People Open up About Things They’ve Witnessed That They Can’t Unsee

If you see something disturbing, scary, or maybe even so outrageous you can’t believe it, it can be really hard to get those images out of your head.

It might even be impossible…

Some things just get burned into our brains whether we like it or not.

Let’s take a look at these responses from AskReddit users about things they can’t unsee.

1. On the job.

“Former volunteer firefighter. Currently a Paramedic.

First witnessed death on Christmas morning when I was 16 (as a junior firefighter)

Two mangled bodies in a Camaro that hit a tree doing 100+ mph. I was 17.

A man hanging from a tree in his driveway having set his house on fire. Christmas night. I was 19.

Driving up on a 64 yom (year old male) who was reported to have fallen and hurt his leg laying in a pool of his own blood just before he went into cardiac arrest. Also the blood that poured of the bed as I rolled the bed into the Ambulance.

The cat of the patient at the first cardiac arrest I attended with the ambulance service. It watched with only vague interest and had markings that made it look like hitler. I don’t remember the man.

The first birth I attended. That was nice.

The aftermath of a man who committed suicide by train. It was half a mile of pieces. He literally left a sh*t stain on the tracks at point of impact. His shoes, socks and feet were all separated.

Every hanging. I’ve been relatively lucky and not been to as many. They’re the worst.

Too many gross feet.

There could be another section on unforgettable smells.

Despite this I enjoy my job. These are not the majority of the work.”

2. True crime.

“The Facebook Messenger conversation between my now ex wife and a guy she knew discussing how they were going to stage an abduction and assault.

The conversation went down to how it had to look like he “kidnapped” both of them, that our son wouldn’t go with willingly so they had to drug him, and how she had ‘tested’ drugging me (with the name of the drug, that she had in her possession).

That also explained my “24 hour flu” that came randomly out of nowhere the previous weekend.”

3. A terrible day.

“Mine wasn’t something I saw it was hearing the final phone calls made from 9/11 on YouTube and this one man in his office is begging for help and then he’s like “Oh my god oh my god they’re falling” and then it cuts out.

God that haunts me still.”

4. Life is precious.

“My grandma had a bad fall and had to stay in hospital over night. I was with my auntie and my gran needed the toilet. My auntie took her to the toilet and I waited in the hospital bay, it was very late at night and most patients were asleep.

There was one woman who was awake but looked absolutely shocking, had heavy, wheezy breathing. There was a staff member sat next to her who was monitoring her.

I’d been stood there for maybe 5 minutes when the woman started coughing and eyes went wide. The staff member pressed a button which must have been a silent alarm because the next thing about 5 nurses and a Dr appeared. They went to the patient and put the curtain round.

Maybe 10 minutes later one of the nurses came out and attached a picture of a swan on the outside of the curtain. This meant the lady had passed away.

At the time I must have been 19, 20 or 21 I can’t remember, but it really stuck with me how quickly a life can pass. I was left thinking, what about her family? Does she have people that will miss her? Is there someone that depends on her?

I’m a clinical worker now so I’m more used to life and death, but that was a massive eye opening moment for me that I’ll always carry with me.”

5. Shooting.

“The livestream of the Christchurch mosque shooting. It took me a minute to understand that was I was watching was actually real, and it was f*cked.”

6. Ugh. No way.

“Surgery being performed on my back.

Was watching it through a reflection in glass wall.”

7. Shock and awe.

“On my way to work I stoped at a red light. I saw a old homeless man pull his pants down.

He bent over and proceeded to projectile sh*t all over a car. When the light turned green me and a the car behind me just stared in shock at the horrors we’d seen.”

8. Poor dog.

“My dog after he was hit by a car. I got a call from animal control while I was at work and raced home hoping for the best. When I got there I knew immediately he was gone.

The AC officers were great, and they tried to keep me from seeing him but I had to see for myself. I carried him upstairs and wrapped him in his blanket and sat in the shower and cried with him for idk how long.

I have aphantasia so i can barely form mental images, but that one image is burned on my mind.”

9. Afghanistan.

“In Afghanistan .

An 18 or so vehicle convoy was making the trek back to FOB Salerno from the Pakistani border. 3 dudes, in a wide open field of nothing but dirt see us on the road; they’re armed, panic, and start shooting at us.

I was airborne infantry; this was back in 2003. We used to roll around on the back of five-ton flatbed trucks, having built wooden benches to sit on. So when these guys started shooting at my company.. probably about 100 different weapon systems all pointed at these three men.

Maybe ten seconds later, the gunfire stops.

We dismount and move across the field to the dead bodies; one ended up playing dead, had primed a grenade under his own body, and tried to roll over and throw it at us as we passed.. but he was so grievously injured his throw didn’t really throw.. and he blew himself up. We shot him for another five seconds to make sure.

One of the three men caught a Mk.19 grenade that was a dud to his chest. Left a softball sized hole straight through his ribs; you could see the inside of him.

Another had caught a match-grade 7.62 round to the top of the head; the top of his head had come off like he’d been sliced with a sword – the neatest wound.. it was horrifying in how perfect it was. His brain had jumped up and out of his skull and landed near his feet.

We found out later why they had panicked; they had just got done lynching the local sheriff with telephone wire. In case you were wondering, THIS was actually the focus of my story here: he was strangled by it.

His whole head was a weeping bruise; he was bleeding from his nose, ears, eyes, tongue.. scalp. When we cut him down.. all that trapped blood came out.

Never seen anything like that. That man died bad.”

10. A light-hearted one.

“The Cats movie.

No matter how hard I try, no matter how much weed I smoke to make me feel better, no matter how much vodka I drink to make me forget it still won’t go away.

Every night when I’m trying to sleep it haunts me, my dreams are nightmares now, I suffer because I thought it would be funny.

Head my warning children, sometimes the memes aren’t worth it.”

11. The big boss man.

“My boss has a huge p*nis that he tucks to the side down one pant leg.

My coworker pointed it out to me a few months ago and now that’s all I can see.

It sucks because he’s a huge *sshole.”

12. A bad accident.

“As a young man in Framingham there was a late night accident about half a block away that I heard when I was out on the porch having a cigarette. I walked up there maybe 30 seconds to a minute after the accident happened.

As I was surveying the scene, car about 3 feet into an old oak, driver sitting on the curb crying, probably a dead girl crumpled in the middle of the road (ejected from front passenger seat), and two backseat passengers pretty well jammed under the seats in front of them

I looked around, knew there was nothing I could do, and left as the ambulances pulled up.”

13. This is awful.

“My infant daughter on life support in the PICU after suffering cardiac arrest. she was only 11 weeks old. Passed away 4 days later.

The gasping sounds she made as she passed away will haunt me the rest of my life.

The f*cking absolute worst week of my life and a nightmare I’m constantly re-living.

No one should ever bury their child. No one.”

14. Very sad.

“I work as a Peace Officer at a hospital in Canada. While I was walking to the emergency department one day, I was approached by a family (father and two sons). The father said, “excuse me, sir, can you help my wife out of the car?” Calm, collected, non- chalant.

I thought this was your run of the mill vehicle extraction so I mic’d to my partner to grab a nurse and a stretcher. The father led me to the vehicle and I could see his wife laying across the back seat.

Immediately I thought to myself, “sh*t, she’s not feeling well, definitely gotta help her out of there.” When I opened the door, her head snapped back (I guess her head was leaning on the door) and she was staring up at me, eyes bugged out and wide open like she saw something terrifying.

Startled the sh*t out of me and I looked back at the husband. Same relaxed, calm demeanor as when I originally talked to him. I pulled her out of the vehicle and I could tell she already voided so I’m thinking….sh*t, already too late. Nurse got on the stretcher snd started CPR on route to the trauma room.

After speaking with the father, I guess his wife had become catatonic about 15 minutes prior to arriving at the hospital and had stopped breathing. Instead of calling an ambulance, he decided to drive her there himself.

Father claimed no drug use but patient history showed she was an avid IV opioid user. Poor family thought she was just medically sick when really she overdosed. Really sad.”

How about you?

Have you ever seen anything that you can’t get out of your head?

If so, please tell us about it in the comments.

The post People Open up About Things They’ve Witnessed That They Can’t Unsee appeared first on UberFacts.

People Discuss Things They’ve Seen That They Can’t Get Out of Their Heads

I’ve seen a couple of things in my life that were so disturbing that I literally can’t get them out of my head no matter how hard I try.

I’ll spare you the details but I can assure you that it’s not a good feeling…but I guess you just have to deal with those things.

Have you ever witnessed something that you couldn’t unsee?

Here’s what folks on AskReddit had to say.

1. Sad.

“The face of a 12 yo girl.

She and her mom came to my gas station to buy alcohol. Mother was p*ss drunk. Girl got some chips. Mother got her booze. Girl apologized a thousand times before she helped her mom back to the cab.

This girl looked like she was on the verge of a mental breakdown… 12 years old.”

2. Horrified.

“My sophomore year of high school my health teacher had an old student of his come in and give a presentation, she works in forensics.

I think he thought the presentation would be about what she does at work, how she got there, etc… instead she showed us photos of bodies her team had recovered.

We all sat there horrified. The worst one for me was a week old body they had found sitting in the Mississippi River. This f*ckin lady said, “look how cool the decomposition is on his tattoos!””

3. Don’t need to see that.

“Rotten.com hosted a picture way back in the day of a guy without a helmet who had fallen off of his motorcycle face first. Everything from his nose down was gone.

His tongue was just kind of hanging there. Lower mandible was totally destroyed. He was very much alive, conscious, and looking directly into the camera.

His eyes were the worst part. The genuine terror expressed in those eyes is something I will never ever forget.”

4. Awful.

“Not as much seen as it was heard, but there’s a video of a family driving, and a brick flies off the back of a dump truck and smashes the woman in the front passenger seat in the face and all you hear are screams from the rest of the family.

There was no gore in that video, just the horrid sounds.”

5. Hope it’s better now.

“My toe hanging off my foot by a blood vein.”

6. Brutal.

“My brother passed away at the beginning of the year and his dog was trapped inside the house for three days, there was blood everywhere it was like viscera cleanup but worse, I can’t drink that image away.

I took care of the job so our parents would not see the details,I don’t wish that scene upon anyone.”

7. Saying goodbye.

“My mother dying of brain cancer in a hospital bed.”

