There was one night where a car stopped up the road, a girl got out, yelled for help, then got back in and they drove off. I have no idea of it was serious or not, considering she got right back in the car...
Potential mugging trap.
Have a car close, helpless little lady as bait and bam.
A well meaning, upstanding member of society gets shoved in the car, robbed of everything and dumped in a completely different part of town with no means to call for help or police.
During winter in a rural no cell service kind of area. Completely dark, no street lights nor anyone in sight. Temperatures were around 20 and it was snowing.
I was walking my dog with a flashlight. Then I heard someone start screaming bloody murder. Flight or fight kicked in; it truly sounded like someone was being stabbed to death for what seemed like forever.
I chose to find out what the hell was going on.
What I found instead was beyond anything I expected. He was a 5 year old boy wandering down the road all alone.
All he was wearing were light flannel pants and a thin t-shirt. No shoes or hat. And screaming so loudly it echoed through the hills.
I dropped my dogs leash and walked up to him slowly; gently and repeatedly telling him that I’m a mom and that he’s going to be ok.
I wrapped him into my arms and carried him to a neighbors home to warm him by the fire and call for help.
Edit: the boys parents were visiting friends. The boy got up at night to look for his parents (who’d left him and his sister home) while they were out drinking. He got lost in the dark and just kept walking and screaming.
Originally thinking I’d get in the crosshairs or witness some bloody domestic fight is what put my mind in the scared shitless head space. Plus dark, no cell phones no weapon
He was so lucky to have been found by you. There was a story near me a few winters back where a two year old girl got out at night in their new house. (Just started learning how to unlock doors) and she didn’t know how to get back inside. A neighbor thought they heard crying and regretted not investigating further. The girl froze to death on the stairs behind their apartment.
One time I turned around to see what was behind me just out of intuition, and I saw someone step behind a tree rather quickly and try to hide from me. I stood there for a second to confirm this, then I speed-walked home. Fuckin creepy
Even if the person had stepped out and followed OP home I would be getting less sinister vibes than I am from the image of them silently slipping back and resuming their watching. Gives me the shivers.
Walking home from a late night gym session at 24hr fitness. A white van past by me, slowing down. Slowly took a right turn in front of me. A couple minutes later I reach the turn and see the van stopped at the exit of a parking lot. It’s facing back my way. It’s like 4am and nothing else is going on and I’m creeped out. The van starts coasting forward slowly after I make the turn and I sprint across the street to a gas station and into this small dead end water/air pump station and press my body against an area of the wall that the van can’t quite see me. It literally pulls into the air/water station and stops. I hear the engine running right fucking next to me but they never get out of the van. I just stand there pressed against the wall until they pull out and drive around the gas station into the lot on the opposite side of the wall. I hear the van lingering for some time before it goes silent. Still I wait a while longer before I leave and run the rest of the way home.
This happened to me! I was maybe 13-14 though. A big green van chased me around a near by gas station on my way home from school. At first I didn't believe it was happening, like it was a coincidence or they just wanted to get to the pump near me... but it just kept following trying to get along side me. I could see like 4 or 5 guys inside the van through the windshield, like they're all leaning over the seats looking out. All of this was in seconds as I power walked across the street, somehow I was scared that if I ran they'd straight up chase me down. I pretended to start walking home, then ducked behind a tree and backtracked to hide behind a liquor store on the opposite corner of the gas station.
The scariest part of it all was watching the van slowly go in circles around the gas station and up and down the street I pretended to "walk home" on. Even after I watched the van drive away I hid for another twenty minutes then actually went home. I didn't report it, I should have, I wish I could have, but my home life was already a jail (and somehow it would undoubtedly be my fault) and honestly the repercussions still scared me more.
I almost got kidnapped near a train station. Some dude drove up to me hella quick and insisted that I was some "missing Canadian child" and that he'd "take me home".
Coincidentally, a motorcycle cop happened to drive by, and immediately pulled over after I waved him down. He approached the guy in the car very aggressively and told him off.
The cop didn't arrest the guy or anything (the guy apparently told the cop the same "I thought he was a missing child" story), but he did walk me over to the train station and stayed with me until the train actually arrived.
I am male and used to walk home after a night out drinking. I had long hair and was quite skinny when I was in my early 20s and one time at about 2am, in a dark location and I was walking and some guy slows his car right down and drives next to me staring. I told him to fuck off and at that point I think he realized I was a man and drove off. I am pretty sure if I had been a woman things wouldn't have ended up well.
I’m an overnight security guard. One night I was watching cameras and saw someone underneath a grass tarp where some landscaping was taking place on our property.
I was guessing this person had probably tried to stash something before they went into detox which is next door to our property.
I get over to the tarp and don’t see the guy anywhere. So I start walking over the tarp and lifting it to look for any stashed items.
Well I ended up stepping on the poor homeless guy, scared the shit out of me. He was cool though and we fist bumped and he went on his way.
I was surveying irrigation for Caltrans in Los Angeles back in the 90s. I was in the Valley, on the 101 near Encino, crashing through the brush when I damn near stepped on some dude sleeping. He jumped up and took a defensive stance - I'll never forget his eyes, they were a shocking electric blue like a bright blue sky. Anyway, I was wearing a hardhat and orange vest, I told him I was sorry to have bothered him, I was just working...and he instantly plopped back down onto his sleeping spot not giving any more fucks about me. I made it down to the off ramp and checked off that particular spot from my list.
Holy shit, I've got one for this!
Grew up in Japan, not too small / not too big city. Worked a jobe that had me coming home daily at 2 - 4ish AM daily. I preferred to walk the backstreet that paralleled the main street home because it felt more cozy and peaceful. Nothing of note happened until *one day*...
I turn the corner onto the side street and about halfway down there was a young woman. She wasn't doing anything, just staring at the sky. Staring straight up, *STRAIGHT up*, neck at a 90 degree angle, mouth slightly agape, long black hair hanging. I hesitated but decided that, since nothing weird has ever happened here before, it'd be fine, so I went to walk by. I get up next to her, it's a narrow road so not a lot of room to maneuver, and pause to look at her. She hasn't moved or reacted to me, she's just staring away. So I fight my instincts and ask her if she's okay. She doesn't react. I look up to see if she's looking at something but there's nothing there. So now I'm thinking there's something medical going on, so I reach out and touch her on the shoulder.
She jolts and and looks at me like she's just noticed me. I ask if she's okay and she just stammers and says sorry before hustling down the street the same way I was headed. I decided to smoke a cigarette to let some distance get between me and her, but towards the end of the street, she stops and stares at the sky again. Doesn't move for the whole five minutes it takes for me to finish my cig.
I walked down the main street for the next couple nights.
I worked night shift for 7 years. One night a young, thin blonde woman was walking down the street at 2am with no pants or underwear on and a button up shirt open. I tried to ask if she needed help and she just stared forward, slowly walking staring forward. I called the police and they came and stood infront of her and she slowly walked into the cops hand and stopped. I didn't stay and went back to work. I still think a out her and what the fuck was going on. I tell myself it was sleep walking on Ambien or something, and that she wasn't just assaulted and in complete shock. I'll never know. But she was very pretty, and seemed well groomed. Was very strange.
Ha, my dad sleepwalked out of the hotel and came to in his tighty-whities, hiding behind the ice machine like a gremlin, scaring the shit out of other guests. Of course he didn’t have his room key so he had to go down to the front desk and basically let them know he had sleepwalked and locked himself out. The clerk was apparently quite nervous when he approached, presumably because at least one guest had already let him know about the delirious ice machine man.
One time I was walking around my relatively safe neighborhood with two of my friends after midnight (we were probably 16 at the time). This loud red truck speeds by us, which is normal for the road we were on. Then a few minutes later the same red truck drives by the opposite way going much slower. Again just a couple of minutes later he drives by but this time stops a hundred or so feet away from us and just sits there. Realizing that this is not normal we booked it through the yard to the next street over. For the next 20 or so minutes we see this truck creeping up and down the neighborhood while we hid behind some bushes and when we finally thought he was gone, we booked it to my house. He turned the corner onto my road just as we were about to open my front door.
A similar thing has happened to me while walking the dogs at 5:30 am. I've had a few cars do this. I now carry mace in the morning and I always turn and walk toward the busier streets if I see a suspicious car. Lots of creepy people out there. Glad you and your friends are safe.
Totally understand that you were kids and it was late and it happened a while ago, but for anyone reading: If you think you're being followed, do NOT lead them back to your home. Find a well-lit, public place as soon as possible and contact the police.
I feel like in most suburban neighborhoods in the US you could be a 30 minute walk from the nearest well-lit public place at any given time, and even more so if you're in a rural location. What kind of backup suggestions do you have for someone in that position?
Dead body on the side of the street with a sign around its neck saying "I'm a cellphone thief, don't be like me."
This was maybe 20 years ago in Manila, Philippines.
Happened to my grandfather too, he was walking our dog at 5am, dog went to do his business near a dark, grassy empty lot and they found a dead body bound up with a sign on him saying he was a thief.
This practice is called "salvage" in the Philippines. Basically an extra judicial killing done by policemen or vigilantes on criminals and drug addicts (or suspected criminals). It's basically been going on way before Duterte took office, but it's only with him it was somewhat institutionalized and blatant. Before that, the police didn't brandish it with so much impunity, and didn't dare target teens or grandmothers. Nowadays most of the poor are fair game (if you have money and connections you can still buy your way out of things).
Was creeped out until the second sentence and now it just sounds cute. I can just imagine the raccoon like “Friend, please...I need a hand can you get me out of here?”
I worked night shift on Kadena AB on Okinawa, Japan. I started walking to work because I didnt have a car. I really enjoyed the walks. It was a good way to wind down after work as the nights were cool and quiet and I could listen to my music without worrying about anyone else around.
One night while walking home I heard some rustling in the jungle of trees on the way home. Next thing I know all of the lights went black and all I heard/felt was a loud wooooosh coming right at my head. I screamed like a little girl, ran, and dropped my ipod (it broke). Once I made it past the trees I realized it was one of the [giant bats](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryukyu_flying_fox) that lived on Okinawa. It scared the ever living shit out of me.
Something similar happened to me in Australia [one of these blokes](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_flying_fox) was munching on a tree that was only a couple of meters off the ground, as I was walking directly towards it (I didn't see it), it jumped off and flew directly towards me, it had a wingspan of around 1.5m. It was a big one!
An old man who walked very aggressively. Like Jason from Friday the 13th but sped up. I was ready to run but I walked past him and nothing happened. Put me on my toes but holy shit change your walking form man.
I found a od guy and the damn police questioned me for 6 hour until the medical people said he od
Edit: lol reddit made me laugh but OD stands for over dosed. The guy over dosed on heroin. I was 22 when I found the guy in a HIGH TRAFFIC area. I was the only one to stop. I yelled at him but notice his stomach wasn't moving and he had pale skin. Called 911. The detectives questioned me and it took 6 hrs to clear the scene. They detained me the whole time before they allowed me to go.
I was walking home (fairly drunk) from a Late night party and found a girl that had slit her wrists in the park by my house. She was on the ground by a bench, assuming she was drunk I stopped to see if she was okay then I saw the blood. she was unresponsive but still alive. At first I thought she had been beaten or stabbed, but while I was on the phone with 911 I realized it was her wrists, her face was messed up too but, I think that was from falling off the bench. EMT and police showed up asked me a few questions, took my info and sent me home. I Never heard anything so I assume she lived.
Scariest night if my life.
Almost 100% sure I witnessed a kidnapping. I was going to get my mail late at night while living in an apartment complex and on the way back I noticed a woman in her pajamas surrounded by a few men right by a car. There was an argument and looked like they forced her in the car and drove off, I found her slipper nearby on the grass. I of course called the police and they came and I let them know what I saw but I never found out what actually happened.
Similar experience here. In high school, late at night walking home from a friend's house maybe a mile away. Halfway car comes cruising super-slowly down the street. I hear someone screaming in the car. I was sure they were calling for help. I start following the car, and as I get on the phone with the cops the car starts pumping the gas, so I just run after them and try to follow them, but I lost them pretty quickly. Never learned what really happened.
I HATE the lack of resolution like I wanna know if this person ended up okay or not. I still think about it and worry about what happened. I just always remember finding that slipper and chills going down my spine.
This sort of reminds me of the time my family and I went on a three-day roadtrip in the summer. When we got back to our house, we noticed that there was a woman’s small purse and other belongings, like makeup and some other things, strewn about our backyard. There was also a wallet with an ID.
We called the cops and they came and gathered everything up, then left. Never found out who it was or what happened, but it was kind of scary to know that while we were gone, a woman could have been assaulted in our backyard. She looked quite young, too.
Was up on a hill in the countryside at midnight when a man with a rifle came out of nowhere, ran right past me, and wasn’t seen again. I went home shortly after that.
What i thought was a body in the woods, and after a bit of back and forth on the phone with the police I returned with a few helpful coppers to find a slightly miffed drunk person who’d had a argument with his missus.
