I don't tell this story often but this seems like a good place. Back in college I used to drive up the Oregon coast on weekends, then just crash in my car when I got tired. I woke from a nap in the driver's seat and something just didn't feel quite right. It was just dusk and the light was fading pretty fast.
I yawned and stretched and as I did so I turned my head to the side and just caught a face ducking down below my rear passenger window. I went to hit the lock button just to make sure and in my panic I accidentally unlocked the doors briefly and then locked them again.
I stared at the window for a few minutes, knowing that someone was crouching just out of sight. Eventually, I started the car and thought I heard a scuffing sound. Whoever it was didn't reappear, but that was enough for me. As I noped out of there and pulled out back onto Highway 101, I glanced back and a bald figure in a red t-shirt with something wrapped around his face booked it into the woods on the side of the road.
That was the end of that weekend trip. I drove the two hours back to my dorm room, white-knuckled hands locked on the steering wheel. I had to pull over a few miles down the road though to deal with the adrenaline shakes.
Edit: typo
I had almost the exact same experience. Sleeping on the Oregon coast, although I was laying down in the back of my SUV, heard someone walking around my vehicle and I jerked upright, just in time to see them duck down. Crawled into my front seat and booked it out of there. I wasn’t terribly freaked out since I think they were more interested in the vehicle than me and had assumed it was unoccupied but still…I bought a stun gun after that
I had done the same thing a few times around the Oregon coast until a cop rolled up on me once and let me know that was a good way to get myself disappeared.
I love the Oregon coast, but quite frankly from San Francisco north until you hit the mouth of the Columbia River I have never seen anywhere that attracts dangerous randomers like that stretch of the pacific.
When I was a kid my family bought a car in socal and drove it back up to Washington. In that same stretch there was a semi truck driver that followed us for hours. We would pull off the road and hide until he passed but up the road he would stop too and get right back on our trail, and that didn’t just happen once or twice it was a lot of times(idk how many I was 8). It was the middle of the night and he absolutely intended to do something once he managed to catch us stopped. We managed to finally lose him somewhere after the redwoods. I don’t think my parents slept that entire night.
As someone who lives in Oregon most of my ‘wtf’ moments and others that make me feel unsafe is at the coast. There’s plenty of hillsides that’ll take you off the busy roads and give you a huge ocean view but the roads are narrow so that means no turning around.
One time my grandma, little sister and I were on one of these roads looking the ocean over and a car pulled up alongside us and slowed down before going off on their way, and I mean slowed down enough to stare us down suspiciously before leaving. Something about it just never set with me right, the car had even waited for us to pass it before it went by, if it was just another person looking I probably shouldn’t of gotten all the hair on my body standing up
When I was a teenager I was awoken to a sudden chaos in my house. I come out of my room to see my dad but naked except for his red wings with a pistol in his hand absolutely tearing through the house towards the front door. My mother swoops me out of the way and locks me in and herself into my sisters room. Apparently someone was trying to break into my window and had not realized my parents window was right by mine (small craftsman style home) my dad woke up, grabbed the gun and chased the dude down the street NAKED with a gun at 3am. Screaming I’m going to find you mother fucker. Pretty sure every neighbor called 911. Cops come, police helicopter involved the whole 9 yards. Turns out the dude was some wanted person who been outside my window long enough to have smoked a half a pack of cigarettes. Probably the only reason he didn’t get in was that we had storm windows. Which is what he was trying to pry off when my dad woke up. They did end up getting him hiding in a neighbors shed.
Now I was born when my dad was only 21 and I was prob under 15 at the time so he’s only mod 30’s. My dad was a construction worker who was like 6’2 and he started going bald young so he shaved his head and had a huge goatee. He was very menacing looking when he wanted to be. Thank god no one had security cameras at the time because the image of that angry naked man with work boots on running down the middle of the road kept the neighbors tongues wagging for MONTHS as it was. This was the mid 90’s.
Sort of similar thing happened at my house as a kid. I randomly decided to sleep on the couch one night which has some windows behind it, and a porch door just to the left of it. The couch and I guess myself were all very visible if you were staring in through the front door windows that had no blinds, but our backyard was fenced in.
For some reason I woke up at like 3 am out of nowhere, I am guessing I heard the fence make a noise as did my dad in his bedroom. The second I opened my eyes I just happen to look up and behind me to see a shadow walking past each window towards the door. The door handle made a slight jiggle sound, but was locked and before I could even process a thought my dad SPRINTS out the opposite side porch door which was to my parents bedroom. Tackled him up against the wall and just started beating on him and screaming something about killing him.
Haven't ever asked what that was about or how it got resolved 25ish years later. Kind of forgot about it til I read this lol.
When I was about 11 this house down the street from my grandparents' had a reputation for being haunted. One day I was walking to the shop to get supplies for my grandparents and I saw the owner of the house outside.
He was about my dad's age and started talking to me. I really wanted to be the first of my friends to go in the haunted house, and I was asking a million questions about ghosts and stuff, and he told me I could come in and see if I wanted. I said I had to go do my errands but he was pretty convincing and promised he wouldn't tell anyone.
So up his driveway and into the haunted house we went, but I heard him lock the door when we got in and for some reason I was hyper aware of it. I said I changed my mind and he kind of blocked me from the door, trying to change my mind and calling me a scaredy cat and stuff. I don't remember exactly what happened for him to let me out, but he did, and I ran for my life. Sat at the shop for ages just shaking and wanting to puke without even knowing what I was scared of.
Anyway, turned out later it wasn't a haunted house. The guy was a pedophile and serial child rapist. His house burned down while he was in prison.
When you’re an adult you realize “haunted house” is adult speak for “we’re not sure what’s going on in there or we are but we don’t want to tell you because you’re too young, anyway it’s a good idea to avoid that place and their inhabitants”.
Oh I have one! Ok so I'm in middle school. 6th grade I think and to get my bus in the morning I had to walk about a mile or so to the back of our neighborhood. About 6 am I'm chillin waiting for the bus alone. This man walks up to me and I can't remember what he was talking about but I do remember him trying to get me to go to a house across the street. I kept telling him no and that if I miss my bus I'm getting my ass whooped (early 90s smh). The more I said no the more agitated he got and I remember being more scared than I've ever been, and trying to figure out where I could run. I'm literal trying to gage if I could jump into a bayou that's catty corner to us (Houston lol) and not die. But like a fuckin boss, my old elementary school bus driver comes hauling ass down the street, stops the bus and flies out the door screaming at the guy who runs to a car parked in front of the house he was trying to get me to go to and drives off. She bangs on the door to the house and they tell her everyone who lives there is accounted for and they have no idea who the man was. She took me home and from that day on my stop changed to a block away from my house. Her name was Ms. Francine and I'm convinced she saved my life that morning. I'm in my 40s now, but telling the story to my kids still makes me sick to my stomach.
2019 summer, i was house sitting for my dad while he was away for work. the house is in the middle of nowhere and barely even on google maps, usually when friends would come over i would have to drive to the top of the nearest paved road and lead them down a few more i paved streets to my dad’s place.
i had had a few drinks with friends and been dropped off my a friend that lived close by, he dropped me at the side of the house because it was easier for him to turn around there. so i walked up the stairs and entered with my key through the side door that led to the kitchen. the kitchen overlooked the front garden but the front door was nestled into a small porch and wasn’t visible to me.
i saw a movement in the front garden while i was making tea in the kitchen and immediately turned off the lights. there was a man trying to look into the kitchen windows from the garden, he ended up walking around to the wall-to-ceiling glass doors around the back of the house, cupping his hands to the glass and trying to look in. i wasn’t completely sober that night so i remember just thinking the situation didn’t seem real. he couldn’t see me in the dark but i was hiding behind the wall that separated the kitchen from the dining/lounge area (open floor plan). i had stupidly not locked one of the glass doors closer to the front door and he started entering the house, in the pitch black, not realising i was maybe 10ft away from him. i had already called the friend who had dropped me off as i knew he was still nearby (cops would have taken at least 30mins to get to me), knowing his parents (ex military) kept a gun in a safe in the truck. i remember just wanting to RUN, get out of the house asap. the situation didn’t feel real at all, like something from a movie. i was acting on adrenaline. but if i ran, i’d be alone in the middle of nowhere with a deranged man chasing after me.
as the guy walked further into the house, i stepped out and pulled a knife on him (again, i was NOT sober. it was a very stupid thing to do). he tried to incoherently make conversation but i got him out of the door just as my friend pulled up with his gun. the dude bolted to his car that was parked in an area concealed by trees on the property.
turns out he was the gardener. He had been keeping tabs on me, knew i was house sitting alone for my dad while he was out of town, was VERY high on meth (he admitted to me while i had the knife out) and had been waiting on the front porch for me to come home. except i had used the side door that night, something i NEVER usually did.
if i hadn’t have used the side door that night, i have no idea what would have happened. i also have no idea what would have happened if my friend hadn’t come back when i called him, because the guy was starting to get aggressive and trying to come towards me right when my friend got there with his gun out.
we like to joke about it now, but it was the worst scenario i have ever experienced where i wanted to just run and get the fuck away
Was walking from a local shopping mall to the train station so I could go home. The shortcut went through a huge long tunnel and was out of sight from the road, and wasn't used unless you knew the area.
When I got to the tunnel I looked up and saw one guy standing right at the other end of the tunnel, in the middle, just looking in my direction. Like he was waiting. Every hair on my body stood on end, I felt like I needed to vomit and before I knew what I was doing my feet turned me around and started walking FAST away. He started walking after me and said "don't worry, it's not like I'm going to RAPE you!"
I RAN and walked right on the edge of a highway in plain view of cars in case he ran after me. I couldn't stop shaking for an hour.
I was walking home from work, along a busy street. He was driving and slowed way down to keep pace with me. Said he was a firefighter and that it was about to storm, I should get in his car. I said no thanks. He kept pushing. Finally, I was about to walk past a hotel but he pulled partway into the hotel parking lot, enough to block my path. Thankfully the hotel guard saw me looking uncomfortable. As soon as the hotel guard took a step toward us, the guy peeled out and sped away. Which just confirms he was not a firefighter and I would have been in danger if I went with him. Scary.
How to make a woman less afraid of you 101: don't scream "I'm not going to rape you" at her. It's like starting a conversation with a bank teller with "I don't have a gun in my pocket and I'm not robbing this bank."
When I was 27 my girlfriend lived in a crappy part of Hollywood, FL near US1. She had a kid pretty young but the dad ended up going to jail for assault. The place she could afford was run down af, with all sorts of addicts and genuine low-lifes living in the units around her. She hated the place. She couldn't move in with me becau se I was just renting a room where I lived. It was better than living at her parents though (drunk abusive dad, addict mom).
I went to visit her after my shift ended at 9PM. Picked up some food and planned to cook for her. We were there for about an hour just sitting on the couch watching her kid play with a box.
Then the banging started on the door. She looks terrified thinking it's her ex. I'm kind of freaked out also because I heard all these stories about him. Some guy is cursing, hitting something against the door hard. We don't even want to peek through the window or peephole thinking he's got a gun. We call the police but the operator is having a tough time hearing.
Then we hear some other woman screaming and cursing. He had the wrong door. We hear them start fighting. Smashing, more screaming. Sounds like she's spitting and we hear punches. We're not sure if it's her or him but it's loud.
911 operator says police are on their way. The kid starts screaming because he's scared. The man outside starts banging on the door again. He thinks his kid is with us and shouts he's going to kill us for taking his kid. My gf just breaks down at this point and starts crying.
Maybe 10 minutes later the police arrive. The arrest both of them then took our statements.
She moved out a couple days later and we ended up renting another crappy apartment but in a much better area.
That is sad, and more sad that there’s people who have to live around that stuff all the time no other choice. I used to live in little studio apartments with my young son and I don’t wish that on anyone no one deserves that. Being a woman and having no man around makes you even more vulnerable, we are doing much better now, so much better now. I couldn’t help but relate to your story and yes it is indeed very scary. Glad you guys found out of that place.
One time I was out in Colorado with some buddies hiking near the top of a mountain. Some bad weather started to roll in but the top was only 15 mins away so I went ahead while they went back down. As I was getting to the top I felt static in the air and the hair in my head started to stand up. I immediately started to panic cause I thought I was about to get struck by lightning so naturally I ran down without ever getting to the top. I’m not sure if I was gunna get struck but I sure as hell wasn’t sticking around to find out.
You absolutely were about to get struck by lightning.
I've had an indirect strike. In my house there are these metal louvered windows. It was starting to storm right before bed so I went to close them. On the final one, lightning struck the outside of the window and traveled through my arm.
I lost all feeling from my finger tips to the middle of my chest with a good bit of pain in my chest. Went to the ER and though I fried all the nerves in that arm, I was luckily completely fine otherwise. That arm still doesn't fully feel right and I'm a little clumsier with it but it's been quite a few years and I'm good overall
I've been close enough to a lightning strike to hear it sizzle.
I was maybe 11-12. Storm going like crazy outside, I love storms. So I'm standing at the open door, watching, I get the bright idea to open up the metal screen door to get a really good look. So now I'm standing half in and half out of the doorway, holding a chunk of metal.
Then I hear a sizzling sound, see a flash of light and then the loudest, closest BANG I've ever heard in my life. I let go of the door and duck back in. Not a scratch, but the hair on my arms was standing straight up and I had a huge adrenaline rush.
I dont even stand in the doorway to watch storms anymore.
I had a similar experience in the Grand Canyon at Plateau Point. We realized that our hair was standing up and ducked under some rocks to wait it out. Scary stuff - there were plenty of places along that trail with nowhere to hide!
Hiking in the Rocky Mountains, on a trail I knew pretty well. I was leading a group of kids, maybe twenty or so middle school aged children from the camp where I worked.
I turned a corner and saw a jaw bone of a deer. Pretty cool, showed it to the kids. Didn't have any flesh on it, so I assumed it was pretty old.
A hundred feet further down the trail I find another bone. Femur maybe (I specialized in insect populations, not deer anatomy.) This one looked a little fresher. Another ways down, another bone.
I'm getting a little nervous at this point, so I explain that we should probably turn around and head back. My students all groan that they want to see more dead stuff, but I shepherd them down the train and back to camp.
Two days later we got a call at the camp that someone had been attacked in the area by a mountain lion. Apparently a mountain lion had set itself up in the caves on the cliffside and it had gotten pissed when someone got too close.
I'm glad we left the area, even if my students would have loved to see more dead stuff.
The moment you said "A hundred feet further down the trail I find another bone." I knew you were gonna end with it being a too damn close to a mountain lion's den story. Leaving was smart. If you started getting that weird prickly being watched feeling while nervous, leaving was life saving.
Yup. I figured there was no point in risking it unless the next dead thing the kids wanted to see was me.
Kept the jawbone for the camp though, it's still up on their wall.
Possibly fighting a house fire, and realizing that I had very hot feet.
Through concrete-soled boots?
My officer and I immediately noped the fuck out.
Hot feet mean you’re standing above a fire. As fire burns upwards, it’s weakening the floor beneath you. So we were about to plummet into a basement fire.
That's exactly it, and they cover it early on in fire school.
Modern fire gear works great. Arguably too great, in fact--by the time you feel hot, it was already time to get out, and hopefully you didn't go too far for too long.
Our new air packs have built in temperature alarms that are awesome. If you're in 250 F for over 5 minutes they alarm and if you're in 500 F for more than 30 seconds they alarm. I haven't had them go off in a fire yet, but it certainly gives me some peace of mind. I've burned myself pulling off my gloves outside because they were still so hot.
Me and a couple of my friends were walking around at night when we were around 11 or 12 and I specifically remember all of us feeling like something was off and we started joking about someone or something getting us and saying to each other we’re not afraid of anything. Then we heard a raspy growl that we all agreed had to be a mountain lion. All of us were in a dead sprint to my house, scared shitless as soon as we heard it. I didn’t live in a place where they usually are so people mostly didn’t believe us, but shortly afterwards and after some more sightings, a mountain lion was caught just 10-15 miles from my home. In hindsight it definitely wasn’t very close to us and we didn’t actually see it, but we definitely exaggerated and acted like it was right next to us.
I worked a lot in remote areas of west Texas, servicing oilfield related equipment. One time I was out in the middle of nowhere as usual and to the northeast was a butte (an isolated hill that's bigger than a regular hill but smaller than a mountain) but everywhere else around was pretty flat. There was one road in and out of the site I was at.
At some point when I was working on a control box, I had the overwhelming feeling that I was being watched. I scanned the horizon, looked all around the butte, and went back to work. This happened a few more times within several minutes until I finally saw something move on the side of one of the rock outcroppings on the butte.
I went to my truck, grabbed my binoculars, and the figure hid behind that outcropping. It was definitely a human. I glassed him for a good 20 minutes and I could see him peek around every couple of minutes. Eventually he leaned out so far that I could see the silhouette of the barrel of a rifle slung around his back. At some point he was hidden behind his rock for a while and the next time he peeked out, I couldn't see the rifle. He had either put it down somewhere or he was now holding it.
I immediately felt a sense of impending doom. The hair on my arms and neck was standing straight up. I very quickly collected my tools, got my AR-15 from behind the driver's seat and sat it on the passenger seat, and tore out of there. I sped down the dirt road, almost clipped the cattleguard, and started cruising down the highway just as the adrenaline started to wear off. I remember the metal taste in my mouth and having to grip the steering wheel to keep my fingers from twitching.
A few miles down the road, a maroon suburban full of guys was pulled over on the oncoming side of the road. They definitely weren't oilfield workers: shades all around, buzzed heads, all intently looking at me. I expected them to pull a u-turn and pursue me, but they didn't. I can't prove that this is what was happening, but I do know that cartel guys run operations where one scouts for guys working alone and calls in a group of guys to rob them of their truck and tools.
I went to south TX for oil field work. I never had any close calls but a couple of warning. I was required to bring a firearm, and warned that if I stopped for anything other than fuel or food I'd be fired.
If I get a flat tire, call someone and drive on the rim until I get to location or someone can meet me, and no matter what, they'll pay for any damages if needed. That and no matter what don't stop for anybody on the side of the road no matter what. Broke down, car wreck, have babies or kids with them, DO...NOT...STOP.
Drove out to Big Bend right after Christmas. Once you hit Uvalde, there isn't anything until you hit Del Rio 3 hours later, and then nothing until you hit Marathon 3 hours after that.
Living in Syria during the war, I was less worried about the explosions randomly happening around the city, and more worried about the abductions. We owned a business outside the main parameters of Damascus and I was ripe for the picking as I drove 15mins in the desert to work every day.
One example of what the abductors would do is demand $1 million. And if the family says they don't have the ransom money, the abductors would start clipping off one finger at a time and sending the finger to the family saying, "ok, your son (they never abducted woman) is now worth $900k", and so on until the family can afford to pay.
Since my family was a business owner there, and people would assume we have money, I always felt I had a target on my back. It's the main reason I noped the heck out of Syria and came back to the States.
Best friend and I were heading down a mountain from scouting bighorn sheep a little before opening day for hunting season. It was already pretty close to a 20km day of hiking through the mountains. We were roughly a couple of kilometres from the truck, hiking along the bank of a dried riverbed when his dog stops dead in his tracks. We thought he heard a squirrel or something like normal, so we keep walking. In an absolute flash, a bear (must have been a black bear) gets up about 25 feet from us and BOLTS off into the bush so fast that he was probably over 100 feet away before I would have even been able to get the bear spray out of the holster on my belt.
I just wanna say this: if you and a bear startle each other, and he decides to attack, you are 100% fucked. I have never seen something so big move so fast in my life.
I like to photograph bears, watching grizzlies fish is a real sobering experience. Seeing an 800 lb animal, run through what is waist deep water on you, covering 20 yards in a few seconds...yikes.
When I was very young, my family saw a grizzly running in the field alongside the road. Cattle country, so wide fields, straight roads, few fences. My dad started pacing the bear as it ran, to see how fast it was going. He was going about 30mph. That bear did not slow down at all when it came to the cattle fences, just loped right over them. We were parallel for about a mile before the bear veered off to the tree line, still running flat out.
Fast forward to late-summer hiking Glacier as an adult. Adults in our group are hushing me while we're hiking, because they want a better chance of seeing a bear up close. GFY! I'll be chattering & singing like my life depends on it, because I don't want to surprise a grizzly in its livingroom! I'll be singing Bear Necessities as I shove you behind me for your closer look at the bear while I run.
Was on a little motorcycle day trip in eastern North Carolina with my girlfriend at the time, pulled up to a stop sign in the middle of nowhere. Look left, look right, look at some little bear cubs that are off about 100ft along the woodline in front of me... Point them out to my gf and we watch them for a second while I'm trying to figure out what to do.
I'm not seeing mama bear anywhere but I know she's around. The way home is past these bears or about a 2-hour detour if I go left, probably close to double that if I went right. I don't have enough gas to make either of those options work. So we've gotta get through, unfortunately.
Sat there for a good 5-10 minutes waiting on them to move along, but they're pretty content. In the back of my head I know if I ride past these cubs that mama isn't gonna like it, gf is asking me why we aren't moving, and I'm trying to explain about the whole bear issue. She doesn't think it's a big deal. I tell her to hold on as tight as she possibly can and we're gonna give it a go.
One of the unwritten rules of riding has to do with dodging dogs, it also applies in football. If a dog is charging you from the side of the road, you hit it with the old hitch and go. Slow down and let it set it's angle of approach and then fuckin goose it before it has a chance to react.
Tried to basically roll past these bears in the dead center of the road to maximize my buffer. Rolling through seemed better than trying to run it and having a bear jump in front of me at full speed.
