In a perfect world, most of us would only feel it if we wanted to in controlled environments like haunted houses. But we don't live in a perfect world and sometimes life gets ... terrifying.
Reddit user the-70s-kid asked people to talk about it when they posed this question to Reddit:
"What is Your Most Terrifying 'We Need to Leave, NOW!' Rush of Fear You've Felt?"
So you know how sometimes you almost wish people were LESS open and honest? Yeah...
What Happens On Tour Stays On Tour
scott hoying wtf GIF by SuperfruitGiphy"I'm a touring musician. At one point in time my tour vehicle broke down in bumf*ck Mississippi. We were able to pull into a gas station, but had thrown a belt and needed to get it replaced."
"Cue a bunch of hicks helping us work on our car. A couple of band members rode with a random do-gooder to go get a replacement belt forty-five minutes away."
"The local sheriff pulled up and bought us all coca-cola. At this point we're stressed because we don't want to miss our next show in Arkansas, but not worried about safety... YET."
"Time stretched, and through trial and error we ended up getting things close to finished up. Then our lead guitarist pulls out his iPhone. He said he had an airdrop request, but we all kinda ignored it until the job was finished."
"Then, just as we're getting into the car to pull away, he opens the airdrop."
"There were seven pictures of dead bodies, although they appeared to be cleaned up like in a morgue or something. Among the corpse pictures was a picture of one woman sitting up and smiling at the camera, the next shot she was dead."
"The last two pictures were of us repairing the car in the gas station parking lot."
"After that we lost it. I don't know whether we were just freaked or it was genuine danger, but the car behind us followed us for almost twenty miles until we got to a major highway and gunned it."
"Once we got home (2 days later) the guitarist went to the local police department."
"They basically said since it was a different state they wouldn't do anything, and since we had absolutely no info about who airdropped it, he had nothing he could 'call in' to the sheriff of the small Mississippi town."
"They also insinuated that it was probably just someone who was a mortuary or something because all the pictures had posed bodies."
"Could be someone's sick joke (and if so, I guess they got us), but I don't see how someone fat-fingers an airdrop of corpses."
"No context, no explanation, no answers. It still freaks all of us out to this day."
- Kylar21
Following A Blood Trail
Penn Badgley Joe Goldberg GIF by YOUGiphy"I was walking home one night, head down because I was dumbly looking at my phone. I almost stepped into what looked like barbeque sauce."
"Turned on the flashlight function for my phone - it was blood. Every step, there was a small blood splatter - less than a teaspoon. I followed it along the entire long street while walking home."
"Maybe eight blocks. It was hard to tell, in the dark, but the trail seemed to end at a residential facility in my neighbourhood."
"I'm not sure what type of facility it is, but I've often met people with intellectual disabilities in the area - I've helped them with how to order a train ticket, counting cash for groceries, etc."
"There were two people in the fenced off yard, talking low. I could only see their lit cigarettes in the dark."
"Suddenly I was filled with a sensation of wrongness. All the hairs stood up on the back of my neck and I felt cold. I kept walking, and did some loops before going back home and calling the cops about the blood trail."
"My partner felt I overreacted, and it was probably just an animal or someone with a bloody nose."
"But that was a lot of blood in total, over eight blocks. And something felt deeply wrong. I didn't sleep well that night."
Heading Home
Dance Music Dancing GIF by DEEPSYSTEMGiphy"I was overseas at a competition and my friends and I left the after party. We part ways with me going my own way."
"Almost immediately I see a few men on the other side of the road, out the front of a bar look up, nudge each other and say something between them. As I walked past I see them cross the road to walk behind me."
"Mentally I'm thinking 'oh sh*t' - the rest of my walk would be down a not well lit, and sometimes very quiet, stretch of road."
"I turn down a shorter street and pick up my pace a bit, and sure enough the men follow but I've put some more distance between us. I make the turn I was dreading and just bolt."
"There were a few houses here with decent gardens and I just needed to make it to one before the guys turn the corner."
"I make it to one of the houses, it has a giant hedge surrounding a small gate so I lean right back into the gate and hedge. I'm in total darkness, peering through the hedge when the men turn the corner, take a few steps and stop."
"They talk to each other, then turn around and leave. I wait a few more minutes to be sure then jog the rest of the way checking behind me."