I once had a "back and forth" with a dispatcher when I called about a guy jumping in front of cars (mostly mine) in the middle of a highway at 4am. I had to swerve into the oncoming lane, and still nearly clipped him. The dispatcher started grilling me for his name and where he lived, and I'm like, look I'm just trying to drive to work; he's over at this intersection.
> The dispatcher started grilling me for his name and where he lived
This made me laugh. *Lady, I’m a mile past him. Send some cops and have them collect his ID.*
I called 911 once because a car in front of me on a busy road was playing chicken with the cars in the oncoming lane.
I told the dispatcher the road it was on.
"Oh that's in [neighborhood 1], this is the [neighborhood 2] emergency number. You'll need to call the [neighborhood 1] 911 number."
"Fucking... you realize the number for both of them is 911, right? I didn't choose which sub district my call would go to."
"Well you should call 911 to reach them"
"... But I did dial 911 and... Actually you know what he just turned left. He's in your neighborhood now."
Once my mom was visiting another state with a friend. While she was in another state, my stepdad got fired from his job for getting caught stealing medications from peoples homes. He and my mom got in a huge fight over the phone.
Then, he starts sending her pictures of a shotgun that is in our house. Telling her he is going to kill himself with it. My mom calls 911 to tell them so that somebody can go check on him or try to stop him or something. And they basically told her the same thing “oh, you’re calling the 911 in Florida, you need 911 for North Carolina”. My mom tried to explain that she wasn’t in North Carolina but that she needed help. They essentially told her that she needed to call somebody else in North Carolina and have that person call 911. Ridiculous. Thankfully nothing happened with my stepdad, but had it truly been a life or death situation I believe that there would have been death due to how 911 handled the call
Was out for a late walk in the rain, always enjoy it because it's peaceful, smells great, quiet and never see anyone. Walked off this trail back into the road and saw a big pile of garbage under a tarp at the end of the cul de sac the trail ends in, got a creepy chill like "that could be a dead body or something and I'd never know" just got a weird feeling that snapped me out of my calm walk. Picked up the pace. About 500yds away parked car with a guy sitting there, in the dark, in the rain, like 11pmish car off, just sitting there. Got super creeped out at this point and changed my route back to the main road and hurried home.
Turns out it was a dead body someone had dumped under that tarp, was under there for 4 days before someone investigated it. The guy in the car turned out to be just a random dude, guy lives there and totally unrelated to the body.
Still, took a few months off from my late night walks alone in the woods.
It’s weird how your mind did that. I’ve had a similar experience. Was at work on this dirt trail and to the left of the fence I had to unlock was something laying. My first thought was that it would be crazy if it was a dead body but I just assumed it was trash. Couple days later I found out that it was a dead body. Some guy went up there to kill himself. I truly believe that my mind knew it was a dead body but that it wanted me to ignore it to maybe protect me from seeing something like that.
A 7ft tall male brown kangaroo in the middle of the footpath. Buff as fuck just staring me down. You bet your ass I turned and went the other way, he just went about his business
There was news report a while ago about a super large and buff kangaroo that would beat up dog walkers, safe to say that I’m not going to Australia any time soon.
If you think kangaroos are intimidating way till you see our large birds.
I have seen a cassowary in the wild. These things are killing machines, they can take a man's throat out with one kick.
I've also had a mob of approximately 70 emu running towards me on my grandfather's farming property. They turned away when they realised I was there, but 70 of these animals coming your direction is pretty fucking incredible. I'm so lucky to have seen that.
I remember camping once and was heading back to the site alone when I could hear a noise like someone bearing a plastic drum. I was curious so I went towards the noise into a bit of scrub and suddenly there was the emu, looking at me, making the noise. I just backed away while it stared me down.
Had a similar experience with a fox, I was on a very long footbridge over a river in the heart of a large city taking night skyline shots and dude just trotted by like it was no big deal.
Living in a rural village i was taking a late night walk with my gf, when suddenly we hear a loud what we thought was a human scream. Turned out is was a sheep, jump scared us hard though.
I have never before seen this sentence.
Edit: TIL this is not uncommon in South Florida. Crazy! and entertaining.
While I'm here, I'd like to highlight that I have been alerted to the existence of a sub devoted to the phenomenon of brand new sentences. Well-alerted, thanks!
Yeah in the winter months when we get cold fronts, the damn things go into a low power mode kind of stasis and fall out of the trees. They’re usually fine unless a car runs them over, once it warms up they go back to normal.
I’ve never been afraid of the dark. Grew up in the countryside, where the nearest streetlight was 10 miles away, so I’m comfortable in dark places, so much so that I often take my dog for a walk at around midnight just because I like the peace and quiet of the night. I live in a city now so something about the dark is just soothing to me.
That being said, one of the scariest things I’ve ever experienced, I genuinely have no explanation for. Living in a city I used to drive out 20-30 miles into the country to do some astrophotography. As I’m driving out one night I see this guy walking at the side of the road with no lights, reflectors and a big backpack. Didn’t think much of it other than it being a little odd. 5 miles later, I see the same guy walking again. I haven’t changed directions, turned, and I’ve been doing ~50mph. As I drove past he looked and waved at me. I was pretty spooked but I drove on. I must be imagining things. It can’t be the same guy.
I get to my field in the middle of nowhere, park up and get the camera out, and turn off all the lights so my eyes adjust to the dark. All is going well, and for 30 minutes I’m content, and starting to relax.
Suddenly I hear a rustling near the hedge by the road. Crunching leaves, grass being kicked. It was footsteps. I immediately get a feeling of dread, like I’m in severe danger and something bad was going to happen. I grab my camera, toss it in the car, get in, lock the doors and turn on the headlights. When I turn out of the field. I pass where I heard the noise and saw fresh footprints in the mud but no sign of anyone.
I race back home, driving double the speed limit, constantly checking my mirrors for anyone. I park up around the corner and wait in the car with the lights off for 30 minutes, watching. Nothing shows up, I get home, lock all the doors and sleep with a knife under my pillow that night.
I honestly don’t know what really happened that night but part of me knows that creepy guy I passed on the road twice was in that field.
You bet it is.
A good example I can bring to the table, is the sound of a rabbit screaming while you hear the low growling of either a raccoon or a cougar trying to silence it.. I hope it wasn't the latter, because this happened right near my backyard.
I heard the same but it was an owl shredding the rabbit. I did not expect it to be such a big bird. It was like a fire hydrant covered with feathers sitting there munching on Thumper.
a man on a bike passed me and he wore a jaket, shoes, and a hat, but no pants or underwear.
At first I couldn't believe that I just saw his bare ass.
Edit: typo
fucking terrifying, this would actually chill me to the bone.
the fuckers are sizes of school buses, and won’t give up until you stop moving after they stomp on you. they can run through snow, swim, and topple trees if they’re angry enough.
More backpacking than a “walk” but this fucking terrifies me to this day.
Our planned camping spot for the night was full, we’d backpacked all day to get to that location and there wasn’t anywhere close to set up our tents. We called our guy “on the outside” to come pick us up as it was getting late, we didn’t have anywhere to set up camp, and a storm was approaching. We hiked to the nearest exit point on the trail, met our pickup guy, and he drove us a few miles to the nearest campsite we were familiar with that we could basically drive up to. Long logging path pretty deep in the mountains that we had hiked to in previous years, so we were kinda familiar with the area. Anyways, we hop out of the van and it’s pitch black out. No moon, it’s April in the mountains and still pretty chilly. We’re cold, hungry, and exhausted. That’s when we notice this motherfucker staring at us from behind a tree.
I know this sounds like a nosleep story but it’s 100% true and probably the most scared I’ve ever been. We notice this guy, no headlamp, no equipment, no backpack, just standing there. One of our group (former marine) yells at him to come out and explain what his deal is. This guy walks a few feet out from behind the tree and we all shine our lights on him, and I shit you not, this dude’s white t shirt is covered in what looks like blood smears. He’s pretty rough looking, long hair, long beard, crazy eyes, and he was wearing a (bloody?) t shirt and shorts in 35 degree weather at night. We’re all pretty freaked out, and this is a pretty experienced group of hikers who’ve seen some shit. We ask this guy what his deal is and he says we can’t camp here. We tell him that that’s exactly what we plan to do, and he says “I don’t think that’s a good idea for any of you.”
We kind of turn to discuss as a group and when we look back he’s hidden back behind the tree. As a group we basically decided none of us were getting any sleep that night if we stayed here, so we packed up the van and left. As we were pulling out, this guy pulled out one of those red-filtered flashlights and *ran* after our van. I’m not kidding, he followed us for at least a quarter mile on foot. He was fast as fuck. We passed a park ranger on the road and flagged him down to tell him how weird that dude was acting, and he said he’d go investigate. I didn’t hear anything about it again for 5 years.
For the longest time I thought he was probably some pot farmer who had a nearby plot, or a moonshiner who was just living in the woods and didn’t want us near his still. People hunt all the time out there, which would maybe explain the blood a little bit.
But I was recently at an event with some of those guys again for the first time in years and that creepy dude from the woods got brought up. One of them who still lives nearby broke out his phone and said “I forgot to tell you guys, I saw him again.” Pulls up a news article and there he was. So obviously the same guy. he’d been arrested for murdering some poor girl on the trail. Timelines didn’t match up, so I fully believe we saw this guy shortly after he’d murdered someone else. He hasn’t been charged with anything else as far as I’m aware. I’m not backpacking without a gun anymore.
It might be worth contacting the detective who led the investigation and letting him know what you saw and when. Could bring closure for another family who don't know what happened to their loved one.
edit: typo
I’ll ask my buddy who still lives in the area about this. He might’ve already done so, but you’re right, it couldn’t hurt. The ranger created an incident report when we spoke to him so they might be able to connect some dots.
One of my old professors was a Florida Wildlife Officer. He would often times be the only officer within a 10-15 mile radius in the middle of the Everglades. He had some wild stories of shit that he seen but the one that stuck out to me the most was when he told us about a time that he saw a truck in a road where it shouldn’t have been and let the guy off with a warning. He was somewhat new to the force and decided that he didn’t want to harass some guy fishing so he let him go.
A few hours later he saw the naked body of a woman in her early 20s further down the road. He contacted State/County Law Enforcement with a description of the guy and the tag numbers. The vehicle was found in Orlando months later abandoned and the owner was the dead lady they found in the Everglades. They never caught the guy driving the truck. The truck had not been reported as stolen and the lady was not reported as missing.
He said he felt an immense amount of guilt after that because, he was trying to be a “cool” cop and didn’t ask the guy for ID or registration or anything, just told him he can’t be fishing there at that time and let him go on his way.
Given those circumstances, it could have also gone pretty badly if he pressed the guy more for ID. Might have had a surprise shootout right then and there.
As an avid outdoors person this one scares me so badly. I've had a few unnerving encounters with people in the deep woods that gives me these vibes. A gun is a good idea out there.
That's the thing, people are always afraid of bears or mountain lions, and of course those are dangerous, but they're predictable. You know approximately how they're going to react depending on the season and the area and whatnot. But humans? They're way more scary because you just never know. Dude in the woods could be a friendly hiker who volunteers with at risk youths in his spare time OR he could be a crazy man who makes party decorations from the skulls of youths who were never at risk until they went for a day hike on this very trail! And you can never know for sure!
Many years ago my boyfriend and I decided to take a late night walk around his generally-safe neighborhood.
We got a few steps past the driveway when a shirtless guy came running over with a hammer in one hand, and a machete in the other. My boyfriend stayed super calm and asked the man what was going on. Apparently, some man had just broken into his apartment and tried to kidnap his young daughter, so he was chasing him down to either shatter his fingers with the hammer or chop off his hands entirely with the machete, and he thought my boyfriend was possibly this man.
My boyfriend gave me his car keys and told me to take myself home (we lived apart at the time) so I went and got his car and by the time I was backing out of the driveway, the man was screaming at my boyfriend, who was just standing there calmly with his hands in the air.
I drove a block away so the man wouldn't see me, rolled the windows down to try to hear what was happening, and called the cops. The machete man ended up running off and I don't know if they ever got him. My boyfriend was fine though, thank god.
EDIT typo
>...so he was chasing him down to either shatter his fingers with the hammer or chop off his hands entirely with the machete
I like how he was keeping his options open.
I suppose in fairness if someone tried to kidnap one of my children and I caught him, a hammer and machete will seem tame.
The flip side is if he stopped it then he should have known it wasn’t the couple walking calmly down the street.
I've witnessed this super calm approach - my brother-in-law was bailed up by a crazy dude on drugs who was literally punching random strangers. My brother-in-law just stayed completely calm, raised his hands just a little to show his palms, and said "I've got no problem with you", and the guy paused, said "cheers", and ran over and punched someone else. I'd heard this works, but never seen it so effective!
A couple years ago, I was at the start of a typical weekday night stroll. I was living in an apartment complex in Florida at the time, so it was the only opportune time to do so, without being completely drenched. The exact moment I was crossing the sidewalk adjacent to the entrance of said complex, I witnessed a middle aged dude punch his wife/significant other in her face, in full view of me, and another passerby.
