The phrase “flesh-eating” is nightmarish enough to stop anyone dead in their tracks, conjuring up images of flesh falling off of the bone, deep black necrosis, or perhaps a zombie apocalypse in which the undead are biting flesh from bone. Be it flesh-eating zombies, flesh-eating animals, or, even more terrifying, flesh-eating microscopic organisms, the idea of being eaten alive is downright terrifying, and when it comes to the latter, it’s more frightening to think of something you can’t see that slowly eats away at you.

The world of pathogens is a strange world indeed, and there are some pretty nasty critters out there that would love nothing more than to take a bite out of your flesh—and sometimes bone. Some pathogens hijack the minds of their human hosts, controlling their behavior, their thought patterns, and even their actions. Others lodge themselves inside you and consume you from the inside out. Here are ten nightmarish flesh-eating pathogens and their destructive ways.

10 Necrotizing Fasciitis

Necrotizing fasciitis deserves an honorable mention here at the top of the list, as it’s the result of several infections on this list. Necrotizing fasciitis is caused by the presence of pathogens which cause the skin to rot, especially when they become entrenched into the inner layers of the flesh. If it isn’t treated right away, necrotizing fasciitis can kill you, with anywhere from 25 to 30 percent of the cases being fatal.

Necrotizing fasciitis has earned the moniker “flesh-eating disease,” which is quite the terrifying name. While the infections that cause it vary, the pathogens don’t literally eat the flesh but rather excrete toxins that destroy tissue, causing the condition.^[1] Drug and alcohol users as well as diabetics and those who are immunocompromised are particularly at risk for necrotizing fasciitis.

9 Vibrio Vulnificus

Vibrio vulnificus is often found in a place that’s a perfect climate for the bacterium to grow and also possesses the large bodies of water which it likes to flourish in: Florida. A person can become infected either by going into the water with an open cut or wound or consuming undercooked or uncooked seafood, as it lives and thrives in salt water. Vibriosis, the disease spawned from the Vibrio genus of bacteria, can be fatal. It should be noted, as alluded to above, that V. vulnificus causes the flesh to rot rather than eating it, but that difference is quite irrelevant when you see chunks of your arm missing.

Even more terrifying is that V. vulnificus not only attacks the surface flesh but can bury itself and get underneath the top layer of tissue. It can even seep in and cause the internal organs to rot away and even eventually shut down. Sometimes, people lose limbs to the disease.^[2] Again, the immunocompromised are much more likely to contract this flesh-rotting bacterium, as well as people with liver problems. The Centers for Disease Control in the United States suggests not eating raw or undercooked fish if you’re trying not to catch this, and 80 percent of cases come between May and October, when the water is warmer, so these are the best times to avoid the water to avoid the disease.

8 Donovanosis

Donovanosis, also known as granuloma inguinale, is a disease that comes from the bacterium Klebsiella granulomatis. It’s relatively new on the scene, and it may very well be the scariest thing on this list. Why? Because it’s an STD. That’s right, donovanosis is a flesh-eating STD.^[3] The bacteria can destroy the flesh in, around, or on the genitals and can do more damage if they spread to other parts of the body. The damage to the exterior flesh can cause large, red, vascular lesions, and these holes in your flesh bleed.

This disease typically makes its initial home at sites in and around the pelvis but can work its way up inside of you and get into your organs, damaging them, too. If that wasn’t bad enough, in extreme cases, Klebsiella granulomatis can get into your bones as well if not treated promptly. Fortunately, the treatment is rather simple, with broad-spectrum or targeted antibiotics. But imagine waking up one day to find your genitals and the surrounding areas slowly rotting—even if it’s treatable, this is a day that nobody wants to see.

7 Pseudomonas Aeruginosa

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a bacterium that grows pretty much everywhere and on pretty much everything, though it doesn’t always infect us—instead, it waits for an opportune opening, such as a cut or scrape, and when the conditions are just right, it will seep into the wound and multiply. P. aeruginosa can cause necrotizing fasciitis. The good news is that healthy people generally have a very low risk of becoming infected by this particular bacterium, but as is often the case, those who have immune system deficiencies can experience problems with it.^[4]

If left untreated, Pseudomonas aeruginosa can reach the internal organs and cause death. If left alone, it will eat all the way down to the bone. As with other Pseudomonas species, some of the more severe cases invole infections in the blood or the lungs. What’s really the most terrifying thing about Pseudomonas is the fact that many strains of it have developed antibiotic resistance and are quite difficult to treat, meaning that P. aeruginosa could eat away at you while doctors attempt to find an antibiotic regimen that will work to eliminate the bacteria.

6 Staphylococcus Aureus

Yes, as freaky as it sounds, the common staph infection can become necrotic and flesh-eating. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is Staph aureus with additional antibiotic resistance, making infections rather difficult for modern medicine to treat. Fortunately, not all cases of staph and MRSA turn into flesh-eating necrosis, but doctors can’t actually tell which strains and cases will eventually turn into a condition that eats away at the flesh, so it’s better to treat all situations involving these bacteria as if they were about to become necrotic.^[5]Staph aureus and its antibiotic-resistant counterpart both present with a nasty, thick pus which can get deep into the skin, working its way into muscles and ultimately into the bloodstream—once these infections seep into the blood, a powerful and brutal sickness ensues, and death is a likely possibility. On top of that, if the condition brings about necrotizing fasciitis, you’ll have some serious decay and blackening of the tissue layers as the excreted toxins from the bacteria wreck havoc.

5 Naegleria Fowleri

Naegleria fowleri is an amoeba that severely affects the brain on the rare occasion that it inhabits a human host—these dangerous critters love to hang out and reproduce in fresh water, making them ample under the right climate conditions, though they need to travel up the nose and into the brain in order to “hijack” your mind. How do they do that? By reproducing and spreading quickly and then slowly eating away at your brain, that’s how.

Under certain conditions, the amoeba just forms into a cyst that’s inactive and doesn’t do much of anything, but when conditions become right, they become active and begin to feed. The Centers for Disease Control says about the mechanism of death from this particular amoeba: “The infection destroys brain tissue causing swelling and death.”^[6] This is definitely not a fun pathogen to catch by any stretch of the imagination.

4 Clostridium Perfringens

Clostridium perfringens is another nasty one. It can be found in soil, water, and the human intestinal tract. This bacteria can cause a specific kind of gangrene called gas gangrene, and it definitely does not at all look very fun. The toxins which are excreted by the bacteria travel through veins, blood vessels, and other bodily systems, and they kill off the flesh inside of the body by poisoning it.^[7]

This causes massive distention, huge pockets of bloating gas that come from the bacteria feeding and releasing of gasses inside the body. Massive bulbs of purple and red swelling show up on the outside of the body as the internal gasses protrude and push outward.

