strangest thing you have ever seen

[KeeblerNinjaClan]

:( That sucks, but what are you going to do?

Give him a high-paying government job so he will fit right in?

Pyramids out of shit seems about right, especially now .

-urban

[Brendan Sullivan]

Not the strangest, but the thing I remember right now: I worked in a PVC pipe factory. It was a big open warehouse-looking building with high ceilings. At the end of the line, machines cut the continuous length of pipe coming out of the dies and knocked the pipe out of the way. If something fucked up, the employee on watch had to get the pipe out of the way manually since the stuff was still being extruded and would jam the whole line.

The person who was supposed to be watching the huge 12" diameter sewer pipe was off bullshitting, and a length of it got stuck. The machine kept pumping out more, and I saw it only after it had some massive pressure building on it. When you think of large-diameter pipe, you tend to believe it's pretty solid and rigid; the lengths cut off were a 2-man lift and destined to become somebody's underground pipeline somewhere. On the line, a massive length of pipe was bowing a good 20-30 feet in the air like the frigging St. Louis gateway arch. I knew from my misspent youth that PVC shatters into jagged pieces when flexed beyond its capability. I just stood there gawking until someone running past warned me to get the fuck out of the building because that stuff was going to be like a bomb if it went.

I guess there must have been a panic cutoff somewhere since they were eventually able to cut the feed and reverse the machine, but there was some pucker factor there.

[KeeblerNinjaClan]

I once saw a dude at an intersection riding a Harley with a parrot on his shoulder while smoking a cigar. He was awesome

[motaman9]

I saw a zombie. Or if it wasn't a zombie it was pretty freakin close. It was in Haiti in 2004. Aristide had popped smoke for a much needed retirement and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court was convinced to follow the constitutional chain of command and assume the office. Being a reasonably bright fellow he knew that the presidential protective detail were all Aristide's hand picked thugs and he wouldn't last very long in office with them watching his back. Enter the US Dept of State Diplomatic Security Service. A dozen of us went down to serve as his body guards for a few months until new Haitian police could be vetted and/or a contract company brought in to do the job. As Agent in Charge one day I was riding in the armored Suburban with him as we moved through Port au Potty to some appointment. Shuffling down the middle of the street, stark raving naked other than a thick coating of filth and human shit was a ......zombie. It had to be. Vacant eyes, nasty running sores, the whole nine yards. She was totally oblivious to our passing motorcade which had to swerve to get around her shambling form. I didn't hear about anybody being eaten so perhaps she wasn't really "undead" but she sure didn't have much to live for and she looked just like something out of a Romero film.

I saw wild penguins in South Africa too once but that is another story.

I thought that in Haiti that was called a prostitute?

For me ....probably not the strangest but definitely up there:
A guy jumping out of a second story window with a noose around his neck and not understanding the equation that determines rope length based on the distance you plan to fall.

[Galath]

I once saw a dude at an intersection riding a Harley with a parrot on his shoulder while smoking a cigar. He was awesome

That reminded me of something I saw in Athens, Greece. My wife and I were sitting at a roadside taverna having lunch and watching the traffic. I just about spit wine through my nose when I saw a guy pull up to the intersection on a motorcycle with a large dog riding in front of him. The dog had its paws up on the middle of the handlebars and was just looking around nonchalantly. I think I managed to get a picture, I'll have to go through the albums. If I can find it, I'll scan it and post in here.

[Brendan Sullivan]

I saw two guys riding on a motorcycle with a live sheep draped between them, front legs over one side and rear to the other.

I saw a car's trunk filled to brimming with live, clucking chickens that all cocked their heads and looked up like "hey what's up" when the trunk was opened.

I stumbled on an angry territorial dog by accident and it was running up to attack me when a lady not paying attention to what she was doing hit it with her car. It tried to leap out of the way and ended up catching the front bumper in the windpipe, uttering a hoarse yelp before limping away.

Once on guard duty in the middle of the night, the tower I was in lit up with brilliant blue light, panning quickly from one side to the other like someone was shining a spotlight on me. I stood and quickly looked around for aircraft or flares and called over the radio asking what the fuck happened. The guys laughed at me and said it was a shooting star that landed a few hundred feet away from my post.

