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Spooked People Admit The Weirdest Occurrences They've Ever Experienced

Spooked People Admit The Weirdest Occurrences They've Ever Experienced

Spooked People Admit The Weirdest Occurrences They've Ever Experienced

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We've all had those moments where something happens and we just can't explain it. Normally, they're small things like deja vu or totally losing track of time. Every now and then, though, something happens that leaves us not just scratching our heads, but legitimately confused and a little spooked. Or a lot spooked, in some of these cases. One Reddit user asked:

What's a real-life "glitch" you've experienced that you still can't explain?

They got thousands of answers, but we picked out a few to share with you. So turn on your lights, make sure you're not alone and have a nice funny baby hippo video on deck for brain bleach. Have any of these sorts of things happened to you? Sound off in the comments once you're done reading. Ready? Let's go.

Spooky Weed Ghost

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Oh, and I have a dead guy at my house now, but not typical dead guy stuff. He does the exact same thing at the exact same time every Saturday night. When I first moved here, I called the police on him twice before I realized he wasn't really there.

So when I moved in, I found a LOT of marijuana growing in the back. I started digging it out because it was still illegal then. The first time it happened I had gotten in late and realized I left some work in the car, so I went back out to get it and I see this younger adult male walking behind my shop. I figured he was one of a group of kids who'd planted the weed in the back, since the house had been unoccupied for a year or so. I yelled at him to get out, that the place was no longer unoccupied, and that the weed was gone. He stopped dead in his tracks, turned around, and took three steps towards me - not away. So I'm thinking I'm about to die. Then he stops, looks over his shoulder, and waves like he's just seen a friend - then walks backwards two steps before turning around and walking towards the shop, where he disappeared.

I've seen it two more times and so have other people. Saturday nights about 1235am, this MFer appears, walks towards the garage, stops, takes three steps towards my house, looks over his shoulder, waves, takes two steps backward, turns to keep walking that direction, and disappears.

If you got an explanation, I want to hear it.

9/10/2001

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My mother died in May 2001 and it hit all of us hard. By September, we were all still sleeping in the same room - my dad, my baby sister, and me. I worked swing shift as a nurse at the time and on September 10th, 2001, I had done a day and swing double shift and got home at about 11:30 PST and fell asleep almost immediately. I have no memory of it, but both my dad and my sister swear that I popped back up at 3am and started packing bags, yelling:

_"They hit the pentagon, we're under attack, we need to go like RIGHT NOW." _

I was apparently quite insistent to the point that they had to physically restrain me. A few hours later, the World Trade Center was hit and they thought it was weird. My dad told me then:

_"Wow, this is really F-ed up because last night you were screaming that the pentagon was under attack." _

And then they announced that the pentagon was hit just a few minutes later. It is still the craziest f*cking thing to me.

Can You Hear Me Now?

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OH! I called my friend at his home on a North Carolina mountain. Definitely had the right number. Sometimes I'd get him, sometimes I'd get an old lady. I felt bad for interrupting her day/evening so often, and I asked where she lived to figure out what was happening - she described the same location as his house (there was only one house on his part of this mountain). Creepy af, they didn't have any neighbors yet this woman was answering his phone line somehow.

That's So Raven

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I've had moments where I "see the future" with extreme detail of doing something, then blinking and being right there before it happens. It's has ranged from randomly walking out into the street and getting hit by a bus, to kissing some random girl in the street. I'm like 99% sure I'm seeing other timelines or something.

Blast From The Past

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Was walking at the local fair with my kid and SO, and we walked past 3 kids that looked EXACTLY like me & my 2 friends years before. Doubt it was, but uncanny

Suddenly Fluent

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It was my first day at a new Tae Kwon Do-place by my college, and before class started I met this dude that I had a strange feeling of having known forever. It legitimately felt like he was my biological brother. His parents came in to drop something off, and talked with him for quite a while. As I walked past them, the weirdest thing happened.

They were speaking in German, but I could understand every single thing they said to each other. I was so weirded out I had to double check with him after, and he confirmed that they had said exactly what I had heard.

