Have you ever had an inexplicable feeling that something (or someone) is all wrong but you just can't explain why? And then later on you find out you were 100% right?! It's enough to make you think twice about doubting your own intuition!
These people from all around the world had exactly this experience, sometimes in life-or-death situations. They recently went online to share with us times their gut instinct told them something was wrong and that turned out to be true. It's a great reminder that you should always trust your gut!
30. Don't get in that car
Over 20 years ago when I was 17 or so, two of my buddies came to pick me up to get the night started. I got into the back seat of a Geo Storm -- if you remember those, it was a tiny car made of plastic.
As soon I sat down I had a feeling of impending doom rushing over me. I had never felt that feeling before and never felt it since. I immediately was asked to be let out with some excuse and said we would catch up later. I get out and feeling quickly fades so I go on about day.
About 2 hours later I catch up with my other friends and they immediately tell me that the two friends who came to pick me up earlier were involved in major car accident. Both were seriously hurt and in the hospital. This accident happened about 10 minutes after they tried to pick me up. They both survived.
The car did not survive though and it was struck in the passenger side rear right were I was sitting. I'm pretty positive by seeing the damage done that I would not have survived.
29. The lights go out
28. Friends know when friends are in trouble
Photo by rawpixel.com from Pexels
27. A dark little feeling
Today!
I work as an ER nurse and I took handover on a patient who had a little dizziness, a little nausea and a swollen abdomen. She was fairly bright, able to talk, nothing seemed too horrific. But she was turning a grim grey colour and breathing quickly.
Our average wait time today was two hours. I could have put her back in the line and moved on. But I had a dark little feeling that there was something sinister happening here. So I called our most senior doctor out of a consultation and asked him to see her. Right now.
Ever heard of your abdominal aorta? Enormous blood vessel that can pouch out, suddenly rupture, and make you bleed internally to death in minutes? It’s called a burst AAA (abdominal aortic aneurysm). You’ve heard of it now. That’s what she had.
I’ve never seen one before. But now I have. Within five minutes she was barely responding. Within ten her blood pressure had dropped to a barely sustainable level. Within twenty minutes I was pouring blood into her and eight people were around the bed. Within an hour she was on an operating table, clinging to life.
But because I raised the alarm, and because my team worked our butts off, that woman is still, somehow, alive. Feels good, man.
26. "The house felt funny"
25. The diamonds can't hide the truth
24. It makes you wonder
23. Copping out
My buddy used to stupidly sell various substances to just about anybody he met. I was with him once and he was giving me a ride, but 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 starting to get an uneasy feeling.
Then the guy shows up, and the feeling got even worse. The guy was obviously an undercover cop, and I could tell off the bat. Right when I was about to tell my friend we needed to get out of there, the undercover drops the act and pulls out his gun, along with a SWAT team that surrounded us.
I was 18 years old at the time and they were making jokes about 'straight outta 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. My buddy, though... never heard from him again. I’m assuming he did some time.
22. Life throws you curveballs
21. "I wish I had called, it just didn't seem that serious"
20. Braking good
Pixabay
19. This isn't anxiety
I hadn't been feeling well for a few weeks. Shortness of breath despite being pretty athletic and could feel my heart pounding. I saw my doctor who suggested anxiety, prescribed some meds, and sent me on my way.
But I just...had this feeling. A few days later I woke up and had trouble walking to the bathroom without losing my breath. 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.'
So I walked myself to the hospital and asked if it was possible I had a blood clot. Was reassured that if it was a clot in my lung there was no way I could have walked to the hospital. Convinced them to test me anyway annnnnnd it was a pulmonary embolism.
Listen to your instincts, friends!
18. Nearly crushed to death
I was with a large group of friends including my brother, and we were playing man hunt outside at night. For those who don’t know, man hunt is just like hide and seek but it’s outside and is a little more complicated.
My brother and his friend decide to go into a snowmobile trailer to hide, and I told them I’ll hide under the trailer. Little did I know, the trailer was balancing on two wheels. 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, they made the trailer unbalanced by getting inside and it crashed exactly where I had just been. There’s no doubt it would’ve killed me in seconds. I stood there in complete shock; I couldn’t believe I was so close to death.
