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People Share 35 Real Life Sounds That Stopped Them Cold And Still Haunt Them Years Later
Sound… How important a role it plays in our lives. Or rather, not even the sound itself, but what it conveys to us. From “I love you!” to “You’re fired,” from “Here are your keys” to “OMG, he dropped the ball…” It is sounds that fill our lives with meaning, both good and bad.
Okay, today we’ll talk mostly about bad sounds, or more precisely, sounds that send shivers down our spines. And it doesn’t necessarily have to be some heartbreaking scream. You’ll agree, sometimes simple silence on the phone can be much more terrifying… So, here’s a collection of such stories from netizens that may well make you feel uneasy.
More info: Reddit
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#1
When I was living in my first apartment, I woke up at probably 2 am to the freakiest sound I have ever heard coming from outside. It sounded like a bunch of babies crying or kids screaming. I almost had a heart attack. I have since come to find out that this is the sound foxes make, but darn, I I did t know id think there was some weird ritual going on out there.
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#2
Had to have my molars cracked to get them removed. Hearing your teeth break from inside your skull is horrifying.
#3
A husky screaming after losing its owner in a DV situation. I worked EMS at the time. (Also was friends with the victim, she worked in healthcare too) I still hear that dog and it was at least 6 years ago.
A significant portion of the stories we’ll tell you here are somehow related to other people saying something. Mostly, something scary or disgusting. Well, speech remains the primary element of our communication, despite a recent alarming study showing that people have been speaking fewer words each year since 2005.
According to a study by psychologists from the University of Arizona and the University of Missouri at Kansas City, we’ve spoken an average of 338 fewer words per year since 2005. While that might not seem like a significant figure, it turns out that each year we speak 120K fewer words than the previous year.
What’s the reason for this? Primarily, it’s the proliferation of mobile technology. Now, watching reels on a smartphone is easier than talking to a neighbor, and Google Maps will plot a route in an unfamiliar city far more accurately than a local stranger… Oh, and that’s yet another scary story somehow related to sound.
#4
Ever heard a rabbit scream? It sounds like a small child.
Karl der Große 3 hours ago
Yes. This is pretty weird. I had a dog who dispatched a lot of rabbits in her life.
#5
Walked outside for a smoke one foggy morning and heard ice cream truck music in the distance. Noped my tushy back inside quick. I've seen enough horror movies to know what's up.
Lily bloom 3 hours ago
These days ice cream truck music (in my low income neighborhood) annoys me because I know, whilemy kids would love uninstall treat curbside, I can buy at least a few boxes of ice cream novelties at the grocery store for the same $
#6
The heart-wrenching wail my stepmom made when my dad’s coffin was put into the incinerator. I’ve never heard someone cry out in such pain like that irl.
For context it was a Sikh funeral and they cremate the body immediately after the service. And there is a viewing room with a window for the family to go into to say their final goodbyes.
Sometimes it’s not the timbre or volume of speech that’s frightening, but actually its content. A terminal diagnosis from a doctor, a dismissal notice from a boss, a confession from a loved one that they truly don’t love you… Sometimes even the simplest silence is far more terrifying than words. And our selection today contains many such stories.
Yes, speaking of silence. It happens that ominous silence, when everyone around you realizes something very bad is happening, that can be the eeriest. That’s why we’re sometimes still afraid of old horror films. When directors didn’t have any special effects at hand, they had to resort to psychological tricks to scare the viewer.
#8
Coyote taking out a rabbit outside my tent in the middle of the night. I do not recommend.
Karl der Große 3 hours ago
I was doing field research and was sleeping in the back of my pickup truck. I could feel those coyotes rooting around under the truck. My wife went to sleep in the cab, but I toughed it out. Don't park on top of the rabbit holes!
#9
A man screaming put for help in a painful desperate way late at night. Once my boyfriend and I had located where the screaming was, before we could approach and before he could see us the homeless man got up, grabbed his stuff and walked away. The screams were eerie and definitely did n o expect him to just get up and walk away.
And, for example, I will never, as long as I live, forget the quiet, barely heard sobs of an old lady, my classmate’s grandmother, at his funeral right after his first high school final exam. Ironically, I was perhaps the last of his friends to see him alive.
We were walking home from school after our first exam, stopped by my porch, quickly discussed the NBA Finals, which were on at the time, and he moved on. The next morning, it turned out he’d gone into a transformer box a few steps from his house for some reason… His grandma was almost 80, and he was her only grandson.
She’d lived through WWII and seen her share of grief, so she didn’t cry out loud. She just sobbed quietly, and you know, that old woman’s sobbing still gives me the creeps, many, many years later.
#10
I don't even know how to explain it and my dad heard it too. But you know how in those Jurassic Park movies, there's a few scenes where it gets quiet and then you hear the unmistakable sound of heavy foot steps? Like the T-Rex is coming? It sounded like that. It was so weird, I was getting ready to leave my parents house and go back to my place. I went outside and started walking to my car when I heard loud and heavy "footsteps". It was like 10PM. It really freaked me out.
#11
The sound my son made when he had his first seizure. He was napping in his bedroom and my husband and I heard a sound that sounded like a cat was hurt. We bolted up and started looking for our cat. Then we saw our cat searching for the source of the sound too. We followed Kitty to my son's bedroom and he was definitely seizing. The sound was caused by all of his muscles clenching up at once and squeezing the air out of him. I called an ambulance. He's ok now, but that was horrifying.
