21 Chilling Moments Where People Got The "Gut Feeling" That Something Was Wrong — And They Were Totally Right

Please note: This article contains mention of violence and sexual assault.

The chilling feeling that something is just, well, wrong can come at any time, and as I've come to learn, should never be ignored. Recently, I've been delving into stories of people who had a "gut feeling" that something was totally wrong, and it turned out their instinct was right.

These stories were so compelling (and surprisingly, relatable — thank you, instincts!) that many members of our own BuzzFeed Community chimed in with "gut feeling" stories of their own. Here are some of the most chilling and compelling:

1."I got a new neighbor at the beginning of the pandemic, and trying to be neighborly, I introduced myself over my six-foot privacy fence. Big mistake."

A quiet suburban neighborhood with several single-family homes, neatly manicured lawns, and clear skies

2."My best friend and I were picking blackberries a few summers ago when we started hearing rustling in the bushes and the birds were chirping like crazy. I got a feeling we were in danger and told her we needed to go. She said it was fine and kept picking."

A black bear stands in a grassy field with yellow flowers and lush greenery in the background

3."In the early '90s I was driving to my evening shift. I observed a guy kind of stumbling into the road towards me. I knew picking up strangers was a dangerous thing to do, but he looked like he needed help."

A middle-aged man with short hair wearing an orange shirt poses for a mugshot against a plain background

4."I work at a public library and had a guy who took a liking to me, chatting me up, hanging around, asking for me if he didn't see me. Creeped me the F out. Coworkers started hustling me off the floor as soon as he walked in."

Two people are in a library. A woman reads a book while standing. A man searches the shelves in the background. Their names are not provided

5."When I was 6, my mother took my brothers and me to the lake with her boyfriend. We swam and had hot dogs and roasted marshmallows. When it was time to leave, my mom's boyfriend's car would not start."

Aerial view of a large serene lake surrounded by lush greenery, with distant horizons under a clear sky

6."Not me, but my mom. She woke up from a dream where a car was crashed into and pushed off a cliff. That morning, she told my father about the sinking feeling she had. She begged him not to go to work that day. He still decided to go."

A car drives on a coastal highway with cliffs and ocean views, showcasing a scenic route

7."Not as dramatic as some of these, but I was once waiting at a red light. The light turned green but for some reason, I didn't pull out right away. A few seconds later, a car came up on my left and blew through the red. If I had pulled out when my light turned green, I would have been T-boned."

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8."I was an RA my junior year of college, so I was on campus after most people had left for the summer. It was a small and very safe campus and I frequently walked around alone at night without issue."

A quiet nighttime scene on a college campus with lit pathways, trees, and a few buildings in the background. No people are present in the image

"He started to pick up the pace toward me when we rounded the corner of a building and there were two male students around 200 feet away. They turned our direction and he slowed upon seeing them and lowered his voice, saying he wanted to 'show me something' and that he had weed he wanted to sell me."

"I yelled 'not interested' and turned and sprinted back to my dorm, going around to the back door and making sure he hadn’t followed me. I called campus police and reported it, but tried to laugh it off as me being sort of paranoid.

The next morning campus police emailed the school saying the man was a registered violent sex offender and that everyone should report him immediately if he was seen on campus. If I hadn’t changed the way I was walking, I may not have run into anyone else and things could have ended up way worse."

—Anonymous

9."I was working at an amusement park over the summer back in the 1980s. I was done with work and some acquaintances and my roommate were going to a bar. I decided it was too late for me, and I had heard the guy driving was already drinking. I went with my gut feeling and stayed at the park."

A white car is crashed into a streetlight pole on a city sidewalk with its front lifted off the ground. The impact has caused significant damage

10."I'm a criminal defense attorney and a woman. The nature of my job requires me to often meet in closed-door, private rooms so I can talk to my clients about their cases and preserve attorney-client confidentiality."

A woman in a suit attentively listens to a man during a professional meeting at a table. Names not provided

"When I got back to my office, I went to my boss and asked for the case to be assigned to a different attorney. I couldn't name a single thing the client had done or said that would have made anyone agree that he was frightening. I couldn't articulate my concern other than to say, 'Something in my gut just gave me a bad feeling; I don't want to be alone in conference rooms with him.'"

<div> <p>"Thankfully my boss (also a woman) understood immediately the feeling I was talking about. She said she would assign the case to a different lawyer in the office. That case was resolved with the other lawyer handling it, and I put it out of my mind. </p> <p>About a year later, I saw the client again in court. He was charged with murdering a woman who had declined his requests to go out with him. I was stunned but so glad I trusted my gut and stopped representing him on the prior case."</p> <p>—Anonymous</p> </div><span> Chris Ryan / Getty Images</span>

11."I was going to take a flight to San Francisco from Oxnard. I woke up out of a dead sleep with my heart pounding thinking that the plane was going to crash, so I called up the airline and rescheduled for a later flight. Sure enough, a student pilot flew into the plane over Burbank airport and killed everyone on board."

—Anonymous

12."One beautiful fall evening, my boyfriend and I took my van and drove out to the local mountains to make dinner at a remote overlook. After dinner, we decided to stay the night at the overlook. At dusk, I started to get an unsettled feeling."

