Whether you’re a young kid or a fully grown adult, there’s always that one person who just leaves you so creeped out after you meet them. Everyone has had at least one creepy experience at some point in their lives — here are a bunch of them that people have mustered the courage to share.
1. Prison Is Dangerous
I worked in a behavioral management unit in a maximum-security prison for a couple of years. It’s a unit that houses borderline personality disorder cases, as well as the most disruptive inmates in the DOC. We had an inmate who was in prison for burning down a building with a bunch of people in it after one of the residents sold his girlfriend some bad substances.
He ended at least one of their lives, but I don’t remember much of the particulars. This inmate was usually polite, courteous, hard-working; everything you’d want from an inmate. He would watch Jeopardy! most nights and I would be blown away by his ability to answer most of the questions correctly. Then, suddenly he wouldn’t be okay.
The most minor slight or transgression towards him would trigger something inside him. He would shut down and become incredibly violent. He even looked forward to the acts that he committed. It happened intermittently, but whenever he had an episode, he was a force to be reckoned with. We never had it out, but whenever I spoke to him, it was like he had programmed responses that were designed to be exactly what I wanted to hear.
Then there are his eyes—at the prison, you often hear the saying “nothing behind the eyes”...he was the only one I ever really felt had captured that. His glare felt dangerous, and I can’t really compare it to anything I’ve ever experienced before or since. He made it through the program...eventually. At one point, they asked him which prison he would like to transfer to.
He chose one that had a particular staff member that crossed him too many times years and years back. He was going there to end that person's life. He waited years for the opportunity. Luckily, he slipped up and someone caught on before he could make it there. Without a doubt, he is the most dangerous person I have ever met. I know for a fact that if he had the opportunity, he wouldn’t hesitate to kill me. I am so glad he’ll never see the streets again.
2. Everyone Has That Ex
I had a bad experience with my ex. He's very charismatic, but he also turned out to be as abusive as can be. He hurt me, beat me up, broke into my home, set my house on fire, abused my dog, and so much more. We had a child together which complicated things even more. As part of the custody evaluations, it didn’t matter that he had ended someone’s life in the past, or that he was diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder, antisocial personality disorder, and bipolar disorder with extreme psychosis.
The psychiatrist on our case said he was the worst of the worst and that our child should not have contact with him, but the judge granted joint custody anyway after five years of court battles. Luckily, he went to prison a month later for stalking and laying hands on another woman. . There are truly some messed-up people out there. Luckily, I haven’t heard from him in years. He isn’t incarcerated at this time though, and I fear for my and my child’s life every day.
3. My Dad
My dad. This is strange to say as my dad is probably the nicest person you could hope to meet. He's now 71 and retired, spending his days fishing, camping, and sitting in hammocks. He looks a lot like Santa and had spent 30 years teaching in elementary schools, so he seems harmless...But one time I witnessed him go into protective mode—that's when I got really, really scared of him.
To make a long story short, a chick was in our house yelling at my brother demanding gold teeth. As soon as she mentioned her cousin being outside in the car with an object to inflict damage, I heard my dad (who I believed was sleeping) seemingly teleport from one side of the house to the other. This bellowing bear man chased the ghetto trash out of our house with an object an inch from the back of her head, all the while yelling loud enough that Lil John would probably have asked him to quiet down a bit. The closest I can figure to describe him to would be a white Uncle Phil from Fresh Prince.
4. The Creepiest Boss
My old boss. I swear he was like a robot or something. If he wanted to have a meeting with you, he would come up to you with a wide grin and say, "Can we have a little chat in my office? Nothing serious." His voice would always sound friendly, but there was absolutely nothing behind the eyes and no emotion in his voice...just pretense.
This faux-friendly demeanor would continue throughout the meeting and you could tell that he was covering up his seething anger for whatever tiny mess-up you happened to have made. I hated seeing him and I was always excited for the two days of my week where he worked on a different site. I won't say his name because it is very unique and identifying.
He honestly wasn't a nice person. He was consistently unkind and unprofessional with how he treated his staff. One of my older coworkers once said he didn't think he would flinch stealing money from his own grandmother, and that was a perfect description of his personality. He knew he was intimidating and could get what he wanted whenever so he just went with it.
He also had frequent temper tantrums, but he usually had them out in the back of our office building, so only a couple of people usually witnessed them. If he did have any sort of mental illness, it would most likely be something like a narcissistic personality disorder. If not for the threat of losing his job for unprofessional conduct, he would have acted like a completely different person. Since the pandemic, I've heard from several old coworkers that he laid off the company's most valuable employees and replaced them with kids who have very little experience. Now he's forced to be on the shop floor at all times. Everyone I spoke to agreed that he got what was coming to him.
5. A Decade In The Making
I had a weirdo boss for almost a decade. She was extremely convincing at being fake nice but she was actually a psychopath. She used to turn all of the staff against each other. She wanted to be the only leader and have all the respect. She used to get people to work as her little spies to feed her information. She would have them do this for as long as she wanted, then she would discard them by having them transferred out to other stores on a whim.
She would never speak to them again and they were always confused. I was never one of her crew, but I knew the thousands of random things that she didn’t like and I made sure to never do them. I also prevented other people from doing them because I knew she had a short fuse. She would treat you like royalty if you did her bidding, but if you did anything she didn’t like, she was going to hurt you for it.
She was extremely punishing and had no boundaries. She could make you feel like a worthless piece of dirt if she wanted to. I think she was a narcissist, to be honest. She used to ask people to clean the warehouse and after inspecting it, she would either come back very loving or very angry. If she wasn’t happy with your work, you would lose your shifts for the week.
