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The All-Time Creepiest Theories People Actually Believe

Earth is flat protest

The earth is flat.

The moon in hollow.

Evolution didn't happen.

These are only some of the wild, laughably ridiculous theories that a disheartening number of people actually believe.

In spite of ample scientific evidence proving them wrong.

Nonetheless, they go on believing these ludicrous theories.

Some of which are creepy enough even to make those with the toughest skin have trouble going to bed at night.


Redditor BiblicalBible was fascinated to hear the absolute creepiest theories that people continue to believe to this very day, leading them to ask:
"What is the scariest/creepiest theory you know about?"

How It All Began...

"This isn’t a theory, but I just think it’s cool."

"Y’know how movies and shows always have this ‘ancient alien race’ that came way before us, and we’re the new species?"

"Well technically, most likely thats wrong."

"We are near the beginning of the universe, if the universe was a person, we would literally barely be a cell, not even formed
In reality, we are the ancient species, we are the ones that come before, we are the ones some future civilization may see."

"Just a crazy thing to think about."- Podomus

A Whole Other Life

"I have a sleep disorder that causes nightmares and dreams that are often indistinguishable from reality."

"I live whole lives with partners and kids or work jobs in strange places for decades in full technicolour details and reach old age before waking."

"Sometimes it’s so intense that I sob and grieve for the lost relationships as if my real life partner has died."

"I am confused to be my own age and be here, now."

"The theory that this life is a dream/simulation type thing feels pretty real to me."

"My brain seems to create whole viable realities anyway."- Isolampg

Tired Season 4 GIF by The SimpsonsGiphy

It Just Doesn't Add Up...

"I find numbers stations to be pretty creepy."

"Their purpose is technically a theory, as the groups that broadcast them won't officially confirm even their existence for the most part."

"Essentially, spying is still a very real thing for most world governments."

"One of the most foolproof ways of delivering a coded message is through a one-time code, a code used just once before being discarded."

"Your spy has the key, you have the message, and once the key is used it is discarded and the next message is sent using a different key."

"Additionally, shortwave radio is an extremely secure way of sending these messages."

"It sounds weird, that a radio station anyone with a shortwave radio can listen to, would be considered 'secure'."

"But the beauty of the method is that shortwave radios are ubiquitous, cheap technology throughout most of the world."

"What looks more suspicious, a person traveling with a radio, or a person traveling with a sophisticated computer or satellite phone?"

"While the signal can be received by anyone, it leaves no record of who received it and can't be intercepted and traced by a middleman."

"They don't care if you listen, because the stream of numbers is nothing without the code, and because you're using a one-time code, it can't be cracked as it's randomly generated and used once."

"The only time a one-time code has ever been broken was an instance where the code was re-used."

"So your spy just tunes in to the radio at a specific time on a specific day, writes down the numbers."

"Decodes the message, discards the key, and no one is any the wiser."

"Most stations are identified by a call sign or little jingle, and these can range from kind of cute and cheerful to pretty eerie sounding."

"If you listen in frequently, you'll hear messages repeated over and over until one day they change up - it's believed they'll repeat the message until their spy can communicate they've received it."

"Essentially, if you have a shortwave radio, you can listen in on highly secret spy communications from countries all over the world."

"You can also listen in on countries jamming the communication, either by broadcasting state radio on the same signal, or trying to jam it with noise or static."

"You'd think the frequency of these transmissions would have gone down after the Cold War, but they're still going strong!"

"The very first numbers stations appeared in the very early days of radio, during World War I."

"I find it fascinating, but also super creepy, that all of this secret communication is happening right out in the open, for us to tune in to at any time, without any way of knowing who it is intended for or what is being transmitted."- Tintinabulation

loop numbers GIFGiphy

Before There Were Even Dinosaurs...

"Not much of a 'theory', more of a conjecture but:

"Fossilization is actually quite rare."

"It takes extremely specific set of circumstances for a dead organism even to become fossilized let alone survive intact to the modern day to be found by humans."

"Because of this, there are likely millions of species we will simply never know about because none of them ever fossilized."

"For all we know, we might not even be the first intelligent species to evolve here on Earth."

"There could’ve been a species that formed a civilization at some point and then went extinct later on, but we’ll possibly never know that because there are no fossils that formed/survive today."

"It probably wouldn’t have been an advanced, industrialized civilization like the kind we have today as we would’ve surely found evidence for it by now, but I could easily see something on par with Ancient Egypt disappear completely after millions of years."- DannyBright

"How Can I Remember Things That Never Happened?"

"Telling this story makes me feel uncomfortable, even today, so I will tell it here."

"I don't know how much this story fits into this thread, but I've never had a platform that seemed appropriate to share it, so here we go.'

"When I was 20 (14 years ago), I moved from Iowa to Boulder, Colorado with my best friend Cory."

"We moved there during the month of August, and shortly thereafter I got a phone call from a number I didn't know."

"I answered it, and it turned out to be this girl that had attended the same high school as us, Ashley."

"Ashley had heard that Cory and I had just moved to Boulder, and she was calling because she, too, had just moved to Boulder to attend CU."

"She wanted to know if we wanted to get together some time and hang out / party."

"Ashley was a couple years younger than us and we didn't run in the same crowds, so we didn't hang out much."

"But I remember her coming over to our apartment to smoke and chill once, then I remember asking her to get us weed--she did."

