Me and my brother lived at our grans in our mid to later teens, we lived in the living room, and as teenagers do, we would be up till late playing video games and browsing the web on our laptops, my brother had the latest macbook and we had the latest consoles. Late one night in the AM, I had been gaming and my brother was probably making music on his mac, the living room was not well concealed from the outside, gaps in curtains, windows on the foot path and being on the ground floor. A knock on the door, young and dumb, I answered, it was a tall mid to late 20s guy, a little sketchy looking, he asked if we knew of a party near by, he had been looking for it and wasn't able to find this party. Me and my brother had no clue about a party. He left and we closed the door, and that was that, but then another knock at the door, same guy, but this time his eyes were darting about through the front door, he asked us if he could come in, which was an obvious no, on attempting to close the door, he wedge his foot in the gap. Me and by brother had to shoulder the door to close it.

We didn't leave, just felt freaked out and a little trapped. It was one of those moments where I hadn't reflected all that much at that time, but now in my 30s, I do find myself thinking what if.

I was living with my sister in a condo. We frequently played pool at a place across the street. It was a sort of yuppy pool place, not a biker bar. It was located on the end of a strip mall. To get there, we walked to the end of the row of single story condos, then through some bushes and into the sidewalk, jaywalked across the street and into the parking lot.

So we're doing this and just as we reach the sidewalk on the other side of the street, a car pulls out of the parking lot, like normal, and turns in our direction. Just behind it another car pulls out very quickly, not like normal, it overtakes the first car and forces it up onto the sidewalk where we are walking. Suddenly like three other cars pull in from multiple directions. We are literally standing in a police arrest scene. So glad when the perp went up on the sidewalk, he took care not to run over us. I guess the cops never expected people to suddenly emerge from the bushes and cross the street just at that moment.

I was like 12 and I was baby sitting two ~eight year olds. Went to the local elementary with them to use the big toy. There was a group of three boys there and one had what looked like a real gun, yes this was in America. I said NOPE! and immediately turned my kids and myself around and got out of there as fast as possible

The other one was when I was about the same age and my best friend and I were walking around in the neighborhood by her house. It wasn’t a nice area but it’s not like anywhere I spent time was. Some man in his like 40s probably rolled up to us in his big yellow car and started talking to us to get in his car and go to his house, he was drunk, we told him if he told us where he lived we would walk there if he would go buy us beer. He kept hitting his chest like in the wolf of Wall Street and talking nonsense, I tried to scoot away to look at his license plate but he snapped at me to come back. Eventually we got him to agree to go buy us beer in exchange for us walking to his house. As soon as he started driving away we ran as fast as we could back to her house and called the cops and told them everything, including where the guy lived since he told us

I was just moved to Italy. I knew no one and I had to do some history assignment for Uni. I went to the city archive looking for some documentation and I was incredibly lost.

Some middle age man approached me and starting helping me around. He talked with everybody there and they all respected them. He was really nice to me all the time. I got into the archive and got everything I wanted. But I was more creepied out each minute. The guy had starting talking about how spaniards(me) and italians needs to be friends because our shared history of friendship with Franco and Mussolini. At the end he asked for my number, he really looked like he was trying to recruit me. I gave him a fake one and moved away. Never got near that location again in all the the time I spent in the city.

20 yrs ago...

Driving through upstate new york with my family. Passed through a small town looking for some food and/or gas.

One house had nazi banners hanging openly on the front of the house. Not flags, they were like those big vertical banners behind hitler during speeches.

Nope. We can hold our pee and get gas later.... drive a little faster and get out.

As a canadian, i was shocked.... i thought stuff like that only existed in the deep south.... we were 3hrs from the canadian border or something.

In hindsight, it explains a lot about the current state of affairs in the US

Driving out west in Canada from the prairies to see the ocean years ago. Went through Golden, BC and decided to go into the town proper for a dinner, rather than the roadside chains. It was about 6:10 PM. When we walked in there were about twenty locals who immediately all went quiet when we walked in. We grabbed a table and proceeded to get stared at by the whole room. I nodded at a few with no response. My wife looked terribly uncomfortable. We got up, apologized to the waitress and got the hell out of dodge. Even looking back years later I am still weirded out by that scene. I'm sure that, if we stayed, we would've wound up in some sort of Stephen King short story.

https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vuurwerkramp_in_Enschede

I live in this city. We were watching the fireworks depot burning from what we thougt was a safe distance...After the first explosion we knew we were waayyyy to close and left right away. Just minutes later the whole neighbourhood was gone.

