One man's junk is another man's treasure, the saying goes. But for some frugal shoppers who found valuable things found in thrift stores, the proverb rings truer than for most. Unbelievable thrift store treasures include famous historical documents, one-of-a-kind works of art, and valuable historical artifacts.

Some of the most unbelievable thrift store finds were found by people who could just tell that what they were looking for was special, while other buyers were stunned to discover the stories behind the items they picked up on a whim. A savvy thrift store shopper with great taste splurged on a $50 Goodwill painting because he could tell it was worth more, while one lucky art buyer actually bought an "ugly" painting as a joke gift for a friend, only to discover it was an original Jackson Pollock. 

From rare historical photos to 2,500-year-old artifacts, here are the stories that will send you to the flea market this weekend.

Jackson Pollack toiled in obscurity for years until he found fame as an artist and is now considered one of the most important painters of the past 100 years. His art has been valued as high as $140 million but one of his paintings ended up in a thrift store. That's where Teri Horton found what she called an ugly painting and paid $5 for it as a gag to cheer up a friend of hers. But buying the painting was just the beginning of Horton's journey.

After she showed it to her friend, Horton didn't have anywhere to put the painting and tried to sell it in a yard sale. A local art professor saw the work and told her she might have a priceless Jackson Pollack painting. Horton spent many years trying to convince the art world, who dismissed her in part because she has an eighth grade education and drove a big rig before retiring, but eventually forensic evidence proved that the piece was authentic. The art world is still dismissing Horton's find, but she isn't giving up and believes the work is worth as much as $50 million.

Vince Lombardi and football go together like rain and wetness, the two are inseparable. Lombardi transcended the game and become something of an iconoclast whose name evokes ideas of leadership and motivation. Sean and Rikki McEvoy bought a holey old sweater for $.58 at a Goodwill outlet and promptly forgot about it. That is, until Sean was watching a documentary about Lombardi, recognized the sweater as one that the coach was wearing in the film, and had it appraised. Ultimately the garment sold for $43,020 at auction.  

People go to thrift stores for all kinds of reasons. For one thing, a secret treasure may be found among the old shoes and used softball jerseys. Zach Norris went to a shop in Phoenix, Arizona, looking for a golf cart and left with an antique watch worth $35,000. He paid $5.99 for the timepiece that turned out to be a 1959 Jaeger-Lecoultre diving watch. Rather than keeping the watch, Norris planned to sell it to help pay for his wedding.

Perhaps it says something about modern art that so much of it seems to end up in thrift stores, but that's a discussion for the art critics. Andy Fields sure is glad that a sketch by artist Andy Warhol ended up in a thrift shop and was even happier to find out that it was extremely valuable. Warhol was one of the most well-known artists of the 20th century, and the sketch that Fields found shows the seeds of what would become his famous style. The piece was made when the artist was only 10 or 11 years old, and was made in pencil and graphite. Fields put the piece on eBay, hoping to get more than $2 million for it.

Thrifty people often visit yard sales in an effort to find inexpensive delights. One shopper found a cat statue in a trash can that turned out to be worth $80,000. The unassuming cat sculpture turned out to be a relic from ancient Egypt estimated to be over 2,500 years old. Officials from the auction house that sold the artwork believe that the piece was commissioned by a high figure in the Egyptian ruling dynasty between 500 and 700 BC.

A 73-year-old retired man named John Richard found a $30 handbag in a UK thrift shop that turned out to be worth $500,000. Richard purchased the bag because he liked the print of Elvis that festooned it. He took the bag to a Philip Treacy shop in London to determine if it was indeed designed by the famous hat designer and it was authenticated. The clerk at the shop said that the bag, which features an Andy Warhol print of the King of Rock n' Roll, was really a work of art, with only 10 produced in the entire world. 

It is usually not a good thing when an unexpected item is discovered in a couch bought from a thrift store. One student in Germany, though, was sure happy to find a small 17th-century painting in a second-hand couch he bought for $215. The surprise turned out to be an antique painting by the artist Carlo Saraceni called Preparation to Escape to Egypt. The painting will pay for a lot of textbooks, as it sold for $27,630 in an auction.

A man in South Carolina found a painting that he liked so much, he paid the unthrifty sum of $50 for it in a Goodwill store. The 81-year-old man, who wanted to go by Leroy in interviews, thought it might really be worth a few hundred bucks. His daughter-in-law had other ideas and brought it to a taping of Antiques Roadshow, where she was told it may be worth $20,000-$30,000. Luckily for him, both appraisals were much less than the painting was really worth. It turns out that the artwork is a Flemish painting created sometime around 1650 and sold in an auction for $190,000. 

The Declaration of Independence is one of the most important historical documents ever produced. Though anyone can see a picture of it or read its text at the click of a mouse, finding a copy of the actual document is more of a challenge. Despite that, Michael Sparks found a copy of the document in a thrift store in Nashville and bought it for $2.48. The copy he found was actually created in 1823 at the order of then-Secretary of State John Quincy Adams. Sparks later sold the document for $477,650.

The name Billy the Kid conjures images of quiet dusty streets in the Wild West being shaken to life by the outlaw and his band charging through to rob a bank. Despite being immortalized in books and films about his life, however, photographs of him are rare - in fact, there are only two known to exist. The second was discovered in a thrift store by Randy Guijarro, who paid $2.00 for it. The photo he found sold for $5 million after it was authenticated by forensics experts. It shows Billy the Kid, his gang, the Regulators, and their wives and girlfriends, playing croquet after a wedding. 

Despite our desire to think that everyone in Hollywood is the best of friends, sometimes that’s just not true. In fact, there are a ton of celebrities who don't get along or simply don't have any chemistry. Some couldn't even bear to be on set at the same time because their mutual antagonism had gotten so intense.

Most of these co-stars who hated each other were able to make it through the original production, but then one was not asked back for the film’s sequel. For example, Channing Tatum may have put up with Alex Pettyfer’s “diva” antics on the set of the first Magic Mike movie. However, when it came time to shoot the sequel, Magic Mike XXL, the British actor was not offered the opportunity to reprise his role as "The Kid."