A raw steak I was cutting once started spurting out blood with such volume I was sure I had severed the end of my finger.

I punched a housefly out of midair once, like an actual punch and not a swat. I was sure I'd killed it, but it got up and shook it off after about forty seconds of lying on the ground.

[Galath]

I punched a housefly out of midair once, like an actual punch and not a swat. I was sure I'd killed it, but it got up and shook it off after about forty seconds of lying on the ground.

Ok, this'll sound like ITG talk, but I swear it's true....

One day, after completing a rotation at JRTC, I was playing spades with the guys in the barracks. A wasp was buzzing around, generally annoying us, and scaring the crap out of a couple of the less rural-based players. I decided I was going to prove what a BAMF I was (I was about 19 at the time), so I pulled my Gerber MKII and declared that the next time the wasp came my way I would "fuck it up". Sure enough, shortly later, the wasp buzzed by. I grabbed the Gerber, swiped at the wasp, and laid the knife down, ready to defend my skillz ('cause of course I missed). All I saw was blank, disbelieving stares. I looked down and saw two neatly bisected pieces of wasp on the gaming table. Thinking fast, I swept them off the table and announced: "I told you I'd fuck it up", and eventually the game resumed. I gained a lot of respect, and I never told anyone that it was all luck.

[Molon Labe]

I punched a housefly out of midair once, like an actual punch and not a swat. I was sure I'd killed it, but it got up and shook it off after about forty seconds of lying on the ground.

Ok, this'll sound like ITG talk, but I swear it's true....

One day, after completing a rotation at JRTC, I was playing spades with the guys in the barracks. A wasp was buzzing around, generally annoying us, and scaring the crap out of a couple of the less rural-based players. I decided I was going to prove what a BAMF I was (I was about 19 at the time), so I pulled my Gerber MKII and declared that the next time the wasp came my way I would "fuck it up". Sure enough, shortly later, the wasp buzzed by. I grabbed the Gerber, swiped at the wasp, and laid the knife down, ready to defend my skillz ('cause of course I missed). All I saw was blank, disbelieving stares. I looked down and saw two neatly bisected pieces of wasp on the gaming table. Thinking fast, I swept them off the table and announced: "I told you I'd fuck it up", and eventually the game resumed. I gained a lot of respect, and I never told anyone that it was all luck.

Did that take place during a 2003 rotation? I ask because I heard of someone doing just that when my unit went, but it was a yellow jacket (I'm just repeating what I was told, I'm not knocking your story).

[Brendan Sullivan]

Haha, that is BAMF indeed. We used to try to hit wasps in the backyard with darts from blowguns, but to no avail. They usually ended up getting their nests doused and lit aflame with whatever aerosol was handy.

My brother and his wife swear they saw an orange light traveling quickly alongside a road about thirty feet in the air at night, but I always answer with skepticism when they recount it.

I saw a guy put his head through the glass front of a little fire extinguisher cubbyhole.

I saw a lizard so massive I initially thought it was a housecat sprinting across a road.

I saw a kid kick a basketball straight up in the air and when it fell he kicked it up again and it fell into the basketball hoop of the court he was standing on.

Some buddies and I were practising half-turn and one-turn throws with my new Gerber and some other guy came over and asked if he could have a throw. He proceeded to back up to about thirty-two feet and heaved the knife at the target before I could ask what the fuck he was doing. It stuck perfectly. We all gaped at him and he said "I'm Mexican" without skipping a beat.

[thefirebuilds]

Coming back from US 129 one year (The Gap), driving up through Bowling Green Kentucky I took a picture of a Chevy S10 - structurally failed behind the cab and starting to come apart like the titanic. On the interstate. Hauling what appeared to be a copper still the entire size of the bed of the truck. Secured by his mates, sicking in the bed of the truck.

wow. and they looked at us like assholes cuz we were driving Miatas

[The Highwayman]

There used to be this guy that was occasionally around the beach where we hung out and surfed at, in south Florida. He would come riding up on an old style beach cruiser type bicycle, with a big ass Harley type windshield on it. It also had leather tassles on the hand grips, and leather saddlebags on the back-no lie! He happened to be wearing all black leathers (jacket and pants), and had a black German-style helmut, with the spike thingy on the top. All of this in 90 dgree + summer heat!


