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59 Stories About The Urgent Feeling People Had To Leave Immediately And It May Have Saved Their Lives
I once read a quote that our head and heart can both be deceived, but our gut can’t. It’s not surprising that people believe so strongly in the power of their instincts. And honestly, some are more intuitive than others, which can be really helpful, especially when danger is around the corner.
Well, a lot of netizens shared scary moments online when their gut told them to “run,” just before something unhinged happened. Some of these tales will creep you out, while others might give you goosebumps. We have compiled the wildest ones below, but a word of advice: prepare yourself mentally before you jump in.
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#1
I (at the time, 20F) was walking down the streets of Westminster, CA at night with my friend (19F). The reasons we were outside at night in a sketchy part of town without any self defense weapons are long and complicated, but in a nutshell, we were going to visit a friend and the closest available parking spot was several blocks away.
We knew the neighborhood well, and typically it wasn't the WORST place to be at night, but it definitely wasn't the safest either. We were about a block away from our friend's place when we noticed a guy watching us from his porch. Not too strange, since we were an odd sight and we were used to being stared at.
We made it to our friend's place and realized, to our dismay, that our friend wasn't home. We regretfully turned to head back to our car. As we walked, we both got this sinking feeling of dread. We couldn't really explain it, but it was this intense, desperate need to GET OUT of the area. My friend commented on it and we tried to laugh it off, but we definitely started walking faster.
As we walked, I glanced behind us and saw the guy who had been staring at us earlier moving rapidly off his porch onto the sidewalk. He was technically on the other side of the road and theoretically could simply have been walking the same direction as we were, but he kept looking our way and the previously mentioned feeling of doom wasn't helping my nerves at all.
We turned onto the street our car was on and I dared to feel a little relieved. We got maybe 15 feet away from our car when the guy suddenly raced across the street and got in front of us, blocking our way. He reached into his pocket to grab something, but before he could say anything, my friend cheerfully blurted out, "Excuse me sir, do you have a second to talk about our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ?"
He was clearly not all there, and my friend's question was SO out of the blue that he froze and just stared at us. He started to mumble something about Jesus and aliens and he looked down, away from us. We took that as our chance and booked it. We sprinted to our car, basically threw ourselves inside, locked the doors, and had an awkward second where we stared at the guy who was now five feet away from our car before I peeled out onto the road and drove away.
We never went to that part of town at night ever again.
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#2
Road trip camping on an isolated forest road in Nevada. We parked at a little clearing with a large rectangular cut filled with water obviously made by an excavator. An hour after bedtime I woke up in mild shock after dreaming that there were bodies at the bottom of that pit. I woke up my wife and told her and she said "me too." We immediately packed up and fled the scene.
#3
Hiking a 5-mile loop to some waterfalls. I had been camping with a few people at a National Forest campground nearby, and we’d packed up already with a plan to leave right after the hike.
We had made it to the falls and stopped for a snack break. Noticed the sunlight was more orange than it had been. It felt eerie. As we were making our way back, the light got darker. Ash began falling from the sky. Obviously a forest fire was nearby and getting closer, fast.
We hustled back and got into the car to leave. Forest rangers were there closing down the roads behind us as we were the last ones out of that area.
Gut feelings sometimes act as guardian angels in disguise. And looking at the stories in this list, I am almost certain of it. I mean, so many people have had narrow escapes because of their instincts.
In fact, research shows that people tend to be more accurate at judging someone’s honesty and whether they are lying about a particular event if they are asked to go with their intuition. This was shown in an experiment: participants who identified counterfeit bags were more accurate when they followed their instincts than when they took an analytical approach. But where exactly do these gut feelings come from?
#4
Probably not as big of a deal as it felt like at the time but I still think about it and wonder what would have happened if I didn’t listen to my gut immediately.
When I was 18 I lived in a rural town in Arkansas. i wanted to go for a walk, the road right off of mine was technically a highway out of town that was hard to turn around on but not busy as per the small population, and there were no sidewalks.
I was walking on the right hand side, a truck drove past on the left and a man whistled at me from outside his window. Not an uncommon experience there, as unfortunate as it is to say, i suspect because I was about 90 pounds and looked significantly younger than I was.
For some reason i just had a bad feeling about it and my gut told me to cross the street onto the side he had been on originally. I did. About a minute later, he had come back around on the right, whistled at me again. I crossed back to the right side this time. Another minute later, he comes back around on the left ands whistles at me again.
I realize he was trying to get close to me and was about to figure out what I was doing. I had this overwhelming fear I was about to get grabbed or attacked off the side of the road and needed to get off of it pronto. I took off running as fast as I could, dodged into someone’s yard and hid behind their shrubs and waited for him to drive past. He did and was obviously looking for me on the road. I ran home.
