“Watching It Gave Me Chills”: 43 People Share The Creepiest Displays Of Intelligence They’ve Seen In Others

I've been feeding this family of 5 crows for years. They have gotten comfortable enough with me that they'll come get snacks while I'm still sitting next to the food. I can call them with a specific whistle I use just for them, and they make a rattle noise (that sounds like the Predator) with me to thank me for food.

One late night I hear this horrible loud screeching. It woke me up, so I ran outside to see what it was. There was a guy trying to break into a window in my house and the 5 crows were dive bombing him screaming as loud as they could. He ran away.

So I guess I have guard-crows now.

Was at a party and had a sudden mid conversation realization that we were all standing uncomfortably close to each other. My buddies border collie had slowly herded us all to the center of the room.

I ended up working as an adult really close to my family home I lived in since I was born.
The area has always been occupied by Magpies which swoop at you all through summer. For those who don't know, it's terrifying.

At work there was an injured Magpie that we fed and took care of for ages. When it got better enough to roam, it "told" all the other magpies in the area and since then, about a decade ago, all the magpies in the area never swooped any of us who worked at the store again. And Alfred the magpie used to fly beside me when I'd ride my bike to work! And on the way back too, to make sure I was safe. So insane.

Sorry for all non-australians, this will make no sense.

Not creepy, but rather endearing.

If you remember Koko the gorilla, she raised and nurtured a kitten. Well, Koko once accidently broke the sink in her enclosure, then used the sign language her caretakers taught her to tell them her kitten did it.

She learned a language, and used it to lie. Prior to this, no one considered a gorilla's intelligence in this manner.

I heard of an octopus who would break out of its tank at night and eat the crabs in a neighbouring tank. The aquarium staff didn’t understand how the crabs kept getting eaten until they watched cctv and saw what the octopus was doing.

Creepy thing is, the octopus knew to replace the lids and return to its own tank. That must mean it understood the need for deception.

My dog starts barking at the door so I open it to see what’s going on. there’s a border collie sitting there waiting. I go to check on the dog and he gets up and walks a bit away, sits and stares at me. I follow him. this goes on till I’m in front of a house in my neighborhood.

collie stares at the doorbell. I ring it. no one answers. collie stares at the door. I knock, no answer. dog gets up and walks to the side gate and stares at me and then up at the latch. I open the gate for the dog.

the dog walks into the back yard, turns around, sits and stares at me and then at the open gate. I close the gate and watch the dog relax.

dog used me for my thumbs and wouldn’t even let me pet him.

Watching a crow drop nuts on the road so cars would crack them open, then waiting for the traffic light to turn red so it could safely walk out and eat them.

My parents dog learned to open and close their doors. They have doors with door handles not knobs and he very quickly learned he could get on his hind legs and reach them. He didn’t just yank it down. He put one paw on the door frame and the other pushing the handle down and pull back to open. He understood he would have to pull it from the inside to open it and push it from the outside. He also rang the doorbell on multiple occasions to be let inside if he was out too long. I didn’t realize how smart he was until I understood he was communicating through eye contact. I remember sitting on the couch and looking him dead in the eyes while he was sitting on his dog bed and then I looking to the garage door, he huffed and then got up, walked to the garage door and then looked at me like “hey what do you want?”. Only then I realized how smart he was and I felt bad for just treating him like a dim animal that whole time.

That time mom yelled at you for getting into the garbage so you slammed the door on her face will always be a classic.
RIP Gus.

Crows can memorize the specific facial features of a human who wronged them, and they will hold a grudge. But the creepy part is they communicate that face to other crows. You can throw a rock at a crow once, and for the next five years, crows who weren't even born yet will dive-attack you when you walk down that specific street. They literally pass down intergenerational hits.

I worked at a company, where 2 very senior developers spent 4 months writing some software. The whole company had been involved at one time or another to give advice and presentations after presentations. But when they finished it ran really badly it leaked memory and crashed every time it ran,.

One of the other developers was definitely on the spectrum, he could not even manage to shake hands, never spoke in a meeting, conversation was unusual when talking to him. But he said he would fix it and left early on Friday.

On Monday he presented it 100% working and vastly faster. But he had given up on fixing it and just decided to rewrite 4 months of 2 full time developers and he did it over the weekend.

Seeing a crow solve a puzzle box in seconds after watching it once gave me chills, it felt like it was actually thinking things through. Stuff like that makes you realize some animals are way smarter than we usually give them credit for.

One day, my wife really had to use the bathroom, but after going in for a second she came out looking befuddled and said "well I guess I can't use that bathroom...because the cat is using it." Cat had taught himself to use the human toilet. To this day, we have no idea how.

Guy I went to University with was both the most intelligent and most socially awkward person I ever met, I'm sure nowadays he would be quickly diagnosed as being on the spectrum. He was training to be a software engineer and he would be given a program assignment, pause momentarily, then write perfect bug free code in a few minutes. I've never met anyone before or since who can do that. I'm sure these days he's making bank in a very senior position.