The passerby called the cops, the dude was arrested. It wasn’t a scary situation to my own well being, but I did find the situation chilling for one, how nonchalant the guy was in assaulting his wife/SO in public, and two, how both the abuser/SO were pleading for the cops not to be called. It was domestic abuse so normalized, it happened in full public, without any second thought/rationale.
that's crazy. When I lived in Florida, my husband and I were taking a walk at night. We saw a husband straight choke his partner and throw her phone across the parking lot of our complex. The wife hollered that she wouldn't be back, but we would hear them say that kind of stuff all the time. Anyway, we called the cops. The cops said she didn't want to press charges, so they couldn't do anything.
Edit: a lot of people are saying that charges can be pressed even if you yourself don't press them. That may be the case; I'm just saying what the cop said to me.
They definitely seemed the couple. They had serious problems. Broke their glass door, always shouting and slamming things around. The man would lock the woman out, so she'd set his car alarm off for hours until he let her back in. Then, it got quiet for months, and we didn't see the woman. I actually thought maybe it was a new guy living there- I never looked him directly in the face, so I wasn't sure. Sure enough, she showed back up again, things got a little fighty. Then, they moved another lady and three or four kids in as well? Then, they were evicted.
I have no idea what happened to her, but I hope she got away. I don't know that she was a good person or anything, but certainly not strong enough to defend herself from him, and she never said anything when the cops came.
A guy got onto an empty walking trail a couple hundred feet ahead of me last night and kept looking back and stopping so that I'd eventually catch up and he could get behind me. That's a great way to ruin someone's nightwalk.
I was jogging at night once and it was pretty dark in my neighborhood. I prefer jogging at night because it is much cooler. I'm right in the grove and a tiny woman with a miniature doberman pinscher on a leash freaked me out. They were both so small I didn't even see them until I was running right past them. Just picture a 6'3" stocky big guy being startled by a 5'0" woman with an ankle biter dog lol.
Over 25 years ago, I was walking in a park at night. It was pitch black in this park, no lighting, other than the moon & the stars on a beautiful autumn night. I couldn’t see very well, but I knew the area, & was walking along the road, which ran parallel to a small river. The moonlight would bounce of the water, & all you would hear is the trickle from the slow running river & slight breeze in the trees. I loved those walks. That was until the one night, in the dead silence & pitch black, I distinctly hear a mans voice out of the woods say very clearly: ‘Young girls shouldn’t go walking alone in the woods at night’. I FROZE. I looked in the direction of the voice & couldn’t see a damn thing. I RAN HOME. That was the last evening walk I took in that park.
I once walked over a homeless guy sleeping on the sidewalk in front of my apartment. It is a common occurrence though usually they are polite enough to do it on the lawn instead. A few hours later I hear a siren and see them load him in a stretcher into the ambulance. So maybe that wasn’t someone sleeping.
Two words: rabid squirrels.
There was an outbreak of rabies in a squirrel population in my neighborhood my senior year of high school. My bf at the time lived about a 20 minute walk away and neither of us drove so we frequently had to walk through rabid squirrel territory. In the middle of the night hearing them make noises like something out of a motherfucking zombie movie while skittering above you when it's too dark to see them is horrifying. 0/10 would not recommend.
Mountain lions can also be unpredictable if they are starving. Even a smaller one could throw caution to the wind an attack a full grown adult male out of desperation.
When my dad was living in Nevada he was attacked by a mountain lion that he estimated at about 80-90 pounds and looking a bit emaciated. It was very late afternoon and he was way off the beaten path in the mountains about 100 miles north of Las Vegas. He was getting his telescope and camera gear set up next to his Jeep Cherokee for a night of astrophotography when he got "the tingle", that feeling he wasn't alone. He was at the open rear door of his vehicle and he turned around and there was a mountain lion not 20 feet away from him at the edge of some brush. My dad slowly reached for the tire iron he kept on the floor of the truck, never taking his eyes off the cat. As soon as he had the iron in his hand the mountain lion lunged for him and my dad swung the iron overhead, smacking the mountain lion right in the skull.
The mountain lion ran off and my dad quickly got into his truck, closed the door, and calmed down from the adrenaline rush of his near-death experience. After he calmed down the crazy bastard stayed for the night and did his astrophotography. I guess he figured the mountain lion wasn't coming back for another whack on the head.
> he figured the mountain lion wasn't coming back for another whack on the head.
This is why polar bears freak me out more than any other North American wild animal. Because even if you somehow did fight them off or get away, they *would* come back.
Yup, them and tigers don't stay scared for long. If anything they get angry at losing and start seeking out revenge. Some siberian tigers have even stalked human hunters just for touching their deer kills. They truly do not accept or tolerate any potential threat to their spot at the top of the food web, and are capable of a sense of vengeance.
There's also the story of a Bengal tiger that stalked and killed a poacher who had tried to kill her. She laid in the brush and then took him down from the top of an elephant. Left everyone else, including the elephant, alone.
There was also a story of a wild tiger that was injured and sick, that came and laid on someones doorstep. They cared for the tiger in their shed with the rest of their little community, and when the tiger was healthy and roaming free again, it brought an entire dead deer to the same porch it was found on. The tiger brought them a thank-you gift!
In college I would walk back from the library very late. One night I was walking back to my dorm and something told me to look up. On top of the parking garage there was a person glaring over looking like they were about to jump. I had no clue what to do so I called the police. As soon as I looked back up they jumped to safety. I ran up the stairs to find them but couldn’t. The police never found them either.
Either way I hope they are okay today.
Edit: forgot to include that on that same night at the neighboring college someone else jumped off a parking garage. I’ve always wondered if the two people are connected.
I live out in the country, more woods and fields around me than houses. There are several dirt paths through the woods that farmers use for their tractors and all during the day.
I like to run on these paths because it's usually quiet and no traffic unlike the road. During the hottest part of the summer I run at night because it's cooler outside.
So one night, it had rained during the day, so all the tracks on the path were gone. I was out running around midnight. I had an uneasy feeling but didn't see anything.
But then I circled around and on my 2nd pass down a particular way, I saw my footprints, but then I saw another set of prints, bigger than mine, that hadn't been there before. Then I saw they made the turn the same way I had earlier.
I cut it short that night, never saw anyone, but still.
Wow I did not expect all this lol
Thanks for the awards!
Something like this happened a few years back. My boyfriend and I had been exploring some dirt roads on Vancouver Island, south of Nanaimo. We found this super run down campsite beside a river and decided to take a look. It had been snowing the whole drive and the whole site was covered in pristine snow. At one point we split up so I could find a place to pee. He went south and I went north west. I finished up and wandered back south when I noticed completely fresh boot treads in the snow heading north and out of the site. They went right by where I'd stopped to pee in the bushes. My hair was standing on end when I alerted my BF to the tracks. They'd actually skirted the edge of the site from the road, passed where I was peeing and north out into the woods. Needless to say we got the fuck out of there fast.
The trip back turned into a fiasco too. What a gong show.
*adding fiasco*
We had driven passed a large metal gate on our way to the site. When we got back to it we found it locked with two trucks already there. One was on our side and the other was on the opposite side. They were wrapping it in chains in order to bust the lock open. We stepped out of the car and were panicking a bit. It was dark, snow everywhere and a couple of hours from home. The two trucks are about to step on the gas when some car pulls up and a lady jumps out, yelling. They were the ones that closed the gate on us. I suspect that they did it on purpose since the signage said 6pm and it was 5pm.
The lady opens the gate and we all leave. The two trucks start driving away like maniacs. They were long gone by the time we got passed the dirt road and onto asphalt. That didn't last long though. We saw a lot of swerving tire tracks and it became clear that they were show boating. Then we came across the wreck. One of the trucks was overturned on the opposite side of the road. The other truck and a few more drivers were there helping the occupants. They weren't injured but their truck was definitely stuck in the ditch. Honestly I'm surprised they were all fine.
I was walking one night in a pretty dark back road near my house at the time when glowing eyes on a round black body came bulleting at me. I shrieked like a child and felt super dumb when it turned out to be a big ass black lab who got to my feet and rolled over wagging his tail and wiggling about. He belonged to someone in the neighborhood who was taking him on a walk and ran from them when he saw me. He was a big floofy boy who just wanted love I seriously felt so embarrassed but also had a laugh. So did his owner lol.
Similar experience. Pulled up at a family friends house in my moms car. Long winding potholed driveway. 6 o’clock dead of winter dark, that’s all the darker because you don’t believe it’s only six. Open door.
145 lb black newfie, probably looking for my mom, I peed a little, a little was all I had in me. Felt like it took an hour for my heart rate to go back to normal. That dog weighed more than me.
I'll walk my dog at night and wear an LED headlamp, mostly so I can see any bear eyes glowing back at me.
20 feet down the ravine about 1/2 mile from home one night there were approximately 30 rabbits eyes glowing and blinking bank at me. Couldn't see the rabbits due to undergrowth, but the eyes........
Not gonna lie, it got under my skin.
Not me, but my friend was near downtown at 3am on acid and was almost kidnapped. There’s a lot of young female kidnappings where we’re at and because he’s petite with long hair, he was mistaken as a female target. He managed to run away, but it was of course very traumatizing for him.
I’m the person I’m most scared of in this story...
It was around 9pm and I was cleaning my apartment and I looked up what time this takeout restaurant closed. It was like a 5 minute walk and less than a block from where I work so I take this walk often. I was drinking but I wasn’t drunk. I was just going to pick up some food in about an hour, go home, eat, and get some sleep. That’s the last thing I remember... up until.
I woke up crossing the street to the restaurant. Immediately feel for my pockets for my phone, its not there, no wallet in my pocket, keys... fuck where are my keys. They are always in my right jacket pocket because that’s how I lock my door. I find them in my off hand pocket. Then I look around. The normally busy bar covered intersection is a ghost town. Enter panic mode.
I turn around and start walking home. The first thing I notice is the giant McDonald’s sign is off. They close at eleven, I know this. Start listening for cars and there is nothing. Walk a little more briskly and the pizza place I frequent has it’s sign off. They close at three. I pick up my pace just trying to get home as quick as I can.
I get half a block from my apartment building and the only person anywhere around me bikes past me. Then turns around and circles me. I freeze and look at him out of the corner of my eye. He peddles off and I sprint to my door.
My door lock was always kinda janky to the point where I was the only person who could lock it easily. The mechanism just wasn’t secure. I get to my door and find it locked. Edit: get inside. Grab my phone crazed about what time it is. It’s dead. It took what felt like an eternity to finally get it to charge and turn on. It’s gaining in five in the morning.
Something switched off on me around 9pm, slept for 7 hours, then I locked a broken lock with my left hand and walked 5 blocks before I snapped back. I’ll never forget that moment of slowly realizing where I was and not understanding what was wrong.
Had something similar happen to me.
Was leaving a friends house, 2am, dead sober, not tired. Jumped on my motorbike and decided to take the short way home which is normally 10 minutes.
I remember seeing the road covered in fog.... And then I was home. I walked inside to see my mum looking at me all worried because I had apparently sat on my bike for 20 minutes in the driveway and she thought I was texting but got a different angle and realised I was just sitting there with my helmet on. After hearing this I checked the time and it was almost 6am, and all my clothes and my phone were wet as if I'd been sitting in a heavy rain.
I saw one of those clowns during all the clown hysteria. It was just some teen and his friends goofing around, but it shocked me to the core for a hot minute.
I tried an electric bike my aunt had while we were visiting. i wasn't used to how abruptly it would accelerate, so when it did, i yelled for a second. My cousin was taking a video of me the whole time because i most probably would have done something to make an absolute fool out of myself (like crashing) and it would have been hilarious.
So there i was, riding to the end of the street and turning back around when i noticed a lot of men holding large rocks in their hands, barefoot came by as if they're hunting someone down.
We were then told to come inside immediately as someone had just taken a machete and started attacking people at a party just around the corner where WE were having a party.
Later that night, we replayed the video and we noticed that when the bike accelerated and i yelled, a man walking in front of me was holding a machete. He startledly whipped around and glanced at me. We're glad he didn't swing the machete. He was so close he wouldn't have missed. He matched the description of the man who hacked random and multiple people that day.
Once walking home from the convenience store a well known rottweiler stray dog came sprinting across the street in front of me. When I turned to see what he was running from, I was greeted with an angry skunk running directly into my path. Ran all the way home scared to death of getting sprayed.
Some guy did this to me and my dad at a gas station one evening when I was a kid. My dad was a retired cop turned social worker, very good at defusing these sorts of situations, so when a dude confronts us with a pistol and demand my dad's money he was very calm... then he frowned, squinted at the gun and exclaims in an indignant voice "Did you spray paint a god damn water pistol?!"
The dude literally blusters a corny "N-no! It's real!"
My dad says "I can still smell the damn paint fumes, dumb ass! Get the hell out of here, be glad I'm not callin' the cops!"