Maybe just a d****e bag wanting to scare me. Maybe a creep small town r****t. Who knows. Glad I dodged the bullet either way.
#5
I was doing a walkthrough in a house we were looking to buy. Everywhere we went in the upstairs areas gave me a feeling of impending doom, as if the house HATED me. After the third round of goosebumps in five minutes’ time I mumbled, “I’m getting the impression that someone died in this house.” (I’m not woowoo, btw…sometimes I just get impressions)
Realtor: (rifling through pages) Umm…yes, someone did pass away here. Says ‘natural causes’
I looked at my wife and motioned out the door in a ‘lessgo!’ kind of way. On the way out, the back of my hand brushed the door frame and came away wet. The frame looked like it had started sweating.
Talking to the realtor after the fact she told us that she bailed on that sale. Several other people reported sensations of unease.
#6
December 2004, Krabi, Thailand. Had been staying with a local in a little bar that was built into the side of a cliff. Had the very distinct feeling that I had to leave, for no reason whatsoever. I went back to koh Phangan where I had been previously - on the opposite side of Thailand. Not long after leaving that bar was swept away in the boxing day tsunami. Nothing was left on that part of the island.
University of New South Wales neuroscientist and psychologist Joel Pearson has been studying intuition for over 25 years. He speaks about what happens to the brain when we get these gut feelings.
“The brain is processing all the things in the environment. It’s going to be making a prediction based on prior learning, situations you’ve been in, also movies you’ve watched, and all the things that you’ve been through in your life,” he explains.
#7
Moved into my first apartment. It was a large older series of buildings. When touring they took my mom and I to the laundry room. It was in the most isolated spot and dark having only a hanging lightbulb. My mom immediately says you’re not doing your laundry here. I moved in but went home to wash. 6 months in my next door neighbor is missing and I’m living a true crime nightmare. She’d gone to wash her clothes and never came back. Her clothes were left in the washer.
#8
I was staying at a remote cabin in 100 mile, north BC. There's Crown land that surrounds the cabin for tens of kilometers, mostly meadows and patches of forest. No neighbors for a 20 min drive in any direction. I was with 2 friends and my dog Sarah, and it was late summer.
Evening was approaching, so I took Sarah for a long walk along the border of the meadow and forest, we were about 45 minutes into our walk, pretty far away from the cabin. As we were walking, I clearly heard a voice in the adjacent forest say my dogs name.. i know my dog heard it too, because her tail was wagging and she was looking into the forest. It was like someone was 10-15 feet into the dense forest, saying my dogs name. We heard it twice, and I decided to briskly return to the cabin.
My theory is that a raven heard me say her name at some point and followed us on our walk. The creepy thing is that It was perfect pronunciation and an ambiguous tone.
Sara Frazer 5 minutes ago
Idk, where I live Sara/h is a very common name....don't think I made it through one year of school without at least one other Sara/h in class with me..... 😓
#9
When I was 16 or so, I was running on a track alone pretty early on a Saturday morning. Not another soul in sight. I saw this car turn into the school grounds and drive past the track. Then it turned around and drove by again, but this time very slowly. Then it stopped, reversed, and driver parked and exited the vehicle. It was a white man dressed in street clothes with a ball cap and sunglasses on, and his hoodie up. He started walking my direction. Something told me to GTFO, and I sprinted the opposite direction across the track, up onto the practice football field next to it, and then into the adjacent neighborhood. Thankfully I had my cell phone and hid in a drainage ditch until my dad could come pick me up. I wasn’t going back for my car anytime soon.
Pearson clearly describes what he thinks intuition is: the learned, positive use of unconscious information to make better decisions or take better actions. Pearson claims that a lot of things get termed as intuition. These include paranoia, emotional thinking, cognitive bias, the human tendency to see patterns or associations where none exist, and human fallibility when judging probability.
He prefers to call it “misintuition.” In fact, he stresses that trusting these things too much can be risky. So, according to him, “intuition includes 3 key components: it’s learned, it’s productive, and it’s based on unconscious information.”
#10
Was walking home from a concert in a new town. Was new, went to the concert myself, and figured I’d get to learn the lay of the land cause walking there to start wasn’t sketch during the evening.
12 o’clock comes around and I’m watching a replay of my videos. I’m a taller bigger guys so figured there’s nothing to worry about but I pass a park and things got extra quiet. Told myself I need to put the phone away and be more aware of my surroundings.
