19 Images You Won't Believe Aren't Photoshopped (Part 12)
It's time again for another installment of our popular feature wherein we show you photographs that are 100 percent real, despite the fact that they all look 100 percent fake. In case you missed the previous installments, here is a season-by-season recap of Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, the gritty reboot that doesn't acknowledge the previous installments, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, and Part 11. Although you can probably just jump right in, this isn't Breaking Bad or anything.
The Demon Cloud Awakens
Somewhere down on the ground, Brendan Fraser is running like hell away from that thing.
If you're one of the few people who don't see the face of a gigantic terror demon scowling at some poor soul out of frame to the left, congratulations, you have one of those brains that don't project gargantuan horror onto everyday things. For the rest of you: Yes, that's an unaltered photo and not bad CGI -- the picture was taken during an eruption of Cordon Caulle, which as far as we know didn't awaken a mountain-sized devil that then slowly swallowed all of creation.
And only slightly more terrifying ...
Doppelganger Hasselhoff
This is the type of thing you see in your room when you're suffering from sleep paralysis. David Hasselhoff either constructed a manifestation of his own ego or is about to be eaten by a giant Steve Guttenberg.
Actually, that monstrosity is an oversized double of the Hoff created for that scene in The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie where SpongeBob and Patrick ride on David Hasselhoff's back and make everyone in the theater uncomfortable. But don't worry, we're sure that as soon as the Hoff and his double were alone together, he didn't stick his cock into its waiting mouth.
Man With a Freaking Hole in His Head
Jesus! Are these all going to be horrifying?
If this one isn't Photoshop, then it's clearly a man who just underwent hours of makeup to be in a horror film. That's Eli Roth standing next to him -- of course this is for a movie.
Wrong! The fun-loving Cyclops in the picture is named Billy Owen, and he really lost his eye and part of his skull to cancer (notice the artificial palate in his hand). He saw the loss as an opportunity, though, so now he acts in horror movies and haunted houses, like Eli Roth's Goretorium in Las Vegas.
Honestly, the makeup guys don't have to do much.
That's ... kind of a cool story, actually. If cancer eats part of your face, just embrace it. There's a market out there for everything.
The City in the Clouds
This looks like a place where intergalactic smugglers go to hide from Boba Fett. Clearly someone just set a bucket of dry ice near a bunch of Puzz-3Ds and took a picture.
However, this CGI-esque photo is actually the city skyline of Dubai (which contains 22 skyscrapers that exceed 75 floors) jutting up through some fog. We imagine that the view you're seeing here can really revolutionize weather forecasting, seeing as how you can measure the altitude of cloud cover simply by leaning out the window.
Speaking of completely fake-looking weather ...
The Happiest Tornado on Earth
Either someone on the ground is Care Bear Staring the hell out of that tornado, or a leprechaun is locked in an intense battle with a weather witch.
In reality, this a photo from the NASA website, of all places. The tornado seemingly colliding with a rainbow is the result of pure coincidence. Are we the only ones who'd pay money to hear the "Double Rainbow!" guy's reaction to this?
Black-and-White Woman Badly Cropped into Fashion Shoot
OK, somebody obviously just pasted a character from The Addams Family TV show into a picture of one of the strippers from Rock of Love. It doesn't even look like a good crop-and-paste job, look at her feet!
But this is exactly what you'd have seen if you were there -- the monochromatic woman in the picture is a contestant from RuPaul's Drag Race named Detox, who had herself dramatically painted by a makeup artist to create the illusion of a haunted photograph from the 1930s (similar to the black-and-white Santa we saw back in one of our previous installments).
The Guy Sitting in This Chair Fell to His Death Long Ago
This picture is so obviously fake, we probably immediately dismissed it the first time we saw it. You can see the strings, for crying out loud! The chair is clearly being hung in the air in front of a big photo of the Earth.
Actually, this is a still frame from a Toshiba commercial. Those strings are connected to a weather balloon, which they used to hoist the chair into space befuckingcause.
Too bad the balloon hauling the TV popped 20,000 feet back.
The commercial was inspired by an art piece called "Escape Vehicle No. 6," and as you can imagine, some pretty awesome things happen when the balloon pops.
Beached Cruise Ship
Either this is a scene from an upcoming Roland Emmerich movie, or that cruise ship was improbably placed on that cliff by the gentlest tsunami in history.
Actually, neither is true -- what you're looking at is the Sun Cruise Resort and Yacht in South Korea, a hotel that was deliberately built to look like a maritime disaster. Some designer looked at a luxury cruise liner and thought, "Man, that is great, but what if someone could build one of those on land?" without realizing that we already have those (they're called "hotels"). Then again, we'll all be apologizing when this thing springs its gigantic wheels and goes rumbling through the city, crushing everything in its wake.
College Dorm Collage
This looks like four different Target ads pasted together in a flier to let the neighborhood know how terrible your personal taste is.
However, look at the spoon coming out of the coffee mug, and trace the arm of that desk lamp -- this is actually just a single photograph. Move the camera slightly and ...
Ow! Right in the spatial awareness.
The "edges" of the seemingly different pictures were all created using perspective tricks -- you can see the artist setting the whole thing up in this video, although they seem to have edited out the portion where Jimmy bumped into the table and they had to beat him to death.
