37 Horrifying Facts That You Will Wish Were Fake, But Are Unfortunately 100% True
A while back, Reddit user No_Camera29 asked, "What's a creepy fact you wish you never learned?" and people had some super disturbing responses that we wrote about here. Now we're back for more creepy facts — here's what they had to say.
1."The youngest mother ever was five years old."
MORE INFORMATION: Lina Medina was five when doctors discovered she was seven months pregnant. She had gone through precocious puberty, meaning she had already had her first period, and her body had begun to go through puberty-related changes. She went on to give birth via C-section to a healthy baby boy who was raised as her sibling. The identity of the father has never been released.
2."One creepy fact I wish I never learned is that there's a rare disorder called Cotard's Syndrome, aka Walking Corpse Syndrome. People with this condition believe they are dead, do not exist, or have lost their internal organs. It's incredibly disturbing to think about the profound psychological and emotional impact this disorder must have on those who suffer from it."
3."Chlorine in a pool doesn't have much smell. However, when chlorine binds with nitrogen-containing contaminants, chloramine is created. Chloramine doesn't have much disinfecting power but has a MUCH stronger 'chlorine-y' odor. When chlorine reacts with urea (from urine), it creates ammonia, and ammonia reacts VERY well with chlorine to create chloramines. Thus, the 'chlorine smell' you notice at a public pool doesn't mean there's chlorine; it means the pool is dirty. A correctly maintained pool should not smell much."
4."You can vomit shit if you have an intestinal blockage."
5."That you don't actually smell dead and rotting animals. You are tasting the particles in the air. I could have gone my whole life not knowing that little tidbit."
6."Mountain lions are very secretive and sneaky. They are quiet hunters and usually don't let you see them unless they want you to see them. Most times, you may walk right by one without ever knowing they are 10 feet away and can kill you on a whim. They also sound like a woman screaming in the forest. Do not attempt to find the screaming woman in the forest."
MORE INFORMATION: Here's what a mountain lion sounds like.
7."There is a disease called Kuru that causes uncontrollable laughing and is transmitted through cannibalism."
"Prion disease! It's really rare, you can only get it by eating infected brain tissue."
MORE INFORMATION: This disease was prevalent in Papua, New Guinea, in the '50s and '60s due to their ritualized practice of eating parts of dead family members. Kuru can spread by eating the brain of one infected or by coming into contact with open sores someone with the disease has. It could take years or decades for symptoms to develop. Symptoms included tremors and changes in walking, speech, and mood, as well as uncontrollable laughter. There is no cure, and victims would die after becoming unable to eat.
8."There's a condition that causes hair follicles to turn into nail follicles, and no one knows anything about it."
9."Cockroaches can live weeks without their head."
10."How much child sexual abuse is actually going on. I worked in a criminal defense capacity, and if you knew how many people were raping kids and downloading child sex abuse images and videos, you'd never let yours out of your sight. I don't work there anymore, but I can't look at anyone the same. Zero trust."
11.And..."Several states have fought to allow child marriage to remain legal."
12.Also..."[A poll found that] one in ten people in France is a childhood incest victim."
13."After a horse dies, their hooves can fall off, and what's left behind is…a trypophobia nightmare. Like, it's fascinating how disturbing it is to look at. It was a good reminder that while I've seen some fucked-up shit, there's always the possibility of one more thing out there that will haunt my thoughts for eternity."
14."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."
15."Your brain chooses to ignore your nose. If it didn't, you would notice it in your point of view constantly. You only see it in your point of view when you want to see it."
16."Dead people fart hours after passing. My dad died at home, and the paramedics just left him there until morning. Always thought that was weird because when my grandpa died at 1 a.m., a mortician came within 30 minutes to pick him up, but my dad was left in my house with me and my brother staring at him for about 12 hours."
17."Pugs and other brachycephalic dogs can have their eyeballs just...pop out of their skull."
"I have a story! My former roommate had a senior pug; one day, the pug sneezed, and his eye just kind of popped out, then completely nonchalantly, he was just like, 'Oh yeah, that happens sometimes,' and just took his knuckle & popped it right back in. My partner at the time and I were like, 'NO, WHAT THE FUCK WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT WHAT JUST HAPPENED!?' and he explained something about how because their faces are smashed, their eye sockets aren't quite right."
18."Sometimes, during normal delivery, the placenta gets stuck inside the uterus. We then have to manually extract it by putting our hand and arm inside, feel for the placenta, and scoop it out bit by bit."
19."Dead bodies can move on their own. ... Limbs or other body parts can sometimes twitch or jerk, giving the appearance of movement even though the person is deceased."
20.Relatedly..."When being cremated, a human body will begin to curl up on itself. ... Basically, it looks like the body is sitting up with its head bowed. I heard that on a podcast, and it haunts my dreams."
MORE INFORMATION: It won't quite "sit up," but it may appear to do something similar if the temperature is right and the body is cremated quickly after death, before rigor mortis sets in. This is called the "pugilistic pose." It's more common with funeral pyres.