One day, she told me she opened the warehouse door and ran her finger down the crack in the door hinges. There was dust on her finger after she did it, so she claimed the person who was assigned to the warehouse didn’t clean it properly. I never told anybody else that because it was my ticket to safety with her. But there was another time when I made her really angry, and the punishment she gave me was totally uncalled for.
She told the entire staff they were not to talk to me for a week. Nobody would utter a word to me. One girl told me outside of work that they had been told not to speak to me or they would lose their shifts. It was actually a horrible week, and the boss just kept looking at me with her eyes. She had a really funny glint in her eyes when she was mad with you. She loved seeing people suffer.
6. The Teacher
My high school Math teacher was the over-friendly type. He was friends with all his students on Facebook and Instagram, and he would always see their stories and pictures. He'd often leave compliments, but I always felt as if he was being too friendly and too touchy-feely. Then, one day, it finally blew up when a group of female students made an anonymous page sharing tons of screenshots of him harassing them via text messages.
Some people accused him of inappropriate behavior; however, they were all initially too afraid to report him because they thought no one would believe them. He was a very "nice" teacher after all. I just can't believe that he was one of those types of people. He had a daughter close in age to those that he would bug. It scares me that I had such frequent interactions with him because he was my teacher.
7. The Principal
My high school's assistant principal was busted for being part of a child ring. The news said there were images of children as young as toddlers involved, but he seemed to specialize in adolescent girls. That's not even the messed up part, though—the kids he targeted were the same age as the kids at the high school where he worked. Thinking that he was probably looking at us with creepy intent makes me feel so disgusted. Before he got caught, he had this squeaky-clean image. The popular kids liked him. He had helped some religious students start up our school's chapter of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. Most of the students and staff were shocked.
8. Fear Creeps Up
I worked as an EMT for four years. One time, my partner and I were sent out to an extremely sketchy hotel to pick up a patient for PD. Basically, this guy had been confronted by the authorities for something and he was now swearing up and down that he had chest pain to buy himself some time. An ambulance crew had to be dispatched to take him to the hospital in restraints, and an officer had to sit with him there until he was cleared.
When we arrived, he was crying loudly, sitting on the sidewalk between two officers. I took exactly one look at him and I was terrified. I could feel my heart rate jump and my hands start to shake. My larger male partner said he'd sit in the back with him. The guy was crying as we put him on the gurney and restrained him (this was protocol—if you're charged with something or are a potential danger to us, you get soft restraints tying your wrists and ankles to the gurney).
He sobbed loudly, talking about how much his chest hurt and how he didn't even do anything. My partner at the time, being better than the rest of us, was polite, professional, and kind. The moment the authorities were out of sight and he was shut in the back of the ambulance for the ride to the hospital, it was like a switch flipped.
His face was utterly, perfectly neutral. He stopped making any noise at all. I will never forget the way he looked at my partner. I've read a lot of books talking about a "calculating" gaze but I'd never seen one before. So, a couple of weeks later, we found out why he was being charged: He had flung bleach into the eyes of a cashier for "disrespecting him". She was now permanently blind. If you're scared of someone for no reason, there's probably still a reason.
9. Mr. Noodles
My pregnant wife and I were standing behind some guy in a coffee shop. This guy was struggling with psychosis or something, and he was berating the barista. I stepped up and told him that his behavior was inappropriate—then he screamed something odd: “I just want some boiling water.” Apparently, they only provided that for paying customers, so I offered to get him some. I then noticed that he was holding a cup of Mr. Noodles, so I assumed he just wanted to eat. He mumbled something to me, then ran away.
My wife and I placed our order and moved to the side. While we were waiting for our food, the guy came back and started running directly at me and my wife while kicking over chairs. Full-on adrenaline rush...In an instant, I was ready for a fight to the bitter end because there was no way he was getting anywhere near my pregnant wife.
Fortunately, he stopped about 10 feet in front of me and started screaming about how the whole world was unfair. After his rant, I asked him if he needed help. He stopped yelling, stared at me, blinked, mumbled something, then ran away. I’m so glad he stopped. I hate fighting and you never know how guys like that are going to behave...or what arms they’re concealing.
10. The Wrestler
Back when I was in high school, I went to a Ken Chertow wrestling camp (folkstyle wrestling) where The Beast was a guest wrestler. We were at a hotel outside of either Ann Arbor or Detroit; somewhere on the east side of the state. The camp was basically hosted a bunch of high school wrestlers with way too much testosterone, and there was a lot of general teenage mischief going on.
During the last day of camp, we were practicing some wrestling moves—I don't remember exactly they were, but The Beast walked over and pulled me in to show everyone the right technique. The next thing I knew, I was on my back thinking, "Ah...what is the ceiling doing on the floor and why do I smell popcorn?"
It turned out that I had just been body-slammed like a rag doll by Dan The Beast Severn and his BO smelled like popcorn. I thought it was the coolest stuff at the time...Now, I just feel lucky.
11. The Biker With The Reputation
My old neighbor was a member of a biker club with a reputation for committing extremely hurtful acts. We got along fine—I kept my distance and just minded my own business. His wife was more of a talker though, so we chatted often. One day, she mentioned how his dad had passed away and left him his bike shop. They were talking with some random lawyer to get his dad’s bills paid and to take ownership of the business.