Don't Walk Too Close, It'll Bite Your Head Off
At best, this looks like the spirit guide that appears in our plucky main character's cul-de-sac toward the end of the movie to tell him that if he doesn't ask Jennifer Love Hewitt to prom or whatever, he'll regret it for the rest of his life. At worst, this is the lazy Photoshop you are rewarded with when you click on one of those "REAL EVIDENCE OF GHOSTS?" links.
It's actually the benevolent face of Buddha, part of an art installation in Cambodia where several images of cultural significance are being projected onto trees and such with 3D projectors.
Really, no religious artwork has done its job until it has terrified a drunk person trying to walk home at three in the morning.
No One Survives Sea World's Roller Coaster
This looks like somebody just crudely blurred the bottom of that roller coaster to make it look like it's rising out of the ocean like part of Poseidon's birthday carnival.
The sad truth of this very real photo is that it's an image from the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy in Seaside Heights, New Jersey. It's a shame, but it still looks to us like one of the abandoned saved games of a kid who is terrible at RollerCoaster Tycoon.
The Gate
DEAR GOD, RED-SKIRTED WOMAN, WATCH OUT FOR THAT GIANT HOLE!
As you can guess, this is not an actual triangular portal to the netherworld, but it's also not a cheesy attempt at photo manipulation. This is a pretty spectacular perspective-based illusion in a public square in Sweden. They've even worked the pattern of the existing tiling into the illusion to maximize everyone's freakout and have all the tourists looking around for fallen angels. But as with all perspective tricks, just moving the camera ruins the illusion:
Wait, was this supposed to be a picture of amazing art or really lazy contractors?
Giant Wet T-Shirt Monster Rises from the Sea
Now this looks like the mother of all crop jobs. Not only is it a badly pasted-in crop of a dude in a wet T-shirt, but it appears to be an action figure to boot.
That's actually supposed to be a statue of Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy, one of the main characters from Pride & Prejudice, built in London's Hyde Park to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the novel. Why any part of that seemed like a good idea will likely forever remain a mystery, but for now people are free to row right up to the statue and bask in the radiant glory of its oversized nipples.
As wet T-shirt contests go, we've seen hotter ... but not by much.
This Woman Is Being Way Too Casual About the Giant Dragon Skull
Looking at this picture, we immediately became certain of two things: 1) whoever stumbled across this skull is probably very rich now, and 2) that skull isn't fossilized, so we are all fucking doomed.
Sadly, that very fake dragon skull was just a promo for the latest season of Game of Thrones, despite the fact that absolutely nothing about the skull's appearance would suggest as much to casual human beings. So, you just get passing townsfolk on the beach saying, "Eh, I'll just let my dog pee on it."
Let's Stand Around and Watch This Alien Egg Hatch
This totally looks like an alien egg about to hatch in the middle of Yosemite and lay waste to California. It looks too much like something from that Ivan Reitman tax write-off Evolution to be a real thing.
Surprisingly, this is just an incredibly well-timed photo of a geyser in Strokkur, Iceland, taken right as the geyser is about to erupt. If you watch the video, you can see a split second before eruption where all of the bubbles gather below the surface, catching the light just before it blows:
The Day the Ocean Turned into a Giant Beer
Seriously, that looks like the frosty cap of King Neptune's Atlantean beer stein. It isn't even a good Photoshop, either -- that mess was clearly cropped in from a close-up shot of Sam Adams from someone's Instagram account.
In reality, what you're looking at is a dust storm developing near Onslow, Australia. Of course it's Australia.
Another 8-Bit Orphan Abandoned at the Train Station
Obviously, somebody just took a photo of a little girl and garbled it up with a pixelation effect. Either that or she's a ghost from a Japanese horror movie about a haunted video game.
Nope. Wrong again, Cracked. What we're looking at here is a pixelated sculpture that an artist built using thousands of square stickers and aluminum and left on a train station to confuse the shit out of people.
We'll say it again: What's the point of art if it doesn't make the passersby think their eyes are broken somehow?
Stained Glass Spider
This looks like the type of weird Etsy project that Soren Bowie would write about. Somebody with more skill than sanity points spent entirely too much time constructing a tiny glass spider to give out as the most unwelcome Christmas present of all time.
But believe it or not, that's a real goddamned spider, and as you may have guessed, it lives in Australia. Scientific literature is remarkably mum on what powers are likely to result after sustaining a bite from such a spider, but we're assuming it would transform you into a glass-boned supervillain like Sam Jackson in Unbreakable.
Or at least a paunchy dude with an eyepatch, like Sam Jackson in Avengers.
Tiny Soccer Player
Ha! Look at that tiny man trying to play soccer with regular humans. Clearly the Make-A-Wish Foundation is responsible for this image.
Actually, neither is the case. The player in the blue is by no means a dwarf or an abnormally hirsute child. He's a professional soccer player named Mathieu Valbuena, and he just happens to be sliding at the exact perfect angle to create the false perspective of a Lollipop Guildsman trying to steal a bunch of athletic equipment before he gets chased off the field. This is what he looks like normally:
Wait, how do we know this isn't just a game against a bunch of other tiny players?
For 19 MORE images you won't believe aren't Photoshopped, CLICK HERE
Related Reading: We have more shockingly unphotoshopped images for you. Click this link for some cities that would look more at home in someone's DeviantArt gallery. You want unbelievably unaltered war photographs? We've got those. Crazy and straight-up virginal pictures of space? Right here, buddy.