25 People Tell Their Scariest Story That Seems Too Disturbing To Be True

These Ask Reddit stories sound too disturbing to be true — but unfortunately, they’re all real.

Unsplash / Mohamed Nohassi

1. She got hit by a bus and dragged beneath the wheels

“Got off my bus from school around January and so did some other woman in her mid 20s. (Public transportation, she wasn’t from my school). We were both crossing the street as we had the walk signal and I noticed another bus across us start turning towards the lane we were walking past. I assumed he would just stop in the middle of the road and wait for us to pass but he never did. He was going 60km (around 40 miles?) and in the last second I jumped backwards and barely dodged getting it. I saw the bus just barely touch my shoulder from the corner of my eye, and when I looked back I watched the girl get hit by the bus and get dragged under the wheels. I was the one who had to move her from safety out of the middle of a busy intersection and call 911 as her head was split open and bleeding. She ended up passing out from blood loss, cops and ambulance came, and she got taken away. 2 weeks later I saw her again on the original bus we got off of and she recognized me and shook my hand.” — alanalan123

2. A woman poured gasoline over her husband

“A gas station near where I work had a lady that was really upset with her husband/boyfriend poured gasoline on him and tried to light him on fire. Luckily that didn’t work out. On the same exact day in the store next to us (this one was a little less witnessed) guy went to pay for something some how his his gun went off and he shot himself in the leg.” — AutobotN7

3. His car burst into flames in the middle of traffic

“Waiting for a light to change in three lane traffic. I’m in the left and I see a guy in the right lane whose van has a bit of smoke coming out of it.

Guy jumps out and opens the side door. A blast of fire knocks him on his ass. His whole van is awash with flames and now there is a huge column of black smoke. Traffic started moving again and people started honking their horns at me to go so I moved off. People were helping him and phoning the fire brigade so I didn’t feel bad.

Until later, when I stopped and, whilst getting my bags out of the boot, saw the fire extinguisher my mum had given me when I got the car. I had completely forgotten about it. Then I felt bad.” — reverendmalerik

4. My friend’s house caught on fire

“When I was about 5 or 6 my family and I were driving into my neighborhood and as we were approaching we noticed there was a house that was on fire. When we got closer we realized it was the house of a family friend that we went to church with. When we pulled up my dad started yelling and asking if anyone was inside (firefighters were not there yet). Some of the Neighbor’s said that they thought the 2 boys and wife were home. The house was literally in flames, and my dad ran into the home and came out of the house with the two boys. Where I’m from in AZ everyone has basements and it turns out that the two boys were playing in the basement when the house caught on fire, and since my dad new they had a basement where the kids played he ran down there immediately . It was by far the craziest and most unreal thing I have ever witnessed.” — sacboi69

5. Her parachute failed to open while skydiving

“While about to get on the plane to do my first solo skydiving jump I was watching the experienced people jump. One of the parachutes failed so she tried to break away to her reserve chute, but it failed too. The reserve was partially open but she was still coming down out of control and at about 50 mph. She came down in a farm field next to the drop zone. When she hit the ground she did the parachute landing fall, a roll that helps protect from broken ankles, legs, and wrists. Between that and landing in the softer dirt of a freshly plowed field, she walked away without any major injuries. Though she protested, they took her to the hospital anyway. Nope, nothing. No injuries at all beyond whiplash like body soreness. She was back jumping the next weekend. I still jumped after helping get her main chute out of a nearby pond.” — archlaw007

6. I heard gunshots and watched the city burn

“The Los Angeles riots. When it happened I was living between Koreatown and Watts. I was sitting in darkness watching everything around me burn and people busting cars outside my building. Gun shots, helicopters and sirens for the first few hours, but then we stop hearings sirens the rest of the night and I remember thinking… Oh shit.” — EZ_does_it

7. I found her dead in a puddle of blood

“I work in a hospital. Came in for my shift and did my patient rounding and introduced myself to everybody. One lady in particular complimented my eyes and we had a nice, casual conversation. I waited with her as she used the bedpan, but she wasn’t able to go. Said I’d be back in a few minutes as I had to chart a few numbers. I came back 5-7 minutes later and she was lying dead on the floor in a puddle of blood. Sucked.” — Mikey_Wontontt

8. A plane crashed in my small town

“A plane crash. Lightweight kit plane at my small, hometown airport. I had toured the airport weeks earlier during a HS class.

