43 People Share Chilling Stories Of Things They Witnessed Or Experienced

The time I lifted a burlap sack with the tip of my rifle and found an IED underneath (we had apparently interrupted the emplacement, so it didn't go off). The boys in the truck said they didn't know white guys could jump that h**h.

Back in college I dated this real pretty girl from a bad neighborhood. I played sports, wrestled, and boxed so I knew a thing or two about self defense. I would pick her up once or twice a week. During the day I never had any problems but at night, people (gangbangers) were always hanging around. One time I picked her up at about 8pm, the sun was setting. While I was waiting for her I decided to wipe down the outside of my new car. While I was wiping it down two young guys, good looking but with baggy clothes, came up and started asking friendly questions including why I was there.

I told them I was waiting, they asked me to take them to the liquor store while I was waiting. I politely declined but they became more persistent to the point of demanding. I remained polite and told them I had to go because my girl was ready. They both kind of laughed then looked at each other. One finally said I don't think you understand we are no longer asking. Let us borrow your car, and he blocked the driver door. I decided it was either give up my car and be left in a really bad situation or man up and get the [stuff] kicked out of me. I grabbed the guy leaning against the door and flipped him into the other guy. It gave me enough time to jump into my car and gtfo. I drove straight home. At that time my pager was going off and when I got home I called my girl and she proceed to cuss me out about how I hurt her cousin and he was just playing around. Needless to say that was the last time I spoke with her. I still don't know if he was playing or not but WHO PLAYS LIKE THAT.

I was on a road trip with my dad, a friend of my dad's who we'll call D, and my twin brother. We stayed with a family friend, who I'll call Kay, for a couple nights.

D's a funny guy with good stories, so Twin Bro and I were talking to him the whole time we were driving to Kay's house. When we got there, Dad and Kay went downstairs to the den to watch TV, Twin Bro used the restroom, and that left D and I alone in the hallway together.

D slammed me against the wall, pinned me by my shoulder, touched my face, kissed me, and started grinding on me. He said he knew there was "chemistry between us" and he could tell that I wanted him. OH. H**L. NO.

I was a 17-year-old girl. He was my dad's age. I just wanted to not be bored during a road trip! I spent the rest of the time clinging to Twin Bro.

I didn't tell anyone until about 15 years later. I didn't want to cause trouble. I thought maybe I *was* being too forward, and maybe I deserved it.

I used to live in a kind of rough neighborhood. I went walking down the Dollar General near where I lived and saw a guy approaching the store wearing a ski mask. I immediately noped and started walking the other direction.

It was then that I realized it was January and below freezing out. I might be a coward.

This is my mom’s story, but mama doesn’t do the Reddit and it’s too good (freaky?) a story not to tell.

This is early nineties. My parents are renting a small house in a smaller town in rural central Maine. There is a massive blizzard going on - like, only emergency vehicles allowed on the roads kind of blizzard. So my family is hunkered down, and my mom has just put my sister and I to bed for the night. (We were rather young). As my mom is leaving our room and walking back to the front of the house, she hears my dad talking to someone. As she gets into the kitchen, where the main door is, she sees my dad standing in the open doorway talking to a stranger. Stranger is a nondescript dude who is somewhat bundled - enough to hide features but not the right clothes for a blizzard. My mom says she remembers him wearing sneakers which was very odd considering the weather. The man is spinning some odd story about needing to get to the hospital to see his uncle, and that he doesn’t have a vehicle and a friend would only bring him this far. Note - the nearest hospital is at least 30 min away in completely perfect weather. Also there is no sign of a friend or a friend’s car anywhere. My dad doesn’t say anything, he just starts reaching down to put his boots on (?!?!). My mom asks what he is doing. He doesn’t reply just keeps on putting boots and s**t on. My mom asks him what the f**k he thinks he’s doing. Still no response. So she comes up and around to stand in front of him, and thereby blocking the stranger (she has gone into mama bear protection mode at this point), and asks him AGAIN what the f**k does he think he is doing giving a strange rando a ride in an all-out blizzard to the hospital to visit his uncle?! My dad stops and looks at her in a super confused way, like he doesn’t understand what the situation is at all. My mom turns around, tells the stranger they are sorry but they can’t give him a ride. She shuts the door in his face. My dad tries to open the door and says we should at least invite the man in! At this point my mom slams the door shut and locks it. Naturally, she immediately walks to the closest window and looks out to see what stranger is doing. He’s gone. We had a pretty lengthy driveway and he’s just gone. Also, there were no tracks in the snow, either from him coming or going.