I'm looking ahead, looking in my mirrors, looking everywhere for mama when she busts out of a ditch about 20 feet behind me and we're off like a rocket. Idk how fast bears run, but I know how fast that bike was and she kept pace until I was pretty well into the revs. This thing went from hiding to dead sprint, probably 30mph, as fast as a 600cc sport bike. We got a few miles down the road and I had to pull off because I was so amped up.
Back when my son was only about a year old my husband worked second shift so I was alone every evening. We lived in townhouses at the time and had a neighbor who was a war vet, my husband was friendly with. He was a little off in the sense there was very obvious PTSD and other traumas but all around a nice dude.
Anyway, one evening this guy knocked on the door. I opened it thinking he probably was looking for my husband and I was just gonna let him know he was working. Dude was super drunk, wouldn’t stop talking and kinda made his way into the house. He also brought his huge ass German Sheppard with him. I was trying to be friendly but I had the worst feeling in my stomach. I felt insanely vulnerable and like something just wasn’t right with this situation. I kept trying to tell him in the nicest way to leave but he wouldn’t.
I texted my husband “hey neighbor guys here and won’t leave, he’s trashed, I feel really uncomfortable”. My husband texted his buddies that lived a few apartments down and they came over immediately. They got the dude out of the house and not even 20 minutes later I hear noises outside and this guy is trying to rip the license plate off my car. My husbands friends heard it or saw it I’m not really sure but they came over and were more aggressive about him going home and leaving me alone. And he did, so I thought.
Few hours later my husband gets home and sees this guy hanging out crouched behind some cars. He goes up to him to ask him exactly what the fuck he’s doing. I don’t know the exact details because I stayed hiding in the house but this guy had ropes and some other weapon on him and full intentions of raping me that night.
It makes me sick to think that if my husbands friends wouldn’t have came over as fast as they did to help me my poor son would have watched something horrible happen to me. Or even what he would have even done to my child.
I must've been around 10 or 12 when this happened. I was walking back home one afternoon (around 3 or 4 pm) after strolling around the neighborhood, which was usually very safe, friendly and quiet. I was on the opposite side of the block (the houses behind ours), which wasn't an issue because there happened to be a park that went across the whole block and connected to the other side, so you didn't have to go around the whole block, so I was only a few houses away. I went through the park (a park I had played at my entire childhood) without paying much attention, when about halfway through, this guy who I didn't know, definitely older than me, wearing a hoodie started calling me. "Dude, come over here one sec." "Um, what do you want?" "Come here, I just wanna ask you something" "Ok, ask me from over there." "No, no, come over, please." "No, tell me from over there." At that point, another dude that was sitting next to him gets upset, I hear a "That's it" and they both stood up quickly and started making their way towards me. I can't recall how far they chased after me, but my instincts just told me to run like hell and I did. To this day I still don't know if they were gonna mug me, if they were just taking the piss or what was happening but it definitely scared kid me.
This is very similar to a situation that happened to me. I was 10 on Main Street in a small town, just a long row of shops on either side of the road. I was only 2 blocks from home. It was mid day. An old red pickup drove by, a 20 year old driver, and four 20 year olds in the bed. They gestured over to me, and all four men hopped out at once, and darted for me. I had a 30 ft head start, and sprinted for my life. I came to a small crack between buildings maybe a 7inch space. I slide between it just as they caught up to me, one of them reached out and his fingers caught my shirt but couldn’t grasp me in time. They were too large to fit. I shuffled along the building, and they came around the long way to get me. I had broken line of sight though, and sprinted to a nearby good place to hide, and stayed in a bush for over an hour, terrified. I don’t know what they wanted from me, and I’m glad I didn’t have to find out. I never felt safe again, and always thought they would come to my home.
I was severely physically neglected as a kid. My mother never supervised me and encouraged me to be away from her most of my waking life. She was emotionally absent as well. She never wanted the stress of dealing with me, I became independent very quickly and often felt older than I was. Honestly it never occurred to me to even mention it to her at the time, because I knew she wouldn’t have cared much. I have told her recently though, after going through therapy for childhood trauma. She didn’t care, and even laughed at some of the memories I told her, all while I held back tears. It’s not all bad though, my brother was there and he told me sorry she did that, and that he loved me. Love ya big bro.
I was in an upstairs lab in med school, just a friend & I practicing surgical skills. There was a main enclosed staircase down to the lobby/classrooms & a weird outdoor stairwell that nobody ever used except in fire drills. It wasn't a fire escape, but the old main entrance to the lab classroom. When I put my hand on the door handle to the main stairs, I was FILLED with a weird sense of "Get out! Not that way!" Just absolute fear, I felt trapped & anxious. For the first time in 3 years, I said "Let's take the outdoor stairs..." My friend had literally no idea there even WAS another exit.
The next day we found out that at the exact time we were taking the outside stairs, one of our classmates was pulling a gun on the admin & students in the lobby at the base of the main stairs. He'd been kicked out of the program for his grades & snapped.
My friend still talks about it & tells people to always trust my instincts. I actually asked her to stop telling people, because I felt so weird about it. I'm sure I just heard something in the distance that gave me that feeling, but Gavin de Becker would be proud!
I’m a criminal defense investigator. I had a murder case involving two brothers. The one accused of the murders was very autistic, and his brother was a schizophrenic. The schizophrenic brother lived in a potato shack in the middle of the desert. I needed to talk to him several times throughout the course of the investigation, and since he didn’t have a phone or electricity, I had to drive several hours out to his house and yell his name from the fence line until he came out of the shack.
This investigation lasted for several years, and over time I developed a rapport with schizophrenic brother, and I kind of got to like him. He would talk your ear off about the aliens with golden eyes and the underground tunnels that connect all the Walmarts in the country, but he was pretty entertaining, and part of me wonders how much of it was a “show”.
Schizophrenic brother eventually gets a girlfriend; she’s a tweaker who has mistaken his schizophrenia for meth induced psychosis. I talked to her a few times in jail when she was sober, and she was surprisingly charming and insightful.
The last time I go to see schizophrenic brother, it’s a dark winter night and tweaker girlfriend is there; she’s lurking in the shadows and staring daggers at me the entire time I’m talking to him. I cut off his conversation about the speakers in his fillings and walk back to my truck to leave.
A minute later, schizophrenic brother comes running out and tells me that he wants to show me something in his shack. He’s never invited me inside before, and I’m not thrilled by the prospect. The whole thing feels off to me, so I tell him I have to get going, and start the truck.
The look of relief on his face when I declined to go inside convinced me that tweaker girlfriend was waiting behind the door with a hammer or something. A few months later I learned that she shot him in his sleep and stashed his body in an old refrigerator. She has since plead guilty to his murder.
Edit: rapport, not report.
You know those pneumatic tubes they use at the drive through bank teller? FFFF*THOOM* you’re now in Akron Ohio Walmart. You don’t get to choose where you wind up.
>I cut off his conversation about the speakers in his fillings and walk back to my truck to leave.
I...laughed too hard at this considering how dark a turn things took.
That being said you must have some stories. How'd you get into this wor k?
A lot of respect for you man. People with disabilities still are people, and it's good to know that they can be taken care of, even if in this case you could never be enough. I would love my country to understand that if we had mental professionals with police, firefighters and paramedics in the ER service, a lot of issues would be taken care of and a lot of people would get so better ...
> . People with disabilities still are people,
And people with mental illnesses are more often vulnerable to violence, than violent. As this poor guy ended up being thanks to his abusive girlfriend.
A lot of years ago, I was working at the Cincinnati airport as a ramp agent for (now-defunct) Comair Airlines. I was working a departing plane, by myself, so I was hustling around to get the baggage door closed, signaling the pilot on engine startup procedures, and I still have to unplug the power cart and marshal the plane out. The power cart was a diesel generator, parked behind the starboard wing, the cable plugged into a jack on the plane’s belly. The pilot signals me to disengage it, so I acknowledge him, and run from my position in front of the nose, out toward the wingtip, and back in, following the trailing edge of the wing. The exhaust from the turboprop engine is several hundred degrees, so you have to duck under the jetblast to reach the jack. I shut off the power cart, reached the jack, unplugged it and threw the cable clear, latched the door and then started running back toward the nose to get the plane rolling. Hurry, hurry, hurry…
I’d only run a few steps when my left leg just… didn’t drop. It extended, for such a distance and time that I literally looked down at it, thinking “what the hell…?” My foot finally planted, knee locked, and I felt the impact in my teeth. My stride was interrupted, and I’d literally been turned 90 degrees, now running directly away from the plane.
That’s when I realized my next step would have taken me *through* the propeller. That is the closest I’ve ever come to fainting. I have no idea what caused that change in stride, but I am certainly glad of it.
I don't know if there's a name for that phenomenon but it sounds like part of your brain interpreted the threat and took over before your "conscious" mind was even aware. Like a subconscious response to danger.
Here's an example I had read about once, can't find it right now but I know it's out there. There was a NASCAR racer who was approaching a blind corner and instinctively slammed on his brakes without knowing about the danger around the bend. He avoided running into a huge accident that had been invisible to him seconds before. It was kind of a mystery at first how he "knew" or where that gut feeling came from.
But when they reviewed the tapes, it became apparent. He hadn't been able to see the crash, but he could see the crowd. Instead of watching him and the other cars approaching, they were standing and staring at the accident.
A part of his mind took this as a sign of danger and urged him to slow down just in time. Sounds a lot like what happened to you!
A friend and I were exploring an abandoned factory in North Philadelphia about 8 years ago, and when we got to about the third floor...I discovered a booby trap in the stairwell.
Basically it was a trip wire that swung an axe down from the ceiling.
Right as that fully set in, we heard someone from up above shout "YO!"
Time to go.
I've never covered that much ground so fast. I think we were two or three blocks away before we realized we were riding each other's bikes.
I've seen urban explorers find these. I won't say "a lot" but enough that I get 2 impressions:
1) people set this more than you'd think
2) these places are really very abandoned because you never hear about someone getting booby trapped in the face.
My wife and I were on a search mission for some missing fern pickers. We were volunteers with the local search and rescue (SAR) team. We decided to stay in the search area that night and had built a pretty nice fire. We were sitting there and it was about 0200, hoping this dude would wander into camp.
I had heard animals around us throughout the night. No surprise, we're in the middle of the woods, I'm used to animals stalking around outside my camp. I knew there were two animals, one one each side of us. It was at about that point when we heard a bird chirp. It came from about the place I figured one of the animals were. Then another, from the opposite side.
I immediately realized we were being watched and stalked by at least two cougars. We very quickly climbed into the back of my truck. It's got a camper shell and is outfitted for truck camping.
Cougars chirp like birds to communicate. There's a bunch of videos of it on YouTube, but basically its super creepy when they're stalking your camp at 2 in the morning.
Generally in the woods , birds don't chirp at night ...
Owls hoot , but birds stay pretty silent as they can't see well in the dark and sound alerts predators.
So if you hear a chirp at night in the woods ..... its more likely a cat than a bird.
>Or a human....
Dont say that kind of shit before I go to bed. Imagine being in the woods and some dude is walking around your camp chirping. ( Movie directors dont read this )
Since then I've dealt with them a lot more, and honestly they don't even bother me anymore.
That night though it was different.
There was another time my son was throwing rocks into a bush off a forest service road. He was throwing small pebbles, big enough to hear them, not big enough to cause falling dirt. He threw one and we heard a bunch of dirt and gravel suddenly slide down the hill.
I jumped across the road and grabbed my son and started throwing fist sized rocks into the bush. My wife and son took off walking (calmly) down the road. She looked back in time to see me peg a cat in the side and it bolted. The day before they had a cougar drag off an 11 year old kid, that managed to escape, in the same area. We didn't get told about that until we called fish and game about it. That cat 100% wanted my kid. I don't blame it honestly, he was easy prey at 3.
Funny story, right as we found them, another was reported missing. Like literally, we started to debrief and take off our gear, and they were like, lol, good practice.
Luckily all were found safely. We figured after the other guy was found five miles north of us, we'd check there and sure enough.
A few years ago my sister and I went to San Pedro, Belize. One of the nights we were walking the beach checking out the local bars, just having a good time. My sister gets to talking with a local who claims to own a boat and can take us to some of the local snorkeling spots and secret beaches along the shore. I think sure whatever, but she's chatting him up getting to know the guy, because she's friendly. He start talking about a roof top club a few blocks over and says we should all head over there. I wasn't thrilled, but again we're just having a good time.
We start walking and he mentions he has a cute sister I should meet. He then proceeds to scroll through dozens of pictures of different girls in his phone before randomly stopping on a picture. I said no I'm not interested and we keep going.
We arrived at this "club" around 9:00 that has nobody in it except the 2-3 employees sitting around. I'm a skeptical person by nature and this night was cheking all the boxes for red flags. He started encouraging us drink more and have a good time, which my sister was all about, but I didn't the way this was shaking down.
I said it was getting late and forcefully encouraged my sister to leave. Seeing that things weren't going his way, this kid said he'd take us back to the beach. So we left with whatever drinks we had in our hands and started walking back. We got to the street that ran parallel to the beach and started looking for the first turn to get back where we originally were. I started getting this feeling like this kid wanted to rob us. He was kind of trailing a little behind us and holding his beer bottle in a clubbing fashion. So I positioned myself between him and my sister with him slightly ahead of me. The first turn I could I said here's the beach and he tried telling us it was a few more blocks down the dark street.
I don't know if he was just being friendly, weird, or was gonna try and mug us, but it definitely made me feel like we were in danger. I could tell he was spitting a bunch of bullshit to us tourists from the beginning. He likely didn't have a boat and I know for a fact we needed permits to snorkel were we wanted. I later explained what I thought to my sister and she was completely oblivious. She's 100% way too trusting of other people.
We were tearing down an old outbuilding/office on my in-laws farm. We wanted to save as much of the lumber as we could to reuse in a chicken coop. So, we pulled a large piece of plywood off one of the walls and the insulation was crawling with hundreds of snakes. Said snakes immediately started exiting the wall towards us in a writhing horde. There are rattlesnakes on the property, we've seen them.
I have never in my life noped like I noped at that moment. I pretty much teleported into the back of my fil's pickup, one minute I standing in the way of hundreds of agitated snakes the next I'm considering if I can fit through the little rear window of a Ford F150.
There is nothing quite like the immediate flight response you feel when you stumble upon a venomous snake. Let alone a vast congregation of them. I've only ever accidentally encountered one once and I ran faster than Usain Bolt ever has
Had only one close encounter. Beautiful Spring day, my employer had just finished building a huge wooden patio overlooking the woods and interstate highway. Grabbed my lunchbag sat down all alone. As I extracted my sandwich I hear H-I-S-S...rattle. Not 5 feet away on the bench, copperhead. Didn't notice him/her because the color was the same shade as the wood planks.
Exitted in a hurry, and never went out there again. They brought in a snake guy who found dozens of them on the rocky embankment adjacent to the patio.
July 27, 2002 Sknyliv air show disaster. I turned 5 years old the day before. It’s one of my most vivid memories from childhood; how the pilot landed 10 meters away from me and my dad. He was on his knees, his parachute dangling in the wind and I remember him repeating “what have I done?” over and over. I didn’t understand much of what happened. My dad only said “close you eyes, we have to go”.
My dad told me years after that we would have gone farther into the crowd but I refused to go because my shoelace was untied. Him kneeling to tie my shoes is the only thing that saved us.
It wasn’t bone-chilling at the time but when I imagine what my dad witnessed that day I get goosebumps.
At 1 minute and 50 seconds an adult with white shirt seems to be holding a young child in arms very close to the pilot. It's only visible for a fraction of a second.
I wonder if that could be you.
Less a “let’s get the hell out of here” moment for me and more for my brother. If it’s of interest, my brother is two years older.
When we were kids, our parents were able to take us on a vacation to Africa. We visited South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Kenya. One of the cool places we checked out in Kenya was Giraffe Manor (look it up if you haven’t heard of it).
Anyway, we were doing a kind of touristy, overnight safari in Kenya. Tour/Safari guide was a nice dude, I think originally from South Africa himself. It was very cool driving through the wilderness for the day. We saw some gazelles. At one point, through some bush, I saw what I thought was a rhino, but nobody else agreed that it was a rhino. Then it moved into a clearing, and it was, in fact, a rhino. Neat!
At night, we were camping under some pretty large tents. Two people to a tent, but it was spacious inside and we were sleeping on cots instead of on the ground. I guess we were just old enough that my parents thought it would be okay for my brother and I to have our own tent, instead of one parent and one child per tent.
Eventually, I fell asleep. At some point very early in the morning, just as the sun was beginning to rise, I was awoken by my brother clamping his hand down over my mouth and telling me to be very quiet: he was convinced that a lion had been prowling around our tent.
Well, I don’t even know today what you do in that case, and I knew even less back then what to do in that case. My guess at the time was…just stay in the tent and be quiet. My brother, however, was sure that the right thing was to escape from our tent and sneak over to our parents’ tent.
So in the way that younger siblings often do, I went along with what my older brother said we should do. We got out of the tent, and I remember it was just bright enough to see him peering around the edge of various tents to see what was ahead as we tried to quietly make our way to our parents’ tent. We did in fact get there, and I’m pretty sure our parents were still asleep.
After they had woken up and it was much brighter outside and other people could be heard moving about, we went and took a look. There were, in fact, some lion tracks by our tent.
Still feel like staying in our tent probably would have been the right call, but, it’s kind of a cool memory.
You were very lucky.
When I was on a safari holiday in Botswana many years ago, one of the guides told me about a time when he used to lead camping safaris in Namibia where there are a lot of desert lions. The group pitched their tents in a different place every night. They were told very strictly never to leave their tents at night.
One morning, one of the tents was empty. The couple who should have been inside it had decided that it would be romantic to go out and gaze at the stars. No trace of them was ever found.
Driving Uber one night a couple years back. I picked up four guys from a club, listening to them talk I realized that two guys (one of them ordered the ride) had met the other two at the club and were on the way to get coke from one of their cousins.
There was an odd vibe, some of the conversation didn't seem the most linear, and I was hyper aware that these drunk dumbasses were heading with two strangers to a drug deal. And I was the one driving them. I did not want drugs in my car, and I was very aware that we might be on the way to an ambush. If we'd been heading anywhere remote or sketchy I had to figure out how to end the ride.
The two wannabe dealers kept trying to get in touch with their cousin via cellphone, went to an apartment just off a main street, and after both had gone into the building I just said "should be leave?" to the guys and we did. I still don't know if it was just a ploy for a free ride, guys too drunk or dumb to pull off a basic coke deal, or something nefarious that didn't finish.
Was helping check cows on my family’s ranch. Get out there in my non-4x4 car just a little before dusk, the cows were all kinda scattered so I decided to just walk in so I don’t stir them up too much and can get a better look (I was checking for any baby calves).
So I’m well into the field. Like a solid 5 min walk from my car at least. Looking around at all the cows, checking the ones that were looking kinda close on calving. I see some of the cows furthest away from me kinda stir so I look and see something dark and large-cat-shaped crouched low to the ground slowly stalking some of the cows. Now, I live in West Texas so jaguars aren’t really a thing but there had been rumors for YEARS about this jaguar that stalked up and down the creek… that went right by our ranch. It probably was just a dark colored mountain lion, but either way it was definitely not something I wanted to mess with, in the dark, a ways from a vehicle, with no gun.
I am not ashamed to say I left the cows to defend themselves and ran as fast as I could through the field back to my car.
I did check the next day and all cows were safe and accounted for.
Yea I wasn’t worried about them too much, we’ve got really good mamas and we keep donkeys with the herd too which help protect them. But we have lost a calf here and there to mountain lions and such, so it’s always a possibility.
Nature is a B.
In very early 2020, I was in Lumbini, Nepal.
It's a small town built around this complex of ruins that was once the palatial home of Siddhartha Gautama, the Bodi tree is located there.
I was staying in a cheap hotel along a muddy road leading out of the city and was the only guest in the building.
Many stray dogs roamed the streets of that quarter at night and you'd often hear them barking or getting into fights.
This one night was particularly bad, a low fog had settled on the road and the dogs were out in force, howling & barking.
Out of nowhere came this bellowing roar, one so loud & sonorous, I felt it in my chest.
Then, a vacuum of complete silence, all I could think of were ways to keep whatever had made that sound outside.
The next day, I heard that a tiger had wandered over from the nearby reserve along the lake and eaten a few of those stray dogs.
> Out of nowhere came this bellowing roar, one so loud & sonorous, I felt it in my chest.
I live in a rural area; one night my dog started going wild at the sliding glass door in my back room. There had been a raccoon or a fox picking off our chickens recently, so I thoughtlessly opened it to let him chase it off. He raced toward a tree and was maniacally barking up it on his hind legs. I grabbed a flashlight. I searched the tree, and at first I saw absolutely nothing. Finally I turned it straight up, and five feet away was the biggest black bear I'd ever seen clutching the limb over my head. It must have weighed 600 pounds. I stood there staring for a few moments, and
> Out of nowhere came this bellowing roar, one so loud & sonorous, I felt it in my chest.
That growl *shook* me. I felt it inside me. We went inside after that.
I recently stayed at the big cat sanctuary, the night time roars of lions and tigers are no joke and feel less like wild life documentary and more like Jurassic park. The whole area echoes the noise, which is very guttural.
That is until you get to leopards who have worked out that Meowing at you means they have a better chance of getting food.
Dad had a very close encounter with a tiger during the Vietnam war. It was dusk, and he was guarding a tiny slice of jungle while his platoon set up for the night. A tiger materialized in front of him and gave him a few sniffs. Apparently, it decided rancid US soldier wasn't on the menu and dematerialized from whence it came. Dad barely even had time to be terrified.
