When people suspect that they’ve been in contact with a ghostly presence, it’s often not as concrete as clearly seeing the form of a ghost or watching a possessed doll walk towards them in a threatening manner.
Most of the time, what they’ve encountered is a little harder to explain and boils down to an unexplained sense of dread they get from a room or an object. Sudden temperature changes in a room will sometimes do this, but there’s often just a prevailing sense that we should get out right away.
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Even if the things they might blame on these feelings aren’t real, the feelings themselves certainly are and it’s hard to blame anyone for wanting to get away from the things we’re about to see today.
This skull belonged to someone who died in battle almost 700 years ago.
According to the Swedish History Museum , the Battle of Gotland back in 1361 saw Danish soldiers march toward the known of Visby while farmers on the Swedish island of Gotland tried to intercept them.
Although the farmers were unsuccessful, they apparently claimed the life of this Danish soldier.
If bungee jumping isn’t extreme enough, this person has an idea that I can’t possibly recommend.
Yes, the bungee cords are attached to hooks this man implanted into his skin.
Although this jump went better for him than the more squeamish of us might expect, it still looked painful enough to make me shiver.
The fact that New York almost never looks like this was freaking some of its residents out.
Opinions differ among those who experienced the recent New York City blackout as to whether it made the city seem peaceful or creepy.
Still, enough post-apocalypse movies have been set in New York to make this seem familiar in a really bad way.
This set of photos from the 1920s are likely supposed to look as creepy as they do.
This isn’t because some mad artist felt like terrorizing this child, but rather because they embarked on a project to recreate figures people encountered in their actual nightmares.
It’s unclear where these statues are, which makes their origin and purpose all the more mysterious.
Considering how solemn and sad they look, this probably captured a moment of religious martyrdom before the ravages of time made it look way more sinister than intended.
Clayface here is likely supposed to be some sort of sculpture, but that doesn’t make it any less unnerving.
What also doesn’t help is that this thing can somehow open and close its mouth in a way that looks like its jaw is about to fall off before it lurches back up again.
This doll doesn’t seem so bad, but context is everything when it comes to scenes of dread.
While it’s true that she’s just sitting there with a little teapot and smiling, it gets a little weirder when you learn that somebody just left her here behind an abandoned warehouse.
What were they up to?
A pile of flies isn’t anyone’s favorite discovery, but it takes on an eerie turn when they’re all found mysteriously dead.
What we do know is that they had all gathered near a gas leak because they were attracted to the odorant that made it smell like rotten eggs.
As for their mass deaths, that probably does a lot to explain why gas companies add that odorant.
This is definitely something that would require a double take.
These “masks” are apparently just the reflection of light off some garbage bin handles, but a lot of people probably would have cleared out of there before they got that explanation.
The only reason I can see anyone selling this as a children’s toothbrush is that it probably looks better from below than it does from above.
Still, any parent who buys one of these for their kid is in no position to scold them for brushing their teeth halfheartedly.
Although these just seem like old ovens, their reason for existing makes them unfathomably horrific.
Visitors of concentration camps like the one shown here at Dachau report feeling a prevailing silence as they tour the grounds.
As one approaches these ovens that we now know were used to burn bodies, that silence likely becomes deafening.
It’s hard to tell why these goat skulls were left here on this roof, but it’s just as hard to want to know.
It’s not unheard of for hunters to let nature eat away at the head of their quarry so they can keep the skull, but how many does somebody really need?
It is amazing how easy it is to make something beloved suddenly look terrifying.
Funnily enough, they probably didn’t even turn Homer and Bart into nightmare fuel on purpose. But just skipping the step of painting in the pupils can do a lot of damage.
Also, I don’t really trust the expression on Homer’s face.
I can’t remember the last time I related to something as hard as I do this cymbal monkey.
Waking up to find out you’re stuck in a closet with the world’s creepiest dolls is perfect for inspiring this combination of terror and frustration.
This marionette museum can be found in Salzburg, Austria just in case you wanted to go literally anywhere else.
That is, unless you want to find out how many creepy puppet eyes you can stare into before the hair on your neck stands up. Then by all means, enjoy!
A week after this was left on their neighbor’s door, the uploader still doesn’t know what this was all about.
The police were called, but they didn’t have any leads to go on so they cleaned it up and said to call if anything else comes up.
At the moment, the uploader hopes it’s the work of pranksters trying to scare people, but they also said it seemed like an opportune time to move away.
It’s not just the scary face that’s supposed to give us pause, but the sounds it’s packaged with.
A mysterious Instagram account known as @smileeee_65 has only two posts on it.
One is a video of this face with a soundtrack of beeping and strange shuffling sounds and the other is a video of Morse code that spells out “We learn.”
Do we want to, though?
I’m sure this rocking horse brought kids a lot of joy in its day, but it’s probably time to retire it.
There’s something about the way its teeth go with its sewn-together eyes that makes me think it wouldn’t be very popular right about now.
While the uploader was doing some electrical work in this house, they found this charming set-up in one of the bedrooms.
Although the job went without incident, they couldn’t help but look over their shoulder every so often in case this doll moved or something.
That seems pretty understandable.
Just because button eyes can look cute on a doll, that doesn’t mean the whole thing should be made out of them.
And of course, the eyes on this one aren’t buttons because that wouldn’t be scary enough.
Instead, someone decided to add the kind of soulless, black eyes that a grizzled sea captain would use to describe Jaws.
Someone came upon this totally comforting sight while they were walking late at night in LA.
If there’s any consolation to be had here, at least the clown already popped out of the box. The last thing anyone would need is for this thing to spring out as they walk by.
While it’s easy to call anything you run into a ghost if you go out ghost hunting, the uploader saw something in here that they aren’t sure of.
There’s supposed to be a figure with a hat and beard next to the person here, but your mileage will definitely vary as to whether there’s anything besides a tree there.
The poor quality of the photo doesn’t exactly help either.
There are already enough reasons for hospitals to give people the creeps, so these weird elevator hand-prints probably aren’t helping.
And that’s not mentioning whatever those four marks are supposed to be on the left door. Just what happened in here?
Still, it’s almost worse when you actually have some clues as to why a hand-print was left behind.
The uploader said this was left on their girlfriend’s locked patio door and likely has some connection with a woman’s screaming they heard the night before.
They’ve since set up cameras around the house.
This is far from the only creepily decorated car we might encounter on the road, but the drivers aren’t usually this self-aware about it.
The skulls and snakes certainly do their job here, but I can only imagine that this thing didn’t hit the streets until the driver was satisfied with the amount of rust on the hood.
This stairway was just as foreboding when this place was actually operating as it is now.
It can be found at the former Missouri State Penitentiary and led both to the prison’s death row and to the wing where they housed the “criminally insane.”
These gloves aren’t just old, they’re showing evidence of what makes them so haunting.
They were the gloves that Abraham Lincoln was wearing on the night he was assassinated at Ford’s Theater and those red markings are supposed to be his dried blood.
The Buontalenti Grotto in Florence, Italy has a way of looking more ominous than it actually is.
The facade surrounding the statues almost looks like it’s made of human bones, but Atlas Obscura confirmed that they’re just a bunch of different rocks and sediments gathered together.
Sorry to disappoint anyone who’s rarin’ to storm Area 51, but these aren’t aliens.
In fact, they go from being creepy and otherworldly to cute once you learn that they’re actually adolescent barn owls.
Aww, they’re going through their awkward stage.