8. No way I’m watching that.

“The video of Nick Berg’s death.

I watched it when I was 24 because I wanted to see if I was as desensitized to real life violence as the media (at the time) claimed people of my generation were.

Well, I found out very quickly that I was not desensitized, and I have had nightmares about it ever since.”

9. Demoralizing.

“A group chat of my fiancé’s friends (including some I considered close friends of mine) talking about how I am just the absolute worst piece of sh*t in the world and how it was my fault he was suicidal.

This happening the morning after the absolute worst, heartbreaking, fight we’d ever had and I had no choice but to call the hotline and police because I was scared for him.”

10. OH MY GOD.

” Truck leaves the highway onto the roundabout too fast and runs over an old lady crossing the street. Old lady became mush and my friend got partially covered in blood.

Both of us couldnt go into class, stood at the stairs of the entrance shaking all day.”

11. Car crash.

“A car crash.

A tree had fallen on the car and it had gone off the road. The frame was mangled and the seats were bloodstained. 3 of the 5 people died. I didn’t see the bodies but I saw the blood everywhere the next day and I could imagine the bodies.

And the blood was everywhere. I was 10 or 11 and it was in a third world country and the hospitals there were very bad.”

12. Ugghhhh.

“A girl in her early 20’s that had hanged herself the day prior and was on life support so her organs could be harvested, when I saw her she was convulsing lightly.

Just that she was clearly braindead but also that she had enough brain cells left to make movement possible, it wasn’t gross but it did make me sick to my stomach.”

13. Not a great sight.

“My dad’s junk accidentally popping out of his pj pants when I was a kid.

Sometimes that image pops in my head when we hang out.

Traumatizing.”

14. Gross.

“Kinda lighthearted compared to the other stuff I’m reading but at a restaurant I went into the bathroom and a guy was in there just blowing it up. I typically have an iron stomach but it was borderline dry heave time.

After he was done he got up went and looked in the mirror, wiped his face off and proceeded to leave. No flush or hand washing. Stall door was open so I saw that massacre he calls a sh*t. It was everywhere but in the toilet.

On the way out I saw him just chilling at his table like he didn’t just spread hot tar in there.”

Now we’d like to hear from you.

In the comments, please tell us something that you can’t un-see from your own life.

Please and thank you!

The post People Discuss Things They’ve Seen That They Can’t Get Out of Their Heads appeared first on UberFacts.

Movies That Made Us Root for the Bad Guy

A lot of the time when people write movies, they want you to identify with, sympathize with, and root for the hero or heroine of the story. Occasionally the villain of the tale is also the protagonist, but that’s rarer.

What can happen, though, is that villains can be so well-written, or so complex, that we feel for them – and are more interested in – their plight than that of the hero.

Here are 15 movies that have excellent villains – so much so that we found ourselves rooting for them instead of the lead.

15. There’s always somebody worse coming along.

The Monarch in venture brothers.

I love the nuance of the show and the time and patience it’s taken to truly show how terrible Jonas was.

The first few seasons all you hear is rusty complaining and telling an off putting story here or there, but it all comes off as ‘woe is me’ as he sits at the throne of his father’s empire.

But then you realize Rusty was truly, and horribly, abused his entire life, that Jonas is a worse villain than pretty much any of the actual villains, and got away with everything by being a handsome asshole.

14. The older you get, the more sane he becomes.

Mr. Moseby.

I mean seriously. You’re head of a 5 star hotel and all of a sudden some twins screw everything up.

I’m 20 and can already sympathize.

13. Just once he could have won. Don’t you think?

Wiley Coyote.

Dude was starving in the desert and just wanted to eat.

12. Comedy goes a long way in endearing viewers.

Emperor’s New groove.

Yzma and Kronk, they’re entertaining to watch until today.

11. This is a premise for a dissertation.

In Despicable Me, I think the bad guy Gru was better than good guy Gru, although I have some mixed feelings about it

Sure good guy Gru was lovely to their adoptive girls and started to enjoy the world more and more (which I think was positive, and he was still a villain after all), but the evil Gru that didn’t give a shit about others and just wanted to steal the moon was a bit funnier.

10. It’s just in his nature.

There’s just something about Predator that keeps me interested.

9. A legend will do that do you.

As much as I love Clarice Sterling in Silence Of The Lambs, Hannibal Lecter is still the best character in the whole movie despite only have 16 minutes of screen time.

Sir Anthony Hopkins was so legendary he only needed 16 minutes to put his character in the minds of every viewer. The fact that Jodie foster kept up and did brilliant acting too makes it even better. Winning the best actor actress and movie was fully deserved

8. He’s definitely sympathetic, even if his methods are whack.

The Rock.

Nicolas Cage, Sean Connery and Ed Harris.

Harris assumes control of Alcatraz prison (a now tourist destination) and uses it as a missile launch site to threaten the US government for ransom. On the surface he looks like a bad guy, so Cage and Connery have to go stop him.

Later in the movie it’s revealed that he only wants the reparations his dead men and their families are entitled to. He doesn’t hurt any prisoners and though he’s given the opportunity (when the government declines) he admits he was never going to actually use the weapon.

The movie is well written and the characters have depth enough to garner empathy for even the villain.

7. He’s a very intimidating animated villain.

Kung Fu Panda 2. I like cold calculating villains who don’t need to be ultra strong or puppet masters to prove that they’re a real threat. Shen was really interesting because he was smart in his strategy, and especially when he tries to stop his fate, but everything he does only seals it.

6. When they’re searching for justice, you want them to win.

I rooted for Gerard Butlers character Clyde Sheldon in Law Abiding Citizen.

Same here…I was so pissed when Jamie Foxx’s character won, mainly because it was his character that denied Gerard Butler’s character the proper justice for his family’s death through the legal means in the first place.

So many people died simply because Jamie Foxx’s character cared more about his case “win” percentage than actually getting justice for his client. In my mind, Jamie Foxx’s character will always be the true bad guy in Law Abiding Citizen.

5. It’s hard to contradict this argument.

The Bee Movie

Ken was the only sane person

4. He makes too much sense to be wrong.

Heat. De Niro > Pacino “Don’t let yourself get attached to anything you are not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner.”

3. When you really understand a person, they can’t be all bad.

Rumplestiltsken in Once Upon a Time. Even before his redemption arc, he was just so much more entertaining for me than any of the good guys.

2. It all depends on your age upon viewing.

Dr. Houseman in Dirty Dancing.

The man works his ass off so he can take his family on a nice, long vacation. The Doc is a very lenient parent. Giving his teenage daughters all kinds of leeway and freedom to do whatever they want. When Baby asks for $300 (which is a large sum of money back in 1962), her dad gives her the money with barely any hesitation, because he trusts her.

Baby gives that money to one of the dancers so she can get an abortion, it’s botched, and who saves the day? Oh, right, Dr. fucking Houseman of course. He makes one comment about that being where his money went and then gets to work saving the woman’s life.

And Baby’s punishment for taking $300 from her father under false pretenses? She can’t do her dance routine for other vacationers. That’s. It. She has to sit with her parents for a couple of hours. Literally the most lenient punishment imaginable under those circumstances.

But of course Patrick Swayze comes in and is like NoBoDy pUtS BaBy iN a CoRnEr!

Eff you Patrick Swayze’s character. Baby deserves to be in that corner.

1. Wait they’re not the villains?

High school musical. Troy and Gabriela are a**holes.

Sharpay is an honest and hard working person. She does some mean things, but she always atones for them in the end. Troy and Gabriella? A**holes who never experience consequences for their actions and get everything they want handed to them.

I agree with most of these, and I’m a girl who loves a good anti-hero.

Who is your favorite villain? Tell us what makes you want to root for him or her in the comments!

The post Movies That Made Us Root for the Bad Guy appeared first on UberFacts.

Things That Many People Learn Too Late in Life

There are life lessons and other tidbits that would be very useful to us earlier in life – if I was going to add something to this list it would be the fact that it really doesn’t matter what other people think about you.

Age and experience are, unfortunately, the best teachers, but here are 16 things people really wished more of us learned earlier in life.

16. I’m 40 and still figuring it out.

How to manage their finances.

15. I am hyper aware of this with my kids.

To protect their ears, you don’t want to live with tinnitus for the rest of your life because you were exposed to a loud noise once

14. In fact, you probably are.

That you might be wrong sometimes. Some never learn.

13. Too many people never say “I’m sorry.”

Setting and respecting boundaries, how to give a genuine apology, and other such communication 101 skills.

12. Learn to be happy with yourself.

That happiness usually comes from a diverse range of interests, hobbies, and commitments. You are not your job. Your romantic partner cannot be your everything, etc. It’s so easy to get sucked into a life where your career is everything or where you wrap your entire identity around your partner. There is nothing wrong with celebrating your loved ones and being close. And there is nothing wrong with caring about your job…you just need more to thrive.

I see this so often in relationships. Two people meet and fall in love. They each inspire one another based on their interests and achievements, it’s part of what makes them fall in love. But slowly, over time, they let those hobbies go. Stress gets in the way. Bills pile up. And then one day they find themselves wondering why they ever loved this person in the first place. Instead of being sexy and interesting they’re just part of a routine.

TLDR: Diversify your interests and activities to be happy. Don’t rely on a single person, hobby, or commitment to give you everything you need.

11. It’s not all about the money.

That salary amount is not the entirety of an equation when deciding where to work. You have to take into account the cost of living, commute times, the safety of the nearby area, and the convenience of living in the area.

Studies have shown that taking a 20 minute longer commute is as bad for your job satisfaction as a 19% pay cut.

On top of that, wealth = money in – money out. If a new job pays 20k more, but if rent/property prices are 30k more per year, you are taking a pay cut.

On top of that, you have to consider your future. Do you have to move to an undesirable location to work there? Crammed in a little apartment where the nearest services are an hour away? What about air quality? What about noise levels? Is this a place where you want to start a family and raise kids?

All of those play a factor in determining the desirability of a job. I am a firm believer that “my job doesn’t exist outside this city” is a bullshit myth. Even if you’re a super specialized rocket scientist with a PhD in orbital dynamics, NASA is not the only organization with a job opening for you.

10. What if it’s your job though.

Sitting on your ass all day is not good for your health at all.

9. You can get new ones now, but it really breaks the bank.

Take care of your teeth.

