We all love a good “based on a true story” film or a documentary with so many twists and turns our brains can’t comprehend that they actually happened. Truth is stranger than fiction, anyway. And while not everyone has the platform or the budget to share their wild stories with the world, many people still have these unbelievable tales, just sitting inside their brains waiting to be shared.

Thankfully for us, one Reddit user recently started a conversation by asking others to detail the craziest things that have ever happened to them, and people certainly delivered in the responses. We’ve compiled a list of the most shocking and intriguing stories down below, so you too can read them and marvel at these crazy tales and unbelievable coincidences.

Be sure to upvote the anecdotes you find most entertaining or surprising, and feel free to share your own “craziest thing that ever happened to you” story down below. Then if you’re interested in checking out another Bored Panda article featuring strange and inexplicable occurrences, we think you’ll enjoy this list right here.

#1

Was going to see a concert with some friends. Printed my ticket at home. This was before mobile tickets were ubiquitous. We all decided to meet at a bar about a mile from the venue, then walk over after a few drinks.

Have our drinks and some food and head to the venue. When we get there, I suddenly realize I don’t have my ticket on me. Panicked, I run back to the bar. Check my car in the parking lot, nothing. Head inside the bar, check the table we were at, look everywhere. No ticket.

Bummed and dejected, I leave the bar and begin to trek back to the venue to let my friends know I can’t go with them. While I was waiting at a crosswalk, the wind blows a bit, and with it, a sheet of paper floats past me and comes to a stop on the sidewalk.

I reach down, pick it up, and it’s my goddamn printed ticket. One of the best days of my life.

Image credits: cparksrun

#2

I (American) was visiting the UK for the first time. I got to my hostel and started chatting with the Australian guy in the bed above mine. When I mention where I’m from, he says there’s a famous restaurant there he really loves and goes to with his family every time they visit. Turns out it was a place I used to work. He says “Hey I have a picture of our server from the last time I was there, maybe it’s someone you know.” It was me.

Image credits: snake_juicy

#3

I opened my wallet to show my friends I had no monies, and a moth flew out of it.

Edit: I first related this incident 9 years ago, and it got ~500 karma. 3 years ago it was ~4000.

I think maybe all need a laugh more as time moves on.

Image credits: Plethorian

#4

In 2013 I received a notice from my college that my low GPA from the previous semester made me ineligible for financial aid the following semester. It was my last term in grad school and the college was threatening to drop me from all classes if I didn’t pay tuition within 72 hours. I went to drown my sorrows at a bar later that night and I met a stranger and we started talking. I told her my story and she offered to pay my tuition. I told her I didn’t accept loans from strangers but she said it was a gift. Turns out she was a very wealthy CEO and that night she wrote me a check for $2,500. I paid my tuition, finished school, and we still keep in touch.

Image credits: yogurtlady

#5

My dad wrote a book a very long time ago, and signed the copy that he gave to his in-laws. Years after he had died I loaned the signed copy to a guy I was dating. We stopped seeing each other and he never gave it back.

Years later I decided I wanted a copy of my dad’s book even though it wouldn’t be *my* signed copy so I ordered it used on Amazon. The book that arrived is the signed one I’d loaned out. Turns out he had sold it to a used bookstore, and I just happened to order from them.

Image credits: SSSS_car_go

#6

My date and I got stuck at the top of a Ferris Wheel for nearly 3 hours when the ride’s mechanism failed.

It was a very tall wheel – and she was afraid of heights. So, those hours in the Ferris Wheel car together seemed like eternity.

Image credits: Back2Bach

#7

Taking a beautiful Saturday morning ride home on my motorcycle. Mini van pulled out in front of me. Totalled motorcycle and van. Hospital did a scan of my head. Come to find out I had brain cancer that we caught very early. Which may have saved my life.

Image credits: Musicman0

#8

I was on a plane with a wanted terrorist. I was seated 5 rows ahead of Faisal Shahzad, the Time Square Bomber on a flight to Dubai. The doors were closed and we never left the gate, and the captain kept making announcements/excuses as to why we were delayed. After nearly 3 hours of sitting there, the federal agents rushed the plane and marched that little s**t off the plane.
Edit(s): this happened 12 years ago and my memory has failed me, so…
1) The plane did taxi away from the gate and returned, apparently. Many of you have made that clear.
2) I am not certain why it took 3 hours, but I suspect it was to evacuate the terminal.
3) Some of you object to the word “rushed”. Really? The law enforcement officers did not amble or saunter onto the plane; they were in a hurry, IMO.
4) After the suspect was removed, all passengers deplaned. When I made it to the terminal there were hundreds of law enforcement officers: NYPD, FBI, ICE, Transit Police, etc. The flight crew and reps from Emirates Air were fantastic! Accommodations were made for everyone who did not want to get back on the plane. All our luggage was removed and scanned / searched, and we had to claim our bags under the supervision of many, many eyes. I got back on the plane, got airborne, made my connection in Dubai but my luggage did not. Emirates Air had it delivered to my hotel the next day.

Image credits: rodeler

#9

I was abducted when I was 15. My “best friend” helped the pimps (who she was working for) help sell me.
I had a pimp, named Goldie, beat the s**t out of me the first night and then made me go out on the streets. He followed me every time I was picked up to make sure I didn’t run away. I finally found a opportunity, and ran away with a couple of bucks in my pocket. Another pimp helped me escape. When I finally made it home, my parents were so happy. The rest of the world, not so much.
Kids at school found out and I was labeled a wh*re forever. This was 30 years ago, and I just had a girl I went to HS with message me on Facebook to tell me that I have to always remember I’m nothing but a cheap hooker. This was after she saw my name in a mutual friends post. I informed her I work with social workers and police officers who try and help victims of trafficking. That the shame spiral for these poor girls leads to all rate mortality at an alarming speed. That my partner and best friends know what happened to me.
I used to let it shape me. I used to think I was just an ex hooker so no one would ever love me or want me. That I wasn’t supposed to be happy or ever have a good job. Or that I would lose it all if anyone ever found out.
I’m only in my 40s now but I’m wise enough to have figured out all of my fears were just from PTSD. I do deserve happiness and a good life. I’m not an ex hooker- I was a kid and a victim.
Kids – if anyone tells you that you aren’t s**t, please remember you are AWESOME. And if your situation is s**t, I promise you. It can get better. Hugs from an Oregon mamma.

