Ever been in a situation where something feels off, but it's not quite clear what? It's happened to a lot of people, getting an eerie feeling something sinister is about to take place. Most of the time, it's nothing, and everything's okay. However, there are sometimes when it's not.
People on Quora share the scary gut-feeling that turned out to be true. Content has been edited for clarity.
She Knew What The Bad Feeling Was
“I was at school, in the campus library on my computer. I was trying to distract myself from the icky feeling in my stomach, the same feeling that kept me on edge all day. My anxiety was spiking, and I couldn’t help but feel so scared.
I just couldn’t put my finger on what it could have been. It was driving me crazy and I tried to think of what it could be. So I mentally went through a mental checklist to try to figure it out.
It couldn’t be about my family, they were safe at school and work. I was just texting my dad, mom, and sister and they seemed okay.
I went through a dozen more things but they just didn’t add up. It was eating me up inside and I continued to feel scared. This went on for a couple more hours, me still sitting there, stewing. Eventually, it was time to go home, and at this point, I managed to calm myself down before I got in the car to go home. I got home safely and then went inside my home to my family. We greeted each other, shot the breeze and went over dinner plans for that night, which included going to the local pizza joint not too far from our house. Everyone was excited to hear that, with me feeling a little sick. You see, I get nauseous when I get anxious and usually can’t eat on top of it. I wasn’t too excited to go but was coaxed by others to join. And I did. One short car ride later, we were at the pizza joint. My dad ordered and then we were seated. We all filled up our drinks and sat down.
I wasn’t my usual chatty self and my parents picked up on real quick. They asked me if I was okay, which I replied meekly I was. They didn’t believe me but left it at that. Our food came, we ate, but I just nibbled it. I wasn’t hungry and there was that nagging feeling there that I just couldn’t enjoy myself. I was still trying to figure out what’s wrong. I tried to keep my mind off of it, but my mind keeping wondering back to the feeling.
Everyone finished their meal and off we went to the car. I was feeling a little better after getting some food in me and I didn’t feel too bad, but the feeling was still there. Fast-forward to everyone at home, just got in the driveway not out of the car just yet. I was in the way back seat, waiting for the front seat people to get out so I can get out but something was stalling them. I leaned forward trying to figure out what the hold up was, only to see that someone was blocking the door on their side. They couldn’t get out.
The person turned out to be our neighbor Mr. P, a military man that lived two houses down to the right of our house. My dad sees him, smiles, and opens the door, still in his seat. Not even the moment he gets that door open that Mr. P gets straight to the point.
‘Your neighbor, Grant, two houses down from you on your left is dead. He fell off from a high up spot and hurt himself badly.’
Grant Fielding was one of the most wide-eyed, passionate people you could ever meet. He had a very strong testimony and was our Sunday school teacher for the youth, making him one of the people that we liked to be around. To hear he passed away so suddenly was horrible and everyone in the car was shocked to silence.
My mom was the first to break the silence, quietly asking how he knew that.
Mr. P laughed and said ‘My wife is the Relief society’s president. I know these things.’
My parents forced a smile and continued to talk quietly between Mr. P and themselves, leaving the rest of us kids still in the back of the car, shell shocked and more than a little upset.
I was a little shaken, wondering how in the world I didn’t know of it sooner. Then it did hit me.
I did know.
The whole day, sick to my stomach with worry was because of this moment. My neighbor was dead and the whole day was leading up to this sick reveal. Sure I was in pain from all the worry, but Grant had a wife and family at home. I couldn’t fathom what they were feeling then, probably much more grief and sadness. I still feel upset when I think of it and I keep his family in prayers often.”
“Just Remember The Feeling Getting Worse”
“I was 18. My boyfriend and I were at his house hanging out watching a movie. We had separate plans that night, he was going to his friend’s house and I was going to go pick my best friend up and head out to play pool.
During the movie, I started getting this weird feeling. I was nervous, but I told myself I didn’t have any reason to be nervous, I wasn’t going to do anything I shouldn’t. I don’t remember the movie, I just remember that feeling getting worse as the movie went on, and the time for us to leave came closer. I ended up thinking that this terrible feeling meant something was going to happen to my boyfriend. I told him about the feeling, I made him promise me he wouldn’t go anywhere. He promised he would stay home. When I went to leave, I still didn’t feel right but convinced myself that everything was fine, he was staying home.
