Have you ever boarded a plane and suddenly felt like you should not be there? Have you ever been home alone, but felt like you were being watched? Have you ever been driving down your daily commute but was, inexplicably, compelled to take a different route?
These sorts of feelings are common, but are usually nothing to worry about. But how many times can you say that this feeling was right? The following stories come from people who can, and took to Reddit to share the experience. These are moments when that "something is not right here" feeling turned out to be spot on.
Suddenly, His Safe Hiding Place Did Not Feel So Safe
“I was with a large group of friends including my brother. We were playing Manhunt outside at night. It is a game just like Hide and Seek, but it is played outside and is a little more complicated.
My brother and his friend decided to go into a snowmobile trailer to hide. I told them I would hide under the trailer. As I was under the trailer, I suddenly got the worst feeling that I needed to get out of there. I can’t even describe the feeling, but I got out quick. Seconds after I got up, I saw that the trailer was balancing on two wheels. They made the trailer unbalanced by getting inside. It crashed exactly where I just was.
There was no doubt it would’ve killed me in seconds. I stood there in complete shock. I couldn’t believe I had been so close to death. Right after the crash, my brother and his friends freaked out. Imagine thinking you just killed your brother!”
Nighttime Dog Walking Becomes An Ominous Mystery
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“When I was in college, I had a really weird class and work schedule that resulted in me usually taking my dog for her nightly walk around three or so in the morning. There was a giant parking structure for the college right by its baseball field. I would usually cut through there and let my dog run around on the field before circling back to my apartment.
One night on the way over, I heard a faint humming in the parking garage, followed by some sort of weird alarm-sounding noise. Being the horror movie victim that I am, I started walking toward the sound, which meant walking down to the lowest level, which was one below street level. When I got down to the ramp, my dog started to get visibly stressed, whining and bouncing around, and looking at me repeatedly. I started to really get stressed out at that point but pressed on.
When I got down the ramp, I looked around and saw behind it a small golf cart. On its own, it wasn’t that weird because the school’s maintenance staff used them all the time. This golf cart, however, was on and running, which was producing the humming noise, but with no driver. I walked over to it. Behind it was one of the Home Depot buckets, tipped over with trash scattered around. Before I could really wonder what was going on, I heard the alarm sound again.
I went a little further around to the elevators and found a man unconscious inside one, blocking the door, which was repeatedly trying to close but couldn’t. At that point, my dog was going nuts. I put her leash over one of those parking poles and approached the man. I didn’t know CPR at the time, but I checked if he was breathing. He was, so I quickly called 911. Fortunately, I had service and the campus police station was literally a two-minute walk from there.
A couple police officers arrived quickly and began to administer CPR. An ambulance arrived shortly after. I had to hang around for a while and explain what happened. The stressful part was not finding out if he was okay until several days later. I called the campus police station and they said they couldn’t share his specific medical situation, but told me he was OK and would likely return to work at some point. I guessed he had a heart attack, but I will never know for sure. I never saw him again.”
Taking The Long Way Home
“I was driving home late one evening. I had the strongest feeling that something was wrong. At the time, this meant that I took the long way home because I thought my subconscious knew there would be some speed traps on the turnpike.
The next morning, it turned out that an inebriated driver caused a huge multi-car accident in the exact stretch of road I would have been driving on. The driver and two others were killed. Another five or so people were injured. I am not a superstitious person by any stretch, but this has always been something that made me wonder.”
Getting Harder and Harder To Breathe
“My saga started out with pains in my right arm and chest. Because I was a pretty avid swimmer, my doctor initially assumed (as did I) that I had injured a muscle or tendon. When it didn’t get better, he ordered some blood work to check for vitamin deficiency. It came back clean, but my pain was getting worse. I started to get quite worried that something more sinister might be at play. It was at that point when my doctor decided my issues were down to anxiety. Although I had returned a few times to insist something else must be wrong, all I ended up with was prescriptions for Zoloft, Ambien, and hydrocodone. The opioid epidemic is real, folks.