I have never taken a single German class in my life. He tried to speak in German again, and I couldn't understand a single thing he said.

For 15 seconds of my life, I was fluent in German.

Nintendo Confirms It

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One morning I woke up, rolled out of bed, brushed, had breakfast as usual, and then went about my day off. I lounged around the house a little bit, played my Nintendo DS for a bit. Plinked away on my guitar. A typical lazy morning.

Suddenly I'm driving in my car a couple towns over on my way to the store. I pulled over and tried to collect my thoughts. I remembered waking up and getting ready, watering plants, cleaning my stuff up in the living room, then hopping in my car. But I also remembered doing all of the stuff from that other version of that morning.

I checked my DS later in the day. It had records showing I had played that morning. So I had two separate days that suddenly merged into one and kept both memories?

Just One Step

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I was walking on the sidewalk along a busy road when suddenly with a step, the whole damn world changed around me. It was a crazy hot day but suddenly it was cool and cloudy, there were only a few cars on the road and lots of people riding bicycles. I remember seeing a girl in a blue dress out of the corner of my eye. It was so surreal, but with the next step I was back in the usual reality and to this day I have no idea what happened.

Let's Go Inside, Honey. It's Evil Out Here.

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Girlfriend and I were talking on her front lawn. Mid sentence, I felt something.....evil.....to my left. I stopped talking and turned. She did too.

Saw some sort of shadowy humanoid around 30 feet away. Light was enough that it was obviously not a person.

She asked "Do you see that?" She didn't know why I stopped talking. I nodded. Without another word we both ran inside.

No idea what it was. I would call it a trick of the light, but it was out of my vision when I originally got that feeling.

The Sequence

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Here's the sequence of events:

  • Roommate went to work at 4pm.
  • One of my friends drove me to the airport at 8pm so I could catch my midnight flight to Japan.
  • Roommate returns home from work at 11pm-ish, makes dinner, and starts making music on his computer.
  • At 12:05am, my flight takes off and I'm airborne.
  • I take my sleeping pills and fall asleep on the plane at around 1-1:30am? Here's where it gets weird.
  • At 1am-ish, my roommate hears me come home. Obviously, he freaks out because he thought my flight got cancelled, so he came out to ask what was up.
  • He actually sees me in the living room, but for some reason, my face is facing away from him the entire time as he tries to talk to me.
  • I allegedly rush over to my desk and sat down at my laptop, before disappearing into the couch and laughing at him in my disembodied voice.

He told me about it on Skype when I landed in Japan, which freaked me out, and made me not want to return home. I still can't think of a rational explanation, as my friend was completely straight-edge and never even drank alcohol.

Maybe an out of body experience?

Time Traveling Shower

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Will never understand this for as long as I live.

In high school I liked to wake up early in the mornings so I'd have time to eat breakfast, watch tv, maybe do some last minute homework and relax before I'd begin my day.

I always sat my alarm at 6:00 am.

So that morning as usual my phone alarm went off. I grabbed my phone to turn it off. I distinctly remember reading a text message from a friend (who was an early riser like me) asking me did I want to grab fried rice later that night with the rest of our friends. He sent this at 5:39 am. It was still September, so the sun was always up at this hour.

I got out of bed and immediately hopped in the shower. When I got out I headed down to the kitchen to brew coffee and make some breakfast. While I was waiting on the coffee pot to heat up I ran back to my room to grab my phone.

When I looked down at my phone I just about croaked.

The time on the phone read 3:30 am. To make matters worse I looked outside and the sun wasn't even up yet. What's even weirder was I never had even received that text from my friend.

I just sat there bewildered and frustrated, running through the chain of events from that morning over and over again. I eventually made my way back to the kitchen. Seeing that I was wide awake now I didn't need coffee anymore. I stayed up the rest of the morning not even trying to attempt sleep again. Later that morning something even stranger happened.

At 5:39 am I received that text message from my friend.

I've spent a lot of time over the years trying to decipher the events from that morning. All I know is that somehow I woke up in the future and my shower took me back to the present.

