Some people’s level of intelligence might have many of us mere mortals in awe, a little envious, or maybe even feeling inspired to boost our own brain power. Then there are those who are so insanely bright that it’s actually creepy.
We’re not talking about well-read folk, or those who nail pub quiz every week. We are referring to that rare, off-the-charts, stop-everyone-in-their-tracks type of intelligence that is both a wonder and a ‘WTH?!’ to witness. They’re almost uncomfortably smart.
Someone recently asked, “What's the creepiest display of intelligence you've ever witnessed in real life?” and more than the square root of 12,250,000 answers came flooding in. That’s over 3,500 replies in case you were wondering. Our brilliant Bored Panda team has dissected all of them to bring you only the best in the listicle that follows.
Expect stories about eidetic memory, Aphantasia, polyglots, whiz kids and even animals wowing people with the way their brains operate. From a guy who struggled to read but taught himself college chemistry from a textbook in one evening, to a child with an intellectual disability who could put a 500-piece puzzle together with the pieces flipped to the blank side (no imagery to fit together), some of these tales could give Albert Einstein a run for his money.
#1
Worked with an Australian guy on Op Iraqi Freedom in. 2006, this guy was a comms tech and noticed every day around lunchtime Baghdad time the fibre cable link back to Australia would degrade. Only 15 minutes at a time. He worked it out over a couple of weeks to sunlight in a Singaporean data centre shining through a window onto a router with a failed cooling fan. Would overheat the router and increase the data error rate, slowing the data link.
The Royal Mumford i doff my cap to you sir...
The Royal Mumford i doff my cap to you sir...
46points
An IQ (Intelligence Quotient) test is the most common way to check how smart someone is. It measures human cognitive abilities like reasoning, logic, memory, and problem-solving.
Most people have a score of between 85 and 115. Anything above 116 is considered "above average," and in the past, those with scores over 140 were classified as "near" genius or genius, though that terminology has since been done away with. Today, highly intelligent people are considered "gifted."
#2
I met two people with eidetic memory as far as I know. They both had the same habit of answering a question: pausing, looking upwards as if they were reading something in the air, and then answer.
One I met was in the Army. My first meeting with him, he noticed my last name and said, “Oh, that’s Japanese,” paused, looked at the ceiling, and then started speaking to me in Japanese. I told him it was a Japanese last name but I was Mexican-American. Again, he paused, looked up, and then started speaking to me in Spanish.
Later, he picked up quite a bit of German in just a couple of months. He was definitely a polyglot. I believe he also became Soldier of the Month three months running but was asked to not do it again.
The funniest thing was he had very little social graces. He was a very good looking guy and always smiled. People would approach him but after a few minutes they would leave, looking at him like he was an alien. I have to admit, he could have been but I still miss him.
One I met was in the Army. My first meeting with him, he noticed my last name and said, “Oh, that’s Japanese,” paused, looked at the ceiling, and then started speaking to me in Japanese. I told him it was a Japanese last name but I was Mexican-American. Again, he paused, looked up, and then started speaking to me in Spanish.
Later, he picked up quite a bit of German in just a couple of months. He was definitely a polyglot. I believe he also became Soldier of the Month three months running but was asked to not do it again.
The funniest thing was he had very little social graces. He was a very good looking guy and always smiled. People would approach him but after a few minutes they would leave, looking at him like he was an alien. I have to admit, he could have been but I still miss him.
33points
#3
My husband grew up in a bad area, bad family, high school drop out bc school was so bad for people with learning disabilities. He grew up truly believing he was stupid.
I'm a writer, and he would never read. Complained that he couldn't read. Not a lack of ability, but he apparently has that thing where you can't visualize in your head -- but no word for it 30 years ago, and I didn't even realize that was a possible thing. He just told me he can't see the story like I can, so it doesn't make any sense for him. He found it difficult and pointless.
Then, at 20 years old, he sat down and read a college chemistry textbook left at our house *in one evening* and literally taught himself chemistry. I was a "gifted" student with a full scholarship, and chemistry was where I got lost AF. I could not understand what i was seeing.
"I don't have to imagine with this book. It just explains. Easiest book I've ever seen!"
🤯.
I'm a writer, and he would never read. Complained that he couldn't read. Not a lack of ability, but he apparently has that thing where you can't visualize in your head -- but no word for it 30 years ago, and I didn't even realize that was a possible thing. He just told me he can't see the story like I can, so it doesn't make any sense for him. He found it difficult and pointless.
