What are the most terrifying ways a person could meet their end? A scientist and a writer have dedicated two years to uncovering the gruesome science behind some of the universe's most horrific fatalities.
Paul Doherty, a senior scientist at San Francisco's Exploratorium museum, and freelance writer Cody Cassidy have compiled a chilling list of the top five worst ways to die. Their findings, initially shared in a Reddit Q&A, detail the precise and often bizarre physiological processes that would lead to a grisly demise.
The Top Five Gruesome Goodbyes
From the depths of the ocean to the vacuum of space, the methods of death explored are as unusual as they are frightening. Here is their definitive list of the most horrific exits.
1. The Falling Lift Crush
If you ever find yourself in a lift experiencing a catastrophic free-fall, your instinct might be to stand bracing for impact. According to Dr Doherty, this would be a fatal mistake.
The correct survival tactic is to lie flat on your back. This position distributes the immense G forces evenly across your body. Remaining upright, however, leads to a particularly gruesome outcome: after the lift and your body have stopped, your internal organs would continue their downward plunge inside you.
2. A Deep-Sea Demise in the Mariana Trench
The Mariana Trench, the deepest point in Earth's oceans located between Japan and Australia, plunges to depths exceeding 36,000 feet. The pressure at the bottom is unimaginable.
Dr Doherty clarifies that a person would likely drown before reaching a depth that would crush them. However, if one could survive the descent, the air pockets within the body—in the nasal cavity, throat, and chest—would collapse inward, proving instantly fatal.
With no air left to provide buoyancy, the body would not resurface. Instead, it would remain on the seabed to be consumed by bizarre deep-sea life, specifically the 'bone-eating snot flower', an organism that typically feasts on whale bones but would likely make an exception for a human corpse.
3. The Gravitational Nightmare of a Neutron Star
Neutron stars are the incredibly dense remnants of giant stars that have exploded in supernovas. Approaching one would be a lethal mistake on multiple fronts.
First, the radiation produced would probably kill you before you got close. But even if you somehow avoided that, the star's extreme gravitational field would be your end. The tidal force is so powerful that if your head was pointed towards the star, it would be tugged with vastly more strength than your feet, literally ripping you apart.
Furthermore, the magnetic fields of a neutron star are a hundred billion times stronger than Earth's most powerful magnets. At these levels, the atoms in your body would be distorted, and all molecular bonds would break, turning you into a 'plasma-shaped human cloud' that is tidally stretched into the star.
4. The Unfortunate Case of the Particle Accelerator
In a real-life incident from 1978, Russian scientist Anatoli Bugorski was struck in the head by a particle accelerator beam. Miraculously, he survived, but the event left a bizarre mark; one side of his face was paralysed and has remained smooth and unwrinkled, while the other aged normally.
Dr Doherty warns that a similar accident with a modern machine like the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) would be fatal. Bugorski's accelerator was a hundred times less powerful than the LHC and delivered only a single pulse. The LHC, by comparison, operates like a machine gun. A direct hit from its beam would almost certainly deliver a lethal dose of radiation poisoning.
5. The Theoretical Jump Through Earth
The classic thought experiment of jumping through a hole drilled through the Earth suggests a 45-minute journey to the other side. The reality, however, is far more brutal.
Dr Doherty warns that any such jumper would burn to death long before reaching the core, as the centre of the Earth is hotter than the surface of the sun. Additionally, the air pressure and density would double approximately every 15,000 feet. After about 30 miles, the air would become as dense as water, causing you to stop sinking and simply float in a superheated, pressurised tomb.
