Security guards are the unsung heroes of every mall, parking lot, and concert. They've seen some s**t, am I right? But what are the weirdest things they've seen? Keep reading to find out!
u/LightCaramel asked: Security guards that view cameras, what's the weirdest thing you've seen?
Furious rat.
Was working in a manufacturing facility that did injection molded plastic. One night about 2am one of the machines came on and started running all by itself. I could see it running on two of the cameras. Went to investigate and shut it off. Back to my desk.
Two hours later I see it come on again. Shut it off again. Turned the controllable camera towards it and zoomed in to watch.
About an hour later, just before staff usually starts coming in, i see the problem. There was a rat that was furiously clawing and gnawing at the panel. He managed to bump his ass into the start switch and kick it on.
They weren't allowed to leave the machines "ready to go in the morning" anymore.
Pool noodles
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I was filling out some forms in the security office with the two guards on duty. It was long after hours and very dark out. Heard a "What the F**k?" from a guard and looked up.
A whole bunch of college students, dressed in next to nothing, were whaling on each other with pool noodles.
The fight passed in front of the main doors, into the parking lot, and, finally, one group routed the others out of the area.
Guards just sighed and went back to filling out forms. One commented offhand "looks like blue won this time".
Olympic sports
My wife and her co-workers scheduled some fun "olympics" events for their team. One of them was "synchronized office chair swimming," where they choreographed routines of riding around in spinning office chairs.
About an hour later, her friend is chatting it up with security and they are laughing their burr off. They call her over where they are watching the security camera video of synchronized office chair swimming hilariously trying to figure out what these people could possibly be doing.
We all hope it was dry.
Used to watch cameras at a high-end car dealership. Watched a guy dry-hump a Bugatti Veyron for 3 minutes before on-site security removed him.
You hope it was dry.
The shrugging his shoulders is the best part.
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A few weeks ago someone walked into one of our unsecured banks that was left unlocked by whoever was working there last... The guy walked around like he owned the place, taking candy off the teller line counter, a stack of brochures... He snooped around for a good 5 minutes, every camera he saw he'd just shrug his shoulders and smile - ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I had the police dispatched, they arrived ~30 minutes after the guy walked out with his pockets full of candy and brochures.
What made it strange is that there were 2 officers that entered, guns drawn, and cleared the place. 10 minutes later, 8 more police officers arrived with a K9, sent the K9 through the entire bank, then had 5 other cops clear the building. I'm guessing they used the opportunity to train the boots because their response was way too heavy lol... Another 15 minutes go by and a bank employee arrives to secure the building and that was that. No way they could've caught the guy, the entire watch was inside the bank long after he left...
Another time we had a loose squirrel in one of our banks, the thing set off every motion alarm in the building and just wouldn't stop, had to set the entire place in advisory to stop getting notified! It was fun watching the little guy run along knocking stuff off all the teller counters though.
Snogging
Once had a teenage couple snogging (making out) against the back door where I work, unaware I could see them. Managed to get their attention and they "moved" away but only by a couple of feet. I switched to the back door camera and in my innocence I originally thought the girl was bending down to do up her shoelace...... nope!
Managed to call for the manager over the PA system who came running because I sounded like I was crying (I was crying but with laughter). The look of horror on this poor lads face as the door opened and they were caught will stay with me forever!! The manager and I nearly had heart attacks we laughed that hard. Genuinely the funniest thing we had ever seen!
Does this bird belong to you?
Honestly at this point I am unfazed by the spontaneous dancing and singing. Especially when you've been through stuff like Gangnam Style where every dad tries the moves when he thinks he's alone.
The thing that stays with me is some guy picking up a dead hedgehog from the parking lot, stuffing it in his coat and having a dead bird fall out. Crazy stuff.
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Those darn nuns.
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I've shared this story before, but my first job out of college I used to work as a electrical engineer for a major security firm (worldwide global, with a lousy reputation), the job was designing cameras, junction boxes, security systems power calculations, etc.
One of my first assignments there was to help write a report about a security breach at a nuclear storage/research facility that was using a security system our company had implemented for them.
To summarize the breach, a group of octogenarian nuns broke into a secure nuclear facility and started painting the storage buildings in their own blood, and we had to review the footage to find out how they breached our security system. The footage was as gnarly as it sounds.
How did they break in? It turns out the site had spent millions on hiring us to design, test, integrate, and train them on a state-of-the-art security system of cameras, motion sensors, microwave detection systems, and fiber optic fence lining, only for them to turn most of it off to save on power/nuisance alarm costs.
OMG....
Obligatory not a security guard, but one time I was interviewing for a position at a restaurant. They brought me back into the office to get some paperwork done and you could see a feed of the camera at the back entrance of the store. We were just sitting there chatting while I'm filling out forms when suddenly a girl appears on camera.
She then looks around, drops her pants, and pees next to the dumpster. After she was done she looked around again, and then up, and then spotted the camera. She scurried away quickly after that.
Weird....
Not a security guard, but I kept finding my workstation tampered with when I came in for work (cables unplugged, etc.). I suspected my sociopath supervisor. He didn't realize I knew how to work the security system. What followed was a very amusing video clip of him waiting until everyone else was out of the room, furtively looking around, then reaching back and unplugging the cable on my system.
