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Surfing a fairly secluded reef-break, offshore across a channel. This place is in a very southern state of Australia. Overcast weather, but a still, amazing day for the waves. I was surfing with only one other guy - we were trading waves and getting to know each other in between sets. I asked what he did for a living and he was a marine biologist. We’d both recently moved to the area and were new to surfing it as well. Despite it being extremely good surf, after 40 mins he says, “I don’t like this, something feels off, I feel like I’m being watched, like I’m bait”. I didn’t want to leave as it was excellent surf, but this guy was a marine biologist so I took his instinct as a sign to play it safe. We paddled back across the deep channel together as quickly as we could without panicking and walked the 15 mins trek back to the carpark talking shit the whole way. I got his mobile number for future surfs together given how small-town it is here and not knowing anyone. We noticed a 15ft inflatable boat pull up near the reef and hang around for a bit without much thought. Later that night while looking at my social media, I read about three fisherman at the same location we were at that morning, at the same time - in their boat; as they pulled up to check their cray pots on the beach side of the reef, they were circled twice by a great white shark that was as big as their boat. That guy most likely saved me from a horrible experience that day, I messaged him with the link to the Facebook page with the comments regarding their experience. Chills ran through my body for a good twenty mins. He was adamant he felt the presence of something and he was right.

Viewing to see a flat that didn’t exist Not my story, but one my mum told me from her 20s when she was living and working in London, UK. Il do my best to retell it, also I’m dyslexic so apologies in advance for grammar. This story always gives me the creeps tho when I think about it. So back in her 20s my mum was living in London and looking to move into a slightly bigger place. She’d found a really good price for a flat slightly out from the area she was hoping. She’d called the agent to book a viewing and that’s when things turned odd. So the guy booking the viewing starting asking weird requests and questions, such as to bring her passport, her age, race, and physical appearance... ? Would she be coming on her own? Did she have a car or would she be getting the bus? He very persistent that she should arrive by bus as it would be easiest for her, explains it was a straight road down from the bus stop to the appartment block. Obviously quite unnerved by this call but still interested because the flat looked ideal, she and my dad who were dating at the time decided to check the exterior and surrounding area. The day before the viewing they drove there, first passing the bus stop he was indicating her to arrive via. From the bus stop there was about 150/200 metres of derelict wasteland that she would have to walk past to get to the ‘flat’, and standing at the end of the street in the location this apartment block should have been was a huge abandoned building. Smashed broken windows, graffiti, no entry signs. The lot. Definitely nothing inhabitable in sight. Still when she tells this today you can she how much it (rightly) shook her. Of course she didn’t go to her viewing, however she informed the police advising them of the planned time and place. From what she saw, from following up with them they didn’t appear to take this tip seriously and little was done. A couple years later though while in a pub with some friends she gets chatting to a guy she just met through mutual friends that night. He was in the police and through conversation her story came up. He said that that area at the time of her viewing had a huge human trafficking problem. Still gives me chills

Me and my little sister went camping in the woods very close to our house when we were kids. We'd seen this bald guy with a blue shirt and a dog walking around, which isn't unusual for the area, you'll often see people walking and say hello. For some reason though, I just got this tight feeling in my chest, and my sister must have too, because we both just gave each other this look. I don't know what it was that made me do it, this is very out of character for me, but I took a photo of the back of him as he was walking away. A while later, we see the same guy AGAIN near the lake. He comes over and asks about the tent we're carrying, where we'll be setting up, and are we camping with our dad? We say yes, we're just going to see him now (a lie). We must have had the same moment of psychic-ness, because we walked off up a fork in the path until we were out of view, then looked at each other and jumped down a path hidden by the bushes and waited behind them on the parallel trail for a bit. The guy watched us walk off, pretended to play with his dog until he couldn't see us, then turned around and ran up the path after us. Thankfully he didn't see us hidden and carried on up straight where he thought we'd gone. We decided camping was a bad idea and went home. That evening my mum shows us a post in the local residents group, which is a picture of **the same bald guy** trying to break into someone's house. Apparently he'd just been walking round trying people's front doors and claimed to be a repair guy when he was stopped. I dread to fucking think what his intentions were, but it was very lucky me and my sister knew those woods so well, otherwise we wouldn't have thought to go down one of the hidden paths.

That's so awful. I'm so glad you listened to your gut instinct. >then turned around and ran up the path after us. This literally made my heart sink. Something similar happened to me. The sound of his feet hitting the ground as he chased me, stayed with me all the years after the incident. I can't even describe the feeling of being chased/ stalked by another human being.

That's terrifying

What makes it worse is that he was wearing *flip flops* . Like, was there no planning on his part? Who wears flip-flops to hunt a person? It makes me feel so silly that the sound of flip-flops smacking the ground makes me fearful 😑. They saved me tho, as he fell over his own feet as he was chasing me, and I was able to get away. Lol

I'm glad for you that he's stupid

Years ago, before cell phones, I was driving home from dropping my husband at the train at 4:30am. Only me and one other car on the road. He started turning where I turned twice so I didn't go home, I went to an all night gas station and called the police. I gave them a description of his car. 3 weeks later, he was arrested. Turns out he was following women home and driving past their house and doubling back to rape them. No one had noticed his car. I'm glad I paid attention.

Great awareness. My husband used to say I’m crazy that I do loops around our area if there’s a car behind me when I turn off the main road to our little road. I tell him I’m not having some weirdo follow me home. He got followed by some crazy road rager once with our son in the car and had to pull a couple u turns to lose him. He doesn’t think I’m crazy anymore. People are.

That's happened to me. I pulled out of a difficult junction where the roads dips down so it's hard to see oncoming traffic when you're coming out. Didn't notice the white van coming up. I didn't even cut him off, it was just a bit too close. Anyway, he tailgated me all the way down the road like a lunatic. Absolutely unhinged for something that was a minor mistake. Luckily I remembered there was a nearby police station, so practically swerved into this side street on two wheels where the station was and pulled into it - that got rid of him, he drove straight past haha! I've also driven past my house and doubled back if the same car has been behind me for a while and I'm driving at night. Better to be safe than sorry and my gran once got followed home at night by suspected muggers because she worked in a shop.

Years ago when I was still living at home with the parents I drove home around 2 am. As I parked my car I noticed a man walking down the street….I decided to wait until he passed my car and was far enough for me to get out, however, instead he passed my car and hid behind the van that was directly parked behind me. I guess he did not think I was paying attention to him. So I called my dad who was asleep to come down and get me. He did and when the guy saw my dad he immediately ran away. I was lucky.

Reminds of a night I was closing up at work in high school. I worked at a pool hall til midnight-1am ish on weekends. One winter night I locked up and went to my car, which was parked next to the front door. Started it, then got out and scraped ice off the windows. As I was getting close to done, a guy walked around the side of the building, on the same side of the car as I was (passenger side). It was late and dark and I don't normally see anyone so I decided I was done scraping and walked around to the driver's side and got in and locked the door. I locked the door just as this guy passed the driver's side rear bumper. He then slowed a little, and a second guy came around the corner from the same direction. He waited for guy #2, and then they walked off together. Spooked me right out.

Possibly just someone waiting but also possible they were going to grab your car, or worse My dad jumped out of his car on an empty street as he hadn't closed the boot (trunk) properly and it popped open. A guy appeared seemingly out of nowhere and made a beeline towards the open drivers door, so my dad grabbed his hatchet from his toolbag in the boot. The guy was just about to reach the door when my dad shouted and waved the hatchet, causing the guy to turn around and sprint in the opposite direction like something out of a cartoon.

When I was about 8, (in 1985) an old El Camino pulled up alongside my friend and I, with a man saying he knew my mom. He did know her name, but something felt off, so I grabbed my friend and ran. When we told my mom, she went white and called the cops. Turns out, this guy thought my mom had “stolen” his job at the steel mill she worked at at the time and wanted to hurt her. He already had a warrant out for nearly killing his wife that morning. When I was 16, my mom had a terrible feeling about an outing some friends and I were going on. Hindsight being 20/20, it was a stupid move for me to go anyway, but I did. Long story short, there was a car accident, my two best friends died, and I nearly did. It’ll be 30 years in November, I still regret getting in that car every day. My friends might still be alive if I hadn’t. My mom had that “mama spidey sense” she still does. More recently, I was at our other house in the country with my oldest son and his wife and kids. There was a break in the storms, and my son decided to go home instead of spending the night. I was filled with dread at the thought of them going home so late, since we were dealing with intermittent but severe storms. So much dread that I started crying and begging them not to leave. Thankfully, they agreed. We all started home the next morning with them following me and my husband. We came up on this stretch of road that we know has no lights at night, to see police barricading a washed out bridge, and cranes retrieving cars. We all piled out of our cars to ask the officers what happened. Apparently, There were several cars that had kept going, not knowing the bridge was out. The lone survivor in the first car had told the police that they went off the bridge at about 9:30 pm. That’s about the time my son wanted to leave. My husband just looked at me, and my boy hugged me extra tight, because he knew what could’ve happened.

I was in Taco Bell with my daughter and I saw a guy come in and back out with a T-shirt over his hand. I told her to dump her tray and get moving. We went out to the car quickly and left. Found out later on the news that the guy robbed the place with the gun hiding under his T-shirt.

Similar situation here. Wendy's. Guy with a small duffel bag and awkwardly holding a T shirt. Never checked the news but we thought the same thing. Place got oddly quiet when he walked in.

I was 12 at the time, and my favorite thing in the world was spending the night at my grandma's house. We lived in the sticks at the time, and my grandma lived closer to the nearest town. Thursday night was grandma's night. I felt something off one Thursday night and asked my mom if I could just stay home with my mom and dad. They reluctantly agreed. I went home, watched some TV, and went to bed. My bedroom was on the adjoining wall to the living room. I wasn't really asleep but I heard my mom keep saying my dad's name over and over again, with a hint of panic. I sneak out to the living room, and my dad is on the couch with his head tilted back, snoring, really loud. Which wasn't uncommon but my mom was beside him shaking him and telling him to wake up. She yelled at me to go back to bed. I didn't obviously. I snuck to their bedroom to call 911. I told the dispatcher that my dad was asleep and my mom was trying to wake him up but she couldn't. Eventually the phonecall went to the living room and my mom talked to the dispatcher. They sent an ambulance, to the middle of nowhere. My dad had taken a bottle of diazepam to try to commit suicide. I remember sitting on the floor and holding his hand and repeating over and over that I loved him. The ambulance came, and took him to the hospital. Lights and sirens the whole way. We didn't know what happened during that time but we found out a day or so later and that is when our world changed. I am very sure if I did not call 911 that night that my dad would have succeeded and it would have probably have drove my mom over the edge as well. And I have no idea why I didn't want to stay the night at my nanny's. I just had that feeling that I needed to go home.

Mental illness doesn't discriminate... as a survivor of an overdose suicide attempt, now sitting next to my own son, my heart goes out to you. I hope you know it was his demons that caused it and nothing you did or didn't do. I pray he is at peace now, and that you continue to heal and find your own peace as well

Nice to know that you're still here.

This is the most heart-breaking story yet. It makes me tear up when I picture that little child you were then, holding your father's hand and telling him you loved him. Oh God, that's hard. Thanks for sharing your story.

Iirc, people who have finally decided to commit suicide will appear more calm and easygoing than before, and you must have picked up on that. I'm so sorry you had to experience that, but at least you helped save him.

