Throughout the course of our lives, everyone has experienced at least one thing that has made them scratch their head and struggle understanding how it happened. From a deja vu moment to a complete mystery of a situation, here are a few instances where people felt a full-on glitch in reality. Content has been edited for clarity.
A Class Assignment Becomes Unfortunately Practical
“I took a hard news/soft news journalism class in college where one of the assignments was to write an obituary for one of my grandparents. The professor told us to write it on a deceased grandparent, but if all of your grandparents were still alive, we had to choose one. In my case, all of my grandparents were alive. I procrastinated the assignment until the night before it was due because it seemed like a dumb assignment.
Scramming for an easy grandparent to write about, I gave my mom a call and asked her for some basic biographical information about my maternal grandfather, who was still alive.
As we were talking about my grandpa’s career, my mom couldn’t recall the name of one of the companies he worked at. She lectured me about waiting until the last minute to write the assignment because it was late — 10:30 pm my grandpa’s time. However, she said she would give him a call to see if he was still awake and be able to answer that question once my assignment was due the following morning.
When my mom called my grandpa, my grandma answered the phone in a panic. My grandma frantically explained that the paramedics had just arrived and were performing CPR on my grandpa because he had stopped breathing and passed out. My mom was able to stay on the phone with my grandma until they took my grandpa to the hospital, where he was declared dead.
In the time my mom and I had been talking on the phone about my grandpa’s ‘obituary,’ he was dying (out of the blue, at that. He had been otherwise healthy considering his age). We ended up using the obituary I wrote for that writing assignment as his actual obituary. Still freaks me out when I think about the timing.”
Multi-Dimensional Dog?
“A couple of weeks ago, my grandmother invited me and my dog Koda over for dinner. I was pretty hungry at the time, so I said okay and told her I would stop by and come eat. I got my jacket on and get ready to leave. I get my keys and grab my dogs leash to take my pup. We got in the car and drove to my grandmother’s place, which was only ten minutes away. We ended up spending a couple of hours over at my grandma’s, but when I was getting ready to leave, I couldn’t find Koda.
I searched everywhere in the backyard, in the front outside and she was still nowhere to be found. After a good hour of searching my grandma’s neighborhood, it started to get pretty dark so I decided to come back and check the next day. The next morning, I woke up to something making noise downstairs. To my surprise, it was Koda. I was beyond confused.
After feeding her and taking her out, I came back to my grandma’s house to tell her that somehow Koda was back at my place. I asked my grandmother, ‘Did I even bring her?’ and she said yes I did, I even left Koda’s leash in her living room. I then asked my grandma to watch her footage on her camera’s from last night and there was no footage of the Koda in the street or leaving the front door. But there was footage of her entering the house with me. I went home later, Koda was still there. I thought that possibly this dog might not be mine and just got into my house, so I checked her belly (Koda has a distinct black mark on her stomach) and crazy enough it is her. Still to this day, I don’t know what happened.”
“Blocked Caller”
“Back in October of 2005, I met my now wife. We had first hooked up on a Saturday night at a gig in the city and we arranged to meet again the following Wednesday night for a drink or a coffee. I remember feeling like absolute crap on the Wednesday morning after being out the night before at a bar for my birthday with my buddies drinking and getting high and whatnot. I really did want to call her and see her again but I felt so crummy that I just knew I wouldn’t make a good impression. I had no energy, looked and felt like something the cat dragged in and I just wanted to sleep.
I was really dreading calling her to postpone in case she took it the wrong way and thought I was ditching her. When my cellphone rang that afternoon I answered it automatically without really registering the number as it was on an old crappy Nokia with a green 2 inch screen. It was a girl’s voice on the line asking me did I mind if she took a rain check on our date that evening. She said she was hoping we could meet up again the following weekend instead as she was really tired from work.
Totally relieved, I said no problem at all. When we met up again on the following Friday, we got to talking and I confessed that I was glad she had postponed our date as I felt terrible the previous Wednesday. She replied that she hadn’t called me on Wednesday afternoon and that she hadn’t rain checked our initial date. She had however been expecting my call and she told me that she had just assumed I didn’t call her because I was being a jerk. She said when I actually did call her on the Thursday to arrange the date she changed her opinion and thought I was ok. My phone record showed I had accepted a call on Wednesday afternoon that lasted 3 minutes but the number came up blocked. I guess in hindsight I could have investigated further by asking the cellphone company to obtain the details of the blocked number but I didn’t really think too much about it back at the time. As time goes by, I sometimes wonder if whoever I spoke to on my cellphone on that Wednesday afternoon intervened in our lives in some way for some reason? We are married with children now and from time to time when I contemplate the event some Marty McFly crap comes into my mind. Who the heck knows? I just know it was something odd as a cod.”
