When something in your gut speaks loud enough for you to take notice, you may need to stop and listen. Because in some instances, following that inner voice may save your life. 

A Reddit question recently went viral: “What was your biggest ‘We need to leave... Now!’ moment?” Answers poured in with people’s firsthand accounts of what turned out to be close calls after deciding to bail at the last minute. Some missed mass shootings by a few moments, while others narrowly avoided an incoming hurricane. 

Scroll through and have a bowl of popcorn with you because these stories are riveting. If you’ve had similar experiences, feel free to share them in the comments.

#1

Grocery shopping with my grandma, she’s tired (normal for her) but she’s getting a bit slower and dragging her leg more than usual. At the checkout counter I saw her face was a little droopy and I said we are leaving now and going to ER. They gave her a bottle of water for the car ride which she ended up choking on and vomiting up all the water. Called ahead to ER so they were ready and they took care of her ASAP, she was having a stroke and they were able to help her quick enough so that she didn’t have any long lasting issues.

Image credits: anon

#2

A couple of friends and I were outside a house party talking. I noticed out of the corner of my eye something dart behind some bushes towards the end of the block - maybe four houses down? It was dark out so it was hard to tell. We stood there a bit long and I swore I saw something again move to a tree a little closer. This wasn’t the best neighborhood (heck my whole hometown isn’t the safest) and I knew a couple people at the party were involved in some stuff so I don’t know if that entered my mind or what, but I got immediate goosebumps. I said “let’s go- NOW”. A couple of my friends looked at me weird, but later one told me they knew by the look on my face something was up. I apparently look possessed. I had my keys so we ran to my car and got in. I didn’t even let anyone get their seatbelts on - I just hit the gas. Based on the news stories less than probably 5 minutes later a group of people shot up the house we were at - the others standing outside were severely injured or killed. Turns out a couple guys at the party were thought to have killed someone’s family member and it was a revenge thing. This was over 20 years ago and I still get nervous if I’m standing around outside - especially if it’s dark.

Image credits: itsmelk74

#3

I've wrote about this before..I was in a mall in Indonesia & 2 tourists seemed to be having problems communicating with the cashier at a bookstore, so I helped translate.

The wanted to buy me drinks to thank me. Told them it’s not necessary & I have to get back to my mom soon. They told me to meet them for dinner. Told them I have to have dinner at home. They told me to sneak out & meet them after dinner. At this point, a bookstore staff noticed something was wrong and went up to question them.

My sister & I dashed off while they were distracted.

Continued wandering around the mall & realised they were following us. To see if we were just paranoid, we ducked into a lingerie store since we figured 2 men won’t usually need to go lingerie shopping together. They followed us in.

Ran so quickly back to the jewellery store our mom was at. The store had intimidating security guards & I guess that stopped those guys.

I was 11, my sister was 10.

Image credits: eraser_dust

#4

So I was waiting at the train station to pick up a friend of mine. I was early so I decided to stand in the sun right outside of the station.
A guy with a bicycle walked up to me asking in broken English if I knew how late the train would arrive. After I answered the question he stayed around and starting talking to me.

Now I know that's not weird at all but the things he asked and the way he acted and looked just gave me a creepy vibe. Eventually he asked if I would walk with him while he dropped his bicycle of. I didn't want to because the place to store bicycles at this station is very secluded and to be honest I didn't want to be alone with this guy. So I noped out and walked into the station.

He started yelling at me. Calling me names but at that moment the train came in and it got very busy. So he left.

A few months later I read this article in the local paper about a girl being [attacked] at the station. They had put a drawing of a guy next to the article as he was not yet caught. It was the same guy.
To this day I'm very happy I didn't go with him.

Image credits: Elesiaaa

#5

About two months ago I’d stayed up past my usual bed time and as soon as I got in bed I smelled something odd and was hearing some inconsistent banging and clattering from downstairs. I don’t live in a great neighborhood so none of this was unusual but I got out of bed to check anyway and saw flames licking up the side of the building. Yelled at my wife to get out of bed and threw on some clothes and we high-tailed it out. Our building has a shared wall with the next and that one had an apartment on the ground floor fully engulfed by the time we made it outside, ended up condemning the whole building. I was the first one to call 911. Have been jerking myself awake in the night pretty consistently since then.

Image credits: UglierInside

#6

About a decade ago, I was driving my Miata with a friend to a track about 4 hours from home. We left after dinner the night before so we could wake up there and get an early start. About an hour from our destination, 11pm a crazy summer storm hit...heavy rain, high wind gusts, lots of debris. I told my buddy that early 90s windshield wipers couldn’t keep up, I couldn’t see s**t, and I just felt like I was white knuckling the steering wheel.

I decided to hit the exit, we’d get some late night food at a Waffle House and wait out the storm. We sat down and I had a TV in sight and I was casually watching. Almost immediately, a weather map came up and showed a tornado pass right over where we would’ve been a few minutes later had I not exited.

Image credits: rr_0223

#7

Showed up to a party, some people were outside fighting, my gf at the time and I decided to leave. Not long after that some guys that were a part of the first fight came back with more and a shooting occured.

Image credits: 3klipse

#8

Visiting Kowloon in Hong Kong, I ended up walking all day until my feet were killing me. It got dark outside and I was tired, so I decided to drop by a decent looking bar for a drink and a moment to rest my feet.

It was all empty except a group of serious looking local men in suits. They kept leering at me the whole time, the most awkward beer I ever had. None of them said a word, but I got the message: "You're not supposed to be here, gwailo.".