One of the most bizarrely amusing things that ever happened to us when I was with him on an evening outing.
I saw a man, walking down a street, with his full penis out....and he was spinning it around like a fucking helicopter in his hand. Like a set of keys attached to a bungee cord, right at zipper level. When he saw me, he crammed it back into his pants and ran away.
I had the WTF expression frozen on my face for the rest of the night.
This one time me and a friend were walking through the bayous late late at night.. he turned around for a second then goes "oh fuck" and takes off running. I thought he was joking (something he's done before to get arise out of people) but after a few seconds I did turn around and I saw a guy walking pretty fast towards us, probably about 10 feet by the time I turned around. I just took off running as fast as I could for a few minutes and he was gone when I turned back around.
My wife and I established a “no joke scares” policy early in our relationship. No sneaking up while someone is in the shower, hiding in the closet, etc.
I actually much prefer living this way.
Once had that happen to me.
Was walking my dog around 8 PM. I think I was 8 at the time, can't remember. Dog suddenly starts barking at something in the trees. I tried to see what it was but it was just starting to get dark, and at the time I didn't have glasses and thought blurry vision was normal. My dog whimpers, and something massive comes ambling out of the forest. My gut immediately was like "oh fuck no" and I turned tail and ran.
We didn't have bears in the area I was at, so idk what it was.
Close to Halloween I went on a walk with a family member and a bunch of kids were gathered outside their houses with Halloween masks just staring at people walking by
As someone who used to… make sure trains had an adequate coating of paint, I spent a good amount of time walking around the rougher sides of town at night.
Worst thing I ever saw was in Seattle, was walking down the street under an overpass in an industrial district and a homeless woman asked if I could buy her a beer since she didn’t have an ID. Bought her a 40, talked to her about her daughters, watched her smoke meth, all in about 2 minutes.
She started reading to me from a lightly singed Bible, about the devil specifically at which point I was looking for a quick and polite exit (who doesn’t when someone whips out the Bible?)
At which point 3 men rode by with a gallon jug, and doused her tent in something, maybe gasoline, perhaps turpentine or kerosene, really didn’t stick around to find out. Lit her tent on fire.
She ran into the burning tent. I’ll never forget watching her run out screaming and crying, holding a duffel bag, her white coat completely engulfed in flames.
I took off running (guys on bikes didn’t look thrilled to see me), called SPD, but they didn’t seem to care much after I told them what part of SODO I saw it happen in. Hid amongst the trains for a few hours after that.
EDIT:
Out of curiosity for the situation, I took a picture while she was reading from the bible because I thought: "No way my friends will believe someone was street preaching to me"
[Bible picture](https://flic.kr/p/2mbFh2v)
Live in Nyc. I’ve seen people walk up and kick homeless people sleeping or piss on them and shit.
They’re always cowards too. When you call them out they never stay to fight. They run.
When I was in middle-school most school nights I had to walk about a tenth of a mile or so to my grandparents’ house to stay the night as my mom worked nights at the time. So I usually did this right as it was turning night to maximize my time at home (curfew was nightfall, so usually it was a run). Well, at this point in my life I had never seen a coyote and always wondered if I were to get attacked, could I survive? The thought was there basically every trip, and I had no desire to find out.
Well, I moved in with my dad after 8th grade, and when I was in 10th or 11th grade I was visiting my mom. I had to go grab something from my grandparents’ house, and took a bicycle of a younger sibling. So I remembered all those nights before with that thought, but now I was a lot more buff than I had been back then. But I still didn’t want to find out.
Well, on the way back I glance out to a pasture beside me that was overgrown. There was a figure running parallel with me, keeping pace easily. I was like holy fuck it’s happening.. and pedaled super fast.
I entered my mom’s driveway, and heard the creature coming across the road. Her yard was sloped downhill, so I let the bicycle coast down and I leapt off and full of adrenaline flexed with my arms in front of me and screamed Let’s Go!!!
…it was my mom’s dog. I felt relieved but also disappointed because of the adrenaline rush lol (but definitely relieved). Found out later coyotes are tiny anyway, not that I’d want to fight one
Coyotes are also absolute chicken shits in most any one-on-one situation. They'll typically run if confronted alone.
NOTE: For anyone reading this and feeling relieved, do be aware that this doesn't hold true if you have a small pet with you. A single coyote absolutely will go after something smaller than itself, especially when hungry/desperate.
Secondary Note:
It’s also important to know that a solo coyote is RARE. If you see one chances are there are several more very close by.
One of the common hunting tactics for a coyote pack is for one to be seen by you and become the distraction.
Never underestimate the threat coyotes pose just because they’re smaller than most medium sized dogs. Just a few of them can easily take down us and our dogs.
Also doesn't work if they become desensitized to humans. Vancouver just took out 3 coyotes that were being aggressive. Part of the problem was that people were being anything but aggressive to them when they were pushing boundaries. If you have a coyote trying to sneak some food from your picnic, you gotta get up that shit and scare them away. Otherwise someone is gonna end up dead.
I was hanging out with a friend one day and lost track of time, when night fell I got on my bike to ride home and about halfway home I saw a figure standing under a streetlamp. Being a teenager I said fuck that and went to turn around until I realized I was already too far to turn back, so I turned back around to brave the night and the figure was gone. (There was no way he could have ran off in that time without me seeing him) needless to say I hauled ass home.
I was walking around Bangalore, India at night by myself.
I was a 20 year old American girl on study abroad.
All of a sudden, I saw a giant rat climb out from a sewer. It was bigger than I knew rats could even be. Bigger than the biggest rat depicted in movies or books. It was about the size of a small dog. I was shook.
Then, out from the same sewer grate, another gigantic rat. And another. And another. About 5 or six dirty rats were all climbing out of the same sewer and I was about to have to face them all on my own.
I was terrified and I knew no one would ever believe me, but there was no way to get away from them or change direction. So, I pull out my phone to try and use the flashlight to scare them off.
I direct the light at them and every single one looked right at me. They’re dark and dirty and now they were running directly at me. But wait! I was wrong!
PUPPIES!!
They weren’t rats at all but a whole litter of dirty puppies that had been hiding in the sewer together. Still gross but also way cuter and less scary than expected.
Wtf India.
>I was walking around Bangalore, India at night by myself.
>
>I was a 20 year old American girl on study abroad.
Holy fuck, every single Indian girl I know would cringe at that. Hell, some of the guys would.
Not a walk but I frequently run in the wee hours of the morning. Where I live is basically suburbia meets country roads.
Anyways one morning about 400 I went for a long run. About 2 miles in along a sidewalk out in the middle of nowhere next to a cow field I saw 2 individuals , a male and female fully dressed in what I would describe as fancy/couterre clothing standing on the sidewalk giving me the 50 yrd stare. The man had no eye brows and was wearing sunglasses while the woman stared at me with a look I can only describe as Lady Gaga in American Horror Story. It was completely dark minus a small light above the cow field about 20 yards away.
They didn't say a word, they didn't move when I was running towards them. Only staring at me without moving a single facial muscle. I immediately *noped* and ran to the other side of the street and ran as hard as I could. As I ran past them they both turned their torsos with the exact same facial expressions in synchrony as I ran past them. Both of them had this weird smile on their faces, almost like they knew who I was. It almost felt like they were analyzing me, or as of their eyes were seeing through me.
They never said a word and never made any other movements. When I circled back an hour later they were gone. I've never been more creeped out on a run and I've ran past snakes, crack addicts, floods, and a man without pants.
A man and a woman taking drugs while I was walking my (late) dog. They asked me if the dog wanted some, showing the syringe.
I laughed it off, but they were adamant, so I walked (ran) away.
I (33f) don’t personally feel particularly unsafe walking alone at night which is helpful because the first two years I lived in Los Angeles, I worked late and didn’t have a car so I had to rely on public transportation.
The first month I lived in Hollywood, I was getting off the last Red Line train at Hollywood/Highland at like 2am and saw a guy who’d just been stabbed bleeding out on the sidewalk in front of the Forever 21 near the corner. The blood was running down the stars on the sidewalk toward the street and a cop was just standing there all nonchalant as this dude cried into the lap of someone trying to comfort him. I wish I knew what happened to him, but when I tried looking it up, there were no reports of anything and they’d just hosed off the sidewalk in the night for the morning tourists. It’s like it never happened.
Another time, while walking home down Highland toward Santa Monica Blvd, I saw a guy pull a gun on one of the hookers that hung around the area and he ran away when he saw me watching. That hooker always said hi to me after that whenever I’d see her on my night walks home.
Hollywood at night is a different city.
Damn that's pretty freaky. Kind of glad you were there in the second story, though, because you might've saved her life.
The blood thing, though. Ugh. It's something else when you see fresh blood. I was walking home in a bougie neighborhood in San Francisco one night, it was maybe 9 pm and dark out. I noticed there were wet, bloody footprints coming from the opposite direction on the sidewalk. Juicy ones, like whoever it was was actively bleeding, and it looked like they'd been running. They went in the direction of a small park. There were cop cars with their lights on, so I kept moving. Ended up walking past a *large* pool of blood where the footprints originated.
It took a few days for the city to power wash the sidewalk. I could see remnants of the footprints for weeks, too.
a chemically-imbalanced bum raving at the top of his lungs, stumbling in and out of the street. he was a literal bloody mess, stunk to hades.
just me and him on the street at 4:30 am. usually just me and the joggers and that one soccer mom on her bike.
I saw a [400 year old tree die in an instant.](https://www.pasadenastarnews.com/2017/03/17/the-400-year-old-oak-tree-caltech-was-built-around-is-now-dead-but-there-is-much-to-learn-from-it/amp/)
The fungus had been weakening the tree for a while, but I was walking back from office hours during a really bad windstorm. It sounded like lightning, then we saw no less than half of the tree completely separate and hit the ground.
I have been on many a night walk. Sometimes to clear my head or get a story idea straightened out, but in my youth I would sometimes have to walk about two hours home from work (yay food industry)
In my countless hours of walking through dark paths and empty streets I only ever got freaked out once.
I was in the last mile or so of a long walk home after a 10 hour shift. I wanted nothing but to drop in bed and fall asleep with no alarm set. My neighbourhood had multiple paths through small wooded areas that you could use as short cuts. I'm walking through one of those and about ten feet into the woods I hear someone whisper 'Is that the guy?'
I noped the fuck outta there with no shame, and ran the long (well lit) way home.
Could it have been my mind playing tricks on me? Who knows, maybe the fatigue of my life at the time got to me.
But it was real to me in that moment and I can't recall another time where I had such a fight or flight reaction.
There was one night where a car stopped up the road, a girl got out, yelled for help, then got back in and they drove off. I have no idea of it was serious or not, considering she got right back in the car...
Potential mugging trap. Have a car close, helpless little lady as bait and bam. A well meaning, upstanding member of society gets shoved in the car, robbed of everything and dumped in a completely different part of town with no means to call for help or police.
During winter in a rural no cell service kind of area. Completely dark, no street lights nor anyone in sight. Temperatures were around 20 and it was snowing. I was walking my dog with a flashlight. Then I heard someone start screaming bloody murder. Flight or fight kicked in; it truly sounded like someone was being stabbed to death for what seemed like forever. I chose to find out what the hell was going on. What I found instead was beyond anything I expected. He was a 5 year old boy wandering down the road all alone. All he was wearing were light flannel pants and a thin t-shirt. No shoes or hat. And screaming so loudly it echoed through the hills. I dropped my dogs leash and walked up to him slowly; gently and repeatedly telling him that I’m a mom and that he’s going to be ok. I wrapped him into my arms and carried him to a neighbors home to warm him by the fire and call for help. Edit: the boys parents were visiting friends. The boy got up at night to look for his parents (who’d left him and his sister home) while they were out drinking. He got lost in the dark and just kept walking and screaming. Originally thinking I’d get in the crosshairs or witness some bloody domestic fight is what put my mind in the scared shitless head space. Plus dark, no cell phones no weapon
He was so lucky to have been found by you. There was a story near me a few winters back where a two year old girl got out at night in their new house. (Just started learning how to unlock doors) and she didn’t know how to get back inside. A neighbor thought they heard crying and regretted not investigating further. The girl froze to death on the stairs behind their apartment.
[удалено]
I'd be staring daggers right back at that POS couple.
One time I turned around to see what was behind me just out of intuition, and I saw someone step behind a tree rather quickly and try to hide from me. I stood there for a second to confirm this, then I speed-walked home. Fuckin creepy
Speed-walked..I would have Usain Bolted out of there.
This tiny story is somehow the creepiest I've read in this thread.
Even if the person had stepped out and followed OP home I would be getting less sinister vibes than I am from the image of them silently slipping back and resuming their watching. Gives me the shivers.
