THIS REALLY HAPPENED: Real Horror Stories and Shocking Conspiracies that Will Shock You to Your Core

by Douglas Whitmore

Conspiracies. Cannibalism. Torture. Human experimentation.

These days, conspiracy theories run rampant. But what if some of these horrors turned out to be true?

Many people are shocked to learn that history is filled with several confirmed, real-life horrors and dark conspiracies that seem too frightening to be real — everything from assassinations and grotesque human experimentation to bizarre plots, fake wars, and mass poisoning of entire populations.

This book explores some of the most disturbing and incredible plots involving corporations, governments, scientists, and other trusted entities, who have engaged in horrific acts that will chill you to the bone.

Genres: Horror, Nonfiction, Horror Thriller, Dark

99 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 20, 2025

Reviews

[Nicole ☕️ · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is probably one of the worst books I've read in terms of layout and how it's compiled. It's AI generated slop and you'd find better researched write ups on Reddit. The information is poorly summarized and all over the place with a list of 20 facts at the end of each topic. Facts that we literally just learned about because each topic is only a couple of pages long.

It's included in a lot of horror lists all over tiktok with actual good books, so I'll admit it tricked me.

Now I know whose opinion to completely disregard if they rate this book 5 stars.

[River Bielawa · Rating 1 out of 5]

The content is interesting, but that's all it has going for it.
This book discloses the use of "AI guided research", however the entire thing feels AI generated. It reads like a Wikipedia page, with header/titles before every paragraph, and a redundant summary of each chapter at the end claiming to be "interesting facts". The "facts" are literally just a one sentence summary of every paragraph. Even the parts that are descriptive are riddled with unnecessary adjectives that take an entire paragraph to say nothing at all. Not to mention that this is a "nonfiction" book but ZERO sources are cited.
This was heavily recommended to me as "extreme horror", which it is not.

[Kelly Siders · Rating 1 out of 5]

i’m going to immediately block any booktoker that recommends this to me because this is trash. i’ll never trust u all again

[Alenna Burleson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was such a crazy book, as much as I hate to admit it, I have basically as much knowledge of history as a worm does. So hearing all of these things that happened around the world, was actually insane. Finding out about unit 731 was actually so heartbreaking and honestly so hard to wrap my head around this stuff and how it happened.

I really enjoyed the facts in this book and the direct quotes. The authors writing in it not only felt repetitive but also kinda too much at times. I felt like they tried to put as many descriptive words in a sentence and it was just coming off as really disingenuous I’m not sure I just didn’t enjoy the authors segways into these things. The 20 facts about this was so pointless, it literally was everything that was just written about like a page back so it was literally nothing new, if you were lazy you could read the 20 facts and know exactly the same stuff as if you didn’t read it before. Other than that the history lesson was really cool and I enjoyed getting more educated on things that have happened!

[ChanaReadsHorror · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sometimes when you read a horror book you think about how could any of that happened and this book really dove into real life horrors that happened. There were quite a few things in here I had never heard of which is rather scary in and of itself. I did like how it was broken down into the account of the incident and then laid out the facts in a summary.

[Amanda · Rating 1 out of 5]

The stories were interesting (and gross); the layout sucked because it was generated by AI (which I didn’t realize when I chose to read the book). Zero creativity, overall disappointing

[Cole Drake · Rating 2 out of 5]

The only reason I'm giving this book a two-star instead of a one is because of the things I learnt in the book - some of the things I didn't know that were interesting. However, as it's essentially just written by nothing but AI - and it shows, in the format alone, not to mention how it's written - I wish I rather read this by someone who actually researched and wrote it.

I keep seeing it recommended to be everywhere on my social media - TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook. Now, as I should have learned a while ago, I'll never trust again. Because if THIS was considered "good" by people today, there's no hope for our literate future.

[Mireya Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Super entertaining and highlights huge moments in history that we’ve often ignored, and some of which are happening again. (in the last decade)

I can’t give this more than a 3-star because of the terrible editing (the author mentions they used AI for editing and additional research).

Overall, I fact-checked every story, and it all seems accurate, factual, non-biased, and genuinely chilling. Again, I can’t rate it higher than a 3 due to the editing issues, but I honestly recommend it if you enjoy learning about historical events.

[Hannah Lyons · Rating 2 out of 5]

Probably a DNR tbh. A lot of shocking stories that left my jaw dropped, including some of the extremely dark truths about the Holocaust, unit 731, and Jonestown that I wasn’t aware of. But extremely repetitive, it was honestly giving “hey chat GPT, tell me some short insane stories about grueling things that have happened in history”. I wouldn’t call this a horror read, which is how it was advertised on booktok lol.

[Katee Linn · Rating 2 out of 5]

Great concept, terribly written. The very gruesome truths are skimmed over in a poorly delivered format that neglects to accurately convey the truth of the matter and magnitude of the events. While I love the idea of bringing light and awareness to these horrific acts of humanity, this could have been delivered in a much more effective way. If you’re looking for a deep dive into any of these topics or anything more than a brief overview, this is not the book for you.

[Chandra Claypool (WhereTheReaderGrows) · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was ok. Obviously disturbing. Most of the stories I already knew about but some were new. Felt more like a textbook read with bulleted summations at the end of every story. Not sure if a human or a robot wrote it but at least the content was decent, if not greatly written.

[Charli-Anne Horton-Young · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was a disappointment. I was so excited to read this as online, so many people listed it as incredibly scary. u should have read the goodreads reviews before I bought this. It was very repetitive and made these historical cases feel very dull.

[Curious Robin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Awful! It reads like summarized Wikipedia entries while plagued with formatting mistakes an terrible grammar. You can clearly tell this was mostly made with the help of AI. Avoid this trash at all costs.

[Cara Gibson · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is crazy to think about all of these stories and how each one is 100% real. The stories about the Holocaust and the experiments that occurred during it was bone-chilling and downright disturbing.

[Una · Rating 1 out of 5]

Wow this was so badly written..

[Megan Morris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Poorly written but interesting stuff. Crazy this was all allowed

[Maz Jardon · Rating 1 out of 5]

It is AI generated slop, with a ton of inaccuracies and typos. If that wasnt bad enough, it's written horribly. I would rate it lower than one star if I could.

[Ravyn Lahodny · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lot of really interesting information and I ,for one, liked the format however I do agree with the majority that it’s very AI Driven

[Ashlie Hendy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting read

[Julie Kirschling · Rating 1 out of 5]

Most of the topics were interesting but I’m still trying to figure out what I just read? An academic journal and I’ll add with terrible editing. I’m puzzled!

[Rachell Zinn · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book was sooooo boring. Snooze fest 😴 idk why I keep seeing this book being promoted on TikTok. 🤷🏻‍♀️ I dnf’d this book 30 pages in. Ugh. 😑

[MsBao]

DNF'd at 40% so I don't think it's fair for me to rate it properly.

[Tyler Harrington · Rating 1 out of 5]

1/5 - Ankle deep, poorly written, poorly formatted, and a waste of time.

[Reader · Rating 1 out of 5]

Worst AI slop I’ve ever read. Don’t buy this book!

[Alice Bridges · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not the best in terms of how each chapter is layed out, definitely better true horror books out there, probably wouldn’t recommend

[valeria bravo · Rating 3 out of 5]

El mundo se va a casar a manos humanas