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In life, there are certain things that might scare us. For some, it could be spiders; for others, it could be public speaking. Regardless, we try our best to stay away from our fears. But what happens when you accidentally learn about terrifying things?
Recently, a Reddit user posted on the platform, asking everyone, "What's a creepy fact you wish you never learned?". Folks online didn’t hold back and immediately started sharing unpleasant things that made their skin crawl. Today, Pandas, we’ve collected some of their most intriguing answers. But let us warn you: they might send a shiver down your spine.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
Pitești Experiment in Romania overseen by the Soviet Union. Probably the worst thing that humans have ever done to other humans. Makes Unit 731 look like daycare. Communist Russia was probably the most evil human organization to ever exist.
It was basically an experiment to prove souls dont exist. That any human, no matter how resilient, can be broken or "demasked" into an animal like slave. and they prove this by killing the human spirit with 24/7 torture, degradation, brainwashing and humiliation. besides the obvious brutal violence stuff like eating your own s**t, vomit, and forced to desecrate every sacred belief you ever held until you totally broke. and they did this to the most resilient anti communist student activists. and they all broke. then they forced them to be the torturers for their fellow comrades. with the threat that if any of the tortured admitted that they were the guard that shown them a shred of mercy or leniency, they would be sent back to the beginning of the program to experience it all again which most did several times. if these prisoners were given even the slightest chance they instantly tried to commit suicide. some even chewed through their wrists to get to their veins. which the communists solved for by knocking out all of their teeth
One of the biggest mistakes the western world made was not make the crimes of the Soviet Union more known. Everyone should know this happened, that yes there was an organization of people much worse than even the Nazis.
#2
Blackrock and vanguard are buying up millions of homes with the hopes to turn middle class ppl into permanent renters. They come in and pay above asking price without even looking at the house. They've purchased entire neighborhoods. It's only going to get worse.
Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 4 months ago
The "Housing Crisis" is 100% manufactured scarcity. There are enough homes to house everyone in the USA but they are held vacant to drive up the rent prices. Unoccupied homes require little maintenance so it makes financial sense to keep them vacant rather than risk lowering the renters market.
#3
Ascaris worms are a type of large, parasitic roundworm that make their home in the human digestive tract. They are endemic in many parts of the world. I used to work at a hospital where we took a lot of patients from very poor and remote places, especially Central America, where roundworm infection is very common. When you put those patients under for surgery, the anesthesia causes their blood to become slightly alkaline, which the worms *hate*. So after a few minutes they will start coming out of *every orifice in the body*. Nose, mouth, r****m. And I'm talking full-sized worms that look just like earthworms. It is no cap one of the grossest things you can imagine.
You give those patients a d**g called Bendazole, they poop dead worms for three days, and then they're fine.
Apart from scaring friends or using these creepy facts during trivia night, you can also use them to spark discussions during a party or include them in presentations or speeches to capture attention. And if you are brave enough, you can seek inspiration from them to create artwork.
The post, which has nearly 8.5k comments, shows how people are eager to understand and share scary facts. If you are in the mood to face your fears today, let’s learn more about some eerie truths.
#4
Dolphins are known to be quite intelligent, but they can also be cruel. In some cases, they've been documented killing baby dolphins of other pods, seemingly for fun.
i_want_that_boat:
The more I learn about dolphins the more I'm convinced they're just sea people.
#5
If you have abdominal surgery and the surgeon needs your intestines out of the way they don't try to get them back in exactly as they were. They can put them in pretty much any old way and they sort themselves out.
Then freaked out even more when someone else commented that you can quite often feel them wriggling themselves back into position.
Nikki Gross 4 months ago (edited)
When I had my first cancer surgery they had to open me up from my sternum to my groin, which I have a hellacious keloid scar. I had to wear a really strange compression brace that wrapped around my sternum and abdomen for 8 weeks while my body healed. The only time I could take it off was when I was showering, which was a whole other ball of fun trying to keep my staples dry. The f****d up part is that it was a whole lot more comfortable wearing the brace while I healed vs taking it off when I would shower. It basically held my insides in place while I healed and as soon as I would take it off my abdomen/stomach area would become distended because everything would shift around. Cancer f*****g sucks kids!
