We’ve often heard that truth is stranger than fiction and that has a lot to do with how unreal reality can seem sometimes.
For instance, you might not expect that frogs or fish could rain from the sky during any time besides a biblical plague but that’s exactly what’s been documented as happening by none other than the Library of Congress. Unfortunately, we can often find that what seems true to us has a much more fragile basis than we might think.
RELATED STORIES
It’s almost like stuff deliberately shows up to make us question what we know after hearing us say, “Everybody knows that couldn’t happen” and here are fascinating examples.
While it’s not hard to see some impressive coffee art, you’re not likely to see any this detailed happen by accident.
And yet, the uploader had no intention of making a clear image of a porcupine in their drink when they poured some instant coffee over an Americano.
If this seems like oddly boring packaging for an energy drink, that’s by design.
Apparently, this is a deliberate move by Dutch supermarkets to make the drinks less appealing to children while also making their risks more transparent.
When the uploader passed by the bulletin board in their apartment complex, they noticed a piece of a newspaper that came from the end of World War I.
Normally, we might assume that someone left it in the building and its newer owners thought it was interesting enough to display.
However, the uploader also tells us that their building was constructed during the 1980s so someone had to have personally kept it for almost a century before posting it here. That only makes the mystery deeper.
If you come across an iris agate, you’re likely to see similarly dazzling colors to the little rainbow on display here.
In a way, these colors are as unreal as they seem. What we’re actually looking at is the result of the fact that crystals in the agate are thin enough to refract light that passes through them and grow in at just the right angle to bounce that refracted light throughout the mineral.
These are unlikely to be the first thing that pops into your head when you think of a mushroom but that’s nonetheless what they are.
This is a clathrus ruber, which apparently isn’t a mushroom you’d want to get very close to.
Fortunately, you’re unlikely to do that because of the way it earns its nickname; the basket stinkhorn.
Crocodiles may seem like sleek assassins from the surface when they’re floating through the water but this is actually what they’re doing.
Not only are the bodies in a fairly goofy position as they do this but the way they glide forward without moving any of their limbs makes their floating look even more ridiculous.
It looks like someone couldn’t bothered to animate them when they do this.
These oddly thin aquatic tornados are known as waterspouts.
According to the Library of Congress , these are the most likely reason why some areas will occasionally report fish or frogs raining from the sky.
After these animals get swept up by the swirling updraft that forms when one of these waterspouts appear, it’s possible for them to be thrown over a relatively nearby town.
It’s hardly unheard of for a bird of prey to take down a drone but one managed to be much more precise with this model airplane.
As its user was able to capture on video, this large bird actually managed to decapitate the little dummy pilot after a couple of failed attacks.
Once the plane touches down, it’s much easier to see that the bird didn’t just knock the model out of the plane but rather sliced its head off.
Even if you’re familiar with the way lightning and fallen power lines can turn sand into glass-like stones (called fulgerite), this is still a staggering sight.
Apparently, what we’re seeing here are the oddly blue burn marks a downed electric line left on this lawn.
If you’ve ever seen what someone looks like after they’ve been struck by lightning, the branching patterns here should seem familiar.
Someone was unlucky enough to have this grisly wasp land on them while carrying its own head.
And indeed, it’s possible for some insects to keep going for a brief period after their heads have been removed. Not only is this true of wasps but it also wouldn’t be the first time one has picked up its own severed head.
When a hurricane hits, you never really know what state it will leave for the landscapes it passes through.
For instance, here we can see that one plank of wood was thrown from the storm with such force that half of it managed to pass through a tree.
It seems impossible that these scans of a child with 2% of their brain and one with 80% would involve the same person but it’s true.
What we’re looking at are the brain scans of seven-year-old Noah Wall and despite the critical state he was in at birth, he’s been able to develop speech and writing skills and is in the process of gaining the ability to walk.
As for what happened here, it seems we may have an extremely rare level of neurogenesis to thank for Wall’s recovery. It was once believed that functional neurons could only be developed this way before birth, but research has uncovered evidence of the process even in adult brains.
This bird almost looks like a Photoshop creation but it’s a very real example of a violet-backed starling.
Although one would expect this bright coloration to make the bird an easy target for predators, it also makes it more likely to attract a mate.
The only time most of us have seen a skull appear in a campfire, it was probably the result of animators enhancing someone’s spooky story in a cartoon.
However, this photo plainly shows us that flames can crackle into just the right shape to look foreboding in real life as well.
It doesn’t help that it looks like the skull is laughing.
Anybody imagining what it would be like if Martin Luther King Jr. met Malcolm X can stop wondering because it happened.
As The Washington Post reported , both men were present for the Senate debate of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and happened to meet on Capitol Hill after King stepped out of a news conference.
The two greeted each other politely and Malcolm X told King that he was throwing his heart into the civil rights struggle after years of advocating a more nationalist and potentially violent approach to attaining equal rights for black people.
Of Malcom X, King would later say, “He is very articulate, but I totally disagree with many of his political and philosophical views — at least insofar as I understand where he now stands.”
While many of us have been lucky enough to witness a solar eclipse, the list of those who witnessed one while in flight is much shorter.
So it’s a good thing someone finally captured that perspective because there’s nothing quite like seeing such a bright source of light and the landscape below it quickly darken in real time.
Here we can see a concrete path that the uploader describes as “rolled up into itself.”
Based on how deliberately this was placed and how concrete is laid, this was likely a public art installation. Still, it’s not a sight that most of us expect to see outside of a cartoon.
It’s hard to even recognize this as a ram but this is what an adult specimen can look like when its horns don’t curl as they normally should.
Based on their length and the initial positioning of the horns, we can tell that this is an adult male sheep that either experienced an unusual genetic mutation or is a member of an obscure sheep species.
Either way, you’re not likely to see another sheep like this anytime soon.
Although neither movie are anywhere near true to life, there is one aspect of both *Home Alone* and *Raiders of the Lost Ark* that can really happen.
You may recall that a character from both films got a symbol burned into their hand when they touched a hot metal object.
And indeed, that’s exactly how this person ended up with the imprint of the head of a screw on their thumb.
As the uploader said, “My dad upgraded the bathroom: 100 year old outhouse now has satellite TV.”
Unfortunately, while it’s clearly true that someone did this, they likely did it more as a kitschy joke than as a serious bid to watch hundreds of channels from the toilet.
As a former dish tech explained in a comment , the dish is obsolete and wasn’t installed up to industry standard. They also noticed insufficient lines coming from the dish to receive a signal.
Too bad.
