Surveillance systems are part and parcel of living in large cities and working at high-profile companies. It’s no surprise that people behave very differently when they’re alone and when they know they’re being watched. You can learn a lot about someone’s character when you monitor them without them realizing it. Sometimes, the results are very unexpected.
Inspired by user u/PopCultureNerd, the members of the r/AskReddit community who are in charge of surveillance systems and security cameras spilled the tea about the most bizarre things they’ve ever seen. Check out their captivating stories below!
We got in touch with the author of the popular thread, u/PopCultureNerd, who was happy to share their thoughts on safety and security. Check out Bored Panda’s interview with them below.
Inspired by user u/PopCultureNerd, the members of the r/AskReddit community who are in charge of surveillance systems and security cameras spilled the tea about the most bizarre things they’ve ever seen. Check out their captivating stories below!
We got in touch with the author of the popular thread, u/PopCultureNerd, who was happy to share their thoughts on safety and security. Check out Bored Panda’s interview with them below.
#21
My in-laws were caretakers of a cemetery, located right off the main 401 highway in Ontario. There are no other houses nearby, just theirs. It is a small cemetery, with a horseshoe path around the lot, and brush on either side.
For several days in a row, an older skinny gentleman would go running around that horseshoe path.
Buck naked. Wearing nothing but running shoes and a visor. Just all flappy penis and ball sack.
My mother-in-law is a very conservative Christian.
My father-in-law is as well, but is a lot more worldly, having spent years as a long haul trucker.
My father-in-law is as well, but is a lot more worldly, having spent years as a long haul trucker.
They spent a good couple of days deciding how to confront the streaker. I think they were in denial. They confronted him on Day 8 or 9. He apologized and my father-in-law suggested other spots he could run in.
He never deleted the videos.
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78points
#22
I worked Loss Prevention in a big electronic store in college. I was working the door and cameras when my manager went to apprehend a shoplifter. I warned him against it, but made sure to get it on camera for evidence.
So I watched my manager follow a suspect heading for the emergency exit and he chased and tackled the guy before he could leave. While my manager was wrestling to get him pinned down, apparently the guy had s**t his pants from the tackle, so to escape, he scooped up a whole handful from his pants and just smeared it all down my manager's face, mouth, neck and chest (and yes, his mouth was open). My manager freaked out (as you would expect) and the guy ran out the emergency exit. This was like 25 years ago, or else I'd have definitely uploaded that video to a thumb drive to show at parties...
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78points
#23
>I've posted this before
Had an issue with a new guard on site apparently not realizing he was on camera. I was doing a second night of training with the guy, asked him if he was comfortable with the rounds, guy says yeah and wanders off to do a round solo.
So I'm watching cameras and monitoring the phone, I see guard walk by, he stops, ok he seems a bit lost but it happens to all of us... Dude sticks his hand down the front of his pants and just goes to town. He is digging his crotch for about 30 or so seconds, he then walks down the hall and into the kitchen. So guy returns to the desk and tries to hand me the keys, I tell him due to covid we are to sanitize keys when they change hands, so I douse those things with Lysol like my life depended on it.
We are sitting and he is asking me questions, soon the questions turn to the cameras on each floor. He is pointing at each and asking where they are... We get to the one and I tell him it is located right outside the kitchens. Dude just stares blankly at me for a second and then asks if he can go out for a smoke break. I tell him that we are a smoke free facility so if he wants to smoke he will have to go across the street where the nurses go. He says cool, back in 5... Never see the guy again. Told the supervisor the next morning when he asked how training went. The company couldn't reach him and apparently never got uniforms back.
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74points
#25
I wasn't in security, but IT. So when they needed a copy of footage they always came to me to download it to a flash drive from the server.
Once there was this crazy accident. A late model Chevy Malibu was coming around the corner at a questionable speed. Then the front right wheel and fair amount of the suspension just snapped off the car. That wheel was on the outside of the turn, probably with the most weight on it. So with that traction lost the car flew off at an angle, like a rock from a slingshot, and crashed in front of the building. The wheel smashed through the corner office where our program director would normally be sitting.