3 Streptococcus Pyogenes

Possibly the best-known cause of necrotizing fasciitis is Streptococcus pyogenes, also referred to as “Group A Streptococcus.” This bacterium also causes strep throat, which many people, even in the developed world where antibacterial everything is prevalent, end up catching at one point, often as children. Like the others on this list, Streptococcus pyogenes produces toxic byproducts which cut through tissue layers of fat, muscle, and skin like butter. This infection starts off rather mild, most commonly presenting as a sore throat, but it can progress and eat away at the tissue of the infected and even cause toxic shock syndrome, a condition that comes with headache, nausea, vomiting, and much more and is also definitely no fun to get.

While most cases of strep throat don’t turn into “the flesh-eating disease,” some of them do, and the effects can be both long-term and devastating.^[8] This happens when the body’s immune response isn’t quick or powerful enough to fight off the invasive strep, and the results can be deadly. Yes, the common strep throat can actually eat your flesh until you die.

2 E. Coli

Escherichia coli is a relatively well-known bacterium which is often responsible for the common food poisoning we all miserably endure every so often. This is the usual E. coli infection, and it’s nothing to shake a stick at, but sometimes, E. coli can go above and beyond the usual case of what we know of as “food poisoning” and become catastrophically worse. As with most bacteria, the body’s immune system as well as antibiotics have fought off the invaders for a very long time, causing variations in the strains which possess radically different traits and can have radically different outcomes upon infection. Some strains of E. coli can cause the death and decay of the skin cells also as they slowly eat away at your flesh.

These strains prey upon people with limited or suppressed immune systems, which can’t fight off the infection—all cases in some studies have been fatal. A specific gene called the cnf1 toxin gene is possessed by the flesh-eating variations of E. coli, which causes them to emit a toxin which destroys flesh like an acid. Animal studies have shown that the presence of this gene in the bacteria causes the toxin to be excreted when animals are infected as well. These E. coli strains are the stuff that nightmares are made of.^[9]

1 Mycobacterium Ulcerans

Mycobacterium ulcerans is a bacterium which is the cause of a disease called buruli ulcer, which causes, you guessed it, ulcers to appear within the skin. But much more than this, buruli ulcer is also a flesh-eating condition. Prolonged infection will cause ulcers on the arm and legs typically, and the chunks of flesh which have been eaten away will usually worsen over time. Only ten percent of cases present with flesh-eating ulcers in other parts of the body outside of the limbs, but that’s still a scary ten percent. As the bacteria spread, they produce a toxin called mycolactone, which is responsible for the destruction of flesh in patients who’ve contracted the bacterial infection and allowed it to progress to the disease of buruli ulcer.

Even more terrifying than having this bacterium secrete toxins which eat away at your flesh while you wait helplessly for it to go away, or for your treatments to work, is that beyond just skin, ligament, muscle, and other soft tissues, the disease can eventually spread down to the bone and begin to eat away at that, too.^[10] And what’s even more nightmarish than that? They have no idea how this bacterium spreads. Very little is known about how M. ulcerans transmits from one person to the next, so we don’t really know what any of us can do to avoid becoming its next target—yet. Hopefully someday, science will develop methods to eradicate these bacteria as well as new and unique treatments, but for now, we’re stuck with limited knowledge and treatment options.

I like to write about the dark, strange, macabre, and unusual.

It’s a question that has haunted the thoughts of countless hospital patients: Can I trust the professional who currently holds my life in his hands? In most cases, the answer is “yes.” But there are cases of wanton negligence and predatory opportunism by health care providers that could give even the most trusting patient a case of the health care heebie-jeebies.

10 A Doctor Encourages A Patient To Commit Suicide

Dr. Arun Singhal was a general physician at a hospital in Liverpool, England. In May 2011, he consulted on a case of a distraught woman who was on antidepressants. The woman, referred to as “Patient A,” was a witness for the prosecution in a rape case. After discovering that she lived close to the rape suspect’s brother, Patient A called Singhal for a sick note to absolve her from taking the stand. Terrified, she also admitted to being on the verge of suicide and said that her antidepressants weren’t working.

Singhal’s response to Patient A was more becoming of a sadistic Internet troll than a licensed lifesaver. He chided her as a “disgrace” of a patient and told the woman to “jolly well kill herself.” He even suggested that she consult the Internet for useful suicide tips. But as Singhal dispensed his decidedly unprofessional advice, he had no clue that Patient A was recording their conversation. Understandably upset, she filed a complaint.

The Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service looked into the matter and concluded that Singhal had likely taken Patient A’s claims too lightly and had behaved inexcusably. The doctor was subsequently suspended for three months. Considering the tragedy which might have happened if Patient A had followed the doctor’s orders, Singhal is lucky that he wasn’t fired.

9 A Vengeful Ex–Hospital Employee Sends Patients Fake Lobotomy Letters

From 2005 to 2010, Michelle Morrison of Elk Grove Village, Illinois, served as the senior account representative for Alexian Brothers Behavioral Health Hospital before being laid off. Feeling embittered and vengeful, she lashed out by stealing hospital stationery and the private information of more than 30 patients as part of a heartless plot to embarrass her former bosses.

From February 2011 to June 2012, Morrison sent six fraudulent letters to three Alexian Brothers patients claiming that their psychological treatments had failed and they would need to undergo frontal lobotomies. The letters also contained crude, debasing remarks and threats to reveal the patients’ medical information to their friends, family, and coworkers.

A two-month investigation uncovered Morrison as the culprit. Caught with patient files and other hospital materials in her home, she had little recourse but to plead guilty. Outwardly repentant, Morrison apologized in court for what was her first criminal offense on record. As punishment, she was placed on 30 months’ probation.

8 Nursing Home Employees Play Cruel Jokes On Dementia Patients

In 2010, at the Valley View Skilled Nursing Facility in Ukiah, California, six employees decided that it would be hilarious to cover seven defenseless dementia patients from head to toe with ointment to create a slippery challenge for the next shift of employees. But rather than having a hearty belly laugh, these cruel employees, aged 23 to 51 years old, were arrested.

Unfortunately, the Ukiah sextet are not the only perpetrators of cruel nursing home misconduct. In May 2012, an employee was dismissed from the UK-based Kirknowe Care Home after feeding a dog treat to a dementia patient as a joke. Nursing home employee Tracie Nellis also displayed sadistic behavior. In 2013, she deposited hot sauce into the mouths of two sleeping dementia patients, a misdeed for which she voluntarily relinquished her nursing license.

The list of similar and far graver offenses seems endless. All of them tell the too-common story of health care workers who take advantage of vulnerable patients.

