From a seemingly innocent shot of father and daughter to a bone-chilling figure in the distance that wasn’t meant to be there, hopefully you’re not planning on sleeping tonight, because here are plenty more photos with disturbing backstories.
Darsh Patel's Bear Photo
Nature is beautiful, yet it can also be very dangerous. Nowhere is this more true than in the tragic case of Darsh Patel, a 22-year-old university student who went hiking on September 21st, 2014. Patel was with his four friends in the Apshawa Preserve in West Milford, New Jersey, when they encountered something incredible, a 300-pound black bear strolling through the woods.
Captivated by the sight, Patel stopped to snap a photo. Now, black bears aren’t typically aggressive towards humans, but something had clearly agitated this one. Moments after Patel took the photo, the bear charged and the panicked group scattered, running for their lives. The last time Patel’s friends saw him, he was scrambling up a rock with the bear in hot pursuit, shouting for them to keep running. After losing the animal, the friends regrouped uninjured, but Patel was nowhere to be found. Hours later, police arrived and made a grim discovery, his remains, with the animal still lingering nearby. The officers quickly put it down, then found his phone nearby with a bite mark on it. Saved on it was the final photo he ever took of the very animal that claimed his life. A black bear can reach speeds of up to 30 miles an hour, while the average human can only run at about 8. Sadly, Patel didn’t have a chance.
Oskar Kokoschka’s Alma Mahler Doll
With its cold glassy stare and strange, feathered body, you’d be forgiven for thinking the image below was the rejected prop from some old horror movie. In reality, this photograph is one of many taken by expressionist painter Oskar Kokoschka, and the eerie doll’ backstory just as peculiar as its appearance.
In 1918, upon returning home to Austria after serving in the First World War, Kokoschka learnt that his lover of three years, Alma Mahler, had left him for another man. When they were together, Kokoschka was infatuated with Mahler, she’d inspired 450 of his sketches and paintings, and he was known to be possessive. Heartbroken without his muse, he did what anyone would: called up dollmaker Hermine Moos and commissioned her to create a life-sized doll of his ex. Kokoschka sent Moos sketches, detailed instructions, and even Mahler’s body measurements. In 1919, Moos finally finished her creation, and revealed this monstrosity! The doll was stuffed with sawdust, its face lifeless, and its skin made of swan feathers, giving it a grotesque appearance and making it very difficult to dress. Clearly, Moos didn’t approve of Kokoschka’s request and had gone out of her way to make it as un-lifelike as possible. Despite his disappointment, the disturbing doll became Kokoschka’s constant companion, even accompanying him to parties and operas, where, I imagine, he got a few odd looks.
Most importantly though, Kokoschka now had a replacement subject for his paintings. Beginning with the 1919 work Woman in Blue, he produced over 80 drawings, paintings and photographs depicting the doll. Then, in 1920, Kokoschka wrote of how, I quote, the doll had ‘cured’ him ‘of his passion’ and, just like before,
their relationship came to an end, albeit much more violently.
Kokoschka threw a party, exhibited the doll in fine clothes, then, after getting drunk, took it out into the garden, beheaded it, and smashed a bottle of red wine over its head. We all have different ways of dealing with break-ups.
The McQuilken Brothers And The 1975 Lightning Strike
Have you ever seen something truly shocking? Well, the McQuilken siblings, 18-year-old Michael, 15-year-old Mary, and 12-year-old Sean, literally did when they hiked up Moro Rock in Sequoia National Park, California, on August 20th, 1975.
When they reached the summit, something very strange happened. Their skin started tingling, their hair stood on end, and the ring on Michael’s finger began to buzz so loudly all three of them could hear. Thinking this was all a laugh, they took a photo of the phenomenon, capturing Michael and Sean‘s giggling faces. The fun abruptly came to an end when the air turned cold and it started hailing. They hurriedly started heading down the mountain, but before they could get far there was a blinding flash of white followed by a deafening explosion. Then, they felt the overwhelming sensation of being lifted off the ground. The next thing Michael remembers is waking up flat on his back, disoriented, and spotting Sean lying nearby, smoke rising from his body. Acting fast, Michael put out the fire on his little brother’s back and checked for a pulse. Thankfully, Sean was still alive. The brothers had been struck by a triple thronged lightning bolt, miraculously, Mary escaped injury entirely but Sean had got the worst of it.