I set a still from that as the background on our videoconferencing machine on the day I quit. That jackass was the reason I had my workstation fully Bitlocker encrypted and equipped with redundant hard drives.
"Lankyman".
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I used to work at a secured Mental Health Unit ran by the state. Our cameras were down during this incident, but I still wonder if they wouldve helped explain anything... the whole thing gave me the willies. I was probably the creepiest thing I have ever had happen to me while working there.
I worked 3rd shift. It was a few nights before Halloween. I was tasked with sitting outside a juvenilles room- she was recently in the news nationwide for an unprovoked attack on a classmate. She blamed her actions on a fictional character who was predominantly featured online. We will call him "Lankyman"
The juvenille was in the process of getting ready for bed when I arrived. PJs on, she turned to shut her door and right before the door latched, she whispered to me, "Lankyman comes to see me every night."
I (internally) roll my eyes and tell her goodnight before settling into my squishy plastic chair and I open my book.
In the darkened hallway.
Of a 100 year old mental hospital.
A few nights before Halloween.
3 a.m. rolls around, and the hospital is quiet. Im still sitting on my chair outside juvenille's room. The halogen bulb of the light above me starts to hum. I stare at it. It intensifies.
POP
All the lights of the hallway go out, and for a brief second, I'm plunged into complete darkness. But I still hear the hum. What I first suspected was the swan song of a dying lightbulb... now resembles the sound of static.
The emegency lights pop on, and my co-worker passes by me on a census round. We chat a bit, before he brings up the sound. He askes if I hear it. Yep.
I watch him quietly open up patient rooms, looking for the source. We decide it's likely a clock radio-most radios struggle to connect to any station inside the hospital, I suspect ancient lead paint and asbestos may be to blame. However many patients thrive when they keep themselves on strict routines. So the hospital provides them.
About ten minutes of un-fruitful searching passes before we share a look of sudden understanding, and Im certain our thoughts were synchronized.
The power is out.
Ten seconds of complete silence pass between us. Bricks may have been shat.
I open my mouth to vomit forth the first of many "OMG, WTFs" ...but we silently decided that neither of us really wanted to know.
We never discussed the incident afterward.
BTW, the power outage was caused by a coworker driving back from lunch. Slid off the road into a power line. That was her second DUI that year. She got the first one while transporting patients. Weird place to work, it was...
Spoooooky.
Not a security guard and neither is the person in this story, but it's still sort of related so I may as well share it even though nobody's gonna see this prolly. It's a story my dad told me a little while back.
He once worked at a little dollar store, with a couple of other people. We'll call them Jake and Lisa. He mostly worked the register, and he and one of the other employees would stay at night and empty out the cash registers and stuff in this room in the back that had a bunch of screens in it where you could watch what the security cameras were filming.
This store had a lot of weird stuff happening in it though. At night, whenever all the customers left, the lights would start to flicker like in Stranger Things or something. And sometimes things would mysteriously fall off of shelves, too. Like, things that were super far back on the shelves with nobody nearby.
One night, my dad and Jake were in the back of the store emptying out the registers like always, and Jake said he saw something running by on one of the security camera screen things, but he couldn't tell what it was. My dad looked up, but he didn't see anything. They searched the store, and didn't find anything.
This happened a few more times within the next couple of weeks. Then, one night when he was in the back of the store with Lisa, they both caught something running by on a screen. Just a sort of tall, shadow-y humanoid figure. They went to search the store, and found that an entire shelf had been emptied, with everything that it held on the ground now.
They looked around for longer, and Lisa suddenly got scared and told my dad that she saw something running past them. They went looking for it, and again there was nothing. Then Lisa turned and saw a freezer door closing like somebody went in there. She ran over and tried to open it, but it was stuck. My dad tried, and he couldn't get it open either. They both tried it together, and they started to open it for a second, but it was suddenly pulled shut from the inside. So they used all their strength and finally got it all the way open, looked inside...
And it was totally empty.
It was pretty weird. My dad's always been a skeptic and doesn't really believe in ghosts or anything, but I don't know what he must've thought of all that.
That's not something you see every day.
When I was in high school, I would chat with the security guard sometimes (just friendly conversation). One day he's like, "Come watch this," and he shows me a video on the security cameras of the lunch room with kids eating.
Everything seemed normal at first, and then all of a sudden, someone comes in wearing a gorilla mask. He starts climbing on tables and walking around where people are trying to eat. Needless to say, they got in trouble lol.
That's definitely a choice.
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I'm not a security guard but I walked into the office one morning with everyone crowding the computer with the footage on it and theres this guy who comes in and washes everyone's car once a week, and when the dude finished he hooked the hose up to a shower rig on his truck and took a shower. Right there in the parking lot. On camera.
That's so sad.
Saw a mother holding her son in a headlock.
Officers who reported on scene and recording prior to seeing that showed that the son punched his sister in the face twice, then the mom once. In order to get him to stop, she held him in a headlock.
Police arrive and after stopping the fighting, the son decides to just walk away and not listen to the cop, which very promptly got him arrested. He was asked for his name from the officer, and he responded "my d**k". Got all of us laughing. Seriously a f**ked up kid, but that was a bit funny considering every day is super boring and mostly nothing happens.