- Grieie
Air BnB
red dead redemption 2 rdr2 GIF by Rockstar GamesGiphy"Several years ago, 6 of my friends and I were out of state for a wedding. We rented an Air BnB for the group."
"Immediately after getting there we learned that the guy who rented out his house had a roommate who was almost never home, but happened to be there for the first time in weeks, and didn't realize the house was going to be occupied."
"The owner insisted that he spoke with him and he was planning to pack up and stay at his girlfriends so we could have the home to ourselves as planned. Sure enough, he was gone that afternoon."
"We went out that night and came home intoxicated, as 20-something's do from time to time. One of our guy friends came up from the basement looking shocked."
"Apparently the roommate was back... and based on him being asleep, it was clear he planned to stay."
"We quieted down and rearranged where we'd all planned to sleep. But this was only the beginning."
"The next morning we were woken up by excruciatingly loud death metal blaring from the common living area/dining room upstairs. Two of the people who'd slept in the living room came down immediately and told us we needed to pack our things and get out FAST."
"We didn't ask many questions. Just sort of grabbed all our stuff, tries to clean up, and piled into an uber XL to head to the closest hotel."
"Apparently before the music started earlier that morning they woke up to a bunch of clank/banging only to open their eyes and see this dude sitting at the table cleaning a shot gun and a hand gun."
"Needless to say, I don't think he wanted us in the house."
"I wasn't the one who had rented the Air BnB. But yes, my friend was able to get a full refund and a big ol' apology from the owner. He said he didn't really know the roommate very well and hardly saw him, like he just sort of paid rent and stopped in only now and then."
"In retrospect the whole thing just seems mind boggling."
- jillaaa
We Could All See His Face
fast food robbery GIFGiphy"It was more of a gut feeling than a rush of fear, but I was 12 or 13 with a friend in a corner store and a guy walked in. He didn't look like a criminal, he looked a bit shady but not too too off."
"But for whatever reason I just felt weird, and I whispered to my friend that I wanted to leave. so we quickly pay for our stuff, which was just a pack of gum 2 sodas and a large bag of chips and we leave."
"A couple seconds after we leave we hear 'Open up the drawer! I will shoot!' and we both book it."
"I don't know what this guy was thinking, his face was visible, I don't know if he put a mask on while he was somewhere in the store but either way the cashier, me and my friend all saw his face when he entered."
"Anyways he did get arrested, and the police found that his gun was in fact loaded, the cashier was not shot nor harmed, nothing too serious happened but it scared me that I was in a store with a man with a loaded gun."
Bill
Get Out Leave GIF by Filthy RichGiphy"A few years back coworkers and I went to another coworkers house. The house was owned by an owner of the company but this one coworker, we will call him Bill, had a key and 'permission' to use it following a company Christmas party."
"Everyone was enjoying some drinks and some smoke. About 30 minutes into us partying, Bill started acting strange."
"Basically he started aggressively hitting on the girls at the party in disgusting ways. 'If I guess your age and you're older than me or younger than me you have to sleep with me' was a common thing he repeated to more than one girl that night."
"He started trying to separate other coworkers from their dates and got aggressive about it. When I say he got aggressive about separating other coworkers from their dates, he was taking dominoes and throwing them on the floor in front of coworkers and telling them they needed to help him pick them up."
"The first time he did this he got help from our coworker, at that moment Bill stood up and started trying to get our coworkers date to go into the next room with him. He was unsuccessful but about 10 minutes later he tried it with a coworker I was pretty close with, we will call him Dan."
"He threw a deck of cards and kept telling Dan to pick them up but Dan knew what Bill was up to. After a minute of Bill trying this sh*t I walked over started grabbing cards and stuffed them in his pockets."
"I was pissed, I kept repeating 'Come on Bill let's pick up some f*cking cards.' With a plain face and monotones voice Bill simply said 'I can clean it up myself.' "
"Bill was aggressively hitting on the girls at the party but Dan later told me that Bill told him 'You're hot, I can see why so-and-so wants to f*ck you.' Nothing against anyone sexual preferences but clearly Bill was going through some sh*t."
"Right around this time I started smelling gas."
"I walked through the house and realized he had turned the stove burners on but never ignited the flame. I turned them off but the smell kept building. I realized he had done this with the fireplace as well."
