Some ‘monsters’ might actually be heroes

“So the common time travel question is would you go back and kill baby hitler?

Well imagine if that was you, to us in the current timeline you would be a hero that killed someone truly evil before they had chance to corrupt or endanger anyone but to the people of that time you are a monster, a baby killer.

They couldn’t exactly explain to people, I was sent from the future to kill this baby to save hundreds of millions of lives. No-one would believe him and would just assume he was some nutcase, or maybe they’re not allowed to tell anyone as per the agreement with the future government?

It makes you wonder all the people through time that have been called monsters for killing babies, what if they were just heroes from the future saving us all? They couldn’t tell anyone either?” — savethelemmings87

Dead end trips

“Cosmology can be disturbing.

For instance, I recently learned of dead end trips. There are some destinations that you shouldn’t try for. It’s possible to travel so far away from where you started, that the expansion of the universe will exceed the speed you were travelling at.

You can’t return home, because home is receding faster than you can travel.

You can’t reach your destination, because it too is receding faster than you can travel.

You can no longer get anywhere, only get further away from everything.

You cannot reach any destination, even if you travel forever.” — Sexycoed1972

Your body can turn itself off

“If the human body senses trauma it is unable to combat, it will switch off metabolism, pump endorphins, and slip into a pain free dissociative state.

In essence, shutting down. Its been seen in air crashes and lots of places really.

Basically your body can switch itself off.” — I_a_n0t_am_r0b0t

Theory about the Challenger explosion

“During the Challenger accident from 1986, whenever the shuttle exploded, the ground crews had the astronauts EKG’s and vital scans….after the explosion, the astronauts were still alive. Theory has it that they were cognizant the entire time until they crashed in the ocean.” — seanh47

Beheading theory

“If you die by being beheaded the last thing you might see is your decapitated body.” — groov99

The Vela Incident

“September 1979, a US Vela satellite detected a double flash of light over an area of the ocean between South Africa and Antarctica. The prior 41 double flashes observed by the satellite were from nuclear explosions as this is what they were designed to observe. There also happened to be a typhoon happening in the area at the time so it seemed like someone wanted to detonate it without being caught. Carter administration reported that it was a natural occurrence due to a small meteorite hitting the satellite. However many other independent sources and even other countries have reported that they did indeed find traces of fallout and radiation. Because of the geopolitical climate of the times, there’s very strong evidence that it was in fact a joint nuclear weapon test carried out by South Africa and Israel, and the US scrubbed the information regarding it because they didn’t want to paint their allies in Israel in a bad light for working with apartheid-era South Africa. Strangely enough, Israel and South Africa have never denied having nuclear weapons programs, nor have they ever denied a joint test being responsible for the Vela Incident.” — DJCJ42

Number stations

“Essentially, spying is still a very real thing for most world governments. One of the most foolproof ways of delivering a coded message is through a one-time code – a code used just once before being discarded. Your spy has the key, you have the message, and once the key is used it is discarded and the next message is sent using a different key. Additionally, shortwave radio is an extremely secure way of sending these messages.

It sounds weird, that a radio station anyone with a shortwave radio can listen to, would be considered ‘secure’. But the beauty of the method is that shortwave radios are ubiquitous, cheap technology throughout most of the world. What looks more suspicious – a person traveling with a radio, or a person traveling with a sophisticated computer or satellite phone? While the signal can be received by anyone, it leaves no record of who received it and can’t be intercepted and traced by a middleman. They don’t care if you listen, because the stream of numbers is nothing without the code, and because you’re using a one-time code, it can’t be cracked as it’s randomly generated and used once. The only time a one-time code has ever been broken was an instance where the code was re-used.

So your spy just tunes in to the radio at a specific time on a specific day, writes down the numbers. Decodes the message, discards the key, and no one is any the wiser. Most stations are identified by a call sign or little jingle, and these can range from kind of cute and cheerful to pretty eerie sounding. If you listen in frequently, you’ll hear messages repeated over and over until one day they change up – it’s believed they’ll repeat the message until their spy can communicate they’ve received it. Essentially, if you have a shortwave radio, you can listen in on highly secret spy communications from countries all over the world. You can also listen in on countries jamming the communication, either by broadcasting state radio on the same signal, or trying to jam it with noise or static.

