Oh my god. My friends and I were doing a road trip around the US when we got lost somewhere crossing the border into southern California. We took some weird back road into the woods looking for a campsite that was on Google (we were roughing it as much as possible to be cheap), but it became super apparent that we took the wrong turn somewhere and we went deeper and deeper into the woods. It started to get dark and at this point my ex and I were like, “Let’s just go to a hotel, it’s already too dark to camp.” My friend, the driver, was convinced we were almost there and the campsites were just around the next corner and wanted to save the money.

At some point, we saw this tree across the road and the only way to keep going forward was into what looked like just a clearing where some rusted out cars were. Immediately my ex and I felt this overwhelming, hair-raising “it’s time to go” vibe and we started telling him to turn around. My friend pulled into the clearing saying something like, “No, this might be it, there’s cars parked here”. We pull into the lot and kinda do a loop, just to put the headlights on the surroundings and see what’s all there. Like I said, it’s an island of gravel, short, dry grass, and some rusted out cars in the middle of dense, mountainous forest.

My friend is juuuuuuust about to park and gloat about ‘finding the campsite’ when some feral looking dude comes barreling out of the woods like a cryptid, sprinting at the back of the car. My ex and I start screaming like loons as this dude closes the gap and my friend punches it and starts driving back down the road we came in on. The dude just stood in the road behind us with something metal (I think a pipe) and watched us go in a cloud of dust and taillights.

Absolutely HORRIFYING experience and we still have no idea what the fuck the situation was there.

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I was young and had just moved to a decent sized midwest city by myself. I didn’t know anyone so spent a lot of my time exploring by myself. There was a large park in a quiet area of town where it wasn’t unusual to be the only person around. I was sitting at the end of a very large rose garden when I noticed a tall skinny guy in a dirty wife beater and jeans standing on the outside of the garden with his dog. Something big like a Rottweiler or pitbull I don’t remember exactly. I just remember being super freaked out because he was just standing there looking directly at me.

I got up and started walking back to my car but he started walking parallel to me matching my pace. When I walked faster he did too. I got my phone and keys out and just kept walking as confidently as I could. I was parked a couple minutes away and over time his pace did slow slightly as mine got faster but I knew he was still behind me. I had a habit of unlocking my car several times with the keyfob because the car beep was satisfying. After I did so the white cargo type van parked next to me unlocked and beeped the exact same amount of times mine did.

At this point I as terrified. I backed out and raced out of the park without even looking behind me. I needed to pick up something from one of the neighborhood Walmarts on the way home so I stopped there and headed inside to calm down. The sun was still out and I’m a guy. I was young, short and slender but I still felt like that somehow protected me. I convinced myself I was being crazy and that guy just happened to be leaving the park when I did. I left the store and started walking to my car when I saw him. The white van was parked directly next to my car and he stood there at the back watching me. No dog this time. All I remember thinking is I had to get into my car because it was the only place I had any leverage. I slow motion got in, backed out, and headed back into a neighborhood where I knew I could zig zag my way around different blocks to try to lose him. I spent 10 minutes looking over my shoulder making random turns before I headed back to my apartment.

Never saw him again and to this day I still feel like I’m in a bit of denial about the whole thing. There were plenty of other cars in the parking lot. It was early evening. If he was trying to kidnap me it was a stupid place to do so. Perhaps he saw how scared I was at the park and just wanted to mess with me. Whatever the case I’ve never been so scared for my own life.

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

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

My wife just thinks im paranoid.

When I was sitting in the car, parked, engine off. And some incoming pickup pissed off the elephant and he turned towards us…

Was at school, classes were just about over, but suddenly it got dark. Like nightfall dark. So dark one after another just silently started looking outside the window. Then the sky tinted slightly green - a phenomenon that in hindsight they should tech about at school, because it usually means shit is about to go down. Teacher was like: ‘Okay, that looks really bad, pack your things, class is almost over anyway’.

I went outside with some friends. It had already started raining. Initially we wanted to wait under some roof in front of the school, thinking it was just a heavy summer shower. There were no reports on anything - no storms, nothing. But it kept. Getting. Worse.

Worse than anyone of us had ever seen, yet no signs of imrpovement. We started getting nervous. I called my mom to pick me up. She told me whem she was there, but it had already gotten bad enough that I was reluctant to step into that shit. Like, I had an umbrella, but it seemed like it wouldn’t do much at that point.

When we sensed an ever so small opening we took off. I went to the parking lot, my friends to the bus station, which was the other way. (They all lived in completely different directions, in case you’re wondering why my mom didn’t want to drive them.) Everyone covered with whatever they got. When I arrived at the car, I was wet to the bone waist downwards.

My mom drove home ultra carefully. Visibility was basically none. It was like driving through a carwash. I texted my friends, they made it to the bus. However, the bus driver was not prepared for fucking rivers and ponds forming on the streets, so eventually they go stuck and had to walk home through knees deep water.

Even those with ‘waterproof’ backpacks had their school stuff ruined - which they of course presented like war trophies the next day and probably saved them some homework they didn’t do in the first place. So yeah, that’s the story of how we witnessed, probably one of the heaviest rainfalls our city had ever seen. Monsoon-like in Germany, completely out of nowhere.

If we had waited at school, we would have been stuck there. There was some heavy damage too. Our school’s basements were flooded for example. Our school is build on a hill.

Ignored the Tornado warning, shouldn’t have.

If there’s one thing that’ll get the Lizard Brain going… it’s the only time I’ve ever felt like something deeper was telling my brain that we had to get the fuck out of here.

About 2 weeks ago, packing a few belongings and my cats into a car to evacuate from an impending flood. Didn’t know when I would be back home or what condition it would be in when I did.