15 Times Reality Was Better Than Any Movie Script

There are moments in which real life surpasses any Hollywood movie, no matter how much budget or scriptwriters it has. On social networks, thousands of users share those stories that are so strange, so unexpected, and so.... Unreal? That the first thing you think is: “This is just a story.” But no. They really happened. And best of all: there are witnesses, evidence (more or less blurry), and even some morals worthy of an absurd comedy.

• During my senior year of college in 2010, I received an odd text from an unknown number that I couldn’t delete. No matter what I did, my phone would not delete it. It sat in my inbox for a few months before I realized the send date was listed as 2056. A text from the future! It still freaks me out! © treadlightning / Reddit
• There was an elderly woman in front of me at the drugstore checkout. She was fun, sweet, and chatty. Everyone, including me, was talking to her. She asked me where the transit station was, so I pointed out the window. It was literally right in front of us! After leaving the store, I saw her on the sidewalk going the wrong direction. I pulled over and gave her a ride to the station to make sure she wouldn’t get lost again. I let her out and looked over my shoulder to see if I could pull out. When I turned back around to wave again, she was gone. She had disappeared. The station was like a lone building in the middle of an open football field. The entrance was more than 1,000 feet away. It was long after peak hours, so there was no one else around. Even if she had sprinted, there was nowhere she could have gone in the two seconds or so that I turned my head. It’s been more than 30 years, and I still often wonder where she went. © Weeitsabear1 / Reddit
• In 2016, my husband had an unexpected heart attack. After visiting him in the hospital, I came home upset, obviously, and a friend came over to hang out with me for a while. She left around 2 a.m. Just a few minutes after she left, there was a knock on the door. I assumed she had forgotten something, so I opened the door without checking first. It was a strange man. He asked, “Is Jim home?” I replied, “Sorry, there’s no Jim here,” which was true because neither of us is named Jim. I shut the door, called my friend, and told her I was freaking out. She told me to stay inside and that she would come back. A few minutes later, there was another knock. I assumed it was my friend again. I opened the door, and it was the same guy. This time, he asked, “Is (my name) home?” I said no, shut the door, and stayed inside until my friend arrived. We watched the man mill around my yard. We called the police, and eventually, he left. The weird part is that I don’t have a common first name. My name was not associated with the property in any way (I was a renter). There was nothing outside with my name on it. I didn’t know any of my neighbors, so no one could have told him my name. Unless he broke into our locked mailbox, I don’t see how he could’ve known my name. Also, why did he come at 2 a.m.? And why on the one night my husband was away? © didyoubutterthepan / Reddit

• In the early ’80s, I was walking in Lower Manhattan when I noticed a guy walking in my direction whom I instantly recognized as someone I’d gone to grammar school with in Brooklyn five years earlier. I hadn’t seen or spoken to him in all that time, and we weren’t particularly close. As he got closer, I could tell he recognized me when he noticed me. We met up, shook hands, and were in the middle of a nice conversation about getting reacquainted when, out of the store to my right and his left, stepped our seventh-grade teacher. There were astonished looks all around, and we had a pleasant three-way conversation. It’s a nice memory all these decades later. © Merlin2000 / Reddit
• I was pulling away from a gas station. Suddenly, a man in a suit ran up to my minivan and started yanking on the door. Acting as if he knew me, he began pleading, “C’mon, let me in!” Luckily, my doors were locked. I asked him who he was through my window. He looked genuinely surprised that I wouldn’t let him in. After I refused, his facial expression changed as if he had just realized something horrible. He let go of my car and said, “You’re one of them, aren’t you?” Then, he ran away behind the gas station and into the woods. He was wearing a full suit and tie with nice shoes, and he was extremely frantic. There was zero explanation. I hope it was an elaborate prank or something, because the look in that man’s eyes was pure terror when I didn’t let him in. © grammarGuy** / Reddit
• I was having a sleepover at my house with a friend from school. We were watching a movie when the strangest thought suddenly came to me. Her dog had just died. Obviously, I couldn’t just blurt that out. So, in the middle of the movie, I asked, “Hey, by the way, how was your dog?” She was obviously quite surprised. I had never met her dog, and she didn’t talk much about him; she just mentioned that she had one. She said that he is aging well. We moved on, but I couldn’t shake a weird feeling. The next day, she went home and called me after a while. She asked, “Why did you ask about my dog yesterday? How did you know? He passed away last night, around the time you asked about him.” I was shocked yet unsurprised. I don’t have an explanation; it seems like a weird coincidence, since her dog wasn’t usually on my mind. It never happened again. © Meanwhile-in-Paris / Reddit