A sketch guy passes me to cross the street and I keep walking towards a 4-way stop. A gray car arrives right in front of me at the 4 way and then proceeds to drive on. I walk across the street and look back towards the car. It’s stopped on the other side of the four way and reverses to go down the street I was going down.
Streets are empty, I start booking it the 4-5 blocks to my house. Unlock the door, run up the flight of stairs to the top floor and make it in the house.
I turn off all the lights and look out the street, the car is parked next to my house, then proceeds to drive after a few moments.
I notified the police. Never as a white, large male have I ever experienced something like that.
#11
My dad and I were in the car, he had picked me up at school and we were driving home. He was in the front seat and I was in the back. We were on a busy street corner that was usually packed with people and cars and tons of noise waiting for the light to go green. And I don't know how to explain it but I had this overwhelming sense we shouldn't drive forward. And so did my dad. So we just sat there for a moment and OUT OF NOWHERE a car that had to have been going at the absolute max possible speed launches past the red light from the left and moves from one side to the other. A cop car somewhere behind us turns on it's sirens, pulls around us and goes around the corner. We're convinced to this day that if dad had ignored his instincts, we would be d**d. We discussed it a lot in the days afterward.
#12
Also in Vegas, about a month ago…
I got lost in an abandoned parking lot coming from ‘Ole Red. I followed the ride share signs and ended up in an abandoned garage for an hour trying to find my way out. Sketchy characters everywhere. Then I finally got out and it spit me into an alley, about a mile from the Paris. I found a cab, but he said he would only take me off the meter and for cash. I said fine. Then when I got in, he started driving the wrong way and asking me inappropriate questions, like hey lady, is your money counterfeit? You married? You here alone? How many drinks you have tonight? You have three drinks? Two drinks? I shut him down with a quick “I don’t drink.” Then about 5min later, thank god, he dropped me at the wrong hotel, which is maybe why he was going to wrong direction. Anyway, I was so happy to find civilization again. This was the most vulnerable I’ve ever felt as a grown woman. Scared me half to d***h. I thought I was a goner.
In another interview, Pearson claimed there’s a growing case for using our intuition because people have to make faster decisions with less information. He has developed 5 tips to help you harness your intuition, and he uses the acronym “SMILE” for them.
S: Self-awareness. Check your emotional state before trusting your gut. Wait till you are emotionally balanced.
M: Mastery. Intuition is basically learned expertise. Don’t trust your gut about what you don’t know.
I: Instincts and [dependence]. People often confuse instinct and intuition. Instinct is innate; intuition is learned. Don’t mistake cravings from dependence for intuition. They mimic your inner voice but distort it.
L: Low probability. Don’t use intuition for numbers or probabilities. Emotions can’t process data, so relying on “gut feelings” here leads to bad judgments.
E: Environment. Intuition is location-specific. It doesn’t transfer well to different environments.
#13
In college my roommate who i didnt know very well asked if I wanted to go to a party. I said sure, not knowing it was 90 minutes away. She drove and when we got there it was a family all living in one house. A grandma, kids, kids kids, aunts and uncles. I was like is this the party? She said it must not have started yet. We go inside abd the whole family moved for me to sit on the couch. They were eating when something caught my eye on the wall. It was a picture frame with dozens of roaches going in and out while they are just eating dinner and even putting their plates on the floor. I grew up with roaches but you would see like one a week but we were always spraying. I look down and there are literally roaches everywhere. I texted my friend "Girl hell no there are roaches everywhere I want to leave." She said please can we stay a few hours. I felt like i had no choice because she drove and I was far away. So I said ok and I tried staying outside. So 2 hours goes by and she said come in this guys room there is no roaches. I knew that was a lie but went in and she asked me in front of them if we could stay the night. I got f*****g pissed and said f**k no I want to leave now and you can come back. I turned fast and hit a picture frame with my shoulder and hundreds of roaches went running. I will never forget it and f**k you crystal lol.
#14
I was 16 and working at a horse rescue run by some guy. I had been hanging there a few weeks, enough to be comfortable and familiar. I was leaving one night and went to say bye to the guy. He hugged me and when his hand touched my hip I KNEW he had horrible intentions. A true body reaction.
I never went back and a year or so later he was arrested for grooming and sleeping with underaged girls.
#15
Our GPS took us through a low income residential area in Memphis, Tennessee. Everyone was staring at us. We came to a red light and then people starting running towards us. We ran the red light and the red lights after that until we were back into a business district.
Pearson recommends practicing the SMILE rule daily to make intuitive insights automatic.
“It’s safest to try and practice intuition on a smaller scale to begin with,” he continues. “You don't need to understand where it's coming from; just notice what you’re feeling and whether the outcome is a positive or negative one, and note it down.
