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People Share The Most Disturbing Facts They Know

People Share The Most Disturbing Facts They Know
Photo by Richard Bell on Unsplash

Ever take a look online?

It certainly feels like everything about the world, as of writing, is awful, terrible, and just downright no good. While there's positives out there to be found, don't purposefully overlook the subjectively bad stuff.

There's knowledge to be gained from this practice, so be sure to look at the dark and bleak facts of the world.

Reddit user, RefrigeratorDry495, wanted to hear some truly awful things when they asked:

"What are some simple yet incredibly disturbing/scary facts?"



The Stats Change On How Many Years It Takes To Solve

"1/3 of US murders go unsolved."

– jdward01

"That’s a relief."

– Lazerith22

"On average since 1965, sure, but in 2019 the solve rate was 58%. In 2020 it was 50%."

– ak_doug

*peaks out the window

"If you live in a major city there is a nuke aimed at you"

– Copious-GTea

"I live on the outskirts of a city in the top 100 American targets. Out of morbid curiosity I looked some blast radius maps when Putin said to get them ready. Anything smaller than the largest theoretical nuke ever designed (never built) puts me squarely in the "everything will be on fire but you'll probably survive the initial blast with severe burns if you're inside when it happens" so that was a fun night"

– DontBotherNoResponse

On Your Feet, Soldiers

"Despite literally all war propaganda from every country saying otherwise, you are not going to make an individual impact in glorious battle and die valiantly in a hail of bullets. Statistically, you are overwhelmingly more likely to be killed by an explosive device launched miles away by a vehicle you will never see, long before you ever get a chance to pull the trigger."

– grumpy_hedgehog

"Which, relatively, is such a new human experience. To quote Dan Carlin (Hardcore History) "I am fascinated by the extremes of the human experience."

"It used to be that a single, well trained, well armed soldier on a battlefield, who is physically imposing could single handedly turn the tide of a battle. The Romans used to fear the Gallic tribes to the north, because while the average Roman soldier was around 5'3-5'5, the average Gallic warrior was more like 5'10 to 6'. That used to mean something, EVERYTHING. I mean, I myself am 5'8, and I sure as hell wouldn't want to fight hand-to-hand combat with someone 6 inches taller and at least 30 pounds heavier than me if I was given the choice."

"In the modern era, it means jack sh-t. A 6 foot 200 pound soldier goes down to bullets and artillery all the same as his 5'6 comrades. Infantry combat from the American Civil War onward is just a glorified meat grinder. The winning side is the one with the most expendable soldiers, and no individual can change that anymore, at least not on a battlefield. Today, it's more about the technology than ever before, since the most technologically advanced countries are nearing being able to fight, and win, a war without ever having any actual boots on the ground. It's fascinating how far we've come in just a couple thousand years"

– ItsDrap

In Short Supply Of Iron

"If given access to it, butterflies will happily drink blood."

– Didsterchap11

Meat Is Good. Hard To Argue With That.

"Bored ducklings can become cannibals!"

– nova777666

"The amount of animals that are opportunistic cannibals or even carnivores would shock some people."

– Beezo514

"Yeah, there aren't a whole lot of actual herbivores in nature. Deer, horses, cows, and most other 'herbivores' love eating insects and other small animals when the opportunity presents itself."

– Traditional-Ad3161

Just When You Thought It Was Safe To Back In The Water

"sharks have been around for at least 420 million years, meaning they have survived four of the “big five” mass extinctions. That makes them older than humanity, older than Mount Everest, older than dinosaurs, older even than trees. Yet we could potentially see them extinct in our lifetime"

– LfcOsh

Reading This Late At Night? Go To Sleep.

"Moving back the start time for school in an area resulted in 70% less car accidents."

"Similarly at each daylight saving, heart attacks and accidents decrease with an hour of extra sleep and increase with an hour less of sleep."

"Sleep is crazy important."

– JamieBensteedo

Cotard's syndrome, also called "walking corpse syndrome," is a condition wherein the patient believes they are dead, dying, missing parts of their bodies, or don't exist.

Some people with Cotard's syndrome may stop speaking or eating since they believe they're dead.

– Back2Bach

I would like to add its extremely rare and that most medical professionals will never encounter it.