Landmarks

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When I was about 13-14, I went on a trip to another state with my church youth group. We drove through the country for hours in a region I had never been to before. Eventually we ended up in a small town. I was looking out the window and realized I knew this town as if I had lived there before.

Like... I knew the post office would be a few blocks ahead on the right, and then--sure enough--there it was. Weirder, I knew what the buildings would look like. I predicted the location of all the landmarks in the town before we were close enough to see them, and all of the predictions were correct. It was very spooky and got the other kids on the bus a little riled up.

Call Me Maybe?

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I'm not the kind of person to have a great many friends - but those friends I do keep are sacred to me.

So one evening I was getting out of a subway to go to my apartment when I see an old friend, one I haven't seen in the flesh in a few years. He was heading into the subway. I call out his name, he turns, waves and makes this "Call me" gesture - then the doors close and the subway rides off.

Thirty seconds later, my phone rings. It was my friend, who told me he'd just seen me get in the normal train he'd used to get home from the bar. According to him, I had grinned, waved, gestured "Call me!" the door shut and the train drove off.

I lived in Rotterdam. He lived in Enschede. That's just over 200km apart. (or about 125 miles)

Recalculating...

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Once when running a route/neighborhood I'd run a hundred times I went to cross a street and suddenly lost all sense of direction. I slowly stopped and tried to orient myself with street signs and landmarks, but nothing made sense.

I know, I know - it sounds like dementia, but I was only in my 30's and had never experienced it before or since. It was as if the matrix reloaded and I was pointed in a different direction than before the reload, but my body still remembered the direction I was going.

Grandma's Home

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My brother's room shared a bathroom with my room down in the basement. One day as I was about to take my shower we hear the dogs upstairs barking--indicating my grandparents were home. We both heard the door from the garage open and close. And we heard voice and footsteps.

My brother says he is going to go up and hang out with them while I take my shower. Before I can even get in the shower, he is knocking at the bathroom door--frantic. He insists no one is upstairs. The dogs are worked up but no grandparents and no car in the garage. This is impossible. We both clearly heard the garage door, the voice and the footsteps.

As we're trying to figure this out--it all happens all over again--dogs barking, door, voices, footsteps. This all happened within like five minutes. This time we both go up and my grandparents are home.

One of the weirdest things I've ever experienced.

Motorcycle Man

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When I was 7 or 8 I was playing in my yard by myself. It was a really quiet summer afternoon and I suddenly heard a loud motorcycle and I saw a man in dark leather riding towards me. He was getting really close and kept coming straight towards me. I was terrified. He crashed and skidded to a stop in the ditch between me and the road. Kid me ran up to him and grabbed his hand and I remember it vividly as really warm and really solid like metal-y, not handlike.

I turned around for a second and he was gone. I thought that I'd imagined it, but there was a deep skid mark in the grass in our yard that I'd never seen before and has been there ever since. That might have just been a weird coincidence.

But I went over to the neighbor kid's place later in the day and they asked me right off the bat:

"Is the motorcycle guy okay?"

She'd seen a guy in all black crash a motorcycle in our yard. None of our parents had seen it. I just can't shake that eerie feeling.

Slow Down!

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I lived in Vermont at the time.

I was driving down a dirt road when I heard a voice say, "Slow down! Slow down! Slow down!"

So I slowed to maybe 3-4 mph.

A herd of deer crossed in front of me. I would have been killed...

Bulletproof

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My brother got shot in the stomach and the bullet bounced off and fell on the ground. Apparently it had traveled a long distance and lost a lot of velocity. It left a welt, but that was it.

And This Is Why We Don't Do Cardio

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In high school I was an avid runner due to being on the wrestling team. I'd run late at night when it was cool out. One night I was running wearing a crew neck with my schools name on it.

