34 Not-So-Fun Facts That Might Leave You Feeling Uneasy

Why not sprinkle some trivia into any conversation? It’s a great way to start off a chat or bring a smile to someone’s face. But what about those unsettling or downright uncomfortable facts we sometimes stumble upon? 

#1 Old people move so slow because everything they do hurts. I’m getting old and it’s starting to happen.

Image source: rChewbacca, Pixabay

#2 There’s an extremely high chance that Boeing executives contracted a hit on one of their former employees for being a whistleblower and basically the public response (other than a few angry social media posts) has been “well, yeah, that’s just what happens…”.

Image source: Imaskeet, Pixabay

#3 ER Doc here

Image source: Lord_Lava_Nugget, Anna Shvets

A lot of people know when they are about to die, even if they don’t know why. Just instinctual, they even say it very calmly and knowingly “I’m gonna die.” Or something similar. And then they code.

Or. They say they have to go the bathroom. Then code.

I am dead serious.

#4 When gas was introduced into common households during the industrial revolutions, people started paying more attention to what they put on their walls, now that they were lit up.

Image source: pottedplantfairy, Alexander Dmitriev

They began decorating more, and wallpaper became a much more important part of the modern home. At the time, green was a very popular colour, as it had never really been an option to decorate with that colour before. However the green colour was obtained with Arsenic (as white paints were often obtained through a lead product). After a while, wear and tear made it so that people literally started breathing in bits of their arsenic wallpapers, and feeling bad within their homes. Their doctors would then suggest they go on holiday to the sea, as the ocean air often had proven a successful remedy. But of course, it was a remedy simply because they were no longer breathing in arsenic. The companies that made these wallpapers were well aware of their nefarious effects, but it took people boycotting “en masse” for them to actually stop production, several decades later.

#5 One of the more recent things I learned about is the Paria diving disaster – where four divers got sucked up into an underwater pipe and three of them got stuck in there. The company decided to wait until they were dead instead of doing a rescue operation because money. They said they heard banging for three days until it finally stopped. Not a fun way to go, inside a dark pipe alone, cold and scared. Damn, may those souls rest in peace.

Image source: EntertainmentPure955, Saad Alaiyadhi

#6 It’s incredibly common for people to be eaten by their pets if they die alone. However, it is WAY more likely in cats than in dogs. Cats will pretty much eat you as soon as their food runs out, if they have any. Some of them will eat you even before their food runs out. Dogs are different, they will only eat you out of necessity, if they’ve exhausted all previous foodstuffs that they can get to and if they can’t escape from the property and it will be days before that happens.

Image source: Ok-Noise2538, Krysten Merriman

There is a reason for this. Dogs are omnivores. They will primarily eat meat but can eat vegetables. They can survive without meat. Cats are obligate carnivores, which means they HAVE to eat meat. There’s a specific protein that they can only get from meat and it’s essential for their organs to operate properly, otherwise, they will die and it’s not a quick, quiet death either. So given the absense of meat, your pet cat will eat your soft squishy bits first. Usually the face.

Source-used to be an RVN.

#7 I was a social worker. I saw a lot.

Image source: DecadentLife, fauxels

The first three weeks, we were in a classroom doing intensive training. Every day, someone would walk out. It wasn’t out of being rude, it’s because each person has a point at which they cannot go any further. They showed us some of the worst. The deal is, they do it for very good reason. If we are so horrified that we refuse to learn about the abuse, how will we recognize it in one of our kids?
That’s what I ask of all adults. PLEASE, if you see something, don’t assume it’s impossible so you can push it out of your mind. A whole lot is possible.

#8 You ever use bleach without gloves, and it gets kinda slimy? That slime isn’t the bleach. It’s your skin melting.

Image source: blakeman8192, Nothing Ahead

#9 Mummies weren’t that rare until the Victorian British ate so many of them.

Image source: GotPC, Narciso Arellano

#10 You are more likely to be bitten by a New Yorker then die from a shark.

Image source: UndyneIsCool, Alex Steyn

#11 If you are properly skinned alive you can survive upwards of an hour and will die from hypothermia, not blood loss.

Image source: Top_Tart_7558, NEOSiAM 2024+

#12 Dental Hygienist here. There is a type of gum disease that is caused by maggots in your gums. Literal maggots from flys laying eggs in your mouth to feed on your rotten flesh.

Image source: DauntlessTanker, Anna Shvets

#13 Everything you experience and perceive is just an incredibly vivid hallucination based on _very_ sparse and broadly interpreted data from our own senses. We infer reality. We don’t witness it.

Image source: glytxh, Pixabay

#14 The number one cause of death for pregnant women is domestic violence.

Image source: paradox-psy-hoe-sis, freestocks

#15 We don’t know the effects of micro plastics on the human body, partially because we can’t find a control group.

Image source: ZealousidealPotato71, Kevin Krejci

#16 That Munmorah power plant in Australia was allowed to operate for decades with a significant diesel leak in an underground reservoir that contaminated the water table. When demolishing the plant you could light the sand that surrounded the tank on fire (about 50 meters each way), and if you dug lower than the sea level anywhere within a I guess about a 1km radius you could smell diesel.

