At one time or another, we've probably all said something along the lines of, "You'll never believe what I saw."
But with rise of visuals on social media, the new phrase is "pics or it didn't happen."
But what if there were no cameras—or phones—available?
Reddit user technicalman2022 asked:
"What do you SWEAR you saw, but have no proof?"
Bambi And Thumper
"I was staying for a week at a guest house on some property up in the middle of nowhere in Washington State. I’m sitting on the porch early in the morning drinking a cup of coffee and I see a young deer in the yard about 20 yards from me."
"So I just stay still and take it in. Then along comes this rabbit hopping in, and they notice each other. The rabbit hops up toward the deer and the deer cautiously puts its nose toward the rabbit."
"The rabbit gets up on its hind legs and they slowly inch their noses closer and closer to each other. Then they touch and the deer hops straight up in the air."
"The rabbit runs in a full circle around the deer and then stops. Then, they repeated the exact same thing. They did this like 3 times then ran back into the woods together."
"This was before cell phones, and I’m glad it was. It was just something for me and me only, and I am grateful for it."
~ OldBrokeGrouch
Lisa Frank Moment
"Back in 1995, I was sitting on the beach in Durban (South Africa) with a bunch of mates after a night out. The sun was just starting to come up, and a dolphin launched itself out of water."
"For less than a second, it was silhouetted in front of the rising sun, and then it was gone. Nobody else saw it, but it is an image that is burnt into my mind and will no doubt stay with me for the rest of my life."
~ UbuntuElphie
They Knew It Was Time
"When I was 10, we had a 14-year-old German Shepard who was getting very sick. I was home alone momentarily as my mom went to the neighbors to pick up a book or something."
"Our German Shepard came over, convinced me to walk outside with him and started licking my hands, looked at me, and ran away jumping the fence and he never came back. He was so loyal and good that to this day no one believes me and thinks he was stolen because he would never leave."
"I'm almost certain he did that because he didn't want us to see him die, and he wanted to go to the massive forest area and do his thing. I miss you buddy."
~ Different_Debt_9678
Being Prey
"I was stalked by a mountain lion when I was young. My family was ahead of me and I saw it in a tree watching me."
"I yelled forward to my parents and looked back, but it was gone. I was under 10 at the time and am almost 40 now. I don't even know if it was real anymore."
~ justmethedude
"My dad and I were hiking once. I was 15 or 16 I believe. All of a sudden, every hair on the back of my neck stood at full attention and I felt like I was gonna throw up. I said, 'Dad, I really think we should go back to the van'."
"His reply still makes my skin crawl. He simply looked at me and said, 'Me too'."
"That scared me more than anything. Superman isn't supposed to be afraid."
"There was a news report the next day of a hiker being attacked by a mountain lion on the same trail we were on, just a little farther up from the parking area. We both have no doubt that was what we both subconsciously sensed."
~ whovian5690
"I read before that it's the silence that humans pick up on subconsciously when there's a large predator nearby. By silence, I mean a sudden absence of noise from birds, small critters, insects."
~ btchfork91
WTF‽‽ Man-Bear-Pig?
"At work on the railroad, going down the mainline at 40mph, middle of the day, middle of the woods."
"Watched a massive... thing... Leap from one treeline to the other, completely cleared a span of about 30 feet without touching the ballast. It was on all fours and muscular (bear... shaped but much bigger). And it's skin was fleshy pink."
"I jumped out of my seat when I saw it, my engineer didn't as he was looking at me while talking. Told him what I saw, described it expecting to be given sh*t about it."
"To my surprise, he told me two weeks before a different conductor he was working with saw the same thing in right the same area. Never heard another thing about it."
~ GamblinGambit
Premonition
"When I was a kid, I’d sometimes get up in the middle of the night and go downstairs to get a drink or snack. On the way, I had to pass by this dark hallway that led to my dad’s office."
"I was always scared to look down that hallway at night because I feared that I would see a small child standing there. I have no idea where the thought came from, outside of my hyperactive imagination."
"Well, fast forward many years, and my wife and kids and I have been staying in that house during a visit. My daughter is sleeping in my dad’s office."
"As you may have already figured out, one night, I’m heading down to get a snack. I look down that hallway as I pass by it, and what do I see? My child standing there."
"Scared the crap out of me."
~ Champion153
"She was playing the long game from her past life."
~ 5pens
Probably Not A Chipmunk Either
"My story takes place, northeastern U.S. I was about 6 or 7. I know that age range makes the story difficult to believe, but I have many other solid memories from those ages as do others."
"It would have been early 2000s. I was with my mom and her boyfriend of the time, we went to visit one of the BF's friends. Their house was in a very rural area surrounded by pretty thick forest on either side, I'd never been there before."
"The friend was already outside. So the adults started chatting in the driveway, me of course being bored with their conversation and more interested in the thick woods around us, I wandered off into them."
"I got maybe 70 to 100 feet and started feeling strange. The whole being watched thing, goosebump sensations and all. I chalked it up to just being creeped out that the forest was so thick it blocked out a good portion of sunlight and darkened the area."
