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Someone Asked People “What Is A True Fact That Sounds Fake?” And 40 Delivered Illuminating Responses
In this modern world, where the amount of fake news, alternative facts, scams, and quasi-claims seem to be off the charts, it’s easy to doubt things. But despite our suspicions, many of us still enjoy and seek out good "truth is stranger than fiction" stories. Because life is weird. Science is crazy. Evolution is wild. And there are so many staggering or downright surreal things happening right under our noses we don't even notice.
Chances are, you've stumbled upon at least one piece of trivia that is so weird, it sounds totally made up. And you’re definitely not the only one. There’s an entire thread on 'Ask Reddit' where this subject matter takes center stage. "What is a true fact that sounds fake?" asked user TheMemeing and inspired hundreds of members to share their intriguing tidbits of knowledge immediately.
From snails having 14,000 teeth to Mantis shrimp generating light, just because something sounds a little bogus, it doesn’t mean it’s not real. We've gathered some of the most illuminating responses from the thread, so continue scrolling! Although remember that a little healthy skepticism goes a long way, so put your thinking caps on and take everything you read online with a pinch of salt. Then upvote the facts that surprised you most, and be sure to share your own nuggets of information with us in the comments.
Psst! When you've finished this list, take a look at our previous post filled with fake-sounding facts here.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
The oldest hotel in the world is The Nishiyama Onsen Keiunkan in Japan and has been in business since 705AD. The crazy thing is that it’s still a family business. For 52 generations
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#2
Female dragonflies drop out the sky and pretend to be dead to avoid unwanted male advances.
#3
Donald Trump was actually the US President at one time.
#4
In 1895 there were 2 cars out of the entire state of Ohio and they still managed to crash into each other
#5
There’s a penguin named Brigadier Sir Nils Olav III who is the ceremonial head of the Norwegian Royal Guard
#6
Nestle intentionally created a famine by giving put free formula in African countries and pushed a campaign that said it was healthier than breast milk. Then when most of the population had converted and dwindled the number of mothers capable of nursing, they began charging exorbitant prices for formula. this caused thousands of children to starve to death and they got away with it.
#7
There are more slaves today than in any point in history
Waite Forit 2 years ago
And there are still slaves in the United States. The 13th Amendment to the US Constitution allows "slavery or forced labor" as punishment for a crime. At this time, there are approximately 800,000 prisoners who are forced to work - including many who do manufacturing work for the 4,200 corporations that utilize prison labor. Source: American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Captive Labor: Exploitation of Incarcerated Workers, June, 2022
Sergio Bicerra 2 years ago
Do they reduce sentence if they do this kind of work, or is to fund the prisions and don't touch contributors money, or just to profit from the inmates?
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Loki’s Lil Butter Knife 2 years ago (edited)
This is both heartbreaking and deeply disturbing. I saw a documentary on mica mining, where children as young as 6 are forced into a life of manual labour to help feed their families. I told myself that I was going to swear off mica and the realized that it is in SOOOO many products from makeup to your car parts. Here's a link to the documentary on Youtube if anybody is interested (trigger warning: child slavery; mentions of grave bodily injury/death; child exploitation; and mentions of extreme poverty): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeR-h9C2fgc
Phil Green 2 years ago
I'm so pleased this made the list. I have been highlighting this on here and elsewhere whenever the case for slavery being a "white man thing". It is everyone's concern and is more prevalent today than at any other time in history. Rather than talk about the past, we should be addressing the slavery of today and bringing it to an end.
onivdsrapowijap 2 years ago
This is why so many companies have their stuff made in southeast Asia: slavery is extremely easy to get away with there. Many major cell phone producers, including Apple and Samsung, have their phones made by slaves.
iseefractals 2 years ago
12.5 million were taken during the african slave trade, only 10.7 million actually survived the middle passage. Today, 167 countries have some form of slavery, effecting 1 out of every 150 people on the planet. While Nestle may be the go to for highlighting this ongoing issue, the ramifications reach far beyond a single company. Bricks, ceramics, electronics, mining which includes minerals used in fertilizer and electronics, "exotic" fruits, and clothing to name a few of the obvious. Slavery plays a large role in producing Chinese garlic, those pre-peeled cloves are peeled by hand, often by prisoners, in such large quantities that it's common for fingernails to fall off. Chattel slavery also continues, as extreme poverty forces some to sell themselves, or their children in order to survive, the same applies to sex slaves. It's all but impossible for anyone to exist in the western world today without having supported slave labor in myriad of ways, which have been publicized for decades
girlsrock4ever 2 years ago
That is so wrong! That is a violation of human rights. And about the the US Supreme court ruling that Nestle using child slaves to create chocolate is legal, I wonder how many people Nestle had to bribe, because that's the only reason I can think of as to why the Supreme Court ruled it as legal.