I don’t think I am a particularly anxious person (or, at least, I wasn’t before this) but I tried to accept that my symptoms (which were getting worse despite my medications) might be physical manifestations of anxiety. What really woke me up was the morning I had trouble walking to my bathroom. In weeks, I had gone from someone who swam several miles a day to someone who became out of breath walking down a hallway.
I don’t know why it even came to mind, but all I could think was, Something is wrong. This isn’t anxiety. I need to go to the ER. I walked myself to the hospital and asked if it was possible I had a blood clot. I was reassured that if it was a clot in my lung, there was no way I could have walked to the hospital.
Because I walked in there and already had a diagnosis of ‘anxiety’ in my patient file, the assumption was that I was probably just a hypochondriac. I think the fact that my resting heart rate seemed normal (although I knew it was high for me) seemed to support this. My cousin had previously had an estrogen-induced clot. All of this probably sent up some this girl reads too much Web MD flags.
What I did appreciate was that the PA assigned to me did not make me feel like I was wasting time. Although he also suggested it could be anxiety, he agreed if that was the case, then ruling out a clot should, in theory, help me feel better. This reasoning may have saved my life. The first thing they had me do was walk around while hooked up to a heart and oxygen monitor. They could see my heart rate rise alarmingly just walking around the room. This prompted him to order a D-Dimer and they ended up sending me for a CT angiogram before the results even came back.
The CT annoyed me at the time (I was worried my crappy insurance would try and fight me on it/ the stuff they give you makes it feel like you’ve wet yourself) but it is ultimately what led to finding out I had a pulmonary embolism.
I spent the next few months on blood thinners and visiting a hematologist and thrombosis clinic to rule out genetic factors. Because my clot was probably in part precipitated by estrogen, I don’t have to be on blood thinners for life, but I also can’t take hormonal birth control. I am pregnant now and back on blood thinner injections, but I should be able to stop these when I am 6-8 weeks postpartum.
I was very lucky. My PE had been caused by the undiagnosed clot in my upper arm (an uncommon spot and the cause of all of my pain). It was still small and may not have gotten worse, but it also easily could have. Or, more of the original clot could have broken off. I didn’t have any of the usual clot symptoms in my arm (no swelling or redness) and no one thought to check my d-Dimer before I actually asked if it could be a clot, even though I had just recently switched to an estrogen based birth control and had taken several back to back international flights.
I think if you have a health concern it is always better to have it checked out—worst case scenario is it will be nothing and you will be reassured and can stop worrying! Since this happened to me I have read a lot of stories where people were not so lucky as I was. I feel incredibly fortunate that I listened to my instincts.”
Never Boarded Another Flight Again, One Would Assume
“I’m already a nervous flyer. One time I was taking a flight on American Trans Air from Phoenix to Vegas. The engines started up and all of the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I could swear that the engine on my side of the plane sounded funny.
Just as we started to taxi, the engine blew up. Flames and thick black smoke started coming out of it. They shut down the engines and had us disembark. They offered us an alternate flight. I walked as fast as I could to the rental car counter.”
“I Always Got A Weird Vibe From Him That No One Else Seemed To Get…”
“When I was 15, I went on a school trip to Washington, D.C., with a club I was part of at school. It was a peer mentor/anti-bullying type thing. There were about 20 other kids with me. One of them was this kid named Josh, who was a year younger than me. I had known him for years because he had been friends with my younger brother when we were kids, but they had drifted apart so Josh and I did too.
Josh and I had started becoming friends again since we were both in the club, but I always got a weird vibe from him that no one else seemed to get, so I ignored it. It is worth noting that Josh was super popular, had tons of friends, was attractive and charming. He was definitely not someone whom you would typically get a bad vibe from, but I just did. I kept telling myself that it was nothing and ignored it.
While we were in DC, the elevator in our hotel broke. I didn’t feel like waiting for it, so I said I would take the stairs and asked if anyone wanted to come with me. Josh said he would. Suddenly, I just got OVERWHELMED by this really, really bad feeling. I felt as if I shouldn’t let myself be alone with him. I said I had changed my mind and I wanted to wait for the elevator.
Over the next couple of days, Josh was really friendly. My friends kept saying that he had a crush on me, but I kind of ignored it. Even though he objectively seemed super nice and charming, every time I was with him, I got overwhelmed by this awful feeling, like something bad was going to happen. It wasn’t just that awkward this person likes me and I don’t feel the same way thing. It was a genuine-feeling-of-impending-doom type of thing.
