Sometimes, it's the things you can't see that are absolutely terrifying and leave you frozen in fear.
Screaming in the distance, unexplained noises in the house when you're the only one home, or even not-so-subtle sounds like an explosion can literally scare us out of our skin.
It is said that an audio track of a bear attack from Werner Herzog's documentary, Grizzly Man, was left out of the film because the director thought it was "the most terrifying thing I've ever heard in my life."
Curious about the scary noises people have heard and can never forget, Redditor mrrightnow666 asked:
[Serious] What's the most horrifying sound you've ever heard?
Some of the responses are graphic in their description and truly horrendous. Hopefully, we will never have to experience what some of these Redditors have heard.
Waiting To Exhale
"Breath leaving a dead body that's been sitting there a while. Heard it multiple times always grossed me out."
– wysteeia
Noise From A Corpse
"A friend of mine who works at a hospital told me that sometimes a dead body makes this rattling sound as if they're coughing when air pushes out of their respiratory tract."
Burning Alive
"Human screaming from a burning car after a big crash. The people inside the car didn't make it but it made me buy a fire extinguisher for my vehicles. Better safe than sorry."
Hit With Stones
"I'm an Aboriginal from the top end of Australia, in remote communities it's common place for the women to hit their heads with stones until they bleed.. the 'tock, tock, tock' of them beating their own heads while they wail is a truly terrifying sound.. it makes my skin crawl typing this.."
"I should have also mentioned that that happens when someone passes away.."
– fnbm1987
Shriek Of Terror
"It was the dead of night one summer many years ago. I had the window open and was fast asleep when all of a sudden I heard the worst shriek in the world. It legitimately sounded like a woman was running like her life depended on it. Turns out something was running for its life, but it was a rabbit running away from what I imagine was an owl. I've never heard a sound like it and I hope I never will again."
Oklahoma Bombing
"I was outside on the baseball field in High School when out of the completely clear blue sky came thunder."
"You know when you first hear it you turn around to see where the storm clouds are? No clouds. None."
"A couple minutes later I see some people running between buildings."
"Turns out I had heard the Murrah building in Oklahoma City being blown up."
"I was in a small town fifty miles away (Ripley, OK)."
"My sister turned out to be dating the son of the highway patrolman that caught McVeigh outside of Stillwater on I-35."
– ssshield
Early Morning Phone Call
"My phone ringing at 4am, caller ID displaying my mother."
"She forgot about timezones and was just calling me to let me know she mad it to her holiday destination safely."
The Soldier
"Afghan soldier I was on a patrol with stepped on an IED and lost his leg. He screamed so loud and for so long I thought we would all go crazy from it. It's been six years and I still hear him screaming some nights."
"As far as I know the Afghan Soldier survived his wounds. As far as myself it was not the first or last IED strike I've been part of but the mans screaming made it one of the worst. That was during my third deployment and I'm about to leave on my sixth. I've had my troubles with alcohol, PTSD and TBI but I have a loving family and supportive command. It's helped me to get through most things well. There are just some things that you never forget and honestly shouldn't. After evacuating that guy I shared a cigarette with one of his buddies. Neither of us spoke the others language but it was a very touching moment of shared pain. There were other interesting things about that mission that I've written about in therapy. It was a strange one."
Dementia
"I've cared for a few residents with dementia, and some of them develop immense fears. You try to feed them, they are scared, you try to put them into bed, they are scared. I'm not an emotional person, but hearing someone you once knew very well to be reduced to that, is heartbreaking. Their cries hit me like a brick."
Twin Tower Victims
"There's a film of 9/11 where you can hear these thudding sounds in the background that are people jumping out of Tower 1 hitting pavement."
"It's not something you can un-hear."
A Sobbing Parent
"My Dad crying. I was a kid and don't really know what it was about, but I had never seen or hear him crying before (or since, with the exception of grandparents' funerals) and it was completely terrifying for me.:
Devastating Loss
"The sound of my friend's mother finding out her daughter had been killed in a hit and run. She was wailing, fainting, coming to and wailing again. Will never leave me."
Distress Signal
"Code red. Teachers please complete the safety procedures"
"When you hear that, but there is no scheduled drill. It's even worse when you're the teacher."
Victim
"A crash, a short delay, a thud, and then screams."
"It was a motorcyclist hitting a car, flying into a parking lot, and the people in that parking lot screaming. The guy didn't make it."
The Bum
"A drunken homeless man taking a header on a subway platform in Chicago. Heard his head explode like a melon as he hit the concrete."
"He died."