I know being a longtime UM viewer (especially on the crime and missing person cases) made me vigilant about locking doors, watching my back in almost any situation. Everytime I go up to an ATM I think of Matthew Chase.

As far as specifics though...once in 1995 when my mom was late coming home from work (she sometimes stayed at the office late, that day I called and didn't get an answer). Since she wasn't home by about 20 minutes later, I got a little worried and couldn't help thinking about seeing my townhouse on an episode.

"Orangevale California, 7pm. A typical suburban neighborhood. What happens when a woman doesn't return home from work at the usual time?"

Also in '02 or 03 I was working at a Blockbuster Video for the opening shift one day, when the manager for the day was late (it turned out the guy had a power outage and overslept). I got to the store and was really worried, calling a couple friends who worked there while I was waiting outside, but at the time nobody knew. Meanwhile customers were showing up, many of them confused and a couple angry, lol. It was just me and him who were scheduled to work that day, so no one else was there.

That was the perfect setting for a UM Stack voiceover intro: "Opening time. The store was abandoned, the manager...no h-where to be found." :lol:

There was one time where I went walking from a bar to a McDonald's (literally right down on the same street, about a five minute brisk walk) and got some food and ate at the restaurant. When I was walking back to the bar a car pulled up with a black man in his late 40's early 50's and a young black woman mid-20's early 30's asking me for cigarettes. They both got out and stood with one foot on the ground, and one foot in the car and asked me if I had any smokes, to which I told them I didn't smoke and then started to continue my walk. That's when the guy said something else and I just kept walking and then he said, "Come on man I'm talking to you" but it wasn't in an angry tone it was almost kind of disappointed, and that's when the woman got out and tried in her most sincere voice to ask me to come back towards them (I was probably about 10-15 yards away from them at this point) and to see if I knew where a particular highway was...the highway (which is really just a busy road that connects Baltimore to Annapolis) was literally DIRECTLY PARALLEL to the road I was walking and its the most travelled road in the entire town...everything is on this road and it was in crawling distance from where I was walking so I figured something fishy could have been going on. I kind of laughed (thinking it was a pretty dumb question) and told them something like, "It's literally right there" and pointed and then turned to keep walking and that's when she asked if I had any cigarettes and I told them again I don't smoke and something to the effect of I was done with them and kept walking when they finally got in their car and left. I'm assuming they figured I was drunk being that I was walking down a fairly busy road in the direction of a bar and that they were planning to rob me. Why else would the woman want me to come closer to them just for directions? They were acting very strange and their body language was kind of odd so I thought maybe they were high/and or drunk and maybe I was just overreacting about the whole thing. But the fact that they both got out of the car kept nagging me...I guess I could have called police but didn't think it was worth bothering them being that the people left and didn't make any attempt to come back, but for the rest of the night I kept playing out my re-enactment in my head thinking I could have been an unsolved mystery.

I've posted this experience in another thread. one morning I had to be at work a little bit early. as was my custom I usually sat there listening to my car's CD player before walking into the main building. as I was about get out and go inside a car pulled directly behind me blocking me in. I became scared.

With a sigh of relief I realized it was a Taxi. but I got creeped out as I wondered why was it just sitting there? I wondered if I should stay in the car or make a run for it. because of the angle of the Taxi I couldn't see who was in it or what they were doing. I sat there for a moment contemplating what to do. after a few minutes I decided this was silly. just go to work.

As I was about to open my door someone pounded on my window. it was a co worker asking what's up? needless to say I was terrified. the Taxi was rudely just idling there because it was early for a pickup. before my Co worker scared me to death I imagined a Stack voiceover.... "A 26 year old man... was early for work one morning... never.... to be seen again." :lol:

Oh I think I would've been creeped by both those examples too.

TheCars - sounds like those people probably were either drunk or just a little off, but that's smart to just keep walking. They sound like they just stepped out of a UM robbery segment, what other reason would they have to want you to come closer, so I think I'd have done the same thing. I always get a little suspicious of demanding people in a situation like that too. I don't smoke either and I cringe when I get someone asking me "Hey got a cigarette man?" or something.

BTW I dig your username - they're one of my favorite 80s bands. :)

OrangeSody - that's a perfect UM intro, your friend banging on the window would've made me jump too! It's ingrained in me to look for the nearest escape route. Heck I don't even like it in the supermarket when I get boxed in by shopping carts in an aisle. :lol:

Last spring (Spring of 2009) I was walking home from school. The block was quite and abandoned.
There was an older man, maybe in his '60s. I observed him bend over in his car (backseat) picking up something, with relative ease. As I came closer to him, he asked if I could come and bend over and pick up something--I think he had said he had lost change--in the back seat. I noted that he had in his hand some kind of pipe or solid sort of object--I forget exactly.

Somehow, immediately I felt very suspicious--something inside me told me, 'Don't do it' and this image in my mind of me bending over to pick up the change and him slamming the bar over my head and stuffing me in the back of his car flashed through my mind. I said, politely, "Sorry, sir, I'm busy--I've got to go." and he said something like, "It'll only take a minute" and I repeated, "I'm sorry, I don't have the time" and kept walking.

What drove me off was the fact that I had seen him bending and picking up stuff from the back of the car with ease. It made me suspicious that just a moment later he'd ask me to bend and pick something out of the back of the car when he himself could do it with ease, plus the fact that he had a bar of some sort in his right hand--A good hand to use if you want to strike someone over the head with it, I'd imagine.

I have two that really freak me out.

1. In the spring of 2009, I was preparing to go on a run on a trail that runs directly on top of a levee and ends at a small, three-lock dam that controls the Little Tennessee River's flow into Ft Loudon Reservoir. It's not unusual to see a number of people's vehicles in the parking lot as there's a nearby affluent community where a lot of retirees lives, and they're always out walking the trail. This day, however, I was the only one who parked in the lot at the end of the trail.

I had gotten out of my car and was stretching when I saw an older model maroon Chevrolet pull up about 500 yards across from my parking lot beside a women's restroom. I couldn't see the man who was driving very well, but I could see enough to know he was attempting to peer around the corners of the building, almost as if he were looking for someone. I was slightly suspicious but thought nothing of it as he pulled away and continued towards the boat ramp. I had finished stretching by the time I noticed he had circled the ramp parking lot and was coming back towards my direction. I froze where I was when I noticed he was craning his neck to try to look at me--it was almost as though he was "staring me down." He began to make his way towards the trailhead parking lot when I got back in my car, locked the doors, and turned on my ignition. By the time I was backing out of my space, he passed behind me back in the direction of the boat ramp lot he'd come from, still staring at the back of my car--and I mean, he looked behind him when he had already passed by, driving forward. For whatever reason, he never followed me out of the area. But I remember being incredibly pissed off that I should be made to feel afraid for my own safety in the middle of the afternoon.

2. When I was living in Hawaii with my then-boyfriend (who was an active duty Army officer stationed there), we didn't live in the absolute safest area on the island, but we weren't in certain danger everytime we ventured out either. I was in our sliver of a front yard with my dog one afternoon when a man came walking down the street about 800 yards away from me. He had a clear view of me and our house. The moment I saw him I immediately became uneasy for reasons I can't explain--it was something about the way he moved. Anyway, as soon as he caught sight of me he began to stare, and stare, and stare. I took it as him "checking me out", to which I never look away when it's unwelcome--I stare back and let the individual see the look of displeasure on my face, although it's never anything blatant. Apparently that was the wrong answer, because soon he had stopped in his tracks and was beginning to turn to face me. At this point I actually picked my dog up, went around the back way into the house where he couldn't see me, and began to run to lock all the doors. I ran into the backroom where we kept a medium caliber handgun and loaded a magazine into it. I came back into the living room, ducked under a window, and peered out from behind a curtain to see if he was still there. He was. He was still staring at the house. After about 20 seconds, he continued down the street. I didn't leave the house again until my boyfriend got home from work. I never saw the man again the entire time I was there. But it was the strangest encounter I have ever experienced. Just typing about it gives me chills. He had no expression on his face.

BTW I dig your username - they're one of my favorite 80s bands. :)

I have their logo tattooed on my arm...all time favorite band.

I have two that really freak me out.

1. In the spring of 2009, I was preparing to go on a run on a trail that runs directly on top of a levee and ends at a small, three-lock dam that controls the Little Tennessee River's flow into Ft Loudon Reservoir. It's not unusual to see a number of people's vehicles in the parking lot as there's a nearby affluent community where a lot of retirees lives, and they're always out walking the trail. This day, however, I was the only one who parked in the lot at the end of the trail.

I had gotten out of my car and was stretching when I saw an older model maroon Chevrolet pull up about 500 yards across from my parking lot beside a women's restroom. I couldn't see the man who was driving very well, but I could see enough to know he was attempting to peer around the corners of the building, almost as if he were looking for someone. I was slightly suspicious but thought nothing of it as he pulled away and continued towards the boat ramp. I had finished stretching by the time I noticed he had circled the ramp parking lot and was coming back towards my direction. I froze where I was when I noticed he was craning his neck to try to look at me--it was almost as though he was "staring me down." He began to make his way towards the trailhead parking lot when I got back in my car, locked the doors, and turned on my ignition. By the time I was backing out of my space, he passed behind me back in the direction of the boat ramp lot he'd come from, still staring at the back of my car--and I mean, he looked behind him when he had already passed by, driving forward. For whatever reason, he never followed me out of the area. But I remember being incredibly pissed off that I should be made to feel afraid for my own safety in the middle of the afternoon.

2. When I was living in Hawaii with my then-boyfriend (who was an active duty Army officer stationed there), we didn't live in the absolute safest area on the island, but we weren't in certain danger everytime we ventured out either. I was in our sliver of a front yard with my dog one afternoon when a man came walking down the street about 800 yards away from me. He had a clear view of me and our house. The moment I saw him I immediately became uneasy for reasons I can't explain--it was something about the way he moved. Anyway, as soon as he caught sight of me he began to stare, and stare, and stare. I took it as him "checking me out", to which I never look away when it's unwelcome--I stare back and let the individual see the look of displeasure on my face, although it's never anything blatant. Apparently that was the wrong answer, because soon he had stopped in his tracks and was beginning to turn to face me. At this point I actually picked my dog up, went around the back way into the house where he couldn't see me, and began to run to lock all the doors. I ran into the backroom where we kept a medium caliber handgun and loaded a magazine into it. I came back into the living room, ducked under a window, and peered out from behind a curtain to see if he was still there. He was. He was still staring at the house. After about 20 seconds, he continued down the street. I didn't leave the house again until my boyfriend got home from work. I never saw the man again the entire time I was there. But it was the strangest encounter I have ever experienced. Just typing about it gives me chills. He had no expression on his face.

Wow - on a completely serious note, I'm glad you were ok and got out of there safely. :) I think our first instinct in situations like that are usually right, in fact it just about always is. Both of those guys sounded like potential creeps to say the least.

I've had a few seriously frightening things like that almost happen too. In 1994 mom and I were almost run off the road by some idiot teen guys while we were going to Walmart one evening. Basically there's a two lane, kinda narrow bridge that goes from one city to the next (they since built a better one in '99 I think, but when we lived there, that was still the only way there) and I guess they wanted to get around us. Since they couldn't, they tailgated us the whole way there, just being loud and obnoxious (think of a teenage version of Albert Leon Fletcher and his cousin outside that supermarket). I was never so happy to get to the parking lot, lol.

This is something that happened to an uncle of mine.

In the late 1970s, my uncle drove a cab in New York City. One day he picked up a guy who was pretty strange and stood out as a particularly unusual character.

According to my uncle, the man kept talking about how he was being haunted by his neighbor's dog. Aside from this odd fact, he talked about working for the postal service. At a red light, the passenger abruptly ditched the cab.

According to my uncle, the guy creeped him out enough that he made no effort to stop him. The experience with this passenger shook my uncle up enough that it stayed with him for a few more months/years.

When David Berkowitz was arrested as the Son of Sam killer, my uncle felt certain this was the same passenger. To this day, he is adamant that he picked up Berkowitz in his cab.

I guess according to UM, this could have been one of the members of a Satanic cult that actually committed the murders. :lol:

Originally posted by haloworld According to my uncle, the man kept talking about how he was being haunted by his neighbor's dog. Aside from this odd fact, he talked about working for the postal service. At a red light, the passenger abruptly ditched the cab.

Holy crap!! Now THAT'S interesting!!! (And creepy!)



Okay, so here's my story:

This took place in the spring of '85 and I was eight years old -

I was staying at my grandparent's place and decided to go outside and play by some railroad tracks that ran across this empty field. It was the middle of the week and around seven or eight pm, the sky was overcast. While there were houses about a few hundred yards away, there was nobody nearby and it was pretty quiet out.

So I'm just walking up and down the tracks, throwing rocks and whatnot when I notice a black van driving down the street at the end of the field. I didn't really pay any attention until the van started to slow down.

This black van then turned onto the grass and proceeded to drive through the field right up to the train tracks, in front of where I was standing.

Now I knew this wasn't normal and then the guy said "Come here!" As best as I can recall, he had aviator glasses (or some kind of sunglasses similar to aviator's) , black hair and a black mustache.

I freaked, turned around and sprinted across the field, down the back lane and to my grandparent's house. I didn't even turn back to see if he was following. I got my grandpa and my aunt to call the cops.

Now the thing that really scared me was that around that time, our teachers and parent groups at school were warning us kids about a "black van" seen around our part of town and not to go near it and report it immediately. (I know it sounds cliche, but this was damn real)

In late '84, one girl had gone missing and was found dead months later in the winter of '85 (Her murder became a cold case until about three years ago, due to DNA evidence)

Anyway, it seriously scared the sh*t outta me at the time - especially when the van started driving up on the grass, through the field and straight towards me - I seriously thought I was gonna end up being a kidnapping statistic and that my friends and family would see a picture of eight year old me in the newspaper's obituary section


Here's a link about the poor girl who was found murdered (I ended up working with her brother in the late nineties)

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/manitoba/story/2007/05/17/derksen-charges.html

There's a pic of the guy who did it and the thing that weirds me out is that he looks a lot like the guy who tried to get me to go into his van! Now of course, it may totally not be him but when I first saw his pic, it kinda made my blood run cold.

That story just reminded me of one when I was in the seventh grade. I lived in a populated suburban neighboorhood although there weren't many small children, more older retired couples or people with older kids. I would walk to school every morning and the road I walked down kind of curved to a stop sign, so one morning I walked out and a truck passed me by with two "rough" looking rednecks and one of them kind of snarled in my direction. When I got around the corner, the truck was just sitting there kind of up on the curb at the stop sign. The brake lights were on, and I knew they weren't just waiting at the stop sign because they wouldn't have been up on the curb. So I waited for about a minute to see if they were just waiting for someone or something innocent, but nope they didn't get out or take their foot of the brake. Needless to say I was scared to death so I ran back in my house, and just freaked the hell out for about thirty minutes. The cops were called and I gave them a report and after that I never saw the truck since. It honestly could have been two guys just waiting for somebody, because it was early in the morning and I don't see why or how two guys would want to abduct a child in a populated neighborhood in broad daylight but it still freaked me out!

I've already posted on this forum before, that I've been a victim of attempted kidnapping TWICE.

(I'll make them short, and to the point)

1) I was in a mall when I was 11, a smiled at a man who preceded to follow me through JC Penneys - once I got to the appliances sections, and tried to loose him (I was cautious even as young as I was) he started sprinting toward me with a look of anger on his face, so I took off, ran out the store until I found someone who could help me. To this day, I still think he was going to kidnap me - he was a middle aged man, mustache, and wearing a camouflage jacket and jogging pants.

2) Just last year, a friend and I decided to spend the day shopping in this outdoor mall/park. We thought it would be fun to park in the city, and ride a transit bus there and back. We were there for nearly 5 hours, when we realized the bus was coming, so we had to wait near the main road. A white van went by and my friend was shaking a bracelet on her hand, so it looked like she was waving. The white van immediately made a U-turn and came back, which automatically made me suspicious. The guy just looked creepy and tried to talk us into getting in the van with him - every memory of Tara Calico, Angela Hammond, Bobbi Jo Oberholtzer/Annette Schnee etc. flashed through my mind. I became defensive and told him to leave, we weren't interested. Bitterly, he drove away and inexplicably threw a rope in the back of the van to which mortified my friend and I. I was shaken up for the rest of the day - the guy was expressionless.

My mother was almost a victim of the Huntington Mall Rapist in 1987 (here's a link if you're not familiar: http://saturdaygazettemail.com/News/policeblotter/201010220534) he came running after her outside of the Huntington Mall (West Virginia) luckily she managed to find a security guard, but the guy ducked away. This case is pretty famous because the guy they caught DNA's did not match the rapists. So happy they finally found the real guy who did it.

AND

I was personally acquainted with kidnapping victim Samantha Burns who went missing way back in 2002. The case has been pretty much solved - two men admitted to killing her, but her family is still searching for her bones.

Another tidbit:

Once, I was coming back from a concert at age 11 or 12 with my parents. It was late at night and we took the subway home. I wasn't looking around, I was talking to my parents and so my eyes were on them. Suddenly, this guy who was sitting in one of the subway car corners gets up, either pushes at me or grabs my face and gets right in my face and screams "STOP TALKING TO ME! STOP LOOKING AT ME!".

Immediately my dad jumped up and pushed him back and other people in the car got between them and the cops were called. The train came to a stop. The cops arrived, and when they did, the man claimed we were lying, that that never happened. But when other passengers also said that it happened, he was escorted off the train.

For days after I kept having this vision of him showing up at my home. I couldn't get his scary appearance (He was wearing I believe a leather jacket, and oddly, even though it was nighttime, he was wearing sunglasses).

This isn't my own life, but...
Around 1991 or 1992, my dad was driving on the road. A guy pulled ahead of him in a bad way, nearly causing an accident. My dad kind of has road rage, and as he stopped, he screamed at the guy.

The guy proceeded to get out of his car, seemingly calmly walk over to my dad's car, pull out a large knife and tried to stab my dad through the driver side window. Luckily my dad's car at the time had power windows--He rolled them up quickly and sped away.

In 1980 when i was a child.

