Recently, Redditor u/ShinyShayn2008 asked the good folks of Reddit, “What is the most horrifying piece of information you have to share?” Because you clicked into this article, I assume you — like me — simultaneously enjoy learning fun facts and scaring the absolute hell out of yourself. So, I went through the Reddit thread and pulled some of the most jaw-dropping answers, fact-checked them, and put them all together here for your horror and education. Let’s get into it:
1. “The leading cause of death for pregnant women in America is murder.”
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According to the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, women in America who are or recently have been pregnant have a higher likelihood of being killed than dying of obstetric causes like hypertensive disorders, hemorrhages, or sepsis. Many of such cases are a result of violence from the pregnant person’s partner, and “68% of pregnancy-related homicides involved firearms.” The risk is highest for Black women. You can read more about it here.
2. In August of 1986, in Cameroon, West Africa, 1,700+ people were silently killed in the middle of the night by carbon dioxide. That night Lake Nyos, a volcanic crater lake, released nearly a quarter of a cubic mile of the gas, which travelled down the volcano at speeds of nearly 45 miles per hour, killing nearly everyone in Nyos and many in surrounding villages. Of nearly 850 people who survived and were hospitalized, the clinical findings were comparable to those of people who’d been exposed to an asphyxiant gas.”
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3. “On very rare occasions, a corpse can ‘give birth’. If a pregnant person dies, then certain results of decomposition like bloating and gas can force the fetus out of the womb, giving the illusion that the corpse has given birth.”
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This rare phenomenon is known as Coffin Birth. There have been a few documented cases in history in which a smaller set of bones were found between the legs of a deceased mother who’d been buried. You can read more about it here.
4. “During the Challenger space shuttle disaster, the flight data shows that the astronauts turned on their internal oxygen supplies after the explosion occurred. So, it’s likely that some of them were still alive when they hit the water.”
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“Big Bird was also supposed to be on that shuttle until they realized it would be a logistical nightmare to fit him in there, so the plan didn’t come to fruition. Somewhere in the infinite universes, Big Bird fucking died on national television in front of millions of children.”
According to NASA, at least three of the emergency breathing packs were turned on following the Challenger’s explosion, leading them to believe that some of the crew remained conscious for at least 10 seconds following the disaster and were coherent enough to understand the severity of what was occurring. Reportedly, the final word they heard from the crew — which was uttered by the shuttle’s pilot, Michael J. Smith, 73 seconds after they took off — was a simple, “Uh oh.”
5. “For many people, the first sign of cardiovascular disease is sudden death.”
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Sudden Cardiac Death, as the name implies, is a medical emergency that comes with little to no warning and can kill within minutes to an hour. The condition, which is a result of “defective electrical activity of the heart,” kills about 300,000 people annually.
6. “Spiders have exoskeletons that they shed. When you see a dead spider, it might not actually be a dead spider. It could just be its old skin that it molted, and the spider is now somewhere else and bigger.”
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7. “The US military has lost several nuclear weapons and not all of them have been recovered.”
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According to the BBC, the US has lost — and never found — at least three nuclear bombs. There have been at least 32 known instances where the US accidentally lost, launched, set off, or had a nuclear weapon stolen. These are called “Broken Arrows.” You can read more about the lost bombs here.
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8. “It is physically possible to be so constipated that your stool will back all the way up your digestive tract and you can vomit feces.”
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This is a bowel obstruction. According to Medical News Today, to treat this, doctors would suck out the contents of the patient’s stomach via a tube through their nose in order to decompress the stomach. You can read more about it here.
9. “The chainsaw was originally a medical tool used during birth. They cut your pelvis in half to help get the baby out. It was invented in the 1800s and was hand-powered.”
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Scottish doctors John Aitken and James Jeffray invented an early version of what we now know as the chainsaw towards the end of the 18th century. Originally it was used in childbirth for “symphysiotomy” — aka, a now-outdated medical procedure done during labor where the joint that holds the mother’s pelvis together is cut to make the birth canal wider. You can read more here and see what it looked like here.
10. “Pinky toes can auto amputate. It’s exactly what it sounds like, and once it starts, you can’t stop it.”
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In diabetic patients with a well-demarcated, dry gangrene toe, the limb can remove itself non-surgically.
11. “The CIA’s ‘Operation Northwoods’ proposed that CIA operatives should commit acts of terrorism upon the US to blame Fidel Castro and justify a war against Cuba. This was rejected by JFK. We know about this because this got declassified.”
