Most of us have met people in our lives that just set off instant alarms or gave us the jibblies. Maybe they didn't even do anything, maybe they never even spoke to you.
But something in you just ... knew...
One Reddit user asked:
Who was the scariest person you've ever met?
and yeah, a whole lot of you have moments where you just knew you weren't OK.
A Wedding In Sicily
Marlon Brando Wedding GIF by The GodfatherGiphyStaying at an all-inclusive hotel in Sicily, suddenly get our dinner reservation canceled for reasons out of their control, spoke to reception who gave us cash to eat out.. never experienced anything like it, and were so oblivious.
Fast forward to dinner went down to reception to book a taxi, all staff were nowhere to be seen or avoiding us. Turns out the mafia had called for a wedding party, last minute & that's it. So many exotic cars, lots of guns, men in suits.
Even more bizarrely, the family apologized about our dinner reservation & invited us in for drinks.
We actually joined the after of an Italian Mafia wedding. Declining would have been unwise.
- kentgti
"For No Reason"
I worked as an EMT for four years (I didn't quit, now I'm a paramedic).
My partner and I were sent out to an extremely sketchy hotel to pick up a patient for PD. Basically, this guy had been arrested for something was now swearing up and down that he had chest pain to waste the time of as many people as possible. An ambulance crew had to be dispatched to take him to the hospital in restraints, an officer had to sit with him there until he was cleared etc.
When we arrived, he was crying loudly, sitting on the sidewalk between two cops. I took exactly one look at him and I was terrified. I could feel my heart rate jump and my hands start to shake.
My larger male partner said he'd sit in the back with him. So this guy cries the whole time we put him on the gurney and restrain him (if you're arrested or a danger to us, you get soft restraints tying your wrists and ankles to the gurney). He sobs loudly, talking about how much his chest hurts and how he didn't even do anything. My partner at the time, being better than the rest of us, was polite, professional and kind.
The moment the cops were out of sight and he was shut in the back of the ambulance for the ride to the hospital it was like a switch flipped. His face was utterly, perfectly neutral. He stopped making any noise at all. I will never forget the way he looked at my partner. I've read a lot of books talking about a "calculating" gaze but I'd never seen one before.
So a couple of weeks later we find out why he was being arrested: He had flung bleach into the eyes of a cashier for "disrespecting him". She was now permanently blind.
If you're scared of someone for no reason, you're probably not scared of them for no reason.
"May We Never Meet Again"
I got rear ended outside New York City in a brand new car in busy rush hour traffic in 1995 or so. I had recently been in a hit and run so the first thing I did was look in the rear view and write down the plate number.
It was either a black caddy or a town car. The passenger was an older man wearing sunglasses, wearing a fedora and smoking a cigar. The driver was a huge man who could have been a linebacker.
As I was writing down the color/make/model of his car the driver knocked on my window. I got out. He seemed annoyed.
No damage to my car, little to his. He looked at me and said "We are all ok here right?"
I thought better to go along with that. I said we should probably file a police report and exchange information. He said "no, we are ok."
Normally I would have insisted, but I had a pretty good idea of what type I was dealing with. He said "OK, all set then" and I said "ok" and went back to my car and he said "WAIT."
I almost pissed my pants. I turned around and he grabbed my right hand, shook it, looked right into my eyes and said:
"May we never meet again"
I went back into my car and drove off as fast as I could and kept checking my rearview every so often for that car. Never saw it again but shook for a while on my drive to my destination.
Dark
I'm lucky I've had limited interaction with people who set my alarms off immediately. The first one that comes to mind was meeting one of my friend's stepdad.
His mom was smart and good looking but was too sensitive and agreeable for her own good and had a tendency to pick guys who were basically defined by their red flags.
First husband was a guy who started out a very handsome dude but eventually did enough meth he lost it.
Second was a guy who loved mma and for a while was pretty fit and made good money at his job. At the same time was also the type of alcoholic to have seizures if he withdrew and would do things like punch holes in doors while drunk.
I met the second. We had almost no interaction, all the stories I knew about him I knew secondhand. He had this way of entering a room, and just immediately making things tense without saying anything.
I remember turning to my buddy and saying:
"Dude... That guy's vibe is DARK."
I never felt anything exactly equivalent to it. He could get up off of the couch, grab a glass of water and sit back down again and the way he'd do it would make me feel like all the air went out of the room.
It didn't hurt he was super stockily built, had a shaved head and perpetually looked pissed off. Just the force with which he would sit down on the couch made me feel like I wanted to avoid eye contact so he wouldn't explode on me for something even though I never talked to him.
