Getting a strange feeling that it's time to leave RIGHT NOW should never be ignored. It's incredible what our bodies can sense before anything horrible happens. Maybe it's just a hunch, or perhaps the red flags are impossible to ignore, but the following people got themselves out of some seriously harrowing situations at the last second. Read on to learn why these people "noped outta here" and aren't going back anytime soon.
Motel Standoff
“I was driving back from Las Vegas to Austin with a buddy many years back. We stopped for the night in Albuquerque. We saw a couple Motel 6s right off the highway, but my buddy spotted one further out that was marginally cheaper and, in his words, ‘Why should we pay more for the same exact thing?’
So we found the place, talked to the clerk through the bullet-proof glass window (should’ve been a sign), and got our room. Then we took the car over to the parking spot where the room was located.
As we stepped out of the car, about five or six cop cars screeched into the parking lot, sirens blaring. We both just stood there dumbfounded as cops piled out of their cars and ran into the motel complex, weapons were drawn. One of the officers yelled at us to just stay in the car.
We noped right the heck out of there. I ate the cost of the room. We never knew exactly what the hub-bub was, and didn’t really want to stick around long enough to find out…but the way the cops raided the place, I have to assume it was either a suspected murderer or a bust.”
Spotted Something Spotted
“When I was like 11 years old, I was very much into photography. I lived in a ‘wildlife estate’ in South Africa. It’s basically a nature reserve where you can buy and rent houses.
I rode my bicycle to a watering hole late one afternoon, planning to photograph the animals that came to drink. I propped my bicycle against the steps leading up to the spot and lifted my eyes up just as I was about to climb them. I saw a leopard walking along the dam wall straight towards me, about 5 meters (16 feet) away from me. I got such a fright that I jumped on my (very old and rusty) bicycle and tried to cycle away. Unfortunately, I was on sandy soil, and my bicycle chain came loose so I jumped off the bicycle and practically carried it as I ran away.
Many people say you are supposed to stand your ground when confronted by a big cat. It might be easy to say it, but I wonder how those people would actually react if they were put in that situation. It might have been stupid of me to run away and make myself even more vulnerable, but at least I’m alive.
Unexpected Visitor
“I was working on an inspection at an apartment complex in the city, in and out of awful basements all day. None of them had operating lights so all I had was my headlamp.
I get to one basement, and as I open the door I can hear a steady tap tap tap pause tap tap tap.
No idea what the heck it could be, all I knew was the water lines I was inspecting couldn’t be the culprit, so I continue on. tap tap tap pause tap tap tap
Until I round the corner following a water line and see this guy, most likely homeless, definitely crazy, laying down on a bed of newspapers whispering something to himself… Holding a 10″ kitchen knife stabbing it into the walls. Dude didn’t even flinch when my headlamp shined on him… I kind of stood there like a deer in the headlights, then noped the heck out of there once I came to my senses.”
Surprise Under The Bed
“Several years back, I went to New Orleans for a conference. The hotel I was booked for didn’t have the greatest reviews, but I wasn’t paying for it and I didn’t need much more than a place to sleep so I figured ‘whatever.’
After I checked in, I went up to my room. I hadn’t unpacked yet, and I was checking out the room. I wasn’t really inspecting it; I was just looking around for anything of interest. Which I guess is inspecting it, but I wasn’t looking for anything wrong. Just interesting.
I got the idea to look between the mattresses. I think I was expecting the plans for a bank heist that had been stashed there or something else ridiculous. Instead what I got was the sight of black dots. Way too many to just be stains or blemishes. I didn’t look any closer than that. I dropped that right away, got the heck out of the room and spent my two days in New Orleans sleeping in my car.
I’m not 100% sure those were bed bugs, but I sure as heck wasn’t gambling on it.”
Time To Leave
“I was married for six years. That marriage ended when I got slapped silly dozens of times until my ears were ringing and I was dizzy. I was in a parking lot after a show surrounded by at least twenty people who thought my suffering was amusing until I started bleeding from the nose and begging a ‘spectator’ to call 911 while handing them my phone and still getting slapped while she held my ripping shirt to get in a good blow. Reason for the argument – she wanted to go home ‘RIGHT NOW!’ We had both been drinking and I wasn’t quite ready to drive yet because I was still evaluating my vision. My glasses got ripped off in the mosh pit and I needed a few minutes to collect myself, but apparently, that wasn’t ok.
