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I remember when I was little, I went to the toilet after watching an episode of The X-Files and while I was sitting on it, I was convinced a monster might emerge from the pipe, grab my bottom, and take me with it.

One reason we consume horror is to invigorate ourselves. Exposure to terrifying acts, or even the anticipation of those acts, can stimulate us both mentally and physically in opposing ways: negatively (in the form of fear or anxiety) or positively (in the form of excitement or joy). Watching a scary TV series can simultaneously activate both types of stimulation, with the most pleasure experienced at the most fearful moment. The biochemical level inside our bodies changes; fright can trigger the release of adrenaline, resulting in heightened sensations and surging energy.

But sometimes it's the horror that finds us. Interested in these cases, Reddit user Noahs_25 made a post on the platform, asking everyone "What is the scariest story you know that is 100% true?" And the replies came pouring in.

Continue scrolling to read some of the most chilling ones, and don't miss the talk we had with photographer Alicia Rius, who loves exploring abandoned places.

#1

People Are Sharing The Most Terrifying Things They've Witnessed In Real Life (40 Posts) I would call it creepy more than scary, but my mom's friend had a small house and lived alone. She noticed weird things: a batch of soup depleting faster than usual, missing eggs, damp towels in the hamper when she hadn't used any, extra dishes in the dishwasher, etc... This went on for months, she thought she was just being forgetful. One day she heard some thumping around in her attic and went to investigate. She found some make shift living quarters. Small radio, hot plate, sleeping bag, pillow, food wrappers, etc... She called the cops who came to keep an eye on the place. They ended up catching a homeless man climbing a tree, trying to sneak into her attic window. He had been doing this almost daily. He would wait for her to go to work, then go down stairs and help himself to food and amenities. The funny part about this story is they got to know each other throughout the ordeal, and the guy was actually very respectful, just down on his luck. She didn't press charges, instead, let him move in, helped him get a job, and he lived in the attic until he got back on his feet. Creepy s**t with a happy ending.

Saganic , Mika Baumeister Report

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SheamusFanFrom1987
Community Member
2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Now that's more of an ending that we need with the world being one giant, never-ending horror movie.

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You could say Rius got attracted to the unknown during her childhood, when her curiosity pushed her to see other people's houses. Now, she enjoys visiting everything from deserted medical facilities to closed places of worship; sites that some of us would dread even from a distance.

Of course, that doesn't mean that the photographer feels at home in those places. "A few things creep me out [during these trips]," Rius told Bored Panda. "The first is the fear that someone is already in the building. Someone that can hurt me."

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    #2

    People Are Sharing The Most Terrifying Things They've Witnessed In Real Life (40 Posts) Two off duty US soldiers were on a train in France. When walking past a toilet they recognised the loading noises of rifles coming from inside. They waited outside and jumped the guy when he came out. He was a terrorist who was about to go through the train killing people.

    jplevene , Chris Yang Report

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    zububonsai
    Community Member
    2 years ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Thank god..., or rather these soldiers for knowing how loading weapons sounds like a n d acting accordingly (non-religious non-American here).

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    Then, there's the environment itself. "The state of some of the places I've been is really decayed. They are very dangerous to go into. From falling ceilings to holes in the ground," Rius continued.

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    "And last, the feeling that there are spirits or energies floating around. I get a feeling of weight in my chest when I photograph abandoned homes that are still full of personal objects. It feels like I'm not alone. I never get this sensation if I take pictures of an empty factory, for example."

    #3

    People Are Sharing The Most Terrifying Things They've Witnessed In Real Life (40 Posts) When my aunt was about 16 she was working at a grocery store and had a boss in his mid twenties. One day he called the house and was begging her to sneak out and hang out with him. She was considering it because it was her boss and she didn’t want to say no. My mom, who is two years younger than her, always gets these incredibly spot on “gut feelings”. She had one that night and begged my aunt not to go out with him.

    Thankfully she listened to my mom and told him no which made him really angry. He ended up going out that night and meeting another girl. He took her out to some cliffs and r*ped her and pushed her off. Somehow she lived through this and was able to get him sent to prison. I feel so sorry for that girl and so thankful for my mom and her gut feelings.

    Always trust your gut.

    pessimisticoptimista , Franki Chamaki Report

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    KnightOwl
    Community Member
    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    About 20yrs ago, my brother had made plans to go out with a couple of friends, just as he was getting ready to leave I suddenly got a horrible feeling that he shouldn't go. I begged him not to go, even blocking the door to stop him leaving, we argued for a while before I managed to bribe him by telling him I'd order his favourite food and give him £30. Later that night he got a phone call from his best friend who was in the hospital. His friend hadn't been happy when my bro cancelled their plans but decided to go out anyway, he'd met up with 2 female friends and they decided to just go for a drive. (He'd recently gotten his licence and his first car, so loved going on long drives) after driving around for a few hrs they got into a serious car accident. My bro's friend broke both his legs but somehow managed to drag one of the girls from the car which was leaking petrol, it burst into flames killing the 2nd girl. The surviving girl was paralysed and never walked again. Trust your gut!

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    But these difficulties make Rius's explorations and the shots that she brings from them all the more worth it. She sees abandoned places as time capsules, waiting to tell forgotten stories about our past to anyone who dares to step inside.

    And that's the thing with fear. We can fight it. With gradual, controlled exposure to the thing we're afraid of through repeated and prolonged contact (maybe with the guidance of a professional as well), we can develop an ability to cope and even get past our petrifying experiences.

    #4

    People Are Sharing The Most Terrifying Things They've Witnessed In Real Life (40 Posts) I spent my first 10 years in New Delhi. Back then, we would find dead women (burnt with acid or set on fire) and it used to be so "normal". Like oh look, another one of those dowry cases where her family didn't pay the husband enough money so they killed her.

    Many years later i revisited those memories and realised how insane that actually was! I'd totally forgotten about all that.

    saywat30 , Aquib Akhter Report

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    Sarah Parker
    Community Member
    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    That's horrific. Humans are far worse than any fictional monster could be.

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    #5

    People Are Sharing The Most Terrifying Things They've Witnessed In Real Life (40 Posts) Was working the evening shift at a gas station. Man comes in all disoriented. I go to help him out. he has a gash on his head and doesn't know where he was. I couldn't see any crashes around so assumed he had fallen or something. Normally we are supposed to stay inside the glass shielded register area whenever anyone is in the store. I, being a nice human being, went to help while calling the police/EMS. They got there and checked him out. They thought his head may have been fractured. Took him to the ER. I went back to work. Cops stopped back by for some coffee a few hours later. They told me the guy got hit by a baseball bat trying to break into a little girl's bedroom and was wanted for r*pe and murder in two other states. I never left the register area at night again.

    anon , adrian susec Report

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    #6

    People Are Sharing The Most Terrifying Things They've Witnessed In Real Life (40 Posts) The story of Mary Vincent always stands out to me.

    In 1978, 15 year old Mary was hitchhiking. A man named Lawrence Singleton picked her up.

    He brutally r*ped her, and eventually made her get out of the car. She planned to run, but he noticed, and cut both her arms off. He threw her into a ditch/ravine and left her to die.

    She packed her stumps with mud to stop the bleeding and spent all night crawling out.

    She eventually makes it to the highway and starts walking, naked and covered in blood. The first car that saw her sped away in fear. The second car was a couple on their honeymoon. They picked her up and she survived.

    -spookyxghost- , Dmitry Shulga Report

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    Manomnomnom
    Community Member
    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    This was one of the most tragic and horrifying stories I've ever heard, but I would like to add a happier note to this. Despite losing both her arms, Mary is now a professional artist (painter).

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    #7

    Alright, so my pre-school teacher who also ended up somehow changing jobs and becoming my 11th grade english teacher had a super interesting life. Her mother had some super famous book, her father worked high up in the government, but enough about her family. First, let me describe her to you, she had dark hair and blue eyes (you'll see why this matters in a minute). She told this story every single year to the new students in her class...when she was younger, she was driving through Arizona on a two-way road while her boyfriend at the time was following behind her on his motorcycle. For those who don't live in Arizona, certain stretches of it can be quite isolated and deserted. She said that they were on a long drive (it's been about 6 years since I was in her class so details are fuzzy), but basically her and her boyfriend both knew the destination where they were heading by memory and eventually got separated by a few miles. A man who was behind her in a Volkswagen beetle kept pulling up beside her into the other lane (no one was coming) and motioning at her to pull over. She somewhat ignored him the first few times, but he kept doing it and began getting more frantic each time. She said that she believed that he spotted something wrong with her car, so she saw a parking lot off the road for a deserted gas station and pulled over. Once pulled over, she said that she instantly got an eerie feeling. The man was suspicious and kept telling her that he saw something wrong with her headlight and insisted she get out of the car so he could show her what he meant. Her boyfriend who was a few miles behind her, eventually caught up and spotted her car at the sketchy gas station. Right as she was out of the car, her boyfriend began to pull in. As he did that, this man got into his car and SPED off like his life depended on it.

    They later were able to identify that the man was Ted Bundy. She said she cannot imagine what would have happened to her if her boyfriend had been even another 3 miles behind her on the road.

    january-7 Report

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    #8

    People Are Sharing The Most Terrifying Things They've Witnessed In Real Life (40 Posts) An acquaintance of mine sent his son to triathlon camp in Texas.

    A week later, his son came back from camp. The next day, the son was complaining of a headache. Four days later, he was dead. Healthy, happy, fit 12 year old one week, dead the next.

    Turns out the lake had [Naegleria fowleri], the brain-eating amoeba. Nothing scares me as irrationally as already being dead and waiting for your body to catch on.

    persondude27 , Sebastian Beck Report

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    #9

    From when I was delivering pizza

    I walked up to a trailer park house and knocked, dude answers the door wearing a swastika armband and he’s bald, I tell him the total and he invites me inside while he gets the money there’s 10 more dudes all bald all wearing arm bands, sitting in a circle in metal chairs guy gives me the money, I go to leave, he grabs my arm and gets in my face and asks “do you like n****rs?” I don’t want to be murdered so I respond “nope not at all hate those f*****s” and leave as quick as possible.