#16
Was driving in rural North Carolina20yrs ago on one of those two lane rural roads. Must have been some accident because traffic was going about 5mph. There was a town about a mile ahead so we decided to just book a room and get to our destination the next day. There was a little dive bar right where we were so the three of us decided to have a beer. It was January btw. We’d been there about ten minutes when some guy at the bar said “James Earl Ray Day” and everyone at the bar laughed. We got the hell out of there asap.
For those who don’t know James Earl Ray k****d MLK.
#17
My friend and I were house sitting for her family out in the country and we were on our way back one night pretty late (close to midnight). We were 17 and had to cross a one lane bridge to get to the house, otherwise it was an extra 20 minute drive. A man had stopped his car directly in the middle of the bridge.
There was cell service and this wasn’t in the middle of nowhere. There were houses around that area and the main road was about a 5-10 minute drive away. When he saw us approaching he got out of his car and started running up to ours. He was shouting that his phone was d**d and his car was broken down. We were just about to get out and help him, and then I realized his phone was in fact on and his car was still running.
I got the worst feeling of dread ever and told her to reverse immediately. She didn’t say a word and just started backing up as fast as we could. I saw him run back to his car and get in and speed away. We were both so scared that he had seen our faces or was going to follow us so we had a bunch of our friends come and spend the night at her family’s house with us that night.
#18
When we were teenagers, my cousin and I went into a pet store. We were looking at the kitties and when we walked out, a guy approached us and told us he had kittens at his place we could check out and asked us if we wanted to come into his vehicle. Very scary. Glad we were in a public place at the time.
Sometimes, it’s completely fine to listen to our gut. However, Carina Remmers, a professor of clinical psychology and psychotherapy at Health and Medical University in Potsdam, argues that intuitive decisions may not always be the most adaptive.
She explains that an intuitive decision in a situation where you lack experience might feel good momentarily. But, according to her studies, you may end up better off if you think deliberately about different options and compare your initial gut reaction with what your ‘head’ is telling you.
#19
Got into an uber too quickly - couldn’t confirm the license plate. I felt something off immediately (gut feeling) and hesitated and asked the driver “for *insert my name*”. He responded “Yeah you got in the car” and I felt a panic. I basically got off the (slow) moving car and he drove away quick. I got a glimpse of the license plate and it was the right plate (cannot confirm cause the car went away too fast) but till today I don’t regret doing that. I didn’t even ask for the cancellation fee from uber back because he might have been fine but in my gut I have never felt stronger that I should get off the car.
#20
I was a child at the time, so not necessarily my story of "we need to leave... now" moreso my parents' story.
But, when I was young, my parents, my sister, and I would go gold panning in the mountains of Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Tennessee. One day we're slowly driving up a vehicle path that would lead us to the river we were panning that day. We were the only car out there for hours... Eventually, we see a man walking on the side of the road, heading the opposite direction of us and he's positioned on the passenger side of the car. My dad was driving and my mom was in the passenger seat so she got a really good look at the guy while we drove by him. Both my parents made mental notes of how eerie and unusual it was to see a single man walking so far away from any nearby town/city, I think at that point my dad knew that we had to go far enough in the car that this man wouldn't be able to catch up on foot (this is an extremely narrow road on the side of a mountain with no guard railing, so turning around is not possible until you reach a side road or some sort of clearing), so we drove for about another hour or two and never saw him again.
We never saw him again... until about 3-5 years later when my mom saw that same man in the news headlines for decapitating women in the rural north Georgia mountains. His name was Gary Michael Hilton and my mom says she will never forget the way he looked at her. I truly believe if my dad wasn't with us, he would have tried to target us.
#21
Went to a club when I first turned 21. Was with some friends. Walked back to the bathroom to figure out where it was just in case I had a little too much later in the evening. Ran into some other friends, talked for a few minutes. Went to the restroom and then walked back out. Was walking across the dance floor and the energy felt different. I stopped and looked around and noticed someone was fighting. The noticed another pocket of people starting to fight. Walked over to the friends I went to the club with and said 'let's get out of here...'
There was a shooting not too long afterwards and 4 people were k****d.
Remmers adds that in many everyday situations, following a gut feeling will make you feel good in the moment, and sometimes it carries little risk. She says, “Please, in those instances, go with your gut.”
“But in some other cases, our personal preferences may not be ideal for guiding a decision, or we have had experiences that taught our gut the wrong lesson. Sometimes it’s better to think things through rather than rely on intuition,” Remmers notes.
