35 Times People Felt “Something’s Not Right Here” And Acted On Gut Feelings That Saved Their Lives

I was president of a club, and a guy who'd recently joined just set off my alarm bells, but he never did anything wrong. I still couldn't shake the feeling he was off. I asked my best friend, a pretty burly guy, to just keep an eye on him during a conference we went to.

Most of the club (minus me) went to a party at the conference, my best friend kept an eye on the weird guy for most of the night, and ended up stopping him from raping a passed out drunk girl.

I pretty much always trust my gut feelings now.

Edit: it was a Model UN, I'm a girl, the conferences were actual conferences lmao

It didn't save me, but saved a friend.

A big group of friends and I were walking home from an event in a town we weren't used to. It was night, and hardly anyone was around--empty streets and all that. We were walking down a sidewalk that had high fences next to it, so when you turned a corner, whatever was around it was out of sight. One of the girls fell behind (distracted by her phone, I think), and I noticed, so I started drifting behind as well to become a sort of midway point between her in the group.

Soon, we were nearing where we were staying, and our group rounded a corner, then started making their way into the yard where our living quarters were. I saw a car drive past us, then turn the corner down the street the girl was still on. As soon as I saw it, I suddenly got this suspicious, awful feeling, so I stopped, and went back to the corner to keep an eye on the friend.

The car drove past her, stopped, did a complete u-turn, and slowly started creeping up behind/alongside her. She was still on her phone, and wasn't noticing a thing. I stepped out from behind the corner, and started walking towards her. The car sped off quickly as soon as the driver saw me.

It scares me that someone could have grabbed her, and none of us would have seen a thing. It would have just been one of those cliche movie moments where you turn around, and realize a member of the group is missing. To compound that potential tragedy, she'd just gotten engaged a few weeks prior.

I think the fact that we had worked with some safe houses in the area that discussed human trafficking probably aided in me being on high alert, and the area we were in was known for that sort of thing.

I was building a fort in the woods near my house as a kid. Got this eerie feeling that something was wrong so I packed my stuff and made my way home. Next day, on my way to school on the bus, my friend mentioned a cougar his family saw running across the road that was within a couple hundred feet of where I was. It just so happened to be at the same time I was out there.

I was walking to the barbershop, and for some reason, everything just felt off. I ignored the feeling but every step I took just made me feel like something wasn't right, so I decided to just go grab some food and come back. While I was eating I saw police cars and ambulances driving to around where I was before, it turns out there was a murder. Now I always listen to my gut feeling.

I was 15 years old and my mom dropped me off at McDonald’s to get breakfast while she went across the street to get Starbucks. It was a shopping mall in suburbia and we were on the way to pick up a new kitten a few hours away. Instead of walking the 100 yards to my mom I sat outside waiting for her to pick me up. Teenagers I guess. As I’m standing there a guy in an old station wagon with two kids in the back starts talking to me. He asks me where I’m going and I say whatever town it was. He says he’s going there too with his kids and asks if I want to come. I tell him no that my mom is across the street and he comes closer. My gut is saying something is off so I see a random woman walk out of Starbucks and I point to her and say that’s my mom right there. He freaked out and left really quick. I still remember those two kids in the backseat. They looked so off. I wonder to this day if they are okay.

EDIT 1: I did not tell my mom and I don’t know why. I think I was scared she would be upset with me and not want to go get a kitten (I was barely 15 and teenagers are selfish buttheads). I finally told her a few years ago and she was super upset about it. I was so freaked out I didn’t even think to get a plate. I grew up in suburbia but the rich kind of suburbia where this kind of stuff was never talked about. I wasn’t into true crime so I had no idea what you’re supposed to do. If I had the knowledge I have now I obviously would have handled it totally differently.

