16 Terrifying, Shocking, And Extremely Disturbing Things I Learned Last Month

Here are all the terrifying, shocking, and extremely disturbing things I learned about recently. Some are stories from just last month, and some are stories from many years ago.

Warning: Graphic content ahead, including stories of murder, sexual assault, death, violence, and torture.

1. In April 2014, two Dutch women, 21-year-old Kris Kremers and 22-year-old Lisanne Froon, disappeared while hiking the El Pianista trail in Panama. Despite an extensive search, neither woman was found. However, more than two months later, a backpack containing their phones, a digital camera, and other belongings was discovered near a river.

Investigators found that the women had repeatedly attempted to contact emergency services after disappearing, but the calls failed due to no reception. Even more chilling, their camera contained dozens of bizarre photographs taken in the middle of the night, a full week after they vanished. Most showed seemingly random patches of darkness, rocks, and vegetation, while one captured the back of Kris's head.

Search teams eventually discovered scattered skeletal remains belonging to both women along the river, but their exact cause of death was never definitively established. Although investigators concluded that a tragic accident was the most likely explanation, the mysterious photographs and unanswered questions about their final days have continued to fuel speculation about what actually happened to them.

2. In 2014, a hiker named Kenny Veach claimed to have discovered a mysterious cave in the Nevada desert, near Nellis Air Force Base, with an entrance shaped like a perfect capital "M."

According to Veach, as he approached the cave, his entire body began vibrating, with the sensation growing stronger the closer he got. The experience frightened him so badly that he turned around and left. After sharing his story in a YouTube comment, other users encouraged him to return and investigate. Veach attempted to find the cave again and even filmed his search for his YouTube channel, but was unsuccessful.

On November 10, 2014, Veach set out on another solo hike to find the mysterious "M Cave," but this time, he never returned. Search teams eventually located his vehicle and cellphone, the latter of which was discovered near an abandoned mine shaft approximately four hours from where he'd parked. Despite extensive searches, no other trace of Veach was ever found, and his disappearance remains unsolved. To this day, the existence and location of the mysterious cave have never been confirmed.

3. In 1653, a Dutch sailor named Hendrick Hamel was traveling to Japan aboard a merchant ship when a violent storm caused the vessel to wreck off the coast of Korea. Hamel was among 36 crew members who survived, but their ordeal was far from over.

At the time, Korea was ruled by the Joseon dynasty, which maintained strict isolationist policies and refused to allow the stranded sailors to leave the country. Instead, the men were forced to perform various duties and endured years of hardship, including famine and mistreatment by officials. Even more unsettling, shortly after their arrival, they encountered another Dutch sailor named Jan Jansz Weltevree, who had been stranded in Korea since 1627 and had never been allowed to return home.

After 13 years of captivity, Hamel and seven other survivors finally managed to escape in 1666 by secretly securing a small boat and sailing to Japan. Although some of their fellow crew members had died over the years, several others remained behind and were eventually released two years later. Hamel returned to the Netherlands, where he published an account of his experiences that became one of the earliest detailed descriptions of Korea available to Europeans.

4. One of the strangest mysteries surrounding the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy involves an unidentified woman known only as the "Babushka Lady," who may have captured footage of the shooting that has never been recovered. And as someone who's mildly obsessed with the Kennedy assassination, I was floored to learn about her existence.

She appears in multiple photos and films from Dealey Plaza, standing shockingly close to President John F. Kennedy as shots ring out. While people around her duck, flee, or panic, she seems to remain calm, holding what looks like a camera pointed directly at the motorcade. The footage investigators believed she captured has never been found, and she was never identified.

Over the years, increasingly wild theories have emerged about who she was. Some believe she was just an ordinary bystander who never came forward. Others insist she was tied to intelligence agencies, part of a cover-up, or involved in something far darker. More than 60 years later, no one knows who she was, what she recorded, or why she vanished.

5. In the 1800s, buying milk in America could literally be deadly. Before modern food safety regulations, some dairy producers watered down their milk to increase profits, then added dyes, chalk, or even plaster dust to disguise its bluish-gray appearance. Even worse, some would add pureed calf brains to create the appearance of a rich layer of cream.

And if the milk started to spoil? Well, some producers simply added formaldehyde, the same chemical used in embalming fluid, to keep it from going bad.

In 1900, investigators in Indianapolis discovered milk containing everything from insects and blood to pus and even worms, while hundreds of children reportedly died from consuming contaminated milk. The scandals eventually helped spur stricter food safety regulations, including the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906. So, the next time you pour yourself a glass of milk, be thankful you weren't doing it 150 years ago.

6. On October 23, 2026, a massive building under construction in Nairobi, Kenya, suddenly collapsed, sending a huge cloud of dust and debris across a busy commercial street. Horrifying footage captured the structure crumbling in seconds as pedestrians scrambled to escape (which you can see here, if you dare).

