All of us have had an interaction with someone that just kind of didn't sit well later. Maybe we couldn't quite put our finger on why, or maybe we absolutely knew right away - but without a doubt all of us know what it is to just feel creeped out.
So let's talk about it. One Reddit user asked:
What are some creepy encounters you've had?
And yeah we've got everything here from near-miss kidnappings to what might be aliens, maybe the CIA, we're not sure. There was at least one entry that made us go "oh uh-UH no thank you!" out loud. Like you can just politely decline being stalked.
Proceed with caution, fam. Things are about to get a little unnerving.
Sleep
I brought up this question to my mom just now. She says when I was young and we lived in an apartment (just us) she woke up in the middle of the night while it was pouring rain because she heard a loud noise.
She went to the front door and looked through the peephole to see if she could see what made the noise. There was a person standing there, facing the door, hood over their head, repeating over and over again "just go to sleep...just go to sleep...just go to sleep."
I never really knew about this until recently. I asked her this morning what she did: She said she slowly backed away from the door because she didn't want them to hear her (they were basically up against the door facing it)- then in her words "remained vigilant" but she didn't call the police.
Our neighborhood had a fair number of homeless people. I think she would have called the cops if he tried anything else. Besides being creepy and terrifying my mom.
Borrow Your Phone
GiphyI was walking in the parking lot of the mall with my ex-girlfriend and it was 7pm but it was already dark out. I forgot something in the car and we were only about 30 feet from the side entrance of the mall so I told her I'd meet her inside. As I'm walking back to the car, I hear two guys come up from out of nowhere and ask her if they can borrow her phone.
Something didn't feel right so I rushed back over to her and grabbed her hand so we could head into the mall. Sure enough about two weeks later, I saw those same two guys on a local news channel because they were arrested for attempted kidnapping of two young women.
In The Background
I've had the same creepy older man pop up in the background of 5 different pictures that were all taken at different places on different days over the course of a few years when I was a child. I didn't notice him until I started putting together a scrapbook for my mom about six years after the first pic.
I'm pretty sure he was stalking me, cause it's not like he'd just be walking by in the pic. No, he'd be standing in the background looking at the camera. I understand it happening once or twice could be a coincidence, but 5 times is way too many for it to have been chance.
The police were shown the film scans/double copies, because stalking a ten year old child is creepy and so illegal - but because so many years had passed & the quality of disposable cameras weren't the best you couldn't really make out who a person was when they were lurking in the background.
I've since caught him once or twice while out & about, so I know he's real. However, I never noticed the pictures until I was putting together that scrapbook for my mom and had the horrifying realization sink in as I was going through bins and bins of images.
Needless to say those 5 photos were burned after the police reviewed them.
Walking Alone
The creepiest thing is to walk alone as a young girl. I remember a car with 2 grown men in it asking if I wanted a ride. I was 12. I told them I lived right across the street. I did not. They kept following me and I walked up some random person's driveway and hide on the side of their house making sure not to move because they had motion sensors. Idk why I didn't knock and as for help. I guess I was afraid of what would happen if they didn't answer. They stayed down the street for like 15 mins waiting for me to come back out.
House Stock
Creepiest encounter, by far, in my long nursing career was my patient that whipped out a stack of Polaroid photos of women bound and gagged; some bruised and bleeding, all half naked.
He proudly told me about being in a motorcycle gang and all these women were "house stock",
I was a young nurse but knew not to give him the satisfaction of my disgust. I just gave him his meds and walked out of the room. His toothless cackle still makes me sick when I have the random nursing nightmare of all the sh!t I've seen.
A Black Thing
This was around 5 to 7 years ago.
My cousin's family from the city came for a sleepover at our house in the countryside. Me and my family live in a village that is "suburban-like" is surrounded by forests and wild vegetation.
We finished having dinner and I invited my younger cousin for a walk outside. This was only around 8pm. Near the end of our little stroll around the village, I looked up at the sky only to be greeted by thick clouds hanging weirdly low in the sky and blocking out the stars.
That's when I noticed something else strange.
Hovering lower than the already-too-low clouds was this black... thing. No, it wasn't a hole in the clouds revealing the night sky above it. It was very noticeably a T H I N G.
It was like the size of a fighter jet, but solid black. It wasn't moving at all just hovering. It only caught my attention when I looked up because I couldn't hear anything.