Usually, actors are professional enough to get through a production. But that doesn’t mean that there are not actors who filmed scenes separately. This may be tough to stomach for die-hard The Good Wife fans, but it just looked like Julianna Margulies and Archie Panjabi shot that long-awaited series finale reunion scene in the same location. In fact, it was Hollywood smoke and mirrors that created the illusion that the two actresses were in the same location. Sometimes, ignorance really is bliss, especially when it comes to beloved actor pairings.

The feud between Bill Murray and Lucy Liu on the set of the original Charlie's Angels film is a well-told Internet tale. The story goes that Murray said something pretty darn mean to Liu while filming one of the scenes in the movie. He allegedly stopped the scene and pointed to Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz, and Lucy Liu, saying in order, “I get why you’re here, and you’ve got talent... but what in the hell are you doing here. You can’t act!”

At that point, Liu allegedly got extremely upset and started throwing punches to the point where the two had to be separated. Despite that wide spread rumor, Murray has a completely different take on the story, stating that he and Liu simply had a 20-minute blowup, and their argument was blown out of proportion.

He explained: "We began rehearsing this scene and I said, 'Lucy, how can you want to say these lines? These are so crazy.'" He continues "She got furious with me because she thought it was a personal assault, but the reality is she hated these lines as much as I did. But for 15 or 20 minutes there, we went to our separate corners and threw hand-grenades and sky rockets at each other."

Murray insists that there is no bad blood between the fiery actors. But, if that's the case, then why was Murray replaced with Bernie Mac for the film's sequel? According to the Groundhog Day star, he decided not to re-sign because of a different member of the cast, not Liu, was going to be in the sequel. "That same person was going to be involved in the second one, so I wasn't going to show up again."

It was the mid-1990s, and both Julia Roberts and Nick Nolte were at the height of their Hollywood fame. The duo joined forces in the forgettable romantic comedy I Love Trouble in 1994. However, Roberts and Nolte reportedly hated each other so much that they had to film their scenes separately and then use stand-ins in order to try and create on-screen chemistry.

Roberts told The New York Times that her co-star could be "charming and nice, [but] he's also completely disgusting." Nolte, not one to let bygones be bygones, retorted, "It's not nice to call someone 'disgusting.' But she's not a nice person. Everyone knows that."

15 years, several lead roles, and one Academy Award later, Roberts still hadn't forgotten about the bad experience of working with Nolte. In 2009, she went on the Late Show With David Letterman and told a story about an actor she worked with that was not very nice. She then did her best profanity-laced Nick Nolte imitation for Dave. "What the f*** is that? Did you not f***ing hear me? You don’t know what you’re talking about!"

Terrence Howard played Lt. Colonel James Rhodes in the first Iron Man film. However, the Hustle & Flow actor said during a 2013 interview that Robert Downey Jr. "pushed him out" and "took his money," which prevented him from scoring a big payday for the second installment of the franchise. His part was recast with actor Don Cheadle, who also appeared in Iron Man 3.

Howard singled out Downey exclusively (not Marvel or other producers) for sabotaging his chance to return as Rhodey. "It turns out that the person that I helped become Iron Man, when it was time to […] re-up for the second one took the money that was supposed to go to me and pushed me out."

The Empire star also claimed that he originally signed a three-picture deal but his pay was drastically cut when negotiating for the franchise's sequel. "They came to me [for] the second and said, 'We will pay you one-eighth of what we contractually had for you, because we think the second one will be successful with or without you.'"

As far as an actual onset feud is concerned, there is no concrete evidence that one occurred between Howard and Downey. However, there have been claims that Howard exhibited "difficult behavior" during production. Howard has asserted that he will not work with Downey again in the future.

Magic Mike was a surprise box office smash. After the sexy film wrapped, Alex Pettyfer, who played "The Kid," went on author Bret Easton Ellis's podcast and admitted that Tatum did not like him. Pettyfer took responsibility for the feud. The British actor explained that he had a previous bad reputation for being difficult to work with, and Tatum did not want to hire him for the lead role. He was talked into it by the film's director Steven Soderbergh. Pettyfer went on to explain that his team told him to be on his best behavior, so he stayed quiet onset in fear of causing any tension.

"I actually did my work and I sat in the corner and listened to music because I had been told anything I did was wrong by my reps. I was very insecure as a human being. That also gave me a bad rep because everyone was like, "Alex doesn't speak because he thinks he's better than everyone else."

Tatum felt the the In Time actor's behavior made him look like a "jerk for no reason" and a "diva." Tatum and Pettyfer were able to finish filming Magic Mike without complication. However, Pettyfer was not asked to be in the film's sequel Magic Mike XXL.

Both Margulies and Panjabi deny that there was ever a feud between the actresses. They were both asked several times about it, and they both denied any bad blood. But, if we look at the facts, it appears that there must have been something going on.

For several seasons, The Good Wife characters were close friends (although there was tension between Alicia and Kalinda after the former found out that the latter slept with her husband, Peter) and worked together in the same law firm. However starting in Season 4, the actresses did not appear together in a scene for the remainder of the series, which ran for seven seasons. When the characters needed to talk about business, they would call each other or go through a third party.

If that's not enough evidence of a real feud, Panjabi, who won an Emmy for her The Good Wife performance in 2010, was an extremely well-liked and integral character on the legal drama. However, she did not come back for the series final season. Additionally, it was discovered – to the extreme disappointment of The Good Wife fans – that the long-anticipated reunion between Alicia and Kalinda during the show's series finale was nothing than smoke and mirrors. The actresses filmed the scene in different locations on a green screen, and it was then edited together to make it look like they were in the same location. 

The rumor is that it was Margulies, the titular "good wife" and one of the show's producers, who requested that the pair not shoot a scene together. However, even after the series ended, Margulies still vehemently denied the feud rumors:

"Right, I've heard about [the feud]. Who says that? It's totally gossip... I heard that question had been asked to Robert King. There's no story there, sorry … I actually had heard [that rumor] and I feel that it has been talked about and answered. I feel people just like to have gossip or make something into something that isn't there."

Here's the thing about rumors: they have to start somewhere. One of the most mythic, long-standing Hollywood urban legends is the one that claims Richard Gere had to go to the hospital and have emergency surgery because of complications due to stuffing a gerbil up his behind. It's a tall tale that has lasted for decades and still has legs even today. But where did it originate?