7 A Doctor Slaps The Butts Of Sedated Patients

For at least a year, Dr. Michael T. Clarke, a physician at St. Joseph’s Hospital Health Center in Syracuse, New York, delighted in hearing the sharp thwack of his palm against the butt cheeks of his unconscious patients in the operating room. He would later try to pass off this behavior as a way to gauge the effectiveness of spinal anesthetics. But coworkers present in the operating room painted a different picture.

According to them, the slaphappy doctor spewed sexually explicit insults while striking his patients, sometimes using enough force to leave lasting red handprints. Allegedly, he also hurled raunchy comments at hospital staff. After months of remaining tight-lipped about Dr. Clarke’s shocking bedside manner, members of the OR staff finally alerted hospital administrators in December 2013.

A state health department investigation corroborated complaints against Clarke. He was suspended in February 2014 and required to take undisclosed steps to qualify for reinstatement. After eight months, he was back in the operating room at St. Joseph’s.

6 A Surgeon Sends Sexts Mid-Operation

A medical practitioner for 20 years, anesthesiologist Arthur K. Zilberstein was based at Swedish Medical Center in Seattle, Washington, when he committed his infractions. Across a variety of procedures—everything from caesarian sections to pediatric appendectomies—the doctor took the time to send nearly 250 sexually suggestive text messages and explicit photos to his girlfriend and sometimes his own patients.

In one instance, he sent a patient a selfie that showed him in hospital attire with his genitals dangling in plain view. During a stomach surgery, he sent 45 lusty texts in under 90 minutes.

Dr. Zilberstein has also been implicated in reviewing patients’ medical records for his own carnal pleasure, engaging in hospital romps, and doling out unauthorized prescriptions. Whether his indulgences ever injured anyone is unclear, but state officials felt that Zilberstein’s indiscretions warranted the suspension of his medical license. At that time, Swedish Medical Center also suspended the doctor’s privileges.

5 An Anesthetist Punches His Patient After Heart Surgery

Dr. Andrei Votyakov, an anesthetist at Russia’s Federal Center for Cardiovascular Surgery in Perm, had slogged through a 36-hour shift and reached the edge of his patience. According to Votyakov, it was in this compromised state that he encountered a recent heart surgery patient, who was wearing an oxygen mask and had both of his arms and legs strapped to the bed.

The 61-year-old patient allegedly insulted Votyakov and displayed zero appreciation for his work. At that point, the doctor jettisoned what little composure he had left and punched the man in the face before pounding on his fragile chest above the heart. The patient later died a week later.

Video footage of the interaction dated February 21, 2013, shows what looks like an argument between Votyakov and the patient before the doctor resorts to violence. The interaction was later posted online, which incensed the public and led to an official investigation. Votyakov apologized for his appalling display of malice but denied causing the patient’s death. The results of a criminal investigation into his behavior apparently supported his claim because the physician was reportedly fined 100,000 rubles and only sentenced to five months of community service.

4 A Nurse Steals From Sleeping Cancer Patients

In January 2015, officials at Morriston Hospital in Wales set out to catch a crook. Someone had been robbing patients since at least the previous November, and the staff believed one of their own was responsible. With the help of local law enforcement, they devised a trap: A marked £20 note was positioned under a plant pot as bait. Much to everyone’s relief, it worked. Much to their chagrin, the culprit was indeed a hospital employee, one who had exploited some of Morriston’s sickest patients.

That employee was 49-year-old nurse Jacqueline Perry, and she worked in Morriston’s cancer ward. Apparently, she waited for cancer patients to fall asleep before rifling through their things for valuables she could sell to fund her husband’s cider habit. The quality and quantity of her heists varied greatly. Perry stole painkillers, cash, and jewelry. In one instance, she lifted £14 from a cancer patient. Another patient, 89-year-old Nancy Thomas, was stripped of treasured family heirlooms—three rings valued at a combined £1,800—before she died. Perry sold those rings for about 10 percent of their value.

In total, Perry bagged £2,739 worth of personal belongings before she was nabbed in the hospital’s sting operation. According to the nurse, her capture was a relief from the guilt that had racked her conscience. For her crimes, Perry received a 16-month jail sentence. Unfortunately, some of her victims didn’t live long enough to see justice done.

3 A Doctor Secretly Records Patients’ Pelvic Exams

Gynecologist and obstetrician Dr. Nikita A. Levy worked at Baltimore’s renowned Johns Hopkins Community Medicine for 25 years. For at least eight of those years, he secretly wore a camera pen to clandestinely film the gynecological exams of his unsuspecting patients. Johns Hopkins learned of his behavior when a female colleague reported her suspicions about his pen in 2013.

The hospital brought in law enforcement, which found over 1,200 videos and pictures dating back to at least 2005. But during the 25 years that Levy had worked at the community clinic, he had seen a staggering 12,692 women who were deemed potential victims. The hospital had no choice but to inform all of them of the deep privacy violation.

Authorities found no tangible evidence that Levy recorded the women’s exams for anything more than private use, but that was traumatic enough for his victims. Some reported refusing to see doctors or take their children to doctors upon being informed of Levy’s abuses. A class action lawsuit was filed, and Johns Hopkins agreed to pay $190 million to over 7,000 of Levy’s former patients in compensation. Levy’s fate was far darker. Ten days after being outed for his crimes, he penned a letter of apology to his wife and killed himself with helium and a plastic bag.

2 A Drunken Anesthetist Accidentally Kills A New Mother

On September 26, 2014, Belgian-born Helga Wauters reported for duty at a private French clinic where she had been employed for two weeks. Although new to the facility, she’d been an anesthetist since 1994. No one would have been blamed for thinking that 28-year-old Xynthia Hawke was in good hands when she went into labor, and Wauters was tasked with supplying pain medication. Instead, Wauters tragically killed Hawke in a bout of drunken incompetence.

After Wauters gave Hawke an epidural, the anesthetist stepped out for a drink with friends. But labor difficulties made a caesarean necessary. The anesthetist now had to guide a tube into Hawke’s trachea in order to administer additional medication. But when Wauters returned to the clinic, she reeked of alcohol and, according to her colleagues, seemed off-kilter. Nonetheless, she was allowed to work. Wauters mistakenly placed the ventilation tube in Hawke’s esophagus, causing a heart attack. Hawke died four days later. Fortunately, her child survived.

As it turned out, Wauters had a serious drinking problem, a point punctuated by 17 empty vodka bottles that authorities found lying around her home. She admitted to drinking “a glass of rose” after giving Hawke the epidural as well as imbibing water-vodka mix the night of the procedure. The anesthetist also unconvincingly tried to excuse her drinking by claiming that alcohol diminished her faculties by 30 percent but helped to steady her hands. Tests by law enforcement showed that Wauters had almost five times the legal limit of alcohol in her system on the day after her fatal drunken bungle.

