“He Never Came Back”: 40 Things People Know They Saw But Don’t Have Any Proof Of

I had just applied to a job at a gas station on a major interstate route in the US, and I was leaving the lobby of the rest area building.

When I pushed the door open and walked out, I saw a seagull take flight from the top of a lamp post on the far side of the parking lot, which was shaped like a rectangle, with the building at one of the skinny ends. The only reason it caught my eye was because the parking lot was empty save 1 or 2 cars besides mine, and it was like my pushing the door open also pushed a button to trigger the bird to take off, the timing was perfect.

So I'm walking down the sidewalk, and I'm watching this seagull fly in my general direction following the edge of the lot, when it gets to the corner and turns so it's going to fly *directly* over me.

I think to myself "No way...." and sure as s**t, (heh. heh.) I see this seagull drop one in midair just before it gets to me. It's flying a good 20ish feet in the air, so I simply sidestep and watch as this giant blob of bird s**t liquid splats down on the ground, perfectly where I was.

So this seagull saw me walk out the door, and instantly decided it was going to try s**t on me.

Sometime in the early 2000s my wife and I went to an Eminem concert at the House of Blues on Sunset in LA (yes I know they are tearing it down and it sucks, I saw a lot of great shows there, including his royal purple badness). Anyway the entire show, maybe 90 minutes, there was a guy dancing on stage in a full mummy suit and he is doing really awkward and funny dances that you wouldn't expect from a background dancer at a rap concert but hey he's in a mummy suit so whatever. The show ends and Eminem screams into the mic "Do y'all wanna know who the m***a f****n mummy is?" and the crowd cheers and he screams "Dustin m***a f****n Hoffman!" He pulls a zipper in the back of the costume and out comes an extremely sweaty 60something year old Dustin Hoffman and the crowd goes into a stunned silence for a few seconds and then erupts in cheers. My wife and I just kinda looked at each other in disbelief and when I tell people they always say something like oh it must have just been someone found that looked like him but that guy was Dustin m***a f****n Hoffman and no I have no proof.

When I was 5 I liked to mix various liquids... playing chemistry, I guess. My grandma let me play with all her bathroom stuff. I mixed her shampoos and creams and cleaning products, etc. (I just realize now this might have been dangerous if I had mixed ammonia and bleach, for example). I swear I created a white liquid that produced a single black bubble that would come to the surface and pop at a regular interval. No one believes me, or maybe no one cares. I guess it's not that cool.

Snoop Dogg on Chatroulette. It was only for a second but I'm convinced it was him.

I was out for a walk late one night. This was in rural Illinois, so there was nobody else out. I noticed from a distance that there where these squirrels just standing in the middle of the road. Thought to myself that this is strange. When I got closer I noticed there where three squirrels standing around a cat that was lying down. I thought for a minute the cat was dead, but when I got closer and walked passed them, the squirrels and cat followed me with their eyes, none of them moving a muscle. It was a look like, "Move it along nothing to see here." Still to this day I think of how bizarre that was.

When I was about 10 they started putting missing children on milk cartons. Every morning for a while I was looking at this boy's face on the side of the milk while I would eat my cereal. Then one day a car went down my street while I was playing outside, and there was a boy in the back seat with his face up close to the window looking out. I'm 99% sure it was the boy from the milk carton. I told my parents but they didn't believe me.

When I was 10 we had a 14 year old German Shepard who was getting very sick. I was home alone momentarily as my mom went to the neighbors to pick up a book or something. Our German Shepard came over, convinced me to walk outside with him and started licking my hands, looked at me, and ran away jumping the fence and he never came back. He was so loyal and good that to this day noone believes me and thinks he was stolen because he would never leave. I'm almost certain he did that because he didn't want us to see him die and he wanted to go to the massive forest area and do his thing. I miss you buddy.

EDIT: Those of you wondering why noone believes a kid on something that does happen a lot was that we lived in Iran at the time and the dogs (especially rare purebreds) we're usually stolen so my family thought it was a result of that. .

