Top 20 Scariest Warning Signs in Nature
Exploring nature can be a thrill, but there are a few sites that are downright terrifying. The following warning signs are posted by officials to keep adventurers safe, and they were heard loud and clear!
20. Prevent your death!
Cave diving combines an underwater environment with the narrow tunnels of a cave and complete darkness. Getting lost, equipment failure, or simply running out of air in a cave can easily turn a casual dive into a fatal situation.
19. Water Rises Rapidly
Flash floods in rivers are deceptive killers. They can transform seemingly calm rivers into Class II Rapids in minutes, sweeping away people and objects with incredible force. Their unpredictable nature and rapid onset leave little time for escape.
18. “Do Not Build Any Homes Below This Point.”
Over a century old, these Japanese stone tablets warn future settlers approaching the coast. It reads: “Remember the calamity of the great tsunamis. Do not build any homes below this point.”
17. Worst Weather in the Country
Even expert mountaineers might shake in their crampons a little when they pass the sign saying: “The area ahead has the worst weather in America. Many have died there from exposure, even in the summer. Turn back now if the weather is bad.”
16. Do Not Stop
These areas are known for increased criminal activity and a higher risk of being targeted for robbery, assault, or carjacking.
15. Avalanche Country
Going past this sign would expose you to dangers like avalanches, blizzards, and getting lost in uncontrolled terrain with no help available.
14. Extreme Heat
With limited access to water and soaring temperatures, passing the sign risks critical complications such as exhaustion, heatstroke, dehydration, and even death.
13. Animal Disease Control Zone
The disease can spread to your pets or you. Diseases like rabies, avian flu, and swine flu can be deadly to both humans and animals.
12. Poisonous Gas
Low levels of hydrogen sulfide gas exposure can cause a variety of symptoms including eye irritation, respiratory problems like coughing and sore throat, headaches, nausea, fatigue, and dizziness. The gas can also temporarily impair your sense of smell and judgment. At high concentrations, the gas can paralyze your respiratory system, causing suffocation and death.
11. Arsenic Soil
While short-term exposure might cause nausea or skin irritation, the real danger lies in arsenic accumulating in your body over time. Chronic exposure increases the risk of various cancers, heart disease, and diabetes.
10. Marine Stingers
Contact with these animals can deliver excruciating stings, causing muscle paralysis, allergic reactions, and even cardiac arrest.
9. Unexploded Ordnance
These untraced bombs, shells, or other explosives could detonate unexpectedly, causing serious injury or death.
8. Lava Bench
A lava bench is a fragile overhang that could crumble beneath your weight, sending you plummeting. Additionally, lava flows can change direction or erupt unexpectedly, trapping or engulfing anyone caught in its path.
7. No Water
Facing dehydration, your body would struggle to regulate temperature, leading to dizziness, confusion, muscle cramps, and ultimately organ failure.
6. Deep Shafts
These shafts might be obscured by dirt, rocks, or debris. Stepping on a weak spot near the opening could cause a sudden collapse, sending you plummeting into the darkness below. These abandoned mines can also have dangerous gases like methane or carbon monoxide that can lead to suffocation or explosions.
5. Deadly Outbreak
“Warning, Ebola! Never touch or handle animals found dead in the forest.” Ebola is spread through direct contact with the bodily fluids of a corpse or live host with symptoms. The symptoms of Ebola can be horrific, including fever, severe headache, muscle and joint pain, diarrhea, vomiting, and internal bleeding. The fatality rate lies around 50%, and there is no cure.
4. Uranium Mines
Uranium exposure can cause symptoms like nausea and burns on exposed skin, irritated lungs, and shortness of breath. Severe or extended exposure increases the risk of developing cancer, particularly lung cancer.
3. Naegleria Fowleri
Naegleria fowleri, the “brain-eating amoeba,” is a terrifying organism. This amoeba enters the body through the nose, travels to the brain, and destroys brain tissue causing extreme symptoms like severe headache, fever, nausea, and vomiting. The infection progresses rapidly, leading to confusion, hallucinations, coma, and often death within days due to brain swelling. There’s no guarantee of survival, and even with prompt medical attention, the mortality rate is 97%.
2. Siphon
Siphons are underwater channels that can create powerful suction. Getting caught in this current would make escape nearly impossible. You’d be rapidly swept downstream towards a steep drop, and die by drowning.
1. Submerged Weir
Weirs are hidden, vertical whirlpools. From the surface, the water appears calm and inviting to splash into. Disoriented and unable to see the bottom, you’d struggle against the current and be tossed head over heels. Even if you were able to surface for intermittent breaths, escape would be impossible without help, and you would drown from exhaustion.
