The brain is the most fascinating of organs and body parts. It can hold an obscene amount of information.
That's the secret to all these Jeopardy winners, they're not so smart, just incredible human storage units.
I can tell my you childhood address, the lyrics to every Adele song and scripts to Golden Girls episode, and nonsense facts about crayons (I don't know why). Ain't that all something?
It is all tucked away in the crevices of the mind.
Redditoru/JustAMildKingpinwanted to hear about all the things saved in our brains for reasons unknown by asking:
What's the most random fact you know about?
We all have random thoughts and tidbits ready to be shared, and most of the time we have no idea how we acquired the information. But it all does make for interesting dinner conversation.
Lefties
Happy The Simpsons GIF by FOX International ChannelsGiphy"I used to always notice that Bart Simpson is left-handed, and then someone pointed out that pretty much everyone in Springfield is left-handed. I cant unsee it."
In the Saddle
"One horse is 15 horsepower at a sprint."
"Well a horse power is the measure of the power a horse can output sustained for a whole day."
"EDIT FOR CLARITY: a horse can sustain a specific amount of energy over a 24hr period without dying. 1 horsepower is the power at any given instance (assuming the horse is working consistently).The reason this is power and not energy is because it only measures the rate the horse is working, not the total output of the horse over the whole day."
- Jalibut
The Shutter
"You can't turn off the shutter sound on mobile phones in Japan. The reason for this is because up skirt photography is common and to reduce it they decided to add sound to make it easier to spot the pervert."
"It used to be true on all Samsung phones. That and turning the volume up past halfway for more than a few minutes, would cause a voice to warn about hearing loss, and it would turn back down."
Facts of the Leader
"There has only been one US President arrested while in office, and it was Grant on the charge of speeding and reckless driving in his horse & buggy."
"Since we're spouting presidential facts:"
"If you flip a penny and call heads, you're technically right on either side it lands."
"There's a tiny Lincoln in the memorial on the back. 'Heads'."
In Code
code GIFGiphy"I recently discovered that the word Snafu is actually a military acronym for "situation normal, all f**ked up". I thought it was just a word."
I gotta write all that down. And now I have to start watching "The Simpsons." Which I stopped watching decades ago. We're all a bunch of encyclopedias just roaming around. Tell me more...
Spray Off
Meme Reaction GIF by Salon LineGiphy"If a group of penguins feel threatened, they put the women and children in the middle and form a huge circle around them with the males facing inwards, and they spray their crap out to fend off predators."
The Higher Pitch
"You hate the sound of your recorded voice because it's missing the low frequency you're used to hearing. When you talk, you hear your voice as it goes to the air and back to you ear. It also goes through your skull to your ear, and this bone conduction mechanism transmits the low frequencies better than air does."
"Your recorded voice only has the air transmitted sound. That causes the dissonance between what you think your voice sounds like, and what it really does. It's also why your voice will always be higher pitch than you think."
Sad Facts
"Omaha Nebraska was fire bombed by Japan during WW2. No casualties and residents weren't aware until the next morning."
"Japan launched 9000 balloons with fire bombs attached into the wind. They hit 26 states as well as Canada and Mexico. Nobody was hurt except in Oregon, where an unexploded bomb killed a woman and five children. The whole incident was covered up so that it wouldn't scare the public during the war."
When Mating...
"The cicada mating call is made by males chirping really loudly, which we all know. But you didn't know that the females' positive response is made by clapping her wings together, which sounds almost exactly like snapping your fingers."
"So if there's a tree of horny cicadas in your backyard that won't shut the hell up, walk over to it and start snapping your fingers to catfish them into being quiet and trying to find the dtf female. If you're lucky one might catch on and land on your arm!"
The Fall
Killer Whales Ocean GIF by TJ FullerGiphy"When a whale dies, it falls to the bottom of the ocean. This phenomenon is called a whale fall and an entire small ecosystem can thrive on the carcass for a few years!"