Edit : thanks so much everyone! Holy smokes I woke up to so much support and so many great messages and comments. You guys made my whole week.

Image credits: JungFuPDX

#10

I was walking through the woods with my boyfriend in high school and we found some papers scattered everywhere. They were really old and gross but we were like “oh what if it’s the DB Cooper briefcase” or something and picked up a sheet to see what it was and it WAS A HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT I COMPLETED AND TURNED IN DURING THE 4TH GRADE.

Nothing could have prepared me to see my own name in my own childhood handwriting in the middle of the woods lol

Image credits: JewishFightClub

#11

My husband and I went to a Tom Petty concert at the last minute only being able to get tickets for the cheap seats. Right before the concert starts somebody approaches us and says ‘do you want to get bumped up’ and I said sure because there can’t be any worse seats than this and he says ‘ I am with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and these are front row seats’. He hands them to me and disappears. My husband and I looked at each other, walk to the front section security guard, showed him our tickets and he walked us to front row center seats and we enjoyed a really great concert.

Image credits: Sassy-Coaster

#12

When I was about 12, there was a pizza place near my house with a Ms. Pacman arcade game in it. I had spent maybe two years trying to get on the Top 10 score list. Finally went in one night and was just possessed, played a nearly flawless game, and ended up being *the* high score on that unit! Put my name on the top of the list for everyone to see, and felt like a queen!

Not even maybe a minute later, three men, all asian and wearing what I think of as the stereotypical “Japanese office worker” outfit of dark slacks, belt, button down white long sleeve shirts, walk in, go directly to the game, don’t order food or talk to anyone else. One of them starts playing the game. And within a few minutes, he obliterates my high score and puts his name at the top. They left without interacting with anyone in the place. Just walked in and knocked me off the top and left.

If anyone can explain what happened to me that day, I’d appreciate it!

Image credits: pecklepuff

#13

I moved away from my hometown when I was 20. I started working for a company that had several locations around the city. One day I just happened to be walking past one of the locations that I didn’t work at because I was going to an eye appointment. Right as I was walking by, a guy I knew from that other location walks out the door and tells me that my mom is on the phone. She was desperately trying to get in touch with me because my grandfather had died. She knew the name of the company I worked for but didn’t know which location I worked at, so she got an operator to connect her with one of the locations at random. The guy I knew said he was on the phone with her and was just starting to explain that I didn’t work at that location when he looked out the window and saw me walking by.

Image credits: thatswacyo

#14

When I was a kid I caught MewTwo at full health with a Great Ball in Pokémon FireRed. I thought, “hey why not just toss one out on the first turn cause why not” and as the ball kept rocking back and forth I was like lmao there’s no way. But then it caught him and I just sat there with my mouth open for a couple minutes. I didn’t know what to do since it would’ve been impossible to explain to my mom the significance of what just happened. I don’t know the math but it has to be under 1% chance.

Image credits: BroDudeBruhMan

#15

Have a 2 dollar bill that has me and my wife’s signature on it saying “just the 2 of us”. We did it when we first got together and after a while had it framed. Some years later it was stolen by some jackass who decided to break into my house. I ended up going to some random gas station weeks later and got I back as change. Literally just stood there and stared at it in disbelief and told the cashier about it. Just insane coincidence and luck. Still have that sucker and it’s been another 5 years.

Edit: I’d like to thank everyone for their support and feed back on my story! I actually just posted a picture of the bill on my profile if anyone is interested to see it https://www.reddit.com/user/Straight_Spring9815/comments/x1ohr2/this_is_the_lucky_2_dollar_bill_beat_up_as_all/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

Image credits: Straight_Spring9815

#16

When I was a teen in the ’80s, I got to meet and briefly hang out with an idol of mine. He was (and still is) an extremely famous rock star. He was very nice but a bit twitchy and very high-energy. Cocaine is a Hell of a drug.

At the end of my little visit, I asked if I could have a photo with him. He said “let’s take a bunch!” So I handed my camera to an assistant and he took a few nice normal pictures. As I’m reaching to take back my camera I hear “ONE MORE!” from behind me, and the dude jumps on my back and assistant snaps the photo. Keep in mind that I was a 14-year-old girl at the time, Mr. Rock Star weighed probably 200 pounds, and I was caught completely off guard. It’s a miracle that I kept my feet under me and didn’t get injured, but I got the most hilarious photo ever!

Fast forward about 35 years, and I by some miracle had occasion to meet him again. I was standing around with some other people waiting, he came in and started shaking hands. When he got to me, he shook my hand, looked me straight in the eye, and said “Hey there Gorilla! How’s your back these days?” I was literally shocked speechless. This man, who has been fighting drug and alcohol addiction for most of his life, remembered a 15 minute chat/photo-op with a nervous teenager several decades ago, remembered my name and his little prank, and recognized me in middle age.

What a great guy. I’m still his biggest fan.

Image credits: Gorilla1969

#17

Me, my husband & 2 young kids decide to go to a Six Flags park on a Saturday. I picked out everyone clothes for the day, but my husband decided to wear a different shirt, an ugly green polo. I hated the shirt and acted pissy all the way to the park during the two hour drive.
We arrive and got in line to get admission tickets then a stranger walks up and asks us if we want to get in free as he had season passes and it was some kind of “bring a friend” type of promo day.
We thanked him for saving us admission costs and asked him “why did you choose us out of all he people here?”.
It was because my husbands shirt color was the same color of his favorite sport team.
My husband laughed about it all day.