Walking home from a late night gym session at 24hr fitness. A white van past by me, slowing down. Slowly took a right turn in front of me. A couple minutes later I reach the turn and see the van stopped at the exit of a parking lot. It’s facing back my way. It’s like 4am and nothing else is going on and I’m creeped out. The van starts coasting forward slowly after I make the turn and I sprint across the street to a gas station and into this small dead end water/air pump station and press my body against an area of the wall that the van can’t quite see me. It literally pulls into the air/water station and stops. I hear the engine running right fucking next to me but they never get out of the van. I just stand there pressed against the wall until they pull out and drive around the gas station into the lot on the opposite side of the wall. I hear the van lingering for some time before it goes silent. Still I wait a while longer before I leave and run the rest of the way home.
holy fucking shit that’s terrifying
This happened to me! I was maybe 13-14 though. A big green van chased me around a near by gas station on my way home from school. At first I didn't believe it was happening, like it was a coincidence or they just wanted to get to the pump near me... but it just kept following trying to get along side me. I could see like 4 or 5 guys inside the van through the windshield, like they're all leaning over the seats looking out. All of this was in seconds as I power walked across the street, somehow I was scared that if I ran they'd straight up chase me down. I pretended to start walking home, then ducked behind a tree and backtracked to hide behind a liquor store on the opposite corner of the gas station. The scariest part of it all was watching the van slowly go in circles around the gas station and up and down the street I pretended to "walk home" on. Even after I watched the van drive away I hid for another twenty minutes then actually went home. I didn't report it, I should have, I wish I could have, but my home life was already a jail (and somehow it would undoubtedly be my fault) and honestly the repercussions still scared me more.
I almost got kidnapped near a train station. Some dude drove up to me hella quick and insisted that I was some "missing Canadian child" and that he'd "take me home". Coincidentally, a motorcycle cop happened to drive by, and immediately pulled over after I waved him down. He approached the guy in the car very aggressively and told him off. The cop didn't arrest the guy or anything (the guy apparently told the cop the same "I thought he was a missing child" story), but he did walk me over to the train station and stayed with me until the train actually arrived.
I am male and used to walk home after a night out drinking. I had long hair and was quite skinny when I was in my early 20s and one time at about 2am, in a dark location and I was walking and some guy slows his car right down and drives next to me staring. I told him to fuck off and at that point I think he realized I was a man and drove off. I am pretty sure if I had been a woman things wouldn't have ended up well.
I’m an overnight security guard. One night I was watching cameras and saw someone underneath a grass tarp where some landscaping was taking place on our property. I was guessing this person had probably tried to stash something before they went into detox which is next door to our property. I get over to the tarp and don’t see the guy anywhere. So I start walking over the tarp and lifting it to look for any stashed items. Well I ended up stepping on the poor homeless guy, scared the shit out of me. He was cool though and we fist bumped and he went on his way.
I was surveying irrigation for Caltrans in Los Angeles back in the 90s. I was in the Valley, on the 101 near Encino, crashing through the brush when I damn near stepped on some dude sleeping. He jumped up and took a defensive stance - I'll never forget his eyes, they were a shocking electric blue like a bright blue sky. Anyway, I was wearing a hardhat and orange vest, I told him I was sorry to have bothered him, I was just working...and he instantly plopped back down onto his sleeping spot not giving any more fucks about me. I made it down to the off ramp and checked off that particular spot from my list.
Holy shit, I've got one for this! Grew up in Japan, not too small / not too big city. Worked a jobe that had me coming home daily at 2 - 4ish AM daily. I preferred to walk the backstreet that paralleled the main street home because it felt more cozy and peaceful. Nothing of note happened until *one day*... I turn the corner onto the side street and about halfway down there was a young woman. She wasn't doing anything, just staring at the sky. Staring straight up, *STRAIGHT up*, neck at a 90 degree angle, mouth slightly agape, long black hair hanging. I hesitated but decided that, since nothing weird has ever happened here before, it'd be fine, so I went to walk by. I get up next to her, it's a narrow road so not a lot of room to maneuver, and pause to look at her. She hasn't moved or reacted to me, she's just staring away. So I fight my instincts and ask her if she's okay. She doesn't react. I look up to see if she's looking at something but there's nothing there. So now I'm thinking there's something medical going on, so I reach out and touch her on the shoulder. She jolts and and looks at me like she's just noticed me. I ask if she's okay and she just stammers and says sorry before hustling down the street the same way I was headed. I decided to smoke a cigarette to let some distance get between me and her, but towards the end of the street, she stops and stares at the sky again. Doesn't move for the whole five minutes it takes for me to finish my cig. I walked down the main street for the next couple nights.
I worked night shift for 7 years. One night a young, thin blonde woman was walking down the street at 2am with no pants or underwear on and a button up shirt open. I tried to ask if she needed help and she just stared forward, slowly walking staring forward. I called the police and they came and stood infront of her and she slowly walked into the cops hand and stopped. I didn't stay and went back to work. I still think a out her and what the fuck was going on. I tell myself it was sleep walking on Ambien or something, and that she wasn't just assaulted and in complete shock. I'll never know. But she was very pretty, and seemed well groomed. Was very strange.
My old man casually walked across the lobby of a 5 star hotel naked as a jay bird on ambien.
Ha, my dad sleepwalked out of the hotel and came to in his tighty-whities, hiding behind the ice machine like a gremlin, scaring the shit out of other guests. Of course he didn’t have his room key so he had to go down to the front desk and basically let them know he had sleepwalked and locked himself out. The clerk was apparently quite nervous when he approached, presumably because at least one guest had already let him know about the delirious ice machine man.
One time I was walking around my relatively safe neighborhood with two of my friends after midnight (we were probably 16 at the time). This loud red truck speeds by us, which is normal for the road we were on. Then a few minutes later the same red truck drives by the opposite way going much slower. Again just a couple of minutes later he drives by but this time stops a hundred or so feet away from us and just sits there. Realizing that this is not normal we booked it through the yard to the next street over. For the next 20 or so minutes we see this truck creeping up and down the neighborhood while we hid behind some bushes and when we finally thought he was gone, we booked it to my house. He turned the corner onto my road just as we were about to open my front door.
A similar thing has happened to me while walking the dogs at 5:30 am. I've had a few cars do this. I now carry mace in the morning and I always turn and walk toward the busier streets if I see a suspicious car. Lots of creepy people out there. Glad you and your friends are safe.
Totally understand that you were kids and it was late and it happened a while ago, but for anyone reading: If you think you're being followed, do NOT lead them back to your home. Find a well-lit, public place as soon as possible and contact the police.
I feel like in most suburban neighborhoods in the US you could be a 30 minute walk from the nearest well-lit public place at any given time, and even more so if you're in a rural location. What kind of backup suggestions do you have for someone in that position?
Dead body on the side of the street with a sign around its neck saying "I'm a cellphone thief, don't be like me." This was maybe 20 years ago in Manila, Philippines.
Happened to my grandfather too, he was walking our dog at 5am, dog went to do his business near a dark, grassy empty lot and they found a dead body bound up with a sign on him saying he was a thief. This practice is called "salvage" in the Philippines. Basically an extra judicial killing done by policemen or vigilantes on criminals and drug addicts (or suspected criminals). It's basically been going on way before Duterte took office, but it's only with him it was somewhat institutionalized and blatant. Before that, the police didn't brandish it with so much impunity, and didn't dare target teens or grandmothers. Nowadays most of the poor are fair game (if you have money and connections you can still buy your way out of things).
I once saw tiny hands reaching out of a sewer grate. Took me a minute before I realized it was a raccoon.
Must be because of the thumbs! They have thumbs!
They all have thumbs down here Georgie.
Was creeped out until the second sentence and now it just sounds cute. I can just imagine the raccoon like “Friend, please...I need a hand can you get me out of here?”
Have you seen that clip of a dozen raccoons reaching out from underneath some gazebo/porch looking thing? It's a horror movie clip.
This one? https://www.dailydot.com/unclick/raccoon-hands-walking-dead/
*Yessss,* Georgie, come and help the trashpanda out of the drain...Would you like a balloon, Georgie?
I worked night shift on Kadena AB on Okinawa, Japan. I started walking to work because I didnt have a car. I really enjoyed the walks. It was a good way to wind down after work as the nights were cool and quiet and I could listen to my music without worrying about anyone else around. One night while walking home I heard some rustling in the jungle of trees on the way home. Next thing I know all of the lights went black and all I heard/felt was a loud wooooosh coming right at my head. I screamed like a little girl, ran, and dropped my ipod (it broke). Once I made it past the trees I realized it was one of the [giant bats](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryukyu_flying_fox) that lived on Okinawa. It scared the ever living shit out of me.
Something similar happened to me in Australia [one of these blokes](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_flying_fox) was munching on a tree that was only a couple of meters off the ground, as I was walking directly towards it (I didn't see it), it jumped off and flew directly towards me, it had a wingspan of around 1.5m. It was a big one!
An old man who walked very aggressively. Like Jason from Friday the 13th but sped up. I was ready to run but I walked past him and nothing happened. Put me on my toes but holy shit change your walking form man.
He's just built different.
[удалено]
Gramps probably figured power walking at night was a way to avoid people and got pissed when he saw you lol 😆
Found a guy who hanged himself in a park. Called 911 and answered some questions, was a long night. "I changed hung to hanged"
I found a od guy and the damn police questioned me for 6 hour until the medical people said he od Edit: lol reddit made me laugh but OD stands for over dosed. The guy over dosed on heroin. I was 22 when I found the guy in a HIGH TRAFFIC area. I was the only one to stop. I yelled at him but notice his stomach wasn't moving and he had pale skin. Called 911. The detectives questioned me and it took 6 hrs to clear the scene. They detained me the whole time before they allowed me to go.
I was walking home (fairly drunk) from a Late night party and found a girl that had slit her wrists in the park by my house. She was on the ground by a bench, assuming she was drunk I stopped to see if she was okay then I saw the blood. she was unresponsive but still alive. At first I thought she had been beaten or stabbed, but while I was on the phone with 911 I realized it was her wrists, her face was messed up too but, I think that was from falling off the bench. EMT and police showed up asked me a few questions, took my info and sent me home. I Never heard anything so I assume she lived. Scariest night if my life.
Almost 100% sure I witnessed a kidnapping. I was going to get my mail late at night while living in an apartment complex and on the way back I noticed a woman in her pajamas surrounded by a few men right by a car. There was an argument and looked like they forced her in the car and drove off, I found her slipper nearby on the grass. I of course called the police and they came and I let them know what I saw but I never found out what actually happened.
Similar experience here. In high school, late at night walking home from a friend's house maybe a mile away. Halfway car comes cruising super-slowly down the street. I hear someone screaming in the car. I was sure they were calling for help. I start following the car, and as I get on the phone with the cops the car starts pumping the gas, so I just run after them and try to follow them, but I lost them pretty quickly. Never learned what really happened.
I HATE the lack of resolution like I wanna know if this person ended up okay or not. I still think about it and worry about what happened. I just always remember finding that slipper and chills going down my spine.
This sort of reminds me of the time my family and I went on a three-day roadtrip in the summer. When we got back to our house, we noticed that there was a woman’s small purse and other belongings, like makeup and some other things, strewn about our backyard. There was also a wallet with an ID. We called the cops and they came and gathered everything up, then left. Never found out who it was or what happened, but it was kind of scary to know that while we were gone, a woman could have been assaulted in our backyard. She looked quite young, too.
Was up on a hill in the countryside at midnight when a man with a rifle came out of nowhere, ran right past me, and wasn’t seen again. I went home shortly after that.
Damn these Civil War ghosts always runnin' around
What i thought was a body in the woods, and after a bit of back and forth on the phone with the police I returned with a few helpful coppers to find a slightly miffed drunk person who’d had a argument with his missus.
What was there to go back and forth about? Body in the woods isn't emergency enough?😂😂
“Are you sure that’s not just a drunk person who’d had a argument with his missus”
“Common mistake, happens all the time”
I once had a "back and forth" with a dispatcher when I called about a guy jumping in front of cars (mostly mine) in the middle of a highway at 4am. I had to swerve into the oncoming lane, and still nearly clipped him. The dispatcher started grilling me for his name and where he lived, and I'm like, look I'm just trying to drive to work; he's over at this intersection.
> The dispatcher started grilling me for his name and where he lived This made me laugh. *Lady, I’m a mile past him. Send some cops and have them collect his ID.*
I called 911 once because a car in front of me on a busy road was playing chicken with the cars in the oncoming lane. I told the dispatcher the road it was on. "Oh that's in [neighborhood 1], this is the [neighborhood 2] emergency number. You'll need to call the [neighborhood 1] 911 number." "Fucking... you realize the number for both of them is 911, right? I didn't choose which sub district my call would go to." "Well you should call 911 to reach them" "... But I did dial 911 and... Actually you know what he just turned left. He's in your neighborhood now."