Image source: Icewallow-toothpaste, Webaware

It’s a high fishing surfing area. That was far from the only contaminant. Pfas, Pfos, chromium, etc. People live very close to it. People eat the fish for years from the hot water outlet. (Was a super popular “secret” fishing spot)

Also during the demolition there was lots of contaminated water collected – This was sent through a filtration process and pumped into the ocean. It had multiple sediment filters and a water/oil separator. I do not believe it was adequate filtration before it was sent back into the sea.

No one seems to know. I only know because I was part of the works post operation.

Makes me wonder how many heavy industrial entities got to do who knows what and get away with it.

#17 Australians’ greatest enemy isn’t spider, drop bears, killer roos, massive insects, or devil snakes; it’s the sun. Australia has the highest skin cancer rate in the world, and an Australian is four times more likely to develop skin cancer than any other type of cancer, and two thirds of Australian would be diagnosed with it by the time they reach the age of 70.

Image source: ForgottenShark, Pixabay

#18 It’s possible for rats to swim up your toilet piping. There are enough air pockets to travel all the way into your bathroom. I could have lived my whole life not knowing this, but here you go.

Image source: Annual-Ad-3350, Svetozar Cenisev

#19 Greater than half the population of the USA reads at or below fourth grade level.

Image source: Exotic_Bumblebee_275, Lisa Fotios

#20 There is a whale called 52 Blue that only sings at their frequency meaning it can’t communicate with other whales. It is nicknamed the loneliest whale on the planet.

Image source: GotPC, Andrea Holien

#21 A lot of people in nursing homes will die shortly after family leaves. I’ve had funeral directors tell me this is very accurate. Both my parents did. We were there, left for the night and while gone, they died. It’s like they don’t want to expire in front of anyone.

Image source: problem-solver0, Matthias Zomer

#22 Bus seats are designed so that you can’t tell how dirty they are

Image source: VanessaDoesVanNuys, Markus Winkler

#23 Living a healthy lifestyle, eating right and exercising buys you the slowest rate of death possible, at best. I work with the elderly and a 95 yo woman mumbled that “this is what I get for being healthy…stiiiiiillll here.”

Image source: SameBirdDiffrntStone, Kampus Production

#24 That one in five men will leave their wives when they get extremely sick or have to care for them in some manner.

Image source: SadieArlen, Andrea Piacquadio

#25 When whales and dolphins get too old they just drown.

Image source: pilgrimz, 7inchs

#26 If you die on Mount Everest, it’s too dangerous and too expensive to move your body. So you’ll be stuck there forever, and depending on where you die, other climbers might use your body as a trail marker.

Image source: chernygal, Nanda Ram Gharti

#27 When you’re burning to death your eyes melt out of your head before you die. So you’re still alive while your eyes are melting.

Image source: AdorableSunshine02, Pixabay

#28 Chainsaws were invented for medical use, largely for cutting into the pelvis during childbirth in a process called a pelviotomy. And from about 1940 to 1987, approximately 1,500 women were given one in Ireland without their consent, way after they should have switched to C-sections, often to perfect the surgery for use in Africa.

Image source: 79screamingfrogs, Anastasiia Chepinska

A 2012 study found that many of the victims say the Catholic Church  “encouraged, if not insisted upon, symphysiotomies.”

It took until 2012 for people to begin getting any compensation and the first woman to receive it was subjected to the procedure *post cesarian.* However, they dropped the ball so hard on addressing it afterwards that the survivor’s group of these women had to go to the UN Committee Against Torture to get anything else done.

Some babies were also killed in the process.

#29 The fact that the “couple” down the street from me with 3 kids are not husband and wife. They are in fact brother and sister. Yes I know it for fact I went to grammar school with them.

Image source: Trailerguy13, Vidal Balielo Jr.

#30 Mentally handicapped children are roughly three times as likely to be sexually assaulted. Note that roughly 25% of all healthy girls and 5% of healthy boys will be the victim of CSA before they are 12.

Image source: Barbarian_818, cottonbro studio

#31 During the cleanup of Pearl Harbor, as the recovery crews for *USS West Virginia (BB-48)* got deeper into the ship months after the attack, they discovered bodies high in the engine room and a locked storeroom where air bubbles had kept them alive for **2 weeks** based on calendars they used to keep track of time. That was “well after” divers had made their first passes over the ship listening for sounds of survivors.

Image source: theothermeisnothere, Imperial Japanese Navy

#32 Many lullabies are about plagues or a hanging.

Image source: Empty_Sea1872, MART PRODUCTION

#33 There’s a relatively good chance that you already own the clothes that you’ll die in. *To clarify, I’m not threatening you, haha.

Image source: Texpatriate2, Kai Pilger

#34 Smell is particle based… remember that next time you go into a smelly restroom… I gotta know it, now so do you.

Image source: PdxPhoenixActual