DetongLhamo 2 years ago
And most are women and children, but please, LBGTQA etc people living in the first world, tell us about the suffering caused by not being able to use the women’s change room.
tHeBoRdEsTpAnDa 2 years ago
I wish people would stop saying it like this! Yes, technically that's true, but there are also more people today than any point in history. You need the ratio of free people:slaves for it to mean anything
memyselfandI 2 years ago
I wonder if the ratio of slave to free is also greater now than before, or if the ratio stayed the same and the numbers went up partially just because of population increase? I mean, obviously the latter is still terrible, but it’s interesting to consider.
Fluffy Griffin 2 years ago
But it's estimated there were millions of native Americans prior to the 1400s, but diseases brought from the Spanish (accidental and deliberate) wiped most of them out before the Mayflower even landed. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Native-American/Native-American-history (
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Injun Joe 2 years ago
Not to take away from this sad fact, but we all are at some degree. Slaves to the grind and corporate. Where we spend many hours away from home making our bosses rich while we achieve trickle down wages.
Denise Cwiek 2 years ago
Even 'trickle down' wages have afforded the majority of Americans a better standard of living than 98% of the rest of the world's population. We can't all be rich but at least we are not third world poor!
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#8
The national animal of Scotland is the unicorn.
#9
Oxford University predates the Aztec Empire by 3.5 centuries.
#10
Humans can smell geosmin (the chemical released when it rains or snows) at 5 parts per trillion. Which means that humans are 200,000 times more sensitive to smelling geosmin than sharks are at smelling blood.
#11
Dinosaurs were around for so long that there were already dinosaur fossils while they were still alive.
Basically, as T-Rex was munching away on Triceratop steaks, Stegosaurus had already been dead and underground for millions of years by that point.
#13
In the Pompeii eruption, the extreme heat caused some victims' brain tissue to turn to glass.
blobby_grrl 2 years ago
Well then. That's a dark fact I'll be thinking about for a while now...
#14
The Mantis shrimp punches so hard it generates light.
#15
Johnny Cash was the first westerner to learn of Joseph Stalin’s death in 1953. He was a morse code operator at the time
#16
From 1912 to 1948, the Olympics awarded official medals for painting, sculpture, architecture, literature and music, alongside those for the athletic competitions.
#17
The greenland shark, has a life expectancy of between 250-500 years. That means there could be a greenland shark swimming around, that swam the oceans when the Spanish conquistadors went to search Mexico for gold, which at that time, were inhabited by the Aztecs.
#18
Bananas are berries and strawberries aren't.
blobby_grrl 2 years ago
TF... I think I've been lied to my whole life.... I think I need some time to think about this....
#19
Koalas are so dumb that they can't recognise a eucalyptus leaf if it isn't attached to a tree.
#21
Alligators will give manatees the right of way if they are swimming near each other
#24
The ancient Egyptian empire lasted more than 3000 years. It has been less time since the empire fell.
#25
Snails have 14,000 teeth and eat bones and meat not just vegetables.
#26
A fully loaded Amazon Kindle is a billionth of a billionth of a gram heavier than an empty one.
sofacushionfort 2 years ago
Here’s an 8-minute video on the mass of very small and very large things: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VYvM70MLiZY
#28
Butterflies are fond of cow s**t, fresh blood, and corpses.
Karen Grant 2 years ago
I have no right to judge the butterflies, but this is overwhelming. I thought they would love flowers and cotton candy.
#29
There’s a type of mold that, as a single celled organism, can move around by itself, learn, recognise colours and solve mazes. there are many species of slime mold that can come in all colours such as banana yellow, hazard-jacket orange and, fittingly, slime green.
#30
Australia has the largest amount of wild camels in the world.
There are more pet tigers in Texas than there are in the wild of the entire planet.
blobby_grrl 2 years ago (edited)
The one about Oz is understandable: we also have more sheep than people over here (3.3 sheep to every person- weird fact, right?), but the Texas one is slightly concerning...