#22
I was in second grade and at the mall with my bestie, Shannon, and another friend. Her mom allowed us to go into Claire’s while she went into the store next to it. Shannon decided she wanted to go to a different store… and just walked out.
I’m a total rule follower so I struggled between telling her mom (and losing sight of her) or following her. I followed her down the escalator.
There’s a woman dressed nicely with a clipboard and she approaches the three of us, holding movie posters. She wants us to choose our favorite- a movie with a young Elijah Wood but different colors. We pick, and then she starts asking us our names… and I get “the feeling”. Shannon and Erin give her their full names and ages. She gets to me and I give my middle name, decline last name, and say I’m “9”. D*****s Shannon goes “You’re 8”. Then this woman asks for our addresses- Shannon gives hers- and I now notice the woman is not filling out a form. It’s literally a blank piece of printer paper.
I go “Nope, we need to go” and pull Shannon’s arm and we all start running back upstairs. Find her mom, tell her what happened, and go to the railing to point out the woman. We see her heading down a hallway - obviously didn’t stop anyone else- and a guy approaches her out of a side door. They talk and go into the door together.
It might have been research, might have been far more insidious. All I know is that the hairs on my neck stood up and the feeling kept growing. It’s been 30 years, and I still get that feeling thinking about it and going past the mall even today….
#23
Woke up in the middle of night in middle of a hurricane. No lights or power. Had a tiny flashlight to peer outside and realized my peonies outside the window were gone and we were surrounded by water. A banging sound started outside was my 600 lbs BBQ slamming in to the side of the house. Immediately turned in to, “get the baby, we gotta go”.
#24
I’m an in-home dog sitter on the side. I went to meet a family and their dogs before staying there for a week. Very very nice, rich neighborhood. Huge beautiful house. I show up and go inside and am just hit with an overwhelming smell of feces. They had two dogs, one was about 8, the other one was 1, and they “just couldn’t potty train them no matter how hard we tried” and simply allowed them to p**s and s**t all. Over. The. House. The hardwood floors were slightly squishy from the pee. The entire floor, rugs, and couches were slightly yellow. I’ll never forget their living room rug was high pile, black and white, and you could see about 10 uncleaned pee circles in it. They brought me into the living room and I stepped on the rug and it CRUNCHED. I told them I wasn’t comfortable staying in a house with that much feces, and tried to gently explain that I have worked with hundreds of dog owners and it’s not normal to allow your animals to freely pee and p**p in your house. They seemed to take it alright at the time but were apprehensive. After I left the husband texted me and called me “mentally deranged.” For not wanting to sleep in a house for a week where the pee was f*****g structural? I think about them often lol.
Well, that sums it up that while following our gut is beneficial, it can also be disastrous. I guess we need to be more mindful about when we listen to our instincts and when we don’t. Anyway, dear pandas, which of these creepy stories about people trusting their instincts blew your mind? Give them an upvote or tell us about them in the comments section!
#25
I was in a rough spot myself at the time. Desperately took a very s****y servering job and felt like I was the absolute rock bottom of life, so I felt like I had zero room for any kinda judgment to anyone, especially to any of my coworkers who were also working this extremely s****y serving gig. It was a very ruthless a rough introduction into the $2.13 life style. But one of the "lead/head" servers was legitimately kind to me early on and saved my a*s several times in those very rough early days.
2 months in, I found out he didn't have a car and was essentially homeless, but using the local motel near where we worked as his in and/out home whenever he made enough to afford a week here and there. Towards the end of work one night he said he had to go see his brother for an emergency but the bus schedule would've taken him several hours and a taxi would've taken away all his tips and thus not be able to pay for his weekly motel bill. So I decided to step up, thinking I was being a good person and trying to embody the philosophy of "pay it forward".
It's 3am-4am...ish, when I drop him off at his "brothers". He asked me to wait just in case he needed a ride back to his motel room. I'm essentially living out of my car, so it makes no difference to me where I'm chillin. He comes back with a shopping mart plastic bag full of....stuff and a 6 pack of beer. He asks me if I'd be willing to take him back to his motel and as a thank you I was welcome to crash with him and split the 6 pack instead of sleeping in my car. And I, ignoring all the reds flags for the opportunity to not sleep in my car and have a few beers, said absolutely.
When we get to his motel room, there is this enormous rush of relief that comes over me when he hands me a beer when I sit down. For the first time in months, I think I'm finally in a somewhat safe place and can finally relax a little
THE EXACT MOMENT I took my first relaxed sip of beer in months, he opens that baggy of "stuff" and says "Do you like c***k?" and I've never wanted to get out of any place so fast in my entire life.
