Call it instincts or call it luck, sometimes you just know things aren’t right. You get a feeling in the pit of your gut telling you to leave that simply can’t be ignored. When that feeling bubbles up, it’s time to go…now. These Redditors knew when it was time to get out of dodge. They narrowly avoided some absolutely terrifying incidents and came out with harrowing tales to tell. If this has never happened to you, consider yourself lucky. Here are 50 times when people needed to get out immediately.
1. Just Keep Swimming
My old apartment had an outdoor swimming pool for residents. We were swimming in it one day with my one-year-old son. Another family was also in there swimming. They had three kids swimming while the mom and her sister were off to the side chatting on the patio. Their kids were probably three, five, and seven.
I was swimming with my son when I saw my husband’s eyes bug out of his head. He said, “Let’s go NOW!” While I’m gathering our stuff, he whispers that he just saw the three-year-old poop diarrhea out of their swimsuit into the water. As we’re packing up, we then see the mom notice the kid has pooped in her bathing suit. Oh, but it gets worse.
She has the kid take off her bottom bathing suit, put on some underwear, and lets all the kids continue to play in the pool. I was so horrified, but I also am not good with confrontations. We went back to our apartment and called the apartment manager, who then had to go down to the pool and close up the pool for cleaning. That takes 24 hours if it’s liquid poop. We lost a little faith in humanity that day.
2. Bad Vibes
The owner of a restaurant threw two guys out while I was there having dinner with my wife. They were drunk 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." My wife says, "What?"
I replied: "Those jerks aren't done and I'm not going to be here when the shooting starts" We left, and they came back not long after.
3. Fight Night
Back in like 2007, me and my buddy were in high school and I had just gotten my driver’s license. Get tickets to go see a show in Camden—we’re from Philly burbs. This is also my first time over in Jersey without an adult. With my last $5 I buy a T-shirt from a guy outside the show. We go to drive over the bridge and they’re like, there’s a toll, pull off and go to the 7/11 around the corner, there’s an ATM. Okay, sure.
We do that and pull up to the 7/11 and it straight up looks like there’s about to be a gang fight. Me and my scrawny little friend are in a 1990 Ford Bronco. We put it in reverse as soon as we see what’s going on. We found a cop, explained the situation. He called us idiots and told us a way to sneak over the bridge. Fun night.
4. Screamers
Was driving down a very desolate road in Galveston, TX with my father one night. No lights on the road at all, pitch darkness except for our car. I keep getting a horrible sense of utter dread. Eventually, we hear someone crying out in the darkness. "Help! Help me! Please stop! Hey! Stop!" My dad went to stop the car.
I grabbed his arm and told him in a desperate voice to please keep driving. Something didn't feel right. We were on a desolate, unpopulated road at night and there were no cars where the shouting had come from. We had reached a dead end and turned around. The next day, we see the news reports of carjackings on that very road, and warning people not to stop at night if you hear someone calling for help.
5. Door-to-Door
I heard a knock on my door and opened it to find some salesmen trying to get people to sign up for AT&T high-speed internet. I half-humored them since I wasn't thrilled about my internet, but during the conversation one let it slip that they knew where I worked. They tried to play it off as "Well, we provide service to such-and-such air force base, so we probably got your information from there."
But that base has some 30,000 people there and it’s highly unlikely there is some comprehensive list. He started asking questions about my employment, which was pretty sensitive at the time, and the conversation was getting uncomfortable. They hadn't provided IDs at this point, so I asked and they provided some faded, hardly legible copies and then asked to come inside.
I pretty promptly shut down the conversation and told them to leave. I talked to neighbors later and no one else had them visit. Not sure what they were after.
6. The Best Friend
I met a guy off Tinder at night. We walked around the park near his house and he suggested we go back inside to play Mario Kart. He warned me that his place was a little messy and I said okay, not a problem. I go inside and I am absolutely SHOCKED. He’s a hoarder and lives with his parents. The entire apartment smelled like cat pee.