"As I turned off the fireplace gas I notice Bill messing with the stove again. At that point I lost it, I made a scene."
"Bill looked shocked when I yelled 'Yeah f*ck this. Everyone out, Bill is doing some weird sh*t. Out everyone out!' "
"He rushed to the door and tried calming everyone down. I'm telling you all it was weird."
"We had to push through Bill, who was blocking the front door telling us we were being crazy. 9 of us crammed into a friends Chrysler 300 as Bill tried blocking us in with a golf cart."
"He ended up moving it and saying we were all over reacting. I have no doubt Bill was up to some nefarious stuff and to this day I believe I saved a few lives."
"People reported it and Bill was fired not long after. A few months back I was doing some home improvements and while at Home Depot I hear Bill shout 'Hey!' "
"I turned around and had a few words with him. He works there, apparently loving life. I now shop at Lowe's."
Window Cleaners Share The Best Things They've Ever Seen | George Takei’s Oh Myyy
Window washers have quite an interesting job. From death-defying heights, they see cities from unique perspectives and often catch glimpses into the lives of...BBQ Bummer
zac efron bbq GIF by NEIGHBORSGiphy"I had just moved to South East Georgia. I moved into a predominantly black neighborhood which was totally fine by me. My neighbors were so welcoming and accepting."
"About 2 weeks in, I'm approached by a few white men in suits at work, asking me if I was new. I said I was."
"They said they were from the Chamber of Commerce. They wanted to invite me to a BBQ that weekend."
"Free BBQ? Sold!"
"... It was a Klan Rally. Many of them were wearing black shirts with the distinct symbol of the cross and flame."
"They introduced themselves as such eventually, though growing up in Portland, I was already pretty familiar with the symbols."
"Yeah, I wasn't keen to find out what was going to happen if they found out I was gay."
The Mall
Fast Food Mall GIF by Billie EilishGiphy"A friend dragged me to a mall (her old workplace) to visit her old coworkers. After arriving, I suddenly started feeling ill but not normal ill."
"Like really ill accompanied by a really bad gut feeling."
"I kept trying to get my friend to leave and she kept saying 10 more minutes but wouldn't leave."
"Something in my gut felt like something was really wrong and we HAD to leave and I was so panicked that I finally decided I'd leave without her if she wouldn't leave this time even though I'd have to walk over 5 miles to get home since she drove."
"She finally agreed to go and when I got home and flipped on the computer to do homework I saw that there had been a shooting at the mall after we'd left and it started at the store we were in."
High Alert
Breaking Despicable Me GIF by RegalGiphy"One time I was shopping at a Walmart with my wife and a young, bald guy seemed to be following us around the store. He had a very intense look on his face and was speaking urgently into a headset."
"He wasn't wearing a Walmart uniform, but he was dressed in business casual with a name tag. He wasn't always following us; sometimes he would pass us going in the opposite direction."
"At some point, I realized he was making announcements on the overhead speaker for people to gather at the back of the store in the electronics department because there was going to be a drawing for cash prizes."
"I couldn't tell if he was actually making the announcements on the headset or relaying a message to another guy who was, but he was pacing through the women's clothing section (I was there buying scrubs for a job that I started the next day) and intently repeating the message for people to gather at the back of the store."
"He had no expression on his face and was just repeating the message in a monotone."
"Out of the two of us, I'm the level-headed one and my wife is the one who is scared of everything. In this moment, however, I just knew there was going to be a mass shooting at that store."
"I told her to put what she had down and get the hell out of there with me. Since I'm not normally scared of much, it freaked her out and we bounced."
"Of course, nothing happened and we had to go find scrubs somewhere else, but it was the strongest fight or flight reaction I've ever had."
"I think it must have happened right after a high profile shooting (god bless america), so I must have just been on high alert."
- CryptographerShot296
Party Pranks
Punch Alcohol GIF by Grease LiveGiphy"I was getting ready to go to a party with my friends after prom. We never go to the big parties because we were not as popular, but it was open invite and our parents let us go."
"We all got there and something felt off right away. I got a wave of anxiety and almost had a panic attack and we all left the party after being there for 15 mins."
"I thought it was just me being shy or overthinking until we wake up to the news that one of our classmates put drugs in drinks as a party prank and caused people to trip out. One girl overdosed."