#6
Learning that some plants can actually communicate with each other. Suddenly, my herb garden feels a lot more like a gossip column.
When you think of blood, what color comes to mind? Many of us might think of the color red because humans and many animals have red blood due to the iron in their hemoglobin. However, some animals have different colored blood as well. A copper-based hemocyanin gives the blood of snails, octopi, horseshoe crabs, and some other creatures its characteristic blue-ish or clear color.
Some creatures even have yellow blood, like sea cucumbers. A high concentration of the yellow pigment vanabin, which is based on vanadium, is what causes the yellow coloration.
#7
Dead bodies moan and grunt when you move them. (I was a paramedic and firefighter for 21 years, I was around a lot of dead people.).
#8
Some people are born with a malformed mass of veins in their brain called an AVM and they have no idea unless it's seen on a CT or MRI. Then one day it can burst without warning and that happy healthy person can die, suffer brain damage, paralysis, etc. No warning.
This happened to my 22yo niece yesterday, she is in a coma now. It's heartbreaking.
Xenia Harley 4 months ago
I had a stroke four years ago and heard a lot of stroke horror stories! One was a 19 year old who had had a massive stroke around the same time I did. (Birth control pills were suspected! They can cause high blood pressure in some women!) Another, young woman, like early twenties, paramedic. She was performing CPR on another person when SHE had a massive stroke and died! AVM was suspected. Other person died too, the one she was giving CPR to, in case you were wondering.
#9
Well all of these make my flatworm tidbit seem meek.
When flatworms mate, two "males" use their bifurcated penises to fence one another. The winner, or the flatworm who stabs the other with its penis dagger, remains a male while the loser becomes female and will be impregnated.
Edit to correct the meaning of bifurcated. They don't detach it. Bifurcated means split in two.
The mere sight of a cockroach can turn a grown adult into a squealing acrobat. These six-legged creatures can survive an entire week without their heads. Imagine you go to get water from the kitchen at 3 a.m. and you see a headless roach. It sounds pretty scary.
Cockroaches are not dependent on the mouth or head to breathe. Due to their open circulatory system, they breathe through little holes in each of their body segments. The reason they die without a mouth is because they can't drink water and die of thirst.
#10
The inside of a sea turtle's mouth/throat looks like something straight out of a horror movie monster. Absolutely covered in spines. (They swallow a lot of sea water when eating food, which they then vomit back out. The spines keep the food in but let the water out.).
#11
My father's school did a guided tour through the woods searching and learning about local herbs.
A few years later, my father was still a child, police showed up and asked him if he recognised the man in a picture that they showed him. My father explained that he was the herbalist tour guide.
Apparently, the guy had murdered several boys and had my father's name and address in his car.
The police had caught the guy by this point. I think he killed himself or died in suspicious circumstances...
Michelle C 4 months ago
I’m glad the kid’s father was honest about what he had experienced and I hope all of the tour guide’s victims saw justice!
#12
That you don't actually smell dead and rotting animals. You are tasting the proteins in the air. I could have gone my whole life, not knowing that little tidbit.
Just like we experience goosebumps, so do the bodies of deceased people. However, while a living person’s body hair might rise up because of cold, fear, or excitement, the biological process is different for someone who is not alive.
Heather Brown, a mortician-turned-death-investigator based in New Orleans, explained, “It’s one of the amazing displays our bodies exhibit when they begin to break down. So, immediately after the death occurs, the decomposition process begins. What you’re seeing with postmortem ‘goosebumps’ is rigor mortis.”
#13
Honestly what a newborn horse hooves look like. Traumatized for months after I had just given birth myself. Luckily I did not have a horse baby.