Image credits: TawnyaChavera

#9

At a party when I was about 19. I was on the top floor with my friend and he mentioned to me that he and the guy in the corner had been in a pretty nasty fight about a year ago.

That guy is giving us some eyes and staring us down. My friend said not to worry, but I did not like the vibe this guy was giving. I saw the guy talk to his friend and send him out of the room.

I told my buddy, nope we are leaving now. Much to his protest, as there was a girl he liked at this party. I practically ran down the stairs, grabbed our other friend by the hood of his sweatshirt and ran to the car.

As we are backing out of this long country driveway, I see the guy, his buddy and 4 or 5 more of them run out of the house with baseball bats and they chased us down the driveway.

So damn glad we got out of there when we did.

Image credits: Economy_Cactus

#10

Woodstock 99. Felt the energy of the grossly over packed crowd, the building rage, and looked my friends and said we need to go. They stayed, I left. Shortly after fired and riots started and my friends lost everything they had with them. Tents, clothes, food, everything.
When you have 300k people shoulder to shoulder in 104degree humidity and charge $4 for a bottle if water and have half as many bathrooms as needed, you're gonna have a bad time.

Image credits: PeggieGuenther

#11

My friend and I, both females, met up our first time back home from college. It was a surprisingly nice day outside in the middle of winter so we decided to get lunch and eat outside. We found a park that had no one there and were sitting at a picnic table catching up when I see a scruffy looking guy in a large work van with no rear windows pull into the parking lot. I didn’t pay a whole lot of attention to him at first but I noticed he was moving around the outside of the van for a bit and he kept looking our way. He finally walked down the sidewalk toward us and passed by our picnic table and walked around the backside of the restroom building to look down the hill on the other side of it. Very obviously casing out the place. He walked back to his van and me and my friend were discussing what we were going to do while I watched him open up the back of the van and start digging around it. He made a call on his cell phone and a few minutes later another male pulled up in a different car. He got out and started talking to the first guy, who not very discreetly pointed our direction. They immediately started walking toward us and my friend and I scooped what was left of lunch and fast walked out of the place while keeping an eye on them. One of the times in my life I could literally feel the hair on the back of my neck standing on end. It could have been nothing, but even now I feel pretty certain that they had something planned and I am glad we left.

Image credits: BlackHawk218

#12

Posted this before, but was very late to the party

I was on a date with a girl hiking a trail system that I knew like the back of my hand, something felt weird but I shook it. We went in around sunset, we were going to swim in one of the deep pools in the creek. Maybe 2 miles into the trail I get the feeling again, and she's talking her head off, but i was just listening to everything around me. I told her to stop talking, and she looked at me very concerned, i just put my finger to my lips and listened. I heard something familiar but i couldn't place it. We never stopped walking. We came to the Arroyo just before the creek pool, and I heard it again, by this time I knew. I told her we were going to walk to the clearing where the Arroyo was at and turn around. She told me she heard something weird. As we came to the clearing we stood there like statues, dead silent. Her nails cut my arm from gripping it so hard. Then around 15 feet from us, the biggest mountain lion I've ever seen crossed the clearing with 2 of its young. She looked at us, and as our eyes met... my soul left my body. And I felt her grip tighten around my arm even tighter. She stopped and so did her babies. I'm guessing she sized us up...and then just kept going. The babies kept turning around looking at us, but ultimately they just slowly crossed the top of the hill and that was that. We turned around and told everyone we saw on the way in that there was 3 mountain lions on the trail, they all turned around and left.
That was the first time I was ever scared out in nature. I didn't have a handgun on me, I had been there a hundred times. She told me the sound she heard was a deep purring, and that was what I kept hearing also, I just hadn't put it together.

Image credits: TheBigPapaNorm

#13

Driving to Disney with hubs and 2 little kids (4&5). Stopped at a gas station in Tifton, Ga at about 10pm. Wander in a little bleary eyed with the 2 kids looking for the bathroom. Clerk looks at me funny and points. While I'm in there I hear "She's got 2 babies with her man. Just let them pee and go". I grab both kids and walk straight back to the car with only a small head nod to the clerk. Hubs was done pumping gas and about to go in himself. I yelled for everyone to get in the car, I would explain later. As soon as we pulled out I called 911. The operator told me they were already on route and to vacate the scene, took my info and wished us a fun trip. Walked into a gas station robbery with two little kids, peed and left with no issues. Bad gas wasn't that bad of a guy and let us go.

Image credits: scoutmom6098

#14

Met this cute girl at a party. Spent the whole night dancing a flirting. Offered to drive her home and she agreed. We were making out in the car in front of her house when another car pulls up with their headlights beaming at us. I ask if that’s a neighbor and if we’re blocking their driveway? She replies “no, that’s my husband”.

Husband’s car door opens and I noped the f**k out of there. Dropped her straight back at the party and never saw her again.

Her excuse was that they were separated and he shouldn’t have a problem with it. I sure wasn’t sticking around to find out

Image credits: town_klown

#15

When I was 15, a friend and I went for a lot of walks around town (small town, around 5-6k people). We were going to the cyber cafe in town to meet a few friends and we often took different streets to get places, just to keep it interesting.

We were about to go to Main Street off one of the side streets and a man on a bicycle approached us. He got off his bike, and asked us a couple small talk questions. Something didn’t seem right about him, he was probably mid 40s. We both kept inching away but didn’t want to come off as too rude, so we answered about the weather or traffic. Then he paused and we said we had to go, and he said (and I’ll never forget it) “you look so young, I don’t want to get in trouble, but I need to touch someone. I just need to touch you. You should come with me.” And he started rambling.