I headed out to my friend’s house. I had my Honda all done up with a body kit that was put on a month earlier. I get to my friend’s house, her driveway is a hill, I can’t go down it without scraping the body kit. So like every other time I get her, I pull over to the right as far as I can with my blinker on. It was dark out so my lights were on as well as my brake lights since I had my foot on the brake. She was waiting for me so when I pulled up she made sure no one was coming and crossed the street. She got in and shut the door.
I looked in my rearview mirror, and I saw headlights coming at us fast. Next thing I know, someone is banging on my window. I open my eyes and see my friends moms face, she heard the crash and came running up the driveway to the road. My friend was ok, but my side of the car got a direct hit. I was parked, the oncoming car was going 60, it was an old Buick. Built like a tank. The girl admitted she wasn’t paying attention. My rear end was crushed, the front end was messed up from being pushed into a guardrail that was up ahead, the frame was bent. I hurt my neck, my back, as well as my right ankle. I bruised my ribs from the seatbelts. Physical therapy 3x a week for months.
So I had the gut feeling, but assumed it was for him, not me.”
All It Took Were A Fews Words To Ruin Him
“Years ago, before cell phones, I returned from home from a mandatory teacher’s workshop to find a half-eaten sandwich in the kitchen. The New York City apartment was empty, yet my husband was usually home. It was the sandwich that gave me a strange gut feeling. My husband, though not a neat man, was fastidious about putting dishes and washing up after himself. I’d never seen him leave half-eaten food on the counter.
As I walked through the apartment, the gut feeling I had intensified. I entered the bedroom and noticed the red light on the message machine blinking. I pressed the button and a woman’s voice boomed through the room,
‘This is the United Federation of Teachers. Your husband has been arrested. Please call your local precinct.’
I honestly thought the call was in error. My husband was a post-doctoral research fellow whose biggest offence was drinking tea. I’d often complained that he was way too boring. So what possibly could have happened?
I called my local precinct and asked if my husband was there.
‘Just a minute,’ an officer replied.
As I waited, I heard a clanking sound across the phone line, reminiscent of a jail cell door. My husband came on the line.
‘Some woman followed me home and said I tried to stab and hurt her,’ he claimed.
‘Can I come to the precinct and bail you out?’ I asked, figuring it would be like the TV shows I’d watched.
‘No, she has a long list of charges against me. I can’t get out of here.’
He ended up being shuttled to multiple precincts through the night before ending up at Central Booking at Whitehall Street. I was given a docket number and waited the next day at court, but his number wasn’t called.
The backstory here was that we lived in Washington Heights during the Crack era. An addict had gotten into the elevator with my husband and had tried to push her way into our apartment when he unlocked the door. He’d shoved her out of the way before entering, but she’d banged on the door,
‘You’re a dead man,’ she told him.
She’d then gone downstairs and told the doorman the dude in 12G had tried to hurt her and could she call the police.
‘Sure,’ the door woman happily obliged, never questioning what this woman was doing intruding on private property.
By the time this got to court, the D.A. explained to the judge my husband would have to have been an octopus to simultaneously try to hurt, stab, physically assault and attack her.
‘I understand,’ said the judge. ‘But the charges you’ve placed before me are very serious. How can you put these before me and then ask me to dismiss them? I have to go by what I see in front of me.’
So said the judge as she ordered my husband to be held until released on $3000 bail.
The case was later dropped because the lady never showed up to cooperate with the authorities. She was already known to them as she’d been involved in multiple cases. It was nothing to her to fling out accusations and destroy someone else’s life when she didn’t get her own way
My husband apparently did not trust his gut when he saw this lady acting strangely in the lobby. He got in an elevator with her and the rest is history.”
“I Wasn’t Sure What To Say”
“My husband and I were away on a trip, and our older kids were holding down the fort. About 5:00 in the morning, I sat straight up out of a dead sleep with one terrified thought: something was wrong at home.