Does anyone else find it odd that a lot of day old accounts make their first post here specifically, or is that just a coincidence?

I kinda had the opposite happen.

I was working for a charity doing some reconstruction in an ex war zone. That weekend was a major festival. I’m not of the area nor the religion so I volunteered to keep an eye on our camp instead that weekend.

I finished my breakfast in the canteen and was about to walk the perimeter and do my checks when, inexplicably, I decided to stall and have a second coffee. Something I never did.

As I went to sit down a massive explosion happened outside, shattering the entire area me and my clipboard should have been in. I wouldn’t have stood a chance. The canteen we were in was made out of shipping containers and probably saved our lives.

I'm feeling that right now for this planet, really badly.

I knew there was a mountain lion somewhere in the area once when I was hiking. Got tf out immediately.

I was hiking with my buddy and felt a bit uneasy. Like my skin felt fuzzy, it was hard to explain. I yelled "Run!" To a friend, we ran down the mountain and dodged getting hit by lightning a few seconds later.

Three hours down a very remote hike with no phone service, a schizophrenic guy asks what we'd do if someone tried to kill us right now

I trust my spidey sense. When the hairs on the back of my neck go up and i get that feeling in my chest, i listen to it.

Its gotten me out of an armed store robbery, 2 ither street level robberies, 2 houses that just didnt feel right, multiple encounters with dangerous animals ( gators and 1 panther).

My wife just thinks im paranoid.

At the very start of COVID. When many of my online and IRL friend groups started internalizing what I now recognize as Russian/Chinese influence ops (which were being spread by unwitting Western Useful Idiots -- Conservatives and Libertarians)

They started not just opposing lockdowns, but actively spreading virus: no mask, it's just a flu, CDC is lying, Fauchi is an idiot, etc.

It felt like being in a burning building. I grabbed my family, ran for the exit by cutting ties with the Influenced, and left them to burn. Now many of them are utterly consumed by propaganda and no longer recognize reality. 😢

In our local pub in Scotland, they had a DJ in the back room on a Friday / Saturday night. One night some guy bumped into me and I felt something hit the floor by my feet, I looked down and it was a 12 inch serrated kitchen knife with tape on the handle, i looked up and it was some wee wideo ned. So I went over to my mate old him to finish his drink quickly as possible because we're getting the fuck out of there tonight.

When I was around 11 I was at the McDonald's down the street from my house with a couple of friends. It was just three 11/12 year old girls chilling eating in the back of the restaurant. It was dark out but not late, probably 7 or 8 at night. After a bit my friend leaned over to me and said the guy at the table next to us "looks like (her abusive stepfather)". Realistically it could not have been her abusive stepfather and she was across the other side of the country.

However, he was creepy and sitting alone and watching us VERY closely. We started getting nervous and at some point I said loudly enough for him to hear "okay, my dad is coming to get us". He wasn't, but I was hoping that would make the man leave us alone. He immediately got up and went to go stand just outside of the back door into the parking lot.

We panicked even more and walked to the front entrance of the McDonald's, called my dad from a payphone. I remember how panicked we must have looked because a random person who was in line came over and asked if we were okay. Thankfully my dad was home and came to get us from the front entrance and we left together.

Another time I was on the last train home from work, I was around 18. A man had gotten on the train near my stop, first sat on a further seat and then moved closer as the trip went on. From my stop, I had to walk about 50 meters to a not-very-well lit taxi pickup area. This man got off at my stop, and as I approached the well-lit exit of the train station I could feel him following me. I almost went outside and then thought better of it. Turned back and thankfully found a transit worker on the platform. I asked him if he could walk me to the taxis and he did. As my taxi was driving away I saw the man who had been following me walk back further into the train station. As I mentioned, it was the last train of the night so he had no reason to have gotten off at the stop if it wasn't his stop. There were no businesses or anything else around. Anyway my favourite part of this story (not favourite) is that when the transit worker was walking me over to the taxis he said something along the lines of "oh you're just too cute thats why that man is following you". No thank you.

Always trust your gut, kids.