When I was young (around 8 or 9 probably), I lived 3 blocks from a convenience store. It was the early 90s. My best friend and I convinced our parents to let us walk to the store alone to get some snacks. Important to add that the two blocks closest to the store are connected but the 3rd block we lived on was it's own unconnected neighborhood. So anyway, as we are walking back from the store, we are coming up to the first street and a truck drives by and stops on the side of the road in between the first and second block on our side if the road. I stopped and told my friend that we should go down the first street and go through the neighborhood, come back out the second street and then head to our 3rd street to avoid the truck. She thought I was being stupid but I refused to keep walking on the main street so she followed me down the first road. We are now in the first neighborhood and about halfway between the first and second street when we see the truck slowly driving down the second street into the neighborhood. The driver sees us and immediately slams on the gas and turns his truck towards us on the street. We ran and hid in some bushes further into the nighborhoodbfor about ten minutes. We heard the truck driving by back and forth for about the first five and then it was quiet so we started making our way out of the neighborhood towards the second street again. Suddenly. Here comes the truck again slowly, sees us and guns it towards us again. We jumped over a fence into a back yard and started pounding on the back door. By the way this is a tuesday. Middle of the day during summer vacation... most people are at work. But miraculously, a man and woman open the door and let us in. The woman had just had a baby like a week before so they were home on leave. They called the cops and my mom and the man went outside. He said the truck drove by and the man saw him standing outside and sped out of the neighborhood. Cops and my mom showed up minutes later and we gave a description and never heard anything about it again. Our parents just drove us to the convenience store from then on. My mom still talks about it to this day and how shocked she was that I had such a strong intuition at that age.

I was in the Amazon as the end to a 3 month solo trip around Latin America. Wanted to enjoy one last walk through the jungle before leaving so left my jungle lodge around 8am to walk down to a small river nearby.

I stop and close my eyes to listen to the sounds as the jungle is super loud with crickets, birds, insects etc. Almost immediately I got a weird feeling and felt really uncomfortable - which was weird because up until then I'd only felt peaceful and happy. When I opened my eyes, I realised everything had gone completely quiet which was definitely NOT normal and not something I had experienced in other rain forests I'd been to. It was bizarre. I immediately felt that I had to leave and fast.

After I dipped and got back to the jungle lodge, i told the tour guide what happened and he said it usually only gets quiet when there is a big predator close by - thanks but no thanks!

A few years ago, when I was 19 and studying abroad in Europe, and my friend and I decided to go to Turkey. It was our first time really traveling on our own without a group and we decided to walk around the square outside of the Blue Mosque. We felt very safe during the day and decided to see the city at night with the lights. As we were in the square, we were hounded by typical store owner's trying to sell us something. Finally, most went away and as we were going back to our hotel, a younger guy approached us. He said he had a shop on the corner, which he pointed to with lots of souvenirs including carpets. I grew up with a lot of handmade, woven carpets from my parents travels to the middle east and Asia. I decided it would be a nice gift. So we follow him, when we get to what we thought was his shop, we stopped.

We started to walk in and he said not that one, the one around the corner. We poke our head around and sure enough see a store, only selling carpets. I started to get a slightly strange feeling but nothing overwhelming, so we followed him as we could see the store. When we walked in, about 13-15 other men were in the shop. They were pointing out carpets and showing us around and I started to get really uncomfortable. My friend seemed completely at ease, so we followed the group around the bend to the other part of the store. In Turkey, it is common to be offered tea, so that part is not particularly odd, but the men, who were now circling us, were insistent that we have tea with them in the basement. I kept saying no but they were leading us towards steps, completely surround us. We got to the steps and my friend started walking down, my body began to sweat, my heart went crazy, and I never had such an overwhelming fear. I kept trying to think of how we could overpower these men.

I grabbed my phone, stopped in my tracks, and gasped. "Friend's name, we need to go right now. My mom just texted me asking why we aren't back at the hotel yet cause the map shows we're at this store. We're supposed to facetime with them in 10 minutes."

The men kind of look around and tell us we can have tea in less than that amount of time. I keep insisting that my parents are freaking out because they can tell were in the carpet store and not the hotel and that they will likely contact the embassy if we don't get going. They continued blocking the staircase. I told them that we would come for tea in the morning as I still really wanted a carpet and that we needed to get out of the store and back to facetime. It took a little persuading but they eventually opened a path for us to go to the door. One of them followed us back to the square insisting that we return/come back and see them. Of course, we didn't.

