Recently in r/AskReddit, user u/121aliumar posed the question, "What is your favorite very creepy fact?" Here are some of the the wildest, most harrowing answers.
1. "Chainsaws were originally invented for childbirth."
—u/Comics4Cooks
2. "There is an Island of the Dolls in Mexico City that has thousands of creepy dolls to honor a little girl who drowned in the 1950s. The island is said to be one of the most haunted places."
3. "It's estimated that there are around 25–50 active serial killers in the US."
4. "One inmate who survived the first round of electrocution said death tasted 'like peanut butter.'"
5. "You have a bunch of microscopic parasites called Demodex on your eyelashes and in the pores on your face. They come out at night to lay eggs and eat the oils on your face."
6. "Cotard’s Delusion is a rare psychiatric condition which causes the sufferer to wholeheartedly believe they are dead, putrefying, or simply do not exist. Some Cotard’s patients refuse to eat, as they do not believe they need to, with one notable patient dying of starvation. Another woman once asked to be taken to a morgue to be with the other dead people."
7. "The last use of a guillotine in France was the same year the first Star Wars movie premiered: 1977."
8. "A 'Rat King' is a phenomenon created when a large group of rats become fused together by their tails via ice, dirt, hair, blood, or even feces. Encounters with this horrible phenomenon inspired some of humanity's greatest myths."
9. "There is a rare genetic disease called fatal familial insomnia where over the course of months you literally cannot go or be put to sleep no matter what you take or what you do. The symptoms get progressively worse until your brain deteriorates and you die from exhaustion."
10. "During the Victorian Era, it was not uncommon for families to take pictures with recently deceased relatives. This was done as one final moment with that person to honor them."
11. "Dogs like squeaky toys because they sound like small animals being crushed."
12. "Patients undergoing colonoscopies are most commonly put under conscious sedation, meaning the anesthetic doesn't actually numb pain, or even send you unconscious, they just impair your ability to form memories. You are awake and aware of the pain, you just don't remember."
13. "When anglerfish mate, the male literally deforms its body and fuses with the female, and they live together for the rest of their lives."
14. "Scaphism is the worst way of execution I've ever heard of. The word comes from Greek and stands for 'hollowed out'. The victim is trapped between two boats, fed and covered with milk and honey, which then attracts all kinds of insects and vermin that fester and devour you over a couple of days."
15. "Indian followers of Zoroastrianism don't bury or burn their dead. Instead they leave the bodies in special towers, exposed to the elements to be eaten by vultures."
16. "Feeding a human body to pigs will cause them to eat almost everything."
17. "Ted Bundy, a serial killer, used to work for a suicide hotline."
18. "Postpartum psychosis can show up in a new mother virtually overnight. It can make them hallucinate or go into psychosis, making them think their baby is a demon or the antichrist, for example. New mothers kill their own children because of postpartum psychosis more often than you might like to think."
19. "The island of Okunoshima in Japan has World War II ruins of a chemical weapons factory that created poison like mustard gas in its attacks on China. Its secrecy was so vital to the Japanese government that they tried to wipe its location off maps."
20. "Patchouli was used to cover up the smell of decaying flesh during the Black Plague."
21. "When CNN first signed on in 1980, they recorded a band playing a hymn that they were meant to play at the end of the world. It was hidden from the public for 35 years."
22. "Only about 5% of the ocean has been mapped, and there are most likely creatures that we would think of as aliens living deep, deep down."
23. And lastly, "Tarantulas can swim."
Answers have been edited for length and/or clarity, and fact-checked.