That whale fall is very dramatic. How did we not hear about it sooner? Some facts I could def do without. But I feel one step closer to Jeopardy. You?
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Redditor Churbuddahbread wanted to hear from the people who believe they have lived through meeting other life forms, so they asked:
"People of Reddit who have been abducted by aliens. What’s your story?"
I have no alien stories.
Apparently, they don't want me.
I don't want them either.
NO!
alien GIFGiphy"Not sure if this was a dream or not but I remember being in some kind of craft facing towards one of the walls. I felt a presence behind me and was so scared I couldn’t move at all. Then out of nowhere I suddenly felt completely at ease. To my left out of the corner of my eye, I could see a big being that almost looked like a large tardigrade behind some kind of control panel."
"I turned to see another being. (Can’t really remember what this one looked like) but I remember asking if I could ask some questions. I then received a reply which came from within my own head. 'No' And that’s all I remember."
Churbuddahbread
It wasn't there before
"My brother-in-law says he was abducted. Don't know too much except he was out in the woods walking around. He was gone overnight. He never does that without letting somebody know that at least, he's leaving. He was found the next morning completely stunned. On shock. He could barely talk."
"He never really said what happened. He won't talk about it. He said only, that they performed examinations on him. His right foot now has what I can only describe as a birthmark on his right foot. It wasn't there before. That I know!! It wasn't there!! Now he's got a deep purple mark that covers most of his foot.? Wtf??"
Lazy-Lawfulness3472
In the middle of the night...
"They took me in the middle of the night. I was out feeding the cattle under the moonlight and then a big light came over me. The next thing I knew, I was driving down the road talking to what I later realized was my father. Or... the person whose body I am now in’s father. He made a joke about the time being slow and he had seen an episode of XFiles that mentioned that time reverses when aliens abduct so they can drop you off at the same time as they picked you up."
"Except I think they mixed something up because I am not in the same body I left in. I still remember my whole life before but I am 18 years younger in this body so I don't really mind... But a few years after the incident, I went to see if the farm I once lived on was still there, but it took me a while to get there without suspicion. It's gone. Like it never stood. Maybe it was all just a dream."
Biggmamaaa
The sun is up
"One of my old high school friends believes she was abducted when we were in our teens. She said that one evening she was hanging out in bed, drawing in her sketchbook. A pair of lights like headlights on a car caught her eye out the window, but when she looked properly she could see that the lights were higher up above the road than they should have been, and there was no noise."
"The lights continued getting closer to her apartment building and eventually shone right into her window. She blinked, and the next thing she knew, she was lying down in bed under the covers and the sun was coming up."
CosmicJellyroll
Hybrids
"I was genuinely abducted by aliens. I was driving at night on my own down the M62 motorway in the UK around 3 am for a job I was working. The next thing I know, it's 5 am. 2 hours had gone nowhere. I thought I was going or mad at something and when I got home I went to bed."
"Anyways, when in bed I dreamed about what happened and it came back to me. On the alien craft, they put me in a room and I was lying on the floor... Then they put an injection into my arm which was this red, rusty-like liquid. I think this was to monitor me."
"Every few weeks or so I'll wake up in the morning at 5 am and I know I've been back there, but can never remember it. Sometimes I get a feeling that I've been visited or am about to be visited. It's not fun and nobody believes me, but what they're doing is using our genetic makeup to populate other planets with hybrid beings."
iLikeGingerGirlslol
It's always a joke until someone gets abducted by aliens.
Quick as That...
Kate Mckinnon Snl GIF by Saturday Night LiveGiphy"It went from daylight to dark in a blink, my mom walked by where I should have been if I was asleep, but I wasn't there apparently, and I'll never forget that. Maybe it was aliens, never figured it out. When I was 7 or 8, during the summer, mid-day around noon. I'm home sitting by the door, looking into the lagoon waiting for my mom to come home. I blink and it's now nighttime. Quick as that."
