Alleged Alien Abductees Share What They Really Believe Happened To Them
[rebelmouse-image 18345201 is_animated_gif=_The recent blockbuster movie 'A Quiet Place' has stirred some anxiety about a hot topic. The X-Files, Area 51, E.T., Sigourney Weaver... we know what is out there beyond the stars, or do we? Proof that other life forms and galaxies exist is one of the most debated theories in life. So many people are skeptics. They believe Aliens are just about as real as ghosts and those who look for signs of life in the sky are just plain old wackos. _
Redditor _\SpacePistachio _implored for 'abductees' to share their tales by asking **People of Reddit that honestly believe they have been abducted by aliens, what was your experience like? **_Will these stories give us proof? Time will tell. If it is all real let's pray it's more 'Galaxy Quest' and less 'War of the Worlds.' _
WHERE DID THE TIME GO?
I had a year long experience of strange events that I've never been able to explain or have a full memory of.
It started in winter working up north on a project. Our crew was put up in a motel 10 minutes outside of the largest town in the area. I somehow got upgraded to a king size bed with couches, nice room. Our days were long so I used the couches to stack my clothes in piles(Jeans, hoodies, etc).
I had brought my entire desktop computer with me and was in the middle of a massive argument with my ex over Facebook messenger at 1am during the 2nd week up there. At some point I opened my eyes and I was sitting on top of a pile of hoodies on the couch. The time was now 4am.
I rushed over to the computer. At some point after 1am I had stopped typing a sentence midway through. My ex had left a ton of messages throughout the night demanding I answer her back. She also left missed calls and texts on my phone that was still sitting beside the mouse. I figured I had somehow passed out but wasn't sure how I ended up on top of my hoodies on the couch and not just fall into bed. Went to sleep normally for the remaining couple hours before work.
A couple of days later a stranger scenario happened. My routine was we'd finish work, I'd come back to the motel around 9pm, shower, change, and drive into town for late night dinner at Boston Pizza(only restaurant open late other than McDonalds). So this particular night I went through my routine, took a shower, changed, headed for the door. I got to my car and when I turned it on something felt really wrong.
I looked at the time, it was now 2am. I had no idea how I had lost around 4 hours between showering and getting into my car. It felt weird. My whole body felt weird. I felt violated. You feel violated but you have no idea what happened. Not a single memory or explanation. I stayed up all night scared trying to figure out what happened. Why was I missing 4 hours, if I had passed out why didn't I wake up on the floor, why did I feel violated, etc.
The rest of the project nothing else happened, but once I got back home things started happening that were just as weird. There's more to my experiences if people want to know(it only lasted for about a year), but those two events were the starting catalysts.
I've never actually figured out what happened but most people I've asked all seem to agree it had to be abduction events. ???????
BEWARE THE WHISPERS...
[rebelmouse-image 18345202 is_animated_gif=Was camping in a campground in North ga with some friends. It was starting to Down pour so everyone left their tents in the woods and decided to rent one of the on site cabins for everyone to sleep in. I decided I'd just sleep in my car because they wanted to stay up late and I was tired from kayaking all day.
I woke up to the rain stopping and it was kind of cold in the car and I had forgotten my sleeping bag in my tent. I checked the cabin to see if there was any room left and the light was on and everyone was fast asleep (3am). I didn't want to squeeze in so I decided to trek my way to my tent in the dark with a small pen light. In order to get to my tent I had to pass by everyone's that they left. Mine was the last one and even then was 50 ft at least from the previous tent before it.
I got in my tent, covered up with my sleeping bag and prepared to catch the last few hours of sleep before sun rise. No more than 10-15 min from me getting in my tent I began to hear light whispers right out side the tent door. They weren't in English and to my recollection indecipherable ( not any language I had heard at all) . Just as the voices started, two orbs appeared together outside the tent. They weren't the same glare as a flashlight would make and both were of two different colors that to the best of my ability had no real distinct color. Just colorful.
The whispers outside the tent began arguing louder between each other, but still in a hush tone. And as the whispers grew louder, the lights began swirling around the tent. Behind me, to the side to the front. Not in the movement that one could make with flashlights and at this point I realized no footsteps could be heard.
I uncovered myself and knelt on the tent floor preparing for the zipper to come undone like in a horror movie and I was flipping through my mind on What option to take. I was the most terrified I had ever been. Fight or flight.The lights swirled faster and the voices grew louder but still breathy and whispery. My mind raced and I was sweating despite the cold. And then, just like that the lights shut off like switch and the whispers stopped and nothing but silence of an empty wood.
I stood there as still as I could and I didn't dare go outside that tent til the sun came up. It was and still is the scariest moment of my life. I hope this makes sense. I've never written it out before. If I need to answer anything I can try in between moments at work. Interesting enough I went to a horror movie premiere recently and there was a scene that had the voices in it and goosebumps ran up my arm. It was identical.
LOOK AWAY FROM THE LIGHT...
[rebelmouse-image 18345203 is_animated_gif=About 20 years ago I was walking home from the shops with my dad and we stopped to watch some really odd lights in the sky.
There were 2 lights, slightly bigger than the stars zooming around and orbiting each other, making figure-8s etc. And then they stopped moving, got bigger and bigger until bright light filled the sky and then they were gone, we carried on our journey home. We hadn't stopped for more than 5 mins. The whole journey should have been 20 mins.
When we got home, my mum was freaking out, we had been gone for 65 mins, our watches were both still working but were 45 mins behind every clock in the house. She had neighbors/friends bout looking for us. I don't know what happened to us or what we saw, maybe nothing.
DON'T MOVE A MUSCLE!
[rebelmouse-image 18345204 is_animated_gif=Oh boy. Here we go. This is going to be long and very hard to explain, and to clarify, I didn't think I was abducted, but my friend did.
So I was about fifteen. Every night, a guy I'll call Jay and I would sneak out at about midnight and go back home around four to five in the morning, before our parents would wake up for work.On one particular night, we had just snuck out and it was about 1am. We headed to my backyard, laid on the trampoline, and stared at the stars and talked, like we always did.
Now, if you're in a room right now, and you look around, you'll see the definite four corners where your ceiling and walls meet. You can see how.. square? they turn. Edge of wall, sharp turn, second wall, same with your ceiling. You can see each individual flat surface.
The sky did that. It went from staring at the stars to looking like a cube of sky. From the southeast corner of the sky came this giant UFO. I mean huge. As if it took up a quarter of the entire sky. We both stared at it in dead silence. It didn't make any noise, even as it moved. And while it"spun," it was only hovering straight. The spinning didn't move it like you imagine a frisbee doing. The sides just turned while it moved.