When everything calmed down enough for me to drive us home, I did so, slept on the couch and moved out the next day. I left her because it wasn’t the first time, and I was certain that, if it happened again, I would retaliate. Still, I really wanted to stay married and so I attempted to circle back after but no constructive conversation could be had because she didn’t remember the incidents. Her brain did not record those memories. That’s when I started talking to literally everyone we knew about hosting an intervention for her drinking. Interventions were a relatively new concept at the time so people didn’t understand or minimized what I was attempting to communicate, because I’m a guy, they said ‘suck it up dude, your wife is going to get angry at you sometimes.'”
Putting On A Mask
“A couple of years ago, I was sitting in the car when my mom went into the store to pick some stuff up. After a few minutes, I saw a guy pass the car, thought nothing of it, and kept playing on my phone. Well he kept walking past. Eventually he made his way towards the side of the car, so I popped the stereotypical ‘tard’ (I don’t use this term often, but it’s the only one I could think of) pose and looked him in the eyes and said with a heavy slurred tongue ‘Do you want to be my friend?’ He took off. Couple days later, I see the dude ON THE NEWS FOR ATTEMPTING TO KIDNAP A CHILD. The police said that they believe he was a HUMAN TRAFFICKER! Needless to say, I’m pretty happy I acted disabled, as this whole story could have gone another way if I hadn’t. My dad always joked ‘if anyone tries to kidnap you act like you’re slow’ but he never expected it to work. I figured there was no one else I could see in the parking lot, reception is notoriously terrible there, and this dude might want to hurt me, so may as well try to make him think I’m disabled and more trouble than I’m worth.”
He Couldn’t Last More Than Two Days At That Job
“First job out of college was at a sewer treatment plant. Pay was supposed to be good, like $20/hr, good benefits, and good hours. Oh, and full time of course.
Get the offer, accept it, start on the first day. I’m told that the local board of government or whatever didn’t fully approve the funds for a new position, so the job changed a bit. It became part-time, $14/hr (a 30% decrease in pay just based on hourly wage alone), and the work was less management based and more laborer based now. And it was supposed to be Mon-Fri first shift and changed to a rotating schedule of 10 days on, 3 days off, 1st 2nd and 3rd shift.
On the 2nd day, I had to sift through a filter full of used tampons and had poop sprayed on me. Didn’t come in for my third day.
Worst part is, on my first day the other workers told me about a guy they called 2 Week Jim who quit after 2 weeks. I lasted 2 days. I’m sure they’re still talking about me, but forget that line of work.”
“The Badger Incident”
“I am in my forties and a lifetime of riding, training, showing, and falling off of horses has taken its toll on my already kinda old body. In addition, seven years ago I was crushed by a green gelding I was training for a client and one of my many, many injuries was a broken hip. I still walk with a limp, though it’s not too bad anymore. The point is, I’m not nearly as agile and quick as I was in my 20s. This is important to know.
When I feed the horses in the fall and winter, I set up a feed track in one of the pastures, which is basically a giant circle of hay piles. It takes a lot of hay, so I put it and the kids in the truck bed and drive around while they throw the hay where I want it. I always have the window down so I can tell them when/where to throw it. On the night of The Badger Incident, for some reason, my kids couldn’t get a bale open so I jumped out to help. When I did, I closed the truck door because I thought, ‘I know there are badgers out here, I know badgers are nocturnal, but I’ve picked up like five badger carcasses the mules have killed so maybe they’ve moved on and if not I can just shoot them if they come around me. SURELY I won’t need to hurry back inside the truck to safety.’ This was wrong to think.
I cut the bale open and turned to get back in and there in front of me was a monster with razor claws and dagger teeth. The assault mules were off way away like idiots, so no help there. I forgot I had the tool on my hip to blow his head clean off. In an absolute panic that made me forget I’m barely over five feet tall and a cripple, I took a running leap and dove into the truck through the window, hit my head on the steering wheel, and listened to my precious children laugh hysterically for a few minutes before I remembered none of that horrifying display was necessary. Then I shot it in its stupid face because first of all forget badgers and secondly, a group of them can take down a horse and forget that, too. My limp was much more pronounced for an embarrassing amount of days afterward. Also, I have security cameras up all over the property so I can check on the herd without putting on pants. The cameras caught it all. I erased the footage. It was even more hideous than I’d imagined.”