8. Especially applicable to the ladies.

That “no” is a complete sentence. Don’t get in the habit of auto-launching explanations and defenses – oftentimes, the people listening will ignore all that anyway and just hear “but here’s an opportunity to dissuade me, look how hard I’m working to get your approval to say no to you!”

7. English class is important.

The importance of writing skills for formal contexts.

Writing is an important skill in nearly any field and the more a career advances the more important it becomes. The lack of adequate writing skill often holds back a career.

Yet many people squander their opportunities to learn writing because they think their class assignments are empty busy work and they figure their skills in spoken English and informal text messages will carry over when they need to write for work.

6. Don’t talk yourself out of it.

That mental & emotional abuse are a real thing .

Red flags.

5. It becomes mundane, but it shouldn’t.

How dangerous driving a car can be.

I survived two car accidents without any scratch, in 3 months. Drive safe and remember “just because you have priority way, it doesn’t mean that they will give it to you” pay attention. Sometimes letting go of your priority is the way to avoid an accident.

4. Hang onto them like grim death.

The value of a good/unconditional friend.

3. Always say “I love you.”

That the cliche “you never know when it’s the last time you’ll see to someone” should absolutely be remembered for every occasion.

My best friend just died in a car accident this past Saturday, and the last time I saw him we got in an argument and he left and we didn’t speak after that.

I’m destroyed by it.

2. Regrets are something everyone has.

That some things can never be undone.

The actions you take and the words you speak will come back around sooner or later.

1. So glad my childhood was lived offline.

What not to share on the internet.

I agree with all of these, don’t you?

Is there something you would add? Share with us in the comments!

The post Things That Many People Learn Too Late in Life appeared first on UberFacts.

Life Lessons That People Wish They’d Learned at a Younger Age

Sometimes it can be hard not to lament all of the years you spent not doing or believing or just understanding a fundamental truth that changed the way you look at the world.

Regrets are normal, but if you’re still young, take note of these 14 life lessons that would be much better off if they were learned at a younger age.

14. Just say it. What’s the worst that could happen?

Saying “I love you” or wanting to reach out to your family, friends, and loved ones, but crippling anxiety stops you.

You never know when it may be too late to say these things, so be in the moment, and live/love in the present authentically.

13. Words do, in fact, hurt.

Yes some words can never be taken back. I learned the hard way. This is why it’s better to train yourself to think carefully before saying something. I didn’t do that because I wanted everything to come naturally but I realized that’s just an excuse I used to avoid taking responsibility of things I said.

Assuming that the other person appreciates honesty and is open minded, because some people won’t understand regardless of what you say. It’s best to avoid speaking with these people if possible, unless you have to. Things can become toxic pretty easily. Regardless, thinking carefully, analysing the situation, and choosing your words carefully is an important life skill to have and will definitely help you in the future. It can be pretty tiring to always have to think before you say something but it’s all a matter of practice. The more you do it, the more natural it becomes. Best tip is to wait 10 seconds before speaking. And do not let anger speak for you. Simple misunderstandings, and emotions like anger ruin relationships. Try to cool off before making rash decisions. Putting effort is what’s important, results are bonuses.

Small misunderstandings can ruin closest relationships. I am not forbidding you guys to be what you are or always be the one to compromise. What I meant to say is that don’t give in to anger and pride and let it make rash decisions for you. I have hurt my loved ones more than once, only to regret it later. I know how confusing and hard it can become. Just do your best to maintain inner peace. If the other person is being unreasonable, it’s totally out of your hands. What matters is you did your part and you put in the effort because you value the relationship more than winning an argument. And sometimes you have to let go and forgive, even if you were right. Because no one lives forever, and life is too short to be having fights. You don’t have to agree with me, just having different perspectives can be beneficial.

12. Live however makes you happy.

Don’t worry if you aren’t living an exciting or extravagant life.

It’s okay to live simply and quietly. It doesn’t mean that you’re wasting your life.

11. Communication is important.

Took me years to learn to suck it up, admit I was wrong, and apologize. Feels so natural to me now to apologize to my husband when I’m being an asshole. I don’t know what the appeal was to just dig my heels in and escalate but it’s really nice now. Fights last all of five minutes if we even bother getting to that point.

I apologized to my sister once and she got all weirded out. Guess I know where it came from lol. Still don’t do it on the internet. Baby steps.

10. Be kind to yourself.

Don’t ever think it’s ok to “talk” to yourself in a manner you wouldn’t let another human being talk to you.

The biggest abuser I ever had in my life, was my constant companion: the thoughts in my head.

We often take care to choose our words when correcting a child or friend… but if anyone had talked to me, the way I talked to me for 30 straight fucking years, I would have murdered them… and probably got away with it too.

Be nice to yourself, you’re the only you, you have.

9. Life is full of consequences.

Mistakes have consequences. Sometimes they are huge consequences, such as a mistake while driving could kill yourself or someone else. Sometimes they’re little consequences. But always learn from your mistakes and that you should always be learning and improving yourself.

8. Far too few adults understand these things.

Interest rates, credit cards, credit score, money saving techniques, 401K.

In other words anything that keeps you from being trapped by poor money management.

7. Learn something new every day.

That it’s never too late to learn.

6. All cats are traps.

A cat on his back inviting a chesty rub is a trap.

5. Know your own worth.

The value of walking away from someone toxic in your life, even if it is your parents and family.

If you are thinking of it and are scared and have somewhere where you can land in a safe place, then do it.

It hurts like hell for a long while, but it gets better and one day you realize how peaceful your life is and you find you only miss the family you wish you had had.

4. You must know your limits – even if they’re 0.

How slippery a slope addiction is.

How quickly trying something at a party turns into being hooked.

3. People really are mostly good.

That most people will just help you, how and if they can, if you are honest with them

It seems like so many people feel the need to conceal what they actually want from you, and try to get it by presenting a half truth or what they think you want to hear, instead of just being straight forward

2. Simple but so very true.

Learning when to say no.

Learning how to apologize when it’s your fault, and how to not apologize when it’s not your fault.

1. No one ever wants to consider this until it’s too late.

That they are terrible at parenting.

I for sure wish that 20-year-old me had understood these things.

What would you add to the list? Tell us in the comments!

The post Life Lessons That People Wish They’d Learned at a Younger Age appeared first on UberFacts.

17 Things That Night Owls Always Miss Out On

Most people are born either loving mornings or loving nights, and over the course of our lives, we don’t really change all that much.

Sure, things like school, having children, getting a job with odd hours will force us to change our habits, but they can’t change our base inclinations toward rising early or staying up into the wee hours.

Those annoying, chirpy morning people who insist on rising with the sun and telling you how much they accomplished before you even rolled out of bed?

Here are 17 things they say night owls always miss out on.

17. They’re greeting the day.

Birdsong in the early morning is different somehow

16. So we’re missing vampires, basically.

the drunk people scrambling to escape the sun and get in bed before the guilt of daylight overcomes them

15. I am in this post and I don’t like it.

Me on the lawn in my bathrobe being angry at my labrador puppy for begging to go outside to pee but then not peeing.

So I’m just stuck there playing this game with him like “I swear if we go back in then you ain’t coming out for an hour!”

14. It’s the same every day, but also different.

I love watching the house change colour as I drink my tea.

The sun rises right through my living area and I love watching it go from black to grey to orange/pink/purple/whatever colour it is that day.

13. This is at such a premium these days.

The blissful feeling of solitude.

12. We could all use a few more minutes of quiet every day.

How still and quiet everything feels (even if there’s birds yammering) and as the world wakes up the feeling of rising business.

11. Always a good reason.

Light traffic

10. The smell of the damp summer morning. Mmmm.

Fresh dew on the grass – always evaporates by late morning

9. I do love watching these groups.

Old people at McDonald’s for breakfast. My granddad in Maryland had a group of retired coworkers that he’d go for a McMuffin with.

They called themselves the ROMEOs (Retired Old Men Eating Out). When their wives got together, they were the Juliets.

8. You feel alone in the world.

I used to drive over a hill to get to school everyday. It had the prettiest mountains in its view. I miss seeing the sun rising above them or the fog rolling through.

I used to wonder about the people who lived in the gigantic houses high up on them and wondered what they saw in that moment. Every time I go there now it’s in the afternoon and it’s still pretty, but there’s less intimacy.

7. If you don’t enjoy other people, it’s great.

This is more about work but I start my work day at 6am. I see the following advantages when I’m in the office:

My building probably holds 1,000 people and probably 200 on my floor. On my floor at 6am there are probably 5 people. I own the place. I can play my music without headphones, chill out, traffic is light, not be annoyed by people, great parking in the ramp, etc. Also, at 3pm I leave for the day and I can see the jealousy in co-workers eyes. On the way home, traffic is again light. Although now with Covid 19, my whole day in the office is similar to what I describe above.

I’m also am able to fix system issues before they become customer impacting.

6. And then there’s this guy.

Woke up excessively early this morning. Could someone on here tell me what I’m supposed to be doing this early!!

5. Best in the fall, if you ask me.

Chirping birds and the smell of the morning air while I drink my coffee.

4. So maybe it’s not quiet everywhere.

The sound of magpies drastically cut by the sound of a tradie loading up his trailer in the loudest manner possible

3. The food that runs out early.

In our country, if you do not wake up early, you miss buying a warm cup of “taho” (soft tofu served with sugar syrup and tapioca pearls) and warm “pandesal” (sweet-and-a-bit-salty bread usually eaten with eggs, cheese, butter, etc.).

Both are usually being sold by vendors on foot or riding a bicycle.

2. I do not miss always rushing around and worrying about being late.

Their 7:15 train to work

1. You feel good about yourself.

There is a very nice sense of accomplishment combined with the feeling of “still having the whole day” when you wake up early on say a Saturday and get some shit done you’ve been meaning (e.g. yard work).

To just sit down and relax at like 2pm knowing you’ve already gotten done all that you needed to today and you still have ~10hrs left to do whatever you want is just great.

I’m a natural night owl, but since having kids, I’ve been an earlier riser. As much as I hate to admit it, I do actually get much more done before noon than after.

Are you a morning person? Do you agree with this list? Would you add anything else? Try to convince the night owls to change their ways in the comments!

The post 17 Things That Night Owls Always Miss Out On appeared first on UberFacts.