Poor cat. I was panicking on the inside cause I have asthma and I am a clean freak, but I didn’t want to make him feel bad. It was absolutely horrible and disgusting and so hard to breathe. I was getting some super creepy vibes from him, too, and I went to the bathroom and texted my friend to call me in five minutes for a level 10 emergency. She called and was crying hysterically on the phone, and I quickly got up and left.
7. Never Stop
I was a relatively new driver at the time. My little brother and I were driving through Kansas City on a road trip and took a wrong turn. We got into a pretty seedy part of town and stopped to ask directions (this was way back before Google maps or GPS) from two uniformed officers walking into a store. Their reply made my blood run cold. They looked at me and then each other and said, "Miss, you need to get back in your car. Now." They gave me good directions to get out, though.
8. Get Off My Yard!
It was my sixth-grade school field trip, and we were at an outdoor park with some woods, volleyball courts, and fishing. There was a shack in the woods and apparently an old man lived there. He came out of his creepy shack with a piece and started yelling at some of the kids. A lot of the kids were crying, we had to get on the bus immediately and the authorities were called. That was the end of that tradition.
9. The Swarm
One day I was out watering some baby trees on my in-laws' farm on a hot summer's day. Everything around us was field except for these small trees. I heard what I thought sounded like rustling leaves, but a lot of them. And it kept getting louder. I look over and see a literal wall of bees moving towards us, buzzing loudly. My hubby told me to run.
We dropped everything and ran to the farmhouse. The group of bees ended up on one of the baby trees in a big clump. Apparently, that's just how they travel when their numbers outgrow their hive. It was pretty dramatic stuff.
10. Stopping the Moment
This was years ago. My older cousin (17 at the time) took my little brother (five) and sister (seven) and me (nine) out in a big city near where we live. We were standing at this bus stop near where there was a small square grass park, probably about 200 feet across. It was January and the park was surrounded by short bushes that still had Christmas lights on them.
My brother and I began to wander, and my brother wandered a bit further than me, following a string of lights. A few minutes later I get this weird feeling and my head shoots up and about 30 feet away is my brother speaking with this old, dirty man. I saw the man reach his hand towards my brother and I heard him say, “If you like Christmas lights, I have some really nice ones over here you’d love!”
My brother grabbed his hand and they both started to walk away, but I caught up before they could turn the corner and snatched my brother back. The man immediately turned around and hurried away without a word, and I was too young and scared and confused to confront him. I never told anyone about it until years later for some reason.
I was so overwhelmed with the thought that I had just experienced one of those moments that could have completely altered my life in a just matter of seconds. If I had looked up just five seconds later, they would have turned the corner and disappeared into the city without a trace. Really, really terrifying stuff.
11. Hunted
This happened at camp in 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 a clear view of the sky. It was a new moon and there was 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. A valid reason, but I don't believe it was the real reason she said it.
12. Run Like Lightning
Back when I was maybe eight, me and a few of my friends were out playing in a field when some pretty dark clouds rolled in. Being the dumb kids we were we continued to play even when it started to downpour. There were probably five of us in this group and one of them was a seven-year-old who always wanted to hang out with the older kids. She started to cry.
It wasn’t strange for her to cry from time to time but this was the worst I’ve ever seen her cry. It just felt off. She kept demanding that we leave and that she wanted to go back to her house but for the most part, we ignored her (again very stupid children) until we finally saw the first flash of lightning. Begrudgingly we all left, running for the patch of trees that was nearby.
Lightning struck the ground less than five feet away from where we were playing just a few minutes prior. That had to be one of the scariest moments of my early childhood and left me with a deep-seated fear of lightning. Also yes my parents did ground me for the rest of the summer for not coming home when the rain started to fall.
13. Cased
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.
