It can happen right away. That instinctive feeling in all of us, the kind that warns us of imminent danger, can surprise us at any time. However, those moments can spare us from the types of sticky situations that change a person’s life. These are just some instances of when a person knew they needed to leave.
#1 Bike Trail
In high school, my buddy and I were riding our dirt bikes on trails that ran around the logging roads. It was basically just thousands and thousands of acres of undeveloped land with just gravel logging roads and trails. We were on our way back to the truck when we stopped at an intersection to figure out which way to turn. Three dudes in overalls, no shirts and full-face helmets rode out of the woods on quads. They rode a few slow circles around us then took off back into the woods. We booked out of there.
#2 Hot Tin Roof
At a summer camp, a buddy of mine and I climbed out onto a tin roof of a big hall that was built on the side of a steep hill. On one side you could climb out, right onto the roof, and on the other side it was a three-story fall onto concrete. Being teenage idiots, we climbed from the low side over the peak of the sloped metal roof and were inching down towards the edge of the high side. We had sneakers on and had a pretty solid footing, so it wasn't outrageously dangerous.
Then, out of nowhere, raindrops started falling. We both looked at each other and realized it was really bad. We tried to start backing up, but wherever there was even the slightest dampness, the metal was completely slick. There was nothing to hold onto, the grip of the rubber shoes on dry metal was all we had.
I looked at him and saw the panic in his eyes that I felt too. We then tried to move up this roof as fast as we could, and the raindrops fell harder every second. I saw him break completely free and start sliding down with his eyes frozen in terror. Somehow, miraculously, he stopped sliding. I made it to the top, scrambled down, grabbed a branch and leaned back over the top, trying to give him something to grab. He eventually made it high enough to grab the branch and I pulled him up and over. I have never felt panic like that. We were so lucky to make it out of there.
#3 A Certain Radar
One of the times I ran away from my mother, I hid out at an internet cafe. For context, I was 12. I'd been there for a few days and the guy running the show overnight knew me and knew what was going on at home because I'd laid it on him a few months earlier. He didn't care about me especially, but he didn't care enough to kick me out either so long as I didn’t cause any trouble. He'd let me sleep under one of the desks at the back since it was always quiet overnight.
This night, I was just hanging out the back of the cafe bored with nothing to do. Suddenly, my brain was like, "Go to the bathroom", but I didn't know why since I didn’t have to go. Then my brain was more urgent. I told myself, "Go to the bathroom now," so I did. I went into a stall and just kind of stood there for a few minutes, confused, then went back out. The guy at the front desk came and said, "Dude, someone just came in asking if I'd seen you, said she was your mother."
After a cycle of running away, getting caught, and running away again, I finally got away from her and had CPS take my allegations seriously two years later. I moved to a different city, but moved back about five years ago. I'm not really a believer in psychic links, but since I've been back I've sometimes had this... feeling in myself like a deep dread. Then I look around and see my mother walking down the road or something. I was getting a coffee about six months back and got that feeling, so I looked around, just in time to see her walking into the store.
#4 Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing
My car was stolen the very night I moved into my new house in a very good neighborhood. The neighbors had warned us that the neighborhood was being targeted at the time. They mentioned a woman around the corner who opened the door in the middle of the night for knockers. Attackers then went after and robbed her.
We reported the car stolen and did the police reports when it happened. Well, two nights later in the middle of the night, I heard a knock on the door and they said, “Open up, it's the police.” Since I had heard the story about the other lady, I was suspicious and didn’t answer. I grabbed my kids and put them in my daughter's room because it had access to the roof from the window. I called the police to say that two men claiming to be them were pounding on my door. They said there were no police in the area and that they’d send a car. Turned out, these same guys stole the car and came back for seconds. I did get my car back because they brought it with him.
#5 Hot Dogs and Cookies
When me and two cousins went camping with our family (probably about eight or nine years old), we stayed in a campground that had a playground near our spot. We would often go, just the three of us, to play and go back to our camper when it started to get dark because it wasn’t too far.