Small Acts of Kindness That People Will Never Forget

Most of us try to do right by other people every day. We pick up the trash, we hold the doors, we help people carry their groceries or make faces at their kids while they wait in line at the store. We give money or a cup of coffee to a homeless person, buy Christmas gifts for kids who might not otherwise get them, things like that.

You never know what will stick with someone in the moment and turn into an act of kindness they’ll never forget – I imagine it’s different for everyone, and probably depends on where you are in that very moment.

For these 14 people, these small acts of kindness changed them forever.

14. This is the best of us.

I was out of a job at a time that I had to support my mother. Finally landed one but I had to walk back and forth and I didn’t have any shoes that would hold up on the walk or the work. Went to fb and mom asked around for some hand me downs we could buy from some one. A day later a very kind man showed up with a brand new pair of really nice shoes he had just gone out and bought for me. He left before I could even get any money for him. I cried

13. What an amazing “trick.”

Neighbors asked to borrow my truck. Told them I could not trust my truck because the tires were bad

Next day mr neighbor called and said he was getting new tires for his suburban and I could have his old ones. Told me to just show up at this certain tire shop and they would put them on

Get to tire shop and they put on brand new Goodyear tires. I asked what happened to the old tires I was suppose to receive.

Shop owner said the “old tires” was just a story to get me in the shop.

Mr neighbor bought me a full set of new tires instead of the old tires he said I could have.

12. Remember how much impact teachers have, good or bad.

My gym teacher purchased me lunch in 3rd grade after I dropped mine. I’m 34 years old and still remember this.

11. That’s Canada for you!

Riding my bike on a long trip through Canada. With about 50 miles to go, I had a major mechanical failure. Stuck on the side of the road in a foreign country within 5 minutes at least 10 cars had stopped to check on me.

One guy loaded my bike in the back of his truck and drove me 30 miles to the border where I could catch a ferry back to the US. Amazing kindness and generosity toward a stranger. He just asked that I pay it forward and to date I’ve helped 5 cyclists who were broken down in honor of that promise.

10. I want to fist-bump this teacher!

I recorded a homemade album with my garage band in high school and handed out a few CDs. A few weeks later my English teacher approached me with 5 pages of notes on what he liked and what I could improve on. He apparently got the CD from someone at the high school and listened to it all the way through (it was over an hour long). He didn’t know I was the singer and guitar player until he asked the person who gave him the CD. He said that if I ever got a shot in a studio, I would create something amazing. Thank you to all the teachers out there who believe in their students. It makes all the difference to some of us.

9. The little things quickly become big things.

I was given access to a shower and a hot meal after being homeless for 9 months.

8. How friendships are born. The good ones, anyway.

At work I was complaining about heartburn once. I was still pretty new to the job. Didnt really have any work friends. Felt like an outsider. My life outside of work was pretty shit as well.

The bartender on shift overheard me and ran to a nearby coffee shop to get me a chocolate milk. It definitely made the heartburn go away but it was such a needlessly kind act. I dont think ill ever forget it. 2 years later we’re still friends and she is definitely one of the kindest people I’ve ever met.

7. This makes my heart happy and sad at the same time.

I was nine years old, waiting for the school bus in Wisconsin winter. I had a thin coat, no hat or gloves. A woman driving past saw me and stopped, giving me a blanket from the back of her car. It was a long skinny one, so she wrapped it around my head and shoulders like a big scarf. I remember thanking her, but being confused. I told her I didn’t know how I would give it back when I was done borrowing it. She hugged me and said not to worry. I still have that blanket.

6. A little to you, a lot to someone else.

During the single most difficult time of my life, a stranger on reddit gifted me $500. To me, it was a fortune. I received it while at work and just broke down. It started the change of my life and a few months later I was able to move, met my now-fiancé, had my son, and found my job. I still message them once in a while to update them on my life and continue to thank them for their generosity, but I think they abandoned their account years ago.

5. No thanks required.

Alternator died while I was driving home from university. Engine died as I exited the freeway in the middle of the night in a not-so-pleasant part of town in the days before cell phones. As I’m pushing my car out of the intersection, a guy in a truck comes up and offers to push my car to my neighborhood a good three miles away. He does so, and I’m pulling into my neighborhood, he simply gives a wave and drives off into the night. I never even had a chance to thank him.

4. So many people want nothing more than for you to pay it forward.

So, there was this one time in the 1990s. I was helping my brother move from a teaching job after college. This was in the middle of nowhere in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. He was driving his little pickup truck pulling a trailer and I was driving my crappy little Ford station wagon, packed to the gills with his stuff.

It was a Sunday. I’m driving along and my car just dies. No warning, nothing. I coast to a stop on the side of a rural highway and wait for my brother to realize I wasn’t behind him anymore and turn around. After about 20 minutes, he finds me, the hood up and neither one of us knows very much about cars. Soon, though a man from the house we broke down in front of comes out, takes one look at the engine and says, “Timing belt.”

We inquire about getting the car towed the 30 miles to the closest large town and realize that it was going to be an expensive repair, even if the engine was OK and not ruined. This man, though, he takes on look at the situation — sees two broke kids in their early 20s just trying to get by in life and he says, “Well, it’s Sunday. Nothing’s gonna be open. I tell ya what. My next-door neighbor is a mechanic. Let’s push the car down to my driveway and we’ll see what we can do.”

So that is exactly what we do. His neighbor calls his buddy at the auto parts store (which is closed on a Sunday), who does a favor and gets the parts needed, drives them 30 miles out to the house and well sit around telling stories while the car gets fixed. This man’s son, a kid of about 9 or 10, is hanging around. He is extremely bored. There were no kids nearby his age, and he’s craving any kind of interaction, even with two guys in their 20s. The kid goes “Want to see my treehouse?” and points to the woods out back. My brother and I look at each other, shrug, and say, “Sure.”

We end up spending two hours with this kid, helping him build his treehouse. When we are done, we go back to the house and the car is all fixed. My brother and I have maybe $60 in cash on us (combined) and try to pay the man who did the work but he refused. He said, “No, you boys were in need of help and I wanted to help. You don’t need to pay me. Plus, you kept my son occupied for several hours, which I truly appreciate.”

He then says, “I want you to do something for me, though. The next time you see someone in need of help and you have the means, I want you to repay this favor.”

And that is one of the rules of life I live by, taught to me by a generous man in the middle of nowhere who helped me out when I was in a time of need.

3. Sometimes you’re just on the right side.

When I was young(19) I lost my wallet and someone used my license to rack up tickets.

It was pretty obvious once courts looked at the location of the tickets and what vehicle was used, the signature, that it wasn’t me.

I had to go to around 3 courts clearing it up.

The 3rd judge was the only one with a problem. He said I had failures to appear since the tickets were ignored. I explained what was happening and how I’ve been dealing with this and I came in as soon as I was made aware of the issue.

He wanted to put me in jail because he didn’t trust I’d be back. He wouldn’t look at my paperwork because it was an arraignment. He would only look at it during the trial date.

I didn’t know what to do, but I had the name of the public defender memorized. I asked if I could talk with her first.

He called her in and said, “this young man seems to know you…”

I quickly explained what was happening and showed her my evidence. She told the judge that if he didn’t release me to come back, she’d pay my bail out of her own pocket.

He scorned me but released me. I just had to return the next month during the trial date.

I was 19 then, 39 now…

2. You just have to really see the people around you.

I have two moments that I’ll never forget.

When I was younger, my mum was depressed and we had very little money. It was either heating or eating a lot. An old lady around the corner from us would invite us over for tea sometimes or breakfast before school. She knitted me, my baby sister and my mum cardigans, socks and a blanket each one winter when it was really bad.

I was at a terrible time of my life at 17, had a bad day at work, and then my train home was 1 hour+ late. I just started crying at the train station and was really wondering if it was all worth it. A woman just held me for bit while I cried. She was a complete stranger, I’ve never seen her since but I needed her I guess. I think she saved my life that day.

1. We all need some grace and patience now and again.

I took my sister whose in a wheelchair to the cinema for the first time on my own. At the end, I realized I could’t undo the brakes and was blocking everyone. I felt like crying because I thought everyone was pissed at me, but some nice lady helped me, then took me and my sister out. She said she once had a son who needed a wheelchair. This was long ago but I’ll never forget

So many of these just brought a tear to my eye!

Has anyone ever done something small for you that made a huge impact? Share it with us in the comments!

The post Small Acts of Kindness That People Will Never Forget appeared first on UberFacts.

Crazy Mysteries That Remain Unsolved

A lot of us grew up watching and loving Unsolved Mysteries, our jaws on the floor and our brains trying to figure out what in the heck happened.

Now there’s a new series, which is also crazy good (or bad, depending on your point of view), but I’m not sure any of those stories hold a candle to these 17 unsolved mysteries.

17. Isn’t there DNA in poop?

The Miyazawa family.

Just listened to the Casefile podcast on this and it has my mind blown. Someone entered the family home around 11:30 pm, killed everyone, ate some ice cream, took a nap, pooped and didn’t flush, changed clothes and left like 8 hours after the crime.

20 years on and we don’t know who or why

16. I sure hope we never see that thing again.

The lost A-bomb off the coast of America, which the US government said not to worry about in the 50’s and tried to cover up. Was dumped in the ocean in an aviation accident and it’s still lost to this day.

100x more powerful then what was dropped in Japan.

15. This sh*t infuriates me.

The ” suicide” of LaVena Johnson a black female US Army private who was found shot to death inside a burning tent with a broken nose, black eyes, broken teeth, raped and acid burns on her genitals in July 2005.

US Army ruled her death a suicide.

14. What in god’s name is happening?

THE CIRCLEVILLE LETTERS

In 1976, residents of the small city south of Columbus Ohio began receiving handwritten sinister and graphic letters. Each letter included secret and dark details about their personal lives.

One resident received a ton of letters, accusing her of various unsavory acts. The author warned the resident that he had been keeping an eye on her home, as well as her comings and goings. The resident was horrified and tried to keep the letters a secret until her husband began receiving them.

The attacks on the family continued, with large posters appearing around town spreading rumors about their 12 year old child. One day in 1977, the husband left the house after receiving a call from who he thought was writing the letters. A few minutes later, the husband was found dead at the end of the street dead behind the wheel. The sheriff had ruled it a homicide when he realized that a single shot had been fired before the accident, but there was no evidence that the husband was shot at the site. The sheriff found the husband was twice the legal limit and ruled it a drunk driving accident.

