“What Is The Weirdest Thing You’ve Seen Through A Surveillance Camera?”: 58 Answers, From Bizarre To Creepy

A colleague of mine was just telling me about his previous workplaces when this tale came up.
Anyway, their office had a covered walkway running all the way around the floor, so on a quiet shift they decided to have an office chair rally.
So the 4 of them scoot off on their office chairs as fast as they can, down one side of the walkway, round the corner at top speed, round the block and all the way back.
As they head back, they find a security guard at their desk, arms folded, looking quite grumpy. He starts to apologise to the security guard for being silly, and the guard replies "No worries, I had a fiver on the fat guy".

The student hall of residence I worked at kept having food stolen from the kitchen, and we wanted to know how they were doing it, as well as catch them. So we watched the CCTV footage of the dining area.

A large blanket with 8 or 10 legs walks into the room. It stands real close to the serving hatch area beside the locked kitchen door, and vomits up a person. They're a tiny person with their face covered. They climb onto the serving table, push up the security mesh just enough for them to slide under it, and open the kitchen door from the inside. The blanket walks in and proceeds to raid the pantry.

Having succesfully committed the perfect crime, the blanket and the small person leave the dining room area and head back towards the elevators.

We switch to the elevator camera, where they take off the blanket and high five each-other whilst waiting for the lift, their faces all clearly visible.

Most of the really "interesting" stuff that I ran across during my career in security was during the six years that I worked at a really high end hotel. Myriad weirdness was seen and snickered about, and it's genuinely hard to narrow it down to a single event.

One of the single most random events were a pair of women in their early 20's that rode an elevator for a while, stopping at various floors and accumulating random bits of furniture from the elevator foyers and nearby room service carts. By the time all was said and done, they had set up a table and chairs *in* the elevator, complete with a vase of flowers and a plate of h'ordeurves. Then they left.

I worked at a hotel and we had a group of college kids come ask us if we had security footage of the pool area between 3-5 a.m. They were all excited about it so we pulled it up. They had put something in the lock on the pool door so they could get in later, we didn't care because they were checking out anyways, but at around 3 a.m. you see them sneak in and about 30 minutes later they started a drunken belly flop competition and wanted us to tell them who won. One of them did about five perfect belly flops in a row. I am talking NO FEAR, grade A belly flops. We told him that he won and he raised his hands up in celebration, got a funny look on his face and ran outside to puke. I have yet to see a more perfect belly flop, yet alone 5 of them.

While working at a department store at the end of a strip mall, I saw a bobcat run past the doors, heading towards Target. Several seconds later, I saw a mother, father, and two children go running past in the same direction.

A few minutes later, the family walked back past the doors, with the father carrying the bobcat. A big bobcat. It was kinda odd.

I don't have terribly cool stores, but earlier this year I saw a guy headed into a dumpster area across the property. I head on out there and confront him, and the dude was just bumming through the trash. As I have my light on him, he pulls a perfectly intact Sega Genesis out of the dumpster.

For about ten minutes I forgot that I was supposed to make him leave because we were both so flabbergasted as to why someone would throw a perfectly good Genesis out in the dumpster of a vegan grill. I let him keep it at least.

I don't know where these other security guards work, but the most interesting thing that happens around the factory I watch over at night is a spider has made a home in one of our camera housings.

She likes to wave her arm around the lens of the camera and it looks like she's stomping on cars in the parking lot, then she'll come out to eat every once in a while.

That and the ghost in the IT room that keeps shutting off the lights in the hallway right across from the IT room. Every once in a while at night the IT room door will open a little bit, then the lights will shut off in the hall.

Jerks always send me to turn it back on.

Not me, but I read a story on another thread a couple years ago.

Someone was in a horrible accident and was rushed to the hospital. Upon being notified, all the family members showed up. The patient wasn't in good condition and doctors relayed to the family that this person was not going to make it through the night. The family was a wreck. Everybody was sobbing uncontrollably. Understandably so as their world had just been turned upside down.

All the while, this redditor, a hospital security guard, watched on camera as the father went around consoling every hysterical member of the family. He never shed a tear and remained calm the entire time. He went from person to person tending to them, putting his arm around them, hugging them. This man was an anchor to the others and he knew it. He kept his head up while reassuring everybody things would somehow be alright.

Now this went on for hours. The father's disposition never changed as he watched his entire family in anguish. Eventually, he left the group and began walking through the hallways of the hospital. This redditor followed him on camera until he turned into a vending machine room and just...just collapsed. His hands moved toward his face as his legs gave out and he sat there in a puddle of his own grief. OP described how awful it was seeing this pillar to the rest of the family buckle under the reality of the situation.

I hope I didn't butcher the story too much. You know there are just some stories you read on here that do something to you. Well, this was one of those stories for me. If anybody remembers this post and could link to the original, I'd be very grateful.

Worked 5 years in security at various locations in good parts of the city to [trashy] parts from government regulated facilities to a factory. Weirdest [thing] I seen was probably the random chimpanzee that was walking down the street around 3am outside my guard shack.

