People saw ‘creepy aliens’ in these fetal MRI scans; Medical experts explain why unborn babies can look so eerie

It started, as many strange internet phenomena do, with a scroll. On Instagram, some popular accounts recently shared fetal MRI scans that looked less like the familiar images of unborn babies and more like something from another world. It's scary and probably not advised for the faint-hearted. Exposed eyes, mustaches, and the skeleton-like structure will definitely not let them sleep peacefully at night. And, as expected, the reactions came quickly, with people wondering if we were once like this.

One commented with a pretty good idea of what they want to do with their bloodline, “So don’t have a kid…. Got it.” “That’s what babies look like to me in general,” another wrote in those social media posts.

Some people laughed, some brought religion and politics into it. Others were genuinely horrified, and they compared it to a hated Star Wars character: “They look like Emperor Palpatine.” A few drew their conclusions immediately: “Thats why I will not have kids.”


For viewers accustomed to the soft, blurry images of ultrasound scans, the detailed cross-sections of fetal MRIs could be startling. Faces appeared distorted. Eyes seemed unusually large and dark. Bodies looked fragmented by the scanning process. To the untrained eye, the images could feel unsettlingly unfamiliar.

Another questioned whether the scan itself could be harmful: “why did you took mri scan it would damage child's brain.”

Others took the conversation in entirely different directions. “Unknown is not Aliean.. Unknown is sanatanam,” wrote one person. Then came the blunt political observation: “But then liberals will maybe consider it a human being.” But beneath all the jokes was a surprisingly simple question: Why do unborn babies sometimes look so terrifying in MRI images?

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The “nightmare demons” that went viral

This wasn't the first time fetal MRI images had unsettled the internet. In 2021, an X account shared four fetal MRI images with a caption that immediately transformed a medical scan into internet horror:

“The real reason they discourage MRIs in pregnancy is because then people would realize they're incubating nightmare demons and would be rightfully terrified.”

The thread took the joke even further, imagining the fetuses speaking from inside the womb:

“Hello, mother dear. I am coming for you.”

“Let me out.”

“I thirst for the tumult.”

“Too long I have been thwarted by this endometrial prison.”

But despite the internet's fascination with calling them aliens, demons and monsters, there was nothing fictional about what people were seeing.

Are these spooky images real?

Yes, but they're not pictures of aliens or “nightmare demons,” or aliens. The images are real fetal MRI scans. The supposedly terrifying creatures are, in fact, ordinary human babies in utero.

TODAY.com, in a 2025 article, cited medical experts and confirmed that these “nightmare demons” are real babies, the same tiny humans who will eventually turn their parents’ peaceful nights into midnight feedings and crying sessions.

The strange appearance has less to do with the baby and more to do with how MRI scans capture the human body.

“If you catch the fetus at a funny angle, it can look kind of spooky,” said Dr. P. Ellen Grant, director of the Fetal Neonatal Neuroimaging and Developmental Science Center at Boston Children’s Hospital, to the outlet.

And the unsettling appearance isn't unique to unborn babies. “I could show you an adult MRI, and it would look just as scary,” says Suzanne D. Debari, a registered diagnostic medical sonographer at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

An MRI doesn't show the body the way a photograph does. Instead, it produces images of different anatomical sections and layers.

“It’s almost like we’re slicing a loaf of bread, and then picking up the slice and looking at it,” she explains.

Once you understand that, the “alien” effect begins to make more sense. A face that looks distorted isn't necessarily distorted at all; it may simply be a perfectly normal human face viewed through an unfamiliar cross-section.

MRI, ultrasound and sonogram: why do they look so different?

Part of the confusion comes from the fact that most people are much more familiar with ultrasound images.

An ultrasound uses sound waves to capture images of the fetus. Those sound waves “bounce off the tissues in the body, bounce back to the computer and make the image,” says Debari.

The resulting image is called a sonogram. Ultrasound is usually the first imaging tool used during pregnancy because it's inexpensive and readily accessible.

If doctors identify concerns, including certain genetic risks or family histories, they may order an MRI to provide a more detailed view of specific parts of the baby's anatomy.

The difference in appearance can be dramatic. “In a sonogram, things don't look as scary because everything's blurry and no one really understands what the images mean. Unless you’re an expert, it’s really hard to interpret them,” explains Grant. “Whereas with an MRI, the images are clearer, so they're a little easier to see the anatomy in it.”

That extra clarity, ironically, may be exactly what makes the images so disturbing to people online.

The human brain is comfortable with familiar images. We know what a baby looks like in a photograph. We recognize the rounded face of a newborn. But when that same face is broken into medical cross-sections and displayed in shades of gray, our brains can struggle to recognize what we're seeing.