I just felt terror, couldn’t even speak. I grabbed my friends hand and turned. We sprinted the rest of the way to the cafe and as soon as we were inside we asked to use the phone. I called my mom to pick us up while my friend told the worker what happened and what the guy looked like. A month later I got my first cell phone.

Image credits: Goldenapplegoddess

#16

Was 15/16 at a house party with my good friend, another girl.

There were some gatecrashers who turned up ( which weren’t unusual at London house parties) but these guys were older, and there was just a vibe. A girl I vaguely knew, was very drunk and being surrounded by them and I asked her if she was ok and she told me to “F**k off, I’m fine.”

I looked at my friend and said to her “I’m gonna call my mum and dad to come get me do you want a lift?” (My parents were always amazing and said to me that if I was at a party or out and for ANY reason didn’t want to be where I was I could call them and they would come and get me)

My parents turned up, coats on over pyjamas and took us both home. Apparently half an hour after we left, someone was stabbed, the girl we had asked earlier was sexually assaulted and lots of stuff was stolen and people beaten up and held up at knifepoint.

I had such a feel in the air that I’ve hardly felt before or since and KNEW we needed to not be there.

Image credits: AliceLovesBooks

#17

Sknyliv airshow catasrophe

I was 5ish at a time, so it's my dad's story more than mine. You can google the details, but long story short, my dad saw the plane jolt in the air, and he realized that something went wrong and started running and yelling at everyone else to run. I was sitting on his shoulders, so he just took off with me.
The plane crashed into the crowd killing 77 people, 35 or so children among them. Not us.

Image credits: Polylactic

#18

When I was a paramedic I was in a basement taking care of a shooting victim. The fire department had not arrived yet the cop, having cleared the basement, was not with me at the time and my partner was in the ambulance getting some equipment I needed. As I was kneeling down working on my patient with 100% Focus I felt a hard steel object placed on the back of my head. It was a shotgun. The shooter apparently was still in the basement and I was alone with him. He told me he shot this guy for a reason and gave me an opportunity to leave. I left.

Image credits: HenryRN

#19

My friend invited me to a "seminar". Everyone were dressed in white shirt and black pant with black shoes. I was odd one out in here. For some weird reason, they were praising founder as if he was some kind of god. When I went in to the auditorium, they were showing how these 17 year olds were earning Rs. 200,000 in a month (which is heckuva lot in India, translated to about $3500) with their own bikes, cars and s**t like that. Then it dawned upon me that this is eerily similar to one of the biggest scam in that used similar business model about 7 years ago at the time. I really wanted to move out ASAP. My brainwashed friend was sitting a few row behind me (all of those involved in this marketing were required to do so for weird reason). It was cringey at best and exploitative at worst. Never cought up with him ever since.

That friend of mine wasn't really bad person or anything. He didn't even force me to buy the product or anything. May be due to the fact that I studied in different city. The product seemed really good from outside but the method of selling really looked like one for MLM. There was another person in that group who was from my school (didn't know him in any way) who forced one of my family friend (went to same school) to buy that product. He then resorted to swearing and abused her online for not buying the product. I'm not sure if it is a full fledged MLM because the participants weren't forced to buy product in bulk. Probably because all of them were students. I don't recall the name of the company, so Idk how is that company still doing.

Image credits: anon

#20

I was in college when I had my first solo apartment. This guy across the hall would come over, or invite me over, and we'd hang out a few times. However, I would not call him a friend.

One night he asks me to loan him some money. In addition to not wanting to loan him money, I don't really have any, so he proceeds to ask for a ride to see his girlfriend because she has some money for him. I agree.

We arrive at her apartment and a small party is going on. When we walked into the party everyone immediately shuts up and stares at us. He runs off to find his "girlfriend," who I find out is his ex-girlfriend. It is awkward because I'm kind of this guy's friend by association, and I'm getting lots of angry stares. He gets into an argument with her and we are basically thrown out of this place.

He then asks if I can take him to another part of town. He owes another guy some money and needs to go talk to him. We proceed to an unfamiliar part of town, and he instructs me to park in a fairly isolated spot. He explains that he doesn't want the other guy to see my car...BECAUSE HE MIGHT TAKE IT. He owes this guy money for gambling or d***s or something else bad, and he is way behind on his payments. I left him and spent the rest of my time in that apartment avoiding him.

Image credits: enephon

#21

Was in Mexico City with family including two daughters. Grabbed a cab on the street around 10:00 pm to take us back to the hotel. I was somewhat familiar with the area since we had been there four or five days already. Cabbie totally passes the hotel district and starts heading away from the part of town we were in. Streets were getting more and more residential. I demanded that he pull over and we GTFO and walked back to the hotel, probably 3 or 4 miles.

He was probably just padding the fare, but I was not going to take a chance on being kidnapped so we flew.

#22

My father's story:

1999, 3 adult males entered our family store in July wearing heavy trench coats. They spread out through the store and my father caught a glimpse of a gun under their coats. He called the police and while waiting for a call back, my mother grabbed the children and ran out the back door. Once we got a call back, an employee answered the phone and asked who called the police. The men ran out of the store, went down 2 doors, robbed the laundry mat, and killed the clerk.

Image credits: Bemkaree

#23

My friends and I all pre teen boys were walking around the neighborhood. A white van with a mountainscape mural with wolves howling at moon kept slowly following us. Eventually we caught on after a few blocks and started to get anxious. We didn't run, but slowly walked up to a random door (very family centric neighborhood) and then started loudly knocking. The van pealed off never to be seen again.