Michael carried his brother down the mountain, where he received treatment for third-degree burns and eventually recovered. But not everyone was so lucky, for another hiker nearby that bolt of white light was the last thing they ever saw. After the incident, the
siblings' strange photo became famous and is now used to teach people about storm safety. The electrical charges in the atmosphere right before a lightning strike create a buildup of static energy in the air, making hair stand on end. So, if your skin starts to tingle and your hair shoots up, find some shelter, pronto! Just, not under a tree.
Ayano Tokumasu
Around 12 million people visit the Niagara Falls annually, and with all those tourists, it can be hard to get a good snap. Unfortunately, one woman thought she could beat the crowds, only for it to end in disaster.
On August 14th, 2011, Ontario couple Andrea Smith and Jason Watson were doing the usual tourist thing, wandering around, admiring the view and posing for a photo near the popular Horseshoe Falls section. One of their pictures seems ordinary enough, if you don’t know what’s just about to happen. See the woman in the red sweater? That was Ayano Tokumasu, a Japanese exchange student studying at Toronto’s Hansa Language Centre, and Smith and Watson had unwittingly captured the last moments of her life.
Shortly after the photo was taken, Tokumasu ignored the park's safety guidelines and hopped over the railing for a photo without the crowds in the background. When she tried to climb back over, she lost her footing and slipped into the river, where
she was dragged over the falls.
Now that photo leaves Smith with chills and reminds her of the life she couldn’t save. As for Tokumasu, she’ll be remembered by friends and family as a fun-loving woman who made one fatal mistake. Since 1850, approximately 5,000 people have fallen into the falls, either accidentally or intentionally, with only 16 reported survivors. Let Tokumasu’s story serve as a sober reminder: no photo is worth risking your life for.
Gonzalo Cavedo & The Omagh Bomb
On August 15th 1998 it was a busy Saturday afternoon in the town of Omagh in County Tyrone. Spanish tourist Gonzalo Cavedo and a child who’s remained anonymous stopped for a photo by a red Vauxhall. They were unaware just how close they were to utter disaster.
To understand what happened next, you need to know a little of what happened before. From 1968 to 1998, Northern Ireland was engulfed in a violent conflict that brought chaos, division, and loss. This was the Troubles, on one side were the unionists and loyalists, who were determined for Northern Ireland to remain part of the United Kingdom. On the other were the republicans and nationalists, who fought for a united Ireland, free from British rule. During this turbulent period, around 3,600 people lost their lives, and more than 30,000 were wounded. The conflict was seemingly brought to an end on April 10th, 1998, with the signing of the Good Friday Agreement. This kept Northern Ireland in the UK, but also established a power-sharing government and allowed Northern Irish people to identify as British, Irish, or both.
Yet, even then, there were those who hated the agreement and would do anything to stop it. Jump back to Omagh and people were getting worried. A bomb alert had been announced, making people flock out onto the perceived safety of the streets. You remember that red car in the photo? At 10 past 3, it exploded, sending burning metal and debris flying through the crowd.
The blast claimed the lives of 29 people and left another 220 injured, making it the deadliest attack of the Troubles.
Incredibly, Cavedo and the child managed to survive, and the camera with that single haunting photo was found later amongst the rubble. The car's trunk had been filled with fertilizer and doused in fuel oil, and the resulting explosion was so powerful it left a crater in the ground. Three days later, a nationalist group called the Real IRA claimed responsibility, stating they wanted to disrupt the peace process. In fact, it had the opposite effect. The attack brought politicians together, paving the way for a peaceful Northern Ireland. Yet, no individuals have been brought to justice over the horrific act. On January 28th, 2025, an inquiry into the bombing was finally launched. At the time of writing this article, there haven’t been any conclusions, but hopefully it gives the people of Omagh some solace.