Another rumor to the rumor is that Sylvester Stallone hated Richard Gere so much while the pair were filming the 1974 movie Lords of Flatbush that he was the one who started the scandal (Gere was ultimately fired from the production at the behest of Stallone and replaced by Perry King.) Sly denies igniting the hoax and in 2006 discussed his falling out with Gere during an interview with Ain't It Cool News:

"Yeah, the original part of Chico, which was played by Perry King, was originally supposed to be played by Richard Gere, but we never hit it off. He would strut around in his oversized motorcycle jacket like he was the baddest knight at the round table. One day, during an improv, he grabbed me (we were simulating a fight scene) and got a little carried away. I told him in a gentle fashion to lighten up, but he was completely in character and impossible to deal with. Then we were rehearsing at Coney Island and it was lunchtime, so we decided to take a break, and the only place that was warm was in the backseat of a Toyota. I was eating a hotdog and he climbs in with a half a chicken covered in mustard with grease nearly dripping out of the aluminum wrapper. I said, 'That thing is going to drip all over the place.' He said, 'Don’t worry about it.' I said, 'If it gets on my pants you’re gonna know about it.' He proceeds to bite into the chicken and a small, greasy river of mustard lands on my thigh. I elbowed him in the side of the head and basically pushed him out of the car. The director had to make a choice: one of us had to go, one of us had to stay. Richard was given his walking papers and to this day seriously dislikes me. He even thinks I’m the individual responsible for the gerbil rumor. Not true… but that’s the rumor."

This is a case of art imitating life. It's no secret that, just like their characters Dominic Toretto and Luke Hobbs, Vin Diesel and Dwayne Johnson do not like each other in real life. Their hatred of one another is so strong that the macho men refused to appear together in the same scene during the franchise's 2017 installment, The Fate of the Furious.

Their feud makes for clumsy storytelling; instead of actually seeing Hobbs and Toretto battle onscreen, we have to hear about it. It's a big deal when Dom betrays his Furious family, and it's unfortunate the spectator doesn't see the friends turned onscreen enemies duke it out. Even during action scenes in the film, the actors do not share a single shot together. 

The bad blood between the A-listers was made public last year when Johnson took to his Instagram account to berate a "candy ass" co-star, whom he didn't name but was later revealed by TMZ to be Diesel, for his "bad attitude and habitual lateness." Additionally, it appears that Johnson was not happy with some of the decisions that Diesel made as a producer of the film.

After Selma Blair's sudden departure from the FX sitcom Anger Management, the rumor was that Charlie Sheen fired his onscreen love interest via text message in which he called the actress the dreaded c-word. It was reported that the co-stars had an onset feud because Blair questioned Sheen's work ethic.

However, the actor with tiger blood told Jay Leno a different story on The Tonight Show. Sheen said:

"One of our primary characters, Selma Blair, who played Kate, was written out because [the show] was not about our relationship, and the problem was too many people were still excited about the Two and a Half Men character and thought the Anger Management character was a little dull."

Blair responded to getting fired by threatening a lawsuit. The actress believed that she was canned from the show because she criticized Sheen for being a slacker. Sheen then reportedly got upset and had her fired. Sheen's claim that the show was planning to write the actress's character off, according to TMZ, may actually be true. However, that plan was going to take place over eight episodes but was sped up after Sheen heard Blair bashing him.

Alec Baldwin penned a telling first-person article in New York Magazine in 2014. One of the items that he discussed was his feud with former Broadway co-star Shia LaBeouf. In the article, Baldwin made it clear that he was heavily involved with the canning of the Transformers star from the revival production of Lyle Kessler's play Orphans.

Baldwin wrote that LaBeouf appeared "scattered" when he showed up for rehearsal, adding, "LaBeouf seems to carry with him, to put it mildly, a jailhouse mentality wherever he goes.” Baldwin went on to write that the actor did have all of his lines memorized for rehearsal but was frustrated while waiting for his co-stars to catch up with him. According to Baldwin, LaBeouf attacked him in front of the rest of the cast and allegedly said, "If you don’t say your lines. I’m just going to keep saying my lines.”

Baldwin wrote that he requested a rehearsal break and informed the show's director Dan Sullivan that one of them had to leave the show, Baldwin offered to quit but instead the production chose to fire LaBeouf. “He was shocked,” says Baldwin. “He had that card, that card you get when you make films that make a lot of money that gives you a certain kind of entitlement. I think he was surprised that it didn’t work in the theater.” LaBeouf's character Treat was replaced by actor Ben Foster.

Who can resist the mystery and allure of a message in a bottle? For centuries, people have written notes and letters, placed them in glass bottles, and tossed them into the sea with the hope that someone, someday, would find the bottle and read their message.

The lucky people who have discovered a message in a bottle often find their lives are changed forever.  Most of the floating missives are real messages in bottles, though they are sometimes sent as a joke. Messages found in bottles might offer good news or bad, express a longing for love or friendship, or contain words of hope or regret - but all of them offer a sense of wonder and wishfulness.

Many people have undoubtedly wondered over the years if any of the Titanic passengers had the time and presence of mind to write a note, find a bottle, and toss it into the Atlantic as the great ship was sinking. Well, it turns out someone did.

A young Irishman named Jeremiah Burke was traveling with a cousin to join their family in Boston. He was off to start a new life and was excited about the possibilities. So, when the Titanic began to sink and Burke realized he would perish, he managed to write out a note. Before his departure from Ireland, his mother had given him a small bottle of holy water. In his last moments, Burke put his note into the bottle and cast it into the sea. His note read:

"From Titanic, goodbye all, Burke of Glanmire, Cork."

Sadly, both Burke and his cousin perished in the sinking and his poignant message washed ashore in the bottle a year later, just a few miles from his home.

On a lonely Christmas Day in 1945, a 21-year-old soldier named Frank Hayostek was returning from WWII to start a new life back home. While leaving on a transport ship, he tossed a letter in a bottle overboard, hoping that maybe his message would be discovered and he'd make a new friend.

The bottle floated around the sea for eight months, finally washing ashore in Ireland where a 19-year-old milkmaid named Breda O'Sullivan found it, read the note, and decided to write to the young veteran, marking the beginning of their seven-year correspondence. Eventually, Hayostek's interest was piqued enough to plan a trip to Ireland and meet O'Sullivan, who was also keen to meet Hayostek. He didn't make much money, but was able to set aside thirty dollars per month, and after six years he at long last flew to Ireland. Somehow, the international press heard of the long-distance romance, and pursued the couple as Hayostek arrived at Shannon Airport. Apparently he stayed in Ireland for two weeks, but nothing is known of what happened during that time, except that the romance fizzled out.