I was walking home from a friends house and as i almost reached my house, i heard a mans voice behind me. He said "hey little girl, you wanna see my dog?" I stood there looking at him and he was perhaps at the end of the street, still a ways away. I said "what dog?" and he turned to his white van he had parked on the street. He said "it's in my van, he's right here". I just stood there, sort of wondering and curious as i was a child. He then pulled candy out of his pocket and asked me if i liked pop rocks. I then thought he seemed suspicious and said "My parents told me not to talk to strangers". and began to run, as i turned back he was already in his van peeling out! I was a cute child so my parents always had me come home straight from school and i was only allowed to play in front of my house. I can now see it was for the best as sick people like this man roam the streets preying on small children. http://i295.photobucket.com/albums/mm136/melskie007/melpic42.jpg

Honestly, one of the reasons that I now keep the camera to my car at all times is having watched this show. If I see or saw something strange occur, I'll be able to take a picture of it happening or, since it's a digital, make a short video.

UPDATE!

So I was coming out of the Dr.'s office in a shady part of town one afternoon a few weeks ago. (lucky me right?) and it started raining. (of course) as I was walking to my car I saw a man talking to someone in the staff parking lot.

He turned to me and started screaming at me! I ran to my car as he was running after me. I managed to get into my car and roll up my window and lock the door. he began pounding on my window.

Now I'm a big guy. 6 ft 1 242 lbs. I sat there and stared him down until he walked away. (full parking lot. I couldn't peel outta there.) the ride home I was proud of myself I didn't show fear. but wondered what if the guy had had a knife or gun? :/ it would've been game over!

The guy in all honesty looked like a Crackhead and prolly just wanted $. but it was still scary when he chased me to my car. everytime I'm in that area now I'm extra careful of the people around me.

I worked at a radio station years ago. We'd get threats from people from time to time for various reasons and the station was behind a large building in a pretty secluded area. I came in for work one morning to find the glass front door smashed. My first thought was 'oh, sh**, one of our frequent loonies made good on their threats." My second thought was this is gonna land us on UM. I ran up the stairs to the studio to find the morning show crew going about business as usual. I asked if they'd all been struck deaf since the huge glass door out front was smashed to bits and they were just doing their thing. Turns out, one of our morning jocks lost his keys and couldn't get in. He had a temper and a relative who owned the place, so he smashed the door and came to work. I swear, I'm not making this next part up, the other jock told me I could calm down, I didn't need to call in Robert Stack.

About two months later, I did the stupidest thing I've done in my life. My friend and I were trying to find a subway stop on our way to a concert. This car full of people pulled up beside us and asked if we were OK. We asked them where the stop was and they asked if were going to see Everclear in Pittsburgh, we said we were and they invited us to hop in and find the stop with them. I don't know why we got in the car, but we did. Luckily for our two stupid selves, we we not kidnapped and left dead in a ditch somewhere. Things could have ended very badly and you guys would be debating why two women would get in a car full of strangers in the first place right about now.

A few weeks ago, I was on my way to visit a client I'd never met before. I was with a co-worker and we were making our way up the sidewalk to the house. The house had a No Trespassing sign on the door, so when some strange guy started yelling to us from up the block, we thought it was our client telling us to get off his property. This really creepy guy strolls up to us and asks us where the funeral home is. I told him it was one block up and to the left. He was drunk out of his mind at 11 am and had a bottle in his hand. He told us he was going to his sister's funeral and was lost. I'm thinking man, this guy is tanked at 11 and on his way to his sisters funeral? We repeated the directions and the guy started debating with us over where the funeral home was. He was getting pretty loud and I thought he was going to grab my co-worker when my actual client opened the front door. Drunk guy strolled off down the street having the rest of the conversation with himself. When we left, we did a quick look around to see if he was still there before we ran to the car.

Honestly, one of the reasons that I now keep the camera to my car at all times is having watched this show. If I see or saw something strange occur, I'll be able to take a picture of it happening or, since it's a digital, make a short video.

I always carry my digital camera with me and In ever thought about it(using it if something strange or suspicious happens)

I was 10 years old and visiting my grandparents for 2 weeks during the summer. My best friend and I were out skateboarding in the driveway of the house next door which was vacant and up for sale. A red corvette pulls up across the street and stops there for 10 or maybe 15 minutes. After it pulls away, an older guy from a couple houses over comes over to us and tells us that the man in the corvette was taking pictures of us. He told us we should be very careful if we see that car again and stick together as often as possible. Our city had a bit of a reputation back in the 80s of having several abductions linked to underground child sex rings. I'm not sure how accurate any of that was. Most of it could very well have been due to the rumors surrounding the Johnny Gotsch abduction as it happened not far from there. In fact, the site where this went down was a mere three or four blocks from where Eugene Martin went missing.

Great thread. Loved the stores. Would love to read some more.

Here's mine. This happened in 2008, five years ago. I was 15/16 at that time. Growing up I've always been interested in shows like Unsolved mysteries, FBI files etc. I knew damn well that there are some scary-ass people out here.

I live in Norway, which usually is safe.

I was visiting a friend of mine who lived 15 minutes away from me, it was around 2 AM that I started walking home. On the way home in the dark I could see a big guy coming my way, scary looking dude with a dog.. It reminded me of one time when my friend had taken the same road and a guy with a dog followed him until he called his brother who showed up.

So here I am middle of nowhere in the dark, with woods on both side of the road and this creepy guy coming towards me.. I picked up my phone and pretended to be talking to someone and was like "yeah i am there in two min" and this guy got closer and closer to me.

I started walking on the curb, and he did the same, I walked on the other side of the road and he did the same. I got this very scary feeling which I never have had before. I knew something was wrong and I became very frightened. Luckily for me, it was a shortcut right in the woods which was to the right side of me. I immediately started springning down the woods when he was 10-15 meters away from me. I was holding my ipod in my hand and as I was running down the woods I could hear him scream something, it was unclear but I know he was shouting something to me. I lost my ipod in the grass (very high grass) I turned around and I didn't see him so I quickly put my hand in the grass and found the ipod. I continued to run until I got home.

I was so scared that night. I had no idea who he was, but I am glad I got the f*** out of there.

I know being a longtime UM viewer (especially on the crime and missing person cases) made me vigilant about locking doors, watching my back in almost any situation. Everytime I go up to an ATM I think of Matthew Chase.

As far as specifics though...once in 1995 when my mom was late coming home from work (she sometimes stayed at the office late, that day I called and didn't get an answer). Since she wasn't home by about 20 minutes later, I got a little worried and couldn't help thinking about seeing my townhouse on an episode.

"Orangevale California, 7pm. A typical suburban neighborhood. What happens when a woman doesn't return home from work at the usual time?"

Also in '02 or 03 I was working at a Blockbuster Video for the opening shift one day, when the manager for the day was late (it turned out the guy had a power outage and overslept). I got to the store and was really worried, calling a couple friends who worked there while I was waiting outside, but at the time nobody knew. Meanwhile customers were showing up, many of them confused and a couple angry, lol. It was just me and him who were scheduled to work that day, so no one else was there.

That was the perfect setting for a UM Stack voiceover intro: "Opening time. The store was abandoned, the manager...no h-where to be found." :lol:


Great Question..My family has their fair share of scary stories.. the one that sticks out the most to me is one that involves my grandpa..

Back in the day, he was about 19 and still lived with his parents. He came home really drunk one night. He was walking to his room and his sisters saw him stumbling. Eventually they heard a huge thump. They thought "Ok hes drunk and fell" they went into the room to help him and found him getting dragged under the bed. Two of them were trying to pull him out and another one was praying.They finally pulled him out from under the bed only to see he was missing a shoe. The next morning they moved the bed and room around only to find NO SHOE. Silly but it was a freaky story..

Another one, that involves me. I was at my grandmas house and I was talking to one of my friends on the phone. For some reason, my grandpa came into the conversation. He already passed away and we had a close bond. Anyways, I was talking about him and out of nowhere a door to an extra room slams shut and his army medals and picture fell to the floor. I picked it up and figured the window was open and a gust shut the door. Wrong... The window was closed but the room was freezing... Freezing is a non existent word in Texas in July. It didnt scare me though, I figured it was just my grandpa saying Hello :)

Interesting stories. Keep them coming, folks!!

When I was a little girl about 9 or 10 I saw something that scared me to no end, that is difficult for me to describe.
I had a very large creek and woods in my backyard that I was playing in with a friend one day. We were throwing rocks into the water when from a distance. We thought we saw a black and white cat. It was about 200 to 300feet away. Something about it looked off though so we continued to watch it. As we watched this cat seemed to get larger. So we decided maybe it was a dog. It stayed in the same area walking back and forth but never came any closer. This "dog" became bigger more like the size of a cow. My friend and I had no idea what we where looking at and we were very confused. The thing, whatever it was, then stood up on two feet like a man and walked out of sight.
This is when we ran screaming. I was beyond terrified. I told my mom that there was a man in our creek but he wasn't really a man. I sounded insane. My parents never found what we were talking about and I never saw it again. For awhile I was made fun of about it. But even though it was far away me and my friend both knew we saw some sort of creature get larger then stand up on two feet.
I know this sounds crazy even humourous but it is what I saw. I still to this day am not sure of what I saw. But I know it wasn't an animal. Just writing about it scares me.

When I was a little girl about 9 or 10 I saw something that scared me to no end, that is difficult for me to describe.
I had a very large creek and woods in my backyard that I was playing in with a friend one day. We were throwing rocks into the water when from a distance. We thought we saw a black and white cat. It was about 200 to 300feet away. Something about it looked off though so we continued to watch it. As we watched this cat seemed to get larger. So we decided maybe it was a dog. It stayed in the same area walking back and forth but never came any closer. This "dog" became bigger more like the size of a cow. My friend and I had no idea what we where looking at and we were very confused. The thing, whatever it was, then stood up on two feet like a man and walked out of sight.
This is when we ran screaming. I was beyond terrified. I told my mom that there was a man in our creek but he wasn't really a man. I sounded insane. My parents never found what we were talking about and I never saw it again. For awhile I was made fun of about it. But even though it was far away me and my friend both knew we saw some sort of creature get larger then stand up on two feet.
I know this sounds crazy even humourous but it is what I saw. I still to this day am not sure of what I saw. But I know it wasn't an animal. Just writing about it scares me.

In all seriousness, do you think it could have been a Sasquatch?

I have another pretty scary story (at least for me). I was around 18 years old when I worked at a pretty crappy motel. This motel had two buildings and you could only enter a room from the outside, it was not an indoor hotel.

One evening I was doing some housekeeping in the second building furthest away from the office on the backside where it is very quiet and hardly anyone occupies. I was in an upper story room washing the mirror in the room when from the mirror I could see a man looking in at me from the doorway. I was stupid and left the door to the outside open and the man scared the hell out of me.

The guy then just walks in the room I am cleaning like its ok. He seemed nervous about something. He was dirty and freaky looking. I ask him if he needs anything so I could just go back to cleaning and to my suprise he tried to hand me money. He then said that he and his wife who occupied the room next door wanted to "do things with me" if you get my drift. I was totally offended and said No, I am sorry I don't do things like that. He then left my room but I could hear him talking to his wife loudly next door. I then realised this guy just petitioned me while I was hard at work just minding my own buisness. It then dawned on me that he could be dangerous so I ran out of the room as fast as I could. I heard him screaming "Hey you wait!" then yelling at his wife that I was running from them. They were following me. I had to use my key to get into another room to hide until they were back in their room. Once they were gone I ran to the office told my boss what happened and he threw them out. It got really ugly because I had to call the police and everything. It was so scary.

Several months later while talking to a police officer that came into the hotel office I learned that the guy was arrested for gross sexual imposistion in a different case. Thank God this creep was caught!

In all seriousness, do you think it could have been a Sasquatch?

I don't think so. It was black and white almost grey too. It just looked like a cat then a large dog then a man, not an ape or weird animal. It was the same size as a man too. Years later someone was like "you saw a shapeshifter". But that just makes my story sound all the more insane. I decided not to tell too many more people about it becuase I sound like a lunatic. My friend who I am still friends with swears by what she saw as well.

When I was a little girl about 9 or 10 I saw something that scared me to no end, that is difficult for me to describe.
I had a very large creek and woods in my backyard that I was playing in with a friend one day. We were throwing rocks into the water when from a distance. We thought we saw a black and white cat. It was about 200 to 300feet away. Something about it looked off though so we continued to watch it. As we watched this cat seemed to get larger. So we decided maybe it was a dog. It stayed in the same area walking back and forth but never came any closer. This "dog" became bigger more like the size of a cow. My friend and I had no idea what we where looking at and we were very confused. The thing, whatever it was, then stood up on two feet like a man and walked out of sight.
This is when we ran screaming. I was beyond terrified. I told my mom that there was a man in our creek but he wasn't really a man. I sounded insane. My parents never found what we were talking about and I never saw it again. For awhile I was made fun of about it. But even though it was far away me and my friend both knew we saw some sort of creature get larger then stand up on two feet.
I know this sounds crazy even humourous but it is what I saw. I still to this day am not sure of what I saw. But I know it wasn't an animal. Just writing about it scares me.

Scary Stuff! :eek:

Scary Stuff! :eek:
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA Corky! You gave me a heart attack with that avatar!!!!!!! :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:

There's a moment of my life comparable to UM. Just think of any RS moment when he talks about someone being shocked or surprised.

I have another pretty scary story (at least for me). I was around 18 years old when I worked at a pretty crappy motel. This motel had two buildings and you could only enter a room from the outside, it was not an indoor hotel.

One evening I was doing some housekeeping in the second building furthest away from the office on the backside where it is very quiet and hardly anyone occupies. I was in an upper story room washing the mirror in the room when from the mirror I could see a man looking in at me from the doorway. I was stupid and left the door to the outside open and the man scared the hell out of me.

The guy then just walks in the room I am cleaning like its ok. He seemed nervous about something. He was dirty and freaky looking. I ask him if he needs anything so I could just go back to cleaning and to my suprise he tried to hand me money. He then said that he and his wife who occupied the room next door wanted to "do things with me" if you get my drift. I was totally offended and said No, I am sorry I don't do things like that. He then left my room but I could hear him talking to his wife loudly next door. I then realised this guy just petitioned me while I was hard at work just minding my own buisness. It then dawned on me that he could be dangerous so I ran out of the room as fast as I could. I heard him screaming "Hey you wait!" then yelling at his wife that I was running from them. They were following me. I had to use my key to get into another room to hide until they were back in their room. Once they were gone I ran to the office told my boss what happened and he threw them out. It got really ugly because I had to call the police and everything. It was so scary.

Several months later while talking to a police officer that came into the hotel office I learned that the guy was arrested for gross sexual imposistion in a different case. Thank God this creep was caught!
That's horrifying! I'm glad you ran and got away safely.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA Corky! You gave me a heart attack with that avatar!!!!!!! :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:

There's a moment of my life comparable to UM. Just think of any RS moment when he talks about someone being shocked or surprised.


Sorry for the fright WishfulDreamer. That Avatar is of a real life Child Kidnapper (And Murderer!) named "Mr Cruel" by the press who terrorised Melbourne AUSTRALIA between 1987 and 1992. He's never been caught! :(

Sorry for the fright WishfulDreamer. That Avatar is of a real life Child Kidnapper (And Murderer!) named "Mr Cruel" by the press who terrorised Melbourne AUSTRALIA between 1987 and 1992. He's never been caught! :(

WTF!?! My God that is scary!

Sorry for the fright WishfulDreamer. That Avatar is of a real life Child Kidnapper (And Murderer!) named "Mr Cruel" by the press who terrorised Melbourne AUSTRALIA between 1987 and 1992. He's never been caught! :(
:lol: :lol: It's ok. It just surprised me. My own fault for cruising around on the forums late at night when already on pins and needles about something else. It's definitely suitable for the UM boards!

Summer, 1985. I was 11, getting close to 12. My family was living in an apartment. We weren't new in town or anything, but we were new to the apartment complex. My brother and I were at home by ourselves. He was 5 at the time. The phone rings. This is the mid-1980's so naturally, caller ID has yet to be invented. My brother answers. I hear my brother say "oh no, my mother is not home right now, and neither is my dad. It's just me and my brother." My heart went into my throat! Despite being in a bit of a panic, I thought fast. I opened and shut a door loudly and pretended to be my father. Not even being 12 yet, my voice had not begun to change, so I still sounded like a kid over the phone. I put a ton of base in my voice and asked my bother "son, who is on the phone?" "is it for me?". Naturally, he wasn't catching on to what I was doing and was just confused by it all. I quickly removed the receiver from his hand and said "hello, this is the man of the house speaking, can I help you?" The guy on the other end chuckled. He wasn't fooled in the least. He said "man of the house, huh?" "Well, mr. man of the house, could I have a few moments of your time this afternoon?" My level of fear is now off the charts! Something told me that if this phone call were legit, the guy would not have asked my brother "is your mother or father home".

Right about that time, I look out the window and see a guy working on the air conditioner unit that was right outside my parents' bedroom window. We lived in a ground level apartment. I tap the window and motion for him to please go to our front door. I covered the receiver, gave my brother quick instructions to meet him there and unlock our door, let him in, and bring him to the phone. I kept the bozo on the line long enough for the a/c repairman to get there, which was only about 30-45 seconds. I handed him the phone and just said "can you help me out, something is up with this phone call". The a/c repairman took the receiver and had a nice little chat with the guy. That put an end to it. The repairman hung back for a few minutes to make sure the guy didn't call back. He returned to the a/c unit he was working on, and he said that if the guy were to call back, just tap the window again, and he'd be right there. Our mom came home a little while later and we told her what happened. I had the a/c repairman vouch for the phone call so that our mother wouldn't think we were making the whole thing up. When our dad got home from work that evening, we decided it was time to set up a special telephone ring for when we were home without them.