When Wauters was arrested, she was initially denied bail. But the court eventually relented, ordering Wauters to pay 50,000 euros in bail and forbidding her to leave France or practice medicine. She also had to enter a rehabilitation program.

1 Doctors Who Ditch Patients Mid-Surgery

At Community Regional Medical Center in Fresno, California, cardiac surgeon Dr. Pervaiz Chaudhry performed almost 350 bypass surgeries between 2009 and 2010, placing him among the top five heart surgeons in California based on total number of surgeries. But his heavy workload seemingly came at a huge cost: Chaudhry had a below-average patient survival rate for his state. Of course, that depressing statistic might also be the result of Chaudhry’s alleged inclination to abandon patients during operations.

A number of lawsuits accuse Chaudry of ducking out of the operating room without completing heart surgeries. In one incident, his hospital was fined $75,000 after he left a physician’s assistant to close up a patient’s chest while he attended a luncheon. The patient, 72-year-old Silvino Perez, suffered a myocardial infarction, and the resulting physical trauma left him in a persistent vegetative state. Chaudhry has denied these and other charges levied against him, but an investigation by California’s State Department of Health found that the heart doctor had recklessly endangered Perez. The outcomes of other claims are currently unknown.

Chaudhry’s not the only professional to sacrifice a patient at the altar of good eats. In 2012, an anesthesiologist and a nurse anesthetist at a Swedish hospital inadvertently killed a man with a lunch break. They were supposed to be removing a tumor from a 72-year-old man, but as soon as lunchtime hit, the doctor shoved off for chow. Fifteen minutes later, the head nurse anesthetist also succumbed to hunger and left.

A nurse from the orthopedic ward was asked to sub for the doctor-nurse duo. Unfortunately, she lacked the vital expertise to realize that the patient’s respirator was turned off and to respond when he suddenly started hemorrhaging. By the time the lunching doctor and nurse returned, their patient had been starved of oxygen for eight minutes. He later died of brain damage.

When we go to doctors, we usually trust them to do their best to try to help us. However, doctors are humans, too, and that means they make mistakes. Some doctors do their best not make mistakes; others, not so much. As the health care system grows ever more complex and complicated, mistakes are bound to happen. Sometimes, these mistakes can cause lifelong problems. Other times, they’re lethal.

10 Alyssa Hemmelgarn Died From A Hospital Infection

In 2007, nine-year-old Alyssa Hemmelgarn became sick and didn’t seem to be getting any better. She had swollen glands and cold sores that wouldn’t disappear. Because of the malaise that Alyssa displayed, her mother, Carole, suspected that she may have had mono. However, when she took her daughter to the doctor, she received some devastating news. Alyssa was admitted to a Denver hospital, where she was diagnosed with leukemia.

That alone was tragic enough, but it wasn’t the end for Carole or Alyssa. After a week of treatment, Alyssa seemed to be doing better. She and her mother managed to walk around the hospital and watch a movie, but as the evening arrived, Alyssa began to feel worse. Soon after, she began to experience dire symptoms. Despite their best efforts, doctors couldn’t help Alyssa, and she soon died.

Alyssa wasn’t killed by leukemia. The actual cause was Clostridium difficile, a hospital-acquired infection that had grown more severe with each day. No one managed to find the infection before Alyssa died. It turned out that a doctor had noted Alyssa as “anxious,” so she was given Ativan, which could have covered up her symptoms. Another reason that nothing was done was the prohibitive cost to treat severe infections like C. diff. Antibiotics pumped directly into a large vein via IV costs $50,000, which makes many doctors leery to use it unless it’s absolutely necessary.

Alyssa did not die in vain, though. Since her death, there have been numerous reforms in treatment throughout hospitals in Colorado.

9 Richard Smith Died From Receiving A Paralytic

Richard Smith, 79 years old, had kidney disease, which required him to receive dialysis. In 2010, Smith was undergoing dialysis when he started to experience shortness of breath. He was admitted to the ICU. The next day, he complained of a stomachache. He was prescribed an antacid, which he received from his nurse afterward. Only . . . it wasn’t an antacid.

Smith was given pancuronium, a paralytic and muscle relaxant that is used for intubation in small doses and for lethal injection in larger ones. After Smith was given the drug, he became unresponsive. The drug had put him into respiratory arrest. Apparently, the packaging for the antacid and for the paralytic looked similar, which was the cause of the mix-up. While doctors did manage to resuscitate Smith, he was brain-dead and remained in a vegetative state until his death one month later.

According to Andrew Yaffa, the Smith family lawyer, the case was “the worst case of medical neglect” he had ever seen. To have given Smith the wrong drug, the nurse would have had to fail to follow numerous protocols: She “failed to look and read what medication he was taking [ . . . ] failed to scan to determine the right count for the medication, and failed to match the patient’s ID with the scanned medication.” To add insult to injury, the hospital appeared to show no remorse, even allowing the nurse to remain on the same floor that Smith had died on. They did, however, remove pancuronium from all nurses’ stations in the hospital and only allow anesthesiologists to have access to the drug.

8 Regina Turner Had The Wrong Surgery

Regina Turner endured many people’s worst nightmare concerning surgery—receiving the wrong operation. Her ordeal was already frightening enough: She had been admitted to the hospital for a “left-sided craniotomy bypass,” which was supposed to prevent Turner from having continued strokes, as she’d previously had a series of mini-strokes, which affected her ability to talk. After having the wrong surgery, her health deteriorated.

Before she went into surgery, Turner was still in relatively good shape. She was “mobile, cognizant, and able to care for herself.” According to the lawsuit filed against hospital, Turner’s condition worsened: “After the incorrect surgery, [Turner] requires around-the-clock care for her basic needs. [ . . . ] [She] will also continue to suffer from emotional distress, anxiety, disfigurement and depression.”

Rather than a left-side bypass, she had been given a right-side bypass, which caused considerable damage to her nervous system. Once the mistake was caught, the correct procedure was done, but Turner remained in poor health. The failure of anyone to catch the doctors’ mistake meant that numerous protocols were overlooked. Generally, before an operation, doctors and nurses will have a “time-out,” where they discuss in depth the details of the surgery and go over exactly what needs to be done. The surgeon also has to mark exactly where the surgery is to be performed. Apparently, this wasn’t enough to keep them from operating on the wrong side.