Friendly Fire
“I got shelled by friendly fire artillery! I was a young Marine stationed at 29 Palms and was out doing road guard for our range. Road guard basically means you get dropped in the middle of nowhere with one other Marine and are there to keep people from driving into your live fire area. So my friend Rob and I are chilling, talking with the other 2 road guards about a half mile away to the south, and we watch as an artillery company sets up downrange to the east and starts firing. This goes on for hours with no issues, but then slowly the rounds start walking closer. Closer….closer. Our radios are short range, so we really can’t communicate with the range safety (called Bearmat) without climbing 1000 feet of elevation on a hill to our north. We are talking to the south road guard position via radio when we see rounds explode way too close between our positions. We all decide we should probably find someplace safer when we hear the ‘thummp thummp thummp thummp’ of more rounds being fired in the distance. The radio goes dead mid-conversation as we see the south guard position get hammered by rounds. We couldn’t really see, too much dust and smoke down there. We start running north. ‘Thummmp thummmp thummmp thummmp’… a rushing sound like a plane and then a shockwave behind us. I swear that was the loudest, scariest thing ever. Anyway, long story short- we ran up the hill, called Bearmat and shut down a large part of the MCAGCC range. The south guards had been knocked over while running, but luckily the rounds fired that day were training and not HE or WP. We all lived. Got to watch our battalion CO chew out an artillery captain, so that was fun.”
Raising Red Flags For His Mom
“My junior year of high school my parents got divorced. My mom started seeing her old ex-husband shortly after. That summer, I elected to go live with my mom and her ex-husband/new boyfriend about 6 hours drive south. He had a son that lived there as well. They were a NIGHTMARE.
They had no concept of personal space, the internet was lame, ex-hubby disrespected my mom, my room was the size of a closet, the town was tiny and had 0 amenities, and numerous reasons to think that this was a huge mistake.
I was there for 3 days before I secretly packed all of my stuff into my car and drove back to my dad’s place. I called after I arrived to let them know I moved back home.
My parents were… of mixed feelings about the whole situation. My mom ended up taking my judgment of the whole situation as a huge indicator that something wasn’t right down there. She moved a month later to her own place and they split up.”
The Haunted Woods
“It was a week before Halloween. Every day, I drive through this place called the ‘haunted woods.’ It’s a shortcut to my house. Now I always get off work at 4:00 pm, and I always have no problem driving through it.
But this time I got off work at 10:00 pm due to overtime. Yes, I should have gone the long way. But like the horror movies, the stupid white girl took the shortcut through the haunted woods. When I got to the entrance of the road. I noticed a pickup truck. I felt uneasy about it, but to make things worse, the truck flipped on its lights and moved to block my path in front of me. Then, a car behind the truck flipped his headlights on, too. Two dudes got out of the truck.
I was like ‘nope,’ and reversed my car until I was across the road. I turned into a church’s parking lot and went another way, and when I flagged down a police car that was nearby and I told the cops what happened. They told me they already had a call about it.
I don’t know if it was a prank, or they would have done something to me. I’m just lucky my brain kicked in, and I reversed it out of there real quick.”
Putting Himself In A Sketchy Situation
“Was 17 going to buy weed from my dealer. Dude was terrifying. Like 6’4 250+ lbs and had been to prison a few times, but was always cool and gave me good deals and whatnot. Seemed like a genuinely changed man who might have just had a bad past. I parked my car and texted him to come out to me. No answer. Like 15 minutes go by and he finally replies and tells me to come up to his apartment. I’ve been there countless times before so I had no reason to be suspicious. When I get in there, he is absolutely hammered. Mind you its like 3 pm on a weekday. Him and his friend were talking and everything was normal but then he just flips a switch and is FURIOUS because apparently one of his neighbors called the cops on him recently. He literally goes out into his hallway and starts banging on this guys door, telling him he’s gonna mess him up/he better come outside, and all that. Thank god the guy wasn’t home. I am horrified. I was just a skinny 17-year-old white kid who was also playing multiple high school sports and didn’t want to get kicked off the team if something went down. Then he came back in and went into his room and came back out with a weapon. After he turned his back down the hall I booked it out and down the stairs and drove home. Never talked to him again.”