I was driving into town, past a field at the end of the runway, and saw the plane maybe 300-500 feet in the air, flying kind of wobbly.

Suddenly, it barrel rolled into a nosedive, straight into the ground. I pulled into a local store, ran in, and told the clerk to call 911 — he didn’t believe me, and pushed the phone to me to call. Even the 911 operator didn’t seem to believe me. Unfortunately, the pilot didn’t survive.” — Toonces51

9. A car filled with teenagers slammed into a tree

“I was the one and only responder and witness to a car accident. Three 16 year old kids that smashed the fuck out of their car. The kid in the passenger seat was pinned in place — the car hit the tree at the hinge of the passenger door and pushed it to within an inch of the shifter, with this kid’s knees some where in the middle. I sat in the smashed backseat holding his hand and listening to him wail ‘kill me’ until the fire department showed up and literally cut the car in the three parts to get him out. I’ll never forget that.” — Bike_Mechanic_Man

10. I saw a gunfight between a cop and a biker

“Gunfight between a Seattle cop and a Hell’s Angel biker on a main business street (Broadway) on Capital Hill. I was walking to the store and about 20 feet in front of me, a cop had pulled over a biker in leathers. The biker pulled a pistol out and turned around and fired right at the cop who ran across four lanes of traffic and took shelter around the corner of Marketime. Pulled his gun and squeezed off several rounds which struck the biker in the chest. He stagger back into a store’s alcove and collapsed. The cop ran back across the street. Called an ambulance, he was unhurt btw. Cops shoot straighter than bikers. Then he started mouth to mouth on the perp who just tried to kill him! Protect and Serve, plain as day. The biker succumbed at the hospital. 1968 to my best recall.” — alanmagid

11. I came across a person without any feet or a face

“When I was a kid, I used to play in the yard at my Grandparents house. Due to my grandfather’s job, there was a big pile of stones/rock in the middle of the yard, which I went around for fun. One night, there was a huge party at the house so I got to stay up util really late, but I was bored to death as there were no other kids to play with, so I went to play around the pile of rocks, which was a little far away from the party. In one of the turns, I stumbled upon someone but here’s the tricky part: He had no feet. I turned my face up , (looking at his jeans and red-squared-flannel-button shirt) to look at this dude’s face and guess what? HE HAD NO FUCKING FACE! I ran like the devil to my mom and told her everything. I don’t remember what happened after that.

Twist is… that property now has an apartments building, right where the pile of stones used to be. Also, an aunt lives in the property.

I visited my aunt once and told me like really scared “Mijo, someome tried to break in yesterday. He was standing in the middle, next to the apartments. He was wearing jeans and a red squared cowboy’s shirt, but I couldn’t look at his face. I went after him and turned the lights but he was gone, but I couldn’t find any footprints either. Can you please ask your friend to check the doors?”

I went ice-cold as I remembered what I saw as a child…

Yet, only my mom believes me as none of my friends believe this actually happened.” — TheLatinoGuy

12. The entire roof collapsed during a terrible storm

“My sister lived in a house under a massive forked oak tree. It rained continuously for about a month straight, and then there was a terrible storm. The storm uprooted the tree, and dumped it on her house. She had taken cover in the hallway, which was exactly where the tree forked. Had she been in the kitchen or her bedroom, the collapsing roof would have killed her. She walked away without a scratch.” — packersfan823

13. A man jumped in front of my car and bounced off my hood

“The level and detail of slow motion as a guy bounced off my hood, windshield and flipped over top and landed behind me. The swiftness of life leaving my body in horror. He told his girlfriend he was going to kill himself and lunched himself at my car. He lived.” — dirtysanchezzzz

14. I saw a strange creature made out of pure light

“When I was a child, my bed was up against the wall and close to the door, so that I could look through the door and see down the hall all the way to the lounge room. One night I woke up at some ungodly hour and looked down the hall. There was what could only be described as a being of pure light in the hallway. A tall, humanoid figure with no discernible features, just looming facing the bathroom door. At that age I was very scared of the dark, so I remember feeling more nervous than afraid and almost comforted by it. After a few seconds it seemed to turn and ‘see’ me and disappeared.