"She came with us to a party once, and I also remember us asking her for weed a second time, and her texting me back saying 'You guys just message me when you want weed, so no'."

"After that I don't think we talked to her again."

"Fast forward 3-4 years, Cory and I are living back in Iowa."

"One night, I was out with a couple of people I'd gone to high school with, and we went to this dive bar called Thumbs.'

"In the back of Thumbs there is a single pool table, which is where my group went because we had planned on playing."

"We got to the pool table, and there's Ashley, racking a set of pool balls."

"I was super surprised to see her there, so I walked right up to her and said something like 'Ashley, long time no see! What are you doing here? Did you move back from Boulder?'"

"Ashley just stared at me for a second and then said 'What?'"

"So I repeat myself and say 'Did you move back from Colorado? I haven't seen you since we hung out in Boulder!'"

"She looked truly confused, and then she said 'Um.. what are you talking about? I never lived in Boulder'."

"At this point I thought she was f*cking with me because I specifically remembered hanging out with her more than once. So I laughed and was like 'You're f*cking with me, right?""

"She shook her head no, and one of the girls I was with, who knew both of us, actually overheard it and butted in to confirm that 'Ashley had lived in [our hometown] the whole time'."

"I completely dropped the subject to save face, but the experience was so unsettling that I made a bee-line for the front door."

"I walked out onto the sidewalk, pulled my phone out of my pocket, and called Cory."

"I said 'Cory, do you remember when we lived together in Boulder and Ashley came over and hung out with us?'"

"And Cory said 'No man, that never happened'."

"He was my best friend so I knew he wasn't f*cking with me, plus there was a zero percent chance he and Ashley had ever talked to set something like this up."

"When I pressed the issue, he insisted that no one we had gone to high school with had ever moved out to Boulder, and that we certainly hadn't hung out with them."

"Since then, I've brought this up to Cory several times, and his position has never changed."

"To this day, I don't know what happened."

"I specifically remember hanging out with her."

"She wore a tie-dye t-shirt when she came over the first time."

"And we hung out with her multiple times, I remember it so clearly."

"I still have those memories, but apparently they never happened."

"Even though the timeline matches exactly; she would have graduated high school that year and moved to Colorado in August for school."

"I know that the human memory is super unreliable, and I'm sure that's all this is, but that doesn't change that I am absolutely 100% sure that this happened."

"14 years later and I still stand by my story, wrong as it may be." - morbowillcrushyou

black and white love GIFGiphy

They Can Hear Us From Beyond The Grave...

"The last neuron in the brain can fire up to 72 hours after clinical death."

"What is classed as still being alive?"

"Your heart stops or your brain activity stopping?"

"As a nurse this plays on my mind, I always talk to the recently deceased as I would usually do."

"Hearing is the last sense to go anyway so chances are people can still hear for a short time after death."

"I have to confirm death on a daily basis, we check heart sounds, breathing, eye response, and pain response, but part of me knows that electrical activity is still going on in there."

"I’m a hospice nurse and morbid thoughts are what I do best."- jowiejojo

Life Goes On...

"Some smart people I know say life extension tech will exponentially explode in the next century, transforming adult life spans the same way antibiotics, vaccines, and sanitation irrevocably transformed childhood survival rates."

"If we hadn’t blocked stem cell research, we could be the ones living youthful, nearly disease-free lives but we’ve missed our chance by one or two generations."- Lemontreelumur

What The Government Doesn't Want Us To Know

"The Vela Incident."

"September 1979, a US Vela satellite detected a double flash of light over an area of the ocean between South Africa and Antarctica."

"The prior 41 double flashes observed by the satellite were from nuclear explosions as this is what they were designed to observe."

"There also happened to be a typhoon happening in the area at the time so it seemed like someone wanted to detonate it without being caught."

"Carter administration reported that it was a natural occurrence due to a small meteorite hitting the satellite."

"However many other independent sources and even other countries have reported that they did indeed find traces of fallout and radiation."

"Because of the geopolitical climate of the times, there’s very strong evidence that it was in fact a joint nuclear weapon test carried out by South Africa and Israel, and the US scrubbed the information regarding it because they didn’t want to paint their allies in Israel in a bad light for working with apartheid-era South Africa."

"Strangely enough, Israel and South Africa have never denied having nuclear weapons programs, nor have they ever denied a joint test being responsible for the Vela Incident."- DJCJ42

nuclear explosion bomb GIFGiphy

Was He Ever Really There?

"The man from Taured."

"He was going through an airport and when asked for his passport he gave the people a fully legitimate passport."

"Except the country he was from didn’t exist."

"He argued that it was right between France and Spain and had been there over 200 years."

"Since the passport was legitimate but the country wasn’t on the map they put him up in a hotel for the night with guards outside his 4 story room."

"He was gone, along with all his things the next morning."

"Not a trace."- 1122Sl110

When The Stars Align...

"Not a theory but a matter of fact."

"The Milky Way and many other nearby galaxies are hurtling towards the same point in space, being attracted by something."

"We don't know what because our view in blocked, but it's pulling GALAXIES towards itself."

"Big ones too, the Milky Way is a rather large galaxy."

"Whatever this 'Great Attractor"'(as it's been dubbed) is, it's insanely massive."- Lui_Le_Diamond

Surely, none of these things ever happened, right?

Depending on who you ask, who knows...