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30 Of The Scariest And Creepiest Theories Shared By People On Reddit In A Viral Thread
"I need to go to sleep but I can’t put my phone away because of this thread," someone commented in the now-viral Reddit thread. In it, hundreds of people are sharing their replies to "What is the scariest/creepiest theory you know about?" Ranging from theories about space travel to death, the answers are all sorts of intriguing.
"I came into this thread unafraid of death, I’m leaving petrified - thanks!" someone commented and we can't help but agree! More than 65k people liked the thread, prompting it to go viral on the social media platform. Therefore, as always, we encourage you to vote for the theories you found the most interesting! In addition to this, if you have a scary or creepy theory you know about, share in the comment section down below!
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May or not be a “theory”, but the first thing I thought of was that feeling you get when you’re on top of a building and think “what if I jumped?” Or when you’re driving and think “what if I just swerve into traffic.”
Well it’s actually got a name: L’appel du vide. French for “The call of the void.” I always thought the idea of some ethereal presence calling you towards darkness... creepy.
I have those kind of thoughts “what if I walked in front of a train” and stuff like that when I have suicidal thoughts. I have no intent on doing it, I just think about what if?
We’ve all pretty much heard of Uncanny Valley (the creeped out anxious feeling when you look at something that’s humanoid but there’s something clearly wrong with it. Like the wax figures at Madame Tussaud’s or that AI robot Sophia)
But my favorite theory to come out of it is that we get that strange feeling because somewhere along human evolution we’ve learned to be wary of things that look human... but aren’t.
More of a story than a theory, but it correlates to some of these and makes me think some could be real. When I was younger I had this little stuffed animal dog I named rocky. One night, my younger sisters and I (who all slept in the same room so we could hangout together) were messing around, and I two handed over head tossed rocky into the wall directly in front of my bed. He hit the wall, slid down behind whatever was in front of my bed, and was NEVER seen again. I immediately went to go get him and he just wasn’t anywhere. We tore the whole entire small room apart. We all saw the event occur. Over time the room has been completely emptied out, everything in it rearranged, walls painted, everything- and no rocky. He just completely phased out of existence. Makes me think he glitched out of the system or something.
If you're scuba diving above a coral reef, and you know that there SHOULD be fish all around you, but you don't see any, it's most likely that they have learned that for some reason it's important not to be seen.
And since you're a newcomer to this environment, chances are it's not you they're hiding from.
EDIT: the number of scuba divers saying they've experienced this and then noticed a shark nearby is alarming.
Pretty much anytime your in the ocean there are sharks swimming nearby. We are no their food source so generally don’t bother coming near enough to do any harm. They are no out to get us, it’s just that sharks explore using their jaws which unfortunately has a lot of razor sharp teeth that will do a lot of damage. Very very rarely has a person been eaten by a shark, most of the time the person is let go once the shark realises we are not tasty and the person dies from drowning, shock or blood loss.
Our “world” is out perception of our surroundings in our 3 dimensional life. It’s possible that we are living amongst beings, things and events that we cannot experience because we are 3 dimensions and they are not.
A famous Victorian school teacher wrote “Flatland: a Romance of Many Dimensions” (which Carla Sagan has cited in his docs) It illustrates how a one dimensional being would see the world, just lines. And when a 3D sphere visits, he can only see a line. I think about this often actually. I find it fascinating to think of all the other dimensions we cannot perceive. I think about insects, and how they perceive our world, like a fly with a thousand eyes. Their view of this many faceted world is not wrong, it is their 3D world. So who’s to say that our view of the world is The “correct” view, and not the way an insect sees it? I dunno, just food for thought
If the human body senses trauma it is unable to combat, it will switch off metabolism, pump endorphins, and slip into a pain free dissociative state.
In essence, shutting down. Its been seen in air crashes and lots of places really.
Basically your body can switch itself off.
my body takes it to a new level. I suffer from Neural Basal reactions. When I have sudden pain (pinch my finger, cut myself etc...) My brain shuts down and I pass out... usually resulting in some secondary injuries that I often do not feel right away or at all. I also tend to stop breathing in these episodes and wake up hyperventilating.