About half way through the run an elderly man on an old style Schwinn bike caught up with me and asked me what I was doing out so late. We both stopped and said I was on the wrestling team and pointed to my sweatshirt. His eyes lit up and he said

_"Ha! I used to coach those clowns. Keep at it boy!" _

We exchanged goodbyes and then he sped off on his bike at an ungodly speed. The next school day I told my coach about the story and described what the old man looked like. My coach turned pale and said:

_"That sounds like old coach Hains.. he collected Schwinns." _

I told him that was cool. Then my coach followed with:

"Yeah.. and he's been dead for 10 years..."

No more late night runs for me, my dudes.

H/T: Reddit

The All-Time Biggest First Date Red Flags

Reddit user APT3993 asked: 'What’s the biggest red flag you have seen on a first date?'

When you're on a first date, one of three things will happen. Either you'll like the person and want to go out again, you like the person fine, but not romantically, and won't want to go out again, or the person will display a behavior that is so off-putting (or make you genuinely fearful), that you won't even want to see the person ever again.

My best friend and I are basically the same person, so when she met a guy who he had a lot in common with, she figured I'd like him too and set us up (I had previously told her I was okay with being set up).

Well, it turns out the guy actually hadn't read any of the books, watched any of the shows, or heard of any of the bands he talked about with my friend. I didn't understand why he would lie about all these things until I left the table.

When I came back, he was on the phone with someone and he was telling them he only told her he liked all those things because he liked my friend. When he found out she was in a relationship, he decided he'd let her set us up in the hopes that he could date me until my friend and her boyfriend broke up, and then he could swoop in.

I just walked out and when he finally texted me asking what was up, I told him I overheard him, then proceeded to block him. My friend was mortified to hear about the date, and I decided never to be set up again.

I'm not the only one who has gone on a date and discovered a huge red flag. Redditors have experienced this too, and are eager to share their stories.

It all started when Redditor APT3993 asked:

"What’s the biggest red flag you have seen on a first date?"

Dates Of Relationships Past

"They won't shut up about their ex."

– SiriusGD

"Had this happen to me on a 2nd date."

"Asked if she could use my computer, I said OK. Then she pulls up her ex's FB profile to browse through it, and she spent the next 10 minutes comparing me to him, saying he she thinks that I will turn out to be controlling and manipulative like him because we both grew up on a farm and we both like cars."

"Ummm, wut?"

– alwaysmyfault

"He angrily told me I would “love” his ex wife. Proceeded to cry while talking about her. They’d been divorced for 5 years. I genuinely hope he is doing better."

– TX_Mothman

"She constantly compared me to her ex, and sat on her phone for most of the night, then expected me to pay for her two bottles of wine, plus really expensive meal and desert."

"She asked me out btw, not the other way around."

– Stuspawton

I Know What I Want

"The guy who tried to change my order with the waitress because he didn’t think the drink I’d asked for was sufficiently feminine."

"I ordered beer. I don’t remember exactly what he thought I should have, maybe white wine? It was a long time ago."

"The waitress was looking at me like ‘You heard that sh*t too right?’ and I told her actually I wouldn’t have anything, thanks, and I left."

– MaggieLuisa

"He changed it FROM A BEER TO SOMETHING ELSE!!?! That’s amazing to me. Like it’s bad enough if you ordered an IPA and he said, “I dunno, sweetie, your delicate female taste buds probably can’t handle the hoppiness. Hey, honey, why don’t we get the lady a Coors.”"

– AdaptiveVariance

The Position Of Boyfriend

"We met for drinks after work (since we both work in the same industry) and she showed up with a list of interview questions. She literally had a checklist on her phone for me to fill out. I thought she was joking at first, but the questions were extremely personal, like how many sexual partners you've had, the oldest, the youngest; How much money you made the previous year; If you owned a house, a car, a boat, a plane; Did you have a criminal history; Where do you parents live; Are they alive; Who did you vote for in the last election; All kinds of stuff like that."

"I even proposed that we could just use that as a conversation starter and we could work through them like that as a fun way to get to know each other. I was really trying. She tells me that she's not answering any of them because I'm trying to date her, not the other way around!"

"I laughed out loud thinking she was kidding, then realized she was absolutely serious. I wished her all the best in the dating world, chugged my beer, overtipped the waitress, and left."

