74 People Share Terrifying Close Calls That Could Have Made Them Unsolved Mysteries

When i was in college i was traveling around Europe for a summer. I took a ferry to Ios, a big party island in Greece. As soon as i got off the ferry i was hungry, so i stopped in a place for a gyro. As the guy behind the counter handed me my gyro, he said to me, “You know, someone could take your life here, and no one would ever find your body.” I’m a big guy, so wasn’t scared at all, but did think that the comment was weird AF. I figured this guy just liked to mess with the tourists...

When I was 4/5, my mom married my daddy (step dad) and we moved out of my grandma's house and into a new home, as this is what married people do lol. Well I guess I didn't want to move away from my grandma's and decided that I was going back. Our new house had this long gravel drive way (now older, it's not as long as my 4 yr old brain remembers) it's right on a busy stretch of road and along a curve in the road. Anyways I had made it to the road and this van pulled over with these old ladies in it. I can't remember if they were trying to get me to get inside the van or if they were trying to help me. As soon as they opened the van door and asked me what I was doing my daddy was right there grabbing me up and walking me away from the ladies. I know that I told them that I was going back to my grandma's house and I remember that none of them had gotten out of the van and the lady who opened the side door kept telling me to get in that they would take me to my grandma. Luckily my daddy was there instantly to get me and that I didn't get kidnapped by a bunch of grandma's in a van lol. What I don't understand is why would they try to get me in the van instead of walking me back to my parents? I keep saying they but it was only one lady who I remember speaking with and I don't recall her and my daddy talking long either. He basically grabbed my up and rushed me back inside.

When I was in 6th grade (around 1976), I was walking to the bus stop for school, which was at my friend's house about 3 blocks down the road. We lived in a suburb of Seattle called Kent. It was not very urban at the time, pretty low key. There were no sidewalks on our street, just a little gravel on the side of the road and a ditch before you entered someone's front yard. This car pulls up alongside me and follows me at a slow speed. The guy inside asks where I'm going, and I tell him the bus stop. He offers to give me a ride to the stop. I politely decline. He tried to persuade me by telling me how much faster it would be, etc. I still declined and kept walking. He kept at my speed for about a block before another car came up behind him and he left. It was disturbing while it was happening, but I didn't really realize what could have happened until a little later.

Shortly before I was born, my parents were house sitting at my grandparents’ farm. My mom was working in the closest city and driving out to the farm after dark one evening and assumed that the headlights behind her were my dad, also just off work (this was all pre-cell phone). The farm was down a long dirt driveway off a gravel road off a rural route- really in the middle of nowhere.

When she pulled in, the other car close behind her, the farm dog, who was generally very sweet, came running out barking and snapping and ran straight past her towards the other car. Whoever was in it (my mom never got a good look at them behind the headlights) put it in reverse and drove away in a hurry.

My dad got home about half an hour later- he had been delayed at work.

I’m so grateful for that dog, because I can’t think of any reason for a stranger following a young woman down a dirt road in the middle of nowhere that is good.

I'm actually embarrassed to admit how old I was when this happened, but I was 30 years old and had just been in New York City for a few days with family members at my cousin's wedding. I flew back to Lexington Kentucky, where I was staying with my aunt and uncle, who her parents of the groom. I had just graduated nursing school a couple of weeks before. Before I left new york, I called a cousin to see if she could come pick me up and she said she wouldn't be able to because of the schedule conflict. My aunt and uncle with whom I was staying in Kentucky and their daughter and her husband were all driving back to Kentucky together, I had gone up with them in the van but decided to remain a couple of days longer after they left because there was a fellow I was sort of hoping to start a dating relationship with and I remained in New York a couple of days longer and then flew home. I might add, I made that arrangement without first really checking to see if anyone could pick me up at the airport when I arrived. But there are taxis, right? On the playing, I happen to sit next to a very pleasant, somewhat quiet gentleman of about 40 who did make conversation about traveling in general and offered to give me a ride back to my aunt and uncle's house, just as the plane was landing. Well, I took him up on it! Yes, it was daylight, middle of the afternoon but that doesn't really matter. He was a total stranger and I knew nothing about him and once he had me in his car he could have hopped on the freeway and driven off at 80 miles an hour and there is no telling what my fate would have been. Fortunately for me and my stupidity and immaturity, he was a very nice person, took me to my aunt and uncle's house, I thanked him, he said have a nice visit and that was that. I actually had no reason to feel nervous in the car with regard to his actions but I felt quite nervous as the 20-minute drive progressed because I realized how very stupid I had been and accepting his offer. In fact, I actually had him let me and my suitcase out three houses from my aunt and uncle's house and walked up to the door and pretended to be unlocking it as he drove off. I did not walk over to my aunt and uncle's until I was certain he was out of sight I did that just in case he had any nefarious purposes in mind, which I doubt that he did, but even though it was a bit late to be careful, I figured better late than never. As I said, I'm really ashamed that I did it at all but especially at that age when I should have known better. The cousin who said she had a scheduled conflict and couldn't pick me up, ask me a day or two later how I managed to get back and I told her I had just called a cab. I didn't want to admit how stupid I had really been.