#24

I work as an engineer in a data center cooling plant. We’re responsible for basically everything in the building- mechanical, electrical, hvac, plumbing.

So the engineer I’m relieving tells me there’s an odd sound coming from the Con Ed vaults- this is where these huge transformers are that step down from 26,000 volts or so to a voltage the building can actually use- we are not allowed in those vaults, they’re locked and only Con Ed has they key.

So he leaves, and I take a walk by the vaults- I had never actually heard electricity arcing through the air before, but I knew I was hearing it then.

I called Con Ed’s emergency line and told them to get out there ASAP- a crew of two guys show up, they seem calm and disinterested in the elevator on the way up- “it’s probably just a contact chattering” they said.

We get off the elevator and start heading down the hall- the sound was WAY louder now, we weren’t even near the vaults and there was no mistaking it. Both guys stopped dead in their tracks and kind of hunkered down. I saw the color drain from them.

Wasted no time getting back in that elevator. If you’ve never seen video of a large transformer explosion, go check YouTube. These transformers are not like the ones you see up on utility poles, they’re as big as a couple of trucks stacked on top of each other. Anyone on the floor when one of them cooked off would be gone, and we have 8 of them.

Image credits: blind30

#25

When I was about 16, I went to visit my grandmother at her place. The smell of natural gas was intense, even though Nana didn't seem to notice it much.

She was groggy - sort of half-asleep - not her usual responsive self. So I made her get out of the house at once and opened the windows and doors.

I called Dad and he reported it to the gas company, who sent inspectors right away. They shut off the gas (valve in the street) immediately and sent a repair crew to fix a leaking joint in the gas supply pipe.

The inspector said that if I hadn't acted then and there, the probability was great that there would soon have been an explosion.

#26

We were playing hoops in a bad neighbourhood. At some point one of the guys we were playing with got real nasty "whithey boys leave now. We ain't f*****g with you you need to leave." Real aggressive etc.

I had noticed a black BMW circling around the playground but nothing much else.


All his friends started insulting us and pushing us etc.

Which was weird we were playing with them every week end. I had given free tutoring classes to one of their brothers.


We left. Pissed. That was a damn good playground. And it felt special to play with the thugs, us being whithey nerdy boys.


Well 15 mins after we left the black BMW shot at them. Multiple casualties etc.

Edit: my timeline is a bit mixed up. Since I had started giving tutoring classes etc it was 15 years ago or so, not 20 years ago. I am old but not that old. Sorry but I wont correct my other comments mentioning the timeline.

Image credits: Lazaryx

#27

My friends and I stopped at a 7-11 around midnight in a sketchy neighborhood - we'd taken a wrong turn and were trying to find our way back to the highway. Two police officers were getting coffee and donuts.

A group of local youths came in, kind of roughly messing with each other. The police officers looked at them, looked at us, looked at each other and power-walked out of the store.

My friends and I decided not to complete our snack food purchases and made to leave - and then one of the youths yelled to his friends that we'd called him a racial epithet, when we hadn't even spoken to them. I'm glad my car started on the first try, and glad no one was coming the other way as I ran a couple stop signs.

Image credits: firelock_ny

#28

I was at a club and a guy pulled up and parked next to us as we were getting out to head in. The guy then proceeded to reach in the back of his SUV and pull out a shotgun. He looked over at us and told us "It's finna go down." We got back in our vehicle and noped out.

#29

Grand Forks, ND April 17th 1997.

I had spent the morning in the shadow of a 12' wall of sandbags that I was helping to build up to a River Level of 49'

Around 2pm I went back to my apartment to eat before heading into work, and I turned on the Radio to try and catch the flood forecast. They announced that the river was currently at 48' 6" and rising at a rate of half an inch per hour. For weeks the NWS kept repeating the crest would be 49 feet in early May. Now they had changed the forecast! They were now saying the crest would be 49' 6" in the first week of May.

I immediately began packing, and loaded up everything I would need for several weeks before going into work. I worked at a convenience store and I made sure to fill my gas tank before I began my shift. Before my shift was over the evacuation announcements had begun, and we were swamped with lines of cars fueling up to leave the city. 36 hours later on Saturday morning I was among the massive line of cars in the largest pre-Katrina flood evacuation in the U.S.. I didn't get back to my apartment for months.

The "We" in my "We need to leave now" moment was the entire city.

#30

Whilst driving on the highway, I stumbled upon some pretty big rocks in the middle of the road (luckily I had my high-beams on), and I had to come to a full-stop in the middle of the highway. There wasn't an embankment anywhere near me and this wasn't a rocky area so I was initially puzzled as to where the rocks had come from... then I noticed a guy in my rear-view mirror coming out of the bushes... It was at this exact moment where I was like 'we need to leave, now!'. I threw my car into reverse and gunned it... nearly drove over the guy in the road behind me; did a j-turn and drove in the opposite direction on travel on the highway until I found an offramp. This was about 11pm at night on a segment of the highway which is notorious for hi-jackers. Turns out that the hi-jackers place massive rocks in the road at night and when you drive head-long into the rocks and get out of your car to inspect the damage, they then pop out of the bushes and rob you at gun-point, and drive off with your car if it is still driveable. Luckely I wasn't a victim that night. God only knows what they would have done to my gf. Good old S**thole Africa.

