23 Pictures You Won’t Believe Are Real
Sometimes when you see a picture online you just know it is Photoshopped. Sometimes they are super obvious and poorly done, while others are pretty good fakes. Then there are photos that only look fake. Here are 23 of the best non-Photoshopped, fake-looking pictures you just have to see.
1. Elevators To Hell This elevator doesn’t reside in Hell, it is actually in Stockholm, Sweden as part of a project to make their underground system an art gallery. Each of the 90 stations are decorated with a theme. It would be easy to identify your stop but I am not sure that I’d ever want to get off at this one…
2. Largest Horned Steer (Ever) Those horns don’t look real but they are. With a 37.5-inch circumference, they are the largest horns ever recorded and they belong to Lurch, an African watusi steer. Unfortunately Lurch passed away in 2010, due to cancer at the base of one of his horns.
3. Melted Wood These footprints were worn into the ground by a monk who prays in the exact same spot every day, multiple times a day, for over 20 years.
4. Split Road This actually happened in Japan after an earthquake. Apparently it occurred because the road was built one lane at a time, creating a natural rift between the two lanes.
5. Flamingos In The Shape Of A Flamingo Unless National Geographic is trolling us, this enormous group of flamingos in the Gulf of Mexico got together to create the most meta thing ever.
6. Indoor Cloud Fake as this might look, it is actually the work of artist Berndnaut Smilde who measures the temperature and humidity in a room in order to create clouds indoors. You can find more of his work here.
7. Terrifying Clouds Speaking of clouds, these are not from an end-of-the-world Hollywood movie. They are real, terrifying asperitas (formerly asperatus) clouds in Iowa.
8. Doritos Mountain This mountain is, sadly, not made of Doritos. It is actually just the way the light is pouring in during sunrise in Glacier National Park, Montana.
9. Pink River This is not an advertisement for Pepto Bismol. It is Lake Retba in Senegal, and is actually very pink. This is because the high salt concentration in the water (up to 40%) creates a buildup of Dunaliella salina, a salt-loving bacteria. Salt is harvested from this lake and used or sold by the locals.
10. Jewel Corn This corn isn’t painted, or made of glass for some art project. It is real, edible corn and is a hybrid of several varieties.
11. Ledge Hanging Chain This guy is probably just hanging from a jungle gym, right? Wrong. This is “Mustang Wanted”—a daredevil who constantly climbs to the tallest heights and hangs off them with his fingertips like some sort of mad man. Apparently there are at least two people who trust his finger strength enough to hang over the edge of Trump Palace. This picture makes me squeamish but if you want to see more of this madman, go here.
12. Black, White and Red This looks like some artsy Photoshopping, but it is actually real. This photo is of a hibiscus flower that bloomed after volcanic ash covered the landscape in Indonesia.
13. Namib Desert This is not a view of Hell’s landscape, but the dry riverbed of the Sossusvlei river. It is not known why the dunes are created in this formation, despite geologists researching the area for decades.
14. Life-Sized Geode There is no way there is a cave of crystals, right? Wrong. The Cave of Crystals is deep in the Naica mountains in Mexico. The crystals zigzag for half a mile underground.
15. Grid Waves Either the grids on maps are real, or this photo is fake. Or, option three, this is an example of cross sea waves in the Isle of Rhé that can be explained by this simple equation.
Okay. Maybe not so simple.
16. Google Maps Location Names Are Real!
Well, this one is at least. The island of Al Futaisi is owned by Sheikh Hamad Bin Hamadan Al Nahyan—a billionaire member of Abu Dhabi’s ruling family. The name is written two miles wide and half a mile tall, making it clearly visible from space.
But as quickly as it appeared, it was removed. Rumors are that the rest of the royal family didn’t think it fit into “Abu Dhabi 2030,” a plan to revitalize the area by 2030, and so the project was erased.
17. Lego City This isn’t actually an image from LEGOLAND or a shot of a child’s play set. It is the San Buenaventura complex in Ixtapaluca, Mexico City.
18. Half And Half Cat This cat is actually completely two-toned on her face. Born in 2009, Venus is likely a Chimera cat which means she has the DNA of two separate cats in one adorable body.
19. Shark-ception A group of scientists were trying to catch fish they had previously tagged to obtain their valuable information when this happened. The three-foot dogfish was tempted by the bait while this sand tiger shark was tempted by the fish. According to the scientists, the shark swallowed the other fish in one enormous bite.
20. Grand Prismatic Springs This looks like a rainbow paint job but is, in fact, the Grand Prismatic Springs in Yellowstone National Park. The colors are all thanks to various bacteria; they are divided into zones based on temperature.
21. A Fish With Human Teeth Oh how I wish this weren’t real. This is the sheepshead fish and it does indeed have very human-like teeth. You can eat this fish—many people do—but I plan to stay far, far away from them.
22. Floating Monster This is not the Loch Ness Monster or any other demon fish. It is sadly just the carcass of a deceased whale floating to shore.
23. A Man With A Hole In His Head This is Billy Owen, and yes, he can shove his hand through his (empty) eye socket from his mouth. He suffered a rare form of cancer that took half his face and his eye. Surgeons removed most of his nasal cavity and the plate covering the roof of his mouth. When he removes the dental plate, he can poke his hand from mouth to eye. Now he makes his living acting as a zombie and working in places like the former Goretorium and the Venice Beach Freakshow.