I pretend to sip that beer for about 5 mins while simultaneously chugging it as fast as I could and bounced ASAP. One of the first nights I felt happy to be sleeping in my car at the time.
TL;DR: I accidentally became a door dasher for c***k at 4am thinking I was helping out a new friend.
#26
When I was a teenager, going to a friend’s house and noticed that none of the kids rooms had doors. Friend told me that her parents didn’t believe in privacy.
#27
Was on a road trip in college. Someone said “it’s cool but you’ll hear the music change at some point and you’ll see the energy of the party shift. that’s your cue to go…… heard it, felt it, left. It Got shot up about 20 mins later.
#28
I was at a mall and went outside to drop off some bags in the trunk of my car. The sun had just set. After closing my trunk, I began responding to some texts on my phone. A few minutes later I notice some headlights shining on me. I look up and a white car is heading diagonally across the parking lot straight towards me. There are plenty of open parking spaces, so this car is very intentionally coming towards me. The car pulls right up beside mine, despite the nearest car being parked about 8 spaces away, so this was very intentional.
There are two men in the front seat staring at me. The car was old and beat up. At this point I realize I’m about to be a*******d or mugged. So I start walking very fastly towards the mall. I keep looking back to see if they’re going to jack my car (it’s an expensive BMW) and when I’m far enough away for safety I stop and stare at them. Mostly because I was genuinely curious what the heck they were going to do.
I see them staring back at me, driving a little further past my car. They then speed away.
I reported it to the mall and they said I likely was about to be robbed or carjacked because it had happened there not too long ago. Apparently my staring at them deterred them from making a move.
Linda Lee 27 minutes ago
8 o'clock at night, walking through the parking lot, l heard a guy call my name. I knew this guy and he was supposed to be in basic training for the army. I kept waking to my car, got in and drove away saying I was late, gotta go. The next day a guy friend called and said that guy was kicked out of the Army and wasn't right in the head. He said to watch myself around him. I'm glad I trusted my gut.
#29
Many years ago I was out drinking with friends. I wanted to take a cab ride home but a friend insisted her friend could take us home. She was already in the backseat making out with his friend. I dropped my phone between the car and the curb as I was getting in and he said “just leave it.” Who just drops their phone and just leaves it???
I later learned that guy was known for mistreating women and being a general creep. I felt like my friend was kind of feeding me to him. She was all nonchalant about it. We stopped hanging out after that.
#30
As a NM resident, I avoid abq as much as possible. I decided to take the Grey hound out of abq to go see my mom in CA (Terrible idea, never again) and it was the first time I had to go to downtown ABQ. There was someone picking d**g needles out of the vent of the building right next to the bus station. There was a lot of people who were visibly a*****s, and BOLD ones too. As a young woman with my 2 year old daughter I felt like it was a matter of time before someone tried to mess with us. I was terrified the whole time.
#31
In my teens at home. My family was watching TV one night and my dad notices that the house smells weird. He makes us all check our shoes to see if anyone stepped in dog p**p. Nothing. Something was off though. My family all goes to bed except me, staying up to finish a movie.
15 minutes later my sister walks past the fireplace in the den, then looks at me in the living room and whispers, “come here. Look…” she points up where the stove pipe cut through the ceiling. The lights were off in the den, but the beam of orange light coming through the ceiling was CLEAR. Our entire attic space was on fire. I dashed across the house and threw my parents’ bedroom door open screaming “the house is on fire!” I’ve never seen them jump out of bed so fast. Fortunately no one was hurt.
Days later my sister told me she thought she was hearing someone with a deep voice whispering in her ear every time she was about to fall asleep. So she got out of bed to get a glass of water. Our mutual friend in school had recently passed away and he had a deep, low voice. She said it sounded like his voice whispering in her ear.
#32
Large amounts of rain coming down and I saw a slope move, moped out of there real quick. Overnight it was a massive slide. Close one!
#33
In the early days of dating my former husband, I took a job on the coast at a camp and would drive back every weekend to visit him. I was 19. On my 4 hour drive back to work, I stopped into a quiet rest stop no one around, went to the bathroom, got in my car and a guy came towards my window while another guy beelined towards the other side of my car. It appeared the first guy had a question to ask. Normally I'd roll down my window a little to answer but not this time and I politely held up a still wave as I drove out of there. They'd have to wait for someone else if they truly needed directions, hopefully not a young lone female. .
#34
My friend and I smoking with a group of 30 yr old men when we were 19. Something started to feel really off when we hit the blunt, then they wanted to go back in the shed, and a random man came through the back gate while we were smoking and just stared at us. We said we needed to use the restroom and ran out the front door lol.