The Houdini Of Rabbits?
“Last year on Father’s Day, I met my family at my parents’ house and we had a barbecue in the garden. Both of the dogs were out so we put the 2 rabbits into their pen on the grass. The pen is about 2 foot tall and 5 by 5 foot squared. After food, we walked to the pub leaving the dogs in the house and the rabbits in the pen. When we get back a couple of hours later, we headed back into the garden and notice that one of the rabbits is sitting on the roof of the pen. There were no patches of grass dug up, all of the panels, corners and chicken wire mesh were completely secure and the pen was too tall for rabbit to have jumped up. Also strange that only one of them escaped and chose to sit on the roof and not jump down to eat the nearby vegetables. Also they were both white rabbits and would have been dirty if it had dug through the soil. I cannot work out how that rabbit ended up sitting on top of its hutch completely clean and with no visible signs of of it escaped. I can only assume some sort of glitch caused it to spawn on top of the case rather than inside it.”
Must Have Been A Glitch In Time
“This happened around a month ago. I was visiting Boston for the weekend to check out a college and brought friends along as well, all 3 of us shared one 2-bed hotel room, the room came with a couch in which I slept on, and there was a desk across the room from where I slept.
Fast forward to the second day there, I’m doing homework at around 12 at night, I’m the only one in the room as my friends went to another hotel room where there were other students from my school who also were checking out the same college. Anyways, I’m the only one there, sitting at the desk doing homework, I’m in the middle of writing a sentence and something went in my eye, so I closed my eyes to try and get it out.
When I go to open my eyes again, the room is dark, I’m laying down on the couch, and one of my friends is asking me if I need a blanket. I kid you not, I have no idea how I went from doing homework on a desk to sleeping on the couch across the room
And to add to this, all my homework was done and in my book bag when I went to check it the next morning. When I got that thing stuck in my eyes, I was only just starting the homework.”
Identical Lockers
“I was in the locker room and the locker next to mine (both closed with Master locks) opened to the exact combination.
I opened the locker that wasn’t mine, and started freaking out because it was empty and I thought that everything, including my phone, wallet, and clothes, was stolen.
I was about to go to the front desk when I had this sudden urge to try out my combination on the locker right next to the one I just opened, and it turned out to be mine!
I closed the lock that wasn’t mine and figured that if no one claimed the lock within a few weeks, I would keep it for myself, as it would be really convenient to have two locks that would open to the same combination. Well, no one moved the lock, so I claimed it.
I guess the Matrix corrected the glitch because a couple of weeks later, some guy thought my locker was his, asked the front desk to clip my lock, realized that the locker wasn’t his, and left a note of explanation and a $5 for a new lock (which was pretty solid).
Just keep in mind that each Master lock combination has a set of 3 numbers, and the lock dial has 40 numbers in total. The chances of two locks opening to the same combination and being side by side are astronomically small. The stamped barcodes on the locks were actually 1 digit away from one another!”
Guardian Angel?
“I figure nobody will read this, but it has been nagging me for decades. When I was 7, I went skiing with my younger brother. It had snowed, there was a suitable hill nearby, I remember the wooden skis, etc. After some time, I had to pee. There were a lot of kids about, and adults too, out strolling for their Sunday afternoon walk. Germans did/do that. So no ducking in the bushes… and all the winter gear I had on was in the way. So I had to go home.
A shortcut across the field was the quickest way, except for the deep ditch where it intersected with the road. I tried stepping up the ditch, and kept sliding back down, my skis didn’t have good edges. I started crying, being frustrated and having to pee. I didn’t even think of taking the skis off.