My husband had been married to me for over 20 years and knew better than I did to never question when I got that instinct. He handed me the phone to call. I wasn’t sure what to say.
‘Just call. You’ll figure it out,’ he responded.
The overwhelming feeling that something was very wrong wouldn’t let up. I called our daughter. She laughed and said everything was fine. I asked her to humor me and just go check. She said kids were asleep, so I asked her to go check the kitchen. Still chuckling at me she checked the stove and oven and declared them turned off. She looked about the rest of the kitchen until she turned in the direction facing the front doors. We have a large arctic entry so there are two front doors on each side of it so we come in from the cold and close one door and then open the second door to come to the house.
‘Oh my God!’ She cried out, and the phone went dead. I frantically tried calling back.
When she finally answered again, she told me both doors were wide open, so she called her Marine brother to come down from the upstairs apartment and he raced down. He did a security sweep of the house then the perimeter where he found evidence of a bear on each side of the house. We think the door was slightly ajar, and the bear just pushed the doors open and started to come into the house until the phone rang.”
Always Trust Your Gut
“Last year, my mother decided to take me to a small but quiet and peaceful summer resort. On the third day of our vacation, my mother and I were waiting at the bus stop. For some reason, that day I left my phone at the hotel and my mother’s phone was not working properly. We had nothing on yourselves but beach stuff.
The vehicle was supposed to arrive at 5:10 pm but there was no trace of it. It turned almost 6 pm, nothing was happening yet and the sun was beginning to settle. We got seriously worried because it was our only way of transportation. Not to mention the bus stop was pretty creepy. The place was giving me a terrifying vibe and I just wanted to escape from there. I had the feeling that something is seriously wrong at this place. Thank god we weren’t all alone, there were two other elderly women and a girl who couldn’t have been older than 17 at the time. They left a few minutes later.
As our bus seemed to have disappeared into thin air and we were getting upset, a man approached us. He said he worked as a taxi driver for the resort. I knew he wasn’t lying, I’d seen his colleagues earlier. He offered to drive us to the village where our hotel was. Something in me was screaming to not go with him, but I thought I was overreacting. My mother gladly agreed since we were already fed up with waiting. The voice inside me was getting louder and louder. The moment we got up and started walking to his car, I froze.
It was like someone was screaming right into my ear. I had this pain in my chest, I began to sweat, fear had gone through all of my body. At this point, I realized what it was.
I whispered to my mother, ‘Mom please, I don’t want to go please, I beg you, the bus will be here soon I can wait, please.’
I noticed how it hit her as if she just realized the danger of going into a stranger’s car with her teenage daughter. She apologized to the man and told him we changed our mind. He was visibly angry with us, he tried to persuade us to get into the vehicle. The driver was so furious with us, he attempted to grab my arm but I backed off quickly.
I said to him, ‘We’ll be okay sir, thank you for your offer. We’d rather take the bus, to enjoy the view. Don’t you take it’s pretty at sunset?’
Somehow, that managed to convince him or he simply realized we were not going anywhere so he just walked away.
Fortunately, our bus arrived just 10 minutes after this strange encounter. We made it back to the hotel, alive and well. Two days after, I went to the bar as usual to get something to eat and I saw the receptionist. She asked me if I’m enjoying my stay, to which I replied that I’m loving it, except for one weird experience that happened two days prior.
She was shocked by what I told her, and after a short pause, she said, ‘How did this man look, do you know his name or his taxi number?’
Of course, I didn’t have the slightest idea and I was wondering why the heck she was asking me about this. She pulled out her phone and typed in something and showed me an article that read, ‘Local taxi driver accused of murdering two teenage girls.’
The article was from one day ago, meaning this man went for those girls on the same night we refused his services. I never told my mother, I didn’t want her to blame herself for the rest of her life. Had it not been for my strong intuition, I would not be alive today.”
“Felt Like I Was Going To Faint”
“Many years ago, I used to bartend. There was this guy, that would come in who would give me the creeps. He had long red hair and really pale skin and he’d come every day at lunch and just stare at me.
One day, he comes in and says, ‘Can I ask you something?’
