Pictures don’t only speak a thousand words; they also elicit strong emotions. They can move you to tears, bring an ear-to-ear grin on your face, or send frightening chills down your spine.
These images are about the latter. Seeing them at first glance likely won’t induce the instant creeps, but reading about their backstories may do that. Some were taken moments before disaster, while others were just downright disturbing.
Scroll away and see for yourself.
#1
A group of thirteen years old girls went camping in America in July 1945. They swam at a river in Ruidoso, New Mexico. The girl in front of the picture is called Barbara Kent. What the girls did not know is that nearby, the Manhattan Project detonated a nuclear bomb as a test…
In an article, Kent described what happened that day:
“We were all just shocked … and then, all of a sudden, there was this big cloud overhead, and lights in the sky,” Kent recalls. “It even hurt our eyes when we looked up. The whole sky turned strange. It was as if the sun came out tremendous.” A few hours later, she says, white flakes began to fall from above. Excited, the girls put on their bathing suits and, amid the flurries, began playing in the river. “We were grabbing all of this white, which we thought was snow, and we were putting it all over our faces,” Kent says. “But the strange thing, instead of being cold like snow, it was hot. And we all thought, ‘Well, the reason it’s hot is because it’s summer.’ We were just 13 years old.”[1]
The flakes were fallout from the Manhattan Project’s Trinity test, the world’s first atomic bomb detonation. It took place at 5:29 a.m. local time atop a hundred-foot steel tower 40 miles away at the Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range, in Jornada del Muerto valley. The site had been selected in part for its supposed isolation. In reality, thousands of people were within a 40-mile radius, some as close as 12 miles away. Yet those living near the bomb site weren't warned of the test. Nor were they evacuated beforehand or afterward, even as radioactive fallout continued to drop for days…
Barbara Kent and all her friends developed cancer. Every single one of the girls you see in that photo, died before the age of thirty. The only one who lived longer was Kent. And she, too, developed and survived several bouts of cancer. People often forget of the heavy price paid not only by those the atomic bombs were dropped on in Japan, but even by those who lived nearby as they were first developed.
In an article, Kent described what happened that day:
“We were all just shocked … and then, all of a sudden, there was this big cloud overhead, and lights in the sky,” Kent recalls. “It even hurt our eyes when we looked up. The whole sky turned strange. It was as if the sun came out tremendous.” A few hours later, she says, white flakes began to fall from above. Excited, the girls put on their bathing suits and, amid the flurries, began playing in the river. “We were grabbing all of this white, which we thought was snow, and we were putting it all over our faces,” Kent says. “But the strange thing, instead of being cold like snow, it was hot. And we all thought, ‘Well, the reason it’s hot is because it’s summer.’ We were just 13 years old.”[1]
The flakes were fallout from the Manhattan Project’s Trinity test, the world’s first atomic bomb detonation. It took place at 5:29 a.m. local time atop a hundred-foot steel tower 40 miles away at the Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range, in Jornada del Muerto valley. The site had been selected in part for its supposed isolation. In reality, thousands of people were within a 40-mile radius, some as close as 12 miles away. Yet those living near the bomb site weren't warned of the test. Nor were they evacuated beforehand or afterward, even as radioactive fallout continued to drop for days…
Barbara Kent and all her friends developed cancer. Every single one of the girls you see in that photo, died before the age of thirty. The only one who lived longer was Kent. And she, too, developed and survived several bouts of cancer. People often forget of the heavy price paid not only by those the atomic bombs were dropped on in Japan, but even by those who lived nearby as they were first developed.
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190points
#2
This picture seems pretty innocuous, but if you look a bit closely, you can begin to see the terror that is deep within; at first, it just looks like several people of a different culture sitting around on a porch. However, when you look closely, it appears that a human foot and hand sit in front of the man.
The man was a rubber worker in Congo, who, unfortunately, did not meet his quota for the day. As punishment, his young daughter was k**led and all that was left was her foot and hand given to the man as a reminder of what would happen when you don’t perform well at work. Even when that wasn’t enough, the other part of his daughter was cannibalized.
This is truly a horrifying image.