Image credits: noseymimi

#18

I was sitting outside with my friend and he was twirling his double bladed pocket knife. This thing was big too. It slipped out of his hand and flew straight towards me. The handle (between the blades) hit me in the head, but not a single part of the blade touched me. I’m not sure how that happened.

Image credits: Actuaryba

#19

Missed an archery target and hit a copperhead snake that was hiding in a bush.

Image credits: Logical-Wasabi7402

#20

I was in Hawaii for the missile strike turned false alarm. It was a movie scene. Full grown men with families asking me what to do. People running in from the beach screaming. Screeching tires. Terrifying.

https://i.imgur.com/SUd2fDh.jpg

*edit spelling

Image credits: IW0RKHERE

#21

Was going from Rio de Janeiro to Paris with my aunt and cousins. The day before we were supposed to fly, we changed our flight to the following day so someone could pick us up at the airport when we arrived. Our original flight was the Air France 447, that fell in 2009 and everyone died.

Image credits: trowawaaayy

#22

Went to a secluded mansion in Scotland for the weekend with my partner to attend a “conference” a friend suggested, that turned out to be an drug fueled orgy for corporate swingers. Us and a couple of other misinformed guests ended up barricading ourselves in a study and watching old horror movies all weekend while a bunch of randos on LSD had sex in the grand dinning hall next door.

Image credits: No-Sign3796

#23

I put on a funny remix of the Hamster song at work and then we were robbed at gunpoint. It was surreal.

Image credits: MMorrighan

#24

I somehow got backstage without them checking me for a pass when everyone else had to show theirs and finally got to meet Sufjan Stevens, my absolute fave, after 13 years, and we talked for like 45 minutes! And I think he would have kept talking if I hadn’t felt so like I was keeping him up and told him I had to go. He had even turned down celebratory drinks (it was the last show of the tour) with his band to talk. It’s been 6 years I still can’t believe it and I think about it multiple times a day. And to boot, Bryan Devendorf, the drummer from my fave band The National was there too so I got to meet him too. He is incredibly tall.

Image credits: __phlogiston__

#25

I was in a coffee shop in Austria called the Pharmacy. I asked for the toilet and the old man behind the counter told me to go downstairs and to use the door that said ‘ do not enter’.
I done what I was told but found I was trapped in the dark some storage room. Fearing it was a Fritzel room I switched on my phone light and noticed a ladder, so I climbed up it.
At the top I exited a hatch and was surrounded by horses. Very expensive looking horses.
I’d come up in the stables of the Vienna Spanish riding school. Had to exit through the riding ring.

Image credits: Fuzzie_Lee

#26

I was working a front desk job at a small office in a strip mall. A car pulled up, went over the curb, through the window, and hit the desk as I was sitting there.

Image credits: JTO74

#27

One time I went camping with my ex, and we took some LSD. Was around 1am, and I started seeing flashes of light, figured it was just someone else in the campsite with a flashlight… and then I heard a distant ominus boom.

Looked outside the tent, one side of the sky was a clear starry night, the other side was a giant black doom cloud with a f*ckload of lightning coming from it. So then began the scramble to get everything out of the tent, and into the car. I remember picking up handfuls of stuff that was just… melting into my arms because I was in the peak of an acid trip.

We got the stuff in the car, and left the tent because we couldnt figure out how to disassemble it, and then huddled in the car ourselves. By this time the storm was on top of us and the rain was pouring, and lightning was coming down all over the place.

Then, the crazy part. It had been a couple hours into the storm, and we were still high as f**k. I suddenly felt super tingly all over, looked at my ex and her hair was standing right up on end… we knew what was about to happen and managed to give each other a wide eyed glance before *KABOOM!*. The lightning stuck the ground not an arms reach from me, I could have grabbed it if the window was down. It wasnt a normal strike either, it was a positive lightning strike which starts at the ground, and goes up, and is usually about 100x the power of negative lightning. I described as Zeus looking down at some puny mortals tripping balls in the middle of a storm and said to his greek god bros “Hey guys, wanna see me scare the c**p of these two?”

Was amazing to see… but I never wanna experience that again.

Image credits: Youpunyhumans

#28

I once asked a country artist if they were going to attend his own show. It was Aaron Tippin. He just came from a celebrity baseball game and was still in the uniform. I was taking a side entrance to bring in some 12 packs of soda to the hotel room and him and I guess one of his crew held the door open for me. The grew member had a cowboy hat and the whole look going on. After thanking them, I casually asked if they were there for the concert. Aaron Tippin was walking away and heard me say it. He started laughing as he turned the corner. It then dawned on me and I asked his crew member if that was who I thought it was. He smiled and nodded. After the show I went and got his autograph and joked about it. TLDR: didn’t recognize singer when they held a door open for me. Asked him and his buddy if they were there for his concert.

Image credits: Successful-Maize9200

#29

When I was a kid, my sister was terrified of thunderstorms. One afternoon, a storm rolls through. We were doing homework at the kitchen table together, and my sister started getting scared. She got under the table, just in case. My mom tried to coax her out, to which my sister replied “What if we get struck by lightning?”

My mom, exasperated, replies, “We are *not* going to get struck by lightning.”

And the moment her sentence ended, there was a loud crack and lightning struck our house.

It hit halfway up our stairs, where it reaches a landing and curves back on itself. There was a window at that spot and the entire windowsill was black, as were the bottom 6 panels of the blinds. No damage whatsoever to the tall pine tree directly outside the window.

Knocked out our phones and security system. The wiring had to be replaced completely. Power was totally fine though.

And I had a cool, yet unbelievable, story the next day about why I didn’t finish my homework.