But the bulk of the stories didn't come from people who had brief encounters. Most people had extended or repeated exposure to their particular nightmare ... and it was definitely life changing.
"I Thought He Was Just Annoying"
kaley cuoco penny GIF by The Paley Center for MediaGiphyI thought he was just annoying.
He was a good friend's neighbor. I had only met him once before. The friend and I went going to take his boat out, dude saw us and invited himself along.
Five minutes after launching, the dude is already working on his second beer and yells a racial slur at two guys fishing.
Later on, we pull up to the beach, some people in a giant boat ask if we can move farther away. They wanted to set up a tent.
Words are exchanged and he yells that he'll kill them. They called the cops and he ran into the woods because he had warrants.
He comes back after the cops leave. My buddy vowed never to let him hang out again.
This proves pretty easy to do. Unfortunately that winter, he got drunk, got into and argument with his 21 year old son and shot him dead.
He Wouldn't Hesitate
I worked in a behavioral management unit in a maximum security prison for a couple years. It's a unit that houses borderline personality cases, sociopaths, psychopaths, et cetera. Basically a small unit to house the most disruptive inmates in the DOC.
We had an inmate who was in prison for burning down a building with a bunch of people in it due to selling his girlfriend some bad drugs. He killed at least one of them I don't remember the particulars.
This inmate was usually polite, courteous, hard working, everything you'd want from an inmate. Hell we'd watch jeopardy most nights and I would be blown away by his ability to answer a massive majority of the answers correctly.
Then suddenly he wouldn't be okay.
The most minor perceived slight or minor transgression would change him. He would shut down and become incredibly violent.. and he was so strong. He looked forward to the violence kind of like what's captured in Bronson movies.
It happened intermittently but when it did he was a force to be reckoned with.
We never had it out, but I was always aware that when I was speaking to him, it wasn't like I wasn't having a normal conversation... it was like he had programmed responses that were designed to be exactly what I wanted to hear.
Then there are the eyes, you hear the saying often inside the walls "nothing behind the eyes"... he was the only one I ever really felt that. His glare felt dangerous, and I can't really compare it to anything I've ever experienced before or since.
He made it through the program... eventually. The carrot that they dangled was a choice of what prison they would like to transfer to. He choose one that had a particular staff member that crossed him too many times years and years back. He was going there to kill them. He waited years for the opportunity.
Luckily he slipped up and someone caught on before he could make it there.
Without a doubt the most dangerous person I have ever meant. There was no doubt in my mind that if he had the opportunity and he felt like he needed to he wouldn't hesitate to kill me. I am so glad he'll never see the streets again.
So Uncomfortable
A friend of my brother's, who cornered me in the kitchen in the middle of the night when we were all hanging out at my sister's place and everyone else was asleep.
I was trying to politely sidle around him to get away, but he kept outmaneuvering me. It was just mildly irritating at first (I was tired and wanted to go to bed) until he finally stood blatantly in the middle of the door and said something to the effect of:
"God, you're so uncomfortable, you keep messing with your hair, you can't even make eye contact with me."
Irritation turned immediately to fear, because he went from "social idiot who can't take a hint" to "predator who knows exactly what he's doing" in a snap. He held that position for just a few seconds, but it felt like hours, until he finally let me go.
I had planned on sleeping on the living room floor (the creep was in the guest bedroom and my brother had passed out on the living room couch), but I was so freaked out went and crawled in bed with my sister. I didn't sleep that night.
They left before I got out of bed the next morning, and the next time I talked to my brother I told him I didn't like his friend. I don't know what the dude said to him, but my brother kind of paused and said:
"... Yeah, he turned out to be kind of a d*ck."
and that was the end of it.
Notorious Neighbors
An extremely notorious gang member.
I wondered why bikies had started hanging around the apartments I lived in, then one day I got in the elevator and saw him with the massive dude who was obviously his personal protection that day. Thought to myself:
"Isn't that the dude I've seen in the media...? Oh f*ck, it is."
We talked about dogs until I got off on my floor. Good guy to talk pets with, but I always checked to make sure no one looked like they were hanging around to do a drive-by shooting before I walked into the building after that.
My old neighbor was a member of biker club with a reputation for extreme violence. We got along fine, I kept my distance and tried to mind my own business.
His wife was more of a talker though so we chatted and one day she mentioned how his dad had died and left him his bike shop and they were talking with some rando lawyer to get his dads bills paid and some things to take ownership.
I'm not a legal expert but what she said didn't quite make sense so I said I'd have my sister (who is a lawyer) look at it to make sure it was all above board. Turns out they both had only rudimentary reading skills and this lawyer was predatory as hell.
