The world is a scary place. Beautiful, yes, but take a good look around and you'll definitely notice something that makes you feel uncomfortable. Whether we're talking about spiders, lightning, or social interaction, everyone has their own nightmare fuel.

To find the worst of the worst, Reddit user Misoalgia posted a question on the platform, asking everyone "What is a genuinely terrifying fact?" Immediately, the replies started pouring in and as of now, the post has over 9.9K comments. In order to save you, dear pandas, some time, we scrolled through the entries and hand-picked the most memorable ones.

#1

Sun eruptions happened before and lead to blackouts across several continents. All fun and games in the 19th century. Today it could easily kill millions. And it could happen any hour.

Image credits: NotKhad

#2

Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (mad cow) can lie dormant for more than 50 years, is universally fatal, and is inheritable. There is no cure.

MrDarksCarnival:

My mom passed from this.

Took a healthy energetic 60-year old woman that MAYBE looked 50, and turned her into a semi-vegetative shell of her former self.

It’s destructive. And I have no idea if it’s dormant in me.

Image credits: Particular-Natural12

#3

The ten hottest years on record have all been since 2010.



We are not only going to see the catastrophic 2 degree warming this century - we're probably going to see more than that.



The absolute worst part? Even with net zero emissions by 2070 we will STILL probably see 2 degree warming. The time for action to prevent catastrophe was over maybe 20 years ago - we are living in a time of disaster management.

Image credits: mordenty

#4

SIDS, sudden infant death syndrome, a baby will just die and we don't know why.

Image credits: TTheTiny1

#5

Some spiders eat snakes.

Image credits: OkMushroom364

#6

Scurvy at advanced stages can make all of your scars reopen, because maintaining them is an active process that your body does all the time and when it can't produce collagen it stops. Maybe eat some fruit.

Image credits: Kordwar

#7

Assuming you live in a structure that can burn, a fault in your electrical system can burn your house down at any moment. I grew up in a neighborhood of older houses, several of which burned to the ground (usually during the overnight hours). The cause of almost all of them was electrical.

Image credits: Hungry_Owl_3746

#8

There are hundreds of unidentified serial killers in America.

Image credits: Apprehensive_Bee7344

#9

That somebody is out here trafficking humans and then going back to their family while living comfortably in a much nice place than some of us are.

Image credits: 5annex

#10

A person eats, on average, “two pounds of flies, maggots and other bugs each year," according to Scientific American.

-A cup of raisins can have up to 33 fruit fly eggs.

-Fig paste is allowed to have up to 13 insect heads in 100 grams.

-Up to five fruit flies is allowed in an 8-ounce cup of canned fruit juice.

+One maggot is allowed in every 250 milliliters of fruit.

+Up to 2,500 aphids are allowed in every 10 grams of hops.

-Spinach can have up to 50 aphids, thrips or mites per 100 grams.

-Broccoli can contain insects fragments and even whole insects.

-Up to a kilogram of insect parts is allowed in 100 kilograms of chocolate.

-Up to 19 maggots and 74 mites are allowed in a 3.5-ounce can of mushrooms.

-Up to 15 fruit fly eggs are allowed in 100 grams of tomato sauce

Image credits: AeonSophia514

#11

It's a great day. You go for a swim, and then Naegleri fowleri hits you hard. "Naegleri fowleri is an amoeba (brain eating amoeba) that can cause a serious central nervous system infection. The amoeba is found in warm and still fresh water bodies of water and enters a human body through the nose."

Image credits: instapoppins

#12

There is a species of caterpillar, big blue out of great Britain I believe, that tricks ants into thinking it's an ant queen in distress. The ants take this caterpillar back to the nest where the caterpillar continues acting like a queen but devouring all the ant larvae. This destroys the ant colony from the inside. There are some studies that can point to this species actively finding which larvae will eventually become the next queen and devour those larvae first.

Image credits: Blankasbiscuits

#13

One genuinely terrifying fact is that there are more bacteria living in and on our bodies than there are human cells.

#14

Siberia’s permafrost melting and unleashing a disease humanity isn’t prepared for.

#15

The Permian Extinction was the greatest extinction event in history, the atmosphere was full of CO2 and the oceans warmed so much they held too little oxygen to support most of the life that lived in it.



We are currently recreating these events through climate change.

#16

Yellowstone National Park is actually a massive caldera volcano which, if an eruption occurs, would cause an extinction level event. We're in its time frame for eruption and it's still growing.



Some interesting things about this, are scientists are able to track growth by tracking lake movement. Because the land is bubbling up at the center of the volcano dome, the lakes are slowly moving away from the center point.



It's also not possible to drill in and slowly relieve pressure as the rock gets too hot and squishy the closer you get as well as the drill hearing up and becoming squishy itself.



There is literally nothing we can do to prevent this. We just have to sit and wait for nature to take its course.

#17

There is a good to fair chance you’ve met at least 1 murder in your life already.

#18

Either we're the only sentient species in the whole universe or we are not. Both is equaly terrifying.

#19

You can just go to sleep and... never wake up. You might never get to say goodbye, or tell your family you love them.

#20

That brain aneurysms usually does not have symptoms and it can kill you if it ruptures.