You’d think the frequency of these transmissions would have gone down after the Cold War, but they’re still going strong! The very first numbers stations appeared in the very early days of radio, during World War I. I find it fascinating, but also super creepy, that all of this secret communication is happening right out in the open, for us to tune in to at any time, without any way of knowing who it is intended for or what is being transmitted.” — Tintinabulation

Dark forest theory

“The dark forest theory. This explains the Fremi paradox, why we haven’t seen any other advanced life forms despite the vastness of the universe. Other advanced life forms don’t send out signals into the rest of the universe because they’re worried that something more advanced and dangerous is going to find them first. There’s another idea that other civilizations know there’s something out there but don’t send any signals because it has no reason to not wipeout the entire planet.

There’s a science fiction book based on this and I think this quote explains it better than I can:

“The universe is a dark forest. Every civilization is an armed hunter stalking through the trees like a ghost, gently pushing aside branches that block the path and trying to tread without sound. Even breathing is done with care. The hunter has to be careful, because everywhere in the forest are stealthy hunters like him. If he finds another life—another hunter, angel, or a demon, a delicate infant to tottering old man, a fairy or demigod—there’s only one thing he can do: open fire and eliminate them”” — Iloveruby2

Humans almost went extinct

“That humans almost went extinct. 70,000 years ago a volcano in Indonesia erupted. There’s theories that we have a genetic bottleneck around that time. Took our population down to 10,000-3,000 (like the size of one small town). Lots of fresh genetic material died with those who were lost and the resulting inbreeding could have resulted in some genetic diseases that have made their way into humans today. Without this event, we may have advanced faster and be healthier people today.” — ZeDitto

Absence of fish

“Here’s another, unsettling, explanation: if you’re scuba diving above a coral reef, and you know that there SHOULD be fish all around you, but you don’t see any, it’s most likely that they have learned that for some reason it’s important not to be seen.

And since you’re a newcomer to this environment, chances are it’s not you they’re hiding from.” — AndysBrotherDan

Coronavirus

“The theory that scented candles starting getting poor reviews at the same time COVID hit the US. Makes you wonder how many people have mild COVID before we even knew about it, pairing the lack of taste and/or smell as one of the main symptoms associated with mild COVID cases.” — Joedirt7309

Grey goop

“I saw a video about the theory of grey goop – in which one day we invent micro robots used to break down waste, but could somehow evolve to consume all carbon based organic matter. This would eventually lead to them consuming all life on earth. I was mildly freaked out by the idea of it. It’d be the most horrifying means of extinction.” — EastClintwood89

We only catch serial killers who want to be caught

“When you look at serial killers, what’s chilling is when you realize that many of them who are caught often want to be caught, or go for decades before finally ending up getting caught.

And those are just the ones who do get caught. Someone who really just wanted to go around killing, and who was organized and rational, you’d never find them.” — TheBirminghamBear

Zombies

“Philosophical zombies. Theory that a good portion of the human race lack conscious experience. If you’ve ever dissociated or done something and don’t recall(driven home but have no recollection, your brain acting on auto pilot) thats what they are like. They do everything required to be human, they ape emotions, go through life. They just lack sentience.” — liberatedhusks

Mind control

“That mind control actually exists. It’s something that would never go public because whoever was able to perfect it first would be in the position to use it on whoever is aware of its existence.” — strykerfett

Time traveling tourists

“Sometimes I’ll encounter random strangers that I get a strange vibe from, like they’re noticing me more. It’s made me think, “what if there are time traveling tourists just walking around, and I’m someone important and they want to meet me before I do whatever it is I’m going to do?”” — Jimmyg100

This isn’t real

“I’m in a nursing home with dementia in 2060, and all I’m doing is reliving this moment of December 2020.” — smedsterwho