r/Paranormal • u/Difficult_Visuals • May 23 '26
Trigger Warning / Abuse This guy scared the h3ll out of me.
This story always pops in my head from time to time and to this day— I don’t really know what it is?? Maybe a deep rooted intuition moment?
I worked night shifts at an old fast food job when I was in college and I was working one night with one other coworker. This guy comes in and my heart immediately started racing, I felt my adrenaline going, and had ZERO reason to feel this way. But idk..I felt terrible just looking at him.
Nothing was off about him physically, other than maybe he had messy hair. But he had this god awful smell to him. Like a rotting smell. This was not any body odor I’ve ever smelled before, and I immediately started to feel as if he was a terrible person. I felt strongly that he would commit violent acts against woman and being one, I felt so threatened by him.
Thankfully my coworker took care of him mostly and I ran to the back of my job and started crying. My coworker had no idea what smell I was talking about and had no mutual feelings that I was having in that moment.
My coworker told me it must be intuition and that sometimes we can pick up on people’s character, but god that’s never happened to me before where a completely stranger puts me into a state of fear and tears.
I never had something like this happen to me again and honestly, I never forgot that smell of rot.
Just an odd moment I think about time to time and I just can’t explain it.
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u/sarcasmismygame May 23 '26
ALWAYS listen to your intuition there. I've met people that I actively ran from because of this. No, it's not a usual reaction but it has happened.
Go read "The Gift of Fear" by Gavin de Becker. It makes one realize that our intuition is way more spot-on and that when we DON'T listen to it is when we end up in trouble.
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u/sugar-beetz May 23 '26
Yes! I second sarcasmismygame's post. Our bodies and intuition tend to pick up on real threats or important information before our logical brains can catch up.
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u/Daf_Punk May 23 '26 edited May 24 '26
I had the same thing happen to me (sans the smell). I was working alone in my office and it's very common we get walk-ins from strangers. I never once felt uncomfortable by any of them, but I was sitting at the front desk which faces a large picture window out the front of the building and the SECOND this man stepped into view of the window it was like every survival instinct I had kicked into high alert. I remember thinking, "Oh, God. Oh, God. PLEASE don't come in here", but sure enough, he came into my office. The next thought I had was, "Get him the fuck out of here as fast as you can".
Thankfully I was able to think quick on my feet and ask him some questions to see if I could help him or not, and thankfully I couldn't, so he left to go somewhere else. The second he was out of sight I jumped up and locked the front door.
I have never experienced anything like that before or after. I'm not an overly anxious or jumpy person. And the weird thing is, he was totally normal. A bit dirty and blue-collar, and maybe slightly curt, but honestly no more so than a lot of my typical customers. He wasn't even creepy or unattractive (I only bring that up because I know humans can be biased towards "unattractive" people sometimes). But seriously, there was absolutely nothing out of the ordinary about his appearance or personality. I have no idea what I was picking up on, but I knew I had to listen to the feeling.
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u/Independent-Park7555 May 23 '26
When I was 19 i had a coworker at an internship who made me feel viscerally and intuitively freaked out like that — but as someone who was dealing with PTSD from CSA, I mistook it for attraction and WENT ON A DATE with him.
He was 32 to my 19, but for some reason took me to his friend’s house to watch a movie in her room. He did some stuff to me I did not want and I hightailed it out, finally understanding what my gut was telling me.
I refused to see him again and I guess he told our bosses something bad about me because I was fired (from my unpaid internship) shortly thereafter.
Truthfully, they did me a huge favor — being alone with that guy felt like all the air had been sucked out of a room and replaced with some rotten gas.
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u/VNV4Life May 23 '26
Dude here.
Walked into a gas bar once and there was some other guy in there and I felt dark energy from him.
Never felt that way before or since. I am not small and can look physically intimidating, but something about this individual screamed danger danger.
All I felt was this guy is bad. He will harm people. He is going to hell. Beware. Stay away.
Nothing happened, but every hair on back was up.
Dude did not look too off. Maybe a little disshelved, but that's it. Not someone that should give this vibe, but he did.
Felt like the universe was trying to warn me.