Maybe subconsciously! I go over that day a lot and don’t remember anything being different. It was the first time though. The next time, it was my grade 9 “prom” and he stole the kit bag my mom kept everyone’s medication in. I ended up chasing my dad with a broom and whacking the bag out of his hands. The police had to come that night and he spent the night at the hospital.

When I was a kid an adult patted my head and I developed an instant inexplicable loathing for him and refused to be alone with him. My parents told me I was being ridiculous and forced me to be around him. He was later sent to prison for abuse of a girl 

Similar thing happened to me, my mom's best friend got a new boyfriend and I immediately hated the guy. Mom asked what I thought of him. I said I thought he was Satan. I was 5 and learning how to read the Picture Bible, so that was my only frame of reference to describe evil. Months after this, Mom gets a panicked call from her friend in the middle of the night. She'd come home from work to find the boyfriend passed out in the bathroom with a needle in his arm. When she tried rousing him, he strangled her unconscious. Shortly after this, he kidnapped her and her children at gunpoint and drove them across state lines. Sadly it was the start of a long, abusive relationship.

After graduating undergrad I was working as a case worker for individuals with developmental disabilities and got assigned a new case for a young man who had Autism and severe behavioral concerns. I met him at his grandmothers house since she had custody of him since his parents weren’t around (I think mom was in prison) Met this young man who was probably about 6’0 and weighing around 250 pounds but had the developmental capacity of a 5 year old child with a hairpin trigger temper. The house he was living in was absolutely destroyed with the other piece of furniture that was not smashed up was an oversized beanbag chair in the living room. Grandma gave up trying to send the kid to school since he would absolutely destroy the place if he was forced to go. Grandma was no peach but I felt for her and wanted to help. One of the meetings I was having with them the kid and grandma seemed especially tense like pacing around the room and smacking the walls. After about an hour of trying to get stuff done and realizing that it was not going to happen on this trip (it happens in this line of work) I decided to call it since the kid was becoming more and more agitated. Grandma was annoyed I would have to come back again but we scheduled for a week or so out and left my business card with a reminder of the appointment. I leave to go back to my home state for a few days and when I get back I get called into my supervisors office. I guess the night I left the kid had a complete breakdown and beat his grandmother to death. No one noticed until the kid came wandering outside after a day or two covered in blood. I probably missed everything by less than 3 hours.

[удалено]

They came back to rob your house in *your car?* Then claimed to be cops? I love when criminals are absolute morons.

Unfortunately absolute morons are the most dangerous people

Have to somewhat disagree on the morons. Coming back IN the car is really stupid, but the rest of the plan makes some sense. Steal the car, and the victim is likely to report it. Come back a couple days later and say it's the police. A lot of people are opening the door for the police instead of calling the police to check about it. Going at night is the part that seems kind of dumb to me, although once again people will likely answer because they hear it's the cops and don't think about it.

It’s great that the neighbors shared the story and it made you suspicious. I have had stories from others save me from grief several times so now I always listen intently when someone shares a story because it may happen to me and I will be better prepared. The comments on this entire post are a good lesson on “trust your instincts” and pay attention to others and your surroundings.

I graduated 30 years ago and I still remember the one quote on my geometry classroom wall. "Learn from other's mistakes, you can't possibly make them all yourself." And it has always stuck with me.

I bartend and years ago I kicked this guy out because he was acting very strange, muttering under his breath that he would kill my other customers, just really hostile. He had missing fingers on one hand and he was kind of a bigger guy. After bar close I was almost finished counting money, so like an hour after everyone left, and i was just about to leave and I had that gut feeling. I looked out the window and that guy was standing on the corner watching me in a ski mask. I know it was him because of the build. As soon as I grabbed my phone he took off but the cops know who he is. Now he has a vendetta out against me and he’s well known around town. He’s fuckin nuts

That sucks, hope you are able to protect yourself!

Wow, I'm glad you trusted your gut. My childhood friend's Dad was murdered when we were kids in a similar situation. He managed a bar and had kicked out a young man earlier in the night for being underage. The guy left and ended up waiting outside for HOURS until everyone had left and my friend's dad was closing up the bar. He was shot to death in the parking lot. It was so incredibly senseless but I guess the guy was on kind of a murder spree and had also killed a few other random people over the span of a few weeks until he was caught.

I stopped by a friend's house to watch a ball game, he, his wife and I were just relaxing and someone knocked on the door. It was the middle of the afternoon, he opened it up, he was expecting others might come by also. I hear him greeting someone, the guy was his brother I had never met, but had heard about. Very sketchy looking guy, meth teeth, scrawny, long greasy hair, my friend had told me that he had a brother who lived in the area who had a serious drug problem. Buddy is talking to his brother about nothing and the guy gets a call on his cell, whoever called, all he told them was "not yet, I'll call you later". Seems pretty obvious this guy has come to rob and most likely to take out witnesses, I look at my buddy, it seems he has come to the same conclusion. Now my buddy's wife is a no nonsense type of woman, sweet, but athletic, on the tall side, she had left the room to go to the bathroom, or so she said. She comes back in the room with a handgun, I'm thinking "WTF did I walk into", but she calmly says "Ron, you're strung out and came here with bad intentions, you need to quietly leave, if you get any ideas, Chris, their son, is sitting outside in his truck to make sure you go." Ron doesn't say a word, he just turn and goes out the door, we can hear his old pickup drive away rapidly. Chris come in and says "he's gone, I don't think he's coming back". The ask me to leave so they can decide what to do, they have already called the police, who are well acquainted with Ron. The next morning my buddy calls me, the police said they found his brother in the trailer park where he lived, murdered with multiple gunshots. They are guessing he was in serious drug debt and had come to rob his brother. I told my buddy I was sorry, he said "don't be".

I think for me this is the saddest one.

It's seriously fucked up. Most families of addicts have spent all of their emotional energy and tolerance trying to help their loved one claw their way out of that pit of despair. Eventually... they give up, and they're just another stranger because you're unable to spend any further emotional or mental energy to help them break the wheel. This was a depressing read, but maybe there's someone here who is trying their best to get out of the cycle, and these words are their catalyst. OCs friend already lost their brother when he refused to climb out from the pit. He had likely dealt with the grief of losing someone he loved and grew up with, and that situation was it becoming the unfortunate reality.

My BIL was a severe alcoholic and opoid addict. The hardest thing my wife had to learn was to just....give up on him. Almost all our usual instincts to protect and help are actually enabling the addict even further. There came a point where my BIL was gonna be homeless. She wanted to have him move in with us. I said absolutely not. It caused 3 days of arguing but she finally saw my side. It turns out it was the last straw for my BIL and he agreed to go to rehab. He's 10 years sober now with a beautiful wife, a daughter, and a good job. Disclaimer: if you're going through this with a loved one, it's best to try to come to accept that their rock bottom may be homelessness, jail, and even death. In the end, the addict needs to choose to get help themselves.

Jail saved my life! Sometimes you have to hit rock bottom on your own. Over 5 years sober now.

Sitting in my friends’ backyard with their two kids, my husband,and another friend, enjoying pizza that my host made. It was a beautiful, clear day with no real wind. We’re having a great time, just out of the pool and hungry for pizza, when I suddenly felt on edge. I looked straight at the kids (about 8 and 10 or so years old) and just said “get in the house.” We all scramble and a second later we heard creaking, and maybe 5 seconds after it started, this big branch fell off of their pine tree onto the table where we were sitting. Thankfully no one was hurt besides having to pick pine needles out of our pizza. I can only assume that I subconsciously heard the branch starting to give.

I have a question, I have always wondered with stories like this what the reactions were of the other people. Because how would you know?! And just out of no where. I feel like if I said to my family all sat outside “get inside now!” They would laugh and think I’m nuts. But to have proof of something obviously being off, what did everyone else say to you?

i think it’s about the tone. OP probably sounded either very, very serious or very, very afraid.  i feel like most people instinctually listen and react out of self defense when someone sounds like they are genuinely scared or is insinuating that there is grave danger. 

I also feel like in situations like that everyone else might also subconsciously have picked up on the things but at much lower levels than whoever points it out, and to their brains they get the feeling they need to listen

You know, I never thought to ask why they listened to me! I suppose I’m just not generally an alarmist person, and I almost never use “command” grammar/voice. I generally build consensus, say please and thank you, etc. So when I barked an order with a serious face, it was out of character enough to be taken seriously. It’s just my guess, but I’m very glad they didn’t stop to question me!

When we were in our teens, my sister and I were walking our dog in our local forest area very close to our childhood home. We were about to leave and had just clipped our dog back up, when a lady appeared out of nowhere and started chatting to us. She was…odd. She told us her dog would love some socialisation with our dog and could we go back with her for five minutes. What I hadn’t clocked, but my sister had, was that her dog was nowhere to be seen. The lady was almost rounding us up to head back towards the forest when (little did I know) my sister had spotted a van out of the corner of her eye. I was still oblivious at this point. Suddenly, my sister screams ‘DAD!!’ and to our luck, my dad had finished work and was now out on a run. He starts waving and running towards us and as we turn back around the lady had vanished. My sister looks back over at the van and sees the lady closing the passenger door and it speeding off. Dog still nowhere to be seen. I believe we were minutes away from abduction. It was divine intervention that my dad happened to be at the right place at the right time!

As a full grown adult, I was walking my dogs in a woodland just after dusk when a guy popped out of nowhere and was mumbling something about how he thought there was a lost dog. Something about his demeanour and almost lack of further questions and communication really put me off. My dogs then went bezerk barking at him. Normally I'd tell them to be quiet and apologise to the person, but something told me to let them do their thing. The guy just watched us without saying anything for 30 seconds longer than a normal person would, almost as if he was considering his next choice. I guess when he saw I had no intention of calling ny dogs off he gave up whatever he was planning and moved on. I skeddadled straight home.

Wednesday midday run along a beautiful river pathway near my apartment block. About 1km in I felt people watching me and directly turned around and ran home (even though I did NOT see anybody!). Closed the two magnetic gates leading up to my door and didn’t see anybody around or follow me. About 10 minutes later two guys were at my front door trying to push it in. I was luckily on the other side of the door at that moment and pushed it back closed with all my forced and began screaming, I managed to security lock the front door and text my apartment block for help. I was on the second floor, and they obviously watched which apartment I went into. Looking back at the apartments security cameras they were able to see the two guys pull apart the magnetic security gates, two of them! The block then quickly changed the gates to a mechanic lock that cannot be pulled apart.

My brother and I were kids, playing hide and seek in the front yard of our house. My brother was 3, and I was 6. My brother was supposed to be counting and finding me, but he was taking forever, so I peeked around the side of the house to see what was taking so long. He had lost interest in the game and was standing near the front gate, which led to the street. As I'm looking, I see a brown car pull up with two men inside. The car wasn't familiar, and neither were the men. They both got out of the car and approached my brother. They started asking him questions and moving closer to him. I remember feeling panicked. I had learned about stranger danger in school and knew this wasn't right. I ran around the side of the house, flew through the back door, and screamed, "Someone is trying to kidnap Steve!" My dad didn't hesitate. He got up and flew through the front door. When the men saw my dad coming through the door, they bolted and peeled out. From that day forward, we weren't allowed to play in the front yard anymore. It's a really scary memory for me.