Summer, 1985. I was 11, getting close to 12. My family was living in an apartment. We weren't new in town or anything, but we were new to the apartment complex. My brother and I were at home by ourselves. He was 5 at the time. The phone rings. This is the mid-1980's so naturally, caller ID has yet to be invented. My brother answers. I hear my brother say "oh no, my mother is not home right now, and neither is my dad. It's just me and my brother." My heart went into my throat! Despite being in a bit of a panic, I thought fast. I opened and shut a door loudly and pretended to be my father. Not even being 12 yet, my voice had not begun to change, so I still sounded like a kid over the phone. I put a ton of base in my voice and asked my bother "son, who is on the phone?" "is it for me?". Naturally, he wasn't catching on to what I was doing and was just confused by it all. I quickly removed the receiver from his hand and said "hello, this is the man of the house speaking, can I help you?" The guy on the other end chuckled. He wasn't fooled in the least. He said "man of the house, huh?" "Well, mr. man of the house, could I have a few moments of your time this afternoon?" My level of fear is now off the charts! Something told me that if this phone call were legit, the guy would not have asked my brother "is your mother or father home".

Right about that time, I look out the window and see a guy working on the air conditioner unit that was right outside my parents' bedroom window. We lived in a ground level apartment. I tap the window and motion for him to please go to our front door. I covered the receiver, gave my brother quick instructions to meet him there and unlock our door, let him in, and bring him to the phone. I kept the bozo on the line long enough for the a/c repairman to get there, which was only about 30-45 seconds. I handed him the phone and just said "can you help me out, something is up with this phone call". The a/c repairman took the receiver and had a nice little chat with the guy. That put an end to it. The repairman hung back for a few minutes to make sure the guy didn't call back. He returned to the a/c unit he was working on, and he said that if the guy were to call back, just tap the window again, and he'd be right there. Our mom came home a little while later and we told her what happened. I had the a/c repairman vouch for the phone call so that our mother wouldn't think we were making the whole thing up. When our dad got home from work that evening, we decided it was time to set up a special telephone ring for when we were home without them.
Good thing the repairman was such a nice guy! The guy on the other end of the phone sounded creepy; even if he was a telemarketer, why not just say what he wanted?

@ Baloony, that would be scary! Glad that repair guy was there.

I always just told the people on the phone my mom was in the shower but then get really scared that they didn't believe me and they were going to come to my house to steal me!

@ Baloony, that would be scary! Glad that repair guy was there.

I always just told the people on the phone my mom was in the shower but then get really scared that they didn't believe me and they were going to come to my house to steal me!

Yes. That was always my fear. The tip was to always tell anyone who calls that your mother/father "can't come to the phone right now." That never really gave me peace of mind. I always had this gut feeling that the would be kidnappers knew that "can't come to the phone right now" was code for "I'm all alone and am basically a sitting duck"!

I actually ran into that same a/c repairman years later when I was a senior in high school. He was working in a neighborhood where a friend of mine lived. He didn't recognize me at first as I had changed quite a bit, but he did remember that day he helped me and my brother out. He said he remembered talking to the guy who had called that day and he said the guy laughed a lot and even snorted a couple of times! He said the whole thing had a strange feeling to it and he was so glad he was able to help out. That type of call was more common back in the 1980's due to no caller id. Creeps would call and mess with kids, but as soon as an adult got on the line, they would fold like a cheap tent!

I opened another thread with a similar theme, but what the heck, I haven't told this story on that thread yet. Here it is.

From 1998-'02 I was a mall Security Officer. I got the job right out of high school. Now, this is a big mall with a lot of traffic. For whatever strange reason our security office was in the basement at the end of a long cement tunnel. No joke. This is where we brought people down when they were arrested, or had lost items, or missing kids, etc. To be honest, we didn't think it was unsafe. Yeah sure if a perpetrator were to come down the tunnel we would never be able to scream for help since no one would hear us but there were two steel doors at each end of the tunnel and the slightest noise would be magnified if a door opened. You automatically heard when the door opened and if someone were walking towards the office.

Anyway, it was a peaceful Sunday afternoon in 2000 and I was 20, and me and my partner had a quiet day. We hung around in the office a bit and then around 4-4:15 went back upstairs to patrol the mall. The next time we went downstairs was after 5pm. Something was amiss right away. The door was open. I mean, this is pretty much a metal door we are talking about. To make matters worse the glass from part of the door was smashed and someone would have opened the office from the inside. To the best of our knowledge nothing was missing. The computer was still there, the files weren't missing. My partner's personal belongings however were scattered all over the floor. In his bag, literally, was a gun that was on the floor. I looked at him as if to say "You carry a gun?" The office wasn't huge, but there were a couple other rooms in there. We checked them and nothing was out of the ordinary. The shards of glass from the door flew so far they landed on one of the desks and chairs. For days later we kept finding them lodged in the chair, sitting on them.

So I called my supervisor, the mall manager, the police, everyone! We were a little freaked out. The only thing we could think of was that we had received a call right at the end of the day about a suspicious person with a credit card. We got to the store as he was leaving but it was a false alarm. Alas, we followed him from a distance and made sure he was gone from the property. I am certain that this phony call was meant to lure us out of the office so that someone could get, whatever they wanted out of our security office. Because when we went back down the security office was ransacked.

Who knows what could have happened had we walked in at the wrong time. Maybe we get shot? Maybe we get hit with a crow bar? There was no blood anywhere. All the mall did for us was put up a wired window so no one else could break in. We still stayed in that office even knowing it was burglarized in such a secluded place. You know how they say in space no one can hear you scream? Believe me, no one would have heard ANYTHING down there.

We never found out who did it. We never found out what they wanted or stole. And we never found out WHY they did it.

Can any of you link me to similar threads/pages? I love reading these stories.

Can any of you link me to similar threads/pages? I love reading these stories.

I like reading these stories too!

1991, I was in 7th grade, in a very very small NH town. 7th-12th grade there were a total of approximately 350-400 kids in the entire school.
I was reserved, stuck to my own friends, quiet. Never made much noise about anything. Our middle school/high school was all one big building, and the middle school kids were regularly tossed in amongst the high school kids.
I developed rather early, at that age, 13/14... I was often mistaken for a 17 or 18 year old girl. Back then, I was taller than most, blonde, bigger girl, pretty face.
Many of the older boys starred at me, tried to talk to me, etc. But I was far too shy, and intimidated to ever return the attention.
I would walk home from, the same 1 mi walk was routine for me, so I never paid a lot of attention, I just walked. In the early fall, my mother, began noticing an older boy following me home from school. Strange, because he lived at the opposite end of town, and usually got a ride home, or drove himself. My mother pointed him out to me one afternoon, and asked me if he ever spoke to me. I told her he hadn't, even at school. I did tell her that he stared at me, often. Often enough to make me uncomfortable. But in 7th grade, when an older boy stares at you, your automatic first reaction, is "he's staring, because he thinks Im ugly!"
My mother decided she didn't like the idea of him following me home with no reason to be in this part of town. So for the next week or so, she picked me up from school.
Since we never saw him walking during the period of time she was picking me up, she let me start walking home again. He started following me again, but was much smarter about it, and wouldn't continue past my house, when my house came into view, he would duck into the woods.
I thought my mom was making a big deal of nothing, so I didnt tell her right away. I kept imagining her yelling at him to leave me alone, or saying "She's only 13 years old!" like she had done many times before to older boys who stared at me. I didn't want to be embarrassed. So I ignored him, and walked right home, everyday for weeks. Eventually it bothered me enough to ask my mom to start picking me up. She voiced her concern to my principal, but nothing ever happened, since it was "OFF SCHOOL PROPERTY"
A couple months passed, and it was too cold for me to walk home. So I didn't see much of him, except at school. At the end of December, his girlfriend went missing. In January, the police came to school, and arrested him for the murder of his pregnant girlfriend, he buried her body in the basement of his parents house. He's still in prison today.
My mother nearly fell to her knees when she saw the description of his girlfriend. She was described in local newspapers, and on the news as Tall for her age, big boned, blonde, with a pretty face.
Oddly enough, today, I work no more than 100 yards from his parents old house. Sort of... haunting, if you think about it.

1991, I was in 7th grade, in a very very small NH town. 7th-12th grade there were a total of approximately 350-400 kids in the entire school.
I was reserved, stuck to my own friends, quiet. Never made much noise about anything. Our middle school/high school was all one big building, and the middle school kids were regularly tossed in amongst the high school kids.
I developed rather early, at that age, 13/14... I was often mistaken for a 17 or 18 year old girl. Back then, I was taller than most, blonde, bigger girl, pretty face.
Many of the older boys starred at me, tried to talk to me, etc. But I was far too shy, and intimidated to ever return the attention.
I would walk home from, the same 1 mi walk was routine for me, so I never paid a lot of attention, I just walked. In the early fall, my mother, began noticing an older boy following me home from school. Strange, because he lived at the opposite end of town, and usually got a ride home, or drove himself. My mother pointed him out to me one afternoon, and asked me if he ever spoke to me. I told her he hadn't, even at school. I did tell her that he stared at me, often. Often enough to make me uncomfortable. But in 7th grade, when an older boy stares at you, your automatic first reaction, is "he's staring, because he thinks Im ugly!"
My mother decided she didn't like the idea of him following me home with no reason to be in this part of town. So for the next week or so, she picked me up from school.
Since we never saw him walking during the period of time she was picking me up, she let me start walking home again. He started following me again, but was much smarter about it, and wouldn't continue past my house, when my house came into view, he would duck into the woods.
I thought my mom was making a big deal of nothing, so I didnt tell her right away. I kept imagining her yelling at him to leave me alone, or saying "She's only 13 years old!" like she had done many times before to older boys who stared at me. I didn't want to be embarrassed. So I ignored him, and walked right home, everyday for weeks. Eventually it bothered me enough to ask my mom to start picking me up. She voiced her concern to my principal, but nothing ever happened, since it was "OFF SCHOOL PROPERTY"
A couple months passed, and it was too cold for me to walk home. So I didn't see much of him, except at school. At the end of December, his girlfriend went missing. In January, the police came to school, and arrested him for the murder of his pregnant girlfriend, he buried her body in the basement of his parents house. He's still in prison today.
My mother nearly fell to her knees when she saw the description of his girlfriend. She was described in local newspapers, and on the news as Tall for her age, big boned, blonde, with a pretty face.
Oddly enough, today, I work no more than 100 yards from his parents old house. Sort of... haunting, if you think about it.

Not like I need to mention this, but that SO could have been you. You probably reminded him of his girlfriend and I don't doubt the guy had the worst of intentions.

Not like I need to mention this, but that SO could have been you. You probably reminded him of his girlfriend and I don't doubt the guy had the worst of intentions.

I know. But it wasn't really until the last few years that I really thought much about it. Recently his parents old house went up for sale, so it made me think back to that year, and the older I get, the creepier it is to me.

Back in 2001, we were living in an apartment. The guy that lived upstairs above us was creepy. Come to find out, he was a druggie. The town that weekend had a festival with fireworks in the park, a parade etc. On that Saturday, my dad had allready went over to the park. So I walked over myself. As I walked out the door, the weirdo upstairs comes down the stairs and follows me all the way over to the park, right beside me. When I got there, I immediately ran to my dad. The creep stayed right near us for about a half hour before he left our sight. Shortly after this happened, our landlords evicted him because he was behind on his rent.

A couple more I forgot.......

Back in 1988, ( I was 2 at the time), we were at a parade. Somehow, I got away from my parents and they thought I was abducted. They went on a search. ABout a half hour later, I was returned to them safely.

When we were going down to FLorida in 2002, I was with my mom, her boyfriend and my aunt. Mom told me ( I dont remember too much about this), that we had stopped along I-95 for a brief break. She said suddenly, a man came out of nowhere and started to come toward us fast. So we got in the car and we sped away.

And some more tidbits...........
when we used to go down to Florida in the summer back in 2001, 2002, 2003, it scared me when we would stop at these remote gas stations in the middle of the night. Or the desserted rest areas.
Years ago, back in the '90s, my aunt used to live in this trailor on a lonely stretch of road in a small town. She had these deep woods in the back of her trailor. For some reason, they gave me the creeps.
When we were at the Newark, NJ international airport back in 1998, that was a BUSY airport to me, and this one guy REALLY gave me the creeps coming towards me, being 12 at the time, I clutched right on to my mom's arm.
This one woman that I know used to work in a hospital. She worked the graveyard shift, she was the only person on her floor. She may have been in housekeeping/laundry I dont recall. Anyways, she told me she heard ALOT of weird noises over the years that really creeped her out.

Where I live we have alot of rolling Countryside and it can get quite spooky in spots. Fortunately I don't live in the Country. The scariest thing I ever saw around my property was a Coyote by my stoop when I used to stupidly smoke Cigarettes. :-)

There is an old stretch of road that is full of farmland and woods. It's a place where kids used to go to party and make out and whatnot. I never actually went there. My parents say one time on their way home from work when they were younger they stopped their car to let two Dogs cross the street. Only these Dogs had human faces when they looked back at the Car. Now my parents are quite ordinary and responsible. They don't tell stories like this. They swear it's true. I remember going to see the movie "The Unborn" and there was a Dog with an upside down Human face in the movie and I began to freak out since they had just told me that story.

CuriousMind90, your father's case reminds me of David Hurley's murder. He was on the way to a scout camp when a motorist sideswiped him and when he got out expecting to exchange insurance info, the guy slugged him and then shot him in the shoulder and back as he was running back towards his car.

We have an unsolved murder in the town I live in. Back in 1986 when I was ten, a woman named Carolyn McComas was shot at an ATM about three minutes away from my home. The killer or killers escaped in a green colored van. The day of the shooting, the local radio station was reporting on the murder and mentioned the van. I could swear I saw the van matching the description drive up my street. I wanted to call the police but my grandparents wouldn't allow me to because they were afraid and didn't want to get involved. To this day, I wonder if that was actually the van and that maybe this murder would have been solved.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/explore/harford/news/crime/ph-re-mccomas-murder-1014-20111013,0,6906349.story

When I was 2 in 1982 I was in the shopping mall with my dad and older sister. Now, my dad didn't just fall of a hay truck but he had misplaced my sister a year earlier in the same scenario in a different mall and she was missing for 90 minutes. My dad found her sitting in the security office happy as a lark colouring, she was oblivious.

But he did the same thing to me in 1982. I guess it was the distraction of having two young children he was watching who could walk away but either way I took off out of a store and he lost me. The kicker is I had bells on my shoes too which created some noise. Well, my dad can't find me, I'm his only son and he and my mom had already decided - permanently if you know what I mean - that they weren't having anymore children. A half hour goes by and I am finally found standing and the bottom of an escalator pondering going up. My dad picks me up, takes us home and literally vomits in the toilet after he hands us off to my mom.

It makes me think for a second, how close was I - or any of us - from being Rachel Runyan, or Nyleen Kay Marshall? Both were abducted right around 1982 so we can't pretend it never happened then even in Canada. My dad had no clue where I was, who I would run into and how lucky was I that I wasn't walking past a scumbag looking to sell me off, or just plain kill me?

About a year and a half ago, I was sitting in the library on campus at my college up in San Jose. I'm doing research at a computer station for a class project and a few desks down is this religious nut who is preaching to a library patron with his crazy ideas; he's talking pretty loud for what many of us consider to be inappropriate for the atmosphere inside a library. I take a quick glance at him then go back to my work. After a few minutes of his obnoxious preachings, I overhear another patron close by who calls campus security on his phone to report the disturbance. I wasn't there to see it because I decided to retreat to my dormitory to finish my work but on my way out I noticed a couple security men on their way up the escalator to the floor where this nut was. I'm glad I never came across a nut like that again in the library.

The preacher looked pretty creepy; he reminded me of Nelson DeCloud, dirty, weird, and disrespectful; and since I couldn't help but overhear his loud preachings, the content of his ramblings sounded like the kind of guy who runs a cult.

About a year and a half ago, I was sitting in the library on campus at my college up in San Jose. I'm doing research at a computer station for a class project and a few desks down is this religious nut who is preaching to a library patron with his crazy ideas; he's talking pretty loud for what many of us consider to be inappropriate for the atmosphere inside a library. I take a quick glance at him then go back to my work. After a few minutes of his obnoxious preachings, I overhear another patron close by who calls campus security on his phone to report the disturbance. I wasn't there to see it because I decided to retreat to my dormitory to finish my work but on my way out I noticed a couple security men on their way up the escalator to the floor where this nut was. I'm glad I never came across a nut like that again in the library.

The preacher looked pretty creepy; he reminded me of Nelson DeCloud, dirty, weird, and disrespectful; and since I couldn't help but overhear his loud preachings, the content of his ramblings sounded like the kind of guy who runs a cult.

Yikes! That's pretty much how they finally discovered Phil Garrido (the guy who held Jaycee Dugard for nearly 20 years). He went to Berekely trying to schedule time to preach his religion and gave them an unpublished book he had written on schizophrenia, then blurted out a confession of having been in federal prison. :eek:

Bumping it up so more people can write their stories. It's very interesting to read!

So I just had an interesting occurrence not an hour ago.

I had run to a nearby couple of small stores to buy some English muffins, and as I was leaving, I passed by a car with kids. It didn't occur to me until I had gone past and was starting to walk away that the car was RUNNING. I turned back and watched the car for a bit, worrying every time the older kid clambered over the seat towards the steering wheel.

After a few minutes I walked back into the store to report the vehicle. After being directed to the cashiers by the person doing the shelving, I stuck my head back out to double check it was still there and witnessed a woman get into the car and drive away.

That whole time I kept thinking that anybody could've gotten into that car and driven away, and kept hearing Robert Stack describing the situation in my head. It's too bad I wasn't quick enough to get her reported.

Anybody else have moments like this?

Last night, I was walking around L.A. alone and along busy streets. This guy who looked and reminded me of "Tony" from the Hecht case was up ahead of me so I started to move to the other side of the sidewalk and he gets in my way, blocking me, so I move back to the other side. He tried talking to me but I had earbuds in for music and just walked on by. This is RIGHT on the border of West Hollywood and Beverly Hills, by the way, so it definitely got me thinking about Adam Hecht and what happened to him. Not that extraordinary of a circumstance in my case since you often get panhandlers coming after you for cash here, but I couldn't help thinking of how all this went down in the same area about 25 years ago.

I started a different job when I was about 25 years old and the company was located in an area of the city where public-transit was heavily used. While I wasn't wild about the idea at first, taking the bus back and forth to work really did make the most sense given the commute that I was facing. My family was concerned when I started working swing shift, but by then I was so used to public-transit that I didn't really want to start driving again.