Image credits: Misbrukt

#21

The last official government execution by GUILLOTINE was 10 September 1977 at 4:40am in Marseille France.



That's . . . during my lifetime.

#22

The US military has lost several nuclear weapons and not all of them have been recovered.

Image credits: umdche

#23

Dementia has no age limit.

Image credits: PLAmibingusPL

#24

One genuinely terrifying fact is the concept of "antibiotic resistance." Bacteria can evolve to become resistant to antibiotics, the drugs we use to treat bacterial infections. Overuse and misuse of antibiotics can speed up this process, making previously treatable diseases difficult or even impossible to cure. According to the World Health Organization, antibiotic resistance is one of the biggest threats to global health today, potentially leading to a future where simple infections could once again become deadly.

Image credits: 0OOO00000OO00O0O0OOO

#25

You could have rabies right now, you won’t know until you start showing symptoms. Then, it’s too late.

Image credits: zerbey

#26

I know its basic as f**k but death and the very likely chance that everything just ends keeps me up at night. Also the fact that no matter what everyone you love will die. Your parents will die. Your cousins. Your uncles. Your aunties. Idk it's almost comforting that at the end of the day I don't have to worry too much because eventually none of it matters, but idk it scares me.

Image credits: Gardevoir_is_NOT_hot

#27

There are such things as Rogue Planets just flying through space and not orbiting any star. If one were to pass through our solar system it could easily nudge the Earth out of its orbit and we’d either fry or freeze and there’s nothing we could do about it.

Image credits: InTheFDN

#28

It is physically possible to be so constipated that your stool will back all the way up your digestive tract and you can vomit feces. You're welcome.

#29

Some scientists consider flies the most dangerous of all animals because of how easily they spread illnesses.

Image credits: IllustriousDebt6248

#30

There is a white dwarf about 130 light years away from us, and it could explode any time. If it explodes, then it will be a big cosmic firework - and very close, possibly close enough to cause problems. Even it if turns into a neutron star without an explosion, that phenomenon could cause a nasty EMP effect, possibly killing a lot of satellites.

Image credits: Elvenblood7E7

#31

Your hearing is probably the last sense that you lose when you die. Imagine hearing all the people around you…

#32

That there are people in this world who have absolutely zero support, and absolutely zero people to count on.

#33

Getting less than 7 or 8 hours of sleep a night f***s up your body much more thoroughly than anyone assumes. It increases the risk of just about any health problem you can imagine, from obesity to Alzheimer’s to heart disease, significantly, and impairs basically everything your brain does. Also, your brain is physically incapable of realizing the extent of sleep deprivation, so if you’re one of those people who can manage on 4 or 5 hours a night, you’re probably not actually.

#34

That blue whales can weigh half a million pounds and can speak to each other from thousands of miles away.

#35

The Appalachian mountains are older than bones.

#36

Hisashi Ouchi Was kept alive (by any means necessary) for 83 days after exposure to fatal levels of radiation.

#37

50-70% of people don't have an internal monologue. I can't even imagine that. I can barely turn mine off to sleep. Comments seems split but there are a lot saying they don't experience internal monologue. I read it as monologue. I think some people are confusing it with dialogue. But maybe some experience that too?

#38

The earth was around billions of years before we were, and is indifferent to our survival. There have been multiple mass extinctions in the past and we shouldn't feel any safer. The only difference is we've advanced far enough to the point that we'll probably know in advance when our species is going to go extinct.

#39

Space is expanding at a rate faster than the speed of light. One day only our local group of galaxies and celestial bodies will be visible and then one day our galaxy will be all alone in a pitch black void. Any new intelligent life will believe that their own galaxy and all that it encompasses, is the only celestial body to exist is in the vast universe.

#40

You and everything you know is located on a rock going impossibly fast through a void that you can't traverse without specialized equipment. You are trapped, and you have no idea why you are here or why you even exist. The only true escape is death. The most terrifying part is that you are aware and reflective (unlike every other animal) and have no tools to answer, not only why but how.

#41

The fact that we know more about outer space than our planet's deep oceans is unsettling. There are countless mysteries and potentially terrifying discoveries awaiting beneath the ocean's depths.

#42

If we don't find an optimal way to travel through space, we'll become extinct.

#43

It would take months to years for the power grid to recover from a sufficiently strong solar storm.

#44

The CIA's Operation Northwoods proposed that CIA operatives should commit acts of terrorism upon the US to blame Fidel Castro for justifying a war against Cuba. This was rejected by JFK. We know about this because this got declassified.

#45

That Richard Sackler is a free billionare in 2023.

clemenza2821:

CEO of Purdue Pharma, singularly responsible for the opioid epedemic.

#46

That we need to work for 11 months to get one month off in a whole year. That most of people need to work at a s****y job until they retire and then struggle to survive on a small retirement. I mean, a bunch of s**t that is terrifying.

Billionaires don't pay taxes etc.

#47

After a full nuclear exchange, some landmasses will become devoid of life.



The British Isles would depopulate as famine, disease and radiation would kill the remaining survivors.

#48

That mankind is the single biggest threat to our own extinction.