He would ride up, make a big production of "parking" his bike by stopping right in the middle of a parking spot, exaggerate kicking his kick stand down, lean the bike over, and make this huge arc of swinging his leg over. He'd go up and sit on the wall, smoke a cig, then hop back on and ride away. Weirdest shit we'd seen around there. We figured he must've lost his license, but still wanted to "ride free"......

[thefirebuilds]

There used to be this guy that was occasionally around the beach where we hung out and surfed at, in south Florida. He would come riding up on an old style beach cruiser type bicycle, with a big ass Harley type windshield on it. It also had leather tassles on the hand grips, and leather saddlebags on the back-no lie! He happened to be wearing all black leathers (jacket and pants), and had a black German-style helmut, with the spike thingy on the top. All of this in 90 dgree + summer heat!


He would ride up, make a big production of "parking" his bike by stopping right in the middle of a parking spot, exaggerate kicking his kick stand down, lean the bike over, and make this huge arc of swinging his leg over. He'd go up and sit on the wall, smoke a cig, then hop back on and ride away. Weirdest shit we'd seen around there. We figured he must've lost his license, but still wanted to "ride free"......

This guy used to show up at our house all the time in a VW Buggy/dune buggy thing. my mom made me hide like it was jehova's witness, we would go hide in the front bedroom cuz he would stare through the windows with crazy charlie manson eyes. I guess he was somehow some crazy friend of my dad's. One time he tied some folks up downtown to a flagpole and threatened them with a knife.

anyway, dad was out in his boat one time off the coast of Lake Michigan and they saw a head pop up off the sand. apparently dude had dug himself a house under the beach. wwwwoooow

no idea where hes at these days, proly not alive though.

[Brendan Sullivan]

I saw a kid get thrown through a plate-glass window during a fight at my highschool.

A friend of mine wanted to sell weed to some guy he knew so he invited the guy up into his room. I was out back trying to pick up girls at the playground (I was 16 or so, and so were they) and saw four guys 'case' his house and then post one dude at each corner, glancing around with their hands inside their waistbands and looking suspect. Then by some unseen signal they all bolted off down the street. I ran inside and asked my friend what the hell just happened, and he had no clue the guys were out there. I told him they probably stole something and he'd best take a quick inventory of the house. Only thing we could find missing was the 6-pack that was in the fridge.

I was lying on a cot at night and some rodent came bounding into the room from the doorway. It was probably just a normal-ass rat but it was skipping instead of scurrying, like a kangaroo rat. It crossed the room in 3 or 4 leaps, all I heard were its little toenails clicking on the floor. It leapt up on my leg and it took me a second to realise what was happening, then I shook my leg to scare it off. It took the exact same route out of the room, bounding out and down the hall. I stared at my leg for a beat and said "Oh no you fucking didn't."

I was downrange when some 155mm artillery was shot overhead. It must have passed within 100 feet overhead. No explosion, it was just flare rounds. But the sound was awesome, like continuous ripping cloth. I was surprised that some movies actually approximate the sound pretty well.

I was driving down the highway when a CHP headed the other way flipped a bitch at full speed, careening across the dirt divider and into the lane behind me, flipping on his lights and speeding out of his massive dust cloud to get right on my ass. I watched him nervously for a bit and then pulled over to the slow lane, he rocketed past and I laughed riotously.