He was 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 in 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
14. Deja Vu
For context: I live in Melbourne. A few years ago a man knifed his brother, got in a car, drove to the city (where I was living) did some donuts in the middle of a busy intersection (right outside my window at the time) and then drove said car down a popular street with many shoppers on it and ended as many lives as he could. Donut marks were visible from my window for ages.
A couple of months ago, I was waiting at a different busy intersection in the city and a car started to do donuts in the middle of it. My immediate response was to just bolt and I ran into the nearest store. I didn’t even think about it, my brain just immediately assumed his next step was to use the car as a weapon. Eventually, he drove off, but my heart was beating very fast.
15. Just Checking In
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 really stupid when I noticed something through the trees off the trail to where we were walking. It was a man wearing a very dark top and blue jeans.
People came in these 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.
I told her to look for blue since the man’s 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 alone many times since 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.
16. This Bar’s Overrated Anyway
Some five years ago, my parents were living in Chihuahua, Mexico. I flew down to see them since I work in the States. Turns out a friend from childhood was living there as well so we decided to meet for a drink. It was my first time in that city—we are from another state but my dad used to move a lot for work.
I borrowed my dad’s car and we drove to a bar. As we were parking the car in front of the bar, three guys were leaving holding AK-47s. “Let’s get riiight out of here!” I said. I was paralyzed but managed to back the car up. But they walked in front of it before I could leave. One of them stayed in the middle of the street while the other two got their truck. So there we were in the middle of the street staring directly at this dude with the piece looking right at us. He slowly walked to the truck, still looking at us, jumped in, and they left. So scary.
17. Not Her!
I was finishing up a nice dinner on a date with my girlfriend when I see my ex-girlfriend bussing tables and moving our way one table at a time. I had nothing to be ashamed of, but for some reason my heart started pounding and my fight-or-flight reflex kicked in, entirely on the “flight” side of things. I put money down on the table, took my girlfriend's hand, and pretty much dragged her out of the restaurant.
When we got to the car I finally relaxed enough to be able to explain what happened...but to this day I still don't know why.
18. Don’t Point
I was at a bachelor party in Warsaw a year or so ago. As often happens at these types of parties, we ended up at a strip club. I was sitting with another guy who I’d only ever had jokey non-serious conversations with. We’d known each other years but we’re both jokers, so we were always joking around whenever we spoke.
Anyway, he’d always had a history of being with a different girl every week, but he’d recently got serious with a girl and they’d just got engaged. I was really curious about what made her so special and changed his view on girls. He said that it wasn’t that he’d never wanted a proper relationship before, it was that this was the first girl he really liked that actually liked him back.
It was really humbling to hear that although he came across as being a god with women, he had actually struggled to find what he really wanted. He then asked me about my girlfriend and if she was “the one” I was gonna spend the rest of my life with. I was perhaps caught up in the moment but started going into a spiel along the lines of:
“She’s amazing, she’s beautiful, she’s unbelievable, I think I wanna marry her.” Just as I’m saying this, another of our friends comes over and hears me saying this, totally getting the wrong idea. He points to the stage and says, “Are you talking about the dancer?” Me and the other guy just erupt into laughter.
It was the first time we’d ever had a serious heart-to-heart conversation yet somehow, it’d descended into a hilarious joke. We were in absolute stitches, that kind where you’re laughing and the other person laughing makes you laugh more. But there was a dark side to it all. The dancer saw us laugh at her.
The best man comes over and says, “I dunno what exactly you’ve said to that dancer but we’ve got to go, she’s sending the bouncers over.” We thought he was joking but he made us go. We only figured out later what had happened.
19. The Invisible Man
My elderly neighbor stopped by one day and asked to borrow my phone as his had broken. When I asked if he was okay, he stated that there were some people from the nursing home in his house that shouldn't have been there. We talked to the authorities, and he went home. The authorities called me back with more information.
So, I went to my neighbor's house and started asking questions. He invited me in to talk to one of the people in question…but there wasn't anyone there. Turns out, he was hallucinating real hard. I noped out of there before calling the authorities back and asking for a wellness check. They took him away in an ambulance, and I never heard what happened after. It was one of the scariest moments of my life, though!