The letters began once again, this time accusing the sheriff of covering up the true nature of the death. The letters also accused the sheriff of mishandling an investigation into the county coroner who had been accused of other grotesque acts.

The harassment continued, this time with signs along the road and in 1983, the original resident who had been accused of having an affair pulled over to remove a sign. During the effort to remove the sign, she discovered a box was attached and inside of it was a small pistol. The gun was part of a booby trap designed to fire when the sign was removed.

Paul Freshour was arrested and given 25 years…but one small problem. The letter writing continued even after Freshour was put in jail.

In a new batch of letters, the author had promised to dig up the grave of a deceased baby and mail the bones to the police in the case of another potential affair turned murder.

Hundreds of residents continued to receive personal letters until 1994 when everything stopped.

13. History really can be interesting.

But my favorite is Chauvet cave. (If you have a chance, watch Werner Herzog’s documentary Cave of Forgotten Dreams. I think it’s still on Netflix.) It has some of the most stunning cave art in the world, which almost certainly had some kind of profound significance, and we don’t – and will likely never – know what it is. Moreover, there’s evidence that the cave was abandoned for thousands of years and later returned to, only for the returnees to continue to make paintings in the exact same style and, possibly, for the exact same reasons.

There is so much to be seen in these figures. There’s a portrait of an animal tossing its head that looks like one of the world’s earliest explorations of stop motion or sequential art. When I look at it I can feel the will of the painter, who wanted so much to convey this sort of motion…

There are also the footprints of a boy, who arrived much later to the cave than its original users, whose marks appear to be contemporary with the pawprints of a wolf. It’s hard to say now, according to Cave of Forgotten Dreams, whether they walked together, whether they walked 20 years apart, whether they were friends or whether the wolf was stalking the boy. But I read a blog post by a professional hunter and tracker, who looked at the footage of the prints from the film and said that they likely walked together. I wonder what they were thinking. If the boy had some knowledge of what he would find there, or if he was simply exploring a cave and found some of the greatest art in human history.

In Chauvet there is also the solution to a mystery. Until the discovery of Chauvet cave paleontologists were unsure as to whether cave lions had manes. On the cave walls there is an illustration of a cave lion with visible testicles and no mane, settling that debate.

12. The death of Cindy James.

I remember seeing a video about a woman that after getting divorced started getting stalked and assaulted in her own house. Everytime police would arrive no one more than her was at the scene, sometimes she would appear with bruises, once she appeared with a screwdriver through her hand. This happened so many times that police started ignoring her calls after the investigation on her husband and on the case left no suspects.

Three months later she disappeared just to reappear next to a highway in the middle of the desert, miles away from her house, with her hands tied, dead. Autopsy later confirmed she was beaten to death. Creepiest shit I know.

11. I need to know more about this immediately.

The toxic death of Gloria Ramirez. 23 people became ill due to her mere presence and 5 were hospitalised. We have never worked out what happened. There’s an episode of the “Stuff you should know” podcast that talks about it.

About 8:15 p.m. on the evening of February 19, 1994, Ramirez, suffering from severe heart palpitations, was brought into the emergency department of Riverside General Hospital by paramedics. She was extremely confused and was suffering from tachycardia and Cheyne–Stokes respiration.

The medical staff injected her with diazepam, midazolam, and lorazepam to sedate her. When it became clear that Ramirez was responding poorly to treatment, the staff tried to defibrillate her heart; at that point several people saw an oily sheen covering Ramirez’s body, and some noticed a fruity, garlic-like odor that they thought was coming from her mouth. A registered nurse named Susan Kane attempted to draw blood from Ramirez’s arm and noticed an ammonia-like smell coming from the tube.

She passed the syringe to Julie Gorchynski, a medical resident, who noticed manila-colored particles floating in the blood. At this point, Kane fainted and was removed from the room. Shortly thereafter, Gorchynski began to feel nauseated. Complaining that she was lightheaded, she left the trauma room and sat at a nurse’s desk. A staff member asked her if she was okay, but before she could respond she also fainted. Maureen Welch, a respiratory therapist who was assisting in the trauma room was the third to pass out. The staff was then ordered to evacuate all emergency department patients to the parking lot outside the hospital. Overall, 23 people became ill and five were hospitalized. A skeleton crew stayed behind to stabilize Ramirez. At 8:50 p.m., after 45 minutes of CPR and defibrillation, Ramirez was pronounced dead from kidney failure related to her cancer.

10. I’d say we all need to know what happened.

The Oakville Blob.

In 1994, there was a rainstorm in Oakville, WA–only the “raindrops” were a strange clear substance that had the consistency of Jello. Lots of people experienced flu-like symptoms after coming into contact with it, and peoples’ dogs and cats all over the city were dying.

When a local hospital ran a lab test on the substance after one of the patients suggested it, it was found that whatever this mysterious “rain” was, it had human white blood cells in it. Some time after that, a sample was also sent to the Washington State Health Laboratory, where it was being researched by epidemiologist Mike McDowell. After he determined that it was man-made and speculated that it was some sort of matrix for transporting viruses/bacteria, the samples suddenly went missing from the containment facility and his supervisor told him not to ask any questions. There are no known samples of the stuff anywhere today, despite being sent to several different facilities by various Oakville residents.

So yeah, I’d personally say that this was clearly some sort of bio-weapon test run, but by whom? I’d like to give the US Government the benefit of the doubt here and assume it wasn’t us testing something like that on our own citizens, but if it wasn’t, why would it have been covered up like that? And you’d think an event like this would be a lot less obscure. Also, even if it being a bio-weapon seems super obvious, how the heck did whoever dispersed it manage to make it rain over an entire city for several days??

9. This story always raises my hackles.

3 lighthouse workers with impeccable mustaches traveled to a remote island on December 7th, 1900 for a lighthouse shift that should have lasted for two weeks. When a boat arrived to pick them up, they were gone. No trace of the bodies, and the lighthouse was strangely locked.

Not only was the setting normal (meal ready to be served), but there was no fire in the fireplace, and the clock stopped. One of the men kept a log in a diary, and he said that the seas were rough one day, but when monitored, it was actually calm. No one knows what happened to them.

8. When you find a rogue leg.

On April 19, 1995, a truck bomb detonated outside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The explosion killed 168 in what was the deadliest terrorist attack on the United States until 9/11 – to date, it still remains the deadliest act of domestic terrorism in the country.

One of the lesser known things about this is the case of the missing leg. Investigators discovered the leg laying among the rubble and identified it belonging to Lakesha Levy, the only problem was, she’d already been buried with both her legs.

She was exhumed, her severed leg was placed in her coffin while the other leg was taken to the F.B.I laboratory for identification. Since it had been embalmed, a DNA sample was unable to be obtained. The extra left leg, which had been mistakenly buried with Levy, is suspected to belong to an unidentified 169th victim, whose body had mostly disintegrated in the blast.

This has lead people to suspect there was an additional terrorist involved even though perpetrators Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols had been convicted, with two others later identified as accomplices.

so who was the possible additional bomber? they still remain unidentified now 25 years after the attack.

7. Why do people still walk their dogs there?

The Overtoun Bridge.

It’s a bridge in Scotland where dogs always unexplainably jump off. It’s very strange and nobody knows for certain why they do this. Dogs who survived reportedly walked back up and jumped off again. They even had to put up a warning sign to keep your dog on a leash and to watch them. A lot of theories say maybe it’s because of certain scents or animals down below, but most people have disagreed with this theory. It’s fuckin weird.

6. The mystery of the human brain.

A strange but not creepy mystery: The disappearance and reappearance of Lawrence Joseph Bader: he was a cookware salesman from Akron, Ohio who went missing in 1957. He went fishing, a storm hit, and his boat was found the next day with some damage. He was in debt and in trouble with the IRS and his wife was about to have their third child.

Four days later, John “Fritz” Johnson appeared in a bar in Omaha, Nebraska (spoiler: it’s Larry Bader). “Fritz” was known for his wild personality, he attracted local attention for sitting atop a flag pole for 30 days to raise money for polio, he became a radio announcer and a TV sports director. He drove around in a hearse with a bar and became a minor celebrity in Omaha… by no means was avoiding attention. In 1964, a cancerous tumor was found behind his left eye and it had to be removed.

In 1965, Fritz was in Chicago for a tournament and an acquaintance from Akron recognized him (despite the eyepatch) and confronted him, and then brought Bader’s niece to take a look. She agreed it was her uncle and confronted him about it as well. Fritz denied it but found it humorous. Fritz’s fingerprints were then matched to Larry Bader’s military records and it was confirmed.

Fritz Johnson always maintained he had no memory of his former life as Larry Bader. Psychiatrists examined him and believed he was telling the truth even though he had financial reasons to assume a new identity and the concept of someone forgetting their past and entirely constructing a different one with false memories is hard to fathom. It is also considered a possibility that the eye tumor had something to do with it. He ultimately died in 1966 from the eye tumor and it was never determined conclusively whether he was lying or not.

I am fascinated by this case especially because he had an entire change in personality, an entire life backstory as Fritz, and he made no effort to live a low profile to avoid discovery…. I found this case while looking through the Wikipedia category of people who have faked their own deaths (though it’s debatable if this guy should even be on there…), all of which are great stories

5. More proof that you can’t trust people who like jazz.

The Salish Sea Feet or the Mad Axeman of New Orleans.

The Salish Sea Feet are the approximately twenty dismembered feet found in or around British Columbia or Washington, USA. The feet sometimes are found still inside of shoes. No one knows how they got there or where they came from. Over the course of the last thirteen years, the authorities have ruled out foul play.

The Mad Axeman of New Orleans ran rampant in 1918 and 1919. He murdered six people (usually those of Italian descent) with axes or straight razors. In March of 1919, he sent a lengthy letter from “Hottest Hell” that was pretty nonsensical. But the most relevant paragraphs read:

“Now, to be exact, at 12:15 (earthly time) on next Tuesday night, I am going to pass over New Orleans. In my infinite mercy, I am going to make a little proposition to you people. Here it is:

I am very fond of jazz music, and I swear by all the devils in the nether regions that every person shall be spared in whose home a jazz band is in full swing at the time I have just mentioned. If everyone has a jazz band going, well, then, so much the better for you people. One thing is certain and that is that some of your people who do not jazz it out on that specific Tuesday night (if there be any) will get the axe.”