Bret Sander 4 months ago
That's cartilage and it protects the mother from sharp edges of the baby's hooves.
#14
Tarantulas walk on water.
#15
That spiders can actually hold grudges. I'm starting to suspect one is plotting webs against me.
THE COOL ZACH 4 months ago (edited)
Crows are the best example of holding grudges. Birds, not spiders that is.
A spider cannot chew or swallow food. This is why they need to digest their food outside their bodies. First, spiders immobilize their prey by injecting venom into their bodies. The poison turns the insides of its prey to liquid, and the spider sucks it up.
#16
I had to have a C-Section when our daughter was born and heard one doctor say to the other doctor: “Pass me the uterus, I’m gonna clean it.” Still don’t know whether my uterus was actually lifted out, still don’t want to know.
gogozrx:
My ex had our baby via c-section, and I watched. One of the more disturbing parts of it was her uterus laying on her chest, while two interns picked pieces of placenta off of it as they were discussing where they were going to go get lunch.
#17
The CPR dummy face is based on the face of a teenage girl found dead in the Seine River in Paris in the 19th century. Her cause of death and identity is still unknown.
#18
When in a jungle or forest, the noisy animals is safe. It's when they suddenly got quiet that it is creepy or scary.
Ali H M Salehuddin 4 months ago
Could be the other way too; depending on the type of forest and the noise. Some birds and monkeys make noises (alarm calls) when big predators such as a tiger or a bear is around.
In order to maintain our oral hygiene, many of us regularly brush our teeth and even floss. But did you know that our mouths can be home to more than 6 billion bacteria? Wait, before you run to the washroom to grab your toothbrush, not every bacteria causes tooth decay, gum inflammation, or tooth loss.
#19
Bears don't wait until you are dead to start eating you.
#20
It was believed, all the way up to 1980, that babies couldn't feel pain.
When "Another Brick in the Wall, part2" was on the billboard charts, some baby was having major surgery w/ no anesthesia...
THE COOL ZACH 4 months ago
Sure, obviously, when the babies are crying it means there excited, not shouting out in fear or shock. Wow, some people are so dumb.
#21
Giving brith to a child is often talked about. Giving birth to placenta is one thing nobody talks about. It felt like nurse pulled giant squid out of my vagina, super gross. After that she pushed my abdomen and blood squirted out of me and sprayed her whole. It was absolutely disgusting.
Butterflies aren't only cute and pretty, they also have some peculiar habits. For instance, few butterflies feed on the tears of reptiles. Dr Andrew Mitchell, Senior Research Scientist, Entomology at the Australian Museum Research Institute, says, “It’s been documented many times in Central and South America with butterflies feeding on turtle and alligator tears. People have hypothesized that they’re obtaining salts and/or proteins.”
#22
When you are in the process of dying, the last part of your brain function to go is related to your hearing. Essentially, you can hear everything around you, but you're locked in. Whether you can comprehend it is for a person much smarter than me to answer. But imagine understanding that the people around you are mourning and all you can do is listen. Or even worse, theres nobody.
Nancy Bourque 4 months ago
My soul dog lost her fight with life last week. Our vet told us to communicate and keep talking to her until her heart officially stopped because her hearing would be the last to go.
#23
Up until June 2024 there was no law against necrophilia in Michigan.... A month ago... Can't bang a face or a butt legally, but a dead person wasn't against the law.
Kangaroo 4 months ago
Hmm. I had to Google it, so just leaving this here for others “Is oral sex illegal in Michigan? Sodomy laws generally prohibit oral and a**l sex, even between consenting adults. While most of these laws apply to both straight and gay people, they are primarily used against lesbians and gay men.”
#24
A non zero number of farmers go missing yearly from pigs. They will eat just about anything.
Ray Ceeya (RayCeeYa) 4 months ago
Recently in Russia they've taken to digging up the freshly buried corpses of soldiers and eating them.