20. Nearly a Meal
I was walking my hundred-pound Dane mix in the mountains. We were next to a three-foot hill with tall grass on it and we heard a very low-frequency growl. My dog, who was king of the whole mountain and every dog on it, whimpered and started shaking. I stared into the grass but didn't see anything. Then another growl and we walked quickly away. Once we got around the corner we ran home like sissies.
Two days later my neighbor defeated a 200 lb. mountain lion that was in his yard attacking his llama. Close call.
21. Ungodly Sermon
This happened in the late 90s. I was around 16 cruising around with a friend in his Jeep. We stopped at a gas station to get some smokes and we start talking to these two girls our age in the store. They invite us to a lock-in for their youth group at the YMCA, but we have to attend some youth group meeting first. Neither my friend nor I are religious, but these girls are cute so we accept.
We run home to grab some things to keep us occupied for the lock-in and drive up to the church. We go in and are greeted by our new friends and taken to the sanctuary. The sermon starts and it gets progressively weirder and weirder. And it is dragging on and on and on. To the point, my buddy grabs a pen and draws this crazy dragon breathing fire on the leg of his jeans.
Anyway...I notice that the doors have large older men standing beside them blocking them. Then the minister drops this line, "Tonight WHEN the bus crashes on the way to the lock-in, will you go to heaven?" We both looked up and at each other to verify what we heard and got up to leave. We were immediately called out so we booked it towards the only non-blocked door. It was locked.
The folks blocking the doors were now running towards us. We both took off jumping on the seats of the pews hopping the backs. We managed to get to a fire door and pull the alarm and run to the Jeep. Once in the Jeep, we peel out and look for the exit—when we saw it, I felt a chill down my spine. The idling charter bus that was taking everyone the 10 miles to the YMCA is now blocking the exit and the people from inside are running at the Jeep.
We ended up just cutting through a field and down to a service road that eventually took us back to the highway and we booked it back to my buddy's house. We ended up waking his parents up and explaining everything to them, who in turn called the authorities. The church was locked up tight with no one in sight, and the YMCA didn't have a scheduled lock-in that night. There were no reports of a crashed charter bus that we could find though. Who knows where all those kids ended up.
22. Came Out Swinging
I was walking home from work along the bike trail. Two intoxicated men were fighting and one was wildly wielding a box cutter. I stopped for a moment, but there was no real way for me to get around. Another man walked up beside me and continued forward, so I followed, and we walked off the trail to pass with a wide berth.
I kept my head forward but watched them in my peripheral vision. The unarmed drunk man got hold of the box cutter and tossed it in the stream nearby. Crisis adverted, but it made me want to leave as soon as I saw the box cutter.
23. Round Two
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 four or five more of them run out of the house with baseball bats. They chased us down the driveway. So freaking glad we got out of there when we did.
24. Starting Early
This happened to my dad when I was maybe three years old so I don’t remember it but I’ve been told the story. One of my dad’s old mates had a daughter my age, maybe a year older, and we were at their house. My dad and his mate were having beers and I was playing with the mate’s daughter. My mum was holding my sister, who was maybe 18 months at the time.
Out of nowhere my dad’s mate grabs his daughter and says to my dad, “Oi mate check this out,” and hands his daughter a full glass of rum and coke, which she promptly and easily skulls. From what I was told, my dad scooped me up, grabbed my mum and sister and we got the heck out of there as fast as humanly possible.
25. Not Taking Chances
My partner, stepson, and I went to go see Nelly play a free show at Fremont Street in Downtown Las Vegas last summer. It was fun as heck yelling along to “Hot in Here” until a massive group of people start running by saying "pistol." We got right outta there as soon as possible. I don't know if there was a piece or not but with the number of authorities driving to that area, I can only assume so.