I'm not an expert, but as she was explaining the deal to me, something she said didn't quite make sense. I told her I'd have my sister, who is a lawyer, look at the documents to make sure they was all above board. It turned out they both had only rudimentary reading skills and this lawyer was predatory as heck. I wish I remembered the legalities, but that’s really not my thing. In the end, I helped him keep his dad's shop and I never had to worry about my safety whenever I went out of town after that. He tackled an attempted burglar outside my window a year later. They were great neighbors and very appreciative.
12. The College Creep
I knew a guy in college who would befriend attractive single women, but only one at a time. He'd then make it his mission to become their "best friend." While he was with them, he'd be super kind and loving; always flirty but never crossing the line, to the point where he seemed to win them over without ever asking them out.
While he was with his guy friends, however, he'd openly talk about his fantasies of doing stuff to people, particularly women. On two separate occasions, I remember a group of us approaching the woman he was currently hanging out with and asking her to be careful. She just brushed us off and told us we were being ridiculous, and at one point she actually became furious that we would mischaracterize him like that.
I'll never forget her saying: "We spend all night cuddling and talking. I know him better than anyone and he would never say that!" Then, the next day, he'd start joking about how funny it would be to push a woman down the stairs and watch her head split open on the pavement. Eventually, he stopped hanging out with us; I assumed because he caught on that we were messing up his "game." As far as I know, he never actually did harm any of these women, but it was terrifying how he seemed to get off on knowing that he could.
13. Past Acquaintances
There was this guy I was involved with almost eight years ago. He wasn't Prince Charming, but he had a way of making people feel so safe and comfortable. We met on an online forum. Even though we did get close, I wasn't down for a long-distance relationship. Still, I trusted him—we talked daily and flirted even. It wasn't until he realized we would only ever be flirty friends that things drastically changed. At that point, everything turned upside down.
We stayed friends for a bit, and during that time, he was seeing another girl. He would tell me how they would cuddle all night and how the whole time, he was having extremely disturbing fantasies about her. Not quite as violent as what you mentioned, but still. When I told him to leave me alone, he threatened to blackmail me and coerce me into performing his fantasies. He also said he would find me in real life. Luckily, he doesn't have my real name (I go by a fake surname online) and I immediately blocked him on everything. Honestly, I still think about him almost daily, and sometimes I still worry that he'll reappear in my life somehow.
14. Attorney-Client Creepiness
I clerked for a trial judge for a year after law school. I’ve met a bunch of murderers and the like, including one who executed a man for reporting his counterfeiting scheme to the authorities and a woman who ended the life of her child. Anyway, the scariest person I ever met was during my first attorney job at a firm that specializes in representing homeowners associations with debt collection. One associate attorney constantly got excited when he talked about getting judgments against people who didn’t pay their HOA fees and putting liens on their properties, effectively making sure their financial hardships will last for years. Unlike the murderers I met, He had no soul in his eyes.
15. Lawyers And Politicians
I worked at a bar that was almost exclusively populated by lawyers and politicians. One day, they had a speaker show up and tell a harrowing story of his own struggle with substances. He went on about the decades he had been out of it and how it plagued his financial life and family etc., but also how he became a changed man once his family checked him into a private rehab center. But there's the messed up part—he was a judge who had punished countless people for substance charges. Everyone in the room fawned over his struggle.
It was the most disgusting thing I've ever seen.
16. WWII Creepiness
There was this guy at school who was always nice and had this kind of archaic authority. He wasn't tall or strong by any means, but he had a boldness that everyone knew about. He was also super creepy. In particular, he was the leader of all the people at our school who were involved with WWII, and he stayed connected to many skinheads from the Frankfurter Kameradschaften. If you had beef with him, he could easily summon a couple of muscles to your home and beat you up. He had a way of looking at you with a slight smile and hard blue eyes that could send shivers up your spine.
17. Creepy As They Get
My wife held the door for a guy who, just a few months later, did something totally unspeakable. abducted two young girls who were walking home from school. He ended the life of one girl at some hog confinement, but luckily the other one got away. She said that he had completely black eyes like a shark and every hair on her body stood up when she saw him.
18. Rush Hour Traffic
I got rear-ended outside New York City in a brand-new car during some busy rush hour traffic in 1995 or so. I had recently been in a hit-and-run, so the first thing I did was look in the rearview and write down the plate number. It was either a black caddy or a town car. The passenger was an older man wearing sunglasses and a fedora.
The driver was a huge man who could have been a linebacker. As I was writing down the color, make, and model of his car, the driver knocked on my window. I got out and he seemed annoyed. There was no damage to my car and little to his. He looked at me and said we are alright here? I thought it better to go along with that. I said we should probably file a report with the authorities and exchange information. What he said next was peculiar.
He said no, we are OK. Normally, I would have insisted, but I had a pretty good idea of what type I was dealing with. He said, "OK, all set then" and I went back to my car. Then, all of a sudden, he said, "WAIT." I almost relieved myself in my pants. I turned around and he grabbed my right hand, shook it, looked right into my eyes, and said, "May we never meet again." I went back into my car and drove off as fast as I could, checking my rearview every so often for that car. I never saw it again, but I was shaken for a while on my drive to my destination.
19. The Parrot Man
I don't know his name and I've only just begun to have these memories come out of repression, but...my uncle was part of a group called “The Family International” when I was seven years old. Their propaganda video is on YouTube. This uncle was my babysitter for hours to days at a time since both of my parents worked long shifts—my mom, in particular, was a respiratory therapist in a hospital and worked at a long-term vent facility for people in comas on the weekends.