Because I reside in a fairly rural area, the bus line would only run to the nearest transit center, so my parents agreed to drop me off and pick me up at that location each day. One night, my bus came in several minutes ahead of schedule and my mom hadn't yet made it to the transit center. I immediately walked to the bank of pay phones and called my mom to let her know that I was in early, but there was no answer. When I realized that I was apparently alone in a poorly lit, relatively isolated transit center, I started to get nervous. I tried to call home again and when there was still no answer, I muttered to myself, "Where in the hell are you??"

As soon as I hung up the phone again, a man stepped in behind me and asked, "Are you alright?" I immediately took a step to the side, to avoid being backed into the wall and said, "I'm fine." I didn't mean to, but I know I glared at him. He then asked me if I needed a ride. I very firmly told him no and made sure to mention that my ride was on the way. About four more times he asked if I wanted a ride and each time I turned him down. He'd take a step in my direction each time he asked and in return, I'd take a step back. Then he explained that his wife would be in the car if that's what I was worried about. At this point, I'm starting to panic because this man clearly isn't taking no for an answer. Just as I started looking around for a place to run, my mom pulled into the parking lot.

I was so rattled that I nearly threw myself in front of the car, LOL. When I hurried into the car, my mom could see that I was upset and asked about it. I said, "Drive! Just drive!" After we left the transit center, I filled her in and two things happened after that. One...I stopped being so cheap and finally bought my own cell phone. Two...my mom told me, and I quote, "You're not allowed to take the bus any longer. And don't pull that 'but I'm 25' crap with me because I don't care how old you are!"

I wisely kept my mouth shut and didn't argue with her. I'd already escaped one dangerous situation, no point in tempting fate.

Ok guys, I know that many of you enjoy reading this stories as well. I recently found out about reddit and love these scary real life stories they are posting on this subreddit. Give it a chance: http://www.reddit.com/r/letsnotmeet

I have another for this thread.

I am in the Army Reserve. I deployed to Kandahar Province, Afghanistan last year. I arrived at Kandahar Airfield, which is the largest military post in that part of the country, and stayed for a few weeks before being moved out to a forward operating base about fifty miles south. We arrived about 2 AM and received an in-brief the next morning.

Part of that in-brief included a safety brief. We were told of a so-called "Kandahar Rapist" who was believed at the time to be a U.S. civilian working on post, and that females AND males (both had been victimized) were to take special precaution when moving about the post late at night or in the early morning. My job necessitated working directly with U.S. DoD and DoS civilians, so I spent the first four weeks wondering if the next person I met would be the "Kandahar Rapist". Just before I left, the Rapist struck again near the part of post we were living on.

I moved to the FOB, which was tiny and used to be where 2nd Marines lived, so it was rather austere. It wasn't until nightfall that I realized there were NO LIGHTS on the compound. None. Not even on the outside of buildings. You literally could not reach out your hand and discern it in front of you. Then, about one week later, some of those big, generator-powered overhead lights came in on trucks one afternoon. I mentioned something about it to another soldier who'd been there longer than me, along the lines of "Great, now we'll be able to see where we're going at night" or something. She said, "Oh, you haven't heard? The brigade commander ordered those in. There's been a spike in sexual assaults in the last month."

Fortunately, I knew of no one who was attacked. My company commander was pretty good about walking me back to my living quarters when we ended up working late, so that might have helped.

I just stumbled across this thread and thought that I would add a post about some stories involving me and my family.

1) My Mum, Grandma, and one of their friends were in a hotel in the downtown of a big city. My Mum and her friend were walking down the hall of a different floor in the hotel (not the floor they were staying on) and they saw a guy coming out of a room and fumbling with the door, as if he was trying to lock it. This struck them as odd because, as with most hotels, you didn't need to lock the door of these rooms because they locked automatically when you closed the door. They went up to their room. My Mum was in the bathroom near the door. My Grandma and their friend were in the main part of the room. Suddenly the door opens and the same guy walks in. He sees my Mum in the bathroom and says, "Oh, I must have the wrong room" ... and then proceeds to continue walking in! He then saw my Grandma and their friend in the main part of the room, and thankfully he turned around and left. I shudder to think what would have happened if any of them had been alone in the room. Of course, they reported the incident to hotel security. In retrospect, they probably should have called the police directly, as well. This guy obviously had some kind of master key. A good reason to put that safety latch on your hotel room door immediately after you get into the room.

2) Another time, my Mum and I were in Florida staying at a motel. We were staying there for a few days because our rental unit wasn't avaialble yet (long story, but we had to go to Florida earlier than planned because of my Dad's work commitments; he was going to re-join us a few days later). Anyway,during broad daylight my Mum and I had returned to the motel, got out of the car, and started walking up to our room. This guy makes a bee-line toward us and asks, "Hey, do you need a hand with that?", referring to opening the motel room door. It was creepy. Who needs help opening a door? My Mum firmly said "no" and then waited until the guy was, thankfully, a safe distance away before she opened the door. A good reason never stay in a ground-level hotel room, if possible (although I suppose the same thing could happen on an upper floor, but it's less likely).

3) When I was about 4, I had a nightmare in which I stuck my hand into a coffee filter that was attached to the wall (?) and burned my hand badly. I woke up screaming and crying, telling my parents that I burned my hand by putting it in the "coffee on the wall". Of course, it was just a dream. The next morning, my Mum was cleaning the coffee maker and she stuck her hand into the basin that holds the water, but she had forgotten to empty it out, and it was still plugged in. When she put her hand in the water, she got a major shock that actually knocked her to the floor (she was fine, though). Bizarre!

4) My parents were driving in a rural, farming area at night when they saw a woman in a white dress standing at the side of the road. As they got closer to her, she disappeared. My Dad does not believe in ghosts at all, but he has no doubt that he saw what he saw. My Mum swears that she saw the same thing.

I just started a new job in a fitness facility, and it's located in a strip mall. The whole setup (especially because I close alone) reminds me of the I-70 serial killer segment, or the Lisa Ziegert murder. Thankfully nothing creepy has happened but I swear I think of the I-70 killer every time I'm at work!:(

This doesn't involve me personally but of a friend of mine, a lady who used to go to my church who is named Carrie. Her 20 year old son vanished in 1981. Apparently he had gotten involved in drugs and it was theorized that he owed some dealers money but nobody knew for sure. For 30 years, the big mystery around here that was thought about, but rarely spoken of, was whatever happened to him. Most believed he must be dead but when, where, why, how did it happen?

Last year, Carrie got a phone call from a hospital in Florida (I forget which city) saying that her son's remains had been positively identified. Apparently, two months after he disappeared from his Michigan home in '81, he had somehow made his way to Florida. He was crossing a busy street when a car ran over him at full speed and kept right on driving afterwards. The car that was behind the first car also ran over his body and kept right on driving. A third car ran over his body but unlike the first two, actually stopped after the impact. Not surprisingly, he was killed after that first hit. He didn't have any identification on him so he was eventually buried as a 'John Doe' in a cemetery in that city. 29 years later, his body was dug up and tested for DNA and that's when he was finally identified.

Carrie had said all these years that she was 99% sure he was dead. But there was always that 1% of her that wondered if her son might end up knocking on her front door one day. It's good that she finally can have some closure. But I don't feel like the mystery is completely solved. The way he ended up dying just doesn't sit right for me. Two cars driving at full speed when he was crossing the street, slamming into him and making no attempt to stop even after they had run over him? I have this nagging feeling that one or both of those cars were driven by the guys, possibly the dealers, he had initially been running away from when he left home and never came back.

Carrie is a sweet lady. I always give her a big hug on Mother's Day. I'm happy she can have closure but my heart still breaks for her.

4) My parents were driving in a rural, farming area at night when they saw a woman in a white dress standing at the side of the road. As they got closer to her, she disappeared. My Dad does not believe in ghosts at all, but he has no doubt that he saw what he saw. My Mum swears that she saw the same thing.

Very creepy! Of course any story like that would be. Who knows who that girl was in the white dress, but I don't argue that your parents did see something.

Reminds me of a time in 2007. My brother and law and I were driving home from Yankee Stadium. We live in Canada so we knew it was going to be a long drive home with a hotel stop in there but we went as long as we could before finding one. My brother in law is not the delusional type. He is as straight as an arrow but he was getting awfully tired behind the wheel. I had fallen asleep in the passenger seat and we were driving down a highway in the middle of nowhere in New York state. He swears that he saw a person crossing the highway - it was a man - from a distance with his headlights and he woke me up instantly so that I could keep him awake before we got to a hotel, which we did. He was a little shaken up because he still to this day doesn't know if he was hallucinating or if there was a real person there. Creepy.

4) My parents were driving in a rural, farming area at night when they saw a woman in a white dress standing at the side of the road. As they got closer to her, she disappeared. My Dad does not believe in ghosts at all, but he has no doubt that he saw what he saw. My Mum swears that she saw the same thing.

Was it Resurrection Mary? :lol:

does it bother any of you to be in a graveyard at night,or at sundown? it doesn't bother me at all,as I know Jesus is the one who holds the keys to life and death.every one of those deceased is right where they are supposed to be.
It does bother my husb. though.sometimes we go to my grandfather's grave near sundown,and he's like..."i'm going to get the car...let's get out of here!!"
At which point I'm laughing and saying "ok,just pull around,i'll walk up". Meanwhile it's getting dark and i'm walking across the graveyard.it's just very peaceful to me. :) Hubby however,is frantically getting into the car.
I'm not one of those who would mind living near or beside a graveyard,either.Once you realize the truth,you know no one there is ever going to hurt you. :)

does it bother any of you to be in a graveyard at night,or at sundown? it doesn't bother me at all,as I know Jesus is the one who holds the keys to life and death.every one of those deceased is right where they are supposed to be.
It does bother my husb. though.sometimes we go to my grandfather's grave near sundown,and he's like..."i'm going to get the car...let's get out of here!!"
At which point I'm laughing and saying "ok,just pull around,i'll walk up". Meanwhile it's getting dark and i'm walking across the graveyard.it's just very peaceful to me. :) Hubby however,is frantically getting into the car.
I'm not one of those who would mind living near or beside a graveyard,either.Once you realize the truth,you know no one there is ever going to hurt you. :)

I also enjoy the peacefulness of cemeteries. I contribute to the findagrave website so quite a few times I have been wandering around a cemetery documenting graves when the sun starts going down. I never feel scared, except maybe of the living weirdos who would target someone alone at dusk. To me, a cemetery is a lot like being in a park only better in a way because there are people there who are special, who were loved, and whose contributions in life were important to future generations.

It did kinda freak out my real estate agent tho, when we told her that our ideal house would be near a quiet cemetery AND noisy train tracks. In the end, we only got near train tracks and we move there in a couple months, so we'll see how that works out.

I have lived across the street from a cemetery (with train tracks right in our back yard) and could see the former homeowner's grave right out my kitchen window. Never bothered me, but my daughter's room also overlooked the cemetery and she didn't like seeing it last thing at night.

As she got older, she started to enjoy the history of our local cemetery. Many of the founders of our village were buried there and our historical society used to do yearly tours until some people complained that it was morbid and the practice should be stopped. That was disappointing. I learned a lot from the docents during those tours.

I've moved around a lot and that was my favorite place to live. I'm sorry that we have to relocate for employment. I still go visit from time to time because it's such a beautiful place, BUT since we moved away, some crazy city council members thought it would be a good idea to pipe muzak all up and down the village main street! If we go for a lazy Sunday afternoon walk in the downtown area, all the shops are closed and everything should be quiet except maybe for the sounds of the water fountain but we can't enjoy it anymore because of the screeching loud speakers hidden in the trees. Blah!

does it bother any of you to be in a graveyard at night,or at sundown? it doesn't bother me at all,as I know Jesus is the one who holds the keys to life and death.every one of those deceased is right where they are supposed to be.
It does bother my husb. though.sometimes we go to my grandfather's grave near sundown,and he's like..."i'm going to get the car...let's get out of here!!"
At which point I'm laughing and saying "ok,just pull around,i'll walk up". Meanwhile it's getting dark and i'm walking across the graveyard.it's just very peaceful to me. :) Hubby however,is frantically getting into the car.
I'm not one of those who would mind living near or beside a graveyard,either.Once you realize the truth,you know no one there is ever going to hurt you. :)

It is all in our minds, a graveyard. I am not scared of it either. We get a lot of our fears of graveyards from movies. I am a big horror movie fan so I actually like the idea of being a little scared. For some reason however, a campground gives me the creeps. Growing up going to camp and being there a bit as an adult always puts me back into the Friday the 13th films. There is an eery feeling of a campground at night.

It is all in our minds, a graveyard. I am not scared of it either. We get a lot of our fears of graveyards from movies. I am a big horror movie fan so I actually like the idea of being a little scared. For some reason however, a campground gives me the creeps. Growing up going to camp and being there a bit as an adult always puts me back into the Friday the 13th films. There is an eery feeling of a campground at night.
I know! esp. one with a lake! LOL or heck,just going to a theater for awhile bothered me.
I was in jr high when the 1st fri the 13th movie came out.when all the blood was flying,someone decided to throw their red drink on us...!! that was a little too much for me at the time.

In late 1983, my family and I had gone to the mall one Saturday afternoon. It was, of course the Christmas shopping season, so naturally the mall was hectic. I was 10 and my brother was 3. The day had been rather uneventful, but as we were leaving, things got real for us. My dad was driving and I remember a guy in front of him backing up. I'm not sure if my dad just didn't give the guy enough room to back up or what exactly was going on, but suddenly, the guy emerged from his car VERY VERY hostile and angry. And he was no small guy either. :eek: My father rolled down the window and the guy screams "what the blank is the problem my man?" "are you just doing this blanking stuff on purpose to tick me the blank off?" Well, by then, I was scared. My dad realized that this dude wasn't playing with a full deck, so he was trying to defuse the situation, but the guy was NOT leaving. He was demanding that my dad step out of the car. I rolled down the window and pleaded with the guy to just go on. I even apologized on behalf of my father. Surprise surprise, that did NO good. The guy then threatened me! A 10 year old kid!

Well, fortunately, someone else saw what was happening and went back into the mall and got security. The mall security came out and asked if there was a problem. The crazy guy then went off on the security officer and told him to get the blank out of there before he kicked his you know what all up and down the street. By then, I was REALLY scared. Then, in one fell swoop, the security guard shut the whole thing down. After the guy's tirade, he just smiled and told him "sir, you have about 2 minutes to get off of mall property before I crack your skull". The guard said it with such an eerie calmness that the guy turned and left right that moment! I remembered his name off of the tag on his uniform and wrote a thank you letter to him a few weeks later. My mother had told me not to do it as she just wanted the whole incident to be forgotten, but I did it anyway as I felt that that mall security guard saved our butts that day. We were dealing with a guy who had a short fuse and I did not put it past him for one brief second to go so far as to pull me out of the car and rough me up just to lure my dad out. To this day, thirty years later, I am still grateful for what that guard did.

Wow, that's a spooky mall story! I, too, have a spooky mall story to share....but it wasn't in 1983, it was last week!!!!

My partner and I were shopping at Vaughan Mills mall. It was after 7pm, so it was quite dark and very nasty (cold and snowy) so not many people were out. We got into the car (I was in the passenger seat) and all of a sudden there was a tap at the driver's window. First of all, let me say that I hate when someone comes up to me in my car, as I feel disarmed because I am sitting and strapped in. Anyway, the man appeared to be in his late 50's, he had grey hair, not dressed great but certaintly not poorly either, he just looked like a regular guy. You know, just like someone's dad. So my partner rolled down the window and the guy said "Hey, are you from around here?". We replied that we were from out of town, thinking that he was wanting directions. He asked the city we were from, we told him, we said he was from out of town too, just not as far as us, and then went on this bizarre story about how his wife was rushed to hospital, he has no money to get home and no way to call, that his cell and wallet are in his car and she took his car that morning, so he was left with his car and had to come here to meet clients. He said his name was Jim and he was a chartered accountant and assured us he was not a bum and was in a real pickle. He asked us for 20 bucks. I politely told the man that we had no cash, only debit. He then said that if we would be willing to find an ATM he would pay us the service charge. My partner said "No, sorry" and rolled up the window. I couldn't see this Jim person, but my worse half said he did NOT look pleased. Anyway, we drove off.
After we took off it really hit me that we could have been in an UM moment! Here are the things that bothered me:
1) The guy's first question to us was if we from around there. What does that have to do with needing money? He either did that so we would engage him, or he was trying to establish if we had cash/credit cards on us and if we knew anyone in the surrounding area. If someone is at a big mall and they say they are from out of town, that means they came there specifically to shop - which means they have some sort of dough on them.
2) The guy's story just didn't add up on any level. Why would you go to a different city with no money or gas or cell phone to meet some client and then end up in a mall parking lot asking strangers for money? Seriously, if you were there, you'd have been like WTF??? The whole thing was very bizarre.
3) It was dark and cold, and my partner has really long blond hair tied back in a pony tail. Perhaps "Jim" thought he was a woman? And maybe he didn't see me at all? And that's why he had to think of something fast on his feet, hence the bizarre story? Maybe is intention was to grab the "woman" and force his way into the car, or make her hand over her purse, or get a gun on her and do God knows what?
4) Walk to the ATM. Okay, first he said he had no money but now he would somehow pay our ATM charges if we would go to one? Seen the Matthew Chase segment far too many times for that! All I could think of is that we would get out of the car and he would get a gun on us and then it's game over. At least if he tried anything in the parking lot we could lay on the horn and scream until he ran off or someone came to help. There was no way I was going to go somewhere with someone who has a gun on me, I'll take my chances getting shot right then and there before I will go away from the public and end up chained to some bed in a creepy cellar and eventually chopped into pieces!
Anyway, my final thoughts are that this man was either a drunk looking for some booze money, OR, he was definitely up to no good. If it was the latter, I think he saw my partner and in the dark couldn't judge that he was a man. I think he had intentions of either asking for money with a bizarre story or forcing the issue but didn't when he saw two dudes in the car (we're both over 6 feet and my worse half works out every single day). I think he was a purse snatcher, I really do, or maybe worse!

