Context is everything. Something completely normal in one place could seem absolutely horrifying in another. Think about it, a surgeon in a full gown and mask would be comforting in a surgical suite, but that same guy standing in the middle of a corn field behind your house is suddenly a reason to call the cops and a series of priests. One reddit user asked:

What normal thing would be terrifying if you saw it on the streets at 3 in the morning?

They kicked off a thread full of past experiences and make-you-think responses... also a thread full of people who are rightfully terrified of creepy children.

A car parked with the lights OFF but someone is still inside is creepy as hell. Can you see the intermittent glow of a cigarette as the person watches? Do you hear something and look away and when you look back they are gone without making a sound? Are they just laying down in the seat or are they already out of the car moving silently in the dark, creeping like a shadow in the night until they are right behind you?

It feels like a horror film when it's probably just my damn neighborhood teens smoking weed again.

Outside it's like:

**"Who the f^ck is this stalker on my block at 3AM?" **

And inside its like:

"Hey, pass that blunt."

The scariest thing I saw walking around at night was an old man in a wheelchair, at probably one in the morning, only visible by the streetlight directly above him. My older sister and I booked it home. Looking back on it I hope he was alright, but for a 13 year old it was a scene right out of a horror movie.

I'll give you two, of two very different flavors:

• A car with its headlights off, in your lane, speeding right at you. This happened to me in the quiet and dark hours following the 4th of July revelries back in 2009. I was taking my friend home and this presumably-drunk driver came inches away from taking out all three of us; only my snap reaction speed saved us, as I slammed the brakes and swerved around to the left (into an oncoming lane, mind you, but the streets were otherwise entirely empty). Absolutely fing terrifying though and producer of a truly unique litany of unhinged swearing.
• A clown, poofy afro, barefoot, standing at the crosswalk pushing an empty shopping cart, lit only from above by the dim-orange streetlight. It was notime close to Halloween. I had a different friend with me and we nearly pissed ourselves turning that corner. Fer didn't even watch us go by; I sped down the road and kept an eye in my rear-view mirror; he never moved.

A child selling lemonade at a Lemonade stand

Someone washing their car. Whose blood are you washing off? What did you hit?

There was a large open park behind my old apartment with a realistic, life-size sculpture of a dog riding a tricycle. Pretty amusing to look at during the day. My roommate and I once went out there around 1am to smoke, so we may have been a little more paranoid than usual. It was also super foggy out.

I almost s* myself when I saw what appeared to be a creature somewhere between a wolf and a bear, on its hind legs, somewhat obscured by the fog but illuminated by a streetlight directly above it. I froze and turned to my roommate, who audibly gasped when he saw it.

It took us a solid 15-20 seconds to realize it was the f_*_ing statue of the dog on the tricycle. We'd both seen it plenty of times during the day, but something about the fog and the lighting made it look like something completely different.

I wake up everyday at 3:30 and walk my mom to her car because our driveway is full so sometimes she has to park at the end of the block. We don't live in the best part of Los Angeles; a couple months ago there was a guy running around hitting people with a hammer. A few years ago, gangs were doing this "100 days of killing" - so when I see a car coming up the block my heart just drops and start thinking this is it...

But the scariest thing that's happened was when me and this f_*_ing dog bumped into each other and we both took off running the opposite way.

Parked Cars.

One time as a young teenager I was sneaking out to meet up with some friends, probably 20 minute or so walk away for me. I was never really scared of doing this. It's probably 2am or so, I get to the bottom of my street where there's a car parked on the side of the road.

This wasn't abnormal in fact there were many cars parked on the road instead of in driveways. The car was off, no lights, whatever. Then.. as soon as I had past the car and was turned away from it.. it layed on the horn. I quickly turned around and as soon as I did the horn stopped. I couldn't see anybody in the car but I have bad eyes, was getting further away and it was dark af. The second I turn my head back around to continue waking it lays on the horn again, steady until I turn around again to look, at which point it again abruptly stops..

Now I'm fucking SCARED lol, I turn around and start fing booking it and they just lay on the horn for a good 15-20 seconds straight. I ran allll the way to my friends house. I know it was just someone fing with me, this would have never scared me if it hadn't been the middle of the night with no one else around.

A clown.

We had a goddamn clown scare in my state a few years ago. Every Tom, Dick, and Harry thought it would be a f_*_ing good idea to dress up as clowns and follow people in the middle of the night. One night, there was one standing on my property at the tree line at 1am. I backed out of my driveway, parked on the street by the front entrance. Made sure all my house's doors were locked without turning on any of the lights because you can see into my ground level windows from outside, and then booked it all the way upstairs. That night I was thankful for my bedroom being on the third floor.

The store I worked at ran out of pepper spray because these as$holes thought they were funny. A lot of women were followed around college campuses, apparently.

Kids are always playing football (soccer) around my block, and obvously, when the ball get stuck under a parked car, 2 or 3 kids try to crawl under to get the ball back.

If I'm walking outside at 3am and see a bunch of kids crawling under a car, I'm getting the f* away.

A 10 year old girl carrying quantum physics books, in the ghetto, surrounded by aliens....

I used to go for 2~6am brainstorming walks through my old quiet suburban neighborhood and one of my neighbors a street over had a life-sized statue of someone gardening. The first time I saw the silhouette of a person apparently gardening at 3:45 am I did have a weird primal fear response to it.

A 'living statue', basically someone who paints themselves completely silver or something similar and busks in busy public places.

The inflatable union rat that they bring out for protests. Funny during the day, freak you the hell out at night.

A child flying a kite, there's something about flying a kite at night that's so unwholesome. But if you put some glow sticks on it you can mess with people for miles around...

The sun reflected in a car's chrome. Or... just one item or building, that looks like it's illuminated in the middle of day. That would be so weird. The implication that something has gone wrong with reality. It's more of a surreal horror than a direct one.

The guy who sells coconuts at the end of my block. He's always got a machete on him.

A sponge standing menacingly under a street light.

One little child on a swing

Alone

I have seen enough horror movies to s* my pants if I saw that.

A funeral procession:

Imagine it moving along the streets with vehicle lights turned off on its way to the pitch-dark cemetery at 3 a.m.

H/T: Reddit