The Gaian Bottleneck theory. Basically the reason we've never encountered or been contacted by aliens is because they're all dead. Every alien species that evolved to form advanced societies eventually outgrew their planet and destroyed themselves. Like we are.
Cosmology can be disturbing.
For instance, I recently learned of dead end trips. There are some destinations that you shouldn't try for. It's possible to travel so far away from where you started, that the expansion of the universe will exceed the speed you were travelling at.
You can't return home, because home is receding faster than you can travel.
You can't reach your destination, because it too is receding faster than you can travel.
You can no longer get anywhere, only get further away from everything.
You cannot reach any destination, even if you travel forever.
Humans are scared of things that mimic them too perfectly, the theory is that we developed this because there was a super predator of some sort that would mimic us and kill us. But we never knew what happened to it
"There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened." - Douglas Adams
That there is no secret society controlling everything, and humans by themselves are destroying humanity and themselves. And it's just easier to think that it's someone else behind all the evil .
Uh... that is what I actually believe...? It seems to me that current as well as historic events make the most sense if you assume that no one has control over everything. Sure, there's people who try, but even in tight dictatorships you get rebels and unforeseen random events. I definitely think that conspiracy theorists are overwhelmed with the unpredictability of the world and hang onto whichever theory puts their "preferred enemy" into the group of control... it implies a) everything bad that happens is due to the people I already think of as bad, b) I'm definitely and always one of the good people, c) I'm so special for catching on, d) even if I don't control events now, I might in the future if I fight my enemy. I definitely think of it as lazy, both in respect to self-awareness (you don't need to question yourself) and level of intellectual difficulty (it turns highly complex issues of the world into simple black-and-white problems).
The theory that we're all quantum immortals and when someone dies in our reality for them they just keep on going in a reality where they didn't
That we have so little data about the deep dark parts of the ocean and don’t truly know what lurks there
It might be sunshine and rainbows and Narwhal parties! Jk, we know enough about physics to know that’s not possible. But still- why do the things in the deep ocean have to be bad? Because our imagination. That’s it.
It's scary that there are thousands of serial killers out there at any 1 given time who often just blend in with the rest of society and live normal lives. Many will never be caught.
If you die by being beheaded the last thing you might see is your decapitated body.
That humans almost went extinct. 70,000 years ago a volcano in Indonesia erupted. There’s theories that we have a genetic bottleneck around that time. Took our population down to 10,000-3,000 (like the size of one small town). Lots of fresh genetic material died with those who were lost and the resulting inbreeding could have resulted in some genetic diseases that have made their way into humans today. Without this event, we may have advanced faster and be healthier people today.
Not a theory but reality. Schizophrenia can happen to anyone, at any age, even to perfectly healthy people. Imagine being normal and then waking up one day and seeing and hearing things that aren't actually there. That is really scary and creepy.
I had a professor in college who taught physics and he explained why we will likely never come across aliens. The universe is about 14 billion years old. Over the course of that time, it’s likely that intelligent life, besides life on earth, has existed. However, 14 billion years is an INSANELY long time. Other life forms have probably risen and fallen thousands of times over. Extreme dynasties with technology we can only dream of having have probably existed. Life forms could have lasted hundreds of thousands of years and still not even be close to our timeline. The chances of other intelligent life forms existing at the same time as humans, in the 14 billion years the universe has hosted a possibility for life, is really unlikely. Statistically, intelligent life to have formed, prospered, or even existed at the same time as humans is extremely small simply due to the absolute drop in a bucket that we are on terms of time. We may very well be completely alone in the universe.
It's not merely time that is the issue, but also space, which is mindbogglingly huge.
Ok this one is rough so please bare with me,
So the common time travel question is would you go back and kill baby hitler?
Well imagine if that was you, to us in the current timeline you would be a hero that killed someone truly evil before they had chance to corrupt or endanger anyone but to the people of that time you are a monster, a baby killer.
They couldn’t exactly explain to people, I was sent from the future to kill this baby to save hundreds of millions of lives. No-one would believe him and would just assume he was some nutcase, or maybe they’re not allowed to tell anyone as per the agreement with the future government?