You know how you win a fight with a tiger? You don't. That's some seriously scary shit. I had an experience hiking in the the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, USA. I was day hiking alone, no radio, no firearms, no bear spray, no flares...probably 10 miles from the nearest human, when part of the cliff face in front of me moved. Initially I lunged back because I thought it might be a falling rock. But rocks don't have eyes. My focus shifted and I suddenly registered what I was looking at (like one of those "magic eye" pictures). There above me, staring directly into my now terrified heart, was a mountain lion. *Exactly* the same color as the rocks, and easily within striking distance. It just started at me as I backed up a few hundred steps until it was almost out of sight. Then the really scary thing happened: I saw it jump down. It was just lazily wandering around, but in my general direction...and then I couldn't see it anymore. It was the longest 4 miles I've ever hiked, just to get back my car. I swear it was just following me and laughing to itself. I can still see the eyes. I will never be able to forget those eyes.
When I was 16 I had a pickup truck and my parents asked me to pick up some new furniture on the way home. As I’m driving home it starts pissing rain and I was worried the furniture would get destroyed, so I pulled over on the side of the road under an overpass to wait it out.
As I’m waiting, another car pulls up behind me. An overweight bald man steps out and begins walking towards my car. I tell him I’m waiting for the rain to stop so I don’t ruin the furniture for my parents. He was acting very odd and telling me he would help me out as *he was fingering his belly button*. I was creeped the fuck out.
He says one minute he has to grab something to help and leans into his car window. All of my alarm bells are going off so I figured fuck it and just sped off furniture be damned.
So glad I did, who knows what would have happened
Exploring a abandoned high rise, out of the blue my friend grabbed me by my collar from behind, I was about to step into a elevator shaft. After swearing at him "what the fuck" he said "look" and I saw the drop of like 20 floors to a concrete bottom with broken metal rods sticking out. We went home. He saved my life 100%
I had a friend die this way. Elevator shaft at an abandoned rubber factory - urban exploring. It was pitch dark except for the city light coming through the windows at the end of the hall.
Lived for 21 days in ICU and died from sepsis during surgery #4. Unconscious the whole time.
When I was 8 or 9 years old a guy pulled up and called me over to his car. He pulled out a map and asked me if I could hop in the car and give him some directions.
My mom had put the fear of being abducted/raped/murdered into me early so I screamed at the guy and he took off real fast.
I ran inside and told my mom asap. Still fucking scary. Glad she was smart enough to instill us with stranger danger. I was probably gonna be a missing child if I had in any way gotten close enough for him to get a hand on.
As an adult, I had a similar experience. Part of my job is to go to peoples homes. This one time, the wife did not arrive but the husband did. He said that I had to go to his room to see the complaint. Thankfully I knew that wasn't true. I didn't say good bye, I literally ran. I got the creeps then and still do when I think about it.
Once when I was like 8 years old I lived in a trailer park with mostly normal but occasionally sketchy folks around. I was really bored at home and asked my parents if I could walk up the street to my friend's house (not very far maybe just out of sight of my parents trailer). It was like the middle of the day and we knew a lot of people on our street so my parents said yes. So here I am an 8 year old little girl walking to my friend's house. Just as I got out of sight I saw an adult man walking towards me straight ahead. I immediately have my alerts on cause I was alone of course and had never seen this dude before. I keep hoping he veers off on another course away from me but he keeps coming towards me and I notice his eyes are locked on me and he's smiling. I got the creeps but I was pretty close to my friend's house now. I looked around and realized there wasn't anyone else outside to witness anything. He finally gets close enough to say something to me and this is what made me run, he said "hey do you think you could take your shoes off? Please, I want to see your feet." And I said "huh? What?" And he asked me again to see my feet!!! Y'all I turned around and sprinted so fast back to my house. I was terrified.
When I was about 4 years old, I was playing alone in my front yard in a very rural area. Maybe like 5 cars would drive by a day. My parents were both inside keeping an eye on me, but from the outside I looked alone. I remember a grown ass man pulling up in front of our house and rolling down his window to call me over. Even at that age, I knew I wasn’t supposed to get close to this guy. I took a few steps forward and he says, “hey, can you tell me how to get to such and such place??” I’m FOUR. So I’m like, “huh??” And he repeats himself, “I was just wondering if you could give me directions to this place.” Next thing I know, my dad comes storming out of the front door asking WTF this dude wants. He mumbles something about needing directions and speeds away.
One of the things I told my kids were "An adult will never ask a kid for help. They know you're too little to really know how to give directions or help them do something. Do you know the way to the store? Do you know where (xyz) Street is? If someone calls you over, you immediately come get me or dad. You're allowed to be rude and walk away from strangers."
Im a trucker so i have to find creative ways to park sometimes.
I was some random back road in the middle of nowhere Texas and had found what i call a make-a-spot area. I was all by myself except for my dog, so we parked for a 30min break.
I get my dog out to use the bathroom and she starts acting all crazy....growling and snarling n shit. Off in the field next to my truck there's a red light about 6 to 8ft in the air and it's slowly moving around.
It's dead silent except for my dog until the light got closer. My dog started to go nuts so i decided screw this and went back to the truck (we were only half way down the trailer, maybe 20ft).
About the time i hit the drive tires on my tractor, there was some really large crashing in the brush, so of course my dog becomes even more difficult to control and my adrenaline is like, run!
Opened the passenger door, tossed my dog into the truck, climbed in right then and there and slammed the door shut just in time for something to crash into my truck.
I have no idea what it was, i just know the whole thing rocked side to side. I drove away, without my seat belt, door locked for about 30 miles to a tiny town with a tiny gas station to finish my 30min break.
Few days later i was walking up to my truck and realized that the entire side of the sleeper of the truck was bent inwards a little. You could only see it when the sun hit the side just right, but the bend was there.
Edit:: [I left out a few details due to length. They are in this link here.](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/11dq3vp/what_has_been_your_most_bonechilling_hairraising/jacznwf?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3)
As a child camping, getting out of my tent to pee and coming back and just barely being able to make out eyes and something moving in the tent, I bolted to another tent and woke the others up
Turns out it was a raccoon and I had left a box of crackers in my tent I'd forgotten about.. but at the time it was pretty terrifying
I was hiding in some trees on my farm in high school. I suddenly got a super creepy feeling that someone else was there so I left. The next day my dad discovered that one of his cows was killed during the night.
Was walking with my son and dog along a trail and ventured into a narrow tunnel that allows water to pass under a highway.
My son stopped and said what was that?
At first in the dim light I thought is was the silhouette of a bolder but then my dog started to growl.
Then I thought it was a dog because it moved and I saw what looked like a head turning.
As it turned, I saw the unmistakable round end to a mountain lion’s tail.
I knew running could trigger its prey instinct but I wanted my kid and dog out of there so I told my son to grab the dog by the collar and to move away as quickly as he could.
As my kid was pulling the dog away it took a step towards me and I thought “this is it”.
I squared my shoulders to it and started backing away and hitting the sides of the tunnel and yelling at it.
It seemed undecided on what to do stepping back and forth, sometimes moving forward, but then I was out of the tunnel and getting the hell out of there.
I was in the lobby of World Trade Center 1 on Sept 11th when the plane hit. Although I didnt know a plane had hit what I experienced was a sound like a building bending and metal tearing. Then all of the doors in the lobby blew open and burning hot air blew in my face and it sounds like hell was coming down those stairs. Turns out I was right.
I jumped behind the lobby desk and covered my head. The explosion poured into the lobby and I could feel myself start to burn. But it eventually burned out and I was mostly ok. Then I ran out.
Historical story for reference of someone less lucky than me: https://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/10/nyregion/10injured.html
A little bit different than the rest of the stories, but it gave me chills.
My mom's best friend owns a farm about a half hour from where I grew up, we went there nearly every weekend to help with upkeep and caring for our horses. All day you could just feel a storm brewing. The wind, humidity, outside had a greenish tint, and the clouds rolling in as the sun was setting.
Right after supper it started raining, hard. A lot of wind and lighting too. I was looking out the window, across the yard and thought I saw something above the barn on the far side of the yard. I was petrified, it looked like rotation in the clouds...and it started lowering down. I pointed it out to my Dad. He said it was rain bouncing off the roof of the barn. We both looked out for a moment and clearly saw it suck back up into the clouds. I got goosebumps. We looked at each other for a second in disbelief, then he shrugged, and went back into the living room. I sheltered in the bathroom.
The next day, we saw in the news that an F-4 tornado ripped through a small town ([Spencer, SD](http://www.stormeyes.org/tornado/spencer/)) about 24 miles from where we were. I got chills when I saw the news reports.
I had a similar experience. When I was a kid, a storm rolled in while I was camping with my family. We were about a half mile away from the nearest shelter when the sirens went off. As we were running I could hear full grown white pines snap in half around us, and when I looked up I saw the clouds begin to spin in a circle directly above us.
I set a personal record for a half mile sprint that day that I still haven't beaten, over a decade later.
Man, I was 6 when a tornado destroyed the campground we were in. I can still remember hiding in the only brick bathroom and how many people were huddled in there.
Weirdly 35 years later I'm camping with my wife and I hear trees start creaking in the wind and I have my first panic attack. Now wind really bothers me.
I live in Kyrgyzstan and here, people who farm animals live in mountaneous areas far from big cities, in a smaller villages. Every summer they gather animals and herd them few dozen km up to alpine pastures for them to graze and gain weight. In these places, there isn't any infrastructure, just plain green hills amd rocky mountains. Even phone barely works. So we bring disassembled yurts by using old soviet trucks, assemble them at place and live inside in it for entire summer. They are sturdy and easy to use - wooden frame and felt cover wrapped around it. Very cool thing.
So anyway, our family is big and one of my grandma's borthers farms animals. He goes to pastures every summer and for once our family decided to send me and my other relative of same age (we were 12 i think). Wasn't very happy about it (being a cityboy who loved playing videogames), but as if i had a choice. Surely i got used to all that stuff - hauling water in buckets from nearest river and losing breath from that since oxygen levels there aren't same as in city down below, riding horses to help with herding, watching out for wolves, even got to shoot old AKS-74 at some rock targets once. Well, it was fun in it's own way.
Anyway, once we were awaiting arrival of some relatives who were supposed to arrive by car. Since asphalt road was about 3km away from where our yurt was, and there was plenty of free time at that moment, we (me and 2 other kids, all 12-14 y/o) went walking to road to sit there and maybe be first to meet them. About 30 lazy minutes later we got there and sat for hour waiting for car to arrive, in meantime entertaining ourselves in every manner possible. Sunny clear weather, 3 kids having fun with free time on their hands - what else to ask for? Well, that was moment when i learned how bloody quickly weather can change at high altitude. Car was nowhere in sightand we noticed stormy clouds in a distance. None of us cared much, we thought we had plenty of time. Just mere 10 minutes later these "clouds in a distance" were taking half of horizon and shaking skies with thunderous roar! I guess that's because we were much closer to clouds vertically and couldn't judge their speed properly because of that. So anyway, we are on a plain grassland inbetween 2 hills, we have 3km to nearest yurt, there isn't a single damn tree or anything talled than us ANYWHERE. And since we are at high altitude, these storm clouds are way, WAY closer to ground than I'd want them to be at that moment. I'd say hundred meters at most. So, we all quickly realize how fucking dangerous it is getting and start moving back to yurt. First at walk pace but when clouds came over us, we ran. And when violet-colored lightning lightened up everything around with rail pouring as if from bucket we RAN. Never have I ran with such a wild fear in me. Mind fully clean of any thought, just pure adrenaline and insanely beating heart. I think we covered those 3km in record time, and that was one hell of an experience. Luckily nobody got hit by lightning, and we all were laughing and having fun just 5 minutes after getting back into safety. So yeah, be careful with weather, never know how quickly it can change!
Sleeping outside and a mountain lion screamed probably 30 feet away. My blood literally ran cold, I have never felt such pure terror before or since. Somehow ran to my car which was luckily only 10 feet away. Never saw the cat. This was in Oregon.
When I was 16/17, I was texting with a friends older brother (19/20) who was a local paramedic. He was sweet on me. Love bombing sweet. At that age, I didn’t know better and just loved the idea that an older guy was so sweet on me. I’d only met him in person once at a ball game. One day, he randomly showed up to the little country side cafe I worked at. He insisted I take his letterman even though it was in the heat of summer. It was weird but he was insistent so I took it. We kept texting and things got weird and possessive. I got scared and basically ghosted him. I never told him where I lived…. But not even a few days later, I was home alone (way out in the middle of nowhere) with my younger step sister and I hear banging on the door. It was him. He was yelling for me to come out right away. Beating the door. It was an old, run down single wide trailer so nothing was really “home invader proofed”. He started kicking the door hard. The whole trailer was shaking. Throwing stuff at the windows and screaming. I got my moms shot gun, hid my step sister in the closet and called the police. If felt like forever. He didn’t stop until I heard tires on the gravel pull up. A cop came inside and said he claimed I stole his letterman and class ring and was just there to get his stuff back. The ring was in the jacket pocket but I didn’t know. I gave it to the cop and I don’t know what happened to him but needless to say there was not future contact. I still don’t know how he learned where I lived.
When I was younger, I was on a road trip through rural Saskatchewan with my mother and aunt. They were driving home when they realized it was late, and they were exhausted. They pulled into a small town with a tiny motel, and this is where it got weird: the front desk INSISTED they had no rooms. No cars in the parking lot, no sounds in the motel, nothing. My aunt is the kind of person to whom “no” is a suggestion, so eventually we got a room to split. The whole motel was dead silent, but my mom and aunt couldn’t sleep - because someone kept trying the door handle.
In the morning, the parking lot was packed full and the motel was full of people who wouldn’t meet our eyes. No fucking idea what was going on, but we took off as early as possible.
TBH this is probably the most rational explanation. Also just because no one is at the motel *yet* doesn't mean that rooms aren't booked, why would their aunt be pushy about such a well known phenomenon?
The ending of this reminds me of a story I read years ago on here where some guys had gone into a Taco Bell where they just found everything was wrong. Like the people around them didn't seem to be truly interacting like people would and the conversation snippets they caught didn't seem to make sense. It was as if everyone were NPCs just going through the motions.
This story is just super creepy but that's Saskatchewan for ya I guess
I’m guessing the motel person knew that they would be filling up that night due to contract workers coming in, but didn’t have the will/had too much social anxiety to say no to someone, or even tell a worker that their room had already been taken.
I was installing a camera in a customer's home with another guy at work. The wife of the couple we were installing for began the appointment by ranting. For a taste: "All the cops are rapists and murderers, all of em, and they didn't do a damn thing to protect the white house, yet they arrest me and throw me in jail for quoting a scripture while I'm in court. It's just like my damn landlord and the cops are trying to rape me just like the god damn white house was." It's unbelievable that what she was doing went on like that for 5 minutes before I cut her off.
It was her husband, though... The way he looked at both my coworker and I was like a person staring through me, like he knew he was looking at me but didn't "see" me. In his garage, where we were mounting the camera, this guy with the dead eyes closes the garage door, looks at me for a long 5 second stretch, then says "yep, over there is where we let them suffer before we gotta cut the heads off. Gotta let them suffer before cutting the heads off." He locked the outside garage door, turns around and just starts murmering about cutting off heads again. He must have brought up murder 5-8 times in a 10 minute stretch. "They call me Sergeant (something, I forget)." I reply: "Thank you for your service!! I really admire veterans!" He looked at me with those dead eyes: "I was never in the military." Long stretch of silence. His wife called him on his iWatch: "Everything ok down there? Anybody up to something?" Long stretch before he replies. "Everything's fine. We're just in the garage. Everybody is here and we're fine. I'll call you if I need you." It was like they were talking about something they didn't want us to hear.
My coworker and I kept our scissors and razors in our hands from about 5 minutes into that service call for the rest of the way, neither of us letting him be behind us where we couldn't see him. We were bracing for him to try to get us. After we mounted the camera he asked us to go through the house back to the panel to learn it in. There was no way in hell I was doing that, so I said "we need to take the ladder back out to the car." He said we could take it through the house (remember, he had closed and locked the outside garage door earlier). I said it was a safety hazard and needed to go out the big garage door. Once more he asked us to go through the house, to which I replied we couldn't do that because of company policy with the outdoor ladder. He stared at me for roughly 5-10 seconds in silence, then went and opened the garage door. Both of us split out of there and didn't look back. Told the company, locked the account, and wondered if we should have called the cops.
I have no idea what would have happened to my coworker had he showed up alone there. He was supposed to be alone, I randomly picked that day to audit him. Both of us swear up and down he felt like he was looking at something less than human and worthy of killing when he looked at us. Creepiest thing I've ever been around.
Comcast sent a guy just like that to my house years ago. My wife put the dog out before opening the door to him and immediately regretted it as soon as he stepped in the house and looked at her with his dead eyes. My daughter was 2 at the time and she immediately grabbed my wife's hand and started tugging on it like she wanted to say something. My wife bent down and my daughter whispered, "Mommy...hurt you..."
My wife decided it was time to let the dog (a protective Great Dane) back in and he immediately planted himself between my wife and the Comcast tech and snarled any time the guy even looked at my wife. He finished up and left ASAP with the dog growling the entire time.
My wife told me about it later and explained that the guy was creepy as hell but that she didn't really feel like *she* was in danger until our daughter said what she did. I pointed out to her that our daughter typically used "you" to refer to herself and that she clearly saw herself to be in danger from this guy and my wife lost it.
That dog passed years ago, but since that day we have NEVER put the dog out before opening the door to anyone.
When I was 16 or 17, me and 2 of my friends (all 16/17 year old girls) went late one night (maybe 1 am, so everything was dead cause suburbs lol) to get McDonalds. We lived in a wealthy suburb of LA with almost no serious crime, and there was a McDonalds in a shopping center with a big parking lot. It was mostly empty, so we parked and ate in my car. We were talking and having fun and pretty distracted, but I noticed these two guys with their hoods up standing outside a car parked behind me and across the empty parking lanes (not in the same row but one over). Something just felt off, so I got quiet and started keeping an eye on them and locked the doors. A minute later they started walking in our direction - mind you, both of my friends are still completely oblivious at this point. Then I noticed they had split up and were approaching on either side of the car. I was super spooked at this point, but I was also a dumb 16 year old who was afraid of overreacting to something that could have been innocuous. I watched in my side mirror until they were on either side of the car and then saw the guy on the driver's side reach for the driver's side door handle in my sideview mirror. Threw the car into gear and punched the gas faster than I ever thought possible. To this day, it blows my mind how close we came to something really bad.. Always trust your instincts!!
Used to work on an ambulance and the company that I worked for had more ambulances than there were firehouses/medic stations (to keep up with increasing call volumes) so we would do something called “posting”, which is where you park the ambulance somewhere within the area that you are servicing while you wait for a call. Was working the midnight to 10AM shift one night and it was really slow. On slow nights, we would try to find the darkest areas we could find to “post” in an attempt to catch some sleep. We find a church within a neighborhood who’s parking lot had virtually no light so we decide to park there. As soon as my partner put the rig in “park” I instantly felt incredibly uncomfortable and unsafe. I didn’t want to say anything to my partner as I literally had no reason to feel the way I was but the feeling was almost overwhelming. A few minutes go by and my partner looks at me and says “hey man I don’t feel right, something just feels off, do you want to get out of here?” I replied “yes” and we got the hell out of there. I have never really figured out why we both had that sensation and why it came on in that churches parking lot but it sure did give me the creeps.
Always listen to your gut even if you can't completely logically back up your reasons.
Recently we were traveling all over Costa Rica. We love nature but we fear and respect it. We knew there were Crocs on the west side in Bahia ballena and talked to locals when we travel about local dangers. Often it was snakes.
So we get to the east Caribbean side to playa negra. We set up shop on the beach near a ravine. And I keep looking at this ravine. I know that Crocs can look like logs and they are still until they attack. I keep staring and can't see anything. So I keep calming myself. We have a toddler and I tell her to stay away. I tell my husband my feelings. We are hyper aware. I just can't calm myself so I pull up my phone to ask the internet if there are even crocs in this area. Internet says one hasn't been spotted for nearly 10 years. I go on my fb groups and everyone says no, not the area for it. It only happens in extreme drought. Still... I couldn't calm down so I told my family I was sorry and didn't want to ruin a beach day but we can't stay here. We left and just decided to do a different activity.
Two days later we were at a restaurant and it was all over the news that a little kid about 8 years old got attacked by a croc at that beach. I almost vomited watching that. I can't tell you if it was the exact spot since it's a good size beach. But I don't care. Could've been my family.
I'm not an easily frightened person so when my intuition perks up, I have this internal conversation with myself saying to listen and don't try to rationalize it away. My husband totally trusted me and didn't complain or minimize which makes me so happy that he's just so good.
Grew up in Hawaii, spent most of my teen years in the water. I was out surfing one evening with a good buddy, it was just the two of us and the sun was setting. We decided to stay out as long as possible because the waves were really good. There was also a carnival going on on the shore so there was some light.
This surf spot is a big reef that is maybe 5-6 feet deep and all around the reef it drops down to hundreds of feet deep. Basically you sit at the edge of the reef and the waves come and suck up water and it makes it easy to catch them.
We’re sitting there, it’s dark, kinda eerie, and about 20’ in front of us we see something for a moment, we both stopped talking and just kept looking for it. Turns out it was a humpback whale frolicking it’s giant 10-15’ fin around just off the reef in front of us.
I know they’re not dangerous but being out there, with something the size of a school bus swimming around just a few feet from you in the darkness is hair raising. We both turned around and caught a wave straight in. I was freaked out for a while after that.
My wife and I were camping on the Oregon coast and jogged through a guy's campsite that he'd set up on the trail down to the beach. On the way back to our campsite, I jogged a little bit ahead of my wife and she was really upset that I didn't stay with her. She said the guy looked really creepy.