26. Big Mama
At my family's cabin and we were told by my aunt that there was a mamma moose up the mountain by the reservoir. We went huckleberry picking and we got in the thick of the forest. Out of nowhere, my wife was running away on her tippy toes, it was almost like in a cartoon. She said that she found the mamma moose and accidentally was like 10 feet away from her. We ended up booking it down the mountain faster than you can say huckleberry pancakes.
27. What a Disaster
I used to live right by a military base. During Hurricane Katrina, I drove a state over as a single mother with my toddler. We came back and the roof over the gas station across the street was gone. The base was underwater. You literally could not see the tip of the top of the building. They were all submerged. My street was covered by overthrown roofs and trees. I came back a little too early. A dresser fell on my son. There were no phone lines. No food. No gas. It was a horrible experience.
28. Burning Down the House
10 years ago my apartment building caught on fire. The firemen came out and saved half the building—14 units, seven on each floor, like duplex homes. After a few hours, they left and said we could go back in, as we were the set of four that survived, the first three were destroyed. My new neighbor friend was in the top unit, next to the last one to burn.
His place has a lot of foam damage, so he was going up to collect everything he could that did not get damaged. I ran up into mine to grab photos and clothes and other important items to take to my parents’ home, as the firemen had broke in my door to get me out when it all happened. As I exited my door, I looked over and noticed the building was covered in smoke.
I ran up the stairs in my new neighbor’s unit and found him going through items. I grabbed him and said we need to go now. As soon as he moved and we started going down the stairs there was a loud bang/explosion sounding boom in his unit and the second fire started. We made it out fine, the firemen were called back.
It was found out that the electric company did not cut power to the full building, and that plus the foam and damage caused a second fire to start about an hour or two after the first was put out. The original root cause, bad electrical paired with no proper structure, and no firewalls up to code. We are lucky no one was stuck inside. The apartment complex offered us to have another unit for only 25% normal rent. Not a single one of us took that deal.
29. Too Innocent
I visited the Wedding area in northern Berlin with my mom and my brother a few years back. The guy who was supposed to let us into our Airbnb was nowhere to be found. Mom got desperate as we waited for a response, and after seeing a man walking down the street tried to flag him down to ask for directions or god knows what.
So, she went after him and tried to get his attention by yelling, "Excuse me... sir, sir! Excuse me!" My brother and I had noticed he passed by someone standing in a corner and somewhat sneakily handed him something. So here we are trying to stop our mom, who's going after this guy, and we're trying to subtly tell her that this guy just made an illegal transaction.
Nothing happened, but in the moment, we panicked wondering what would have happened if he thought she was trying to scold him or something and would have retaliated.
30. Nessie Strikes Again
Was out fishing with my buddy on a riverbank a few miles down a dam. The weather was great so we decided to stay there and make some dinner with what we had caught already and continue fishing. Although it was already nighttime, the sky was clear and the moon gave out enough light that we could see well enough.
I should probably mention that the water level was pretty low, so we had to actually be on the riverbed in order to fish. At one point, as I'm looking upstream, I noticed the water in the distance getting a bit shaky and I notice this disruption getting closer. As I turn around to tell my friend that I thought something was up, I see him just throw his fishing rod away and run towards the bank.
I obviously do the same and manage to get to the riverbank just in time to turn around and see all our gear being dragged away. We stood there for a good 15 minutes without saying a word, just internalizing how close we were to being dragged by the river in the middle of the night. We went back the next morning hoping to find some of the gear but all we managed to find were our benches and one of the bells.
31. A Little Culty
My friend invited me to a "seminar." Everyone was dressed in white shirts and black pants with black shoes. I was the odd one out in here. For some weird reason, they were praising the founder as if he was some kind of god. When I went into the auditorium, they were showing how these 17-year-olds were earning 200,000 rupees in a month (which is a lot in India, translated to about $3,500) with their own bikes, cars, and stuff like that.