When I was 16, I was on vacation with a friend of mine and we were walking back to the condo by ourselves around 2-3 am. A van pulled up next to us with 4-5 men in it and they all just turned and smiled at us. We ran. Super creepy.

Something happened to me in the Chicago suburbs in the early winter of 1978, when I was a junior in high school. I was walking to school on an especially cold winter's morning. I had begged Mom to drive me to school, but she was worried about driving because it was so icy and she had a new baby, my brother, at that time.

I wasn't even two blocks from my house when a guy with a dark, thick beard and frizzy black hair pulled up next to me in a Volkswagen bug. He rolled down his window and held out a normal looking house key, asking me to take it. I wasn't thinking at the time that he was trying to kidnap me, but he looked weird and I didn't trust him. I didn't even say anything, just started walking faster. He was so insistent on me taking the key and just didn't let up for a while.

He kept creeping up next to me, driving slowly, and I was so scared. Nobody was outside right then. The neighborhood was upper middle-class and full of biggish houses, but I think it was just so early and the roads were bad. Definitely no other walkers out then either.

He kept driving with my walking speed for about five minutes and I didn't look at him again, after my initial oh my god, he looks like a creep vibe. Eventually, he yelled out the window, "jerk!" and drove off. I have always wondered why he was trying to give me a key, what it was for, and why if he didn't want it, couldn't he just throw it out somewhere. After my fright wore off, I realized it seems he just wanted me to get close so he could pull me into the car. I was just so naive and innocent thinking back then.

I just feel lucky I had enough brains as a naive teenage girl to just keep walking and not get close.

One of my first memories was of me walking through the mall. I was holding my mom's hand and we were going to get a smoothie at this really good kiosk. I remember the hand being incredibly soft and looking up and it was a man. It's like burnt into my memory; I walked with this guy for a lot longer than I realized.

If it wasn't in a mall and people weren't looking for me I probably would have been kidnapped.

Absofreakinglutely. This was years ago when I was about 25. I had just finished helping run an event, and out group decided to go out for drinks afterwards. We were sitting in a lounge area at a martini bar when another group walked in. One of the men who came in with the second group ended up sitting and chit chatting with us.

He was giving extremely vague answers to questions, and he was paying an uncomfortable amount of attention to me. Basically focusing on me to the exclusion of anyone else whontri d to talk to him. I figured he was just a terrible pick-up artist, but when he grabbed my hand and said "Let me see your palm, you can tell so much about a person from looking at their hands" I had enough and decided to peace out.

The walk to my car I was looking over my shoulder and just about had a heart attack when I heard footsteps, but it was just one of my friends saying he'd left something in his car. He walked me the rest of the way to my car, and watched me get in.

The next day I called my best friend to rehash the night before. She said that after I left, the stranger who sat with us said he would be right back, and also got up and left. One if the order women with our group had a weird feeling and told someone to make sure I got to my car. Apparently the stranger was following me, and when he saw someone else come out he ran the other direction.

Long story short, walk your friends to their cars.

I was suspended from school for 10 days my Freshman year of highschool. As punishment my parents made me walk up and down our country mile road in bufu kentucky with a trash bag to pick up garbage. At the bottom of the hill about two miles from home a man pulled up in a truck and stopped started asking me questions. I turned around and started hoofing it back up the hill to home. He put his truck in reverse and started following me back up the hill. Telling me to get in his truck that my dad sent him to get me. My dad didnt know hardly anyone out so I knew that was lie. He continued to be persistant and I tried ignoring him. Until he reversed in front of me so he was blocking my way. I took off running down into the woods to get away. I could hear him yelling at me as I blizted past trees to get home. I showed up at home 2 hours latercovered in mud and burs because I was terrified of going back to the road. I got in trouble because my parents didnt believe me and thought I was just trying to get out of my punishment.

I wandered away from after school hours care in 1995 aged 5. I had decided I wanted to go home with a friend after school and the friends mother just took me. Got to their place and realised I didn’t know where I was and started crying. The lady dropped me off at the local police station and my mums work was called so she could pick me up. My mum says it was the scariest day of her life and now as a parent too I could imagine how.

A bouncer at a blues bar I frequented offered me a ride home one night. Since I thought I knew him I said sure. Well, on the way he drove down a side street into a deserted parking lot. He had locked the doors from his side and I couldn't get out. I had to convince him I was a virgin which was hard because he didn't think virgins went to bars. I finally started crying and that did it as he unlocked his doors at that point and let me go. I was terrified.