- the-truth827
The White Vans
scared inglorious basterds GIFGiphy"I was at work one night and walked to my car before leaving to bring some things inside. I hate parking lots so I always park pretty far away to avoid having to pull out around other cars."
"I didn't think anything of it till after, but the parking lot was mostly empty apart from two white vans RIGHT NEXT to my car with people inside. I work next to a park, so it really isn't too unusual for people to just chill there in their cars for awhile."
"As I was walking up, the door of one of the vans slid open but no one stepped out. I wasn't paying attention so I didn't see the faces of the people inside."
"I was a little creeped out so I called my boss and he came with his dog. As soon as he stepped out of his car, both vans left."
"I get a call from my boss at 3AM that night, asking me for better descriptions of the car. Someone was assaulted and carjacked there that night."
"I don't park far away from the building anymore."
- euphoriugh___
For His Wife To Find
Season 19 Nbc GIF by SVUGiphy"Several years ago I was outside on a Saturday morning cleaning out my truck in the parking lot of my complex."
"A guy who lived in the building right across from me, but parked on the other side of the complex normally, suddenly pulled in a couple parking spots from me and just sat in his vehicle."
"I had my back to him, but I got such an overwhelmingly creepy feeling all of a sudden. I switched sides so I could watch him."
"He sat there watching me for about 5 minutes and then started his truck and drove off. I couldn't shake the weird feeling I had."
"Fast forward 2 weeks later and I'm just coming home from shopping with my son. On our walk to the apartment, I watch the guy's wife and two sheriff's go into her apt and 2 min later they come speeding out."
"Come to find out, when the wife went to work, he called a sex worker, they did their thing and then he killed her. He then stuffed her body into one of his military bags."
"Then he left her there in the middle of the living room for his wife to find. It was terrifying to learn that!"
- Pretend_Impression90
Storm Chasers
Oh My God Omg GIF by AudibleGiphy"Californian in foreign Kansas ground. Always loved the severe thunderstorms - so cool with nearly constant booming rainfall and torrential downpour."
"One day when I was playing on my computer and hear sirens. No clue, look outside and sunny outside and some people walking their dogs. Go talk to my wife and we look on TV and there is a tornado warning."
"Having no clue what to do, we huddle in the bathroom under a mattress with the news on display. Panic on the news is increasing (shocking I know) and they say this is a big one and if you're in a second-story place, you are not safe."
"Soon after they abandon the news station and all we hear is pounding hail, almost a deafening silence. Well sh*t."
"We panic and start knocking on neighbors' doors but no one is there. Not a cloud in the sky. Adrenaline is kicking in and I'm getting shaky."
​"I call friends and they are all true Kansans and say 'noooo problem easy peasy.' Thanks alot."
"One offers for us to come to his house for safety. Me and my girlfriend jump in the car ready to go."
"We turn the corner and a sheet of golfball-sized hail starts pelting the car. It sounded like the car was being torn apart."
"Gut-wrenching metallic pounding mixed with glass clacking to hold with every ounce of its might. My wife starts screaming and crying and I just put my arm across her chest to try to calm her."
"I look out the car and the wind is whipping on itself and leaves are circling about. She reminds me the nearby grocery store has a shelter, since our friends house is far and not easy to find even in broad daylight."
"I begin speeding there racing through an intersection with a red light. I veer up to the grocery store greeted by dozens of cars with smashed in windows."
"To this day I have no idea how ours held."
"We get out right in front covering our heads in hopes we don't get hit by hail. The doors to the store are closed."
"Panic sets in. A man is beating the front doors screaming 'LET US IN! ITS HERE ITS HERE!.' "
"The store employee inside is pale and confused and shrugs to indicate no way to open. I contemplate throwing a pot through the window."
"After what seemed an eternity a fellow employee sprints up fumbling her keys and opens a side door."
"I look back and I can see nothing but wind and tree branches circling about... and darkness. My girlfriend and I run to the door and... she trips."
"I have that movie moment where my mind thinks.... should I grab her and risk us both or just go? Well I'd be dead either way lets grab her."
"We bolt inside to the meat locker shelter. As soon as we get in all conversations stop and everyone stares at us."
"We must've been white as can be and they could see the mixture of terror and relief in our eyes."
"We learn later that the guy banging on the door beside us was a tornado chaser and the tornado got rain-wrapped, or impossible to see, and he panicked."