The man was a rubber worker in Congo, who, unfortunately, did not meet his quota for the day. As punishment, his young daughter was k**led and all that was left was her foot and hand given to the man as a reminder of what would happen when you don’t perform well at work. Even when that wasn’t enough, the other part of his daughter was cannibalized.
This is truly a horrifying image.
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165points
#3
Baby dolphin dies after swimmers pass it around.
And there wasn't even one nice human being to say how WRONG this is.
Makes me really sad every time I see it on social media.
And there wasn't even one nice human being to say how WRONG this is.
Makes me really sad every time I see it on social media.
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152points
#4
Wedding rings retrieved from the Jewish victims of the H*******t…
Abhik Kumar Mohanta, Department of Defense. Department of the Army. Office of the Chief Signal Officer. T4c. Roberts
Report138points
#5
This photo of what looks like a few people in jumpsuits walking out of a building.
In actuality it’s the last moment the crew of Challenger was photographed, a few hours before their launch. Their shuttle exploded just a minute after launch, but they didn’t die then- evidence indicates they died a few minutes later when the capsule hit the ocean.
In actuality it’s the last moment the crew of Challenger was photographed, a few hours before their launch. Their shuttle exploded just a minute after launch, but they didn’t die then- evidence indicates they died a few minutes later when the capsule hit the ocean.
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113points
#7
A CCTV footage shows 2-year-old James Bulger, who was abducted by 10-year-old Robert Thompson and Jon Venables. They would later torture and m**der James and leave his body on a railway line.
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106points
#8
On the morning of 17 January, Muhammad Yusuf Pujwala (the father of Asia Bano (was sitting outside his home in Kathua, Kashmir, when one of his neighbours came sprinting towards him. He told Muhammed Pujwala, they had found his eight-year-old daughter, Asifa Bano. Her body was found in the bushes of a forest.
The 8 year old’s legs were broken. Her fingers were black and blue. Asifa was confined in a local temple for several days and given sedatives that kept her unconscious. The charge sheet alleges that she was "r**ed for days, tortured and then finally m**dered". She was strangled to death and then hit on the head twice with a stone.
The worst thing is, she isn’t the only girl and she won't be the last.
The 8 year old’s legs were broken. Her fingers were black and blue. Asifa was confined in a local temple for several days and given sedatives that kept her unconscious. The charge sheet alleges that she was "r**ed for days, tortured and then finally m**dered". She was strangled to death and then hit on the head twice with a stone.
The worst thing is, she isn’t the only girl and she won't be the last.
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104points
#10
This creepy yet normal seeming photo was the last picture of the 18-year old Jolee Callan before her boyfriend shot her two times in the head and pushed her down the cliff.
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93points
#11
It is the last known picture of Chester Bennington, leader of the rock band Linkin Park, with his family. Less than 24 hours later, he committed suicide. It reminds me of the overwhelming power that depressive states have on human being, totally annihilating the very soul of this artist, who could not overcome whatever black and silent abyss prevented him to feel the love of his 6 children and the one of tens of thousands fans adoring his concert performances. Che la terra ti sia lieve, Chester, you left great art and a painful void.
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93points
#12
This photo. Looks innocent enough right? Unless you know the backstory. The man in the middle is Darren Vickers. Vickers abducted, r*ped, m*rdered, and dismembered 8 year old Jamie Lavis. Then a few days later showed up at the Lavis home saying he wanted to help find the missing boy.
He became friends with the grieving parents and even moved in with them. The parents started to trust him over the police. He began grooming Jamie’s 10 year old brother and interfered in the investigation into Jamie’s disappearance. The police knew it was him the whole time but couldn’t prove it.
One day Vickers approached some children and asked them to help him look for Jamie in the woods. The children ran home and told their parents who phoned police. This finally gave the police an area to search for Jamie’s body and they found the clothes he was wearing the day he went missing along with a few bones. The rest had been tossed in the river. They charged him with m*rder and the Lavis family was finally able to bury their boy.