Sometimes, due to death or distance, a person is unable to send a message to a loved one in the conventional ways. Such was the case for a French mother crossing the English Channel on a ferry back in 2002. She had lost her son, Maurice, when he was only thirteen years old. In her grief, she sent a teardrop shaped bottle, some items of children's clothing, and lilies into the sea. The bottle contained the following heartbreaking message:  

"Forgive me for being so angry at your disappearance. I still think there's been some mistake, and I keep waiting for God to fix it… Forgive me for not having known how to protect you from death. Forgive me for not having been able to find the words at that terrible moment when you slipped through my fingers."

The bottle and other items drifted away from the ferryboat and out of sight. However, the bottle was retrieved only a few weeks later when two individuals named Sioux Peto and Karen Liebreich found it on a beach in Kent, England. Captivated, the two women had the letter translated and searched for the letter's author for several years, resulting in the publication of Liebreich's book, The Letter In The Bottle, detailing the discovery and search. A few years later, the mother - who remains unnamed - contacted Liebreich and the two women finally met in France.

Not everyone who feels the need to cast a message off into the universe in a bottle has a body of water available to them. There are some bottles with messages found not only on seashores, but on land. Such was the case in a hauntingly sad story from Auschwitz, the infamous Nazi concentration camp. This bottle, which was discovered in 2009 by construction workers near the camp, held a message dated September 9, 1944. On that day long ago, a desperate camp inmate recorded the names, camp assigned numbers, and hometowns of seven male Auschwitz prisoners.

Queen Elizabeth I ruled England during the mid- to late-16th century. Her long reign was considered a Golden Age, but it was also known as an age of danger, intrigue, and piracy. Indeed, Queen Elizabeth I encouraged piracy - then politely known as "privateering" - and even affectionately referred to her favorite pirates as "Sea Dogs." It was not uncommon for pirates and other nefarious types to attempt to transmit messages via a floating bottle. The Queen considered such messages so important that she created the office of the royal “Uncorker of Ocean Bottles.” The holder of this position was the only person authorized to open discovered floating bottles, and anyone else caught attempting to uncork an "ocean bottle" would be arrested and charged with a capital crime.

More than 100 years ago, navigators and nautical chart makers used "float bottles" to learn more about the currents and tides in different bodies of water. In 1914, the Glasgow School of Navigation in Scotland cast more than 1,889 bottles into the sea. Each of the bottles contained a printed card with instructions describing how to report the bottle back to the navigation school.

Fast forward to 2011 when a Scottish fisherman finally found one of the bottles while pulling in his fishing nets. To date, it is the oldest message in a bottle found in the modern era, and is recorded in the Guinness Book of World Records. Over the years, more than 300 of the project's nearly 2,000 bottles have washed ashore.

Another poignant World War I story involving a message in a bottle concerns a young British soldier named Pvt. Thomas Hughes. It was 1914, the first year in the war, and Hughes was lonely aboard a transport ship. He wrote a letter to his wife, but with no way to mail it to her, he decided to take a chance and stuff the letter into a ginger ale bottle, seal it, and cast it into the English Channel. Poor Pvt. Hughes died only two days later on a French battlefield. His wife never received his letter.

But that was not the end of the story. Decades later, in 1999, the bottle was found bobbing around in the Thames by a local fisherman. He and others tried to find Hughes' wife, but it turned out she had passed away in 1979. However, a little more digging produced some good news - it was discovered that Hughes had a daughter, who was then an elderly 86-year-old living in New Zealand. She was only one year old when she lost her father, but she lived to receive the letter he wrote to her mother all those years ago. His message read:

"Dear Wife, I am writing this note on this boat and dropping it into the sea just to see if it will reach you. If it does, sign this envelope on the right hand bottom corner where it says receipt. Put the date and hour of receipt and your name where it says signature and look after it well. Ta ta sweet, for the present. Your Hubby."

The Lusitania was once a luxury ocean liner and sister ship to the Titanic. While the latter was already on the ocean floor by 1915, the Lusitania continued to sail despite the dangers brought on by World War I. That is until the great ship was tragically hit by a German torpedo in May 1915 while on its way from New York to Liverpool. The damage was so severe that the Lusitania sank in only eighteen minutes. More than 1,000 people lost their lives and only around 700 were rescued.

Somehow, there was one passenger aboard who had the presence of mind and the time to dash off a quick note, put it in a bottle, and set it adrift before the end came. The unknown author chillingly wrote: 

"Still on deck with a few people. The last boats have left. We are sinking fast. Some men near me are praying with a priest. The end is near. Maybe this note will…"  

The writer of the message must have realized the he only had a few moments left to roll up the note and secure it in a bottle, tossing it into the sea just in time.

In 1956, a young Swedish man named Ake Viking was out at sea and lonely for love. One evening, he decided to send his quest for love out into the ocean via a message in a bottle.  After all, back then there were no Internet dating sites. The note included his contact information and a message that read, "To Someone Beautiful and Far Away."  

He did not seriously think anything would come of it, but two years later he received a response from an Italian woman named Paolina. When she wrote back to him, she explained: "[it's] so miraculous that [the bottle] should have traveled so far and long to reach me that I must send you an answer." The two began to write letters back and forth, and fell in love over the course of their correspondence. Eventually, the couple met and Viking left his life at sea to marry Paolina and move to Sicily.

A couple vacationing in Hawaii in 1979 decided to have a bit of fun by placing notes - and cash - inside empty champagne bottles and tossing them into the Pacific from their cruise ship. The couple, Dorothy and John Peckham, added one dollar to each bottle as a way to provide postage to anyone who should find the bottles and wish to write back to them.

Dorothy and John waited four years before they received a response. Then, in 1983, they received a letter from a former Vietnamese soldier named Hoa Van Nguyen, who had found one of the champagne bottles with his brother under rather difficult circumstances.

At the time the brothers discovered the bottle, they were floating helplessly off the coast of Thailand in an attempt to escape their miserable lives under the Vietnamese government. When they reached shore, they used the dollar to purchase postage and mailed a letter to the Peckhams. They wrote asking if the couple would be able to assist the Nguyen family relocate to the United States. The Peckhams were thrilled to receive the letter and determined to make the Vietnamese family's immigration happen. Two years later, in 1985, the Peckhams met Nguyen and were able to help him and his family move to the United States to begin a new, happier life.