#31

I got home at 3am after a night with the boys. I notice an out of place workers van before turning into my main street but didn’t think much of it. I decided to walk my dog because we usually do it nightly off leash. As im walking down the cross street I see another random car in the middle of the street under a street light. No head lights on but car is on. I didn’t think much of it until I made a right to loop the block and go back home. As soon I turned I see that initial white van and I see that other car start to move and drive right behind me, still with no headlights on. And that was the moment I knew I needed to get out of there. I kinda blacked out and was in survival mode. I picked up my dog and ran as fast as I could down the street. I never looked back. I was scared they were following me home but by the time realized what just happened I was almost home. I never walk my dog late at night now.

#32

(Sorry for format, on mobile- probably worth the read though)

I’m (19F) on a Greek island last May with my cousin (22F) as a part of a trip. We liked to go on aimless walks out of the towns we stayed in to see what was around.

On our way back from one of these walks we were on a long narrow road that dropped off on each side to beaches.
A small green car passes by us in the same direction we’re walking and stops 50-100 yards in front of us, just sitting on the road. We say maybe they’re just taking in the view. We continue to walk and when we finally get to the car, the passenger (our side) window is down and the man is staring at us through the mirror. As soon as we pass the car pulls forward past us again.

Immediately after the green car drives past us again, large truck drives past (again in the same direction) and pulls along side the green car. They both stop for a moment and are clearly talking to each other. The green car speeds off, the black truck drives forward a bit more and then stops on the same side of the road again.

Keep in mind we’re on a narrow road, we can’t turn around because town is the other way, behind us is just beaches. And a couple houses.

The black truck is stopped on our side of the road, as we get closer, the driver opens the front and back door to the cab, but does nothing else. Just stands there outside of the truck mostly looking back towards us.

We decide that this is way too sketchy, both cars were clearly keeping an eye on us and watching and communicating.

When we get closer to the truck we Nope off of the road and drop into the beach. We get as far away from the road as the beach will allow us, and start speed walking, the man from the truck crosses the road and watches us with BINOCULARS from the side of the beach.

We ran until we caught up with another couple and followed them back into town. I saw the same green car drive back past us multiple times as we ran parallel to the road down the beach.

We made it back to our hotel/apartment thing safely and locked and tied up our doors to the balcony and hall.

in a nutshell: potentially almost experienced Taken on a gap year trip in Greece


EDIT: Despite this incident, I would absolutely still recommend going to Greece. It is a beautiful place with many wonderful islands to explore, and some very sweet and giving locals. I have solo travelled a bit and the world is actually not as scary as some make it out to be. The person who just broke the world record for youngest person to visit every country is a 21 year old woman, and she would tell you the same thing. Anything can happen anywhere. Do your research, learn self defense, and always be aware of your surroundings, but always be open to new places!

#33

It was early 2019 and I was with my girlfriend at the time walking through the woods near my house as we often did. We were having an intense argument over something stupid when I noticed something through the trees off the trail to where we were walking. It was a man wearing a dark top and blue jeans. People came in this woods all the time but what was weird is this man wasn't on any trails he was in the middle of the overgrowth. I told her to shut up (I know bad idea especially in an argument) and she just got madder at me. I told her again and told her to look in the direction I was looking.



At first she didn't see what I was talking about so I told her to look for blue since the mans jeans stood out the most, then she saw him. A man walking through the overgrowth following us. I didn't know who this guy was but he looked older, still I wasn't taking any chances especially with my girlfriend there so I told her 'let's go we have to leave' and we walked faster. The trouble was we were in the middle of nowhere and far from any exits and to be honest my girlfriend at the time wasn't exactly physically fit so walking fast was hard for her.



We walked as fast as she could and I kept looking behind us and that old man was still following us in the overgrowth obviously trying to remain hidden. We ended up leaving the woods and never going back there together. I've been back there many times since alone and have had a few strange encounters with another person that looks kinda like the old man but I can't say for sure it's the same guy as he is always watching from afar. He never does anything besides follow from a distance but I've seen him a total of three times, spooky.

#34

I was hiking with 2 friends and we were crossing through some big farms. One of the fenced of areas had a herd of cows in it. They had like 20 calves and 150 cows.

As we were walking through, they slowly ganged up on us from behind and litterally encircled us, facing inwards while standing next to each other. I think they surrounded us by like 300 degrees before we realised what was happening and f*****g ran like hell the last 50m to the edge of the fenced area. I think the opening between the two ends of the open circle was like 20m and they were like 20m away from us.

That was pretty insane tbh, I will never forget it. I learned to differentiate between the behaviour of 1 creature opposed to a herd. It blew my mind how they all worked together in silence. I have never experienced fear physically like in that moment.

When we hopped the fence they followed us to the edge. There was one black bull in particular who didn't seem to like we got away. I always assumed he was the leader.

#35

In China, on a school trip. Wandering around night-market stalls of fried bugs and bull testicles, in a group of 10 or so high-school age kids. A 50-60ish y.o. Chinese man engages us in conversation, claiming to be the curator of a local art gallery. Do we want to check out some paintings? Sure, we were bored and had lost our appetite pretty quickly anyhow. Well we get to the 'gallery' which was a semi-rundown 5x5m building. The Chinese man talks to us from the doorway, inviting us in to see the paintings which are downstairs. The building is in the middle of a large paved courtyard, right next to a popular tourist destination. It's safe, right? Peering through the doorway, no artwork or obvious function to the building is visible. An entrance lamp is broken with its glass scattered over the doorway, and inside shoddy steps lead to a dank unlit basement. One of us interrupts Chinese man's sweetalking (come down, see painting) to grill him on the broken glass. "Don't worry, many paintings. Beautiful" "No, tell me why there's broken glass". At this point we're all exchanging glances, when I get the urge to break our collective stupor by yelling "CHEEEESE ITTTT!" As a group we turn tail into a sprint, covering a hundred yards or so before we slow down to laugh and crack jokes about kidnapping and organ black markets. Glad it was the best memory from my trip and not the last one.

