As the saying goes, you can't believe everything you read.
But every now and then, you might find yourself reading or hearing a piece of information that you at first think couldn't possibly be real.
Until you are presented with verified, reliable information to back it up... Then you have to eat your words and put your disbelief behind you.
Perhaps the most surprising instances of these are statistics, which at first glance you can't possibly believe are accurate and find yourself proven otherwise.
"What is a fact or statistic that seems fake but is real?"
And You Thought Sharks Were Dangerous...
"Horses kill more people every year in Australia than all the other beasties combined."
"Everyone thinks it's the spiders and snakes that'll get you, but it's the horses you've really got to watch."- Gingerbread_Cat·
The Dangers Of Scientific Advancement
"It took us more time to go from bronze swords to iron swords than it did for us to go from iron swords to nuclear weapons."- IMJUSTABRIK
Frightening People For Generations!
"Sharks have existed longer than trees have."- Capital_Indication_4
Discovery Sharks GIF by Shark WeekGiphyThe Great Unknown
"I saw a scale model of the earth, moon and sun in a museum."
"The sun was about the size of a basketball, and the earth was on the opposite side of the room, the size of a small marble, I'd guess about 30 metres away."
"The moon was the size of a tiny pinhead, about 10cm away from the earth."
"On this scale, the nearest star to earth, Proxima Centauri, wouldn't be in the same building, or even in the same city."
"It would be 10,000km away."
"And that's just one star, the nearest one to us, in a galaxy containing billions of stars, which is just one of billions of galaxies."
"The scale of the universe really is mind bogglingly big."
"Far bigger than we can begin to comprehend."- Qabbalah
Zero Points To The Lost World For Authenticity...
"We live closer in time to Tyrannosaurus Rex than the T Rex did to the Stegosaurus."- reiveroftheborder
stegosaurus GIFGiphyFrom Bad To Worse?
"After the British made head protection mandatory in WW1, the amount of head wounds increased."
"It's due to they were no longer KIA, but 'only' a head wound."- WouldUKindlyDMBoobs
Sarah Palin Can Confirm...
"USA is only 2.4 miles from Russia."
"2 islands in the Bering Strait, the body of water in the Pacific Ocean that separates Alaska from Russia, are 2.4 miles from each other at the narrowest point; one island is owned by Russia, the other is owned by USA."- Qabbalah
But Where Did "Ginger" Come From?
"In English, the color orange was named after the fruit."
"Before that, orange was just considered a shade of red."
"That's why gingers are called redheads."- I_might_be_weasel
redhead wink GIF by KobieGiphyAt Least We Can Be Sure He Didn't Lie About It
"George Washington didn’t know dinosaurs existed."- Silver34
But What Did They Want To Do With Those Cobras?
"New Delhi hired people to hunt cobra snakes which led to people having Cobra Farms to earn money, then the government stopped the project which led the Cobra Farmers to release their snakes, causing twice as many snakes than they first started."- cathabit
The Truth Lies Between The Lines...
"Barcode scanners scan the white lines, not the black ones."- the_blast_radius
Scream Bar Code GIF by joelremygifGiphyBut Does It Make It Easier To Avoid?
"Wombat poo is cube shaped, to stop it rolling away."
Perception Can Be Dangerously Misleading
"The Oxford University in England existed centuries before the rise and fall of the Aztec civilization."- RefrigeratorStatus96
"Time Is The Longest Distance Between Two Places..."
"A million seconds is 12 days."
"A billion seconds is 31 years. "
"A trillion seconds is 31,688 years."
"People have a lot of trouble comprehending numbers that big."- sunbearimon
Loop Time GIF by PsyklonGiphyOne thing that makes science so remarkable is how difficult it can be to believe.
And yet, scientists have been working since the beginning of time to prove that facts are, indeed, facts.
Do you have anything to add? Let us know in the comments below.
People Reveal Which Statistically Improbable Thing Actually Happened To Them
That's Impossible!!
Life is a big gamble of "What ifs? and How could that happens?" And it is consistent in surprise and coincidence. Who hasn't lost count at the myriad of times when you looked at a situation and thought, "is this fate or just chance?"What we can walk away knowing is.... the impossible IS sometimes possible. So just roll with it.
Redditor u/yankeevandal inquired aloud... What statistically improbable thing happened to you?
We all get a car!!
GiphyWon a car when I was 12. Chances were 1/50000. Because I was underage I entered the competition using my mother's name and she got the car. Junonx
There is always a chance...
My family and I drove from the Midwest to Alabama. While we were on the beach, my dad stopped a guy who was taking a walk. As it turns out, that guy and my dad were friends at the same Malaysian camp for south vietnamese refugees over forty years ago, and reunited by chance. cariface
4!!!
GiphyWent into an agency to do paperwork for home medical care for my son. Lady was nice and during course of the benefits interview, she asked me my address. She says, "oh, I live there, too. We just bought #3. What number are you in?"