Image credits: Thorhees

#30

This was early seventies when I was about 1 year old. My parents went on a camping trip in New Hampshire, got to the site late, and had to set up everything in the dark. My parents put me in this German-made baby leash thing and wrapped it around their arms, because I would “sleep crawl” and there was no crib.

The next morning my father awoke to tugging on his wrist. He finds me dangling by the leash straight over a several hundred foot shear cliff. They had set up the tent not knowing how close they were to the side.

If it hadn’t been for a little leather strap attached to a harness around me, I would have plummeted to my death without making a sound that night and no one would have known for hours. It was possible they wouldn’t have found my body because the valley below had coyotes at the time.

#31

I went to watch an MMA Event called Xtreme Cage Warz in 2006. I was talking to the promoter as I knew him. The heavyweightm main event fighter came up to Dave and said his opponent cant fight for I dont remember the reason. I looked at the guy and said “Ill fight you”. He asked if I was serious, I said sure you came 1000 miles might as well fight someone. We both asked Dave he said sure why not. They ran some checks on me, I borrowed a pair of Muay Thai shorts that I put on backwards, someone ran to wal mart and got me a cup and a mouthpiece. I then got in the cage on no notice essentially and fought they guy. He absolutely twisted me up and kicked the living hell out of me. It was super fun, mma gloves are much softer than I expected and didnt get knocked out. For doubters, pm me Ill give you my name and his name and this fight can be googled

Image credits: Odd-Jackfruit-2924

#32

I was visiting the Statue of Liberty with my family. Accidentally bumped into a woman. When I turned around to apologize I realized it was the exchange student we had hosted a decade before. What a coincidence that we were visiting NYC from TN and she was visiting from Denmark at the same time, we both decided to visit the Statue of Liberty at the same time, and I just so happened to clumsily run into her. It’s a small world

#33

When I was around 10, back in the 70s, before seatbelt use was common. I was in the middle of the back seat, with siblings on either side. A car ran a red light and smacked in the side of the car. No one was seriously hurt, just cuts and bruising, except myself. I had no injuries. My brother next to me, on the far side of the car, had cuts from flying glass, but none hit me.

#34

A car went near me, hit, and than wanished down a road.

it was a one way street, nowhere to go and a lot of people saw it.

#35

I was scammed by a car rental company (Driv-O) and I left a bad review on their Yelp page. Someone reached out to me and said it happened to them too and to email the DA who was building a case against them. So I emailed my complaint and didn’t hear anything for 5 years. Then one day they mailed me a check and I got all my money back. I can’t believe it actually worked.

#36

I work on a psych ward.

I had a patient I’d never met or seen before walk right up to me and tell me I had my grandfather’s eyes, “you know, like this – ” as he did a sieg heil…
my great-grandfather was in the Sturmabteilung (SA) during the Third Reich and I do indeed have his eyes, as does my father and his mother. it made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

#37

Probably the time I met an old middle school classmate at my 20s… Half the world away. Working at the same place.

#38

I lost an important paper after bringing it home from work. Searched for 2 weeks and couldn’t find it. One day at home, I took a container of the previous night’s leftovers out of the fridge and set it on the counter. Then I ducked back into the fridge for another item. When I stood back up and looked at the container on the counter, the paper was sitting on top of it.

Still gives me the f*ckin creeps.

#39

Ok, I’m not making this up. Many years ago and approximately 6-7 years after John Lennon’s murder, I was in this room by myself, and there was a piano in the corner. Now, I do ***NOT*** play the piano. The best I do is one finger melodies and a major chord or two. That said, pianos always fascinated me, and I always felt drawn to them. So, I go over to the piano and start playing around with it. All of a sudden “Imagine” pops out. The actual song, including the little runs at the end of each phrase. So, I’m wondering where the hell this is coming from, and then I get this really strong feeling that Lennon is standing behind me. Of course, he wasn’t, but I look anyway. This whole thing weirded me out so much, I ran and got my wife and told her what had happened. So then I tried to play it again while she was standing there. It was still there a little bit, but it was fading, and I’ve never been able to do it since. I’ve never believed in channeling or other New-Agey stuff, but this definitely made me think a little.

#40

This happened when i was 19. It was about 4am and I had gotten a flat tire. I was about 2 miles from home so I just started walking home. About 2-3 minutes later a car pulls up and offers me a ride. The driver of the car was my first real girlfriend who I hadn’t seen in 3 years. Her dad was a Marine and was transferred to a base in another state about 1500 miles away. Her and her friend were moving to go to college and they had driven 200 miles out of their way just to show each other the homes that they grew up in since they originally came from the same city.

She starts to introduce me to her friend and her friend was actually another ex girlfriend that I hadn’t seen in about 2 years. Her father had moved for a job and the girls met in high school. They had no idea that they both had dated me (it was almost a year of dating for the first, about 5 months for the second, I was16/17 at the time and they were 15/16). Sorry to disappoint, but nothing happened that night, there was no threesome.

#41

This will get buried, but I was at a bar with my x girlfriends sister (she was like my sister) and Andy D**k shows up. He was known around the area but he was talking to my sister and then grabs her tits. She was shy and didn’t stand up for herself.

So, I ended up getting into a physical altercation with him and punching him in the face. Turned into a fight, police showed up, he got arrested, bar tender stood up for me.

Crazy times

#42

Was on my way home from church, and some other church down the road got bombed by Boko Haram terrorists. I must have been about 13 or 14. My mom who is usually calm was understandably freaking out about what road we should take home because the vehicle the boko haram members were in was driving towards us. I remember a guy with a leg that must have been broken years prior hobbling towards the road to block off the terrorists as well as hurling rocks at their car with others as they sped past. They were driving so fast our car shuddered as they went past us. We got home fine though

#43

When I was a teenager I was ramping the dirt bike out in the field. Took one too fast, flipped the bike on top of myself and conked myself in the head. Knocked out even though I was wearing a helmet.