Then it dawned on me that this is eerily similar to one of the biggest schemes used about 7 years ago at the time. I really wanted to get out of there ASAP. My brainwashed friend was sitting a few rows behind me—all of those involved in this marketing were required to do so for some weird reason. It was cringy at best and exploitative at worst. I haven’t caught up with him since.
32. The Tackle Trap
I go fishing every so often and I try to find smaller bait and tackle shops because they tend to have more variety than a gas station or Walmart and better prices than Cabela's. I was driving and I saw a building that had a tackle shop sign, so I decided to investigate. I walked inside, and it didn't look like a tackle shop at all; it looked like someone's living space!
When I said "Hello?" I heard a pump-action shotty being cocked. I never noped outta somewhere as fast as I did that day.
33. Later, Beach
A few friends and I had been invited to a "beach party" while we were traveling in Chile during our college years by some older local guys. My friends were on board with it while I was uneasy, but decided to tag along. We had no idea where we were going, but around 9:00 or 10:00 PM we walked out along the beach.
We walked a good half mile or so until we found this abandoned looking building. At this point, we realized that there was definitely no beach party and my instincts said we need to leave right away. So, we basically ran the whole way back to the street and sat on a park bench looking out towards where we had just been.
A truck shows up and these guys start flashing their lights at us on the street to come to them. We ran down a bank, several streets away, and got back to our hostel to find out our whole group had been very worried because not only are "beach parties" at night not a thing in Chile, but these guys came around asking for us at the hostel and got aggressive/angry when they couldn't find us.
Apparently, this is a trafficking thing and we easily could have been taken if we had waited long enough on the beach. It was very scary and I feel very dumb for having gone in the first place. Glad I was there as the easily scared person of the group but still. We got very close to having a very, very bad time.
34. Dragged Under
My two cousins and I, when we were pretty young, had this habit of going neck-deep or even mouth-deep into the sea. One day I felt something trying to push me further into the sea and only my toes stood in the way. I immediately told my cousins to get out and we returned to the dry sand.
35. Howling Away
My friends and I, all preteen boys, were walking around the neighborhood. A white van with a mountain-scape mural with wolves howling at the 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—it was a very family-centric neighborhood—and then started loudly knocking. The van peeled off, never to be seen again.
36. Don’t Mess With Caves
A buddy and I have been exploring an underwater cave not too far from where I live. We're both fairly experienced cave divers so we're not doing anything that we're not trained for. Anyway, the cave starts as a sinkhole that opens into this giant cavern. The only going passage we had thus far found was down a strong siphon.
We had gone on a dive and extended the line to about 850 feet through some really small restricted passage. The rock in this cave is really soft limestone. When we’re swimming through it, just the bubbles hitting the ceiling is enough to erode it away. Sand was raining down on us. It was pretty uneventful, data gathered, mission accomplished so far.
We got back to the cavern and decided to look for where the water comes from—if it's flowing out of the room, it's got to be flowing in from somewhere, right? The room has a giant debris cone rising from the floor where the sinkhole opened up—think of a pile of nachos where the chips are boulders and the nacho cheese is silt.
We decide the upstream portion has to be on the other side of the debris cone. There is no way around the debris cone and it goes all the way to the ceiling, so we start to look at how to go through it. We find a sizeable hole and I decide alright, let's crawl between the boulders and see what's on the other side.
So, we're going in and I'm kinda sketched out with how soft the rock is. Since it used to be the ceiling and is now the floor it's kind of a given that it's unstable, and my bubbles eroding these giant boulders on top isn't super comforting. So, I'm going slow, laying line carefully and get about 30ft in. A few body lengths, around a few corners.
Then it happens. A rock the size of a case of beer falls from the ceiling and hits my head. Luckily, being very porous rock, it wasn't super dense and didn't hurt, but it scared the life out of me. The rock bounces off me and hits the dirt below me sending silt billowing and me into zero visibility. A few seconds later I feel another rock hit my legs.