#35
Once me and a friend were walking in London at about 1am, going back to her house and we turned down an empty quiet street and I don’t know what it was but all my hairs stood up and all my spidey senses were tingling and everything in me was saying not to carry on down that street. I made us go back and turn around and I’m sure my mate thought I was mad but it was like the biggest alarm bell in my brain. For no apparent reason. I’ll never know if there was danger but I wasn’t about to risk it!
Also once I went to my car in a car park and felt like I was being watched so I was on edge even though I couldn’t see anyone so I locked myself in the car when there was a knock on my window! I jumped a MILE! It was my friend he’d seen me get in my car and then decided to ask me a question. I couldn’t see him but I KNEW I was being watched!
Trust your gut. Your brain subconsciously picks up things you don’t even realise. It’s not spooky, it’s a survival instinct. If something feels wrong, don’t try and be logical, get the hell out of there and you can figure it out later.
#36
When I lived in a CA beach town a neighbor friend of mine threw a big party. A professional MMA fighter showed up with three or four other MMA types. At some point that group started to get rowdy and the MMA star grabbed the host and cheerfully flipped him upside down and dangled him from the 2nd story balcony by his ankles. The two guys had been H.S. friends. I could not leave that party quick enough.
#37
Went to a party in a field while in high school. I didn't really want to go, but relented because my best friend's crush would be there. We were there maybe five minutes and I suddenly got this overwhelming anxiety, to the point I could barely breathe. I tell my bestie we need to leave, immediately. She takes one look at me and doesn't argue.
By the time we made it back to the paved road, I was feeling better. We considered turning around and I started feeling panicky again, so we went to her house to hang out instead.
The next morning, her dad wakes us up because the field we were in the night before was on the news. Apparently not long after we left, a fight broke out and someone got a gun from their car and started shooting. Three people were shot, two died instantly, and the third was in critical condition. They eventually died.
I never doubted myself again.
#38
My mom was helping me move my stuff from Colorado to Virginia after I graduated. We got gas in Limon, Colorado, because there was a long stretch with no gas station. I overheard a gas station employee talking about the tornado that hit Limon pretty hard the previous year.
We drove east for a few minutes. Just before the Kansas border, I looked up and saw that the clouds were *boiling* and churning like a pot of water on the stove. I still had the Limon tornado on my mind, so I turned on the radio. Sure enough, tornadoes had been spotted to the north and south of us. We got off at the first town with a motel and stayed the night. We prayed a tornado didn’t hit the motel because it wouldn’t have been much protection.
#39
Went to a party with my friend back in college. As soon as I got there, it seemed off. I'm not sure what it was but it was something about how a few of the guys looked at us and then at each other. It wasnt obvious and I don't even think I picked up on it consciously at the time but it gave me a bad feeling. Looking back on it, that is what told me to leave.
I told my friend we needed to go and she thankfully listened to me. We heard later that the house the party was at was notorious for d***ging girls.
#40
Was camping with husband and we went for a little canoe trip on the lake.
I suddenly felt a change in the wind (hot+cold) leaves turning, birds flying away, everything went quiet.
Told husband i didnt want to camp anymore. He eas feeling the same because our camping spot.was awful and full of mosquitos.
While on the lake, he texted a friend in a nearby city asking if we could visit. We packed our stuff, friend texted back and said to come.
Started to rain. As we were entering the city (some 20mins later) there was a tornedo alert.
We arrived at our friend as the tornado hit the surrounding including the campground.
#41
This was around date 4 or 5, but I went to a girl's house who had a series of "catchers for the mourning spirits that lived in her walls."
Definitely didn't look any better in the morning light.
#42
When i was looking for a house back in 2023 and walked into one that we made an appointment to see and the entire place was full of clown pictures, clown dolls, and the entire stairwell and upstairs had clocks all over that went off while we were there.
and im talking the sad looking clowns. Not even smiling ones.
#43
At 19 I was traveling in India with two other young women. This old riksha guy asked to take us to a special shopping place. I immediately thought it was a bad idea and definitely a scam but the others wanted to go.
He brought us to this place outside of tourist roads, no windows and a single door, no way to look inside. By this time one of the others was wary too, the third one still wanted to go so we followed her. Inside there actually were shelves full of clothes, but also like 10 men all staring at/partly surrounding us. One came up to me grinning and said „Don‘t be nervous!“ We turned on our heels and left immediately.
The third girl didn‘t get it for some reason. Tbh it probably really just was a shady clothing store, not unusual for men to hang out in shops there. But hell nah.
#44
I was 16, going to do a local hike with my friends on the weekend. We drove all the way there, and all 3 of us said that we had a feeling we shouldn't do the hike. None of us could explain it but we knew we needed to leave. We left. Never heard of anything happening that day but I think something bad would've happened if we had done the hike.