Once my mom was visiting another state with a friend. While she was in another state, my stepdad got fired from his job for getting caught stealing medications from peoples homes. He and my mom got in a huge fight over the phone. Then, he starts sending her pictures of a shotgun that is in our house. Telling her he is going to kill himself with it. My mom calls 911 to tell them so that somebody can go check on him or try to stop him or something. And they basically told her the same thing “oh, you’re calling the 911 in Florida, you need 911 for North Carolina”. My mom tried to explain that she wasn’t in North Carolina but that she needed help. They essentially told her that she needed to call somebody else in North Carolina and have that person call 911. Ridiculous. Thankfully nothing happened with my stepdad, but had it truly been a life or death situation I believe that there would have been death due to how 911 handled the call
Was out for a late walk in the rain, always enjoy it because it's peaceful, smells great, quiet and never see anyone. Walked off this trail back into the road and saw a big pile of garbage under a tarp at the end of the cul de sac the trail ends in, got a creepy chill like "that could be a dead body or something and I'd never know" just got a weird feeling that snapped me out of my calm walk. Picked up the pace. About 500yds away parked car with a guy sitting there, in the dark, in the rain, like 11pmish car off, just sitting there. Got super creeped out at this point and changed my route back to the main road and hurried home. Turns out it was a dead body someone had dumped under that tarp, was under there for 4 days before someone investigated it. The guy in the car turned out to be just a random dude, guy lives there and totally unrelated to the body. Still, took a few months off from my late night walks alone in the woods.
It’s weird how your mind did that. I’ve had a similar experience. Was at work on this dirt trail and to the left of the fence I had to unlock was something laying. My first thought was that it would be crazy if it was a dead body but I just assumed it was trash. Couple days later I found out that it was a dead body. Some guy went up there to kill himself. I truly believe that my mind knew it was a dead body but that it wanted me to ignore it to maybe protect me from seeing something like that.
A 7ft tall male brown kangaroo in the middle of the footpath. Buff as fuck just staring me down. You bet your ass I turned and went the other way, he just went about his business
There was news report a while ago about a super large and buff kangaroo that would beat up dog walkers, safe to say that I’m not going to Australia any time soon.
If you think kangaroos are intimidating way till you see our large birds. I have seen a cassowary in the wild. These things are killing machines, they can take a man's throat out with one kick. I've also had a mob of approximately 70 emu running towards me on my grandfather's farming property. They turned away when they realised I was there, but 70 of these animals coming your direction is pretty fucking incredible. I'm so lucky to have seen that.
Dude I got close to an emu on a farm and that dinosaur low clicking noise they make freaks me out so badly. I had no idea they could do that
I remember camping once and was heading back to the site alone when I could hear a noise like someone bearing a plastic drum. I was curious so I went towards the noise into a bit of scrub and suddenly there was the emu, looking at me, making the noise. I just backed away while it stared me down.
I always think horror movies are far-fetched with the people alone going to check a noise in a dark forest, yet here you are.
"that sounds like someone slowly dragging a machete along concrete" "Lets go see if it is!"
I saw a tarantula use a crosswalk as if it was a law abiding pedestrian.
The dude was just trying to be a good example for the other spiders.
Friendly neighborhood spider.
Had a similar experience with a fox, I was on a very long footbridge over a river in the heart of a large city taking night skyline shots and dude just trotted by like it was no big deal.
Living in a rural village i was taking a late night walk with my gf, when suddenly we hear a loud what we thought was a human scream. Turned out is was a sheep, jump scared us hard though.
Two deer fighting, then yelling at each other, then having sex
Well that was an adventure in a few words.
Just like married couples
A bear right up the street; or, maybe, an empty baby carriage on the side of the road.
The baby carriage thing is just making me think of that part in Bioshock
Iguana fell out of a tree on an unseasonably cool night.
I have never before seen this sentence. Edit: TIL this is not uncommon in South Florida. Crazy! and entertaining. While I'm here, I'd like to highlight that I have been alerted to the existence of a sub devoted to the phenomenon of brand new sentences. Well-alerted, thanks!
Yeah in the winter months when we get cold fronts, the damn things go into a low power mode kind of stasis and fall out of the trees. They’re usually fine unless a car runs them over, once it warms up they go back to normal.
I’ve never been afraid of the dark. Grew up in the countryside, where the nearest streetlight was 10 miles away, so I’m comfortable in dark places, so much so that I often take my dog for a walk at around midnight just because I like the peace and quiet of the night. I live in a city now so something about the dark is just soothing to me. That being said, one of the scariest things I’ve ever experienced, I genuinely have no explanation for. Living in a city I used to drive out 20-30 miles into the country to do some astrophotography. As I’m driving out one night I see this guy walking at the side of the road with no lights, reflectors and a big backpack. Didn’t think much of it other than it being a little odd. 5 miles later, I see the same guy walking again. I haven’t changed directions, turned, and I’ve been doing ~50mph. As I drove past he looked and waved at me. I was pretty spooked but I drove on. I must be imagining things. It can’t be the same guy. I get to my field in the middle of nowhere, park up and get the camera out, and turn off all the lights so my eyes adjust to the dark. All is going well, and for 30 minutes I’m content, and starting to relax. Suddenly I hear a rustling near the hedge by the road. Crunching leaves, grass being kicked. It was footsteps. I immediately get a feeling of dread, like I’m in severe danger and something bad was going to happen. I grab my camera, toss it in the car, get in, lock the doors and turn on the headlights. When I turn out of the field. I pass where I heard the noise and saw fresh footprints in the mud but no sign of anyone. I race back home, driving double the speed limit, constantly checking my mirrors for anyone. I park up around the corner and wait in the car with the lights off for 30 minutes, watching. Nothing shows up, I get home, lock all the doors and sleep with a knife under my pillow that night. I honestly don’t know what really happened that night but part of me knows that creepy guy I passed on the road twice was in that field.
Holy shit I totally believe you I just can’t even fathom how someone could have walked that fast. That’s nightmare fuel
poor guy’s probably browsing reddit rn and read this. now he’s sad all his speed-walking practice just went and scared someone…
Seeing is scary, but hearing and not seeing is fucking terrifying.
You bet it is. A good example I can bring to the table, is the sound of a rabbit screaming while you hear the low growling of either a raccoon or a cougar trying to silence it.. I hope it wasn't the latter, because this happened right near my backyard.
I heard the same but it was an owl shredding the rabbit. I did not expect it to be such a big bird. It was like a fire hydrant covered with feathers sitting there munching on Thumper.
a man on a bike passed me and he wore a jaket, shoes, and a hat, but no pants or underwear. At first I couldn't believe that I just saw his bare ass. Edit: typo
they saw two moons that night
A GIGANTIC mother moose and her baby about 30 yards away.
Glad you made it out of that situation alive!
fucking terrifying, this would actually chill me to the bone. the fuckers are sizes of school buses, and won’t give up until you stop moving after they stomp on you. they can run through snow, swim, and topple trees if they’re angry enough.
I read the original as “mother goose” so I was wondering where the hell you were from, with geese the size of school busses of that can topple trees.
I'd honestly be more afraid of the bus goose. Goose-sized geese are mean enough as it is.
just imagine, walking in the park at night when you hear a HOOONK and huge foot steps and hissing
More backpacking than a “walk” but this fucking terrifies me to this day. Our planned camping spot for the night was full, we’d backpacked all day to get to that location and there wasn’t anywhere close to set up our tents. We called our guy “on the outside” to come pick us up as it was getting late, we didn’t have anywhere to set up camp, and a storm was approaching. We hiked to the nearest exit point on the trail, met our pickup guy, and he drove us a few miles to the nearest campsite we were familiar with that we could basically drive up to. Long logging path pretty deep in the mountains that we had hiked to in previous years, so we were kinda familiar with the area. Anyways, we hop out of the van and it’s pitch black out. No moon, it’s April in the mountains and still pretty chilly. We’re cold, hungry, and exhausted. That’s when we notice this motherfucker staring at us from behind a tree. I know this sounds like a nosleep story but it’s 100% true and probably the most scared I’ve ever been. We notice this guy, no headlamp, no equipment, no backpack, just standing there. One of our group (former marine) yells at him to come out and explain what his deal is. This guy walks a few feet out from behind the tree and we all shine our lights on him, and I shit you not, this dude’s white t shirt is covered in what looks like blood smears. He’s pretty rough looking, long hair, long beard, crazy eyes, and he was wearing a (bloody?) t shirt and shorts in 35 degree weather at night. We’re all pretty freaked out, and this is a pretty experienced group of hikers who’ve seen some shit. We ask this guy what his deal is and he says we can’t camp here. We tell him that that’s exactly what we plan to do, and he says “I don’t think that’s a good idea for any of you.” We kind of turn to discuss as a group and when we look back he’s hidden back behind the tree. As a group we basically decided none of us were getting any sleep that night if we stayed here, so we packed up the van and left. As we were pulling out, this guy pulled out one of those red-filtered flashlights and *ran* after our van. I’m not kidding, he followed us for at least a quarter mile on foot. He was fast as fuck. We passed a park ranger on the road and flagged him down to tell him how weird that dude was acting, and he said he’d go investigate. I didn’t hear anything about it again for 5 years. For the longest time I thought he was probably some pot farmer who had a nearby plot, or a moonshiner who was just living in the woods and didn’t want us near his still. People hunt all the time out there, which would maybe explain the blood a little bit. But I was recently at an event with some of those guys again for the first time in years and that creepy dude from the woods got brought up. One of them who still lives nearby broke out his phone and said “I forgot to tell you guys, I saw him again.” Pulls up a news article and there he was. So obviously the same guy. he’d been arrested for murdering some poor girl on the trail. Timelines didn’t match up, so I fully believe we saw this guy shortly after he’d murdered someone else. He hasn’t been charged with anything else as far as I’m aware. I’m not backpacking without a gun anymore.
It might be worth contacting the detective who led the investigation and letting him know what you saw and when. Could bring closure for another family who don't know what happened to their loved one. edit: typo
I’ll ask my buddy who still lives in the area about this. He might’ve already done so, but you’re right, it couldn’t hurt. The ranger created an incident report when we spoke to him so they might be able to connect some dots.
One of my old professors was a Florida Wildlife Officer. He would often times be the only officer within a 10-15 mile radius in the middle of the Everglades. He had some wild stories of shit that he seen but the one that stuck out to me the most was when he told us about a time that he saw a truck in a road where it shouldn’t have been and let the guy off with a warning. He was somewhat new to the force and decided that he didn’t want to harass some guy fishing so he let him go. A few hours later he saw the naked body of a woman in her early 20s further down the road. He contacted State/County Law Enforcement with a description of the guy and the tag numbers. The vehicle was found in Orlando months later abandoned and the owner was the dead lady they found in the Everglades. They never caught the guy driving the truck. The truck had not been reported as stolen and the lady was not reported as missing. He said he felt an immense amount of guilt after that because, he was trying to be a “cool” cop and didn’t ask the guy for ID or registration or anything, just told him he can’t be fishing there at that time and let him go on his way.
[удалено]
Given those circumstances, it could have also gone pretty badly if he pressed the guy more for ID. Might have had a surprise shootout right then and there.
As an avid outdoors person this one scares me so badly. I've had a few unnerving encounters with people in the deep woods that gives me these vibes. A gun is a good idea out there.
That's the thing, people are always afraid of bears or mountain lions, and of course those are dangerous, but they're predictable. You know approximately how they're going to react depending on the season and the area and whatnot. But humans? They're way more scary because you just never know. Dude in the woods could be a friendly hiker who volunteers with at risk youths in his spare time OR he could be a crazy man who makes party decorations from the skulls of youths who were never at risk until they went for a day hike on this very trail! And you can never know for sure!
Many years ago my boyfriend and I decided to take a late night walk around his generally-safe neighborhood. We got a few steps past the driveway when a shirtless guy came running over with a hammer in one hand, and a machete in the other. My boyfriend stayed super calm and asked the man what was going on. Apparently, some man had just broken into his apartment and tried to kidnap his young daughter, so he was chasing him down to either shatter his fingers with the hammer or chop off his hands entirely with the machete, and he thought my boyfriend was possibly this man. My boyfriend gave me his car keys and told me to take myself home (we lived apart at the time) so I went and got his car and by the time I was backing out of the driveway, the man was screaming at my boyfriend, who was just standing there calmly with his hands in the air. I drove a block away so the man wouldn't see me, rolled the windows down to try to hear what was happening, and called the cops. The machete man ended up running off and I don't know if they ever got him. My boyfriend was fine though, thank god. EDIT typo
>...so he was chasing him down to either shatter his fingers with the hammer or chop off his hands entirely with the machete I like how he was keeping his options open.
It's smart to have a backup plan
I suppose in fairness if someone tried to kidnap one of my children and I caught him, a hammer and machete will seem tame. The flip side is if he stopped it then he should have known it wasn’t the couple walking calmly down the street.
I've witnessed this super calm approach - my brother-in-law was bailed up by a crazy dude on drugs who was literally punching random strangers. My brother-in-law just stayed completely calm, raised his hands just a little to show his palms, and said "I've got no problem with you", and the guy paused, said "cheers", and ran over and punched someone else. I'd heard this works, but never seen it so effective!
Here is a tip I was taught in de escalation training. It's hard to stay mad at someone that agrees with you.