Commonly known as bot or warble flies, botflies are a type of species whose larvae burrow under your skin. Once they lay their eggs on a host, typically through an insect, the eggs hatch, and the larvae dig into the skin, creating a small, painful bump.
#25
That there is literally NOWHERE in your house that you can store your toothbrush without it getting fecal matter on it - thanks Mythbusters.
#26
You’ve probably heard a fact about how 70% of the human body is water. We basically know this because of a Japanese general who roasted people in an oven.
Russell Bowman 4 months ago
General Ishii, of Unit 731. He was granted immunity at the wars end if he "shared" his findings.
#27
Pugs and other brachycephalic dogs can have their eyeballs just...pop out of their skull.
#28
The average person consumes ~5g of microplastics each week. Approximately the same as eating a credit card every 7 days.
These facts might make you feel icky, but hey, it’s still interesting knowledge to have. Which of these creepy facts scares you the most? And don’t forget to upvote the most terrifying ones.
#29
Sometimes when you have a sharp pain in your chest like a lung area when breathing in it could be there’s not enough fluid around the lung and it got stuck to a rib or your diaphragm isn’t in the correct place.
#30
A lot of my fragrances used to come from a beavers butt. Castoreum is the base of many leather, animalic, and chypre perfumes. Its smell is similar to vanilla and comes from the a**l secretion of beavers. Since I doubt they are using catch & release. I try to avoid it now.
UncleJohn3000 4 months ago
"Today, most castoreum is harvested in a sterile environment by anesthetizing beavers and expressing the castor sacs near their tails. In the past, beavers were often killed for their castoreum and pelts." I don't remember that job coming up on career day.
#31
That one misfolded protein can wind up rendering a brain about as useful as rotting cheese.
#32
Just the fact that at any moment in any point in life we can just drop dead from a random brain aneurysm.
#33
There are over 200 dead bodies located on top of Mount Everest that serve as waypoints for climbers because it’s too risky to retrieve them.
#34
Cluster headaches exist. No known cause, no known cure. They are so inconceivably painful and they do not stop. They are so bad that people have taken a ride down the sewer slide just due to the pain.
Edit: Cure, not treatment.
JammaCoast2Coast 4 months ago
Say 'sewer slide' out loud. Does it sound like a commonly censored word?
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iseefractals 4 months ago
There's no cure, but the treatment is psilocybin, though any hallucinogenic substance will get the job done.
Jonathan Miller 4 months ago
Works for a buddy of mine. Periodic microdosing has evidently resolved the issue.
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JJ 4 months ago
They are also called "suicide headaches" and I swear you really think you're better off unalive than suffering through it. Though the worst part for me is that nobody believes you "headaches" can be this bad, not even doctors.
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smugdruggler 4 months ago
Same here. Sumatriptan has been a wonder -d**g for me.
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Geoffrey Scott 4 months ago
Not sure if there is a correlation, but I've had 2 serious concussions in my life. After each, at some point, I was afflicted with cluster headaches(only diagnosed after the second concussion). Haven't had one since then. They are truly intense. Mine lasted about an hour and would occur over the course of 6 months or so.
Nikki Gross 4 months ago
I wonder if that is something that occurs with or as a precursor for people suffering from CTE. It would be amazing if doctors could find a way to get ahead of it and have some type of preventive medication or altered lifestyle to slow down progression.
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Horosho Bodka 4 months ago
They do stop naturally for most people. It is unknown why they start, or stop. I suffered (badly) from them for 8 years and one day they just stopped.
Avoidance_Panda 4 months ago
I used to have them, or that's what the docs thought. They drained my sinuses and burned them closed...never got one again, so not sure if the treatment worked or just the fear looking at soldering irons.....
Nils Skirnir 4 months ago
I get them. And sometimes migraines - started after TBI in VN. In the old days of 1970 to 1980, the gave me fairly strong opiates and butalbitol. Now there are better ways to cut them short and even prevent a lot. Mine were not every day, but came in clusters of couple of weeks a few times a year.
