There's always something eerie about old vintage photos; they honestly make me shudder without even trying. From war photos to family portraits, there's plenty of creepiness buried away in our history.
So here are 41 photos from the past that are straight-up eerie:
1. In this shocking picture, two people are moving their mattress away from the aftermath of their home being knocked onto its side:
2. In this photo, we can see a truly horrifying dining table set by General Hap Arnold for the accused at Nuremberg:
3. This picture displays steeplejacks scaling the Statue of Liberty in 1938 for renovation work before the World's Fair. Don't. Look. Down:
4. This photo, taken in 1919, shows a woman wearing a flu mask during the flu epidemic. It was considered the best line of defense at the time, but approximately 50 million people still died from the Spanish flu post-World War I:
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5. This image displays the aftermath of a car falling into a bomb crater after a German air raid. And the more you look at this one, the more fascinating it gets:
6. Next, we have the Lipstick Killer's haunting message for the police on the bedroom wall of one of his victims. The Lipstick Killer, whose real name was William Heirens, died in prison in 2012. This made him one of the longest-surviving prisoners in the world. This photo is from 1945:
7. In this jaw-dropping picture, smiling heads are floating away from their headless bodies on top of a pool of oranges. This cutesy '50s photography is a little too uncanny for my taste:
8. In this photo, a man and a woman are playing tennis at 3,000 feet...on the wings of a plane. The players, Gladys Roy and Ivan Unger ,were daredevils. Later in life, Roy accidentally walked into the spinning propeller of a parked, running airplane, and she died from fatal injuries:
9. This haunting image shows a bride leaving her recently-bombed home for St. George's Church in 1940:
10. This one's a very scary one — we can see a Polish newspaper photographer examining a dead body stuffed into a trunk:
11. In this picture, the Wicked Witch of the West, played by Margaret Hamilton, is posing for a promotional photo for MGM's The Wizard of Oz. A photo like this really brings the character's horrors to life:
12. These are two death masks. If you don't know what that is, death masks are a type of mold made of someone's face after they die:
13. This is a scene from the 1932 play Too True to Be Good at the Queen's Theatre, London. I don't even want to know what it's about:
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14. In this photo, we can see US Consul General Alfred W. Klieforth and his family staging a gas mask drill — which includes the family dog — in Cologne, Germany:
15. This publicity portrait for Alice in Wonderland from 1933 looks like something out of your nightmares. This creature's name is Plum Pudding...and he'll see you in your dreams tonight:
16. This "psychic photograph" from the turn of the century allegedly shows a ghost. And honestly, I completely believe it:
17. This photo is from 1914, around the beginning of World War I, and in it, we can see British military messengers taking cover:
18. The people in this image are members of the US XV Army military government. They're inspecting the remains of a guillotine that executed 737 people over the years at the Klingelpütz prison:
19. These are what quarantined patients looked like during the 1918 Influenza pandemic. Warehouses were converted to house the infected, and an estimated 50 million people were killed:
20. Farmer Paul Trent alleged that this photo is of of a flying saucer over his land in Minnville, Oregon. It's from the year 1950:
21. In 1947, the Monsanto Chemical Plant in Texas City, Texas, went up in smoke after a fire on a cargo ship. The explosion, which we can see in this image, leveled the dock and the surrounding area. There were an estimated 600 deaths, with several thousand injured:
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22. Time for a slightly lighter one. Here's a stuffed rabbit prepping their Easter eggs:
23. This photo of the aftermath of a 1935 earthquake in Baluchistan, Pakistan looks like something plucked from a Twilight Zone episode:
24. Here are some ultra-spooky Halloween costumes:
25. In this image, a boy enjoys an ice cream as he sits on a mine washed up on the beach in Kent, England. A truly haunting photo:
26. If you hate clowns, this photo will definitely make your stomach hurt:
27. And speaking of clowns, here are three clowns in the Yankee Doodle Circus:
28. In this picture, English comedian Leslie Henson sits with a big ol' rabbit model for the stage play Harvey at the Prince of Wales Theatre, London. The character of Harvey the rabbit is invisible, so how are we seeing him in this photo?
29. The subject of this picture is Hay Petrie, who played "Puck" in the 1925 Drury Lane Theatre production of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream:
30. In this image, we can see masked children eating cake while performing in Dorothy L Sayers' religious play The Devil to Pay at the Canterbury Festival in 1939:
31. Here are some workers during a gas mask drill:
32. J. Edgar Hoover is in this picture, wearing a way-too-small-for-his-face Mickey Mouse mask at a New Year's Eve party in the elegant Stork Club in New York. Ringing in the New Year of 1938 in the creepiest way possible:
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33. Here's a fake eyeball collection:
34. This skull, dubbed "The Crown Prince," served as a nighttime reference point in 1916 France during World War I:
35. This photo, also from World War I, displays two soldiers staying low as they traverse the battlefield:
36. My mind is absolutely blown by this photograph of facial injuries sustained by a World War I German soldier:
37. This simple yet eerie image was taken on a spooky night in Leicester Square in London, England, in the 1930s:
38. This is the creepiest Santa you'll ever see, standing next to a stuffed bird. Stay away from my chimney:
39. In this photograph, we can see a gigantic balloon outside of Rapid City, South Dakota, and it looks like something out of The X-Files:
40. This piece of photography combines humor and art, with an extremely dark subject. The picture is called "To lose one's head (France)" — and I think a decapitated soldier posing for a photo is quite creepy. The trick photography is very cool for something from way back in 1910:
41. Lastly, here is another eerie Christmas-related picture! 'Tis the season to be creepy:
What's a historical fact or story from the past that you find creepy or unsettling? Submit your response in this anonymous form, or in the comments below!
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