However, one day we were playing and we weren’t the only kids there. This man came up to us with a dog and started talking to my cousins since they were very trusting. He kept asking them if they wanted hotdogs or cookies and where they were from. He also told us that his camper was just over there if we wanted snacks. This guy gave me a super weird vibe, so I looked at my cousins and said, “I think I hear grandma yelling for us, dinner is probably ready.” They argued and were confused. But, after I gave them the “look”, they just shrugged and listened to me. That guy gave me the heebie-jeebies and we never saw him again after that day.
#6 Strange Request
When I was a preteen, I remember there was a strange man who stopped and asked me for directions. Though, something about the entire situation just didn't make any sense to me. I felt it right away. As I tried to help him, a van rolled up and the side door opened. I just booked it away from them and never looked back.
#7 How Much?
Once when I was about 11, I was walking to my sister’s house. This sort of nervous, sketchy looking guy stopped me and asked for directions. To a street one block over. Now, sure, people sometimes get lost when they’re super close to their destination, but he was going to the main street in our district. Everyone knew where that street was.
I told him, already suspicious of what this guy wanted. Then he nervously said, “How much?” Me, only being 11, went, “Uh, what?” He then repeated, “How much? As I was only one street away from my sister, I just bolted out of there, not looking behind me. I couldn’t believe what just happened and what he wanted.c
Admittedly, some kids do dress way more mature than they are, especially at that age. I, however, did not. I happened to wear whatever my mother was willing to buy for me. On that particular day, I wore nothing more than an oversized fleece sweater, ratty jeans and these super cheap sneakers. I looked like a kid.
#8 Professional “Photographer”
My mom and I were walking our dog on a semi-secluded, dried river bed. At the time, I was probably seven or eight. A couple approached us, and instantly something in my gut told me that they weren't safe. The man asked some weird question like, "Is it just you and your daughter here?"' and then proceeded to say that he took pictures of kids for a living and that he would love to have me model for him.
I didn't wait to hear the rest of the conversation because after that, I took off. I'm ashamed to admit that I left my mom and dog behind with the creepy guy. My mom was livid, saying how rude I was and how worried she was because she didn't know where I went. But the intense "Leave now!" feeling that came over me totally clouded any sort of reasoning.
#9 Guy at the Bar
One night when I was very young at a bar, I got quite tipsy. Some guy propositioned me to go back to his place and I was up for it. I left my car because he told me to just ride in since I had too much and we went riding down the road. It was quite a ways, and I started to question where we were going. He said it was just up the road.
He pulled over to the side and points to a two-story house. It was very dark and the only light was from the moon. We walked down the dock to get to the front door. He got in front of me and played with the doorknob. As he pushed it open, he turned to me and said, “Please don't make me turn the light on and let you see how dirty my place looks.” So of course, tipsy and stupidly, I said no problem. And probably giggled.
He guided me by the hand up a set of stairs. We got to the top and he said, “I just have a mattress on the floor. I hope you don't mind.” And again, stupid me just sat down on the mattress, not thinking about anything. As I sat there in the dark, I started to get my vision back. Everything looked off. The mattress had no sheet on it and I heard a whisper in my ear, “Get out.”
I jumped up. I ran down the stairs. I ran out of the door and down the dock. I ran up to a house that was across the street. I ran up to the door and started beating on the door, screaming for help. I turned and looked and the guy was chasing me. I started screaming more and more as I was afraid this house was abandoned. Right as the guy got about ten feet away, the porch light turned on. The guy stopped, turned around, and went back to his truck.
The poor guy whose door I was beating on came out and saw me crumbled and crying on his porch. The sweet man got in his car and was kind enough to drive me back to the bar, which was 20 miles away, so I could pick up my car. I never saw him again. I never even knew his name. But he saved my life. I know he did.
#10 Time to Go
I was sitting in a park by my house at night with some friends. I suddenly got a sudden urge to turn around. I saw a guy about 15-20 feet behind us with his hood on and hands in his pocket, walking quietly and with purpose towards us. I had been robbed before, so my adrenaline instantly shot through the roof.