Ok,so being so sickly obsessed with UM,it's always in my thoughts and I apply so many things throughout my day to different UM cases/segments.
I'm forever going to rummage sales looking for footlockers and steamer trunks,and hoping there's a body inside. I'm always left disappointed,and 15 bucks in the hole. And one day not too long ago,my walls stated bleeding,so I immediately think of Ira Einhorn,and that my neighbors must be hiding a body in a closet. Until I realized that the reddish colored liquid streaming down my walls,was coming from my bedroom upstairs where my air conditioner was leaking onto the wood floors,and the water had turned rust colored. Oops.

But a big one happened only about 6-7 months ago.
So I order things online a lot. Be it ebay,etsy,amazon,etc,etc. When I get packages,it always says where it's from,and of course,I'm expecting it anyway. But one day there's a package that came for me. I had not ordered anything at all in several weeks,and was expecting nothing. Curiously,there was no return address and no company name. And it was rather heavy. So my first thought goes to the zip-gun bomber (I mean,who doesn't think of that in their daily lives). So I don't want to open it. Unfortunately I'm also someone who is way too curious to just toss it. I have to know what's in it. I toss it to my husband and tell him to open it. When I explain why,he scoffs at me and tell me I'm just being ********. (He hates UM,so he's a loser). So he opens it up,and odd as hell,it's a box wrapped in brown paper,says nothing on it. So I leave the room and tell him to continue opening,and I peek from behind the living room wall. (Oh,one other thing,an explosion mangled my left hand,took my thumb off,tips of other fingers,shattered all the bones in my hand,and sent shrapnel into my face about 2 years ago,just to give you some perspective into my mindset. My face healed perfectly,the hand not so much,but now I'm even too afraid to open up those Pillsbury roll packages that POP open when get the wrapper off,and the toaster makes me wet myself if I'm too close to it).
ANYWAY,so now even the husband thinks it's odd,and slowly opens up the packaging. It reveals a plain cardboard box (I kid you not). Now I just know I'm going to be shot,or it's going to explode. I mean,that's the logical assumption,right?!
So he tosses it back to me,and says "it's in your name,you open it!" (my theory clearly not so silly now,is it dear?) Nope,I'm not doing it. So he does open it,and inside is a really nice black box,and it has a satin loop on one end,where to you pull it so the inside of the box slides out to reveal what it's holding. But it still says NOTHING about what it is,and where it's from.
I'm literally pissing myself thinking about whether or not my family knows that I want a pink casket and the UM theme song played at my funeral,and who's going to take care of my dogs,because I'm going to die. Whatever is in this box,is going to kill me.
At this point,he puts the box on the table and walks away saying "this is stupid,if you want to see what it is,you open it,I'm not". Which is guy speak for; "You've got me scared now with your UM bull****,and I'm way too big a ***** to open this,but I don't have the balls to come out and say it".
At this point,I'm DYING to know what's inside. So I put it on the table and walk as far away as I can,with my arm still being able to touch the box and slide it open with my finger.
I have a large autographed picture of Robert stack (I have several),but this one is on my diningroom wall (another is on my bedroom wall,right above my bed). I look at him,and I'm thinking; "Would Bobert (that's my secret nickname for him),would Bobert allow you to open this if it were dangerous?! No,no he would not,he loves me too much to let that happen". (my nickname is "delusional" by many who know me)
So,I tell him I'm going for it,and I slowly slide it out. What's inside? A big fat cigar nestled inside a velvet foam insert and a bronzy-colored medal that said "2011 Cigar.com's gold band mild flavor award winner.
What the ****?! I am kind of a guy. I like beer,baseball and cigars,hate girly movies,and am the biggest slob on the planet. But,I ordered no such thing. I signed up for no such thing. How my name got on their mailing list? I have not the foggiest clue. Plus,we had just moved to this apartment only about a month and half previous to this,and the address was this address,not forwarded from my previous one. (Is this still making sense?)
So yes,I like the cigar. But I still to this day have no idea how I got it.

That's one of my bigger "Unsolved Mysteries moments". There's another one that involves a fat chick and a department store,but I'' save that one for another time.

Oh,and of course I have a seizure alert service dog (I have epilepsy),and how I got her was somewhat similar to the UM story on "epilepsy pooches".

OMG, what a great story!!!! You are just as (if not more!) neurotice about UM than me!

My fave part..."the fat chick in the department store". LMAO. Bonnie Wilder was coming to get you!!!! ...and Lisa Penz probably thought she was looking at you but really was looking in another direction LOL.

I would have nominated the husband to open that package, for sure!!! Mine gets Ojon hair care...100 bucks for shampoo? He almost deserves a bomb.

Yeah,I quit working about 5 years ago to stay home and watch UM full-time. I hardly ever leave the house anymore except for groceries and church,and when they do the "Lord hear our prayer" part,they say "and for our own intentions" and they pause for about 30 seconds where everyone says their own prayer intentions to themselves....Robert Stack is always the first one I pray for,and I say it just loud enough so that the people sitting in the pew behind me can hear it,even though everyone is silent.Yes, I have issues.

The husband definitely should have opened it all himself,but guys are ******* a lot of the time. $100 bucks for shampoo?! Holy ****! That's $97 more than what I pay for shampoo,and I have long hair! I'd be smacked if I spent that much on shampoo. And I'd deserve it. He must have some really nice hair!

Haha,oh Bonnie Wilder. The winner of "the funniest comment ever made on UM". Lisa Penz sure was quick to call Bonnie "enormous",without any regard that she herself had a googly eye.......:D

.

I thought you were kidding in the part about your walls bleeding until I saw the pic! Holy cow! Freaked me out and I also thought someone was hiding a body in your building, then I went back and read more carefully and it was your a/c leaking. whew! lol

I had a similar experience to yours with an Unexpected Package arriving in the mail a couple years ago. A box, about 12x12x12, was delivered to my house, but I hadn't ordered anything in a long time. The return address wasn't normal and was suspiciously vague. Instead of being heavy, like something big enough to fit that size box was inside, this thing was light as a feather.

What could be in a box that size yet weighs almost nothing? I was picturing some kind of poisonous powder or something, which wasn't too far fetched, considering my husband has been shot at by a disgruntled co-worker and had his drink drugged and was beaten by other co-workers, breaking his leg, a few years after that.

I refused to open the box and started looking through my email to see if I'd ordered something and forgot. Nope.

I tried looking up what little details were in the return address, but it didn't coincide with anyone I knew or any place I order things from.

After a few hours, I finally got up the nerve to open the darn thing. It was my daughter's wedding veil! lol She had ordered her veil from a lady on etsy. The reason the box was so big was because she had packed the veil with tissue paper to keep it from getting too wrinkled during shipping. Things were so busy with making the preparations for my daughter's wedding that I had forgotten she was expecting her veil to be shipped to my house in my name instead of hers, because I'd paid for it.

I thought you were kidding in the part about your walls bleeding until I saw the pic! Holy cow! Freaked me out and I also thought someone was hiding a body in your building, then I went back and read more carefully and it was your a/c leaking. whew! lol

I had a similar experience to yours with an Unexpected Package arriving in the mail a couple years ago. A box, about 12x12x12, was delivered to my house, but I hadn't ordered anything in a long time. The return address wasn't normal and was suspiciously vague. Instead of being heavy, like something big enough to fit that size box was inside, this thing was light as a feather.

What could be in a box that size yet weighs almost nothing? I was picturing some kind of poisonous powder or something, which wasn't too far fetched, considering my husband has been shot at by a disgruntled co-worker and had his drink drugged and was beaten by other co-workers, breaking his leg, a few years after that.

I refused to open the box and started looking through my email to see if I'd ordered something and forgot. Nope.

I tried looking up what little details were in the return address, but it didn't coincide with anyone I knew or any place I order things from.

After a few hours, I finally got up the nerve to open the darn thing. It was my daughter's wedding veil! lol She had ordered her veil from a lady on etsy. The reason the box was so big was because she had packed the veil with tissue paper to keep it from getting too wrinkled during shipping. Things were so busy with making the preparations for my daughter's wedding that I had forgotten she was expecting her veil to be shipped to my house in my name instead of hers, because I'd paid for it.

Yeah,the bleeding walls freaked me out for days...and I really liked that because deep down I'm sick.

Hahaha,the veil! So I was trying to guess what it might be before reading all the way through. I never thought of a veil. Makes sense,very light. I buy things on etsy a lot. I also have a store on etsy.
But that makes sense since some sellers on etsy have more professional packaging with professional return address labels,and some do not. But unlike ebay,most people don't print out the postage. So they just write the sending info on the package themselves.
Boy,what the heck does your husband do for a living where a co-worker would drug him and break his leg?! OUCH! Rough job!

Off Topic

Boy,what the heck does your husband do for a living where a co-worker would drug him and break his leg?! OUCH! Rough job!

Honestly, his job is nothing that you would expect to be so violent. When he was attacked, he was just managing an auto repair shop. He used to be a mechanic back in the 80s and 90s and had gotten promoted over the years to managing the shop.

Hubby had been good friends with the guy who shot at him and the shooter didn't miss by much. He took up a sniper position across the street and shot at my husband with a rifle while he was in the parking lot at work. The bullet blew out the window on the car he was standing next to. It all started because his boss told him to fire the guy. He had no choice. The guy took it out on my husband even though it wasn't his decision to get rid of him and he would have been fired too if he hadn't done what the owner told him.

One of the guys who drugged his drink with GHB and beat him was also a friend and hubby had even been in his wedding. The group were jealous that hubby got a raise in pay and they didn't, even though they held completely different positions. He was paid on a small salary with a commission on what the shop profited and the mechanics were making good money per hour. One guy (not one of the attackers) was making $100,000 way back then, fixing cars. If the guys wanted to make more money, all they had to do was goof off less and actually do some work. Hubby's raise was very small, and he was making about the same amount as they were. They just didn't like the fact that he got a raise. That place ended up going out of business in 2009 and the building was torn down.

He went to another place after that incident but people sabotage each other in that business like you wouldn't believe. He had a job from 2007-2011 where his boss siphoned $20,000 out of his salary in just one year. Because of that, we were so broke, we didn't have heat in our house for three weeks in february in Michigan. It took a lot of complaining and a bunch of internal auditing to finally get the money back but the company paid it to us as if hubby was making $20,000 per week so it was taxed to death and we only got about half of it. By then, we were way behind on all of our bills, except for the rent, so we used it to bring everything current. He's moved on from there too.

In the summer of 1987, my family had gone to Disney World in Orlando, Florida. We were staying at a Days Inn. The place was just dreadful. It was filthy, it was loud, and there was very suspisious activity going on. Possibly involving drugs being sold. So, needless to say, we were trying to find some other place to stay. My mother was calling around looking for another hotel. I remember this one number she called that resulted in a VERY weird exchange. Some old lady answered. After she said "hello", my mother realized she may have dialed the wrong number. She said "oh, I am looking for the such and such inn, but I may have dialed the wrong number. This wouldn't happen to be it, would it?". The old lady became infuriated. She responded with "what in the world are you talking about? This number has not been in service for the past 17 years. I think you are playing on the phone, little girl, and if you don't stop, you will regret it. Don't make me do what I'm about to do next." My mom was speechless. Just for the heck of it, she called the number back, and this time, someone answered speaking a foreign language! After that, she moved on to the next hotel phone number in the phone book and called them. That turned out to be the hotel we would move to, and it was MUCH better. It was clean and quiet, and safe.

It always struck me as odd that that old lady told my mother that the number had not been "in service" in 17 years. She may have meant that it was a non-published number, but still, the whole thing was eerie, nonetheless.

Bumped to hopefully get some more of these stories!

More stories! I LOVE these!

I always carry my digital camera with me and In ever thought about it(using it if something strange or suspicious happens)

Smart phone does the same thing.

In the mid-80s my mom had taken my brother, sister and me to Disneyworld and was making the return trip home late at night. Us kids were asleep while she drove. She noticed an 18 wheeler following closely and tried to change lanes so it could pass. It didn't. It would change lanes with her. He was going to park at a rest stop and get some rest, but the truck pulled in behind her. She thought maybe the trucker was doing the same. She felt uneasy so she left without even parking. The truck followed her right back out. If she tried to slow and let the truck pass, it would slow down too and not let her. At one point she managed to get behind it and get off the road a while. The trucker must have stopped and waited because it started the same **** again with her when she got back on the road. She eventually eluded it in some heavy traffic. She said she tried to get the name of the company off the truck, but the writing looked Asian. Story still creeps me out.

In the mid-80s my mom had taken my brother, sister and me to Disneyworld and was making the return trip home late at night. Us kids were asleep while she drove. She noticed an 18 wheeler following closely and tried to change lanes so it could pass. It didn't. It would change lanes with her. He was going to park at a rest stop and get some rest, but the truck pulled in behind her. She thought maybe the trucker was doing the same. She felt uneasy so she left without even parking. The truck followed her right back out. If she tried to slow and let the truck pass, it would slow down too and not let her. At one point she managed to get behind it and get off the road a while. The trucker must have stopped and waited because it started the same **** again with her when she got back on the road. She eventually eluded it in some heavy traffic. She said she tried to get the name of the company off the truck, but the writing looked Asian. Story still creeps me out.

Whaaat? That's really creepy.

Initially, I thought that maybe the trucker was tired and copying your mother's movements in the car because he was trying to play games to stay awake. (It sounds crazy, but I've done the same thing before on long stretches on the Interstate.)

But to follow your mom to THOSE lengths? Yikes.

I have something that doesn't directly involve me, but someone my wife worked with:

Wife's coworker's mentally disabled sister went missing 4 years ago. She got into an argument with her mother (which were frequent) and left the house. When she didn't return for a few days, the mother wasn't worried, because apparently she had done this several times in the past and would always come home. She was last seen near a bike trail that I run on pretty much every day. This bike trail cuts through some heavy wooded areas, so my first thought was that she was either hiding out there (homeless people live along various parts on the trail) or worse, she was dead and ditched there. 4 months after she went missing, a man walking found her decapitated skull in a wooded area literally right across the street from the bike trail. They eventually caught the guy who admitted to murdering another local woman, and they suspect he may be a serial killer.

In the mid-80s my mom had taken my brother, sister and me to Disneyworld and was making the return trip home late at night. Us kids were asleep while she drove. She noticed an 18 wheeler following closely and tried to change lanes so it could pass. It didn't. It would change lanes with her. He was going to park at a rest stop and get some rest, but the truck pulled in behind her. She thought maybe the trucker was doing the same. She felt uneasy so she left without even parking. The truck followed her right back out. If she tried to slow and let the truck pass, it would slow down too and not let her. At one point she managed to get behind it and get off the road a while. The trucker must have stopped and waited because it started the same **** again with her when she got back on the road. She eventually eluded it in some heavy traffic. She said she tried to get the name of the company off the truck, but the writing looked Asian. Story still creeps me out.

That is CREEPY! :eek:

There was one time where I went walking from a bar to a McDonald's (literally right down on the same street, about a five minute brisk walk) and got some food and ate at the restaurant. When I was walking back to the bar a car pulled up with a black man in his late 40's early 50's and a young black woman mid-20's early 30's asking me for cigarettes. They both got out and stood with one foot on the ground, and one foot in the car and asked me if I had any smokes, to which I told them I didn't smoke and then started to continue my walk. That's when the guy said something else and I just kept walking and then he said, "Come on man I'm talking to you" but it wasn't in an angry tone it was almost kind of disappointed, and that's when the woman got out and tried in her most sincere voice to ask me to come back towards them (I was probably about 10-15 yards away from them at this point) and to see if I knew where a particular highway was...the highway (which is really just a busy road that connects Baltimore to Annapolis) was literally DIRECTLY PARALLEL to the road I was walking and its the most travelled road in the entire town...everything is on this road and it was in crawling distance from where I was walking so I figured something fishy could have been going on. I kind of laughed (thinking it was a pretty dumb question) and told them something like, "It's literally right there" and pointed and then turned to keep walking and that's when she asked if I had any cigarettes and I told them again I don't smoke and something to the effect of I was done with them and kept walking when they finally got in their car and left. I'm assuming they figured I was drunk being that I was walking down a fairly busy road in the direction of a bar and that they were planning to rob me. Why else would the woman want me to come closer to them just for directions? They were acting very strange and their body language was kind of odd so I thought maybe they were high/and or drunk and maybe I was just overreacting about the whole thing. But the fact that they both got out of the car kept nagging me...I guess I could have called police but didn't think it was worth bothering them being that the people left and didn't make any attempt to come back, but for the rest of the night I kept playing out my re-enactment in my head thinking I could have been an unsolved mystery.

Woah!!

When I was three, we were renting the front half of a duplex. There was a family (father, mother, and a year and a half or so old son) that lived in the back half. One day they were leaving, and my mother and I were watching them as they backed out of the driveway. We waved to them. The father was driving, the mother was in the passenger seat, and the kid was on her lap. It was the 80s...**** like that happened a lot.

Anyway, they ended up getting taken out by a car that ran an intersection a few miles away. The mother was trapped in the car, dead. The father had been ejected. The first people on scene saw a baby bag and bottles in the ditch, so they assumed there was a baby, but couldn't find it. It turned out he was underneath the father. The father survived, but was seriously injured. The baby did not.

About six months or more later, my mother and father had split up, and my mother started dating a guy. One night, they were in bed watching tv and the door opened very slowly. They thought it was me, and they waited for me to come in. After a minute or so, they got up to investigate, and found me asleep in my bed. So they got paranoid and started going through the house. They found nothing. Finally, the only room left was the bathroom. So he went in, first. My mother stood in the door. He turned around to tell her he didn't see anything, and he backed up in shock, with a horrified look on his face. My mother wheeled around, expecting there to be someone standing behind her to kill her, and saw nothing there. So after a few minutes, he calmed down and told her that he had seen a woman standing behind her. He described a brunette, a little chubby, with a pretty face, and blue mascara and eye shadow running down her face as though she'd been crying, wearing a maroon windbreaker. The woman he described was our neighbor, down to the jacket she was wearing the day she died and the always present blue eye shadow and mascara. But he had never met them, never saw a picture of them, and had never been around the place until well after she had died.