To this day I have no real idea what it was. I figured it must’ve been a very vivid dream or hallucination.” — akimboslices

15. A cop died after landing on the roof of a man’s car

“I watched a police car chasing a station wagon launch higher than the street lights when the station wagon t-boned a car in the intersection and the cop car went airborne after slamming into the back of the station wagon. The cop car wound up landing on the roof, and he died. The asshole in the station wagon killed the person in the car he T-boned and survived the entire thing. It was completely insane and I still can’t believe I was at the corner of the intersection and watched the whole thing happen. Hollywood couldn’t have done a more insane job than reality. The most crazy thing I’ve ever seen in my life, bar none.” — Yeldarbris

16. A drunk driver drove down the sidewalk

“Drunk driver driving on the sidewalk in downtown DC, crashing into garbage cans and street signs, narrowly missing the occupied bus stop, and then crashing into a parked cart.” — myrabuttreeks

17. A dump truck ran over another car

I saw a dump truck run over a car at an intersection. It wasn’t a collision or an accident either, the guy driving the dump truck was waiting behind the car in the intersection and slowly drove over the top of the car in front of him.” — ILikeWearingBoxers

18. A man died while sitting at a red light

“A guy died in his car at a red light during a a long train crossing.

He was in the front of the line of cars and when the gate went up he didn’t move.

After a lot of honking, some body walked up to the car and he wasn’t moving, they knocked on the windows for a while and nothing, so we called the police, everyone figured the old guy just died waiting.

Like 2 min later the guy woke up and just drove of like there was no tomorrow, everyone that was stuck behind him was very confused.

He probably fell into a deep sleep waiting for the train went buy then speed off in embarrassment.” — MagnanimousCannabist

19. Someone broke into my house while I was home

“Somebody broke into our house but left after they realized that I was still in the house.” — PM_ME_FOR_aCHAT

20. He set his girlfriend on fire in the middle of the store

“A man set his ex girlfriend on fire in a cell phone store. I watched him pace around out front, make a phone call and then go in a douse her with something from a soda bottle. Thought it was a lovers quarrel and continued sitting in my car, waiting on my dad to get coffee. Then she burst into flames. One thing people might not ever think of is how loud a human​ being being ignited is. He doused her in gasoline and threw a match on her. She was screaming and then there was cracking sounds and then just this eerie sound of fighting for her life. She survived. Regularly speaks on domestic abuse and stuff. You can look it up. This occurred in MD.” — Thrownawayactually

21. A bird bit off its own leg to escape

“I watched a bird bite off its own leg, which was frozen to a tree branch.

It then flew away, while the leg remained.” — Slagenthor

22. I saw a creature standing at the end of my bunk

“This happened when I was 5 and let me preface this by saying that I’ve experienced sleep paralysis and hallucinations, what I am about to tell you is none of those things and 24 years layer, to this day, still scares the shit out of me.

I slept on the top bunk and my brother on the bottom. Our bunk faced an L-shaped wall that had a closet on one side. The lamps in our living room were on and shone through a vent on the top of our bedroom wall which cast a dim glow into the bedroom itself.

Well one night I had to go pee really bad and so I sat up and threw the covers to the side only to notice a silhouette at the end of my bunk. Standing their staring at me with small yellow eyes was a 6 foot creature. It’s skin seemed to be black and it had an oval shaped head that was the width of my bunk bed.

I stared at it for probably a good 5 seconds and threw the covers over my head to hide from it. I sat there awake frightened to death wondering when it would leave. Eventually I fell asleep and in the morning I had noticed our closet door wide open. Something I had made a habit of closing every night. I told my mom about it first thing… still think about every single night before I go to bed.” — blue_13