When I came to, it was two hours later and I was sitting at the foot of my bed playing guitar. I was fingerpicking the main riff to Sweet Child O Mine (which I had never played before). My mom said she never knew any wreck had happened, I had just walked into the house, gone upstairs, and played guitar for two hours.

#44

When I was young, I got to go to Disney World and ride Space Mountain. It was the end of the day by the time I finally got on, and the park (or maybe just the ride) announced it was closing. Everyone left, but they continued running the ride. So there was a cycle of go on Space Mountain, run (and I mean I went as fast as I could) back to the start of the line, and go on Space Mountain. I did this five or six times until my family dragged me away, and I remember racing with two or three other kids doing the same thing for the front seat. Even as a kid, I thought this was crazy, and no one believed me in school when I told them it had happened. That was one of the most awesome experiences of my life.

#45

My dog got stolen from me in a Target parking lot… and I got him back by tracking down a black mustang with pink racing stripes, no license plate, and no professional help. All in <24 hours.

#46

I went to a school in the UK. For like 3 months before I left I had a recurring dream. It was about anything, just 3 girls sitting in a kind of old fashioned bedroom, wearing very specific clothing. These baggy blue smocks, riding pants, blue bandana around their hair.

So I get there, housekeeper is showing me around this house, an old converted manor house. She opened the door to a bedroom and ( honest ) it was THAT DAM ROOM. 3,000 miles from where I lived, I couldn’t have seen it before, no brochures, nothing. Pre internet, you couldn’t look stuff up.

Then she told me what we were supposed to wear, went to the school office to buy it- and met all these other girls wearing the same thing I had to buy and saw in my dream. Same bandana, riding breeches. ( It was a riding school )

Freaked me the heck OUT. Never found an explanation.

#47

Our guitarist was late to band practice so we decided to go to the mall and pick up our drummer’s pre-ordered copy of GTA4. We decided we were hungry but we were ultra broke so we went to Wendy’s. We happened to be talking about quad core processors (brand new tech) and how the rumors we heard was that they were prone to crashing. This old guy behind us interrupts us and tells us he finds them to be quite stable. We talk computers with him a bit and he says he’d be interested in hiring us for an infusion of youth into his company. He gave us his card and told him we appreciated the offer.

We look him and his company up later and he’s a legit billionaire. Private jet billionaire. We apply and the interview was basically a formality because he met us in the lobby and said he was going to tell them to push us through.

I went from blockbuster to a corporate job as a software tester due to a series of coincidences.

#48

On May 2, 2019 I was attacked by a hive of bees. The nurses stopped counting stingers at 600 with plenty more to go. They were flying in my mouth as I was screaming. A live bee was extracted from my nose at the ER.

[proof](https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/bk6il7/i_was_mauled_by_bees_yesterday_on_my_upper_body/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share)

#49

I had a beater car in college. It was an ancient Plymouth, made mostly out of duct tape and rust.

I had all of my college books in it. Just kept them there. Easier for studying. Go out to my car and grab what I need. Engineering books, too. So super super expensive.

Someone stole my car out of my driveway with all my books in it.

Police report, all that. No joy. I was heartbroken. How in the world could I do my homework? How could I continue the semester? I was totally f****d.

My mom offered to take me to school that day. I was just ruined. I had no hope. No idea how I would get by.

And on an on-ramp on the way to school, **there she sat**. I just happened to notice her as we were driving by!

The old girl chose *that exact moment to throw her transmission*. When the thief was out joyriding it around and tried to get on the freeway. And I just happened to notice it sitting there.

All my books were still in it.

You just don’t get that kind of loyalty with a car anymore. She sacrificed herself in just the right spot so I’d see her and get my books back. I’ll always love that car. Godspeed, you old boat.

#50

I’m a medic and firefighter. We once had a call for something normal, like chest pain or something, I can’t remember. The caller said he was in his barn/garage, which isn’t weird really around here.

Anyway we pull up on scene and something just felt off. No idea why but something just told me in my gut that something was wrong.

I decided to do a 360 around the building before we went through the door at the front that was clearly the entrance. I walk around and come to a window on the side of the building and look in.

There was a shotgun rigged to the door. The guy had set a booby trap for us. And he had hung himself as well.

We kicked in this plexiglass type material on the side of the building and entered that way. Guy was dead. Nothing we could do about it at that point.

I would have been the first through that door. No idea why I didn’t just walk through it that day.

Edit: I’ll try to answer some of the questions here.

No idea why the guy did what he did, but my hypothesis in situations like this and mass shootings and the like is angry suicide.

The reason I made entry before police were present was because they were more than 30 minutes away and if the guy wasn’t dead I would have attempted to revive him. I assessed the scene and made a risk/reward decision and decided it was safe enough for me to enter from the side of the building.

I’m not religious and I think it was just training and experience that made me double check the scene. Something looked off to me at the time but I can’t even point out what it was. I’ve been in emergency services for about 15 years and this is just one story of weird s**t that has happened in that time.

And thanks to everyone for saying kind things about me still being here. I’m glad I’m here too.

#51

In college, I was chilling with some friends, doing homework and hanging out, when I got an email from my grandma. She had been really into genealogy lately, and had found some distant branches of the family tree. She was letting me know she’d discovered that I had a 3rd cousin who attended the same college as me. Well, not only did I know the guy, he was actually sitting right beside me as I read the email. I jumped up and shouted “Dude you’re my cousin!” And that’s how the guy one chair over got upgraded from friend to family in two seconds flat.

Edit: Somebody who was there that day just sent me an award, with proof. Looks like the anonymity of my Reddit account has been compromised. Time to burn it all down I guess.

#52

When I was a kid I slept walk really badly and would also sometimes quasi-sleepwalk where I was aware and would remember it later, but would be out of my f****n mind confused and semi-dreaming while it happened.

I “woke” up in the middle of the night one night at 7 or 8 years old and there was apparently a power outage because it was pitch black in my room, no nightlight, and no light coming in my window from the streetlights.