So it was a weird accident, and weird that Chris wasn't in his chair with his coffee firing off emails when it happened.
When I went back to check the footage there was a mom pushing a stroller. She was looking a different direction when it happened but somehow intuition and reflexes told her to snatch that baby stroller back. Because the car missed them by millimeters. And now that I think about it I guess the wheel went the other side of them.
I've actually seen the video floating around on the web. But whenever I search for it I get all the videos of moms and babies that didn't make it through such encounters.
Also, found out I walk funny by seeing myself on sped up video. Like a wind up robot.
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63points
#26
We had a crew doing roof construction for our house. They did a ton of stuff they weren't supposed to do that caused additional damage. I guess they didn't see the cameras and put together we would have the footage. We had tons of stuff to prove it. They didn't have much choice but to admit they did it. It's important to back these things up.
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63points
#27
Saw a tweaker finger blast herself on black Friday with 30 people standing within 20 feet of her. She then walked outside, blew a dude in the parking lot, then came back in and stole $400 worth of electronics. I gloved up, grabbed her ar the door and brought her back, where she winked at me and said she would do anything to get out of cuffs.
No thank you.
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62points
#28
I was in a surveillance team in a school, upon watching the recorded tape because of a missing person. That person locked himself inside a locker. He was there for more than 24 hours. He was found when he shouted, "I couldn't handle it anymore".
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61points
#29
My brother-in-law thought he had a ghost in his garden, on two separate occasions a faint outline of something human passed quickly across his camera's vision. It certainly looked creepy. Me being the skeptic I am I figured it was his camera doing some weird compression artifacts.
It was one of his neighbors out for a late night jog as it turned out, and yep the camera in night vision mode just couldn't keep up with it.
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60points
#30
When I worked at CVS, we saw on the surveillance footage, 2 middle aged women, one shakes her leg, pile of s**t falls out onto ground, and then they left the store. Later someone stepped on said pile of s**t, and trekked that bad boy all the way out of the store.
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55points
#31
Animators practicing character movements in front of a mirror. However weird you think this is, it’s 10x weirder.
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55points
#32
Im a Casino surveillance manager; I've watched more than a half dozen people die over the years, people shooting up d***s in the parking lot, prostitution, had a pipe bomb that the bomb squad had to detonate in a blast chamber, someone projectile vomited into a security guards mouth, people pissing and s******g themselves, women intentionally leaving period stains on chairs, a guy methed out of his mind was cranking his junk while talking to a random woman, there's more, so much more.
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49points
#33
Saw a couple of attempted murders.
First was a guy waiting in a second floor hallway. Other guy comes walking up the stairs, they make eye contact and the first guy unloads on him and somehow manages to miss him from no more than 8 or 10 feet away. They both run downstairs and outside never to be seen again.
Second was a group of 4 masked kids crossing paths with another kid. Uneventful at first but then the group stops, seems to confer for a second and then run after the lone kid. He hears the footsteps behind him and takes off up the sidewalk. One of the group pulls a pistol from his waistband and fires at him a bunch of times, then they run. Heard later they hit him once in the back but he lived.
Kind of funny one was a building where we assumed someone had let their dog s**t in a hallway. Checked the footage and find a little kid who was playing outside with friends. He runs into the hall, squats with his back up against the wall, drops his shorts and takes a dump right there in the middle of the afternoon. Pulls his pants up and goes back outside to resume playing.
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48points
#35
Was working gravyard shift. Lobby door is unlocked because our office was 24 hours. We were down the hall from the lobby entrance. On the outside camera we saw a man walk up the front door, the front door open, and the man walk inside. The camera in the hallway never picked up anyone approaching the door or entering the building. Just the door opening on its own. It was not an automatic door. We didn't see him leave and there wasn't anywhere for him to go in the hallway. We aren't sure what really happened.
During a remodel, one of the cameras got forgotten in the drop ceiling. It showed the space between the actual ceiling and the drop ceiling. We got a smoke notification on the camera, the fire alarm in the vacant building went off, and we could see smoke billowing up on the camera. Fire dept showed up and they couldn't find any source for what we saw. There wasn't any trace, visually or by smell, that there was any smoke.
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39points