    The scary part is every other delivery driver but me that night was black and they might have never been seen again if I didn’t take the delivery.

    LewisRyan Report

    #10

    People Are Sharing The Most Terrifying Things They've Witnessed In Real Life (40 Posts) My friend's boss bought an Audi A4 convertible, back when they were new and interesting. One of the talking points was the pop-up roll hoops that were hidden unless you rolled it.

    A few months after buying it he got to test those roll hoops out, as he lost control and skidded down a steep bank about 10m (~35ft) deep.

    The roll hoops did their job, and he survived with just cuts and scratches from the bushes he'd plowed through. The car ended up the right way up and he got out, walked back up the bank to the side of the road, then got on the phone to the police to report the accident. While he was standing there a driver from a car that had seen the accident came over to speak to him.

    Approaching from behind the other driver asked if he was okay. My friend's boss turned around to reply and dropped dead. His neck had been fractured, but was in one piece right up until he turned his head, when it severed his spinal cord.

    BigBadAl , Michael Jin Report

    #11

    A female friend in college disappeared from a party at another university in the city town 25ish miles north of our school. She had arrived with another friend who I believe had driven. At some point she split off to play corn hole or something and was later inexplicably gone. Phone calls went to voicemail, police were called, but she was simply missing.

    About 10 days later she was found by a homeless man who witnessed her crawling up to a bus stop in the city, begging for help. She had broken a leg and an arm, and was in very bad shape.

    At the (quite large party) she had her drink secretly drugged and was then led off by a group of men into their vehicle. She was taken to an apartment where she was drugged, repeatedly r*ped, and locked in a small room in between with a bucket to use as a bathroom. At one point after being injected with heroin and r*ped, she somehow managed to convince one of her captors to allow her to use the actual bathroom to clean herself up. This bathroom had a small window to the outside, and with the shower running, she managed to squeeze out and fell from the third story into a large hedge/bush. From there she crawled from the apartment complex to the road and bus stop, where the homeless man saw her and called police. Many cars stopped upon seeing her, making her captives unable to recapture her.

    Three men were later arrested for the crime after surveillance cameras allowed police to locate the apartment which she jumped from. She returned to our university almost two years later, graduated, and became a nurse. She was obviously traumatised, never "partied" again, carried a gun everywhere she could, and somehow moved on with life. It was a terrifying tale none of us ever forgot. She was an 18 year old freshman when the incident happened.

    KrombopulosDelphiki Report

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    Kales
    Community Member
    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    She sounds like a badass. I can't believe the hell she went through. I hope she's still doing okay.

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    #12

    People Are Sharing The Most Terrifying Things They've Witnessed In Real Life (40 Posts) There was a woman who worked in a science lab who spilled two drops of organic mercury on the back of her gloved hand. Those two drops destroyed her entire nervous system and brain.

    radseven89 , Julia Koblitz Report

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    Camilla Koutsos
    Community Member
    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    She's a cautionary tale. She was wearing gloves that were dimethylmercury-permeable. She told medics what her prognosis was five months later, and was proven correct. She was a poisons expert and professor of chemistry. Standard PPE for handling organic mercury changed as a result.

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    #13

    People Are Sharing The Most Terrifying Things They've Witnessed In Real Life (40 Posts) My mom was driving, and a guy ran out in the road, so she stopped so she couldn’t hit him.

    It was night time, so it was pretty dark out, and 3 other men emerged from the forest around, all trying to use the door handles of her car to get in. She locked them luckily, and gassed it to the nearest town.

    Remember to always lock your car after you start it, because if it wasn’t unlocked who knows what would’ve happened to her.

    Oxidias , Zoltan Tasi Report

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    SheamusFanFrom1987
    Community Member
    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Locked car doors saves live. Which is why I insist on doing so up to today, moreso when I got my new car.

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    #14

    People Are Sharing The Most Terrifying Things They've Witnessed In Real Life (40 Posts) This is a hometown story that stayed with me. It happened literally right around the corner from where I grew up, maybe a two minute drive away.

    Judy Kirby murdered six children and one adult by intentionally driving the wrong way on a divided highway in an attempt to commit suicide. She had been hospitalized for depression, but had also just ended a relationship with her ex husband's brother and was by some reports involved in drug trafficking and fearing an imminent arrest.

    She picked up her sister's son, who was celebrating his tenth birthday that day. She then loaded her three children into the car, supposedly to pick up a gift for the nephew. Instead, she went missing with the carload of kids. A short time later, calls started coming in to 911 about a car going the wrong way down the highway at a high rate of speed. They made it about 90 seconds before a head-on collision with another vehicle, driven by a father with two children and another child along for the ride.

    The crash annihilated both vehicles. The only survivors were Kirby herself, and the child who was along for the ride in the other car. There were pieces of children all over the highway. She was sentenced to 215 years in prison.

    chrisw1984 , Iván Rivero Report

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    SheamusFanFrom1987
    Community Member
    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Depression is one thing, but for literally murdering that many kids, may she rot in her cell forever til the end of her days.

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    #15

    People Are Sharing The Most Terrifying Things They've Witnessed In Real Life (40 Posts) Artimus Pyle the drummer from Lynard Skynard survived a plane crash and walked to a nearby house only to be shot by the homeowner. The homeowner saw a bloody long-haired man and winged him. Pyle survived that as well and made a full recovery.

    Rickson20 , wikimedia.commons Report

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    Sarah Parker
    Community Member
    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    The only thing I get from this is 'judgmental a-hole homeowner'. Sees blood and long hair and first thought is to shoot? People need in-depth psychological evaluations before anyone considers selling them killing machines.

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    #16

    People Are Sharing The Most Terrifying Things They've Witnessed In Real Life (40 Posts) Years ago when I was 8 my family lived in this big weird house kind of on the edge of a small town. The school district was in the middle of a big restructuring so even though we were only a couple grades apart my brother and I went to different schools and took different buses. This left me as the last person to leave in the morning and the first person to get home in the afternoon, which meant it was my job to make sure all the lights were off and the door was locked.

    One morning I noticed the basement door was open and the light was on so before I left I turned off the light and closed the door. When I got home that afternoon the light was on and the door was open again. I just assumed that I’d forgotten to actually take care of it when I noticed it in the morning so I went over to turn off the light and close the door. When I got to the top of the basement stairs I looked and there was a big shadowy male figure towards the bottom of the staircase. I freaked out, slammed the door and pushed a bunch of boxes against it and then went and hid in my closet. For months I didn’t tell my family because I was positive what I had seen was a ghost and didn’t think anyone would believe me.

    Then about a year after that incident my mom and her boyfriend realized that small amounts of money had been going missing for months (totaling around $800-900, but never more than $60 at once). So we all walked around the house with flashlights trying to figure out how they could have gotten in. Turns out some creep was climbing in through a small hole in the outside of the house, shimmying through a crawl space, then coming up into the house through the basement. Realizing I had been alone in the house with him on at least one occasion was one of the worst, most terrifying moments I’ve ever had.

    wesailtheharderships , Jérémie Crausaz Report

    #17

    People Are Sharing The Most Terrifying Things They've Witnessed In Real Life (40 Posts) One of my friends had someone following her home, hiding in the bushes so they couldn't be seen. She booked it to her house, got inside, and he was watching the house from the outside. She called the cops. They come along quietly and got the jump on him. He had condoms, handcuffs, and a knife. When they got his DNA, it turned out that he was linked to a half dozen r*pes in the area. She credits her regimen of running sprints to outrunning him that night and firmly believes she would have been r*ped if she couldn't outrun him then.

    JimmyL2014 , Brad West Report

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    Serial pacifist
    Community Member
    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Why is BP censoring the word R A P E? It is a word that names a despicable deed, the word itself is not “guilty”.

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    #18

    People Are Sharing The Most Terrifying Things They've Witnessed In Real Life (40 Posts) Nutty Putty Cave in Utah was sealed up in 2009 after John Jones was trapped upside-down in a small crevice while spelunking. When rescue teams finally arrived he had been upside-down for so long that his legs were drained of blood.

    The only possible way to have gotten him out was to break his legs, which would’ve sent him into fatal shock. He died after being trapped for 28 hours. His body’s still in the cave.

    anon , Michael Costa Report

    #19

    My wife arrived at her Parents house that she was currently living in due to health issues of her Fathers. She got into the house (no one else was there at the time) and instead of going further in, stopped in the first room that held the computers which was right by the door. She went into the room and was messing around on the internet when one of the cats came into the room. Her cat to be precise.

    Well this cat was super laid back. Loved everyone and never picked fights or got aggressive. He would literally lay down and let squirrels throw pecans at him from trees and do nothing but take it. Not tonight however, tonight he was growling and hissing intermittently while standing between my Wife and the entrance to the rest of the house. A laid back sweet old cat was acting like he was going to rip out a throat.

    Turns out they found the back door wide open (super bad, her parents and her NEVER leave the door unlocked much less open). She came to find out later from those cops that they were hunting down a serial rapist that had been spotted in the area and that was why there were rolling down a safe (normally) residential street. Super spooky.

    Life pro tip? Always trust the cat.

    runostog Report

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    Xenia Harley
    Community Member
    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Yes, I had two cats who would growl like dogs if someone came to the door that was unfamiliar. Cats can be protective like dogs.

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    #20

    People Are Sharing The Most Terrifying Things They've Witnessed In Real Life (40 Posts) My friend tripped and fell onto the tracks, landing his face onto the 3rd rail. We kinda stood there in absolute shock because we thought he was dead, but then he said, "can I move? Will I be electrocuted?" We told him to move instantly and he did, we got him off the tracks, and no less than 2 minutes later a train went zipping by. I think the 3rd rail turned on seconds after his face came off of it. I know that's not scary to a lot of people, but to me it was because I would have lost a close friend back when I was about 12.

    tacolikesweed , Boris Stromar Report

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    Booklover<3
    Community Member
    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I don't live in a place with subways or train tracks, but I've heard things about this third rail, can someone please explain??