I wanted to leave my room and go wake up my parents because I was freaked out about the dark but got disoriented and confused my closet door with my bedroom door and started panicking because I thought someone stacked a bunch of s**t outside my bedroom door to trap me. Started throwing s**t out of my closet and got to the back wall. Now, my childhood home had a dormer-style upstairs added before we lived there such that my bedroom was on the same level as the attic over the original house area. There was an access panel to the attic in my closet and I somehow managed to get that open and “escaped” my room into the attic.

Around that time I fully woke up the rest of the way to full lucid consciousness and freaked the F**K out not knowing where I was and surrounded by dusty-a*s boxes and spiderwebs and started screaming my f*****g brains out, turns out the part of the attic I was in was directly over my parents’ bedroom and I scared the s**t out of THEM because my screaming was coming from their ceiling, they start freaking out and I was in there screaming for a solid 5 minutes before my parents were able to figure out what happened and rescue me.

I am 36 years old now and STILL have the occasional nightmare about waking up in that attic.

#53

I played poker once with Chris O’Donnell in a skeevy riverboat casino in Illinois.

I got dealt a straight flush and won a $5,000 instant bonus for it. (It was an otherwise low stakes table.)

The worst part is that I had no clue who Chris O’Donnell was. When you hit a bonus like that, they close the table for a few minutes to review the video and make sure you didn’t pop an ace out of your sleeve. Chris left the table and immediately everybody started talking about him and completely ignored my gorgeous straight flush that was still sitting on the table.

Ah well, I got paid…still the only time to this day I’ve won any kind of remotely material amount in a casino.

EDIT: Since many are asking, it was in or near Elgin. Other commenters have suggested the boat was called Grand Victoria but I honestly don’t remember its name. Timeframe was mid 90s.

#54

I had the lower bunk of a set of bunk beds. I was about 3 – 4 years old at the time, and I woke up and ran to my parents room just minutes before the top bunk smashed down on my lower bunk. We all ran in and found my older sister sitting up on the upper bunk as it lay on my lower bunk, crying but otherwise fine.

I don’t know that it could have killed me – I kind of doubt it would have been that bad – but it definitely would have hurt me if I’d still been there when it crashed.

#55

I had an ear infection that was misdiagnosed for years, from when I was about 25-33. During that timeline, it spread out of my ear canal and into the surrounding bone. Then, due to an atypical born formation in my skull that would have otherwise been asymptomatic, the infection traveled up my skull and into my cranial cavity, unbeknownst to me.

The symptoms I experienced were only in my ear, where I felt fluid and pressure. I finally demanded that an ent place a tube to try to clear out the infection.

The tube drained for about three weeks, and finally the ent I had gone to panicked and misdiagnosed me with a cerebrospinal fluid leak. He rushed me to the ER without even testing the fluid, and he intended to cut my skull open to look for a cerebrospinal fluid leak that didn’t exist. I was in the ER on a table with the doctors running preop antibiotics when I got a call from a friend of the family who is a doctor. He had been speaking to his doctor friends, and they all agreed I needed to get the f**k out of there. They didn’t believe there was a csf leak at all. I told the team of doctors who had assembled to operate on me that I was leaving, and they were pissed. They all shot me condescending and angry looks as I left.

I got a call two days later from the ent telling me that they got the analysis of the fluid back, and it wasn’t cerebrospinal fluid. I was in shock. They were going to slice my head open on a fishing expedition for a csf leak that didn’t exist. He didn’t apologize or anything. I hung up the phone and never talked to him again.

Eventually, the team of neurosurgeons my friend knew diagnosed me with a runaway ear infection. One told me that I have “the most unique looking skull he’d ever seen.” Some compliment.

One showed me a CT of my skull. “See this black spot inside your skull? That’s air. That’s not supposed to be there, and it means there is a channel from the outside world to inside your skull. That’s very bad. Do you ever fly? [I responded that yes, I fly all the time. For work, for pleasure, all the time.] Well, stop that immediately. This is very dangerous. Every time you’ve flown over the last several years, you’ve been rolling a die. It’s possible that, when the cabin pressurized, this air pocket would expand and create a midline shift in your brain and you’d die immediately.”

So, after a sh*tload more scans, they took me in for an 8 hour surgery. They removed all of the infected bone in my skull, a piece that ran about 2″ x 6″. In its place, they put a titanium mesh implant to hold my skull together. The recovery was the weirdest and most disorienting experience. When I turned my head, I could feel the plate shifting, and my skull was no longer a full circle, so it wasn’t structurally sound, so it too kinda shifted.

But the bone healed over the implant, and now you’d never know that any of this happened, except for a barely noticeable scar behind my left ear.

Thank God I had that friend to tell me to bolt from that emergency room.

#56

I was at a stoplight in a convertible, and a taxi cab came hurtling in my direction at over 100 miles per hour (he thought his brakes failed, but he was actually pounding the accelerator). He went into a ditch as he approached me, and it sent him airborne. He scraped along the side of me, his tires left a mark at about my elbow level. His bumper grazed my head, and he flipped three times, and crashed into the truck in front of me. His bumper removed a mole on the back of my head, and I had a massive concussion that kept me in the hospital for a week, but I was otherwise unhurt. Incredible car accident.

#57

As I walked into a high school hockey game, I had a strong premonition I would be hit with a hockey puck while sitting in the stands. I told all my friends who very much laughed and gave me s**t. I asked them to choose our seats which ended up pretty far away at center-ish ice.

They made of fun of me all game until half way through the second when a puck comes screaming off the ice and hits me square in the chest falling flat into my open hands.

We never talked about it much after that, and no, I do not think i’m psychic. It was just the first craziest thing that happened to me that popped in my head. I still have the puck 30 years later.

