People Explain Which Facts May Sound Fake But Are Absolutely True

A lot of us enjoy discovering unusual and wild facts, but honestly, sometimes the facts we discover are so out there, we struggle to believe they are true.

Some of us even become angry when we discover something is true, because it’s so hard to believe!

Redditor ejaybugboy asked

“What’s a terrifying fact that keeps you up at night?”

Some enjoyed thinking about the days of the week.

“Here is the etymology of the days of the week in English:”

“Sun’s Day”

“Moon’s Day”

“Tir (Tew)’s day”

“Odin (Wodin)’s day”

“Thor’s Day”

“Freya’s Day”

“Saturn’s Day”

“Two celestial bodies, four Norse gods, and suddenly one asshole from the Roman pantheon for no godd**ned reason. What the f**k is Saturn doing there?” – IronOhki

“I like how they’re called in Serbian:”

“• Utorak (Tuesday) – Taken from old Slavic and means ‘second.’”

“• Sreda (Wednesday) – Means ‘middle.’”

“• Četvrtak (Thursday) – Means ‘fourth.’”

“• Petak (Friday) – Means ‘fifth.’”

“• Subota (Saturday) – Derived from the word ‘sabbath.’”

“• Nedelja (Sunday) – Means ‘not to work,’ or ‘the day when you don’t work.’”

“• Ponedeljak (Monday) – Literally means ‘after Nedelja,’ or ‘the day after the day when you don’t work,’ because laziness is on a whole other level here apparently.’” – TheCosmicSound

Others were more interested in wild animal facts.

“There are more privately owned tigers in Texas than there are wild tigers on the rest of the planet combined.” – j_flameIV

“Crocodiles can climb trees.” – MoravianPrince

“A flock of crows is called a murder. But a flock of ravens is called an unkindness or a conspiracy. Who even comes up with this s**t?” – thweet_jethuth

“Pretty much anything to do with naked mole rats. They are neither related to moles nor rats, they can use their teeth like chopsticks, they have the social hierarchy of bees, and oh yeah, THEY ARE COLD-BLOODED.” – JustAProxyForLurking

“In the cat family, cats can either roar or purr, but can’t do both. It’s to do with the structure of the throat.”

“Cheetahs can’t roar, but I hope you find some solace in the thought of them purring happily.”

“Incidentally, cheetahs are different from other big cats in another way too – they can’t retract their claws completely.” – Lenaandcats

Some were concerned about animal breeding for profit.

“English Bulldogs can’t mate naturally. The males are literally physically incapable of mounting the females, so they either have to be helped to do so, or the females are artificially inseminated.”

“The puppies are always delivered via cesarean section since their skulls would not fit through the birth canal. They will then live their entire lives with compromised breathing.”

“But you know, they’re so cute! With their little squished in faces and their adorable snorting!”

“Sorry… I get angry when it comes to purposefully breeding broken animals.” – kabjl

“Persian cats often have breathing problems and blocked tear ducts.”

“Breed two polydactyl (double pawed) cats together and you get kittens with eyes set very far apart and crooked front legs.”

“Intentionally breeding animals to create features people consider cute or fascinating at the expense of the animal’s health should be treated as animal cruelty.” – useatyourownrisk

There were crazy food facts, too.

“Bananas are berries but strawberries are not berries.” – NikiF**kingLauda

“Raspberries, blackberries, and boysenberries are also not berries.”

“Wanna know what else is a berry? A watermelon.” – Grayseff

Some had a lot of fun talking about words.

“Cannoli is already in plural form. The singular form is Cannolo.” – JimDumb22

“Coolth is an actual word and it’s the opposite of warmth. I love using it but my girlfriend fucking hates it.” – mackenzicles

“The terms ‘hardwood’ and ‘softwood’ have nothing to do with the actual hardness of the wood, but what kind of seeds the tree produces.” – Penguin_Out_Of_A_Zoo

“Inflammable and flammable mean the same thing. ‘Flammable’ is not considered a scientifically acceptable term for things-that-catch-fire-easily. ‘Inflammable’ is the proper term and comes from the word inflame.”