– SoulParamedic

When You Can't Trust The People In Front Of You

"Capgras Syndrome is a mental delusion where you believe that the people closest to you have been replaced by impostors"

– KikiKiwii

"This will probably get buried in the amogus spam but the theory behind how it works is actually super fascinating, basically it turns out that there are two independent facial recognition processes instead of one, where one is subconscious and emotional and the other is conscious and objective; This is evidenced by research showing that people who developed facial blindness (a really interesting subject in its own right) due to brain damage would still subconsciously react to faces of people they had been familiar with before their condition, so essentially in FB the conscious level of facial recognition breaks down even if the subconscious level doesn't, but Capgras is the inverse of that where the conscious level remains intact but the subconscious level breaks down so you recognize that they're physically indistinguishable from the person you know but that emotional and familial connection with them that tells you that they are who they are just stops firing."

– N0thingtosee

Maybe Humanity Was A Mistake

"Egyptian mummies wouldn’t be so rare today if the Victorian British hadn’t eaten most of them."

– Heikold

"Wow, that was something I never knew or imagined. Thank you. History of Eating Corpses as Medicine"

– NiccoMachi

Mmwah! Good Night, Everybody.

"You have no way of really knowing if everyone experiences reality and consciousness the same way you do."

– catomi01

"You really have no way of knowing if you are experiencing "reality" at all. You could be a brain in a box, a delusional god, an alien's computer science experiment for their 4th grade science fair..."

– Spong_Durnflungle

I Didn't Need To Know That

"There is a chance that you will walk past at least 3 murderers in your life."

– _cloudy_demon_

How Do We Taste?

"Butterflies taste through their feet so if they land on you they're just getting a quick taste test Yaaayyyy.......... "

– SavageKitsune762

I Can't See!

"Your immune system does not know your eyes exist if it ever find out it will just basically attack it as a bacteria or some sort of virus in short you will basically blind yourself"

– kidsforsaleoff

I Dream Of You

"Everyone in your dreams are based of a real person as you are unable to make up a face"

– username087544

This Is Why I Hate Coconuts

"Coconuts kill more people then sharks kill people."

– SelfApprehensive853

Glad The Crabs Are Okay With It

"Crabs are aware that we eat them and even eat each other to prevent over population."

– StableMable8008135

I Will Never Forget This One

"Most laugh tracks were recorded in the 1950s, you’re hearing dead people laugh"

– Greatest-Memelord

Won't We All?

"Rabbits can scream, but will only do so if they think they're about to die."

– guywithnolife69420

Eight Extra Minutes Of Life

"if the sun exploded, you would be unaware of it for 8 minutes"

– Gold_Army_2889

Don't let facts like this get you down. There is, you just have to go find it.

People Who Actually Died And Were Revived Share Their Experiences

"Reddit user AlaskaStiletto asked: 'Redditors who have 'died' and come back to life, what did you see?'"

Close up face of a woman in bed, staring into the camera
Photo by Jen Theodore

Experiencing death is a fascinating and frightening idea.

Who doesn't want to know what is waiting for us on the other side?

But so many of us want to know and then come back and live a little longer.

It would be so great to be sure there is something else.

But the whole dying part is not that great, so we'll have to rely on other people's accounts.

Redditor AlaskaStiletto wanted to hear from everyone who has returned to life, so they asked:

"Redditors who have 'died' and come back to life, what did you see?"

Sensations

Happy Good Vibes GIF by Major League SoccerGiphy

"My dad's heart stopped when he had a heart attack and he had to be brought back to life. He kept the paper copy of the heart monitor which shows he flatlined. He said he felt an overwhelming sensation of peace, like nothing he had felt before."

PeachesnPain

Recovery

"I had surgical complications in 2010 that caused a great deal of blood loss. As a result, I had extremely low blood pressure and could barely stay awake. I remember feeling like I was surrounded by loved ones who had passed. They were in a circle around me and I knew they were there to guide me onwards. I told them I was not ready to go because my kids needed me and I came back."

"My nurse later said she was afraid she’d find me dead every time she came into the room."

"It took months, and blood transfusions, but I recovered."

good_golly99

Take Me Back

"Overwhelming peace and happiness. A bright airy and floating feeling. I live a very stressful life. Imagine finding out the person you have had a crush on reveals they have the same feelings for you and then you win the lotto later that day - that was the feeling I had."