I blinked, then said, "4." This lady and I were going to share a common wall in our condo complex.
We became fast friends, and she was like a grandma to my kids. metamurphius
I am who I am!
I was born with a blood type (type and rh factor) completely different from my parents. They thought I was switched at birth and did a paternity/maternity test on me. Turns out I'm just a freak. ImTotallyNormalish
Is that you?!
I witnessed two women bumping into each other for the first time since their escape from Laos forty years ago. They were only just children at the time. Somehow one recognized the other, tears were shed, but it really got me when the one couldn't stop saying "I thought you were dead!" War really tore apart Southeast Asia... iusuallylurknopost
Hey Neighbor!
GiphyMy family and I were driving for 8 hours in northwestern India. We decided to stop for food at a little restaurant in some tiny village about halfway through, where we ran into our next-door neighbors (from the US) who had rented their house to travel the world. julmoteydaezehe
Was in New Zealand earlier this year, which is literally at the opposite end of the earth from where I live. We were hiking and my travel buddy meets his neighbor on a random bridge. mcaruso
How are you not immune?
Have been bitten 4 separate times by a brown recluse spider. I once read I had a greater chance of getting struck by lightning than being bit my a brown recluse... so now I'm afraid of thunderstorms. minusthelela
Sing out Louise!!
i was taking emergency roadside assistance calls but my shift was pretty dead so i was browsing twitter and saw that a band i liked had tweeted they broke down. For a split sec i thought it would be cool if they called our company and i got the call and went back to scrolling. the next call i got was the the singer of the band!!! palspalspals
I hate the dentist!
GiphyI have a fused tooth.
I move around a lot and have had a lot of dentists.
Dentists all lose their mind when they see it for the first time.
I have to tell them how to log it into their system because most don't know what to do (consider one of the teeth missing for consistent records across dentist offices). YonderIPonder
The Boys have it!
My sister got married and got pregnant. She was hoping that it would be a girl. Ended up being a boy. So she tried a second time. Out came another boy. So she decided to give up at two children and her husband got a vasectomy. Well, she ended up getting pregnant again. With twins. Both boys. After they were born she planned on getting her tubes tied, but wanted to put if off a little bit since she was busy taking care of four boys and couldn't afford to be put out of commission for any period of time. So she went on birth control and her husband started wearing condoms. Well, she got pregnant again. With a boy.
Between her spawn and my two sons we are 7/7 on boys. Apparently we can't make girls. hashtag_punchanazi
I know you...
My parents were both born in the same little town in Ohio. They never met though, when they were both 8 my mom moved to Connecticut and my dad moved to Florida. When they were 14 they both moved back to another town in Ohio and didn't meet for another 3 years, they've been together ever since. Turns out my moms mom and my dads dad had known each other since they were 13. Unicornhornporn554
Not my head!
GiphyI went on a run down the middle of a street and was knocked out by a traffic light that came loose and fell on my head. travcunn
God exists...
I found a better job with $10k increase in salary exactly 1 week after I was fired from my last job. Got 4 weeks of paid vacation due to my severance. pbetts46
Arby's?
My dad moved from Tennessee to Florida this past summer and he was driving a big Penske Truck. He stopped by my town because of my high school graduation. I managed to get behind his truck on the road to the school. After the graduation was over, my mom rented a place to throw me a party. He left before I did to go get something at the grocery store in his truck. I drove to the party and got stuck behind his truck again on the road. Then I left the party just a bit earlier than everyone so I could go say hi to a friend that was working at Arby's at the time. I ordered some food, his mom took pictures of us and we had a pretty good time at the restaurant and then it was finally time for me to go home. I got stuck behind my dads truck, again the entire trip home. None of this was planned. ButteredBrotata
WOW!
GiphyI have two uterus'. Something like 1/2,000,000 women have it. The tech who first saw/found out was not supposed to tell me but freaked out, showed me(on the screen lol), explained how rare it was and then asked permission to show her students. Every time I go to a new doctor "DID YOU KNOW.." WakeNBreak
The Spirits are amongst us...
I dropped a spoon in such a way I'm convinced caused it to clip through the floor. I didn't hear anything like it hitting the ground and I haven't found it since. LordSaltious
KISMET!!
Went on a ski trip and ended up sitting beside a Swedish girl on the bus. Went to Sweden the following year and my room mate was her brother. wildcard987
Learn and Grow....
GiphyAs a gay man of sixty, although I'm no longer sexually active, I used to have absolutely masses of completely unprotected sex. I think it was some sort of death-wish after my partner died of HIV, but despite everything I never caught it myself. THAT is incredibly unlikely, yet true. EddiesOpinion
Our perceptions rule our lives. The way we perceive the world around us affects all of the decisions we make. Sometimes these perceptions can lead us a bit astray, though.
We tend to think that things we hear about or encounter frequently are common, but many things are quite a bit rarer than we think.