I said sure what? And he pulled out this weird picture from a magazine of some lady in lingerie and asked if that would be a good gift for someone. I just shrugged and said, I would just let a lady pick out her own lingerie and get her flowers and chocolates if you really like her. It gave me the creeps so bad.
Later, my mom came in to visit me. She seemed upset and I asked her what was wrong. She said the night prior she had a nightmare about a guy that asked me to come to his apartment to cut his hair. I went and he asked if I could cut it in the bathroom. So he sat on the toilet and as I started to cut his hair he started to stab me and I died on his bathroom floor.
I assured her I was fine but said, just to be safe, what did this man look like. She said he was a white guy with long red hair. A shiver ran down my spine.
So as my mom and I were sitting there talking, guess who walks in!
My mom looked up and said, ‘That’s him! Please tell me you will never ever let yourself be alone with this guy.’
I promised her I wouldn’t.
So as the night went on, my mom left and he asked me out on a date and said, ‘Would you be able to come to my house for something? I need a favor.’
I literally felt like I was going to faint. I never asked him what the favor was, and politely said no.
I had a wonderful friend that would always hang out when I was bartending. I told him what happened and he said he’d keep an eye on him and wouldn’t leave the bar at all until we had closed and I was on my way home.
So closing time came, and the guy had left and I was so relieved. My friend stayed to help me clean up the bar. He went to take the garbage out and saw the guy crouched down beside the dumpster. He continued to throw the garbage into the dumpster and acted like he didn’t see the guy. He came inside and called 911 right away.
The police came and found him. I am not sure after that what happened. I don’t know if he got arrested, or they just talked to him, or why he was there or what he was planning on doing. I never heard anything further and never saw him again.”
She’ll Always Treasure That Phone Call
“My sister and I have always been exceptionally close. Throughout our lives, we had episodes that felt almost psychic, where we each knew when the other was in trouble. In January, she called me out of the blue, during working hours. She said she was between meetings and just wanted a chat. We had a lovely chat and laughed together over silly things. When she had to go we said ‘love you,’ and hung up. I said to my husband that there was something wrong. He’d been party to the conversation via Bluetooth in the car, and he said she’d sounded brighter than she had in a while. She’d been very tired the last time we’d seen her. However, as happy as the call had been, I had that same sense of foreboding.
Less than a week later I received a call from her at 10 pm. I knew something was wrong because she was always in bed by that time. I answered with trepidation, only to be gently told that it was my sister’s brother-in-law on the phone. He was calling to let me know that my little sister was gone. She’d got home from work, with a mild headache so went to lie down. Four hours later, her partner found her, but she was gone. The post-mortem didn’t offer any answers, so her death has been put down to Sudden Adult Death. I will never forget that last call from her. It’s like she knew her time was limited and wanted to make sure she left on a nice note.”
“Felt It In My Gut”
“I was a rotten teenager (girl), by most standards. I was around 14 years old or so, when I discovered that hitch-hiking was an exciting way to get around the big city that I lived in. Of course, I had an equally “rotten” best friend that joined forces with me and we would frequently skip school and take off ‘hitching for the whole day.
One windy, rainy day we were on the far side of the city, trying to make our way back towards home. It was getting to be dusk outside and we were in an industrial area, without many cars. I had a terrible, dark feeling that went through my whole body. I felt it in my gut… we were in for a ‘bad ride.’
After walking several miserable blocks, a sedan pulled over and backed up for us. The guy cracked his window and said for one of us to get in the front and the other in the back, on his side. My friend, Laura, jumped in the back so, I was stuck getting in the front. This guy had a messed up face, lots of scars, big crooked nose, and dark glasses. The car was gross, and I could smell his foul body odor and his long, black, greasy hair was half in his face and half in a ponytail that went halfway down his back.
As he took off with us, he said, ‘You girls are going to a party with me tonight. You know that, don’t you?’ Then he was laughing to himself and shaking his head. I started to tell him that we only need to go a few more blocks.
‘SHUT UP! You stupid, little brat!’ he screamed at me.