I was now underwater in a collapsing debris cone without being able to see. It was time for me to leave. Now. The physiological response that I had in this situation was unlike anything I've ever experienced. A massive adrenaline rush that made me feel that I could move any rock anywhere and get the fudge outta dodge.
But I knew if I touched anything around me it would only further the collapse. I had to control myself to be really delicate and barely move while crawling out. It took about 10 minutes to get out of the 30-foot cone. I got caught up a few times but somehow I was able to get out. When we got out of the cone, we still had some decompression so I had to sit on top of this cone I almost lost my life in with silt still billowing out of it. This was the scariest moment of my life. After we got out I was still kind of in shock and shaking.
37. Pool’s Closed
Me and a friend were swimming when it started to storm. We stupidly carried on swimming because we were wet anyway what’s some rain going to do? Her mom came outside and shouted at us to come inside, which we did while moaning and complaining that she was being an annoying adult. Less than three minutes later, as we had entered her room to get undressed, we heard this almighty crack and the power went out.
Lightning had hit the pool! They ended up having to empty the pool a week later as it had messed up the chemicals—not sure how as I’m not a pool expert. The water turned all green and murky.
38. Mom Vs. Milk
Me and my mom were feeding some cows we had bought with some other people. There was supposed to be eight, but when we walked into the field there were only seven. Suddenly, a massive black heifer emerged from some bushes about 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, so my mom stepped towards it, spreading her arms out wide and screaming at the top of her lungs. 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.
39. Don’t Fugetaboudit
It was fall of 2012 and I was driving a motorhome with my wife and two kids. We were trying to go all the way around the entirety of the United States, or close to it. We started in CA and finally made it to NYC. We were so excited...we had always wanted to see New York and do EVERYTHING. We planned 10 days or so and stayed in an RV park in Hoboken called "Liberty Harbor."
After the first day, we kept hearing rumblings about a hurricane. By the third day...I was hearing A TON about the hurricane. I asked a couple of locals if I should be concerned and they said, "Nahhhh, it's just a storm, they always exaggerate it on the news, forget about it!" But the next day I just couldn't shake the feeling of dread and told my wife: "We need to leave, now."
We headed east into PA only to hear that there was a major blizzard heading south from Canada—and frozen pipes in an RV is a real problem—so I turned south in hopes of getting past the storm before it hit land. And right as we were crossing into Maryland LATE on a Sunday afternoon, my tire blew. There was NOBODY on the road. And RV tires are HARD to remove. No problem. I'd call AAA!
But AAA said that they sent us a letter while we were on the road explaining that our RV was no longer covered for tires. Oh. The LAST guy in the phone book under tow service was boarding up his shop and came out to us. It took him TWO HOURS to get my tire changed. The lugs were stuck and it took him that long WITH the pneumatic tools.
So, we finally got down to Virginia and hunkered down while the wind and rain whipped all over. The next day, I look on YouTube. All the trouble had been worth it. There were videos of flooding all over the NYC area. And one of them was from an apartment building near the RV park. Looking down at where we had been parked. Water was COVERING the cars parked there. Nearly lost everything, but thank goodness I got out of there.
40. Uncontrolled Burn
Australian here. Was chilling in the dining room with my family, and I looked out the window to see a fire just spreading across one of our neighbors’ fields. Being 15~ at the time, I just kinda asked my mum what was going on and she started freaking out. So, while we grabbed whatever we could, my dad stayed behind watering what he could with a hose.
Thankfully no houses were burnt down, our property was okay, and the fire was suspected to be started by the neighbor’s saw. I thought that they were burning the grass, which is a common thing that we do to prevent fires, but it was too big to be burning off. That’s not the first time they’ve set fire to their field, and probably won’t be the last.
41. Driving Dirty
I was with a friend when she told me her ex was there. I saw the guy and immediately something in me shouted "DANGER!" I told my friend he looked creepy and she said she wanted to leave, so I take her home after telling the rest of our group. 30 minutes later I was still driving when my friend gets a call. She looked at me, super pale.