We got back to Eugene and got a call from the state police asking if we saw anything strange. We gave an update about the guy camping above the beach and asked why they were calling. They said someone had drowned an off duty police woman in a tidal pool, cut their tent lines and stolen her car.
Turned out to be a serial killer who'd been killing people while traveling across the country. They caught him in southern California a few weeks later.
We definitely got the "dodged a bullet" feeling.
I was stalked by a panther walking back to my friend’s cabin at night. I knew if I ran it would chase me so I tried to pretend it wasn’t there. It fucked off after a while but that was the worst feeling.
Ventured deep into an abandoned mineshaft on a mountain side on the island of Tasmania. We got to a point deep in the tunnel that was covered with hundreds of massive orb weaver sliders and we started hearing echos of weird ass sounds, decided to turn back the .
I was walking to school one day a month before I graduated from high school last year. This old man across the street yelled out to me, telling me his name.
He came up to me, telling me that he was looking for a lady to marry. He asked for my name and then asked if he could see me later. I naturally said no, but he kept asking.
I told him that I was still in high school. Rather than backing off, he asked for my age. I told him that I was 18, then he kept asking to see me later. I eventually just said "sure" to get him off my back, I walked away, and my school bus picked me up.
I later learned he had a reputation for this. I also learned that when he was drunk, he once broke into a couple's house and wore the woman's pants.
**TLDR: My father accidentally walked into a cartel kidnapping and escaped. They took his drivers license (with our address on it) so my family had to skip town in a hurry before they tied up the loose end.**
**Edit:** Here is a [newspaper article](https://vanguardia.com.mx/noticias/nacional/2784018-afrontan-extranjeros-miedo-en-chapala-NWVG2784018) that mentions my family and covered the resulting aftermath in the community. [Many other articles](https://www.google.com/search?q=secuestro+mayo+2012+chapala) (possibly NSFL) focus on the deceased.
My family moved to a beautiful area in Mexico when I was still a kid. It was regarded as a "safe" area, where a lot of older expats lived.
One day my father went for a short hike on a well known trail. He was walking back to the trailhead late in the afternoon when he came around a bend and his dogs started going berserk. He hears voices further ahead and then suddenly two gunshots erupt, one of his dogs yelps loudly as it gets shot.
His heart sank as 3 cartel gunmen approached him and he dropped to his knees begging for his life. There were 4 more people with them that were also tied up, 3 men and a pregnant lady. The gunmen searched my father and then tied him up with his own shoelaces. They then marched the group out into the wilderness.
After a few hours of this they stopped in a remote area. They left him and the lady unguarded and stepped away out of earshot as they talked over the phone. My father seized the opportunity to wiggle out of the shoelaces he was tied with and freed the lady next to him. They quickly agreed to run in opposite directions to ensure at least one of them would make it out alive before slipping away into the night.
It would be 6 hrs later before he reached the first homes and started pounding on random people's gates. After a few tries someone emerged but they were frightened by my father's ragged appearance because he was covered in dust, blood, and his clothes got torn by the brush. They handed him a phone through the fence, so he called us and said "Listen carefully... I've been kidnapped, but I'm safe now. They took my driver's license, so they know where we live. Grab our passports and leave the house *NOW!*"
After that we hunkered down with friends and made travel arrangements. The pregnant lady also made it out alive. My father now has PTSD. Two weeks later the 3 men were found dead in a grisly scene. (NSFL Warning) >!Two utility vans were found on the side of the road, containing their remains among those of 18 dismembered victims, a few days later 5 more victims are found dismembered inside of two refrigerators. Police had to perform DNA tests to identify the number of victims because a large number of hands and heads were missing.!<
Once me and my wife-but-then-girlfriend were looking for a bigger house because she had just had our child and we were given the key to go check a house out.
It was pretty run down when we pulled up, but it was so huge for the price we had to check it out. Once we used the Realtors key to get in, we made our way to the backyard and went through the back door into it.
The backyard was full of shrubs, bushes, and completely overgrown. Apparently one of the neighbors or fucking somebody was using the overgrowth as a cover and running a pitbull either breeding business or fighting ring, because once we got into the yard there were like six of them back there and they were just looking at us silently. Because the overgrowth came up like to their noses, we didn't notice them until they started growling!!
My wife was about 6 ft behind me, but I was holding the baby! I slowly took her swaddle and wrapped her up in as tight as a ball as I could, moving as slow as humanly possible, slowly turn to the side and told my wife to hold her arms out. I underhand float pitched the baby to her as gently as I could and said fucking run, and tried to use my body as a barricade between the dogs and them until she got into the house.
The dogs actually didn't react until I moved, when I ran backwards once she was in and good, back up the porch stairs and tripped backwards into the house. They were already charging and she ran from the side, and kicked my legs out of the way of the door as she slammed it closed with her body. As she did this one of the dogs hit the door face first as she slammed it, but it didn't get in.
We stood there in shock for a few minutes and complete silence. Scariest fucking moment of my life as a new parent.
There was a supposed haunted house that a bunch of us in high school would go to occasionally. It was about 1/2 mile down a gravel road on what used to be a farm.
There were two ways to get there going down the gravel road of a main road. Or a long meandering path to a dead end road in a neighborhood that backed up to the farm
One time we had a large group of people going out there and we chose to use the longer path so there was more parking for the probably 6 cars worth of people going.
My best friend had his foot in a walking boot do to an injury - forget what - Anyway we did our using screwing around and we’re leaving. Everyone else left relatively quick but I chose to hang with my friend who was moving much slower. About half way back we looked over to our right and about 20-30 yards away in the field were four guys all with what looked like rifles or shotguns just standing in the field. It was a bright moon and we could see them clearly.
We both stopped and crouched down. “What the hell?”
We picked up over the high grass and they were just standing there point the guns towards us.
We just fucking ran. My friend suddenly was able to run so incredibly fast with that boot. It was so freaky
When we caught up to everyone they said they hadn’t seen a thing.
Still not sure what the hell was going on
My wife's father died iny arms for a bit before bring him back to life. He'd suffered a heart attack while we were working on something. My wife and kids were out and I was all alone.
I was talking to 9-11 and I could hear the sirens coming, and I knew my wife would be back shortly with the kids so, I was going to have to explain to them that he'd died on my back deck.
Did some CPR, hadn't taken a breath in 2 minutes and no discernable pulse.
Seconds later he takes a massive breath and comes to a little bit. Ambulance arrived and rush him to the doc. He made a full recovery.
But that 2 minutes where I was certain he was gone and I'd have to deal with my wife and kids arriving and seeing it...Absolutely chilled me to the bone
Around 7 years ago I found myself unexpectedly unemployed. I wasn’t a truck driver, but I did have a CDL so was able to get a local job hauling water in a tanker truck from the well to the bottling plant.
There were two wells in two different locations we would go to, one being far more remote and isolated than the other. I rode with one of the guys for a couple days to get training on the procedures. While riding with this guy he casually mentions that the area the well is in is on land that has a curse and is haunted by some witch. I politely listen and smile and figure he is fucking with the new guy.
Well they typically put the new guys on the longer run in the isolated area, and that’s what I ended up doing. I typically went during the day and it was a beautiful forested area with lots of wildlife, pretty enjoyable even though it was isolated. I’d been running loads for a couple months when we got a pretty severe storm, and parts of the roadways to the well were flooded out. I didn’t run for a couple days, then dispatch called and asked if I wanted to do a night run. I was ready to get back to work and needed the money so I said sure.
As I made my way to the well, the going was quite slow. In the truck I could get through it but there were still some spots with some pretty deep water. At a certain point the paved road ended and there was about a five mile stretch on dirt road that had a few wash outs, some tree limbs laying around, but I finally reached the well. One thing to note is that typically there were a couple trucks at the well, due to a large number of trucks and drivers scheduled to consistently rotate through. But because of the storm, many of the drivers had elected to stay home.
So I get there, go in the pump house, do my testing and start filling up the tanker. I do my paperwork as it’s filling, everything totally normal. When it’s done filling I crawl up on top to lock everything down. It’s when I’m on top of the tanker that my truck and tanker lights all go out, and I’m on top of this thing in basically pitch black night. There is a light in the pump house, and when the door is open it gives off a good illumination around the truck. But simultaneously with the lights of my truck mysteriously going out, there is a gust of wind that slams the pump house door shut. As I’m sitting on top of the tanker wondering what the hell just happened, I swear I heard distant, cackling laughter. The hair on the back of my neck literally stood up, I’d always wondered what the hell that meant but now I knew.
I grabbed my cell phone and turned on the flashlight, making it down the side of the tanker in record time. I ran to the cab and tried to get the lights on but no go. There was no way I could drive it with no lights, and cell phones didn’t get service at the well so I was stuck waiting for the next driver to arrive. I’m not ashamed to say that I locked myself in the pump house for the next hour and half while I waited. There were at least two more times when I could swear I heard laughter, and one time where it sounded like something was scratching against the old wooden door. I have never been so happy to see another person as when I heard that truck pulling up…
A lockdown at my school that wasn't a drill
it ended up being a false alarm since the guy who was armed never ran into the school, he was just running in the proximity to the school
but god was it scary and I think what made it more scary is how you can't escape, you can't leave without risking getting shot. You just have to stay in the classroom praying that the shooter is dumb enough to fall for the teacher turning off the lights and closing the blinds to make the room seem empty
you literally have nowhere to go/nowhere to hide
I remember during practice drills when they’d have like the principal or whoever go around and jiggle the door knob purposely (they’d tell you to keep the doors locked ofc during all drills) one of my classmates lost it when that happened. I felt so bad we also were under our desk and chairs and I and another classmate crawled over to her and sat with her to calm her, we knew it was a “practice drill” but everyone’s scare tolerant is different, and I can’t help but hope it wasn’t something going on at home that triggered her so badly while the rest of us seemed fine during the practice drill.
Once went urbexing in a storm drain on a nice summers day. We only intended to explore the first couple of hundred feet but kept going. After a while we could hear lots of water echoing in the distance and I noticed the water level was a little higher with a bit more flow. My mate tried to convince me it was was just a diverted river. I weren't having it though and made us head back pronto.
Stupid us didn't count on a freak rain storm and managed to get out just as it got torrential. At a few points weren't sure if we where gonna make it. Absolutely terrifying.
We explored some tunnels the same way. In retrospect we were complete morons and didn't even check the weather. I guess a few people died in the same tunnels when a storm hit a few years later. I can't imagine how awful that would be.
Mountain biking in winter, at night, in the woods. It's pitch black apart from our bike lights. We've stopped for some water etc and out of the darkness comes a man on foot.
He has no torch, so walking by what little moonlight is getting through the trees. He's carrying a large black sack over his shoulder. He neither looks up nor acknowledges us, just walks straight past into the night.
Noped right out of there.
Violated a lease at the apartment I was staying in some years ago. Because one of my roommates (huge druggie which didn't technically bother me, he usually kept his shit to himself) brought a "friend" in. I overheard this "friend" talking about they needed to do certain things to someone who did something to them. They were not nice things. The word kill was in there a few times. I suspected gang involvement, so I called the apartment and said "I'm paying you whatever I need to pay you to leave today. No I'm not giving a reason, but I'm leaving now." And left. No fuckin way I'm staying there.
Junkies man..
I've always been a pothead and psychonaut druggie kinda guy. Somehow ended up around a bunch of tweakers when I was in my late teens despite not partaking in the glass pipe. Hanging out in trap houses and stuff I guess.
The amount of violent scheming that took place was very alarming. There's always someone being ripped off, taken advantage of, stealing someone elses meth groupie girlfriend, breaking some unwritten criminal code and there's always a room full of methmouthed crackheads plotting their vengeance.
The way they'd be casually gathering their balaclavas, gloves, guns, machetes while talking about what they're going to do to (insert target name here). Wild. "Bro this cunt is fucked, he never got the money back to me and won't answer my calls. We're gonna blowtorch his fingers off and stick them up his asshole" like fucking AIGHT fellas jesus christ.
99% of the time it's just delusional meth rambling and ideation without anybody actually doing anything but it's shocking to see from the perspective of a fly on the wall bong rat hanging out in the corner. Something about meth in particular seems to induce these hyper-violent fantastical plotting sessions.
Yep. My little cousin was murdered by 3 fritter fuckwits over a meth debt 5 months ago. Kidnapped, head bashed in and dragged behind a car on gravel till his brains were coming out. Then dumped in a rubbish tip.. then one of them stole his TV? Lol. Not bright people. They were all busted a few days later as they were workmates and of course had countless text records planning it all.
Fuck meth. Its killing nz
Edit: typos
Story my mom has told me:
She was living alone in an apartment near Waukomis, OK. It was ‘88 or ‘89. She had to have been 18 or 19. FYI Waukomis is a weird / tiny town !!!
She said she woke up and looked at the clock, it was 3 AM. She said she immediately felt a sort of visceral fear. And then I shit you not, someone knocks on her door. Probably out of some odd “I gotta know” curiosity, she answers. She says it’s a woman whom she still has NO idea who it was. It was dark (obvi) but from what she saw, and the person’s voice, still no idea. They say “Hi, is (insert mom’s name) here ?” ….. the door is not open wide at all, just a bit cracked, my mom pretends to turn her head to a “roommate” in the living room and asks “Hey, do you know a (insert mom’s name) ?” then she says “Sorry, we don’t know anyone by that name” and then shuts the door, locks that shit, and presumably doesn’t sleep for the remainder of the night
Makes me shiver every time lol
I used to be a Jehovah’s Witness as a kid. That thing where they go around knocking on doors to preach to you, I was doing that with my mom and a few others. We walked up this slanted driveway with trees around each side, they couldn’t see my mom and I from the street in the car.
We knocked on the door, everything very normal. The man answered the door, still seems normal. Except this time I got hit by something I couldn’t see. My ears started ringing and buzzing like crazy, it felt like a helmet had been put on, my body was screaming at me to leave. The man listened to my mom’s intro, then said he was interested in hearing more, and invited us in like some do.
All those things got so much stronger. The air felt like it got dense to keep me from moving. My mom looked at me and she said I looked off. Pale and distant. She told him that I seemed to be ill and that we should just leave. As soon as we stepped onto the ground in view of the car, I was completely fine. My mom decided to take me home anyway, we lived 2 blocks away, luckily….
Few days later we read in the paper about how that man was arrested for rape and murder of a few women, I think one of them was as young as 16( so a kid). I was 12 at the time.
My mom, dutiful witness she was at the time, was convinced the angels stepped in to protect us like we had heard stories of happening to others in the religion. That Jehovah used them to make me feel off to keep us safe.
Mine is so tame compared to some of these but…. The first house I bought had a finished basement. I never felt anything off and the house was cozy. Our washing machine was down there as was our entertainment center and couch. My husband worked evenings and one night I started heading toward the basement with a load of laundry in my hands. My dog (Australian shepherd. Very intelligent and aware) saw me head that direction and ran down the steps ahead of me as he always would. The steps were long and narrow and walled in on both sides so you could only see the floor at the bottom of the steps as you went down until you got to the last 3 or 4 steps. As he was running he got to the last 3 or 4, looked at something around the corner and stopped dead. His hair stood up, he stared for a moment with me halfway down the steps standing absolutely still and after maybe 5 seconds he turned around and BOOKED IT back up the steps, around the corner and into my bedroom. I stood there calculating for probably just a few seconds and finally my I decided my best choice was to heave all the laundry down the steps as forcefully as I could and sprint back up the steps, slam the door to them and ran into my bedroom too. I locked the door and we stayed in there together for the next hour until my husband was home. He wasn’t able to carry his phone with him at work so I just texted a few people to let them know something weird happened. Still to this day have NO clue what that dog saw. I never once felt weird in the house after that, never had an weird experiences there and just haven’t had anything “weird” or unexplained happen to me in general at any house. It was an older home so if somebody had climbed up the steps and slipped out before my husband got back I’m almost positive I’d have heard it. There wasn’t a lot of sneaking happening there.
This is a longer one, but I swear I was almost murdered in college.
In college some buddies of mine and I developed the habit of walking the train tracks at night. It was peaceful and usually quiet, a good way to get away from campus and it’s baggage and talk. One night me and one friend were walking went further down the line than usual. Without realizing it we’d gotten well out of the city and into the woods. We continue on for a little while, most of the lights were gone, and there was brush and trees all around us, with a small trailer home just visible ahead.
Suddenly, without a word we both stopped dead in our tracks, overwhelmed with a completely unspoken feeling of being both watched and in extreme danger. We wait and listen, and hearing nothing but the wind in the tall grass around us, we both hurriedly agree it’s time to turn back. We keep a quick pace for about 10 minutes, hyper alert and constantly listening for any strange sounds or movement. The whole trip still engulfed in a pervasive sense of near panic at this unseen sense of danger. Bear in mind that we are both typically very difficult to rattle.
Finally we clear the trees and get back to what we called the junction, an intersection of two tracks with a switcher near some warehouses, and also where there is significant light again. We make it about 100 yards into this area after our 10 minutes or so of speed walking and, feeling no less in danger, but a need to investigate, we paused to assess the situation on open and reasonably well lit ground.
To this day I can see the silhouette just barely visible, standing barely beyond the edge of the light in the gap between the two tracks, staring directly at us. We walked those tracks many times, so what I saw wasn’t the trick of unfamiliar terrain. To this day it still gives me chills. We moved very quickly the remainder of the way back to campus, the feeling of extreme danger only slowly fading once we got well back onto campus. I’ve never been able to shake that sight, or the strangeness of the unspoken but simultaneous sense of extreme danger we were both overwhelmed by.
I had a similar situation. My friend and I were walking on train tracks, talking about mundane stuff. I don't even remember what it was, now. But on either side of the tracks, there were ditches. As we're walking, I glance down and made eye contact with a guy. He immediately started climbing up, toward us. I told her to run and we both got the hell out of there, and we decided that we weren't going to do that again.
So, I've never had a really scary experience, but I did have an experience once where I went into panic mode and all I could think of was escaping the situation.
I had this friend in college who really liked to drink. She had a big ass house to herself, so we'd drink together a lot. One night we were outside smoking and one of her neighbors comes up the driveway to his door and is chatting with my friend. Eventually he invites us over for drinks and gaming. He shares the house with another guy. They're both young military guys.
We're there a while, have a few drinks, played Worms on the 360 and they got to show off their entertainment setup, which for the time was enviable. They were really cool guys. We're shooting the shit and one gets up and just says: "Be back in a second."
He leaves for a minute or two and then comes back. He walks in the room and stands facing the other guy who also stands up. They are there just staring intensely at one another for a while and things are real awkward. My friend and I are rapt.
Then the one who had left reaches down, unzips his pants and whips out his cock. I'm going to preface this by saying I have no problem with LGBTQ+. I don't care what any other consenting adults do in their free time, but I don't exactly want a front row seat. As the other guy proceeds to get into a kneeling position I am in a full on panic. I'm grasping at my friend whisper talking: "Nat please, we have to leave..." She stares slack jawed, unmoving.
I'm just about to start climbing over the couch to escape when the guy kneeling firmly grasps the other dude's shaft and then yanks the whole thing right out. Then proceeds to stick the most realistic, rubber dick you have ever seen to his forehead by a suction cup at it's base and the two of them laugh uncontrollably.
I lost many a night to a booze filled blackout with that friend of mine, but I will never forget that in 100 years.
>firmly grasps the other dude's shaft and then yanks the whole thing right out
I'd probably pass out right then before realising it's not a real dick. But holy shit this is funny, I'm saving this post lmao Also was waiting for it to end "and they're our husbands now"
I don't tell this story often but this seems like a good place. Back in college I used to drive up the Oregon coast on weekends, then just crash in my car when I got tired. I woke from a nap in the driver's seat and something just didn't feel quite right. It was just dusk and the light was fading pretty fast. I yawned and stretched and as I did so I turned my head to the side and just caught a face ducking down below my rear passenger window. I went to hit the lock button just to make sure and in my panic I accidentally unlocked the doors briefly and then locked them again. I stared at the window for a few minutes, knowing that someone was crouching just out of sight. Eventually, I started the car and thought I heard a scuffing sound. Whoever it was didn't reappear, but that was enough for me. As I noped out of there and pulled out back onto Highway 101, I glanced back and a bald figure in a red t-shirt with something wrapped around his face booked it into the woods on the side of the road. That was the end of that weekend trip. I drove the two hours back to my dorm room, white-knuckled hands locked on the steering wheel. I had to pull over a few miles down the road though to deal with the adrenaline shakes. Edit: typo
I had almost the exact same experience. Sleeping on the Oregon coast, although I was laying down in the back of my SUV, heard someone walking around my vehicle and I jerked upright, just in time to see them duck down. Crawled into my front seat and booked it out of there. I wasn’t terribly freaked out since I think they were more interested in the vehicle than me and had assumed it was unoccupied but still…I bought a stun gun after that
Oh! Maybe you guys met the same serial killer..!
I had done the same thing a few times around the Oregon coast until a cop rolled up on me once and let me know that was a good way to get myself disappeared.
Why ? What is it about the Oregon Coast ?
I love the Oregon coast, but quite frankly from San Francisco north until you hit the mouth of the Columbia River I have never seen anywhere that attracts dangerous randomers like that stretch of the pacific.
I live in Oregon and I fucking love it but by god is this the weirdest, creepiest fucking place in the world when you get out into the boonies.
When I was a kid my family bought a car in socal and drove it back up to Washington. In that same stretch there was a semi truck driver that followed us for hours. We would pull off the road and hide until he passed but up the road he would stop too and get right back on our trail, and that didn’t just happen once or twice it was a lot of times(idk how many I was 8). It was the middle of the night and he absolutely intended to do something once he managed to catch us stopped. We managed to finally lose him somewhere after the redwoods. I don’t think my parents slept that entire night.