Being a great athlete is a dream shared by millions, including almost all of the people who committed the biggest hoaxes in the history of sports. If you can’t make it on your own, an athletic hoax might be able to get you closer to your goal than you ever thought possible. From fakes in pro sports to college sports hoaxes, all of these stunts are motivated by one thing: a dream left unfulfilled.

Making it into college athletics, let alone into the pros, is unimaginably difficult. All of these sports conspiracies are from someone who just wanted to experience what that fame and fortune must be like. These aren’t all NFL hoaxes or cheaters (although, a great many of them are) - they’re mostly people who made bad decisions, got in over their heads, and then continued to make bad decisions. College sports athletes who cheat are possibly throwing away a great future, while many of these frauds didn’t exactly have a bright future awaiting them.

So, what happens to the dreamer whose dreams don’t come true? If you’re in on any of these huge sports hoaxes, you fake it 'til you make it… or you don’t, are found out, and then end up on this list.

Destined to be a professional football player, USC cornerback Josh Shaw put everything on the line to jump from a second-story balcony to save his nephew. The child was drowning in a pool, and Josh did what he had to do. Miraculously, he only sprained his ankles during his heroic act. However, a police report later came out saying that Shaw had been in an a different incident at the same time the nephew had been saved. Shaw later admitted he'd made the whole thing up, but never did say what happened at the apartment. He was suspended from the team. 

What would you say if your baseball team found an incredible prospect who could throw a fastball at 168 miles per hour? This was the story George Plimpton wrote in Sports Illustrated on April 1st, 1985, about Sidd Finch, a Mets prospect that learned yoga in Tibet and was raised in a British orphanage only to become the greatest pitching prospect ever. Despite the date of April 1st and the sheer goofiness of the story, so many people believed it that opposing general managers started complaining to the Mets about how their players would be unsafe to face such a hard-throwing pitcher. Reporters were sent to find him and people called into local radio shows to say they'd seen him pitch. Of course, all of this was made up, as Sports Illustrated later revealed. 

In the 1968 Golden Globe round-the-world yacht race, 36-year-old Donald Crowhurst had a plan: he'd sail a small, plywood trimaran. He had no experience, and his boat was frighteningly flimsy, but he convinced all who listened that he was deadly serious. 

Shortly into the race, though, he realized his predicament and determined that his only options were to quit the race or probably die sailing. So, he decided to keep his boat in the South Atlantic Ocean while the other boats raced around the world, and then he'd catch up at the end. He fabricated his reports and his logbooks so it looked like he was winning the race. Eventually, the pressure got to him, as he constructed fake log entries that were "often more difficult to complete than real entries due to the celestial navigation research required." His ship was later found abandoned - it's believed he jumped out and drowned. 

Before television, a lot of sports reporting came from "a guy on a phone told me something." In 1941, Morris Newburger, a partner at a Wall Street brokerage firm who loved sports and pranks, called The New York Times to report that the Plainfield Teachers had beaten Winona, 27 to 3 - and The New York Times printed it. After that, it took off. He and his friends called up publications and gave other scores describing huge victories the Plainfield Teachers had made against other completely non-existent schools. Sometimes, the newspapers asked for rosters, and Morris just gave the names of himself and other Wall Street brokers. Interest in the team became so great that Newburger installed a new phone line at his job to answer as "Jerry Croyden," the sports information director for Plainfield Teachers College. He even created a star player: "Johnny Chung the Celestial Comet." Time Magazine eventually broke the story that the school did not exist. 

Fog obscures: Sylvester Carmouche was a jockey on a horse at the Delta Downs in 1989 when the fog started rolling in. He won the race handily, but was later accused of hiding on his horse in the fog and coming out of it during the final turn. Perhaps they caught on to him when he won the race by 24 lengths. This wasn't just cheating in a race, either - it was considered felony theft by fraud. Perhaps that's ironic, as his horse's name was "Landing Officer."

Sports can be cruel, and you only have a brief period of time to be a great success. At 36, Rich Pohle was cut by the Kansas City Athletics and couldn't get back into baseball; so, he made himself "Rocky Perone," a 21-year-old Australian who came to America for the love of the game. He put as much work into his appearance as he did his game: he shaved three times a day, got facials, a wig, and mudpacks, and was careful about how he drank and ate. Amazingly, the San Diego Padres signed him, and he played one game for their Walla Walla affiliate before the other team's manager recognized him - he was cut the next day. In the game, though, he went one for two with a walk and he stole a base. 

The video above shows Manchester United taking a team photo before their UEFA Champions League game against Bayern Munich. You'll notice the guy who wanders in from the left and does not look like the slightest bit like a professional soccer player. His name is (actually) Karl Power and he does this a lot. In 2001, he walked out to bat with the England cricket team, but was recognized when he took off his helmet. Michael Schumacher beat all other drivers at the 2002 British Grand Prix, but Power beat Schumacher to the winners' podium. Power even played a short game after sneaking onto Centre Court at Wimbledon. Thankfully, Manchester United banned him for life after a stunt in 2003 when he and some friends "invaded the pitch" and re-enacted another goal. You'd think he'd be content just being named "Karl Power." 

Even in 1963, Final Four tickets were expensive. The NCAA is known to give Final Four tickets to universities, so Len Tyrrell - coach at Fenwick High School in Forest Park, Ill. - came up with the (somewhat) brilliant plan to invent a college, which he named after his favorite pub, "Maguire's." The NCAA believed Tyrrell and gave a two year allotment of Final Four tickets to the "Maguire Jollymen." When the NCAA found out, they were upset, but no one went to jail or anything. Parties are still held to commemorate the time when some guys didn't have to pay to go to a game. 

Possibly too famous a hoax for this list, Rosie Ruiz won the female category of the 1980 Boston Marathon - and eight days later, she was stripped of her title. Not only did she fail to run the entire course, she came into the race a half mile before it ended. This was not a brilliantly thought out plan as no spotters, other runners, or cameras remembered seeing her on the course. Thankfully, the correct winner, Jacqueline Gareau, was later awarded the medal. Then, two years later, Ruiz embezzled $60 grand from a real estate company she worked for, and then in 1983 she was arrested for being involved in a cocaine deal. 