17. When the tail stops wagging
I was letting my dog back inside. She walked right past me with no tail wagging or happy smile, walked right through the kitchen without wanting a treat, and went straight to a doggy bed. I knew something wasn't right, and within 10 minutes we were in the car to the emergency vet. She had a tumor rupture apparently, it was clear what needed to be done. Still breaks my heart.
16. It's amazing how you can tell when someone is in your space
One night while I was home alone I was feeling oddly anxious for a few hours, like every sound I heard seemed suspicious. Later while I was trying to sleep I look out my window and see someone just... standing on the sidewalk in front of our house. It's likely that he was there for a while.
Just after I notice him he comes up to the door and starts knocking, which freaks out my dog and makes him start barking, which he normally doesn't do when people come to the door. So in a panic I start heading out of the back of the house while calling my parents. At first they don't really believe it's an issue but I insist that it's not normal.
They rush home and my Dad confirms my suspicions that it was my sister's abusive ex-husband. So my Dad takes care of things and sends him on his way. He has been harassing us for quite some time, but now he's homeless so trying to get a restraining order has been a struggle.
He likely wasn't planning anything violent, but it was definitely the first time I've sensed something being wrong, and it really freaked me out just how much I felt it that night.
15. Infrequent flyer
I’m already a nervous flyer. One time I was taking a flight on American Trans Air from Phoenix to Vegas or vice versa... don’t remember. Anyway, 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.
Photo by Anugrah Lohiya from Pexels
14. "That wouldn't end well"
The highway that I take home from work had just been repaved and none of the lines were painted on yet, except for the lines in between each lane - there were no lines painted for the shoulders yet, but 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 them plenty of space, but knew that the guy on the driver's side opened his door way too wide for being next to 70+mph traffic and was walking way too close to that traffic. I immediately thought that that wouldn't end well.
I get home, and as I'm watching the news an hour later, there was a crash on that highway, at that spot I passed, involving the driver of the city truck. Someone hit him. He was dead on the scene.
They (I'm assuming his coworkers, friends, and family) 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" him.
The lines for the shoulders were painted on the next day.
13. How to save a life
12. Close call
At a club on a boardwalk with some of my buddies in Puerto Rico, I just didn't feel right. I told them we should cut out, and they fussed and moaned, but eventually we left. Before we even hit the parking lot, a massive shoot out broke out inside the club. The front door guy was shot to death, and a few of the people inside as well.
It was literal pandemonium, people screaming and running everywhere. The ride back to our place was really quiet, but we all knew we got lucky that night.
11. Intruder
I was 12 years old on vacation in Key West with my parents, two sisters, and two cousins. I was sleeping upstairs in the same room as my sisters and about 10 mins after we turned the lights out to go to bed, suddenly a terrible feeling came over me. My heart started racing and palms got sweaty. I woke my sisters up and told them that something was wrong. I didn’t know what, but I knew something was off.
Just as my sister told me to go back to bed, my cousin ran up the stairs yelling, “Uncle Richard (my dad)! Uncle Richard, someone's in the house!” At that moment, I heard someone sprint out of the kitchen door and jump the fence in the back yard (they actually fell into the pool next door...whoops). As it turned out, we were being robbed. Wallets, purses, and my dads bracelet given to him by his dad 40 years prior we’re all gone.
Thankfully no one was hurt!
Image by LeoFra from Pixabay
10. Mother's intuition
One day I went to a friend's house to play after school. I was maybe 8. Playing for an hour and my mother calls hers and says she is coming to pick me up right away and not to move. My brother had just broken his arm while staying with his father and MY father and just been carjacked and bad things run in 3's she said. I was like okay whatever play-date cut short.
The friend I was staying with was Bulgarian and a refugee and her and her mom couldn't swim so they permanently covered their pool with one of those black plastic pool covers (bought the house after it already had a pool, never used by them, etc.). Anyway about 10 mins after my mom called I realized I left my hoodie out back. As I went to grab it and I fell in the pool getting so caught up in the plastic sheeting that I couldn't move and was drowning. My friend and her mom called 911 but couldn't swim and didn't have anything to throw to me or grab me with.
