Somebody linked to this pic:
It reminded me that when I was very young my brother had an airfix model of a Klingon Bird of Prey that completely freaked me out for some inexplicable reason.
Not as downright horrifying as this guy though:
My mum put a poster of him on my bedroom door and I don’t think I had a proper nights sleep for weeks, eventually had to ask her to take it down!
Fiddlehead ferns. They used to grow in my sandbox and reminded me of fat, green worms. I still don’t like them.
Clowns. Drains. Flushing toilets.
Although I still suspect clowns are never innocent.
Devil’s Tooth fungus. It isn’t like it’s going to follow you home or anything, but I found one when I was a kid and seeing it ruined my whole day. I didn’t know what it was at the time. I thought it must be some part of an animal, left to rot and somehow bleed at the same time.
Toilets. I was absolutely terrified of them for reasons I can no longer recall and once threw a major fit in a rest-stop in Florida when my mom tried to make me go. She and other adults thought I was just being a silly brat but I really was scared.
The creek behind my house–I had seen a red salamander in it. Another child had told me the devil was red and would get me, so with kid logic I figured that the red salamander might be the devil and the creek, therefore, was Hell. The fear disappeared when I looked at the picture of a salamander in a nature book and realized the thing in the creek was a mere amphibian and not the Prince of Darkness.
Well, that’s what he wanted you to believe.
The bird of prey was designed to be bad assed and that rabbit looks like a drugged out thrill killer in a mask.
The song “Puff, the Magic Dragon,” and no, I don’t want to talk about it.
I was terrified of the basement in the house we lived in before I was 7. It was the sound the gas water heater made when coming on: a soft ‘flumpf’ and a bit of a flicker (the flame was visible through a window in the siode of the water heater)…
When I was about four, I was in a house where there was a collection of eggshells painted as fashionable ladies’ faces. Those stuck in my mind for a long time. I also thought men in black suits with beards were pretty scary. Just pictures of them, I never saw one in real life, but I was afraid one would come and get me.
I think it was common then for parents to imply to children that certain menaces would “come and get them”.
As a kid, I was told not to squish spiders because their spider friends would come and get revenge. This helped my fear of spiders grow into near pathological levels.
Basements.
Clowns.
White vans. It was the era of films in school (and “after-school specials”) about kids getting snatched by strangers while walking home from school or going to the corner stores. It was ALWAYS a white van that drove up and got them.
Come to think of it, I still don’t like basements, clowns, and white vans. Probably due to the influence of John Wayne Gacey and Stephen King. And those damn films they showed in assembly before telling us how to not get abducted.
The barber…guess cause one time, the barber sliced my brother’s ear and I remember my brother freaking out by it…after he was done, the barber Turned to me and in his thick Italian accent said, “you-a next… You get an air-a cut”…um, no!" Getting me to the barber afterwards was quite a challenge
The full-page picture of children’s poet Shel Silverstein on the back cover of his books. Like this, except huge.
Also, my adopted grandmother (more of a close family friend, but same difference), was from Vienna and had a German children’s book about a boy who sucked his thumb. There were full page illustrations of the story - his parents tried to get him to stop, he was disobedient, etc, until one night the Scissor Man came in through his window and snipped his thumbs off. Being a thumb-sucker myself, it scared the bejeezus out of me (yet I still read it multiple times over just to frighten myself). I don’t think it applies here, though, because it *still *terrifies me. Germans don’t mess around . . . 
ETA: Ah, I tracked it down online - it’s called Struwwelpeter. If you want to traumatize a child in your life, there is no better book!
The unfinished, damp, dark basement.
Also the forklifts at “84 Lumber”, our local Home Depot-like store.
Some of the old Sesame Street shorts. The ones they showed between scenes on the street or of the various muppets. Some of them were very clever, some were just freaking creepy. This one for example would be great for showing kids how milk doesn’t initially come from the Supermarket but they added a creepy song on top of it. But that one wasn’t the worst.
But another they had that I cannot find had part of it while a balloon deflated - loudly and with no humans or muppets in the video. It was just plain creepy for me to watch as a child.
My brother had 3 goldfish in a small aquarium. One day they all died, and were seen floating on the top. That evening we had vanilla pudding for dessert. I just knew my mother had made it with the goldfish. It was about 20 years before I ate vanilla pudding again.
Don’t ask me about worms in the coffee can.
Sammy the Snake freaked me out for some reason. I don’t know why as I’d never seen a snake as far as I know.
Ah, yes, I remember that story…
You’re on the money; Germans do not mess around. As a kid, my (1st-gen US from Germany-descendent) mum used to say, “If you keep it up, I’m going to break your arm off and beat you with it!”
I didn’t think she could…but all the same, I had seen people with only one arm…
The Statute Liberty (probably her size)
Darth Vader
I’m almost 50 and I avoid going into the basement like I avoid getting hit in the nuts.