"To this day I get a powerful feeling in the bottom of my stomach whenever I get a phone warning of a severe thunderstorm."
"At least picking up my girlfriend paid off as she's now my wife and we have a beautiful baby girl :)"
- getloppy
Welp. We'll be doing a LOT more trusting out gut from now on.
What sorts of "near danger" experiences can you recall? Sound off in the comments.
Want to "know" more?
Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.
Never miss another big, odd, funny or heartbreaking moment again.
According to a report from the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), over 580,466 people were homeless in the U.S. on a single night in 2020.
The homeless crisis was made worse due to the pandemic. That statistic saw an increase from 2019 by 12,751 people.
Addressing those who were able to come out the other side, Redditor green131313 asked:
"People who have been homeless before, what is your scariest story?"
Some people who found makeshift places to sleep in thought they were going to die while battling the forces of nature.
The Unbearable Cold
"For a while, after my mom lost the house we lived in a burned-out camper in the woods. One night it got really cold. We honestly thought we were going to freeze to death. It was one of my first near-death experiences as a kid. After that, my mom reached out to my dad and had me move in with him while she got our stuff together."
The Tornado
"The first night we had a tornado. We were between two hills so it mostly jumped over us. Though it also picked my brother and me up in our tent and flung us a good twenty or so feet. We were awake so we knew what was going on, but it still terrified me. It felt like we flew for ages. We joined the circle after that and everyone sort of tied the tents together."
– AnEsteemedCactus
A deadly Bite
"I almost died getting bit by a snake in arizona while sleeping in front of a old store."
– chefboyardee8198
With drugs added to the mix, the situation became nightmares for these Redditors.
The Crack Den
"I was 19 and needed a semi-warm place to stay. I was in New Orleans and not dressed for the cold winter night. I didn't know anyone there and found a dark, abandoned house on the outskirts of the quarter. I crawled under the porch and found a place to pass out. I woke some time in the night to a LOT of screaming and breaking things. Some very serious sh*t going on. Turned out it was a crack/meth den I was sleeping under. The fighting continued until just before dawn. I waited for about an hour of quiet before I slinked away."
– blackkristos
Drugs And Consequences
"I almost died when someone gave me 'medical e' and my stupid a** took some. I'll never know what really happened that night under the bridge, but I'm alive tho."
– Frilledmeg
Terrifying Visions
"I suffered from something which I now believe is called Alcohol-induced-psychosis. It's what some can get if you drink way too much hard liquor and begin suffering withdraws."
"I would see ghostly figures of people who weren't actually there, I saw blueish holographic people that weren't there, I would hear random auditory hallucinations and the only thing that seemed to make it die down was to drink beers. Basically I'd walk down the street and see figures working in their front lawns, or friends sitting on porches, etc. When I walked closer to inspect them, the figure had vanished. Sometimes they'd appear erratic, like a person with Parkinson's disease. Once, I saw a large menacing holographic head of a personal friend in a window, and it terrified me."
"The scariest time is when I walked to the park alone during night, I could hear children's laughter, and I could see figures walking about, I looked towards a fence and saw two figures pointing at me, I kind of just laid down on the ground and shut my eyes to ignore it all. Eventually it all subsided on it's own and I left the park. I haven't suffered any of this since gladly. But mind you some homeless are stuck in this hallucination mind state every day, and that must be a living hell to live through. Drinking alone was the stupidest thing I ever did. Please only drink with friends, it's always better anyway."
– RyanFire
As if life couldn't get any worse, the following people were victims of physical violence.
The Attack
"Had a junkie hold a knife to my neck for next to nothing and a cop threaten to kill me but the worst was a business owner that came out of his business and asked me to panhandle further down the block. I was sober and being polite and to top it off I wasn't even in front of his business I mentioned this and told him I wouldn't move."
"He snatched a skateboard that had just been given to me by somebody that had picked me up hitchhiking and turned around. I started standing up to try and get it back from him and the next thing I know I was in the back of an ambulance with a broken jaw and a bunch of missing teeth and to top it off the emts didn't know who they had given my dog too just that they thought it was my friend."
"I refused treatment, we were still right where it had happened and I had to find my dog. Turns out she was with someone I trusted but the emts couldn't even describe who they gave her to and no one I knew was with me when it happened."