I guess what it looked like doesn't matter. But Jay and I had our eyes deadset on it. We didn't say a word. We didn't point to show the other person. As it began coming toward us, we both flipped over.
Again, no hints, no talking, no eye contact. In total sync, we flipped onto our stomachs and stayed as flat and quiet as we could. Now ducking from something sounds totally normal, and instinct, but that's not what this was. It was literally almost like telepathy. I can remember us having a mental conversation of"Stay flat and it won't see us. Don't. Move."
We watch it make a weird, angled "C," shape across the sky. And although it felt totally in slow motion, it could have only been a few minutes because I think both of us held our breath the entire time.
Now for the weirdest part, as soon as it was out of sight, boom, daybreak. We had literally just gotten to the yard, and I know it was 1:15am, because I checked. But the minute we felt_"released," _from laying flat, it was very bright. Like 7:30/8:00am bright. I don't remember talking to him at all afterwards, other than making eye contact, and then making a break for our homes before our parents noticed we weren't there.
A few weeks, even months maybe, I'm talking to my brothers girlfriend about what happened. Apparently she's real into that, but also completely terrified. She said the fact that it felt like a few minutes but then it was suddenly six/seven hours later truly, 100% makes her think we were abducted. She was serious.I made a joke about how I should go to hypnotherapy to "unblock the memories," and she deadpans, and says "Don't. People who were abducted are traumatized by what happened to them. They even get PTSD."
The next day she texted me about how she couldn't sleep. I think abduction is a little bit of a stretch, and she watched too many Discovery Channel documentaries, but.. the weird loss of time still irks me. I do know what we saw was 100% real. Aliens? I dunno. Abduction? I dunno.
SHOULD I BE SEEING BLUE?
[rebelmouse-image 18345205 is_animated_gif=I was home alone in this little house I lived in in the middle of nowhere. It was probably around 2 AM and I was just listening to music enjoying having the place to myself for a change, when all of a sudden my dogs started going CRAZY. Normally, when someone pulls in the driveway or comes up to the backdoor, they go to the door they heard the noise beyond and peek through the blinds to see who it is, but this night they are running all around the house from door to door barking louder than they ever do.
When I stood up to go see what the hell they were on about, I noticed that the whole house seemed to be lit up with a deep blue light. Turning into the living room, it became obvious that it was emanating in from each window. I put on my shoes to go outside and see who was out there, but by the time I got out there the light had faded away. There was no sound of a car engine or really anything, and where I lived you could hear a car coming from a mile away.
I felt a chill run down my spine but I had the weirdest sense of fight or flight where neither option seemed viable, like I was frozen to the spot. I wanted to turn around and get back inside, and then...I just was. Right back in the chair I was listening to music in. As if I just blinked and there I was.
Don't really like telling people about it because it skeeves me out so bad.
ALIENS OR THE EXORCIST?
[rebelmouse-image 18977287 is_animated_gif=About a year ago I was chatting with a friend about creepy, seemingly supernatural experiences we had had as children. I chalked mine up to over active imagination, and just seeing things that weren't there. As I went into detail, her eyes kept getting wide, and she started pulling things up on her phone about aliens. After she showed me some drawing, and other things, I admitted to her that I'm absolutely terrified of aliens. I'm going to tell y'all these stories of mine, and I would genuinely appreciate feedback. Was she just f-ing with me? Or do these sound like alien encounters to anyone else?
Between the ages of 5 and 10, I lost time a lot. One of the more notable times that I clearly remember being confused, was when I was laying on the floor watching tv. It was about 6pm, and I looked out the window. It was still bright outside, and then I blinked. When I opened my eyes again it was 3am, the tv was off and I was sitting on the sofa. That sort of thing happened a lot for a few years.
Then there were the things I would see. I never had curtains or blinds on my bedroom windows. I was also, absolutely terrified of Windows and I still am. Most nights, before falling asleep, I would see head shapes outside. Not peaking up from the bottom of the window, but either from the side, or looking in from the top of the window, like it was upside down with a cocked head looking in. I had a second floor bedroom, so I thought it was impossible for something to be looking in, so I would just cover my head and try to sleep. Most of the time I ended up sneaking into my parents or my brothers bedroom at night because of it, but, I would see the shapes in their windows as well. But at least I felt safer because I wasn't alone.
Then, when I was closer to 10, I basically slept in my brothers room every night. We had moved into a new house, and his room was in the basement. It wasn't really a room, but it had one wall, then a big, open side that was separated from the rest of the basement with a long curtain. I had pretty bad insomnia by that point, and I didn't typically fall asleep until 3-4 in the morning. I was laying on the floor in my sleeping bag, watching Harvy birdman, and the curtain started to move. I looked over to see a hand, reaching through the bottom of the curtain. It was somewhat skeletal looking, with long fingers, and very pronounced bone structure. The wrist it was attached to was also very thin, and had no hair. I sat up and screamed, and when I did the hand froze, and then quickly went back under the curtain. I then heard something running up the stairs, but I didn't hear a door open or close. I curled up on the foot of my brothers bed, and stayed awake until morning.
That was the last thing I remember happening. I still lost time off and on until I was about 16. Aliens FREAK me out, always have, always will. I can't watch alien movies, or read stories, without getting extremely uncomfortable. I've never done my own research, and I avoid anything about the subject if I can. But I am truly curious if anyone else thinks the same thing my friend does.
I HATE BARNS!!
[rebelmouse-image 18977288 is_animated_gif=I live in a pretty secluded part of Washington state. I was in my late teens and my parents had gone to Seattle for something, so I was put in charge of the property. I was closing everything up (i.e. the barn we own and some other small utility buildings) when I look up and see three reddish-orange lights in a triangular formation. They were just floating there, as if they were magnified stars. So magnified, in fact, that everything was slightly illuminated by their warm hue. I'm mesmerized, standing there, and suddenly lose my sense of balance, as if the ground in front of me has begun rising, and I pass out. Next thing I know I'm on the ground in the barn I had locked up (according to my watch) half an hour before. Needless to say, I was petrified. I scurried to the house with my tail between my legs scared and confused. I slept not at all that night and any sense of security I had was gone. Even though I was locked safely in my house, I felt hopelessly exposed.
In hindsight, I think it's possible I was light-headed, opened the barn door and fell down, but it still shakes me up thinking about it.
NOW THAT IS 'STRANGER THINGS' TERRITORY...