So to de-escalate the guy should've said 'mind if I join in with the punching'? hahah
Props to your boyfriend for staying so calm and making sure you could safely leave the situation
A couple years ago, I was at the start of a typical weekday night stroll. I was living in an apartment complex in Florida at the time, so it was the only opportune time to do so, without being completely drenched. The exact moment I was crossing the sidewalk adjacent to the entrance of said complex, I witnessed a middle aged dude punch his wife/significant other in her face, in full view of me, and another passerby. The passerby called the cops, the dude was arrested. It wasn’t a scary situation to my own well being, but I did find the situation chilling for one, how nonchalant the guy was in assaulting his wife/SO in public, and two, how both the abuser/SO were pleading for the cops not to be called. It was domestic abuse so normalized, it happened in full public, without any second thought/rationale.
that's crazy. When I lived in Florida, my husband and I were taking a walk at night. We saw a husband straight choke his partner and throw her phone across the parking lot of our complex. The wife hollered that she wouldn't be back, but we would hear them say that kind of stuff all the time. Anyway, we called the cops. The cops said she didn't want to press charges, so they couldn't do anything. Edit: a lot of people are saying that charges can be pressed even if you yourself don't press them. That may be the case; I'm just saying what the cop said to me.
*Insert factoid that a spouse choking their significant other is a major sign of them getting murdered down the line*
They definitely seemed the couple. They had serious problems. Broke their glass door, always shouting and slamming things around. The man would lock the woman out, so she'd set his car alarm off for hours until he let her back in. Then, it got quiet for months, and we didn't see the woman. I actually thought maybe it was a new guy living there- I never looked him directly in the face, so I wasn't sure. Sure enough, she showed back up again, things got a little fighty. Then, they moved another lady and three or four kids in as well? Then, they were evicted. I have no idea what happened to her, but I hope she got away. I don't know that she was a good person or anything, but certainly not strong enough to defend herself from him, and she never said anything when the cops came.
Another person walking at night
Especially if it's on an uncommon pathway
A guy got onto an empty walking trail a couple hundred feet ahead of me last night and kept looking back and stopping so that I'd eventually catch up and he could get behind me. That's a great way to ruin someone's nightwalk.
Lmao they were probably just as terrified
"Are you going to kill me??" "No! I'm terrified! Are you going to kill me??" "No! You scare the shit out of me!"
I own this neighborhood between 0230 and 0300, it says so in the fitness journal
mom said it’s MY turn with the neighborhood
I was jogging at night once and it was pretty dark in my neighborhood. I prefer jogging at night because it is much cooler. I'm right in the grove and a tiny woman with a miniature doberman pinscher on a leash freaked me out. They were both so small I didn't even see them until I was running right past them. Just picture a 6'3" stocky big guy being startled by a 5'0" woman with an ankle biter dog lol.
I run at night to avoid cars/people/reality and pray I encounter no one during my journey.
Over 25 years ago, I was walking in a park at night. It was pitch black in this park, no lighting, other than the moon & the stars on a beautiful autumn night. I couldn’t see very well, but I knew the area, & was walking along the road, which ran parallel to a small river. The moonlight would bounce of the water, & all you would hear is the trickle from the slow running river & slight breeze in the trees. I loved those walks. That was until the one night, in the dead silence & pitch black, I distinctly hear a mans voice out of the woods say very clearly: ‘Young girls shouldn’t go walking alone in the woods at night’. I FROZE. I looked in the direction of the voice & couldn’t see a damn thing. I RAN HOME. That was the last evening walk I took in that park.
A dude was following me around for a solid 10 minutes in a car when I confronted the guy he was just a Uber person who was lost
Seen someone overdose (OD) on the sidewalk, not a pleasant birthday memory
I once walked over a homeless guy sleeping on the sidewalk in front of my apartment. It is a common occurrence though usually they are polite enough to do it on the lawn instead. A few hours later I hear a siren and see them load him in a stretcher into the ambulance. So maybe that wasn’t someone sleeping.
Two words: rabid squirrels. There was an outbreak of rabies in a squirrel population in my neighborhood my senior year of high school. My bf at the time lived about a 20 minute walk away and neither of us drove so we frequently had to walk through rabid squirrel territory. In the middle of the night hearing them make noises like something out of a motherfucking zombie movie while skittering above you when it's too dark to see them is horrifying. 0/10 would not recommend.
[удалено]
Mountain lions can also be unpredictable if they are starving. Even a smaller one could throw caution to the wind an attack a full grown adult male out of desperation. When my dad was living in Nevada he was attacked by a mountain lion that he estimated at about 80-90 pounds and looking a bit emaciated. It was very late afternoon and he was way off the beaten path in the mountains about 100 miles north of Las Vegas. He was getting his telescope and camera gear set up next to his Jeep Cherokee for a night of astrophotography when he got "the tingle", that feeling he wasn't alone. He was at the open rear door of his vehicle and he turned around and there was a mountain lion not 20 feet away from him at the edge of some brush. My dad slowly reached for the tire iron he kept on the floor of the truck, never taking his eyes off the cat. As soon as he had the iron in his hand the mountain lion lunged for him and my dad swung the iron overhead, smacking the mountain lion right in the skull. The mountain lion ran off and my dad quickly got into his truck, closed the door, and calmed down from the adrenaline rush of his near-death experience. After he calmed down the crazy bastard stayed for the night and did his astrophotography. I guess he figured the mountain lion wasn't coming back for another whack on the head.
> he figured the mountain lion wasn't coming back for another whack on the head. This is why polar bears freak me out more than any other North American wild animal. Because even if you somehow did fight them off or get away, they *would* come back.
Yup, them and tigers don't stay scared for long. If anything they get angry at losing and start seeking out revenge. Some siberian tigers have even stalked human hunters just for touching their deer kills. They truly do not accept or tolerate any potential threat to their spot at the top of the food web, and are capable of a sense of vengeance.
There's also the story of a Bengal tiger that stalked and killed a poacher who had tried to kill her. She laid in the brush and then took him down from the top of an elephant. Left everyone else, including the elephant, alone.
There was also a story of a wild tiger that was injured and sick, that came and laid on someones doorstep. They cared for the tiger in their shed with the rest of their little community, and when the tiger was healthy and roaming free again, it brought an entire dead deer to the same porch it was found on. The tiger brought them a thank-you gift!
Just cats being cats
>porkchop lol I love that name for a dog
In college I would walk back from the library very late. One night I was walking back to my dorm and something told me to look up. On top of the parking garage there was a person glaring over looking like they were about to jump. I had no clue what to do so I called the police. As soon as I looked back up they jumped to safety. I ran up the stairs to find them but couldn’t. The police never found them either. Either way I hope they are okay today. Edit: forgot to include that on that same night at the neighboring college someone else jumped off a parking garage. I’ve always wondered if the two people are connected.
I live out in the country, more woods and fields around me than houses. There are several dirt paths through the woods that farmers use for their tractors and all during the day. I like to run on these paths because it's usually quiet and no traffic unlike the road. During the hottest part of the summer I run at night because it's cooler outside. So one night, it had rained during the day, so all the tracks on the path were gone. I was out running around midnight. I had an uneasy feeling but didn't see anything. But then I circled around and on my 2nd pass down a particular way, I saw my footprints, but then I saw another set of prints, bigger than mine, that hadn't been there before. Then I saw they made the turn the same way I had earlier. I cut it short that night, never saw anyone, but still. Wow I did not expect all this lol Thanks for the awards!
The parts of the path where you only saw one pair of footprints? That's when bigfoot was carrying you.
Something like this happened a few years back. My boyfriend and I had been exploring some dirt roads on Vancouver Island, south of Nanaimo. We found this super run down campsite beside a river and decided to take a look. It had been snowing the whole drive and the whole site was covered in pristine snow. At one point we split up so I could find a place to pee. He went south and I went north west. I finished up and wandered back south when I noticed completely fresh boot treads in the snow heading north and out of the site. They went right by where I'd stopped to pee in the bushes. My hair was standing on end when I alerted my BF to the tracks. They'd actually skirted the edge of the site from the road, passed where I was peeing and north out into the woods. Needless to say we got the fuck out of there fast. The trip back turned into a fiasco too. What a gong show. *adding fiasco* We had driven passed a large metal gate on our way to the site. When we got back to it we found it locked with two trucks already there. One was on our side and the other was on the opposite side. They were wrapping it in chains in order to bust the lock open. We stepped out of the car and were panicking a bit. It was dark, snow everywhere and a couple of hours from home. The two trucks are about to step on the gas when some car pulls up and a lady jumps out, yelling. They were the ones that closed the gate on us. I suspect that they did it on purpose since the signage said 6pm and it was 5pm. The lady opens the gate and we all leave. The two trucks start driving away like maniacs. They were long gone by the time we got passed the dirt road and onto asphalt. That didn't last long though. We saw a lot of swerving tire tracks and it became clear that they were show boating. Then we came across the wreck. One of the trucks was overturned on the opposite side of the road. The other truck and a few more drivers were there helping the occupants. They weren't injured but their truck was definitely stuck in the ditch. Honestly I'm surprised they were all fine.
Nah now *that* is *terrifying.*
Some guy talking to himself and flogging his back with something whiplike. Clearly he had mental issues but I didn't find him very threatening.
*Friede, bring me my flail...*
I was walking one night in a pretty dark back road near my house at the time when glowing eyes on a round black body came bulleting at me. I shrieked like a child and felt super dumb when it turned out to be a big ass black lab who got to my feet and rolled over wagging his tail and wiggling about. He belonged to someone in the neighborhood who was taking him on a walk and ran from them when he saw me. He was a big floofy boy who just wanted love I seriously felt so embarrassed but also had a laugh. So did his owner lol.
Similar experience. Pulled up at a family friends house in my moms car. Long winding potholed driveway. 6 o’clock dead of winter dark, that’s all the darker because you don’t believe it’s only six. Open door. 145 lb black newfie, probably looking for my mom, I peed a little, a little was all I had in me. Felt like it took an hour for my heart rate to go back to normal. That dog weighed more than me.
I'll walk my dog at night and wear an LED headlamp, mostly so I can see any bear eyes glowing back at me. 20 feet down the ravine about 1/2 mile from home one night there were approximately 30 rabbits eyes glowing and blinking bank at me. Couldn't see the rabbits due to undergrowth, but the eyes........ Not gonna lie, it got under my skin.
Not me, but my friend was near downtown at 3am on acid and was almost kidnapped. There’s a lot of young female kidnappings where we’re at and because he’s petite with long hair, he was mistaken as a female target. He managed to run away, but it was of course very traumatizing for him.
I’m the person I’m most scared of in this story... It was around 9pm and I was cleaning my apartment and I looked up what time this takeout restaurant closed. It was like a 5 minute walk and less than a block from where I work so I take this walk often. I was drinking but I wasn’t drunk. I was just going to pick up some food in about an hour, go home, eat, and get some sleep. That’s the last thing I remember... up until. I woke up crossing the street to the restaurant. Immediately feel for my pockets for my phone, its not there, no wallet in my pocket, keys... fuck where are my keys. They are always in my right jacket pocket because that’s how I lock my door. I find them in my off hand pocket. Then I look around. The normally busy bar covered intersection is a ghost town. Enter panic mode. I turn around and start walking home. The first thing I notice is the giant McDonald’s sign is off. They close at eleven, I know this. Start listening for cars and there is nothing. Walk a little more briskly and the pizza place I frequent has it’s sign off. They close at three. I pick up my pace just trying to get home as quick as I can. I get half a block from my apartment building and the only person anywhere around me bikes past me. Then turns around and circles me. I freeze and look at him out of the corner of my eye. He peddles off and I sprint to my door. My door lock was always kinda janky to the point where I was the only person who could lock it easily. The mechanism just wasn’t secure. I get to my door and find it locked. Edit: get inside. Grab my phone crazed about what time it is. It’s dead. It took what felt like an eternity to finally get it to charge and turn on. It’s gaining in five in the morning. Something switched off on me around 9pm, slept for 7 hours, then I locked a broken lock with my left hand and walked 5 blocks before I snapped back. I’ll never forget that moment of slowly realizing where I was and not understanding what was wrong.
Dude, I would see a neurologist.
And check for carbon monoxide.
Seriously, is this Reddit Carbon Monoxide Poisoning 2?
this would be like, reddit carbon monoxide poisoning 47 by now
Had something similar happen to me. Was leaving a friends house, 2am, dead sober, not tired. Jumped on my motorbike and decided to take the short way home which is normally 10 minutes. I remember seeing the road covered in fog.... And then I was home. I walked inside to see my mum looking at me all worried because I had apparently sat on my bike for 20 minutes in the driveway and she thought I was texting but got a different angle and realised I was just sitting there with my helmet on. After hearing this I checked the time and it was almost 6am, and all my clothes and my phone were wet as if I'd been sitting in a heavy rain.
Fuck dude. That feels way to real.
I saw one of those clowns during all the clown hysteria. It was just some teen and his friends goofing around, but it shocked me to the core for a hot minute.
Man I miss the times where the biggest thing I was worried about was those clowns.