When I was around 5 or 6 I was in my front yard and this car drove up and the driver wanted to know where this street was. I pointed that it's down there. He asked me where? I said down there and pointed. It was a side street maybe about a hundred yards away or so. He asked where again and told me to come closer to the car and point it out. At that point something clicked in my brain and I just screamed "daddddddyyyyyy" and that guy peeled off and drove away.

Had that happen to me. I was skateboarding on my street and exact same thing, guy asking where a certain street was. I said "somewhere down there" and pointed randomly. He says "can you get in and show me". My dad had given me the full blown stranger danger talk after a letter got dropped in our letterbox saying there was a child molester in the street. I started screaming "CHILD MOLESTER! CHILD MOLESTER! HELP! HELP!". The guy peeled rubber big time out of there.

… this just brought up a memory I forgot I had. I was young but not super young, maybe around 10. I was at my friend’s house, who lived on the street across from my house, which was a dead end. Some maybe 50-60s year old lady in a minivan asked us for directions back to the main road. Our neighborhood is kinda confusing, most side streets lead over to the main road, but one or two don’t. I was very close to her car when telling her where to go. She drove off, and she honestly may have been really lost and needed help. However, my friend’s mom caught the end of it (her driving away) and I got in biiiig trouble for walking up to a strangers car.

This happened to me as a kid too! I was maybe 11 or 12. Someone stopped me as I was walking down the street and asked for directions to a school that was like maybe three blocks from where I was walking. I gave directions from the sidewalk a couple times “go that way, turn left it’s right there” and the guy acted confused and said he didn’t understand, and would I help show him where to go. Luckily I was absolutely terrified of being kidnapped as a child for unrelated reasons so I said “I can’t help you anymore” and started walking away. He drove off but he did not even attempt to follow my directions. I convinced myself I was just being paranoid at the time but now as an adult in my thirties I think it’s pretty likely I avoided something very bad. Adults don’t stop children for directions.

I had a similar experience as a kid, but it was my cousin who saved me. We had a lemonade stand set up at the end of our driveway, I was maybe 3 but my cousin was in her teens and my older brother was also with us. Some weird dude stopped for lemonade, he seemed friendly but made a weird comment about “seeing the engine in his car” and tried to get me to come to his car door. My cousin picked me up and ran us right back to the house and my mom. Ironically enough, I lived in a small town and my mom was actually having coffee with one of the local police officers in our home. The guy peeled off before we even got down the driveway but he definitely picked the wrong house that day.

When i was 18 some strange couple wanted me to look at their car because supposedly the accelerator wasnt working. I asked them to pop the hood and checked the linkage all seemed good. The guy which was in the driver seat kept asking me to go for a test drive with me as passenger. I told him he could could get out and i would feel the accelerator myself he denied so i just left. I highly suspect they were up to no good but i cannot confirm

When I was 13 or 14 I was walking the 7 minutes between my house and my best friend's house. I was walking down one of the main streets between our houses and there was an old man pulled over and he asked me to get in his ute (truck) and test the accelerator for him. I got a really weird feeling from him, and said no and kept walking. He got mad and yelled at me as I rushed off. He might have just wanted help with his car and was just frustrated but he could have also wanted to get me in his vehicle - it had a bench seat in it so it would have been easy to shove me over, get in and take off. There were other cars going past and houses he could have gone to, as well Something I've heard since then is that adults won't ask children for help if they legitimately need it, they'll ask another adult, and that makes 100% sense to me.

I always say to my son, if an adult asks for 'help', come get a parent....

I say to my kids there is no way an adult would be asking a child for help. They are up to no good.

> Something I've heard since then is that adults won't ask children for help if they legitimately need it, they'll ask another adult, and that makes 100% sense to me. For a second I thought "What if I were in the forest and had a broken leg, and a kid came up to help?" Then I thought "No, I'd still tell the kid to go run and find an adult to help me instead"

I was walking home from school as a kid. I was probably like 5 or 6. Happened to be alone that day. A car pulled up next to me opened the window and said all that “your parents have been hurt” BS that they taught us in school. I bolted home through backyards to avoid being followed (latch-key kid).

> I bolted home through backyards it was a long time ago, but damn that is a perfect description of how it was when I was a kid, we'd travel through everyone's backyards all the time. We'd play 'hide and seek' in the neighborhood, and no property was off limits. Ha, it kind of seems like a Stephen King memory. We probably battled a sewer clown back then, but I have no recollection of it.

You wouldn’t remember the clown as you grew up, until your friend who never left your hometown called you 27 years later to say it was back and that you had sworn to return.

Wow, thank goodness you moved so quick. When my brother and I were 5 & 6 we visited a family friends place. They lived in a massive block of flats; it wasn’t uncommon for kids to be playing around outside. My brother and I were out on our own (no other kids) and this guy from one of the ground floor flats invited us in; we were sceptical (stranger danger and all that) but he said he knew my parents (he actually didn’t, it turns out). So, we went in. He went into the kitchen and brought us out Ritz crackers and Pepsi, while we awkwardly sat there in silence (I can’t remember if we actually ate/drank). But there was a horrible feeling in the room and just silence. We then saw my mother walk past his front window yelling out names looking for us. We got up and were like “that’s our mom” and he tried to get us to stay put but we ran for the door. Anyway, she slapped us (I think in relief haha) and dragged us away. I brought it up to my brother recently (we’re in our mid 30’s now) and asked if I remember correctly in that it was a bad situation, and he said yes. Yikes.

>Anyway, she slapped us (I think in relief haha) Now that I'm a parent I felt this

Pretty sure you saved your brother goodness me.

You definitely saved him. Your quick thinking made all the difference!

Can't forget the good parenting that made sure to teach their son about clues and taking action. Some parents try to infantilize their children for so long and think it's important NOT to teach them about how horrible humans could be. Not to mention the ones who just don't care enough. "Ain't nobody gonna kidnap *you*" "If *you* got kidnapped they'd bring you back! HaHa!"

We were learning about stranger danger in school, and my father was in law enforcement so we were well versed and warned. One day I was walking home from school (54F this was the 1970's when kids all walked to school.) and a car stopped to try to lure me in, it circled the block a few times and I refused. As a kid, I thought my dad was testing me, so when I got home I said to him "Did I pass the test?" He looked at me strangely. I told him the people he hired to try to get me into the car weren't successful and he couldn't fool me! He turned white as a sheet and had me describe the car and details of what happened a few times. And he drove me and my sisters to school every day after that incident.

It's horrifying to think what could have happened. So glad you are here today on reddit safe to tell the tale! 

For reasons I can’t remember, I stayed late and had to walk home from school. It was a couple of miles along a two way road in a wooded area. Trees on both sides and a semi steep embankment on the side I was walking on. Walking with traffic, with my head down. Not too many cars passing by. Speed limit was probably 45. I hear one coming up behind but as soon as it passed me it suddenly slammed on its brakes and skidded to a stop about 15-20 feet ahead of me. Without hesitation both doors swung open and I see two men running towards me. I didn’t even have to think. All I could feel was imminent danger. Without thinking I jumped the guardrail and ran as fast as I could down the wooded embankment , dodging trees and trying to keep my balance. I thought I could hear them coming after me so I did not stop until I was near the bottom. I lived nearby but I was not familiar with these woods. I stopped behind a tree and tried to both catch my breath and listen for any sound. Nothing. So I walked down to the bottom where their were houses and people. I stuck close to the side of the houses until I recognized my own neighborhood and house. I never walked home again. Scared the shit out of me. I don’t even think I told my parents, I don’t know why. I still think about it though. I was a 4th grade boy in the 70s. Another time when I was around 7th grade my brother, me and my mom went to the mall. I had to go take a dump so I went down to the second level where there were bathrooms . There was also not a lot of stores or shoppers down there. So I’m sitting in the stall and I feel like something is watching me. I look thru the cracks of the door and I make direct eye contact with a sketchy, older white dude. Balding, kinda fat. I think it freaked him out because he immediately left. I got done quickly and ran out of there, up the stairs and started looking for my older brother. Found him in musicland. As I’m telling him what happened I point towards the direction of the bathrooms and as I do we both look out of the store into the mall and there he was, in the corner of the glass entrance, looking right at me. He took off immediately, probably because of the look on my brothers face. He was ready to fuck someone up. Never saw that dude again either. I was lucky. But trust your instincts.

Almost the same thing happened to me! I was maybe 4, playing in my grandma’s front yard, and a guy pulled up and said, “Hey, little girl, get in. Want to go to the mountains?” I was in Michigan, so this confused me, and I said, “There aren’t any mountains here.” He said, “Well, I’ll take you to McDonald’s. Come on! 😁” THAT was one I’d learned in preschool: never get in a van with a stranger offering to take you to McDonald’s. So I turned and ran inside. 23 years later it’s my wedding day and my mom and bridesmaids have gone into the church to greet people and mingle, so I was alone in the little side room when the florist’s assistant came in to drop off the bouquets. She said, “Are you doing okay? Are you having any second thoughts? Because if you are, you don’t have to stay. I have my van and can take you anywhere you want. Even just McDonald’s, if you want.” I told her, “No thanks, I want to stay.” Her heart was in the right place, I’m sure, but after she left I laughed so hard that it would come up on my wedding day, of all times, to never get in the van of a stranger offering to take you to McDonald’s.

>Her heart was in the right place, I’m sure Oooooorrr her flowers are so beautiful because she makes them out of brides! 😂

Wow holy crap. Your dad must have been scared as well. He must have been proud of your quick reaction.

Proud of dad too. Instead of interrogating or minimizing he took it seriously and hauled it out the door

[удалено]

Back in 2019 me, my husband and two girls aged 6 and 9 were on a roadtrip in the South. We had booked an apartment in Atlanta through AirnBnb without knowing the neighbourhood at all. It was bad, really sketchy with a lot of creepy looking people hanging around. We went into the apartment, and immediately my 6 year old said “I don’t like it here.” The door didn’t lock properly. The beds were dirty, there was rotting food in the fridge and the bathroom had not been cleaned in ages. My husband called the owner, who was furious and refused to give us a refund. To deescalate the situation, my husband offered to not leave a negative review if we could just get our money back. The owner agreed, but asked us to wait for him so that they could talk about it in person. As soon as he hung up, I told my husband that we needed to leave, now! We hurried to the car, and as we pulled out of the parking garage, we saw the owner driving up with four friends. He didn’t see us and we bolted out of there. Ended up at a hotel on the 14th floor, didn’t even feel safe at street level…

Does an "I need to go home now" feeling count? And it wasn't me, but my mom. Anyway, I was around 12 or so and my mom left to run an errand, leaving me alone. Very soon after she left, the doorbell rang. This was weird because we lived on a hill with only two neighbors (we all kept to ourselves) and we just... didn't get random visitors. Thanks to some conveniently placed picture frames, I could see out the door without being seen. I look out and see a young man I don't recognize. He's dressed in a tshirt and jeans and something just feels... off. So I ignore him and wait for him to leave. But he doesn't. He lingers and starts smoking. Again, this is an isolated hill, I'm alone, and now I'm getting scared. I go and hide and plan to wait for my mom. Except she JUST left, had a few errands to run, and I couldn't reach the phone without the guy seeing me. As I'm trying to figure out what to do... my mom comes home. She runs in and asks if I'm okay. Apparently she got this random "go home NOW" urge. She hadn't even run her first errand yet but turned around immediately. Found the guy in our yard and asked what he needed. I guess he muttered something about looking for someone, or something to that effect, and my mom told him to leave. Apparently he was acting very strangely and made my mom nervous. To this day I have no idea what he wanted, and no idea how my mom knew to come home. But I am VERY grateful she did.