One of the most chaotic plays in baseball is when the catcher accidentally throws the ball into the outfield. On August 31st, 1987, such a play became even more chaotic at a game between the Williamsport Bills and the Reading Phillies in Double-A ball. Bills Catcher Dave Bresnahan took a low pitch and then threw to third to pick off runner Rick Lundblade. Dave's throw sailed into the outfield and Rick broke for home... only to find that Dave somehow still had the ball and tagged him out. In the ensuing confusion, the truth came out: Dave had thrown a peeled potato into the outfield. Dave was later fired from the Bills for this, and still no one is sure how exactly he managed to hide a large peeled potato during the game. One wonders what might've happened had he, you know, just thrown to 3rd.

Rudy has enjoyed a perennial seat in the upper echelons of the most inspirational sports movies. The 1993 classic was at the forefront of a wave of sports films based on true stories. Classics like Mystery, Alaska, Remember the Titans, Glory Road, and Friday Night Lights all continued to blaze the trail of a genre Rudy reinvigorated.

However, there are times when Hollywood bends the very meaning of the phrase, "based on a true story," by sanitizing movies. For instance, there are lots of historical facts that movies got wrong.  There is certainly a healthy share of Rudy Ruettiger facts in the film, but it is also guilty of ignoring facts and flat-out rewriting history. This list compares some of the real Rudy Ruettiger stories to how they were depicted in the timeless inspirational movie.

Perhaps the reason the filmmakers left Rudy’s time in the Navy out of the film is because it would have eradicated an ongoing struggle he faced while attending college. The scheduling demands of student-athletes are plentiful, and even more so for one like Rudy who had to balance school, football, and work. He continually grapples with the ability to make tuition payments to Holy Cross College, even with his job as a groundskeeper under Fortune.

In the real world, Ruettiger’s tuition was covered at both Holy Cross and Notre Dame under the GI Bill since he served in the military. The lack of making tuition payments would have freed up much of Rudy’s time as a student-athlete, and the ongoing drama of his inability to maintain balance would have all but evaporated. By omitting Rudy’s Navy career from the movie, there is no GI Bill, and with no GI Bill, his workload increases tenfold while in school. 

Every movie needs a bad guy who's hell-bent on keeping the protagonist from achieving glory, and Rudy is no exception. There are plenty of naysayers throughout the film, but Rudy continually circumnavigates their negativity with persistence. Enter Chelcie Ross’ portrayal of Coach Dan Devine, a seemingly immovable object in the path of Rudy’s unstoppable force. Devine means business and his coaching style doesn’t welcome input from any outsiders.

By Devine's calculation in the movie, Rudy is far from the best player on the roster, so he’s got a snowball’s chance in hell to play in any game. Devine only relents to let Rudy suit up after the team's incredible gesture of humanity - one of the emotional climaxes of the entire film. However, in reality, Coach Devine was just as supportive of Rudy as anyone on the team. During the actual Georgia Tech game, Devine was adamant that everyone got to play.

The speech was so nice that they did it twice. Notre Dame juggernaut coach, Knute Rockne, led the Fighting Irish to win five National Championships between 1918 to 1930. He’s also responsible for authoring the famous halftime speech that Rudy Ruettiger recites twice in the movie. The second occurrence is the one most are familiar with, when Rudy enters the Fighting Irish locker room for the first time.

But according to the university’s own archives, Rockne “performed a pep talk for the newsreels,” and it “was not for any particular game of situation.” Nevertheless, in the film Rudy performs Rockne’s showy speech verbatim to an empty locker room, save for the made-up character Fortune. 

There's a winter game in the film that takes place during the 1974 season, with Rudy supporting the Fighting Irish as a civilian from the stands. However, the Notre Dame and Penn State football teams did not play each other in the 1974 or 1975 seasons. Another dead giveaway is the zero minutes of screen time the Penn State team has in the movie. So why do they match up in the movie?

All the game scenes in the movie were filmed throughout the 1992 football season, including the game against Penn State on November 14, 1992. It's reasonable to surmise the production didn't have a line item in the budget to costume all the fans in the stands, which led to the decision to pretend Penn State was on the 1974 schedule.

A lot of effort is put into communicating that the climactic Georgia Tech game at the end of the film was the last game of Rudy’s senior season, but this was not the case in real life. It was the last home game for Notre Dame in 1975, but the team played two away games in the two consecutive weeks after beating Georgia Tech.

The case can be made that it was definitely Rudy’s last game since he never traveled with the team, but the filmmakers painted themselves into a corner by having Coach Devine remind the seniors right before the game, “it’s your last one, so make it count.” Apparently, seniority and experience do not translate to a spot on the travel roster. 

In real life, Rudy was a very active member of Notre Dame’s Bengal Bouts Boxing Club, and his involvement in the club helped bolster his popularity and reputation on campus as the guy who never gives up. If the Bengal Bouts don’t ring a bell, it’s because that entire aspect of Rudy’s life was left out of the film. Maybe it was left out due to time constraints or lack of financial resources. 

This misrepresentation may not be as egregious as some of the other filmmakers' missteps, but for anyone who had a hardliner as a father, it might stand out. In the scenes depicting Rudy’s early years, the audience first learn of his ambition to play football at Notre Dame as the family gathers around the television for dinner.

Rudy declares, “After high school I’m gonna play football at Notre Dame,” and his father impulsively laughs out loud. Rudy is visibly crushed, and although Daniel quickly recovers, his instinctive disbelief sets the tone for the adversity yet to come. The real Daniel Ruettiger was always encouraging and supportive of his children’s dreams. Inventing a jerk of an older brother that eventually arcs is one thing, but painting a supportive father into another emotional obstacle is inexcusable.

Fortune's timing in the film aligns almost perfectly with Rudy's need of an unassuming mentor. He needed a mentor with experience who knew how to tap into Rudy's ambition and understood his burning determination to achieve his goal. If Fortune sounds too good to be true, it's because he isn't real. 

Fortune's purpose in the film was almost the exact opposite of Frank's, but the reasoning behind their fabrications was identical. Fortune's character, played by Charles S. Dutton, was a composite of everyone Rudy encountered along the way who was encouraging, even if the encouragement came in the form of tough love. 