Image credits: cmori3

#36

We were sitting on the sand at the beach, talking and having drinks. I looked up at the sky behind my friends and saw this huge, dark, ominous cloud mass moving towards us.

I got up and said “guys, we have to leave NOW. Huge thunderstorm coming right at us. We have about 5 minutes!”

We managed to reach the car but had to sit in it for a good hour while the wind and rain ravaged everything around us - trees were left bare, benches were upturned, trash cans were dragged for half a mile. The beach club tents were blown away and some people were seriously injured when stuff fell on them. It was all over the news that evening.

My friends still talk about how I “saved” them that day - most people didn’t move from where they were sitting, even though we tried to warn them.

#37

Once, while I was in High School, word got around about a party to be had at an old abandoned barn in the middle of nowhere. With little else to do, my best friend and I drove out there it see what was what. We got there, and the place is *crawling* with kids in various states of inebriation. Cars parked all over the place. We saw this was a bad scene, and noped out of there. On the way back to the city, we passed a bunch of cop cars hauling a*s in the other direction. We missed getting swept up in the raid by about three minutes. Was a minor scandal next Monday, as several student athletes were caught, and lost their eligibility.

#38

The owner of a Mexican restaurant threw two young farm workers at the bar out to the parking lot, they were drunk as monkeys and proceeded to try to fight but mostly just leaned on each other, all in front of the picture window while the place is full of people. Then one runs to his trucks and burns rubber outta there. I said "time to go honey" she says "What?" "Those a******s aren't done and I'm not going to be here when the shooting starts" We left, it did, not long after.

Edit: if you want eat authentic, go where the farmworkers eat. My SO speaks Spanish, these guys had been escalating the b******t for a while, their blood was way up. I threw three twenties on the table and got on outta there.

Image credits: penny_can

#39

I was waiting for an Uber on the outskirts of Atlanta with a couple friends around 10pm. We were just shooting the s**t after leaving a nearby restaurant and talking about what bar to go to. A disheveled older man walked up a few feet behind one of my friends and struck a weird pose for 2-3 minutes while looking in our direction, and there was no one else around. Then he walked off without saying a word. He came back a few minutes later and sat down on the sidewalk about 5 feet away from us. At this point I'm just wondering if he wants something from us, because there was absolutely no other reason to plop down that close to us on an empty sidewalk. Then a small sedan pulls in a nearby parking lot, parking behind some bushes in the spot closest to us and consequently furthest from any of the shops in that lot. I only noticed because I happened to be facing that direction, but then saw 6 guys pile out of the sedan and immediately cross the street directly towards us. I realized there were not any shops or restaurants still open nearby. It suddenly occurred to me that the strange dude might have been sizing us up when he was watching us earlier, and he came back to "mark" us. We were all dressed nice with smartphones out and watches visible, basically the fanciest stuff we had for a night out. Right as I started to speak up that we should head back towards other people, our uber pulled up to the curb. As we drove away, I watched those 6 guys talking in a circle where we had just been standing, and then they crossed the street again and got back in their car. I'll never have a definitive answer, but I'm pretty sure we were 10 seconds away from some unfortunate shenanigans.

Image credits: Zeethro

#40

Girls camp, my last year. Me and a small group of girls wanted to climb to the top of this big hill that has a beautiful lookout above the trees and clear view of the sky. It was a new moon and zero light pollution. We grabbed our flashlights and got on the trail. About 3/4 of the way up, the two girls leading us stopped dead in their tracks at the same time. One whispered to the other "Do you feel that?" I was right behind them and heard what they said. I looked up and around. I didn't see anything but something in the air made the hair on my neck stand on end. It was just too... quiet. I started to feel very vulnerable and scared. One of the girls in front turned and said "We need to go back. Don't run." One girl asked why not run and they said so you don't trip. Valid reason but I don't believe it was the real reason she said it.

Image credits: SpiffyPaige143

#41

I've told this story before but it's been awhile, and may just get buried, but here goes.

I was out in the country late at night taking some long exposure photographs of the Hale-Bopp comet as it approached the sun (which was marvelous by the way). I had driven out of town and just picked a dark, empty farmers field to setup. Nice and dark.

I'm out there for a couple hours when I get this massive feeling of "I need to leave now." I pack up my camera, tripod and lawn chair, throw it all in my car, get in and start the car. When the lights of the car come on I see the wolf that was sitting 20 feet from where I was positioned, just sitting there staring at me! I've never gotten bigger chills in my life.

Image credits: CrewmanInRed

#42

I posted this in a similar one of these threads a couple of months ago, but I’ll paste it over here.

I used to drive for Lyft. April 2018, I picked up a young couple from a bar at about 1:30 am. They were fairly chill and I figured it would be my last ride of the night. The dude asked me to stop at a corner store on the way to their destination so that he could get cigarettes. I didn’t see any harm in waiting so I stopped, and had a nice chat with the young woman while he was in the store. He ended up being about 5 minutes since everyone was trying to get their pre-2 am beer.

When he came out, he asked me to take him to a location that was in the opposite direction of their destination, but was only about a mile away. He said he wanted to meet some friends real quick and grab some beer. Since I figured it would be my last ride of the night, I said ‘f**k it, why not’ and drive him over there.