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Potential acts included blowing up US ships in Guantanamo Bay, sinking boats with Cuban refugees, assassination of Cuban émigrés, hijacking planes, terrorism of US cities, and more. You can read more about it here and see the declassified document for yourself here.
12. “Supposedly global warming will cause spiders to slowly get bigger overtime.”
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A 2009 study determined that the warming of the Arctic would likely make wolf spiders not only larger but also more populous, as larger wolf spiders can reproduce more.
13. “In 2005, medical staff at Memorial Medical Center in New Orleans were arrested on account of second-degree murder for reportedly euthanizing patients with a lethal dose of drugs in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The four patients, too sick to move, were stranded in the soon-to-be evacuated hospital, which was left without power. Doctor Anna Pou publicly defended her decision, claiming that it was the only humane choice in an impossible situation and that her goal was simply to help the patients through their pain.”
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Ultimately, the jury did not indict the doctor.
14. “Prions, aka a misfolded protein in the brain that causes other proteins to misfold. This literally causes “sponge brain” or small holes in the brain. Prion diseases are always fatal, and there is no known cure or treatment to slow the progression. They can be contagious or genetic. The contagious form cannot be killed by extreme heat, meaning when people with prion disease have to have surgery, those instruments used during the procedure are unable to be sterilized.”
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“The most prevalent contagious form of prion disease is Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy, aka Mad Cow Disease. Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) is another common form of prion disease, which affects mostly deer. Prion disease can also be ‘sporadic,’ meaning that the cause is not genetic or contagious but ultimately unknown. The most common form of prion disease, CJD, is mostly sporadic and affects an elderly population.
Prion disease can lie dormant in the body for years. But once it is ‘activated,’ the average prognosis is about one year.
The white spots in the image above are the aforementioned “sponge brain” holes caused by prion disease.
15. “On February 3, 1998, 20 people died when a cable car situated near the ski resort town of Cavalese, Italy, plummeted to the ground from 260 feet. It was caused by a United States Marine Corps EA-6B Prowler aircraft that was flying excessively fast and too low during a low-altitude training mission. The aircraft ultimately severed the cable supporting the cable car as it was descendi It was going roughly 540 mph at an altitude of 260 to 330 feet. The disaster has been named the “Strage del Cermis” (Massacre of Cermis) in Italy.”
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“The pilot, Captain Richard J. Ashby, and his navigator, Captain Joseph Schweitzer, were ultimately deemed not guilty of involuntary manslaughter and negligent homicide for their roles in the disaster. However, they were found guilty of obstruction of justice and conspiracy after being found to have destroyed camcorder footage recorded from the plane’s cockpit.”
16. “Sometimes when an elderly person falls and ends up with a broken hip, it’s actually the hip breaking that causes the fall.”
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According to the Mayo Clinic, simply standing and twisting one’s leg can result in a hip fracture in an older adult with very weak bones. Our bones tend to weaken with age, and this is especially true for women, as lowered estrogen levels due to menopause cause bone density to decrease more rapidly than in men.
17. “There is a species of caterpillar out of Great Britain, I believe, that tricks ants into thinking it’s an ant queen in distress. The ants take this caterpillar back to the nest, where the caterpillar continues acting like a queen, but devours all the ant larvae. This destroys the ant colony from the inside.”
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This is the blue butterfly caterpillar (or large blue). The large blue releases pheromones and changes its body shape to mimic red ant larvae, thereby fooling the ants into thinking they got out of the colony. In turn, the ants bring them back in. It can also fool red ants into thinking it’s the queen by imitating the sounds an adult queen ant makes, so the other ants feed it. In particular, it can imitate the queen in distress, which results in them feeding the caterpillar their young. You can read more about it here.
18. Lastly, “You are not immune to being brainwashed. People don’t get sucked into cults because they are stupid. It could happen to you. Also, cults are not always religious, they just often are. Cults draw you in by making you feel smart and appreciated and loved, they douse you in affection and praise, and then they use your trust in them to isolate you from the voices of reason in your life.”
A24 / courtesy Everett Collection
“If someone is being super nice to you for a long time, making you feel special, and then they start telling you that you should cut off multiple people in your life — especially if it’s the people telling you that something is wrong — that’s a red flag. They will tell you that those people are unsupportive and that you don’t need people like that in your life. This is a systematic way to cut off any resistance, so the only reasoning you will hear is their own. And all the while they will seem so kind and supportive. Do not get sucked into this trap.”
Do you know of a dark fact like these? If so, tell us about it in the comments below or via this anonymous form.
Note: Reddit submissions have been edited for length, clarity, and factual accuracy.
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