I wish I remembered the legalities but that's really not my thing. In the end I helped him keep his dad's shop and I never had to worry about my safety at home or my house or pets when I went out of town after that.
He tackled an attempted burglar outside my window a year later. They were great neighbors and very appreciative.
The Replacements
I had a customer with capgras syndrome.
She was convinced that all her relatives were replaced by actors. "It's just really crazy, they look like them, speak like them, move like them. Ask them something about the childhood and they will know it. It is as if they were your relatives, but they aren't! It's all stored in a tiny chip in their arm".
At that time I wasn't aware of her condition, I learnt more about that syndrome years later.
When I talked to her at the time (as said, didn't know about the syndrome, just thought she was completely crazy) it was more like the World had stopped working for her. But it didn't matter much - as though she didn't know / couldn't say if or where all her relatives were living now, it was completely clear for her that all of those had been replaced by actors and that was completely logical for her.
But yes, I assume she had a really lonesome life. I quickly learnt that police was looking for her and during the next talk I called police on non emergency number for this reason, but I saw her around for a while later so it can't have been something too serious. I don't know what happened to her.
- satures
Oh we had a patient with Capgras when I worked at an inpatient psych center. She was actually a retired psychiatrist who was taking care of her elderly mother (she was in her late 60s so the money was pushing 90) and she was convinced that her mother was replaced by an imposter. She kept yelling at her mother to get out and eventually pushed her and she got hurt (which is how she ended up with us).
We only had her for a short while to restore her to competency so she could work with her attorneys so I didn't get to meet her. By all accounts she was a lovely woman and a perfect patient.
McVenting
I worked at McDonald's and this dude applied, I'm the one who handed him an application, he gave off instant creepy vibes.
When he came in for an interview I told my manager he was weird but he smiled his way through the interview and got hired.
Pretty sure he was a psychopath. And he knew he couldn't fake being a real human in front of me, he would give me real sinister looks behind people's backs.
He ended up getting fired. He pushed a big ladder over that almost nailed someone and the camera saw it all.
He claimed he was "just venting off a little steam".
He came back as a customer and reordered the same thing like 10 times and just creeping up the place and trying to walk into the kitchen, to eat in the break room etc. Manager finally called the cops.
He laughed and bailed on foot across the highway. Haven't seen him since.
- DewyWannaGoThere
You've heard what Reddit has to say, but we're curious about your experiences.
Tell us about the most terrifying nope-worthy people who have touched your life.
Those who work in different fields all have their respective anecdotes that are sure to keep listeners engaged.
But certain jobs that keep employees away from land are sure to have the most intriguing stories to share.
Seafarers shared their unique experiences bordering on hair-raising phenomena when Redditor tylo144 asked:
"For those who have careers that keep them out at sea for long periods of time, what is the creepiest thing you’ve seen out in the water?"
Mariners shared their wildest stories from their time out at sea.
Fierce Gale
"Not so much what I saw but what I experienced. I was once underway in the Gulf of Alaska during a November gale. Waves were up to 35 feet with some rollers hitting 45. An uncommon occurrence on the diesel electric ship I was on was a cyclo-converter tripping. When this happened the ship would temporarily completely lose power and propulsion until some electricians could reset everything. This happened during that gale. I simply can’t explain how strange it is for the boat you’re on to all of a sudden go so quiet, that you can clearly hear waves slapping the ship and metal bending and flexing. Knowing you’re completely at the mercy of the sea. Knowing that if the ship lost its bearing and went beam to there was a real possibility of capsizing. It’s easy to forget when you’re at sea that the only thing keeping you alive is a bunch of steel welded together. At that moment I was fully aware and it humbled me. Thankfully we trained frequently for this and had everything fired back up relatively quickly."
"Another time I recall was when the ship took a rogue wave. They are absolutely real and I believe they account for a massive number of shipwrecks. It was late at night and I was on the bridge. We were passing through a storm and we’re taking the waves off the bow with no visibility. As the ship moves there’s normally a pretty standard pattern. You ride up a wave for a bit and then you fall down the wave for a bit. Well we started riding up a wave and got to the point where we should have been starting or ride down…but we just kept climbing and climbing. And then it happened. We started our ride down the back of this massive wave. All of us braced ourselves and tried to find something to hold on to but we all fell to the deck any way. Anything that wasn’t secured for sea fell down all around us. Manuals, tables, computers, printers, you name it. Our captain who was sleeping called up to the bridge asking if we hit something. It woke the entire crew up. Rogue waves are real, and they’re terrifying. I can’t imagine being in a smaller boat or taking one of them broadside."