My dad is still confused and doesn’t understand why my mom sent the stranger away. Now my father is a guy who has no problem telling people to f**k off, and also is not the type of guy to leave his wife alone with two young kids in the middle of a blizzard in rural Maine. He is also definitely not the guy to invite a stranger into his house where his young children are. Later on in the evening my dad’s recollection of the event seemed vague and he tried to disagree with my mom about him being willing to give the guy a ride or inviting him in. So, so strange. To this day my mom gets all freaked thinking about it.

I had just landed in Vegas with 2 other girls, one being 16 at the time. We were getting on the shuttle that would take us from our gate to security where we would walk to parking. A guy walked onto the shuttle with us and immediately started talking to the 16 year old, asking her where she's from, where she's going, just weirdly personal questions. That's when I noticed he wasn't carrying any luggage. He had no bags or anything, nothing that would suggest he had gotten off of a flight. He was in his early to mid 20s and had on name brand clothes and a fancy a*s watch. I really started getting the creeps from him and steered the conversation so that he was mostly stuck talking to me instead of the 16 yo.

When the shuttle ride was coming to an end, I didn't want this guy following us to the parking garage, so I asked the older girl with us if she knew where baggage was. She looked at me confused but before she could answer, creepy dude said he was going to baggage too and that he could show us. When we all got off, he stayed behind us and started giving us instructions. I told him that I only asked in case he didn't know and that we weren't going that way. He looked pissed and watched us walk in the opposite direction of baggage claim. When he was no longer in our sites, I told the girls that he was giving me the creeps and to hurry to the rental car. When we were driving off, we saw him getting off the elevator, still without baggage. Looking back, I'm pretty sure he was a s*x trafficker.

Hard to top the stories from people who’ve been in the armed forces but here it goes. I went to a university in a not so nice area of my city. my senior year I lived off campus by a few blocks close to the edge of what most students considered the “safe zone”. So one night I’m walking to the other end of campus to grab drinks with friends and when I reach the end of my block, a guy riding a bike with one hand, drinking a four loko, comes riding by saying “get off the block someone’s about to get shot.” I said “thanks” and booked it about 30 seconds before the shooting started. Didn’t stop til I was on the other side of campus.

TL;DR: if a guy tells you someone’s gonna get shot, start running.

Some one was giving away a free mini fridge on Craigslist. I drove there it was deep in heavy woods no one else around. I was already nervous but I pulled up and saw a hand close the curtains and there was a sign that said go around back with an arrow. I noped out don't need a used mini fridge that bad.

When I was in 4th grade, my family went on a vacation to Bermuda and we went on a snorkeling "adventure" outside the hotel we were staying at. The first 15 minutes were wild. I got to see reefs and all these awesome sea creatures and whatnot, but then I get a little closer to the rocks to have a better view. Soon after, this giant f*****g moray eel slithers its head out. I froze in fear. I was a tiny kid then, and at the time this thing was massive... staring me down with its mouth open and teeth out. It seemed like forever. Finally, I had enough sense to slowly work my way backwards and once I felt safe I swam as fast as I could to shore.

In hindsight, it's cool to be able to say I was that close to a moray eel, but I'm surprised I didn't s**t myself then and there because I was terrified.

I grew up in eastern Washington, which is full of scrub desert, which means you have to deal with rattlesnakes. I was 8 or so, and at my grandparents', and everyone went down to the lake to swim. For some reason, I stayed behind for a while, and decided I would join them later. So I'm walking down this dirt road, and I hear a rattle in front of me. I'm like, "Hmmm... is it worth it to risk walking by a rattlesnake?" I decided Nope and start walking back up the road. Ten feet later, I hear a rattle in front of me _again_.

So, here I am, young kid, rattlesnakes in front and behind. I walked back and forth a few times hoping that _this time_ there wouldn't be a rattle, but there always was. I'm freaking out, nearly crying, I shout a few times but no one's near enough to help me, and I'm just boxed in between these two rattles. Eventually, I pump myself up and just _book it_ back up the road to my grandparents', and spend the rest the day shaking and playing solitaire.

Here's the thing: it was probably just bugs. There are bugs that make the same d**n sound as rattlesnakes to scare off predators, and they're way more common than actual rattlers. I even knew that at the time, and kept telling myself that, but when you're 8 and alone and in "hidden m****r animal" territory, logic is a cold comfort.