A week after the collapse, rescuers finally recovered the first body, while 16 people were still reported missing. According to Nairobi's governor, the building had never received the necessary construction approvals, and the shops operating inside it were occupying the premises illegally because the structure had not been cleared for use.

7. Between 1949 and 1951, a Romanian prison became the site of one of the most horrifying psychological torture programs in modern history. Known as the "Pitești Experiment," the program was carried out under Romania's communist regime and targeted hundreds of political prisoners, many of them young university students.

Under the guise of "re-education," prisoners were subjected to relentless beatings, sleep deprivation, starvation, humiliation, and other forms of abuse designed to completely break them psychologically. Some were forced to eat their own feces, denounce their families and religious beliefs, and confess to crimes they hadn't committed.

One of the most disturbing aspects of the experiment was that prisoners were eventually forced to become torturers themselves, brutally abusing fellow inmates under the direction of an inmate leader named Eugen Țurcanu. The goal wasn't simply to extract information, but to destroy prisoners' identities and turn victims against one another.

The experiment eventually ended, and several of the inmate perpetrators, including Țurcanu, were tried and executed. However, senior officials involved in the program largely escaped accountability, while survivors were left with lasting physical and psychological trauma.

8. In 1985, a seemingly minor shoplifting incident at a hardware store in San Francisco led police to uncover a horrifying serial murder operation. After Charles Ng attempted to steal a vise and fled the scene, police questioned his accomplice, Leonard Lake, who was sitting in a parked car outside. Investigators discovered that Lake was using a driver's license belonging to a missing man named Robin Scott Stapley, while the vehicle belonged to another missing man, Paul Cosner.

But things took an even darker turn when Lake swallowed a hidden cyanide capsule while in police custody, dying several days later. Police subsequently traced evidence to a remote property in the Sierra Nevada foothills, where they discovered a secret, soundproof torture chamber equipped with a two-way mirror, along with human remains buried around the property.

Investigators eventually uncovered the remains of at least 11 people, along with diaries and disturbing videotapes documenting Lake and Ng's crimes. The pair had kidnapped, imprisoned, sexually assaulted, and murdered victims, including women and young children. Authorities suspected the pair may have killed as many as 25 people, although the exact number remains unknown.

Ng was eventually convicted of 11 murders and sentenced to death, while Lake, of course, died before he could stand trial. As of 2026, Ng remains on death row, although he has since been transferred from San Quentin to California Medical Facility in Vacaville. (California has had a moratorium on executions since 2019.)

9. During World War II, the Imperial Japanese Army operated a secret facility in occupied Manchuria (present-day China) where thousands of people were subjected to some of the most horrifying human experiments imaginable.

Known as Unit 731, the covert biological and chemical warfare program operated under the guise of epidemic prevention, conducting brutal experiments on civilians and prisoners of war, including vivisection, deliberate infection with deadly diseases, and frostbite testing. The unit's experiments and associated biological warfare operations are believed to have caused hundreds of thousands of deaths.

After the war, the US granted immunity to many Unit 731 members in exchange for their research data, thereby allowing key figures such as the unit's commander, Shirō Ishii, to avoid prosecution. The atrocities committed by Unit 731 remain one of the most horrifying examples of wartime human experimentation.

10. Across the United States, people have vanished in national parks and remote wilderness areas under circumstances that can be incredibly difficult to explain. These disappearances are the subject of "Missing 411," a series of books and documentaries by former police detective David Paulides, who has spent years compiling cases involving hikers, campers, and children who disappeared in the wilderness.

The name is a play on the old 411 directory assistance number, essentially referring to the missing information surrounding these cases. Some of the stories involve people vanishing shortly after being seen by companions, while others describe missing individuals whose belongings or remains were later discovered in areas that search teams had already examined.

Paulides has identified what he believes are unusual patterns connecting these cases, including disappearances near bodies of water, granite formations, and sudden changes in weather. Although he suggests that conventional explanations don't adequately account for some of the incidents, critics argue that his research selectively presents cases and overlooks more ordinary, tragic explanations, such as accidents, exposure, animal encounters, and getting lost.

11. In early 1976, the Khmer Rouge transformed a former high school in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, into a secret prison and torture center known as S-21. An estimated 15,000 to 20,000 people were imprisoned there, including men, women, and children, and only a handful survived.

Upon arrival, prisoners were photographed, interrogated, and forced to confess to crimes they often hadn't committed. Many were subjected to horrific torture before being executed, frequently at the nearby Choeung Ek killing field.

The Khmer Rouge meticulously photographed thousands of prisoners, creating a chilling collection of mugshots showing people of all ages, some visibly terrified, others staring directly into the camera. More than 5,000 of these photographs have been preserved, along with forced confessions and detailed prisoner records. Today, the former prison is the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, where the photographs serve as a devastating reminder of the thousands of lives lost.