#58

Off of the top of my head, when I was travelling through Moldova I came to my parked car to see that a woman was writing a note. Long story short she hacked off my rearview mirror when she was driving next to me but she was a high court judge who wanted to do right by me. So she offered to go to Kia dealership and buy me a new mirror. They told us they have to order it and it takes 7 days. As coincidence would have it, she had the same car as me (Kia Sportage) even in the same color, so we just sked the mechanic to switch hers for mine and now I have a Moldovan Judge’s rearview mirror. What a nice lady.

Also, when I drove through Kyrgizstan and there was a road blockage by landslide on the only one of two roads through the country. Driving through the other road would take 15 extra hours. So we just had some vodka with locals who also wanted to drive through and started digging. Took us less than 4 hours to dig through (plus another 4 hours to be in semi-sober state to drive again).

Good times

Edit: typos

#59

Just happened to me last month.
I bought an old pop up camper from Craigslist and my fiancé and I wanted to fix it up to make memories with our 3 year old. We started repairing some tears in the canvas, ordered new cushions for the dinette and I built a table to replace the original.

We were set to do our first camping trip and I wanted and I wanted to make sure the stove and furnace were working properly before we went (the original seller said they worked.)

I followed the furnace lighting instructions, turned the propane on and tried to light the pilot- nothing happened. I waited a few minutes and tried again. As soon as the lighter ignited I was engulfed in a fireball the whole neighborhood heard. I had 3rd degree burns to my face hands and feet. I turned the garden hose on my body till the ambulance came as my skin was peeling and blistering off my body, it was quite a spectacle. I spent the next 3 weeks in the burn unit (the same one anne heche was at.)

I’m relieved I didn’t die and that my daughter was safely sleeping upstairs. Also mostly minimal scarring!

As a bonus I’ll be Deadpool for Halloween this year so I got that going for me which is nice.

#60

I had just got a new-to-me truck. I took it to my Dad’s house and we were looking it over. I realized I’d never checked to see where the spare tire jack and tire iron were, so we started looking for all the parts. My Dad was looking under the passenger seat (where the tire iron ended up being) and said “Drop something? “

He gave me my driver’s license. I opened my wallet to put it away, and my license was still in it.

What he had was the driver’s license that had been stolen while I was on a road trip in Arizona – under the seat of a truck I bought a year later.

#61

Was one of the main victims of a terrorist attack a few years ago! It was an American who was inspired by ISIS and set off a few pressure cooker bombs in NYC. Luckily only lost some teeth and were able to get them replaced, but took about a years worth of surgery due to the damage to my gums. Was super lucky the pellets that shot out of the bomb mainly hit my teeth and lips versus my eyes or anywhere else more serious

#62

Lost a pair of earrings 4 years ago. Looked everywhere for them and couldn’t find anything. While moving to a different apartment I tried looking for them again in every item of cloth. Absolutely nothing.
4 years later I’m already after 2 apartments, and I suddenly step on something that was on the carpet. It was one of the earrings.
I have no idea how it got to the carpet in the middle of the room, and why after 3 month of me living here. There is no logical explanation for this. Can’t find its pair though.

#63

Was an exchange student in South America. There was a military coup and the airport was absolutely shut down.
Somehow, though, I was the only person on a jet out of the country. My dad was a Green Beret and I’m pretty sure I was Liam Neeson-ed out of a crumbling nation.
Also, I was supposed to fly to said country on 9/11/2001 via NYC. Somehow, my flight was changed to 9/8/2001, and I was there when it happened.

#64

Was on a late night walk with a friend. We found $900 in $100 bills on the ground as we walked passed a parking lot at about 1 or 2 am.

#65

I was rounded up illegally by the Chicago police for protesting the outbreak of the Iraq War. (Protesters marched up Lake Shore Drive, the police blocked it off, then finally blocked marchers from both directions and randomly started arresting people.) I managed to call my gf at the time from the paddy wagon to tell her what was happening, and once I was photographed and booked, I was led to a cell full of other protesters. At some point, I was removed from that cell by a cop and taken far down a deserted hallway, where I was put in a cell by myself.

I kept falling asleep and waking up expecting to be bailed out, but nothing was happening. I had no idea how many hours passed under the unblinking fluorescent lights and I started to feel like I was going crazy…a sensation that deepened when I thought I heard a sing-song voice or voices calling my name from far off.

‘BrettTheSh*tmanShaaaaaaart…’
‘BrettTheSh*tmanShaaaaaaart…’

My actual name is somewhat uncommon so it wasn’t like I could be confusing it for something else…or could I??? Surely I was going crazy, right? Or was I actually hearing my name??

I kept trying to sleep, do push-ups, meditate…and ignore the disconcerting feeling that I was going insane every time I’d notice what sounded like my name being sing-song’d by someone far, far away.

They eventually locked some more people in my cell so I wasn’t totally alone. I spent 32 hours in total in custody.

Some local filmmakers did a documentary about the protest and they happened to interview me…where I found out that because my gf kept calling the police station and telling them that I was a journalist (smart girl!), the police would come to the general holding area with all the other protesters and call my name. The protesters thought that someone was pranking the cops bc my name is so unusual, so they started calling out my name en masse in this sing-song cadence.

So I wasn’t dreaming it or going crazy! Some people even screenprinted ‘FREE BRETTTHESH*TMANSHART’ t-shirts in the mode of the FREE WINONA shirts that were popular at the time.

(And in case you’re wondering, we class-action sued the city and each of us won five-figure settlements 10 years later.)

#66

In high school, I lived in a house that was at the end of a T intersection. It was a small residential area, and for the most part got very little traffic other than residents. But occasionally people would turn down our street instead of the next one over, which went through to the next major street.

One night, I was hanging out with my friends when I hear tires screeching outside. Then I see this trans am barreling straight toward my house. I start running away from the front door when I hear crashing and tires squealing. Thinking that the car had hit my dad’s car and was fleeing the scene, I ran outside to try to get his license plate number. I totally didn’t expect what I saw.