There were no murders that night because every dance hall in NOLA was filled to capacity.

4. Nothing good happens underground.

This dude got lost in the catacombs, and they found camera footage of his journey, but at some point he drops the camera and just starts to run.

As far as I know, nobody has found out wtf happened to him

3. He probably killed himself.

The whereabouts of the last Gestapo Chief Heinrich Mueller.

The last verified sighting of him was in Berlin roughly 3 days before it fell, he had stated he knew full well what the Russians did to prisoners and he had no intentions of being captured. As chief of the Gestapo he more than likely had access to foreign documents as well as ways to replicate them.

Both the CIA and the KGB spent time looking for him but no trace has ever been found

2. In what world is this a suicide?

Another one is Colonel Philip Shue’s death:

“On April 16, 2003, 54-year-old Colonel Philip Shue left his Texas home and headed to work. Two hours later, he was found dead in his car, an apparent victim of a car crash. The car was caved in on the driver’s side and Philip suffered major head trauma as a result. He was killed instantly.”

This is where it gets weird:

“Philip had a tear in his T-shirt under his fatigues. There, they could see a 6-inch vertical gash in his chest. Above the entrance to the 6″ gash were at least five scratch marks, which the autopsy report said were consistent with hesitant marks. Both his nipples had been removed with surgical precision. The fifth digit on his left hand had been amputated and his left ear had been lacerated down to the bone. Duct tape was dangling from both of his wrists and the top of his boots.”

It was ruled a suicide….

1. I feel like this could be an episode on the show.

Where is Kimberly Langwell?

She disappeared in 1999 in Beaumont, Texas. Her car was found in the parking lot of an Eckerd’s Drug Store, but her purse and keys were missing. Her cell phone was inside.

We all know she wouldn’t have left her daughter, Tiffani, just like that. She loved her and loved life and those who surrounded her. Everyone who knew Kimberly loved her. She was the shining star on a dark night.

If you have seen her alive, please call the police. I have posted her case below.

Y’all there are so many insane stories in the world. I need all of them in my brain.

What’s your “favorite” unsolved mystery? If it’s not here, share it with us in the comments!

The post Crazy Mysteries That Remain Unsolved appeared first on UberFacts.

Crazy Mysteries That Remain Unsolved

A lot of us grew up watching and loving Unsolved Mysteries, our jaws on the floor and our brains trying to figure out what in the heck happened.

Now there’s a new series, which is also crazy good (or bad, depending on your point of view), but I’m not sure any of those stories hold a candle to these 17 unsolved mysteries.

17. Isn’t there DNA in poop?

The Miyazawa family.

Just listened to the Casefile podcast on this and it has my mind blown. Someone entered the family home around 11:30 pm, killed everyone, ate some ice cream, took a nap, pooped and didn’t flush, changed clothes and left like 8 hours after the crime.

20 years on and we don’t know who or why

16. I sure hope we never see that thing again.

The lost A-bomb off the coast of America, which the US government said not to worry about in the 50’s and tried to cover up. Was dumped in the ocean in an aviation accident and it’s still lost to this day.

100x more powerful then what was dropped in Japan.

15. This sh*t infuriates me.

The ” suicide” of LaVena Johnson a black female US Army private who was found shot to death inside a burning tent with a broken nose, black eyes, broken teeth, raped and acid burns on her genitals in July 2005.

US Army ruled her death a suicide.

14. What in god’s name is happening?

THE CIRCLEVILLE LETTERS

In 1976, residents of the small city south of Columbus Ohio began receiving handwritten sinister and graphic letters. Each letter included secret and dark details about their personal lives.

One resident received a ton of letters, accusing her of various unsavory acts. The author warned the resident that he had been keeping an eye on her home, as well as her comings and goings. The resident was horrified and tried to keep the letters a secret until her husband began receiving them.

The attacks on the family continued, with large posters appearing around town spreading rumors about their 12 year old child. One day in 1977, the husband left the house after receiving a call from who he thought was writing the letters. A few minutes later, the husband was found dead at the end of the street dead behind the wheel. The sheriff had ruled it a homicide when he realized that a single shot had been fired before the accident, but there was no evidence that the husband was shot at the site. The sheriff found the husband was twice the legal limit and ruled it a drunk driving accident.

The letters began once again, this time accusing the sheriff of covering up the true nature of the death. The letters also accused the sheriff of mishandling an investigation into the county coroner who had been accused of other grotesque acts.

The harassment continued, this time with signs along the road and in 1983, the original resident who had been accused of having an affair pulled over to remove a sign. During the effort to remove the sign, she discovered a box was attached and inside of it was a small pistol. The gun was part of a booby trap designed to fire when the sign was removed.

Paul Freshour was arrested and given 25 years…but one small problem. The letter writing continued even after Freshour was put in jail.

In a new batch of letters, the author had promised to dig up the grave of a deceased baby and mail the bones to the police in the case of another potential affair turned murder.

Hundreds of residents continued to receive personal letters until 1994 when everything stopped.

13. History really can be interesting.

But my favorite is Chauvet cave. (If you have a chance, watch Werner Herzog’s documentary Cave of Forgotten Dreams. I think it’s still on Netflix.) It has some of the most stunning cave art in the world, which almost certainly had some kind of profound significance, and we don’t – and will likely never – know what it is. Moreover, there’s evidence that the cave was abandoned for thousands of years and later returned to, only for the returnees to continue to make paintings in the exact same style and, possibly, for the exact same reasons.

There is so much to be seen in these figures. There’s a portrait of an animal tossing its head that looks like one of the world’s earliest explorations of stop motion or sequential art. When I look at it I can feel the will of the painter, who wanted so much to convey this sort of motion…

There are also the footprints of a boy, who arrived much later to the cave than its original users, whose marks appear to be contemporary with the pawprints of a wolf. It’s hard to say now, according to Cave of Forgotten Dreams, whether they walked together, whether they walked 20 years apart, whether they were friends or whether the wolf was stalking the boy. But I read a blog post by a professional hunter and tracker, who looked at the footage of the prints from the film and said that they likely walked together. I wonder what they were thinking. If the boy had some knowledge of what he would find there, or if he was simply exploring a cave and found some of the greatest art in human history.

In Chauvet there is also the solution to a mystery. Until the discovery of Chauvet cave paleontologists were unsure as to whether cave lions had manes. On the cave walls there is an illustration of a cave lion with visible testicles and no mane, settling that debate.

12. The death of Cindy James.

I remember seeing a video about a woman that after getting divorced started getting stalked and assaulted in her own house. Everytime police would arrive no one more than her was at the scene, sometimes she would appear with bruises, once she appeared with a screwdriver through her hand. This happened so many times that police started ignoring her calls after the investigation on her husband and on the case left no suspects.

Three months later she disappeared just to reappear next to a highway in the middle of the desert, miles away from her house, with her hands tied, dead. Autopsy later confirmed she was beaten to death. Creepiest shit I know.

11. I need to know more about this immediately.

The toxic death of Gloria Ramirez. 23 people became ill due to her mere presence and 5 were hospitalised. We have never worked out what happened. There’s an episode of the “Stuff you should know” podcast that talks about it.

About 8:15 p.m. on the evening of February 19, 1994, Ramirez, suffering from severe heart palpitations, was brought into the emergency department of Riverside General Hospital by paramedics. She was extremely confused and was suffering from tachycardia and Cheyne–Stokes respiration.

The medical staff injected her with diazepam, midazolam, and lorazepam to sedate her. When it became clear that Ramirez was responding poorly to treatment, the staff tried to defibrillate her heart; at that point several people saw an oily sheen covering Ramirez’s body, and some noticed a fruity, garlic-like odor that they thought was coming from her mouth. A registered nurse named Susan Kane attempted to draw blood from Ramirez’s arm and noticed an ammonia-like smell coming from the tube.

She passed the syringe to Julie Gorchynski, a medical resident, who noticed manila-colored particles floating in the blood. At this point, Kane fainted and was removed from the room. Shortly thereafter, Gorchynski began to feel nauseated. Complaining that she was lightheaded, she left the trauma room and sat at a nurse’s desk. A staff member asked her if she was okay, but before she could respond she also fainted. Maureen Welch, a respiratory therapist who was assisting in the trauma room was the third to pass out. The staff was then ordered to evacuate all emergency department patients to the parking lot outside the hospital. Overall, 23 people became ill and five were hospitalized. A skeleton crew stayed behind to stabilize Ramirez. At 8:50 p.m., after 45 minutes of CPR and defibrillation, Ramirez was pronounced dead from kidney failure related to her cancer.

10. I’d say we all need to know what happened.

The Oakville Blob.

In 1994, there was a rainstorm in Oakville, WA–only the “raindrops” were a strange clear substance that had the consistency of Jello. Lots of people experienced flu-like symptoms after coming into contact with it, and peoples’ dogs and cats all over the city were dying.

When a local hospital ran a lab test on the substance after one of the patients suggested it, it was found that whatever this mysterious “rain” was, it had human white blood cells in it. Some time after that, a sample was also sent to the Washington State Health Laboratory, where it was being researched by epidemiologist Mike McDowell. After he determined that it was man-made and speculated that it was some sort of matrix for transporting viruses/bacteria, the samples suddenly went missing from the containment facility and his supervisor told him not to ask any questions. There are no known samples of the stuff anywhere today, despite being sent to several different facilities by various Oakville residents.

So yeah, I’d personally say that this was clearly some sort of bio-weapon test run, but by whom? I’d like to give the US Government the benefit of the doubt here and assume it wasn’t us testing something like that on our own citizens, but if it wasn’t, why would it have been covered up like that? And you’d think an event like this would be a lot less obscure. Also, even if it being a bio-weapon seems super obvious, how the heck did whoever dispersed it manage to make it rain over an entire city for several days??

9. This story always raises my hackles.

3 lighthouse workers with impeccable mustaches traveled to a remote island on December 7th, 1900 for a lighthouse shift that should have lasted for two weeks. When a boat arrived to pick them up, they were gone. No trace of the bodies, and the lighthouse was strangely locked.