Woman Yelling At A Cat
If your existence relies on memes, then you’ve probably seen "woman yelling at cat". The meme first came about in 2019 and is made up of two unrelated photos. The cat is called Smudge, he’s from Ottawa in Canada and likes to sit on chairs at the dinner table. His owner first posted the famous pic on Tumblr in 2018.
As for the woman, that’s Taylor Armstrong, who starred in
The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. In 2011, during the season 2 episode "Malibu Beach Party From Hell", things fell apart when Taylor got in a very heated argument with fellow housewife Camille Grammer and Camille’s friend. News of the episode hit the Daily Mail, giving us the screengrab we know today. But what were they even arguing about? That’s when things turn dour. Before they began production, Taylor had confided in her friends about the physical and mental suffering she’d endured at the hands of her then-husband, Russell Armstrong. She said he was paranoid and delusional, and frequently accused Taylor of cheating on him when she hadn’t.
Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills Season 2 Taylor's Breakdown at the Beach House! by Real Housewives WORLD He’d also leave recording devices around the home so he could spy on her and even forced her to take a lie detector test which she, obviously, passed. He was so violent that after one of his outbursts Taylor needed reconstructive surgery on her face. Taylor wanted all this to remain hush-hush, as she, understandably, feared her husband’s reaction if he found out.Well, in the episode “Tempest in a Tea Party” Camille, after some goading by Lisa, blabbed about Taylor’s marriage on TV, which was subsequently kept in the final edit and became a plotline of the show. To make things worse, the housewives were always going around questioning Taylor’s claims.
What’s wrong with these people? With her harrowing story out in the open, Taylor knew it wouldn’t be long before her husband found out and she had no idea how he’d react.
I Accidentally Became a Meme: Woman Yelling at a Cat by BuzzFeedVideo Everything came to a head when Camille’s friend confronted Taylor at a party about not accepting Camille’s apology for exposing Taylor’s private life. The stress, combined with all that drinking, became too much for Taylor, who exploded in that now-infamous clip. To make this whole fiasco even worse, after the filming of the season, Russell, who’d been struggling with financial problems, made a terrible, very final, decision. It seems that, in light of all this, Bravo, the network that broadcasts the show, should never have aired this season. But they did it anyway. Today, Taylor works with women’s domestic abuse support groups and, in a 2019 tweet, shared her thoughts on the meme:
Well, that’s good to know, but you will probably never be able to look at Smudge the same way again.
James Pedroza & The Scottsdale Plane Crash
In a world full of influencers vying for attention, some are bound to take things to the extreme to stand out from the crowd. For 28-year-old Instagram star James Pedroza, this meant gambling with his very life.
Pedroza was an avid traveler who filled his days with skydiving, motorcycling, and partying. He also worked as a VIP host at the Mirage Nightclub in Las Vegas, and decided to bring some of his influencer friends along. But they weren’t taking any ordinary trip, they’d be flying, and Pedroza would be the one at the controls! In October 2017, he started training to be a pilot and even bought his very own plane in February 2018, a Piper PA-24 Comanche! In the image below he is with a friend posing after completing his first cross country flight on March 7th 2018. They had no idea of the horrors to come.
On April 9th, Pedroza decided to jet off from Scottsdale, Arizona, to Las Vegas with fully trained pilot Erik Valente. Space on board was tight. Alongside the pilots were four other influencers, Mariah Coogan, Anand Patel, Iris Carolina Rodriguez Garcia and Pedroza’s girlfriend, Helena Lagos. Just before take-off, Coogan posted a video of herself, Patel, and the pilots, all clearly excited for the flight. This would be the last thing she ever did.