Around 3 years ago my girlfriend was house-sitting for a family friend of my parents. Long story short it was the summer of her Junior year in college and she had found a good internship near me so she lived there while the family traveled all summer long. To set the background this house is in the rural parts of North Carolina, surrounded by woods on all sides, and the drive-way takes about 5-6 minutes to drive down on average. Her bedroom she stayed in was directly facing the drive-way and out to the woods. The second week she was staying there I drop her off maybe around 1:00 am after we have spent all day up in the mountains hiking and spending time with friends. We say our goodbyes, she closes and locks the door, and I walk back to my car. Not even 10 seconds after I reach my car I get this awful feeling that something is wrong, and right after that I hear my girlfriend's scream out the most terrifying scream I have ever heard. I rush back to the door but it is still locked, I try all of the windows and other doors (this house is 3 stories and around 5,000 square feet). Finally one of the bathroom windows on the basement floor is unlocked so I climb inside. I rush upstairs to where she is and right then I see a tall hooded figure bolt out of the room and jump through the front bay window. ( In her bedroom). I start to chase but they stand up and run into the woods so I stopped running after because I did not know if they were alone. We call the police and they come out and search the outer perimeter but that is it. After it is all said and done I ask my girlfriend what happened. She said that she went into the room she was staying in and had her back turned to the door. As she was setting her stuff down she hears footsteps and then a voice say, "Finally we are all alone."

TL;DR Girlfriend stays alone house-sitting a mansion deep in the woods. Disturbed individual waited for her to get home and lock up to approach her, and said, "Finally we are all alone.".

I was walking down the street in downtown Sacramento when I saw a man grab his girlfriend by the hair and throw her into a busy street. My SO and I intervened and called the police. The guy ran off, and then the girl started yelling at my SO and I to go away and that we were making things worse. She starts screaming and yelling at us, so we decide to leave. As we are walking away we saw the guy pull up in a car and yell "GET THE F**K IN HERE B***H" and she tearfully got in. The guy drove off and flipped us off. Cops never came. Whole thing took about fifteen minutes.

This was years ago and I still think about it.

Was sitting at the back of the bus at 1 AM while travelling in a province. Felt the hand of the passenger beside me touching my leg. Didn't think much of it until I felt the hand slowly working its way up to my c****h area for an hour. Everyone on the bus was asleep except for the driver and the conductor, who was in front.

I was thirteen.

I was driving down a two lane when the car in front of me approaching the light swerved a bit into the opposite lane. I look and quickly discover three brown bags in the middle of the my lane (unavoidable when you are quickly approaching or if the car in front of you quickly swerves). As my car goes over the bags I immediately discover they are actually giant cinder blocks from the sounds of it against my car. My first assumption was that some h**h school kids were being dumb and placed them there. Being a concerned citizen and not giving it a second thought, I pulled a u turn into the opposite lane lane to go throw the blocks to the side so someone didn’t get hurt. As I do that a man in all black covering his entire body and face comes out of no where walks across the lane and stares into my soul. Not sure what his intentions were but obviously not great!! I was so caught of guard. My window was down and we locked eye contact for a solid 20 seconds as I slowly drove away. I proceeded to keep driving and called the cops. I looped back around after I saw cop car and another car that actually was broken down on the side of the road. Clearly the guy was trying to trap people. I’ll never know what his intentions were but it was creepy AF. Lesson learned!

When watching “The Exorcist” home alone at night as a teenager.

It was raining with loud thunder and lightning and just as the girl spends her head 360 degrees and looks right at me a huge clap of thunder hits and knocks the power out at my house.

When I went on a first date with this guy, we decided to walk around Central Park at night. The park is big and some areas are lowly lit and somewhat deserted. One area we passed was where they have paddle boats. The lake was between 2 area but there was a way across via a path. The further one was covered with brush, bushes or something that created a seclusive feeling. He insisted that we go and check out the other area and that it was cool. I did not feel safe and said "no...uhh" in a way that knew I felt creeped out by it. He said "Don't worry, I won't hurt you...yet." I walked away quickly saying we have to go and then took a taxi home. My best friend came over that night. I didn't want to be by myself after that.

I’ve posted this before, but it definitely fits here:

In the early 2000s I worked as a forestry technician doing lot surveying and tree marking for timber companies in remote Northern California. At the time, there was a major offensive by the federal government against cartel-run marijuana grow operations in the area.

These areas were so remote that growers would pack in during the winter and set up their operation for the year with the expectation of never seeing anyone from the outside besides occasional support deliveries.