[rebelmouse-image 18977289 is_animated_gif=In 2005. I was living out in the boonies with my mom, I was 15 years old. I had been talking with this girl on and off for weeks and I was on the phone with her, it was just before dark when this chick was telling me that if I come over to her house she will sneak outside to hang out with me as soon as her parents go to bed. Luckily she only lived like 2 miles away and I had a bike. Horny teenage me didn't take long to decide right then and there I was gonna make that trip. Luckily my mom always went to bed super early as well.
She texts me sometime after 10pm that her parents went to bed. It's on. I leave for her house.
As I'm riding my bike down these dark country roads I see almost exactly what you described you saw. Orange glowy lights in a triangular formation. They were just hanging there still. I stopped for a second to get a better look because there were some trees obstructing my view and they started looking bigger the more I looked at them. I started to feel this really weird sensation that I can only describe as similar to vertigo. I completely black out.
I wake up and I'm still on the side of the road but not where I was before. I got super confused and couldn't quite figure out where I was for a minute. I pull out my phone to look at the time. It's dead. My bike is nowhere to be found. I start heading down the road in what I thought was the direction I came and suddenly realized where I was. I was in the opposite direction of my house from where I started. Like, I was on the same road, just on the other end of it. I turn around when I realize this and run home. I get home and plug in my phone. It's like 2am and I have a bunch of missed calls and texts from that chick asking where I'm at.
The next day I call that girl and I tell her what happened. She sounds skeptical. I ask her what time she called me the first time last night after I left. She said she called me at around 11:00 and it wouldn't go through. I left sometime after 10.. I know my phone was at nearly full battery because it was on the charger before I left the house. I do find my bike later that day in the same place I remember stopping. It was just laying there on the side of the road. I remember having really crazy dreams and a bad headache for a couple weeks after this happened. You know, after the first couple weeks I never really had dreams much anymore. Still don't. Not sure if it's related at all though.
I can't say for sure it was aliens or abduction or whatever but I'll be honest. I'm not normally an anxious guy, but being outside alone at night has creeped me the heck out ever since. Staring into the night sky gives me anxiety when I'm by myself now. I'm not even sure I want to know what happened.
THAT'LL MAKE ANYONE NAUSEOUS...
[rebelmouse-image 18346466 is_animated_gif=Might be too late, and I'm not sure I believe this to be what happened anymore, but I certainly believed it as a kid. When I was about seven, my parents and I briefly lived in an apartment in Chicago next door to my dad's old house. For whatever reason, on this night we all slept on the living room floor, me inbetween my parents. Sometime in the middle of the night I woke up and was entranced by an orange glow out one of the windows (we were on the second floor). I wandered the five or ten feet over to it and looked out to see what I believed to be the house next door completely gone, and a spacecraft in its place over an empty lot. I remember just standing there staring at it in disbelief, feeling as though I couldn't move an inch. And it must have felt like I was there for ages, and then bam I woke up, back between my parents. So it was a dream...
You'd think, except immediately after waking up I rolled over and puked my brains out. I wasn't sick and I don't throw up unless there's a serious stomach virus going on, so it was for an undetermined reason. I won't sit here and claim I was actually abducted, as I got older I started to rationalize that I was probably just scared shitless by the dream, but I always do kind of wonder...
AS LEAST YOU WEREN'T ALONE...
[rebelmouse-image 18977290 is_animated_gif=Not entirely sure if we were abducted, but my wife (who was a non believer) and I both have missing time. We were having sex on our bed when we suddenly both came to, and were in totally different places in the room. Not sure how much time had past, but she looked at me and said "what the hell just happened?" I said I wasn't sure. Neither of us were scared, and we were both incredibly tired. We decided we would just go to bed and talk about it in the morning.
I looked up instances of missing time and a lot of them said the same thing. When they came to they were just very tired, knew something was totally weird, but just wanted to go to sleep.
TELL NO ONE...
[rebelmouse-image 18354909 is_animated_gif=Was at a friend's cabin one night with 5-6 friends. was late at night and we where all hypnotized for about 15-20 mins looking at these 3 dancing lights above the hill across the lake. Then a shooting star went across the sky and it lit everything up almost as bright as day. we all ran into the cabin. when looking back at it I get a strange feeling thinking of how we don't have much memories to recollect after we went inside. Deciding to just fall asleep right away instead of talking about what we just saw. some of my friends old friends get upset if I bring up what we saw let alone our actions after.
I can't say I believe me or any of my friends where abducted. What I know is the details I mentioned. After seeing those lights I did lots of research on ufos and stuff for the next few years. I did not think about being abducted then either lol. Do I find it strange we all went to sleep quickly after we went inside yes I do, however there wasn't any overwhelming evidence that we got abducted. could it have happened tho? I have no idea, all I know is seeing those lights was an amazing experience. it really opened my eyes and mind to a much larger world then I saw before.
FIRE IN THE SKY.
[rebelmouse-image 18977291 is_animated_gif=No joke my grandparents and one of their parents back in the 60's or 70's were fishing on the Georgia Bay in Canada while they were on this island when they saw this giant or orange glowing ball about the size of a large two story house come from around a bend in the lake and it went silently past them and was really close apparently. My grandpa said it looked like the inside of it was on fire but it was just the surface moving around in a weird way. After it went past them it stopped dead in its tracks and went back the same way it came and vanished around the bend of the lake. He looks concerned every time it's brought up and said it was the most terrifying feeling he's ever had. His dad was on the other side of the island and came scooting up in the boat about 5 minutes later and told them they were leaving because he saw it too. There is definitely something up with these orange orbs and reading these stories actually made me almost tear up a little because everything my grandpa has said is being seen by others and talked about.
FROZEN...
[rebelmouse-image 18977292 is_animated_gif=So, full disclosure, I don't know if I was abducted. I don't honestly believe that I was abducted. I just know that if what I had was a nightmare, it was such a nightmare that I still remember it to this day in nearly full clarity.
I was about 4 or 5 years old and my father was working nightshift. My mother was watching football in our living room and I went to sleep on some chairs near the entertainment center; I don't recall how or why, just that I conked out in that spot. I "woke up" (quotes because I don't actually know if I was awake or dreaming) some undetermined time later. The lights were still on, but the TV was off and the house was unnaturally quiet, like the sound was getting sucked up. I looked at the TV first, then turned my head left and saw my mother floating about a foot off the ground with her eyes glowing orange and her mouth hanging open.
Naturally, I panicked. I didn't know where I was going or what I planned to do, just that I had to get out of that room. So I bolted for the hallway that lead to the bedrooms and found myself unable to move. Something walked out of my bedroom in the back. It couldn't have been much bigger than me as a child, but I remember it was brown and leathery-looking with arms that were too long for a human. The eyes were red and flashed like bike reflectors. I didn't even know what E.T. was much less seen the movie at this point in my life, for the record (needless to say, after this being burned into my memory, I did not find the movie endearing).