My dad’s car, which was parked in front of our house, was now on our front lawn (about 10-15′ away). And it had knocked down and
was now on top of a tree (not huge, but maybe 6″ in diameter) that used to grow on the grass between the sidewalk and the street. The Trans Am was on top of this huge rhododendron that grew between mine and my neighbor’s driveways. Its tires were still spinning, one of them smoking on my driveway. But it wasn’t going anywhere because the front end of the car was inside my neighbor’s Lincoln Mk IV, which had been shoved about 2′ to the side. My neighbor got the door open and turned the car off. The driver was unconscious and bleeding. The rest of the night was all emergency vehicles and tow trucks. The police later told us he was on cocaine and alcohol.

The craziest part is that if my dad’s car wasn’t where it was, the guy would’ve ended up in my living room. And if my neighbor’s car wasn’t where it was, he might’ve ended up in my neighbor’s living room.

#67

My roommate in 1st year of college was breaking and entering all over campus. He stole equipment from the library.

I remember reading the suspect’s description in the newspaper and thinking that it matched my roommate, including the clothes, but dismissed it because what are the odds.

Flash to me getting pulled out of history class by cops and taken in for questioning. They wanted to know why there was all this stolen s**t in my shared room.

I probably seemed pretty guilty because I was in shock about suddenly being interrogated by the cops and because I’d been crunching for school and not slept for two days.

Well, they eventually let me go, the dude ultimately got kicked from school, and I got an exclusive room for a few months!

Oh! And, weirdly, some other time that year, a PI came to my door investigating who was supposed to be in my room instead of me. Turns out that kid went missing and his parents were trying to find him.

Cursed room man.

#68

One of my friends was a social worker. She was blind. She had gotten divorced during graduate school. When she got divorced, I took over caring for her computer and for her Seeing Eye dog.

Several years later, she started dating this guy, and told him about me. Among other things, I had a colorful, unique, unbelievable Air Force career.

So when she introduced me to this guy, he told me that she had talked about me a lot, and that he had been a Navy Seal.

A few months later, one of her colleagues from work asked me what I thought about her dating a former SEAL. I didn’t really think about what I was saying. I just said “Oh, he was never a Navy Seal.” She said “Why do you say that?”

I said, “He’s too stupid to have ever been a SEAL.”

She mentioned what I said to my blind friend’s parents. They were already uneasy about this guy; they engaged a private detective. He engaged the police. The police engaged the FBI.

Turned out this guy was wanted in connection with the murder of a New Jersey state police officer. He found out that it was my comment that set all this in motion. He phoned me and threatened to kill me.

The FBI had a tap on my phone for over a year. He never called back. I don’t know if there were any developments in that case. That was 30 years ago.

My blind friend is doing fine.

#69

We are traveling in a van in Europe. In October 2021 we parked on top of a random hill near Dubrovnik, Croatia. We meet another German couple with the cutest dog who also live in a van. We talk a little ‘oh cool, you smell bad to’ you know like you do. We leave the next day, we don’t have instagram or something so we didn’t excange info. After that we travel some more until in December I broke my foot. We go back home, I recover and we set back of after a few months.

So the past month we’re traveling through Norway. We stop in a little town of bumf**k nowhere to get some (very expensive) food. We’re in the line for the register and in walks this f*****g same German couple. In Norway. In a random town. In a random store.

I MEAN HOW DOES THAT HAPPEN

My mind is still blown, what are the f*****g chances. Probably will never see these people again, don’t even know their names. But man, I think it’s so crazy this will never not astound me when I think about it.

#70

My husband and I woke up in the middle of the night to a hideous growling noise in our bedroom.

We were both jarred awake at the same time and started trying to turn on the lights (phone, lamps, whatever we could reach)

And there beyond the footboard of our bed, were TWO collarless, IDENTICAL-looking gray cats, growling at each other

WE ONLY HAVE ONE gray cat.

Literally seconds after we flipped on the lights, they get into a fighting/hissing match all about the room while my husband and I try to snap out of shock

We’re chasing these cats around, and I’m screaming to him “Grab Nenna!” and he’s yelling “I don’t know which one is ours!!”

In between several Oh my gods and WTFs?!?! and the moments that we could break them up enough to get a decent look at them, we could not identify our cat and had NO clue how another got into our bedroom on the 2nd floor

Finally they run into the next bedroom and one cat jumps out an open window onto a ledge

…which is when we realized the friend who’d stayed over a few nights before, left a window open

Talk about five LONG minutes in the Twilight Zone.

P.S. we’re like 97% sure it was *not* our cat that jumped back out the window.

#71

In senior year of high school we took a field trip to Little Tokyo in Downtown LA I was hanging out with three of my friends and at some point we were sitting on one of those bench planters that go around a tree. A year or two later 2 of the same friends and I went to Little Tokyo again and made our way to that bench where I went “last time we were here (our third friend) was sitting right here with us as well”. Not 2 minutes later that friend came walking up to the bench completely coincidentally. None of us even live all that close to Little Tokyo he just happened to be in the same spot at the same time after I had just referenced him being there years before. We were all dumbfounded.

Edit: Just because I felt like sharing another; one time I was playing Mario Party 7 with my cousins and there’s this windmill bank map (Pagoda Peak is better) that has this big pink flower that takes you to 1 of 2 spaces. We rode it 7 or 8 times and every single time it took us to the same space, it got to the point that we were questioning our map knowledge, we were like “does it only take you to this one space?”. Assuming it’s a 50% chance and we got it 7 times there’s only a 0.3% chance of that happening. I think the Little Tokyo one is crazier but my mind was blown at Mario Party as well.

Edit 2: According to the wiki the pink flower can take you to “one of several random spaces” which seems to imply there’s more than 2 locations… if this is true we may be talking lottery ticket odds which in turn may edge out the friend coincidence.
Source: boredpanda.com