It makes you wonder all the people through time that have been called monsters for killing babies, what if they were just heroes from the future saving us all? They couldn’t tell anyone either?
Hitler was just the lightning rod. Chances are, someone else would have become the lightning rod if you murdered baby Hitler. Hitler is still a terrible human, I'm not excusing him at all.
The dark forest theory. This explains the Fremi paradox, why we haven’t seen any other advanced life forms despite the vastness of the universe. Other advanced life forms don’t send out signals into the rest of the universe because they’re worried that something more advanced and dangerous is going to find them first. There’s another idea that other civilizations know there’s something out there but don’t send any signals because it has no reason to not wipeout the entire planet.
There’s a science fiction book based on this and I think this quote explains it better than I can:
“The universe is a dark forest. Every civilization is an armed hunter stalking through the trees like a ghost, gently pushing aside branches that block the path and trying to tread without sound. Even breathing is done with care. The hunter has to be careful, because everywhere in the forest are stealthy hunters like him. If he finds another life—another hunter, angel, or a demon, a delicate infant to tottering old man, a fairy or demigod—there's only one thing he can do: open fire and eliminate them”
That you might be aware of everything happening to you during surgery, the anesthesia keeps you from moving and causes you to forget.
Nice creepy theory! But just as a comfort for anybody who might be taking this too seriously: we know very well that this is not the case. We can clearly show which brain regions are active when people are in pain, and they are not active when people are anesthized. Don't worry!
During the Challenger accident from 1986, whenever the shuttle exploded, the ground crews had the astronauts EKG’s and vital scans....after the explosion, the astronauts were still alive. Theory has it that they were cognizant the entire time until they crashed in the ocean.
The theory that scented candles starting getting poor reviews at the same time COVID hit the US. Makes you wonder how many people have mild COVID before we even knew about it, pairing the lack of taste and/or smell as one of the main symptoms associated with mild COVID cases.
The other option is that, because people were at home much more, the scent was less noticable (you grow used to familiar scents) so people thought the candles smelled less. Though I think the OP has the more likely idea ...
Some people have had some strange NDEs (Near Death Experiences). Going through websites cataloging them can be a trip. I'm willing to attribute some of them to brain damage and some as "legit" though I'll never be able to tell which is which.
Death bed visions give me a warmer sense of security. I can't imagine how peaceful it must be to die and see your deceased loved ones there to ensure you make it safely to the other side.
This makes me wonder about death bed visions remember about the Ghost of Christmas Future was it just a death bed vision that Charles Dickens had and recorded in a book?
I died. It was just dark. Then a voice said I could go back. I was 4 and had drowned.
Never saw my dead loved ones. NDE twice, no luck. Third time the charm? (For those who think I'm BS'ing? Been around five decades, in less-than-ideal life circumstances sometimes. So, y'know. It happens.) BUT my NDEs were both incredibly peaceful. Like, "Oh, okay, however this goes, it's all okay." It's why I don't fear death, only pain. (Sorry to rip off Eowyn there.)
I had a NDE too, just the once, and it's certainly an alternate reality. I had peaceful times and unpleasant times, and time with a friend lost suddenly just months beforehand. But I didn't see anyone else who has passed. But I too find that death is not as frightening as it used to seem, although I'd still certainly prefer it to be a long way off! It's incredible you have survived through two NDEs, you are clearly meant to be here!! And I'm glad :)
Load More Replies...Reading about things like this always make me sad. I have no loved ones I could see when I die. I truly hope I can get loved ones some day.
You may not have loved ones here, but you most certainly have them there
Load More Replies...Your brain tries to make your passing as pleasant as possible by surrounding you with the things you love.
My NDE was probably the only time I've been fully anxiety-free in my life.
The theory that Near Death Experiences and the Afterlife are real (they are)
Load More Replies...I definitely don't think death is the end. Not sure what comes next, but it can't be wilder than this!
In America alone there are millions of NDE stories in books, videos, articles and NDE research websites. Exploring them is very interesting and eye-opening.