I couldn't move. I couldn't even scream even though I was trying. All I could do was stand there while the thing hesitated at the end of the hallway. Then it screamed like a bird with something stuck in its throat and waddle-ran straight for me. I woke up on the chairs again screaming and crying until I couldn't anymore from exhaustion. My mother didn't/doesn't remember any of it.
After that I was pretty well spooked by any feasible account of alien abduction or UFOs in general. Several episodes of feeling like I was getting jerked leg-first out of my bed all the way into my teenage years. Thankfully, nothing like what I remembered from before though.
"ADULT THINGS" ARE ALWAYS TROUBLE!
[rebelmouse-image 18977293 is_animated_gif=I was about 8 or 9 and my mom tells me we are going on a day trip to meet her high school friend. Cool. I grab my game boy advance because I know my moms friend has kids my age and wanted to show them up in the racing game I had. I over heard this from my mom talking with her friend at her house (they told me to leave the room because they needed to talk about"adult things"). Little, innocent, curious me wonders what exactly are "adult things" that I can't hear? Were they gonna throw some new juicy cuss words out? Well.... Moms friend had a little girl who would sleep walk at night. Started when they moved into their new house (Northern California). It was a suburban area but not too suburban (new neighborhood with a lot of empty homes and forest patches in between each community). She was about 4 years old and they found her one night in the backyard just sitting there. After that incident they decide they need to lock her in her room at night and bar up her windows so that she doesn't end up in the woods nearby or anywhere besides her room really. THE STORY moms friend and husband wake up to a loud boom on the side of the house in the middle of the next night. Felt like something hit the house because everything shook. They check on their boys, they're good. They didn't hear anything and go back to sleep. They check on their daughter, unlock the door and realize she isn't in her room. They start to freak out, then hear a knock at the door. They open it. It's the effin sleep walking 4 year old daughter. They ask her where she's been and she said with the men and points down the street. Pissed off dad sees 2 guys in coats walking down the street. He yells at them and starts sprinting at them. Moms friend said coat guys didn't react at all. Coat guys turn the corner, dad turns the corner and they're gone. Mom and dad check the lock and windows. No tampering. They notify the police who pretty much say there's not much they can do but will keep an eye out. Effin sleep walking 4 year old daughter is fine. Isn't scared at all. Just tired and goes back to bed. After that my mom didn't understand why I was scared as hell that night (she believes she was abducted but refuses to tell me what happened. Even my dad tells me that he can't tell me the story. Says it's for my mom to share if she wants it shared). But over hearing this when I wasn't supposed to hear it had me tripped out as a kid.
Watched The 4th Kind later in life and was scared of that movie too. Friends all laughed at me saying it was stupid but they didn't know about my moms friends story.
NEVER LOOK STRAIGHT INTO THEIR EYES.
[rebelmouse-image 18360367 is_animated_gif=When I was 10 I looked out my window, as I always did before bed to make sure nothing is outside since my window faced the street, and suddenly, I started hearing a massive mechanical hum and the light outside became bright like a spotlight was on the home.
I then locked eyes with a grey head, freaked the f--- out, jumped in my bed and pulled the covers up close and stared at the window waiting to die and wondering what is going on. I saw the grey figure pacing in front of my window, stopping to stare through the bent corner in my blinds with its black eyes.
I remember it very vividly from the sound to the sensations. It was like a vibrating at a high frequency. I couldn't muster the courage to call for my parents, or even yell. Not like i would hear my own voice anyway. Another one showed up on the other side of the window just staring while the first continued pacing. Just as i was gathering the courage to run, everything stopped.
Next thing i knew, it was a few hours later, everything was dark ane night again. I never told anybody till no, but since your experience was so similar i figured id chime in.
DAZED & CONFUSED...
[rebelmouse-image 18977294 is_animated_gif=I'm not sure if I'd say I was _"abducted" _but what happened was really weird.
Was laying on my couch with a blanket over me and I look at the clock and it says like 11:23 AM or something. Suddenly a white flash happens and it's 12:40 PM. It happens again three more times and by the time I could comprehend what was going on it was like 5:30 PM. Every time it would happen there would be like 15 minutes of confusion and trying to move. I was stuck in a dreamlike state until it stopped happening.
A BLACK HOLE IS NEVER A GOOD SIGN...
[rebelmouse-image 18977295 is_animated_gif=I witnessed something pretty unexplainable.
My ex and I were driving out of my suburban neighborhood super late one night on the way to go eat Waffle House or something. As we're nearing the exit to my neighborhood I look up into the sky and we both notice these three really strange orange lights in a triangle formation. We then stopped the car in the middle of the road to figure out wtf we're looking at. These lights didn't have the quality of lights you see emitting from a plane or a star. When you look at stars, they are so far away that they almost seem 2D. But these lights FELT 3D some how. These lights were much bigger and seemed closer? Like high enough into the sky to be well above the trees but not above the clouds. And they were just floating there not moving up, down, left, or right but eerily still. I really don't know how to explain how still these things were but it was unnatural and I know that sounds stupid but that's how it felt when I saw them and I wish I could explain it better.
But when I saw this, I was both mesmerized and sort of in shock. I've always been a UFO enthusiast and I've always wanted to see something bizarre like this and finally it was happening. I couldn't take my eyes off of what I was looking at and... I feel like I didn't for like an hour? I really don't know how much time passed but it really did feel like an unnatural amount of time.
Finally, these globes of light just abruptly dissolved away. Kind of like they were sucked into a black hole or something. We break our gaze and look at each other and my ex asks me if i just saw what she saw. And yeah, we couldn't come up with an explanation at all. To this day, no one believes me and I don't care. I saw what I saw and I'm now fully confident we're not alone.
GET IT ON CAMERA!!!
[rebelmouse-image 18977296 is_animated_gif=When I was twelve, I was playing RuneScape on the computer while my mom and stepdad were out for the night. This was special for me, as I always had to get off the computer when they went to bed. I remember seeing a light through out thin, white curtains and thinking that they had come home when they were supposed to be gone all night. I went outside and our driveway was empty. Turned out the light was coming from a huge, black triangle with three points of light that was hanging in the sky right above my house. I went inside to grab my parents' digital camera, but by the time I got back outside it wasn't there. I know that night happened, but has felt like a dream since the day after. Made me believe.
WE'RE WALKING SCIENCE PROJECTS...