A mountain lion is walking at night on a hillside with city lights glowing in the background

13."When I was 17, I was a front desk receptionist at a gym. There were always guys coming in and out, flirting, mostly harmless. But one guy in particular made the hairs on my neck stand up. He was ex-military, very fit, handsome, huge. But something about him rubbed me the wrong way."

Person uses a smartphone outdoors, tapping the screen with fingers. Unidentifiable because the face is not shown. Multiple people are blurred in the background

"Fast-forward ten years later, and my best friend (the same one who got the creeps) is now a cop and sends me his mugshot."

"Turns out, he was a serial rapist across multiple counties who would drug women he dated and homeless women he would offer a ride to, and then rape them.

They caught him after a poor homeless woman reported him. His DNA has been linked in multiple cases. You never know. 17-year-old me got the creeps and some thought I was stupid. It probably saved my life."

—Anonymous

14."I lived in an apartment complex during COVID and didn't go near people. We had four laundry rooms in our complex. One day I met this man in the laundry room, he was probably in his late 50s, about the same as me."

A man in scrubs and a woman wearing a mask, reaching for a checkered box inside a washing machine. A child looks on from the background

15."I was feeling anxious, nervous, like something bad was about to happen. I never had that feeling before. We were headed out to a movie and I mentioned the feeling to my girlfriend, who is a healthcare professional. She checked my pulse and said, 'Let's go to the ER.'"

Exterior of an emergency department entrance with a red "EMERGENCY" sign illuminated against the evening sky

16."My mom used to work in San Francisco when I was little. We lived in Berkeley across the bay, and my grandparents would babysit me while she was at work. One day, she was working, and it was getting close to the end of the day, and she started to feel something was off."

Partial collapse of a bridge over water, with a missing segment in the middle where vehicles are halted. The image shows structural damage and emergency activity

17."I had just moved to the West Coast and had only been there a few months. Due to the move I was buying and returning a lot of things. One morning in December, I was getting ready to leave to make one of these return trips, and I had this heavy weight in my gut the entire time."

A wet, empty rural road stretches into the distance, bordered by leafless trees and power lines, through a foggy countryside landscape

18."When I was 18 years old I was in college and decided to take a job as a fast food restaurant closing manager, with shifts from 4 p.m. to midnight. We usually closed the dining room at 11 p.m., but the drive-thru stayed open 'til midnight. This one night, I was doing paperwork in my office about 15 minutes before closing the dining room when I got this overwhelming feeling that I needed to lock the dining room early."

A McDonald's restaurant at night with a lit drive-thru sign and several cars in the parking lot. People are visible inside the restaurant

"Rather than go through the drive-thru he decided to go to another fast food restaurant, right next door to us. He went in, ordered his food, ate, and then hid in the bathroom ceiling. After the manager locked the doors he robbed the place, had all the employees lay face down on the floor, and shot all but one of them in the back of the head."

"One employee was able to run out the back door and escape. The killer was on the run with his face all over the news and town for a week or so before he was caught. Needless to say, I quit that job that very night."

—Anonymous

19."When I was 19, I was a telephone installer for GTE and we were putting phones in for new construction. My boss wanted me to wire in some things that were directly below other workers putting in ductwork. I had a feeling, and decided to wait for them to finish with the large piece of ductwork that they were installing."

A person is cleaning or repairing an air conditioner by removing its filter. No people are named in the image

20."It was on a Friday evening, and I was 13 years old. That day, my group of friends and I decided to hang out in our neighborhood and go skating a bit."

Two people skateboarding on a road: an adult and a child in protective gear, holding hands. Road signs and greenery in the background

21.And finally: "My Filipino family moved to Cudahy, Wisconsin, just a couple miles outside Milwaukee, in the mid-70s. When I was in my late teens, I started sneaking out to gay bars in the city on the weekends using a fake ID. One night, this cute blonde guy started cruising me."

People sitting and standing at restaurant tables outside, silhouetted against a neon-striped background

"I told him I had a curfew and needed to get home, and offered to exchange numbers. He kept trying to convince me and took off my flip-flops so he could massage my 'pretty' feet. I insisted I needed to go, and he got angry."

"I tried to get my flip-flops back on, but he threw them in the back seat and then grabbed me by the wrist with a really strong grip. I panicked, and started to struggle to get his hand off me. I wound up punching him and then fell backwards out of the car. He shouted angrily at me, then sped off in his car. I had to walk all the way home barefoot, and I told my parents I'd been mugged. I never saw the guy again, as my family moved to Chicago shortly after this."

"A few years later, I was watching the news and saw a report about a serial killer who'd been arrested. It was the guy from that bar. It was Jeffrey Dahmer."

I don't know who is in the image. A person with short hair and a beard wears a striped button-up shirt, seated in what appears to be a formal setting

—Anonymous

Marny Malin / Getty Images

If you ever have a gut feeling, listen to it. You never, ever know: It might save a life. If you have your own "gut feeling" story, feel free to tell it down in the comments below, or, if you prefer, you can check out this anonymous Google Form. Who knows — your story may be included in an upcoming BuzzFeed article!

Note: Some submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.