I had a near death experience, but only physically, absolutely nothing happened in terms of me seeing or perceiving anything, just nothingness…until I was revived
When I was 9 I was skateboarding in my driveway to impress everybody else, but I didn't know how to stop. FYI my driveway is a T shape and we lived at the end of the street. So I kept going really fast and I heard a car coming but I was too scared to jump off. He stopped a couple of feet away from me.
I have several books on life-after-death experiences and I find great comfort in them.
It is quite surreal, yet very real at the time. Never frightening.
I wonder what happens if you don't make it safely to the other side, like you can't die twice...
The universe could be dying, and we'd have no way to know until we just suddenly vanish from existence.
There could be a sort of quantum energy wave, can't remember what it's called because it's been so long since I read about it. Zero point collapse, maybe? Vacuum bubble burst? But whatever it is, it's an energy wave that starts at some point, and spreads outward at the speed of light, annihilating any matter, energy, and even spacetime in its path.
Because the wave travels at the speed of light, it is invisible. We would have no way of seeing it coming, because any light emitted by it would hit us at the exact same time that the wave itself hits us.
So, all of a sudden, the sun might just vanish from existence. We wouldn't notice because the sun's light from eight minutes ago would still be reaching us. Eight minutes later, the earth just vanishes from existence. No warning. No trace.
The theory that the last moments of consciousness before death can feel like a literal eternity, and where your mind can create entire realities from blissful to horrifying. So in a way the threat of enduring a hellscape of eternal suffering is very real no matter what you believe.
Spontaneous combustion. I watched a strange but true episode about this as a child and was convinced I'd randomly burst into flames one day. I'm over it now but that was my top fear for a long time.
The theory that there is an infinite number of parallel universes branching out at each moment with all possible outcomes for each situation.
Let's say this is true and you play Russian roulette. Five out of six of possible "you" would live and one would die but no matter how many times you play there would always be versions of you that would survive. This would give those versions of "you" the illusion of immorality. This would mean that no matter the risks you would take, there would always be some version of you that would survive.
If this is true, it would mean that you could live your life completely free of the fear of death and take on any risk. But the only way to know if this is true is to expose yourself to high odds of deaths, repeatedly.
Also this would mean that as time passed there would always be a more decrepit and invalid version of you surviving, maybe forever...
Anyways that or lizard people.
The first man in space (some Russian cosmonaut whose name I can't remember) was not the true first. The actual first was a cosmonaut whose mission was unsuccessful and he either died in orbit or on reentry. Once it became apparent that he was doomed the Russian authorities cut off communications, leaving him to die in isolation, and covered up the existence of the mission.
I saw a theory that we truly live through our entire again in the moments before death, but that it's a loop. When you reach your moment of death during your moment of death, you relive it again. And again. And again. Trapped in a loop with no difference, no awareness, forever.
I love these but I need to know about the lizard people lol xoxox
Based on movie idiocracy... Uneducted/illiterate people generally produce multiple children quickly.. whereas smarter people spend too much time planning a future for an unborn child, that they either miss out or just have 1. So as the time would pass...the iq of the population as a collective would continue to decrease...till we are too idiotic to function.... so humans are basically going to f**k themselves into extinction...
I used to think that movie was great! Until I studied the science of Eugenics. Then the movie became terrifying.
Load More Replies...heres a video that explains that https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
Load More Replies...And another theory: Maybe when we dream as ourselves, we're just watching our every day life in another diminsion.
that's what i think too! i think i transport into another me in another reality and am living/watching part of her life. it's so interesting.
Load More Replies...Not a theory, but cool. If there was twice as much oxegon in the atmosphere, everything would be twice as tall, and we would be twice as smart. Of course there would be drawbacks, but yeah. Flowers could even be the height of trees!
The scariest part of being transferred to a different dimension is the people you left behind. You may think you are with them, but at the same time they are not your friends or relatives. They are not people you know. You've known them for your whole life, yet you just met them seconds ago. And you will never know what the people in you dimension are doing, if they are grieving, or if they remember you at all. You will never know, and there is no way of finding out. Will you even know that you are somewhere you are not supposed to be?