23. A woman disappeared from right in front of us

“A couple years ago, I worked for a residential home caring for and mentoring children with behavioral and mental health issues. We took several of these kiddos on outings, everything from the movies to hiking. About a week or two before I was to leave that job for another one, I’m hiking with a group of eight teens and it’s starting to get dark. The trail took a tad longer than I estimated and I didn’t have great phone service out there but we weren’t “in trouble.” I knew the trail well and I’ve never once had an issue with anyone at this park. I turn on my flashlight and startle a woman that come around the bend in the path. We both laugh and she introduces herself to me and the rest of the boys. She says she’s worried she may have gotten turned around and I explain that she has walked or jogged past the exit from the park and that we’re going the same way so she might as well join us. She does and we get to talking about what we’re all about (she assumed we were Boy Scouts initially). Very cool, laid back lady, had a good conversation with her and all the boys. We come to the parking lot and she asks if she can pray with us before we go. Most of the kids were fine by this and I agreed to it as well. She basically wishes for guidance and harmony in our lives and thanks God for the opportunity for us to have all spoken together and how beautiful the night was. We shook hands and parted ways. On the way back to our van, one of the kids that doesn’t open up much remarked on how nice a woman she was. I agree and look back to get one last look at her.

The parking lot is empty.

I need to emphasize here that this is a biggish parking lot with a single, combined entrance and exit road that’s near us. Dense woods and brush make it so that it’s hard to go anywhere that isn’t an officially-cleared trail. Across the lot, where we’d come from, is the clearly visible path up the side of the hill to the trails. Our kindly woman in her early 50s is nowhere to be seen, and we are the only car in the parking lot. The lot was too large for her to have jogged out the entrance and toward one of the homes a few blocks away without still being able to see her, and she’d started off walking the same time as us. This was Summer in Texas: the park had officially closed, it was decidedly dark, but not so much that you even needed a flashlight to navigate- I’d turned mine on more as a courtesy than anything else. Not one part of our conversation had struck me as odd, nor any aspect of the woman we’d spoken with- modern (and reflective) jogging clothes, wasn’t disheveled, etc. Nothing off about the entire scene until that moment.

Nothing to be done, I got back into the van with the others and we left. The oldest of he guys with me is sitting in the passenger seat. A few minutes passed and he turned to me. I look him in the eye and know what’s on his mind. I nod. “That woman disappeared,” he says.

I love telling that story. Entirely possible I missed her somehow but damn if I can’t figure out how.” — Saeta44

24. Someone drove down the wrong side of the road

“Just watched this happen a little over an hour ago. Was driving on the Southbound side of US 281 about an hour from my destination. There’s some traffic but not a whole lot and I’m in the right lane. All of a sudden I see a car come barreling (probably going at least 65) down the Southbound side but going the wrong direction (north vs everybody going south), weaving all over the left lane he’s in but somehow managing to stay in one lane. He zoomed past me and I slowed the fuck down cause it scared the hell out of me. I’m watching this idiot driving down the wrong side of a highway where the speed limit is 75 MPH but most people in the left lane are going anywhere between 75 and 90. He came within inches of hitting somebody also in the left lane but the guy who was almost hit saw him in time and barely swerved over into the right lane in time to avoid what could have very easily been a fatal crash. I kept watching the idiot driving on the wrong side of the road until I couldn’t see him anymore and hoped to hell he didn’t hit anybody. The guy that almost got hit passed me but I went back to going 80 and caught up to him, looked over at him at the same time he looked at me and we just both kind of shrugged with this look of “What the HELL? That just happened.” I didn’t call the cops because I was too out to think straight but I did later see a state trooper zipping down the northbound side of 281 with lights and sirens going, hopefully after the idiot.

You hear stories all the time about people driving on the wrong side of the road and causing horrible crashes but to see it in person scared the hell out of me.” — Katiana56

25. I watched a car slam into a concrete barrier

“The most incredible thing I’ve ever seen was the time that two cars in front of me suddenly started drag racing as soon as the light turned green. I went at just the speed limit, watching the two speed onto the bridge ahead, and then one car suddenly went left, and smashed into the concrete barrier. At the force and speeds it was going, the car actually flipped onto it’s side and rolled for a bit before landing on the wheels. The other car bolted out of there while I slammed the brakes before I too crashed horribly. Traffic started to Jam since everyone was suddenly braking down behind me, which put me on the spot and feeling panicky so I drove around the wreck. In the car I remember seeing a guy at the wheel hugging his girlfriend who was in the passenger seat.

Even to this day, I still think they were dumbasses who got lucky to survive.” — Bustyturtlelover Thought Catalog Logo Mark

Holly Riordan is the author of
Severe(d), A Creepy Poetry Collection.
Pre-order your copy here.

Holly is the author of Severe(d): A Creepy Poetry Collection.

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