"I never feared death afterward and am relieved when I hear of people dying after suffering from an illness."

rayrayrayray

Free

The Light Minnie GIF by (G)I-DLEGiphy

"I had a heart surgery with near-death experience, for me at least (well the possibility that those effects are caused by morphine is also there) I just saw black and nothing else but it was warm and I had such inner peace, its weird as I sometimes still think about it and wish this feeling of being so light and free again."

TooReDTooHigh

This is why I hate surgery.

You just never know.

Shocked

Giphy

"More of a near-death experience. I was electrocuted. I felt like I was in a deep hole looking straight up in the sky. My life flashed before me. Felt sad for my family, but I had a deep sense of peace."

Admirable_Buyer6528

The SOB

"Nursing in the ICU, we’ve had people try to die on us many times during the years, some successfully. One guy stood out to me. His heart stopped. We called a code, are working on him, and suddenly he comes to. We hadn’t vented him yet, so he was able to talk, and he started screaming, 'Don’t let them take me, don’t let them take me, they are coming,' he was scared and yelling."

"Then he yelled a little more, as we tried to calm him down, he screamed, 'No, No,' and gestured towards the end of the bed, and died again. We didn’t get him back. It was seriously creepy. We called his son to tell him the news, and the son said basically, 'Good, he was an SOB.'”

1-cupcake-at-a-time

Colors

"My sister died and said it was extremely peaceful. She said it was very loud like a train station and lots of talking and she was stuck in this area that was like a curtain with lots of beautiful colors (colors that you don’t see in real life according to her) a man told her 'He was sorry, but she had to go back as it wasn’t her time.'"

Hannah_LL7

"I had a really similar experience except I was in an endless garden with flowers that were colors I had never seen before. It was quiet and peaceful and a woman in a dress looked at me, shook her head, and just said 'Not yet.' As I was coming back, it was extremely loud, like everyone in the world was trying to talk all at once. It was all very disorienting but it changed my perspective on life!"

huntokarrr

The Fog

"I was in a gray fog with a girl who looked a lot like a young version of my grandmother (who was still alive) but dressed like a pioneer in the 1800s she didn't say anything but kept pulling me towards an opening in the wall. I kept refusing to go because I was so tired."

"I finally got tired of her nagging and went and that's when I came to. I had bled out during a c-section and my heart could not beat without blood. They had to deliver the baby and sew up the bleeders. refill me with blood before they could restart my heart so, like, at least 12 minutes gone."

Fluffy-Hotel-5184

Through the Walls

"My spouse was dead for a couple of minutes one miserable night. She maintains that she saw nothing, but only heard people talking about her like through a wall. The only thing she remembers for absolute certain was begging an ER nurse that she didn't want to die."

"She's quite alive and well today."

Hot-Refrigerator6583

Well let's all be happy to be alive.

It seems to be all we have.

Man's waist line
Santhosh Vaithiyanathan/Unsplash

Trying to lose weight is a struggle understood by many people regardless of size.

The goal of reaching a healthy weight may seem unattainable, but with diet and exercise, it can pay off through persistence and discipline.

Seeing the pounds gradually drop off can also be a great motivator and incentivize people to stay the course.

Those who've achieved their respective weight goals shared their experiences when Redditor apprenti8455 asked:

"People who lost a lot of weight, what surprises you the most now?"

Redditors didn't see these coming.

Shiver Me Timbers

"I’m always cold now!"

– Telrom_1

"I had a coworker lose over 130 pounds five or six years ago. I’ve never seen him without a jacket on since."

– r7ndom

"140 lbs lost here starting just before COVID, I feel like that little old lady that's always cold, damn this top comment was on point lmao."

– mr_remy

Drawing Concern

"I lost 100 pounds over a year and a half but since I’m old(70’s) it seems few people comment on it because (I think) they think I’m wasting away from some terminal illness."

– dee-fondy

"Congrats on the weight loss! It’s honestly a real accomplishment 🙂"

"Working in oncology, I can never comment on someone’s weight loss unless I specifically know it was on purpose, regardless of their age. I think it kind of ruffles feathers at times, but like I don’t want to congratulate someone for having cancer or something. It’s a weird place to be in."

– LizardofDeath

Unleashing Insults

"I remember when I lost the first big chunk of weight (around 50 lbs) it was like it gave some people license to talk sh*t about the 'old' me. Old coworkers, friends, made a lot of not just negative, but harsh comments about what I used to look like. One person I met after the big loss saw a picture of me prior and said, 'Wow, we wouldn’t even be friends!'”