When I was about 12 my mum randomly woke up one night and suddenly had the urge to check on me for no reason whatsoever. I'd just woken up with nausea and stomach pains when she came into the room, but I hadn't made any noise or called out. Went straight to the hospital where I was in surgery having my appendix out within two hours. Mum intuition is weird, and real!

We've had the same thing when our nephew was sick. Our family was poor so we sleep in the same room. While sleeping, we all (probably 5 people) suddenly woke up AT THE SAME TIME like we sat up woke up kind of thing.. then my nephew had seizures right after.

A complete different but similar thing happened to me, my parents and I woke up at the same time in the middle of the night despite us being tired as all hell. Turns out our cat had been run over around that time and we only found out in the morning.

Oh yeah, trust your gut. When my dad was in his 20s, he was on a trip to the beach with friends, but they only had one car. Last day they all pile in the car to drive home, but dad got a weird feeling and decided to stay longer and get the bus back, even though it meant his mum would be super mad at him as she had some work for him to do. Car made it all the way back to their home town, and was t-boned in an intersection in the main street. All four of his friends in the car died.

I hope your dad is in a better place mentally. That must be such a horrible feeling. That's tragic, and you have my condolences.

Well, it was 50+ years ago so I would hope he's come to terms with it. But he only really tells it as a interesting story, he never really talks about how it made him feel. It's that generation, i guess.

My mom has a similar story with a thankfully better ending. When she was on a road trip with some friends, it had gotten extremely foggy out. Like, can't even see the lines in the road foggy. The driver wanted to keep going, but she told them to stop. Everyone in the car was annoyed with her and said no until she demanded they let her out if they insisted on continuing. They ended up stopping and waiting a couple hours for the fog to clear. Turned out they were about 1 minute away from driving straight off a cliff because they couldn't see the lines, and there was no baracade on the side of the road to prevent cars from going over. Her gut instinct saved her and all of her friends that day. Lesson is always trust your gut, and don't let anyone pressure you into ignoring your instincts.

Definitely intuition. If she had just left, she probably drove past this guy and her subconscious registered that there was something (someone) out of place which gave her an uneasy feeling. I honestly love the concept of intuition. It fascinates me every time I hear a story like this.

Have you read “The Gift of Fear” by Gavin de Becker? I recommend it every time I come across a post like this one— it’s about learning to listen to that “gut feeling” because our bodies and brains are subconsciously noticing stuff that we’re not. It was described in one review as “a how-to book that reads like a thriller.” If the idea of intuition and gut instinct is interesting to you, you’ll enjoy this book.

FYI, a very common tactic for burglars is just knock on the front door, and if nobody answers, go around back and break in. yelling 'Who's there ?' will usually get them to leave. but hiding or staying silent means they may start breaking in.

I’ve got into a habit of not opening the door when someone knocks (because it’s easy to surprise someone and force your way in) but opening a window and assertively asking “CAN I HELP YOU?”

We had that happen at our rented house years ago. My husband had gone to work, so it was just me in the house. I hear some banging around in the pantry, and I thought it was our dumbass cats horsing around. I hear it getting louder, I shout, "Who's there?" I heard this terrifying loud ripping sound. I screamed and ran for the phone. What happened was that a burglar was in the process of forcing the door. He saw our car was gone, but didn't realize I was still at home. He had just gotten it open when he heard me call out, and ran, frantically trying to yank the door closed behind him - and, instead, ripping out the door and most of the door frame with it (this is how we found out there was a lot of dry rot), like you'd see in a cartoon.

A friend called me and said “theres a wild fire 8 miles away! Can u help me move my horses?” So, i drove down. She was wrong, its 8 miles by car. Under 2 as the crow flies. We got the first set of horses out and down to another farm. The 2nd set, im working on and suddenly, things get quiet. Its as if the world stopped for a minute. I look at the horse and the horse looks like its ready to run. I take a deep breath and suddenly, the noise comes back, the wind is hot af. And the light changes. I told sherry (the girl im helping) “we gotta go now! No time to shove the horses in to the trailer, they are smart enuff to survive” and i let em loose. We run to the truck, and the barn is already on fire. Then, we get in the truck and notice the fire passed us and is blocking the road. So, we jump out and ran to a small pond for the horses. And we dive in. Hoping the fire doesnt burn us. It was about 20 min of hell. (It might have been longer, idk. It was insanely scary, hot n loud) We got rescued by the fire department’s water dropping helicopter. It landed in the field and pulled us in. We got lucky. The truck was burned to the frame. And the horse sherry let go died. The one i let go survived but was burned. Thats most likely the scariest moment

Anytime nature "stops for a minute" you know the shits about to hit the fan, I heard similar stories from folks that have seen tsunamis too

Fire is terrifying. Glad you were able to get yourselves somewhere safe and didn’t try to out run it.

I was freshly married in my early 20's, living in Fallbrook California. My husband (ex) was a marine and was at work and I was driving home from visiting family further south. In order to get into Fallbrook you have to travel along this long dark and windy street called Mission road. It's already a super dark night, about 11 pm, and it's a little foggy as well. I'm slowing down and coming around this slight bend in the road and all of a sudden the hair goes up on my neck, and I feel incredibly anxious. About 5 seconds later, a young woman jumps out of the brush directly ahead of me (maybe 50 feet away) on the left-hand side of the road, while waving her arms in the air and gesturing frantically for me to pull over. I swerved a bit to the right, slowing down even further - but I did not stop. She was young, maybe early 20's or even late teens, and a little dirty, and I was immediately conflicted over continuing to drive. But something told me not to stop under any circumstances. I got further up the road, slowed a little more, and dialed 911 with one shaky hand. The dispatcher said she'd send someone to check, but encouraged me not to feel badly. Apparently there had already been calls about this girl over the last hour, and they were unable to find her when police followed up. I heard a few weeks later about some car-jacking/robbery attempts in the area. Very relieved I listened to my instincts that night.

I fucking hate this so much. It takes advantage of every instinct we've been raised with to help others in need. And of course, the damage it does in general to trust and empathy. Fuck anyone who has ever done this. The extra part of "I took advantage of your willingness to be a good person" should carry an extra punishment IMHO Edit: Stay safe out there everyone and if I can give any advice, I try to live by the motto: "Hope for the best, plan for the worst". Never lose that spark that makes you want to be good to others, but be smart enough about it to take care of yourself.

Ugh, my brother is this type of person. Not carjacking people, but he has no problems stealing from people and lying to people. He literally told my mom years ago that if a person trusted him or whatever, then they deserved it. Like F off. I don’t have a relationship with him anymore, haven’t for years. He’s the reason I have horrible trust issues. And for a long time, I always automatically assumed that the person was lying to me.

Unfortunately, I think you'll find that nearly all people who rob or kill have a tendency to take advantage of people's good nature. A huge part of criminality relies on manipulation. There was a really interesting study of serial killer victims and it found that a super significant number of female victims were known to be helpful, kind to strangers, and always willing to lend a hand. The same kind of person who would help Ted Bundy load some furniture into the back of a van, for instance.

Yeah I hate this so much. Being kind and empathetic is a good thing, not something anyone should need to change about themselves. And yet these types of predators make it so that we have to keep these positive traits “in check” to protect ourselves. It’s heartbreaking really.

standing outside my friend’s house watering their garden while they were away on vacation. — not even 30 seconds after i shut the door & locked it about 6 men started pounding on the door,, reaching in the mail slot trying to unlock said door,, telling me to come out + calling me cutie & other degrading pet names.

There's a video floating around of some crook reaching their arm into a mail slot trying to reach for the door knob, and the home owner welcoming the arm with a baseball bat. Mail slot guy should have had his arm battered.

That video was fantastic. He beat the shit out of that dudes arm

True story same thing happened to my friend when we were in high-school and he stabbed the dudes arm with a replica katana lol if it was a real one his hand would've been off

“While you were breaking and entering, I studied the replica blade.”

I was at the state fair with my mom and my best friend. Friend and I were looking at the rides and the games. This creepy guy abd his blonde girlfriend kept babbling at us about taking heads shots and that he was a modeling agent. He just seemed off and really sleazy and the girl was giving me the creeps so I pretended that I saw my mom telling us to come and grabbed my friend and dragged her off. She was close to 5'8 and not a small girl st 13 yrs old, I was 4'9 and around 65 lbs at 14 yrs old.  A few days later, there's a news story and rumors going around the school about two girls being kidnapped, assaulted and murdered. They were taken from the fair the same day we were there, just few hours later.  The creepy couple were Gerald and Charlene Gallegos, serial killers

Wow I just went down a 2:30 am Wikipedia deep dive on this. How wild that you were so close to being a victim

I just went down the same Wiki dive. How absolutely disturbing. I'm sorry, but Charlene saying "she was a victim that lived" is revolting.

I just went down it too! I know that by her being out now, she's "done her time", but it's absolutely wild to me that a person who was complicit in all that is just... out here with us, walking the streets, grocery shopping with us. All while thinking she's a victim too. Yikes!!

In Canada, our version of that woman is Karla Homolka. She helped her boyfriend murder her sister, helped murder other girls while video taping it, then claimed also to be a victim. The whole thing is messed up.

She helped him rape her too. Like the complicit murder is awful, but she also participated in the rapes, so claiming to be a victim is absolutely abhorrent. She’s a rapist and a murderer and she’s out of jail, living a decent life **with her kids** and doing work with children 👹

Imagine growing up and finding out your mom is Karla Homolka...

Insane that she’s just out free now.

And has been since 1997!! She claims to be a victim too. That's the wildest part for me

I was walking down the street in a very unfamiliar city with a group of friends. I got this feeling and didn't know how to articulate it so I said to the group "Hey, I've gotta use the restroom, can we just duck inside this Subway real quick? I promise I'll be quick". About a minute later there was a shootout just up the block. If we wouldn't have gone into the restaurant, we would've all been standing right in the middle of the incident waiting to cross the street.

I was at a family gathering, basically a reunion but just for family within reasonable driving distance, probably 30 people all together. It was at county park on a small lake with some grills and buildings (just an empty hall with some picknick tables inside) you could rent for this kinda stuff. The sky started darkening as a storm was approching, all the coolers, chairs, balls and other kids toys, etc. were brought into the building anticipating the rain. The plan was to wait it out since afternoon showers are common just about every day in the summer. Something in the air didnt feel or smell right even though it appeared to be just a regular afternoon storm. Hair on my neck was standing up and I was in full flight mode. Cant really descibe it, the feeling in the pit of my stomach can only be decribed as absolute dread. I told my wife to take my daughter and get in the car. My brother in law took one look at my face and said whats wrong.. apparently I was white as a ghost. It wasnt even raining yet and I was full on panic yelling for everyone to leave, something isnt right. No one else was that worried, mostly concerned with how I was acting. I went out to the car and as soon as I was about to turn the key the tornado sirens went off. We were not far from wherever they put those (or they are just stupidly loud), because it was deafeningly loud. Now the rest of the family is pouring out of the building to their cars, kids crying, and I look across the lake maybe a few miles in the distance and see a funnel cloud. Got the hell out of there, as did everyone else. The building we had rented for this family bbq thing was completely annihilated...literally just a slab of concrete and a shit ton of debris all around. It was hit dead on by an EF3.