Suddenly I get lifted out of the ditch, set on the snowy road, and I can still see the worsted wool overcoat and sleeve of the man that did that. I can even smell the damp wool, as I was held against him during the lift. I wiped my nose/eyes, collect my poles, and turn to thank my savior… and he is gone. There are people, but nobody wears a coat like that. No tall men. Not one way, not the other. I have a clear view for minimum 100 m (330ft) either way, and the guy was not running, and I was polite, so I didn’t wait long to say thank you.
I have been back there many times, and even measured out the distance on Google maps. There is simply no way I could have not seen the person who lifted me out of the ditch. I have literally spent hours timing people walk there – it takes most minutes to walk that corner… yet my rescuer was gone.”
“We Felt Both Impacts”
“My best friends, fiancé, and myself should be dead.
It was a rainy Friday the 13th in September. We were traveling to go to a Ren Fair. The mountain we were driving down is dangerous. One of us already lost a family member to this mountain. We are off the dangerous part, the roads are wet. I tell the driver to be careful. People drive too fast on this road.
My eyes were fixed on a turn in the road. I couldn’t hear my friends. I saw the burgundy truck come around the turn and lose control. I started screaming as I saw the part of the truck where the bed mets the cab coming right for us. We had no chance. We were heading for a T bone collision. I closed my eyes. I felt us hit the truck, the sound of cracking metal, breaking glass. Then I felt the vehicle we were in hit the side of the mountain. I opened my eyes as the truck drove off.
We pulled off the road expecting the front end to be gone. The only damage me could find was the driver’s side door mirror hit the window so hard the mirror fractured and feel off.
All four of us, felt both impacts. We thought we were going to die. We all realize we are living on borrowed time.
This is not the first time death has failed to take me or those I was with.”
Sibling Connection
“A few years ago I woke up in the middle of the night, and completely unable to get back to sleep, which never happens to me. After trying to go back to sleep for some time, I felt bored and decided to prank my little brother on his sleep. I was intending to place the iPad screen in front of him with a very scary picture of a face and then waking him up. I was in the living room browsing on the iPad and decided it would be the doll from the Saw horror movie on fullscreen, although I never watched it and neither my brother at that time.
I chose a good picture of the doll, opened it on fullscreen and all of a sudden a door opens and my brother walks out of his bedroom, rubbing his eyes as he lost his sleep as well, telling me he had a nightmare ‘of the doll from that horror movie.’ As he finished saying it, I startled and speechlessly turned the iPad screen to him, watching him scream and running away fast to our parents’s bedroom.
I stood there astounded, with a blank gaze in my eyes thinking about what just had happened and what the heck is wrong with me.”
“We Were Unsettled”
“I lived in a dead steel town. Buildings were put up somewhat haphazardly. If you imagine your typical suburban block, imagine instead of a backyard you had another house or two. It was kinda cramped.
My mom, grandma, brothers and I lived in the two-story duplex at the front of the property. It’s more-or-less a traditional house, unlike the building on the back of the property. That one was three stories tall, and is basically a large above ground ‘basement’ and shed with two stories of apartments on top. the buildings were maybe 15 feet apart from one another.
Anyways, my uncle ‘rented’ the middle apartment for a few year. Sold ‘things’ from it, got addicted to ‘things’ in it, fell out of a stable relationship into one with a junkie. Went from being reasonably well off to losing the grip on his life. He ended up moving in with us after the city had to cut off water to the back apartment for some infrastructure issue, and my grandma had them cut the power as well.
About two months into living there again, I’m up late and I smell a bit of smoke, which is nothing unusual. My uncle was always up late, usually high, doing something in the kitchen. Turns out this time he passed out with grease on the stove. We didn’t know that at the time, but as I got up to check on the smell, my grandma screamed for everyone to get out of the house. We didn’t know where he was but the fire stopped us from getting to his room.
A couple cops showed up after I tried hooking up a hose from the shed to a spigot, which was unfortunately tied to the back houses now-defunct water line. I suggested breaking the window to his room but the cops said the air might fuel the fire, and it was best to leave it alone. We tried banging on it and shouting for my uncle but didn’t know he had OD’d at that point. Out of ideas, I woke up my friend from across the street and we watched from his porch as the fire trucks arrived.
My uncle died. He was alive when they found him, but he died later at the hospital due to smoke inhalation. Even had he survived, this particular OD was pretty bad and he would most likely have suffered some permanent issues from it.