– OkFrostina

"Yeah, I would really push that to the limit without getting law enforcement involved. Start with all the times I have ended up in rehabilitation, my abductions by UFO, the wild, kinky sex partners I have had, the millions I have lost before living under a bridge, etc."

– passporttohell

Scary As Hell

"Had a guy who insisted on buying the most expensive pizza at the restaurant despite my protests then kissed my head when he walked past me to use the restroom. After dinner we walked along the waterfront, he kissed me and then immediately tried to choke me "to be sexy". First date, last date."

– Twours1944

"What the sh*t?? Who taught this idiot that choking in public on the first date all without consent is a great get-to-know-you move??"

– villainsimper

Stranger Danger

"This was literally the day of a first date. But I had matched with an older man when I was still on dating apps. We planned to go on a hike on a very beautiful day by the water. On the day of the date, he wanted me to leave my car at his place, while he drove us through the backwoods so we can beat traffic. I said I’ll be happy to drive myself, and he laughed and canceled. His reasoning was he’s been stood up so many times and he didn’t want to waste his time and me not show up. I said “okay!I apologize for the inconvenience. I hope you find what you are looking for. “and blocked him."

"The red flag was when he genuinely got upset that I didn’t want to ride in a car with a stranger through the backwoods for our first date."

– Jesusdoescrack

"You should have said “you fear being stood up, I fear being murdered.”"

– The_She_Ghost

Truly Gross

"He pointed to another woman at the bar and said she was his ex. But she happened to be my lesbian roommate."

"Yes, I told him I knew he was full of it cuz she was my roommate, and I pointed out her girlfriend who was there with her. I don’t remember what he said exactly but he had no choice but to admit he was lying. I wish I had asked why he said it. I assume to make me jealous? Like that’s a good way to start a relationship? Obviously, that was the only date."

– Grapegoop

​Those Who Came Before

"He told me he had been divorced 5 times. I'm taking the advice of 5 women I don't know."

– 13liz

"The way you phrased this killed me 😂"

– CumulativeHazard

Got Her Feeling Emotions

"Does bursting into tears after I told them I didn't like a TV show count?"

– JumboDakotaSmoke

"I'm curious as to what TV show it was?"

– ladydamnation

"Grey's Anatomy."

– JumboDakotaSmoke

"bursts into tears"

– akennelley

Um...What?!

"He took me to his house (he lived with his mom) just so HE could eat dinner with his mom while I sat in the living room. I listened to them eat and talk about my looks like I couldn't hear them. Apparently, I was pretty but "needed to be taken down a peg or two." I said my period had started so I had to go home. A future abuser and his enabler mommy."

– BigMcLargeHuge77

Ew...Just Ew

"We went to a movie. He spent the first half with his hand inside one of his socks, then pulling it out and smelling it, putting it back in, repeat, repeat."

"Then he spent the second half trying to hold my hand. With his sock hand."

– Deleted User

Bad From The Start

"She asked if I could order for her because she was uncomfortable talking to the brown waitress.

"Added: Same girl would not stop talking about Kardashian gossip even though I told her I know nothing about them and didn’t care to know."

– CanaDoug420

Stop, Theif!

"He showed up drunk with a bouquet of flowers he admitted he stole from his mother's flower shop."

– LookAcrossTheWater

​Cringe-Worthy

"Went to a charity coffee shop for a date. It was “free” coffee where they just ask for donations which went toward their org’s efforts to feed and house people. They explained this to him and asked if he wanted to make a donation for our drinks."

"He said no."

– Shredded_Wheaties

Oh, yikes! I would be so embarrassed!

In fact, I'm kind of losing faith in dating as a concept.

people sitting inside plane
Hanson Lu on Unsplash

Commercial aviation began in the late 1920s, spurred on by early aeronautical companies and several record breaking solo flights.

Since then, there are few places on Earth that can't be seen or accessed by plane. Only icing limits humans from low altitude flights over certain areas like the polar regions, while a lack of landing locations keeps some areas accessible to only the smallest pontoon planes.