"So I pushed on a few more feet, maybe 5 or 10, when all of a sudden I heard fast and heavy rustling in the trees ahead of me, but far enough that I couldn't actually see the trees moving. I paused to listen until I realized 'the rustling' was coming at me and fast, it got to where I could actually see the trees moving in a zig zag pattern."
"As if something fairly large was jumping from tree to tree coming at me. I pictured in my mind a baboon showing their fangs, my fight or flight kicked in and so I turned and started running out of there. I heard whatever this was crashing through the trees behind me for a few seconds and then it stopped when I was a few feet from the friend's driveway."
"One of the most frightening experiences of my life. I remember I could still feel the tingles of fear on my arms and the back of my neck as I stood in the driveway processing what just happened."
"I don't know what I experienced that day, but it definitely wasn't a squirrel."
~ Partially-Canine
Ice Dancing
"Two foxes ice skating on a frozen pond. My mom and brother saw it too."
"We watched for a good ten minutes or more. Sometimes on hind legs, sometimes not."
"But they were definitely playing together and enjoying sliding around."
~ LeenaSmeena
Quite The Thespian
"Came back from dinner with my then girlfriend (now wife) and our friend to our friend's house. Friend said, 'Shhhh...' and we crept up to the window next to the front door."
"Her chocolate lab was laying asleep on the couch that he wasn't allowed to be on. She jiggled the doorknob for a few seconds before unlocking the door and opening it."
"We went in to find the dog across the room in his dog bed, pretending to be asleep. She goes over and 'wakes' him up."
"He looks at all of us like he's just woken up and sleepily starts wagging his tail. He gets up, yawns, and stretches. One of the funniest things I've ever seen and proof that he was smarter than half the humans I've met in my life."
"If we had that on camera, we'd have won the $100K on America's Funniest Home Videos for sure."
~ da_benster
Look Both Ways
"I once saw a cat walk up a street to a zebra crossing (crosswalk), stop, look for cars, cross, then walk down in the same direction on the other side of the road."
"Street smart cat."
~ LikeSameTho
"Many years ago I had a black cat, that stopped at the zebra crossing, waited until the light went green for him and only then started walking again."
"A co-worker of mine saw him do that, and no one else was around—she was in the car, waiting at the red light for traffic."
~ Leasealotje
Refsdal?
"I saw what I can only describe as seeing a star dying."
"Sometime back around 2015, not exactly sure when, my brother had a friend over for a sleepover. Because of this, we were sleeping in the living room that night."
"We lived out in the country, so the night sky was very clear, and our living room had very large windows facing away from the urban glow. I couldn't sleep so I was just staring out at the stars."
"Then, I saw one of the stars I was looking at erupt. It formed a large, thick ring that expanded to several times it's original size. Then, it very quickly stopped and the collapsed back in on itself and vanished."
"Honestly, I know it doesn't make any sense for it to have really been a star exploding and then collapsing, but that's what it looked like. I still have no idea what it really was."
~ nminc
Top Secret
"I saw one of the modified stealth helicopters that were used in the Bin Laden raid."
"I used to live near McChord Air Force Base in Washington state growing up. During the 90's we'd occasionally see a F-117 or B-2 flying during the day."
"But one night in '09 or '10, I was hanging out on the shore of a lake doing teenage things and heard something weird. I was along a flight path and nearish to the aforementioned airbase so I was used to planes and helicopters flying past. I'm familiar with what Chinooks and MH60'S sound like but this was different, something was off."
"That's when I saw two helicopters with normal lights break through the tree line, I assume apache but it was dark and I'm just guessing there. However between them was a third helicopter with no lights at all. Almost like the other two were escorting it."
"I know it's incrediblely rare for any aircraft to be granted permission to fly with no lights. And again it sounded weird I could differentiate between the normal 'thwump thwump' of the two escorts and the mysterious third craft that had a much more muffled 'thwip thwip'."
"Anyways, in 2011 Seal Team Six crashed one of their modified stealth helicopters during the Bin Laden raid and they had to acknowledge that the Comanche program wasn't as dead as we were lead to believe. Ever since then, I've been convinced that's what I saw that night a few years prior."
~ TysonTesla
Verbalized
"Babysitting my brother's one-year-old twins. Both have a couple of words, but not anything close to a sentence—just 'mum', 'dad', 'cow', 'hi' sort of thing."
"One of the kids grabbed my phone off the floor and I asked for it back. He said, 'would you like your phone back' pretty perfectly. I said, 'yes, please' and he handed it to me."
"No one believes me."
~ Puzzleheaded-Box2536
Hi!
"I went kayaking about a month ago and came across a log boom with a bunch of seals on it."
"I stopped and watched them for a while and would wave at them, and eventually one of them raised its flipper to wave at me. Thinking it was just coincidence, I put my arm down and waved again a few minutes later and it waved back again!"
"It happened one or two more times, and it was the coolest thing."
~ philemonvanbeecher
Ride 'Em Cowboy
"I saw a raccoon ride a deer."
"I don’t think it was consensual."
"Kind of like an 8-second bull ride as it sprang out of a dumpster and landed on a doe. Both disappeared into the woods."
"I still wonder how long that little bastard hung on."
~ whofartedinmycereal
So, what's your "you’ll never believe what I just saw" story?