Anyways, the house was well enough off to be gutted and refitted. It was about a year later that my mother, I forget what she was doing, noticed that there was a light on in my uncle’s old apartment. Given his history, we assumed it was some kids or his old junkie friends squatting or lighting up. We call the cops and the same initial responders from the fire show up. They cautiously go up the stairs, peek in the windows, knock, and shout without a sign from anyone. Sure enough, no one’s there.
They tell my grandma and mom who are still confused to the source of the light. The power’s been cut for a couple years, after all. We go up there with the cops and find that the ceiling light in the living room is on which doesn’t make sense. We flick the switch and nothing happens. My grandma and mom start to freak out which unsettles the cops, especially the one that had a few run ins with my uncle. We leave and watch the apartment for a couple more hours until the light cut out. Didn’t fade- just turned off.”
An Uninvited Guest
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“When I was about 12 years old, I had an experience with someone who can only be reasonably explained as a lost time traveler or spooked burglar.
I was sitting on my computer which was right by the sliding glass doors leading to my backyard. Out of the corner of my vision, I saw a strangely familiar man standing by the short gate, looking at me. I lived in a townhome community so there was a path connecting all the backyards; it wasn’t uncommon to see other people back there. For some reason being observed didn’t bother me as much as it should have. So I shrugged it off and went back to playing my computer game.
In my peripheral vision, I noticed movement and saw that the man was about halfway into my backyard now. Every time I looked at him, he seemed to freeze. I got a better look at him this time and while he looked extremely familiar, there was something deeply disturbing about the look in his eyes. I could only describe it as dark. Clearly the only logical thing to do at this point was to go back to playing my game so that’s what I did.
The next time I casually looked out into my backyard, he was right by the glass door staring directly down at me. He didn’t look particularly menacing then, more so like a man deeply perplexed by what he was seeing. Well at that point, I felt that it was too late for me to try to get away from the window because he was literally directly across the glass (less than a foot) away from me. So in my most ballsy power move to date, I looked him right in the eyes, smiled a bit, and went back to playing my game.
This deeply unsettled him and he started to quickly back away while still looking in my general direction. When he left, I just went back to playing my game and didn’t even mention it to anyone until years later.
Sometimes I wonder what would’ve happened if I acted any differently.”
In The Blink Of An Eye
“I left work at 8:39 pm. My home was about 30 miles away.
I hoped on my motorcycle and got on the road. Just as I got into the access ramp, I blinked heavily to avoid being blinded by a passing truck… then I opened my eyes found myself on a completely different place that I could not recognize, motorcycle still going at a decent speed.
The highway that takes me home was accompanied by the usual urban landscape. I was sitting in the middle of a small road with woods around me. I felt stiff and cramped as if I had been riding for miles non-stop, and my helmet was gone from my face.
The helmet wasn’t the only thing missing, once I stopped I realized my jacket, wallet, my backpack and my shirt were all gone (was riding in my tank-top). The clothes I had left were stained with mud and torn in a few places, and I had a dozen small cuts and bumps on my forearms and hands. Also my knuckles and wrists hurt as sin.
I pulled up google on my phone and found that I had gone almost 136 miles in the opposite direction I was supposed to take. I had left at 8:39 pm, it was now 4 am. I had no idea how I got there, where my stuff went, how I had refueled the motorcycle on the way, and why I didn’t remember a single part of it.
My bike was running on fumes and died a few miles later, still in the middle of nowhere. I ended up having to call the cops to be rescued given the circumstances, who were just as puzzled as I was, but in the end all I got was a tow for my bike and a ride to the hospital.
The cuts on my arms? Doctor said it looked like the scratches someone gets from either rock climbing or being around thorns. Two knuckles on my right hand were fractured, and I had dislocated my index finger on the left hand (it had partially snapped into place). The bike had no damage to it whatsoever, so I ruled out auto-accident or falling off. Only supposed explanation is that at some point I got off the bike and decided to play Rambo in the woods, then went boxing with a tree.
It was weird as heck. Doctor figured I entered some kind of induced hypnosis or vogue state due to stress and instinct made me follow the road. I don’t feel this explains it at all, because it still doesn’t explain how I managed to refuel the bike, where my stuff went, and where had my 8 hours gone.
I never figured out anything about this incident, since nothing really bad happened to me (despite the fact someone tried to use my missing credit card to pay for $50k worth of crap).”