From January through December 2022, United States airlines carried 853 million passengers. Globally, air travel reached a high of over 4.7 billion passengers before the pandemic limited flights.

Since then, global air travel has rebounded to over 3.7 billion passengers.

With almost 100 years and over a trillion passengers, the people who crew these flights are bound to have seen everything happen that possibly could at airports and on a flight.

Keep reading...Show less
A skeptical man
Photo by Timothy Dykes on Unsplash

We've all heard our fair share of conspiracy theories, from thoughts about the White House to aliens and beyond.

But some conspiracy theories have become truly strange and nuanced, and it's hard to stop listening to the person explaining their beliefs, because as weird as some of these theories sound, they could almost by some stretch of the imagination make sense.

Intrigued, Redditor Accomplished-Leg-991 asked:

"What's the weirdest or craziest theory you have heard of?"

Seems Plausible.

"Traffic barrels are left up for so long because the Department of Transportation bought too many and has no place to store them."

- dailysunshineKO

The Grass Is Always Greener

"The truck driver that delivered my flooring gave me this gem: The push for green lawns in the US is by Big Pharma."

"The cliff notes version is that to get green grass, you need pesticides, pesticides cause cancer, and cancer is good business for drug companies. It was like a 20-minute long rant to get to that conclusion and it was an adventure."

- StillBald

"I need to drink with him for one night. That cannot possibly be the only banger he's got."

- karenalphas

The Ice Wall

"Recently TikTok kept giving bizarre suggestions where people trying to prove Ice Wall in Antarctica that Earth is bigger and something is hiding behind ice wall in Antarctica… What the h**l."

- XenophanesJunior

"It's a weird subset of flat earthers, who believe in an 'infinite plane' that lies beyond the ice wall (guarded by NASA, of all people), and the reason? The infinite plane has endless amounts of gold mines and gems they can mine for infinite money."

- bag2d

Tinkering with the Algorithm

"That Walt Disney was cryogenically frozen, and they made the movie 'Frozen' so that when people googled 'Walt Disney Frozen,' the movie would come up first."

- LizardPossum

"They updated this theory, but now it is with Taylor Swift. It basically says that she went to that Kansas City Chiefs vs NY Jets game so that when people search 'Taylor Swift Jets,' it will only show news about the game, and not about her going everywhere with her private jets."

- abirll

"It's so wild now these rely on people being completely unable to go to page two of a Google search."

- LizardPossum

The All-Important Celebrity Weddings

"I had a coworker that fully believes the government controls the weather so celebrities can have nice weddings."

- pinballgizard

"Out of all the reasons to control the weather, celebrity weddings are a top priority for the government."

- Suspicious-Craft4980

The Truth of Social Security Numbers

"Your social security number indicates which bank you were sold to at birth."

- compuwiza1

"Ah, sovereign citizens..."

- CaptainMikul

Dinosaur Bones, Huh?

"Dinosaur bones were placed on earth by Satan to trick people into 'abandoning' God."

- River_7890

"There's a big American Church whose members believe that dinosaur bones exist because God made the Earth with leftovers from a previous planet."

"Mental gymnastics to justify their belief that the Earth is only 10'000 years old and C14 dates dinosaur bones as being millions of years old..."

- mrsrosieparker

"I'm absolutely not shocked. The person who told me jumps through so many mental hoops to try to disprove science. She thinks that the government is secretly working for Satan to convert people, too."

"Oh and of course Disney. She's crazy overall. Not just with religious stuff. I could tell so many stories of her crossing lines and saying off-the-wall things. I try to not associate with her as much as possible."

- River_7890

The Worst Kind of Waiting Room

"The USS Philadelphia Experiment and the US army soldier who claimed he was in an interdimensional waiting room as a greeter for eternity until he was suddenly transported back onto the ship."

"People claimed it was a cloaking device gone wrong and left men's bodies trapped within the steel of the boat upon reentry."