I appreciate this article. This kind of stuff runs through my head constantly.
I can confirm this is me, and not some troll.
Load More Replies...I like this. Gives me something to chew on and think about. Also helps me out of the insane writers block I've been in for the past month. Please upload more stuff like this <3
That one theory where when you flinch it's bc you got impacted in a different dimension/reality. The same for when you suddenly jerk awake from a dream of dying or falling or somrthing like that... just a peek at a different version of yourself.
Other Me must be a foolish mountain climber, always forgetting to wear clothes to school and never attending class before a big exam, and drive a car with a malfunctioning steering wheel and no brakes...
Load More Replies...Theory: after you die, you have the option of rebirth if you were a good person. There are actually stories that promote this theory, as well as the fact that’s it’s a part of some religiouns
i have a theory: do you ever hear people you know calling out your name? i do, and i've started to think that it's people from another dimension calling for help... but since you don't know them they sound like people you do know... it's weird when i hear my mom call my name and then i go to her, but she never called me... and then once i was outside and i heard my friend call me, so i called back... she kept calling my name and i never heard anything else... but WHY? she lives a street away, like, it's only a few seconds to drive to her place, so i could have heard her, and she could have heard me, soooo...
And also right now someone or something can be watching you scroll through bored panda reading this
Something creepy is that what if you wake up and this life you think was yours was just a dream and your actually a 45 year old man with a son
So anyone interested in what happens after death should read: consciousness beyond life from Pim can Lommelen. You're welcome ;)
I literally think about how I could be dying right now and just seeing my life flash before my eyes.
One I came up with is that Blue holes (massive water sinkholes) are something in earths core filtering air through them
There is a hypothesis that the universe will go through a long cold, dark death. The time span for this to happen is so great that the whole of the "bright' period with stars and galaxies etc. is so brief as to be unmeasurable.
I’ve always been fascinated about past lives and reading stories about young children who remember such unique details about who they used to be. It doesn’t make sense as to how they would know these things. Reincarnation is such an interesting concept.
Based on the evidence we have already, reincarnation is indeed real
Load More Replies...The thing about aliens is that we couldn’t communicate at all. Their language formation would be completely different, as would their experiences.
If they communicate telepathically than language doesn’t matter
Load More Replies...So many of these ideas and theories have already been converted into movies/series that they don’t seem creepy.
(I thought this story would go well with this post) So I had a friend, let’s call her Sandy. Sandy was nice but crazy weird. She always got very uncomfortable with the discussion of things like this and if there really is other intelligent life out there, and if it’s already on our planet. She always had to change the subject and when I asked her why she changed it she said she didn’t know what I was talking about. One day Sandy just disappeared from earth. I called her, she didn’t answer. I went to her house, no answer. I was worried about Sandy so I asked her neighbors if anything was wrong. They said the last they had seen of Sandy was her rushing to get to her car with no suitcases, no nothing. No one has seen Sandy since. I even asked her family and Boyfriend, they had said they knew nothing of her. Sandy’s mom said last time she saw her, she was completely normal. My theory is that Sandy wasn’t human...
Well that's depressing. Poor Sandy (assuming a serial killer got her)
Load More Replies...A theory in philosophy is different from a theory in science. Scientists need tons of evidence to qualify an idea as a theory. Philosophers can talk out of their hindquarters *ahem* I mean, come up with ideas and those are called theories.
Load More Replies...I love these but I need to know about the lizard people lol xoxox
Based on movie idiocracy... Uneducted/illiterate people generally produce multiple children quickly.. whereas smarter people spend too much time planning a future for an unborn child, that they either miss out or just have 1. So as the time would pass...the iq of the population as a collective would continue to decrease...till we are too idiotic to function.... so humans are basically going to f**k themselves into extinction...
I used to think that movie was great! Until I studied the science of Eugenics. Then the movie became terrifying.
Load More Replies...heres a video that explains that https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
Load More Replies...And another theory: Maybe when we dream as ourselves, we're just watching our every day life in another diminsion.
that's what i think too! i think i transport into another me in another reality and am living/watching part of her life. it's so interesting.