And yet, one day I had to help him get out of a bathroom stall because he said the lock was broken. I said what's wrong. He said "I keep turning it and it won't unlock". I said "try the other way?" *click!*. He came out all flustered and stated simply "Locks don't turn that way".

My dog knows how to turn on my wife's heated blanket, and he knows he likes it on the 2 setting. He will change it to the 2 setting if she has it warmer or colder.

Not creepy but my family always thought one of our dogs was the dumb one when really he was just lazy.

One day he didn't have a bone while the other two did, he got up and started barking at something out back which got the other two excited. The other two bolted out when we opened the door and he stood stock still.

He did a quick check, bolted backwards, grabbed a bone and ran to hide lmao.

I’m obsessed with the animals that use the pre-programmed word buttons to “talk”. At first I was skeptical, thinking their owners were just cherry picking certain interactions and maybe some are. But I’ve also seen animals having some really interesting and disturbing interactions through them. The most interesting to me are the button cats. They can communicate to their owners when they are in pain and what specifically hurts (once they know the right words). I’ve seen some that understand concepts of time like tomorrow, the day after tomorrow or even days in the future. They express complex preferences like asking to go with their human if they known they’ll be traveling.

The most fascinating to me is Flounder the cat. Now that she has the words, she very adamantly insists her humans don’t refer to her as a cat, but thinks of herself as a fish. She has a favorite movie (Pocahontas) that she ask to watch and understands that Pocahontas in the TV is pretend but a woman who dresses up as Pocahontas is real. She has a favorite little toy called Mousetoy that is so loved it’s broken down so their human put the left over husk of it in a hamster ball and she rolls it around. She uses the toy in the ball to press buttons and uses words to ask for things from the toy’s perspective. So Mousetoy wants a treat or to go on an adventure, not Flounder. Having small kids, I know they don’t have theory of mind (being able to see things from another’s perspective) until like 5 or 6 so it fascinates me that this cat has developed it.

I knew someone who predicted the entire course of a conversation between several people in a group down to the sequence of how these people would leave and their excuses to leave. She only met them a few times and could deduce how they would behave. Back in the day she would have been burned at the stake I guess.

My Coonhound/Doberman mix is incredibly smart, but I think I overlook it bc she’s also incredibly anxious and high energy. She’s 13, only has a little white in her chin, and acts like a puppy. No amount of brain games, nose work or hiking has ever been able to wear her out for long.

One night she asked my husband to go out by standing at the door in the living room that went into the garage, and from the garage there was a door that went into the backyard. I watched as my husband opened the door to the garage and walk out to open the door to the backyard. Our other dog ran out ahead and picked up a ball to play. My husband started throwing the ball (I could see this through the open doors and the windows that faced the backyard) and my Coonhound/Doberman girl watched them for a second before heading into the kitchen to counter surf.

I thought it was just a one time thing, but started watching her more closely after this. Turns out, she had both my husband and I trained to this. If we were cooking, she’d bring a shoe into the kitchen and while we were putting it back she’d eat our other dog’s food or again try to counter surf. She KNOWS she’s not supposed to do this, we took her through three levels of dog training where she graduated “top of her class” in each level.

She just figured out that if we’re distracted she can be naughty. She has no remorse when she gets caught. Does not care at all.

My dad's German Shepherd figured out how to open the fridge, take out one slice of ham, and close it again. We only caught him because my dad set up a camera thinking my brother was sneaking food at night. The dog looked directly at the camera once and never did it again while we were home.

Maybe not creepy, but definitely unexpected and surprising - last year, we decided to adopt a second dog. Our older dog is getting up there in years, and we thought it would make the transition a little easier (when he eventually passes) to have a second dog in the home. Our local shelter offers what they call a ‘slumber paw-ty’, where you can take home a prospective pet for a few days to see how they fit into your household before doing the official adoption.

So we met some of the dogs available and found one we thought was a likely candidate. We brought her home for a 10-day trial, and everything went well for a few days. About a week in, she got aggressive toward our older dog and we had to separate them. A couple hours later, it happened again. After separating them a second time, I said something like, ‘We really thought you were a good fit, but now we may have to rethink the whole adoption.’ I swear she understood every word. She wasn’t just acting apologetic, she actually seemed depressed. Our older dog is very intelligent, but I’ve never seen him reason through complex conditional sentences.

We got some advice from a trainer, and figured out the reason behind the aggression, and it’s never been repeated. The younger dog has been part of our family for almost a year now. She has a lot of energy, and our older dog prefers his peace and quiet, but they get along well. Yesterday, he was out in the yard when the younger one wanted to go out. My wife told her, ‘He likes to have the backyard to himself. After he comes in, you can go out.’ I swear, the moment he knocked on the door to come in, she was right there tapping to go out. I’m starting to think that she understands absolutely everything that we say, and can reason out ‘if…then’ statements better than some humans. It can be a little unsettling to look her in the eyes and see how much understanding is there.