Some photos from history do not need ghosts or ghouls to be frightening.
They are unsettling for reasons you cannot quite explain, a strange expression, an eerie coincidence, a moment that feels frozen in time. These are the kinds of images that stay with you long after you have looked away.
Here are a few of the most quietly terrifying photos ever captured, each one a real moment that feels anything but ordinary.
A mother hiding her face as she puts her children on sale (Chicago USA, 1948)
One of the last known pictures taken by the hikers of the dyatlov pass incident (1959)
Body riddled with parasites as a result of eating raw pork for 10 years.
Pablo Picasso’s first and last self portraits
The Mask worn by Dennis Rader when dressing and carrying out his attacks.
Stomach contents of a psychiatric patient who passed away from pica disorder, a disease characterized by an appetite for inedible objects.
A radium mask, used in the 1920s to treat cancer of the face and neck.
‘The Anguished Man’ is a self-portrait painted with the artist’s own blood mixed into the paint.
The unsettling 17th-century mask, crafted from real human hair, leather, feathers, and false teeth, was worn by the outlaw preacher Alexander Peden as a disguise to evade arrest for preaching illegally in Scotland.
This inmate spends his time in prison creating dolls in his cell.
The “snow” in the Wizard of Oz movie was 100% pure asbestos
The face of a deep sea rough skin shark.
A photo of Los Alamos scientists during the Trinity Test of 1945. The two scientists in the middle, Harry Daghlian and Louis Slotin, would both die within a year after exposure to the so called ‘Demon Sphere’, a sphere of plutonium involved in two separate criticality accidents.
Full face swimming mask from 1928
In 1985, the infamous Action Park in New Jersey built this waterslide with this kind of loop at the end. It was only open for one month before shutting down due to many injuries.
Halloween in the 1930s.
In 2007, Grainne Kealy shattered her face when an airbag deployed during a 120mph crash, launching her knees into her head as her feet rested on the dashboard. She suffered a brain leak, minor brain injury, and lost two teeth. For two years, she lived without a forehead.
Many Chinese medical tourists who travel to South Korea for affordable, high-quality plastic surgery face difficulties re-entering China because their passport photos no longer match their appearance after the procedure.
Nikola Tesla’s death mask, at age 86.