#45
When I was got to the top of a small mountain and all my hair stood on end with static electricity. Sprinted back down and lightning struck the top.
#46
Watched in person as the first of the twin towers came down. I was less than a mile away. I ran for my life.
#47
I was little and my family were visiting their friends. We were all outside doing a picnic but I went inside to use the bathroom when the guy who owned the house followed me inside. He creeped me out so much. Thank god my mom had intuition and quickly followed me inside. I look back on it and definitely think he was a predator.
#48
Was in a remote town in northern Michigan. In a tiny Airbnb house. We were supposed to spend one more night. Both had a very weird feeling. Packed up everything in less than ten minutes and left. Very rare that I get that gut feeling, but there was something telling me to get out of there.
Even the two nights before we had both set of doors locked and put the heavy recliner infront of the door.
#49
On a motorcycle. My inner voice said It’s about time to get off this bike. Because it was a caravan, I did not get off the bike. Until the dude crashed it and I flew off the back and tumbled along in the emergency lane. I should have listened and always have since. I was ok.
#50
WE were in Corvalis Oregon looking at an historic house that was for sale. I walked up to a window and looked in. I immediately felt that the place was haunted, a feeling I never had before. It was so strong that went back to my car.
#51
Boondocked in some random town in southern Idaho/northern Utah. It was late and I was falling asleep at the wheel so I had no prep only saw a road sign. Pulled into town and saw a holistic store with a back lot. Parked got comfy and immediately heard a loud car just driving around the town, like circling it. Third time round I swear it slowed/stopped in front of the store. I was out after that. Had enough rest to make it to the next rest stop.
#52
Got lost in downtown vegas with the wife. Somehow read the google maps wrong, and ended up wondering further away. Passed old closed down buildings, people with their belongings in a trolly. We decided it was Uber time. The driver looked confused when he picked us up.
#53
I was 10 years old at my regular riding lesson. Another young girl whose father worked at the farm where my lesson was came to me and told me the riding instructor had felt her up the day before. He was always the kind who would put his hand on my knee while talking with me on the horse. Got off the farm’s horse, back on my own and rode home, never went back.
#54
Circa 2008 when Mexican president Fox decided to wage war against all cartels and not make any deals with them was an extremely violent time in Mexico. Every town, especially border towns were ravaged with violence and cartels running around the streets freely with machine guns, etc. My parents and I picked up my grandparents and we took them out for what we thought would be a nice little brunch. Five minutes into sitting down before we even ordered, this large group of armed men, I’d say 8-10 men with large machine guns and rifles, walked in and went straight through the kitchen. We quietly asked the waiter what was going on, and she quietly replied that those men come in and eat a couple times a week in the back. We promptly picked up our belongs and left. We were not about to risk getting caught in rainfall of bullets if something went down.
#55
Not exactly my choice, but I would have done the same if it were my kid.
My mom took me to a friend’s house and she always popped in to say hello before she dropped me off. The father was blackout drunk - hitting on my mom, slurring…
I didn’t understand at the time why we suddenly left but she noped me right out of there.
#56
A friend's friend's mom cut hair in her basement. I said sure, I'll save a little money. I get there when she asks and she says "hold on, I'm finishing this movie. Just another 45 minutes." um. ok. Well a few minutes later a guy in a giant truck hops the curb and parks in her front yard (this is in a dense city.) He starts screaming for the hair cutting lady's daughter to come outside. His mom gets out of the other side and immediately starts insisting to the gathering crowd he doesn't have a gun. No one asked, pretty suspicious to claim. Hair cutting lady said "let me deal with this" and I just NOPED out. Last thing I remember is seeing her in the middle of the street holding up her arms like "what happened?!" in my rearview mirror.
#57
Guns per se don't bother me--in locked cabinets, places out of sight, etc.
This guy had guns sitting on side tables, leaned up against chairs, etc. Bye.
#58
Went round to the weird girls house after school, I knew she had a tough home life. We went upstairs to her bedroom and there was dog s**t everywhere and the signs of a small fire. I stuck around for a little bit and then said I think I need to go home. As I'm leaving and go downstairs her dad and brother had gotten in, they started a conversation with me and mid conversation pulled out a crack pipe and took a hit, then blew it in my face.
Once I got out of the house I ran home and told my mum. She rang social services but I'm not sure what happened after that.
#59
I went to my ex-girlfriend's house. She lived with her grandpa and he was sitting in the living room, playing CoD with a headset, screaming enraged profanity. And it just kept going and going.
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