7 Pablo Garcia Received A Massive Overdose

We can generally agree that technology has vastly improved our lives, but it can still make mistakes, as can the people using it. This was the case when a 16-year-old boy named Pablo Garcia was admitted to the hospital for a colonoscopy to examine intestinal polyps. What should have been a completely routine procedure nearly became a lethal tragedy.

Garcia had a rare genetic disorder called NEMO deficiency syndrome, which causes recurrent infections and gastrointestinal issues. Because he was so susceptible to infection, Garcia required frequent antibiotic treatments. While in the hospital, Garcia had been prescribed the drug Septra for his infections. It’s fairly easy to determine how much of the drug to give to someone. It’s all dependent on conversions based on weight and age, which can be easily calculated with computers using a program called Epic EHR.

The program had been set to “milligrams,” which means that it would calculate how many milligrams of a drug should be given based on how many kilograms the patient weighed. However, the nurse treating Garcia reset the program and didn’t catch that it had now been set to “milligrams per kilogram.” When she typed in his dose, 160 milligrams of Septra, it multiplied it by Garcia’s weight. The dose equaled 38.5 pills, the largest dose ever recorded. Rather than question the machine, the nurse doled out the pills. Soon after, Garcia had a grand mal seizure, nearly dying. Luckily, he managed to survive. The case of Pablo Garcia illustrates quite clearly how dangerous it is to depend too much on technology.

6 Andy Warhol Received Too Many Fluids

In 1987, Andy Warhol required gallbladder surgery. Despite having a phobia of hospitals and doctors in general, he agreed to the surgery, which seemed to be successful. As usual for someone in a hospital, Warhol received fluids to remain hydrated. Unfortunately, he slipped into a coma and soon died.

Why had Warhol died after a routine procedure? An inquiry found that at the time of his death, Warhol was anemic. He had been before he was admitted, but doctors said he was in good enough condition for surgery. Afterward, though, it was discovered that Warhol had been receiving twice the amount of fluids he needed, which caused his body to drain itself of minerals, leading to his death. He had been unattended, and internal pressure built up, causing heart failure. According to Warhol’s private physician, Dr. Denton S. Cox, the 58-year-old artist hadn’t been looked over by any physicians, and the nurses rarely, if ever, checked up on him. He was being pumped full of morphine, which along with loss of nutrients due to excess fluids, caused his body to fill up.

During his autopsy, it was discovered that Warhol’s lungs and trachea had completely filled with fluid. The condition that Warhol died from could have been easily treated if someone on the staff would have simply paid attention.

5 Robert Stuart And Darren Hughes Died From Worm-Infested Kidneys

In 2014, an unknown alcoholic died in Northern England from what was believed to be meningitis. He was only 39, but he was a heavy drinker. After his death, his organs were rightfully rejected for donation because of their poor functioning, and the cause of death could have caused complications for any recipients. While they should have been destroyed, they were instead given to two unfortunate patients.

Robert Stuart and Darren Hughes both needed kidney transplants, so when two arrived, it must have seemed like a godsend. Argiris Asderakis, the consultant surgeon who accepted the kidneys, claimed that the patients knew there was significant risk because the donor had died from meningitis. Both patients accepted them and died from meningitis soon after. It became clear that the kidneys were infected with a rare parasitic worm called Halicephalobus gingivalis, which is primarily found in horses. At the time, there was no test that could determine whether or not the kidneys were infected with the parasite.

While the surgeon claimed no responsibility, the patients’ families said that they had not been given all of the information involving the risks associated with organ transplants. Even if the worms had not been present in the kidneys, the fact that they had been infected with meningitis would have posed significant risk that the patients would die while on dialysis. Since there had been no reported cases of the parasite in the UK, there was no reason to look for it. It still remains rare today, with only five reported cases in the world, but it’s worth the effort to check for it if you are ever in need of a new organ.

4 Rodney English Received A Bad Blood Transfusion

Rodney English, age 34, had been in and out of the hospital for most of his life due to spina bifida, a congenital disorder. When he was in the hospital receiving an operation for an infection, it wasn’t surprising that he needed a blood transfusion. After the procedure, he seemed to be recovering very well. However, his girlfriend quickly noticed that something was wrong. He couldn’t stay awake, and one day, he fell asleep and never woke up.

It wasn’t his condition or the procedure that killed him but rather a mislabeled blood transfusion. This is not a common phenomenon in any way. There are multiple layers of safety checks from the moment the blood leaves the blood bank to when it’s finally given to the patient. However, despite these protocols, they failed to catch the fact that English was receiving the wrong blood type. In a further act of incompetence, English’s family wasn’t informed of the mistake. They were told that English died from “anemia,” which was also listed as the cause of death.

It wasn’t until a CBS investigation that English’s family learned the truth. Another shocking revelation came when they learned that the blood came from a Red Cross facility in Atlanta that had 25 violations noted by the FDA in 1999 and had been fined for further allegations around the time that English died. When asked why Piedmont Hospital did not tell the family the true cause of death, they responded by saying that they never revealed anything about a patient’s death until there was “full information to share.”

3 Barry Morguloff Was Operated On By A Substance-Abusing Surgeon

When you’re on the operating room table, your life is quite literally in the surgeon’s hands. Knowing this, you would naturally hope that the surgeon operating on you would be of sound mind and body and competent enough to do his job. Barry Morguloff’s surgeon, on the other hand, was a man who committed numerous violations and should have never been allowed to practice medicine.

Morguloff first went to the hospital complaining of back pain. He was given steroid injections, but they didn’t help. He was then referred to Dr. Christopher Duntsch for spinal fusion, a delicate surgery that worked directly with the nerves in the spinal cord. When Morguloff emerged from surgery, the pain was still there; in fact, it had grown worse. He was given painkillers, but after six months, he was still in pain. When another doctor examined Morguloff, he discovered that bone fragments had been left on the nerves, and the hardware in his spine was installed incorrectly. It took another surgery to fix it.

How could such glaring mistakes have been committed by a supposedly accredited surgeon? Dr. Randall Kirby, a surgeon who assisted Duntsch, claimed that he had a surgical technique like a first-year medical student and had little to no knowledge of the spinal system. Other patients of Duntsch also complained that they only grew worse after seeing him.

Not only was Duntsch completely incompetent, but it also became clear that he was using drugs while working. A bottle of vodka was in his desk, he was using painkillers, and a bag of white powder was found in his private bathroom. He left one patient in the operating room so he could go to Las Vegas. He skipped five drug tests during his time at the hospital. The reason he was allowed to operate was the fact that the hospital had advanced him $600,000 to move from Tennessee to Dallas, and they wanted to recoup their investment no matter the consequences.