Then, at 20 years old, he sat down and read a college chemistry textbook left at our house *in one evening* and literally taught himself chemistry. I was a "gifted" student with a full scholarship, and chemistry was where I got lost AF. I could not understand what i was seeing.
"I don't have to imagine with this book. It just explains. Easiest book I've ever seen!"
🤯.
29points
IQ tests date back to the early 1900s, when a French psychologist named Alfred Binet came up with a way to identify students who were in need of extra assistance in school. It was Binet, who developed the concept of "mental age."
"Children of certain age groups quickly answered specific questions," explains the VeryWell Mind site. "Some children could respond to the questions typically answered by children of an older age, so these children had a higher mental age than their actual chronological age."
The psychologist thus based his intelligence test on the average abilities of children of a particular age group. Today's tests have since evolved but the foundation remains the same.
#4
Not really creepy but I noticed there must be something going on.
I was on holidays in a Turkish wakeboard park. They have some dogs there, which were strays but living there in the park now. Super friendly doggos.
One morning, we wanted to get up a hill for the sunrise. When we stepped out, two of the dogs slept in front of our house. They woke up and immediately understood what we were up to. They lead the way up the hill.
When we were up there, one of them was sitting down and staring into the sunrise with me. Nothing else. He just looked at the shiny orb in the skies. This dog was not lead by food, companionship or anything. He was just there. Probably admiring the sunrise, too. Nothing a dull animal would be able to.
I was on holidays in a Turkish wakeboard park. They have some dogs there, which were strays but living there in the park now. Super friendly doggos.
One morning, we wanted to get up a hill for the sunrise. When we stepped out, two of the dogs slept in front of our house. They woke up and immediately understood what we were up to. They lead the way up the hill.
When we were up there, one of them was sitting down and staring into the sunrise with me. Nothing else. He just looked at the shiny orb in the skies. This dog was not lead by food, companionship or anything. He was just there. Probably admiring the sunrise, too. Nothing a dull animal would be able to.
27points
#5
Grew up in a house with a female cat that had been around since my siblings and I were little. She would use combinations of trills and meows to make cat approximations of our names that were close enough that we knew when she was calling a specific sibling.
If we didn't respond or start coming downstairs when my mother would call us from downstairs the cat would post up at the bottom of the stairs trill-meowing the person's name or come into their room and do it in their face until they followed.
Seemed perfectly normal to us but I had friends that were definitely creeped out by my cat "saying" my name.
If we didn't respond or start coming downstairs when my mother would call us from downstairs the cat would post up at the bottom of the stairs trill-meowing the person's name or come into their room and do it in their face until they followed.
Seemed perfectly normal to us but I had friends that were definitely creeped out by my cat "saying" my name.
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26points
#6
We used to keep my ferret in the office with a baby gate and a box blocking the exit. One time she dragged an empty cat litter container and, through trial and error and readjusting the angles, eventually used it as a launch pad to get onto the box and past the baby gate. It showed a level of critical thinking and problems solving that I didn't think animals had. She was incredibly smart. We used to think ferrets in general were smart but then we got another one who is definitely not very smart so it was unique to Ori. .
24points
If you've ever taken an IQ test, you might have realized that it's not really something you can study for. And that's because these tests aren't intended to measure knowledge of any specific subject or field.
Rather, they assess things like logic, spatial awareness, verbal reasoning, and visual abilities. Your score is based on your ability (or lack thereof) to use logic to solve problems, recognize patterns, and to make quick connections between different points of information. In other words, your aptitude for learning new things.
#7
I did a little time. I ran into a guy in there that engineered a fight between three unrelated parties. That part wasn't the creepy part (though, good enough, really - two of the three fighting parties were *not* fighting people and he got 'em in the mix effortlessly). The creepy part was that in the roughly one minute before the fight kicked off (resulting in the block being locked down for three days, btw) he explained to me point by point and in close detail what the administrational response would be, exactly who would be involved, who would be written up, injured, reassigned to different blocks, etc. He did this so that a fourth party, not involved in the violence, would be caught up in cell searches with contraband, which happened. A tattoo kit. That guy left the block with the three fighters but never came back.
He told me all of this stuff point by point like a grocery list. Down to which guards would come and what their moods and reactions would be. He was in the cell next to mine and he just kept laying it out right until they locked us in.