When I was in my early teens, I was out shooting at the basketball net outside our house. I had a middle aged neighbor approach me and gave me the absolute creeps. I refused to interact with him (rare for a naïve kid like I was) and went in the house. Later he was arrested for touching a boy's private area. This was not the first time he did it either: I believe it was the third time. After the first arrest and conviction, he ....get this..... landed a job at a Elementary School!! He also never served a day in jail despite having three convictions.

When I was a baby my parents had a scary experience where they were driving home from a funeral in a secluded highway about 3 hours away from the city. For no apparent reason, a truck driven by a local business from that city tried to run them off the road on several occasions. When they got home they called the company and they denied having any trucks on the road on a Sunday.

I also remember having one car follow me the entire way home (over 30 minutes) from one end of the city to another. He even turned onto my cul-de-sac.... and pulled into another driveway and went into that house.

On a more positive note, let me first state that I am not religious in any way. One time I was stopped at a red light waiting to turn onto a highway. The light turned green and I inexplicably went into a dreamy/sleepy state and my foot wasn't able to push down on the gas. Around the blind corner came a tractor trailer flying through the red light going at least 80km/h (50mph)! I would have been T-boned and probably killed had I continued on!

I have also had recurring dreams about places I end up visiting many years later. One such dream was in an underground parking garage that didn't look like any ones I had ever seen. A few years ago on a visit to the USA, I found myself in Boston trying to find on street parking. I gave up and went to the Prudential Center and pulled into the parking garage and it was the one from my dream! The same experience happened when I was in a casino in Edmonton. I literally blurted out "I have been here before!". Luckily nobody heard me :lol: It's one thing to remember a "visit" to a place like the Empire State Building or other famous landmark but I doubt I saw either of these on TV.

.

There is one moment I had that occurred fairly recently and somewhat suprisingly, it reminded me of the Lost Loves genre.

It was just last year when I was still working as a temp before the start of my new career. One temp assignment I had was working as a telephone customer service attendant for ProFlowers/Shari's Berries. I recall a couple of 'customers' calling stating how they had received flowers/berries in the mail (though unopened, still bore the company's customer service dept contact info) but they were not the intended recipient at their respective addresses and stated how the named recipients were no longer living at that address. So I call my supervisor and he tells me to let the caller keep the goods for themselves but also put it in the order's data entry in case the real customer tries to establish contact.

For some reason, I couldn't help but think that the original senders might have been sending gifts to long lost friends or relatives of theirs. It seemed like they were googling/reverse white-paging their previous known addresses in order to say their long-awaited 'hellos' again.

Not sure if this really counts, as it didn't happen to me directly but my Ex-Wife's Uncle was found on the side of a road brutally tortured and murdered in 1977, likely the work of one of the numerous serial killers roaming California at the time. His name was Russell Goudy.

https://www.scribd.com/document/235805324/Pasadena-Star-News-August-3-1977-Russel-Goudy-murder

His parents (my Ex's grandparents) were told after William Bonin was captured that he was likely the murderer, as the crime fit his M.O. to a tee. Bonin was in custody and they started building a case against him and the numerous other murders he committed, Russel's being one of them. Case closed, right?

Wrong. My Ex and I started researching it a few years ago before we divorced and discovered that William Bonin was in custody in San Luis Obispo, CA from 1975 until 1978. Russell was murdered in August of 1977. Why the detectives told her grandparents that he was a suspect and how they did not know he was in custody at the time of the murders is beyond me. When we brought this up to her grandparents, they immediately shut my Ex down and did not want to reopen old wounds, as it would just bring all those memories back.

My personal opinion is that Russell's murder was the work of Randy Kraft, who is still on death row here in CA. He was known to frequent the area Russell was kidnapped in, as well as where his body was found. We will likely never know what really happened, but having a case like that hit so close to home is a painful reminder of how sick and twisted this world can be.

I was following a pick up in front of a school when a child ran on the road and was killed by the pick up. The driver did not stop. I watched the teachers/family run on the road and tried to stop traffic until the police could arrive.
The pick up driver did not stop. The school witnesses and I were all interviewed for a description and they found the guy shortly thereafter, catching him in the act of washing blood off his truck grill.

---
In 2004 I was driving to a college class, doing 75 or so on the highway. A car with 4 asian males came up and rode my bumper. I honked on the horn and sped up - they followed me. I slowed down and waved them past, they slowed down and went back on my bumper. I sped up...rinse/repeat. They finally blew by me, cut me off and slowed way down. The other traffic on the highway was now being affected, so cars behind me are honking. I tried several times to pass them and they continued to cut me off.
I finally got past them and floored it, trying to avoid these nuts. They sped up next to me and started honking their horn and flipping me off. They sped in front of me, cut me off and turned their whole vehicle sideways in between the two lane highway.
The many cars behind me are now getting really anxious and some kept roaring past anyway. When I tried to follow in my car, the asians blocked my path. They started yelling and dared me to drive up by them. I finally got on the ass of a van that was riding the ditch to get past them. They raced ahead and blocked the van, and by proxy me off. By this point we were on an off ramp.
They let the van pass and waved me forward. I said "f__k it" and tried to get past them. They cut me off again. The on ramp now had 12-15 cars sitting behind me as 4 Asians continued to cuss me out 20 feet in front of my vehicle. They climbed out and started to make a move for my car.
I thought in the spur of the moment that I needed to pop the trunk and grab the tire iron. I hopped out and screamed "I don't want any trouble!" I then hopped back in the vehicle. They stopped, perhaps thinking I could run them over. They hopped in their car and roared off.
That was probably the most terrifying 20 minutes of my life. I expected them to have knives or guns.

I have a creepy story where I was almost kidnapped.

Back in the 90s, my parents were close friends with another couple. They had two sons who were a few years older than me. The couple were my godparents and were just crazy about me. I was young at that time, but I remember them being super attentive toward me, buying me gifts, and acting like a second set of parents. Both families spent a lot of time with each other and were genuinely close.

Something happened and basically this couple decided to start drama and tried to break up my parent's marriage, which already wasn't that great due to trust issues. They played off of that and for a while, they tried to convince my mom to leave my dad and come with them to their hometown California, where they were moving back to.

My mom told them no and was creeped out by how insistent they were. Apparently, they kept emphasizing how they wanted to take care of me and help raise me. Yeeeah... my mom quickly noped out of that one. Her and my dad started working on their marriage and stopped talking to the couple.

Three months went by and the wife of the couple showed up to see me at my elementary school at the end of the day. They had missed my birthday the month before and she gave me a card and a Barbie as a gift. I remember thinking it was weird that before she had brown hair, but seeing her again she had bleached it blonde. When my mom picked me up from school that day I told her I had seen the wife, and showed her the presents. I didn't know this at the time, but apparently the card said something like, "We love and miss you. We look forward to having fun with you this summer. See you soon". I guess my mom interpreted the statement as maybe they thought they were going to be in our lives again and the would get a chance to see me.

Well, not too long after that, the couple came to the school not just to see me, but to check me out for the day. I was in class at the time and didn't know this or see them. Luckily, the school secretary told them they couldn't, because my mom had took them off the list of people that were approved to take me out of school (other than my parents). After that they took off immediately and they never tried that crap again.

Still, hearing about it later really creeped me out. I doubt they would have hurt me (I was young but remember them being nice, loving people) but they still weird, manipulative people who were trying to kidnap me.

I have a creepy story where I was almost kidnapped.

Back in the 90s, my parents were close friends with another couple. They had two sons who were a few years older than me. The couple were my godparents and were just crazy about me. I was young at that time, but I remember them being super attentive toward me, buying me gifts, and acting like a second set of parents. Both families spent a lot of time with each other and were genuinely close.

Something happened and basically this couple decided to start drama and tried to break up my parent's marriage, which already wasn't that great due to trust issues. They played off of that and for a while, they tried to convince my mom to leave my dad and come with them to their hometown California, where they were moving back to.

My mom told them no and was creeped out by how insistent they were. Apparently, they kept emphasizing how they wanted to take care of me and help raise me. Yeeeah... my mom quickly noped out of that one. Her and my dad started working on their marriage and stopped talking to the couple.

Three months went by and the wife of the couple showed up to see me at my elementary school at the end of the day. They had missed my birthday the month before and she gave me a card and a Barbie as a gift. I remember thinking it was weird that before she had brown hair, but seeing her again she had bleached it blonde. When my mom picked me up from school that day I told her I had seen the wife, and showed her the presents. I didn't know this at the time, but apparently the card said something like, "We love and miss you. We look forward to having fun with you this summer. See you soon". I guess my mom interpreted the statement as maybe they thought they were going to be in our lives again and the would get a chance to see me.

Well, not too long after that, the couple came to the school not just to see me, but to check me out for the day. I was in class at the time and didn't know this or see them. Luckily, the school secretary told them they couldn't, because my mom had took them off the list of people that were approved to take me out of school (other than my parents). After that they took off immediately and they never tried that crap again.

Still, hearing about it later really creeped me out. I doubt they would have hurt me (I was young but remember them being nice, loving people) but they still weird, manipulative people who were trying to kidnap me.

Thank god the school had the common sense to not let those freaks "check you out" of school that day.

I have a creepy story where I was almost kidnapped.

Back in the 90s, my parents were close friends with another couple. They had two sons who were a few years older than me. The couple were my godparents and were just crazy about me. I was young at that time, but I remember them being super attentive toward me, buying me gifts, and acting like a second set of parents. Both families spent a lot of time with each other and were genuinely close.

Something happened and basically this couple decided to start drama and tried to break up my parent's marriage, which already wasn't that great due to trust issues. They played off of that and for a while, they tried to convince my mom to leave my dad and come with them to their hometown California, where they were moving back to.

My mom told them no and was creeped out by how insistent they were. Apparently, they kept emphasizing how they wanted to take care of me and help raise me. Yeeeah... my mom quickly noped out of that one. Her and my dad started working on their marriage and stopped talking to the couple.

Three months went by and the wife of the couple showed up to see me at my elementary school at the end of the day. They had missed my birthday the month before and she gave me a card and a Barbie as a gift. I remember thinking it was weird that before she had brown hair, but seeing her again she had bleached it blonde. When my mom picked me up from school that day I told her I had seen the wife, and showed her the presents. I didn't know this at the time, but apparently the card said something like, "We love and miss you. We look forward to having fun with you this summer. See you soon". I guess my mom interpreted the statement as maybe they thought they were going to be in our lives again and the would get a chance to see me.

Well, not too long after that, the couple came to the school not just to see me, but to check me out for the day. I was in class at the time and didn't know this or see them. Luckily, the school secretary told them they couldn't, because my mom had took them off the list of people that were approved to take me out of school (other than my parents). After that they took off immediately and they never tried that crap again.

Still, hearing about it later really creeped me out. I doubt they would have hurt me (I was young but remember them being nice, loving people) but they still weird, manipulative people who were trying to kidnap me.

Yowza. As a parent, that just chills me to the bone.

Last summer, I was sitting in my car at an extremely busy shopping center maybe ~10 minutes away from my house. I was just messing around on my phone, burning some time before an appointment in one of the shops. Well, a few minutes after I was parked, some ~23-25 year old girl with her hair up and sunglasses comes knocking on my window.

Thanks to spending my formative years watching Unsolved Mysteries, and the better part of the last several years listening to true crime podcasts and watching other shows, I only barely cracked the window - maybe 1 cm. She says she isn't trying to bother me, but wants to know if I could help her and her "kids" out. She points to a car (crown vic / mercury grand marquis) that is running but parked squarely behind my car, and I see the 4-5 "kids" she is referring to. Some of them were obviously on the wrong side of 18 and larger than this sunglasses wearing girl that had disturbed me. I don't know - she was very unspecific about the "help," I didn't get the impression that she wanted money, and I know that those weren't "her kids," and I just got...a very, very strong human trafficking vibe. I just looked at her and said "No," and closed my window and went back to my phone. I could tell she was shocked, stepped back, and I watched her (pretending not to) get back into her car and drive away. I actually did call it in to the cops when I got home an hour later, after reviewing it all over and over in my head and talking to my sisters about it.

On the surface, I may sound like I'm overreacting. Unfortunately, the city I live in (not necessarily the part of it I live in) is known for human trafficking :/.

Last summer, I was sitting in my car at an extremely busy shopping center maybe ~10 minutes away from my house. I was just messing around on my phone, burning some time before an appointment in one of the shops. Well, a few minutes after I was parked, some ~23-25 year old girl with her hair up and sunglasses comes knocking on my window.

Thanks to spending my formative years watching Unsolved Mysteries, and the better part of the last several years listening to true crime podcasts and watching other shows, I only barely cracked the window - maybe 1 cm. She says she isn't trying to bother me, but wants to know if I could help her and her "kids" out. She points to a car (crown vic / mercury grand marquis) that is running but parked squarely behind my car, and I see the 4-5 "kids" she is referring to. Some of them were obviously on the wrong side of 18 and larger than this sunglasses wearing girl that had disturbed me. I don't know - she was very unspecific about the "help," I didn't get the impression that she wanted money, and I know that those weren't "her kids," and I just got...a very, very strong human trafficking vibe. I just looked at her and said "No," and closed my window and went back to my phone. I could tell she was shocked, stepped back, and I watched her (pretending not to) get back into her car and drive away. I actually did call it in to the cops when I got home an hour later, after reviewing it all over and over in my head and talking to my sisters about it.

On the surface, I may sound like I'm overreacting. Unfortunately, the city I live in (not necessarily the part of it I live in) is known for human trafficking :/.

Scary! Did you get the license plate number?

Scary! Did you get the license plate number?

Unfortunately no! The way the car was parked behind me, I couldn't have seen the plate without getting out of the car. :/

I actually saw Champy three years ago. Up close and personal. And it was the most terrifying thing I've ever experienced. I never really shared the story with anyone, but...given Sandra Mansi (who took THE definitive Champy picture) died this weekend...I might as well tell it.

Being that I live in a small town on the border with Canada that also happens to sit right on the lake, predictably we spend a lot of time doing things on and around the lake. I'd grown up hearing about Champy (in fact, my first savings account, as a little kid, was named after "Champy" and they had some kind of little stuffed toy mascot thing), and I'd always wanted to catch a glimpse of the mysterious icon.

I can't say I want to, ever again.

It was 27 July 2014. Oh....you're damn right I remember the date. I went out on the lake with my friend, Jay, in his canoe. Little dinky thing. It had a small keel, but I can't say it inspired a whole lot of confidence, honestly. But it was a gorgeous Sunday in early summer. No clouds, lots of sun, no wind...which equals no real chop, obviously. So I felt a little more comfortable going out in his death trap. I'm not exactly Michael Phelps or Johnny Weissmuller. I can swim about enough to save my life, if I'm getting picked up by someone in another boat. Yes...we had life vests, but this is immaterial. Until you've been adrift in black water that you can't touch the bottom of, because it's 400 feet deep, in places...you don't truly understand the lack of enthusiasm that comes with "Hey, let's just float here on this piece of styrofoam."

So we pushed off into the lake, and paddled out. I must admit, it was absolutely beautiful out there. That beautiful smell of the water. It was calm and visibility was great. The reflection of the sun off the water sucked, obviously, but...I mean, you take the good with the bad, I guess. We paddled out to the main channel and started heading north, so we could get a good view from the water of Fort Montgomery (NOT FORT BLUNDER. You have no idea how much that pisses me off when people refer to Montgomery as "Blunder" or "the fort built on the wrong side of the border." Neither is true. Blunder was the unnamed, unfinished fort that was built on the wrong side of the border, and once it was realized they ceased construction, and the fort was disassembled by locals, who used it for homes and such. Montgomery was built after the border was moved in 1842, and was actually finished and armed until the early 1900s), rather than the typical land views. It was gorgeous out there.

We had stopped for a little while, and were drifting near the main channel. We were talking and drinking a couple sodas, and admiring the view. Suddenly, the smell of the lake was....different.

It took me a few moments before I started placing the smell. When I was younger, my best friend had a couple lizards, at various times. What I was smelling was...the best I could describe it was the smell of lizards. It was still different (obviously not including the typical terrarium smell), but that's the closest parallel I can give. If you've ever smelled someone's pet lizards, that was pretty close, is what I'm getting at. I started to say something about it to Jay, when some bubbles started to come up about...I would say fifteen to twenty-feet away. Not a lot, at first. I had assumed there were SCUBA divers in the water.

I was wrong.

The bubbling began to not only increase, but draw closer, very slowly. Not on a direct line for us, but rather on an intersecting parallel line. Jay and I were watching this, stunned, really not sure what the Hell we were seeing. Honestly, Champy was the absolute last thing in my mind. I was thinking everything from divers to someone's homemade submarine or SOMETHING that seemed logical.

The "lizard smell" was so dense in the air, now, I could physically taste it. It was disgusting. But my eyes were fixed on the roiling mass of water that was inching ever closer. My arm was still crooked with the soda can halfway to my gaping mouth. The canoe was starting to rock in the waves generated by these bubbles, and had I not been so fixated on trying to figure out what the Hell this thing was, I would've been filled with pants-s***ting terror.

The first thing to pop up was a hump. It was dark green, so dark it was almost black, and covered in scales. The scales had a weird iridescence that almost reminds me of obsidian.

As a second matching hump broke the water, I said literally the only words I could find in my entire vocabulary. "You've got to be ****ing kidding me." We were getting buffeted pretty well by the waves, now, but neither of us could even begin to care about that.

The next thing that came up was a medium sized head on a long, snaking neck. It was facing away from us, at that point. Jay and I finally broke our paralysis at the same instant and began, very slowly, reaching for our oars...to either row the **** away (if possible) or beat the **** out of it (if necessary). In a split second (it seemed), the head turned toward us.

Bowel evacuation commenced and ended, at this exact moment.

The head was roughly triangular, with these weird...I hesitate to call them spikes because they didn't seem bony or whatever...but these weird "spikes" on top. I guess the closest parallel would be those weird feather things on the heads of the Velociraptors in Jurassic Park 3. The jaws were not huge, but definitely big enough to eat even the largest fish in the lake, and more than accommodating to biting a limb off some dumbass in a canoe. And they were plenty big enough to invoke complete terror in me. The eyes were set deep into two sockets at the front of the skull, much like a human, rather than on the sides, like your typical fish. And they were red.

This thing...was not...a ****ing sturgeon.