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    #21

    People Are Sharing The Most Terrifying Things They've Witnessed In Real Life (40 Posts) A guy i worked with was riding his dirt-bike through the woods and somebody hung a cable between two trees. My buddy caught his throat on it and saw the dude steal his dirt-bike. Woke up in the hospital with a lacerated throat and a broken larynx. Pretty crazy what somebody will do for something so cheap.

    Beatleborg22 , Vitor Rossetto Report

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    Bella10
    Community Member
    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Unfortunately a lot of the world don’t have a childhood that is able to provide them with safety and ethics. They view life as a dog eat dog world and you take what you can get to survive. That dirt bike was probably not at all cheap to them, and they would have had no empathy for the person they had to steal if from.

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    #22

    Ex girlfriend at just under 18 years old had her father attempt to r*pe her in her sleep. Woke up to him attempting and struggled endlessly until finally he got up and left. Few days later he tried to offer her money for sex. A few weeks later she turned 18, packed up her stuff and I got her out of the house while he was at work. Over the course of the next 3 years I stayed in a relationship with her while she lashed out and completely let loose. Cheating, partying, lying, fighting, etc. It completely ripped the girl's life apart and she lost all inhibition. I stayed so she had a constant to come "home" to, we're both in agreement that if I didn't stay she'd probably be dead. We split up about 5 years ago, but are now best friends and she's living a great life.


    It was hard for me not to do something to that dude....

    darrylandyrson Report

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    xxx
    Community Member
    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    How heartbreaking. You are a very good person.

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    #23

    Happened to me, have posted about it before. I was around 11 years old and I woke up in the middle of the night to a man straddled on top of me with his hand over my mouth and nose. He told me to roll over and not scream. I rolled onto the floor and tried to scream bloody murder ( I say tried cause when you are truly terrified it can take a second to find your voice) my mom heard me screaming and came in and fought with the guy, he was at least 6' she was 5'3" and scared him enough with the fighting and screaming that he took off out the window he had come in through. Never did catch him.

    mstibbs13 Report

    #24

    This is from South Africa. The woman is called Alison Botha and she was abducted, r*ped and then choked until she blacked out. She was driven into a secluded area, stabbed 30 times in the abdomen and 16 times in the throat and left for dead on the side of the road.

    She had to use her shirt to keep her organs inside her body and hold her head up because of a damaged muscle in her neck and proceeded to crawl to the road where she was eventually spotted and rescued.

    She survived the attack and now does motivational speaking I believe.

    bonzaaiii Report

    #25

    I've posted this before, but mine: When I was a baby, my dad played on a softball team. Typical social team, out for beers and pizza after with the guys, family event-type-thing. My parents were good friends with 2 of the other couples, both of them had young kids as well.

    On this occasion, the other 2 couples had left their kids at one of their houses, with a baby sitter they were splitting. They invited my parents back to the house to have some more beers that night, but I was being fussy and my mom nixed the idea (though they would 100% have normally gone back to hang out)

    Well, it turned out my fussiness on that day saved our lives. When the other parents got back to the house, they walked in on a home invasion. Two men had broken in, tied up the kids and the baby sitter (and her boyfriend), and were waiting for the parents. Took the parents hostage as well, and made the dads drive with them to banks/a grocery store where one dad was manager and clear out accounts/a safe.

    They then came back to the house, and slaughtered both families, the baby sitter, and her boyfriend. Kids included.

    They caught the 2 guys later on. My dad attended the trials, and said it was the first time he had ever had thoughts of supporting the death penalty. It still gives me chills to know how close we came to getting killed that day, too.

    WhoIsYerWan Report

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    SheamusFanFrom1987
    Community Member
    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I seriously hope both those scumbuckets eventually end up being flayed or get their miserable skulls bashed in while in prison!!! Then, may they spend their eternities on Purgatory's flaying board!!!

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    #26

    People Are Sharing The Most Terrifying Things They've Witnessed In Real Life (40 Posts) The Lake Nyos Disaster. The lake periodically belches a cloud of invisible carbon dioxide gas that suffocates everything within a 16 mile radius. In 1986, over 1700 people and all their livestock died without even understanding what was happening to them.

    Lillipout Report

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    Headless Roach
    Community Member
    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    By Wikipedia: "A degassing system has since been installed at the lake, with the aim of reducing the concentration of CO2 in the waters and therefore the risk of further eruptions."

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    #27

    People Are Sharing The Most Terrifying Things They've Witnessed In Real Life (40 Posts) Tough to pick just one because there is true evil in humanity out there. Stuff like the blood eagle ritual is pretty awful.

    But in terms of really scary...probably stuff that just kind of happens on accident. Like the story of Kyle Plush. Just awful. He was in a minivan that has one of those back seats that you can push backward to lay flat in the trunk for extra storage space. He went to grab something in the trunk, leaning over the seat, and it tipped backward and pinned him, upside down, against the back of the car in a position such that he couldn't get himself out.

    He called the police TWICE. The second time he called and gave them a very clear description of the car.

    "Plush called 911 again at around 3:35 p.m. Police said this time he provided a description of the vehicle as he desperately pleaded for help but couldn't hear the dispatcher. Isaac said the information didn't get relayed to officers at the scene.

    "This is not a joke," the teen said over 911. "I'm almost dead."

    He asked the dispatcher to "tell my mom I love her if I die."

    Just a horrible, random accident that could have happened to anybody. This kid didn't go looking for trouble, like he didn't try and go down a chimney or go caving like other people who have gotten stuck and suffocated. He was just reaching for something in his trunk, got pinned, and then was not found in time. Nightmarish for the kid and his family.

    beepborpimajorp , CincyPD Report

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    Black Pearl
    Community Member
    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    This is one of my worst fears. Dying by some freak accident without anybody there to help and not being able to say goodbye to anyone. It just seems like such a terrible way to die.

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    #28

    This may just horrify me more than others:

    Dude was working on a tuna steamer and they closed him in and steamed him. I can't help but imagine that as anything but a truly terrifying and painful way to die.

    One of the main reasons I never could bring myself to do real factory labor is because I don't trust people enough to not tuna steam me.

    EDIT: Thanks for the gold. RIP Jose Melena.

    anon Report

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    Jaaawn
    Community Member
    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    That's why I prefer jobs that vary day to day. As soon as you give in to monotony, you can slack off a bit and become less aware/careful (albeit unintentionally.)

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    #29

    People Are Sharing The Most Terrifying Things They've Witnessed In Real Life (40 Posts) The 1904 Cincinnati Privy Disaster. In 1904, nine schoolgirls drowned in an outhouse after the floor collapsed. They literally drowned in human waste.

    Jenny010137 Report

    #30

    People Are Sharing The Most Terrifying Things They've Witnessed In Real Life (40 Posts) i was in a c**ppy motel. the room had bedbugs. i was too exhausted to go to the front desk. i just needed to make it until the morning. i slept in the tub. hours later i hear someone breaking through the window. i had a big knife with me and ran out into the room to find a man halfway through my window. we stared for awhile at each other in shock. i think we both were scared. then he says," is this your room?" im like," yes, this is my room man!" more staring. then he slowly starts backing out while cursing me for leaving my window unlocked and not expecting him to break in.

    motel on watt ave, sacramento.

    anon , Natalia Yakovleva Report

    #31

    My long-term partner decided to end his life suddenly and unexpectedly a few years ago. He was the happiest person I knew and even with 20/20 hindsight, videos, poring through old messages etc I wouldn't be able to identify any warning signs.

    Following_the_Sun Report

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    KnightOwl
    Community Member
    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    The fact that we never know what's going on in other people's minds is both terrifying and incredibly sad. So many people get so good at hiding their pain that no-one around them has any idea they're struggling. I know a few people who've committed suicide and most of the time it's a huge shock to the people around them. Always check in on people around you, even if they seem happy and 'normal' sometimes all it takes is one person reaching out and showing some kindness to save a life.

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    #32

    People Are Sharing The Most Terrifying Things They've Witnessed In Real Life (40 Posts) In my town in the early 90's there was a notorious killer that had all of BC, Canada on watch. My wifes mother (years and years before I knew them) had been home alone while her Husband was in England doing tree surgeon work (arborist)

    She was in her laundry room when a man walked up from her basement, completely scaring her, she freaked out and said what the hell are you doing here?

    He said he was friends with her husband and was just coming to see if he was here, apparently he told him he could just walk in. Which she knew was b******t.

    She was smart enough to tell him that he was just at the store and would be back any minute. He said he would wait outside for him, as soon as he left she called the police, but he was long gone by the time they got here.

    Two weeks later, the killer was caught, his mugshot put on TV and it was the guy in her house.

    sixesand7s , Keagan Henman Report

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    Black Pearl
    Community Member
    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Wait I'm confused. Why would he not just kill her and then wait for the husband?

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    #33

    People Are Sharing The Most Terrifying Things They've Witnessed In Real Life (40 Posts) My dad and some friends got drunk and went for a drive on some back roads and were going as fast as the truck would go as teenagers. My dad was slightly less drunk than the others and eventually demanded they let him get out. They pulled over and he and one other girl got out. He and the girl started walking to town while the other three sped off in the opposite direction.

    Well less than a mile up the road from where they got out is an extremely sharp turn, which they missed and hit a tree going pretty close to triple digits (miles per hour). Two of them died on impact and the only reason the third survived is because they crashed in front of a house that two doctors lived in. The survivor was paralyzed and lost his leg and part of his arm and was in the hospital for eight months before dying. This was in the ‘60s so medical care wasn’t what it is today.