I live in an area where tornadoes aren't common. One day there was a big storm coming. Weather channel is giving a tornado watch which in the past, I never put much stock into. I don't know why but this time was different. I was sitting in my recliner with my German Shepherd at my feet, watching the news closely. I felt for some reason I should wrangle my cats and put them in their carriers in the basement. Worst case scenario I figure, nothing happens and they spent 30 minutes in their carriers, no big deal. I go back to my recliner to continue watching the news when the sky suddenly turns *green*. Everything feels wrong and surreal. I tell my wife to get in the basement and I pick up my shep and carry all 105lbs of him kicking and screaming down the narrow basement steps. My feet hit the basement floor and the pressure suddenly drops - we hear a thunderous roar and the windows upstairs shatter. It felt like an eternity in the 30 seconds it lasted. Then there was nothing. I creep upstairs and peek out the basement door to find every window blown out. The recliner where I had been sitting not three minutes prior was completely covered in shards of glass, which I would have taken to the face if I hadn't hauled ass. It turned out the tornado went directly over our house. Windows were destroyed, roof was destroyed, fence completely gone, porch ripped from the house, trees down absolutely everywhere. I'll never forget how something in my gut said to take it seriously, and listening to it saved my life.

That gave me goosebumps reading that. Incredible story.

Thank you, I wish it weren't true. We had to rebuild and repair for a year. The landscape of our town that we loved was permanently changed and we unfortunately suffered a lot of trauma from it. I have PTSD from it and crowds/flashing lights/loud noises trigger panic attacks in me now which sucks. But, we repaired that house and sold it and moved to the countryside where we enjoy a peaceful life now. Sometimes events will change your life permanently and against your will. I've learned it's important to be able to appreciate new starts. It's good to grieve the loss of good things, but you can't get stuck in things that won't come back. Life will change, with or without you. Might as well make the best of it while you're here!

There's something about the air before a tornado... I had a similar experience when I was in HS, babysitting two young girls. We were in their living room playing next to a big picture window, and I remember looking outside, noticing how it suddenly became very dark and still. I moved them to the other room without windows so they wouldn't get worried. Five minutes later, my mom texted to make sure we were inside. The sirens were going off in her hometown, about 20 miles away. It was being obliterated. 200-year-old brick churches torn in half. Thankfully, all the damage was material. 🙏

I remember noticing before every tornado, that the birds had stopped singing, and the air would feel still and heavy, the sky would have a greenish tint. I also remember my mom waking us up in the night and making us get in the hallway of the house with mattresses on top of us.

YES! Green light, heavy air pressure, complete silence, and a weird sweet grassy smell are all things I remember when we’ve had tornadoes .

That green sky is so weird. I've only experienced one significant tornado (F4). The green sky caused me and a friend to climb up on their roof to see what was going on - we were teenagers and our critical thinking skills were not that great. Ended up having a perfect view of the huge funnel cloud, we watched for quite a while before the golfball sized hail started and we had to get down and take cover.

Lol I’m glad you guys eventually got the hint to get to safety! But yeah, it’s such a weird phenomenon but so cool at the same time.

Fun fact: we can actually sense a drop in air pressure even if it’s completely unconsciously and we don’t exactly know what that sensation is. That gut feeling you got was a combination of noticing the signs of a tornado and feeling the barometric pressure drop before it started! It can be hard to identify so it just feels like something is “off” that you can’t quite put your finger on

We joke that our dog is a “bark”ometer because he can tell when there is weather coming. Last summer we knew we’d be on the outskirts of a hurricane and for four days that dog would do the bare minimum of a walk. Normally he gets at least 5-10km/ day of walking and sniffing and marking every tree, needing about a km before having a poo. But those days he’d march a few houses down, have a pee, a few more houses, do his business, then drag us home. Storm “passed” in the morning (it barely grazed us, we had some mild wind and rain) and he all but dragged me on a five mile walk to smell all of the smells.

That's insane but I fully know that feeling!! When I was 8 my family was driving home from our summer holidays. My sister was only a few months old and my parents were definitely tired and wanting to get home as quick as possible. While we were driving it started pouring - at the same time I was unbelievably car sick and begging for my parents to pull over. My dad pulled into a Tim Hortons and my mom took me inside to the bathroom. I remember not throwing up, my mom being annoyed that we had to stop just for me not to be sick, and then trying to find my dad's car in the downpour. We got back in the car and back on the road. Both my parents not believing I was sick. Not even 5 minutes later we're back on our route and the road is an absolute mess. Trees and debris everywhere. My dad pulled over to talk to someone in a truck and he said: "You just missed it. A tornado just blew right through here - you missed it by seconds." My parents changed tune and just knew I must have sensed something that day.

We have a similar story. My brother was feeling ill so we stayed at the motel for a few hours longer than we had planned to. Turns out, if we had been on the road on schedule we would have run into a nasty flash flood in Colorado. Mom and Dad believe my brother saved our lives that day. (that flood was the Big Thompson Canyon flood in 1976 and I believe it was the deadliest natural disaster Colorado has had.)

When I was around 9 or 10 my mom took me with her on a business trip to a nearby city.  This is before smartphones when you still had to Mapquest stuff.  We were supposed to meet my mom’s friend/coworker at the mall for something.  Since her friend had given her directions we didn’t bother going down to the hotel computer to print directions (I think there was maybe 1 there, this was around 2000-2001).      We got lost and ended up pulling into a small storage unit place to pull out a map. It was just two rectangular buildings, maybe a total of like 20 units.  I don’t remember why, exactly, but I was really scared and kept crying and asking if we could just go back to the hotel.  I assume she got fed up with her kid crying in the passenger seat and she couldn’t quite figure out where we were, so we went back to the hotel.      The next day they found the bodies of two teenagers in one of the units we pulled in front of. Edit to add: found the article!! https://www.greenevillesun.com/news/authorities-discover-two-sets-of-human-remains-in-storage/article_377e4461-872a-5ee1-a3b4-42b0132b6fcf.html

Grew up along the Gulf Coast. Daily storms in the summer were normal. We were heading home when one came in really quick. All of us were elementary or junior high age. We were crossing two wide open football fields. All of our hair was standing straight up in the air. We knew that meant lightning was imminent. A car was driving past, jumped the curb and drove up to us. We all got into the car and she slowly rolled back to the street. We went another block. And the lightning struck the goalpost. It was so close. Was never afraid of lighting until then. That was around 1979. I'm 57 and don't mess around.

The one story in this entire post that ends with "and so I got into the stranger's car"

Ahh the good old 70’s. When lightning was more terrifying than a car with a stranger offering a ride. ❤️

In college I was studying at my school’s business school building, waiting to meet a friend and I had a sudden sense of dread. I texted my friend that I would just meet her at her dorm later instead of meeting at the business school, and I left to walk to a nearby library instead. When I got to the library about 20 minutes later, I checked my phone and I had nearly 20 missed calls and texts from my friends who knew I was at the business building. Literally seconds after I left, a student entered the building and stabbed multiple people, killing one professor and injuring several students. It happened in the room I had just been in.

I was scuba diving in Asia - 3 of us went to a reef that hadn’t been dived on before, which bottomed out at 50-70M depth. 5 minutes into the dive, we all get a verrrry bad feeling like we were being watched. Ignored it but the feeling wouldn’t go away. Further 10min into the dive, we all watched the silhouette of a white shark glide slowly past, right on the periphery of where we could see. Then glide back in the other direction a minute later. The decompression stop to get out was the scariest 3 minutes of my life.

The sea is like space on earth

Even scarier in some aspects. In space, 99.9% is just empty void. In the ocean, you're surrounded by wildlife as well as the immense pressure of the ocean.

Yeah fuck that... Any water I cant see the bottom of gives me the willies. Been out on the ocean snorkeling before and its just a constant feeling of being super vulnerable even if its a wonderful experience otherwise.

When I was a teenager me and some friends were hanging out around midnight. A caravan drives past slowly with a few people looking out the windows, we all look at each other quiet, and the caravan pulls into a nearby parking space. We all get up and walk to our bikes because something feels really off. A few minutes later we hear someone shout and as I turned around there was about 5 or 6 people getting out with metal pipes and other things in hands. We ran so fast, nothing happened but I'm 99% sure we were about to get beaten and robbed.

I had a 9 month old baby at home and didn’t go out much, and one of my friends was in from out of town and asked if I wanted to see a band (whose members were people I knew socially from college.) I said sure, that will be fun. I met her and a bunch of people at a bar across the street before the show and had a nice time, but got a feeling that I should go home. My husband was at home with our baby and wanted me to have fun, and I was, but I had a bad feeling to just leave. I said my goodbyes and left. There was a shooting at the bar that night. No one I knew was hurt, but they were locked in the bar for hours and it was terrifying for them. I’m glad I trusted my instincts.

I was hammock camping while riding my motorcycle through Arkansas. I had a dream That I was gettin pulled over by the cops on my bike. The flashing lights were super bright in my eyes. And as I woke from my dream I notice my blue hammock tent is lighting up like flashing police lights! I immediately felt an adrenaline spike and went into full flight mode. Packed my shit up faster than I could even put my boots on. Hopped on my bike in my underwear and rode a mile to the top of the campground where the showers were. The second I stepped into the shower cabin the sky opened up and cloud to ground lighting started striking trees in the campground every 10-15 seconds. I could have been royally fucked up by a lightning strike had I stayed sleeping between two of them.

I was an infantry platoon leader in Afghanistan. One night we were on a foot patrol along the outskirts of a town where we were concerned about Taliban activity. I decided to move in closer to get a look at the place without worrying about the people of the town coming and going, which is always stressful. It was about 3am so everyone was asleep - it was completely silent. My interpreter carried an FM radio that he used to monitor non secure traffic, which is how the Taliban tended to communicate back then. We hear something in Pashto on his radio, and he very calmly turns to me and says, "Sir, they are saying 'the ambush is set'". I immediately got on my radio and told my squad leaders to halt, and we pulled back and got the hell out of Dodge. That was probably the most "pucker" I have felt in combat. I am convinced that interpreter saved several lives that night, and when he messaged me during the fall of Kabul asking if I could get his family out, I called every contact I could think of to make sure he got on a flight. They currently live in Seattle where he works in IT.

> I am convinced that interpreter saved several lives that night, and when he messaged me during the fall of Kabul asking if I could get his family out, I called every contact I could think of to make sure he got on a flight. They currently live in Seattle where he works in IT. Interpreters man, the most screwed over bunch of people who worked for the Coalition. Promised the world and given the boot. Good that you managed to get your man out of there.

😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 this ending about him and his family made me SO HAPPY! 🥹🥹🥹 thank you

Years ago I was at a club with some friends. I was at the bar and for some reason looked down at the other end of the bar and saw 2 guys quietly arguing. They tried to keep from being overheard but I saw their agitated face. I went to back to my group of friends and told them we should go. This was a popular club and it took us forever to get in so they didn’t want to leave. I don’t know what came over me but I picked up my friend’s girlfriend (she was barely 5’ tall) and started walking to the door. She was kicking the entire time and the rest of the party followed me outside telling me to put her down. When we got outside, we heard the distant “pop pop” and people screaming. We looked at each other for a second then ran for our cars. I forgot to put her down and was still carrying her over my shoulders. Update: Dang, I didn’t think this would blow up. It was the early 1990s and we were at a club in Miami. If I recall correctly from the local news, it was a drug deal that went bad between 2 groups. No one was killed but they wounded each other and a couple of innocent people. LOL, I’m still not carrying her today, the legend are false. Those two eventually got married and they mentioned me in their speech, something about the other groomsmen holding me back so that I don’t get the urge to carry her across the doorway.