[The Highwayman]

Back when I was much younger (and MUCH stupider) I was on my way into UPS where I worked unloading trucks. As was my custom, I lit up a funny cigarette, to get my head right. Well, just as I'm putting it out, I come rolling up to a railroad crossing, with a train currently passing by. I had an option of taking one of two lanes; one had a cop sitting in it. I figured it would be best for me to stay behind the cop, instead of the other lane, where I would have to pull up next to him. I was worried he might smell something. So, I'm sitting there for about 2 or 3 minutes, when the last car of the train goes by. Well, the gates go up, the lights go off, and traffic starts moving.......
All except for the cop in front of me!
After about 10-15 seconds, he lights up the light bar. I'm thinking, holy shit, he musta smelled it! Well, I put it in park, and rather hesitantly, get out of the truck. As I'm walking up to his car to face my fate, he starts waving his hand erratically. It's at this point that I hear him cranking the starter, and it just turning over and over, and not firing up. His hand waving was him just telling me to go around him......
I got my ass back in the truck and zoomed away, while sweating profusely.

Talk about wrong place-right time!

[Galath]

I punched a housefly out of midair once, like an actual punch and not a swat. I was sure I'd killed it, but it got up and shook it off after about forty seconds of lying on the ground.

Ok, this'll sound like ITG talk, but I swear it's true....

One day, after completing a rotation at JRTC, I was playing spades with the guys in the barracks. A wasp was buzzing around, generally annoying us, and scaring the crap out of a couple of the less rural-based players. I decided I was going to prove what a BAMF I was (I was about 19 at the time), so I pulled my Gerber MKII and declared that the next time the wasp came my way I would "fuck it up". Sure enough, shortly later, the wasp buzzed by. I grabbed the Gerber, swiped at the wasp, and laid the knife down, ready to defend my skillz ('cause of course I missed). All I saw was blank, disbelieving stares. I looked down and saw two neatly bisected pieces of wasp on the gaming table. Thinking fast, I swept them off the table and announced: "I told you I'd fuck it up", and eventually the game resumed. I gained a lot of respect, and I never told anyone that it was all luck.

Did that take place during a 2003 rotation? I ask because I heard of someone doing just that when my unit went, but it was a yellow jacket (I'm just repeating what I was told, I'm not knocking your story).

Nope, i got out in 1997. I went to JRTC probably in 1994 in this instance. I went a second time, but it was volunteer for the TOC. The episode I relate is absolutely true and not barracks BS (if it was, I'd have hit the wasp through skill, not luck). It is possible that the legend carried on after that incident...I like to hope so, anyways

[thefirebuilds]

One time (again, coming back from the Gap), I crossed the state line from Gary, Indiana (ewww) into Illinois at sunrise. Fleeing the state in the other direction was a mid 80s mercury cougar on steel rims, tires having been shot or burned off, chased by several Illinois Highway patrol, on the interstate, at what couldnt be more than 30mph.

[Lionheart]

While not as weird as some other stories on here I was at a college community where they have a bunch of apartments for students etc. So one night I'm with my girlfriend, her sister and a couple of friends so we're talking and she turns pale and says she saw a little girl which others had seen as well but I didn't see her and they would always tell me their apartment was haunted by a little girl I was a bit skeptical , visibly shaken she goes to her room then she comes out even more freaked out saying the little girl had touched her and sure as shit she has a small hand print on her back and while I'm usually not the kind of guy to believe that stuff there was no way she could have done it herself her hand was bigger then the print and it was right side up instead of down.

Another time while not as creepy, a friend and I are driving down a dark road with few houses and few lights so then we come up on one of the only street lights with what looks to be a semi grown puppy in the middle of the road and in my head I think it's a dog and my friend even tells me slow down for the dog in the road, it looked to be like a Labrador retriever I could distinguish everything from the muzzle to it's ears, it was even sitting the way a dog does then all of a sudden it turns it's head in the opposite direction of my car and out of nowhere this thing spreads it's wings which must have had at least a 5 foot wingspan and I look at my friend and we're both like wtf was that and normally I'd write it off and say it's a hawk but I know what a hawk looks like and I know what a dog looks like and what's more I wasn't the only one that saw it and my friend also thought it was a dog so that had a very high wtf factor. Who knows maybe it was a hawk but I still have my doubts.

