Since the inception of the first camera, humans have been able to freeze time. Photographs are by far the closest thing we now have to a time machine, and thus revisiting them becomes a trip down memory lane. An unknown photograph can deceive us with its seemingly ordinary aesthetics but could have strange or, like in these cases, disturbing backstories. From a dancing father of a lost son to the photograph of the city that was left barren after a nuclear explosion, check out the list underneath to see 10 seemingly normal images and read about their disturbing backstories.

1 Class Of 1999: A few weeks later, after this photo was taken, Eric and Dylan (the ones in the far left corner pointing pretend guns at the camera) would shoot 12 students and a teacher dead in a meticulously organized school shooting in Columbine.

What looks like a photograph of a regular school group picture turns out sinister the moment you know the whole story. Ten of the casualties were executed in the school library, where the pair at that point ended it all.

As the world reeled at the silly killing, it was revealed that the young men, both unpopular and bullied understudies, had been secretly planning for the massacre for over a year. Furthermore, their signal in the photo, which was not understood at that point, wasn’t the only hint they had given about the impending school shooting.

They had made plans to set off explosives during lunch, which would execute and harm hundreds of fellow students, of how they would murder the individuals who would try escaping the school, and how they would kill emergency rescue staff by transforming their vehicles into vehicle bombs.

Months before the shooting, Harris and Klebold procured two 9mm guns – one TEC-9 gun and one Hi-Point rifle. They also built 99 IEDs utilizing directions found on the WWW, sawed off the barrels, and gathered up supplies for their shotguns. 

On the morning of April 20, the young men had set up a firebomb to explode in a field three miles south of Columbine High School, which was planned to divert the attention of emergency staff who might react to the shooting, allowing them to execute more students and staff members.

Later, Harris and Klebold committed suicide in the same school’s library that was the scene of the gruesome massacre. (source)

2 An Armenian man dances in the mountains for his lost son who was killed in the forced displacement of Armenian Christians by the Ottoman Turks in 1915.

The annihilation of Armenian Christians living in the Ottoman started on 24 April 1915, when around 250 scholarly people were deported, many of whom were subsequently executed.

Armenian Christians effectively were left with mediocre rights and turned into a conspicuous objective for Turkish backlash and hatred. In April, forced displacement, death marches, and the mass extermination of the adult male populace started. Around 1.5 million died, and Armenians migrated across the world. 

In the picture above, the old dancing man is Ishran, an Armenian man whose son was electrocuted in the displacement. Ishran’s son looked just like the photographer of the photograph to whom he approached, overwhelmed with memories of his recently lost son.

He was asked if he could dance, to which Ishran agreed without much resistance. You can see on his face the sheer beauty of embraced pain and agony. (source)

3 This is the last picture taken of thirteen-year-old Abby Williams. She was hiking in Delphi, Indiana, in February 2017 with her friend Libby German who took the picture. They were both murdered shortly after the photo was taken.

This seems just like any other photograph of a girl casually taking a walk, but this assumption cannot be farther from the truth. This is the area of the last walk by Abby Williams, 13, and Liberty German, 14, after they recorded their killer’s chilling order to go “down the hill.”

Libby German recorded the executioner’s activities after putting on her telephone with its camcorder in her pocket as he cornered them on the scaffold. The two young ladies, who went to Delphi Community Middle School where they played saxophone and volleyball together, had visited the bridge before the day they were murdered. 

The Monon High Bridge Trail pulls in trackers, anglers, campers, and children climbing as tourists. It was an unexpectedly warm day, and the two companions were dropped off at 1:35 p.m. for their walk. The young ladies were expected to be brought back by Libby’s granddad, Mike Patty, her lawful custodian, at 3:15 p.m.

However, they neglected to show up. By 5 p.m., the young ladies’ families were out looking for them, and by 6 p.m., most of the town, which had a populace of around 3,000, had joined the police in their search, yet the girls were not found.

The hunt continued the following day, and in the early afternoon, a searcher recognized the young girls’ bodies about 15 meters from the north bank of Deer Creek, on the 12-hectare property of 77-year-old Ron Logan, who was not viewed as a suspect.

To this date, there have been no arrests made in the case of the murders. The case has just gone on to attract media attention with no real conclusion. (source)

4 What looks like a regular day with kids playing on a street in Pripyat in April 1986, is a picture taken just a week before of what will be one of the major man-made disasters. The entire city will be forcibly evacuated due to the nearby Chernobyl nuclear reactor explosion.

The April 1986 calamity at the Chernobyl Nuclear Energy Station in Ukraine resulted from a defective Soviet reactor configuration combined with genuine mix-ups made by the plant operators. It was an immediate outcome of Cold War isolation and the subsequent absence of any security regimen.

The mishap caused the most extensive uncontrolled radioactive fallout into the climate at any point recorded for any non-military personnel activity, and enormous amounts of radioactive substances were delivered into the air for around ten days. 

This caused genuine social and monetary disturbance for huge populaces in Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine. In all aspects, this catastrophe was so bad because of the radiation portion they conveyed to individuals from people in general. Among the more extensive populace, a large number of thyroid diseases was archived starting in 2011. (source)

5 Alan Hruby, a freshman at the University of Oklahoma in 2014, murdered his entire family on a Friday. The next day, he drove down to Dallas for the OU-Texas football game, where he stayed in a hotel with his friends and posted this candid photo on Instagram. He quickly confessed after interrogations with the police department and later received multiple life sentences.

Nineteen-year-old Alan Hurby was stranding over his fallen mother in their Oklahoma home, waiting for her to die. However, she didn’t, so he shot the 48-year-old mother-of-two a second time with the 9mm gun he found in his dad’s truck.

After that came his sister’s turn. Katherine was then outside washing her vehicle. When she strolled in, Alan shot and killed her right away. 

Hruby paused and waited for his father to come to move ahead to complete the scene. Ten minutes, 20, 30 minutes later, his mom and sister died in the Duncan home. His father strolled in about an hour later. 

Alan open fired on his dad, who immediately died, falling to the ground. 

Those were the shocking last snapshots of the Oklahoma family that were murdered on Oct. 9 because Hruby required $3,000 to close an existing loan, and he figured he would acquire sufficient cash from insurance to settle up in the wake of slaughtering his folks and sister. (source)