Our hands froze when it looked at us, terrified to move, in the event it mistook us for food. The head slowly drew closer, and I clenched my jaws so tightly that I felt like I was pushing my teeth back into my gums. It seemed to be looking at the boat, which was bright red. Just like our blood will be in the water, soon I remember thinking. I'll never forget the terror I felt.

The head was roughly six feet from me when suddenly, it snapped upward. It met my gaze with its own, and I swear to God, it could see into my soul. My heart was drumming so fast, it probably heard it. After what seemed like hours (in reality, probably a few seconds), I heard a voice.

"I need about tree fiddy."

I have never been so angry in my entire life. I screamed back "**** you, you ****** Champy! Get your own ****** tree fiddy!"

Jay suddenly moved, like he was going to reach into his pocket. "Jay, if you grab your wallet, I'm throwing you in with him!" I yelled, angrily.

"Well, I might have a dollar," he told me, pleading.

"If you give him a dollar, he'll never go away! He's gonna assume you got more!"

The head looked back and forth between us a couple times, then slowly slipped back beneath the water. We paddled for shore like the very fires of Hell and damnation were following us. Once back on shore, as we pulled the canoe out, Champy popped up, once more. This time, I was able to actually get a picture, though.

https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/229340_10150177757352561_3588332_n.jpg?_nc_cat=0&oh=5424ec5548b123ea4cf6cfc6f167c0d0&oe=5B2CE49B

^^^OMFG bell, that has GOT to be the funniest thing I've heard all day!! Thanks for that...I always love a good laugh.

I'm pretty sure I've talked about this one before, but it's the closest I've ever come to being a UM, and I've never forgotten it. About 10 years ago, I was working swing shift and taking the bus back and forth to work. At the time, there wasn't bus that ran close to my house at that time of night (about 11:00 p.m.), so my family and I came up with a plan that they would pick me up at the local transit center each night. As I live in a relatively quiet community, the transit center and surrounding area was always pretty deserted at that time of night.

The downside of taking the bus was that it was usually off schedule, so it would frequently come in several minutes early or late. While I didn't own a cell phone at the time, there was a few pay phones at the transit centers, so on those nights I would beat my family there, I usually called to let them know. One night this happened, and I hit the pay phone but no one picked up, so I assumed they were on their way. As soon as I hung up the phone, a voice behind me asked, "Do you need a ride Miss?". The guy offering had stepped into my personal space while my back was turned and I was distracted by the phone. When I looked around and realized no one else was around, I started to get nervous and backed away a few steps. I declined his offer and told him my ride was on the way. He stepped towards me again and restated his offer of a ride. I declined again, more firmly this time. He offered me a ride a couple more times, while each time I stepped back, he stepped forward. Finally he told me his "wife would be in the car with us" if that was what I was concerned about, and I declined again. At this point, I was panicking and had just made the decision to start running when my family pulled up. I damn near threw myself in front of our car, I was so happy to see them, lol!

Now to be fair, it's entirely possible this man was just trying to be a good Samaritan and I overreacted. When I told my family about it after we got home however, my mom said, "That's it! You're done taking the bus effective immediately...and you're getting an effing cell phone!". My mama, God bless her, was always very much a mother bear type. She had two rules in life. She didn't take sh*t off anyone, and her baby girl didn't either, lol. Moral of the story...just say "no" at the creepy, deserted transit center late at night.

^^^OMFG bell, that has GOT to be the funniest thing I've heard all day!! Thanks for that...I always love a good laugh.

Thank you....thank you....I'll be here all week :happyface

Glad SOMEONE enjoyed it :) Took a while typing it all up and coming up with it :)

As for your story, damn! :eek:

One of the other UM moments actually happened within the last year and involved my incredibly sweet, elderly next door neighbor. She lives alone since her husband passed a few years back but frequently takes long weekend trips out of town to visit her kids. Whenever she does this, she gives me her spare key ahead of time and asks me to pop by everyday to feed her cat.

The last time she took one of these trips, she made the same arrangement with me. I was quite surprised when I showed up the first day she was gone and saw her car still in the garage. Every other time, she's driven herself. I pressed on in any case, calling out for my neighbor as I let myself in the house. When there was no response, I proceeded to fill up the cat's food bowl in the kitchen, then moved on to the one in her bedroom. I was taken by surprise at the door to her bedroom when I saw what looked to be a half filled suitcase lying open on her bed. At this point, I became concerned and searched for her room by room. She is elderly after all and has battled serious health problems in the past.

The house was empty except for myself and the cat, and I finally finished filling his bowls. After locking the house back up, I walked back home and ran into my mom in our front yard. Seeing the scowl on my face, she asked what was wrong and I told her about what I'd seen next door. My mom asked if maybe our neighbor had fallen and hurt herself, and I told her that I'd searched the whole house. Finally I told my mom, "I don't like this. Maybe I ought to call the police.". To which my mom chuckled and said, "Wait a minute Robert Stack! Call her cell phone first and check on her. Not everything is an unsolved mystery you know." Mom was right, lol. I reached my neighbor on her cell and she was having a lovely visit with her family. She laughed when I told her about almost calling the police, and thanked me for my concern.

You know, I did kind of learn a valuable lesson about this subject when I was a junior in high school. Back then, to rack up extra credit, I spent one of my class periods each day as a teacher's assistant in the science lab. The teacher that ran the lab was a very nice lady who I got along well with. One day I showed up at the lab and had to sign in with a different teacher. He informed me that Margaret (the normal teacher) had called in sick and he was filling in as a sub in her absence.

What followed was the most uncomfortable 40 minutes of my life.

There was just something about the sub that made my hair stand on end. I didn't say anything because there was nothing specific he had said or done that I could point to. For some reason I couldn't pinpoint, I just found him to be creepy as hell. The following afternoon when it came time for me to check in at the lab, I asked one of my friends to walk with me. I told her about the day before and that I was gonna do a "walk by", and if he was manning the lab again, I'd just ditch during that period. My friend agreed and we did our sneaky "walk by", only to find out the same sub was working the lab again. We immediately turned around and walked straight into Mr. Westley, who was the head of the science department and knew me by sight.

I thought my goose was cooked at this point and that Mr. Westley was gonna be pissed at me because he caught me trying to cut class. Just as I was about to make some flaky excuse, he cut me off and said, "You're excused from the lab today young lady." He must have seen the confusion and relief written all over my face because he said, "We've decided to excuse all the student assistants working in the lab, and that after today, we won't be inviting this particular sub back. That all I'm going to say on the matter. Have a nice afternoon."

The next day Margaret was thankfully back in the lab, and when I checked in, the first thing she said was, "So I guess the sub was pretty weird huh?". At first I was surprised because I'd only told my friend about it. When I asked Margaret how she knew, she told me that as it turned out, every other female student assistant independently complained about the sub. I was the only one who didn't say anything. She told me that I needed to remember this in the future and to always pay attention to my instincts.

One night back in the early 1990's, still a bit before caller ID (or before my parents had it, anyway) the phone rang. I answered it and there was quite a bit of static on the line. A lady says "Davey?" and I said "looks like you have the wrong num.." and she cut me off and said "hi Davey...listen...is now a good time...I really need to talk to you". Again I started to tell her that she had the wrong number. But she just kept on talking. She said "through all of this, I believe it's become quite clear what I need to do...see...you probably didn't even know that I have been in Toronto for weeks now". This was really freaking me out at this point. I said "listen....may I ask you something?" and she said very nervously "yeah yeah". And I said "do you know anyone in Alabama?" and she said "where?" and I said "Alabama. As in the state of Alabama. Located in the United States. The southeastern United States, to be specific". And she said "no..no...I've only ever been to the USA once...maybe twice...and that was just across the border in Michigan". So I proceed to explain that she has called someone in the state of Alabama. She gasps and says "look, Davey, if it isn't a good time, then just tell me baby. I can always call back another time." Again I tried telling her that she had the wrong number. And again, that didn't seem to register with her. She just said "alone is not synonymous with loneliness my dear Davey. I'l try again tomorrow night. Perhaps you need some time to process this. Goodbye for now. Sweet dreams".

The whole thing was just...eerie. It's odd that someone could place a phone call to another country and not realize it.

Recently, I had a moment that immediately reminded me of the neighbors in the Crystal Spencer segment. Heard a very loud domestic dispute in the middle of the night full of screaming, what might have been hitting, etc. I called the police, and even as I did so I kept thinking of the segment. I wasn't hearing the sounds they were, but it was bad enough that I knew I couldn't do nothing.

This happened to me about ten years ago when I was visiting Washington D.C. I was due to get a flight to Minnesota in the early afternoon but, due to a combination of circumstances, I missed my flight. There were no other flights available from that airport to fly to Minnesota that day so I was faced with the options of staying at the airport all evening and night until the next flight arrived or trying to book a hotel room to spend the night and then returning to the airport the next day.

As I recall it, my initial intention was to spend the evening and night at the airport but the chairs were uncomfortable and I was bored (this was the Foster-Dulles airport and there was nothing to do there). So I tried searching online around for hotels near the airport where I could stay but this was a busy time of year (around the summer holidays) and all the hotels nearby were booked up (actually all the hotels in the city seemed to be booked up). Finally, in desperation, I found one hotel supposedly near the Union Station which had a room and I snapped it up

So I hitch a taxi from the airport and after a comical series of events (involving being dropped at the wrong hotel and so on), I finally arrive at my destination -which looked to be in quite a seedy part of town and, despite its name, seemed to be as close to Union Station as Washington DC is to Timbuktu. Only to find the desk clerk insisting that the place was full and that I hadn't made a reservation there. Finally, my reservation does come through but he insists he I can't stay here because all the rooms are full and my reservation was made in error.

So I'm stuck in a seedy part of town, outside the hotel, burdened down with lots of luggage, exhausted and upset and finding it very hard to get a taxi. I will concede I'm not thinking straight by this point. So then this guy comes along and says he and his grandmother have a room in which I can stay in. Because I was so desperate and felt so lost, I accept his invitation

It quickly becomes clear his story about a grandmother is fake. He takes me across the room and gets me to pay for a room for me and him in this seedy hotel which seems to be a hangout for prostitutes and pimps. We book into the room and, by this stage, I'm petrified. He goes out of the room for a little while and I want to run but I don't know where to go. I'm in the middle of nowhere, I don't know whom to contact. I honestly thought I was going to get robbed and murdered that night. I hold my possessions close to me and do the only thing I could think of. I pretended to go to sleep

A little while later this guy comes back and finds me asleep (allegedly). Thankfully, he doesn't disturb me. He invites a prostitute back into the room and they have very loud sex on the bed next to me. After a while, her angry pimp starts banging on the door because he reckons that this guy has had his prostitute for too long. I think for a little while that this pimp is going to burst in and beat us all up and/or kill us. Thankfully, the prostitute leaves and I'm alone with this guy again.

The night passes with an agonizing eternity. I pretend to be asleep for most of it. Finally, early morning comes and I can pretend no longer. The guy next to me notices I've "woken" up and then starts demanding money for various things -my mind is fuzzy on exactly what, I think he said it was the cost of the room or something. He then offers to go and take my credit card to the supermarket and withdraw some money to cover the cost if I give him the PIN. Now, I may have been stupid enough to get myself into this situation, but I'm not that stupid. I finally agree to accompany him to a supermarket where I withdraw some money. But he keeps demanding more, he wants me to pay for his prostitute. Emboldened by being in a public place, I manage to somehow extricate myself from his demands and jump into the nearest taxi and head back for Foster-Dulles and wait there until my flight comes

That was literally the most scariest night of my life. I truly believed I was going to be murdered and those hours in that hotel room seemed like an eternity. Reflecting on it now, I can just imagine this being part of a UM segment about how a visitor to Washington mysteriously vanished from the airport and was never seen again. I could imagine my father appearing on screen and pleading my case. And if that guy had killed me, I don't think they ever would have caught him or even known where to start looking. It'd have been one of those Unsolved Mysteries that would forever have been unsolved

UMFan1981....Oh my goodness!! Needless to say, you dodged something there!! Just curious, did you have the taxi driver swing by the hotel first to retrieve your luggage before heading to the airport? Or did you just go straight to Foster-Dulles from the supermarket?

Hmm I guess a few. I've been:

stabbed

robbed at gunpoint

kidnapped/held hostage

been shot at but not shot

tried to be brainwashed into a cult

tried to be swindled by a pyramid scheme

maybe thats why I like UM so much. I see alot of relatable segments

I've always enjoyed sleeping with my bedroom window cracked open, and one night about five years back I was enjoying the night air while I was reading myself to sleep. Suddenly, out of nowhere, I heard about a half dozen gunshots in quick succession. It was so close that the noise hurt my ears and it was immediately clear that I was hearing gun fire as opposed to something like fire crackers. My parents also heard it from their room across the hall and immediately ran in to make sure I was alright.

Now I've always taken our 911 system seriously, and have only had to call a couple times in my life...thank God! I didn't feel right not reporting the incident, but also didn't want to call 911 when I didn't really have any specific info to share. Instead I called our local non-emergency hotline and told the dispatcher that I felt stupid bothering them when I couldn't give them any specific details. She chuckled and told me that their switchboard had totally lit up in the last ten minutes with several calls from my side of town. The next day our local news reported that a man had been arrested in my neighborhood for firing his gun randomly during a drunken stupor. I was glad they caught the guy but the incident was very unnerving for my usually sedate, family oriented neighborhood.

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More! More!!

More! More!!

I find these stories pretty fascinating too baloney. Hope you all are having happy holidays!

I wouldn't exactly call this one a "UM moment", but rather a symptom of what we were all going through at the time. During September of 2001 I had just transferred to a new location at work. My transfer coincided with my family moving closer to the area but came through before our move was complete. As a result, I ended up staying with my granny for a few weeks to make for an easier commute. On the morning of 9/11, I was still showering when the first plane hit. While I was finishing getting ready, Granny came in, put the news on for me and told me what was happening in New York. The first thing I said was, "Oh my God, how awful! The pilot must have had a heart attack in the air or something." (I was obviously pretty naive about air travel back then, lol.) When the second plane hit, my next words were, "Oh...well THAT'S not an accident."

Even though we were living on the west coast, after a whole day of tragedy, my mama decided she needed to set eyes on her only child and came over to spend the night with Granny and I. Since Granny only has one guest room, Mom and I ended up bunking together that night. Now my granny lives only a stones throw away from the local airport, so hearing planes taking off and landing at all hours is common place. Mom was pretty jumpy that night and as we were trying to get to sleep, the sound of a plane startled her. I automatically said, "Oh, don't worry Mama... that's just a plane taking off from the airport." She was quiet for a moment before saying, "There shouldn't BE any planes taking off. They've suspended air travel nationwide."

Of course she and I realized soon enough that it was likely just a military plane. At the time however, we were both so nervous and rattled that it ended up feeling like a "the calls are coming from INSIDE the house" moment from the old "Have you checked the children" story.

In 2019 I was in a Walmart and a guy who looked like Tony from the Adam Hecht case was going up and down the aisles saying "excuse me...hey...excuse me....sir....ma'am....hey...excuse me". Apparently nobody was paying any attention. He eventually got to me (which I was expecting and was fully prepared for) and asked if I could help him out. He said something like "I need somebody to buy what's in my buggy for me and then give me a ride to get it home. I walked here". I told him that I was unable to do that and kept going. The guy got pretty hostile and said that I would be do it whether I liked it or not. Then I started thinking about the Dorothy Donovan case where the guy made Charles give him a ride then attacked him when he said he couldn't go any further. Then, if that wasn't enough, the guy then somehow, not only picked the neighborhood where Dorothy lived, but also managed to pick her house! And that's despite Charles going far away in the other direction to throw the guy off. I pictured this guy somehow doing the same thing, even though this Walmart was not close by where me or my mother live. He continued to follow me. I stopped and said "look....I have to think about MY safety. I don't know you. And yet I am supposed to just drive you somewhere? And just trust you completely? By the same token, YOU should think about YOUR own safety too! You should NOT just trust me like that! How do YOU know that I wouldn't drive you out into the woods and off you or something like that?". With that, he walked away flustered. What's even more troubling is, I told the people at Walmart and all I got was an "I'm sorry". That's it! I pointed out the guy to them and they didn't blink. They looked at like "so freaking what?" I called the corporate headquarters and filed a formal complaint against that Walmart. At least they took a report and reprimanded the management of that store. I later found out that at least one of the employees who failed to take any action were suspended as a result of that and the manager was issued a letter of warning.

Back in 2005, a family member was attacked and left for dead in our own neighborhood when he walked to the local convenience store one night. He didn't die, but he suffered brain damage and other life changing complications as a result of the attack. What exactly happened that night is a mystery in of itself. There have been numerous theories on what happened but nothing concrete. The assailants have never been caught and the family member has since died from other health related complications.

The erie thing about this whole story is what transpired several days later after the attack took place. It was a Friday evening, around 7:30 PM, and I was home alone "holding down the fort" while the rest of the family was at the hospital visiting our family member. I was washing dishes and there was a knock at the door. Still on edge about what happened to my family member just days earlier, I didn't open the door nor even ask who it was. I stayed still and silent. The person at the door never said a word either.

I can remember vividly that the TV in the kitchen was on, and the Andy Griffith Show was playing. Certainly whoever was at the door must have heard the TV and realized someone was home. I was living on the third floor of our family's apartment house at the time so from my vantage point I was unable to see who left the property. To this day I still don't know who was at that door or what they could have wanted. Was it someone coming by to provide information about what happened to my family member that fateful night? Was it one of the assailants stopping by to do me in as well? I'll never know. But that incident shook me up for a while.

About 11 or so years ago I was visiting a friend who lived in a pretty rough area of town, it was around 9pm in the middle of winter so it was pitch black out, we decided one night to go the corner store and buy some snacks and drinks.

As we were walking down his block, this truck came speeding up to the curb, rolled down his window and said "Hey, kids" he looked like that one taxi driver at the end of Home Alone 2. naturally, I freaked out, and tried to run back to my friends house. When I ran back he put the truck in reverse and hit the gas, when I ran forward he through it in drive and followed me, I was able to cross the road and get back to my friends house, for some reason my friend never moved. I told his mother and we went back to where it happened, my friend didn't really seem concerned and just said someone broke his fence and he was wondering if we knew who did it.