Not only was the setting normal (meal ready to be served), but there was no fire in the fireplace, and the clock stopped. One of the men kept a log in a diary, and he said that the seas were rough one day, but when monitored, it was actually calm. No one knows what happened to them.

8. When you find a rogue leg.

On April 19, 1995, a truck bomb detonated outside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The explosion killed 168 in what was the deadliest terrorist attack on the United States until 9/11 – to date, it still remains the deadliest act of domestic terrorism in the country.

One of the lesser known things about this is the case of the missing leg. Investigators discovered the leg laying among the rubble and identified it belonging to Lakesha Levy, the only problem was, she’d already been buried with both her legs.

She was exhumed, her severed leg was placed in her coffin while the other leg was taken to the F.B.I laboratory for identification. Since it had been embalmed, a DNA sample was unable to be obtained. The extra left leg, which had been mistakenly buried with Levy, is suspected to belong to an unidentified 169th victim, whose body had mostly disintegrated in the blast.

This has lead people to suspect there was an additional terrorist involved even though perpetrators Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols had been convicted, with two others later identified as accomplices.

so who was the possible additional bomber? they still remain unidentified now 25 years after the attack.

7. Why do people still walk their dogs there?

The Overtoun Bridge.

It’s a bridge in Scotland where dogs always unexplainably jump off. It’s very strange and nobody knows for certain why they do this. Dogs who survived reportedly walked back up and jumped off again. They even had to put up a warning sign to keep your dog on a leash and to watch them. A lot of theories say maybe it’s because of certain scents or animals down below, but most people have disagreed with this theory. It’s fuckin weird.

6. The mystery of the human brain.

A strange but not creepy mystery: The disappearance and reappearance of Lawrence Joseph Bader: he was a cookware salesman from Akron, Ohio who went missing in 1957. He went fishing, a storm hit, and his boat was found the next day with some damage. He was in debt and in trouble with the IRS and his wife was about to have their third child.

Four days later, John “Fritz” Johnson appeared in a bar in Omaha, Nebraska (spoiler: it’s Larry Bader). “Fritz” was known for his wild personality, he attracted local attention for sitting atop a flag pole for 30 days to raise money for polio, he became a radio announcer and a TV sports director. He drove around in a hearse with a bar and became a minor celebrity in Omaha… by no means was avoiding attention. In 1964, a cancerous tumor was found behind his left eye and it had to be removed.

In 1965, Fritz was in Chicago for a tournament and an acquaintance from Akron recognized him (despite the eyepatch) and confronted him, and then brought Bader’s niece to take a look. She agreed it was her uncle and confronted him about it as well. Fritz denied it but found it humorous. Fritz’s fingerprints were then matched to Larry Bader’s military records and it was confirmed.

Fritz Johnson always maintained he had no memory of his former life as Larry Bader. Psychiatrists examined him and believed he was telling the truth even though he had financial reasons to assume a new identity and the concept of someone forgetting their past and entirely constructing a different one with false memories is hard to fathom. It is also considered a possibility that the eye tumor had something to do with it. He ultimately died in 1966 from the eye tumor and it was never determined conclusively whether he was lying or not.

I am fascinated by this case especially because he had an entire change in personality, an entire life backstory as Fritz, and he made no effort to live a low profile to avoid discovery…. I found this case while looking through the Wikipedia category of people who have faked their own deaths (though it’s debatable if this guy should even be on there…), all of which are great stories

5. More proof that you can’t trust people who like jazz.

The Salish Sea Feet or the Mad Axeman of New Orleans.

The Salish Sea Feet are the approximately twenty dismembered feet found in or around British Columbia or Washington, USA. The feet sometimes are found still inside of shoes. No one knows how they got there or where they came from. Over the course of the last thirteen years, the authorities have ruled out foul play.

The Mad Axeman of New Orleans ran rampant in 1918 and 1919. He murdered six people (usually those of Italian descent) with axes or straight razors. In March of 1919, he sent a lengthy letter from “Hottest Hell” that was pretty nonsensical. But the most relevant paragraphs read:

“Now, to be exact, at 12:15 (earthly time) on next Tuesday night, I am going to pass over New Orleans. In my infinite mercy, I am going to make a little proposition to you people. Here it is:

I am very fond of jazz music, and I swear by all the devils in the nether regions that every person shall be spared in whose home a jazz band is in full swing at the time I have just mentioned. If everyone has a jazz band going, well, then, so much the better for you people. One thing is certain and that is that some of your people who do not jazz it out on that specific Tuesday night (if there be any) will get the axe.”

There were no murders that night because every dance hall in NOLA was filled to capacity.

4. Nothing good happens underground.

This dude got lost in the catacombs, and they found camera footage of his journey, but at some point he drops the camera and just starts to run.

As far as I know, nobody has found out wtf happened to him

3. He probably killed himself.

The whereabouts of the last Gestapo Chief Heinrich Mueller.

The last verified sighting of him was in Berlin roughly 3 days before it fell, he had stated he knew full well what the Russians did to prisoners and he had no intentions of being captured. As chief of the Gestapo he more than likely had access to foreign documents as well as ways to replicate them.

Both the CIA and the KGB spent time looking for him but no trace has ever been found

2. In what world is this a suicide?

Another one is Colonel Philip Shue’s death:

“On April 16, 2003, 54-year-old Colonel Philip Shue left his Texas home and headed to work. Two hours later, he was found dead in his car, an apparent victim of a car crash. The car was caved in on the driver’s side and Philip suffered major head trauma as a result. He was killed instantly.”

This is where it gets weird:

“Philip had a tear in his T-shirt under his fatigues. There, they could see a 6-inch vertical gash in his chest. Above the entrance to the 6″ gash were at least five scratch marks, which the autopsy report said were consistent with hesitant marks. Both his nipples had been removed with surgical precision. The fifth digit on his left hand had been amputated and his left ear had been lacerated down to the bone. Duct tape was dangling from both of his wrists and the top of his boots.”

It was ruled a suicide….

1. I feel like this could be an episode on the show.

Where is Kimberly Langwell?

She disappeared in 1999 in Beaumont, Texas. Her car was found in the parking lot of an Eckerd’s Drug Store, but her purse and keys were missing. Her cell phone was inside.

We all know she wouldn’t have left her daughter, Tiffani, just like that. She loved her and loved life and those who surrounded her. Everyone who knew Kimberly loved her. She was the shining star on a dark night.

If you have seen her alive, please call the police. I have posted her case below.

Y’all there are so many insane stories in the world. I need all of them in my brain.

What’s your “favorite” unsolved mystery? If it’s not here, share it with us in the comments!

The post Crazy Mysteries That Remain Unsolved appeared first on UberFacts.

Reality Show Employees Talk About What Really Goes on Behind the Scenes

Whether you’re into the drama of programs like Real Housewives, love home renovation stories like Property Brothers, or get wrapped up in dance competitions like Dancing with the Stars, most of us have to admit to watching at least some reality television on a weekly basis.

What’s it really like to work on one of these shows, though? How much is real, and how much is really scripted? If you’re dying to know, these 17 people who have been on set are here to tell you!

17. I always figured the craziest people were plants.

Not me, but a friend told me that one of those reality tow truck shows tried to hire him to play a crazy customer. The staged shot was that the crew was going to try and take “his” rusty pickup truck from his lawn, but he was supposed to come at them in just a wife beater with two sawed off shotguns.

I believe that the big black woman of the crew was supposed to run at him and knock him out with a wrench, but I can’t remember the exact details. Even though I think he turned them down, it goes to show how much of “reality” shows are staged for those who didn’t know it before.

16. I guess he didn’t want to eat cold food.

In the very first episode of Top Chef they ever filmed, Tom Colicchio flipped out because the dishes the contestants had cooked were getting cold while the film crew took “food porn” shots of them.

From then on, all the contestants have to prepare two dishes. One for the judges to sample, and one for the cameras to pan over and show the audience.

15. Sometimes the producers get desperate for drama.

I worked on American Ninja Warrior.

Member that time that video of a “naked” guy running around on the course? It was planned and fake, the “streaker” is one of the testers of the course, so he knew exactly how to do it, and he wore underwear.

PAs (only with iPhones, not Samsung) were called to go into the audience and film it and upload it to youTube. Yuuuup pretty dumb and lame. I laughed about it, thought “wow EPs are desperate” and went to Crafty and filled up on chips and soda.

14. There aren’t exactly scripts, but…

I’ve worked on almost 20 different reality shows in the past 15 years, I have never seen a script created for participants in any way. I HAVE seen the contestants told what to say, I have seen scenes re-staged to get what the director/producers want. Never scripted. It is far easier to tell them what to say and have them parrot your way of saying to get it right. Non of these folks can act worth a shit. It is easier to just do call + repeats.

I’ve never worked on anything on TRUTV as they are the bottom of the barrel and are known to screw folks on cash so i cannot say their dreck is not scripted. But usually story producers have a clue who likes/hates each other, (alchohol is always introduced to get to the roots of this quicker), then the emotions are manipulated in predictable ways to get the needed shots. Noways, so many know the reality game that many participants will offer to redo a take immediately.

Those are the folks who want to use a show to get famous. Release a sex tape – it is infinitely quicker way to fame if you want it that bad.

13. Scripted v. Staged.

My old boss had a reality show. While I wouldn’t necessarily call it scripted, many scenes were staged to some extent and they would often film multiple takes. There were also a lot more “friends” and celebrities (office was in LA) stopping by on the days they were filming.

12. There are tons of leading questions.

One of the first production jobs I took was on a reality show TV Pilot called, “Life Begins at 40”. It was a show that followed the lives of a couple who put their dreams on hold for their kids, and the show helped them pick up where they left off after the kids left the nest. Really sweet idea, as the husband wanted to run a car garage and the wife wanted to own a bed and breakfast. There were a few things that come to mind of how contrived shows are:

During segments where the couple were talking, the “director” of the show was behind the camera guiding them through the conversation. They arrived at the house they were staying at, and the husband noticed the wife overpacked. The director, off camera, would tell the husband, “Wouldn’t you say your wife packs too much?” to which the husband replied, “Yeah, Honey, you packed way too much!” The director then said, “Wouldn’t you say that she packed up your entire closet?” “Yeah, yeah, sweetie, did you pack the entire closet or something?”