"I tried talking to some lawyers in the area but no one seemed to want to help some homeless kid (I think I was 19 at the time) and I didn't plan on staying in that city for more than a couple weeks anyway."
– Krillslippin
Brutal Beating
"I got jumped by 3 people. I'm sure this isn't the rarest experience but it truly terrified me. One of them held me on the ground, one of them repeatedly kicked/stepped on my face, and the other guy acted as a lookout. They finally stopped when he told them there were people coming."
– no_compearison
These Redditors wouldn't be alive to tell their stories if their situations ended differently.
Interaction With The Police
"Someone called the cops on me for parking a little too close to a neighborhood. The cops knocked and asked me to come out of my RV. Having a dozen guns pointed at you is really scary. They never put them down either while asking me questions why I'm there and asking me for proof which like if they wouldn't let me move how can I get you my ID or my work cards, my work schedule, etc."
"I only parked near my work because I had a three jobs which all needed me that day with one shift starting at 7am for setups. And I'll be there until 10pm."
"It's really scary to think because someone had negative ideas and didn't think I deserved to be there, I could have died if that interaction went wrong. I had been called on maybe 4 times in the year and the others thankfully weren't this. It was usually just 2 cops, ask me to kindly move and that was it. This particular cop group had a hard on to get me on something. They towed my RV. Made me miss my shift, and I had hundreds dollars worth in impound fees I didn't have."
– TenaciousToffee
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Marcia L. Fudge expressed optimism for the relief effort to end homelessness.
"Thanks to President Biden's leadership, we are once again putting Housing First to end this crisis and build strong, healthy communities, as reflected in the American Rescue Plan," said Fudge.
"I look forward to working with President Biden to implement this historic package to deliver robust, equitable relief to those experiencing homelessness. Housing should be a right, not a privilege, and ensuring that every American has a safe, stable home is a national imperative."
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"Â
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"Â
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.
One Reddit user asked:
What is the scariest theory you know about?
Here are some of the more unnerving responses.
GRB Bye-Bye
I saw one about the potential of a specific type of supernova that would essentially fire out beam of radiation (or some other kind of energy.)
If it hit earth, we would see the entire sky covered with auroras. This is the ozone layer burning off and the last thing we would see before we all die, guess at least we get a pretty lightshow to end on
- grizwa
Astronomer here! You are thinking of a gamma ray burst (GRB).
However, for a star to do this to earth it has to be extremely close to us (within a few thousand light years), a distance within which we can see the bright, almost going supernova stars well, and the beam is just a few degrees wide and has to be directed exactly at us.
As such we don't think there are any GRB-killing potential events near Earth. They're also just so darn rare- we estimate a galaxy our size produces one every million years or so.
Serial Failures
michael c hall dexter GIF by ShowtimeGiphyIt is speculated that there are over 2000 active serial killers in the US alone. It makes you realize that many of the serial killers we know of today--- Bundy, BTK, Gacy, are ultimately failed serial killers.
It's like that Usual Suspects line--- " the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he did not exist"
Doesn't help that the entire profile of a serial killer is so well known that any serial killer with half a brain cell would be subverting it intentionally. The only serial killers that fit the standard profile of a serial killer are the most compulsive, incompetent serial killers.
If you're only looking in places where there's a pattern for a serial killer, a serial killer without a pattern is hard to trace. Add in "professional" serial killers like Israel Keyes and you have numerous types under the radar.
Non-Zero
Every year there are a non-zero number of near miss nuclear detonations.
I.e. through faults in the system a nuclear warhead is almost launched/detonated. In 2005 it was reported that Russia had 26 such near miss events.
As far I'm aware no stats have been published since and no info for the US has been made public, however it is believed:
a) the US had a higher number of events in the same year, and
b) as they are typically caused by aging equipment and the numbers were increasing prior to that year, the number of events each year after likely kept increasing.
Never Ending Story
I remember hearing one theory that every time we "die", we instead instantly switch to an near exact universe were we didn't die, as if nothing happened. Other people's death remain the same since it's not yourself.
For example if you were to be hit by a car, in other peoples perspective you die, but in your own instead of dying, its a near miss, or you're injured but don't die.