#12
That weird silence right before a whole room realizes something is seriously wrong. Not even a loud sound, just that instant shift in the air that makes your stomach drop. I think that feeling stays with you more than the actual noise.
So-called “sounds of nature” are invariably popular among those who want to concentrate on work, but in reality, the sounds of nature are more than just the trickling of water, rustling leaves, and beautiful birdsong. It’s also the predatory growl of a coyote after catching a rabbit, the screams of a cougar in the night, or the howl of a pack of wolves.
It all sounds eerie, even with headphones, in the middle of a busy metropolis, but now imagine being in the middle of nowhere at night, with the only thing separating us from all these “sounds of nature” being the canvas wall of a tent. Well, now we can try to concentrate on work, right?
#13
The sound of a bone being reset rather... forcefully.
#14
My grandmother shrieking my name saying my grandfather was d***g. He was throwing up tons of blood and was passed out. I was able to wake him up and get him to cough up the blood he was choking on and the ambulance took him to the hospital. He ended up needing triple bypass surgery on his heart. my grandfather is still alive, and I handled the situation well at the time, but I heard my grandmas voice screaming my name for the next few weeks.
However, no description or text can truly replace the stories and tales of netizens. Simply because they share their own experiences, fears, and disturbing sensations, all somehow connected to a particular sound. So now please feel free to read these stories to the very end, and maybe add your own in the comments below!
#16
Unexpected peacocks on the roof.
If you know you know.
#17
Listening to a man, who was talking to me, d*e on the phone with me. Listening to an 11-year-old cry as I walked her through CPR on her mom as she o*’d. (I am a 911 dispatcher).
#18
The scream of a mother at her 13 year old sons funeral. I was only around 11 at the time, I still remember it so clearly. It was gut-wrenching.
#19
My daughter was born 11 weeks premature. While she was in the NICU a baby d**d. Listening to the mother cry and wail will hands down be the worst sound I will ever hear.
#21
My dad’s d***h rattle…yea, it’s very real and nothing like anyone describes it.
Cathy Jo Baker 4 hours ago
What an honor to be with your father on his passing. It was the same with my dad, there was a definite change in the sound of his breathing as the end drew near.
#22
Was a 911 dispatcher. Had a trainee I was training take a call from a woman in a DV situation. She was being chased in her car by her ex. He pushed her off the road. She got out of the car to run. Last words before he shot her were very frantic "Tell my kids I love them, tell my kids I love them", few gunshots, it was over. Baked into my brain.
#23
Chicagos tornado siren. Sounds like the end of the world.
detective miller's hat 9 hours ago
At my sister's old apartment, the town's fire siren was DIRECTLY outside her living room window. And I swear to Cthulhu, every goddąmn time I stayed over on her couch, that siren went off in the middle of the night.
#24
At a restaurant where I worked one of the employees had a very sick parent. The parent was on their d****bed and the employee said that they needed to go out of town to be with the parent. The manager said that if they left they needed to fill their shift no matter what. The employee was unable to fill their shift and the unreasonable manager threatened to fire the employee. They had to work. 2 hours into the shift the employee walked out the front door with their partner. All I heard was that great big bass voice shouting "NOOOOOOOOO!" And that awful manager made do for the rest of the night, short-staffed. The poor guy missed the last chance he would have ever had to be with his father. And that manager never showed an ounce of remorse after.
#26
I worked in child protection for many years, the sound of a newborn baby withdrawing from substances is absolutely horrendous and heartbreaking at the same time.
#27
I was on a motorcycle when I hit a deer while I was going about 90 kmh. I'll never forget that sound followed by the deafening silence.
I was fine. The deer, not so much.
#28
Koalas trying to get busy. Sounds like demons snarling at each other.
#31
The scream I heard when I came home to a domestic violence incident happening next door to ours. It was the scream of a woman who really did fear that she was going to d*e. Still to this day so glad we phoned the police because he went on to be wanted and arrested for similar crimes further down the line.
#32
Someone's car crashing in the highway, still freaks me out to this day.
Nikki Sevven 1 hour ago
Add the sound of screeching brakes and tires on pavement just before the crash.
#33
"I am sorry, we're going to have to let you go.".
BrownEyedGrrrl 9 hours ago
If that's the worst thing you've ever heard you are extremely young, extremely lucky, or both.
#34
The sound of 2 litres of my blood splashing onto the ground as my baby was born. Followed by the Drs voice saying *can someone get dad out of the room*
It still haunts me.
#36
Listening to my normally stoic grandfather tell me that his son, my father, had ended his life.
#37
nearly dieing miscarrying 12 week twins and hearing your partner trying to be calm and keep u alive while Ur in Ur body feeling like your drowning and u get a emergency procedure just for the Dr to complain we didn't save the bodies ( I was in shock I carried their tiny bodies to loo and flushed I wasn't able to think and I regret it every day)
#38
I watched a documentary called Warrior Marks about female circumcision. A young girl was undergoing the procedure as many do - broken glass used instead of a scalpel done on the ground. They did not show the process but I still hear the screams of the young girl.
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