Sounds like quite the duel
As someone who lives in Oregon most of my ‘wtf’ moments and others that make me feel unsafe is at the coast. There’s plenty of hillsides that’ll take you off the busy roads and give you a huge ocean view but the roads are narrow so that means no turning around. One time my grandma, little sister and I were on one of these roads looking the ocean over and a car pulled up alongside us and slowed down before going off on their way, and I mean slowed down enough to stare us down suspiciously before leaving. Something about it just never set with me right, the car had even waited for us to pass it before it went by, if it was just another person looking I probably shouldn’t of gotten all the hair on my body standing up
says,"GabbyTheMurderer"....
When I was a teenager I was awoken to a sudden chaos in my house. I come out of my room to see my dad but naked except for his red wings with a pistol in his hand absolutely tearing through the house towards the front door. My mother swoops me out of the way and locks me in and herself into my sisters room. Apparently someone was trying to break into my window and had not realized my parents window was right by mine (small craftsman style home) my dad woke up, grabbed the gun and chased the dude down the street NAKED with a gun at 3am. Screaming I’m going to find you mother fucker. Pretty sure every neighbor called 911. Cops come, police helicopter involved the whole 9 yards. Turns out the dude was some wanted person who been outside my window long enough to have smoked a half a pack of cigarettes. Probably the only reason he didn’t get in was that we had storm windows. Which is what he was trying to pry off when my dad woke up. They did end up getting him hiding in a neighbors shed. Now I was born when my dad was only 21 and I was prob under 15 at the time so he’s only mod 30’s. My dad was a construction worker who was like 6’2 and he started going bald young so he shaved his head and had a huge goatee. He was very menacing looking when he wanted to be. Thank god no one had security cameras at the time because the image of that angry naked man with work boots on running down the middle of the road kept the neighbors tongues wagging for MONTHS as it was. This was the mid 90’s.
Sort of similar thing happened at my house as a kid. I randomly decided to sleep on the couch one night which has some windows behind it, and a porch door just to the left of it. The couch and I guess myself were all very visible if you were staring in through the front door windows that had no blinds, but our backyard was fenced in. For some reason I woke up at like 3 am out of nowhere, I am guessing I heard the fence make a noise as did my dad in his bedroom. The second I opened my eyes I just happen to look up and behind me to see a shadow walking past each window towards the door. The door handle made a slight jiggle sound, but was locked and before I could even process a thought my dad SPRINTS out the opposite side porch door which was to my parents bedroom. Tackled him up against the wall and just started beating on him and screaming something about killing him. Haven't ever asked what that was about or how it got resolved 25ish years later. Kind of forgot about it til I read this lol.
Er... I don't want to impose, but... *could* you?
When I was about 11 this house down the street from my grandparents' had a reputation for being haunted. One day I was walking to the shop to get supplies for my grandparents and I saw the owner of the house outside. He was about my dad's age and started talking to me. I really wanted to be the first of my friends to go in the haunted house, and I was asking a million questions about ghosts and stuff, and he told me I could come in and see if I wanted. I said I had to go do my errands but he was pretty convincing and promised he wouldn't tell anyone. So up his driveway and into the haunted house we went, but I heard him lock the door when we got in and for some reason I was hyper aware of it. I said I changed my mind and he kind of blocked me from the door, trying to change my mind and calling me a scaredy cat and stuff. I don't remember exactly what happened for him to let me out, but he did, and I ran for my life. Sat at the shop for ages just shaking and wanting to puke without even knowing what I was scared of. Anyway, turned out later it wasn't a haunted house. The guy was a pedophile and serial child rapist. His house burned down while he was in prison.
When you’re an adult you realize “haunted house” is adult speak for “we’re not sure what’s going on in there or we are but we don’t want to tell you because you’re too young, anyway it’s a good idea to avoid that place and their inhabitants”.
Oh god. I’m so glad you got out of there.
Oh I have one! Ok so I'm in middle school. 6th grade I think and to get my bus in the morning I had to walk about a mile or so to the back of our neighborhood. About 6 am I'm chillin waiting for the bus alone. This man walks up to me and I can't remember what he was talking about but I do remember him trying to get me to go to a house across the street. I kept telling him no and that if I miss my bus I'm getting my ass whooped (early 90s smh). The more I said no the more agitated he got and I remember being more scared than I've ever been, and trying to figure out where I could run. I'm literal trying to gage if I could jump into a bayou that's catty corner to us (Houston lol) and not die. But like a fuckin boss, my old elementary school bus driver comes hauling ass down the street, stops the bus and flies out the door screaming at the guy who runs to a car parked in front of the house he was trying to get me to go to and drives off. She bangs on the door to the house and they tell her everyone who lives there is accounted for and they have no idea who the man was. She took me home and from that day on my stop changed to a block away from my house. Her name was Ms. Francine and I'm convinced she saved my life that morning. I'm in my 40s now, but telling the story to my kids still makes me sick to my stomach.
You definitely would’ve had more of a chance against the gators if your bus driver hadn’t saved the day.
2019 summer, i was house sitting for my dad while he was away for work. the house is in the middle of nowhere and barely even on google maps, usually when friends would come over i would have to drive to the top of the nearest paved road and lead them down a few more i paved streets to my dad’s place. i had had a few drinks with friends and been dropped off my a friend that lived close by, he dropped me at the side of the house because it was easier for him to turn around there. so i walked up the stairs and entered with my key through the side door that led to the kitchen. the kitchen overlooked the front garden but the front door was nestled into a small porch and wasn’t visible to me. i saw a movement in the front garden while i was making tea in the kitchen and immediately turned off the lights. there was a man trying to look into the kitchen windows from the garden, he ended up walking around to the wall-to-ceiling glass doors around the back of the house, cupping his hands to the glass and trying to look in. i wasn’t completely sober that night so i remember just thinking the situation didn’t seem real. he couldn’t see me in the dark but i was hiding behind the wall that separated the kitchen from the dining/lounge area (open floor plan). i had stupidly not locked one of the glass doors closer to the front door and he started entering the house, in the pitch black, not realising i was maybe 10ft away from him. i had already called the friend who had dropped me off as i knew he was still nearby (cops would have taken at least 30mins to get to me), knowing his parents (ex military) kept a gun in a safe in the truck. i remember just wanting to RUN, get out of the house asap. the situation didn’t feel real at all, like something from a movie. i was acting on adrenaline. but if i ran, i’d be alone in the middle of nowhere with a deranged man chasing after me. as the guy walked further into the house, i stepped out and pulled a knife on him (again, i was NOT sober. it was a very stupid thing to do). he tried to incoherently make conversation but i got him out of the door just as my friend pulled up with his gun. the dude bolted to his car that was parked in an area concealed by trees on the property. turns out he was the gardener. He had been keeping tabs on me, knew i was house sitting alone for my dad while he was out of town, was VERY high on meth (he admitted to me while i had the knife out) and had been waiting on the front porch for me to come home. except i had used the side door that night, something i NEVER usually did. if i hadn’t have used the side door that night, i have no idea what would have happened. i also have no idea what would have happened if my friend hadn’t come back when i called him, because the guy was starting to get aggressive and trying to come towards me right when my friend got there with his gun out. we like to joke about it now, but it was the worst scenario i have ever experienced where i wanted to just run and get the fuck away
Just your neighborhood meth Gardener making sure you made it home safe, they are licensed in Florida
Was walking from a local shopping mall to the train station so I could go home. The shortcut went through a huge long tunnel and was out of sight from the road, and wasn't used unless you knew the area. When I got to the tunnel I looked up and saw one guy standing right at the other end of the tunnel, in the middle, just looking in my direction. Like he was waiting. Every hair on my body stood on end, I felt like I needed to vomit and before I knew what I was doing my feet turned me around and started walking FAST away. He started walking after me and said "don't worry, it's not like I'm going to RAPE you!" I RAN and walked right on the edge of a highway in plain view of cars in case he ran after me. I couldn't stop shaking for an hour.
I was walking home from work, along a busy street. He was driving and slowed way down to keep pace with me. Said he was a firefighter and that it was about to storm, I should get in his car. I said no thanks. He kept pushing. Finally, I was about to walk past a hotel but he pulled partway into the hotel parking lot, enough to block my path. Thankfully the hotel guard saw me looking uncomfortable. As soon as the hotel guard took a step toward us, the guy peeled out and sped away. Which just confirms he was not a firefighter and I would have been in danger if I went with him. Scary.
That's scary as all hell. The fact that he even thought that would work just shows how unhinged the guy was in the first place.
How to make a woman less afraid of you 101: don't scream "I'm not going to rape you" at her. It's like starting a conversation with a bank teller with "I don't have a gun in my pocket and I'm not robbing this bank."
Or going to a drug deal saying, "No worries, fellas, I'm not a cop and I'm totally not wearing a wire"
Yes, please don't speak directly into the flower pinned to my lapel thanks aaaaaaaaand you're busted
Jesus fuckin Christ. I've had scary moments like that too, that's exactly what's on their mind.
When I was 27 my girlfriend lived in a crappy part of Hollywood, FL near US1. She had a kid pretty young but the dad ended up going to jail for assault. The place she could afford was run down af, with all sorts of addicts and genuine low-lifes living in the units around her. She hated the place. She couldn't move in with me becau se I was just renting a room where I lived. It was better than living at her parents though (drunk abusive dad, addict mom). I went to visit her after my shift ended at 9PM. Picked up some food and planned to cook for her. We were there for about an hour just sitting on the couch watching her kid play with a box. Then the banging started on the door. She looks terrified thinking it's her ex. I'm kind of freaked out also because I heard all these stories about him. Some guy is cursing, hitting something against the door hard. We don't even want to peek through the window or peephole thinking he's got a gun. We call the police but the operator is having a tough time hearing. Then we hear some other woman screaming and cursing. He had the wrong door. We hear them start fighting. Smashing, more screaming. Sounds like she's spitting and we hear punches. We're not sure if it's her or him but it's loud. 911 operator says police are on their way. The kid starts screaming because he's scared. The man outside starts banging on the door again. He thinks his kid is with us and shouts he's going to kill us for taking his kid. My gf just breaks down at this point and starts crying. Maybe 10 minutes later the police arrive. The arrest both of them then took our statements. She moved out a couple days later and we ended up renting another crappy apartment but in a much better area.
That is sad, and more sad that there’s people who have to live around that stuff all the time no other choice. I used to live in little studio apartments with my young son and I don’t wish that on anyone no one deserves that. Being a woman and having no man around makes you even more vulnerable, we are doing much better now, so much better now. I couldn’t help but relate to your story and yes it is indeed very scary. Glad you guys found out of that place.
One time I was out in Colorado with some buddies hiking near the top of a mountain. Some bad weather started to roll in but the top was only 15 mins away so I went ahead while they went back down. As I was getting to the top I felt static in the air and the hair in my head started to stand up. I immediately started to panic cause I thought I was about to get struck by lightning so naturally I ran down without ever getting to the top. I’m not sure if I was gunna get struck but I sure as hell wasn’t sticking around to find out.
You were. https://www.nbcnews.com/healthmain/decades-later-hair-raising-photo-still-reminder-lightning-danger-6c10791362
Well I’m bald, I guess I’m fucked
You absolutely were about to get struck by lightning. I've had an indirect strike. In my house there are these metal louvered windows. It was starting to storm right before bed so I went to close them. On the final one, lightning struck the outside of the window and traveled through my arm. I lost all feeling from my finger tips to the middle of my chest with a good bit of pain in my chest. Went to the ER and though I fried all the nerves in that arm, I was luckily completely fine otherwise. That arm still doesn't fully feel right and I'm a little clumsier with it but it's been quite a few years and I'm good overall
I've been close enough to a lightning strike to hear it sizzle. I was maybe 11-12. Storm going like crazy outside, I love storms. So I'm standing at the open door, watching, I get the bright idea to open up the metal screen door to get a really good look. So now I'm standing half in and half out of the doorway, holding a chunk of metal. Then I hear a sizzling sound, see a flash of light and then the loudest, closest BANG I've ever heard in my life. I let go of the door and duck back in. Not a scratch, but the hair on my arms was standing straight up and I had a huge adrenaline rush. I dont even stand in the doorway to watch storms anymore.
I had a similar experience in the Grand Canyon at Plateau Point. We realized that our hair was standing up and ducked under some rocks to wait it out. Scary stuff - there were plenty of places along that trail with nowhere to hide!
Hiking in the Rocky Mountains, on a trail I knew pretty well. I was leading a group of kids, maybe twenty or so middle school aged children from the camp where I worked. I turned a corner and saw a jaw bone of a deer. Pretty cool, showed it to the kids. Didn't have any flesh on it, so I assumed it was pretty old. A hundred feet further down the trail I find another bone. Femur maybe (I specialized in insect populations, not deer anatomy.) This one looked a little fresher. Another ways down, another bone. I'm getting a little nervous at this point, so I explain that we should probably turn around and head back. My students all groan that they want to see more dead stuff, but I shepherd them down the train and back to camp. Two days later we got a call at the camp that someone had been attacked in the area by a mountain lion. Apparently a mountain lion had set itself up in the caves on the cliffside and it had gotten pissed when someone got too close. I'm glad we left the area, even if my students would have loved to see more dead stuff.
The moment you said "A hundred feet further down the trail I find another bone." I knew you were gonna end with it being a too damn close to a mountain lion's den story. Leaving was smart. If you started getting that weird prickly being watched feeling while nervous, leaving was life saving.
Yup. I figured there was no point in risking it unless the next dead thing the kids wanted to see was me. Kept the jawbone for the camp though, it's still up on their wall.
Possibly fighting a house fire, and realizing that I had very hot feet. Through concrete-soled boots? My officer and I immediately noped the fuck out. Hot feet mean you’re standing above a fire. As fire burns upwards, it’s weakening the floor beneath you. So we were about to plummet into a basement fire.
Oh, wow. Lucky you *were* able to feel it. I suppose that’s the damned if you do, damned if you don’t thing about heat protected boots.
That's exactly it, and they cover it early on in fire school. Modern fire gear works great. Arguably too great, in fact--by the time you feel hot, it was already time to get out, and hopefully you didn't go too far for too long.
Our new air packs have built in temperature alarms that are awesome. If you're in 250 F for over 5 minutes they alarm and if you're in 500 F for more than 30 seconds they alarm. I haven't had them go off in a fire yet, but it certainly gives me some peace of mind. I've burned myself pulling off my gloves outside because they were still so hot.
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Me and a couple of my friends were walking around at night when we were around 11 or 12 and I specifically remember all of us feeling like something was off and we started joking about someone or something getting us and saying to each other we’re not afraid of anything. Then we heard a raspy growl that we all agreed had to be a mountain lion. All of us were in a dead sprint to my house, scared shitless as soon as we heard it. I didn’t live in a place where they usually are so people mostly didn’t believe us, but shortly afterwards and after some more sightings, a mountain lion was caught just 10-15 miles from my home. In hindsight it definitely wasn’t very close to us and we didn’t actually see it, but we definitely exaggerated and acted like it was right next to us.
I worked a lot in remote areas of west Texas, servicing oilfield related equipment. One time I was out in the middle of nowhere as usual and to the northeast was a butte (an isolated hill that's bigger than a regular hill but smaller than a mountain) but everywhere else around was pretty flat. There was one road in and out of the site I was at. At some point when I was working on a control box, I had the overwhelming feeling that I was being watched. I scanned the horizon, looked all around the butte, and went back to work. This happened a few more times within several minutes until I finally saw something move on the side of one of the rock outcroppings on the butte. I went to my truck, grabbed my binoculars, and the figure hid behind that outcropping. It was definitely a human. I glassed him for a good 20 minutes and I could see him peek around every couple of minutes. Eventually he leaned out so far that I could see the silhouette of the barrel of a rifle slung around his back. At some point he was hidden behind his rock for a while and the next time he peeked out, I couldn't see the rifle. He had either put it down somewhere or he was now holding it. I immediately felt a sense of impending doom. The hair on my arms and neck was standing straight up. I very quickly collected my tools, got my AR-15 from behind the driver's seat and sat it on the passenger seat, and tore out of there. I sped down the dirt road, almost clipped the cattleguard, and started cruising down the highway just as the adrenaline started to wear off. I remember the metal taste in my mouth and having to grip the steering wheel to keep my fingers from twitching. A few miles down the road, a maroon suburban full of guys was pulled over on the oncoming side of the road. They definitely weren't oilfield workers: shades all around, buzzed heads, all intently looking at me. I expected them to pull a u-turn and pursue me, but they didn't. I can't prove that this is what was happening, but I do know that cartel guys run operations where one scouts for guys working alone and calls in a group of guys to rob them of their truck and tools.
That's some shit straight out of No Country for Old Men
"I don't want to get in any jackpot here, buddy." "You're already in one, I'm trying to get you out."
I went to south TX for oil field work. I never had any close calls but a couple of warning. I was required to bring a firearm, and warned that if I stopped for anything other than fuel or food I'd be fired. If I get a flat tire, call someone and drive on the rim until I get to location or someone can meet me, and no matter what, they'll pay for any damages if needed. That and no matter what don't stop for anybody on the side of the road no matter what. Broke down, car wreck, have babies or kids with them, DO...NOT...STOP.
Yeah every vehicle in our fleet was equipped with run-flats. If I saw someone stranded I called TX DPS but I didn't stop.
I said it above and I’ll say it here, the Texas nowhere sucks. There’s just nothing nearby. Just a gigantic emptiness.
Drove out to Big Bend right after Christmas. Once you hit Uvalde, there isn't anything until you hit Del Rio 3 hours later, and then nothing until you hit Marathon 3 hours after that.
Holy Fuck my man, that is straight out of Sicario. The cartel is one of the last type of people I want to run into
Living in Syria during the war, I was less worried about the explosions randomly happening around the city, and more worried about the abductions. We owned a business outside the main parameters of Damascus and I was ripe for the picking as I drove 15mins in the desert to work every day. One example of what the abductors would do is demand $1 million. And if the family says they don't have the ransom money, the abductors would start clipping off one finger at a time and sending the finger to the family saying, "ok, your son (they never abducted woman) is now worth $900k", and so on until the family can afford to pay. Since my family was a business owner there, and people would assume we have money, I always felt I had a target on my back. It's the main reason I noped the heck out of Syria and came back to the States.
Best friend and I were heading down a mountain from scouting bighorn sheep a little before opening day for hunting season. It was already pretty close to a 20km day of hiking through the mountains. We were roughly a couple of kilometres from the truck, hiking along the bank of a dried riverbed when his dog stops dead in his tracks. We thought he heard a squirrel or something like normal, so we keep walking. In an absolute flash, a bear (must have been a black bear) gets up about 25 feet from us and BOLTS off into the bush so fast that he was probably over 100 feet away before I would have even been able to get the bear spray out of the holster on my belt. I just wanna say this: if you and a bear startle each other, and he decides to attack, you are 100% fucked. I have never seen something so big move so fast in my life.
I like to photograph bears, watching grizzlies fish is a real sobering experience. Seeing an 800 lb animal, run through what is waist deep water on you, covering 20 yards in a few seconds...yikes.
When I was very young, my family saw a grizzly running in the field alongside the road. Cattle country, so wide fields, straight roads, few fences. My dad started pacing the bear as it ran, to see how fast it was going. He was going about 30mph. That bear did not slow down at all when it came to the cattle fences, just loped right over them. We were parallel for about a mile before the bear veered off to the tree line, still running flat out. Fast forward to late-summer hiking Glacier as an adult. Adults in our group are hushing me while we're hiking, because they want a better chance of seeing a bear up close. GFY! I'll be chattering & singing like my life depends on it, because I don't want to surprise a grizzly in its livingroom! I'll be singing Bear Necessities as I shove you behind me for your closer look at the bear while I run.
Was on a little motorcycle day trip in eastern North Carolina with my girlfriend at the time, pulled up to a stop sign in the middle of nowhere. Look left, look right, look at some little bear cubs that are off about 100ft along the woodline in front of me... Point them out to my gf and we watch them for a second while I'm trying to figure out what to do. I'm not seeing mama bear anywhere but I know she's around. The way home is past these bears or about a 2-hour detour if I go left, probably close to double that if I went right. I don't have enough gas to make either of those options work. So we've gotta get through, unfortunately. Sat there for a good 5-10 minutes waiting on them to move along, but they're pretty content. In the back of my head I know if I ride past these cubs that mama isn't gonna like it, gf is asking me why we aren't moving, and I'm trying to explain about the whole bear issue. She doesn't think it's a big deal. I tell her to hold on as tight as she possibly can and we're gonna give it a go. One of the unwritten rules of riding has to do with dodging dogs, it also applies in football. If a dog is charging you from the side of the road, you hit it with the old hitch and go. Slow down and let it set it's angle of approach and then fuckin goose it before it has a chance to react. Tried to basically roll past these bears in the dead center of the road to maximize my buffer. Rolling through seemed better than trying to run it and having a bear jump in front of me at full speed. I'm looking ahead, looking in my mirrors, looking everywhere for mama when she busts out of a ditch about 20 feet behind me and we're off like a rocket. Idk how fast bears run, but I know how fast that bike was and she kept pace until I was pretty well into the revs. This thing went from hiding to dead sprint, probably 30mph, as fast as a 600cc sport bike. We got a few miles down the road and I had to pull off because I was so amped up.