I remember a bright, multicolored room and a knock at the door. My uncle answered it and what I saw instantly shook me: a man with a large, colorful, parrot-type bird on his shoulder walked in. I remember being so terrified of this man that I started crying...The cult was known for pedophilia and distributing "educational " pamphlets to children of the group members. They would teach them how to do bad things and would also brainwash them into thinking that it was what good children deserved. If they didn't do it, then they were told "The Creator" didn't love them.
I don't remember much more of what happened, but anything I can recall I couldn't even say here if you catch my drift...The parrot man was pretty high up in the group. I was my uncle's present for the parrot man. It only stopped because my dad got home early and walked in on me watching the very same propaganda that's on YouTube. I haven't looked into people known to be in that cult since then because even though I want to know what happened to me, I'm still scared of the parrot man.
20. The Zombie
I didn't know him, but when I was in a shopping center, there was a guy who genuinely looked like a zombie. To describe what he looked like: he had yellow and black teeth (most of them were already gone), greenish wrinkly skin, a different posture, white hair that was falling out, and a weird smile that terrified me. I know the guy was probably not doing well or something, but he still terrified me.
21. The Boss
I had some regular customers when I was a waiter that elicited that response from people in the neighborhood. I got along really well with them. The neighborhood officer caught me and a friend packing a bowl once and when he saw it was me, he said, "Oh, you're friends with Satko, forget about it," and let us go. A couple of weeks later, they busted the hair salon down the street for running an after-hours illegal operation out of the upstairs apartments.
I saw Satko later break a car window and pull a guy through it while pummeling him and yelling, "I told you to be careful!" He said it over and over as he hit him. It was startling, but then we found out why he was so pressed—it turned out that Satko owned the salon, the cafe across the street, the travel agency, the jewelry store, and several other Eastern European cafes in the neighborhood. He was a Serbian boss. I saw him beat down another guy in the public square a year or so later and no one, including the neighborhood officer, did a thing about it.
22. The One-Eyed Man
One New Year's Day morning, I was very much under the influence in a Chinese restaurant's bar. At one point, I had to go to the bathroom, so I headed there—only to find that the door was jammed. Now, this was my favorite dive bar in town, so I knew for a fact the doors didn't lock. I assumed the door was just stuck, so I just pushed harder.
It started to budge a bit, and after another push, the door flew open. What I saw truly disturbed me—there was a one-eyed man in a suit just standing by the sinks. When I finished my business and went to wash my hands, he started staring at me. Because I was under the influence, I felt indestructible, so I didn't really pay him any mind...but it was still really weird that the guy was just standing there, staring at me.
I dried my hands and was about to leave, but then I heard a click. When I turned around to look at the guy, he had a knife out. He pointed the knife towards the counter where he had crushed something up. I laughed and told him I didn't see anything. My friend, who was the bartender there, later told me he was a pimp who was heading back to Las Vegas.
23. Tattooed Terror
I haven't met many scary people, but one comes to mind. I was providing a small ministry for guys who wanted to attend at our local, low-security law enforcement center. If the opportunity ever arose, and the prisoners were cool with it, I'd try to spend a few minutes with the guys who wanted to just talk one-on-one about their past, etc.
There was this new guy who'd been recently imprisoned for some petty offenses, but it was very clear he was NOT from our area as he was covered with gang-banger tattoos. This aside, he was actually very friendly, thoughtful, and pleasant to talk to. After a few minutes of chatting, he seemed to be letting down his tough-guy image demeanor, and he began telling me about some of the really bad mistakes he'd made growing up...which apparently included possibly murdering a few rival gang members.
It then suddenly occurred to me that I was locked inside a very small room with a very large, very strong man, who if he wanted to, could've harmed me way before any authorities would have been able to help me. I wasn't really "scared", but in hindsight, it was kind of a thoughtless situation to put myself in. He was a pretty scary guy, but I think he was just sort of forced to grow up that way. I truly hope he's doing better today.
24. Trips Can Be Scary
Years ago, I took a long trip to South America where I backpacked around for like two months. On my flight home, I had a stopover in La Paz, Bolivia. While sitting around at the terminal waiting for my connecting flight, I heard five or six guys talking about Texas, where I lived at the time. I also heard some Mexican slang so I wondered if maybe they were from Texas.
For the last two weeks of the trip, I was traveling by myself and I spent a lot of time alone, so I thought some conversation would be nice. I went over and said something to them in Spanish like, "Hey, I heard you all talking about Texas. I'm from Austin. Are you from there too?" They all stopped cold and stared at me.
One of them broke the silence in a semi-friendly way and said something (I can't really remember what) but then went silent again. I then looked over to one of them who was seated. He was short, wearing all black, and had this wide-brimmed hat on. He was staring at me from under the brim of his hat with this ice-cold look that sent chills down my spine.
I immediately sensed that I wasn't welcome, so I just kind of smiled and said something mundane to the guy who had spoken. I may be being paranoid and reading way too much into this, but my immediate thought, based on their hostile reaction to me, was to wonder if I had just tried to talk to some people who were involved in illegal trades. Perhaps they wondered if I was some sort of undercover person trying to get close to them. Probably not, but I will never forget that dude's stare. It was like he was looking into my soul. It scared the beck out of me.
25. McDonald’s
I worked at McDonald’s and this dude applied. I was the one who handed him an application, but he gave off instant creepy vibes. When he came in for an interview, I told my manager that he was weird, but he smiled his way through the interview and got hired. I'm pretty sure he was a psychopath. He knew he couldn’t fake being a real human in front of me, so he would give me real sinister looks behind people’s backs.
