Some may think that the advancement of technology and the growth of the Internet are what ruined the human race…but these photos prove the opposite. It’s obvious that, as a species, humans have been very strange for quite some time…
1. An expertly taken “ghost” photo by a particular enthusiast…
FPG/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
2. Horrifying (and nearly fatal) facial injuries to a German soldier in World War I.
Universal History Archive/Getty Images
3. Either some kind of elephant trick…or moments before disaster?
ullstein bild / Getty Images
4. Salvador Dali embracing the weirdness we have all felt at one time or another.
Charles Hewitt/Picture Post/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
5. She’s got crabs.
Robert W. Kelley/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
6. A photo from the Victorian era (no surprise there).
Public Domain
7. A mental hospital’s inmate, lost in his own mind.
BSIP/UIG via Getty Images
8. Some tribes sharpen and file down their teeth…
The Print Collector/Print Collector/Getty Images
9. The “human serpent” distracts other soldiers on the front (France, World War I, 1915).
Art Media/Print Collector/Getty Images
10. A photograph of Will Thomas, taken by William Hope (1863-1933), with a ghost in the background (that they apparently really wanted to include).
SSPL/Getty Images
11. Max Factor takes precise measurements of a young woman’s head and face with his “Beauty Calibrator” (1932). Beauty has never been so horrifying.
FPG/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
12. The New Year’s festival of the Sylvester Klause at Urnasch in the Appenzell region of Switzerland…which is full of its own kind of horror.
Francois LE DIASCORN/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images
13. Well, they said this opera singer sounded just like a little bird.
General Photographic Agency/Getty Images
14. The “giraffe women” of Burma. (That can’t be comfortable.)
Harlingue/Roger Viollet/Getty Images
15. When the circus visited a children’s hospital (circa 1930), clown Charlie Smith didn’t exactly make anyone feel better.
FPG/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
16. A silent, suffering inmate of an insane asylum.
Jerry Cooke/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
17. Once again, Victorian portraits rule everything.
Public Domain
18. A man proudly sits with his severed head collection.
Public Domain
19. …NOPE.
Public Domain via wanganuilibrary.recollect.co.nz
20. The fact that they wanted to make this fake photo is creepier than anything else.
Public Domain / Eugene Thiebault
21. Even the dead can be…useful.
Public Domain
22. You don’t believe in witches, you say?
Public Domain
23. A clown in a burnt-out house, USA, 1975. Welcome to my nightmare.
Jill Freedman/Getty Images
Obviously, the reason that ghosts, ghouls, vampires, and monsters are so spooky…is because they remind us of the human race. Remember: the weirdest, most twisted creatures on this planet happen to be humans.
Good luck sleeping tonight!