2 Riley McDougall Was Given Ambien Instead Of Antibiotics

When an adult starts to suffer from insomnia for whatever reason, they might go to their doctor for help, and they might be prescribed Ambien, an effective and popular sleep aid. In adults, Ambien can ease insomnia; in a child, it can have terrifying mental effects. It is for this reason that children are rarely, if ever, prescribed the drug. Now imagine how bad it was when a 12-year-old girl was given the drug by accident.

Riley McDougall was prescribed antibiotics, but when she started taking her pills, she became dazed and experienced frightening hallucinations. She tried to remove stair railings, thinking they were curtains, and saw other frightening manifestations. The episode was caught on camera by her mother, Coleen. Riley was taken to the emergency room, where she was told that she’d had a bad reaction to Sudafed, which she was taking for a cold. She was released and went back home. Coleen didn’t give Riley the Sudafed this time but continued to give her the “antibiotics.” Riley started experiencing double vision 20 minutes later. Coleen called the pharmacy and described the pills to the pharmacist along with their effects.

What the pharmacist told her explained it all: The pills were not azithromycin, the antibiotic Riley needed, but Ambien. The Ambien pills were white and hardly resembled azithromycin pills, which are pink. Coleen filed a lawsuit against the local CVS and said that her daughter’s reaction should serve as a warning to everyone. About prescriptions, she said: “Make sure you really read your prescriptions, and make sure it’s the right thing.”

1 Jack Startz Hooked Patients On Drugs And Destroyed Their Faces

To many, celebrities undergoing frequent cosmetic surgeries to keep looking “fresh” is nothing more than a joke. After all, if they have that much money to throw around needlessly, then why should we care? In the case of Beverly Hills surgeon Jack Startz, celebrity plastic surgery took a dark turn. Recently, his horrifying practice has come back to light due to the HBO film Behind the Candelabra, where he is portrayed as an eccentric surgeon who will do anything for his client, Liberace. In reality, though, he was an unethical monster.

In 1979, Liberace, the world-renowned showman, watched himself on The Tonight Show and was horrified by what he saw. He felt that he looked old and decided to get a face-lift. He went to ear, nose, and throat specialist Jack Startz, who agreed to perform the procedure. The result—Liberace’s face was so tight that he couldn’t fully shut his eyelids, even when he was sleeping. Despite this, Liberace wanted his partner, Scott Thorson, to receive plastic surgery to resemble a younger version of himself. Startz agreed to do this, too. In the process, Startz put Thorson on a “Hollywood diet,” which was little more than a highly addictive cocktail made of drugs like pharmaceutical cocaine, quaaludes, and amphetamines, which left Thorson dependent on them.

The reason Startz agreed to do these questionable procedures was the fact that he was experiencing financial problems related to his own alcoholism and drug use. He soon found a gold mine in silicone injections. He performed them constantly without any regard for his patients because he needed the money. The results were scary: Elaine Young, a celebrity realtor, was a high-profile victim of his practice. Starting in 1977, Young received monthly silicone injections from Startz. At first, the results seemed to defy reality, so much so that Young recommended Dr. Startz to all her friends and clients.

Within three years, though, something started to go wrong. The silicone in her face began to shift and move, severely deforming it. She tried to contact Dr. Startz, but he didn’t return her calls. She learned that over 100 lawsuits had been filed against him. From 1965 to 1979, Startz had injected 2,000 people with silicone, many of whom were experiencing the same effects as Young. Facing mounting legal issues, possible jail time, and severe substance abuse, Startz put a gun in his mouth and shot himself in 1985.

Gordon Gora is a struggling author who is desperately trying to make it. He is working on several projects. You can write him at [email protected].

Many of us own and love our pets, even with the occasional moment of mischief, perhaps a scratched piece of furniture or ruined rug every now and then, we’re able to look past that and relish the keeping of various animals, typically dogs or cats, though sometimes more exotic or niche choices, as companions.

While the animals on this list can be very lovable and none of them are evil by any means, even possibly kept properly without many problems by the right, experienced and well-researched keeper, for an average, perhaps impulsive and uninformed pet owner, through no fault of any of these animals but simply due to their instincts or difficulty of care, they frequently end up becoming a living nightmare.

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10 Chameleons

Chameleons are fascinating animals to most people and it’s no surprise that they’d be a beloved animal in the pet trade, their reputation among keepers, however, isn’t as bright as their charming, expressive colouration and cute looks would suggest.

While not dangerous to the owner, they’re considered an advanced pet, and frankly, not ideal pets to begin with due to their specialised needs that vary wildly from species to species, they require a unique and difficult to maintain environment, most don’t enjoy being handled and may be distressed from interactive keeping, and even the most social, healthy, and least demanding individuals, a keeper must deal with the problems of them being fragile animals with complex lighting and nutritional requirements that may become ill and die in one’s care very suddenly.

Beautiful and mesmerising, chameleons should only be kept, if at all, by advanced keepers who don’t mind observing a pet rather than playing with one, though, as is the case with nearly all of the animals on this list, if one doesn’t know all of the information listed here about a specific animal off the top of their head already, they’re not ready to keep one and likely won’t be for years.

9 Parrots

Highly social and intelligent, in fact, one of the smartest and most social animals on the planet, parrots generally require a ton of time and attention, and, contrary to popular belief, are incredibly affectionate and must not be kept in cages for an extended period of time, not display pets, their social needs often exceed that of cats or dogs.

While many of their traits sound wonderful and may very well be that, the truth is that keeping a parrot can be very difficult and the main problem is that most go into it without knowing that. Complex diets with plenty of foods that may harm or kill the bird, a huge time investment for most species that may only be plausible to someone working from home, incredible intelligence and vastly varied personalities that need to be understood, a generally high level of noise, and a need for space, playtime, attention, and the minimising of stress means that these wonderful birds sadly often only live to half of their generally multiple decades long lifespan due to owner neglect and being kept in a cage. If you can find a way around these issues, however, parrots may make wonderful, though still somewhat difficult pets.

8 Old World Tarantulas

While to some, or, let’s be honest, many people, the notion of keeping a spider as a pet would already be enough to land them on this list, the fact is that, for someone who’s not afraid of them, many spiders make excellent and incredibly reasonable pets, easy to take care of, fun to interact with even if most can’t be handled, and usually met with excited, terrified, and other extreme but ultimately fun reactions by friends, many, such as jumping spiders or New World tarantulas are fantastic pets.

Old World tarantulas, however, that is, tarantulas that are native to places other than the Americas, as opposed to their New World cousins from the Americas, are incredibly different and much less reasonable. While New World species are often calm, even calm enough to be handled with some behavioural knowledge without even risking a bite, these spiders aren’t so friendly when they come from elsewhere. While Old World species can’t kick irritating hairs, they’re generally much faster, a lot more defensive, and may even have more dangerous venom, which, while not typically deadly, is sure to keep most people away from these hairy giants that aren’t as gentle as their American relatives.