Francesca Caldora 3 months ago
I get both cluster and migraines. The worst cluster headache I had lasted over 3 months. My brain felt like it was cracking down the left side and my eyeball felt like it would burst, eww. It was excruciating and made me cry often, out of pain and frustration. I now take Aimovig and both are substantially less. Thank goodness.
Danny Heath 3 months ago
Too true! Over 20 years, now! Every word is true! "Inconceivably painful"? You don't want to know!
Carman Davis 4 months ago
I can actually say yes to this. A cluster headache is a tension and migraine headache. They are no fun!!
Jenny Mason 4 months ago
I have cluster headaches, I once had an attack that lasted for 5 days. I wanted to die.
Beth Wheeler 4 months ago
My mother started having them when I was 15. She was a nurse on the neurosurgery floor at a VA hospital. She told one of the docs about a headache she had during the night. A few minutes later her head nurse told her to call come pick her up and go to the ER for a CT. It's rare for girls or women to have them especially starting at 42.
#35
Carl Tanzler fell in love with Maria Elena Milagro de Hoyos, a young tuberculosis patient at the Key West hospital where he was a radiology technician — but his fondness grew into an obsession after she died in 1931. Tanzler lived with the corpse of the woman he loved for seven years. When she started to decompose, he embalmed her body and stuffed her with cottonwool. When she was eventually discovered, he was asked at his trial if he ever "consummated" their relationship. He said no, but "stuff" was found in the cottonwool of her... ahem, bathing suit area.
#36
It's legal to marry a corpse in France.
Jing2203:
To complete this, I'd like to add that it's legal ONLY if the person gave consent to getting married with you before their death. You can't just get any random corpse and marry it, you have to be engaged AND have filled all the paperwork together before the death of the person. Also, it is a pretty rare situation, as the president themselves have to give their authorisation for the marriage to be considered legal.
#37
I found out they remove your nipples and put them back on during a breast reduction. My breast reduction, to be specific.
#38
Serial killer Joel Rifkin dismembered at least 2 of his victims with an exacto knife.
An exacto knife.
😱.
#39
There are as many as 2,000 active serial killers at large.
UncleJohn3000 4 months ago
If only we could get them all into a game of Murder Tag. There can be only one!
#40
Fatal familial insomnia. Creepy disease that just don't let you sleep. You start seeing hallucinations till you die. This disease is hereditary and you can't find symptoms. This disease destroying sleep sells, so you can't just take sleeping pills. There is a book about this disease: "family that couldn't sleep". This family was very big and they watched how their children dies. Very creepy.
#41
It is legal in more than half of the states in the U.S. for doctors to perform pelvic exams on unconscious people during surgery/procedures without consent.
#42
That even if we live a healthy life many cells in our body still have the potential to become cancerous.
Veronica Monell 4 months ago
Yep happened to me! Healthy young in my mid twenties then bam sick af with Hodgkin's Lymphoma cancer. So glad I beat it !
#43
Michael Jackson's hair lit on fire at the exact halfway point of his life. 25yrs, 4 mos and 29 days.
#44
Bed bugs mate through a process called Traumatic Insemination. The male bed bug stabs the female in her abdomen with his penis, which is very sharp then proceeds to f**k her open stomach wound.
#45
Some of the victims of Pompeii may of taken up to 15 minutes to suffocate to death by inhaling the scalding hot pyroclastic ash and gases. Other victims died by having their skulls explode from the searing temperatures of the flows. There was also one poor dude they found who'd been basically incinerated in an instant while taking cover in bed.
#46
Dying of dehydration is really painful. So think about that next time you give yourself an opportunity to get stranded.