[rebelmouse-image 18977298 is_animated_gif=Ok, so on March 24, 2015 I walked out of my backyard, around 11pm and I live in boring Oregon. So honestly where I lived it was isolated. I felt like many times there is supposed to be something waiting for me in the backwoods everyday. I felt like somebody wanted me to go in the woods and kept sending signals. Wether it was random sounds at night or small glares of light. I kept questioning what the heck could it be that is so obnoxious. I always go there during the day and there is nothing, but branches and trees. So 11:25 I wanted to yell into the woods and asked to stop messing around but it was difficult to. I was honestly frozen and i felt paralyzed, I tried to scream for help but no words. I kept walking towards the woods and I felt something grabbed me by the arm, and shoved me through the woods. Then I woke up and I thought it was a dream, I went outside of course and went where I was shoved and for the first time in my life i see branches broken and all the leafs on the ground were swept away from each other. I left around that month, and the house is still on sale at century 21, and I plan to go see it this summer and set up a paranormal crew and wait out at night. I honestly thing aliens took me and put me back to bed as an experiment.
The Best Real-Life Examples Of 'You Can Have A PhD And Still Be An Idiot'
Reddit user mariababexoxo asked: '"Never confuse education with intelligence; you can have a PhD and still be an idiot," stated Richard Feynman. What are some real-life examples of this?'
The saying "it's not brain surgery" hasn't meant the same thing to me ever since Ben Carson took his place on the national stage.
The saying "it's not rocket science" doesn't hit the same with me ever since one of my life-long friends became a rocket scientist.
I don't know Ben Carson—just his many public blunders—but in the case of my friend, he's an absolutely brilliant guy.
However I often wonder how my friend managed to survive this long and apparently this isn't an unusual phenomenon.
But more about my friend later at the end of this article.
Reddit user mariababexoxo asked:
"'Never confuse education with intelligence; you can have a PhD and still be an idiot,' stated Richard Feynman. What are some real-life examples of this?"
Chemical Engineer
"I had an intern with a PhD once. She was trying to be a chemical process engineer. VERY book smart."
"I spent the Summer teaching her how to use basic tools like screwdrivers and wrenches for simple tasks like opening containers and adjusting clamps. She had zero practical skills and couldn’t figure anything whatsoever out on her own."
"She’d get lost in a building and call me and I’d tell her to find the exit, but she’d get lost inside and we’d have to go in and get her. This routinely happened, and she would just find somewhere random and sit until we collected her."
"When her car’s GPS lost signal once she didn’t know what to do so she stopped in the middle of the road and texted me where she was and that there was something wrong with her car and to come help. I figured there was a breakdown or something based on the text and drove out to check on it because she wasn’t responding."
Giphy"She was crying sitting on the side of the road and a cop was yelling at her to move her car which was still in the lane."
"If you told her to pick something up from a store she’d ask where it was and if you didn’t know, she would never find it "She refused to ask an employee because she knew they weren’t as smart as she was."
"She’d just walk in random directions looking for things. For example if you said 'go to Walmart and find some work boots because you lost yours' she would send me pictures of random aisles in Walmart with 'is this close? which way from here?'.”
"Book smart but utterly dim."
~ captainofpizza
It's The Milk That Makes Them Healthy
"My wife once had a roommate who was working on her PhD."
"At one point she went on an Oreo diet because they're vegan."
"She was later surprised to find her health wasn't improving."
~ educational_palmeira
GiphySquirrel!
"I am a graduate student at the University of Oxford."
"I recently had to explain to another grad student the concept of animals hibernating. She's British and English is her first language, so it wasn't a vocabulary issue. She just didn't know that animals did that."
"When I explained it she said 'Oh! like squirrels!' Squirrels actually don't hibernate, but I just nodded."
~ slider501
Have You Tried Turning It Off...
"Ask literally anyone who's ever worked for a university's IT department. I've never met a group of people more unwilling to learn anything new—outside of their small specialization—than university professors."
"These people would rather argue with you for 10 minutes that 'I did restart my computer' than just spend the 2 minutes to restart the computer when the logistics software is showing the machine with a 45 day uptime and all of us can see that sh*t."
"Department heads do this."
~ Mammoth_Clue_5871
GiphyIt's One Banana, Michael
"My roommate in college was/is an academic genius, 35 ACT in med school right now."
"I brought him to Walmart with me because he wanted to buy an 8-pack of Gatorade. At the self checkout he scanned one, saw the price was 7 bucks, and decided that must have been the price for EACH Gatorade."
"He ended up scanning the pack 7 more times and paid 56 bucks for some Gatorade, all while thinking that was a fair price."
~ Royal-Character-2035
And Vampirism!
"The nurse I used to work with during the pandemic was constantly bragging about how rich and important and highly educated she was.
"Only for her to suggest to our director of nursing that the kitchen start putting extra garlic in everyone's meals because garlic cures COVID."
~ GlassPeepo
GiphyHistory ≠ Geography
"I know someone with a PhD in History who went to the Caribbean with only long trousers and jumpers/sweaters to wear."
"He was so hot he had to cut his jeans down to shorts."
"Then, as part of the same trip, he went to Washington DC, and had to wear jean shorts the whole time because he cut up all his trousers."
~ RexEverything_
And On The 7th Day...
"I met a PhD molecular biologist who was an evolution denier. I found out years later that he was somewhat infamous."
~ whittlingcanbefatal
"I’ve met two PhD students who worked on bacterial evolution and one who worked in biochemistry."
"All three believed that human evolution was not a thing, all three were religious."
~ D-g-tal-s_purpurea
GiphyNobel Disease
"There are a ton of laureates that go conspiratorial batsh*t later in life."
~ hacktheself
"Kary Mullis is the worst one and he really emboldens other conspiracy theorists."
"He won the Nobel prize for helping invent the PCR test... then he denied AIDS existed while in a government position leading to 330,000 deaths and said climate change wasn't real because his astrologer told him so."
"Oh, and ghosts."
"Anti-vaxxers love him."
~ AstonVanilla
Members Around The World
"Heard about a mechanical engineer who is a flat earther."
"So yeah, him, or any engineer, physicist, or astronomer that believes in that."
"The fact that a single one can get their degree and then turn around years later and believe in something fundamentally incompatible with the BASIC physics required to make sense of their degree is baffling."
~ QuanticWizard
GiphyWhat Did They Do With The Couch?
"Helped some mates move house. One was a Uni Student doing a double degree in Computer Science and something else very challenging."
"While we were packing boxes he asked if he could could borrow a saw. When I asked why, it was so he could shorten the legs on the dining table so it would fit out the door."