    When I first got my permit my dad took me to that corner to explain the importance of safe driving. It gave me goosebumps about how close he was to being in the truck. He said that the dad of the driver got what remained of the truck to be hung up in the center of town for months after to be a warning to all.

    justthatoboist , Clark Van Der Beken Report

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    Jaaawn
    Community Member
    2 years ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    This happened to my mother when se was a young woman, although in her case they wouldn't let her out. Car took a very sharp turn which it couldn't handle and ended up rolling over 5 times. Was a miracle she was uninjured. Seatbelts and pure luck.

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    #34

    People Are Sharing The Most Terrifying Things They've Witnessed In Real Life (40 Posts) Amateur rugby. Guy gets hit pretty hard and dislocates his hip. While waiting for the ambulance, a guy runs up saying he's a physio and can at least relocate the joint.

    He cracks the hip back into its socket and the guy SCREAMS.

    One of his testicles had been jolted out of place in the accident - and had been chilling out in the empty hip socket.

    Squish.

    chocolate_on_toast , Pixabay Report

    #35

    [The Toy Box Killer] and his [transcripts.]

    If you absolutely want to have your day ruined, this has to be one of the most disturbing, creepeiest things ever. Serial killer David Parker Ray would play these tapes for his victims, so they had an idea of what was coming and to also mentally break them. Here the start of one tape to give you an idea:

    >"Hello there, b***h. Are you comfortable right now? I doubt it. Wrists and ankles chained. Gagged. Probably blind folded. You are disoriented and scared, too, I would imagine. Perfectly normal, under the circumstances. For a little while, at least, you need to get your s**t together and listen to this tape. It is very relevant to your situation. I’m going to tell you, in detail, why you have been kidnapped, what’s going to happen to you and how long you’ll be here. I don’t know the details of your capture, because this tape is being created July 23rd,1993 as a general advisory tape for future female captives.

    Can you imagine how terrifying it would be to wake up in a place you didn't know and have someone play these tapes for you telling you what horrible things were going to happen to you before you died?

    -eDgAR- Report

    #36

    A bunch of girls in my friend group decided to have a night out and ended up at the local gay club (I can’t remember why I didn’t go but I’m sort of glad I wasn’t there, however I also wish I had been so I could’ve helped). Anyway, they noticed a girl on the dance floor who looked super out of place. She had sweatpants and a t shirt on and wasn’t wearing makeup and had her hair in a ponytail. She also had a backpack on. Basically, the exact opposite of typical club attire and not at all what someone would usually wear to this place. They said that she seemed very dazed as well, and more importantly, there was a very large man grabbing her and grinding on her and she was just kind of standing there letting it happen.

    One of my friends tried approaching her to ask if she was alright but the guy spoke for her and insisted that he was her boyfriend and that she’d just had too much to drink but that she was okay. Everyone was suspicious but at that point there wasn’t much else they could do so they just kept an eye on the two of them. Eventually the guy left the dance floor to go to the bar and my friend was able to talk to this girl again. She said that she was EXTREMELY out of it and that it seemed more likely that she had been drugged rather than just drunk. The girl managed to convey that she didn’t know the man she was with and wanted to leave. So my friend grabbed her and made for the exit, but not before this guy came back. He IMMEDIATELY flipped out, got right in my friend’s face and started screaming at her. It escalated to the point that he eventually swung at my friend who just barely dodged the punch. Thankfully, someone else had went and found a security guard and they were able to prevent this guy from hurting anyone, meaning that my friends and the girl were all able to leave safely. She was still super messed up when they left so nobody could get the full story out of her but she did say that the guy had been following her around town all day.

    The really scary part is that the bar staff couldn’t technically do anything other than throw this guy out after my friends had left. One of them called the cops and gave them a description of the guy but they said they couldn’t really do much other than be on the lookout for him. So chances are that he’s still out there somewhere and may do this again.

    sexyswamphag Report

    #37

    People Are Sharing The Most Terrifying Things They've Witnessed In Real Life (40 Posts) That there's a guy casing the bar that I work at literally right now, and I can't do anything to stop him.

    He's been in asking what time/days we're open, and what days we have security. Caught him feeling the corners of our windows and doors too. Unfortunately, until he breaks in and robs us, the police won't do a thing.

    ExtraEvilJesus , Clem Onojeghuo Report

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    SheamusFanFrom1987
    Community Member
    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Sounds like booby-trapping the place might be in order, or at least arming the staff with tasers in case things get nasty since law enforcement is so ineffective.

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    #38

    On September 20th, 1987 in Bellingham Washington, a Georgia Pacific paper mill worker was sent to inspect a heat exchanger system in the steam plant. Inside the base of the stack, he spotted a charred skeleton. To this day, no one is certain who the victim was, how they wound up in such a horrible place, nor why.

    Maklarr4000 Report

    #39

    People Are Sharing The Most Terrifying Things They've Witnessed In Real Life (40 Posts) Neishabur train dissaster is something that reminds me how death can come at any moment.

    A train with 51 wagons of sulphur, fertiliser, petrol and cotton wool somehow broke loose and rolled down the track about twenty kilometers until it derailed in the town of Khayyam, Iran. There were no humans on board.

    Chemical leaks ensued and authorities tried to extinguish whatever fires broke out.

    At one point, the whole thing explodes. And it really explodes. The whole town of Khayyam is literally demolished, 3 nearby towns are badly damaged and it was heard 70 km away. The wreckage continued to explode for several days after. Around 300 people died and more than that injured.

    An earthquake of 3.6 on Riechter scale was produced

    Chiruadr Report

    #40

    People Are Sharing The Most Terrifying Things They've Witnessed In Real Life (40 Posts) I'll tell you one that happened to me, or rather, I was witness to.

    One night, I was out at a bar with a friend I was visiting in New Rochelle, NY. We went outside for a cigarette, and a car came flying past the bar. The car burned through a red light, and started going up this hill that was on a curve. We watched as he veered over the double yellow, and smashed head on with another car coming from the other direction. Both car's hind ends lifted up, then slammed down. The car that was driving correctly burst into flames. I ran inside and grabbed the fire extinguisher, then yelled to the bartender to call 911 and say there has been an accident.

    My friend, a few other patrons, and me ran to the cars. Now, I used to think this was a fictional trope, but I was pretty drunk before this happened, and I swear it sobered me up instantly. I tried spraying the fire, but it did nothing. The fumes and heat were awful, and all we could do was stand back. The worst part was, and this will haunt me forever, was that the woman in the burning car was screaming as she died. My God, it was the worst sound ever.

    The fire department came and put the fire out. The police took us back to the bar and took statements.

    I found out the next day in the news, that the car that was not speeding was being driven by a young woman coming home late from work. She was a block away from home, and I think she was either newly married or a new mother. The rotten m**********r driving the other car was some rich drunk c********r. He lost a leg, but otherwise was physically unharmed. I have no clue if he did time, as I left to go back home a day or so later.

    I'm trying to find a link for the news story, but I can't, as this was maybe 6 or 7 years back. I remember it being reported on Lo-Hud and Channel 12 News.

    anon , Artyom Kulakov Report

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    Chich
    Community Member
    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Was on highway rescue for years. Drunk drivers should just be shot and left to rot in the ditch. They seem to often come out of the mess they created better than their innocent victims. Definite proof there is no god.

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    #41

    Before my Dad died, he once told me a story from when he was in Vietnam in the 1960s. He told me about a mission where he and one other American with five CIDG strikers (South Vietnamese villagers turned fighters) were tasked to emplace seismic ground sensors along a trail network deep in the jungle. He said they were about two days into the mission when he and two of the strikers split off from the main group to go watch a nearby trail intersection. He said the jungle was pretty quite that day, just the sounds of birds and bugs and an occasional monkey. He said they had been watching the trail intersection for about three or four hours and were deciding on whether to move further down the trail or to turn back and link up with the rest of the patrol. Before leaving the cover of the brush my Dad said he checked the trail ahead of them one last time and prepared his men to move. Now here is where the story gets interesting and he told this part with absolute dead seriousness. He said just as he started to step out onto the trail he sees a light skinned Black Union Cavalry Soldier in full battle gear laying alongside the trail just shy of the intersection. My Dad said the Union Soldier had two pistols, a Spencer rifle and a short curved club at his hip. As my Dad was trying to process what he was seeing, the Soldier looked directly at him and smiled. Then the Soldier slowly placed a finger up to his lips as if to tell him to be silent and then motioned my Dad back off the trail. My Dad said he signaled for his men to remain hidden and he recalled that as he slipped back into the jungle on one side of the trail, the Union Soldier did the same on his side of the trail. Less than 10 seconds later he said the lead element of a group of NVA (North Vietnamese Army Soldiers) walked right through the trail intersection some 30 feet away. My Dad estimated that the group was comprised of some 70 - 80 Soldiers equipped with automatic rifles, light machine guns and rocket propelled grenade launchers. He has no doubt that his entire team would have been wiped out on the spot. He said as soon as the enemy Soldiers had passed, he and his team beat feet out of there as fast and as quietly as they could and rejoined with the rest of the patrol. He reported the enemy Soldiers his team had encountered, but decided not to say anything about the Soldier he had seen. My Dad kept this secret for many many years; only telling me just before he passed and earlier only telling his Grandmother on her death bed in the 1970s. He said when he told his Grandmother, she smiled and without opening her eyes told him, “you saw Old Red Tom”. Red Tom was my Great Great Grandfather. He was a half Black / half Creek free man who was a scout for the Union Army during the Civil War and later served with the U.S. Cavalry in the American West. He was know for carrying two pistols, a Spencer rifle and a Creek warclub into battle.

    Cayde_7even Report

    #42

    In 3rd grade a guy came to our school and held our class hostage. He had already killed his wife and was there to kill his kid. The administrators convinced him the kid was not there and to take one of their cars and leave. After threatening to kill us multiple times, tying up the gym teacher, and dragging someone's grandma around with a knife at her neck, he finally left about 30 minutes later.

