I only say ‘mystery’ because, from the beginning, seems like all you had to do was walk up stairs to escape from them. After all, they were voted the scariest villains in the history of Doctor Who back in a 2007 poll of series fans. It has nothing at all to do with their chilling, robotic, directive to ‘exterminate’, or their relentless attempts to conquer the universe.

After extensive research, now an academic claims he knows why Daleks are so frightening. Cambridge University academic, Dr. Robin Bunce, said we’re terrified of them because we are worried we will one day become like them.

“According to their back story, once they were capable of genuine emotion and real moral good. Now they are sexless, heartless brains, shut up in machines incapable of intimacy, who have forgotten what it means to laugh and no longer think of themselves as individuals. We recognise the Daleks as evil because they have lost all that we hold most dear.”, Bunce explained.

Dr Bunce based his research on the original storyline which first introduced the creatures to the show in 1963 where you learn that the Daleks had retreated into their metal shells after a devastating war and slowly lost their emotions, becoming more like machines than living and breathing creatures.

Dr Bunce said, ‘The reason the Daleks are evil is because we recognize that they were once better. They are the nightmare future we dread.”

The scary notion of a robotic ‘exterminate’ followed by the ability to evaporate people with a death ray aside, I think a simple walking up stairs to escape is the way to go. Just get out of the building before they level it.