During another segment, the husband sends the wife on a mission to go buy an auto part for the garage he is working with. The producer was going to send me to basically pre-plant the part she needed, that way she wouldn’t have to pay for it. Turns out the segment was scrapped because she asked so many questions to the husband she knew exactly what she was supposed to get (as opposed to the “drama” that would unfold when she was supposed to call the husband about the part at the store).

The couple didn’t know, but they were going to another state for the second part of the show. I created their plane tickets (they would get real ones when they got to the airport). So, over dinner, when their bill arrived, they opened it to find the plane tickets. I had a little fun with them the night before when they asked me if I would be with them for the entire production. I responded, “I’ll be with you the entire time you’re in Florida”, which was true since they were only there for one more day. After the reveal, they realized what I did when I was driving them home and we had a nice laugh.

Those are the only stories that come to mind (that was nearly ten years ago!) It was a lot of fun, and everyone was really awesome. Definitely had more of an “Extreme Makeover” vibe rather than the catty, angry and drama-filled reality shows.

11. A niche story, but interesting.

So I used to have these two American co-workers. One of them was signed with an extras agency and would occasionally get small roles in films and TV.

One day I hear the extra telling the other guy about a London club which for the opening night had an open bar after a £20 entry fee. They decide to go and the other guy says “hey why don’t you come Martlar?” So I agree to go to this club.

The extra finds me later to say it’s actually part of a show here called The Real Hustle that shows how cons are pulled off. His agency has asked him to invite people who wouldn’t recognise the presenters and spoil the con. So I go along with it knowing I’d get my £20 back at the end of the night.

Afterwards the producers took us to a bar and bought us all a drink. Talking to the other people there, about two thirds of the people “conned” were in on it.

10. Paid actors? What!?

A close friend of mine worked in casting for several shows. Most notably: Pawn Stars. She told me one night while we were drinking that around 90% of the time the people bringing items into the shop were NOT the true owners. They would scour the internet for people selling interesting things and then hit them up to see if they wanted to bring it on the show. If the true owners were total duds and not suitable for camera work, they would pay them a few bucks to take the item and have a trained actor bring it to the pawn shop for the purposes of the show.

She also said that Adam Richmond, the guy from Man Vs. Food, got so sick and out of shape from all the crap he ate all the time that he could no longer be insured. They had to change the format of the show so that he would coach people in eating competitions, as opposed to doing it himself.

9. Why not just call it a scripted series then?

A few years ago my parents owned a restaurant where an episode of an MTV “reality series” was filmed. It was totally staged and MTV gave them details about what would go down in advance.

8. This was an amazing concept.

I worked as a fake contestant on a game show, it was my job to screw up various contestants as much as I could.

Before each episode shoot, they would tell me challenges and ask me to practice being terrible at it. Finally being good at being terrible paid off.

7. That seems like it would be a hard thing to sign.

I wasn’t actually on a reality show but I almost was. We had to sign paperwork agreeing to “re-film” scenes that didn’t look good the first time or things the camera didn’t catch. We also had to agree that our words could be edited however they wanted (so they could basically take things out of context/manipulate the way we came across). Dropped out at the last minute though, so I guess I’ll never know what it would have been like to be on tv.

6. This is the best story.

MTV did a reality special on my hometown in the early 1990s, profiling it as “the worst place in the world to spend spring break.” They came for two weeks with a comedian host and made fun of us constantly. For one episode they wanted to showcase the town’s music scene, so they got a dozen 3rd graders to play Hot Cross Buns on recorders. I was one of those 3rd graders.

The comedian came in the day of and was super serious. He told us this was our big break and would be broadcast to a million people. Naturally, we responded by taking it VERY seriously and felt that we were representing our town. When the cameras started rolling, it was obvious that it was total bullshit. The comedian kept jumping up and down behind the cameras shouting “POOPEY LIGHTBULB” to make us laugh. Then he gave us fake Ray Bans and t-shirts.

5. Here, have another drink.

Alcohol consumption. Talent gets plastered, producers get results.

All special events, trips, etc. are planned and paid for by the production. During those moments, there’s incredible pressure on everyone to deliver good material.

The crew is overworked and underpaid. I clocked on average 100hrs a week. On one show, I worked over 30 days straight without a day off (I was on a weekly contract, not hourly, so they could get away with it).

A genuine, unaltered moment in the final cut of an episode is as rare as a unicorn. (It doesn’t exist).

4. They do sometimes get a head’s up.

In a similar thread /u/Sallymoustacheride gave some insight into something that I am sure is true about a lot of reality shows to make them work:

I worked for a bakery that was on, and won, CupCake Wars. The premise of the show is to surprise the bakers with a few, more often than not, odd ingredients and see what they’re really made of. In reality, we found out the ingredients a few months before the show. Had we not known, there’s no doubt we’d have lost.

There are definitely people who thrive under pressure, both in performance and creativity, and they have better things to do with their time than crank out cupcakes for Food Network. Tell an unprepared contestant they have 40 minutes to make a delicious cupcake using tater tots and nine times out of ten you’ll have a middle aged woman sobbing into her mixing bowl.

3. People aren’t always what they seem.

I’ve worked in TV and film for a decade. Here are some I can mention:

Remember that show MTV Cribs? Most of the rappers houses were rented specifically for the shoot. Actors and sports stars were their real houses for the most part.

Gordon Ramsey is actually a pretty nice guy. The Hells Kitchen restaurant is a set in a soundstage. The customers are usually friends and invited guests of the show and its crew.

Most reality shows are scripted to an extent, and the cast is usually coached to say certain things during a those interview style shots to help tell or shape a story. They are cut together and manipulated as needed to tell different stories. Most of the time they are talking about something totally different than what is happening on screen.

Most reality stars don’t “decide to part ways” with the show. The money is too easy. 75% of the time there were asked to leave or not return. It’s easier on everyone if we never say “fired” unless you are Donald Trump.

MTV was illegally using music for years and years for all of its shows. MTV was a major source of exposure in the 80’s and 90’s for music, so they took advantage of their position and illegally used copywrited music in all of their TV shows, especially reality shows without permission or compensation to the publishing and sync rights holders. They were eventually sued by all the major record companies in the late 90’s/early 2000s when they ceased to be the music player they once were and had to cease use of copywrited songs. Cheaper reality shows had to resort to library songs while the bigger shows had to pony up licensing fees for major artists.

Award shows like the MTV movie awards, Kids Choice awards, etc were merely created as cheap ways to get big names and big ratings. Artists are not compensated for showing up at these events and look bad for not showing up to accept the made-up award. Easy money.

I’ve never worked on Dr Phil, but he is a giant douche to everyone especially his crew. Needlessly and entirely for his own ego.

2. They are really long days.

Nice. Something I can finally comment on. I’m a Production Sound Mixer based in LA and I frequently find myself on reality gigs. The pay is pretty good but the days are very long. Minimum work day will be 12 hours (the most I have done is 20 hours in a single day) with the only real break being a half hour to an hour lunch. This is pretty typical for most LA based productions.

So what do our days consist of? Well, yesterday I started a new reality ENG style doc for a major network which pretty much fits the typical “reality shoot” mold. Usually a day or two day before picture is up, the crew will receive a call sheet. The call sheet has a list of the cast, crew and shot list along with other details about that particular production day. The shot list details which talent will be in each scene along with details of when and where the scene will take place… AND what we are there to shoot in each scene.

Every scene is shot under the guidance of the director and producers and not unlike scripted episodics or features, the scenes are shot multiple times. This means that when you actually watch something happen in reality television, not only was that scene and the actions/conversations within planned days before, you’re likely watching the forth or fifth time that “real” event actually happened. Very rarely can any of these untrained actors nail a scene on the first take. If there’s time to shoot another take, you can bet your ass the director is going to call for it.

Have you ever been watching a reality show and after a cut from one angle to another you think, “well, gosh… Shouldn’t a camera guy be standing right there? The previous angle just one second before that cut was from the exact direction I’m now looking directly in!” Well, that’s because that’s from another take after the crew has repositioned to run the scene again for coverage.

Next would be the audio element… My world. Ever been watching the new hit reality show “Hardcore Midget Pawn” and out of nowhere an angry customer bust in the store screaming and yelling with sound as crisp as can be and in perfect frame from multiple angles? Well, that was 100% planned. Before that, a tech like myself would have placed a lav mic and transmitter pack on the angry customer’s person, tested levels and RF reception while still having a little time to make any adjustments as the camera department established the action of the scene, the lighting, camera lens selection and all that jazz. So buy the time that angry customer bursts in the door, we have already prepared everything, have slated the take and called “ACTION!” And now await their surprise visit which we will shoot numerous times.

1. Well that would be irritating.

I’ve worked in TV and film for a decade. Here are some I can mention:

Remember that show MTV Cribs? Most of the rappers houses were rented specifically for the shoot. Actors and sports stars were their real houses for the most part.

Gordon Ramsey is actually a pretty nice guy. The Hells Kitchen restaurant is a set in a soundstage. The customers are usually friends and invited guests of the show and its crew.

Most reality shows are scripted to an extent, and the cast is usually coached to say certain things during a those interview style shots to help tell or shape a story. They are cut together and manipulated as needed to tell different stories. Most of the time they are talking about something totally different than what is happening on screen.

Most reality stars don’t “decide to part ways” with the show. The money is too easy. 75% of the time there were asked to leave or not return. It’s easier on everyone if we never say “fired” unless you are Donald Trump.

MTV was illegally using music for years and years for all of its shows. MTV was a major source of exposure in the 80’s and 90’s for music, so they took advantage of their position and illegally used copywrited music in all of their TV shows, especially reality shows without permission or compensation to the publishing and sync rights holders. They were eventually sued by all the major record companies in the late 90’s/early 2000s when they ceased to be the music player they once were and had to cease use of copywrited songs. Cheaper reality shows had to resort to library songs while the bigger shows had to pony up licensing fees for major artists.

Award shows like the MTV movie awards, Kids Choice awards, etc were merely created as cheap ways to get big names and big ratings. Artists are not compensated for showing up at these events and look bad for not showing up to accept the made-up award. Easy money.

I’ve never worked on Dr Phil, but he is a giant douche to everyone especially his crew. Needlessly and entirely for his own ego.

I’m not surprised at all, but I do love a good behind-the-scenes pick!

If you’ve got some experience and relevant stories to tell, we’re here to listen!

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