I always wondered if I overacted due to watching shows like UM, Forensic Files, Americas Most Wanted and Rescue 911, and maybe it made me more scared in the situation than I should've been.

need more!! These are fascinating!!

It wasn't a mystery but there is Unsolved Mysteries segment about the Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico, which is a site I have been countless times. Well every 12 of December, it's the day of the Virgin Mary and Mexicans go early to church to celebrate "Las Mañanitas". I went with my mom early and coming back to my house here in Puerto Rico, the car way in front of me went up and ran over a guy in a bicycle killing him instantly. Had to call 911 and be a witness. The guy ran a couple of traffic cones (they were trimming some trees) and suddenly I saw a big traffic cone and it turned out it was the guy in the bicycle flying in the air. Apparently the guy fell asleep as he was coming from work (it was like 6 AM). The Unsolved Mysteries is whatever happened to the guy since the police never called me after that although I had said I was going to Mexico in January although he probably just said he was guilty.

Didn't find any threads on this and didn't want to resurrect any of the old ones (10+ yrs), but I was watching the Orphan Train segment this afternoon, looked up Francis Murphy's obituary and saw he was a teacher in the small town my Dad grew up in.

Shot my Dad a text this afternoon, asked him if he ever remembered a 'Francis Murphy' from school and he came back and said "Mr. Murphy was my science teacher, but I don't recall his first name. His wife was my high school math teacher."

I showed him Francis' picture from the UM Wiki entry (link (https://unsolvedmysteries.fandom.com/wiki/Margaret_Murphy?so=search)) and he was like "Wow! I never saw him without his glasses."

I haven't seen them personally, but as recently as this past weekend, Tony Alamo's followers have been putting pamphlets on cars in my area (mostly at shopping malls).

After a little league game when I was 10 years old, the entire team went over to my cousin's house in a trailer they were renting while they had a house built. In that neighborhood was a trailer painted completely in rainbow colors for the clown that lived there. We went to the pool after the game and a few of us got lost and turned around and did not know how to get back to my cousin's house. It was beginning to get dark and we saw the rainbow trailer and the clown out front wearing only his face paint and wig asking us if we wanted some candy. He was asking in that clown type voice that they talk with. We ran like hell in the other direction as fast as we could.

I've had a number of these over the years.

First one that comes to mind. This happened a few years ago on a rural highway in the west. There was not much traffic and it was just after sundown, still within civil twilight probably. I'm driving alone and notice this car has been behind me for a while. They had been going faster than my speed, but when they got to me they slowed down and matched mine. I'm not using cruise control (car doesn't have it) so I know my speed isn't exactly consistent either which means that they didn't just drop a click on the cruise and happen to synch with me.
They follow me like this for probably eight or ten miles. It's getting dark so their headlights are starting to bother me. It’s a four lane road at this point so they can pass whenever. I decide to slow down just a bit so they will go around me and quit following (they were following close, but not abnormally so). Even after I slow down it takes a couple miles for them to pass. Then they seem to accelerate quite a bit and head off into the night ahead of me and I don't think anything more of it.
About ten or fifteen miles later I'm going along and am surprised when headlights hit me from the side as I pass by one of the dirt roads that leaves the highway. The vehicle had just turned on their lights as I went by, they were sitting there with them off until I passed. In the rearview mirror I see a car pull out and head my direction. I'm thinking this is strange, but then within less than a mile this car is right on my bumper and it’s the same one from before.
Now I'm concerned that they are following me or are up to no good. At this point the road has ceased to be four lanes and is mostly a 3 lane system with each direction of travel getting a passing lane every three miles. Its dark so I can't see how many people are in the car or what they look like but they are still following closely.
We get to a passing zone and I again let off the gas to get them to go around. They don't. I can see the sign that says passing zone ends and they still are right on my bumper. Finally, as the zone ends, they step on it and go around me as the two lanes merge into one and cut me off. I was bracing for them to try and stop me on the road at this point and considering my plan of action, but then they stepped on it and sped off ahead and I never saw them again despite driving another 250+ miles on that highway that night.
To this day I don't know what they were up to. On the one had I think it could have been someone a bit lost and inattentive, they stopped on that road for looking at a map or something and just happened to be there when I went by. On the other hand I wonder if they got a better look at me passing the second time and decided I wasn't the target they had in mind and decided to keep going.

I haven't seen them personally, but as recently as this past weekend, Tony Alamo's followers have been putting pamphlets on cars in my area (mostly at shopping malls).

Got one of these YEARS ago on my windshield, I held on to it for years, I may have it somewhere yet-lol.

I still remember the headline all these years later:

"The Pope is the Anti-Christ"

...followed by a seemingly stream of consciousnesses style rant.

I solved a UM case.. So.. That's the relatable part for me. It was a web exclusive while the show was off the air, but.. It still counts.

Got one of these YEARS ago on my windshield, I held on to it for years, I may have it somewhere yet-lol.

I still remember the headline all these years later:

"The Pope is the Anti-Christ"

...followed by a seemingly stream of consciousnesses style rant.

I still have some as well that were left on my car windshield. One as recent as 2023. He's been dead for some time now, but it appears his work is being carried on

One incident when I was a kid reminds me of vintage UM. I don't remember how old I was, but one night my parents had gone out to dinner and dancing. My older sister and I were home alone with a couple of friends. She and one of our friends were old enough to be responsible. One of us noticed that there was a strange guy standing in the street in front of our house. He didn't seem to be doing anything, just standing there for several minutes. It was suspicious. We knew everybody in the neighborhood, it wasn't that big. We didn't know this guy.

We were all freaked out. We were four girls home alone, no adults, and there was a creepy guy we didn't recognize just standing in front of the house. We were all wildly speculating what would happen. Was he going to come over and try to come in? I don't remember if we called the police. Eventually, if I recall correctly, the weird guy just moved on.

We didn't open the door. We didn't go outside and ask him what he was doing or to get away from the house. It may have been perfectly innocent and he could have stopped for a few minutes while on a walk or any number of things--the neighborhood was fairly quiet and peaceful and nobody got too upset over seeing strangers. On the other hand, he could have had less benign intentions. There's no way to know. The important thing is that we stayed in the house and didn't do anything reckless. As a chilling footnote, our next door neighbors had someone prowling around shortly after this happened.

When my sister and I were recalling that incident recently, she confessed that she always had a weird feeling about the neighborhood we both spent our early years in. We had some really good friends, but there were a lot of vacant lots between houses, and there were definitely a couple of strange families...

In the summer of 2016 over the space of maybe a month i dreamt 5 or 6 times that i was in some town that didn't look anything like america. I now can't remember the dreams as vivid now, but i was always in the backstreets of this town trying to find something or take something somewhere, i remember going to like a business and there were 2 women who had a sign in the window... I dunno. nothing strange happened in the dreams.

Well 3 years later my girlfriend and i went to spain (for the first time) on vacation, the second or third night the girl at the hotel tells us about a nice place to eat, so we go just off the main road and down some back streets, and i just stopped and had the strangest feeling ever, it was the streets and the place from my dreams.

it was such a wierd feeling. i can't explain it. i suppose that would be like the episode where the woman dreams about the house and walking down the stairs..

In the summer of 2016 over the space of maybe a month i dreamt 5 or 6 times that i was in some town that didn't look anything like america. I now can't remember the dreams as vivid now, but i was always in the backstreets of this town trying to find something or take something somewhere, i remember going to like a business and there were 2 women who had a sign in the window... I dunno. nothing strange happened in the dreams.

Well 3 years later my girlfriend and i went to spain (for the first time) on vacation, the second or third night the girl at the hotel tells us about a nice place to eat, so we go just off the main road and down some back streets, and i just stopped and had the strangest feeling ever, it was the streets and the place from my dreams.

it was such a wierd feeling. i can't explain it. i suppose that would be like the episode where the woman dreams about the house and walking down the stairs..

In the summer of 2016 over the space of maybe a month i dreamt 5 or 6 times that i was in some town that didn't look anything like america. I now can't remember the dreams as vivid now, but i was always in the backstreets of this town trying to find something or take something somewhere, i remember going to like a business and there were 2 women who had a sign in the window... I dunno. nothing strange happened in the dreams.

Well 3 years later my girlfriend and i went to spain (for the first time) on vacation, the second or third night the girl at the hotel tells us about a nice place to eat, so we go just off the main road and down some back streets, and i just stopped and had the strangest feeling ever, it was the streets and the place from my dreams.

it was such a wierd feeling. i can't explain it. i suppose that would be like the episode where the woman dreams about the house and walking down the stairs..

That sounds like what they call a precognitive dream. They're more common than you think. Abraham Lincoln had one that foretold his own death.

That segment with the woman dreaming about running down the stairs and then seeing the truck on fire is eerie. And then she moves into that very house haunted by the man that was possibly murdered there--UM mentioned that the case into his death got reopened. (Cue "Twilight Zone" music.)

Yours wasn't as dramatic as that, but definitely a precognitive dream.

That sounds like what they call a precognitive dream. They're more common than you think. Abraham Lincoln had one that foretold his own death.

That segment with the woman dreaming about running down the stairs and then seeing the truck on fire is eerie. And then she moves into that very house haunted by the man that was possibly murdered there--UM mentioned that the case into his death got reopened. (Cue "Twilight Zone" music.)

Yours wasn't as dramatic as that, but definitely a precognitive dream.



But is there a reason why?

But is there a reason why?

The Sleep Foundation says:

Possible Explanations for Precognitive Dreams

Researchers have proposed a number of possible explanations for precognitive dreams.

Selective Recall: People recall confirmed premonition dreams significantly more frequently than disconfirmed premonition dreams. In other words, if your dream predicts the future, you are much more likely to remember that dream than your dreams that did not accurately predict the future.

Tolerance for Ambiguity: Some dreamers interpret ambiguous dreams as positive or desirable. Researchers call this “tolerance for ambiguity.” People with a high tolerance for ambiguity are more likely to experience premonition dreams.

Paranormal Beliefs: Researchers have found a significant relationship between belief in the paranormal, belief in precognitive dreams, and the ability to make associations among unrelated events. These results suggest that if you’re inclined to find connections in the world, you’re more likely to experience premonitions.

Coincidence: Some people who have precognitive dreams may not interpret them as predictive until a corresponding event occurs in real life. Factors such as selective recall, tolerance for ambiguity, and paranormal beliefs can contribute to you drawing connections between coincidences in your life and dreams you’ve experienced.

Subconscious Connections: Experts hypothesize we dream to process our memories and emotions

. As a result, events that you experience during the day may stick with your subconscious. For example, you might dream of purchasing new furniture for your home. When you wake up, you see an advertisement for a couch you want to purchase. However, if you had been thinking about redecorating your home and researching furniture for a few days, your dream might simply reflect what was already coming up in your life.
____________________________

You had no connection to Spain, right? This was years before you and your girlfriend even thought about going, right?

The Sleep Foundation says:

Possible Explanations for Precognitive Dreams

Researchers have proposed a number of possible explanations for precognitive dreams.

Selective Recall: People recall confirmed premonition dreams significantly more frequently than disconfirmed premonition dreams. In other words, if your dream predicts the future, you are much more likely to remember that dream than your dreams that did not accurately predict the future.

Tolerance for Ambiguity: Some dreamers interpret ambiguous dreams as positive or desirable. Researchers call this “tolerance for ambiguity.” People with a high tolerance for ambiguity are more likely to experience premonition dreams.

Paranormal Beliefs: Researchers have found a significant relationship between belief in the paranormal, belief in precognitive dreams, and the ability to make associations among unrelated events. These results suggest that if you’re inclined to find connections in the world, you’re more likely to experience premonitions.

Coincidence: Some people who have precognitive dreams may not interpret them as predictive until a corresponding event occurs in real life. Factors such as selective recall, tolerance for ambiguity, and paranormal beliefs can contribute to you drawing connections between coincidences in your life and dreams you’ve experienced.

Subconscious Connections: Experts hypothesize we dream to process our memories and emotions

. As a result, events that you experience during the day may stick with your subconscious. For example, you might dream of purchasing new furniture for your home. When you wake up, you see an advertisement for a couch you want to purchase. However, if you had been thinking about redecorating your home and researching furniture for a few days, your dream might simply reflect what was already coming up in your life.
____________________________

You had no connection to Spain, right? This was years before you and your girlfriend even thought about going, right?


No, zero connection...I had never been to Spain before and hadn't even planned to go there until 3 years after the dreams. I've tried to remember what the dreams were about, I just know maybe 5 times over the space of a month i dreamt of being in this place and in every dream i was trying to get something done where i had to find kind of business, so i was in the backstreets of this town trying to find it.

I'd go into one business and ask, and they'd say they couldn't do it (i don't remember or even maybe i didn't know in the dream what the thing was) one the businesses had 2 women and a sign outside...

Nothing strange ever happened, infact they were the type of dreams that seem very real, i stopped having them and totally forget about it.

Until 3 years later, then just by seeing a small part of the street i said "that dream i had.."

we kept walking and i knew that the street would lead to what it did.

No, zero connection...I had never been to Spain before and hadn't even planned to go there until 3 years after the dreams. I've tried to remember what the dreams were about, I just know maybe 5 times over the space of a month i dreamt of being in this place and in every dream i was trying to get something done where i had to find kind of business, so i was in the backstreets of this town trying to find it.

I'd go into one business and ask, and they'd say they couldn't do it (i don't remember or even maybe i didn't know in the dream what the thing was) one the businesses had 2 women and a sign outside...

Nothing strange ever happened, infact they were the type of dreams that seem very real, i stopped having them and totally forget about it.

Until 3 years later, then just by seeing a small part of the street i said "that dream i had.."

we kept walking and i knew that the street would lead to what it did.

Hmmm. There's all kinds of theories. In a nutshell, some think it's the collective unconscious, or a past life connection if you believe in that. Or it's some connection to Spain you're not even aware of (seeing images of Spain etc.)

With the past life connection, there's the UM case of modern Georgia Rudolph who had recurring dreams of a girl who turned out to be Sandra Jean Jenkins from the turn of the 20th century--she drowned herself because she was alone, pregnant, and unmarried in an era where that was taboo. On the show, exploring, she discovered the very house from her dream and a picture of the girl she dreamed about. No one can prove or disprove that this is real. Even if you don't believe in reincarnation, the coincidence with Georgia Rudolph is too great. It would take a bunch of logic leaps for it to be mere coincidence.

it was such a wierd feeling. i can't explain it. i suppose that would be like the episode where the woman dreams about the house and walking down the stairs..

I had something similar: I had a very vivid dream about driving into a random parking garage in an unknown location, but it was like no parking garage I had ever seen. A few years later and I was in the USA and made the mistake of thinking finding parking in downtown Boston would be easy. I eventually gave up and just went to the (expensive!) Prudential Center parking lot and it was EXACTLY like my dream.

The obvious thing would be that I saw it on a news channel from Boston but I don't recall ever hearing of a news report driving into the deepest part of a parking garage. I had a similar experience visiting a Casino in Edmonton and a mall in Montreal too but that Boston one took the cake.

I had something similar: I had a very vivid dream about driving into a random parking garage in an unknown location, but it was like no parking garage I had ever seen. A few years later and I was in the USA and made the mistake of thinking finding parking in downtown Boston would be easy. I eventually gave up and just went to the (expensive!) Prudential Center parking lot and it was EXACTLY like my dream.

The obvious thing would be that I saw it on a news channel from Boston but I don't recall ever hearing of a news report driving into the deepest part of a parking garage. I had a similar experience visiting a Casino in Edmonton and a mall in Montreal too but that Boston one took the cake.



Theres something to it. I don't know what it is. but it must mean something right? in the case of our dreams theres nothing really deep to it. we just dream and later see places..

What i've always wondered is when we see strangers in our dreams, do these people also exist? because when you think that our brain has been capable of creating a person, a face, a specific type of voice and even a personality.., it's crazy!

even the experts say they don't really understand dreams.

Theres something to it. I don't know what it is. but it must mean something right? in the case of our dreams theres nothing really deep to it. we just dream and later see places..

What i've always wondered is when we see strangers in our dreams, do these people also exist? because when you think that our brain has been capable of creating a person, a face, a specific type of voice and even a personality.., it's crazy!

even the experts say they don't really understand dreams.

Yes, this is true. And some of it may be the collective unconscious or our subconscious, or some of it is just things we encounter during the day. But when it's something we've never experienced, that does make you wonder.

Most of my dreams have strangers, people I've never met or seen before. I've talked to other people who say their dreams mainly have people they know. I always wondered how common it is to dream of strangers but I most often do. I never knew it wasn't what everybody dreamed.

Paul Flores lived in and was arrested in an area I frequently drive through and isn't far from where I was living at the time. It makes my skin crawl that he could have been at the next pump at the gas station, next table at a restaurant, etc. And worst of all, he was continuing his predatory behavior before he was finally taken into custody and ultimately convicted. This one just hit a little too close to home, literally.

A disturbing incident happened to me this year.

I had to fire the gardeners because they did a poor job detecting leaks and never did what I wanted. Another family member living in the house (who died this year) refused to believe they were doing a substandard job. Then, after my loved one passed away, I was alone and noticed the lawn was dying. I asked the gardeners and they said the sprinkler system was not working. They wanted me to do a dangerous electrical bypass and also said I needed an electrician. However, my electrician said no. After that, I fired the gardeners. They made all these noises about "we've worked for you for years". They also never told us that our side gate, the one we rarely used, was broken and wouldn't lock. Shortly after I fired them and went with an honest company, the burglar alarm went off in the middle of the night. I suspect it was the company I fired. No one else would have known about the side gate or how to avoid my spotlight cams. I only found out about the broken lock on the side gate after the attempted break-in. Not only that, another family member and I noticed this company next door just staring at us with what I consider hatred and resentment. Just staring at us. Landscapers don't do that. I can't prove my theory, but am I relieved I fired them.

Season 12, Episode 8. The children mysteriously getting leukemia in Fallon, Nevada. I stopped in Fallon on a family road trip along Highway 50 (Loneliest Road in America.) I don't remember much except that it was a nice town.

More!! more!! I LOVE these!!