Linda Meyers

There are many different kinds of horror. Sometimes you’re jumping out of your socks as a freaky monster pops out of the shadows in your favorite movie. Other times, it’s a creeping kind of horror – something subtle that nonetheless keeps you up at night, or at the very least gives you goosebumps whenever the thought of it pops into your mind. That’s the kind of scary these offputting facts are. Vote up the most unsettling ones, and don’t forget to come back next week for even more.

Alone

Photo: Alan Lebeda / Wikimedia Commons / GFDL 1.2

In 2005, Helios Airways flight 522 crashed into a mountainside, killing all 121 people inside. But before that, flight attendant Andreas Prodromou was seen in the cockpit by two fighter jet pilots trying to land the plane himself. He was the only person conscious on the plane – all the passengers and crew had slipped into irreversible comas because of lack of oxygen, and the radio was tuned to the airport of origin so no one could hear his mayday calls. He was alone and aware of his impending fate for as much as three hours before the plane ran out of fuel and crashed.

Unsettling?

Terror-toma

Photo: Hellboy II: The Golden Army / Universal Pictures

A teratoma is a type of tumor made up of several different types of tissues. It can grow teeth, hair, limbs, and even eyes. They most often occur in the tailbone of newborns or in a person’s reproductive organs.

It’s best not to Google it.

Heavenly Bodies

Photo: Pudelek / Wikimedia Commons / CC-BY-SA 4.0

There is a church in the Czech Republic known as the Sedlec Ossuary, or “Church of Bones.” It is ornately decorated with skulls and other human bones from the remains of up to 40,000 humans.

Unsettling?

Real Life Sea Monsters

Photo: Jenny / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 2.0

There’s a worm (the bobbit worm) that lives in the sea floor [and] can grow up to 10 feet long, and has jaws so powerful they can snap fish in half while trying to grab ’em.

Bless You, You’re Gonna Need It

Photo: James Gathany / Wikimedia Commons / Public domain

Holding in a sneeze (by pinching your nose, for example) can cause the air you’d normally expel to force its way into the Eustachian tubes of your ears, rupturing your eardrums and causing vertigo or deafness.

Holding in a sneeze (by pinching your nose, for example) can cause the air you’d normally expel to force its way into the Eustachian tubes of your ears, rupturing your eardrums and causing vertigo or deafness.

Heads Roll

Photo: Wikimedia Commons / 20th Century Fox

France staged its last execution via guillotine the same year that the first Star Wars movie came out (1977).

Bottoms Up

Photo: Julius Schorzman / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 2.0

Excessive caffeine ingestion leads to symptoms that overlap with those of many psychiatric disorders. In psychiatric in-patients, caffeine has been found to increase anxiety, hostility, and psychotic symptoms.

Have A Great Fall

Photo: William Wallace Denslow / Wikimedia Commons / Public domain

Nothing in the Humpty Dumpty rhyme states that he’s an egg.

Head Hugger

Photo: Jimfbleak / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0

A woodpecker’s tongue splits in two at the back, wrapping around the skull and brain.

When the bird begins its pecking, the tongue acts like suspension, flexing and tensing to stop the bird getting concussion. Like leaf springs on a truck.

Elephant Graveyard

Photo: Craig Smith NOAA / Wikimedia Commons / Public domain

When whales die, their massive carcasses sink to the bottom of the ocean floor, where, if it’s cold and deep enough, they become “whale falls” – unique localized ecosystems that develop as a result of scavengers rushing to feast on the flesh.

Unsettling?

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