Given the nature of my job - essentially a reconnaissance scout with a paint can - our company was visited by a group of feds who asked for our help in locating the grow operations. We were instructed on what to look for and what to do should we encounter suspicious activity in remote areas (basically mark it on the map and run the other way) and what to be extra careful of: booby traps.

The “typical” booby trap array at a grow site was described as follows:

Outer perimeter - scare/alert devices: these were noise makers set up like a rudimentary alarm system. I was told that mouse traps with shotgun shells and trip wires were common. The trap’s bail would snap onto a pin setting off the shell and alerting your neighborhood cartel sentry... while costing the victim at least his underwear.

Second perimeter - physical deterrents: there was a creative list but the one that I remember most was “h**h-test fishing line strung with large treble hooks at face/neck level, concealed in the thick brush”. I’ll let that one sink in...

Inner perimeter - armed workers. Something about the occasional sniper nest.

With all that as context, we went on our merry way that summer without much incident. A few busts in neighboring areas made the news - the casual thousand plants or so - but that was typical for the time.

Then, one morning, I found myself staring at black irrigation pipe beneath my feet, on the side of a mountain, up a canyon, miles from the truck, which was MILES from anything that resembled a paved road. As my awareness heightened, I realized that the manzanita brush looked unusual. Taking it all in, I start to understand what’s going on: the clever growers have “hollowed out” the manzanita - essentially c*****g the understory branches and leaving a canopy (I would come to find later that this was to hide the field of plants from aerial surveillance).

As I marveled at the ingenuity, the gravity of my situation started to take shape. I was in the heart of the operation, not on the perimeter. Silently screaming on the inside, I quietly made my way out of the area over what felt like an eternity, all the while visions of my head being shot off the top of my neck at any moment playing on repeat.

The feds razed the area later that summer and rounded up some pretty beat looking workers. According to the story told to us on a second visit from the feds, the workers were asking for leniency as they hadn’t k****d anyone even though they had multiple opportunities to do so with outsiders being lined up in their gun sights.

Things have since calmed down quite a bit up there it seems.

There was this guy called "The Butcher" on my street growing up.

They called him that cause he was a butcher.

Family had at least a s***w loose though. I was semi friends with his oldest kid.

On Halloween I go up to his house, I was like 11 or 12. They had these large spear looking things up on each post of their little wood fence that ran up the side of the driveway. On the top of each was what looked like pig and cow heads.

I got up there, said, "hey man, those things look so real." (to the son)

And he responded, "they are... wanna come in the garage and I'll show you all the other cool stuff we got?"

I never trick or treated there again.

I'm glad it was the kid who said it though, if the big creepy dad had I probably could have cried right there.

This may be sort of mild, compared to some stories on here.

Years ago, I worked in a hardware store. We used to have this guy that always came in and bought things in bulk, supposedly for contract work. Anyway, he tended to single out certain female cashiers that he liked and would bring us Hostess cakes for whatever reason. He always gave off this "not-quite-right" creepy vibe that made all of us girls nervous. So we would just say thank you and say we weren't allowed to eat at the register and just put the cake to the side. We never ate them- we always threw them out after he left. One time on Thanksgiving, he even brought some of us plates of food. Again, we left them untouched. We used to sort of half joke amongst ourselves that he probably roofied the food or did something weird to the cakes. One day, he came in and gave us our usual cakes but then said "I don't know why I bring these for you - you never eat them." That comment certainly did nothing to dissuade our suspicions.

About a year or so ago, when I was working a really s****y job far from home and didn't get a car yet, I'd have to take two buses to get there. I missed my stop because I still wasn't used to taking the buses. I was sitting on steps on the sidewalk looking at maps trying to figure out how I'm going to get to work within a decent time, and this older guy keeps hollering at me asking if I needed help. I told him I missed the bus and needed to get to work, and vaguely told him what direction I worked in. He was like "come on, I'll give you a ride". He had an older kidnapper-style van too, which immediately put me on edge. I'm not a very confrontational person and often times I put myself in uncomfortable situations just to avoid awkward dialogue; so I started walking towards his car as he got in. I was about to open the door when I pictured a scenario in my head of him kidnapping me, very vividly in my head. I said no thanks after all and that I was uncomfortable. I still have no idea if he was genuinely trying to help me or was actually ill intentioned, but on top of the area not being very safe, I just have a gut feeling it wouldn't have ended well for me.