Now, I know the town we live in fairly well, but the direction that we were coming from was not a way I was used to going when I would go to this location. So when I turned onto the destination street, I missed the turn into the complex parking lot. I just came to a complete stop since the roads were empty and asked them if they just wanted me to park on the street or pull into the complex. This is when the two of them started arguing, as he suddenly wanted to go in and hang out for a few minutes while she didn’t want to go in at all; she just wanted him to do his thing and get out of there so they could go home.

And then something hit my car.

The sound is unmistakable to me, so I immediately started to look around to figure out what it was. But there were no other cars on the road, so that couldn’t have been it. Then I moved to the next thing on my mental checklist: if something didn’t hit me, then what did I hit? But that didn’t make any sense either as I’d been in park and couldn’t have hit anything. It’s at this point that the young lady’s attitude completely changed. She just kinda looked around, and then said ‘Can we just get out of here? It hurts and I want to go home.’

This was odd to me as she’d been sitting in my car for about 10 minutes at this point and hadn’t said a word about any kind of pain. She followed this up with ‘It hurts and I can’t move,’ put her had to her back, and pulled it out covered in blood.

What. The. F**k.

So the guy starts freaking out, thinking that something in my trunk had exploded, but it was empty. As he reached over to tend to her I noticed something white sticking out of the seat. This hadn’t been there at the beginning of the night, so I asked him what it was. He pulled on it; it was a piece of the filler fuzz from my seat. It came out of the hole that had been made in the seat.

Because she’d been shot.

As soon he grabbed that fuzz we both had the same realization. He slammed shut his door and I drove them straight to the hospital, which was only a couple of miles away. That realization, and the follow up realization of ‘oh, someone could still shoot you while you’re sitting here’ was one of the most terrifying things I’d ever experienced.

#43

This literally happened yesterday. So I was at work at a retail store and this guy with two massive buff guys came in to the store to interrogate me about my cousin ( who is on many d***s and probably owes them money) so they started to to tell me to stop lying to them about me not knowing about my cousin, for more backstory in 5" 2 female and I'm not muscular at all. So I went to find my manager for help but she wasn't in the store because she was on her lunch break so I had to hide in the work bathrooms out the back until my manager found me. It was quiet terrifying and I don't even talk to my cousin because he is a terrible human being.

Image credits: reddit

#44

Went to friends house that I had slept over at a couple times already. He left the room and noticed something under his pillow. Lifted it to find a handgun ( we were 12). I stupidly even pick it up to see if it was plastic, confirming that it is metal and reasonably heavy. I grab my s**t and tell him I need to leave, but he stops and tells me it's a BB gun he spray painted black. I stayed, but these days I question the truth of that situation.

#45

I was 15 at the time. I took about 10 of my little cousins with me to the park. 3 of my older cousins (but still younger than me or the same age) came with me to help. As I approached the park there was a man and two other kids there. He came up to me and started talking to me. I tried to give him the hint that I didn’t wanna talk but he kept going. I asked him “oh did you bring your kids with you” he nodded and kept talking. Then asked me weird questions like “are you married “ “are those your kids” “how old are you”. I lied about my name and age and tried to walk away. Then he said “I like you wanna sit with me and talk” I said I had something important to tell my family first and I’d join him after. I smiled and went up to one of my older cousins and said “pretend everything is okay but we need to leave now”. She nodded and I watched as the two kids left without the man. So we started walking home again and I made sure he didn’t follow or watch where we went. I later found out that he had picked up one of my little cousins and put him down again and one of my cousins saw but she froze and didn’t say anything to me. Luckily one of us saw him walk into a house and so we called the police.

#46

About three months ago there was a shootout at my office park. My next door neighbor was robbed and beaten, but his partner arrived during the robbery, waited for the robbers to exit, and then opened fire on their cars with an AK47 in the parking lot. (turns out my neighbors weren't Amazon resellers, they were d**g dealers).

While the robbery was going down I felt sick to my stomach and just knew I had to GTFO.
I left, and was about to walk by their place when I had a bad feeling and went back inside to pee. While I was peeing my heart was racing, and I didn't know why. I ended up dribbling all over my leg, I was practically hyperventilating. Then the shots rang out - two bursts. I hit the floor and hid in the bathroom. When I finally came out there were people all over the parking lot and the air stunk of gun smoke, but everyone was OK. I ran all the way home, two miles.

Watching the security tapes later, you see me walk in front of the shooter twice, as he sits in his car waiting to ambush the robbers. If I don't go back to pee I'm right in the middle of it all. I also could have left as soon as I got the feeling, and would have been clear. But since I didnt get out fast enough, going back to pee probably saved me.

I'm still shaken up, and I'm still having nightmares. Talking about it here helps.

Trust your gut!

Edit: here is an article about it with a video. At the bottom there's a video where you can see the shooting. I am not on this video, I am back inside at this time. I didn't know they caught the bastards until I just looked for the article so that is a nice thing. But I'm crying from watching it. I'm still really scared and it's been several months now.

Thank you all for the kind comments. It really means a lot to me. I feel ridiculous describing this as trauma when others have been through real trauma during wars, but it's very real to me and I hate it.

I should add, one positive outcome: my brother-in-law has been checking in on me regularly since the incident. He just sends me a text to see how I'm doing. It's really touching. I already liked him a whole lot but even more now.

#47

There's a few for me but a significant one...

I was ten years old and my aunt had a small 100 acre farm that was also used as a livery yard for horses.

I had a pony called Toffee. We often had kids come in our fields from the neighboring park. They would antagonize the livestock and horses, set dogs on the sheep, set fire to hay and just generally cause stress and damage.