    The police caught him in Indiana on his way to kill his parents. He was convinced the world was ending and he was killing everyone he loved to spare them. The school did worse than nothing, they lied to parents and no assistance was given to either the kids or teachers involved. The gym teacher never came back and every time she would see one of the kids at the store or whatever she had a breakdown. Several of us have PTSD, undiagnosed, for decades. We just thought it was normal. In the 70s the Chicago Public School system was more concerned about their jobs and lawsuits, so they covered it up.

    catullus48108 Report

    #43

    Carol DaRonch was at a shopping mall in Salt Lake City in 1974 when she was approached by a man claiming to be a police officer. He said that someone had tried to break into her car and asked her to come with him. He then said he would drive her to the police station and she got into his car.

    However, this guy was not a police officer and he did not drive her to the police station but rather, pulled into a parking lot. He then cuffed her, pulled out a gun and threatened to kill her if she resisted. Only, he messed up. He meant to cuff both of her wrist but only managed to cuff one.

    She escaped and fought him off despite being hit over the head several times. Her kidnapper was Ted Bundy. He killed another woman just four hours later.

    Her escape also helped identify Bundy and she is part of the reason he was eventually arrested.

    peacock1090 Report

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    Nicola Roberts
    Community Member
    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    If I do nothing else today I will learn and remember the name of Carol DaRonch. Ted Bundy should remain a footnote in her story not the other way round.

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    #44

    The case of [Elizabeth Smart]. She was kidnapped, repeatedly r*ped, psychologically tortured, and then brought around in plain sight in heavy religious garb. She had brushes with people who could have helped her, but her kidnapper claimed she wasn't allowed to speak in public or reveal her face for religious reasons.

    The reason she was rescued is because her sister was awake during her kidnapping and pretended to be asleep. She knew she recognized the voice, but it took her nine months to remember is was a guy that used to do yard work for the family. The police didn't believe her because of the elapsed time, but pursued it to appease the family.

    tyrashanks Report

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    Fluffy mommy panda
    Community Member
    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Thank goodness they actually went ahead with the investigation. And saved her.

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    #45

    Last week I would have said the Japanese War crimes or the R*pe of Nanking, but frankly, for me it's the fact that absolutely nothing is going to come of the Jeffrey Epstein arrest and connections, that some of the most influential people on Earth are totally and visibly able to manipulate the system to cover the fact that they're rapists, pedophiles, and murderers.

    twec21 Report

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    Olivia Dean
    Community Member
    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Prince Andrew has fallen, and has a large settlement. But that's about it really. Nothing has stuck to Trump or Clinton or other celebrities.

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    #46

    Years ago my now husband worked for an industrial laundry company in their head office when a PR disaster happened that also mentally screwed up a number of people.

    Their company collected laundry from large hospitals and medical type businesses eg care homes etc and cleaned them - you can imagine the sort of heavy duty cleaning, bleaching, boiling etc needed to remove those sort of biological contaminants.

    One day a laundry cart went through the usual bleaching, boiling cycle before it dropped out into a conveyor belt to be sorted for drying/pressing when there was a horrid scream.

    A small newborn baby’s body had been discovered tangled up amongst the sheets, it had been “cooked”. The laundry workers were distraught, the whole place had to be shut down, police called and the laundry tracked back to the hospital to discover what happened.

    It turns out a (thankfully in some ways) stillborn baby had been left in the cot waiting to be taken down to the hospital mortuary after the parents had said their goodbyes and covered it with a blanket but somehow one of the nurses hadn’t realised (just on shift was the best guess) so just grabbed up all the linen out the cot and off the bed in the delivery room with the body bundled inside and emptied it into the laundry hamper/trolley thing. The other nurses/parents assumed the baby had been collected by the mortuary to be stored awaiting their funeral decisions.

    The laundry was found not to be to blame but the parents were devastated and the hospital took a lot of flack. The poor laundry workers who discovered the body ended up being given counselling before eventually quitting. The laundry did amend its practice to individually emptying each laundry hamper into the industrial machines instead of just tipping them in to stop anything like that happening again.

    bizarrecoincidences Report

    #47

    People Are Sharing The Most Terrifying Things They've Witnessed In Real Life (40 Posts) My brothers ex-gf had two older sisters (they died before she was born).

    One day they decided to play hide-and-seek or something, so anyway, they both climbed inside a chest and accidentally locked themselves in. They suffocated.

    Albo2402 , Lena De Fanti Report

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    Jaaawn
    Community Member
    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    This can also happpen to children playing in old fridges and freezers that have been dumped outside. So if you feel the need to make such a selfish, inconsiderate action as disposing of your old appliances in public property, at least take the door off (or at 'best' tape it shut very securely.)

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    #48

    People Are Sharing The Most Terrifying Things They've Witnessed In Real Life (40 Posts) The driver one of the Semis we took in on trade died in the truck. The sleeping area is a "bunk" with a mattress that can be flipped up and under it is a seat and a table. So during the day it's a Dinet set up. And at night, you pull a lever and pull the bunk down to sleep. Well something happened and the bunk flipped up while the driver was sleeping and it pinned him against the wall. He couldn't get it to drop back down and suffocated. He was stuck there for somewhere around 12 hours. Someone had noticed that he was parked for an unusually long amount of time for the kind of deliveries he did. The company that built the sleeper did something to the bunk so that couldn't happen again and supposedly recalled all of that sleeper style.

    z0mbiemechanic , jhosel rodriguez Report

    #49

    Various torture murders are probably the most horrific things I've read about:

    Junko Furuta, who was a perfectly normal girl until she was kidnapped off the street by a gang for no reason (purely wrong place, wrong time, according to Japanese sources) and unimaginably r*ped and tortured to death over 44 days.

    Kiki Camarena, a DEA agent in Mexico who was kidnapped by the Guadalajara Cartel and tortured to death over about three days. His story is the central focus of the show Narcos: Mexico, but from what I've read, his death was even more brutal than what they make it out to be. A detail consistent in both is that they brought in a doctor to revive him numerous times when he got too close to death, and keep him conscious so he couldn't pass out from the pain.

    Kelly Anne Bates, who was groomed from a young age by a scumbag who eventually killed her slowly over the course of about a month in their apartment. Her injuries were so horrific the jury at the guy's trial had to get counseling. For example, her eyes were missing and there were stab wounds in the sockets.

    Sylvia Likens, whose parents left her in the care of a woman who both personally and with the help of her children and their friends degraded, tortured, and killed over over several months.

    The Hello Kitty murder in China, where a man and his about-13-year-old girlfriend kidnapped a prostitute who had supposedly stolen from him (even though sources say she had paid him back with interest), tortured her to death, and then stuffed her corpse into a Hello Kitty toy.

    Baby Brianna, a newborn whose mother, father, and uncle tortured and r*ped her from the second they brought her home from the hospital until the second she died.

    Baby P, a British toddler whose mother let her boyfriend torture him to death. His back was broken in his last days of life.

    Honestly, there are just so many horrifically on par with each other, you could list them all day.

    willowoftheriver Report

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    pink_panda
    Community Member
    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    It's hard to believe these are real. Utterly inconceivable that people can do this to other people.

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    #50

    Junko furuta.

    See it wasn’t just a murder that victims experience for maybe 5 minutes before passing. Or r*pe that victims experience for 10 before being left alone. 4 monsters kidnapped a girl and not only r*ped her, but tortured her as if she was play dough for(if I recall correctly, check me on this tho) 40 days. They r*ped her, lit fireworks inside her, used her as punching bags, burned her skin off, left her out in Japanese winter on her balcony, dropped dumbbells on her stomach and so many more terrible things. She literally begged them to kill her so she could escape the pain. How low does one have to go where your victim sees death as a heaven. And when she did die, they put her mutilated body up in a cement container(again check me here my memory is kinda foggy).

    It’s not even a simple case of r*pe and murder, they quite literally took her as close to hell as possible and literally destroyed her will to live. There simply aren’t any words to describe how vile this act was.

    I highly recommend reading her story anywhere. I have quite a tough stomach but this story made me sick to my core.

    anon Report

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    Katie Lutesinger
    Community Member
    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I've watched a documentary about this one, and it gets so much worse. I'll spare you the details, but the saddest part is that she almost escaped at least twice. And when they found her body encased in concrete with just a bit of hair poking out, the autopsy revealed that she was pregnant.

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    #51

    People Are Sharing The Most Terrifying Things They've Witnessed In Real Life (40 Posts) John List killed his whole family-wife, mother, daughter and two sons. He meticulously planned the whole thing-cancelling all delivery services, excusing the kids from school, and even turned the air conditioning as low as possible to preserve the bodies for as long as possible.

    After he killed them all, he placed the bodies in sleeping bags and lined them up. He then wrote a letter to his pastor explaining why he had to kill them.

    He then leaves and isn’t heard from again.

    18 years later he’s remarried and doing the same job as before but this time he doesn’t have any children. He’s finally arrested after a tip was given to the FBI.

    Crazy thing is that because he planned it so well, the bodies weren’t discovered until a month after the murders so he had a huge head start and essentially started a new life in the same career and was heavily involved in a new church down in Virginia. Took 18 years to capture him.

    mcsmith610 , Kindel Media Report

    #52

    Guy goes into a small building and dies. Later, investigator shows up and sees the body, calls 911 and then dies. Paramedics show up to help them, then die.

    The reason? Oxygen levels at head height were normal. Oxygen levels went bent over was basically 0. Bending over in this room killed 4 people by asphyxiation.

    casualblair Report

    #53

    I moved in to another town. I was surprised by people who looked as they knew me, even though I saw them for the very first time. And everyone around was so rude, despite of all other sources telling how friendly people there were. I was also greeted by "oh no, you again?" in one place where I went for the first time. I was looking for a room for rent, and one of the owners told me that he won't rent it to me, because "my co-tenants saw me following and stalking them". I was like "what the f**k? Am I doing things and forgetting? Is something wrong with my mental health?"