Rudy’s older brother, Frank, was a pseudo-antagonist throughout the film. He mocked Rudy’s dreams of playing football for Notre Dame for their entire upbringing. Frank’s negative presence is eventually replaced by other menacing characters, like Vince Vaughn’s Jamie O’Hara.

Thankfully, Frank embraces maturity by the end of the movie and is supportive as an older brother. There’s one small problem with the accuracy behind Frank’s portrayal – he didn’t exist. Of the fourteen Ruettiger children, Rudy was the oldest boy. The invented older brother, Frank, was intended to act as an amalgamation of all the discouraging voices Rudy dealt with on the way to securing his place in Notre Dame’s legacy. 

Arguably one of the most inspiring moments of the film is when the entire team rallies together and threatens to quit the team right before the last game of the season. It's Rudy’s final chance to play in a real game, but he isn’t listed on the active roster. The number of players allowed on the sidelines is just too small, so when Rudy learns he isn’t listed, he finally quits.

Little did he know that one after the other, his teammates march into Devine’s office and offer to let Rudy play in their stead. Only that did not happen in real life. Devine did not forbid or prohibit Rudy from suiting up for the Georgia Tech game in 1975. That said, it does make for one damn, fine moment in the coffers of sports movies. 

The many fascinating species of wild animals are what makes nature so awesome - until they go crazy and attack. And while these often ferocious beasts pose a threat to humans, some people seem to rise above and go toe-to-toe with these wild creatures. What's even crazier are stories of people who fought against wild animals and won. 

When faced with claws, teeth, or the possibility of being trampled, these people got away from wild animals and escaped death. 

Lions, tigers, and bears: cute when they are just stuffed toys, terrifying when they chase you on your way to work. 

In August 2016, South African Sam Songwami had just left his house in the early morning on his bicycle. As he cycled to work, Sam soon noticed a tiger sitting in the shade of a tree. Once the tiger spotted Sam, it leapt up and charged at him. Sam grabbed some rocks and began hurling them back at the tiger. 

When that didn’t work, Sam beat the tiger with his bike for a staggering 30 minutes. A woman driving by happened to witness the attack, and called a local wildlife sanctuary for help.

Responders from the sanctuary, called The Farm Inn arrived and shot the tiger with a tranquilizer dart. Once it was down and sedated, the tiger was taken back to the Farm Inn. It was later discovered the tiger had actually escaped from the wildlife sanctuary. 

Thankfully Sam wasn't harmed. Sam’s bike, however, was ruined. The Farm Inn was kind enough to replace it with a new one. 

In what feels like a movie plot come to life,  one man survived being killed by a giant python by biting it on the tail. 

In April 2009, Ben Nyaumbe, a manager of a farm in Kenya, was at work one day when he accidentally stepped on a 13-foot python that proceeded to wrap around him and drag him up a tree. Large snakes are known to slowly suffocate their prey to ready it for digestion. 

Unable to free himself, and not wanting to be crushed to death by the powerful snake, Nyuambe calmly waited nearly three hours until the snake’s tail was close enough to his face and bit down. 

The snake loosened its grip, which was all Nyuambe needed to reach into his pocket for his cell phone. He called for help and the police arrived shortly afterwards.

After Nyuambe was freed the python was put into a bag, though it later escaped. It wasn’t seen again. 

Komodo dragons are one of the scariest animals in the world, and their aggressive antics toward humans prove it. 

In 2008, a group of divers were forced ashore Rinca Island by strong currents. Among the group stranded on the remote island was a 38-year-old Swedish woman named Helena Nevalainen.

After swimming in rough water and evading sharks, the group had to then contend with deadly komodo dragons, a species of giant lizard with nasty bites that cause serious bacterial infections. 

As the reptiles closed in, Nevalainen and her diving companions resorted to using their lead-weighted diving belts to beat them and fend off their advances. For more than 10 hours, the group had to stay awake on a sandy beach, keeping constant lookout for more komodo dragons. 

Finally a rescue boat, part of a larger search and rescue effort, spotted the group and picked them up. The entire group was hospitalized and monitored. Miraculously, not one person was bitten by a komodo dragon.

Sometimes surviving an animal take just takes some quick thinking - and a pocket knife.

In August 2002, Canadian David Parker was walking on Victoria Island enjoying a nice evening walk.

Rain began to pour, and while running for cover Parker was attacked by a mountain lion. According to him, the animal first bit him on the head and then began to scratch his face. Keeping calm, Parker reached into his pocket, flipped open a knife, and slashed open the mountain lions throat, killing it fairly quickly. 

Parker, with his scalp shredded, slowly made his way to Jeune Landing, a nearby town. He was rushed to a hospital and spent nearly 10 hours in surgery. 

Proving that he’s tough as nails, Parker resumed his evening walks. 

Carl Akeley, a taxidermist from New York, was traveling through Ethiopia in 1896 searching for animals to study for the Museum of Milwaukee. 

One evening on his way home to base camp he was chased by a leopard. He tried to shoot it, but had run out of rifle rounds. As he went to reload, the leopard pounced. She tried to go for Akeley’s throat, but he managed to get a hand free and he forced it in the leopard’s mouth. 

Akeley and the leopard rolled over and Akeley managed to pin the big cat to the ground with all his weight while continuing to force his arm down the animal’s throat. The leopard eventually stopped moving. When help finally came, Akeley borrowed a knife and stabbed the leopard to make sure it was dead. 

In 2007, off the coast of Cape Howe, Australia, Eric Nerhus was diving for abalone with his friends and son when a great white shark attacked and partially swallowed him head first.

Nerhus began stabbing the 10-foot shark in the eye with his abalone knife. With a few quick jabs straight to the eyeball, the shark let Nerhus go. He swam to the surface where his friends and son hauled him into a boat. 

Nerhus suffered serious bite marks, but was protected by his diver’s weight belt. The shark's bite managed to crush his face mask, break his nose and left deep cuts on both sides of his torso and left arm. Despite that, he has since made a full recovery. 

Hikers who frequent trails in California frequently see signs warning them of cougars, also known as mountain lions, in the area. 

Jim and Nell Hamm, both in their seventies, were enjoying their walk on a trail near Fortuna, CA in 2007 when Jim was suddenly attacked by a cougar. It lunged toward him, biting his head. 