[Giacomo]

This just happened the other night, me and a buddy of mine were driving down 309 and if any of you are in the Philly area (Lansdale, Hatfield, North Wales, etc..) then you might know the what was once a skating rink but it's now some wierd dance club thing for kids. Back to what happened, we're sitting at a light waiting to go and this other car pulls up next to us. They rev their engine, we do it back just messing around. We figured it was nothing but as soon as the light changed their tires started screeching and bringing up smoke and they go to take off. They got maybe 100 feet when you hear a bang and their tire rubber comes flying off. We pulled over to see if everyone was ok and this short asian kid gets out and starts trash talking us about how he smoked us. We just accepted it and drove off. We were heading back that way about two hours later and the same guy and his friends are sitting on the side of the road with the tire still in shreds. Turns out they had no spare and were waiting for a ride. As we drove by my buddy justs leans out of the car and congratulates them on showing us up.

This other time me and a different buddy and his girlfriend were out camping. Around 2 in the morning (my best guess), I hear this voice asking me if I was asleep. I was halfway so I ignored him and rolled over. We had one of those tents with the flap seperating the middle so we only had to pack the one. I see two pairs of feet lying there and the voice was coming from outside the tent. Needless to say I about crapped myself, I got up and grabbed a flashlight and my gerber since I don't carry. I go outside and I'm looking around when I see this drunk guy half naked holding a bottle of vodka (no shirt not the other way around thank god) and he's blinking at my flashlight. I didn't know whether he was getting ready to attack me or what because he looks like he's getting more and more pissed. He starts bawling his eyes out because Jessica was cheating on him (there was no Jess in our tent), this girl (unfortunately not half naked) comes running out and asking him what he was doing at our site. They just walk off and leave me standing there with no explanation.

[Diesel2]

I've seen a few...couple of years ago I'm driving along the road and see two fish on the yellow line...not often you see fish as roadkill.

[Moana Drifter]

Back when I was living in Tuvalu I went down to the wharf to fish in the middle of the day (~90F). One of the Taiwanese guys who was in country to build the new hotel was there fishing in long pants, long sleeve shirt, gloves, and a SKI MASK. How he kept from passing out in all that I have no idea.

When I was in college, I was getting a hair cut and it was obviously WAY past laundry day because I was wearing my old basic training outfit t-shirt. As the guy was going around my ears with the straight razor, he asks, "Have you been hunting?" It was late November, so I assumed he meant deer, so I said no. He then replied, "Oh. I saw your t-shirt and thought you might have been hunting."

[meatshieldChris]

the trailer ball flail made me think of it.

a few years ago, I was sitting on the top of a hill watching a bunch of idiots driving their trucks through the mud hole below. Guys that would spend thousands on mods for their trucks, but know nothing about vehicles. These would be the "I dunno, I thought the body kit painted primer grey that scrapes the ground because I can't use a tape measure, with a bunch of performance parts stickers on it and a hood scoup with no hole in the hood under it on my civic would be a great idea. what? the scoup doesn't give you more power all by itself?" type of people, just with 4x4s. accidents were common. I actually had one of them ask me earlier in the day about checking oil level, saying his dad says it's a good idea but he's not sure he can trust his dad about truck stuff, his dad only has a '82 ranger. and not sure how.

anyway, idiot #1 gets swiftly stuck up to the frame in his fairly large truck. idiot #2 starts setting up for a kinetic extraction.

normally, you have extremely stout tow points put on your truck, and you start slow and build up as you retry until it comes out or you chicken out. it can be done moderately safely if you know what you're doing. you get a snatch strap, which is a specially designed nylon tow strap that's designed to stretch (and a limited number of times, at that). you back the tow vehicle up as close as you can get to the stuck one and still stay un-stuck, hook up WITHOUT any hooks or shackles or anything that could become a missile, get everyone the hell out of the way, and accelerate away. when it snaps tight, the strap stretches, then un-stretches. the stuck vehicle might come out. this works best with similarly sized vehciles so the one doesn't end up flying through the air to land on top of the other.

he pulls out a strap. it's not a snatch strap, it's your dad's heavy duty static tow strap that he used to gently pull his buddy's semi out of the ditch, remember? doesn't stretch nearly as much. breaks at 30,000 pounds or something ridiculous. he gets close, hooks up like the above, revs up, dumps the clutch, gets going good and fast

and
the
strap
dissapears

with a gunshot noise.