    Then, I went abroad for 3 months. No such thing was happening there. Everything was normal. I thought "Guess it's just a local culture, they do that to get rid of newcomers"

    Once I returned, I went to a fast-food to leave my CV - the guy said "You were here a month ago, and it hasn't changed. We aren't recruiting". Right, I was on another continent. I couldn't have just bought 2 airplane tickets, spent several days, and just forgetting about it. And my bank account wouldn't forget, anyway. That's when I started to understand what's going on.

    And then one day, I finally saw myself on the CCTV, trying to steal something. Right. Stealing, following people and stalking, and being disliked, makes sense. There was some thief who looked exactly like me, even had similar hairstyle (which was in fashion around)

    As of now, I already know of 2 guys who look identically like me.

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    Kiwii Stone
    Community Member
    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I had this when I moved to a city I'd never been to before. Thankfully my doppelgänger wasn't a criminal

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    #54

    one night about 2 years ago i believe it was spring and it was about 9 or 10 at night ( a bit of context my mother is a photographer and she has one of those big expensive cameras) now i was just sitting in my room playing xbox with my buddies and i heard the commotion of my family in the doorway to the backyard the kind of commotion of people gawking so i went out to see what it was all about. i go to my dad and ask what it is and he says there's something in our backyard and my mom is out there trying to get pictures but her flash isn't working, and she's right at the fence trying to get pictures and all of a sudden the flash goes of and lights up the pitch black yard and right in front of my mom is a bear stood up on its back legs just standing there. by the time the flash was done my mom was nearly in the house.

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    Katie Lutesinger
    Community Member
    2 years ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I was still living with my parents and was home with our dog one night when my dad called to say that he was out the front and that there was a kangaroo on our driveway - which was blocked off from the back garden by a fence. Naturally I went outside to investigate, and the next thing I knew Oscar the dog was tearing around the garden in an absolute frenzy, chasing this big dark shape around at top speed. The damn kangaroo had somehow jumped over the fence, and being a terrier Oscar was completely blind to anything except the need to catch it. Which meant we couldn't open the gate because he'd follow it and never be seen again. The poor kangaroo was so terrified it actually ran into me at one point and smacked me with its tail. Dad arrived and somehow managed to grab Oscar, and the kangaroo made its escape. It was clearly the night of Oscar's life, and for a long time after that he'd keep hopefully watching to see if his friend would come back for round two.

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    #55

    Well, I'm a bit late, and I'm not sure if anyone posted this already, but the story of Hisashi Ouchi. He suffered radiation exposure so thorough his DNA was destroyed and he probably would have died in a matter of days or even hours, but doctors kept him alive for almost 3 months. He was conscious and begging for death as his body literally fell apart.

    Here's a video about it but be warned it is very disturbing and graphic.

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    Marleinah Smith
    Community Member
    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    You know, here's something in another BP post...we have our beloved pets euthanized so they don't have to suffer. Shouldn't people who are suffering, and their loved ones who hate to see this suffering, have the same rights?

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    #56

    A family friend was cleaning her bus before the bus run. She had two small kids who were strapped into car seats in the bus. She swept the floor and was standing outside the bus leaning in, using a dustpan and brush to collect the dirt she had swept up. The auto doors on the bus kicked in and closed on her neck. She suffocated while her two young children looked on, unable to do anything because they couldn’t undo their car seat buckles.

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    #57

    I worked for U-Haul when I was 18 and it was located in front of a club that was known for being really sketchy. I came in to open one morning and it was common for people to knock on the door hoping to get in early and get their truck.

    On this day, I hear frantic knocking on the door. I'm there alone still so it kind of startled me. I look and there's a women, completely naked, covered in what looks like blood. I called the cops and grabbed one of the moving blankets and went out side to cover her up. She smelled really bad and was a mess. Ended up being blood and her own s**t she was covered in.

    Found out later she was drugged at the club that night/early morning, r*ped and left blacked out in the alley. It was just a f****d up and surreal situation to be involved in.

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    #58

    Ed Kemper murdered college women because his mother worked at a college and he claims he wanted to destroy everything she loved.

    Then, he murdered his mother and decapitated her, r*ped her head and her body, set her head on a shelf and screamed at it for hours. (That is the part that terrifies me.)

    Then he murdered her best friend and turned himself in. Relaying the whole story in detail, crying.

    Edit: “It hurts because I’m not a lizard. I didn’t crawl out from under a rock. I came from my mother’s vagina. And in a rage, I went right back in.” -Ed Kemper quote from a police interview.

    FREAKS ME THE HELL OUT.

    Edit 111 days later: I’m still getting comments on this so I’ll add another thing that makes him creepy. He would bury the heads of the women he killed in his mother’s backyard (he lived with her). He angled the head to where they were pointed upward facing his mother’s bedroom window. He would later say he did this purposely because his mother “always wanted to be looked up to.”

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    Aubry
    Community Member
    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I had to do a project on this guy for my forensics class. Dude also used his mom's head as a dartboard, killed his grandparents and learned how to convince mental hospitals he was sane and be let out, and was such good friends with the local police that when he confessed, they thought it was a joke.

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    #59

    3 sailors survived the sinking of the USS *West Virgina* at Pearl Harbor, only to die 16 days later, due to the lack of air. The Navy knew they were there, but couldn't get to them.

    [16 days to die]

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    #60

    During WWII, an American airplane crashed near the Japanese island of Chichijima. There were nine servicemen on board. One was rescued by an American submarine. The other eight were taken in by the Japanese. Don't want to go into all the details, but through some time and events, the Japanese ended up EATING those servicemen. But that's not the weird part.

    The one serviceman who was rescued? That was George H. W. Bush.

    Google "Chichijima incident" for more details if you'd like.

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    SheamusFanFrom1987
    Community Member
    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Apparently, one of the Japanese commanding officers had thought consuming human flesh was medicinal. Oh, how wrong could he be...

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    #61

    [On May 31, 2014, two twelve year old girls lured their friend into the woods and brutally stabbed her in an attempt to summon or appease Slenderman, a fictional internet villain who is said to inhabit wooded areas and stalk his victims among the trees]

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    #62

    I remember this poor kid who went missing while I was at Purdue:

    He was trying to come home to his dorm after a party and either wasn’t able to get into the building or perhaps wanted to bypass the check in desk (just a guess based on my experience as a student there) since he had been drinking. He entered the building through a door to an electrical closet that should have been locked and was electrocuted and killed that night. He was last seen January 13th and the body was discovered March 19th after reports of foul odors at the dorm. Edit: the body was found at Owen Hall, year 2007.

    I remember talking with friends about theories of what happened when he went missing. How terrifying it must have been to find out there was a dead body in your dorm for months.


    Update:
    Thanks for the silver! And thanks everyone for contributing the memories and other details/lingering questions.

    Sorry if any current Purdue folks are feeling weirded out. Be safe and stay outta the maintenance closets!

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    Monday
    Community Member
    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    If I remember correctly the kid in question didn't live in Owen Hall, he actually lived in a different dorm but had forgotten something (his jacket I think?) in a friend's room. He tried to call his friends to let him in but they weren't answering and nobody else would let him in (since he didn't live there) so he tried sneaking in through the electrical closet. He wedged himself behind some machines in such a way that even when they looked in the closet during the search for him he went unnoticed.

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    #63

    100% true as it happened to me. It's probably more spooky than scary. I'll let you be the judge....

    Many years ago, before there were cell phones we had these things called pagers strapped to our hips. Someone would page you with their phone number and you would call them back when you got to a phone. As an "on call technician" working in the Audio Visual field, my pager would go off all the freaking time. Like most people who used pagers, our clients knew that if you followed up your number with a 911, that would indicate to the technician to stop what they were doing and call right away. Although I was always busy I rarely if ever got 911's. One afternoon traveling from Orlando to Saint Petersburg via Interstate 4, my pager goes off with a number I don't recognize, followed by the 911. I find the first exit, and pull into a little truck stop looking place outside of Plant City, to use the pay phone. This takes maybe 3 minutes tops. I walk in, ask for some change and head to the wall where there are 4 pay phones to choose from. I pop my quarter in and dial the number displayed on my trusty pager. It rings........ and rings...... and rings....... and rings. I'm thinking to myself WTF ?!?! Who would page me with a 911 and not answer their phone? it's just about then that I notice another ringing sound in addition to the one in my ear..... I pull the handset from my ear and two phones over on the wall another pay phone is ringing, but with an incoming call. I hang up my the handset and the ringing stops on the other phone. I walk a few paces over, pick up the handset and look at the phone number printed above the buttons , I look at the number on my pager, I look at the number on the phone, I look at the number on my pager again, I look at the phone AGAIN..... except for the 911 they are identical. I kinda loose my breath for a second and then I make my way over to the girl at the counter and ask if she saw anyone use the pay phone. She said I was the the only person in the store in the last hour. The whole episode probably took 15 minutes, but man, I was freaked out! The hair on the back of my neck was standing straight up and I just wanted out of there!
    I get about 10 miles down the Highway and come upon a scene that looked like a bomb went off.......4 car pile up involving a tractor trailer hauling a load of steel that had come loose, State Troopers and Paramedics just arriving. I pulled over to the side and helped the best I could, but it was all pretty much over once it began. I have no idea why I got that page or from whom or what but I'm convinced that if I hadn't, I would not be alive to write this today.

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    Indosidius
    Community Member
    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Some people would say it was the hand of God. It happened to me so many times that something delays me, making me leave later, only to arrive on a nearly fresh car accident, or a tree that fell over the road or something that would have ended bad for me had I been on time.

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    #64

    Have you heard of the Nazi so bad that other Nazis, in particular fellow SS Nazis, constantly tried to get him and his unit disbanded and arrested? No?! Well his name was Oskar Dirlewanger, and his unit was nicknamed "The Black Hunters" or the "Dirlewanger Brigade".