Model Posts Video to Instagram Minutes Before Tragic Plane Crash by Inside Edition When they took off, things went wrong almost immediately. After 70 seconds, the plane began to tilt while still at low altitude. Suddenly, it veered out of control and plummeted to earth, where it crashed in a fireball on a golf course.
Security camera captures explosion in Arizona plane crash - Daily Mail by Daily Mail World
Devastatingly, nobody made it out. But what went wrong? Many blamed Pedroza’s lack of pilot experience, the guy had only started training 5 months before the flight and it’s unclear what level he’d reached. On top of that, an autopsy revealed traces of an illegal substance in his body, something the newspapers really ran with. But in reality, these traces were from past use, so, while not ideal, it wouldn’t have been a factor in the crash. Moments before the catastrophe, an air traffic controller contacted Pedroza and this is how the conversation went down:
Pilot's Reckless Mistakes Kills Instagram Star! by Pilot Debrief It doesn’t sound like a man about to crash, does it? Perhaps he was just unaware of the danger? It’s hard to say. Anyway, after some speculation, a 2020 report by the National Transportation Safety Board revealed that the
crash was caused by an overloaded plane. The Comanche was 135 pounds over its weight limit, and its center of gravity was more than two inches too far back, reducing its stability during flight. Once in the air, the plane couldn’t maintain airspeed, causing it to come back down hard. What’s more, amidst the wreckage, investigators found a broken spring on a cylinder valve that’d failed before the crash, these guys didn’t have a prayer.
Mysterious Outsiders
Back in 2014, a Redditor posted a photo from their trip to Sljeme, a mountain area in Croatia. It seemed like an ordinary shot, until they got home and took a closer look. At first glance, nothing seems off but there's a silhouette of a person in the background.
At the time, the group swore they were completely alone in the forest. But the photo was later analyzed and revealed no signs of Photoshop trickery, meaning someone really was there lurking in the mist. Unfortunately, we don’t know much more since the original poster mysteriously deleted their account. Of course, there’s every chance this was all staged. That camera’s placement seems a bit too perfect. It’s offset and zoomed out, which is kind of odd for a casual photo of a few friends. Almost like they wanted you to look off to the far distance. I don’t know, but my Reddit travels led me to a different photo that’s equally eerie and definitely real.
This conundrum of a cottage was posted by user decayinghistory. At first glance it’s a kind of creepy but fairly ordinary old hut, but look closer. Wrapped around the doorknob is a wire, one that’s connected to the power line above. So if anyone tried to grab that knob, they’re getting fried.
But why would anyone want to booby-trap this old place? Well, a few Redditors reckon this hut could be hiding something shady, like a makeshift lab, the kind that fans of
Breaking Bad would be familiar with. Either way, just the idea that someone set this up either to keep something in or keep people out gives anyone the heebie-jeebies.
The Amityville Ghost Boy
In 1976, a team of paranormal experts were investigating 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville, New York, when their photographer Gene Campbell snapped a now infamous photo. The terrified man was avid nobody else had been with him and that the photo was legit, but to understand why he was there in the first place, we need to go back one year.
On December 18th, 1975, George and Kathy Lutz bought the grandiose house for a steal, just $80,000, and moved in with their three kids. But over the next 28 days, the couple were plagued by bloodcurdling events. Doors slammed shut on their own, the house was freezing cold despite a roaring fire, and green slime oozed from the walls. George even swore he once woke up to find Kathy levitating above their bed! Stranger still, he claimed he saw something staring at him through a window, a pig-like creature with glowing red eyes. Because of all this, they called in Father Ralph Pecoraro to bless the house. But as the priest carried out his work he heard someone scream "get out" from the second-floor bedroom. Terrified, he warned the Lutzes never to sleep in that room. Before long, the hauntings became too much and, on January 14th, 1976, the family fled the house in fright.