He told me all of this stuff point by point like a grocery list. Down to which guards would come and what their moods and reactions would be. He was in the cell next to mine and he just kept laying it out right until they locked us in.
23points
#8
I knew a kid who had an intellectual disability. He was non verbal and needed 1 to 1 support all day, every day.
However, pull out a 500 piece puzzle, he puts it together upside down.
As in... the pieces are flipped *to the blank side*. No imagery to fit together.
Extremely fascinating to watch, never seen anything like it!
However, pull out a 500 piece puzzle, he puts it together upside down.
As in... the pieces are flipped *to the blank side*. No imagery to fit together.
Extremely fascinating to watch, never seen anything like it!
22points
#9
My old cat Minos, over the course of a few days arranged “gifts for the family” among the bushes in our front yard. 3 mice were arranged in a line in the back row with all their heads facing north and 4 rats were arranged in a line in the front row with their heads facing south. One of the weirdest things I’ve ever had to clean up.
22points
At one point, it appeared that humans in general were becoming more intelligent. But interestingly, that doesn't seem to be the case anymore. A study conducted in 2023 found that there's been a marked dipped in intelligence scores among U.S. adults.
"This doesn't necessarily mean that Americans are becoming less intelligent, however," notes VeryWell Mind. "Instead, this reversal may be due to cultural or environmental changes. Changes in test-taking tendencies or abilities may also cause it."
#10
A guy I was friends with ended up working in a car yard - it wasn’t a big brand one, just a small family owned second hand car yard - guy did ok in school, wasn’t a genius, wasn’t an idiot. I dropped in to visit him at work after he’d been working there for about 6 years and his boss called out asking if he could remember a car and added the registration number (no description or anything) and my mate rattled off the car’s details, the name of the person who traded it in, what they bought, and who bought it, by name… but phrased it as a question: “you mean the blue toyota whatever, with the such and such, that so and so came in with etc” this had all happed about six months after he’d started there.
He clearly found his place.
(For clarity - the car his boss was asking about had been traded/sold 5 and a half years earlier)
(And no, not ‘creepy’ like they’re going to put you in a pit and make you put lotion on, just a moment of realising someone you’d known your whole childhood suddenly pulls a rainman out of nowhere)
(Yes, he’s most likely on the spectrum - it’s probably why we were friends in the first place).
He clearly found his place.
(For clarity - the car his boss was asking about had been traded/sold 5 and a half years earlier)
(And no, not ‘creepy’ like they’re going to put you in a pit and make you put lotion on, just a moment of realising someone you’d known your whole childhood suddenly pulls a rainman out of nowhere)
(Yes, he’s most likely on the spectrum - it’s probably why we were friends in the first place).
19points
#11
My old cat who was the eldest of 4 cats I had was wicked smart. He was insanely clean. We had 2 large litter boxes for the 4 cats. He made the 3 younger girls copy his habits and they used 1 litter box only for pee and the other only for p*o. I swore up and down to my partner who at the time didn't believe me he could understand English but when I asked sarcastically to get the kitten out from behind the drawer he just looked at me. Went to the drawer, had a "conversation" with the kitten and she came right out! We had tried for hours! If my partner didn't see it with her own eyes lol.
19points
#12
Miriam. A friend introduced me to her at a party. She was a math major. She had gotten into a bet with her roommate to see who could memorize pi to the most digits. She won, by *thousands* of digits.
My friend said "Hey Miriam! Do pi!"
Her eyes went glassy and she went 3.1415926535..... She went on for minutes.
My friend said "Hey Miriam! Do pi!"
Her eyes went glassy and she went 3.1415926535..... She went on for minutes.
18points
While IQ tests are widely used to measure how smart someone is, they don't capture all facets of intelligence. For example, these tests don’t assess traits like creativity or emotional skills, which are also super important.
What's more, not everyone is familiar with test concepts and structure, and this can affect the outcome of their scores. Someone with a low IQ score may not actually be less intelligent than the person with a higher score.
#13
I dated a woman years ago whose father attended college at the ripe old age of 14. He finished a couple of years later and, after starting a graduate program, was poached by the U.S. military (something I didn't even know they did and had never heard of prior to that). He subsequently joined the military, completed his graduate program, and began working with satellite-based laser defense systems. All this by his early 20's. These days he leads research teams doing things not even his wife knows about, holds several patents and PhD's, is a retired Colonel, and personally addresses the President's admin from time to time at the White House.