He ended up getting fired because he pushed a big ladder over that almost nailed someone. The camera saw it all. He claimed he was “just venting off a little steam”. He came back as a customer and reordered the same thing like 10 times and just terrorized the place. At one point, he tried to walk into the kitchen to eat in the break room, so the manager finally called the authorities. He laughed and bailed on foot across the highway. I haven’t seen him since.
26. Restaurant Kid
The first job I ever had was as a host at a small restaurant. I was always the only front-of-house employee and I seated everyone, which was usually fine. But one day, some creepy kid my age came in and asked for an application. He was wearing a white dress shirt and a tie that was fastened poorly and way too short. His hair was also disheveled and he just had those ominous, psychopathic eyes.
I gave him the application anyway as I figured it wasn't my job to keep people from applying. He said thanks and left. I thought that would be it, but hours later during my shift, I was watching the news on the TV at the bar and what I saw sent chills up my spine. It was him. Apparently, after he came by, he walked home in the apartments behind the restaurant and beat his mom half to heck with a baseball bat. The authorities came a few hours later to ask a few questions and I answered them all as best I could, but I didn't really know anything about it (and I still don't). He, uh, didn't get the job.
27. At The Nightclub
When I was much younger, I was a regular at a local nightclub. My girlfriends and I were there one night, and we met this guy. Something about him just gave me the willies. I couldn't quite put my finger on it—he was actually quite attractive but something about him just...scared the heck out of me. I was pretty naïve when I was younger, and I generally couldn't read people for anything. I also didn't know at the time that the teardrop tattoo next to his eye meant that he had been in prison. I just knew there was something...off.
Anyway, he creeped me out so much that I made up an excuse to get the heck away from him. I told my friends he gave me the creeps, and we all avoided him for the rest of the night. The next night, my friends and I went back to the club, and we were chatting with the manager. What we learned shook us to our cores. She told us, "A guy took advantage of a girl out in the parking lot last night and beat the heck out of her. Fortunately, the authorities were called and they caught him. Y'all just....be careful out in the parking lot...Okay?" My friend asked her, "So, what did the guy look like?" She said, "Well, he had a teardrop tattoo, so this won't be his first trip to the pen, I guess."
28. The Annoying One
My middle-school bully. He would do annoying things to ruin my day, like pull the outside doors shut as I tried to go in to get me in trouble for skipping. Fortunately, the PE teacher would usually be outside and he'd let me in fairly quickly, but it always left me in a state of stress and anxiety. It didn't stop there, either—one time, he held me while a couple of guys kicked soccer balls at me...It was not fun at all.
He was also creepy as heck. Just to give you some examples: 1) He had a bunch of hamsters and would often tell gruesome stories of how they passed away. 2) He caught an opossum in a trap and said lowered it into his pool to drown. 3) He got in a fight in a parking lot, claiming the guy was tripping on substances, but who knows. 4) He played hockey with the sole intention of hurting people (his words). Lastly, 5) He drew a graveyard stone with our English teacher's name on it, which was horrible because she was actually a sweet lady.
Of all the people who used to bug me in school, he was the only one I felt was a genuine psycho. I'd be more surprised if he isn't in prison now.
29. The Second Husband Can Be As Creepy As The First
My aunt's second husband was a real piece of work. When we met him, I was a teenager, and I remember him staring at my bare legs in shorts. He'd follow me and my teenage cousins around the family gatherings and just sort of... stare. He and my aunt would also get into really bizarre fights. One time, she wanted to put a new onesie on her child before we all went to a Chinese restaurant.
He jumped into our SUV and told us to just leave them behind, saying that my aunt hadn't earned the right to Chinese food? He put his hand on my knee and I was like, "Nope...get out of our car." My father and I both got weird vibes from him at that moment. But that's not even the creepiest thing he's done. Cut to a year or two later. My aunt called us and said they were divorcing.
He was taking these weekend trips just over the border in Mexico (we lived in CA) and she noticed weird charges on her credit card. Turned out he was paying rent on an apartment for his 16-year-old "girlfriend" (They say "girlfriend," I say, "victim") He also was embezzling a bunch of money from the company he worked for.
He put a down payment on a house when they got married, and then he said he was paying the bills even though he never did. He just suddenly left when she found out about the Mexico trips, which was around the same time she discovered he'd put the house in her name alone, so she was on the hook for these bills that she thought were being paid. Apparently, the authorities were after him and they eventually tracked him down.
30. Healthcare Labs See All Different Types
I worked at a place for three months, two days a week. There were many patients who gave me creepy vibes and acted weird. They usually came in with two guards and were cuffed to the reinforced dental chair. I saw their names and relevant medical history but didn’t know why they were there, apart from Peter Sutcliffe who I'd obviously heard about.
I did a check-up on him, took some X-rays, and gave him a small filling, but the whole time I was treating him, I was conscious of the things he'd done. The thought of 'accidentally' slipping with the drill and ripping his mouth up certainly crossed my mind more than once. I'm a professional and I would never do that, but I kind of enjoyed the thought I could have.
OveralL, He was pretty quiet, but that's probably because he was on a few medications. Other patients I've had were more vocal, including one who told me, "You look like your thighs are tasty" while licking his lips. This dude spent the past 20 minutes lying in the chair and staring at me with an obvious trouser tent. I'm female and was 28 at the time. I was contracted for three months and didn't extend it when I was asked if I would.