“But flammable caught on because inflammable sounds too much like resistant-to-being-caught-on-fire, which is potentially quite a dangerous misunderstanding.” – Guinefort1

“The word ‘Helicopter’ is not made up of the words ‘Heli’ and ‘Copter,’ but rather ‘Helico’ and ‘Pter,’ which are Greek for ‘Spiral’ and ‘Wing.’” – Zaptagious

“That ‘unlockable’ means both: Able to be unlocked AND Unable to be locked.”

“My 11-year-old pointed this out, and I had nothing for her other than a blank stare and then thinking, ‘Well, s**t. Good job.’” – jenfers

Some were interested in grammatically-correct sentences.

“The fact that this sentence is grammatically correct: ‘All the faith he had had had had no effect.’” – WoodyPoleSmoker

“Get ready:” 

“‘James, where John had had ‘had,’ had had ‘had had;’ ‘had had’ had had a better effect on the teacher.’ is correct.” – halatian6

Two Redditors knew a fun fact about potato chips.

“All crisps (chips for any Americans) in the UK go out of date on a Saturday. It annoys me because a smug friend pointed it out and i have been unsuccessful in proving him wrong.” – Rossco1874

“I had to Google this and found this from Walkers…”

“In the manufacturing sites, we work on production weeks which start on a Sunday. All product produced in that week will have the same Best Before date. As the week ends on Saturday, the Best Before date will always end on a Saturday.” – IsItMeYourLooking49

One Redditor described what would happen if sawdust was mixed with water.

“If you mix water and sawdust and freeze it, the resulting ‘ice’ melts extremely slowly. like, ‘weeks at room temperature’ slowly.” – btaylos

Some were entertained by unbelievable science facts.

“The fact that in an electric circuit, even though the electric current is electrons moving from negative pole to positive pole, the definition of a current flow is that it moves from positive to negative.”

“And similar misses in definitions in physics/science that was just decided to stay because changing definitions would be confusing at first.” – Versalis_A

Though some of the Redditors struggled to believe these facts were true, there was no arguing these facts were fascinating.

It’s an amazing reminder there is something new and fun to learn lurking around every corner.

People Break Down The Facts That Sound Like BS But Are Totally True

Lies and truth are not one in the same, but the are related. That’s because the most fantastical tales are forged in reality.

Which is why they say truth is stranger than fiction.

I mean look at the world we’re living in. Look at the half decade we just survived.

There are things we’ve all been privy to that if we told our younger selves years ago about we would’ve laughed in disbelief.

But facts are facts.

No matter how wild they can seem, the details are real. We just don’t know how anyone is left stunned by truth anymore.

Life is an Onion article, get comfortable.

That is why a shy Redditor wanted to get together and share some shocking, pearl clutching facts we may not have been so willing to originally believe until we got receipts.

They asked for:

“The most BS-sounding-but-true fact you know?”

“The RAM is watching”

Cosmic rays from outer space cause glitches in your electronics. In some electronics, cosmic rays are the primary source of soft errors.”

“Cosmic rays are one of the main reasons that servers and high reliability computers use error correcting RAM.” ~ random_reddit_accoun

EVERGREEN

“Trees have such intricate root systems that a tree low on one particular type of nutrient will acquire some from his neighbors and make up for it later.”

“This is especially prevalent during the winter months when some trees don’t have leaves and so need extra help from their evergreen friends.” ~ kewlkidmgoo

HOT SUMMER

“In the early 1900’s a wave a molasses rushed through the streets of Boston at 35mph killing 21 people. For decades later, locals said on hot summer days they could still smell molasses in the air.” ~ bartlechoo

I’m Melting

“If you melted down the Eiffel Tower, the pool of iron would be less than 3 inches deep (in a square area the same dimensions as the tower base).” ~ Reddit

“You know those arch things connecting the legs of the Eiffel Tower? If you know anything about architecture, you’d probably assume they make perfect sense.”