12. In 2009, a Reddit user known as "ReligionOfPeace," who claimed to be a 79-year-old military veteran named Milo, reportedly died. But when another user announced his death, internet sleuths began digging into a strange website associated with him called "Lake City Quiet Pills."

Although the site appeared to be a simple image-hosting service, users discovered mysterious messages hidden in its source code, including what looked like coded job postings seeking people with military experience, foreign language skills, and the ability to travel internationally. Even creepier, the name "Lake City Quiet Pills" appeared to reference the Lake City Army Ammunition Plant in Missouri, with "quiet pills" possibly being slang for bullets.

Things took an even darker turn when internet investigators noticed that some of the site's cryptic messages appeared to reference a gathering on January 19, 2010, the same day Hamas official Mahmoud al-Mabhouh was assassinated in a Dubai hotel room. This led to speculation that the website was actually a secret recruitment network for mercenaries or contract killers. However, no evidence has ever established a connection between the site and the assassination, and some believe the entire thing was an elaborate hoax or online role-playing game. The website eventually disappeared, leaving behind one of Reddit's strangest unsolved mysteries.

13. In the spring of 1976, an elusive predator, later dubbed the Oakland County Child Killer, began abducting children in broad daylight in suburban Michigan. Victims were held alive for days, fed, bathed, and dressed in freshly laundered clothing before their bodies were left in plain sight.

Over a 13-month period between 1976 and 1977, four children — Mark Stebbins, Jill Robinson, Kristine Mihelich, and Timothy King — vanished from ordinary, seemingly safe neighborhoods across Oakland County. The children ranged in age from 10 to 12, and their sudden disappearances shattered the community’s sense of security. Panic spread rapidly, prompting terrified parents to stop letting their children play outside unsupervised, ride bikes freely, or walk to school alone.

As the multi-agency task force scrambled for answers, the investigation grew increasingly complex. Detectives chased thousands of dead-end leads, while witnesses reported a suspicious vehicle near schools and shopping centers. Intense media coverage fueled the widespread panic, with nightly broadcasts keeping a terrified public on edge. The perpetrator has still never been officially identified.

Despite decades of renewed investigations, the emergence of modern DNA profiling, and intense public scrutiny, the identity of the killer remains a mystery, leaving the case as one of the most infamous unsolved child murder investigations in American history.

14. There's a mysterious 600-year-old book that has baffled historians, linguists, and cryptographers for more than a century. Known as the Voynich manuscript, the illustrated book is written mostly in an unknown script that no one has ever been able to definitively decipher.

Its pages are filled with bizarre illustrations of highly stylized or unidentifiable plants, astronomical diagrams, strange symbols, and naked women bathing in mysterious pools and interconnected tubes. Radiocarbon dating places the creation of the parchment pages in the early 1400s, but nobody knows who wrote the manuscript or what its contents mean.

Named after rare book dealer Wilfrid Voynich, who acquired it in 1912, the manuscript has inspired theories ranging from an elaborate hoax to an encrypted medical text or a lost language. Despite numerous claims that its code has been cracked, none has gained widespread scholarly acceptance. Today, the manuscript is housed at Yale University, where it remains one of history's most enduring mysteries.

15. On October 28, 2026, two high-speed passenger trains collided in central Spain, killing at least 68 people and injuring more than 100 others. The crash occurred near Toledo after a train carrying hundreds of passengers slammed into another train that had been stopped on the tracks. The impact was so violent that several carriages derailed, sending wreckage tumbling down an embankment. Survivors described people being thrown from their seats, passengers trapped beneath debris, and one train car catching fire.

Investigators discovered that a computer malfunction had caused trains along the route to stop automatically, but a controller subsequently authorized one of them to resume traveling at speeds of up to 120 mph, despite an active red signal. The train reportedly traveled approximately 16 miles before crashing into the stationary train. Authorities have since launched an investigation into how such a catastrophic error could have occurred.

16. Finally, more than 50 years after a 17-year-old girl was brutally murdered in Utah, investigators have now confirmed that notorious serial killer Ted Bundy was responsible for her death.

On October 18, 1974, Melissa Ann Smith, the daughter of a local police chief, disappeared after spending an evening with a friend. Nine days later, her naked body was discovered by a hunter in a wooded area near Park City. She had been beaten and sexually assaulted. Although Bundy had long been suspected of the killing, authorities were never able to definitively link him to the crime, leaving the case unsolved for decades.

But on October 27, 2026, investigators announced that advances in DNA testing had finally confirmed Bundy as Smith's killer. Interestingly, the breakthrough came just six months after authorities used DNA evidence to link Bundy to another 17-year-old girl, Laura Ann Aime, who was murdered in Utah in 1974.

Bundy, who confessed to killing at least 30 women and girls before his execution in 1989, is suspected of having many more victims.

If you or someone you know has experienced sexual assault, you can call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673), which routes the caller to their nearest sexual assault service provider. You can also search for your local center here.