About The World That You Might Be Better Off Not Knowing You have millions of mites, known as demodex, living on your face.

Gr8hound , MART PRODUCTION Report

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#31

35 Creepy Facts About The World That You Might Be Better Off Not Knowing The floating specs you see probably aren’t dust but dead skin cells.

sleepy_potatoSalad , Furkan Dokuzlar Report

#32

Box Jellyfish are not only the most venomous jellies to humans, but they also possess at least 24 functional eyes (of various degree) on its body despite having no centralized brain. Four of its eyes always peer up out of the water regardless of the animal's body position; some eyes can make out images, others are more primitive.

Southern_Gator Report

#33

35 Creepy Facts About The World That You Might Be Better Off Not Knowing During the merger of two black holes,a black holes can occasionally get ejected from the system and get shot out into open space and become a wandering black hole, the creepy part for me is that because a large part of the way in which we see black holes is through their interactions with their surroundings we wouldn’t really be able to see it coming towards us

rflok34 , Alex Andrews Report

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#34

35 Creepy Facts About The World That You Might Be Better Off Not Knowing Really just the fact that we can die or have our lives unimaginably ruined at any moment from a basically endless number of ways and that eventually within a handful of decades (or maybe seconds or any time in between) or so it IS going to happen.

DontDiscRedditMe , Adeeb Al-Sibai Report

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LakotaWolf (she/her)
Community Member
12 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

My life was destroyed on Thanksgiving Day, year 2000. My dad was putting up Xmas lights after we ate our meal. He fell off of the ladder, crushed his skull, and sustained a catastrophic brain injury. His body lived, but I lost my beloved father that day. Not only did it destroy his life (he was only 58) but it destroyed mine as well, as my mother decided selfishly to ignore my father’s well-known wishes not to be kept alive in a near-vegetative state. We took care of my dad at home. I loved him, but I lost my 20s and 30s to caring for him. I never moved out, never married, never got a normal job. He died in 2021. I held his hand as he died. My mother refused to even be present. I have never forgiven her for any of this. And I miss my dad terribly. My mother’s a toxic narcissist; my dad was a wonderful dad. Hug your loved ones, everyone. Regret is a bítch, I should know.

Shiva Ho
Community Member
12 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I've already died a few times from freaky accidents that are way beyond mere coincidence! Karma is a b***h and you can either pay it off now or keep coming back until you do!

Mickie Shea
Community Member
11 months ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Thanks, very comforting as sitting on a porcupine, with a skunk for a head rest.

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#35

35 Creepy Facts About The World That You Might Be Better Off Not Knowing Last year in the US alone over half a million people were reported missing. About 1% are found.

buntybop , Daniel Lobo Report

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#36

35 Creepy Facts About The World That You Might Be Better Off Not Knowing Many victims who survive bear attacks report the sound of the bear’s teeth scraping against their skulls.

DinerDuck , Janko Ferlic Report

#37

35 Creepy Facts About The World That You Might Be Better Off Not Knowing Cadaver dogs can smell bodies through waters (lakes, etc).

PlaysTheTriangle , Emre Ezer Report

#38

After decapitation you would still be conscious for about 10 seconds and technically would still be alive for 3-6 minutes.

Euphoric-Turnover-36 Report

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#39

The mosquito is the deadliest animal.

FidelisLupus Report

#40

People are still dying from the radioactive fallout generated by the Chernobyl disaster.

CKO1967 Report

#41

There is a website called The Marshall Project, which, from 2015 to 2021, recorded and counted down the time until execution of every death row inmate in the United States, categorized by state. It was accurate up to the second, and had real-time updates about appeals, stays of execution, time of death, method of execution, etc. It was fascinating and gave me major creeps at the same time. The site is still up, and the records can still be read.

Autismsaurus Report

#42

Most of the koala population has rampant chlamydia.

Megalon96310 Report

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#43

That armadillos are natural carriers of leprosy.

Old_Check_6362 Report

#44

Not sure if considered creepy but the ancient Romans went around collecting urine. It was big business. They used it to clean clothes as well as for mouthwash.

bulletpr00fsoul Report

#45

Herculaneum is better preserved than Pompeii it just hasn't been excavated as much.
Pompeii was essentially destroyed by falling volcanic rock, its dead later being buried by ash after rigor had set in.

Herculaneum was destroyed by pyroclastic flows so hot that the liquids in people's bodies turned to vapor and exploded instantly. Brain matter turned into glass. Bone and metal were welded together. All that happened before Pompeii.