Years ago, I left my laptop open at a Starbucks while I left to get my drink. When I returned, Bill Murray was sitting in front of my screen tapping away on the keyboard. I looked over his shoulder as he anonymously posted a number of stories regarding encounters with himself. They ranged from tackling others, stealing food and other fun oddities. When he finished, he closed my laptop, stood up, and looked me in the eye. Then he said, “No one will ever believe you” and walked away.

I was having a secret smoke one night and when I was finished I went to put the ashtray in my hiding place on the top of a high cupboard in my kitchen. Instead of getting the footstool I was on my tiptoes and stretching up to put the ashtray up there when I lost my balance and the ashtray slipped out of my fingers and fell down to the floor. I ducked out of the way so I didn't get covered in ash or get hit by the heavy glass ashtray and I heard it hit the ground behind me loudly and then clatter as it rolled. I sighed as I knew I'd have to clean up ash from the floor and was annoyed at myself for being clumsy. But then when I turned around to where I had heard it land there was nothing there. I honestly spent about thirty minutes looking all over that kitchen for the ashtray or even a trace of ash on the floor but there was nothing. It and its contents had simply vanished into thin air. I went to bed totally freaked out that night and had another look the next morning but it was still gone and I've never seen it again since.

I saw a bunch of crows, around 20+, gather around in a circle. I was like wtf and took a closer look to see 3 other crows in the middle of the circle, all on their backs. And some crows from the circle would hop in and try to peck at the 3 crows, while they cawed and tried to defend themselves with their feet. I know crows are smart and all but didn't expect this level of social behavior. It went on for a while before a kid ran in and scattered them all.

I know this will get buried, but I HAVE TO post this. I went outside early one morning and saw this woman kneeled in my mothers flower garden. I was a little sketched out. I was like, 10 and a person I didn't know was just sitting in the middle of our garden. Not knowing what to do, I just said hello to her. She turned around and immediately apologized for being in our yard, and said that we had such nice flowers she couldn't help it. Then she walked away. I thought it was cute, didn't think any more of it, and went about my day. My mom and dad left to do errands and my brother and I were home alone. We were both watching TV. Without any warning, someone taps my shoulder behind me. I freak out, turn around, and SHE IS STANDING RIGHT BEHIND MY BROTHER AND I. She apologized immensely and then asks where my mom and dad were, and I told her they would be back anytime, but that she really shouldn't be coming into people's houses. She agreed, and asked for a pen and a piece of paper, saying she wanted to write them a note. I complied and told her to do it out in the dining room. I peered from behind a corner in my hallway and never let her out of my sight. I was beyond afraid. She calmly sets the pen down, shouts thank you from the dining room, and then walks out the front door. I bolt to the window and make sure she's gone, then I bolt to the door and lock it. Then I nervously and very slowly approached the note she left on the table. I read it and was dumbfounded. She said that she believed god spoke to her in the garden, and told her to build an alter to her grandmother. The note was her scheduling an appointment with my mother to discuss placing a tombstone and a prayer table or something in the garden. My parents got home and I freaked out, I told them my mom had to talk to this woman. She left her phone number on the note. My mom took the day off work, sat out on the porch at the time the woman said, and waited for her to arrive. She never showed up. My mom called the number on the note, only to get a disconnected message. The only proof I had of any of these things happening was the note she left. My mom and dad don't believe most of the story, and it seems even my brother forgot about it, but I know it happened.

I was at the airport and saw a businessman with a carry on wheely bag get off the escalator.
He turned the corner, broke into a sprint carrying the bag by it's small strap handle on top.
He swung the bag forward and let go of the strap handle. While it was in mid-air he grabbed the currently unextended extending handle, pressed the button and on the back swing extended the handle and landed it on its wheels and continued sprinting, all without breaking stride.

I swear that one day, in the middle of a pretty bad snow fall in Montreal, I was driving to meet a friend and saw a guy on a unicycle carrying a trombone. He was wearing ski goggles and just going down the street, heading somewhere. The tire on his unicycle was pretty thiçk, so I'm guessing this was his weather beater unicycle. When I got to my friend's place and explained it, they thought I was just trying to be funny. I swear it happened.