31. Too Far Gone
Not scary to me, but a danger to women and children. There was this one really weird tweaker from an inpatient substance treatment facility that I was in. There were regular counseling sessions and this guy hadn't answered any open-ended questions until about six days in. Prior to that day, he'd do weird things like stand up behind everyone in the group sessions and make chanting noises.
If I were a small person or female, I'd have been terrified of him. From the start, I didn't like him and I knew he was weird. At one point, we were asked by the counselor, "What makes you happy in life?" or something to that effect. His answer was absolutely shocking. He went on to say something obscene about a 5th grader using words I won't repeat.
There was never a moment in my life where it felt like time had stopped so abruptly and nothing was real. Did he just say that?! The worst part is it turned out he was a repeat offender. I knew in my bones he was not okay to be around. The look in his eyes was bereft of empathy, compassion, or intelligence. I've seen a million addicts and usually, they recover—but honestly, this guy seemed like there was no coming back from whatever demons he was struggling with. He was just that far gone.
32. The Class Clown
This one kid in my school was the annoying "class clown" type, but underneath all of his stupid jokes and fake personality, he was a really smart and cerebral person. He could talk about politics, movies, music, and have deep conversations with others when the opportunity allowed. As our relationship progressed and I became more or less part of his friend group, I began to realize he was one of the most messed up people I've ever met, mentally speaking.
We were maybe 14 at the time and he was already using substances and various medications that he bought off of other kids. He also self-harmed, which in and of itself is extremely sad; but then I saw where he was doing it. He was burning the heels of his feet and his shoulder blades, giving himself scars that would most likely never heal.
I know self-harm is bad and it's something people need to get help for, but from what I understand, he enjoyed taking it to an extreme. He would target places on his body that would hurt more than normal. I never judged him for it, but then he took it to another level—he started talking about ways in which he wanted to harm other people; like how he would do a school shooting, etc.
Eventually, he started casually joking about hurting me, which was terrifying because we often walked home together and he knew where I lived. In fact, he could see my bedroom from the street. He once even pushed me into the main street, right near into oncoming traffic. Now, all together, I realize how messed up this was and how many red flags are here, but these were all separate incidents, and ones he covered up with a laugh and a smile.
It was so off-putting, and he made me more and more uncomfortable the longer I knew him. At the time, he was having issues with his gender identity, but my friends and I understood that, so we didn't give him any problems. I think he was just a scary person because he seemed so capable of being violent.
Looking back on it, I know I could've done some things a lot differently, but I was so unprepared and uneducated to handle the situation. Now that I've read about these things and learned more about mental health, I can now comprehend what was really happening, and I can't believe how much went over my head. This is definitely a prime example of why mental health needs to be taught to children.
Even though he did threaten my life, I hope he's doing okay, wherever he is.
33. Even Walking Can Be Creepy
I was walking down a shortcut behind a hospital that went through a hidden woodland and ultimately led to a shopping area. Usually, I don't listen to music with my headphones whenever I go through secluded places like that, but this particular day I did. While I was walking down the path, I just knew: something bad was going to happen. I stopped walking, turned around, and there was a man right behind me. He was so close that I could have felt his breath on my neck.
When I looked at him, he hid his right hand behind his back. I swear he was going to attack me with something. The guy was a bit taller than me but skinny with a shaved head and grey-colored sickly skin. There was also no life in his eyes whatsoever. He just stood there and didn't say a thing. He also didn't reveal his right arm from behind his back, which made it creepier. I was on some new heart meds at the time to regulate my heart rate, so they made me tired easily, but I decided to keep walking just in case.
After walking for about 10 seconds, I looked back and he hadn't moved from the spot where I first saw him, he was just standing there watching me. Then, when I reached the bottom of the shortcut where there were people around, I waited to see if I would see him...but he never appeared. He obviously turned around and went back where he came from. He was heading down the same route as me originally, but for some reason, he went back the other way.
34. The Ex With Stuffed Animals
A few years ago, I was seeing this guy. He seemed harmless, but there was something about his eyes. Sometimes he would look at me and I would feel cold. One day, I was laying down on his sofa next to his collection of stuffed animals (very weird, I know). Out of nowhere, he bent over me and started choking me. I passed out. When I woke up, he was sitting next to me on the sofa just watching a movie. The fact that I passed out didn’t affect him whatsoever...He didn’t try to wake me up. The memory of him still scares me.
35. Sometimes People Can Be Evil
I once had a guy in my office who I was doing a clinical assessment on. He was schizophrenic, but I'm usually fine with mental health patients. During this particular encounter, however, he was scary. He would sit down, stand really close to my desk, and then stare at the wall while describing how he had put his head through several window panes. His eyes were just dead. But it gets worse—at some point, he mentioned how he usually carried a knife with him, and that was the final straw for me. I used the silent panic alarm for the first ever in my job and told him I just needed to get some water. Not a lot of people scare me, but he just gave off this black vibe of pure evil.
36. The Courier
My roommate and I ordered some food on one hot, summer day. When the courier came, we went to the door to pay for the food. Right when we got there, we saw a man running in the apartment half-naked. His skin was red as if he had just played with some red dye. As we were paying, I happened to meet with him eye to eye. I somehow felt really terrible as if I was in serious danger. He ran back to the garden, while my friend and I went back to our apartment. Later on, we learned that he had used a blade on a man seven times on a nearby street. Basically, we were neighbors. I couldn't walk alone in the streets for some time.