"I never looked into it but read about it in a book that had a statement like, 'Nothing in this book is true but it's exactly the way things are,' or something similar. Always thought it was the wildest conspiracy theory ever when I was a stoned teenager reading it."

- Hereforthecake

Phantom Time Conspiracy Theory

"There’s a whole podcast with hundreds of episodes dedicated to this subject. Worth a listen. One of the wildest ones is that Charlemagne’s grandson moved the calendar forward ~300 years and thus the Dark Ages never happened."

- seandowling73

Gives the Shortcut a Whole New Meaning

"Met a dude at the gym who believed that the CIA had built tunnels throughout the Earth's core, connecting all the major cities. Was some kind of global takeover scheme."

- Latham74

Infathomly Large Trees

"Mountains are all the stumps of ancient fossilized enormous trees."

"I'm absolutely obsessed with this theory. It's connected to flat earth, but flat earth isn't a requirement for this theory nor do most flat earthers believe it."

- inkstainedgoblin

Under Control

"We're all infected by parasites that feed on our stress hormones released by negative emotions like guilt, sadness, anger, fear, and so on. They control our minds and, thereby, us to an extent. The only way to combat them is by being aware and questioning if your thoughts and actions are truly your own thoughts and actions."

- 42clickslater

Enough Said

"The one about JFK Jr. coming back to help Trump win the 2020 election is still tops in my book."

- pinkyknee

Big Pharma Chickens

"That owning chickens is the gateway drug to believing conspiracy theories."

- sarcasawm

"As someone who has owned chickens, the only thing they're a gateway drug to is getting more farm animals."

- CelticArche

"That’s what Big Goat wants you to believe."

- MissRockNerd

"Big Farm-A."

- cannedcream

As wild as some of these conspiracy theories were, there's no denying that they're fascinating, some for the simple fact that they're almost plausible.

They at least get you thinking in a new way, and perhaps that isn't such a bad thing every now and then.

Two guys hi-fiving each other
Tyler Nix/Unsplash

A good friend is not always the one with whom you share laughs and fun experiences.

The friendships you want to keep include those who won't abandon you in a time of need or someone who supports you in a variety of complicated situations where not even a family member can be relied upon.

Unfortunately, many of us have experienced a time when a person's true colors revealed to us that the so-called "friend" we've always trusted wasn't one at all.

Curious to hear examples of this, Redditor Aesthetik_1 asked:

"What made you instantly realize This 'friend' is not a real friend?"

These Redditors didn't realized at the time that they were being used.

Recurring Favor

"When he only called me when he needed something. It didn't hit me until much later."

– Queasy-Location-9303

"I have one of those 'friends'. She always gushes about how we're friends but she never initiates contact unless she wants me to do something for her."

– StiffAssedBrit

The Errand Girl

"Several years back, I had a friend who introduced me to this new boy she was seeing. Maybe a year later, their relationship blew up in a fury of bs (whole other story), but by the time they split, I was equally friends with both of them. He and I were both photographers at the time, so the friendship was instantaneous."

"One day we started talking about her, neither positively nor in poor taste, just kind of in general."

"He then asked me 'when she texts to hang out, what does she usually want to do?'"

"I paused. I thought. Holy sh*t, she'd either be asking for a favour or for help with some kind of errand. I was her f'king errand girl."

"She texted me a month or two later, just a 'hey'. I never responded. She never texted again."

"I'm still friends with her ex, though. That dude is genuine as heck."

– ChamomileBrownies

Testing The Friendship

"When you decide to let them be the one to reach out. And you never hear from them again."

– plzdontgetmad

"Yup. Made plans with a friend three times, she cancelled each time. I finally told her to let me know when she was free, we haven’t hung out since."

"She was a good friend for the season, but not a lifetime."

– NoMrBond3

People were shocked to discover the moment they realized they didn't really know who their "friend" was anymore.

The Chaperon

"I had been giving rides to a girl I thought was my friend. To and from school in high school. She wasn’t really suppose to ride with other teens but due to her mothers work hours we could easily pull this off. I thought we were close."

"One day while on the way home my brakes went out. We were about 2 blocks from her gated neighborhood. I managed to roll in safely and parked at her house to call a tow truck."