I stood up and started moving away from him as I said, "Let's go, now" to my friends, who kind of protested. Meanwhile, the guy stopped and said he just wanted to know the time. I told him, "Nah, no way" and "Let's go" once again to my friends. We got out of there with the guy just kind of standing there from what I recall correctly. Things got a little hazy from then on because my adrenaline was really going, and I knew I needed to get out of there.
It could've been something, but it also could've been nothing. The point is that I'm still here. Always go with your gut feeling. People don't just go creeping about like that and claim that they want to know the time.
#11 Smart at 13
I was a 13-year-old girl, camping with my best friend and her mom by a lake. Now, in all honesty, my friend’s mom was not the world’s best mother. So, she allowed my friend to party pretty hard, resulting in her getting pretty tipsy. I only joined in a bit, so I was a little tipsy as well, but still had my wits about me.
It was about 11 at night, and my friend randomly decided to go swimming, so I chased after her to keep an eye on her and make sure she didn’t hurt herself. And god, I’m so glad I did. Two men followed us out to the lake. We didn’t notice until my friend and I swam a few dozen yards into the water. The men were very tipsy, stumbling with their bottles in hand. They were catcalling us as they waded into the water, getting closer and closer.
My friend was so out of it and wanted to seem cool to these grown-up men. At first, she tried to respond to their questions. But I knew something very bad would happen if we didn’t get away, so I repeatedly whispered to her, “They’re going to hurt us. They’re going to hurt us. We need to leave. Now!” I think that finally knocked some sense in her, and she agreed to swim towards the shore with me (away from the men).
They called after us, asking where we were going, and my friend yelled, “Away from you!” Back then, I second-guessed myself and wondered if maybe I had been a little dramatic. But now, as an adult, I realize just how much danger we were in, and I’m so thankful that 13-year-old me knew to trust her gut.
#12 Close Call
My girlfriend and I were car camping in the woods, a nice spot by a rushing river. The evening had gone well and we turned in for the night. Some time later, I woke up, needing to use the bathroom. I did my business and headed back to the tent. I sat on the edge of the tent taking my shoes off when I saw it. A vaguely human-shape suddenly jumped out in my mind and I froze. I stared through the dark at this shape, just silhouetted by the dim starlight, wondering if I was seeing things or if someone was creeping on us.
Then the shape moved. It rose, becoming a larger outline partially blotted by the trees. “Bear!” my mind screamed at me. I whipped into action, reaching for my knife with one hand, while zipping the tent closed for some paltry barrier between us. It's then that I heard a noise over the rush of the river: "Hey, wait for me." Apparently, my girlfriend had come out after I did and I just didn't realize it.
#13 Back in the Water
I once felt a small shark delicately scrape my foot with its teeth in its effort to curiously figure out what I was. It literally felt like it gently took my heel into its mouth and I felt the barest brush of teeth all around my heel. It didn't break the skin. I didn't realize it was a shark (murky water) until I reflexively kicked and felt its sharky skin against the bottom of my foot. It felt like a small shark, so a juvenile of some species or maybe an adult Atlantic Sharpnose. My mom told me my eyes got huge and I looked at her like I wanted to nope right out of the ocean that second. I didn't go back in the water.
#14 Hollywood Sign
I used to climb up to the Hollywood Sign all the time when I was younger. This one time, I took a bunch of my friends there one night who had never been. All of this happened sometime in the late 2000s. It was usually just an uneventful climb other than some fairly steep parts. But, this time was very different.
About halfway up, I got a really weird feeling. I wasn't sure what it was. A few steps later I heard this repeating whistle-y sound. I knew what it was immediately; I'd heard it once before in Northern California when I was in elementary school. I couldn't see it right then in the Hollywood Hills, but I'd seen the source of the sound clearly when I was younger. It was a mountain lion.