37. Soulless
I work in law enforcement. A guy beat his girl and child terribly. I went in to do an interview and his presence was...I can't explain it to this day. I have interviewed murderers, pedophiles, thieves, and substance users. We can usually build rapport or just quickly get told to leave them alone. Regardless, there are emotions and some type of humanity in those people.
I always try to be respectful knowing they may have walked a different path than I have. But this guy...he was literally as lifeless as the dementors from Harry Potter. I walked into the room and everything—every emotion, every feeling—was gone. I have heard the afterlife described as the absence of God and after standing near this man, I felt that.
It felt like I was dead alone, which is worse than feeling scared...hopelessly devoid of human interaction, as no emotions could exist. I remember feeling so uncomfortable that I just wanted to leave. I was glad he didn't want to talk. He is in prison now. I never ever want to have to be near him again or anyone like that. Soulless. Evil in a human form.
38. Alarms Set-Off
I'm lucky I've had limited interaction with people who set my alarms off immediately. The first one that comes to mind was when I met my friend's stepdad. His mom was smart and good-looking, but she was too sensitive and agreeable for her own good. She had a tendency to pick guys who were basically defined by their red flags.
Her first husband was a guy who started out as a very handsome dude, but eventually did enough substances and lost his mind. But the second guy was something else. He loved MMA and for a while and was pretty fit; but at the same time, he was also a drinker and would have seizures if he withdrew. Oftentimes, his rage would also come out and he would do things like punch holes in doors while under the influence.
I met the second. We had almost no interaction, so all the stories I knew about him I knew second-hand. He had this way of entering a room and just immediately making things tense without saying anything. I remember all I did was turn to my buddy and say, "Dude... That guy's vibe is DARK." I never felt anything exactly equivalent to it.
He could get up off of the couch, grab a glass of water, and sit back down again, but the way he'd do it would make me feel like all the air went out of the room. He was super built, had a shaved head, and perpetually looked angry. Just the force with which he would sit down on the couch made me feel like I wanted to avoid eye contact so he wouldn't explode on me spontaneously. He was supposedly known for talking a lot about ending the lives of Muslims back while his drinking had still been out of control.
39. He Did What?
It wasn't scary at the time, but after I looked him up, I was terrified. I used to send away people who were guilty of small-time crimes. I once sent away a murderer back to his home country—he was happy to go because he was getting half the time off of his sentence and his family back home were well-off based on what he told me.
He was a nice, average bloke—murderers normally are the best of the bunch because being sent away is normally a win for them, e.g. getting out years early. When I got home, I decided to Google him, which I never normally did. Turns out, he ended the life of his landlord when he came to collect the rent...for no reason. Then, he put the poor old man's body in a suitcase.
The old man did nothing to him apart from turning up to collect the rent money like he did every month. This was a long time ago before online payment was a thing. It freaked me out because, from our chat on the plane, he seemed like a small-time gangster so I thought the murder was just gang-related. But he got rid of an innocent old man for no reason just because he didn't want to pay his rent.
No murder is okay but that one in particular just seemed like such a horrific thing to do. With the pedophiles I've seen, they are too nice and very creepy. Abusers 43, on the other hand, can have a strange vibe that feels slightly violent or unstable. Murderers, depending on the type, usually deal with issues of passion. But this guy seemed completely normal. I just couldn't believe the awful things he had done and it seemed to have zero effect on him mentally; as if he was completely unfazed. It really scared and upset me for a long time.
40. Waitressing The Worst
I used to waitress at this bar that had a lot of officers who would come in and drink. There was this one homicide cop that had these ice blue eyes and would literally show no emotion whatsoever. The definition of dead shark eyes. The first time I served him, I asked him if he wanted another drink and he looked me in the eye for about four seconds...Then, he looked away and ignored me without saying anything.
Anyway, after years of working there, he conned me out of a necklace I was wearing (a carved bone Maori fishhook) by pestering me for the duration of my nine-hour shift. I finally gave it to him to shut him up, and he never gave it back. I confronted him about it many months later and then the absolute worst happened—he actively started hitting on me, which was terrifying.
He said that he'd give me the necklace back if I gave him my phone number, so I gave him a fake number. I lied when he asked if I got his text and said my phone ran out of battery. I can remember, clear as day, him towering over me, staring me directly in the eye, and saying quietly, "You're lying." All I could say back was "YUP!" If I had to give up a necklace to never deal with him ever again, I'm OK with that price. He just gave off the impression that he'd committed disturbing acts before. I've never been as unsettled by someone than by him.
41. The Empty Vessel
About a year and a half ago, I was taking a two-month class. There were approximately thirty people in the class and it was a hands-on learning lab for a trade school. Well, one day all the students were supposed to start a fairly large project involving gears and I didn't bring gloves, so I asked another student if I could borrow a pair of his nitrile gloves.
He looked me in the eye for a solid five seconds and just said, "No." The hairs on the back of my neck stood up and I could tell there was something really wrong with this guy. I even wrote a post online about how I thought this guy was a deeply disturbed sociopath. I've never felt that way around another person before.
In my post, people just told me that he was just a normal human being, blah blah blah. But then fast forward a year after that—I started taking another class and the teacher began talking about how that student had a heart attack and no one even wants to call an ambulance for him. After asking why somebody would not want to call an ambulance for a dying person, he pulled out his smartphone and Googled the guy's name.