When I was about 10 or 11 we were having a get together at gma's house for the holidays. All of us cousins played all day, and when night fell we played hide and seek. While the adults smoked and drank up by the house, we stayed on the back of the property just having a good time. I was hiding in between a bush and the property fence when I heard the strangest sound. It was almost a scream, both happy and miserable at the same time. I jumped up and kinda shouted. All my cousins heard it, and we all saw it, too. It was an animal on two legs, and it ran off with really jerky motions. Being the oldest by about three years, I calmed down the crying little ones and explained as best I could that it was just someone trying to scare us. I've had nightmares about that sound; in my mind it seems a grotesque mimicry of our joyous screams and laughter as we played. None of my cousins today will admit to even remembering the incident, although the adults remembered the commotion it caused. .

I work for the Department of Corrections in my state in one of the oldest cell blocks in the country. There's a spirit in the 1940's guard uniform that strolls throughout the cell block. Dozens of us have seen him. He had even shown up on camera from time to time (live speed, when we rewind it, he's not there). We all know what we saw, but we decide it's best not to tell many other people because it's pretty unbelievable. 

Ball lightning. It was right after a thunderstorm passed by. I could see floating orbs in the sky. There were a couple of cars parked by an open field and people were watching this happen, so I parked and got out to join them.

We all sorta just looked on in silence until they winked out one by one. There was at least ten of them and they seemed to fly together in patterns. Sometimes they were fast, other times they slowed down or reversed direction. They seemed small, but I could tell this wasn't because they were far up in the sky. If I were to guess, they'd be about the size of a basketball, maybe a little larger.

The whole ordeal only lasted thirty minutes. We then all got in our cars and left. I tried taking pictures but it was dark and the lights were too faint to make out. I should recorded a video instead. I noticed someone was recording them at the scene so I had kinda hoped I'd see it online at some point. But it's been two years now so I guess not.

In the 1990s, I was such an exercise freak. At least 4 hours a day walking and hillclimbing. I was getting cut off from current events, tv news etc. One day I'm on my way home, around 3pm.I'm crossing the street in front of our local grocery store and there's this guy on the other side of the street. His hair is a mess, standing on end. His clothes are all over the place, not ripped, but disarranged. Like he walked out of a bomb blast but he cleaner. He's looking around, silently, clearly confused. Homeless people were really uncommon in my area then and tended to be couchsurfers rather than streetsleepers. He looked too well to be a street sleeper plus he didn't seem to have a clue where he was but he turned left and wander off the my left before I crossed the road. That night, local news comes on. That afternoon a school teacher a couple of towns away had drowned. They flashed his picture up. It was the dude I saw. I'd swear to it.

Edit: detail I forgot. They never found the dude's body. Edit: well this blew up more than I expected. I'll try to answer most of the comments, those that I can. I didn't go to the cops. It didn't occur to me at the time. my gut instinct of seeing him on the news was that he was a ghost. The street was very crowded. No one was reacting to him at all. The whole thing had a funny feeling to it. Also this isn't a region where that is always a helpful move. I was actually pretty gun shy at the time because I'd been a witness in an assault case and it had resulted in severe life consequences for me with little outcome for the victim. He wasn't wet. Just really shocked and confused looking. I'd be surprised if he faked his death. By all accounts he was a decent dude from what I heard and had nothing to run from. I'm sorry I don't have more answers. This story haunted me precisely because there are none.

I was snorkeling in Hawaii once, and I swear I saw something that looked like a clear chameleon, but as soon as I got close it buried itself in the sand. I still vividly remember discovering a new species.

My friend and I were watching basketball in the early days that Charles Barkley was a panelist. He was apologizing for calling a team "midgets" and saying that he now knew it was offensive. But as they were going to commercial, we both heard him say over a hot mic "Besides, they shouldn't hate me, they should hate God." My friend and I were amazed, and convinced he would be fired. But not only did we never hear about it again, the clip doesn't even exist online anywhere. It's as though we had a double delusion. 

Back in 8th grade I was sitting in maths class, and my classroom was at the front top left of the building (if that makes sense), and if I looked out the right side windows I could look across at the classrooms at the other side of the building. So one day I was just staring out the window, as you do in maths, and I saw the somewhat old (maybe 60ish), somewhat fat, balding history teacher climb out the classroom window across the way, and run across the roof. No one else saw it, and sure as hell no one believed me when I mentioned it!