I put my hand out sharply, straight behind me with my palm open towards everyone else. They told me later that they could tell by how much my body language changed that it was really serious. I leaned back while not breaking my line of sight with where I thought the sound was coming from. My friend leaned his chin up on my shoulder and I told him in the calmest voice I could to make everyone start climbing down, slowly.
I think because there were so many of us, we got away without incident. But the absolute stone-making fear I felt that night was intense. It went from us laughing and having a good time to immediate silence and maximum sensory perception. It was wild. I never climbed to the sign again.
#15 Upstate New York
I was at a rest stop in upstate New York near Troy around midnight. This was before cell phones and GPS’s. My wife and I stopped to use the payphone to find a hotel for the night. On the way back to the car, a couple of random guys approached us from behind asking for directions. I told my wife to get in the car when I noticed two other guys coming towards the car from the opposite direction. I hopped in the car and drove away before anything else happened. That might've just been me being overly cautious, but I swear I avoided a mugging or worse by the skin of my teeth.
#16 Need a Ride?
I was walking by a long stretch of road with no houses. A van with two guys in it stopped to ask me if I needed a ride. This was in the late 90s, so it's not like hitchhiking was legal. I told them, "No thanks, I'm nearly home". But of course, they wouldn't budge. They kept following me with the windows down, kept saying "C'mon, just get in..."
At some point, they just stopped and they started getting out. I was just a teen, and they were clearly 20-something. I just took off running. I must have sprinted half a mile to get to an alley, and hid by the nearest building near the road. I waited about 15 minutes before moving on to make sure they had given up so they wouldn't follow me home.
#17 Follow the Trail
A couple of years ago I snuck into an abandoned orphanage with a couple of buddies. I stepped down through a basement window onto a barrel, easy. We got down and walked through a hallway when we noticed a drop of red by our feet. After close examination of ourselves, we noticed that none of us were hurt. We shined a flashlight further ahead and noticed the color continued into the darkness. We left as fast as possible.
#18 Camping With Friends
I was camping with some friends in a national forest. A group of 10 dudes on dirt bikes rolled past our camp, stopped 50 yards away but didn't take their helmets off. They stood there and stared at us for a few minutes. It was seven miles to the trailhead, seven more to a paved road and 10 more to a town. I had bear spray, but in that moment I realized I could run into trouble and there was a good chance I'd never be found.
#19 Airport Weirdo
When I was about 16, I was at the airport with my mom around 11:00 p.m. waiting for my aunt to pick us up. This creepy guy who was also outside kept talking to us and just being weird. He kept moving closer to us the longer he stayed out there. I have the physique of Jack Skellington and would most likely have been destroyed by this dude if he actually tried anything. But, I stood between him and my mom the entire time. All the while, I thought this dude was going to do something bad while no one was there to do anything about it.
#20 Bad Hosts
I once attended a house party and the people hosting were aggressively telling people to have a good time. They also kept suggesting that we go to the basement. They even said it with a scary tone and a smile. Most of my friends were smart enough to leave right away, but the one person who wanted to stay got mugged.
#21 Farmer’s Field
For no good reason whatsoever, me and a friend were running around some farmer’s cornfield one night. We both clearly heard a distinct "CHK CHK", also known as the international sound of "you’re in a whole heap of trouble." We both ran until we got home and never looked back. I suspect he was just scaring us. It worked.
#22 Humanity Damaged and Restored
I was walking home from school once when I was 14. This creepy older guy pulled over his work van, got out, and asked for directions to a well-known local place. He pretended like he didn't understand what I was saying, in an obvious attempt to draw out the conversation. So, that alone set off alarm bells in my head, but then he kept looking around the whole time, and I knew he was about to try something. Some lady happened to be walking from her house to her car so I yelled out, "Hey Mom! Can you come here and help give this guy directions?" Surprisingly, the lady actually came over and as she did, she yelled something like, "Your father and your big brothers will be out in a minute, are you ready to go?"
He looked panicked, quickly got back into his car and took off. Once he left, that lady told me she knew what was up and made sure I was okay before letting me use her phone to call the cops. Turns out, I wasn't the only girl he tried to abduct. My faith in humanity was both damaged and restored that day.