When I met him, I asked him about his genius. He described his state-of-thinking with an analogy. "While most people are able to imagine one or two things at the same time, I am able to imagine four or five simultaneously." He also had an eidetic memory. I asked him to show me. They had a library in their home and he asked me to grab any one of the thousands of books from the wall without him seeing, read a random passage to him from any page I liked, and see if he could nail it.
He gave me:
- The book title and author.
- The page.
- The PARAGRAPH
Then he completed the page aloud and smiled at me. I thanked God he worked for our military. Going up against this guy in basically anything that required intelligence would be like the average person playing defense against an NFL offensive line (Not the Commanders, though, that'd be a bad example). He once told me that speaking to other people was exhausting because, regardless of the conversation's duration, he always knew within the first few seconds how it would play out. The intervening words being exchanged were a waste of time. It dawned on me years later that that was his way of signaling that he didn't like me.
When I met him, I asked him about his genius. He described his state-of-thinking with an analogy. "While most people are able to imagine one or two things at the same time, I am able to imagine four or five simultaneously." He also had an eidetic memory. I asked him to show me. They had a library in their home and he asked me to grab any one of the thousands of books from the wall without him seeing, read a random passage to him from any page I liked, and see if he could nail it.
He gave me:
- The book title and author.
- The page.
- The PARAGRAPH
Then he completed the page aloud and smiled at me. I thanked God he worked for our military. Going up against this guy in basically anything that required intelligence would be like the average person playing defense against an NFL offensive line (Not the Commanders, though, that'd be a bad example). He once told me that speaking to other people was exhausting because, regardless of the conversation's duration, he always knew within the first few seconds how it would play out. The intervening words being exchanged were a waste of time. It dawned on me years later that that was his way of signaling that he didn't like me.
17points
#14
My college roommate could read people like it was a superpower. We'd be at a party and she'd lean over and say something like "that couple by the door is about to break up, probably tonight" or "the guy in the red shirt is lying about where he works."
I used to think she was just being dramatic until I started keeping track. She was right like 90% of the time. Once she told me my boyfriend was about to ghost me three days before it happened. I asked her how she knew and she just shrugged and said "his laugh changed."
Still not sure if I should have been impressed or terrified.
I used to think she was just being dramatic until I started keeping track. She was right like 90% of the time. Once she told me my boyfriend was about to ghost me three days before it happened. I asked her how she knew and she just shrugged and said "his laugh changed."
Still not sure if I should have been impressed or terrified.
17points
#15
My son at the age of 4-6 could add letters. He was horrible with English, he's got severe ADHD. Well, he comes in the living room and says, "dad? Guess what H+P is?" I said Hewitt Packard? No, he can add the numeric values of the letters A-Z and a-z. 1-52 uppercase for 1-26 and lowercase 27-52. He still adds words up and gets distracted reading. He reads numbers as words and words as numbers. It's strange, but really cool to see.
16points
Another interesting point, which shines through in quite a few of the stories listed here, is that people with autism often have higher intelligence than standardized IQ tests indicate. "This intelligence is simply imbalanced in ways that can negatively affect social interactions and task performance," explains the Healthline site.
Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, and Bill Gates are just a few of the famous folk who are reported to have fallen in what's known as the high IQ autism bracket.
#16
This wasn’t a personal witness but was a known result of something that happened in Colorado back in the 90s. A cross country runner from a high school in one of the small towns up in the foothills past Denver went missing. He did a standard loop around the town to train and it included some of the foothills trails. It turned out he was ended by a mountain lion and it was a full grown, fully healthy tom that they found guarding the body. They obviously euthanized it, but after investigating the lion tracks they were able to see that it literally followed him on his loops (he’d typically do 4-5) and waited until he’d done a couple so he was winded.
It went against everything the state and wildlife/game departments had claimed for years. Now we can acknowledge it’s extremely heavy mountain lion country and at the time, there was an ongoing study to prove how high their population was towards parks and wildlife for the state. The official PR stance had been “they’re elusive, they’re afraid of people and your pets, only an old, sick or injured one would attack a human, and they stick to the deep mountains”. When a fully healthy cat ended a 6ft, in shape 16 year old it really changed how people were perceiving the whole situation.
