In a lot of ways, it’s easy to brush off a scary picture or video we see on the internet. At least, that’s the impression I get whenever someone posts one because you can always expect a bunch of people to immediately let the world know how not scared they are.
Of course, that confident feeling can quickly change when you’re no longer separated from the scary thing by a screen and it’s unfolding right in front of you. And no matter how tough we are, it can feel realistic enough on some chilly nights that it’s easy to forget the screen is even there.
And whether it’s due to our imagination filling some unpleasant blanks or a sudden reminder of a frightening memory, it’s suddenly much easier to remember why we wanted a night light as kids.
Hey, what’s creepier than a mysterious, creepy doll in a thrift store?
If you guessed “three of them only they have no eyes and somebody gave them a Gothic makeover,” then congratulations, you win!
Unfortunately, you don’t actually win anything besides a nightmare.
Somebody received this note in their mail box years ago and it’s easy to see why they still can’t make heads or tails of it.
Aside from cryptic references to the “couples” needed for “the usual entertainment,” this seems to indicate some kind of ritual that apparently needs a lot of cleanup.
And in case there was any hope of getting some clue by translating that Arabic phrase, it’s apparently total nonsense.
Since nothing has seemingly happened since, this might just be an elaborate prank. But we’ll never know, will we?
This statue itself isn’t too disturbing to behold, but the context makes it more unnerving.
It depicts the martyred Saint Bartholomew and that “robe” he’s wearing is actually supposed to be his skin because he was flayed alive.
It’s genuinely hard to think of a worse way to go.
Why is it that unexplained figures always pick the darkest, spookiest basements to hang out in?
And of course, half the time we come across something like this, it turns out to be an old Halloween decoration or something and we just feel silly.
Oh good, it looks like someone decided to make a teddy bear out of what I hope is turkey.
Because nothing says “cuddly,” like cold, slimy meat that’ll probably end up smelling terrible after a few days.
This was apparently how students in India prepared to greet the President of China, Xi Jinping.
It’s unclear whether this was intended to revere or mock him, but I can’t imagine it would feel comfortable to have a couple of hundred kids staring back at you while wearing your face.
He obviously doesn’t like being compared to Winnie the Pooh, but I think I’d prefer that to ending up in a real-life Aphex Twin video.
Sometimes, it’s not the image itself that’s unsettling, but the circumstances in which it was taken.
For instance, we’re looking at something blurry and pretty much impossible to identify.
The problem, however, is that it appeared on the uploader’s camera at 1 am and they’re absolutely sure they weren’t awake at the time.
This photo doesn’t get any less vile once you actually understand what’s going on in it.
It may be a little hard to tell, but these are essentially mummified rats who somehow got their tails tangled together and formed what is known as a “rat king.”
Unfortunately, this is usually how this phenomenon ends for the rats involved.
This normally wouldn’t catch our attention, but it starts to become uncomfortable to see when you see it all night.
When you see this figure stand in front of their lit window, it’s often hard to stop thinking about it. And the longer it stands still, the worse that feeling gets.
That is, until you find out it’s just a cardboard cut-out of someone and its owner simply dozed off while the light was still on.
Whenever we see plague doctor masks like this, it becomes so hard to believe that they weren’t made this scary on purpose.
Of course, that just speaks volumes about how terrifying the black plague would have been to live through.
After all, seeing these guys was supposed to be the comforting part.
This person isn’t being interrogated by ghosts, but what’s actually going on here is much creepier.
This image is meant to depict all the movement that went on while confessed serial killer Stephen McDaniel was being questioned.
From this, we can determine that the cops speaking to him moved around a lot during the hours he spent in this room, but he only moved his head slightly to look while each one was talking.
Otherwise, he remained eerily still the whole time.
The uploader recently found this stairwell in the back of their workplace and it doesn’t look very inviting.
They were curious enough to go down them, but decided they were done when they discovered the door at the bottom had been left open by just a crack.
We all know forest fires are dangerous, but it’s easy to forget that their aftermath can make for some grisly discoveries.
It’s unclear whether this animal was left hanging by this tree or whether it somehow panicked its way into this position, but only its skeleton remains now.
OK, most of the time, we see creepy features in a perfectly innocent doll.
But nobody is going to have much luck convincing me this one wasn’t made evil on purpose.
And reading the tag doesn’t help because it just leads me to believe that whoever made this had an irrational hatred for Shirley Temple.
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While a dark forest and a dank basement are some classically creepy settings, this bathroom manages to be distressing in its own right.
And that’s before our minds wander and we start guessing what all of those bottles could possibly be filled with.
Even before we realize this happened at a cemetery, everything about this scene is enough to make anyone uneasy.
I’m sorry to say that we’re looking at a rabbit head that somebody impaled on one of the nails in this board.
So far, people are hoping that a bird of prey or a marten was somehow responsible for this, but I’m a lot less optimistic.
Somebody was being very mean when they set these creepy effigies up by a dark, lonely road.
I’m also betting that they come back every so often to move them slightly closer to the road each time for maximum discomfort.
Apparently, this haunting mask was always just hanging up here in the uploader’s grandparents’ basement.
However, they only learned this recently because the door to this room was always kept locked. So what happens now that this obviously cursed object has been unearthed?
It’s one thing for mushrooms to suddenly grow in somebody’s house, but growing on somebody’s clothes is a different story entirely.
I don’t even want to imagine how this musty, disgusting shirt must smell right now.
There’s a very good chance that your first reaction after seeing this will be “What the hell is that?” and that’s not unreasonable.
However, the answer is not quite as nightmarish as an out-of-context skeleton might suggest.
We’re actually looking at two former seals that were conjoined twins.