It didn't make a sound at all. Like zero.
The weirdest part was that it seemed to know that people on the ground could see it. so it made itself hard to see by constantly changing so you couldn't quite make out what it really was.
Sounds strange I know.
What I mean is that when you look at it head on it's like it's trying to change its shape subtly so your brain has a hard time understanding the nature of the object. But when you have the object in your periphery, it's as still as an image. It's like it doesn't want your eyes to focus on it.
I called the attention of my cousin to the blackest "object" I've ever seen and he can't understand it either. Like when you see something in the sky like a plane or a bird you understand it. Your brain recognizes it even if you just glanced at the thing. But this, stare at it for as long as you like, it doesn't want you to figure it out.
It was just... black.
- oapecnal
A Very Oblivious Kid
I was nearly kidnapped in Mazatlan when I was 11. My dad walked up at the last second, grabbed me and screamed at the two women escorting me away. I had no idea what was happening, or that I was even in danger. I was a very oblivious kid. Very close call.
I shudder when I think about what may have happened to me.
I Lied
I was seeing a girl for a bit. She was into supernatural stuff; believed her dead brother was watching over her etc. One night as we were falling asleep, she sat up a bit panicked and said she'd seen the figure of a man in the hallway. I said I didn't see anything.
I lied.
3AM On A Dark Path
GiphySnowing night about 2 years ago. Was going for a walk around 3 AM because I couldn't sleep.
I was walking on a narrow pathway in a pretty rural area, it was the middle of the night so it was absolutely pitch black; I could see absolutely nothing but kept walking straight.
I reached an area of the pathway where a small light in the distance lit up the path a little more so I could see my direction better. That's when I saw something obstructing my pathway.
There was some sort of object in the direction I was walking, a pretty tall object; looked like a sign or something? So I kept walking. As I got closer, I started making out more about this "object" and I realized it was actually the silhouette of someone standing there.
There was literally a person standing in my way at 3AM on a dark path.
I probably stood there, completely frozen for a few seconds. Trying hard to process what I was seeing, and what the fck to do. The figure I was seeing didn't move either.
Noooope I turned the hell around and walked straight the way I came, no hesitation.
The Kids Were Oblivious
Went shopping with my kids. My 8 and 9 yr old girls had a milkshake, so they waited outside a clothes shop for me so they didn't accidentally spill on anything.
A guy sitting across the way immediately started smiling at my daughter like a creep. He was staring at her with a horrible smile. She is very pretty and tall with long brown hair. Her sister is equally as pretty, but is shorter and had cut her hair very short so she looked like a boy from this guy's distance.
I told myself not to be paranoid but after going back and forth from the shop I brought them in with me. I walked in front of my girls I tried making eye contact with the creepy guy but he kept staring at my daughter.
By the time we left the store he was gone but I felt so paranoid decided just to go to a book store right by the bus stop. I let my kids go to the kids section and followed them down. I normally feel safe enough to leave them together and go upstairs to 2nd hand part of the store, but that day was different.
After a few minutes I start to feel very uncomfortable and tell kids it's time to go. Turn around and creepy guy is stood between two aisles with a kids book in his hands just staring at my daughter.
I grabbed kids and got a cab home instead of taking the bus. I don't know if he followed us or if it was just a coincidence, but was definitely a warning sign to always keep my eyes on my kids.
Thankfully kids were oblivious.
Good Dog
My dog found a guy trapped in the bushes at our house.
We check when he signals because sometimes it is important (like he flipped out when there was an escaped bull nearby) but usually it's one of the neighborhood cats or a groundhog.
This time NOPE. Random dude. Rather polite, but not particularly coherent.
A Bony Figure
Oh my gosh, one time while staying in rural Devon, I left the house in the middle of the night to let my dog out (no garden) and walked to my left where there was a patch of grass. Between me and the patch of grass were cars which I normally walked between to get to the grass. Pretty straightforward.
As I nonchalantly walked between two cars, my dog (a chill dude) was growling and seemed hesitant. I kind of just ignored him, which was dumb.
As I got between the cars, I realised there was this kinda bony figure there, crouching, between the cars tearing into something with their teeth. Reminded me of how a zombie in the walking dead eats something.