#31
Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia is the fear of big words.
#32
Hot water freezes faster than cold water. Mpemba effect. The guy who discovered it (in modern times, since Aristotle wrote about it) was ridiculed by everybody including his own teacher, but 6 years later the results were published and is considered fact.
#33
The creation of sticky notes was a result of glue that wasn’t sticky and deemed a failure( 3M)
The formula was put in the records as a failure and later a scientist found it to be useful to stick notes to his workbench.
Then we got sticky notes
#34
King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia of Sweden were turned away from a German restaurant in 2011 since there were no free tables and they didn't have a reservation.
#35
Cheetahs don't roar, they meow.
#36
The chainsaw was invented to aid in childbirth. It was used and invented in the 1700s to cut through the woman's pelvic bone before C-sections became the commonplace way to deliver babies.
Bernd Herbert 2 years ago
Modern medicine is one of the most important advances in human history. (which makes it even dumber to act against it)
#37
When Joe Biden was born, he was closer to Abraham Lincoln's presidency than his own.
#39
The day Michael Jackson's hair caught fire while filming a Pepsi commercial was the exact middle of his life.
Born: August 29, 1958
(9,281 days)
Pepsi incident: January 27, 1984
(9,281 days)
Died: June 25, 2009
Sheila Stamey 2 years ago
I can hear some kid going, " he caught on fire doing a Pepsi commercial?" Yep. Thanks to fireworks plus hair products.
#40
The Michelin Star system was developed by Michelin tires.
What do you think ?
WonderWoman 2 years ago
Dear BP, we all know this list is going to get shortened to ~50. Why don't you just do that from the onset, and have TWO shorter lists?
Waite Forit 2 years ago
Color photography was invented in the 1840s. But it didn’t become popular until the 1970s.
Waite Forit 2 years ago
The camera was invented about 2,500 years ago. It required about 2,300 years of experimentation before cameras were able to record images.
Sean Sean 2 years ago
In the USA, only about half of all homeless people have an addiction or mental health issue, and the ones that do developed them as a result of being homeless. Also, about 40% of homeless people nationwide have jobs, and this number is increasing in the last few years.
Redemption Happens 2 years ago
I work with the homeless and have for many years and that’s simply not true. To get a deeper understanding instead of posting inaccurate info you need to start volunteering. No disrespect but start doing the work. Most of what’s posted on BP regarding social justice is inaccurate. This is a Lithuanian listacle site that censors everything for a reason. It’s important to remember that. Down vote away!
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Jhm Mke 2 years ago
There was a US President who was elevated to President from Vice President and he was US President 20 years before Abraham Lincoln. John Tyler and he has 1 Grandson that is still alive :-o https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2020/11/29/president-john-tyler-grandson-harrison/
RafCo (he/him) 2 years ago
Fun fact: Brian, there's somebody watching you right now. No, not over there, don't look! It will only make him react. Just walk slowly out of your kitchen, and call the police.
WonderWoman 2 years ago
Dear BP, we all know this list is going to get shortened to ~50. Why don't you just do that from the onset, and have TWO shorter lists?
Waite Forit 2 years ago
Color photography was invented in the 1840s. But it didn’t become popular until the 1970s.
Waite Forit 2 years ago
The camera was invented about 2,500 years ago. It required about 2,300 years of experimentation before cameras were able to record images.
Sean Sean 2 years ago
In the USA, only about half of all homeless people have an addiction or mental health issue, and the ones that do developed them as a result of being homeless. Also, about 40% of homeless people nationwide have jobs, and this number is increasing in the last few years.
Redemption Happens 2 years ago
I work with the homeless and have for many years and that’s simply not true. To get a deeper understanding instead of posting inaccurate info you need to start volunteering. No disrespect but start doing the work. Most of what’s posted on BP regarding social justice is inaccurate. This is a Lithuanian listacle site that censors everything for a reason. It’s important to remember that. Down vote away!
Load More Replies... Jhm Mke 2 years ago
There was a US President who was elevated to President from Vice President and he was US President 20 years before Abraham Lincoln. John Tyler and he has 1 Grandson that is still alive :-o https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2020/11/29/president-john-tyler-grandson-harrison/
RafCo (he/him) 2 years ago
Fun fact: Brian, there's somebody watching you right now. No, not over there, don't look! It will only make him react. Just walk slowly out of your kitchen, and call the police.
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