"The look on his face when I grabbed one of the legs and started unscrewing it was priceless. As was the look when I asked him how he thought they got it in the room in the first place."
~ cruiserman_80
New-Fangled Gadgets
"In my old university in Germany in the early 2000s. The university was old, really old."
"And when I started they just began modernising the lecture halls etc... The German department got a new, fancy, state of the art lecture hall with any kind of technology you could wish for."
"The professors got extensive training on how to use it."
"There were some of them who after three months still didn’t know how to switch on the lights. Don’t even talk about the microphone or how to open and close the blinds on the skylight."
They didn’t originally plan on having an old-fashioned overhead projector there, but after a few weeks they relented and provided one because the professors didn’t know any other way."
"In their defence, the other lecture halls were so old that they still had the hole for the ink well in the tables."
~ moosmutzel81
GiphyDo No Harm
"I work in mental health and have known sooo many healthcare professionals with advanced degrees who I wouldn’t trust to take care of a goldfish and can’t believe counsel people on a regular basis."
~ DeadSharkEyes
What's That Burning Smell?
"My MIT PhD. friend complained his dryer was taking forever to dry his clothes."
"I asked him if he was cleaning the lint trap—'it doesn't have one'."
"Spoiler alert: it did have one, way in the back and I took out a sweater's worth of lint."
~ arbiterror
GiphyIt's Not Rocket Science...
I chuckle whenever someone uses this saying to indicate something isn't complex like rocket science ever since my friend became an aeronautical engineer.
Why?
Well, we'd have to go back to the mid-1980s when we were both teenagers in high school. As many teens with cars in rural America did, my friends liked to drive around on the back roads as a form of entertainment.
One sunny, Summer day two of my friends came to visit me with a tale to tell.
It seems they were driving on a stretch of road with a speed limit of 35mph [56kph] because of a cluster of homes and farms. When the car slowed to this speed, Mr. Future Rocket Scientist looked down at the pavement passing by below his window on the passenger side.
Upon studying the passing blacktop for several moments, he came to the conclusion he could easily run as fast as the car was moving, so...
...he undid his seatbelt, opened the car door and STEPPED OUT of the moving car.
According to the driver, one moment our friend was sitting next to him and the next he was gone. Or mostly gone.
After a brief moment of panic during which he slowed then stopped the car, he noticed Mr. Future Rocket Scientist's right hand gripping the door's armrest and his left hand gripping the side of the passenger seat.
He was probably only dragged for a few seconds which wasn't long enough to do more than scuff up his jeans, jean jacket and the toes of his shoes.
He escaped with only minor road rash and a few bruises.
After the driver told me what happened from his perspective, Mr. Future Rocket Scientist interjected:
"It worked!"
"I was doing really well until I tripped over that rock."
Luckily an understanding of things like velocity, speed, trajectory, friction, drag, inertia and gravity aren't needed for aeronautics.
GiphyNeedless to say, we've never let him forget his "experiment."
He still claims the only problem was that rock on the road.
And I now use the saying "it's not rocket surgery" instead of either of the original sayings.
Back in the 1980s the threat of nuclear war was pervasive in daily life.
That fear and paranoia made the TV films Threads and The Day After particularly effective. People were genuinely terrified or traumatized.
Both told the story of an atomic apocalypse, with Threads set in the UK and The Day After in the United States. I wasn’t familiar with Threads until about 5 years ago, but The Day After was a TV event everyone seemed to be talking about in the USA.
But fear inducing isn't quite the same as creepy.
For creepy, you need something like The Twilight Zone, Creepshow or Night Gallery.
Reddit user juliacorco asked:
"What is the creepiest tv episode or movie you’ve ever seen?"
Haunting of Hill House
"Haunting of Hill House on Netflix."
"Scary as hell."
"Bent Neck Lady makes the hair on my neck stand up on end every time."
"Same with the ghost looking for his hat. Or whatever was down in the cellar."
~ Pretend-Cucumber-711
GiphyHereditary
"Hereditary"
"That one scene near the end in the dark bedroom…is essentially a reverse jump scare. Something is there the entire time and it’s just a matter of when you notice."
"Sent chills up my spine."
"That movie stuck with me for days."
~ Plus-Statistician80
Doctor Who/Torchwood
"I have two contenders, from the Doctor Who universe..."
"'Blink' from Doctor Who."
"'Children of the Earth' from Torchwood (all 5 episodes)."
"Both are the stuff of nightmares, but in very different ways."
"'Blink' will make you not sleep at night, while 'Children of the Earth' will deeply disturb you."
~ Common_Sense_Dudd
Giphy"The first few seconds I was exposed to the Weeping Angels in 'Blink' I thought it was a dumb, silly conceit."
"By the end of that episode I knew I would have nightmares for months."
~ codyish
"'Children of Earth' was amazing. There was so much complexity to it, and the way they solved it was downright horrifying."
"The 456 just felt so real with their motives, and were really dark compared to other Who-niverse villains."
"It wasn't that they were trying to build a galactic highway, or were trying to save the universe. Just that (SPOILERS) they were drug dealers/addicts and would kill millions if the didn't get their supply of children."
~ NinjaBreadManOO
Paranormal Activity
"Paranormal Activity."
"I was not prepared and only 12 years old."
"Traumatized for years!"
~ Sudden-Star-7190
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
"Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode 'Hush'."
~ Malk_McJorma
"The gentlemen were some of the best villains."
~ Sudden-Star-7190
Room 1408
"Room 1408 creeped me out."
"I usually don't find hauntings or ghosts scary, but this one was something else."
"Left me really uneasy when trying to sleep after."
"I had to keep a light on. I'm 46."
~ hartschale666
The Twilight Zone
"I find the The Twilight Zone episode titled 'Living Doll' to be particularly creepy."
~ Ill_Fisherman5547
"Talky Tina was so creepy."
~ peachesfordinner
"The Twilight Zone episode—'Mirror Image'—with the woman at the bus station who has a doppelganger still creeps the sh*t out of me."
~ BurningSlash88
Ghost Ship
"Opening scene from Ghost Ship."
~ teslatinkering
"This movie is 21 years old, I’ve only watched it once and I still remember this scene vividly."
"Props to the creators because I can’t say that about many movies."
~ PainfulPoo411
X-Files
"The X-Files."
"Episodes 'Home'—inbred family in Pennsylvania—and 'The Host'—the Flukeman."
~ True-Mousse4957
"I was going to say season 3, episode 12—'War of the Coprophages'."
"Only due to one little thing."
"Mulder is in a lab with some scientist looking at the weird cockroaches. They're just chatting away when a cockroach walks across 'your' TV screen."