– red_pimp69
Series Of Bizarre Events
"I was in the US Navy for about 10 years, and have 10s of thousands of miles at sea in an aircraft carrier. Countless nights on the flight deck in the middle of the night and middle of the ocean..."
"Creepiest: A HUGE patch of the ocean glowing. Like nuclear waste in the Simpsons glowing. I've seen bioluminescent algae of a few kinds and this was nothing like it. I've never seen anything like it before or since."
"Weirdest thing: hundreds of mile out to sea from land and there was a MASSIVE fire on the water. It was like the top of a gas refinery, but on the water with nothing under it but water. Flame going a few stories into the air."
"Funniest: 2 flying fish collide mid-air. I was smoking when we were in the Persian Gulf and saw the fish fly from a pretty far distance towards each other. I remember thinking 'there's no f'kin way they're going to hit' them SPLAT SPLASH! I was in tears laughing but no one saw it. Everyone just thought I was a weirdo, but I got to see a miracle of nature lol"
– BBQQA
Lone Yacht
"Some 20 years ago..."
"On the MV Explorer (since sunk) down near the Antarctic circle, sailing around the 'bergs and occasionally making landfall..."
"We rounded into a small bay area, and there, amongst the ice and coast was an unmarked sailing yacht. Which is odd as generally yachts have some identifying markings on them."
"To add to it, they didn't respond to any radio contact, and whilst I wasn't privy to the conversation (and it was a long time ago), some crew went across via Zodiac and were refused boarding."
"So basically a yacht, not a particularly large one, that was unmarked was hanging around in the inhospitable waters of the Antarctic and didn't want any help or contact."
"Proper weird."
– ThanklessTask
These Redditors have fearlessly plunged into darkness.
Dark Dive
"I used to be an oilfield diver in the Gulf of Mexico. I'd say about 80% of the dives I logged were at night. Mostly 500 ft and under DSV's."
"It's very eerie feeling sitting on the downline doing in water decompression in the middle of night. I'd always ask topside to turn off my headlight."
"Like a worm on a hook. Just bobbing in the darkness."
– Comrade_Fuzzybottoms
A Dark Calm
"Not even nearly as extreme as your story but it evoked a memory, I did a scuba diving open water course and then did the advanced course which included a night dive in a freshwater lake."
"I was only 5m underwater, pitch black darkness with two other guys, we were on a platform and we could either face the dam wall or the open water, and I turned to the open water while the other guys were behind me, I turned off my light (we did have little lights on our backs)"
"Just the deepest, calmest dark I’ve ever felt and seen. Not a single source of light anywhere, just immense darkness. Still remember that feeling and it was like 15 years ago"
– circleinsidecircle
Things get more interesting.
Water Glow
"The bioluminescent animals (or whatever they are) in the water is pretty amazing. Our toilet would fill up with seawater and if you took a piss in it in the middle of the night it would agitate the water and it would glow sometimes."
– Tub-a-guts
"Ominous Red Snow Angel"
"Always love the bio-luminescence flickering around the hull at night. They're almost like a cushion of little stars guiding you safely along. On those really dark, moonless nights, I'd almost beg for them to arrive."
"I sailed 70ft yacht around the world a few years back. Southern Ocean, Cape Horn, Good Hope, Roaring Forties, Furious Fifties, two equatorial crossings; the full deal. Plenty of terrifying moments, boring moments, funny moments and beautiful moments."
"A creepy moment that is burned into my memory involved a near catastrophe halfway between NZ and Cape Horn. We ended up hitting really bad weather and absolutely huge seas - 50ft swells with massive troughs in between. We were running with the swells for days as they grew, skidding down them like a bloated surfboard, always worrying that the next wave would break behind us and roll us over."
"At night it's pitch black down there in bad weather - the sky and sea just form a huge black mass. The most terrifying thing is the sound of an invisible wave breaking behind you. At night, you run red light to preserve night vision, so there's basically just an eerie red glow emanating from below deck."
"At about two in the morning, I was at the helm when a monster wave broke directly over the back of us without a seconds warning. Time slowed down like it does in those moments, and the last thing I saw was my own silhouette in the wall of water, lit up like an ominous red snow angel - and then nothing but cold blackness as the boat sunk into the sea."
"Fortunately, she popped straight back up like a cork after a few eternal seconds - almost like a submarine surfacing - and we were still in one piece. Still cant forget that glowing red apparition of myself though. The memory of it has woken me up in a cold sweat more than once."