Load More Replies...Not a theory, but cool. If there was twice as much oxegon in the atmosphere, everything would be twice as tall, and we would be twice as smart. Of course there would be drawbacks, but yeah. Flowers could even be the height of trees!
The scariest part of being transferred to a different dimension is the people you left behind. You may think you are with them, but at the same time they are not your friends or relatives. They are not people you know. You've known them for your whole life, yet you just met them seconds ago. And you will never know what the people in you dimension are doing, if they are grieving, or if they remember you at all. You will never know, and there is no way of finding out. Will you even know that you are somewhere you are not supposed to be?
I appreciate this article. This kind of stuff runs through my head constantly.
I can confirm this is me, and not some troll.
Load More Replies...I like this. Gives me something to chew on and think about. Also helps me out of the insane writers block I've been in for the past month. Please upload more stuff like this <3
That one theory where when you flinch it's bc you got impacted in a different dimension/reality. The same for when you suddenly jerk awake from a dream of dying or falling or somrthing like that... just a peek at a different version of yourself.
Other Me must be a foolish mountain climber, always forgetting to wear clothes to school and never attending class before a big exam, and drive a car with a malfunctioning steering wheel and no brakes...
Load More Replies...Theory: after you die, you have the option of rebirth if you were a good person. There are actually stories that promote this theory, as well as the fact that’s it’s a part of some religiouns
i have a theory: do you ever hear people you know calling out your name? i do, and i've started to think that it's people from another dimension calling for help... but since you don't know them they sound like people you do know... it's weird when i hear my mom call my name and then i go to her, but she never called me... and then once i was outside and i heard my friend call me, so i called back... she kept calling my name and i never heard anything else... but WHY? she lives a street away, like, it's only a few seconds to drive to her place, so i could have heard her, and she could have heard me, soooo...
And also right now someone or something can be watching you scroll through bored panda reading this
Something creepy is that what if you wake up and this life you think was yours was just a dream and your actually a 45 year old man with a son
So anyone interested in what happens after death should read: consciousness beyond life from Pim can Lommelen. You're welcome ;)
I literally think about how I could be dying right now and just seeing my life flash before my eyes.
One I came up with is that Blue holes (massive water sinkholes) are something in earths core filtering air through them
There is a hypothesis that the universe will go through a long cold, dark death. The time span for this to happen is so great that the whole of the "bright' period with stars and galaxies etc. is so brief as to be unmeasurable.
I’ve always been fascinated about past lives and reading stories about young children who remember such unique details about who they used to be. It doesn’t make sense as to how they would know these things. Reincarnation is such an interesting concept.
Based on the evidence we have already, reincarnation is indeed real
Load More Replies...The thing about aliens is that we couldn’t communicate at all. Their language formation would be completely different, as would their experiences.
If they communicate telepathically than language doesn’t matter
Load More Replies...So many of these ideas and theories have already been converted into movies/series that they don’t seem creepy.
(I thought this story would go well with this post) So I had a friend, let’s call her Sandy. Sandy was nice but crazy weird. She always got very uncomfortable with the discussion of things like this and if there really is other intelligent life out there, and if it’s already on our planet. She always had to change the subject and when I asked her why she changed it she said she didn’t know what I was talking about. One day Sandy just disappeared from earth. I called her, she didn’t answer. I went to her house, no answer. I was worried about Sandy so I asked her neighbors if anything was wrong. They said the last they had seen of Sandy was her rushing to get to her car with no suitcases, no nothing. No one has seen Sandy since. I even asked her family and Boyfriend, they had said they knew nothing of her. Sandy’s mom said last time she saw her, she was completely normal. My theory is that Sandy wasn’t human...
Well that's depressing. Poor Sandy (assuming a serial killer got her)
Load More Replies...A theory in philosophy is different from a theory in science. Scientists need tons of evidence to qualify an idea as a theory. Philosophers can talk out of their hindquarters *ahem* I mean, come up with ideas and those are called theories.
Load More Replies...