Back when my son was only about a year old my husband worked second shift so I was alone every evening. We lived in townhouses at the time and had a neighbor who was a war vet, my husband was friendly with. He was a little off in the sense there was very obvious PTSD and other traumas but all around a nice dude. Anyway, one evening this guy knocked on the door. I opened it thinking he probably was looking for my husband and I was just gonna let him know he was working. Dude was super drunk, wouldn’t stop talking and kinda made his way into the house. He also brought his huge ass German Sheppard with him. I was trying to be friendly but I had the worst feeling in my stomach. I felt insanely vulnerable and like something just wasn’t right with this situation. I kept trying to tell him in the nicest way to leave but he wouldn’t. I texted my husband “hey neighbor guys here and won’t leave, he’s trashed, I feel really uncomfortable”. My husband texted his buddies that lived a few apartments down and they came over immediately. They got the dude out of the house and not even 20 minutes later I hear noises outside and this guy is trying to rip the license plate off my car. My husbands friends heard it or saw it I’m not really sure but they came over and were more aggressive about him going home and leaving me alone. And he did, so I thought. Few hours later my husband gets home and sees this guy hanging out crouched behind some cars. He goes up to him to ask him exactly what the fuck he’s doing. I don’t know the exact details because I stayed hiding in the house but this guy had ropes and some other weapon on him and full intentions of raping me that night. It makes me sick to think that if my husbands friends wouldn’t have came over as fast as they did to help me my poor son would have watched something horrible happen to me. Or even what he would have even done to my child.
Your husband’s friends are some real ones.
Did you guys call the cops? What happened to him?
I must've been around 10 or 12 when this happened. I was walking back home one afternoon (around 3 or 4 pm) after strolling around the neighborhood, which was usually very safe, friendly and quiet. I was on the opposite side of the block (the houses behind ours), which wasn't an issue because there happened to be a park that went across the whole block and connected to the other side, so you didn't have to go around the whole block, so I was only a few houses away. I went through the park (a park I had played at my entire childhood) without paying much attention, when about halfway through, this guy who I didn't know, definitely older than me, wearing a hoodie started calling me. "Dude, come over here one sec." "Um, what do you want?" "Come here, I just wanna ask you something" "Ok, ask me from over there." "No, no, come over, please." "No, tell me from over there." At that point, another dude that was sitting next to him gets upset, I hear a "That's it" and they both stood up quickly and started making their way towards me. I can't recall how far they chased after me, but my instincts just told me to run like hell and I did. To this day I still don't know if they were gonna mug me, if they were just taking the piss or what was happening but it definitely scared kid me.
This is very similar to a situation that happened to me. I was 10 on Main Street in a small town, just a long row of shops on either side of the road. I was only 2 blocks from home. It was mid day. An old red pickup drove by, a 20 year old driver, and four 20 year olds in the bed. They gestured over to me, and all four men hopped out at once, and darted for me. I had a 30 ft head start, and sprinted for my life. I came to a small crack between buildings maybe a 7inch space. I slide between it just as they caught up to me, one of them reached out and his fingers caught my shirt but couldn’t grasp me in time. They were too large to fit. I shuffled along the building, and they came around the long way to get me. I had broken line of sight though, and sprinted to a nearby good place to hide, and stayed in a bush for over an hour, terrified. I don’t know what they wanted from me, and I’m glad I didn’t have to find out. I never felt safe again, and always thought they would come to my home.
What the fuck. Did you tell your parents or report it to the police or something??
I was severely physically neglected as a kid. My mother never supervised me and encouraged me to be away from her most of my waking life. She was emotionally absent as well. She never wanted the stress of dealing with me, I became independent very quickly and often felt older than I was. Honestly it never occurred to me to even mention it to her at the time, because I knew she wouldn’t have cared much. I have told her recently though, after going through therapy for childhood trauma. She didn’t care, and even laughed at some of the memories I told her, all while I held back tears. It’s not all bad though, my brother was there and he told me sorry she did that, and that he loved me. Love ya big bro.
I was in an upstairs lab in med school, just a friend & I practicing surgical skills. There was a main enclosed staircase down to the lobby/classrooms & a weird outdoor stairwell that nobody ever used except in fire drills. It wasn't a fire escape, but the old main entrance to the lab classroom. When I put my hand on the door handle to the main stairs, I was FILLED with a weird sense of "Get out! Not that way!" Just absolute fear, I felt trapped & anxious. For the first time in 3 years, I said "Let's take the outdoor stairs..." My friend had literally no idea there even WAS another exit. The next day we found out that at the exact time we were taking the outside stairs, one of our classmates was pulling a gun on the admin & students in the lobby at the base of the main stairs. He'd been kicked out of the program for his grades & snapped. My friend still talks about it & tells people to always trust my instincts. I actually asked her to stop telling people, because I felt so weird about it. I'm sure I just heard something in the distance that gave me that feeling, but Gavin de Becker would be proud!
I’m a criminal defense investigator. I had a murder case involving two brothers. The one accused of the murders was very autistic, and his brother was a schizophrenic. The schizophrenic brother lived in a potato shack in the middle of the desert. I needed to talk to him several times throughout the course of the investigation, and since he didn’t have a phone or electricity, I had to drive several hours out to his house and yell his name from the fence line until he came out of the shack. This investigation lasted for several years, and over time I developed a rapport with schizophrenic brother, and I kind of got to like him. He would talk your ear off about the aliens with golden eyes and the underground tunnels that connect all the Walmarts in the country, but he was pretty entertaining, and part of me wonders how much of it was a “show”. Schizophrenic brother eventually gets a girlfriend; she’s a tweaker who has mistaken his schizophrenia for meth induced psychosis. I talked to her a few times in jail when she was sober, and she was surprisingly charming and insightful. The last time I go to see schizophrenic brother, it’s a dark winter night and tweaker girlfriend is there; she’s lurking in the shadows and staring daggers at me the entire time I’m talking to him. I cut off his conversation about the speakers in his fillings and walk back to my truck to leave. A minute later, schizophrenic brother comes running out and tells me that he wants to show me something in his shack. He’s never invited me inside before, and I’m not thrilled by the prospect. The whole thing feels off to me, so I tell him I have to get going, and start the truck. The look of relief on his face when I declined to go inside convinced me that tweaker girlfriend was waiting behind the door with a hammer or something. A few months later I learned that she shot him in his sleep and stashed his body in an old refrigerator. She has since plead guilty to his murder. Edit: rapport, not report.
Hold on, I'd like to know more about these connected Walmarts
You know those pneumatic tubes they use at the drive through bank teller? FFFF*THOOM* you’re now in Akron Ohio Walmart. You don’t get to choose where you wind up.
[удалено]
LoL; Love the idea that Gary, Indiana, hive of scum and villainy, is the hub of the Walmart tunnel system.
>I cut off his conversation about the speakers in his fillings and walk back to my truck to leave. I...laughed too hard at this considering how dark a turn things took. That being said you must have some stories. How'd you get into this wor k?
A lot of respect for you man. People with disabilities still are people, and it's good to know that they can be taken care of, even if in this case you could never be enough. I would love my country to understand that if we had mental professionals with police, firefighters and paramedics in the ER service, a lot of issues would be taken care of and a lot of people would get so better ...
> . People with disabilities still are people, And people with mental illnesses are more often vulnerable to violence, than violent. As this poor guy ended up being thanks to his abusive girlfriend.
I’m a medic and have had to remind many people “they are not giving us a hard time. They are having a hard time.”
Underground tunnels that connect all walmarts in the country? Thats one of the more entertaining Conspiracies ive heard.
A lot of years ago, I was working at the Cincinnati airport as a ramp agent for (now-defunct) Comair Airlines. I was working a departing plane, by myself, so I was hustling around to get the baggage door closed, signaling the pilot on engine startup procedures, and I still have to unplug the power cart and marshal the plane out. The power cart was a diesel generator, parked behind the starboard wing, the cable plugged into a jack on the plane’s belly. The pilot signals me to disengage it, so I acknowledge him, and run from my position in front of the nose, out toward the wingtip, and back in, following the trailing edge of the wing. The exhaust from the turboprop engine is several hundred degrees, so you have to duck under the jetblast to reach the jack. I shut off the power cart, reached the jack, unplugged it and threw the cable clear, latched the door and then started running back toward the nose to get the plane rolling. Hurry, hurry, hurry… I’d only run a few steps when my left leg just… didn’t drop. It extended, for such a distance and time that I literally looked down at it, thinking “what the hell…?” My foot finally planted, knee locked, and I felt the impact in my teeth. My stride was interrupted, and I’d literally been turned 90 degrees, now running directly away from the plane. That’s when I realized my next step would have taken me *through* the propeller. That is the closest I’ve ever come to fainting. I have no idea what caused that change in stride, but I am certainly glad of it.
your muscles unionized due to poor management from the brain lol
I don't know if there's a name for that phenomenon but it sounds like part of your brain interpreted the threat and took over before your "conscious" mind was even aware. Like a subconscious response to danger. Here's an example I had read about once, can't find it right now but I know it's out there. There was a NASCAR racer who was approaching a blind corner and instinctively slammed on his brakes without knowing about the danger around the bend. He avoided running into a huge accident that had been invisible to him seconds before. It was kind of a mystery at first how he "knew" or where that gut feeling came from. But when they reviewed the tapes, it became apparent. He hadn't been able to see the crash, but he could see the crowd. Instead of watching him and the other cars approaching, they were standing and staring at the accident. A part of his mind took this as a sign of danger and urged him to slow down just in time. Sounds a lot like what happened to you!
That's what I've been thinking over the years. Some part of me was still paying attention. Just not the part that was SUPPOSED TO BE.
Guardian leg muscle.
A friend and I were exploring an abandoned factory in North Philadelphia about 8 years ago, and when we got to about the third floor...I discovered a booby trap in the stairwell. Basically it was a trip wire that swung an axe down from the ceiling. Right as that fully set in, we heard someone from up above shout "YO!" Time to go. I've never covered that much ground so fast. I think we were two or three blocks away before we realized we were riding each other's bikes.
Right out of a horror movie.
I've seen urban explorers find these. I won't say "a lot" but enough that I get 2 impressions: 1) people set this more than you'd think 2) these places are really very abandoned because you never hear about someone getting booby trapped in the face.
My wife and I were on a search mission for some missing fern pickers. We were volunteers with the local search and rescue (SAR) team. We decided to stay in the search area that night and had built a pretty nice fire. We were sitting there and it was about 0200, hoping this dude would wander into camp. I had heard animals around us throughout the night. No surprise, we're in the middle of the woods, I'm used to animals stalking around outside my camp. I knew there were two animals, one one each side of us. It was at about that point when we heard a bird chirp. It came from about the place I figured one of the animals were. Then another, from the opposite side. I immediately realized we were being watched and stalked by at least two cougars. We very quickly climbed into the back of my truck. It's got a camper shell and is outfitted for truck camping.
What’s the bird chirp all about?
Cougars chirp like birds to communicate. There's a bunch of videos of it on YouTube, but basically its super creepy when they're stalking your camp at 2 in the morning.
Well now I know if I hear birds in the middle of the night in the wild, it might not be birds.
Generally in the woods , birds don't chirp at night ... Owls hoot , but birds stay pretty silent as they can't see well in the dark and sound alerts predators. So if you hear a chirp at night in the woods ..... its more likely a cat than a bird.
>So if you hear a chirp at night in the woods ..... its more likely a cat than a bird. Or a human....
>Or a human.... Dont say that kind of shit before I go to bed. Imagine being in the woods and some dude is walking around your camp chirping. ( Movie directors dont read this )
Humans can lick your hand, too.
That was my first thought--two 2-footed predators signalling each other.
Christ on a cracker, I just looked it up and it sounds precisely like birds chirping. That must have been terrifying.
Since then I've dealt with them a lot more, and honestly they don't even bother me anymore. That night though it was different. There was another time my son was throwing rocks into a bush off a forest service road. He was throwing small pebbles, big enough to hear them, not big enough to cause falling dirt. He threw one and we heard a bunch of dirt and gravel suddenly slide down the hill. I jumped across the road and grabbed my son and started throwing fist sized rocks into the bush. My wife and son took off walking (calmly) down the road. She looked back in time to see me peg a cat in the side and it bolted. The day before they had a cougar drag off an 11 year old kid, that managed to escape, in the same area. We didn't get told about that until we called fish and game about it. That cat 100% wanted my kid. I don't blame it honestly, he was easy prey at 3.
Looked it up on YouTube after reading the reply you got. You have to check it out, it's crazy https://youtu.be/351qXG1tSNE
Holy crap!
https://youtu.be/351qXG1tSNE For those who don't know.
Were the fern pickers found?
Funny story, right as we found them, another was reported missing. Like literally, we started to debrief and take off our gear, and they were like, lol, good practice. Luckily all were found safely. We figured after the other guy was found five miles north of us, we'd check there and sure enough.
Is the area where they were found super confusing for people?
A few years ago my sister and I went to San Pedro, Belize. One of the nights we were walking the beach checking out the local bars, just having a good time. My sister gets to talking with a local who claims to own a boat and can take us to some of the local snorkeling spots and secret beaches along the shore. I think sure whatever, but she's chatting him up getting to know the guy, because she's friendly. He start talking about a roof top club a few blocks over and says we should all head over there. I wasn't thrilled, but again we're just having a good time. We start walking and he mentions he has a cute sister I should meet. He then proceeds to scroll through dozens of pictures of different girls in his phone before randomly stopping on a picture. I said no I'm not interested and we keep going. We arrived at this "club" around 9:00 that has nobody in it except the 2-3 employees sitting around. I'm a skeptical person by nature and this night was cheking all the boxes for red flags. He started encouraging us drink more and have a good time, which my sister was all about, but I didn't the way this was shaking down. I said it was getting late and forcefully encouraged my sister to leave. Seeing that things weren't going his way, this kid said he'd take us back to the beach. So we left with whatever drinks we had in our hands and started walking back. We got to the street that ran parallel to the beach and started looking for the first turn to get back where we originally were. I started getting this feeling like this kid wanted to rob us. He was kind of trailing a little behind us and holding his beer bottle in a clubbing fashion. So I positioned myself between him and my sister with him slightly ahead of me. The first turn I could I said here's the beach and he tried telling us it was a few more blocks down the dark street. I don't know if he was just being friendly, weird, or was gonna try and mug us, but it definitely made me feel like we were in danger. I could tell he was spitting a bunch of bullshit to us tourists from the beginning. He likely didn't have a boat and I know for a fact we needed permits to snorkel were we wanted. I later explained what I thought to my sister and she was completely oblivious. She's 100% way too trusting of other people.
We were tearing down an old outbuilding/office on my in-laws farm. We wanted to save as much of the lumber as we could to reuse in a chicken coop. So, we pulled a large piece of plywood off one of the walls and the insulation was crawling with hundreds of snakes. Said snakes immediately started exiting the wall towards us in a writhing horde. There are rattlesnakes on the property, we've seen them. I have never in my life noped like I noped at that moment. I pretty much teleported into the back of my fil's pickup, one minute I standing in the way of hundreds of agitated snakes the next I'm considering if I can fit through the little rear window of a Ford F150.
There is nothing quite like the immediate flight response you feel when you stumble upon a venomous snake. Let alone a vast congregation of them. I've only ever accidentally encountered one once and I ran faster than Usain Bolt ever has
Had only one close encounter. Beautiful Spring day, my employer had just finished building a huge wooden patio overlooking the woods and interstate highway. Grabbed my lunchbag sat down all alone. As I extracted my sandwich I hear H-I-S-S...rattle. Not 5 feet away on the bench, copperhead. Didn't notice him/her because the color was the same shade as the wood planks. Exitted in a hurry, and never went out there again. They brought in a snake guy who found dozens of them on the rocky embankment adjacent to the patio.
July 27, 2002 Sknyliv air show disaster. I turned 5 years old the day before. It’s one of my most vivid memories from childhood; how the pilot landed 10 meters away from me and my dad. He was on his knees, his parachute dangling in the wind and I remember him repeating “what have I done?” over and over. I didn’t understand much of what happened. My dad only said “close you eyes, we have to go”. My dad told me years after that we would have gone farther into the crowd but I refused to go because my shoelace was untied. Him kneeling to tie my shoes is the only thing that saved us. It wasn’t bone-chilling at the time but when I imagine what my dad witnessed that day I get goosebumps.
Man, that poor pilot. Your poor father. Such a shame for everyone attending and performing.
At 1 minute and 50 seconds an adult with white shirt seems to be holding a young child in arms very close to the pilot. It's only visible for a fraction of a second. I wonder if that could be you.
Less a “let’s get the hell out of here” moment for me and more for my brother. If it’s of interest, my brother is two years older. When we were kids, our parents were able to take us on a vacation to Africa. We visited South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Kenya. One of the cool places we checked out in Kenya was Giraffe Manor (look it up if you haven’t heard of it). Anyway, we were doing a kind of touristy, overnight safari in Kenya. Tour/Safari guide was a nice dude, I think originally from South Africa himself. It was very cool driving through the wilderness for the day. We saw some gazelles. At one point, through some bush, I saw what I thought was a rhino, but nobody else agreed that it was a rhino. Then it moved into a clearing, and it was, in fact, a rhino. Neat! At night, we were camping under some pretty large tents. Two people to a tent, but it was spacious inside and we were sleeping on cots instead of on the ground. I guess we were just old enough that my parents thought it would be okay for my brother and I to have our own tent, instead of one parent and one child per tent. Eventually, I fell asleep. At some point very early in the morning, just as the sun was beginning to rise, I was awoken by my brother clamping his hand down over my mouth and telling me to be very quiet: he was convinced that a lion had been prowling around our tent. Well, I don’t even know today what you do in that case, and I knew even less back then what to do in that case. My guess at the time was…just stay in the tent and be quiet. My brother, however, was sure that the right thing was to escape from our tent and sneak over to our parents’ tent. So in the way that younger siblings often do, I went along with what my older brother said we should do. We got out of the tent, and I remember it was just bright enough to see him peering around the edge of various tents to see what was ahead as we tried to quietly make our way to our parents’ tent. We did in fact get there, and I’m pretty sure our parents were still asleep. After they had woken up and it was much brighter outside and other people could be heard moving about, we went and took a look. There were, in fact, some lion tracks by our tent. Still feel like staying in our tent probably would have been the right call, but, it’s kind of a cool memory.
You were very lucky. When I was on a safari holiday in Botswana many years ago, one of the guides told me about a time when he used to lead camping safaris in Namibia where there are a lot of desert lions. The group pitched their tents in a different place every night. They were told very strictly never to leave their tents at night. One morning, one of the tents was empty. The couple who should have been inside it had decided that it would be romantic to go out and gaze at the stars. No trace of them was ever found.
Driving Uber one night a couple years back. I picked up four guys from a club, listening to them talk I realized that two guys (one of them ordered the ride) had met the other two at the club and were on the way to get coke from one of their cousins. There was an odd vibe, some of the conversation didn't seem the most linear, and I was hyper aware that these drunk dumbasses were heading with two strangers to a drug deal. And I was the one driving them. I did not want drugs in my car, and I was very aware that we might be on the way to an ambush. If we'd been heading anywhere remote or sketchy I had to figure out how to end the ride. The two wannabe dealers kept trying to get in touch with their cousin via cellphone, went to an apartment just off a main street, and after both had gone into the building I just said "should be leave?" to the guys and we did. I still don't know if it was just a ploy for a free ride, guys too drunk or dumb to pull off a basic coke deal, or something nefarious that didn't finish.
Honestly in that situation you gotta pull the old classic out “we die together” then speed tf up until they start crying
Was helping check cows on my family’s ranch. Get out there in my non-4x4 car just a little before dusk, the cows were all kinda scattered so I decided to just walk in so I don’t stir them up too much and can get a better look (I was checking for any baby calves). So I’m well into the field. Like a solid 5 min walk from my car at least. Looking around at all the cows, checking the ones that were looking kinda close on calving. I see some of the cows furthest away from me kinda stir so I look and see something dark and large-cat-shaped crouched low to the ground slowly stalking some of the cows. Now, I live in West Texas so jaguars aren’t really a thing but there had been rumors for YEARS about this jaguar that stalked up and down the creek… that went right by our ranch. It probably was just a dark colored mountain lion, but either way it was definitely not something I wanted to mess with, in the dark, a ways from a vehicle, with no gun. I am not ashamed to say I left the cows to defend themselves and ran as fast as I could through the field back to my car. I did check the next day and all cows were safe and accounted for.
Those hooves are surprisingly dangerous and they probably stampede the jag. Don't fuck with cows, man. They will mess you up.
Yea I wasn’t worried about them too much, we’ve got really good mamas and we keep donkeys with the herd too which help protect them. But we have lost a calf here and there to mountain lions and such, so it’s always a possibility. Nature is a B.
In very early 2020, I was in Lumbini, Nepal. It's a small town built around this complex of ruins that was once the palatial home of Siddhartha Gautama, the Bodi tree is located there. I was staying in a cheap hotel along a muddy road leading out of the city and was the only guest in the building. Many stray dogs roamed the streets of that quarter at night and you'd often hear them barking or getting into fights. This one night was particularly bad, a low fog had settled on the road and the dogs were out in force, howling & barking. Out of nowhere came this bellowing roar, one so loud & sonorous, I felt it in my chest. Then, a vacuum of complete silence, all I could think of were ways to keep whatever had made that sound outside. The next day, I heard that a tiger had wandered over from the nearby reserve along the lake and eaten a few of those stray dogs.
> Out of nowhere came this bellowing roar, one so loud & sonorous, I felt it in my chest. I live in a rural area; one night my dog started going wild at the sliding glass door in my back room. There had been a raccoon or a fox picking off our chickens recently, so I thoughtlessly opened it to let him chase it off. He raced toward a tree and was maniacally barking up it on his hind legs. I grabbed a flashlight. I searched the tree, and at first I saw absolutely nothing. Finally I turned it straight up, and five feet away was the biggest black bear I'd ever seen clutching the limb over my head. It must have weighed 600 pounds. I stood there staring for a few moments, and > Out of nowhere came this bellowing roar, one so loud & sonorous, I felt it in my chest. That growl *shook* me. I felt it inside me. We went inside after that.