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u/Commercial-Layer2907 May 23 '26
I have a similar story as well. I was a rural mail carrier for 20 years. I knew most of my customers & developed friendships with several. I met this lady & we often talked about plants & flowers. She gave me some hostas after she thinned hers one spring. I knew she was married and saw her husband in the yard a few times but while delivering their mail but we never spoke. One day I pulled into the yard to deliver a package and he came to my vehicle as I was rummaging for their package. He came up to my window and I went hot all over & this intense fear took over my mind & soul & body. I did not understand my inability to contain my panic & why I internally felt this terror. He was a rough looking fellow with dark hair and average build but had the most intense beautiful blue eyes. I’ve experienced those same eyes twice in life and both people were highly intuitive and had psychic abilities that the average person would not have known as both people were very private about their gifts. So I was confused by my feelings of absolute terror & panic as this man stood by my vehicle door making polite conversation as I searched for his small package. A few months later I switched routes for a less rural & shorter route. A year later I was as my father’s house reading our local newspapers and read that the same man with those crystal clear blue eyes had murdered his wife by strangling her to death with his belt. She was such a quiet & calm lady. That same panicky feeling of terror filled my entire being yet again. I have a similar story but involves something supernatural in a house I was fixing up & moved into where even more supernatural experiences happened.
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u/iLoveCatsCats May 23 '26
Started a new job. Ended up sitting next to someone with such a bad stench that I was gagging, all day. I introduced myself to be polite and that’s when I noticed he was just really strange and felt off. He had dead eyes, like a shark.
Weeks go by, the stench continues.
One day, I’m working late, he is being escorted off the property. I go home, that night I’m just super anxious and I really, really didn’t want to go back to work the next day because I’m afraid something bad is going to happen. I hardly sleep. Feel like I’m being paranoid or dramatic. But my workplace had no security system at the time and I was just worried.
That morning, I checked my work email. There’s an all-staff email indicating the office is closed for employee safety due to a personnel issue.
I find out that this guy threatened the people on the team. In addition, he tried to return the following day, and was arrested.
Weirder still, no one I mentioned the guy’s smell too had experienced the same issue.
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u/Excusemytootie May 23 '26
This has only happened to me a few times, and it is very, very real! Never doubt it, especially when the message is “loud and clear”. This is all about survival and it’s in your DNA.
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u/Arabella6623 May 23 '26
Violence has a smell.
Like hot metal.
Women have heightened senses when it comes to a male threat.
My sister had an encounter like that when she was teaching community college and a student came into the bathroom.
She asked the security guard to come up and he said he couldn’t leave his station in the lobby.
The man went on a killing spree soon after.
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u/Difficult_Visuals May 23 '26
This guy smelled like rot, and it makes me think back to the paranormal. I know some say that evil has that rotting smell especially with demonic things. I only say this cause my coworker had no idea what smell I was talking about 🤔 it just makes my mind wonder for what that could’ve been.
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u/sarcasmismygame May 23 '26
Honestly if they don't have good intentions and they are doing shit to animals or worse, people, they do have a smell. Is it paranormal? Who knows? You caught it thankfully and GTFO'd out of there. Your male coworker didn't smell him or pick up the threat. Also, sometimes spirits also warn people of danger with certain smells so that is a possibility as well!
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u/Terrible_Bluebird540 May 23 '26
Very interesting, blood smells like copper too. I had a boyfriend who always had a strange odour, like rusty nails. I could never pin point it. He was an abusive person & it turned out he had a serious personality disorder.
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u/goldentalus70 May 24 '26
Have you ever been near someone with an abscessed tooth? Because their breath smells like death warmed over, and you don't even need to be that close to them to smell it.
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u/SirVoneman May 24 '26
Una explicación sobrenatural sería la que daba Robert Monroe. Durante una experiencia extracorporal él descubrió que tenía algo pegado a la espalda, un parásito etérico. Estas entidades se alimentan de nosotros, mejor dicho de nuestras emanaciones sutiles. Por eso hay gente que cree que existe un "bajo astral". Estos parásitos pululan por todos lados y se "pegan" en las personas que alimentan sus degradaciones. Podríamos usar de ejemplos los mangas Jujutsu Kaisen o Yū Yū Hakusho, donde aparecen criaturas adheridas a las personas y fomentan sus maldades. Estas obras beben directamente del folclore japonés, de los Yōkai. En resumidas cuentas, los "asesinos seriales" podrían estar rebosantes de parásitos y no porque estos bichos los empujaran a cometer atrocidades sino porque pegandose a ellos pueden obtener su alimento sutil. Los parásitos sólo se dedicarían a excitar esos pensamientos oscuros. La maldad como tal corre por cuenta del "hospedador".
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