"No fatigue, no sleep, just a blink. Hours have gone by and I'm sitting in the same spot, wide awake, except it's dark out. Just a blink. My mom is in the kitchen making food and playing music. When I go in, she asks where I was. I told her, sitting in front of the door waiting for her to come home."
"She didn't believe me and chalked it up to being a kid's joke, she's been home for hours now and assumed I was at my friend's house a couple of houses over. After that, I had a tiny lump on my right shin under my skin. I could roll it around a little with my fingers. It dissolved after about 2 months. If a BB pellet is 4.6 mm, it was probably like 1.3mm."
BYNCody
Therapy
"I actually had a therapist who treated people for their trauma from alien abductions. I’m not kidding and I’m not suggesting I really believed they were abducted. I’m not sure she even did but she seemed to suggest to me that if they felt traumatized by something that happened to them, she would help them."
Turbulent_End_2211
4
"You know I have been saying this since I was about 4. Somebody took me. I've always pointed to a spot on my calf that I've always thought it was a scar from a foreign insertion. But I have zero recollection of anything. And at 4 I was too young to make it up or even know the word alien. But my mom would always say the same thing no matter what, it's a growing pain. We could have been dying and that was her come back."
AssumptionAdvanced58
A Light Sleeper
"Not my story, but my Father in law swears he was abducted on a camping trip in the Northern Appalachians with about 4 other people. They hiked up near a lake and set up a campsite, and set up camp. He says they all remember swimming, then eating dinner but no one remembers cleaning up camp or going into their tents."
"They woke up about 10 yards away from their original site, in the exact formation that they had set up the camp, but all of the little stuff was in the same spot and there was no fire in the middle of the original area but not in the new one. They pulled out a measuring tape my FIL had in his backpack from work and measured the distance between the stakes of the tent poles and it was the EXACT distance between all of the tent poles from where they originally were and the new area."
"And before anyone says anything, my FIL is a super light sleeper( according to my MIL) and doesn't drink or do drugs, has no history or symptoms of mental illness, and was the first one awake. He still refuses to go hiking on that trail to this day, it's an easy hike so he isn't trying to be lazy and get out of it."
preggomuhegggggo
Fascinations
"I believe I have been abducted multiple times. Probably about once every two or three years since I was eight. I have been examined, but nothing invasive was ever done and the extraterrestrials seemed genuinely curious about humans. More often it is just an interview via telepathy about how I am feeling and how things are going."
"The last abduction was about six months ago. I remember waking up, seeing figures through my bedroom window make their way into my home, never waking my girlfriend or dogs, and leading me out to their craft. One even seemed fascinated with one of my dogs, but I sort of thought how angry and hurt I would be if anything happened to that dog and he backed away."
Termi89
Still Shaken
James Cameron Aliens GIF by 20th Century Fox Home EntertainmentGiphy"Not my story, it's my dad's, he gets a little shaky and doesn't like talking about it when it's brought up. When he was about 15 he and his friend did the childhood tradition of camping in the backyard. Everything seemed pretty much normal and they went to bed at around midnight. Shortly after falling asleep, they both woke up in a state of extreme disorientation and mental fog 2.5 miles away from his house in a empty grass field."
"When he checked his watch it was 4 AM with no recollection of what happened those 4 hours. There was no alcohol or drugs involved. He never let me camp in our backyard growing up so I have a slight distaste for our extraterrestrial neighbors."
UrbanDowntown
This is why alien movies still freak me out.
I can't do them, just in case.
Do you have any stories? Let us know in the comments below.
"What's the most regrettable purchase you've ever made?"
Anything But Luxurious
"When I was in my early 20’s bought a used BMW with 80k miles."
"Everything in that car was crazy expensive to fix."
"Had it for a 1.5 years before I sold it."
"The amount of money I spend on buying+fixing that car I could have bought I brand new BMW."