Currently, the population in the area is so large that the Italian government is having a hard time deciding whether or not it's worth it to warn or evacuate them or not

blackcatsareawesome Report

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#46

The only thing preventing you from dissolving your own stomach is a layer of mucus that pores in your stomach lining constantly secrete. If something happens to prevent them from working completely, your stomach will be dissolved within a couple of days.

SnowDemonAkuma Report

#47

If we could hear the sound that the Sun emits, it would be the equivalent of standing next to a speaker at a rock concert.

DoubleDeckerz Report

#48

Most of us are highly succeptible to suggestion when hypnotized, including attempts to instill false memories. Our brains *cannot* tell the difference between real and false memories. Imagine the possibilities.....

PepurrPotts Report

#49

Meany types of Gas don’t smell naturally it is added later for safety, so by theory there can happen a mistake…

allright_then Report

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#50

Victorians collected and made art and jewelry from the hair of their loved ones:

https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-curious-victorian-tradition-making-art-human-hair

archibaldsneezador Report

#51

You can marry a dead person in France.

super_man100 Report

#52

Hepatitis ranges from A-E, with A being the most transmissible in contaminated water sources.

Silv3r_lite Report

#53

35 Creepy Facts About The World That You Might Be Better Off Not Knowing Dead bodies can get goosebumps.

Delicious_vanilla611 , cottonbro studio Report

#54

Prawns are cannibals. They eat their babies.

3Fatboy3 Report

#55

Infant flesh is like fish when cooked. White and falls right off the bone.

Thank you, Last Podcast On The Left.

Fun_Mistake4299 Report

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#56

In the US, Most missing persons cases that take place in the wilderness happen around places with large cave networks.

gigaswardblade Report

#57

The human body has roughly 200 grams of bacteria.

OrchidThis5822 Report

#58

Body odor isn’t caused by dirt or sweat on one’s body. It’s the bacteria that’s produced by dirt and sweat that emits the BO.

Potential_Story7840 Report

#59

Falling down can kill you, legit. If you hit ur head on something sharp most likely ure dead in the next second. Is not very creepy but it makes me rethink life time to time lol

flowersUverMe Report

#60

That in pharmaceutical labs, once they are done with the animals with whatever they were testing, the ones that are still alive are put down and thrown in a freezer. When the freezer is full they are dumped in a furnace.

RoseWould Report

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#61

Pelicans will just Eat smaller birds sometimes. they snatch them up in their bill and just keep chewing till the bird stops moving.

GoreyGopnik Report

#62

Many people have a parasitic infection and don’t even know it…

littlemissnoname- Report

#63

All mammals have belly buttons.

Expert_asdwipe Report

#64

35 Creepy Facts About The World That You Might Be Better Off Not Knowing A female mantis eats her mating partner after having “sex” with him.

balevika , Quang Nguyen Vinh Report

#65

Its against the law for a pharmacist to tell seniors on part D they are paying 2.5 times the cost for lets say metformin than someone off the street w/ no insurance. In my hypethetical trans action , The drug costs the pharmacy $2 ,HE charges $4. if grandma comes in w/ her medicare card she is charged $10 copay.. The drug maker then takes $7 leaving $3 instead of $4 as the profit margin to the pharmacy. He is bound by law to say nothing about the scam.

SnooMaps3253 Report

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#66


Minor warning for those who have functional eyes. If you are sensitive just scroll by.

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Some women cook and eat their placenta after birth, has got to be the most horrific thing i know. There are even f*****g recipies online.

Da-Pruttis-Boi Report

#67

There is a fish ( the sounderfish) that likes to swim up penis holes that needs surgery to remove and sometimes amputation is the only form of removal.

Penis_balls_Pluh Report

#68

It only takes twenty minutes to die from a black mamba snake bite, and it hurts the entire time.

GW2RNGR Report

#69

I don't know why I find this creepy, but our brain cannot create a new face. Every single person we see in our dreams, is someone we have seen in real life before.

fairybl00dz Report

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#70

35 Creepy Facts About The World That You Might Be Better Off Not Knowing Lobotomy and the guillotine were both used in France through the 1980's.

SailorVenus23 , Dick Thomas Johnson Report

#71

During the embalming process in a funeral home, internal organs are sucked out and replaced with embalming fluid. The organs that are sucked out go right into the sewer system. So not only are dead people's organ bits in the sewers but so too are any medications they were on, diseases they had, etc.

Kind of a head scratcher when you go to a hospital or doctor's office and see the bio hazard waste bins - yet a funeral home, which process a higher volume of bio hazard waste, has no such disposal protocols

youknowiactafool Report