I jump back in the jeep, rush down there to make sure everyone's still alive, and I see one idiot's truck with a big puddle of coolant under it, the strap dumped infront of the bumper, with one end going through his grill.

everyone's still alive, so I grab a flashlight and have a look. I can't see very well through the 2" hole, so I have him pop the hood.

here's what happened: the strap was looped around the trailer ball. he thought: class 3 hitch, it should work. the hitch held. the ball broke just where the ball narrows down under the ball shaped part. the strap stayed wrapped around it, and turned it into a missile. it slingshotted back to the other truck, went through the grill, knocked the water pump off the block, went through the firewall, broke a seat rail, and dented the back of the cab, pulling the strap through the entire length of the wound with it, like sewing with a needle.

two people and a crowd of spectators lucky to be alive, and now two disabled trucks.

[Zombie Reaper]

the trailer ball flail made me think of it.

a few years ago, I was sitting on the top of a hill watching a bunch of idiots driving their trucks through the mud hole below. Guys that would spend thousands on mods for their trucks, but know nothing about vehicles. These would be the "I dunno, I thought the body kit painted primer grey that scrapes the ground because I can't use a tape measure, with a bunch of performance parts stickers on it and a hood scoup with no hole in the hood under it on my civic would be a great idea. what? the scoup doesn't give you more power all by itself?" type of people, just with 4x4s. accidents were common. I actually had one of them ask me earlier in the day about checking oil level, saying his dad says it's a good idea but he's not sure he can trust his dad about truck stuff, his dad only has a '82 ranger. and not sure how.

anyway, idiot #1 gets swiftly stuck up to the frame in his fairly large truck. idiot #2 starts setting up for a kinetic extraction.

normally, you have extremely stout tow points put on your truck, and you start slow and build up as you retry until it comes out or you chicken out. it can be done moderately safely if you know what you're doing. you get a snatch strap, which is a specially designed nylon tow strap that's designed to stretch (and a limited number of times, at that). you back the tow vehicle up as close as you can get to the stuck one and still stay un-stuck, hook up WITHOUT any hooks or shackles or anything that could become a missile, get everyone the hell out of the way, and accelerate away. when it snaps tight, the strap stretches, then un-stretches. the stuck vehicle might come out. this works best with similarly sized vehciles so the one doesn't end up flying through the air to land on top of the other.

he pulls out a strap. it's not a snatch strap, it's your dad's heavy duty static tow strap that he used to gently pull his buddy's semi out of the ditch, remember? doesn't stretch nearly as much. breaks at 30,000 pounds or something ridiculous. he gets close, hooks up like the above, revs up, dumps the clutch, gets going good and fast

and
the
strap
dissapears

with a gunshot noise.

I jump back in the jeep, rush down there to make sure everyone's still alive, and I see one idiot's truck with a big puddle of coolant under it, the strap dumped infront of the bumper, with one end going through his grill.

everyone's still alive, so I grab a flashlight and have a look. I can't see very well through the 2" hole, so I have him pop the hood.

here's what happened: the strap was looped around the trailer ball. he thought: class 3 hitch, it should work. the hitch held. the ball broke just where the ball narrows down under the ball shaped part. the strap stayed wrapped around it, and turned it into a missile. it slingshotted back to the other truck, went through the grill, knocked the water pump off the block, went through the firewall, broke a seat rail, and dented the back of the cab, pulling the strap through the entire length of the wound with it, like sewing with a needle.

two people and a crowd of spectators lucky to be alive, and now two disabled trucks.

My uncle rocket jumped a geo out of a ditch and it landed in front of him.

[mark_w]

In Monterrey, Mexico, we went to dinner. The cabbie was driving an old Nissan econobox. I'm in the back seat with another guy. Looked over and see a dog head out speaker holes in the back deck. The cabbie had taken his speakers out and took his yellow lab with him in the trunk. Dog didn't bark or anything, just poked his head out the speaker hole and looked around.

[Dead Zed]

this.
And yes, I did personally witness that. Even more frightening... he's a friend.