We were told to stay away and ignore them and tell an adult if we saw them. The police often did nothing as the kids would escape onto the park and the council refused for us to close off the public foot paths through the fields, it was a true misery.

I went to catch my pony from the field and saw he was sweaty and wide eyed. I don't think he understood for a moment that he was safe with me from this frightened look he gave me. I realised suddenly there were six people in the copse of our field. I was suddenly frightened and tried to encourage Toffee to come with me quickly.

Initially the boys ran, I believe when they saw how small I was and that I was no threat the group made way back towards me, the field was fice acres and this all occured in one of the corners. Three of them dropped their trousers and flashed at me. Keep in mind, I was a ten year old little girl who did not understand but had an idea what was implied.

In a panic I went to grab my pony but he was scared of them and backed away. One of the boys shouted "if you touch that horse I'm going to rape you."

Toffee in that moment charged briefly toward them, I don't know if it was fight not flight kicking in or he sensed my terror but it was enough to scatter the boys. I started to turn and bolt as fast as my legs could carry me toward the gate. One of the boys chased after me. I obviously screamed for my life and felt his hand briefly run over my hair before he fell over. I sprang the gate and ran down the drive to the barn where my aunt and mom were.

I always wonder about if I had not run in that moment or Toffee not charged at them if I'd be alive. The field was far away from safety, my parents would leave me for hours alone at the farm. There was a forest and stream as well so my small body could easily have been hidden...

If any are curious, I still have Toffee about thirteen years later. He's 27 and a very old grumpy pony. I'll keep him till he departs the world, he has given so much joy for the little he gave and he might have saved me had he not taken off when he did.

Edit:
pictures of Toffee

Answering some questions:

-100 acres is small for a farm. Do you really think a herd of cows, sheep, hens, horses etc would not take up a lot of space? Think about how much is used for barns, stables the old house etc Consider how much is used to feed the human population, I think that farm barely sustained a few butchers in our area. Most english small farms are over 100 acres and go up to thousands.

-the kids were most likely chasing or throwing things at the horses. I dont know why they do this.

#48

New years eve in Moscow. I (dark haired brown man) was drinking with my SO (blonde white woman) in a bar getting friendly with some locals who tried their best to speak English. So friendly that one of them gave us a matryoshka doll that he was going to give to his mother later that night.

They seemed a little too friendly, and maybe they just were, but at one point I went to order more drinks and the bartender (who had been watching and serving us) gave me a stern look and said, “you should leave... now”.

I found this a little strange and unexpected so naturally tried to question what he meant, but his face was drop dead serious. He looked at the friendly group, then at my GF, then to me and repeated his words.

I didn’t really want to take any chances in Russia and wanted to see another bar anyway, so I grabbed my girl, the doll and promptly left.

#49

In college, there was a big rock/cliff at the top of a hill that everybody used to climb. It had lights pointing at it to light it up at night.

Some friends and I decided to climb up to the top at night. It was a nice evening but there was a chance of rain. So we get to the top and I see lightning in the distance. I count the time between lightning and thunder... 15 seconds.

I tell my friends: Hey that storm is coming our way, and I'm guessing we have 15-20 min before it gets here. It took some convincing for them to agree that even though I was being a negative-nancy we would head back down. Getting down took about 15 minutes.

Just before we got to the cars, lightning hit the rock and blew out all the lights.

#50

When me (11) and my mom were feeding some cows we had bought with some other people.
There was supposed to be 8 but when we walked into the field they were being held at, there was only seven.
Suddenly a massive black heifer emerged from some bushes ca 50 meters away from us and just started BOLTING towards us, swinging its head wildly.
I literally said to my mom “I think we need to leave now.” But the bewildered bovine would easily have sprinted us down and trampled us to death, so my mom stepped towards it, spreading her arms out wide and screaming bloody Murder. It sounded like somebody had kicked a bull in the nuts, and it luckily was intimidating enough to make the cow stop and lumber away.

#51

I was in a tiny room inside of a big room where there was a lot of servers. And you know, servers rooms need to have air conditioners so I was always so cold. One day, I started to feel the air warming, I didn't care so I kept doing my things. The air became warmer and warmer and I said "something's happened": for unknown reasons, the air conditioners had stopped. I ran to the door because I thought servers were going to burn instantly, but when I touched the k**b... It was burning, I almost couldn't open it. The servers were making a horrible sound, the heat was unbearable, I was sweating a lot. Before I went out of the servers room, I turned on the air conditioners and I ran away to tell people of the enterprise what happened.
Finally, nothing happened, because I turned on the air conditioners, but if I hadn't done it, I would have died, because if servers set on fire, those things that put out fires (I don't know the name, I'm not English) would have left me without oxygen (they are automatic).
We still don't know what happened with the air conditioners.

(Sorry if I misspelled something, I'm not English).

#52

I left my hometown for a few years after enlisting and when I came home to visit, an old friend text me and invited me to a party and I thought it would be cool to catch up. The party was fine until some random guys show up that were way older than anyone else there, idk who invited them but they got into a fight with another friend of mine, and my friend is a pretty big guy so he won that fight, and the girl who owned the house kicked everyone out that was involved. I decided to leave and saw my friend standing in the front yard. He said the guys went to their car and peeled off so I told him he should leave and I would give him a ride home but he said he already had someone coming to pick him up. Turns out these guys were gang members and they came back with guns, popped the trunk and shot and killed my friend right there in the front yard because he had beat them up. They ended up getting arrested and charged with murder though.