– Le_Rat_Mort
Coming Up For Air
"Somewhere in the Atlantic, nice cold as f**k night, decided to step out and look at stars. About ten minutes on and a boats mast pops up, sits there a few minutes and then back under. No alarms, nothing. Just some sub boys getting a bit of late night o2 in the middle of nowhere next to some friends."
– MyMomsSecondSon
When I worked on cruise ships, I was always captivated by the green flash on the horizon.
The optical phenomenon occurs just as the sun goes down or before sunrise, with the tip of the sun barely visible.
It emits a flash of green light that I found absolutely thrilling to witness every time.
It's not necessarily creepy, but still a wonder for sure.
No matter how long ago we saw it, there are some scenes or images from movies that still send shivers down our spine or keep us awake at night to this very day.
Pennywise appearing in the sewer in It, Janet Leigh surprised in the shower in Psycho, Freddy Kreuger's tongue popping out of the telephone in A Nightmare on Elm Street.
Of course, some of the scariest, most disturbing, or most emotionally traumatizing scenes from films might have been featured in films outside of the horror genre.
Even more shockingly, some of these films were primarily marketed towards children!
Redditor alina_love was curious to hear which non-horror films the Reddit community saw as children still send shivers down their spines today, leading them to ask:
"What's a non horror movie that traumatized you as a kid?"
It Was Tim Burton, After All...
"'Pee Wee's big adventure'."
"Large Marge scared the crap out of little me."
"I was even scared of the fortune teller."- BlueStarrSilver·
With A Title Like "Temple Of Doom"...
"'Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom'."
"The scene where the guy gets his heart ripped out traumatized me for years."- Pbhf
That Funeral Scene Though...
"'My Girl'."
"Fear of death, fear of losing a friend, fear of bees, fear of puberty."- heidismiles
macaulay culkin kiss GIFGiphyJurassic Park's Got Nothing On This...
"'The Land Before Time'."
"Watching Little Foot’s mother die was awful."- HourglassSass
He'll Always Regret Not Bringing Her To The Museum...
"'Bridge to Terabithia'."- jumpstart-the-end
"Everything goes so well and it falls apart SO FAST and your left absolutely traumatized."- VortexDestroyer99
The Reason People Hold On To Their Appliances For As Long As They Do...
"The Brave Little Toaster'."- Catgurl
"The junkyard scene alone was responsible for so many nightmares."- ManChildMusician
brave little toaster animation GIF by Coolidge Corner TheatreGiphyAnd Let's Not Forget The Coachman's Smile...
"Disney’s version of 'Pinocchio'."
"The scene where kids are turned into donkeys and kept on the island and then resold was f*cking weird."
"You felt bad for that bully kid after he looked sad and nobody understood what he said because he was a donkey."- earnestlikehemingway
Few Things More Sad And Scary Than Deforestation
"'Ferngully: The Last Rainforest'."
"That evil tree scared me so bad."- slutsdotnet
Anything But "Truly Scrumptious"...
"The 'Chitty Chitty Bang Bang' Childcatcher guy!"
"I'm still scared of him!"- Jet_Maypen
child GIFGiphyOffing Children One By One...In A Children's Movie!
"'Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory' boat scene."
"Honorable mention of claustrophobia when Augustus gets stuck in the chocolate tube."
"UGH!"- looseseal-bluth
At Least We Know He Had A "Sole"...
"Who Framed Roger Rabbit."
"That poor shoe….."- dalalice5555
At Least The Song Is Catchy...
"Neverending Story."
"Not even Artax, which was awful, but the Rockbiter and his good strong hands."- marxychick1
Neverending Story 80S GIFGiphyDorothy Gettying Electro Shock Therapy Says it All...
"Return to Oz."- Jeff_Steelflexx
"Horrifying! What about the animated wig heads?"- weensfordayz
The Reigning King Of Childhood Trauma
"Old Yeller."- IceTech59
"I remember watching this on TV during, I think, Wonderful World of Disney (Sunday nights were Disney night on TV)."
"Cried and cried and cried."
"I've never been able to watch it again and I've never shown it to my kids!"- crowwitch
Not All Friendships Are Tenable... A Terrifying Thought
"'The Fox and the Hound'."
"Still makes me incredibly sad, lol."- mental_reincarnation
best friends friendship GIFGiphySometimes, writers and filmmakers simply overestimate what might go over a child's head.
Or, for that matter, they might underestimate their emotional capacity.
Regardless, ask any of Fairuza Balk's fans which is scarier, Return to Oz or The Craft, and their answer will be immediate...
(... and it won't be The Craft...)