Journalism plays a very important part in how we see the world. Whether by intent or happenstance, the photographers below just happened to be at the right place at the right time. Conversely, everyone in the images below were in the wrong place at the time. Check out these 10 creepy photos and their equally disturbing backstories.

1 In the photo below, the red car contained a bomb that exploded shortly after the picture was taken. Luckily, the man and the child survived, although the photographer and 28 other people died. 

The bombing took place on 15 August, 1998 in Northern Ireland. While many people believed it to have been the IRA who executed the bombing, it was a splinter group called the Real IRA in retaliation to the Good Friday Agreement and the IRA’s ceasefire.(source)

2 James Bulger, the toddler in the image below, is being led away by a 10 year old boy who (along with another boy) would later murder him.

James Patrick Bulger was only 2 years old when he was abducted, tortured and murdered by two ten year old boys – Robert Thompson and Jon Venables – on 12 February 1993. The pair were caught and charged 8 days later, making them the youngest convicted murderers in English history.(source)

3 This photograph shows a woman in mid air, after jumping off the ledge of the Genesee Hotel in 1942.

The image above was caputed by a photographer for the Buffalo Courier, who was on his way back to the office after being out on assignment. The woman who commited suicide was called Mary Miller. It is thought that she was mourning a lover who was just killed during World War II.(source)

4 39 members of a cult called the “Heaven’s Gate Group” comitted suicide on March 26, 1997 in order to reach an alien spaceship.

This photo was taken after a mass suicide by a cult who called themselves the “Heaven’s Gate” group. They beleived that by committing mass suicide, they would be able to transcend aboard an alien spaceship trailing the Hale-Bopp comet. The group were led by a mentally ill man called Marshall Applewhite.(source)

5 The woman in the picture below was locked in a room for 25 years and weighed 55 pounds.

It’s hard to believe the image above is real, but it is of a woman called Blanche Monnuer, who was kept captive in a padlocked room with no light for 25 years. She was 49 years old at the time and weighed 55 pounds. The date was 23 May 1901. Her mother and brother were both thought to be responsible.(source)