- Vexilus
What gives me a serious mind f*ck with this theory is that in this situation, you would transport to a universe where you still interact with your friends as if nothing happened but that those same friends are mourning you and go on without you in your previous universe. And what if you live in a universe that is one of your friend's alternative universes that they transported to after they died?
Overall, what if our personal universe is completely based around one person's death and their eventual transfer to the universe you're in? Super weird.
Losing Your Head
That, after decapitation, you may still be conscious and somewhat aware for at least a few seconds.
- Grinnzy
Also time and your perception of it is relative, and I have no idea WHAT it would be relative TO in this situation. So seconds could be soooo much more. ((Shudder))
Believe it's something like 2-28 seconds before you brain looses enough oxygen to fail.
Can't remember who it was but "death by beheading" (think it was using a guillotine) was stopped in the one country because the ruler was present and the guy who lost his head stared and blinked at him for long enough that he decided to stop killing people that way.
- TAOJeff
Selfish, Cowardly, and Scary
That theory about what happened on the missing Malaysian flight.
From looking at the evidence and the most likely scenario, (that being the pilot committing suicide) people have been able to piece together possible scenarios that happened on the plane. One of which is that shortly into the flight, the pilot deoxygenated(?) the plane, and accelerated to a high altitude, killing all on board very quickly.
He then flew for hours and hours south before crashing the plane. It's scary to me because he would have been flying in an isolated part of the Earth, with nothing ahead of him other than the South Pole. That isolated plane, flying in the dark, with hundreds of dead strapped in their seats...
The nearest city, Perth, is still asleep and only beginning to wake up. There is no one, and nothing. To think of that man, flying with all those bodies in the dark to nowhere is very scary.
So selfish, and cowardly, but also very scary.
Permafrost
As Artic permafrost melts, it will release diseases that have been frozen in the ground for thousands or tens of thousands of years, and life on Earth will have no immunity to them.
Wonder how the world will react if a disease suddenly infected the whole world. We're good at following orders and social distancing so it won't spread that fast right
To The Left, To The Left
beyonce queen GIFGiphyThe Great Attractor.
Over the years, scientists and astronomers have charted out space and we have a fairly good understanding of what's out there; planets, moons, stars, space, etc. Gravity plays a big role in showing what is attracted to what, moons around planets, planets around stars, stars around black holes.
But people have began to notice that everything out there in the galaxy, is slowly, SLOWLY but surely, scooting LEFT on our map of the cosmos.
Everything and anything is drifting ever slowly in one united direction and something hidden and astronomically massive is dragging us and all known & unknown matter towards it.
And we have utterly no say or action in the matter.
Carrington
The Carrington Event of 1859 might be something that happens on a natural cycle every 150 - 200 years or so, which means we are due.
A CME (coronal mass ejection) hit the Earth's magnetosphere and caused a giant geomagnetic storm. The entire ionosphere became charged and unstable with massive induced electrical current.
On the good side, such an event causes beautiful aurora ("northern lights") across the majority of the planet. On the bad side it's giant planet-wide solar EMP. It wreaked havok on telegraph systems, but they were about the only electrical equipment at the time.
If a similar event happened today, first the global satellite network would be annihilated, then any radio signals would break up (including your phone going dead), immediately followed by most radio equipment being fried.
Next, the power grids will go; not just a worldwide blackout, but power surges would destroy most of what's connected to the grid, including the chaos of the transformer and substations exploding.
Virtually every vehicle will suddenly shut off, and suddenly being very difficult to control will crash. Some heavily shielded military craft might survive, but in general commercial aircraft will suddenly fall from the sky.
All of this would happen extremely fast; from any one person's point of view it may seem to be instantaneous. If a bit stronger than the Carrington event it may also destroy the backup systems that protect critical infrastructure from disasters.
The Carrington event was over 150 years ago.
Earth been hit by significant (but much smaller) CMEs at least twice since then; they'd be enough to cause quite a bit of damage today, but manageable. A Carrington event sized CME had a near miss with Earth in 2012.
We actually have multiple solar flares hit our magnetosphere every year, just generally not that cause significant issues (though there are predictable events a couple times a year that interfere with some satellites for a couple hours a few days in a row)
Carrington event sized CMEs are common enough that within your lifetime it is pretty much guaranteed to see at least one or two more near miss events.