On the last night of the trip, because we were dumb teenagers, someone suggested that we all play Truth or Dare in one of the hotel rooms. I went over to the room, but suddenly got overwhelmed by that sick ‘something is wrong here’ feeling. Sure enough, Josh was there. He made all of his questions super inappropriate because, of course, he was. Everyone was daring different people to go into the bathroom alone together and ‘see what happens.’ I had a really bad feeling that someone would dare Josh and I to do it. I told everyone that I didn’t feel well. I went back to my room and watched Netflix. I got roasted by all of my friends for being a loser for a couple days afterward.
A year later, Josh was expelled from our school for assaulting multiple girls, including a developmentally disabled girl. Apparently, no one else suspected anything because he always seemed so nice and charming and was involved in anti-bullying initiatives and such. I remember feeling super sick when I found out and skipped school for a day. It still freaks me out a bit to this day.”
He Saw The Accident Waiting To Happen
“The highway I take home from work had just been repaved. None of the lines were painted on yet, except for the lines between each lane. There were no lines painted for the shoulders yet, but there was plenty of space to pull over to the shoulder part of the highway without impeding traffic.
On one particular day, there was a city truck parked in the ‘shoulder.’ I got over to the left lane to give the truck plenty of space. However, I knew that the guy on the driver’s side opened his door way too wide for being next to (at least) 70 mph traffic and was walking way too close to that traffic. I immediately thought that this would not end well.
When I got home and started watching the news an hour later, I saw that there was a crash on that highway at that very spot I passed, involving the driver of the city truck. Someone hit him. He was dead on the scene. The lines for the shoulders were painted on the next day.
Someone put up a memorial of him at the exact spot that I passed him. To this day, I still get over to the left lane when I’m passing the spot. I move over whenever possible and slow down when moving over is not possible. I would rather not be the cause of someone not going home to their family.
I’m not sure what happened to the guy who hit the trucker. A quick search of his name revealed that no charges were in the works a few days after the incident happened. I think of the dude daily as I pass his memorial. I hope he did not suffer too bad.”
“Call Someone”
“My dad was six at home with a babysitter while his parents were out. He heard a clap of thunder outside and immediately told the babysitter to call someone because ‘my dad’s been struck by lightning.’
My grandfather had in fact been struck directly by lightning while play golf with my grandmother. The electricity entered his shoulder and out his ankle. My grandmother resuscitated my grandfather and he lived to be over 90.”
A Boy And His Friend
“I befriended an elderly man after a middle school project about WWII (he served on the USS San Francisco) and I continued to visit with him weekly or so all the way through high school.
His house was on the way home from school and I would often call to tell him I was coming and then drop by after practice. Being a 92-year-old man, he didn’t have a ton going on, but occasionally had appointments and such that took him out of the house.
One day I called and he didn’t pick up the phone (not super strange, given the aforementioned appointments). But I just had this sinking feeling in my chest that no matter how long I waited, he wasn’t going to pick up the phone.
Got a call the next day from my middle school teacher (who also regularly checked in with him) telling me that he had passed away.
I got to speak at his service and I’ll always remember our time together. RIP Gene.”
Never Underestimate A Mother’s Intuition
“Exactly one year ago today, we finally headed to the NICU with our ‘perfectly healthy, just sleepy’ baby daughter who’d been discharged from labor and delivery a week before. I have had one healthy baby. This baby, I knew something was wrong with her right away. She never cried, didn’t open her eyes, didn’t nurse, didn’t have ANY reflexes. Somehow this didn’t set off any red flags during our two-day stay in the hospital after her birth. We were discharged and told that she was just ‘sleepy’ because she was born at 37 weeks.
