On this month's Morbidly Fascinating Page:
Strange and Fascinating Photos
IN THE ARCHIVES:
Stuckie
Two-Faced
Hyperdontia
Preserved
Circus Curiosities
Accidental Victim Photos
Head Dents
The photographs below are not photoshopped.
Explanations are listed underneath each photo.
This is a Chimera cat (also spelled chimaera). A chimera is essentially a single organism that's made up of cells from two or more "individuals" — that is, it contains two sets of DNA, with the code to make two separate organisms. This cat has absorbed its twin in utero. This can occur with fraternal twins, if one embryo dies very early in pregnancy and some of its cells are "absorbed" by the other twin. The remaining fetus will have two sets of cells: its own original set, plus the one from its twin. Chimeraism is rare in humans, but there are cases. Find one HERE
A fire tornado picks up burning embers, ash, flaming-hot gases and flammable debris, creating a terrifying tower of flame that can extend hundreds of feet into the air. Most fire tornadoes last only a few minutes — one reason they've been captured on video so rarely. Nonetheless, firenadoes can be extremely dangerous — temperatures can reach 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit (1,093 degrees Celsius) in a fire tornado. See more HERE
Although this young man looks like he is standing on top of water, it is really the product of lucky timing by the cameraman, probably with a higher-speed film. In reality, the boy is simply jumping into the pool from the diving board.
Here is yet another genetic abnormality. This dog has what is called "Baboon Syndrome" (aka "Short Spine Syndrome").The vertebrae are compressed, creating a severe shortening of the spine. The vertebrae seem to remain in their cartilage form. They do not harden into bone like with other dogs. Some of the vertebrae are even fused together which means their spines are less flexible than regular doggie spines. The dog’s neck appears to be missing, because the head is fused directly to the spine. They cannot turn their heads, instead they must swivel their entire body’s around to see what they want to see. Their backs slope down which makes them look like they have a hunch back. The dog’s tail is also affected and will look twisted and shorter than a normal dog tail. The dog’s limbs will look normal but they will have a barrel chested appearance and usually have fewer ribs than other dogs.
The dog pictured above won first place for the "Ugly Dog Contest" in 2015 HERE
Find more HERE
Yes, that's real blood, but no one was murdered here. What this photo shows is a vet's office after an agitated horse had a nosebleed. The horse survived.
Although this man is visibly sweating, it is not with fear. This is called "bee bearding" and is perfectly safe for experienced beekeepers to do. Tim Lawrence, Director of the Honey Bee Health Program at Washington State University, says, “Bee bearding is kind of a hammy thing to do, really, but it always draws a crowd and amazes people. For me, it’s strictly a teaching tool. It demonstrates that bees can be trained and shows swarming instincts, plus the role that pheromones play.”
I am going to tell you that when I first saw this photo, I did not believe it for a minute. Turns out, this is real. The sheepshead fish is a deep-bodied, compressed marine fish with sharp dorsal spines. The fish commonly reaches 10 – 20 inches, but can grow to be as large as 35 inches. It has a hard mouth and stubby teeth that bear a striking resemblance to human teeth. See more HERE
This is the city of Dubai, taken from an airplane's view. Currently, Dubai's Burj Khalifa is the tallest building in the world.
A massive spider web first spotted covering several acres of oak-elm woodlands along a Lake Tawakoni State Park trail in Texas in 2007. Texas Parks and Wildlife Department biologist Mike Quinn was that it may have resulted from a "mass dispersal" event. In such an event, millions of tiny spiders or spiderlings spin out silk filaments to ride air currents in a phenomenon known as "ballooning." See more HERE
Lurch was an African Watusi steer that became an international celebrity. He is the Guinness Record holder for the largest circumference of horns of any animal in the world. Lurch passed away in 2010. See more HERE
This is called a "zony," a you-guessed-it, pony-zebra hybrid. Compared to horses, zebras are unpredictable. They can be very aggressive and even vicious as they get older. Plus, their body shape doesn't take a saddle very well. Trying to train and ride a zebra is pretty dangerous. So perhaps this is someone's way of trying to get around that. It is not for me to judge.
See amateur photographers accidently capturing tragedies HERE
None of the photos on the left are photoshopped, but many are. How can you tell the difference?
According to Addictive Tips, here is some advice:
We live in a world where everyone has a camera touting smartphone. Kids are learning to photograph from a very early age and as they get older, they also learn to use Photoshop. Photoshop was at one time a sophisticated image editing tool still used extensively by designers. Today it has become both a verb and a tool to make up miracles and appear more physically appealing in photos. To put it bluntly, there are a lot of fake photos out there and Photoshop is the go-to tool used to create them. A few things are given; photos in magazines are always photoshopped. They’re made brighter or darker to suit their purpose among other changes but how do you tell if a photo has been tampered with if it isn’t in a magazine? Here are three very simple ways to check the integrity of a photo.
1. A Visual Inspection
You might think that Photoshop scam artists might perfect their game but there are often visual tell-tale signs that a photo has been manipulated. Even famous print magazines have come under fire for such blatant chop-shop images featuring missing or extra limbs. This proves one thing; if you know what to look for, a simple visual inspection will tell you a lot about how ‘real’ a photo is.
2. Curved & Bending Surfaces
The curving or bending of light, when it’s natural gives us wonderful things like that blood moon. When it isn’t natural, we end up with really obvious give aways. Look at the background where you suspect something foul in action. The curve in the wooden panel below is very obvious and a dead giveaway. Were the photo of a poorer quality, it would be significantly more grainy where a tool has been used to push or pop something out.
Flat surfaces as a rule do not bend to fit the curve of any body. Light may curve around an object (again the Blood Moon) but the object itself will not bend.
3. Shifting Light
We mentioned earlier that magazines photoshop images a lot and that usually means making models appear more attractive but ordinary photos of furniture are also photoshopped to be made darker or brighter. It’s accomplished by using color filtersamong other things. This technique is used in video editing as well but when it goes bad you get visuals like those in The Walking Dead Season 2 (the one with the farm) where light changes to reflect dusk and dawn but the direction of the sun remains the same. In photos the difference is more pronounced. The image below is highlighting a product so badly that it fails to take into account the background which shows it is obviously sundown and the light should be significantly softer. The product pops out so badly from the image you can actually tell it is two images mashed into one.
4. Loss In Quality
Some amateur Photoshop artists are the smart kind of stupid. They know they’ve done a choppy job, they know it’s obvious, and they know they can still fool you by reducing the quality of the photos. You will then trick your mind into going ‘Nah man’ when questioning the legitimacy of a photo and blaming it on low light or a low quality camera. Consider this; phone cameras are ridiculously powerful today, they come with a flash, a night mode, and hidden features for activating the bat signal. How bad can a photo really get?
Another tell-tale of a doctored photo is that when the reduced quality technique is used, you will notice that quality is not reduced uniformly. Areas that have been photoshopped will appear in lower quality most times.
5. A Little Common Sense
Some things are just obvious; floating limbs, ghost limbs, too many hands, too many legs, missing hands and/or legs. Sometimes all it takes is a cursory look and some common sense to tell a photo is not original. One of the most popular fails is by Victoria Secret who didn’t quite get rid of/put a handbag in their model’s hand.