The Lutzes’ story took America by storm, becoming immortalized in Jay Anson’s 1977 book
The Amityville Horror and its later film adaptations. Naturally, the buzz attracted paranormal investigators eager for the truth. And that’s when photographer Gene Campbell spotted something in the shadows of the second-floor landing. With his infrared camera, he captured that photo of a little boy who shouldn’t be there. Who, or what, was it? Well, the Amityville House’s sordid history goes back even further than the Lutzes. A year before the family moved in, Ocean Avenue was witness to something truly horrific. On November 13th, 1973, 23-year-old Ronald DeFeo Jr. took his .35 Marlin rifle and stole the lives of his entire family as they slept. That’s, sadly, why the Lutzes got the house for so cheap. As such, some believers think this photo depicts the ghost of John DeFeo, one of the victims of that awful crime.
While the crimes of Ronald DeFeo are undeniably real, the Lutzes’ story, and that infamous photo, are not fully convincing. Every single resident of 112 since has reported zero eerie goings-on. And in 1979, the Lutzes’ former lawyer even claimed he, George, and Kathy concocted the tale “over many bottles of wine.” As for that photo, skeptics argue there’s no ghost at all. They say the boy is actually Paul Bartz, one of the paranormal investigators, and his spooky white eyes are a trick of the infrared film.
Suzanne Sevakis & Franklin Floyd
If you take a look at the picture below, you might imagine it portrays a loving father and daughter. But looks can be deceiving.
Back in 1974, in North Carolina, Sandra Brandenburg was crying in church when she was approached by a smiling stranger. He asked her what was wrong, and she told him how she’d been forced to give her children up to the state after a hurricane had destroyed her mobile home. The man introduced himself as Brandon Williams and calmly reassured her that he’d marry her and help raise her children. Desperate, Brandenburg agreed to the stranger’s proposal. After their wedding, Brandenburg and three of her children, Suzanne Sevakis, Allison, and Amy, moved with Williams to Texas. But just a few months later, Brandenburg got into legal trouble after writing a bad cheque to a 7-Eleven. She was arrested and sentenced to 30 days in jail, leaving her children in the care of her new husband. This was a terrible mistake. When she was released, she came back to find her home empty and her family nowhere to be seen. Confused and scared, Brandenburg eventually tracked down two of her daughters, Allison and Amy, at a local orphanage. As for 6-year-old Suzanne? She’d been stolen by her stepfather, whose real name was Franklin Delano Floyd and was nothing but a monster.
Turns out, Floyd had a long history of violent crimes and continually changed his name to avoid authorities. Unbeknownst to Brandenburg, after kidnapping Suzanne, he’d moved to Oklahoma City, where he built themselves new identities and changed their names to Warren and Sharon Marshall. To the outside world, he was a devoted father to his daughter, in reality, he was an abuser. Brandenburg tried desperately to get the police to track Floyd down, but they told her that, as their stepfather, he was legally entitled to take her children. In Oklahoma, Suzanne, now known as Sharon, excelled in school and even won a scholarship to Georgia Tech University to study aerospace engineering. But Floyd forbade her from going and instead forced her to work as a “dancer” in Tampa, Florida.
When she was 16, she fell pregnant and, after giving birth in 1988, Floyd, who’d raised her from childhood, married her. That guy was twisted. After this, Floyd changed his name again to Clarence Hughes and Suzanne’s to Tonya, and they lived together giving the impression they were a normal married couple with a child, who she named Michael. For the next two years, Suzanne tried to act happy. Secretly though, she’d had enough and was dating a college student called Kevin Brown behind Floyd’s back. It’s speculated that Michael was actually Brown’s child. However, not long after, the worse thing imaginable happened. Suzanne-turned-Sharon-turned-“Tonya” was found unconscious on the side of a highway. After being rushed to hospital, she heartbreakingly didn’t make it. Police initially assumed it was a hit-and-run, but her injuries didn’t match those of a car accident. When Floyd turned up and identified her as his wife, he became the number one suspect, and little Michael was taken off him and placed with a foster couple. But in the four years that followed, police couldn’t get anything solid on Floyd to convict him.