CMEs can be much stronger though. During certain parts of the 11 year solar cycle the sun regularly emits CMEs large enough that, if they hit Earth, would strip the atmosphere, boil off the oceans, and incinerate everything on the surface, sterilizing the planet.
There would be no real warning; depending where you were on the planet it would either be instantaneous or you'd have just enough time to see a glow in the sky from the wall of fire before it crested the horizon and engulfed you at several times the speed of sound.
GRBs are the only deadlier threat I am aware of.
The Bubble
We don't know whether the universe is in a true vacuum (lowest possible energy state) or a false vacuum (a local low, but not the lowest).
If the universe is a false vacuum, then at any point, at any moment, a quantum tunneling event could occur where that point spontaneously decays to a true vacuum. If that happened, a bubble would expand from that point at the speed of light that radically altered physics, instantly annihilating everything down to the subatomic level.
Since it travels at c, there'd be no warning, no way to see it coming. When it reached us you'd just instantly blink out of existence. Even if we are in a false vacuum, such an event doesn't become likely for at least 10 to the power of 139 years, which is an unimaginably big number - but it could happen at any moment at any point.
It could have already happened and the bubble could be heading straight for us, about to end us at any time. It's a great way to die as far as ways to die go, the scary part is just all planets, stars, and life that are or ever will be just up and disintegrating with no warning.
Not from a "it's bad for me" perspective, but a "everything that ever was or will be is just gone in an instant" perspective.
- fafalone
Reset
This is my theory or at least I haven't seen it before.
What if global warming is just the universe's way of resetting life before it gets too advanced? That's why we haven't met any other civilizations from other planets.
Kinda like a Rust server.
You'll Never Know
We are all strangers, including your family and your best friends.
No matter what.
You may know them, but they're different people truly. You will never really know what they are thinking of you or anyone in general.
They Won't Exist
It freaks me out that things that are so commonplace in nature won't exist by the end of our lifetime.
Eg. I went to Ireland and saw the dark hedges last year and the guide told us those trees are predicted to be gone within 20 years due to changed weather patterns and increased tourism.
Something so small but I remember seeing pictures of them as a kid and wanting to go there. Knowing they just won't exist quite soon is unsettling.
It Really Didn't End Well
GiphyThe Permian Triassic extinction event, also known as 'The Great Dying'.
It was the greatest mass extinction event in history, killing about 80% of all species on the earth.
One theory for how it happened is the Siberian Traps flood basalt erupting onto massive coal deposits, releasing an absurd amount of CO2, and causing catastrophic climate change.
Basically, climate change caused by burning fossil fuels has happened before, and it really didn't end well.
Strange Sludge
Strange matter.
Inside Neutron stars is a kind of quark soup. Strange quarks May naturally occur here which aren't usually likely to form matter. If the neutron starts was to collide with another it would spew out its insides.
Strange matter is perfectly stable and dense, therefore indestructible.
Whatever matter it touches becomes so 'impressed' by its stability, it will become strange matter too. If one of these 'strangelets' hit Earth, everything would just become hot dense strange sludge.
Dust
I have heard of a theory that if enough satellites get stuck in orbit, that if an explosion were to set the satellites in one direction around the planets orbit, that that one satellite would continue to crash into other satellites, causing those them to continue spinning with that force.
This would continue, the satellites breaking apart, becoming smaller and smaller, until the only thing left is a fine dust that is spinning in the planets orbit, causing a cloud to black out the sun.
And as much crap we have in earth's orbit, that genuinely worries me.
I think its called Kesslers Syndrome.
Blue
A Himba Tribe in Africa had a slew of words for the color 'green'... and not one for the word 'blue'. During a color swatch test, members of the tribe could distinguish between subtle shades of green at a glance, but due to a lack of a word for 'blue', could only identify a clearly and distinctly blue swatch half the time during testing. Possible Conclusion: Without a word for something, we might have trouble identifying that thing even if it was right in front of us. One Ref: [https://www.gondwana-collection.com/blog/how-do-namibian-himbas-see-colour/]
The Awareness Test: https://youtu.be/Ahg6qcgoay4
The Theory: without a word for a thing, we might not be able to identify or recognize a thing... even if it was right sitting right in front of us. Even if someone pointed it out to us. Even if we were told exactly what to look for.
What are cats staring at, anyway..?
Want to "know" more? Never miss another big, odd, funny, or heartbreaking moment again. Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.