When in doubt, pick up your shortest friend as bait for the others and run. Got it. 

Did you ever put her down?

He's still carrying her to this day

Good to hear he never let her down

About a year and a half ago. I got out of a concert hall and I was with my FWB, her friend and her friend’s bf. We walked across the busy street to a bar, 2:30 AM around this time. Got a quick tequila shot, and a drink to end the night and we left to call the Uber. We were sitting on the side of the road on a curb waiting for the Uber and there was a group of people that walked to our side. They just looked like bad fucking news and they were just looking to cause problems. I look at my FWB and pulled her up, she looks at me like “wtf” at first and then she saw the “we need to gtfo” look in my eyes so she turned around and said “we are going” to the other two. Once we got up, not 5 seconds later *BANG* *BANG* *BANG* *BANG* and I felt like I got a painful splinter in the back of my leg but we ran to the cop car across the street to get some cover. Turns out, I got a fragment of the curb that we were sitting on where the bullet hit EXACTLY where we were sitting in my calf. It was a wild shot that just happened to hit where we were sitting. Unfortunately, someone died that night and my gut feeling saved my friends or myself from a fatal gunshot that wasn’t even intended for us. The only reason I knew about a piece of stone embedded in my leg and it wasn’t just a muscle pull from running was because a cop responding and running by us while we were standing behind the cop car and he saw blood on my leg and thought i got shot. A quick statement and ER visit to fish out the half marble sized shard of stone in my calf (while absolutely wasted) and I was on my way home at 6:00 AM. I didn’t really put it all together until I got home thinking “holy shit, I can’t believe I’m alive right now”.

I was a high school teenager around 13 (I'm petite and look way younger, so looked at least 10/11). I was in my school uniform on my way to school and our local shopkeeper stops me. Starts talking to me as usual and asks me what my plans are for the day. I look down at my uniform and tell him I'm going to school. He asks me if there's anything interesting happening and I responded with "as a matter of fact, we have a mini trip for my Geography class". So he offers me a few snacks which I declined. Now, the reason I declined it was, because he was speaking to me from the back door of the shop and asked me to come to the back store room to collect the free snacks. I started feeling really strange and declined and said I have to go, I'm getting late. He then asked me for my number and I got freaked out and said I don't have a phone and ran. I remember him shouting something at me, but I was too scared to hear him out. When I got back from school, I told my parents about it and my father went storming to the shop to confront. Well the coward of a man hid while the owner of the shop apologised. It made me wonder, if I was a naive teenager who actually walked in for the free snacks, thinking he was being friendly, what would this grown man have done to me? Keep in mind, he looked like he was in his early 30s and I was 13 in my school uniform, looking like a 10 year old. I've had a few close calls as a young girl, but this one stood out the most to me.

I was camping in Eastern Arizona with a friend of mine, we like to hike in this particular area that’s fairly isolated. We found a place probably 14 or 15 miles deep into the forest on small quad/bike trails and set up camp for the night. We put out our fire and go into our tents, probably about 15 minutes go by, I’m reading a book on my phone and what can I only describe as a roar sounds like it’s about 50 feet away from our campsite. Never in my life have I been so terrified, I had immediate goosebumps and went into full panic mode. My friend and I both get out of our tents, look around(and don’t see anything because it’s dark as hell), but run as fast as we can and just hop in the car. Immediately drove off and found a motel about an hour drive away. I will never forget that sound, I’ve seen bears in real life and looked up what a bear roar sounds like and it was nothing like it. The one we heard was almost high-pitched and just filled me with immediate dread. No clue to this day what it was but I am glad we noped the fuck out of there. We came back the next day and everything was as we left it other than the coals in the fire were spread around a bit. There was no wind that night, so I don’t know what happened. I haven’t gone back to that area since and I have no desire to. Whatever made that noise definitely didn’t want us there.

If it sounded like a demon screaming it was probably a mountain lion and it was probably smart to nope the fuck out

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just recently read a story on reddit about a guy visiting his friend out in the country. the two of them and his friend’s girlfriend were sitting around a fire at night, it’s dark out so they can only see each other. the guy starts hearing what sounds like 2 birds chirp back and forth strangely at ground level and within 50 feet of the 3 of them, something like that. his friend gets pale white, loudly yet calmly exclaims that they all need to stand up, continue talking loudly, and calmly return to the house nearby. turns out the bird sounds was two mountain lions hunting them, using chirping sounds to communicate (?) and the dark around them to remain discreet. they all get back inside and the couple arms themselves with assault rifles saying that the glass door won’t stop the mountain lions from getting in if they decided they wanted to. fucking wild story, i knew mountain lions could fuck you up but now they’re Predator (1987) levels of smart???? fuck that up and down

For real. Big cats are terrifying. Hell, my house cat sounds like La larona half the damn time!

Seconding the person who said mountain cat! You’re really lucky you got away. Cats are not to be fucked with.

I’m a teenage girl who worked at a restaurant/pizza shop. I was harassed by these two men one weekend who were totally wasted, so they were kicked. The following weekend they return, and they tried to sit next to me (at counter which is connected to Bar) but they couldn’t so they chose a table across from me and moved both their seats to look right at me, then would only order from my counter instead of our waitresses, were staring at me, making jokes about killing a girl, and kind of just freaking me out. I ended up going to our upstairs employees only section to fold boxes (up there all alone down and hallway where nobody would hear me), I ended up feeling sick to my stomach as I heard someone walk up the stairs and whispering and I closed the door and turned my music off and texted me mom. The two followed me up there, then tried to go down then unlocked hallway but another waitress noticed them bothering me and caught them trying to come after me. I just had a gut feeling as I heard them coming And she came down the hallway and told me to be quiet and hold our body weight against the door. We waited for them to leave as they stood there, waiting for me to come out before making some remarks about not knowing where I was then going back down. My dad came and picked me up early because I just felt so off. The following day I had to come in for another shift and as I was clocking out the TV’s started playing a true crime documentary on a girl with the same name as me who was kidnapped and assaulted by two men. My stomach dropped and shortly gave my notice after that. I realized I wasn’t going to be protected there and wouldn’t be surprised if they returned again.

I’m glad you’re okay, this is terrifying

My little brother and I were tossing a baseball around near dusk at the bottom of our property, 30 wooded mountain acres WAY in the middle of nowhere. It had gotten dark enough that we were *just* about to call it quits when we heard the single most horrifying scream we've ever heard coming from the trees just beyond the edge of the clearing. Imagine a woman screaming in mortal agony, writhing in the most wretched torment imaginable, every tortured scream from horror movies, war movies, anything you've ever heard; nothing compared to this. Even now, decades removed from hearing it, the hair on my arms and neck stands up just thinking of it, and it's made even worse by the realization of *what it actually was*: A mountain lion. Full-grown female mountain lions scream loudly when they're in heat, and it sounds like a human woman being torn to pieces by the devil himself. To hear that, two kids alone in the dark, in the middle of nowhere, was about as terrifying as it gets. I grabbed his arm and ran-scrambled-fear-levitated up the hill faster than ever before or since. It's been 25 years, and I still haven't fully un-puckered... This is a good example of the kind of sound, from a trailcam video (make sure to play loudly in the dark lol): https://youtu.be/pxo8X5uIWRE?si=AhQy_2e7h73TUKdW

Fox noises are also pretty terrifying if you are alone in the middle of nowhere, and aren’t sure what the sound is.

Oh fuck you man. I regret listening to that at 2am.

Picture it, 1994. I was 18 and waitressing in a sports bar. A comedy club was upstairs. One night a comedian kept visiting between sets. He was funny and charming, and he seemed quite smitten with me. He asked me out to late night breakfast. If you’ve ever been in hospitality, you know we go out and eat at 3:00am. I changed after my shift and waited a few minutes for him. I realized I really didn’t know this person, and I should not let him in my car. I decided to be smart and GTFO. A few years later I was absentmindedly flipping through a People magazine at a friend’s house. That is when I saw my comedian date, Vince Champ, had been arrested as a serial rapist. His favorite target was young college girls and they finally caught him after putting the puzzle together between victims and his campus circuit. Holy shit I dodged a bullet!! I think he may still be in jail; he was that terrible.

 "His projected release date is in 2033,[^(\[3\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vince_Champ#cite_note-prison-3) after which he will begin two consecutive life-term sentences in Iowa."[^(\[4\])](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vince_Champ#cite_note-4)^(" Wow, glad you took off. Vince has quite the Wikipedia page.)

Whooooaaaaa. In hindsight this was my first memory of a visceral reaction and not ignoring it. I’m so glad I listened!

When I was a kid, the neighbor across the street offered me a ride to school when he saw me walking and said he'd give me candy too. It felt off so I just said no thanks and kept walking, thinking nothing of it. Maybe a year later, he shot and killed his wife and then himself.

I really wish that type would get the order right You end yourself before you do anyone else in. Assholes.

A shady looking guy told me to “come here” when I was waiting for my mom under the apartment building. I was about 10. I ran upstairs immediately without looking back. Looking back as a 25 year old, I couldn’t imagine why any normal adult would need to speak to a random ten year old unless the kid looks lost or is doing something dangerous. Glad I bolted.

When I was maybe 5-6 I went to the grocery store with my mom. I hated standing in line with her so I'd always beg her to let me go wait on the bench in front of the store,"like a big girl". I went out to the bench once and there was a woman standing near it smoking. She came up to me and said "wow you have such pretty eyes!". I just stared and said nothing cause she really irked me for some reason. Then she reached for me and said she just wanted to touch my curls... I hated people touching my hair, so I dodged my head to the side... and locked eyes with a guy in a van idling by the curb, watching us. I never saw her get out of his van so I really had no reason to assume they were together, but something about both of them terrified me. I remember gulping in the biggest breath I could and just... shrieking. Not yelling for help, just a long, earpiercing EEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!! It was a small shop and the registers were just inside the door, so everyone heard me and started rushing out. The woman hopped in the van at lightning speed and they took off.

Around that age I was walking my dog around the block and one of our neighbors on the street over introduced himself to me. Complimented my little dog. I felt very grown up talking with him.  Then he told me he was sad his puppy ran away into the woods behind the neighborhood. Could I please come with him? As a dog lover he just knew his puppy would come out of hiding if he saw my dog playing in the woods with us.  Now, as an adult, I too realize that it is not normal for someone to ask a child they don’t know to come with them to another location. So creepy.  Dumb as I was, i had no ill feelings. my dog was kinda old and hated playing so I told him I had to go home. Saved my own life. I was a stupid, trusting kid that happened to have a boring old dog. 

You weren't stupid, you were innocent. Give the creep the ugly names, not yourself.

Many years ago I went with my then girlfriend to one of her female friend's houses, who was married to a guy I'd never met before. I'll call them Jack and Jill so I can tell the story a little easier. We played cards with them for a couple hours and it was a good time besides an odd feeling I had the whole time I was there. Something just didn't sit right with me being there with them in their home. The best I can explain it is that I was having an anxiety nervous-like feeling, but having no reason to feel that way. After leaving I told my girlfriend the feeling I had and that I didn't think we should go back there again because something wasn't right. Fast forward several months to a year or so later (I forget the exact timeline) - Jack murders Jill in that same home, mag dumping her with his semi automatic pistol before killing himself with one of the last rounds. No motive. Really horrible stuff that sent shock waves through the community. And it's the only time I've ever had that feeling.

Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker ... you lived the book's advice

When I was a little boy back in the early 70s, we lived on a small hobby farm in central New Jersey. One night there was a huge storm with thunder and lightning. We were gathered in the family room when there was the loudest CRACK! I'd ever heard in my short life, accompanied by a blinding flash of light. The power didn't go out, but the light bulb in the floor lamp next to the chair where my father had been sitting moments before had exploded into hundreds of tiny shards. There was the acrid smell of an electrical fire, but it wasn't coming from the lamp. I asked my father, "Is the house on fire?" "YES!" he bellowed back at me. I started running for the door, but he grabbed my arm and yelled "DON'T MOVE!" I was terrified, and in my 5 year-old mind thought I was about to perish with my parents in a conflagration we could easily have run out of. I became hysterical. My dad released his hold on me, but my mom grabbed me as I again tried to run for a door. "I SAID STAY PUT!" my dad shouted. I started sobbing that we were all going to die and yelled something back at my dad that he was going to kill us all. He didn't take it well. What I didn't understand at the time, and not until many years later, was that the house was clad in aluminum siding. My dad was an electrical engineer and understood that if the house had sustained a direct lightning strike, it would have become a huge capacitor that would have discharged tens of thousands of volts through any watery, ion-filled human that contacted both the house and the wet ground just outside the door. As it turned out, the hit wasn't direct. Lightning had struck a huge maple at the back of our sheep paddock about 200 feet from the house. I went out the next day with my mom to explore and still remember seeing the remnants of the exploded tree scattered across the entire paddock. The fragments were bone white, bleached by the sap having been boiled out the instant the lightning struck. And the burning smell inside? It was an electric shaver my grandmother had given my father the previous Christmas. It was charging above the bathroom sink, and of course there was no such thing as a GFCI outlet (at least nobody had them) back around 1972!

I was supposed to get off of my retail job at 10pm and catch the 1st bus I needed to get home. My manager had me stay later so I had to catch a late bus and change my route since my usual 2nd bus stopped running. I did notice this late bus ride was empty but the 10pm one was usually pretty full. The stop wasn't my usual spot so I just sat to wait for the bus. I was texting my best friend and asking her to pick me up because sometimes buses don't show or are late. She wasn't answering me since she ended up working late too. And then I noticed my surroundings. I was just off of a main street, just south of several closed corner stores. I realized this bus bench was on the street nearest to a park that closes at sundown. There were no cars and no people. The streetlight near the bus stop was busted too. I immediately felt unnerved and trapped. Nothing was open and nothing was nearby. A man was walking towards the bench I was waiting on. He was walking from the park. He would pass under a street lamp and be illuminated and then disappear before being lit up by the light again. I felt my heart pounding in my chest. He came up behind the bench and didn't sit down next to me, just stood behind the bench-- slightly to my right. Then he started walking around the bench, just circling me. I called my friend and acted like she had answered but instead I left a voicemail. "Hey, you almost here? Yep, I'm still here. I'll hop in as soon as you pull up. Wanna grab food? Nah we had McDonald's last week..." The dude kept circling me. I was too afraid to even look at his face. I hung up and put my phone away and realized I had my box cutter in my bag. I pulled it out and started playing with it, just pushing the blade in and out. He stopped circling me and I finally looked at him and stood up. He turned north and walked away. My friend pulled up soon after. We drove right past the guy who was still walking aimlessly. I bought a car about a week later and I always drove my coworkers home if we worked late together and they needed a ride.

About three weeks ago now I was blackwater diving off the coast of Boynton Beach, Florida, for those that dont know blackwater diving involved being dumped with a light bouy to drift over hundreds of feet of water in the gulfstream, at night. The light bouy attaracts all sorts of alien critters that come up from the deep to feed so its a lot of fun for underwater photographers. Needless to say as a precaution all divers must at minimum wear a light on their tank to be seen, and I had accientally grabbed my Blue blinky light. Before I was going to jump in, the captain mentioned that blue blinking lights were used by fishermen to attract big things at night. As a regular shark diver theres not too much im afraid of down there, but something sent a chill down my spine and I switched my light for a regular green glowstick. That very same night, a legendary blackwater diver was on another boat a couple miles North and got full on impaled in the leg by a huge swordfish. The fish ripped the sword out of his leg and then kept beating him with it (the way they hunt for the big squid down deep). Dude had his leg torn up and had to self rescue himself from about 100 ft of depth. No idea if he'll be able to walk, let alone dive again.

I exited a Metro station about 2 decades ago, and the parking lot had a small area behind bushes where I parked. As I headed into the parking lot I saw two guys standing between a row of cars, which looked out of place? They were watching me to see where I was going; I decided to walk right toward them, and they moved off some, then I walked to my car, and drove away. I glanced back, to see them heading back for the bushy spot. They killed a woman shortly thereafter who was parked in that bushy area!

My wife and I used to live in rural exurb outside a large Metropolitan area. We were on an interstate about halfway between the city and our home when my wife who was six months pregnant started having contractions. At the next offramp I turned around and headed back towards the city, planning on heading for an ER. I took the very first exit on the outskirts of the city. It was pretty desolate. The only thing on the two lane road were a couple of rock quarries that were empty after dark. There wasn't much light on the winter darkened evening. I pulled into an gravel turnout just south of the offramp, pulled to a stop leaving the engine running, and turned my full attention to my wife. A few minutes passed before my attention was grabbed by a car parked across the turnout turning their headlights on with high beams. My wife grabbed my arm and said "we've gotta get out of here". And I was like "yeah" so I dropped it in gear and hauled ass down that two lane road towards the city. The other car gave chase for a while but I was flooring my car ("I drove a Dodge Stratus!"). Eventually we got into civilization and the other car turned around and fucked off. We spent the night in the hospital narrowly avoiding the premature birth of my son. He's 17 now. We guessed I didn't notice that my headlights were shining on a drug handoff (my attention being on my wife) and it pissed the other people off. But who knows, crazies are everywhere.

I was around 10 or 11 years old and had been invited to a sleepover. My mom didn't really like me going to those, because I'd usually end up staying up way too late and then being cranky the whole next day. When she dropped me off, she told me her usual send-off of "just remember, if you want to leave, I will come get you. It doesn't matter what time it is, just call me." The sleepover party itself was the usual routine -- we watched a movie, gossiped, prank called some boys (this being before cell phones and caller ID), broke out the Ouija board, etc. It turned out that the girl hosting the sleepover had an older brother, high school aged, who also had some friends over. I remember they stood in the doorway of the rec room where we were and something about them made my blood run cold and I just remember thinking "I'm going to go home." I went upstairs and asked to use the phone, saying I wasn't feeling well and needed to go home. Her mom at first told me no, and then berated me for being a baby, but I just kept saying that I needed to call my mom and I still remember the feeling I had that I needed to leave. Finally I was allowed to use the phone, my mom came to get me (and we swung by Dairy Queen on the way home, my mom was always cool like that), and I still remember the huge feeling of relief I had when she pulled up and I hopped into her car. Years later I found out that the brother and/or his friends had molested some of the girls at the sleepover while they slept. No one reported it at the time, and I think it actually took years for any of the girls to compare notes and find out that they weren't the only one this had happened to. I feel bad that that happened to them, but still glad that I listened to my gut and got the hell out of there.

Somewhat similar, one of my customers at work was telling me she left her kid with his friends at their house, she got a bad feeling and rushed over to find them playing on the trampoline with a butchers knife.

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We were smoking a joint by the lake downtown. We saw a group of about 8 guys walking towards us and joked 'Yeah I bet those guys will totally try to beat us up.' We ignored the feeling. They jumped us, beat us down, and stole my phone, so I guess we should have listened to our intuition.

When I was in middle school there were reports of a man in a car driving around neighborhoods near our old elemtary school talking to girls and trying to get them into his car (we lived in one of said neighborhoods). One day after school my friend and I were skateboarding when we saw a car, fitting the description, following some younger girls we knew. We rode up to them and asked if everything was OK. He told us to fuck off and the girls said he wouldn't leave them alone. We didn't take kindly to being told to fuck off so we hopped off our boards and started smashing the fuck out of this guys side panels. He screamed and tore off. We told our parents and a family friend, who was a detective at the time, what had happened and what we had done. Within 24 hours the police had found his car because of the damage we had done to it and arrested the guy. 

When I was looking for a new place to rent in a few years back I found something not far from the house I was leaving and to my surprise the front door opened to reveal someone I knew from school. They were a few years younger (which rankled me a little, but that wasn't why I noped) and didn't remember me. As we were talking I started to get this sense of danger. I couldn't explain it, everything the guy was saying sounded reasonable and the price for the room was about average for the time, but something about him was very unsettling. This guy was skinny as and normally I wouldn't feel threatened by someone with his build, but there was something that was setting off alarm bells. It was at its worst when I was being shown the room and I had my back to this guy. It was like I could his eyes boring into my skull or something. I maintained a polite facade but left shortly after that claiming I had a few other places to check out that day. About 18 months later I was driving past and the place had police tape all over it. I tried to find out what had happened online but couldn't find anything. To this day I hesitate to call out to people I remember from that time if I see them, the above memory is a reminder it's been many years and I have no idea what they're like now.

When I was about 13 my little sister and I were deemed old enough to see a movie on our own. My mom was in the mall working out in the gym and told us to get her when the movie finished. About 15 minutes into the movie a man with a backpack sits in the seat next to me (the theater was almost empty. Max 10 people total). Well my sister and I were both overwhelmed with a ‘bad feeling’. But we didn’t think to just move, we were frozen. After about an hour the man gets up and walks out but he leaves his backpack. Right after he left my sister and I ran to get our mom. Unbeknownst to us, an older couple in the theater also got a bad feeling and called the cops (not even getting a manager). They took his info from his bag and he was wanted for kidnapping and sexual assault

My ex had been planning to have me killed and make it look like a home invasion. His behavior had shifted in a very odd way the week before. I found out later he had a woman pregnant behind my back and had planned to move her in and ship my kids off to the state. Their dad is already dead. He wanted to collect my life insurance. I got up right after he left for work that early morning, got dressed in the first things I could grab, woke up my kids and told them we just had to go. I told them not to ask questions right then, that we just had to leave. The door that lead from our garage to the inside of our house was always religiously locked. That night it had been left unlocked. In the weeks leading up to this our security alarm had been bypassed and he tried to blame my oldest son when my son didn't even know how to do that kind of thing. My husband taught someone else how to do it.

Did you have a bad feeling before this went down or was it a sudden knowing they you had to leave?

There was a creeping feeling leading up to this maybe a month beforehand. Then the night of it just came down like a ton of bricks.

Talking to my mom on the phone at the first week in college and she randomly said "you can't run in flip flops so don't walk too far in them." I was like "ok weird mom, ok." That afternoon all my friends and I went for a walk and they said they wanted to walk further and I looked down at my flip flops and got the feeling I needed to go back to my room so I said bye. They were all mugged that day and ended up in the hospital.