"She flipped. Told me I couldn’t stay. She knew my brakes were not working as she had also been terrified when we couldn’t stop. She said she wanted to go to a movie that weekend with other friends and her mom would ground her if she saw me at the house. I offered to lie and say I only stopped there as my car malfunctioned on my way home. I had to pass her neighborhood on my way home anyways."

"She refused. Started to scream at me. She didn’t care what happened I had to go. Started to call the guard at the front gate to tell them I had broken in and was threatening her."

"I left her and that friendship that moment. I managed to roll my car slowly to a mechanic not too far away but never forgot the shi* feeling of knowing I could have been seriously hurt and she wouldn’t have cared. She wanted to see a movie. She had the nerve to sheepishly call and ask me a couple days later if I could give her a ride to school. Told her I was too busy and no longer had time… after all I wanted to help her obey her mom's rules. She rode the bus til she graduated."

– Duffarum

Unwilling Companion

"I had this friend in school. Each year there was a funfair in our city, all students received vouchers for a drink and something to eat. This friend complained the whole day that she had no one to accompany her to the funfair. So, stupid me offered to go with her."

"Once we arrived we met another friend of hers. And another, and another... until we were a group of 5 or 6 people. I didn't know anyone and was basically just walking behind them. This friend took me aside and said, 'My friends think you are annoying, and we would like you to leave.'"

"It was a pleasure to see that she failed her exams a year later."

– Auldale

There's the spirit of competition, but when it's taken seriously, we're no longer game for these friendships.

I Can Do It Better

"Constantly 'one ups' me. A real friend is happy for you."

– Complex-Half8338

"That one time I got a fake bag but she doesn’t know and then 2 weeks later messaged me that she also bought a luxury bag… Then when I got a bf, she also went to get a bf within 3 months which is TOTALLY fine but she constantly messages me for us to go on a double date. Anyways, sadly they didn’t last long :( I mentioned that I wanted to go to Cuba, she went ahead and bought herself a ticket to Cuba but I didn’t end up going lol"

– Hot-Coffee-8465

Never Steal The Spotlight

"When they loved the idea of me shining, but behind their shadow, I could never do or achieve anything above them, and when I did, they would get jealous."

– Jasssin23

"Yes! I recently ghosted a friend because of this kind of behavior. She was trying to compete about EVERYTHING. Like she bragged about how her mom’s car accident was more traumatic than my elderly MIL’s - which is not even an appropriate thing to compare. She would also try to 'outshine' celebrations of my milestones and was mean to several of my friends for no apparent reason. She was a loose cannon at best."

– thefifthtrilogy

All About Me

"ALL she talks about it herself and her problems. Granted she has a a lot but never asks about me or my life until she realizes she just bypassed my attempt to want to talk about something in my life bothering me and continued to talk about herself."

– PokemomOnTheGo

People can just be so rude.

"When I got really sick. Very few came to help."

– Tofflus1

"Same here. I got cancer and everyone I knew was over the top supportive for the first six months and then all but three of my friends just vanished. I saw one of them at a Halloween party while I was going through chemo and she told me that my bald head made people uncomfortable. I was dressed as Captain Picard, it was awesome and she ruined it."

– CatGoNoTail

Not Missing High School

"At lunch, she was sitting with her boyfriend, I was sitting with our friend circle. She came up to me, guilted me into sitting with her and her boyfriend, and then proceeded to ignore me for the rest of lunch."

"She didn't care about me, she just didn't want me talking to the friend circle that she had abandoned for her boyfriend. When I pointed this out to her, she called me a jealous b*tch."

"Ah, high school. How I don't miss thee."

– Symnestra

These examples actually served as a good reminder for me to take a moment and assess my friendships.

Not so much about how I've been treated but more about checking myself to see if I'm respecting the people I call my friends.

We've all been guilty of casually mentioning future plans to get together. I embarrassingly wait for people to initiate something, which is terrible.

Show up for your friends. Make them feel important like the individuals they are.