"Learned my lesson, never buy used luxury cars."- Steve83725
And So Began A Habit They'd Do Anything To Break...
"That first pack of cigarettes."
"Should have never started."- xipisiw577
...BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA...
"A $300 pogo stick."
"I still don't know what the f*ck I was thinking when I ordered that thing."- xayep54838
bart simpson pogo stick GIFGiphyYou'd Think Science Lovers Would Have Been More Meticulous...
"A shower curtain with the periodic table."
"We couldn't find it here in Denmark so I had to order it from the US which meant a huge shipping fee."
"Then there was added a custums fee making the total price almost $100."
"All of this would not have been so bad if not for the fact that we forgot to check the measurements, as it turned out to be only 180 cm long leaving a big gap at the bottom where water would splash through making the floor soaking wet."- xipisiw577
Not As Advertised
"A remote control car I begged and saved for when I was 9."
"It was terrible and I still haven’t got over the disappointment 30 odd years later."- thencamethethunder
Way To Soon...
"I bought a planner in January 2020."- Dear-Original-675
Typography No Refunds GIF by Abel M'VadaGiphyOof...
"2 engagement and wedding rings."- Tawebuse
Planning Ahead Doesn't Always Pay Off
"I was engaged for a little over a year, and since she didn't want to be on the pill, we used condoms."
"One time we ran out, and I bought a great big box of new ones, different flavors and ribbings and what not."
"Then the relationship ended, and I could feel the box lying there in my drawer, mocking me, almost untouched."-nadoba1473
winter olympics lol GIF by Animation Domination High-DefGiphyGood For One Good Ride?
"Gotrax scooter."
"That company is a joke."
"Their products' life cycle is measured in weeks before your scooter is a piece of plastic going to the landfill."
"I tried going through their customer service for repair parts and got some covered by warranty, only to have those parts break after a few days of light use."
"Even worse, when I asked for a tracking number for the parts, their CSR emailed me a spreadsheet of EVERY part order they had that day, complete with names, addresses, emails, telephone numbers."
"Only thing missing was the CC numbers."- AdWonderful5920
Hopefully They At Least Look Nice
"I bought some running shoes, I enjoy sitting down."- kenow18890
Timing Is Everything
"I bought a KIA two months before the Kiaboyz TikTok challenge went viral."
"Of course some teens tried to steal my car causing $2,500 worth of damage to my ignition and steering column."- Aldous_Hoaxley
car driving GIF by A Magical MessGiphyPlanning Ahead To The Max...
"A grave for me besides my father's grave."
"Bought it for $6.000 +- it was bad because there was a monthly fee $40 +- , after 5 years paying that fee I've had enough so I decided to sell my grave."
"Then i couldn’t sell due to one contract clause wich gives the cemetery practically all the selling money."
"As i result i had to return the grave to the cemetery for nothing."
"Good for them , stupid me lost all that money."- Icy_Cow4578
No Golden Ticket Either...
"When I was about three years old, I was with my family in a store that sold trading cards."
"There were a lot of packs of cards everywhere with different colors and pictures on them."
"All fairly standard trading card size."
"But then there was this one package that was definitely not a pack of cards."
"It was a candy bar."
"I could tell because it was extra long and shaped exactly like a candy bar."
"I asked my parents to buy it, but they didn’t want to."
"They asked why I wanted these cards so bad and I explained that they weren’t cards, but a candy bar."
"I essentially threw a fit until they decided it was just be easier to buy it for me."
"And then with some help, I opened my first and only ever pack of NASCAR trading cards."
"Definitely not a candy bar."
"I was inconsolable at the time, and still think about it to this day."- BillionaireGhost
tom and jerry eating GIF by Boomerang OfficialGiphyAdvertising can be very persuasive, and sometimes all it takes is looking at a picture to make us think we positively need to have something.
Once we unwrap this, possibly expensive, impulse buy though, we are reminded that imagination and fantasy is always more appealing than reality.