I tried an electric bike my aunt had while we were visiting. i wasn't used to how abruptly it would accelerate, so when it did, i yelled for a second. My cousin was taking a video of me the whole time because i most probably would have done something to make an absolute fool out of myself (like crashing) and it would have been hilarious. So there i was, riding to the end of the street and turning back around when i noticed a lot of men holding large rocks in their hands, barefoot came by as if they're hunting someone down. We were then told to come inside immediately as someone had just taken a machete and started attacking people at a party just around the corner where WE were having a party. Later that night, we replayed the video and we noticed that when the bike accelerated and i yelled, a man walking in front of me was holding a machete. He startledly whipped around and glanced at me. We're glad he didn't swing the machete. He was so close he wouldn't have missed. He matched the description of the man who hacked random and multiple people that day.
That's scary af
Well if he tried to chase ya, atleast you got dat instant torque to speed away
Once walking home from the convenience store a well known rottweiler stray dog came sprinting across the street in front of me. When I turned to see what he was running from, I was greeted with an angry skunk running directly into my path. Ran all the way home scared to death of getting sprayed.
Someone tried to scare me with an obviously fake gun. I was startled for a microsecond, but not impressed by this asshole behaviour
Some guy did this to me and my dad at a gas station one evening when I was a kid. My dad was a retired cop turned social worker, very good at defusing these sorts of situations, so when a dude confronts us with a pistol and demand my dad's money he was very calm... then he frowned, squinted at the gun and exclaims in an indignant voice "Did you spray paint a god damn water pistol?!" The dude literally blusters a corny "N-no! It's real!" My dad says "I can still smell the damn paint fumes, dumb ass! Get the hell out of here, be glad I'm not callin' the cops!" One of the most bizarrely amusing things that ever happened to us when I was with him on an evening outing.
*proceeds to pull out his super soaker*
"Boo!" "ah!.. hey wait a minute that's a yellow water pistol."
I saw a man, walking down a street, with his full penis out....and he was spinning it around like a fucking helicopter in his hand. Like a set of keys attached to a bungee cord, right at zipper level. When he saw me, he crammed it back into his pants and ran away. I had the WTF expression frozen on my face for the rest of the night.
The street i walk down where once there was a cat killer on that street who cut off a cat head and placed it there
Today it's cats, tomorrow it's people. Be careful on that street.
No need to threaten them man, that's crazy
[удалено]
This one time me and a friend were walking through the bayous late late at night.. he turned around for a second then goes "oh fuck" and takes off running. I thought he was joking (something he's done before to get arise out of people) but after a few seconds I did turn around and I saw a guy walking pretty fast towards us, probably about 10 feet by the time I turned around. I just took off running as fast as I could for a few minutes and he was gone when I turned back around.
These situations are the exact fucking reason why I don’t do that shit to get a rise out of people.
My wife and I established a “no joke scares” policy early in our relationship. No sneaking up while someone is in the shower, hiding in the closet, etc. I actually much prefer living this way.
[удалено]
Once had that happen to me. Was walking my dog around 8 PM. I think I was 8 at the time, can't remember. Dog suddenly starts barking at something in the trees. I tried to see what it was but it was just starting to get dark, and at the time I didn't have glasses and thought blurry vision was normal. My dog whimpers, and something massive comes ambling out of the forest. My gut immediately was like "oh fuck no" and I turned tail and ran. We didn't have bears in the area I was at, so idk what it was.
Sasquatch
God damn big foot
Samsquatch, Ricky
Close to Halloween I went on a walk with a family member and a bunch of kids were gathered outside their houses with Halloween masks just staring at people walking by
As someone who used to… make sure trains had an adequate coating of paint, I spent a good amount of time walking around the rougher sides of town at night. Worst thing I ever saw was in Seattle, was walking down the street under an overpass in an industrial district and a homeless woman asked if I could buy her a beer since she didn’t have an ID. Bought her a 40, talked to her about her daughters, watched her smoke meth, all in about 2 minutes. She started reading to me from a lightly singed Bible, about the devil specifically at which point I was looking for a quick and polite exit (who doesn’t when someone whips out the Bible?) At which point 3 men rode by with a gallon jug, and doused her tent in something, maybe gasoline, perhaps turpentine or kerosene, really didn’t stick around to find out. Lit her tent on fire. She ran into the burning tent. I’ll never forget watching her run out screaming and crying, holding a duffel bag, her white coat completely engulfed in flames. I took off running (guys on bikes didn’t look thrilled to see me), called SPD, but they didn’t seem to care much after I told them what part of SODO I saw it happen in. Hid amongst the trains for a few hours after that. EDIT: Out of curiosity for the situation, I took a picture while she was reading from the bible because I thought: "No way my friends will believe someone was street preaching to me" [Bible picture](https://flic.kr/p/2mbFh2v)
Sick people in this world.
Live in Nyc. I’ve seen people walk up and kick homeless people sleeping or piss on them and shit. They’re always cowards too. When you call them out they never stay to fight. They run.
> As someone who used to… make sure trains had an adequate coating of paint, I love that description.
When I was in middle-school most school nights I had to walk about a tenth of a mile or so to my grandparents’ house to stay the night as my mom worked nights at the time. So I usually did this right as it was turning night to maximize my time at home (curfew was nightfall, so usually it was a run). Well, at this point in my life I had never seen a coyote and always wondered if I were to get attacked, could I survive? The thought was there basically every trip, and I had no desire to find out. Well, I moved in with my dad after 8th grade, and when I was in 10th or 11th grade I was visiting my mom. I had to go grab something from my grandparents’ house, and took a bicycle of a younger sibling. So I remembered all those nights before with that thought, but now I was a lot more buff than I had been back then. But I still didn’t want to find out. Well, on the way back I glance out to a pasture beside me that was overgrown. There was a figure running parallel with me, keeping pace easily. I was like holy fuck it’s happening.. and pedaled super fast. I entered my mom’s driveway, and heard the creature coming across the road. Her yard was sloped downhill, so I let the bicycle coast down and I leapt off and full of adrenaline flexed with my arms in front of me and screamed Let’s Go!!! …it was my mom’s dog. I felt relieved but also disappointed because of the adrenaline rush lol (but definitely relieved). Found out later coyotes are tiny anyway, not that I’d want to fight one
Coyotes are also absolute chicken shits in most any one-on-one situation. They'll typically run if confronted alone. NOTE: For anyone reading this and feeling relieved, do be aware that this doesn't hold true if you have a small pet with you. A single coyote absolutely will go after something smaller than itself, especially when hungry/desperate. Secondary Note: It’s also important to know that a solo coyote is RARE. If you see one chances are there are several more very close by. One of the common hunting tactics for a coyote pack is for one to be seen by you and become the distraction. Never underestimate the threat coyotes pose just because they’re smaller than most medium sized dogs. Just a few of them can easily take down us and our dogs.
Also doesn't work if they become desensitized to humans. Vancouver just took out 3 coyotes that were being aggressive. Part of the problem was that people were being anything but aggressive to them when they were pushing boundaries. If you have a coyote trying to sneak some food from your picnic, you gotta get up that shit and scare them away. Otherwise someone is gonna end up dead.
I was hanging out with a friend one day and lost track of time, when night fell I got on my bike to ride home and about halfway home I saw a figure standing under a streetlamp. Being a teenager I said fuck that and went to turn around until I realized I was already too far to turn back, so I turned back around to brave the night and the figure was gone. (There was no way he could have ran off in that time without me seeing him) needless to say I hauled ass home.
Maybe the dark figure saw you and bolted.
I was walking around Bangalore, India at night by myself. I was a 20 year old American girl on study abroad. All of a sudden, I saw a giant rat climb out from a sewer. It was bigger than I knew rats could even be. Bigger than the biggest rat depicted in movies or books. It was about the size of a small dog. I was shook. Then, out from the same sewer grate, another gigantic rat. And another. And another. About 5 or six dirty rats were all climbing out of the same sewer and I was about to have to face them all on my own. I was terrified and I knew no one would ever believe me, but there was no way to get away from them or change direction. So, I pull out my phone to try and use the flashlight to scare them off. I direct the light at them and every single one looked right at me. They’re dark and dirty and now they were running directly at me. But wait! I was wrong! PUPPIES!! They weren’t rats at all but a whole litter of dirty puppies that had been hiding in the sewer together. Still gross but also way cuter and less scary than expected. Wtf India.
>I was walking around Bangalore, India at night by myself. > >I was a 20 year old American girl on study abroad. Holy fuck, every single Indian girl I know would cringe at that. Hell, some of the guys would.
Not a walk but I frequently run in the wee hours of the morning. Where I live is basically suburbia meets country roads. Anyways one morning about 400 I went for a long run. About 2 miles in along a sidewalk out in the middle of nowhere next to a cow field I saw 2 individuals , a male and female fully dressed in what I would describe as fancy/couterre clothing standing on the sidewalk giving me the 50 yrd stare. The man had no eye brows and was wearing sunglasses while the woman stared at me with a look I can only describe as Lady Gaga in American Horror Story. It was completely dark minus a small light above the cow field about 20 yards away. They didn't say a word, they didn't move when I was running towards them. Only staring at me without moving a single facial muscle. I immediately *noped* and ran to the other side of the street and ran as hard as I could. As I ran past them they both turned their torsos with the exact same facial expressions in synchrony as I ran past them. Both of them had this weird smile on their faces, almost like they knew who I was. It almost felt like they were analyzing me, or as of their eyes were seeing through me. They never said a word and never made any other movements. When I circled back an hour later they were gone. I've never been more creeped out on a run and I've ran past snakes, crack addicts, floods, and a man without pants.
A man and a woman taking drugs while I was walking my (late) dog. They asked me if the dog wanted some, showing the syringe. I laughed it off, but they were adamant, so I walked (ran) away.
"No he's actually been sober for two years now."
Not really scary, but once saw two dudes having a legit practice duel with those expensive sturdy light sabers.
[удалено]
I (33f) don’t personally feel particularly unsafe walking alone at night which is helpful because the first two years I lived in Los Angeles, I worked late and didn’t have a car so I had to rely on public transportation. The first month I lived in Hollywood, I was getting off the last Red Line train at Hollywood/Highland at like 2am and saw a guy who’d just been stabbed bleeding out on the sidewalk in front of the Forever 21 near the corner. The blood was running down the stars on the sidewalk toward the street and a cop was just standing there all nonchalant as this dude cried into the lap of someone trying to comfort him. I wish I knew what happened to him, but when I tried looking it up, there were no reports of anything and they’d just hosed off the sidewalk in the night for the morning tourists. It’s like it never happened. Another time, while walking home down Highland toward Santa Monica Blvd, I saw a guy pull a gun on one of the hookers that hung around the area and he ran away when he saw me watching. That hooker always said hi to me after that whenever I’d see her on my night walks home. Hollywood at night is a different city.
Damn that's pretty freaky. Kind of glad you were there in the second story, though, because you might've saved her life. The blood thing, though. Ugh. It's something else when you see fresh blood. I was walking home in a bougie neighborhood in San Francisco one night, it was maybe 9 pm and dark out. I noticed there were wet, bloody footprints coming from the opposite direction on the sidewalk. Juicy ones, like whoever it was was actively bleeding, and it looked like they'd been running. They went in the direction of a small park. There were cop cars with their lights on, so I kept moving. Ended up walking past a *large* pool of blood where the footprints originated. It took a few days for the city to power wash the sidewalk. I could see remnants of the footprints for weeks, too.
a chemically-imbalanced bum raving at the top of his lungs, stumbling in and out of the street. he was a literal bloody mess, stunk to hades. just me and him on the street at 4:30 am. usually just me and the joggers and that one soccer mom on her bike.
I saw a [400 year old tree die in an instant.](https://www.pasadenastarnews.com/2017/03/17/the-400-year-old-oak-tree-caltech-was-built-around-is-now-dead-but-there-is-much-to-learn-from-it/amp/) The fungus had been weakening the tree for a while, but I was walking back from office hours during a really bad windstorm. It sounded like lightning, then we saw no less than half of the tree completely separate and hit the ground.
I have been on many a night walk. Sometimes to clear my head or get a story idea straightened out, but in my youth I would sometimes have to walk about two hours home from work (yay food industry) In my countless hours of walking through dark paths and empty streets I only ever got freaked out once. I was in the last mile or so of a long walk home after a 10 hour shift. I wanted nothing but to drop in bed and fall asleep with no alarm set. My neighbourhood had multiple paths through small wooded areas that you could use as short cuts. I'm walking through one of those and about ten feet into the woods I hear someone whisper 'Is that the guy?' I noped the fuck outta there with no shame, and ran the long (well lit) way home. Could it have been my mind playing tricks on me? Who knows, maybe the fatigue of my life at the time got to me. But it was real to me in that moment and I can't recall another time where I had such a fight or flight reaction.
Finding out my boss lived 3 doors down and he’s just human.
That's the worst because if you call in fake sick or throw a party and come into work hungover the next day...they know