    Oskar Dirlewanger was an early adopter of the Nazi party. He had been thrown in jail before for being a pedophile. Eventually when World War II broke out and healthy *ideal* Germans were dying in droves on the Eastern Front, Oskar's old pal Heinrich Himmler (Head of the SS) granted him a command of a unit made up originally of German poachers, and eventually German criminals being held in civilian jails / camps, and military criminals. His unit was essentially designated as a rearguard unit meant to hunt down enemy partisans (or in most cases civilians in occupied countries). Oskar Dirlewanger SS unit was responsible for many atrocities. Some atrocities so barbaric and bad other SS units reported him and his unit for atrocities. A few examples, which have been popularized in film, include taking an entire village in Belorus and putting them in a church, locking the doors, and setting the church ablaze. Anyone who tried to escape was shot by machineguns and rifles. This unit r*ped, tortured, and murdered its way through Eastern and Central Europe. During the Warsaw Uprising they were sent to help squelch the uprising. One of their atrocities committed was going in to a children's hospital, telling the nurses and staff that they were there to secure the church. Ok. Once the church was secured they r*ped the female staff, and some of the wounded and sick female children victims, and then went around shooting everyone. If anyone was found to have survived they were bayoneted. These guys were so horrible that other Nazis looked down their noses at them, and constantly filed complaints and reports against them, but with no real success. Thankfully by the end of the war this unit was destroyed and its leaders and criminal soldiers were hunt down like rabid animals.

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    SheamusFanFrom1987
    Community Member
    2 years ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I hope his soul is still rotting at the Althausen Prison Camp, Purgatoryville chapter!!!

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    #65

    A woman named Joyce Vincent died alone in her bedsit/apartment in London and wasn't found for **two years**. She was only discovered because bailiffs came to evict her from the property and instead found her decomposed body in half-skeleton form. The TV had been on, and the windows had been open, for two years. Despite the smell and the noise emanating from the apartment, no-one had come sooner and found her.

    Because of the state her body was found in, they could only identify her through matching her teeth to a photograph of her smiling. Because there was basically no body left to study, no-one knows how she passed. Her friends guess it was anything from murder to an asthma attack but no-one can ever know.

    It's not the most scary story in terms of its gruesomeness (some tales in this thread have made me nauseous), but to think someone can die alone and not be found by their family or friends for so long, especially in such a densely populated city, f*****g terrifies me.

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    Moosy Girl
    Community Member
    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Our neighbour died this way and I still feel guilty about it, she was mummified when they found her. We used to visit/check up on her regularly until she got admitted to a mental hospital for a while. We thought she was back home but she never opened the door anymore, we contacted police and family and got told she was under hospital care and they would check it out. It’s a bag of mixed feelings but I still think we should’ve pushed harder.

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    #66

    Well this one was quite dreadful for me at least.

    Whilst I was working back in 2006, I was working inside of a multi storey car park.

    I came down in the lift from the top floor where I was working at the time. As I got out the lift there was a woman in her late 40's I would say with greying hair and a maroon handbag.

    We brushed shoulders as I got out the lift. I apologised, she gave me a very blank look. I walked out to go get some food not thinking at the time much more than that. Although, when I think about it the lady appeared to look quite sad.

    I returned with my noodles around 20 to 30 minutes later. At this point I got back and Police were everywhere. The lady had jumped from the top floor.I knew it was her from the handbag laying on the floor.

    Gosh, If I had stopped and spoke to her or left for lunch a little later I may have been able to stop her Jumping.

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    #67

    This one terrifies me. I’m going to be purposely kind of vague about this since I’m figuring the events in this story are rare. (Edit: The stories told in the comments have now made me realize this happens fairly often and that’s very tragic.)

    The events are also mostly speculative, since there weren’t any witnesses. I say this to spare you all the multiple “probably”-s and “most likely”-s that would otherwise be in this post. This is how it was told to me:

    A family member of mine is friends with a man (middle aged) whose wife sadly died while taking their dog out for a walk through a rural area they where visiting. They had driven up to a farm along the road and gotten out when the dog tore from her grip and ran off. She ran after it to the back of the barn (where the huge open dung-cistern was).

    The farmer wasn’t home, so when he came back later in the day, he found her car and thought it weird that a strange car had just been left there, doors open, with no people noticeably near by. He went around searching for his unexpected visitors and eventually found them.

    What he found was something I had never even imagined before hearing of this.

    The dog had fallen into the cistern of deep, liquid waste from the farm animals. The edges on the cistern where way too high up to reach from liquid surface level and the woman must have panicked, because she had jumped in after the dog to save it and that’s where her life slowly and brutally came to an end.

    The fumes that accumulate from that much dung are very toxic. The woman, after being unable to get back out, had lost consciousness and drowned, along with her dog, in a pool of cow s**t.

    I can’t imagine a worse way to die. I think about it now and then and hope that no one will ever die like that again. Poor souls.

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    Chich
    Community Member
    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    We used to be given derelict houses that were to be torn down to use as practice for the Fire Department. Two of us would go out and do a site inspection a few days before the training took place. One house had tall grass all around it and we found an open septic tank hidden in the weeds. House wasn't off the beaten track so anyone could have fallen into it cutting across the yard. Some people just don't care.

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    #68

    It happened to my mom's friend a couple of years back.

    She was driving on the highway in the middle of nowhere (as in far away from any town). Suddenly a car that is passing on her left steers fully to the right in front of her causing her to brake and steer very rashly.
    This obviously causes her to lose control and crash against a tree. She passed out and sometime later (she couldn't really tell how much time passed) a group of Brazilians (all of this happened in Portugal) came to her rescue and told her things like: "don't move", "We're calling an ambulance", "just hang on there" etc...
    She eventually passes out again and about two hours later someone else comes and starts helping her again and eventually the ambulance and her husband arrive. She tells them that some other people have been there before but the guy that found her says no one was there. When they checked the trunk everything had been stolen including computer, camera etc...
    She later said that she remembers thinking the car that made her crash had been following her for a while and driving a little too close. Make of that what you want.

    Sorry for my English.

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    The Radio Demon
    Community Member
    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Car crashes are terrifying, I've been in about six or so car accidents (all minor, mostly rear-ends) and each one leaves a mark.

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    #69

    Personally, when I was detained by the Nicaraguan military while filming a documentary abroad. I seriously thought we were done for, because they had our team separated and we mixed our stories up. My legs were sharking. The main officer guy was a full fledged Bond villain too. He had a jet black mustache, sunglasses and a golden canine tooth. He spoke broken English, so when he told us he could go, it sounded sarcastic and that we were going to be mowed down in the ditch as we left in our bus. [It was an insane story.]

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    #70

    Probably the one about the guy at a local factory who went inside one of the welding machines (I think that's what they are called) to clean or do some kind of maintenance, and somehow despite all the safety protocols another employee kicked it on. Apparently the moment it happened the employee that did it realized his mistake but there was no way to stop it once it started the firing cycle. Yes, the man inside died pretty quickly, but I can not imagine being the person who made such a horrible mistake.

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    Purplescales
    Community Member
    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    This is why lockout is such an important thing, tag out is good but lockout is your life

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    #71

    Told this here before but once more:

    My friend had this neighbor who was a retired mechanic. They lived on some properties with large front lawns and long driveways. His neighbor had a couple derelict cars parked up near his garage that he took parts from occasionally.

    This neighbor of his started hearing noises while sitting in his living room, coming from his front yard. Every time he'd go to the window, there would be nothing there. He assumed it was a raccoon or a coyote or whatever. He kept hearing the noise so he'd go outside to look around but would find nothing. He'd put out traps and occasionally catch something, yet the noise persisted.

    Soon, he started claiming that he was hearing voices coming from the front yard, like whispering. He'd go outside and look around the perimeter of his property but would find nothing. It was persistent so he'd started calling the cops. Every time the cops came and looked around and would find nothing. So they told him he needed to stop calling them for this, and perhaps get a security camera or whatever.

    So this guy thought he was losing his mind. One summer evening he couldn't sleep, so he went to the back patio to smoke a cigarette. Suddenly, he heard voices coming from the front of his house. He put his cig out and snuck around to the front and got there just in time to see the doors to his derelict conversion van silently shut. He ran back to the backyard and went inside his home and called the police to tell them what he had seen. The police arrived and approached cold (i.e. without lights/sirens) and when they approached the van, the doors swung open and a bunch of people ran out in every direction. Upon searching the van, the cops found syringes and paraphernalia and determined that people were shooting up in there.

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    #72

    My mom didn’t tell me this story for the longest time, I think just so she wouldn’t unnecessarily worry me when I was younger. But my parents split up when I was about 4 years old and my mom and my sisters stayed in a small town house for a few years before moving in with my step dad. Anyway, while we were at the town house for I think less than a year, my mom heard something in her room in the middle of the night and when she woke up to go look there was a man in her room. She audibly gasped and got out of bed either to fight or run to our room - she couldn’t really decide cause she was pumped full of adrenaline. The guy ended up running out of our back door and when the police came they found signs of forced entry. She never told any of us the full story cause we were still sound asleep the entire time but she ended up explaining more of it the older we got.

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    Cold Contagious
    Community Member
    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    OP added that the police never discovered who broke into their house and assumed it was just a random burglar who was just as surprised as the mom to find someone inside.

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    #73

    A colleague of my dad's went on holiday to a small cottage in Wales (in the middle of nowhere in the UK's winter time) with his wife. They were found by the owner of the house after the week they rented it for was up, completely insane, clawing at their skin and the whole place was a wreck. The full story was never found out, but the guy and his wife both were rambling about a red knife that followed them wherever they went that they found in the bed of the cottage. They are both still alive and as far as I'm aware under psychiatric care.

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    #74

    The guy who predicted the Great Recession now exclusively invests in Water.

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    #75

    The people that bought my childhood home were murdered. The man that killed then snuck in and out of the house for a week. He would often slip into the house and be there for hours. He would hide in places that I knew. I knew them because as a kid those were the best spots to hide for hide and seek. My favorite hiding spots were a killer's hiding spots.