“They are there to transfer the load of the tower above down to to the legs. Arches are perfect for that.”

“Nope. They’re a scam. Eiffel designed the thing without them, but the guys holding the money thought it looked too rickety.”

“And people wouldn’t pay to go up in it. So they forced him to bolt on fake arch panels to make it LOOK stronger.” ~ DrColdReality

KABOOM!

“There were people who were killed by the Atom bombs who were born during Japan’s Samurai era.”

“Japans military went from swords, spears and bows to planes, tanks and aircraft carriers in a single humans lifetime. And people say Civilization is unrealistic.” ~ neohellpoet

APPROVED

“The United States in World War 2 created a bomb that used bats.”

“The bats would be carrying small incendiary charges and would be released from the bomb in mid air, causing them to fly and scatter to different buildings in the area.”

“The charges would then detonate and set all the buildings on fire. It was tested and proven to be very effective.”

“This was actually APPROVED by the government for development and production, and then cancelled because of the atomic bomb.”

“The idea was thought up by a Dentist who was friends with Eleanor Roosevelt: Link” ~ DinosaurFriend

Under the Sea

“The Pistol Shrimp can create a cavitation bubble that when collapsing can create a sonoluminescence that can reach temperatures near the temperature of the surface of sun and the sound competes with some of the loudest creatures in the ocean.” ~ DaddysWetPeen

NUMBERS

“If every star in our galaxy had a trillion planets, each with a trillion people living on them, and each of these people has a trillion packs of cards and somehow they manage to make unique shuffles 1,000 times per second, and they’d been doing that since the Big Bang, they’d only just now be starting to repeat shuffles.”

“That was copied from this QI article.”

“The number of ways to shuffle a deck of cards is 80,658,175,170,943,878,571,660,636,856,403,766, 975,289,505,440,883,277,824,000,000,000,000. ~ ccnova

The Choir Sings

“On March 1, 1950, the West Side Baptist Church exploded at 7:27 p.m., right when the scheduled choir practice was supposed to be occurring.”

“The explosion was powerful and swift, taking a nearby radio station off the air. However, not a single choir member got hurt.”

“All fifteen members were delayed from attending the practice. Two women had car troubles, one had trouble with a particularly difficult math problem, another was listening to their favorite radio station.”

“The list goes on and on. If they had been at the church on time for the choir practice, they would have died.” ~ SecretAgendaMan

Repeat…

“There is an immortal jellyfish. When it gets old it reverts itself back into it’s youngest stage and relives life over and over again!” ~ Rdken13

MICRO

“This is more scary that bull crap but its true nonetheless, there are thousands of micro tumors in your body right now and they only need correct conditions to become cancerous.”

“Your body kicks butt at fighting these micro tumors so you have nothing really to worry about.”

YUM

“Chocolate doesn’t have caffeine. Caffeine is added to chocolate because people, in err, expect it to be there.”

“In actuality it naturally contains theobromine which is a methylxanthine, like caffeine. This is what makes chocolate bad for dogs.”

“Also the toxic dose for them is similar between dogs and humans at around 150g/kg if I remember right.”

“Humans just weigh more and don’t tend to sneak into the pantry and eat a 2 lbs block of bakers chocolate.” ~ IRageAlotInIn

CARGO ISSUES

“In the Age of Sail, piracy was seen as simply part of doing business.”

“When approached by a pirate ship, a merchant vessel would almost never put up a fight, simply turning their cargo over instead. Why?”

“Because, as a cost of doing business, cargo was insured against piracy and there was no point in risking life and limb to protect it.” ~ Blenderhead36

They say don’t believe everything you read, but I just read a lot of stuff that makes sense.

Look at it this way, even if it’s odd, it’s still knowledge.

Collect as much of that as you can.

You never know when Jeopardy! will call.