#23 Missing Clothes
I was camping with a friend in a backwoods camping area. Not very many sites were there and they were all super spaced out. We had already been there one night, had the site fully set up and had been hiking all day. We drove into town to get some food, and when we drove back to our secluded campsite, we passed a man walking out of the only road to our site. We both locked eyes with him and I got a super creeped out feeling.
He stared at us like he knew us and hated us, but we had never seen him in our lives. When we got to our tent, everything we had was tossed. Our bags were dumped out and our clothes were thrown everywhere. We quickly realized both our hunting tools were gone, along with a bunch of our clothes. We also realized it had to be that guy we saw, there were no other sites or hiking paths he could've been walking from besides ours.
We jumped in the car and drove back towards where we had seen him, but he was gone. We drove a bit further and found a common area where other campers were gathered. We sprinted down and asked about the man, describing him. The people just stared at us and didn't speak, giving us an even worse feeling. It was at that point that I told my friend, "We need to leave this place right now."
Walking back to our car, we looked over the edge of a guardrail and saw all our stolen clothes in the woods. We gathered them up but didn't find our tools. Knowing this guy was still out there and that no one around us cared freaked us out so much. We packed the car up and ended our camping trip early. There was no way we were staying out in those woods one more night!
#24 Freshman Party
I was at a party my freshman year of college and some seedy people were present. The night was getting very tense, but no fights or anything happened. As the night went on, however, it became very clear to me that something was going to happen. I told my friend that it was time to leave. No more than five minutes after we left, two people were seriously injured.
#25 Late-Night Patient
A few years ago, I was an intern in a medical department and happened to be on-call that night. The nurses informed me around 1:00 a.m. that there was a new admission to the isolation room. The entry was for a 50-something-year-old female prisoner who had pneumonia and likely tuberculosis. The isolation room was right at the end of the ward and one would have to go through the double doors just to enter it. So, in addition to being a room for isolation of infectious diseases, it was also really isolated from the nearest human contact.
I went in to do a clinical assessment, which involves a thorough history taking. One of the questions I wanted to ask was if she shared her prison cell with anyone who could have passed on the infection to her. It being late at night and me being not very proficient in her native language, what I actually asked sounded something like, "Was there anyone else in the room with you?"
Right after that question escaped my lips, she smiled really widely, put her finger to her lips as though saying, “shh” and then flicked her eyes to a spot near the window behind and above me. This horrible chill went through me and I decided there and then that that was enough history taking for the night. I fled to the safety of the nursing station.
#26 Home From Work
I live only a few streets away from my workplace. This guy came to my floor one day for a team meeting. Ever since that day, he made a point to pass my desk. He was a complete stranger; nobody had ever seen him on our floor so my work friends knew he purposely came to our floor just to see me. He would make excuses to be near me. He was always alone, never spoke to anyone, only watched me. This happened for about three months.
One day, he happened to be downstairs at the time I finished work. He then knew exactly what time I finished and waited downstairs for me every day. He just sat there watching, waiting for us to leave, then went back up. So one day, I walked out with a friend. We saw him sitting downstairs, quickly walked out of the building and parted ways assuming he would go back up now that we’d left. Boy was I wrong. My friend walked off in the opposite direction, leaving me alone. I crossed the road and was just about to turn to the direction of my apartment when some higher power compelled me to turn around. The feeling that rushed over me just then, I never felt it before. It was like a mix of all the most negative emotions in the world swirling into one supercloud of fear. To this day I still can’t understand what made me turn around.
I was smart enough to go in a completely different direction so he wouldn’t know where I live. He walked a short distance behind, crossed the road and checked to see where I was walking! Another male colleague happened to finish work at the same time this went down, followed him and waited to see what he was doing. He confirmed that he absolutely followed to see which direction I was going, and then went back into the building once I had walked too far ahead. He would've only needed to follow me a short distance to see where I lived.