I have no idea if they were completely harmless or not but I had never had such an overwhelming feeling. They easily could've drugged us, placed us in carpets, and taken us out. My parents didn't actually have our location as my phone was on airplane mode. So who actually knows, on the other hand, I might've been paranoid, but it wasn't a situation I ever wanted to be in again. Once we were back at the hotel, she told me she was really scared too but that she thought I was fine so she went with it.

november 2015, I was staying in Paris for a few weeks with some friends who lived near the Bataclan, Oberkampf area of Paris, 11eme arrondissement, but I got into a fight with one of the friends boyfriends so i decided to stay with a second cousin i knew very little but knew had an extra room in her apartment near Pigalle. one night they invited me to a bar near oberkampf station because they missed me and wanted to hang out. i said sure and took a nap with my alarm set to wake up and shower and go meet them. i set my alarm for 8:00am instead of pm (my phone is always on do not disturb and i don’t have vibration on because it stresses me out) and woke up to my cousin getting home late from work around 9:30-10 who knew of my plans to go out and freaked out when she saw me come out of my room looking confused and tired as hell. checked my phone and saw dozens of texts from her and from my friends saying not to come, to stay home and that they were okay. had i set my alarm for the right time and taken my time getting ready (as i usually do) i would have been exiting the oberkampf station right when the shooting began at bataclan. sat with my cousin watching the news all night long crying and feeling helpless.

I'm afraid of rollercoasters (mostly heights but they go hand in hand). My friends and I went to a theme park and went on one that was in darkness and went underground. I rode it once, sitting in the back, and really enjoyed it surprisingly.

When we reached the start again, there was no line (as it was the end of the day) so they asked if we wanted a final go before they shut down. Something in my gut told me not to go on so, despite my friends nagging, I didn't and waited with the bags.

My friends came back around a few minutes later white as a sheet. About 3/4 of the way through the ride, there's a big drop then it goes fast and just before that, my friend in the back's bar had risen up. Apparently they had to grip onto her for the rest of the ride whilst trying to push the bar back down.

I walked into a house party and got a really bad gut feeling. Most of my friends and I left. The people who didn't leave got mugged. It was pretty scary.

Was sitting on one of those metal cylindrical electricity boxes outside my house when there was a blackout.

Electricity was slightly flickering in my house, no other houses had a blackout. I looked down at what I was sitting on and I was like:

"uhh maybe this is the source of the problem"

I stood up and stepped away from it and like 2 seconds later it f*****g BLEW UP. Like a pillar of flame shot out and above it for almost a full minute. It was basically a gigantic bunsen burner and I was a few seconds short of physically getting fried.

There's a very fun road that gets you from Niederndorf to Vach (or back) in Germany. You can go 60 or 70 ~~clicks~~ kph along smooth tight turns and little rolling hills. All around it for acres and acres are fields of whatever's in season and no intersections for several kilometers. It's a very fun road to go too fast on.

This day, something like wheat was in and it was high. I couldn't see around the corners, but I knew the road well and was staying in my lane. And I was going fast, and smiling.

About half way in, I heard a voice in my head as clear as if the speaker were sitting next to me and it said, 'You need to slow down.' It was startling and I braked immediately.

Two seconds later I come through one of the turns and into the a*s end of a combine taking up both lanes and moving slowly. I barely stopped in time

Those extra two seconds of brake time saved a Volvo at least, but I'm pretty sure they saved my life too.

Not quite sure if it was a "gut feeling" but kinda close. It was Christmas eve night in my childhood house (not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse), and my mom had gotten a large TV for my dad and hid it in my (doorless) closet along with some other presents. At one point in the night, she had come back into my room to retreive one of the smaller items and ended up moving the TV right in front of my wall heater, and didn't put it back. I didn't notice and went to sleep a little later. I don't know if it was the smell or a gut instinct but thank god i woke up because that night/early the next morning I woke up to find my room filling with smoke and a nice orange glow coming from the back of the TV box. Luckily no large flames had formed yet and I was able to stop it simply by moving the box out of the way, and of course turned off the heater and evacuated the room. The smoke wasn't super bad so the house didn't get too much and my room eventually stopped smelling of it.

I was probably like twelve years old at a gun range with my dad and one of his friends firing my dad’s S&W 9mm. Had already squeezed off a few rounds. Got ready to fire another round and decided something was wrong. Told my dad as much. Unloaded the weapon and disassembled it. Found a round lodged halfway down the barrel. Would’ve exploded if I’d pulled the trigger again, likely seriously wounding or k*lling me and someone else.