They were just crouching. In pitch darkness at like midnight, in the shadow of those two cars. I practically had to squeeze past him and he didn't even look up or acknowledge me. He was just completely engrossed in frantically eating (?) the bag.
I completely blanked out, I made it to the grass and was just panicking about how to get back to my door without passing this guy again. In the end I just legged it past him, practically hysterical with fear!
I always wonder what the FUCK that guy was, he definitely couldn't have been homeless because this is a small rural village there are no homeless people. I've never even come across a creepy person there it's all very safe, doesnt seem to be any drug problems I don't know.
It was almost inhuman in the way it moved and stuff. I have never in my life felt fear like I felt, my god. Was terrified to walk my dog at night ever since. Gives me shivers to even think about.
The Deer Carcass
GiphyThis was about almost exactly year ago. I was jogging in the nature trails of a park near where I live. I was a senior in HS at the time and had been running in these trails for cross country for almost five years and nothing out of the ordinary had ever happened so I felt very comfortable alone in those woods. I find running to be an incredibly meditative sport so I try to find places away from people, and that day I had the wonderful idea to go to the park at night so I could run completely alone.
I got to the park around 2am and got the chills as I was locking my bike in the gravel parking lot. I didn't know what the hell I was doing. I've never been particularly fond of the dark, even in the comfort of my own house. At that, I told myself I was just being stupid and that I'd calm down once I started my run.
Keep in mind two things before I go over what happened:
- There is a small stream that runs in a little valley sort of thing along the left side of the trail loop
- I have never seen deer or really any animal bigger than a squirrel in this park; It's not a very large park and it's surrounded by suburban neighborhoods.
So for this run I decided to do three loops of the trail, about 6 miles. I finished the first loop and confirmed that there was nobody around, so I decided to put my earbuds in. Bad idea.
The trail passes through the parking lot as you finish a loop, and as I finished my second loop, I noticed a pair of footsteps wearing vans had stepped through the line my bike made in the gravel (there's a light at the entrance which let me see this). It took me a couple seconds to realize that this meant I wasn't alone anymore.
About a third of the way through the last loop I noticed a dark shadow up ahead in the stream to the left. As I got closer I realized it was a grown man on his knees, hands behind his back, face buried in the gut of a fcking deer on the ground in front of him.
He looked up at me as I passed him, sprinting at this point. I was terrified. It was pretty dark but my eyes were adjusted enough to see that his face was dripping, with blood I assume. To say I was terrified out of my mind is an understatement. I sprinted as fast as I could, taking a shortcut through the center of the park so I could get to my bike faster.
If I didn't have my earbuds in I would've heard him chasing me before I looked back. I did not hear him.
I think that's the scariest thing I've ever seen, ever. Looking back over my shoulder to see a grown man chasing me through the woods in the middle of the night, fcking dripping with blood. Thank god I was in good shape and could outrun the guy.
I fumbled with my bike lock and it felt like it took forever to unlock it. I kept looking back at where the trail meets the lot, knowing that this guy would come bursting out any second.
I unlocked my bike, charged home as fast as possible, and called the police. They checked out the scene in the morning and found the deer and the imprints of his knees in the mud of the stream but the guy was gone.
I still have trouble falling asleep at night. I never went back to those trails either. It's really a shame, they were great trails. Really beautiful.
Experiencing death is a fascinating and frightening idea.
Who doesn't want to know what is waiting for us on the other side?
But so many of us want to know and then come back and live a little longer.
It would be so great to be sure there is something else.
But the whole dying part is not that great, so we'll have to rely on other people's accounts.
Redditor AlaskaStiletto wanted to hear from everyone who has returned to life, so they asked:
"Redditors who have 'died' and come back to life, what did you see?"
Sensations
Happy Good Vibes GIF by Major League SoccerGiphy"My dad's heart stopped when he had a heart attack and he had to be brought back to life. He kept the paper copy of the heart monitor which shows he flatlined. He said he felt an overwhelming sensation of peace, like nothing he had felt before."
PeachesnPain
Recovery
"I had surgical complications in 2010 that caused a great deal of blood loss. As a result, I had extremely low blood pressure and could barely stay awake. I remember feeling like I was surrounded by loved ones who had passed. They were in a circle around me and I knew they were there to guide me onwards. I told them I was not ready to go because my kids needed me and I came back."