The non-fiction book, *The Beast In The Garden*, goes into the study of how they proved the actual huge cat population by a few CU professors. Nowadays there’s been hundreds of sightings on people’s ring cameras, and I myself had to stay cautious and aware when a few neighbors were posting video of them sauntering down driveways, napping in trees in their yards or along bike paths, and hanging out under people’s decks. Especially when it would be dark in a parking lot that opened up to a tall grass open space where they were known to hang out. When you hear a recording of their unique chirping, it’s a little chilling to realize how many times you’ve heard it if you spend time outdoors here.
It went against everything the state and wildlife/game departments had claimed for years. Now we can acknowledge it’s extremely heavy mountain lion country and at the time, there was an ongoing study to prove how high their population was towards parks and wildlife for the state. The official PR stance had been “they’re elusive, they’re afraid of people and your pets, only an old, sick or injured one would attack a human, and they stick to the deep mountains”. When a fully healthy cat ended a 6ft, in shape 16 year old it really changed how people were perceiving the whole situation.
The non-fiction book, *The Beast In The Garden*, goes into the study of how they proved the actual huge cat population by a few CU professors. Nowadays there’s been hundreds of sightings on people’s ring cameras, and I myself had to stay cautious and aware when a few neighbors were posting video of them sauntering down driveways, napping in trees in their yards or along bike paths, and hanging out under people’s decks. Especially when it would be dark in a parking lot that opened up to a tall grass open space where they were known to hang out. When you hear a recording of their unique chirping, it’s a little chilling to realize how many times you’ve heard it if you spend time outdoors here.
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15points
#17
I don’t know if it counts as creepy, but my old music mentor is a polyglot who triple majored at Yale in his early teens. He has various sorts of command of over 20 languages. When I was working with him, he got permission—unheard of for white dudes—to enter the inner sanctum of the holiest Zoroastrian sites in India and Iran to study their texts and eventually set them to music.
I house sat for him while he was gone. When he came back, I asked him when he’d found time to learn the language because he’s always busy AF, plus the whole dead language aspect. “Oh I just studied on the plane. How are my cats? Don’t be late to rehearsal tonight.”
I had another mentor who could extemporize *anything* on the guitar. Like, he’d reference a passage in a violin concerto and just start playing a reduction of it on the guitar. Sometimes he’d transpose it to be in the same key of whatever I was studying. And I saw him play a piece from memory after *hearing* it once, he didn’t glance at the score at all (the score was a recently discovered 19th century piece that he hadn’t heard of before. This happened in a master class I attended.).
I house sat for him while he was gone. When he came back, I asked him when he’d found time to learn the language because he’s always busy AF, plus the whole dead language aspect. “Oh I just studied on the plane. How are my cats? Don’t be late to rehearsal tonight.”
I had another mentor who could extemporize *anything* on the guitar. Like, he’d reference a passage in a violin concerto and just start playing a reduction of it on the guitar. Sometimes he’d transpose it to be in the same key of whatever I was studying. And I saw him play a piece from memory after *hearing* it once, he didn’t glance at the score at all (the score was a recently discovered 19th century piece that he hadn’t heard of before. This happened in a master class I attended.).
15points
#18
I worked with a DJ who knew the station’s entire catalog by heart. “Oh, you want to hear ‘Please, Mr. Postman’? That’s CD 472, Track 5.” He was never wrong! And it made board op-ing with him so much easier.
14points
#19
I had a classmate once who could do complex equations in her head. She was asked to solve an equation of the whiteboard once (with working) but only wrote the answer. When the teacher asked her to show how she got to the answer, she just said "I can't". Of course the teacher made her do a few more, and yep, all right.
The scariest part is supposedly her sister was even smarter than her.
The scariest part is supposedly her sister was even smarter than her.
14points
#20
I used to be friends with someone who's a talented hacker. He mostly worked to find vulnerabilities in security systems to collect bounties in return.
One day, he showed me the less legal side of what he could do if he wanted to and it was crazy. Taught me a lot about how vulnerable devices etc can be.
It all admittedly scared me a bit, as he could easily ruin someone's life if he decided to.
I wouldn't have wanted to make him mad at any point, that's for sure. Tbh, I'm pretty glad we don't talk anymore! Lol.
One day, he showed me the less legal side of what he could do if he wanted to and it was crazy. Taught me a lot about how vulnerable devices etc can be.
It all admittedly scared me a bit, as he could easily ruin someone's life if he decided to.
I wouldn't have wanted to make him mad at any point, that's for sure. Tbh, I'm pretty glad we don't talk anymore! Lol.
14points
