There are many facts that are beneficial to you in life that are super helpful.
But it's the creepy ones that you wish you never found out about, because they are always in the deep recesses of your brain waiting to manifest in your recurring nightmares.
When I was in Mexico City, my group of friends and I were taken to the beautiful canals of Xochimilco.
It was during the floating excursion when I first learned about the existence of La Isla de las Muñecas – or, the Island of Dolls.
We were told that the island's caretaker, Don Julian Santana Barrera, once found a girl who had drowned there under mysterious circumstances. He also found a doll in that water that presumably belonged to the dead girl.
He strung the doll up on a tree to appease the dead girl's vengeful spirit, and that thoughtful gesture inspired a creepy tradition in which hundreds of other dolls and doll parts were hung up or left on the island as a creepy shrine.
While the origin story of Doll Island is debatable, it is a real place populated with hundreds of decaying dolls that have been exposed to the elements.
But what the locals say frequently happens there is hardly surprising.
They are convinced the dolls move at night and that they can sometimes hear them whispering to each other.
No thank you, ma'am.
Our group never floated by the haunted island, and it's just as well. Possessing the knowledge of its existence nearby gave us enough chills that left us with awkward smiles for the remainder of our delightful boat tour.
What gives you the heebie-jeebies and keeps you up at night?
That is what Redditor sussege wanted to know when he visited askReddit.
He dared to ask:
"What are some disturbing facts you know?"
Redditors did not disappoint as they shared fascinating factoids that included an underwater grave, historical brutalities and an unsettling ritual in the insect world.
Prepare to expand your mind ... and pull up your bed sheets tonight.Guilty Pig
"In 1386, a pig in France was executed by public hanging for the murder of a child."
"The pig was given full legal representation and provided human clothing for the trial."
The Monkey Hangers
"In a similar vein, during the Napoleonic Wars, a French ship was wrecked in a storm off the coast of Hartlepool."
"The only survivor from the ship was a monkey, allegedly dressed in a French army uniform to provide amusement for the crew."
"On finding the monkey on the beach, some locals decided to hold an impromptu trial; since the monkey was unable to answer their questions and because they had seen neither a monkey nor a Frenchman before, they concluded that the monkey must be a French spy."
"Being found guilty, the animal was duly sentenced to death and was summarily hanged on the beach."
"Hartlepool's football team are called the Monkey Hangers to this day and there are various monkey statues around the town."
The President's Absent Mind
"John F Kennedy's brain as well as the associated autopsy slides have been missing since 1966, three years after his assassination."
– brkh47
An Unappetizing Thought
"If you have to turn to cannibalism for some reason, eating the thighs will give you the best nutrients."
Eat Me
"To my understanding due to the similarities between humans and pigs we would taste like, or simular to, pork."
"Wonder if that means human bacon is possible."
Off With His Head
"When a female mantis bites the head off a male who is breeding them, it is actually is a good thing. Males can't start fertilizing until a nerve in their head says they are properly clasped, think performance anxiety, can take hours. When the male has his head bitten off though...it ain't over. They have an organ in their abdomen that controls copulation (for when their head is bitten off) and it just goes to town, no worries about that nerve waiting for the proper clasp anymore since it's now gone. So in the end the females end up getting bred better by a zombie male with no inhibitions. I find this evolution in mantises disturbing (as a male) and amazing!"
Thousands And Thousands Of Spiders
"A Missouri couple sued the seller of a house, from whom they had bought it, when they discovered that Brown Recluse Spiders were 'bleeding out of the walls.'"
"It was estimated by an expert that around 4,000–5,000 spiders had infested the house."
Remnants Of A Maritime Disaster
"There are sh*t tons of shoes near the Titanic, the reason for this is that once the ship hit the bottom of the ocean, corpses rained down around the wreckage, the fish ate the bodies but no fish at that depth in that area can eat the leather that most shoes of the time were made of."
Frozen For All Eternity
"There are over 200 corpses on Mount Everest and they're used as landmarks."
Stallion Zebras
"A dominant Stallion Zebra will kill the offsprings of other stallions but mares won't put up with much. When it comes to their sons, a stallion would most likely kick them out. The bachelor stallion, if he's lucky to survive, would join herds of other bachelors until he can challenge the dominant stallion in a harem or start their own. The latter involves 'kidnapping' a mare from another harem. Yet, a stallion maybe not be pleased with a mare if she's already pregnant and does what he can to cause an abortion. After that, he tries to the mare pregnant by him."
"BTW, there's a sane reason for this has to do with preventing inbreeding."
Death By Train
"Unless hit in the head, people why have been killed by trains usually take minutes to bleed out instead of dying from the impact of the train hitting them."
Contaminating Our Oceans
"Lot of unethical shipping companies EVEN TODAY dump a lot of garbage, oily sludge, waste contaminated water and oil out when sailing in international waters far away from the shore. There are only a few handful players today who are actually executing business trades while still keeping the carbon footprint and enviornment as one of their core policies. I am glad to be working with one one them (I am a merchant marine who works as an engineer on mega container ships like this."
"Disclaimer: link takes you to a youtube video of a container ship in port and eventually sailing off under the Golden Gate Bridge."
– trendz19
Don't Put Off What You Can Do Today
"You can be in good health (both mentally and physically ) one day and then drop dead from an undiagnosed brain aneurysm the next. Most of the time there are no symptoms leading up to it. It can happen to anyone at anytime. The good news however is that it's certain death,you won't know what hit you. If your unlucky enough to survive one it has permanent neurological effects,that can make you a vegetable for the rest of your life."
"Another tidbit of information to add is that 1 in 50 people you encounter on the street,at work or school are currently walking around with an unruptured brain aneurysm."
Watery Grave
"There are more planes in the ocean than submarines in the sky. I think that's pretty disturbing."
@SecretaryBurgum/X
@Doug Ellin/X
@evanrachelwood/Instagram