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    #76

    The Battle of Osowiec Fortress - 1915, German troops attempted to gas the Russian defenders out as the fort had been a thorn in the side of the Germans since the outbreak of war, the gas succeeded in killing almost three whole companies, the Germans then advanced across the fields, expecting the fortress to be empty and an easy victory. From within the fortress, Russian troops emerged, coughing up blood and lung fragments, covered in bandages made up as improvised gas masks as well as chemical burns, they returned rifle and light artillery fire at the advancing Germans, the German troops didn't bother firing back as they just ran back to their lines, their commanders claimed "they're already dead, give it twenty minutes and go take the place" to which the soldiers remarked "it is not men protecting that place, but the devil" Osowiec Fortress never fell during the war, as when the German troops went back months after there was already fresh defenders. I know this story is much different to the ones other people have said, but it's the one I could think of as truly terrifying.

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    Taryn Bailey
    Community Member
    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Swedish metal band did an AWESOME song based on that battle, called 'Attack of the Dead Men'. Freaking awesome song.

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    #77

    In 1972 a uruguayan plane carrying a college rugby team fell in the Andes Mountain Range, of 50 people, 13 people died in the crash or the following hours, and by the next day the survivor count was down to 27, which with little food had to resort to eating the bodies of the dead, rationing how much each ate. After that, the remaining survivors made a pact stating that if they died they would be the next in line for consumption, and that the only bodies that would be used would be the families of those who voluntarily accepted to.

    They spent 72 days in the hostile enviroment, by the end only 16 survived.

    The most terryfying story (IMO) is when one of the survivors, who had broken his leg on the crash, which made him feel useless, noticed that the corpses up for consumption was running out. He secretly stopped eating to die of hunger and "become of use" for the survivors. Thankfully, one of them realized and managed to convince him to keep himself alive for two weeks more. The rescue team found them within those two weeks.

    I highly recommend you read the book "viven!" Or "La Sociedad de la Nieve" to get more details.

    Bonus: a candidate for the Communist Party told one of the survivors (Roberto Canessa) that he didn't know what being hungry was like

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    #78

    A headless, limbless torso was found in the bushes at the rest stop in the town where I grew up. They never found the rest of her body parts or the murderer. She wasn’t even identified until about a decade later (she was a prostitute that had been estranged from her family).

    My mom’s theory is that a truck driver from out of state did it. Dismembered her, dumped her torso at the rest stop, and scattered the rest of her over state lines. Could have been an isolated incident or it could be a serial killer. We might not ever know.

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    #79

    H. H. Holmes and the hotel he built specifically to murder people. Like something from a horror movie but completely true.

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    Cold Contagious
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    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    He is the person that they based Evan Peters' character 'James March' and the hotel was based on that season. The true story and that season of AHS: Hotel are both very interesting.

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    #80

    The Donner Party, a group of American pioneers that had to resort to cannibalism to survive being stranded in the Sierra Nevada.

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    Alex (she/they)
    Community Member
    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    I once read a book about that, and they had the meat bits labeled by family so someone wouldn't end up eating their own kin.

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    #81

    I used to run the boilers in a DOE building. Apparently at some point in the eighties, three people were murdered over involvement in a big vcr theft- vcrs meant for the school system had apparently been stolen out of this warehouse, it was an inside job, something went wrong- the head custodian was found shot to death, and later the bodies of the other two were reported buried in Monticello- but word is, they had first been incinerated.

    In the boilers I was in charge of operating and maintaining.

    There were three operational boilers, and one that wasn’t in service- no clue which one was supposedly used, but when you’re firing them up, you’re typically the only person in the building- not a single day went by that I fired them up and didn’t wonder which one was used. But that wasn’t what gave me the real Heebie jeebies.

    You have to clean the interior of these boilers really well, otherwise the fire won’t transfer heat to the water very efficiently- especially with #6 oil, these boilers would build up a lot of soot. You have to suit up in a Tyvek suit, wear a mask, and climb right into the firebox- I found myself staring down the business end of that burner many times, wondering what that panic would feel like. (I’m reasonably sure these people were dead before getting put in the boiler though.)
    Once, I was actually in one boiler while another one was running- the valve that isolated my boiler from the main steam line wasn’t holding, and by the time I realized how warm it was getting, it was enough to panic- trying to lift myself up and belly crawl through the small opening, the metal was almost too hot to keep my hands on for long. Definitely creepy experience, considering the history of that boiler room.

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    Cold Contagious
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    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    A little too close for comfort for me. I don't think I could get inside one if there were any possibilities that it could come on.

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    #82

    In the late 1950s the Soviet Union spearheaded a campaign to convince the World Health Organization that Smallpox could be eradicated. Smallpox is a highly contagious disease that is specific to humans. Insofar as we know, no other species on earth can get or carry smallpox.

    In 1977, the last case of Smallpox was identified and snuffed out. The disease was eradicated.

    However, rather than destroy the final genetic samples of the disease, the cold war super-powers decided to store it. Some went to the Soviet Union and some went to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta Georgia.

    The Soviets began a weaponization program.

    This means that they tried to make a stronger, more contagious, more lethal strain of smallpox. They tried to cross it with other diseases like Ebola, creating entirely artificial "chimera" diseases.

    They grew smallpox in the lab *by the ton* and kept it loaded, ready to be fired on missiles into the United States.

    But it's not a missile that's frightening. A single glass ampule of the stuff, smashed against the wall of a subway station in New York or Chicago or Tokyo could spark a global outbreak.

    Very, very few people alive today have been vaccinated for smallpox and there are but a scant few doses of vaccine available. In the event of an outbreak our ability to manufacture vaccine would be rapidly outpaced.

    If the wrong person got their hands on the Soviet Smallpox Bioweapon, billions could die.

    Nuclear weapons are bad enough, but they, at least, require a general war to break out in order to bring about an end to human civilization. A smallpox bioweapon doesn't require a war; just one security breach.

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    Spencer's slave
    Community Member
    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    With regard to the "very, very few" people alive today who are vaccinated against smallpox - absolutely not true. I'm in my 50's and I am vaccinated against smallpox. All people in the UK up until the late 1970s were routinely vaccinated against smallpox. It's no secret that so called developed nations keep a "library" of eradicated diseases, viruses etc, it's well documented. The so called Soviet Smallpox Bioweapon is a conspiracy theory. Western nations could easily do the exact same thing and if it were true, why hasn't Putin used it in Ukraine?

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    #83

    Not as scary as some of the stories here, but I was pretty horrified when my dad told me the story.

    There are some really big houses in the woods in my hometown. One of the owners went out drinking with his buddies and realized he forgot the key to the gate when he got home. So he decided to just climb the gate. While climbing in his drunken state he slips and his leg gets pierced by one of the spikes on the gate. He was hanging there but too afraid to call for his wife. Since he was sure she would just open the automatic gate from inside the house and since it was one of those gates that slides to the side it would just rip his leg off if she did.

    He was hanging there the entire night until his wife woke up, saw him and called the fire deparment. My dad (who is one of the firefighters that showed up) said they had to saw of the spike to get him off.

    Just imagine hanging from your own gate all night not being able to call for help.

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    #84

    Japanese war crimes in WW2.

    That is my real answer, but it does remind me of that movie with Paul Rudd where they’re talking about scary stories around the campfire and he says something like:

    “Everyday children like you are kidnapped and sold into child sex trafficking rings.”

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    #85

    A pub in Colnbrook, Berkshire in UK has a pretty terrifying history:

    >The Ostrich has seen it’s fair share of murders and they say that over 60 were committed here. Most famous of all were those committed in the 17th century by the landlord of the time, Jarman, who with his wife made a very profitable sideline by murdering their guests after they had retired for the night.
    >
    >They had a trap door built into the floor of one of their bedrooms and when a suitably rich candidate arrived Jarman would inform his wife that a fat pig was available if she wanted one! She would reply by asking her husband to put him in the sty for till the morrow. The bedstead was hinged and they would tip the sleeping victim into a vat of boiling liquid immediately below, thus killing him.

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    #86

    Couple years back, there was a dude doing his national service. One night on roving sentry duty, past midnight, he asks his buddy (as in, battle buddy. military dudes should understand that better I'd think) to wait for him a couple of minutes, he wanted to go to the toilet; Note that as sentries they weren't supposed to do so during patrol, you have to go before or after.

    As his buddy was waiting outside, he suddenly heard a gunshot. The dude had used his service rifle to blow his brains out, trouble with the girlfriend and at home.

    My dudes in the army, voluntary or not, speak the f**k up before you do something stupid.

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    #87

    I made the mistake of reading about the Ant Hill Kids cult at night. I don't recommend it. Here's the article I read: https://www.cvltnation.com/ant-hill-kids-break-legs-sledgehammer-go-hell/. Don't read it while you're eating.

    Starts of like a typical hippie/apocolypse type cult, ends with a LOT of mutilation and murder.

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    #88

    Somebody bought a house where a murder-suicide took place and found a $5000 cheque in the walls alongside a letter written in Vietnamese that was addressed towards the killer.

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    #89

    Every year thousands of children go missing all over the world and at most you hear about a few per year in your area. Noone seems to care. It is literally a nuissance to many to have a "have you seen my child" add pop up on their social media.

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    Fluffy mommy panda
    Community Member
    2 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

    Uh.....I care and if I seen one I'd say something. Because if my child was to go missing I'd want someone to do the same. And who knows what the child has experienced. If you think you see a missing child or do see one, do something. You could save there life.

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    #90

    Old janitor from high school, friendly Ecuadorian man who went by Ping.

    Worked at the school for 20+ years and nobody had a problem with him

    I guess his wife was leaving him and in the process of moving out

    He caught her in bed with her new man. Next day, in the middle of town, he opened fire on her, the man and then killed himself before any cops had time to respond

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    #91

    My cuckoo clock, that is broken for more than 20 years, made weird sounds two times in a row in the middle of the night.

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