Well, we ended up dripping milk down her throat for an entire week, waiting for her to ‘come around.’ We took her to the pediatrician, had a home health nurse come, had a lactation consultant come… They all said the same thing. 37 weeks, sleepy, she’ll get the hang of it, blah blah blah. I had been airing my concerns to anyone who would listen before she was even born. She NEVER moved in utero, only a wiggle every now and then to let me know she wasn’t dead. ‘All pregnancies are different, all babies are different, blah blah blah…’ Well, one year ago today, I had a screaming breakdown to my husband: ‘SOMETHING IS WRONG WITH THIS BABY AND YOU KNOW IT.’ He still wanted to believe everything would be okay, but he agreed to take her to the NICU.
Aaaaaand she was alternating between seizure and coma every 3-5 seconds, a ‘burst-suppression pattern’ on EEG (look it up for a fun read) with a completely non-functioning brain. She developed and was born that way by some cruel and nonsensical twist of fate. Ohtahara Syndrome. 1 in 100,000 odds. She died two weeks later. If someone had listened to me, we never would’ve left the hospital and I wouldn’t have spent a week trying to nurse a braindead baby.
We are the type of people who saw the writing on the wall and heard the evidence-based conclusion that she would never have meaningful brain activity. As such, we saw no point in prolonging her life artificially with a feeding tube and breathing support. With the help of the amazing NICU and pain/palliative care teams, we brought her home and she passed away in our arms. There was no other possible outcome so we decided to choose quality of life over quantity. Since her brain was built this way, no intervention could’ve changed her outcome, so I don’t begrudge the doctors and nurses who didn’t see it earlier, even though that would’ve saved us some trauma.”
A Dream Home Could Have Been A Nightmare
“My wife and I were renting for a few years when we decided to take the steps to buy our own house. We had enough for a deposit and had a mortgage quote arranged. We went to look at a number of houses and found one that we really liked. We decided to put our offer in. We were told that this was most likely going to be accepted, but they were going to wait a couple of days before deciding.
That evening, I sat in bed reading when I had a horrible feeling that something was not right. The next day, I told my wife that I wasn’t sure about it and convinced her that we needed to retract our offer. We did.
The following two weeks were a nightmare. Within two days of pulling out of this offer, my wife was made redundant, totally by surprise. She had not been working at her company long enough to get much of a payout. A week later, our car broke down and was beyond repair, barring spending more than the car was worth. We really struggled for the next year or so and would have never been able to pay off a mortgage. We are in a much better place now, but we know that if I had not had that feeling, we would have been in trouble.”
He Never Should Have Trusted His Friend In The First Place
“My buddy used to, stupidly, sell various narcotics to just about anybody he met. I was with him once and he was giving me a ride. He asked if we could make a detour for him to make a quick sell. I said sure, so we went to meet some random guy in the middle of a casino parking lot. We sat there for an hour waiting for the guy to show up. I was getting impatient and, at the same time, started to get an uneasy feeling.
Then, the guy showed up and the feeling got even worse. The guy was obviously an undercover cop. I could tell right off the bat. Right when I was about to tell my friend we needed to get out of there, the undercover dropped the act and pulled out his weapon, along with a swat team that surrounded us.
I was 18 years old at the time and just wanted to go home. They were making jokes about how I was going straight out of high school to the ‘pen.’ Luckily, I was released when they realized I was just along for the ride and was not a dealer myself. I complied with the task force and answered their questions with the truth, so they let me go. My buddy, though – I never heard from him again. I’m assuming he did some time.”
He Was Not The Only One Awake
“I came home very late one night. My parents and sister were already asleep. The house felt funny. Dogs were barking in a strange way. I looked around and noticed that my stepmother’s car was not in the driveway, but her purse was in the kitchen. My dad’s wallet was not in its usual place. I caught someone creeping around in the backyard. The commotion woke everyone up.
The creeper was one of my sister’s friends. It turned out that her friends decided to break in, due to the fact that my parents never locked the doors and the dogs all knew them. They stole my dad’s cash and credit cards and took my stepmother’s car for a joyride. Since she drove a Toyota Corolla, I have no idea why they wanted to steal it. We found the car in the next subdivision.
But why was creeper-boy in the backyard not with his buddies? He figured he could double back and spend some ‘quality time’ with my sister. My timing was just about perfect. He ended up rolling on his buddies and getting a reduced sentence. His parents were peeved at me more for injuring their little boy than they were at him for breaking into people’s houses and stealing cars.”