Mom?
“When I was fairly young, I lived in a house with a big back yard. There was a short fence that separated our property from the forest behind it. I was playing in the yard with my dog when I heard my mom calling to me from the woods. I remember looking over and seeing her in the trees beckoning for me to come over. I had just ducked under the fence to go to her when my dog started tugging at my pant leg, whining and growling. He’d never acted like that before and I immediately felt like something was wrong. I looked back at the house and saw my mom was still inside. I didn’t even look back at the woods, I just ran as fast as I could. My parents told me I imagined it but I never played in the back yard again after that.
What’s That Smell?
“I have a side business buying and selling historical items. About two months ago, a guy contacts me and tells me that he has ‘boxes and boxes’ of old historical photos, military items, and old advertising that he wants to sell. Hearing that there were boxes of this stuff was music to my ears, so I set up an appointment to come take a look. I arrive at his place on the date/time we agreed upon and immediately notice that his home and property are in really rough shape- a couple of the windows on his house have been broken and replaced with cardboard, the yard is littered with trash, a broken down washing machine on his porch, etc. No big deal, though, as I have been a picker for a while and sometimes the junkiest-looking houses are where you find the best stuff. So I knock on the door and this old hippy guy answers and invites me in.
As soon as I step inside, though, the most horrendous stench hits me like a ton of bricks and I have to fight the impulse to projectile vomit. It was an animal smell, but it wasn’t the typical cat pee or dog poop odor, no, this was something I had never encountered before. So I’m trying to maintain my composure and figure out what I should do when this large goose comes walking into the room. A goose! It was at this moment that I happen to look down and see that the carpet flooring is completely covered in goose poop, which is obviously the cause of this horrible smell. The hippy guy can see that I am a bit freaked out and tries to smooth things over by saying ‘oh, don’t mind Hank, he doesn’t bite.’ By this time, I am starting to get a headache from all the goose fumes and am seriously ready to barf, so I mumble something about a family emergency and hightail it out of there. As far as the boxes of historical items go, there is no way that they wouldn’t be completely ruined by odor saturation, so no regrets there. And while it took a couple days for the smell to get out of my nose, I now have a great story to tell about the infamous Goose House.”
Wrong Neighborhood
“I lived in a party house in college in what my friends called a ‘peripheral sketch’ neighborhood. Not quite the hood but close enough that the rent was cheap and there was no HOA or people complaining about how loud our parties were. On the other hand, there was lots of illegal activity and certain houses you just knew not to go by.
I had night classes 6-9 pm most nights after work and would oftentimes turn into my neighborhood to find it blocked off by cops busting up illegal activity or responding to something. Luckily there was a tap room less than a mile away, so I’d just drive up there and have a cold one until it all blew over.
One sunny day in the morning I went for a jog (armed) and turned down a street near us to see a cop pulling onto the street from the other side and a body on the ground in the middle of the road. The cop didn’t see me around the corner yet so I just stopped and slowly backed away and went home.
We bought an elliptical machine for the garage shortly after that.”
Something’s Rattling
“I was on a hiking trip with my friends. It was the longest day of our trip, and we were bushwhacking it to get from one trail to another. We were hiking downhill through an area that recently had a forest fire, so there were plenty of downed trees for us to clamber on over. I look up and see my buddy jump a good couple of feet in the air. Mind you, we had 40lb packs on our backs, so that was no small feat. I wonder what had startled him so much, and continued hiking.
And then I heard it.
A rattling noise cut through the air. I look to the source, and there is none other than a rattlesnake, 10 feet away. We all seemed to realize that we were in the middle of a rattlesnake minefield at the same time, and booked it for the treeline.
My friend tells me that he was about to step on one of the buggers. He’s lucky he jumped when he did, otherwise he might not have made it. The nearest campsite was still a few miles away.”