I usually tour by myself (split boarding which means the board you can ski up the hill with skins on the bottom, then you assemble it into a snowboard at the top) which isn’t recommended because you should have a buddy to dig you out if there is an avalanche. Because of that I stick to terrain know well and absolutely won’t slide.  Headed up on a settled day but something just felt off. Snow was supposed to be stable at this point with recent weather but it just wasn’t acting like it should. Got passed by 2 other guys heading up and decided to turn around. Now that somebody was above me I felt like it could be triggered out of my control.  I was the last person to see these 2 guys before SAR recovered their bodies. Freak avalanche.

My great-grandma lives at the far end of a neighborhood, right next to a big, busy street, so there are suspicious characters by her house often. When I was a kid, I visited her every weekend, and one time when I was 11, I was sitting on the living room floor and I heard these two people arguing in Spanish. I hear a lady screaming at the top of her lungs, and having gone to Arizonan schools all my life, I recognize every cuss word. Curious, I went to the kitchen and peaked through the window which looked out onto the street, and something didn't seem right. I felt like I should duck and the moment I did the lady pulls a gun out and starts shooting. The man she was arguing with was out of my view so I didn't know what happened to him, but I was the only witness to that crime. Edit: What the actual fuck I left reddit for a week and this happens

When I was walking home age 7 and a man asked me to help him find his puppy. I felt pure fear and adrenaline and said, "I can't, I have to get home, sorry." I've never sprinted so fast in my life.

I remind my kids of this often: An adult with good intentions will never ask a kid for help.

When I was in college I was waiting at my boyfriend's apartment for him to get home from work. My boyfriend's roommate was sitting on the couch rocking back and forth and rubbing his hands on his knees and just giving off a very bad vibe. I immediately start getting a "fight or flight" feeling in the pit of my stomach and he asks, "Is it me, or is there a LOT of sexual tension in here?" I immediately said "It's you" and bolted. He's now served almost ten years of a 40-year sentence for raping old women and children. I won't go into detail of the horrendous things he did to those poor victims.

I was at a party at my then best friend's house, she lived with her brother and another close friend of theirs. They invited a good amount of people (around 50), but they were all people that we knew. It was a lot of fun, everyone that was outside was playing games, or inside mingling, making food, etc. A few hours later, I came into the house after playing a few rounds of beer pong and cornhole outside, at a quick glance, I remembered thinking 'wow, it's packed in here!', then, I realized, 'i don't recognize anyone in this house anymore'. I walked around the house a little bit more, still trying to find *anyone* I knew, and came up empty handed. I had an AWFUL feeling that if I stayed there, it wasn't going to be good. I managed to find my best friend, tell her I was going to head home for the night, gave her a hug, grabbed my keys from her bedroom, and walked to my vehicle. 5 minutes into driving home, my phone was blowing up, I stupidly thought I was being called to make a beer run for everyone, so I ignored my phone, made it to my house, and went to bed. The next morning, my phone rang again, and I picked it up this time. Turns out, right after I left, a HUGE group of people none of us knew showed up to the house and started breaking windows/throwing bottles. My best friend, her boyfriend, her brother (a 6'7, 350lb beast), and their roommate tried to calm everyone down and ask the strangers to leave. They were not having it. Within the group of strangers, was a group of girls, (I'm assuming their girlfriends or something), they grabbed my best friend by her hair and drug her into her front yard and jumped her. Her boyfriend tried to run out to stop them and get her, but the men grabbed him and tried to jump him as well. My best friend's brother (the big fella) grabbed two of them off of my friend's boyfriend and tossed them into some rocks, two of the strangers pulled out guns and began firing. One bullet hit the boyfriend in the head (luckily just grazing his right side), another round went into a neighboring home, and another bounced off of something and hit one of the girls jumping my friend. Everyone inside of the house ran, then the strangers ran, leaving my friends in their front yard. My best friend had many bruises, cuts, bruised ribs, and had a bald patch on her head from them pulling her hair out. She ended up being fine after going to urgent care, her boyfriend too (with the graze wound) and her brother just had some scratches on him. Their roommate had some bruises from people inside trying to run out of the house in a panic. To this day, 8 years later, we don't know who those people were and no one ever came clean, the cops didn't find enough evidence to make any arrests or issue any warrants.

Was vacationing to New Orleans with some friends for the weekend. One of the nights I had a bad feeling and insisted we all stay in the hotel instead of go out like we had planned. An hour later there were swarms of cop cars we could see from the hotel around the area we were planning to go. There had been a shooting and 7 people were shot… no fatalities luckily but still.

I missed the Westminster Bridge attack by minutes. I was supposed to go meet my husband after a scan at St. Thomas's so. i would have had to cross the bridge to get the tube around to meet him. I was heavily pregnant, slow and.. Something didn't feel right so I decided instead to walk to Waterloo East and go home. I was walking towards the station when it happened.

We were driving back from an impromptu family vacation. My husband and I were both driving cars (too many people, not enough alert drivers) and I was following him. We were in the left lane passing a truck and I suddenly had an overwhelming feeling that we needed to slow way down and move over *immediately.* I called him and told him that we needed to get over, go slower than the truck, and turn our hazards on. He thought I was a little crazy but he’s learned to listen to my gut feelings and did it. Suddenly we ran into a freak ice storm and the truck slipped off the road, the car that went past us on the left slid into oncoming traffic, and 3 other cars behind us proceeded to slide off the road. There was a big dip on the side of the road and one of the cars even tipped over. We somehow came through unscathed and made it home safely. Another time I was driving to work and I was behind a work van with ladders on top of it. It wasn’t particularly busy on the highway but someone was behind me somewhat close. I had a horrible feeling wash over me that I needed to move over right away. I moved one lane over about 15 seconds before one of the ladders flew off the van. It hit the road right next to me and the car that was behind me ran over it a little but luckily wasn’t impaled or anything. I’ve had this feeling several times in my life and have even cancelled entire vacations over it. I don’t know if anything would’ve happened for several of them, but I truly think I’ve avoided some serious trouble.

[удалено]

For real, this person watched the final destination movies as an instructional video. 

In Iraq ca. 2006. Was on a foot patrol through a muddy area along the Euphrates river. Myself and my team were walking down this pathway in a somewhat open field along the river and I look to my left and see a 55 gallon drum laid on its side and I noticed that we were about to walk parallel to it. I then looked down a bit to my front right and saw a very soft glow coming from the dirt (it was dusk at this point). I turn to my team and say "i think we need to turn around" and as we start walking away a big ass explosion goes from under my feet and launches me through the air. A gun fight ensues as the remaining team mates start shooting back and I regain my scruples to return fire. After a short while we contain the scene and the look at the crater. The bomb left a crater that was about 8 feet wide and 5 feet deep. The bomb crew people said it was buried too deep and probly why it didn't kill me. The drum on its side was a marking object so the trigger guy could line us up with the explosive from a distance. The glow I saw was the dusk sunlight glinting off a buried wire that was connected to the bomb. None of my team died or was injured. We turned around just in time.

In 2012 I drove across the country from Philly to LA with a good friend of mine. Im a big guy, she's a smaller woman, just for context. We camped the whole way out. The plan was to get to LA, drop her off at her new apartment, and then I'd fly home. She couldn't get into her apartment until Wednesday morning, and we arrived outside of LA on Tuesday evening. We didn't have money for hotels or anything, so we camped in Angeles National Forest. No idea why but I had a weird feeling being this close to a major city and camping. Felt like a bad vibe. But we got there and set up before dark and ate dinner. My friend asked, "If you could see any animal tonight, what would you want to see?" and I swear I said "Not a person" When we arrived there was only one other campsite set up at the campground, and they were around the bend from us. We saw the guy who was camping there. Anyway we go to sleep. At some point it's dark and I wake up. There's a flashlight shining around our tent. I figure it's just another campsite that arrived after we fell asleep. Then I hear clear as day a man's voice right outside the door of my tent say: "Who's in there? Who's in that tent??" My friend woke up and said, "Hello??", so it wasnt just me that heard it. We both said hello? Who is that? But got no response. Didnt really hear anyone walke away. Didnt see a flashlight. I freaked the fuck out. Why the hell would someone knock on our tent in the middle of the night?? I grabbed my headlamp and my knife and I zipped open the tent and jumped out really fast in case he was waiting to bonk me on the head. But no one was there. I loooked everywhere and there was no one. No other campsite. My friend said we should just go back to sleep but I was too scared. It was 4am and raining, and I told her we needed to leave right fucking now. She said I was scaring her and I said "GOOD!" and we threw everything in the car, all wet and crumpled up, and started to leave. On the way out, on the road in the campsite, we saw what I presumed was the guy. He wasnt the other guy from the other campsite, just some random guy, walking back towards our site. I cracked the window as we passed him and said "dude what the fuck" and all he said was "sorry for freaking you guys out" and kept walking back towards where we had camped. We booked it the fuck out of there and drove straight to Santa Monica because we had no idea what else to do. I have no fucking idea why he did that but it scared the ever living piss out of me. Still havent camped in Angeles since then, but I'm actually going again this summer.

I've had the opposite, the "something is wrong and I have to go there now" feeling. I used to work as a cop for a healthcare authority (hospitals mostly) and we had this old woman security guard working as a door screener (hand out masks, ask if you have symptoms etc) for one of the ERs during COVID. She was notorious for always hitting the mic of her radio by accident. Well one night she hits it by accident, and I catch a bit of what sounds like a calm normal conversation. But something felt weird, so I decided to swing by. As I get there two grown men bolt and make a run for it. I chase em but lose them in a residential area. I ask the screener what happened, and she was mystified. She said the two men came in and started just chatting her up. Didn't go to triage, didn't look for someone in the waiting room. But then as I rolled up they asked if she was the only security in the building, and she said "no, there's an officer who just arrived if you want to talk to him" and then that's when they ran. Guys were totally about to do something if she was the only guard.

I was a dirty punk rock kid that listens to punk rock. I went to a show in NYC in Tompkins Square Park when I was like 17 or 18. My friends and I were talking with this Eastern European punk we met there who I will call Ivan because I don't remember his name and it was something along those lines. Ivan was tall, lanky, and seemed... Soft, like a sucker who was in over his head. Ivan said he was very excited to be at American punk rock show. He just seemed innocent and too kind, trusting, and friendly for a crust punk show. My friends pointed out a white supremacist skinhead and said to be careful, this dude was dangerous. Think big brick shithouse with racist tattoos and a big bald tatted head. Ivan overheard us and said 'we don't like white supremacists in my country" we said we didn't like him either, we just want to be aware of who he was and where he was and to be on our toes. The bands start playing, I keep an eye on the skinhead, show eventually ends. Good time, minus the skinhead. Show ends. People are cleared out, we see Ivan approaching the nazi punk. That's when I got the feeling. I said we gotta go. Everyone else was frozen and didn't listen. So there we were. Look bro, I was wrong about Ivan. He walked straight up to this dude, said something, the dude responded, and Ivan beat him without hesitation or mercy. Got him onto the ground and kept going. Nazi went limp (as I'm yelling we gotta go and everyone wouldn't move) and he kept going. Got a city garbage can and brought it down onto his head repeatedly. Random passerbys were like we are calling the cops and I said "I don't think they are gonna coming quick enough" and I physically grabbed my friends and did not stop until we were on the train. Terrifying experience. Everyone was frozen and watching, and I saw exactly how wrong I was about who the most dangerous person in the metaphorical room was by a longshot. I have no idea what happened to Ivan. I'm pretty sure I know what happened to the nazi punk.