This happened a few more times before I finally reported him. I also decided to actually get him banned from entering all buildings associated with my company. As it turned out, he didn't even work for my company (he was just an external contractor) and shouldn't have even been in my building in the first place.
#27 National Park
I was once at a national park on vacation. The layout was kind of like a crater with a rim you could walk under almost all the way around. I had this major gut feeling of, “Yeah I’m not going down there.” Later that day, a woman was found deceased from kids throwing large rocks and tree branches into the opening.
#28 House Call
Years ago, my boyfriend owned a truck tire repair company. He stopped by a customer’s house unannounced one day to try to get a check, as they owed a lot of money. When he came out of the house, he was pretty shaken up. He explained the man's numerous other brothers were there (which was unusual). Everyone was very jittery, but they cut him a check and then rushed him out. He had a scary feeling that day. Two days later, that customer and his brothers were arrested for a crime that they committed the night before we stopped by.
#29 Bus Stop Creep
A couple of years ago, I sat waiting at a bus station for my brother so that we could travel together. The seats were set up similar to airport seats. I noticed this man, who sat across from me, kept on staring at me. Every time I looked up, he would advert his eyes. Each row had three seats and there were already two ladies sitting next to me. I brushed off the weird feeling and prayed that either my brother reached me sooner or that the ladies waited longer.
But the bus came and they got up and left. Not even 10 seconds after the bus left, the guy ripped up whatever paper he had in his hand and came to sit next to me, turning his body so that he was facing me. He looked at me with this creepy smile and I was scared for my life. I just got up and sped walk to the nearest coffee shop about 20 minutes away. That entire day I kept looking behind me, terrified that he was following me. Up to this day, whenever I go somewhere alone, I constantly look over my shoulder to see if anyone's following me.
#30 In the Basement
My mother convinced me it was a good idea to go see a house for sale in the middle of nowhere. The guy showed us the house and then led us to the door of the basement, insisting we absolutely had to see it. From the top of the stairs, I could see a bed and what looked like a semi-furnished room. He insisted we go down first and at that moment, I got this strong feeling of unease.
I just excused myself and left, heading for the road. I figured out that my best chance was getting out of the house and asking for help. I didn't think he'd hurt my mother, considering I was a potential witness. My mom said the guy got really upset, started to swear and sweat, and cut the visit short. So, maybe my instincts were on point.
#31 Earthquake Sirens
On September 19, 1985, a huge earthquake hit Mexico City. Hundreds of buildings collapsed, and at least ten thousand people passed. Every year, the earthquake is commemorated. In 2017, two hours after the commemoration, I was outside a classroom with some friends, waiting for our teacher. I saw one of my friends was uneasy, and she asked me to go to a small store outside the building with her. I could notice she didn't actually want to buy anything, she just wanted to get out of the building.
We were just starting to walk to the stairs when the earthquake sirens began to sound. Then the building started to move. The building we were at suffered a little damage, just a couple of broken windows. But, many other buildings in other parts of the city collapsed and more than 200 people lost their lives.
#32 Late Night Fight
While in college, I was at a house party. I had gotten pretty tipsy and passed out on the couch. My buddies ran in to wake me and get me out of the house in a hurry. One of the other guys at the party got into a fight with someone, then ran to his car and got a weapon from the trunk. He started running after the guy who had fought him. I didn't see any of this. But that was the fastest we ever left anywhere.
#33 Similar Outfits
I was walking in my old local park with my sister. We entered at about 3:00 p.m. and were hanging around until about 9:30 p.m. We saw three people all wearing somewhat similar outfits all the way on the other side of the park. I immediately noticed but didn’t think much of it. We walked for about two more minutes and I noticed one of them stopped and was staring at us. I immediately had a bad feeling and told my sister we should leave. She noticed and obliged. Later that night, there was word of a crime in the park and the suspects were all the people we saw in the group of three.
#34 Fire Alarm
It was about 2:00 a.m. in our apartment on the third floor, and we woke up to the fire alarm going off. It was late and we just woke up and we've kind of been conditioned to feel like fire alarms aren't actually real. Then I saw smoke billowing from under the door. It was terrifying worrying about what was outside that door. Running down the stairs while it burned our lungs and eyes and we could barely see was an unforgettable experience.