Wow, he was insane with anger. Then terror set in when I realized there were no handles on our doors. He took a sharp right down an ally between warehouses and began to weave down a few more; a very dark area. I could see the butt of a weapon tucked under his right thigh. It was all in slow motion now, we both knew we had to do something, or he would kill us. I could see Laura lighting a smoke, I reached through my right pocket and slowly inched my knife out. Just as Laura lit his ponytail on fire with a lighter, I plunged the knife, with full force, into his thigh. He let out a horrible noise and crashed the car into a fence. He frantically opened his door and fell onto the ground by the car, with his hair smoking, still screaming in pain. We piled out of the car behind him, rolled over him, and got up and ran. We got away from him and never knew what became of him after that.
The terrible gut feeling that I had that night, over 40 years ago, helped me to prepare to save my life. It scares me to think of what could’ve happened and how much danger I’d put myself in. That was the end of my hitch-hiking.”
Good Thing She Trusted Her Gut
“When I was young and was working my first serious job, I chose to ride the bus for work. At the main bus depot where I waited to catch the bus home after work every evening, I made some friends and casual acquaintances that I would chat with before my bus arrived. During the first summer I worked that job, my hours shortened, so I made a new set of acquaintances. There were other regulars that would come through to change buses or wait that I eventually started to recognize. One of these resembled one of my friends, enough so that if you saw them from the back you would have to pause and look hard to realize which of them it was.
However, something about this fellow bothered me, enough that I avoided contact with him. He just seemed to have a black aura to him actually made me afraid of him. So I was always very careful when looking for my friend in the evening crowd to be sure it wasn’t this other guy instead before making contact.
Years later, a young manager and teen worker were murdered at a fast-food restaurant on the east-southeast side of my hometown. Less than two months later he robbed another fast-food restaurant not far from the first, and shot three employees to death and stabbed another multiple times. The stabbed person played dead until he left and survived, barely. The robber used the money he got to buy himself a used car, then used the car to drive an hour northwest of town and kidnapped and murdered two young women from another restaurant there, in April.
He was arrested because he went to the home of a former supervisor who had fired him from yet another fast food restaurant to ask for his job back, but then pulled a knife on him. That man got inside and locked him out and called police. He was convicted on multiple counts of murder and scheduled to be executed numerous times but kept receiving stays. He died from complications of pneumonia while still awaiting execution in 2013.
He was the man from the bus stop that bothered me so much. His name was Paul Dennis Reid, Jr., and he maintains the record to this day as the person convicted of the most murders ever, seven, in my home state.”
“I Think He’s Looking At Us”
“My spouse and I had just purchased a new home in an adorable neighborhood.
We were on one of our many Home Depot trips. While my husband was loading up the cart with mulch, this guy comes up to me and asks me a question. The way he is speaking, I can’t understand him. I can’t even tell what language he is speaking.
I say loudly ‘I’m sorry, I don’t work here.’
Then I walked away.
As I’m looking at flowers, I notice this guy is staring at me while pretending to look at mums. When I move around the store, he is drifting after me while pretending to browse. At this point, I’m thinking I’m overreacting, but I’m just going to keep a closer eye on this guy. I get in line with my husband. The man moves to the mum display and is continuing to stare at us.
I tell my husband, ‘Don’t look, but there is some weird guy over there.’
My husband asks me what I mean and I say, ‘I think he’s looking at us.’
As we pay and walk to our car, I see the guy shadow us and hide behind a tall plant display, blatantly staring at us from between the plants.
Now I’m freaked, so I tell my husband to get in right away and lock the doors. As soon as we get in the car, this dude sprints through the parking lot to his car. I see clearly which car he gets into. I tell my husband not to drive yet, and to wait for this guy to leave the parking lot. Minutes go by and it’s clear he’s not leaving. I direct my husband to pull out but not to leave. As soon as we pull out, the guy reverses his car and pulls out. We drive partially up a row. He drives partially up a row. We circle the lot. So does he. It’s confirmed: he’s trying to follow us home. Now my husband is freaked out too, and so he does a fancy maneuver to cut the car off on the way out of the parking lot and block him and then speeds out of another exit. We jump on the highway and we drive around for a bit until we’re sure we’ve lost him.
While I never heard of any crimes committed by someone matching the description of the guy who followed me, that is not unusual since I don’t watch or read local news. We are convinced my keeping an eye on this guy’s behavior saved us from something horrible.”