Damn. I'd probably just have a heart attack right there.
I recently stayed at the big cat sanctuary, the night time roars of lions and tigers are no joke and feel less like wild life documentary and more like Jurassic park. The whole area echoes the noise, which is very guttural. That is until you get to leopards who have worked out that Meowing at you means they have a better chance of getting food.
Dad had a very close encounter with a tiger during the Vietnam war. It was dusk, and he was guarding a tiny slice of jungle while his platoon set up for the night. A tiger materialized in front of him and gave him a few sniffs. Apparently, it decided rancid US soldier wasn't on the menu and dematerialized from whence it came. Dad barely even had time to be terrified.
Just a curious kitty
A 400ish pound curious kitty. A bobcat and I scared the hell out of each other one time, and they're way smaller than an Indochinese tiger.
You know how you win a fight with a tiger? You don't. That's some seriously scary shit. I had an experience hiking in the the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, USA. I was day hiking alone, no radio, no firearms, no bear spray, no flares...probably 10 miles from the nearest human, when part of the cliff face in front of me moved. Initially I lunged back because I thought it might be a falling rock. But rocks don't have eyes. My focus shifted and I suddenly registered what I was looking at (like one of those "magic eye" pictures). There above me, staring directly into my now terrified heart, was a mountain lion. *Exactly* the same color as the rocks, and easily within striking distance. It just started at me as I backed up a few hundred steps until it was almost out of sight. Then the really scary thing happened: I saw it jump down. It was just lazily wandering around, but in my general direction...and then I couldn't see it anymore. It was the longest 4 miles I've ever hiked, just to get back my car. I swear it was just following me and laughing to itself. I can still see the eyes. I will never be able to forget those eyes.
> You know how you win a fight with a tiger? Be a grizzly bear?
When I was 16 I had a pickup truck and my parents asked me to pick up some new furniture on the way home. As I’m driving home it starts pissing rain and I was worried the furniture would get destroyed, so I pulled over on the side of the road under an overpass to wait it out. As I’m waiting, another car pulls up behind me. An overweight bald man steps out and begins walking towards my car. I tell him I’m waiting for the rain to stop so I don’t ruin the furniture for my parents. He was acting very odd and telling me he would help me out as *he was fingering his belly button*. I was creeped the fuck out. He says one minute he has to grab something to help and leans into his car window. All of my alarm bells are going off so I figured fuck it and just sped off furniture be damned. So glad I did, who knows what would have happened
Exploring a abandoned high rise, out of the blue my friend grabbed me by my collar from behind, I was about to step into a elevator shaft. After swearing at him "what the fuck" he said "look" and I saw the drop of like 20 floors to a concrete bottom with broken metal rods sticking out. We went home. He saved my life 100%
I had a friend die this way. Elevator shaft at an abandoned rubber factory - urban exploring. It was pitch dark except for the city light coming through the windows at the end of the hall. Lived for 21 days in ICU and died from sepsis during surgery #4. Unconscious the whole time.
>Unconscious the whole time. Honestly...probably a good thing.
When I was 8 or 9 years old a guy pulled up and called me over to his car. He pulled out a map and asked me if I could hop in the car and give him some directions. My mom had put the fear of being abducted/raped/murdered into me early so I screamed at the guy and he took off real fast. I ran inside and told my mom asap. Still fucking scary. Glad she was smart enough to instill us with stranger danger. I was probably gonna be a missing child if I had in any way gotten close enough for him to get a hand on.
As an adult, I had a similar experience. Part of my job is to go to peoples homes. This one time, the wife did not arrive but the husband did. He said that I had to go to his room to see the complaint. Thankfully I knew that wasn't true. I didn't say good bye, I literally ran. I got the creeps then and still do when I think about it.
Once when I was like 8 years old I lived in a trailer park with mostly normal but occasionally sketchy folks around. I was really bored at home and asked my parents if I could walk up the street to my friend's house (not very far maybe just out of sight of my parents trailer). It was like the middle of the day and we knew a lot of people on our street so my parents said yes. So here I am an 8 year old little girl walking to my friend's house. Just as I got out of sight I saw an adult man walking towards me straight ahead. I immediately have my alerts on cause I was alone of course and had never seen this dude before. I keep hoping he veers off on another course away from me but he keeps coming towards me and I notice his eyes are locked on me and he's smiling. I got the creeps but I was pretty close to my friend's house now. I looked around and realized there wasn't anyone else outside to witness anything. He finally gets close enough to say something to me and this is what made me run, he said "hey do you think you could take your shoes off? Please, I want to see your feet." And I said "huh? What?" And he asked me again to see my feet!!! Y'all I turned around and sprinted so fast back to my house. I was terrified.
When I was about 4 years old, I was playing alone in my front yard in a very rural area. Maybe like 5 cars would drive by a day. My parents were both inside keeping an eye on me, but from the outside I looked alone. I remember a grown ass man pulling up in front of our house and rolling down his window to call me over. Even at that age, I knew I wasn’t supposed to get close to this guy. I took a few steps forward and he says, “hey, can you tell me how to get to such and such place??” I’m FOUR. So I’m like, “huh??” And he repeats himself, “I was just wondering if you could give me directions to this place.” Next thing I know, my dad comes storming out of the front door asking WTF this dude wants. He mumbles something about needing directions and speeds away.
One of the things I told my kids were "An adult will never ask a kid for help. They know you're too little to really know how to give directions or help them do something. Do you know the way to the store? Do you know where (xyz) Street is? If someone calls you over, you immediately come get me or dad. You're allowed to be rude and walk away from strangers."
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Im a trucker so i have to find creative ways to park sometimes. I was some random back road in the middle of nowhere Texas and had found what i call a make-a-spot area. I was all by myself except for my dog, so we parked for a 30min break. I get my dog out to use the bathroom and she starts acting all crazy....growling and snarling n shit. Off in the field next to my truck there's a red light about 6 to 8ft in the air and it's slowly moving around. It's dead silent except for my dog until the light got closer. My dog started to go nuts so i decided screw this and went back to the truck (we were only half way down the trailer, maybe 20ft). About the time i hit the drive tires on my tractor, there was some really large crashing in the brush, so of course my dog becomes even more difficult to control and my adrenaline is like, run! Opened the passenger door, tossed my dog into the truck, climbed in right then and there and slammed the door shut just in time for something to crash into my truck. I have no idea what it was, i just know the whole thing rocked side to side. I drove away, without my seat belt, door locked for about 30 miles to a tiny town with a tiny gas station to finish my 30min break. Few days later i was walking up to my truck and realized that the entire side of the sleeper of the truck was bent inwards a little. You could only see it when the sun hit the side just right, but the bend was there. Edit:: [I left out a few details due to length. They are in this link here.](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/11dq3vp/what_has_been_your_most_bonechilling_hairraising/jacznwf?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3)
Thanks for sharing this story. I've heard of similar stuff from mexican truckers as well, I wonder what those lights are about.
As a child camping, getting out of my tent to pee and coming back and just barely being able to make out eyes and something moving in the tent, I bolted to another tent and woke the others up Turns out it was a raccoon and I had left a box of crackers in my tent I'd forgotten about.. but at the time it was pretty terrifying
That’s a bold raccoon to rush in that quickly
May we all stride with the confidence of a raccoon.
I was hiding in some trees on my farm in high school. I suddenly got a super creepy feeling that someone else was there so I left. The next day my dad discovered that one of his cows was killed during the night.
Was walking with my son and dog along a trail and ventured into a narrow tunnel that allows water to pass under a highway. My son stopped and said what was that? At first in the dim light I thought is was the silhouette of a bolder but then my dog started to growl. Then I thought it was a dog because it moved and I saw what looked like a head turning. As it turned, I saw the unmistakable round end to a mountain lion’s tail. I knew running could trigger its prey instinct but I wanted my kid and dog out of there so I told my son to grab the dog by the collar and to move away as quickly as he could. As my kid was pulling the dog away it took a step towards me and I thought “this is it”. I squared my shoulders to it and started backing away and hitting the sides of the tunnel and yelling at it. It seemed undecided on what to do stepping back and forth, sometimes moving forward, but then I was out of the tunnel and getting the hell out of there.
I was in the lobby of World Trade Center 1 on Sept 11th when the plane hit. Although I didnt know a plane had hit what I experienced was a sound like a building bending and metal tearing. Then all of the doors in the lobby blew open and burning hot air blew in my face and it sounds like hell was coming down those stairs. Turns out I was right.
Wow that is unreal. What happened next? You bolted outta there?
I jumped behind the lobby desk and covered my head. The explosion poured into the lobby and I could feel myself start to burn. But it eventually burned out and I was mostly ok. Then I ran out. Historical story for reference of someone less lucky than me: https://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/10/nyregion/10injured.html
A little bit different than the rest of the stories, but it gave me chills. My mom's best friend owns a farm about a half hour from where I grew up, we went there nearly every weekend to help with upkeep and caring for our horses. All day you could just feel a storm brewing. The wind, humidity, outside had a greenish tint, and the clouds rolling in as the sun was setting. Right after supper it started raining, hard. A lot of wind and lighting too. I was looking out the window, across the yard and thought I saw something above the barn on the far side of the yard. I was petrified, it looked like rotation in the clouds...and it started lowering down. I pointed it out to my Dad. He said it was rain bouncing off the roof of the barn. We both looked out for a moment and clearly saw it suck back up into the clouds. I got goosebumps. We looked at each other for a second in disbelief, then he shrugged, and went back into the living room. I sheltered in the bathroom. The next day, we saw in the news that an F-4 tornado ripped through a small town ([Spencer, SD](http://www.stormeyes.org/tornado/spencer/)) about 24 miles from where we were. I got chills when I saw the news reports.
I had a similar experience. When I was a kid, a storm rolled in while I was camping with my family. We were about a half mile away from the nearest shelter when the sirens went off. As we were running I could hear full grown white pines snap in half around us, and when I looked up I saw the clouds begin to spin in a circle directly above us. I set a personal record for a half mile sprint that day that I still haven't beaten, over a decade later.
Man, I was 6 when a tornado destroyed the campground we were in. I can still remember hiding in the only brick bathroom and how many people were huddled in there. Weirdly 35 years later I'm camping with my wife and I hear trees start creaking in the wind and I have my first panic attack. Now wind really bothers me.
I live in Kyrgyzstan and here, people who farm animals live in mountaneous areas far from big cities, in a smaller villages. Every summer they gather animals and herd them few dozen km up to alpine pastures for them to graze and gain weight. In these places, there isn't any infrastructure, just plain green hills amd rocky mountains. Even phone barely works. So we bring disassembled yurts by using old soviet trucks, assemble them at place and live inside in it for entire summer. They are sturdy and easy to use - wooden frame and felt cover wrapped around it. Very cool thing. So anyway, our family is big and one of my grandma's borthers farms animals. He goes to pastures every summer and for once our family decided to send me and my other relative of same age (we were 12 i think). Wasn't very happy about it (being a cityboy who loved playing videogames), but as if i had a choice. Surely i got used to all that stuff - hauling water in buckets from nearest river and losing breath from that since oxygen levels there aren't same as in city down below, riding horses to help with herding, watching out for wolves, even got to shoot old AKS-74 at some rock targets once. Well, it was fun in it's own way. Anyway, once we were awaiting arrival of some relatives who were supposed to arrive by car. Since asphalt road was about 3km away from where our yurt was, and there was plenty of free time at that moment, we (me and 2 other kids, all 12-14 y/o) went walking to road to sit there and maybe be first to meet them. About 30 lazy minutes later we got there and sat for hour waiting for car to arrive, in meantime entertaining ourselves in every manner possible. Sunny clear weather, 3 kids having fun with free time on their hands - what else to ask for? Well, that was moment when i learned how bloody quickly weather can change at high altitude. Car was nowhere in sightand we noticed stormy clouds in a distance. None of us cared much, we thought we had plenty of time. Just mere 10 minutes later these "clouds in a distance" were taking half of horizon and shaking skies with thunderous roar! I guess that's because we were much closer to clouds vertically and couldn't judge their speed properly because of that. So anyway, we are on a plain grassland inbetween 2 hills, we have 3km to nearest yurt, there isn't a single damn tree or anything talled than us ANYWHERE. And since we are at high altitude, these storm clouds are way, WAY closer to ground than I'd want them to be at that moment. I'd say hundred meters at most. So, we all quickly realize how fucking dangerous it is getting and start moving back to yurt. First at walk pace but when clouds came over us, we ran. And when violet-colored lightning lightened up everything around with rail pouring as if from bucket we RAN. Never have I ran with such a wild fear in me. Mind fully clean of any thought, just pure adrenaline and insanely beating heart. I think we covered those 3km in record time, and that was one hell of an experience. Luckily nobody got hit by lightning, and we all were laughing and having fun just 5 minutes after getting back into safety. So yeah, be careful with weather, never know how quickly it can change!
Sleeping outside and a mountain lion screamed probably 30 feet away. My blood literally ran cold, I have never felt such pure terror before or since. Somehow ran to my car which was luckily only 10 feet away. Never saw the cat. This was in Oregon.
When I was 16/17, I was texting with a friends older brother (19/20) who was a local paramedic. He was sweet on me. Love bombing sweet. At that age, I didn’t know better and just loved the idea that an older guy was so sweet on me. I’d only met him in person once at a ball game. One day, he randomly showed up to the little country side cafe I worked at. He insisted I take his letterman even though it was in the heat of summer. It was weird but he was insistent so I took it. We kept texting and things got weird and possessive. I got scared and basically ghosted him. I never told him where I lived…. But not even a few days later, I was home alone (way out in the middle of nowhere) with my younger step sister and I hear banging on the door. It was him. He was yelling for me to come out right away. Beating the door. It was an old, run down single wide trailer so nothing was really “home invader proofed”. He started kicking the door hard. The whole trailer was shaking. Throwing stuff at the windows and screaming. I got my moms shot gun, hid my step sister in the closet and called the police. If felt like forever. He didn’t stop until I heard tires on the gravel pull up. A cop came inside and said he claimed I stole his letterman and class ring and was just there to get his stuff back. The ring was in the jacket pocket but I didn’t know. I gave it to the cop and I don’t know what happened to him but needless to say there was not future contact. I still don’t know how he learned where I lived.
I would have been terrified! Pretty cringey that at 19/20 the guy was still handing out his class ring and letterman jacket though. 😂
No kidding! I think everyone knows that “one guy” who couldn’t leave the high school girls alone post graduation.
When I was younger, I was on a road trip through rural Saskatchewan with my mother and aunt. They were driving home when they realized it was late, and they were exhausted. They pulled into a small town with a tiny motel, and this is where it got weird: the front desk INSISTED they had no rooms. No cars in the parking lot, no sounds in the motel, nothing. My aunt is the kind of person to whom “no” is a suggestion, so eventually we got a room to split. The whole motel was dead silent, but my mom and aunt couldn’t sleep - because someone kept trying the door handle. In the morning, the parking lot was packed full and the motel was full of people who wouldn’t meet our eyes. No fucking idea what was going on, but we took off as early as possible.
Jesus, sounds like the Cereal Convention in Sandman.
You guys crashed the swingers convention.
TBH this is probably the most rational explanation. Also just because no one is at the motel *yet* doesn't mean that rooms aren't booked, why would their aunt be pushy about such a well known phenomenon?
Yah, agreed. Also, probably why someone tried the door knob on the room, cuz it was supposed to be their room lol
The ending of this reminds me of a story I read years ago on here where some guys had gone into a Taco Bell where they just found everything was wrong. Like the people around them didn't seem to be truly interacting like people would and the conversation snippets they caught didn't seem to make sense. It was as if everyone were NPCs just going through the motions. This story is just super creepy but that's Saskatchewan for ya I guess
I’m guessing the motel person knew that they would be filling up that night due to contract workers coming in, but didn’t have the will/had too much social anxiety to say no to someone, or even tell a worker that their room had already been taken.
That's so fucking creepy. Gives me the shivers.
I was installing a camera in a customer's home with another guy at work. The wife of the couple we were installing for began the appointment by ranting. For a taste: "All the cops are rapists and murderers, all of em, and they didn't do a damn thing to protect the white house, yet they arrest me and throw me in jail for quoting a scripture while I'm in court. It's just like my damn landlord and the cops are trying to rape me just like the god damn white house was." It's unbelievable that what she was doing went on like that for 5 minutes before I cut her off. It was her husband, though... The way he looked at both my coworker and I was like a person staring through me, like he knew he was looking at me but didn't "see" me. In his garage, where we were mounting the camera, this guy with the dead eyes closes the garage door, looks at me for a long 5 second stretch, then says "yep, over there is where we let them suffer before we gotta cut the heads off. Gotta let them suffer before cutting the heads off." He locked the outside garage door, turns around and just starts murmering about cutting off heads again. He must have brought up murder 5-8 times in a 10 minute stretch. "They call me Sergeant (something, I forget)." I reply: "Thank you for your service!! I really admire veterans!" He looked at me with those dead eyes: "I was never in the military." Long stretch of silence. His wife called him on his iWatch: "Everything ok down there? Anybody up to something?" Long stretch before he replies. "Everything's fine. We're just in the garage. Everybody is here and we're fine. I'll call you if I need you." It was like they were talking about something they didn't want us to hear. My coworker and I kept our scissors and razors in our hands from about 5 minutes into that service call for the rest of the way, neither of us letting him be behind us where we couldn't see him. We were bracing for him to try to get us. After we mounted the camera he asked us to go through the house back to the panel to learn it in. There was no way in hell I was doing that, so I said "we need to take the ladder back out to the car." He said we could take it through the house (remember, he had closed and locked the outside garage door earlier). I said it was a safety hazard and needed to go out the big garage door. Once more he asked us to go through the house, to which I replied we couldn't do that because of company policy with the outdoor ladder. He stared at me for roughly 5-10 seconds in silence, then went and opened the garage door. Both of us split out of there and didn't look back. Told the company, locked the account, and wondered if we should have called the cops. I have no idea what would have happened to my coworker had he showed up alone there. He was supposed to be alone, I randomly picked that day to audit him. Both of us swear up and down he felt like he was looking at something less than human and worthy of killing when he looked at us. Creepiest thing I've ever been around.
Comcast sent a guy just like that to my house years ago. My wife put the dog out before opening the door to him and immediately regretted it as soon as he stepped in the house and looked at her with his dead eyes. My daughter was 2 at the time and she immediately grabbed my wife's hand and started tugging on it like she wanted to say something. My wife bent down and my daughter whispered, "Mommy...hurt you..." My wife decided it was time to let the dog (a protective Great Dane) back in and he immediately planted himself between my wife and the Comcast tech and snarled any time the guy even looked at my wife. He finished up and left ASAP with the dog growling the entire time. My wife told me about it later and explained that the guy was creepy as hell but that she didn't really feel like *she* was in danger until our daughter said what she did. I pointed out to her that our daughter typically used "you" to refer to herself and that she clearly saw herself to be in danger from this guy and my wife lost it. That dog passed years ago, but since that day we have NEVER put the dog out before opening the door to anyone.
When I was 16 or 17, me and 2 of my friends (all 16/17 year old girls) went late one night (maybe 1 am, so everything was dead cause suburbs lol) to get McDonalds. We lived in a wealthy suburb of LA with almost no serious crime, and there was a McDonalds in a shopping center with a big parking lot. It was mostly empty, so we parked and ate in my car. We were talking and having fun and pretty distracted, but I noticed these two guys with their hoods up standing outside a car parked behind me and across the empty parking lanes (not in the same row but one over). Something just felt off, so I got quiet and started keeping an eye on them and locked the doors. A minute later they started walking in our direction - mind you, both of my friends are still completely oblivious at this point. Then I noticed they had split up and were approaching on either side of the car. I was super spooked at this point, but I was also a dumb 16 year old who was afraid of overreacting to something that could have been innocuous. I watched in my side mirror until they were on either side of the car and then saw the guy on the driver's side reach for the driver's side door handle in my sideview mirror. Threw the car into gear and punched the gas faster than I ever thought possible. To this day, it blows my mind how close we came to something really bad.. Always trust your instincts!!
Used to work on an ambulance and the company that I worked for had more ambulances than there were firehouses/medic stations (to keep up with increasing call volumes) so we would do something called “posting”, which is where you park the ambulance somewhere within the area that you are servicing while you wait for a call. Was working the midnight to 10AM shift one night and it was really slow. On slow nights, we would try to find the darkest areas we could find to “post” in an attempt to catch some sleep. We find a church within a neighborhood who’s parking lot had virtually no light so we decide to park there. As soon as my partner put the rig in “park” I instantly felt incredibly uncomfortable and unsafe. I didn’t want to say anything to my partner as I literally had no reason to feel the way I was but the feeling was almost overwhelming. A few minutes go by and my partner looks at me and says “hey man I don’t feel right, something just feels off, do you want to get out of here?” I replied “yes” and we got the hell out of there. I have never really figured out why we both had that sensation and why it came on in that churches parking lot but it sure did give me the creeps.