#35 Lost Puppy
When I was in elementary school, my friend and I were walking home from school along the main street when some dude pulled out along a side street, in a white van, and asked us to help him find his puppy. We said no and crossed the street. But he pulled onto the main street, got to the next side street, and then pulled out in front of us again. He waited there and we stopped about halfway between blocks because we didn't want to get close to his van. We just stood there until he finally left.
When we got home we told our parents what happened and the school sent out a bulletin. It seemed a little overboard to me since at the time I genuinely thought this guy might be looking for his lost puppy and he really needed the help of some eight-year-olds. I had just done as I was told (to not engage the stranger) and followed my gut. But still… Years later I remembered this whole experience and realized there was no way this dude was looking for his puppy. My choices that day made the biggest difference in my life to date.
#36 Oh, Bull
I was once taking pictures of a family who wanted a fall photo shoot in a field. I heard something, looked behind me, and a huge bull was pawing the ground. When I make eye contact, it started running towards us. I saw that there was a fence between us, so I wasn’t as fast as I could’ve been shooing the family to the car. That is until the bull got to the fence and immediately turned away from us to run along with it. I then notice that the fence ended halfway up the field, and that bull is mad and running pretty fast. That adrenaline rush was for real.
#37 A Mental Alarm
It was late at night, maybe 3:00 a.m., and I was heading home from a friend's house. I noticed someone was behind me, and it tripped an alarm in my head when they turned down the same streets I did, not once, but three times. So, I started driving away from my house, because no way was I going to lead some psycho back to where I lived. I just started making random turns, but the guy kept tailing me. I was ready to hit the freeway and go all out when he turned the lights on and pulled me over. He asked me why I was driving so erratically. I told him I didn't know he was a police officer, but I did notice he was following me, and I wasn't about to drive home in that situation. He let me off with a "warning".
#38 Someone Waiting
One time, it was about midnight and I went into a supermarket with my boyfriend. It was a 24-hour supermarket. He went into the bathroom, and I decided I’d go too. So I walked down this corridor and turned into the washroom. I was a bit tipsy, so I spent a second looking at myself in the mirror before picking a cubicle. All the doors were weighted, so they stayed shut. But as I was looking, I noticed under the reflection of one of the doors, a pair of feet. Male shoes, crossed at the ankle, as though sitting in a very relaxed position. They didn’t move at all. I was overcome by fear, feeling that someone had been sitting there waiting for an unsuspecting woman to come in, and I said “Oh, no” out loud and literally ran out the door. Being in a bathroom at night and seeing a pair of relaxed feet strikes fear like I’ve never experienced.
#39 Evil Imps
In high school, a friend and I jogged down into a deep wooded valley at night. We saw some guys from school in a car at the bottom of the valley. Legend has it that this place has evil imps, so we thought it would be fun to scare them. We both started making these crazy "imp" screams and noises as loud as we could. They freaked and got in their car taking off as fast as they could leaving us in the pitch dark. Behind us, in the forest valley, many animals started making the exact same screams we made as imps. We both looked at each other and mutually freaked out. We ran all the way back to town, which was about three miles uphill in the dark.
#40 Psychic Reading
My friend and I were only 14 years old when we saw a sign for a psychic reading and thought it would be fun. When we got inside the house, the windows were covered with newspaper and there were at least five locks on the door. We were told to wait in the living room as the woman opened another door to talk to at least four older men inside. We immediately got up and ran out the door and down the street. We never talked about it again. It was a gut feeling of something we didn’t even understand yet, but we instinctively knew we needed to get far away.
#41 Someone Tailed
I was driving home from one fairly residential area to another one about eight minutes away. My street is a crescent and both sides of the “U” connect to the same road, about two blocks long. The car continued to follow me when I turned onto my street. I live in a townhome so I didn’t pull into my parking lot, just continued back out onto the road I had turned off of originally. I then got out to a busier road. I turned into a grocery store parking lot, ready to call the police, and the guy didn’t follow me in. Not sure why or what he was up to, but I was scared.