Then, on September 12th, 1994, Floyd suddenly stormed into Michael's elementary school in Oklahoma and abducted him, instantly becoming a wanted man and triggering a nationwide manhunt. The FBI eventually caught up with Floyd later that year in Kentucky when he attempted to obtain a new driver’s license under one of his many aliases. But sadly, Michael wasn’t with him, and the boy was never seen again.
Floyd was arrested and although he refused to speak about Michael’s fate, authorities soon uncovered new evidence linking him to another, completely separate crime. In 1989, a young woman named Cheryl Commesso, a former friend and colleague of Suzanne’s, had vanished in Tampa, Florida. Floyd had been a person of interest in the disappearance, but nothing had come of it. However, after his arrest police searched a truck he’d stolen years earlier and discovered a series of disturbing photographs of Commesso in clear distress. This was enough. In 2002,
Floyd was convicted of his horrific crimes and sentenced to death. After spending years on death row, in 2015 he finally made the gut-wrenching confession that he’d taken Michael’s life way back on that first day he’d kidnapped him. He never said anything about Suzanne, but I’ll leave you to come to your own conclusion on that. Then, his own life came to a natural end in a Florida prison on January 23rd, 2023, aged 79. Was this justice? Not in my opinion, Floyd is undoubtedly one of the worst people I’ve ever covered. But at least he’s not around anymore to shatter anyone else’s lives.
Dennis Rader, BTK Killer
Born in 1945, Dennis Rader lived in Wichita, Kansas, for most of his life. To the world around him, he was just another face in the crowd, a family man who volunteered as a Boy Scout leader and served as president of the church council. But this was a far cry from the true Rader. In 2005, police broke down his door, searched his home, and found the image below!
A photo of Rader wearing a mask, performing some bizarre ritual. But why were police searching Rader’s home in the first place, and why did he photograph himself doing this? Well, this investigation is a wild ride.From 1974 to 1991, Wichita was terrorized by a seemingly unstoppable monster who took the lives of ten people in total. 9 months after his first crime, in October 1974, the unknown assailant left a letter tucked inside a book at a public library taking responsibility for it, detailing his disturbing fantasies, and promising to strike again. More letters followed, mocking the police and describing in lurid detail how he carried out his savage attacks, all while referring to himself by the moniker “BTK”. And if you want to know what that stands for, you'll have to look it up. Worse still, by the 2000s, BTK continued to elude capture, and his abhorrent crimes remained unpunished. But the monster was growing bored.
The case went cold until March 2004, when BTK rose his ugly head again and started sending letters and mail to media outlets. In these packages were
bizarre objects taken from his past crime scenes, like a word puzzle, a doll with a plastic bag over its head, and a necklace. This guy even sent a letter to the police asking them if they’d be able to trace a floppy disc back to him should he send one. The police responded by addressing an ad in the newspaper to him and saying they wouldn’t. This was a great big lie, but it was one the egotistical monster lapped right up. And so, in 2005, BTK sent a package containing a disc to a local news station, who reported it to the police. The disc contained a single file filled with his usual taunts and threats. But after examining the metadata, police discovered a second, deleted file, an agenda for a Christ Lutheran Church council meeting, last saved by a user named "Dennis." A quick Google search revealed that the president of the church community was a man named Dennis Rader. On February 25th, 2005, police finally caught their man. When they raided his home, cops found all sorts of disturbing evidence, including that messed up photo.
When Rader traveled away for work, he would stage scenes in his motel room and dress like his victims in their final moments. He’d don masks, makeup, slips and items from his victims’ homes, then photograph himself posing in them. And considering he appears to be strapped to a chair in that one photo, you can only imagine what those poor women went through. After his arrest, the then 59-year-old was locked away in a Kansas jail and is currently serving ten life sentences, ending his reign of terror once and for all. Good riddance. If you were terrified at these photos with disturbing backstories, you might want to read
part 1. Thanks for reading!