7 Highly Venomous and Constrictor Snakes

Keeping a lethally venomous snake or a constrictor snake may obviously be a bad idea to most readers here, similar to reading about someone advising you against keeping a shark or a lion, the shocking truth is that many people apparently don’t instinctively feel this way, as these animals, especially in the 20th century but, to an extent, even today, have been popular impulse-bought pets for a lot of people around the globe.

While the idea of bragging about keeping a snake that could easily kill a person may sound impressive for a moment, the reality has been a lot grimmer to many who have attempted it, or, surprisingly, sometimes to the animals themselves. Aside from fatalities brought about by misinformed keeping of these animals with either a lethal bite or the size and muscle strength to strangle an adult respectively, many have also been de-fanged or barely interacted with or even fed due to fear of the animal. A common practice in the past that has thankfully been disappearing, these are pets no one aside from licenced experts should attempt keeping.

6 Goldfish

After defensive spiders and potentially lethal snakes, goldfish may seem like extremely mundane pet choices, often gifted to children as easy first pets, but the sad reality is unfortunately that most goldfish given to children really do end up with the fate of being flushed down the toilet way before it was natural for them, even ignoring the fact that a properly kept goldfish would be far too large for a toilet to begin with.

While they’re considered rewarding animals in the fish-keeping hobby, goldfish are difficult to take care of, have fairly specific water requirements, certainly need a proper tank rather than a bowl, and may keep growing pretty much indefinitely in the right conditions, also one of the longest-living fish species that’s kept, they may live to be decades old when cared for properly, a condition which sadly isn’t met by most adult keepers and certainly not the children they’re irresponsibly given to.

5 Giant Centipedes

The same thought that many felt with tarantulas may very well rise up again with giant centipedes, and, fittingly, the two are quite similar, except for the fact that giant centipedes are like Old World tarantulas with every potentially bad aspect multiplied.

The description “giant centipede” is enough to make many people shudder, yet these interesting yet terrifying creatures are, regardless, fairly popular in the exotic pet trade, and while they can be taken care of and kept relatively easily if someone’s careful enough, they’re massive with sizes going above a typical human hand, incredibly strong for their size, possess an incredibly painful and potentially dangerous venom that they deliver through legs modified into fang-like appendages called toxicognaths, with incredible speed and terrifying aggression that puts all tarantulas to shame alongside it.

Never to be handled, these are purely display pets for the most extreme arachnid keepers, though, if you follow their care guide properly, purchase a suitable and escape-proof container to keep them in, and make sure they don’t dry out, they may make decent albeit still terrifying pets.

4 Reptiles

Certainly a very broad category of animals, reptiles as a whole certainly deserve a spot on this list, though, before reptile lovers gasp in horror, it’s not that they can’t be kept properly, it’s that, most of the time, they’re not. While incredibly exciting and beautiful animals, many keepers fail to give them a happy life in captivity, and, even worse, a study finds that three out of four keepers fail to keep them alive for more than a fraction of their potential lifespan.

Frequently mistreated and not too hardy, with many specimens also wild-caught and riddled with health and temperamental issues alongside the potential threatening of the species in the wild, lizards have complex care requirements, require special bulbs to give them proper heat and lighting, and they’re another pet people get without proper research beforehand, often for their children, that sadly fail to live long or happily.

3 Ferrets

Adorable, intelligent, curious, highly social, and an animal that’s sometimes trained, bred, and used specifically for hunting, these wonderful creatures may live to be a decade old and are actually the domesticated form of polecats, also related to weasels. Certainly unique and with a massive number of good qualities, they also come with equally massive challenges that keepers sadly fail to account for a lot of the time.

They require a degree of time investment comparable to parrots, training, frequent exercise and playtime that may take up hours of your day everyday, with a demanding, carnivorous diet, extremely high expenses, large space requirement, and a potentially aggressive temperament if not trained or interacted with properly, these animals can be wonderful in the right hands and live a very happy life as highly rewarding pets, but their cuteness and exotic and approachable nature frequently fools people into getting something they’re simply not ready for.

2 Birds of Prey

The dream of having a pet owl, eagle, or falcon has captivated many who rightly find them to be quite incredible, but, they are one of the worst pets one could keep not really because the animal is necessarily a danger to the owner, but because they should not be kept as pets and will not thrive or even survive.

Aside from claws that may still potentially harm you, these animals require the most space out of any animal on this list, they’re incredibly difficult or perhaps impossible to keep properly, require frequent and incredibly intensive care, expenses that most people could never afford, may suddenly die even when their keeper somehow, miraculously manages to do everything right from a variety of relatively unavoidable causes, and simply will not be happy in captivity.

There’s a reason these animals require permits and may only be kept by the most knowledgeable experts, as incredible as they seem, they’re best to admire from afar.

1 Iguanas

Iguanas, particularly green iguanas, are another example of frequently kept animals that simply should not be kept by most people. While reptiles, and chameleons specifically were already covered, iguanas deserve the spot the most out of any for being incredibly popular, yet incredibly problematic and generally a horrible experience both for the keeper and the animal.

While some describe keeping perfectly calm iguanas, exotic angel pets, the majority of the time, iguanas are antisocial, aggressive, refuse to be handled or even interacted with due to the amount of stress it causes for them, while they have access to tools that leave very serious marks on anyone they wish to lash out on, which happens to be anyone in their vicinity whenever they feel stressed, so, a lot of the time, combined with the fact that they live for decades, are so large that they’ll often take up a room in a house that one will specially need to have others construct or do it by themselves, and if all of that, even the risk of frequent hospital visits, haven’t deterred a potential keeper, the massive costs of care and keeping just might.

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About The Author: Just a curious person with a passion for all things scientific, mysterious, and strange.

There’s really no way to handle a UFO or alien encounter. Most of us probably never have and never will experience such an event. And when it comes to bizarre encounters, there are not too many that can compare to it. Obviously, the Roswell crash is at the top. Bigfoot? Not so much. Megalodon? No way.

With so many stories going around, it’s hard to differentiate between what’s real and a hoax. Stories of being medically experimented on, being tied down on an alien craft, or being taken without knowledge are some of the encounters we hear about often. The ten women listed below did just that. Except, their encounters didn’t turn out bad. Their encounters were frightening, for sure, but they seemed to end rather… calmly. Weird. It was almost like having a nightmare—scary while you’re in it, but it’s fine when you wake up. Whether you believe it or not, these encounters are their truth.