"It wasn’t extremely common, but I was a little alarmed by some of the attention. My weight has been up and down since then, but every time I gain a little it gets me a little down thinking about those things people said."

– alanamablamaspama

Not Everything Goes After Losing Weight

"The loose skin is a bit unexpected."

– KeltarCentauri

"I haven’t experienced it myself, but surgery to remove skin takes a long time to recover. Longer than bariatric surgery and usually isn’t covered by insurance unless you have both."

– KatMagic1977

"It definitely does take a long time to recover. My Dad dropped a little over 200 pounds a few years back and decided to go through with skin removal surgery to deal with the excess. His procedure was extensive, as in he had skin taken from just about every part of his body excluding his head, and he went through hell for weeks in recovery, and he was bedridden for a lot of it."

– Jaew96

These Redditors shared their pleasantly surprising experiences.

Shopping

"I can buy clothes in any store I want."

– WaySavvyD

"When I lost weight I was dying to go find cute, smaller clothes and I really struggled. As someone who had always been restricted to one or two stores that catered to plus-sized clothing, a full mall of shops with items in my size was daunting. Too many options and not enough knowledge of brands that were good vs cheap. I usually went home pretty frustrated."

– ganache98012

No More Symptoms

"Lost about 80 pounds in the past year and a half, biggest thing that I’ve noticed that I haven’t seen mentioned on here yet is my acid reflux and heartburn are basically gone. I used to be popping tums every couple hours and now they just sit in the medicine cabinet collecting dust."

– colleennicole93

Expanding Capabilities

"I'm all for not judging people by their appearance and I recognise that there are unhealthy, unachievable beauty standards, but one thing that is undeniable is that I can just do stuff now. Just stamina and flexibility alone are worth it, appearance is tertiary at best."

– Ramblonius

People Change Their Tune

"How much nicer people are to you."

"My feet weren't 'wide' they were 'fat.'"

– LiZZygsu

"Have to agree. Lost 220 lbs, people make eye contact and hold open doors and stuff"

"And on the foot thing, I also lost a full shoe size numerically and also wear regular width now 😅"

– awholedamngarden

It's gonna take some getting used to.

Bones Everywhere

"Having bones. Collarbones, wrist bones, knee bones, hip bones, ribs. I have so many bones sticking out everywhere and it’s weird as hell."

– Princess-Pancake-97

"I noticed the shadow of my ribs the other day and it threw me, there’s a whole skeleton in here."

– bekastrange

Knee Pillow

"Right?! And they’re so … pointy! Now I get why people sleep with pillows between their legs - the knee bones laying on top of each other (side sleeper here) is weird and jarring."

– snic2030

"I lost only 40 pounds within the last year or so. I’m struggling to relate to most of these comments as I feel like I just 'slimmed down' rather than dropped a ton. But wow, the pillow between the knees at night. YES! I can relate to this. I think a lot of my weight was in my thighs. I never needed to do this up until recently."

– Strongbad23

More Mobility

"I’ve lost 100 lbs since 2020. It’s a collection of little things that surprise me. For at least 10 years I couldn’t put on socks, or tie my shoes. I couldn’t bend over and pick something up. I couldn’t climb a ladder to fix something. Simple things like that I can do now that fascinate me."

"Edit: Some additional little things are sitting in a chair with arms, sitting in a booth in a restaurant, being able to shop in a normal store AND not needing to buy the biggest size there, being able to easily wipe my butt, and looking down and being able to see my penis."

– dma1965

People making significant changes, whether for mental or physical health, can surely find a newfound perspective on life.

But they can also discover different issues they never saw coming.

That being said, overcoming any challenge in life is laudable, especially if it leads to gaining confidence and ditching insecurities.

In 2017, I returned to my office after my lunch break to hear my supervisors discussing Tom Petty. This seemed like a random topic to me until one of my supervisors told me Tom Petty had passed away. He was a huge fan of Petty and spent the next hour or so combing through the internet to get more information.

He came back into the room my other supervisor and I were working in and announced that Tom Petty wasn't dead after all. News outlets had jumped the gun to announce his death, but he was actually still alive.

The next day, I came in to find out that Tom Petty was dead; the news may have been premature, but true.

This is a classic example of the rumor being started on the internet. Sometimes, like with the news of Tom Petty's death, the rumor can run wild and appear everywhere. Other times, the rumor can be seen by just a few people and dismissed. However, a lot of times, these rumors turn out to be true.