"It's made to look like it's an actual cockroach walking across your in real life screen. We don't even have cockroaches like that in my region of the world, but it still freaked me out for a second."
~ STROKER_FOR_C64
The Blair Witch Project
"Not gonna lie."
"I saw The Blair Witch Project in the theatre after watching some MTV documentary on it the day before."
"I thought it was real and I was afraid to walk to my car."
~ heavymetalsculpture
Are You Afraid of the Dark
"There's an episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark—'The Tale of the Dead Man's Float'."
"It's about a school that was built on an old cemetary and there is some sort of creature thing thant comes into the pool while some kids are swimming."
"I still think about that episode every so often."
~ streetsoulja31
"There’s that one episode—'The Tale of the Frozen Ghost'—where a kid froze to death at some point and the ghost kid just appears and says 'I’m cold' in such a weird inflection…."
"It still creeps me out now. And whenever I am cold, that’s the only way I can say it in my head."
"Man that series had no business being that scary!!"
~ mistresssweetjuice
GiphyFor me, children in horror can always produce the creepiness factor.
Who doesn't feel unsettled after seeing the twins in The Shining?
So what movies or TV episodes creeped you out?
People Break Down What's More Emotionally Painful Than Being Cheated On
Content warning: abuse and suicide.
There is a level of devastation caused by being cheated on by a partner, especially if it's someone you trusted and have been with for a long time that people who haven't experienced it can't understand.
I've been lucky in that I've never been cheated on myself, but I've had friends who have gone through it. My college roommate told me it was the worst pain she's ever been in when she found out her boyfriend cheated on her, and she couldn't imagine anything worse.
It was indeed horrible. My confident, strong roommate was crying all the time and wondering why she wasn't good enough to keep her boyfriend's interest, even though that had nothing to with it.
Redditors agree that being cheated on is painful, but also are prepared to share things they think are emotionally more painful.
It all started when Redditor Darkterrariafort asked:
"What is something more emotionally painful than getting cheated on?"
Medical Helplessness
"Watching your most precious person die a painful and scary death and knowing there’s nothing you can do about it. F**k cancer."
– coastalliving40
"This. I watched my husband starve to death from gastroesophageal cancer."
"It was like watching a nightmare repeat of my dad all over again. 😞"
– NedsAtomicDB
Mama Who Bore Me
"Death of your child."
– NBA_Fan_76
"I truly cannot imagine a deeper pain."
– theawkwardmermaid
"Your child being serious injured by your ex, and custody court keeps forcing the kid into contact with their abuser."
"You spend years of your life dealing with court homework where you recount every excruciating detail of your own abuse at the hands of this person, in addition to the crimes against your child."
"It costs you about $100,000 in legal fees, and you still aren't able to protect your child. It keeps going on indefinitely, and perversely, your ex tries to send you to jail because the child runs away from them."
– JadeGrapes
"Being responsible for your childs death directly."
– Kanulie
"My father passed very suddenly and unexpectedly two summers ago. It was the deepest, unimaginable despair that it was almost like a dream. Being walked to the little room at the hospital where they let you know he didn’t make it on the ambulance ride was surreal and up to that point the worst moment in my life."
"One month after he passed, I was in a four wheeler accident with my then three year old. And we were alone as my husband was out of town. I wasn’t being negligent- it was just a terrible, terrible accident. But, in the chaos of being thrown off and being in complete shock, I thought the four wheeler was pinning her down. I was screaming at the top of my lungs and crying and trying everything I could to lift it up. Remaining calm simply wasn’t a possibility when you think you’re killing your own child."
"She wasn’t pinned-and actually didn’t have a scratch on her. EMT checked her out and I went to the hospital because I had ripped the top part of my thigh off trying to lift the ATV."
"The whole thing was eye-opening in the worst way possible. Because, I could never, ever, ever, ever imagine losing my daughter- especially to my own fault. What if she had been hurt or died that day? I would be living in my own constant hell. I didn’t think there could be worst pain that when I lost my dad, but now I know there is. Just the thought alone of losing my daughter brings tears to my eyes."
"Life is really rough sometimes. But it gets better."
– BoredMillennialMommy
Going Down
"Seeing a loved one go on a downward spiral and you can do nothing to stop it."
– New_me_old_self
"Extension of your comment: Seeing a close one(wronged by their protectors) going down the spiral."
"You tried to help them a lot but they dragged you down with them and left you not just empty but drained."
– Sullen_Wretch
So Hard
"Suicide bereavement."
"I lost my best friend in 2022. Found him. Everyday is a struggle to not be in my grief."
"I’d take 100 heartbreaks, 100 nights of going to bed hungry, and 100 punches right to the face just to have him back."
– KatastropheKraut
"It does. I got wasted and said far too much about myself once. One of my friends verbally smacked the f**k out of me, got me to see that people do care about me and that my relationships aren't all just superficial, really just hit my sorry a** over and over again with the idea that I'm deserving of love not because other people get something out of being with me but because I am a human being, and it slowly does get better."
"It stopped me, I was going to kill myself in two months on new year's."
"When I can't live for myself, I live for other people, even when I start doubting other people actually like me, I still don't do it or hurt myself at all, because there's always, no matter what I feel in the moment, a chance that they do truly just care about me."
"If I end myself now then I give so many other people survivor's guilt, I leave all the people I care about wondering for the rest of their lives how it all could've been different if they had just tried a little bit harder to help me. I won't elaborate now but I feel a similar sort of regret when it comes to a number of aspects of my own life. I could never leave someone with something so unfathomably more painful than that."
– pissandsh*tlord
Sounds Awful
"Mental instability. It's cruel because it's your own mind killing you, you can't run or hide and it's long-winded. I couldn't say a single event has been more emotionally stressful than what's happening."
– Country-Road--
"It’s like you’re dead in your twenties but haven’t been buried til you’re 65."
– Gmr33
Tragedy You Never Get Over
"Having your mother pass away in your arms."
– Repulsive_Cricket923
"Something similar happened to me when i was 4. My parents sent me over to get babysat by my grandmother and she sat on a chair and passed as i was sitting on the floor playing with my toys. I only thought she was sleeping at the time, but later learned the truth as i never saw her again."
– Lucidnuts
Just Done
"As far as relationships go, being abandoned by your former partner is pretty damn painful."
– heyitsvonage
"Mine did this to me after 2.5 years and it was f**king devastating, it took years to get over. He acted as though everything was fine, I was his everything, we were actively planning how we would elope after I finished my degree that term, and BOOM NO DO-OVERS YA DONE."