My mom arrives in the nick of time, she launches herself into the pool and pulls me out using super mom strength. If she hadn't gotten a bad feeling and come I would've been dead when the paramedics showed up.
9. Inside job
I worked Loss Prevention for a major retail company. Along with catching shoplifters, I also had to watch employees for internal theft. A tip came in that the store manager was stealing electronics from a locked cage in the back room. My partner and I started watching him. The next day, our Loss Prevention manager told us that the claim was ridiculous and to focus on other things. Whenever she was not there, we continued to watch the store manager. Within a few more days, we were both fired for not meeting quota.
Mind you, we were the highest ranked Loss Prevention in the district with an average of 5 shoplifters per week, and an internal just about every month. But, based on the volume of our store, they were right.
Anyways, fast-forward about 6 months. Both the store manager and the Loss Prevention manager were both fired for internal theft, conducted at the district level. So we were right all along. We were both offered our jobs back, but at this point we had both been hired elsewhere at a higher pay and declined.
8. A hero
A long time ago, my sister had her birthday party at my parents house. It was a pool party in our backyard. My sister was probably about 8 and I was about 16 at the time. She had about 20 of her friends over and all the parents were there as well. Everybody left the backyard to go inside to sing happy birthday and have cake. I had this weird feeling after we went inside that something wasn’t right. I walked back outside in the middle of singing happy birthday. As soon as I walked outside, I noticed a little girl flailing her arms and her head was underwater.
I ran over as fast as I could and jumped in and saved her... she didn’t know how to swim and had gone outside to get a towel because she wasn’t dry yet from swimming earlier and had apparently tripped and fell in the pool.
No idea how long she was underwater, but she survived and was fine. I had never seen a mother and father cry so hard before. That memory will always stick with me.
7. A shocking revelation
My mother and her husband tried to kill me. I never told anyone, mostly because I didn't know what was in the drink. First thing that made me cautious that day was they sent me to their friend's house. Not my siblings. Just me. And they never really let me out of their sight.
Second, they gave me a flask of liquid and told me to drink only from that flask, not anything their friend offered. I got there and the friend offered me coffee as per custom and right when I refused and went to drink from the flask, I felt very uneasy, as if I had swallowed a rock. One of the kids threw a toy and it hit my hand and when the contents of the flask spilled, the smell hit me. That, and the unnaturally bright greenish/bluish stain that was now soaking into their carpet.
The friend was very alarmed and came to investigate. She then called her husband. Asked me where I got it and I said I got it from home and didn't know what was in it. She hesitated then said that it must have been a mistake. T
he other day I got some coolant for my car and the smell was identical to the contents of that flask. The color was similar to a greenish color. I also once read in Gone Girl that coolant is poisonous. So yeah they tried to kill me. That was their intention. No other explanations. I feel even more betrayed but also happy that stopped being in contact with them.
Those monsters will never be in the same room as my future children.
6. The opening scene of a horror film
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 and 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 almost alarm sounding noise. Being the horror movie victim that I am, I started walking towards 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 sort of bouncing around, looking at me repeatedly. I started to really get stressed out at this point, but pressed on.
When I got down the ramp, I looked around and saw behind it a small golf cart, which on its own 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 and 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 sort of sound again, only this time I recognized it.
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. Once I was down there near it I knew what the sound was because we used to block it in the dorms all the time waiting for friends. At this point my dog was going nuts. I put her leash over one of those parking poles to stop people from hitting things 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 9-1-1, 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, and 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 okay and would likely return to work at some point. I’m guessing he had a heart attack but I’ll never know for sure. I never saw him again.
5. Lucky stop
I was driving back from Flagstaff with my son sleeping in the back seat. It was dark and after about a 2 hour drive we were just a half mile from home. There was virtually no one on the road at all as it was pretty late, and I was coming up to a green light at an intersection. Even though the light was green, I had this uncanny feeling that I needed to stop. With no one behind me, I just stopped a bit before I got up to the intersection. Well what do you know, a U-haul comes barreling through running their red light.