Redditors know a lot of internet rumors that turned out to be true, and are eager to share.

It all started when Redditor strakerak asked:

"What started out as an internet rumor that ended up being infamously true?"

The King Of Pop

"Michael Jackson writing the music for Sonic 3."

"He actually did, but was never credited on the game because it would breach his contract with his record label."

– -WigglyLine-

"He did the same when he appeared on The Simpsons. He appeared under a pseudonym, and the Producers said it was an impersonator."

"Only years later they confirmed it really was Michael."

"His singing voice was actually done by an impersonator, though."

– given2fly_

The Truth Comes Out

"In 1998, US Men’s National Team captain John Harkes was shockingly cut from the team right before the World Cup. The coach claimed it was because Harkes wouldn’t fit into his new preferred formation, but rumors flew on the early internet that it was actually because he had slept with his teammate Eric Wynalda’s wife. The rumor was so well-known in soccer circles that Harkes expressly denied it in his autobiography the next year."

"Fast forward 12 years to 2010 and Wynalda admits it’s true. The coach then came out and admitted it was why he dropped Harkes, but that he’d planned to keep the secret as long as Wynalda did."

– guyfromsoccer

Video Evidence

"The Tim Burton Hansel and Gretel that aired once on halloween in the 80's."

"I heard for years that it was fake but I knew it was real because my dad recorded everything in the 80s and he recorded that. We let a good friend of ours borrow it and switch it over from VHS to DVD and soon after that it made its way on to the internet , and there it is now. I know it's our copy because the tracking in the beginning is screwed up. Still have the VHS."

– Frozenthickness

"There was a similar story with a Nickelodeon movie called Cry Baby Lane. It was supposed to be so scary that Nickelodeon got complaints and denied its existence for years. Someone uploaded a taped copy to youtube about a decade ago."

– PattiAllen

The Movie Business

"That North Korea hacked Sony Pictures because of The Interview movie."

"I worked in the movie business at the time and the account managers at Sony all basically needed to get new identities as all of their personal information got leaked online."

OldMastodon5363

"My partner worked on that movie and the production bought all the crew 1 year of an identity theft tracking service."

CMV_Viremia

Keep Away From The Ears Of Kids

"Some banned episodes or scenes of cartoons."

"For example, I remember there was a Dexter’s Lab cartoon where he clones evil versions of DeDe and himself and they swear like every other word (censored of course), and people debated whether it even existed cause they only aired it like once. Now it’s pretty accessible online."

– Spledidlife

Yes, It's True

"Echelon, a massive electronic espionage system by the US and allies to intercept all electronic messages, especially emails."

"In the mid-nineties it was a topic on conspiracy BBS boards. A lot of people in my bubble at the time (mainly uni students in Europe) were including fake threats to the US in the their email signatures as a way to "protest" and "fill the system with false alarms" (obviously useless)."

"Then, in 1999-2000 came out to be true and a lot of security service agencies from UK and other US allies started to admit they were part of the espionage network."

– latflickr

How The Mighty Fell

"John Edward’s love child."

– ACam574

"A reminder that he was cheating on his wife while she was hospitalized for cancer treatment."

– Fanclock314

Ugh...

"Carrie Fisher's heart attack. Some a**hole who was on the same flight was livetweeting the whole medical emergency and justified it by insisting she was just making sure the family was informed."

– everylastlight

It Actually Happened

"Every year around her birthday there was a rumor that Betty White died. When I heard she died, I scoffed, saying that dumb rumor is back.... then saw it on the news. I was in shock."

– Known-Committee8679

"The fact that Betty died literally right before she turned 100 is such a Betty White way to go out."

– Paganigsegg

Big Actor, Small Roles

"I distinctly remember some rumors about the reason why Bruce Willis was taking so many roles in sh*tty movies before it was announced he has dementia."

– KampferMann

"RedLetterMedia did a deep dive on his recent movie activity to try and work out why exactly he was taking part in basically scam-movies. They noticed he had an earpiece in one of the scenes and joked that the director was feeding him lines. I remember they even disclaimed over the rumours at the time, and possible made a follow-up vid when it was revealed to the public."

– CardinalCreepia

What To Do Next?

"That the writer of LOST were making it up as they went."

"Turned out to be absolutely true."

– homarjr

That last one was kind of obvious!

Do you have any to add? Let us know in the comment below.