MRIs of Babies That Look like Demons Go Viral

A collection of MRI scans showing fetuses in the womb have gone viral after they were likened to "nightmare demons."

On Wednesday afternoon, Twitter user @ZiziFothSi, whose screen name is Katie, uploaded four photos from MRI scans undertaken during pregnancies that showed the outline of the faces of babies in their mothers' wombs.

"The real reason they discourage MRIs during pregnancy is because then people would realise they're incubating nightmare demons and would be rightfully terrified," she tweeted alongside the four images.

The scans show the angry-looking babies looking straight into the camera with their bulging eyes and brains clearly visible.

In follow-up posts, Katie shared zoomed-in pictures of the babies, captioning one: "I like how this one has its hand up like HELLO MOTHER DEAR I AM COMING FOR YOU" and writing above another: "The four horsemen of the apocalypse."

The tweets soon went viral and, at the time of writing, the original post has been retweeted more than 40,000 times and accrued close to 300,000 likes.

Thousands of people replied to Katie's tweets, with several of them asking if the pictures were the result of manipulation, as one Twitter user wrote: "I don't want these to be real. They're not real are they??"

Another person said: "I can never unsee this now!!! Why?!?? They will literally appear in my nightmares at some point Smiling face with open mouth and cold sweat," as Katie replied: "They're all 100%...I'm so sorry"

Other Twitter users likened the babies to the aliens from director Tim Burton's 1996 cult classic Mars Attacks!, while one person asked: "Is it just me or does that waving demon look like Mr Bean."

Fetal MRIs are generally undertaken to evaluate a fetus for abnormalities, and are often done when an ultrasound has detected something unusual in the womb.

There are no known risks to the fetus from the mother undergoing the scan, according to the Texas Children's Hospital.

Similar photos from MRI scans went viral in 2018, after Laura Thomas and her partner Matthew Tansley from England posted one of their baby on social media.

Speaking to The Daily Mail at the time, Thomas said that the parents were nervous about having the test, but were "so relieved when the consultant looked at the scan and said everything looked OK.

"Then when we saw the picture I thought to myself 'he doesn't look too happy' and burst out laughing. When he looked up at me from that scan all I could see were those eyes, it looked like he was possessed."

Newsweek has contacted Katie for comment.