Someone asked for ‘facts that nobody believes but are completely true’ and the answers will have you arguing with reality

In an age when fake news and alternative truths are routinely peddled by the people in power, it’s always nice to have some unassailable facts to hold onto. But what about when those facts sound completely made up, despite being real? They’ve been wrestling with this on the AskUK subreddit after user Rich_Specific6903 asked this:

What’s a fact that almost nobody believes but is completely true? Like I just found that… there’s a species of jellyfish that is biologically immortal.

Utterly mind boggling, to be fair. And lots of people chipped in with the things they can’t believe are true, even though they definitely almost certainly are.

1.

‘Along the same lines, lobsters don’t die of old age, they just eventually get too big for their shells and suffocate. Some people are trying to work on seeing how big they can grow one by modifying its shell.’
–BenFranklinsCat

2.

‘Carrots used to be purple.’
–Ciato78

3.

‘There’s been more people go to the moon than there have been winners of Takeshi’s Castle.’
–No_Neighborhood6856

4.

‘The ‘best before’ date on plastic bottled water refers to the bottle, not the water.’
–DeanoThelasTofus

5.

‘All tinsel in the UK is made here because it doesn’t transport well from China.’
–UnlikelyHat5885

6.

‘An unusually well-travelled man in the 5th Century BC could have conceivably met Zoroaster, Confucius, Lao Tze, the Buddha and Socrates over the course of a seventy-year life.’
–Melon_exe

7.

‘Most of the water on Earth is older than the Earth.’
–0olon_Colluphid

8.

‘We don’t see the stars in present/real time, we’re only able to see them in their past form as light doesn’t travel instantaneously.’
–ImThatBitchNoodles

9.

‘Edinburgh, on the East coast, is further west than Blackpool, on the West coast.’
–slimboyslim9

10.

‘The oldest continuously running school in the world is in England, and is older than England.’
–AtomicMonkeyTheFirst

11.

‘There were Wooly Mammoths alive when Cleopatra was in power.’
–PopTrogdor