10 Sharon Gilbert

An author, reporter, and co-host on SkywatchTV, geopolitics enthusiast, and Christian podcaster, Gilbert takes on many roles daily. On the Jim Bakker show, she discussed her alien encounter. What makes Sharon’s story interesting is that it is the opposite of the typical alien encounter. Most alien encounters start with witnessing the spacecraft before seeing the aliens. However, there were no indications or warnings for Sharon. Her encounter began as a frightening confrontation.

While lying in bed, an alien visited her in the form of her husband. Her husband was lying in bed and something disguised as him lifted out of his body. She insisted the creature wanted to have sex with her. The communication between the two was internal. Before she pulled the mask off, she told the creature, “Jesus is real.” She revealed that it looked like a gargoyle with reptilian features.

However, Gilbert never revealed how the creature left the room. If it wasn’t worth mentioning, it probably wasn’t an issue. A lot of responses to her encounter were negative once it circulated on the internet. But Sharon was unbothered by what people thought.^[1]

9 Bettina Rodriguez Aguilera

An educator, entrepreneur, and south Florida community activist, Bettina Rodriguez Aguilera has always connected with a diverse group of people. She even ran for the Republican primary election to represent Florida’s 27th congressional district. With so much support from the people, some questioned if the interview she gave in 2009 about an alien encounter risked her election.

Regardless, Rodriguez Aguilera never regretted or changed what occurred during the encounter. Rodriguez Aguilera claimed that at seven years old, she was taken aboard a round spaceship. She recalled interacting with tall blonde aliens. Two women and a man. She never mentioned any aggression from the aliens or being experimented on. Instead, the aliens provided her with information. She mentioned that they explained to her that “the center of energy is in Africa” and “God is a universal energy, not a person.”^[2]

8 Alex Dietrich

“I hope I’m not the UFO, Tic Tac person for the rest of my life. This is not what I envisioned for myself,” Lieutenant Commander Alex Dietrich was quoted saying after talking about her UFO encounter on 60 Minutes. In November 2004, Dietrich observed a UFO hovering over the ocean while training with colleagues. The UFO moved at speeds beyond anything she had seen before.

She never claimed to see an alien or gave any indication of what she thought it was. Just simply an unidentified Tic-Tac-shaped object. Nothing less. Nothing more. Dietrich never mentioned having an interest in UFOs and didn’t entertain the idea or thought of it being more than what she saw. For the disbelievers, after hearing about a retired pilot’s UFO encounter, do you believe it even more?^[3]

7 Angelia Schultz—aka Añjali

Angelia Schultz (who now goes by the name Añjali) ran as a Democrat candidate for South Dakota Senate and Secretary of State in 2014. Years later, she mentioned that she was a retired defense intelligence official. On August 17, 2021, Angelia talked about her alien encounter at a press conference in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC.

She mentioned meeting a couple at a Southern California coffee shop who eventually showed her the location of an alien base. She didn’t reveal exactly where in the Mojave Desert she went in January 2010. But she said that the man she met had excavated a tunnel on the side of a mountain. She said a bright light guided them to the secret alien base. She remembered seeing aliens with lavender skin and one that looked like a praying mantis. The conversations with the aliens were through telepathy.

During her press conference, she stated that she planned to go back with other individuals. As of today, there is still no confirmation if she went back to the base.^[4]

6 Dale Snipes

Dale Snipes, the author of 78 Years of UFOs, has experienced alien encounters since she was a child. The most terrifying encounter was at 3 am when an alien tried to take her against her will. On the show UFO Witness, she told investigators that she woke up to a strange sound coming from the kitchen. Soon after, an alien appeared in her room and communicated with her telepathically.

She mentioned that the alien—believed to be a Star Person—wanted to show her something and asked if she would come with it. It wasn’t clear what the alien intentions were. During the encounter, she recalled trying to wake her husband up many times. She said even when she dug her nails into his arm, he still didn’t respond. Eventually, the alien did leave. The next morning, her husband showed his arm covered with bloody scratches.^[5]

5 Shel Marie

Full of emotions and terror, a UFO encounter at Alaska Pacific University left Shel Marie with thirty years of traumatic memory loss. On the Aliens in Alaska show, Shel allowed cameras inside her hypnotherapy session.

During the session, Shel starts by saying she went outside to smoke a cigarette. She remembers randomly looking up at the sky and noticing a large black object covered with lights and an unfamiliar language written on the craft. She mentioned she would have never known it was above her if she hadn’t looked up.^[6]

4 Geraldine Orozco

One too many times, Geraldine Orozco would become pregnant and then have a miscarriage weeks later. Each time there was never a fetus found. The cause remained a mystery even when seeking medical advice. That was until she was taken into an alien spacecraft in October 2013.

She recalled her body feeling paralyzed as she was surrounded by tall grey beings. In the craft, she mentioned seeing her children. She remembers noticing that they were part human mutated with alien DNA. Ever since the incident, she started a support group for other women who experienced having their babies stolen from the womb for experiments.^[7]

3 Geri Julian

Most things are kept quiet at Jicarilla Apache Reservation, New Mexico. That was until Geraldine Julian talked about her encounter on UFO Witness. Rather than referring to them as “extraterrestrials” or “aliens,” Geri referred to them as “disturbed people.”

The first encounter she remembered was when she was sitting outside and saw a craft fly from behind a mountain. She said the craft descended from the sky to approach where she was sitting. Later that night, two small people tried to force her out of bed. She recalled she couldn’t scream or do anything. Eventually, “the disturbed people” left her alone.^[8]

2 Jane Nelms

Jane Nelms is no stranger to having alien encounters. She told her encounters to KLTV 7 News. In 1973, she mentioned being abducted by five aliens. Then, in the 1980s, she mentioned one day being pregnant, and after a horrible night, she woke up no longer pregnant.

Years later, she and a UFO group gathered in Winnsboro, Texas. She remembered seeing a bright white light glaring through every window in the house. She also heard there was a grey alien outside. By the time she went outside to investigate further, she had heard branches snapping and noise coming from the ship ascending into the air.^[9]

1 Lily Nova

Maybe you heard of her, or maybe you haven’t. Unlike most, Lily Nova’s alien encounters didn’t start as a child. Her encounters didn’t even start with her searching for aliens. The COVID-19 pandemic in Missouri shifted her interest in astrophotography, which led to alien encounters.

Her first alien encounter started in November 2020. She mentioned seeing a couple of crafts flying over the neighborhood. The more time she spent outside, the more frequent the encounters became. She stated seeing different aliens. The ones she remembered seeing the most had a blue complexion. She saw some with glowing skin and blonde hair. Rather than having physical encounters, the aliens sent many images of themselves through telepathy.^[10]