• One night, I had a dream that I was working out at my regular gym. I was in my usual spot, exercising, when suddenly, the lights went out. All the TV screens went off. I couldn’t see anything, but it felt like smoke was filling the gym. I could barely see and hear people panicking and running to the exit. I started running to the exit, but it was getting harder and harder to breathe. Just as I start to hyperventilate and succumb to the toxic smoke... I jolt awake. It was a very intense dream that stuck with me. A week later, in real life, I’m working out at the gym when suddenly, the lights and TV screens go out. It was an incredibly surreal moment, and I actually thought I was dreaming again. I stood there stunned for a moment before realizing the power had just gone out due to a thunderstorm. The power came back on about five minutes later. I told a nearby gym employee that I had dreamed about this. She laughed politely and probably thought I was crazy. It was really strange. © GowBeyow / Reddit
• When my daughter was little, something in the kitchen would randomly break whenever she got upset. This happened way too many times to be a coincidence, and the things that broke did so in inexplicable ways. I clearly remember one instance when I was standing in the kitchen very early in the morning, telling her she couldn’t have the cake from the night before. She immediately looked angry, and I heard a strange “plink” sound coming from the cupboard. I opened the cupboard to find that the plate on top of the stack was cracked in several places. © inkswamp / Reddit
• One morning, I woke up and noticed that my camera was sitting on top of the sofa across from my bed. I knew I hadn’t put it there because it was very expensive and could easily fall from that spot. I had put it in my cabinet. I went over, picked it up, turned it on, and clicked the button to view photos. There were hundreds of photos of me sleeping, seemingly all taken from the back of the sofa. I was so freaked out that I couldn’t stop crying. I lived alone. Photo after photo was of me sleeping. The photos were taken in “quick snap,” where the camera takes approximately one photo per second. I later realized that the camera didn’t have a “quick snap” setting, so it was technically impossible for the camera to have taken the photos. The timestamps suggest that all the photos were taken between 2 and 3 a.m. I’ve never figured out what happened, how the camera got to the sofa, or how a camera without a “quick snap” setting could take photos. I still have a USB with the photos on it, and they still freak me out. © Excellent-Raccoon-32 / Reddit

• It was the 25th anniversary of my dad’s death. As always, I thought about it all day long. He was only 49 when he passed away. I was passing a funeral home and got kind of sad, a little more than normal. It just hit me hard. I was at a stoplight. I looked at the car in front of me. The license plates read: LUV DAD. © Unknown author / Reddit
• Several years ago, I was at work when a coworker named S had a massive seizure. He later told us that he had never had one before. Everyone started to freak out. A man came over and gently held S down because he was in danger of slamming into a desk. Once the seizure passed, the man stood up, said, “The ambulance should be here soon, so my work is done,” and left. The weird thing? Nobody had any idea who that guy was. We were all so concerned about S that we didn’t register that the man was a stranger until he was taken to the hospital. The building required a keycard to enter and was closed to the general public. There were only twelve of us in that office, and he wasn’t one of us. © BarracudaImpossible4 / Reddit
• When I was seven or eight, I used to spend Friday nights at my grandmother’s house. She spoiled me rotten, so I loved it. One night, though, I suddenly had a strange urge to call my mom. I dialed my phone number—I mean, I knew my own number, right? A woman answered, and I suddenly blurted out, “Mom, come and get me!” I have no idea why that came out of my mouth, even to this day. Like I said, I loved it there, and up until that moment, I had no thoughts of being picked up. Anyway, the person on the other end started to sound panicky and asked, “Where are you?!” I realized that it wasn’t my mom, so I hung up and went back to watching TV. It seems so minor, but it’s stuck with me for over 30 years. © Unknown author / Reddit

• My mom gave me a ring. It used to belong to my late grandmother. It was too big to wear on my finger, so I put it on a chain and wore it as a necklace. I remember playing with it while doing my schoolwork in class, and it was still around my neck the whole time. At the end of the day, when school let out and everyone was heading home, I realized it was no longer around my neck. I panicked, ran back to class, and tried to retrace my steps, but I never found it. I was really upset about losing the ring. When I got home, I entered my bedroom and saw the ring and chain placed neatly in the center of my pillow. It looked as if someone had put it there. © jaythenerdgirl / Reddit
• Years ago, when my wife was pregnant with our second child and about to give birth, my mom came to stay with us for a few days to help take care of our oldest child. One evening, she asked for a pen, paper, and an envelope. When I gave them to her, she wrote something on the paper, sealed it in the envelope, and gave it to me. She told me to put it in my pocket and not to open it. “You’ll know when,” she said. Thirty minutes later, my wife announced that it was time to go to the hospital; she was in labor. So we went, and about nine hours later, at 3:45 a.m., our second daughter was born. She weighed eight pounds, eleven ounces, and was twenty inches long. Since this was before cell phones, I called my mom from the hospital to tell her the news. She answered the phone and immediately said, “Before you say anything, open the envelope.” I did. It said: Girl, 3:45 a.m., 8 lbs., 11 oz., 20 inches. I kept that paper for years. When my mom died, I went to the safe where we kept important documents, but the paper was gone. © GullyF / Reddit
• It didn’t happen to me, but to my mom. She was going through a tough time and wasn’t making much money. She was a single mom with two kids. She was stressed over bills, but she had just enough to cover them. Unfortunately, that left us with no money. She was a hard worker and would work multiple shifts at the hospital. Still, it was hard this particular month. While sweeping, she prayed for help. As she turned around to empty the dustbin, she saw a crisp $100 bill lying perfectly on top of the trash can. No one else lived with us. She was never able to explain it. © poshfiend / Reddit

As my grandmother used to say: “Reality doesn’t need a script, only people willing to tell it.” And these users certainly were up for it. These stories remind us that real life is often stranger than fiction. If you want more unusual situations and moments that seem ripped from a film without the special effects, check out this other article.