He became friends with the grieving parents and even moved in with them. The parents started to trust him over the police. He began grooming Jamie’s 10 year old brother and interfered in the investigation into Jamie’s disappearance. The police knew it was him the whole time but couldn’t prove it.
One day Vickers approached some children and asked them to help him look for Jamie in the woods. The children ran home and told their parents who phoned police. This finally gave the police an area to search for Jamie’s body and they found the clothes he was wearing the day he went missing along with a few bones. The rest had been tossed in the river. They charged him with m*rder and the Lavis family was finally able to bury their boy.
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92points
#13
Douglas Spedden was a six-year-old boy when he boarded the RMS Titanic with his parents.
A photograph taken by Roman Catholic Priest Frances Browne shows Douglas Spedden playing the topper on the deck of the “Unsinkable Ship”.
Days later, the vessel would go down.
Spedden would be among the survivors.
However, on August 6, 1915, Spedden was k**led at the age of nine in an automobile accident near his residence in Maine.
This was the first documented case of a fatal motor collision in the state.
A photograph taken by Roman Catholic Priest Frances Browne shows Douglas Spedden playing the topper on the deck of the “Unsinkable Ship”.
Days later, the vessel would go down.
Spedden would be among the survivors.
However, on August 6, 1915, Spedden was k**led at the age of nine in an automobile accident near his residence in Maine.
This was the first documented case of a fatal motor collision in the state.
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87points
#14
Before the Omagh bombing in Northern Ireland. Almost immediately after this photo was taken, a bomb was set off in the red car beside the boy on his dad's shoulders. The father and child survived miraculously, but the photographer and 28 others died, while around 220 were injured.
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84points
#15
Into the jaws of death, 1944
US Army 1ID in their beach assault of Omaha sector of the Normandy landings, not a horrific photo for its content, but a horrific photo because we know what followed, an emotional and awe inspiring photograph. Truly, the greatest generation.
US Army 1ID in their beach assault of Omaha sector of the Normandy landings, not a horrific photo for its content, but a horrific photo because we know what followed, an emotional and awe inspiring photograph. Truly, the greatest generation.
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83points
#16
In 1870, the American bison was hunted wildly by European colonists and nearly extinct. On a flat area, uncountable American bison skulls were piled up.
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82points
#17
At first you think she's just a cute old lady cooking outside. Obviously the topic is who is this lady and who was she, what did she have in that cauldron.
Leonarda Cianciulli was an Italian serial killer. Better known as The Soapmaker of Correggio, she killed three women in the town of Correggio, Reggio Emilia, between 1939 and 1940, and turned their bodies into soap and pastries using caustic soda or sodium hydroxide.
Leonarda Cianciulli was an Italian serial killer. Better known as The Soapmaker of Correggio, she killed three women in the town of Correggio, Reggio Emilia, between 1939 and 1940, and turned their bodies into soap and pastries using caustic soda or sodium hydroxide.
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80points
#18
Not so scary? Just women and kids sitting and “busy” in their lives while two guys are just smiling for a selfie. But wait! This picture requires some background to know how scary it is.
The pic was taken from Syria and the “smiling guys” are soldiers of Bashar al Assad who have captured all these women and kids from Eastern Ghouta (their men already sent to detention centres) and what happened with those poor women and kids, one never knows; but based on the long history of tortures and systematic use of rape as both a lust of the soldiers and a “weapon” to terrorize other civilians daring to get the freedom from Bashar, whenever I think of this image, it gives me nightmares.
The pic was taken from Syria and the “smiling guys” are soldiers of Bashar al Assad who have captured all these women and kids from Eastern Ghouta (their men already sent to detention centres) and what happened with those poor women and kids, one never knows; but based on the long history of tortures and systematic use of rape as both a lust of the soldiers and a “weapon” to terrorize other civilians daring to get the freedom from Bashar, whenever I think of this image, it gives me nightmares.
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77points
#19
This is a series of photos taken by two Dutch hiking women (Kris Kremers and Lisanne Froon) before their disappearance in Panama.
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75points
#20
The picture was actually found on the camera of two vacationers who were swept away in the 2004 tsunami, which resulted in over 230 000 deaths.
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74points