The 26 Most Awful Things People Have Seen Others Doing Assuming They Weren't Being Watched

A little over a week ago, user u/Bibi_is_God asked a question of the AskReddit community: "What is the creepiest thing you have seen a person do?" As of today, the thread has 1.2K upvotes and almost 500 different stories, from the simply ridiculous and strange to the clearly eerie kind. Stories where we often don't know—and will never know—the plot or the ending. However, knowing all the ins and outs is not at all necessary to be truly scared...

Why do people do something strange and inexplicable? The easiest answer is that "people are strange," as Jim Morrison used to sing. And secondly, to understand the many mysterious situations we witness in life, you also need to know their context—then it will become clear.

For example, let's say we see—from the window of a bus or a car—one person chasing another. A few seconds, and that's it. The bus leaves, the chase has disappeared from our sight, and we never find out what happened.

It could have been a cop chasing a thief or, on the contrary, a criminal chasing a victim. Maybe it was a husband trying to catch up with his wife's lover, whom he caught red-handed, or a secret service agent chasing an elusive alien in the body of an earthling...

Our imagination works in such a way that it "thinks things up" for us, giving a fleeting scene details that correspond to our mood and the circumstances in which we saw this or that in action. This is, by the way, how literature works—that is, of course, if it's good literature. The author outlines the general idea, gives us slight hints—and we perceive everything else ourselves.

In fact, what makes a story truly frightening are the unusual, scary aspects of ordinary things and people. When they do something—or when something happens to them—that we don't actually expect.

"We're used to the normal stuff. We've probably all had good times in a hotel. Many of us live in regular houses. We watch TV. Our children have dolls and other toys. And in a scary story, these normal settings and objects take on new, frightening aspects," this dedicated post on Twiain.com says.

In any case, the understatement, the unpredictability, and the inexplicability—that's what makes most of these stories so frightening. Or, the people described were simply bad. That, alas, is also the sad yet true reality of our lives...

In any case, we sincerely believe that reading this selection will be interesting and also useful for many of you. Perhaps, if in the future something strange and unexpected happens to you, too—you'll already know or assume what it is. And, accordingly, you'll better understand how to react. After all, as the ancient Romans said, "Forewarned is forearmed..."