It’s not quite a CIA black site, but a link to an old Centers for Disease Control and Prevention text file is still pretty jarring.
The odd file was uncovered by an X-formerly-Twitter user who goes by the name “charlie.”
“Does anyone want to see the scary ass dcd webpage I accidentally stumbled upon just now,” charlie asked in a post. In the comments, they link to a CDC.gov text file which — how do we say this delicately? — raises some pretty striking questions. (Archived version here.)
It’s basically a mile-long list of single words that seems to have been live since 2009. The first word, “DAMNATORY,” pretty much sets the tone for the rest of it.
And sure, there are words a layman might expect the CDC to use: “CAPILLARIES,” “BLOODLINES,” “TUBERCULIDE.”
But there are a whole lot more that don’t seem appropriate for any government agency, let alone the CDC. There are silly words like “GOOFBALL” and “WHOMPS,” but also some more horrific ones like “WHORES,” “TORTURED,” and “DEHYPNOTIZE.”
Still more are downright bizarre, such as “COUNTERREVOLUTIONARIES,” “SWORDPLAY,” and “NECROMANCY.” Don’t get us started on “WASHERWOMAN” and “LOVEMAKING.” There are also some severe racial and antisemitic slurs we won’t include in this blog, making the list all the more baffling and sinister in tone.
Posters on X were quick to point out how mystifying the entries are. “This is like if you used a ouija board and the unabomber was on the other side,” one user joked. “First three words you see will define your 2026,” quipped another.
Looking at the URL path, the site seems related to the CDC’s Mortality Medical Data System (MMDS), a program first developed in 1967 to automate entry, classification, and retrieval of cause-of-death information from death certificates.
If this is the case, then the subdirectory “spell” — not to mention the sheer number of random words in the index — might suggest that it’s simply a file for the MMDS’ spell check. But even if that’s true, it still doesn’t explain why there are so many nonsense words, hateful slurs, and other terms that don’t feel like they’d have any place in a death certificate.
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