21."When a neurosurgeon cuts off a piece of your skull due to swelling, they [sometimes] store it in your abdomen to be used later when the swelling has completed."
22."Tumors can grow teeth."
"They can also grow hair, bone, and muscle. "Enjoy that thought!"
MORE INFORMATION: These are called teratomas, and here's what they look like.
These can be malignant or benign. These tumors are thought to have the ability to grow things such as teeth because they are made up of germ cells that can form different types of tissue. Due to an issue with cell differentiation, they are still able to turn into different cell types years or even decades after fetal development.
23."Statistically, you're [300 times] more likely to get struck by lightning than win the lottery. Guess I'll stick to my day job as a professional lottery player."
24."CPR only works 2-10% of the time."
MORE INFORMATION: The overall survival rate for CPR for cardiac arrest outside of a hospital setting is 7.6%, but it can be as low as around 2% or even less for those over 90 or with conditions like cancer, heart, lung, or liver disease. Even in a hospital, the survival rate is around 17%. Oh, and almost half of people who survived because of CPR wish they hadn't received it.
25."Wounds left untreated for too long can result in maggots literally crawling underneath ... your skin. Unfortunately, something not entirely surprising to my older partners familiar with nursing homes."
"As an EMT, there are quite a few fucked-up things about the human body I could comprehend logically...but when seeing them in person, the visceral reaction is just 'Awwww FUCK NO."
"The weirdest thing about that is, it's actually good for you. Maggots will only eat dead flesh; they leave your healthy tissue alone, and you don't WANT that dead flesh hanging around because it will cause infection.
The deliberate use of maggots in medicine has been around for centuries and still happens today."
26."My sister got an organ transplant. They don't remove the original one. They literally stack the donated one on top of the original one. They do this so that in case of rejection, they can still rely on the original organ until another donor becomes available. I believe there's a case where someone was walking around with seven kidneys. Gotta collect 'em all!"
27."[A 1983 study found that] 40% of police officers abuse their spouses. When you give a profession the ability to harm people with impunity, it attracts the worst kinds of human beings like moths to a flame."
28."Fir trees are able to grow in lungs. A 28-year-old man went to the doctor. ... He had inhaled a fir tree seed. That seed then sprouted and started to grow in his lungs. The doctors thought it was a tumor when looking at the scans."
29."Any person born in the US or Canada after 1951 has a higher percentage of nuclear material in their bones due to the extensive nuclear tests carried out during the Cold War."
MORE INFORMATION: Numerous nuclear tests and atomic blasts in the '50s literally changed our atmosphere, creating new isotopes that permeated all living things, including us. Not just our bones, either — our brains and our eyes, too. Contrary to the poster, this isn't just true in the US and Canada, and it would have affected anyone alive in the '50s, not just those born then...and still affects us today, though to a lesser degree.
30."The amount of people who go missing every year is staggering, like over 600,000 in the US alone. And while a lot do get found shortly, there are still a ton that don't."
31.In fact..."In the USA, a child goes missing roughly every 40 seconds."
MORE INFORMATION: Since many missing persons are cases of people intentionally disappearing, misunderstandings, or cases where their body is found fairly quickly, only about 1% of these remain missing. Still, with such high numbers of missing people, this is still thousands. And as for children, the percentage of children who are not found appears to be a little higher, at 2.2%.
32."There are creatures living on your eyelashes that eat the dead parts of them so those dead parts don't break off and fall into your eyes. It's a symbiotic relationship. They get a nice safe home and a food source, and you don't get eyelash debris in your eyes."
MORE INFORMATION: These eight-legged parasites are called demodex mites. They eat dead skin and oil and actually end up cleaning your eyelashes for you. They also live on our eyebrows, and at night they come out from this hair to eat, lay eggs, and...well, essentially poop. This is all harmless unless there are too many of them, which can happen if they reproduce rapidly due to a large food source like a blocked oil gland.
33.Unrelatedly..."There's a thing called 'eyelash lice.'" It's usually caused by having pubic lice, touching your genitals, then touching your eyes.
34."There will soon be more dead people on Facebook than living ones. Given the current growth trends, it’s predicted that within a few decades, the number of deceased user profiles will outnumber those of living users, turning it into a digital graveyard."
35."How much of the ocean remains unexplored (80%). I just wonder what is down there."
36."Hamsters hibernate. ... I wonder how many hibernating hamsters were buried thinking they were dead."
MORE INFORMATION: A hamster will only hibernate if it's cold — below 68 degrees Fahrenheit. Its body temperature will then drop, and its breathing will slow — sometimes to the level of only one breath every two minutes. If you aren't sure if your hamster is dead or hibernating, check for their heartbeat — and heat the area up to above 68 degrees. It might take them a few days to wake up.
37.And finally..."When two people kiss, they make one long tube, butthole to butthole."
What disturbing fact do you wish you never learned? Let us know in the comments!
Submissions have been edited for length/clarity/accuracy.