It would have struck me on the drivers side and more than likely killed us. I had no reason to come to a total stop but I’m so glad I did
4. One last goodbye
I was about 8 years old and it was New Year’s Eve. My parents and sister and I were heading out to some sort of festival downtown. Our older dog was laying in my parents bedroom like she always was, but something felt off. I squeezed her and whispered in her ear “I love you” before going outside in the car.
We were all in the car bundled up ready to go when my dad had to run back inside to grab something from his bedroom. He found our dog having a seizure. She died right after.
I’m so glad I said goodbye.
3. War story
I was in eastern Afghanistan. I had been called out for a rocket that the local police had found near their compound. It was found on the bank of a steep wadi, basically like a canal or gulch. It was just sitting there with the wires to a blasting cap sticking out of the end meant to fire it. No big deal, they fired these things at a nearby base now and then.
We came to pick it up, but I wasn't about to completely half way do things. After clearing the area best we could, I wanted to remotely move the rocket in case of booby traps. The robot couldn't get to the rocket without toppling into the wadi, so I figured rope would be fine. I would say that I lassoed it, but reality is that I made a slipknot and chucked the loop in the general direction of the rocket and happened to get lucky on the first try. I spooled out enough rope to take cover nearby, then yanked the crap out it.
After waiting a solid 10 count, I poked my head out and saw that nothing had changed, the rocket was just moved around. Cool, time to pick it up and roll out. So I get down to remove the blasting cap and got a little resistance. Weird, because it should have just slid out. Then I saw some of the threading on the motor section, where someone had unscrewed it. This is not something that insurgents do, as it might mess with the propellant. Suddenly those wires are looking a lot more threatening.
I'm already on top of it and I need more information, so I just start unscrewing the crap out of the end of this rocket motor. Out falls an old cell phone connected to four blasting caps, with the two wires I saw coming out of the rocket engine instead being connected to the cell phone's antenna. The entire rocket motor was filled with homemade explosives rather than propellant. My hand was already reaching down to just yank the crap out of it when I saw that the battery had fallen off of the phone.
Just kinda froze with my hand there for a few counts before I composed myself. Fortunate thing that battery had fallen out, as there was a cell phone tower not 100 meters from my position. If the dude was watching and waiting for me to get next to it or pick it up, he screwed up because that amount of explosive would have obliterated me from the distance it took to lasso the dang thing. But it was the caution to violently tug the rocket in the first place that likely knocked the battery loose from the phone.
2. Smart kid
One day I was riding the bus home from school, probably 4th grade. I lived on the corner, and the bus always stopped right in front of my house. On this day, as we came down the hill and my porch came into view, I saw a woman and a man outside the front door. Even at that age I realized something was not right.
More back story, I was adopted. I hadn’t seen my biological mom in about 4 years at this point, but somehow, I realized that my biological mother was the one standing on the porch, and that I needed to not get off in front of the house that day.
Somehow, my bus driver missed our stop that day, and let us off one block up. I grabbed my best friend, ran up that block, down the ally, into her backyard. When her mom let us in the back, I calmly explained I need to call my mom, because I didn’t feel safe.
I stayed at my friends house until my mom came, and she ended up getting a restraining order against my biological mom.
I guess I don’t know for SURE that it would have been bad, but I’m 99% sure that I dodged a really bad situation, potentially a kidnapping.
1. Tragedy
About 3 and a half years ago I got a call at 5 am from one of my older brothers asking about our oldest brother, like if I have "heard anything from him?" Checked my messages, calls, and found nothing. I told him "Nah, he might be working". For reference, my oldest brother served with the United States Coast Guard and had weird hours and sometimes not hearing from him in 4-5 days was normal.
I tried going back to bed, but couldn't really shave off this weird almost void-like feeling from my chest. It was like if someone had ripped up something from me that I wasn't ever gonna get back. Decided not to bother anyone in my family to avoid panic or issues. Anyways, I just stayed in bed for hours since I had class at 10 am, no need to be up so early.
I wake up, make coffee, and when I grab the door my phone rings. Dad's calling. Just came out from forensics institute, identified my oldest brother's body. Died in a car accident. Worst day of my life. Still can't manage to cope with that void-like feeling I get every now and then.