"My nurse later said she was afraid she’d find me dead every time she came into the room."
"It took months, and blood transfusions, but I recovered."
good_golly99
Take Me Back
"Overwhelming peace and happiness. A bright airy and floating feeling. I live a very stressful life. Imagine finding out the person you have had a crush on reveals they have the same feelings for you and then you win the lotto later that day - that was the feeling I had."
"I never feared death afterward and am relieved when I hear of people dying after suffering from an illness."
rayrayrayray
Free
The Light Minnie GIF by (G)I-DLEGiphy"I had a heart surgery with near-death experience, for me at least (well the possibility that those effects are caused by morphine is also there) I just saw black and nothing else but it was warm and I had such inner peace, its weird as I sometimes still think about it and wish this feeling of being so light and free again."
TooReDTooHigh
This is why I hate surgery.
You just never know.
Shocked
Giphy"More of a near-death experience. I was electrocuted. I felt like I was in a deep hole looking straight up in the sky. My life flashed before me. Felt sad for my family, but I had a deep sense of peace."
Admirable_Buyer6528
The SOB
"Nursing in the ICU, we’ve had people try to die on us many times during the years, some successfully. One guy stood out to me. His heart stopped. We called a code, are working on him, and suddenly he comes to. We hadn’t vented him yet, so he was able to talk, and he started screaming, 'Don’t let them take me, don’t let them take me, they are coming,' he was scared and yelling."
"Then he yelled a little more, as we tried to calm him down, he screamed, 'No, No,' and gestured towards the end of the bed, and died again. We didn’t get him back. It was seriously creepy. We called his son to tell him the news, and the son said basically, 'Good, he was an SOB.'”
1-cupcake-at-a-time
Colors
"My sister died and said it was extremely peaceful. She said it was very loud like a train station and lots of talking and she was stuck in this area that was like a curtain with lots of beautiful colors (colors that you don’t see in real life according to her) a man told her 'He was sorry, but she had to go back as it wasn’t her time.'"
Hannah_LL7
"I had a really similar experience except I was in an endless garden with flowers that were colors I had never seen before. It was quiet and peaceful and a woman in a dress looked at me, shook her head, and just said 'Not yet.' As I was coming back, it was extremely loud, like everyone in the world was trying to talk all at once. It was all very disorienting but it changed my perspective on life!"
huntokarrr
The Fog
"I was in a gray fog with a girl who looked a lot like a young version of my grandmother (who was still alive) but dressed like a pioneer in the 1800s she didn't say anything but kept pulling me towards an opening in the wall. I kept refusing to go because I was so tired."
"I finally got tired of her nagging and went and that's when I came to. I had bled out during a c-section and my heart could not beat without blood. They had to deliver the baby and sew up the bleeders. refill me with blood before they could restart my heart so, like, at least 12 minutes gone."
Fluffy-Hotel-5184
Through the Walls
"My spouse was dead for a couple of minutes one miserable night. She maintains that she saw nothing, but only heard people talking about her like through a wall. The only thing she remembers for absolute certain was begging an ER nurse that she didn't want to die."
"She's quite alive and well today."
Hot-Refrigerator6583
Well let's all be happy to be alive.
It seems to be all we have.
Trying to lose weight is a struggle understood by many people regardless of size.
The goal of reaching a healthy weight may seem unattainable, but with diet and exercise, it can pay off through persistence and discipline.
Seeing the pounds gradually drop off can also be a great motivator and incentivize people to stay the course.
Those who've achieved their respective weight goals shared their experiences when Redditor apprenti8455 asked:
"People who lost a lot of weight, what surprises you the most now?"
Redditors didn't see these coming.
Shiver Me Timbers
"I’m always cold now!"
– Telrom_1
"I had a coworker lose over 130 pounds five or six years ago. I’ve never seen him without a jacket on since."
– r7ndom
"140 lbs lost here starting just before COVID, I feel like that little old lady that's always cold, damn this top comment was on point lmao."
– mr_remy
Drawing Concern
"I lost 100 pounds over a year and a half but since I’m old(70’s) it seems few people comment on it because (I think) they think I’m wasting away from some terminal illness."