Her ex was caught with several knives and a piece on him. Authorities detained him, thankfully.
42. Australian For Drama
Not terribly dramatic, but the 2005 US Grand Prix at Indianapolis. Due to an equipment and rules dispute, only six of the 20 cars started the race. The crowd started getting ugly. We were sitting at the end of the front straight, and as the cars came around for the fourth lap, a guy stood up and lobbed a full can of Fosters over the catch fence and down onto the track.
If you've ever been to a race track you know how high those fences are and how difficult that is. I turned to my wife and said, 'Yeah, let's get out of here.”
43. The Unknown Guest
There’s an abandoned amusement park a few miles from where I grew up, and my friends and I decided to break in and explore it. It was still privately owned and had a ton of cameras up, but it had closed down 12 years prior and was barely maintained, so we had to be very careful. Nothing happened to us inside the park, but as we got under the fence and we’re walking to our getaway car (some mid-2000s minivan), we saw a white van.
We knew this van had gotten there while we were in the park because we definitely would’ve seen it as we entered and somebody would’ve made a joke about a creep in the white van or something along those lines. We had to drive through the old parking lot to get back to the road, and we sprinted back to the car and bolted out of there because we were afraid that van showed up specifically because of us. Nothing ever happened after that, but it definitely changed the mood of our excursion into the amusement park.
44. Really, Dad?
My slightly larger than normal father decided to sit his butt down on a display wooden table at a furniture store and who would have thought—the whole freaking thing collapsed. Everyone exchanged looks of fear and “Oh man.” My family and I came to the conclusion to get out quick and so we ran…so fast the Scooby-Doo running noise should have played. This happened when I was younger and I still remember it now. We haven’t gone back to that furniture store because forget that.
45. The Forest Man
I went camping with some friends—there were three of us—and we found a remote area about an hour's walk from the hiking trail. After the first night, my two friends realized we didn't have enough supplies, so they both decided to walk back to the car and drive to the nearest store. This would be about a three-hour journey there and back.
They insisted that I wait at the campsite alone, and I reluctantly agreed. About two hours after they left, I try to distract myself by reading my book. I am female and was 21 at the time. Dusk is approaching, and I am finding it harder and harder to see the words on the page. I start to hear footsteps in the forest, and I assume it's my friends returning, but I'm confused as to why I can't hear any voices.
I then hear deep, sinister laughter, and my heart drops. I tell myself that my friends are just trying to scare me, but the laughter continues and gets louder. Suddenly, I see a figure to my left, about 10 meters away, standing on the other side of a stream, staring at me. This figure is dressed head-to-toe in formal wear, including a top hat. This was in the middle of the forest in Far-North Queensland, Australia, so it is an extremely odd and terrifying sight.
He also has a strikingly disfigured face, likely from serious burn-scars, but to my 21-year-old self he looks like a character from The Hills Have Eyes. The man laughs deeply again while staring at me, and I am frozen stiff. He asks me what I'm doing here, and I calmly reply that I'm waiting for my two male friends to return.
My only sense of safety comes from the barrier the stream is creating between this man and I. If he was to charge at me, the stream would slow him down and I would have time to run to the forest. He asks me a few more questions, and I continue to respond calmly and nonchalantly. I begin to get the feeling I am not giving him the reaction he wants.
He then says he saw another group of campers a few kilometers upstream, and that he would go visit them next. He leaves, and I'm staring blankly in disbelief. My friends return about half an hour later, and neither of them believe what I tell them had just happened. My pleas to leave and head back to town were ignored. Needless to say, I barely slept for the rest of our camping trip.
46. Quit Bugging Me
When I lived in my old apartment that had cockroaches. I wasn't dirty but they were always there. I had to double lock everything I had. One day after my shift I came home and had a pain in my ear. My girlfriend pulled a giant cockroach out of my ear. That moment I literally got another apartment. It took one week to move out fully.
Sources: Reddit,