I live in Iowa.. It was the first time I've seen a Chimp outside a zoo. I called the police station that was down the street and went back to watching movies. Never did hear what happened from that.

-This was in Cedar Rapids.-.

I worked security at a casino and a children's mental hospital (not at the same time). At the hospital the best was a parent wailing on a psychiatrists car with a bat because they didn't like that he pointed out their anger managment issues. At the casino I saw a guy shovel $80,000 worth of chips into his underpants when the dealer turned her back.

I worked in a museum and had the head of security show me one of his guys---a supervisor, doing his best to hop over the admissions desk. The guy didn't get enough air and landed squarely on the glass of the admissions desk. It shattered around him. It was pretty fantastic. Even better, it wasn't a move that he was pulling for some sort of security related obligation, but it was after hours and he was trying to impress a new hire.

A little bit late but wanted to share. So not a securitu guard, but went to a wedding of a friend of mine at a beach hotel. 2 days later, we sent a complaint email to the hotel regarding some issues (food was awful, rooms were late and sorts) and asked for some charges they made us back.

The hotel replied saying that the groom went drunk at the hotel lobby at 4am and was very rude to the staff. And it escalated a bit.

The groom then sent back an email saying something on the lines of well, we were complaining and they were rude. We are the customers. Whatever. It was a bad situation. He said that if they could specify what he had done that they wouldn't pay us back.

Hotel replied with this security footage.

I saw a wheelchair confined man wheel himself onto the loading dock, hop off the ramp and walk away with two women...

I once saw a guy try to push open a 'pull' door and smack his head on the glass. He then looked around to make sure no one saw. I saw you, guy, and I laughed at you.

Worked at a mental health facility that was partly abandoned. Patients would sometimes get off on the vacant floors and wander in complete darkness. Saw a lady once that got off the elevator on the abandoned surgical wing. She was a repeat offender of this (Her name was Tae Tae, and she had an affinity for putting feces under her fingernails and scratching guards when she was denied entry for mental health services) I watched her for a minute to make sure she wasn't going to bolt from that floor. She turned around in complete darkness for her, pointed right at the camera that had to be almost impossible for her to see, and then put her finger over her mouth in a shushing motion. She then sprinted down the hall and out of sight. I then had to go get her... I could hear her laughing and slamming doors in total darkness. Oh yea, I worked 3rd shift. Needless to say, I quit after 6 months.

I volunteered working at a jail once. A guy jumped off his bunk and broke his ankle so bad that it looked like a "<" from the front. He passed out from the pain, I passed out looking at it.

Work at an Art Gallery. One Summer they had an out door installation called "Gumhead". It was a large bust of the artist that exhibit belonged too. People were of course, encouraged to stick their used gum to it and by the end of the exhibit, it was absolutely covered in chewed, rained on, heated up & had birds [droppings] on it. One night I'm sitting in the security room when i noticed a guy pacing around the bust. I zoomed in on him to find that he was picking the gum off the bust & shoveling it into his mouth.... I'll never forget that one.

I used to work at a video rental store about 12 years ago. Large chain, hundreds of stores. This happened in the district near mine.

District manager comes to one of the stores one day to do some back office work and decides to check the security cameras. He randomly picks a day a few weeks before and pulls up footage of two employees going at it on the back office desk (the one at which he was currently sitting). He immediately calls headquarters. They send in a "team to investigate." Turns out there was a guy and a girl that worked at the store who decided to hook up in the office one day. What followed was an occasional trip to the office to romantically engage every time they worked the same shift.

After a week or so of doing this another employee randomly walked in on them. Instead of freaking out, or ratting on them, the third party joins in. A couple of days later, they get another person in on the action. This continues and eventually avalanches into almost the entire staff engaging in activity in the back office. The whole time there was a security camera in the office. No one ever thought to cover it up, or delete the videos.

A couple days later the employees come in to find corporate replacements and a "Now Hiring All Positions" sign on the door. As each employee entered they received their termination papers and their final paycheck. No explanation was given to the employees who were fired, as corporate decided it was best to just clean house and try to forget that this ever happened.

Every security department saves some of the best clips or clips that might be needed to use in future court dates or to protect them. Best clip I ever saw was a fight take place in a Wal-Mart parking lot. Started with two women arguing and that quickly escalated into a full blown cat fight. That wasn't the interesting part.

Their two male friends started getting into it. One pulls a tire iron out of the back of his truck. The second quickly goes to his car and pulls out a golf club. They start acting like two gorillas showing how tough they can be. The one with the tire iron starts swinging it around above his head when it slips out of his hand and hits a kid who was walking by with his parents. By coincidence the cops show up at the exact same time. They were pretty brutal stopping that fight.

Around midnight drunk dude walks into an alley behind a building. Sleeps for 20 minutes. Wakes up, staggers around. Stops and stares at a door. Runs at door headfirst and knocks himself out. Wakes up, tries unsuccessfully to open the door, pulls doorknob off, throws the doorknob at it, then walks away.