– dee-fondy
"Congrats on the weight loss! It’s honestly a real accomplishment 🙂"
"Working in oncology, I can never comment on someone’s weight loss unless I specifically know it was on purpose, regardless of their age. I think it kind of ruffles feathers at times, but like I don’t want to congratulate someone for having cancer or something. It’s a weird place to be in."
– LizardofDeath
Unleashing Insults
"I remember when I lost the first big chunk of weight (around 50 lbs) it was like it gave some people license to talk sh*t about the 'old' me. Old coworkers, friends, made a lot of not just negative, but harsh comments about what I used to look like. One person I met after the big loss saw a picture of me prior and said, 'Wow, we wouldn’t even be friends!'”
"It wasn’t extremely common, but I was a little alarmed by some of the attention. My weight has been up and down since then, but every time I gain a little it gets me a little down thinking about those things people said."
– alanamablamaspama
Not Everything Goes After Losing Weight
"The loose skin is a bit unexpected."
– KeltarCentauri
"I haven’t experienced it myself, but surgery to remove skin takes a long time to recover. Longer than bariatric surgery and usually isn’t covered by insurance unless you have both."
– KatMagic1977
"It definitely does take a long time to recover. My Dad dropped a little over 200 pounds a few years back and decided to go through with skin removal surgery to deal with the excess. His procedure was extensive, as in he had skin taken from just about every part of his body excluding his head, and he went through hell for weeks in recovery, and he was bedridden for a lot of it."
– Jaew96
These Redditors shared their pleasantly surprising experiences.
Shopping
"I can buy clothes in any store I want."
– WaySavvyD
"When I lost weight I was dying to go find cute, smaller clothes and I really struggled. As someone who had always been restricted to one or two stores that catered to plus-sized clothing, a full mall of shops with items in my size was daunting. Too many options and not enough knowledge of brands that were good vs cheap. I usually went home pretty frustrated."
– ganache98012
No More Symptoms
"Lost about 80 pounds in the past year and a half, biggest thing that I’ve noticed that I haven’t seen mentioned on here yet is my acid reflux and heartburn are basically gone. I used to be popping tums every couple hours and now they just sit in the medicine cabinet collecting dust."
– colleennicole93
Expanding Capabilities
"I'm all for not judging people by their appearance and I recognise that there are unhealthy, unachievable beauty standards, but one thing that is undeniable is that I can just do stuff now. Just stamina and flexibility alone are worth it, appearance is tertiary at best."
– Ramblonius
People Change Their Tune
"How much nicer people are to you."
"My feet weren't 'wide' they were 'fat.'"
– LiZZygsu
"Have to agree. Lost 220 lbs, people make eye contact and hold open doors and stuff"
"And on the foot thing, I also lost a full shoe size numerically and also wear regular width now 😅"
– awholedamngarden
It's gonna take some getting used to.
Bones Everywhere
"Having bones. Collarbones, wrist bones, knee bones, hip bones, ribs. I have so many bones sticking out everywhere and it’s weird as hell."
– Princess-Pancake-97
"I noticed the shadow of my ribs the other day and it threw me, there’s a whole skeleton in here."
– bekastrange
Knee Pillow
"Right?! And they’re so … pointy! Now I get why people sleep with pillows between their legs - the knee bones laying on top of each other (side sleeper here) is weird and jarring."
– snic2030
"I lost only 40 pounds within the last year or so. I’m struggling to relate to most of these comments as I feel like I just 'slimmed down' rather than dropped a ton. But wow, the pillow between the knees at night. YES! I can relate to this. I think a lot of my weight was in my thighs. I never needed to do this up until recently."
– Strongbad23
More Mobility
"I’ve lost 100 lbs since 2020. It’s a collection of little things that surprise me. For at least 10 years I couldn’t put on socks, or tie my shoes. I couldn’t bend over and pick something up. I couldn’t climb a ladder to fix something. Simple things like that I can do now that fascinate me."
"Edit: Some additional little things are sitting in a chair with arms, sitting in a booth in a restaurant, being able to shop in a normal store AND not needing to buy the biggest size there, being able to easily wipe my butt, and looking down and being able to see my penis."
– dma1965
People making significant changes, whether for mental or physical health, can surely find a newfound perspective on life.
But they can also discover different issues they never saw coming.
That being said, overcoming any challenge in life is laudable, especially if it leads to gaining confidence and ditching insecurities.