Celtic Pirate Queen 3 months ago
My Doctor & I have not quite figured out which of my medications is giving me such extreme dry mouth. I wake up in the morning and my lips are stuck to my teeth - Fireman Bill style (Lemme show ya sumptin). As soon as I brush my teeth (and tongue) it gets a bit better. I then down a really cold bottle of water and keep drinking water all day. Frustrating as f*ck, (especially for my husband who enjoys certain "pleasures").
#47
The bacterial spores of Bacillus cereus are in all rice varieties and aren't destroyed when cooked as the spores and toxin (which make you sick) are heat resistant. But they aren't active until your rice stays around room temperature for them to germinate. So it's best to cool it down a bit then immediately put it in the fridge. Also don't reheat it more than once.
Ace 4 months ago
It's been repeated and grossly exaggerated in the internet in recent years after one high-profile case when someone died after eating pasta that they'd left out for a week, uncovered and at room temperature, after cooking. So yes, there are risks, but there's no more reason to be scared of eating rice after a couple of days in the fridge than any other food.
#48
The President of Argentina and his wife kept Eva Peron's dead body just chilling at the breakfast table.
#49
Loa loa, the African Eye Worm, can invade the human eye. Adults are between 1 and 2.5 inches long.
#50
There are more cells in your body that belong to other things like bacteria, fungi, viruses, and parasites than actual human cells.
Some are beneficial, some harmful, and most are just along for the ride. Also we’re riddled with microplastics so that’s fun too.
What do you think ?
David Paterson 4 months ago
I'm delighted that all (or almost all) of these are true. An enormous improvement on earlier columns like this on Bored Panda. Well done!
Binky Melnik 4 months ago
As these are pulled from Reddit, the quality depends on the contributors. BP doesn’t write ‘em. This is true for most everything on BP.
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EmJay 4 months ago
Same, i basically convince myself to because "its cool" it is it really is but i dispise the fact i read it all
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Elvira394 4 months ago
How about this one: Buck v Bell, the supreme court ruling which makes it constitutionally legal for the state to forcibly sterilize those living in any of it's institutions (prison, jail, not just psych wards), if the state alone deems them unfit to reproduce....STILL STANDS. Almost 100 years of now. And what "unfit" means...totally up to the state and how they feel that day. Could mean you. Or me. Yet no one protests or even talks about it. Frankly, Roe v Wade is irrelevant if the state has simply removed your ability to reproduce at all. Now THAT'S scary.
Jess Smith 4 months ago
mmm yeah how about the fact that American eugenics inspired Hitler?
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Greg Hedley 4 months ago
The tiny fish that can travel up a urine stream and has hooks on its head so you can't p**s it out
Auntriarch 4 months ago (edited)
Candiru. And it's only tiny at the beginning...
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David Paterson 4 months ago
I'm delighted that all (or almost all) of these are true. An enormous improvement on earlier columns like this on Bored Panda. Well done!
Binky Melnik 4 months ago
As these are pulled from Reddit, the quality depends on the contributors. BP doesn’t write ‘em. This is true for most everything on BP.
Load More Replies... EmJay 4 months ago
Same, i basically convince myself to because "its cool" it is it really is but i dispise the fact i read it all
Load More Replies... Elvira394 4 months ago
How about this one: Buck v Bell, the supreme court ruling which makes it constitutionally legal for the state to forcibly sterilize those living in any of it's institutions (prison, jail, not just psych wards), if the state alone deems them unfit to reproduce....STILL STANDS. Almost 100 years of now. And what "unfit" means...totally up to the state and how they feel that day. Could mean you. Or me. Yet no one protests or even talks about it. Frankly, Roe v Wade is irrelevant if the state has simply removed your ability to reproduce at all. Now THAT'S scary.
Jess Smith 4 months ago
mmm yeah how about the fact that American eugenics inspired Hitler?
Load More Replies... Greg Hedley 4 months ago
The tiny fish that can travel up a urine stream and has hooks on its head so you can't p**s it out
Auntriarch 4 months ago (edited)
Candiru. And it's only tiny at the beginning...
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