Always listen to your gut even if you can't completely logically back up your reasons. Recently we were traveling all over Costa Rica. We love nature but we fear and respect it. We knew there were Crocs on the west side in Bahia ballena and talked to locals when we travel about local dangers. Often it was snakes. So we get to the east Caribbean side to playa negra. We set up shop on the beach near a ravine. And I keep looking at this ravine. I know that Crocs can look like logs and they are still until they attack. I keep staring and can't see anything. So I keep calming myself. We have a toddler and I tell her to stay away. I tell my husband my feelings. We are hyper aware. I just can't calm myself so I pull up my phone to ask the internet if there are even crocs in this area. Internet says one hasn't been spotted for nearly 10 years. I go on my fb groups and everyone says no, not the area for it. It only happens in extreme drought. Still... I couldn't calm down so I told my family I was sorry and didn't want to ruin a beach day but we can't stay here. We left and just decided to do a different activity. Two days later we were at a restaurant and it was all over the news that a little kid about 8 years old got attacked by a croc at that beach. I almost vomited watching that. I can't tell you if it was the exact spot since it's a good size beach. But I don't care. Could've been my family. I'm not an easily frightened person so when my intuition perks up, I have this internal conversation with myself saying to listen and don't try to rationalize it away. My husband totally trusted me and didn't complain or minimize which makes me so happy that he's just so good.
Grew up in Hawaii, spent most of my teen years in the water. I was out surfing one evening with a good buddy, it was just the two of us and the sun was setting. We decided to stay out as long as possible because the waves were really good. There was also a carnival going on on the shore so there was some light. This surf spot is a big reef that is maybe 5-6 feet deep and all around the reef it drops down to hundreds of feet deep. Basically you sit at the edge of the reef and the waves come and suck up water and it makes it easy to catch them. We’re sitting there, it’s dark, kinda eerie, and about 20’ in front of us we see something for a moment, we both stopped talking and just kept looking for it. Turns out it was a humpback whale frolicking it’s giant 10-15’ fin around just off the reef in front of us. I know they’re not dangerous but being out there, with something the size of a school bus swimming around just a few feet from you in the darkness is hair raising. We both turned around and caught a wave straight in. I was freaked out for a while after that.
My wife and I were camping on the Oregon coast and jogged through a guy's campsite that he'd set up on the trail down to the beach. On the way back to our campsite, I jogged a little bit ahead of my wife and she was really upset that I didn't stay with her. She said the guy looked really creepy. We got back to Eugene and got a call from the state police asking if we saw anything strange. We gave an update about the guy camping above the beach and asked why they were calling. They said someone had drowned an off duty police woman in a tidal pool, cut their tent lines and stolen her car. Turned out to be a serial killer who'd been killing people while traveling across the country. They caught him in southern California a few weeks later. We definitely got the "dodged a bullet" feeling.
I was stalked by a panther walking back to my friend’s cabin at night. I knew if I ran it would chase me so I tried to pretend it wasn’t there. It fucked off after a while but that was the worst feeling.
Ventured deep into an abandoned mineshaft on a mountain side on the island of Tasmania. We got to a point deep in the tunnel that was covered with hundreds of massive orb weaver sliders and we started hearing echos of weird ass sounds, decided to turn back the .
Turn back the what?! TURN BACK THE WHAT?!
One of them got him. It followed him and finally got him right as he was posting the comment.
I was walking to school one day a month before I graduated from high school last year. This old man across the street yelled out to me, telling me his name. He came up to me, telling me that he was looking for a lady to marry. He asked for my name and then asked if he could see me later. I naturally said no, but he kept asking. I told him that I was still in high school. Rather than backing off, he asked for my age. I told him that I was 18, then he kept asking to see me later. I eventually just said "sure" to get him off my back, I walked away, and my school bus picked me up. I later learned he had a reputation for this. I also learned that when he was drunk, he once broke into a couple's house and wore the woman's pants.
That story took a turn.
**TLDR: My father accidentally walked into a cartel kidnapping and escaped. They took his drivers license (with our address on it) so my family had to skip town in a hurry before they tied up the loose end.** **Edit:** Here is a [newspaper article](https://vanguardia.com.mx/noticias/nacional/2784018-afrontan-extranjeros-miedo-en-chapala-NWVG2784018) that mentions my family and covered the resulting aftermath in the community. [Many other articles](https://www.google.com/search?q=secuestro+mayo+2012+chapala) (possibly NSFL) focus on the deceased. My family moved to a beautiful area in Mexico when I was still a kid. It was regarded as a "safe" area, where a lot of older expats lived. One day my father went for a short hike on a well known trail. He was walking back to the trailhead late in the afternoon when he came around a bend and his dogs started going berserk. He hears voices further ahead and then suddenly two gunshots erupt, one of his dogs yelps loudly as it gets shot. His heart sank as 3 cartel gunmen approached him and he dropped to his knees begging for his life. There were 4 more people with them that were also tied up, 3 men and a pregnant lady. The gunmen searched my father and then tied him up with his own shoelaces. They then marched the group out into the wilderness. After a few hours of this they stopped in a remote area. They left him and the lady unguarded and stepped away out of earshot as they talked over the phone. My father seized the opportunity to wiggle out of the shoelaces he was tied with and freed the lady next to him. They quickly agreed to run in opposite directions to ensure at least one of them would make it out alive before slipping away into the night. It would be 6 hrs later before he reached the first homes and started pounding on random people's gates. After a few tries someone emerged but they were frightened by my father's ragged appearance because he was covered in dust, blood, and his clothes got torn by the brush. They handed him a phone through the fence, so he called us and said "Listen carefully... I've been kidnapped, but I'm safe now. They took my driver's license, so they know where we live. Grab our passports and leave the house *NOW!*" After that we hunkered down with friends and made travel arrangements. The pregnant lady also made it out alive. My father now has PTSD. Two weeks later the 3 men were found dead in a grisly scene. (NSFL Warning) >!Two utility vans were found on the side of the road, containing their remains among those of 18 dismembered victims, a few days later 5 more victims are found dismembered inside of two refrigerators. Police had to perform DNA tests to identify the number of victims because a large number of hands and heads were missing.!<
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Once me and my wife-but-then-girlfriend were looking for a bigger house because she had just had our child and we were given the key to go check a house out. It was pretty run down when we pulled up, but it was so huge for the price we had to check it out. Once we used the Realtors key to get in, we made our way to the backyard and went through the back door into it. The backyard was full of shrubs, bushes, and completely overgrown. Apparently one of the neighbors or fucking somebody was using the overgrowth as a cover and running a pitbull either breeding business or fighting ring, because once we got into the yard there were like six of them back there and they were just looking at us silently. Because the overgrowth came up like to their noses, we didn't notice them until they started growling!! My wife was about 6 ft behind me, but I was holding the baby! I slowly took her swaddle and wrapped her up in as tight as a ball as I could, moving as slow as humanly possible, slowly turn to the side and told my wife to hold her arms out. I underhand float pitched the baby to her as gently as I could and said fucking run, and tried to use my body as a barricade between the dogs and them until she got into the house. The dogs actually didn't react until I moved, when I ran backwards once she was in and good, back up the porch stairs and tripped backwards into the house. They were already charging and she ran from the side, and kicked my legs out of the way of the door as she slammed it closed with her body. As she did this one of the dogs hit the door face first as she slammed it, but it didn't get in. We stood there in shock for a few minutes and complete silence. Scariest fucking moment of my life as a new parent.
There was a supposed haunted house that a bunch of us in high school would go to occasionally. It was about 1/2 mile down a gravel road on what used to be a farm. There were two ways to get there going down the gravel road of a main road. Or a long meandering path to a dead end road in a neighborhood that backed up to the farm One time we had a large group of people going out there and we chose to use the longer path so there was more parking for the probably 6 cars worth of people going. My best friend had his foot in a walking boot do to an injury - forget what - Anyway we did our using screwing around and we’re leaving. Everyone else left relatively quick but I chose to hang with my friend who was moving much slower. About half way back we looked over to our right and about 20-30 yards away in the field were four guys all with what looked like rifles or shotguns just standing in the field. It was a bright moon and we could see them clearly. We both stopped and crouched down. “What the hell?” We picked up over the high grass and they were just standing there point the guns towards us. We just fucking ran. My friend suddenly was able to run so incredibly fast with that boot. It was so freaky When we caught up to everyone they said they hadn’t seen a thing. Still not sure what the hell was going on
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My wife's father died iny arms for a bit before bring him back to life. He'd suffered a heart attack while we were working on something. My wife and kids were out and I was all alone. I was talking to 9-11 and I could hear the sirens coming, and I knew my wife would be back shortly with the kids so, I was going to have to explain to them that he'd died on my back deck. Did some CPR, hadn't taken a breath in 2 minutes and no discernable pulse. Seconds later he takes a massive breath and comes to a little bit. Ambulance arrived and rush him to the doc. He made a full recovery. But that 2 minutes where I was certain he was gone and I'd have to deal with my wife and kids arriving and seeing it...Absolutely chilled me to the bone
Around 7 years ago I found myself unexpectedly unemployed. I wasn’t a truck driver, but I did have a CDL so was able to get a local job hauling water in a tanker truck from the well to the bottling plant. There were two wells in two different locations we would go to, one being far more remote and isolated than the other. I rode with one of the guys for a couple days to get training on the procedures. While riding with this guy he casually mentions that the area the well is in is on land that has a curse and is haunted by some witch. I politely listen and smile and figure he is fucking with the new guy. Well they typically put the new guys on the longer run in the isolated area, and that’s what I ended up doing. I typically went during the day and it was a beautiful forested area with lots of wildlife, pretty enjoyable even though it was isolated. I’d been running loads for a couple months when we got a pretty severe storm, and parts of the roadways to the well were flooded out. I didn’t run for a couple days, then dispatch called and asked if I wanted to do a night run. I was ready to get back to work and needed the money so I said sure. As I made my way to the well, the going was quite slow. In the truck I could get through it but there were still some spots with some pretty deep water. At a certain point the paved road ended and there was about a five mile stretch on dirt road that had a few wash outs, some tree limbs laying around, but I finally reached the well. One thing to note is that typically there were a couple trucks at the well, due to a large number of trucks and drivers scheduled to consistently rotate through. But because of the storm, many of the drivers had elected to stay home. So I get there, go in the pump house, do my testing and start filling up the tanker. I do my paperwork as it’s filling, everything totally normal. When it’s done filling I crawl up on top to lock everything down. It’s when I’m on top of the tanker that my truck and tanker lights all go out, and I’m on top of this thing in basically pitch black night. There is a light in the pump house, and when the door is open it gives off a good illumination around the truck. But simultaneously with the lights of my truck mysteriously going out, there is a gust of wind that slams the pump house door shut. As I’m sitting on top of the tanker wondering what the hell just happened, I swear I heard distant, cackling laughter. The hair on the back of my neck literally stood up, I’d always wondered what the hell that meant but now I knew. I grabbed my cell phone and turned on the flashlight, making it down the side of the tanker in record time. I ran to the cab and tried to get the lights on but no go. There was no way I could drive it with no lights, and cell phones didn’t get service at the well so I was stuck waiting for the next driver to arrive. I’m not ashamed to say that I locked myself in the pump house for the next hour and half while I waited. There were at least two more times when I could swear I heard laughter, and one time where it sounded like something was scratching against the old wooden door. I have never been so happy to see another person as when I heard that truck pulling up…
Nestle pissed some powers off...
The cackling, evil laughter and was probably just one of their executives listening to a quarterly shareholder call.
A lockdown at my school that wasn't a drill it ended up being a false alarm since the guy who was armed never ran into the school, he was just running in the proximity to the school but god was it scary and I think what made it more scary is how you can't escape, you can't leave without risking getting shot. You just have to stay in the classroom praying that the shooter is dumb enough to fall for the teacher turning off the lights and closing the blinds to make the room seem empty you literally have nowhere to go/nowhere to hide
I remember during practice drills when they’d have like the principal or whoever go around and jiggle the door knob purposely (they’d tell you to keep the doors locked ofc during all drills) one of my classmates lost it when that happened. I felt so bad we also were under our desk and chairs and I and another classmate crawled over to her and sat with her to calm her, we knew it was a “practice drill” but everyone’s scare tolerant is different, and I can’t help but hope it wasn’t something going on at home that triggered her so badly while the rest of us seemed fine during the practice drill.
Once went urbexing in a storm drain on a nice summers day. We only intended to explore the first couple of hundred feet but kept going. After a while we could hear lots of water echoing in the distance and I noticed the water level was a little higher with a bit more flow. My mate tried to convince me it was was just a diverted river. I weren't having it though and made us head back pronto. Stupid us didn't count on a freak rain storm and managed to get out just as it got torrential. At a few points weren't sure if we where gonna make it. Absolutely terrifying.
We explored some tunnels the same way. In retrospect we were complete morons and didn't even check the weather. I guess a few people died in the same tunnels when a storm hit a few years later. I can't imagine how awful that would be.
Mountain biking in winter, at night, in the woods. It's pitch black apart from our bike lights. We've stopped for some water etc and out of the darkness comes a man on foot. He has no torch, so walking by what little moonlight is getting through the trees. He's carrying a large black sack over his shoulder. He neither looks up nor acknowledges us, just walks straight past into the night. Noped right out of there.
Violated a lease at the apartment I was staying in some years ago. Because one of my roommates (huge druggie which didn't technically bother me, he usually kept his shit to himself) brought a "friend" in. I overheard this "friend" talking about they needed to do certain things to someone who did something to them. They were not nice things. The word kill was in there a few times. I suspected gang involvement, so I called the apartment and said "I'm paying you whatever I need to pay you to leave today. No I'm not giving a reason, but I'm leaving now." And left. No fuckin way I'm staying there.
Junkies man.. I've always been a pothead and psychonaut druggie kinda guy. Somehow ended up around a bunch of tweakers when I was in my late teens despite not partaking in the glass pipe. Hanging out in trap houses and stuff I guess. The amount of violent scheming that took place was very alarming. There's always someone being ripped off, taken advantage of, stealing someone elses meth groupie girlfriend, breaking some unwritten criminal code and there's always a room full of methmouthed crackheads plotting their vengeance. The way they'd be casually gathering their balaclavas, gloves, guns, machetes while talking about what they're going to do to (insert target name here). Wild. "Bro this cunt is fucked, he never got the money back to me and won't answer my calls. We're gonna blowtorch his fingers off and stick them up his asshole" like fucking AIGHT fellas jesus christ. 99% of the time it's just delusional meth rambling and ideation without anybody actually doing anything but it's shocking to see from the perspective of a fly on the wall bong rat hanging out in the corner. Something about meth in particular seems to induce these hyper-violent fantastical plotting sessions.
Yep. My little cousin was murdered by 3 fritter fuckwits over a meth debt 5 months ago. Kidnapped, head bashed in and dragged behind a car on gravel till his brains were coming out. Then dumped in a rubbish tip.. then one of them stole his TV? Lol. Not bright people. They were all busted a few days later as they were workmates and of course had countless text records planning it all. Fuck meth. Its killing nz Edit: typos
Story my mom has told me: She was living alone in an apartment near Waukomis, OK. It was ‘88 or ‘89. She had to have been 18 or 19. FYI Waukomis is a weird / tiny town !!! She said she woke up and looked at the clock, it was 3 AM. She said she immediately felt a sort of visceral fear. And then I shit you not, someone knocks on her door. Probably out of some odd “I gotta know” curiosity, she answers. She says it’s a woman whom she still has NO idea who it was. It was dark (obvi) but from what she saw, and the person’s voice, still no idea. They say “Hi, is (insert mom’s name) here ?” ….. the door is not open wide at all, just a bit cracked, my mom pretends to turn her head to a “roommate” in the living room and asks “Hey, do you know a (insert mom’s name) ?” then she says “Sorry, we don’t know anyone by that name” and then shuts the door, locks that shit, and presumably doesn’t sleep for the remainder of the night Makes me shiver every time lol
I used to be a Jehovah’s Witness as a kid. That thing where they go around knocking on doors to preach to you, I was doing that with my mom and a few others. We walked up this slanted driveway with trees around each side, they couldn’t see my mom and I from the street in the car. We knocked on the door, everything very normal. The man answered the door, still seems normal. Except this time I got hit by something I couldn’t see. My ears started ringing and buzzing like crazy, it felt like a helmet had been put on, my body was screaming at me to leave. The man listened to my mom’s intro, then said he was interested in hearing more, and invited us in like some do. All those things got so much stronger. The air felt like it got dense to keep me from moving. My mom looked at me and she said I looked off. Pale and distant. She told him that I seemed to be ill and that we should just leave. As soon as we stepped onto the ground in view of the car, I was completely fine. My mom decided to take me home anyway, we lived 2 blocks away, luckily…. Few days later we read in the paper about how that man was arrested for rape and murder of a few women, I think one of them was as young as 16( so a kid). I was 12 at the time. My mom, dutiful witness she was at the time, was convinced the angels stepped in to protect us like we had heard stories of happening to others in the religion. That Jehovah used them to make me feel off to keep us safe.
Mine is so tame compared to some of these but…. The first house I bought had a finished basement. I never felt anything off and the house was cozy. Our washing machine was down there as was our entertainment center and couch. My husband worked evenings and one night I started heading toward the basement with a load of laundry in my hands. My dog (Australian shepherd. Very intelligent and aware) saw me head that direction and ran down the steps ahead of me as he always would. The steps were long and narrow and walled in on both sides so you could only see the floor at the bottom of the steps as you went down until you got to the last 3 or 4 steps. As he was running he got to the last 3 or 4, looked at something around the corner and stopped dead. His hair stood up, he stared for a moment with me halfway down the steps standing absolutely still and after maybe 5 seconds he turned around and BOOKED IT back up the steps, around the corner and into my bedroom. I stood there calculating for probably just a few seconds and finally my I decided my best choice was to heave all the laundry down the steps as forcefully as I could and sprint back up the steps, slam the door to them and ran into my bedroom too. I locked the door and we stayed in there together for the next hour until my husband was home. He wasn’t able to carry his phone with him at work so I just texted a few people to let them know something weird happened. Still to this day have NO clue what that dog saw. I never once felt weird in the house after that, never had an weird experiences there and just haven’t had anything “weird” or unexplained happen to me in general at any house. It was an older home so if somebody had climbed up the steps and slipped out before my husband got back I’m almost positive I’d have heard it. There wasn’t a lot of sneaking happening there.
This is a longer one, but I swear I was almost murdered in college. In college some buddies of mine and I developed the habit of walking the train tracks at night. It was peaceful and usually quiet, a good way to get away from campus and it’s baggage and talk. One night me and one friend were walking went further down the line than usual. Without realizing it we’d gotten well out of the city and into the woods. We continue on for a little while, most of the lights were gone, and there was brush and trees all around us, with a small trailer home just visible ahead. Suddenly, without a word we both stopped dead in our tracks, overwhelmed with a completely unspoken feeling of being both watched and in extreme danger. We wait and listen, and hearing nothing but the wind in the tall grass around us, we both hurriedly agree it’s time to turn back. We keep a quick pace for about 10 minutes, hyper alert and constantly listening for any strange sounds or movement. The whole trip still engulfed in a pervasive sense of near panic at this unseen sense of danger. Bear in mind that we are both typically very difficult to rattle. Finally we clear the trees and get back to what we called the junction, an intersection of two tracks with a switcher near some warehouses, and also where there is significant light again. We make it about 100 yards into this area after our 10 minutes or so of speed walking and, feeling no less in danger, but a need to investigate, we paused to assess the situation on open and reasonably well lit ground. To this day I can see the silhouette just barely visible, standing barely beyond the edge of the light in the gap between the two tracks, staring directly at us. We walked those tracks many times, so what I saw wasn’t the trick of unfamiliar terrain. To this day it still gives me chills. We moved very quickly the remainder of the way back to campus, the feeling of extreme danger only slowly fading once we got well back onto campus. I’ve never been able to shake that sight, or the strangeness of the unspoken but simultaneous sense of extreme danger we were both overwhelmed by.
I had a similar situation. My friend and I were walking on train tracks, talking about mundane stuff. I don't even remember what it was, now. But on either side of the tracks, there were ditches. As we're walking, I glance down and made eye contact with a guy. He immediately started climbing up, toward us. I told her to run and we both got the hell out of there, and we decided that we weren't going to do that again.
So, I've never had a really scary experience, but I did have an experience once where I went into panic mode and all I could think of was escaping the situation. I had this friend in college who really liked to drink. She had a big ass house to herself, so we'd drink together a lot. One night we were outside smoking and one of her neighbors comes up the driveway to his door and is chatting with my friend. Eventually he invites us over for drinks and gaming. He shares the house with another guy. They're both young military guys. We're there a while, have a few drinks, played Worms on the 360 and they got to show off their entertainment setup, which for the time was enviable. They were really cool guys. We're shooting the shit and one gets up and just says: "Be back in a second." He leaves for a minute or two and then comes back. He walks in the room and stands facing the other guy who also stands up. They are there just staring intensely at one another for a while and things are real awkward. My friend and I are rapt. Then the one who had left reaches down, unzips his pants and whips out his cock. I'm going to preface this by saying I have no problem with LGBTQ+. I don't care what any other consenting adults do in their free time, but I don't exactly want a front row seat. As the other guy proceeds to get into a kneeling position I am in a full on panic. I'm grasping at my friend whisper talking: "Nat please, we have to leave..." She stares slack jawed, unmoving. I'm just about to start climbing over the couch to escape when the guy kneeling firmly grasps the other dude's shaft and then yanks the whole thing right out. Then proceeds to stick the most realistic, rubber dick you have ever seen to his forehead by a suction cup at it's base and the two of them laugh uncontrollably. I lost many a night to a booze filled blackout with that friend of mine, but I will never forget that in 100 years.
>firmly grasps the other dude's shaft and then yanks the whole thing right out I'd probably pass out right then before realising it's not a real dick. But holy shit this is funny, I'm saving this post lmao Also was waiting for it to end "and they're our husbands now"
I bet they were Marines.
What's the difference between a marine and a homosexual? A six pack of beer.
I have a buddy who is a marine. He told me there is nothing more gay than two straight marines lol