#42 Bear With Me
I was once at summer camp and was walking to the beach. The path to get there is made of sand and surrounded by trees. We were supposed to go in partners, but mine dipped. I was walking for about two minutes and I heard leaves crunching in the trees beside me. I looked over and saw none other than a brown bear cub lugging a tree. I think that everyone knows that where there’s a cub, there’s a mama. This bear starts making bear noises, I just about ruined my pants and bolted out of there.
#43 A Premonition
I was once having lunch in a restaurant with my mom and something just felt wrong. Very wrong. So, I told my mom that we should hurry and get ourselves home. As soon as we reached the parking lot, a car smashed into the window and crushed the booth we were sitting in. To this day, I still think about that time a lot.
#44 Hurricane Florence
Mine happened during Hurricane Florence a year ago. We planned to ride it out as we were on a hill and in an area where the winds wouldn’t be bad. We mostly ignored the news, too. The night before, I got this huge pit of fear in my stomach and begged my dad for us to go stay with my sister a few hours inland. He fought with me about it, but I finally convinced him.
We came back a week later to find a tree had fallen into our house, the house full of water. A tornado formed in the woods behind the house and pushed the tree up a 45-degree slope into our roof and through our house. Now, I will always trust my gut feeling, no matter how stupid it seems.
#45 Biking Home
I was riding my bike home from a friend’s house when I was a young teen, over 20 years ago. We had both lost track of time, so it was dusk when I left. I lived about a mile away. I travelled down one of the last roads to get home when I had this weird feeling. I turned around to look back down the road. I saw headlights pass, stop, back up and turn on the road I was on. It was a pretty long road without many houses and no street lights. As soon as they turned, I bolted into the woods and hid pretty far in. The car slowly drove by and kept going. I have no idea what they were doing, but I didn't want anything to do with it.
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#46 Fire Exit
Once, I was in a club in Fukuoka. The only exit in case of a fire I could see was the elevator behind a pair of doors that opened inward to the club. If there had been a panic, people would have rushed against the doors making them impossible to open. It was so unnerving I spent a lot of the evening talking to people outside.
#47 Highway Creature
When I was dating my crazy ex, we got into a fight on the highway while I was driving. When things seemed to calm down, I got out of the vehicle to breathe and she drove off. As I was walking down the highway, at night, I could feel an immense fear building up. I grew up in the woods, walking around every night, but this was something I had never experienced before.
A few minutes later, I saw something run across the road, so I started walking backwards. Immediately right after that, my ex came back to pick me up. As much as I hated to get into my car with her, there was no way I was staying on that highway.
#48 Slamming the Door
I was in my 20s walking back to a friend’s place after the bars closed with two of my closest girlfriends. It was actually one of them who had the feeling. A guy walked by us asking for directions, and we said we didn’t know. He switched his direction to follow us just as we entered the building. My friend spun just as I got through the door and slammed it shut. She had an intuition about these guys and she was right. I turned around to see him making crude gestures as soon as the door closed. I’m so glad she trusted her instincts.
#49 Do You Feel That?
My nephew and I were walking home from getting a pizza at night. He and I just looked at each other and said, "Do you feel that?" in the exact tone. He and I both looked in the direction we felt it from and got spooked that we both had the same dreadful feeling. We decided to run the rest of the way home. He and I had never felt such intense fear. I still think about it and have a feeling someone was watching us, probably looking for an easy target.
#50 Parental Dispute
When I was in high school, I drove home with my brother. We were laughing, joking around about something when we walked in the house through the garage and heard our parents upstairs screaming at each other. At first, I thought it was a joke, but it didn’t take me long to realize it was very serious. I turned to my brother and said, “We need to get out of here now.” We went back out for about 20 minutes. Amazingly, that fight did not result in their divorce. It would take another six years for them to finally file for divorce, and it was done in a much less violent manner.
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