When I was around 16, and my sister was 8, we lived on a very rural road that didn't have mail service to our house as it was too far from town. The mail stopped at the house before ours, about a mile away, and there was a row of mailboxes there for everyone who lived beyond that house (who didn't keep a PO Box in town). We were walking to get the mail with our dog and a neighbor's dog who basically lived at our house - both very friendly country dogs. A ramshackle truck drove past us quickly, with the multiple male occupants catcalling us. The truck turned around and drove past us much slower, clearly checking us out and the men seemed pretty drunk. The dogs came out of the bushes and flanked the two of us and had bared teeth, full growls and all hairs standing on end for the truck's third pass by. The truck didn't come back, thankfully, nor did the dogs leave our side for the rest of the walk home.

I've always kept at least one big dog since, and I've obedience trained them, but not necessarily well-socialized them. A few years ago, the neighborhood (in an actual town, not the country home growing up) had a rash of night break-ins and while we had a few nights of intermittent crazed dog-barking, we were never broken into!

It's really too long a story for here, but the TLDR version is that, in the early 00s, while I (f, early 20s at the time) was on a road trip through the Former Yugoslav Republics with two girlfriends we came extremely close to having something horrible happen to us a couple times due to my friend's Serbian accent and big mouth and the fact that memories of the war were still very fresh.

I was just thinking about this recently..
When I was 5 years old I was playing in my front yard with my siblings and cousins when a black truck stopped in front of the house. He sat there watching us. My brother ran inside yelling and got my dad. As soon as my dad came out the truck drove away.
A few weeks prior to this Amber Hagerman was kidnapped a few blocks away by a man in a black truck.

When I was about 4-5 (before I started school), I took off walking down the road by myself early one morning. I was trying to find my mom, who usually walked the neighborhood with my aunt early mornings. On this morning I ended up outside of our neighborhood and in another neighborhood. A lady came by in a black car and I got in with her. Thankfully she didn't have any ill intentions and helped find my mom, but if she wasn't a kind person, I could have disappeared. My mom, aunt AND grandmother spanked me when we got back home.

Also from the Chicago suburbs, was walking back from school in the late early 00s around 10 years old. I was distracted and a man who looked to be in his mid to late 20s was suddenly standing in front of me. He was exposing himself and talking about how he liked to wear women’s underwear. I screamed and the people living in the house I happened to be in front of came outside immediately and he took off and got in his car that was parked right near us. No idea what could’ve happened if the people who lived in that house weren’t home! I went to my friend’s house a few houses down and called the police. The police brought a sketch artist and I was able to describe his vehicle. They found a couple cars in the neighborhood that matched the type/color so they drove me by to look at them but they weren’t the car. Nothing ever came of it after that as far as I know.

I'm sure this will get buried now but when I was about 12 and my best friend 10 or 11, we were camping in a remote area with her family are a small family site. We were exploring around and there were two guys who were watching us. We started to feel creeped out and circled around them to get back to our site, they were taking about how much they'd rent my friend for. The last thing we heard was "yeah, I'd get two hundred bucks for the girl in blue!". We started running. We told her parents but no one took us seriously. That was almost 20 years ago and I think about it from time to time.

Sounds creepy definitely. It could've absolutely been a trick to lure you closer, because everyone's got keys and people might not think and just assume it'll be theirs.

It could also be that he had actually found the key on the street and for some reason was very convinced it was yours, so he tried to return it. Maybe he imagined you'd be grateful and talk to him – desperate people can be maximum creeps without turning dangerous.

But either way, good on you for not taking the bait. Always best to follow you gut instinct on these things.

Not me, but one of my siblings. He is an adult who has developmental and intellectual disabilities--he can manage fine in lots of normal/regular situations, like going to the store or things like that, but does not have a good meter of what is and is not a dangerous situation and when to trust people or not.

He for some reason decided at like 2 am one night that, because he was still upset with our parents from an argument the prior day, he was going to walk from his place to theirs to yell at them. One of our other siblings was living with him and had their bedroom door open while they slept in case of him getting a weird idea like this, but didn't hear him leave, unfortunately. He then proceeded to head out on what is, if taken directly, a 1.5-2 mile walk from his place to our parents' place. It was early spring and pouring rain--thinking ahead is not his strong suit so he left in just a t-shirt and pants and sneakers. He also does not really understand how to use Google Maps and does not have a good sense of direction so he started out just kind of ambling in the vague direction of our parents' house.

He passes by a park and ends up talking to a guy who spends an extensive amount of time trying to talk him into going back to his hotel room with him. It's very difficult for someone to talk to my sibling for more than a minute or two without realizing he has intellectual disabilities, so whoever this guy was clearly realized my sibling was vulnerable and an easy target and just went for it. My sibling said they probably talked for 10-15 minutes, with this guy spending the entire time trying to convince my sibling to follow him. Fortunately, my sibling said he had "a weird feeling" and decided not to go with him. I'm so happy that was the case, because god knows what could have happened. He eventually made it to my parents' place by asking passers-by how to get to a well-known restaurant that is next-door to where they live, and woke my parents up at like 4 in the morning standing over their bed soaking wet.