"It was immediately what came to my mind when I saw this post."
– paprikashi
My Work
"When someone steals your research, hands it in first, gets the high distinction, then everything you submit is plagiarizing that a**hat."
– StaunchMeerkat
"This is two steps worse than, "hey can you put my name on your paper too.""
– karmagod13000
Rather Be Cheated On
"When the person stays with you but they secretly still yearn for that other person (even if no cheating occurs)."
– Deleted User
I actually didn't think there was anything worse than being cheated on after watching my friends go through it.
I stand corrected.
Do you have any stories to share? Let us know in the comments below.
If you or someone you know is struggling, you can contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988.
To find help outside the United States, the International Association for Suicide Prevention has resources available at https://www.iasp.info/resources/Crisis_Centres/
Mistakes happen, but when the world is watching, those mistakes are magnified.
When those mistakes have a major impact, those minor mistakes become major.
Reddit user UltraAirWolf asked:
"Who made the stupidest and most embarrassing mistake in history?"
Rudy, Rudy, Rudy
"Low stakes, but high embarrassment: Four Seasons Total Landscaping."
~ kategoad
"You just know that SOMEONE demanded they use a high-class location like the Four Seasons Hotel, and incompetent hilarity ensued."
~ SpooSpoo42
"On November 7, 2020, four days after the United States presidential election, Rudy Giuliani hosted a press conference at Four Seasons Total Landscaping in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania."
"The event was held at the company's garage door and parking lot to discuss the status of the Trump campaign. Many observed a comical aspect to its location—near a sex shop and a crematorium.
"The Trump campaign likely meant to book the upscale Four Seasons Hotel Philadelphia, five city blocks from the Pennsylvania Convention Center where Philadelphia's ballots were being counted."
~ Milk_and_Cougar
"Günter Schabowski—the guy that accidentally brought down the Berlin Wall by declaring at a press conference that the right of freedom to travel was effective immediatly."
"Which was not at all what the GDRs political party had wanted, but led to thousands of people rushing to and overwhelming the borders and in the end to the reunification of Germany."
"It was a small mistake but with a great outcome."
~ GrouchyMary9132
💩 Happens
"The captain of German submarine U-1206. During WWII, it was fitted with a high pressure toilet system that was so complex flushing it required a trained technician to do it."
"So one day it was out on patrol when the captain needed to use it. Unfortunately, the number 2 he deposited was of considerable stench, so out of embarrassment, he attempted to operate the flushing mechanism himself."
"Unfortunately he botched up the sequence of valves needed to successfully operate it, and ended up causing water to leak onto the batteries used to power the ship whilst underwater which causes the ship to begin to fill up with cyanide gas and as a result they have to surface to re-circulate the air."
"To add insult to injury, this all takes place off the coast of Scotland and they are promptly spotted by RAF Coastal Command, who then proceed to send a welcoming committee and the captain is forced to order the ship scuttled.
"Four crewmen die, the rest are captured."
"All as a result of the captain not wanting to admit he did a stinky poo."
~ StarbuckTheThird
Why Guam Is A U.S. Territory
"During the Spanish-American War, the US decided to take Guam—colonized by Spain—so they showed up with a bunch of gunships and fired a warning shot to say 'This is your last chance to surrender peacefully'. There was no response."
"Then, a small Spanish boat started rowing up to the American fleet and when they got there, a representative said 'Hi! Welcome to Guam! We saw that you fired your guns to salute us and we would have saluted you back but unfortunately we ran out of gunpowder and nobody has been by to restock us'.”
"Nobody told Guam that the US and Spain were at war."
"When the Americans informed the representative that they were at war and were there to conquer this island, they asked again if Guam would like to surrender. The representative, having already given away that they had no gunpowder, agreed to surrender."
~ Not-sure-wtf-I-am
Smoke 'Em If You Got 'Em
"Whoever lost Special Order 191."
"In 1862, during the American Civil War, Robert E. Lee decides to invade the Union. His outnumbered army is secretly marching in several divided columns into Maryland to attack Washington DC."
"He sends out this secret order to his top commanders, detailing where and when everyone should be during the march."
"A few days later, a Union soldier finds a couple of cigars lying in a field. With a copy of these orders wrapped around them."
"Some idiot had dropped it."
~ brainsewage
No One Will Remember...
"Hegelochus was an actor performing the play Orestes by the famous playwright Euripides. In the dramatic climax the king he was playing lay dying and is supposed to say 'after the storm I see again a calm sea' as he expires."
"He mispronounced the word galḗn as galên changing the line to 'after the storm I see again a weasel'.”
"This embarrassing mistake happened in 408 BC. It is the only thing we know about Hegelochus."
"It was so humiliating and so widely mocked that we’re still talking about it two thousand four hundred and thirty one years later."
~ aunomvo
Bye, Boy, Bye
"My personal favourite is New Zealand prime minster Robert Muldoon getting drunk in his office one night in 1984 and then calling a snap election."
"Two weeks later, his government was voted out of office."
~ Fresh-Hedgehog1895
Tale of Tails
"The Vietnamese city of Hanoi had a rat problem so French colonial city officials decided to pay people for each rat tail they brought in. It seemed to be a huge success because thousands of rat tails were being turned in."
"Turns out the people just started breeding rats and bringing in rats from other areas to cut off the tails. City found out, stopped the program, and everyone released their rats since they wouldn’t get paid for them anymore."
"Rat population boomed making the initial problem worse."
~ droooo0
The Cobra Effect
"Almost the exact same thing happened in Delhi, India, while the British were in power."
"They started a reward program to get people to kill cobras."
"People just bred or imported and killed cobras and turned them in for the reward."
"The British eventually figured it out, and stopped the reward program, which lead to people releasing their breeding stock."
"It's the origin of the phrase 'the cobra effect' coined by German economist Horst Siebert. It describes how incentives designed to improve a system can lead to unintended—or sometimes perverse—consequences that can make issues worse instead of better."
~ Relevant_Change3591
Bird Brained
"Mao Zedong ordered an eradication of sparrows from China in 1959."
"Sparrows were believed to be pests that ate grain so the authorities started a campaign to eradicate them, along with some other perceived pests. The eradication worked."
"Unfortunately the sparrows, while they do eat some grain, also play a critical role in controlling the insect pests that cause crop disasters of a biblical scale."
"The next year, locusts boomed without their sparrow predator and took the crops, initiating a famine that killed 15 million people."
"China ended up having to import sparrows from the Soviet Union."
~ meganetism
There are certainly plenty of boneheaded moves from history to choose from.
What's your choice for the worst historical mistake?