He showed me what he pulled up and it turned out the man was an offender for acts against children and the only reason he wasn't in prison was that some district attorney messed up the facts on his case. So, I was right when I got that "vibe" about him, but it wasn't necessarily because he was a disturbed sociopath. I knew there was something wrong when I looked into his eyes. It was like staring into a very empty vessel. I had never felt that feeling.
42. He Was Only A Teenage
I was mugged when I was 17 at a popular outdoor shopping mall...I got into my car and before I could shut the door, a leg interfered. Then, my body went into shock—I felt a screwdriver suddenly being jammed into my neck. He wanted my brand-new phone that I just got the day before. He had tattoos all over his face and smelt like he was dying... I ended up talking my way out of it slowly, then slapped his screwdriver hand away from my neck and ran away as fast as I could, yelling for help...I ended up keeping my phone and I got away unharmed...but holy heck, he was scary.
43. Stop Staring At Me
I got off work late one day and ended up pulling into my apartment complex at around 1 am. I looked to my right and saw this really pale blonde girl with thin hair and really sunken eyes, sitting in the car next to me and STARING ME DOWN. As soon as I looked up and saw her, I jumped. She seemed to have no reaction to that at all, which made the whole thing even more frightening. She was completely still and never got out of her car as I briskly headed up to my apartment. The best conclusion I could draw was that she was doing some illegal in her car when I came along. She was consuming something in the car from what I could see.
44. Nightclub Vibes
I was at a Baltimore nightclub. It was 2003. It had all the things you could want in a nightclub—thumping rap music, cheap beverages, and a two-story dance floor. I was under the influence and walking up the stairs when a large contingent of Baltimore officers started marching downstairs. I guess I didn't get out of the way fast enough because the scariest thing happened to me at that moment—this enormous, bald Caucasian officer got right in my face.
He didn't put his hands on me but I could tell this guy would have destroyed me on his own, no telling how bad it would have been with the gaggle of officers. Looking into my eyes, he screamed, "Get out of the way!" Everyone likes to think they're tough, but you could feel this guy's psychotic rage. I just put my head down like a shamed dog and didn't say anything. I just let him pass. It was a terrible incident.
45. What Language Was That?
When I was on vacation with my parents in Athens, we came across a man who was screaming like a maniac and flailing his arms around. His back was covered in cuts and blood. I was quite young at the time and I tried to stay close to my dad, who somehow didn’t realize there was a group of officers trying to keep people away from the maniac. We walked right past him until two other officers noticed us and pulled us aside. I don’t know ff the guy was shouting gibberish or actual Greek. 12-year-old me wasn’t fluent in either.
46. The Chill Cellmate
I got handcuffed with a buddy for consuming the green outside a bar in the alleyway. As we were waiting to get checked in, a dude wearing stripes and pink handcuffs walked by and looked at us two, holding up his fists to show the cuffs. He said, "This is what happens when you end someone’s life!" Well, he turned out to be our cellmate. After talking to him, we found out he was inside for four years, then got out for four days and decided he liked prison better. So, he did the most unimaginable thing—he went to his ex's house who narked on him and ended her life. Then, he called the officers on himself. Other than that, he turned out to be a chill guy.
47. The Prophetic Word
I was on a subway one day and sitting across from me was an old, wrinkled lady, probably 90 years old. She stared at me intensely, piercing through my head, and said, "I foresee the passing of a loved one." When I inquired about the odd statement, she simply got up and left. A month later, my beloved German Shepard had to be euthanized.
48. Don’t Stare
One night, I was turning a corner on my way home when I saw a man staring right at me, moving his head at exactly the same rate I was turning at. He was still staring when I had passed by him about 40 feet down the road. I brushed it off and headed into a Walgreens just down the street. When I came out of the pharmacy, my blood ran cold— there he was, standing at the exit of the parking lot. It looked like his right hand was clutching something and he was hiding it behind his back. Holy moly, I was scared out of my mind. He was still staring at me as I sped right out of the parking lot and down the street.
49. Avoid The Barn
When I was about five or six years old, my mom and sister boarded their horses at a barn and I would occasionally go with them. My friends would occasionally come as well, and we would explore the woods surrounding the barn. One time, we were a bit of a way out in the woods by a small creek playing with our pocket knives when my friend pointed across the creek.
I looked across and there was this man, probably in his 30s, but I really couldn't tell. He had very long dark matted hair, ripped-up clothes wrapped around him, and no shoes. He straight-up looked like a caveman. He stared at both of us with his mouth hanging open. I just remember his blank stare and his wrecked teeth pointing in every direction. We stared at each other for a solid ten seconds, but it felt like an hour. My friend and I both took off running back to the barn and we told my mom. A few months later, a kid ended up disappearing in that same area. I'll never forget that guy.
50. It Had To Be The Brother’s Friend
A friend of my brother cornered me in the kitchen in the middle of the night when we were all hanging out at my sister's place. Everyone else was asleep. I was trying to politely sidle around him to get away, but he kept outmaneuvering me. It was just mildly irritating at first (I was tired and wanted to go to bed), but then he stood in the middle of the doorway and he said something that sent chills up my spine. He said: "Wow, you're so uncomfortable; you keep messing with your hair, you can't even make eye contact with me."
Irritation turned immediately into fear because he went from someone who couldn't take a hint to a predator who knew exactly what he was doing, almost in a snap. He held that position for just a few seconds, but it felt like hours. After some time, he finally let me go. I had planned on sleeping on the living room floor (the creep was in the guest bedroom and my brother had passed out on the living room couch), but I was so freaked out that I crawled in bed with my sister. I didn't sleep that night.
Sources: Reddit,