While he struggled with the cougar, Nell found a large tree limb and began beating and jabbing the animal in the sides with it. When that did no good, she took out a ballpoint pen from her husband's pocket and stabbed the cougar right in the eye, breaking the pen off inside. 

Nell took one more shot with the tree limb, practically breaking it over the cougars head, causing the cougar to let go of Jim. As it backed away, Nell waved the limb around in the air while shouting and the cougar retreated into the woods. 

Jim and Nell were both rushed to a hospital in San Francisco where Jim was treated. Nell apparently walked away without a scratch. The two survived the ordeal and the cougar was later tracked down and shot. 

Most dramatic animal encounters take place in the wild. For Richard and Angela Moyer of Oliver Township, Pennsylvania, it happened inside their own house

In October 2011, the Moyer’s dog, Brindy, was let outside to pee. She was chased back into the house by a bear, who also walked inside. Richard, who was getting ready for work, was attacked by the bear in his living room. The yelling and growling woke up Richard’s wife, Angela, who began shouting at the bear to distract it from mauling Richard. The bear turned on her and bit her several times. Richard came to his wife’s aid and distracted the bear towards himself, once again. 

Suddenly, according to the Moyers, the bear just stopped attacking, left the house, and eventually took off into the woods. 

The police and paramedics were called to the scene. Both Richard and Angela suffered serious injuries, but spent less than a day in the hospital. In the end, the couple, Brindy, and their son - who slept through the entire event - were fine.

What should have been an relaxing afternoon gardening for one woman ended as a bloody fight against one of the world's fiercest predators. 

In August 2014, Kamla Devi was gardening outside her home located in the Uttarakhand region of India, when a leopard jumped out of some bushes and pounced on her.

Devi, however, was equipped with farming tools. With a sickle and a spade in hand, she let loose on the leopard by slashing it, bludgeoning it, and puncturing it with the tools for about a half hour. 

Though Devi herself was bloodied, she was able to walk a short distance until she was rushed to a hospital. 

She commented later: “I gathered my courage to fight back. I promised myself that this is not my last day here”

A man from Red Deer, Alberta, Canada saved his dog from a cougar outside a Tim Hortons coffee shop by punching it in the face. The man was stopped outside the restaurant to meet a friend for coffee when a cougar emerged from the woods and attacked his dog Sasha.  He went running, punched the large cat, and ran it off back into the woods.

While the dog sustained serious injuries, Sasha lived to tell the tale. 

"I was surprised to hear that the owner took the quick action and it's probably what saved the dog's life in this case," Sgt. Jack Poitras told the CBC. "I wouldn't recommend everybody wrassle with a cougar, but in this case it worked for the best." 

In theory, eating breakfast in bed sounds amazing, so long as you possess a sense of balance. But so many variables involved can turn your scrumptious morning into a series of breakfast in bed fails. The surefire ingredient to ensure a breakfast in bed gone wrong is having your children prepare you breakfast. While it sounds adorable to picture the kids up at dawn mixing waffle batter and brewing coffee, that scenario rarely works outside of a Disney show.

Much like children who tried to draw adults, kids who attempted to feed their parents relied on their own, immature view of the world to provide simple answers to complicated things. If children's statements to newspapers reveal anything, it's that kid logic operates in its own reality. Maple syrup and green peppers? To a child, it's not disgusting, it's DiGigiorno.  

Lisa, a woman probably still getting over her breakfast in bed nightmare, wrote to Sh*t My Kids Ruined to try and explain what happened when her kids attempted to make breakfast in bed: "The morning of a weekday my husband decided to let me sleep in. He usually wakes me up before he leaves for work. For some reason he felt the need to allow me to sleep and I obviously needed it. I didn't hear a thing going on in the kitchen and this is what I woke up to. 'Look mommy we made you breakfast!'  Oh Yummy I always loved Maple Syrup with green peppers. I am so surprised that I kept my cool. What a sticky, gooey mess."

In a reversal of the "my nutso kid made me eat something gross" trope, one Redditor told everyone about the horrible thing they made their parents choke down in bed: "I learned how to 'make' pancakes at a young age, around five I think. My mom claims I made her what were half-cooked pancakes at best, and would not stop staring at her until she had eaten at least half of the pancake. She still laughs about it to this day." Laughs, or cries?

What's happening here? Isn't this how Michelin restaurants arrange food? The banana and the Cheerios make sense, but the half-mauled creme-filled thing, the Pringles, and the bourbon biscuits are bold choices for breakfast. Twitter user Anna-Marie captured the breakfast in a quick pic, captioning it: "my six-year-old sister made my mum breakfast I'm crying I love her." That's just because she's not bringing you breakfast. 

Hot sauce is delicious, but it takes experience and a few test runs to determine what to use it on. That being said, children usually do things just because they see adults doing them, like shaving, making phone calls, and cooking food. So let this tale be a warning you watch your sriracha habits around your friend's four-year-old.

Because of their kids' undeveloped spice palate, parents like this Redditor end up with "six months of dry toast with Frank's dumped in between." Six months of dry toast with hot sauce. So many crumbs in your bed, so many destroyed taste buds. 

Twitter user esjayyel posted about her mother's day breakfast in bed and said, "Special Mother's Day breakfast - fish fingers on toast - yum!" Something about that seem insincere. But maybe they were really good fish sticks? Do they make gourmet, organic, free-range fish sticks? Probably, but those aren't the fish sticks that kids are cramming onto toast and shoving in your face. Sorry. 

When someone posted on Reddit asking about the grossest thing their kids had ever made them, one parent chimed in with a truly horrific breakfast in bed meal. They claimed their likely well-meaning child brought them "scrambled eggs with what had to be about half-a-crushed eggshell mixed in. I choked down two bites and just couldn't continue, so I concentrated on the burnt toast." You gotta get that protein somehow!

Even if you have no kids of your own, the moment this video starts every muscle in your body tenses up, especially considering carpets and wet things do not mix. It's as if when the father whispers, "Don't spill that," he subliminally wills his son carrying a bowl of fruit the size of his head to spill it all over the floor. While that's sad enough, the moment where they all get down to pick the fruit up off the carpet with their bare hands somehow feels even worse. Better luck next year. 

When UK comedian Joe Heenan's kids brought him breakfast in bed for Father's Day he found himself treated to a very out of the box morning meal. They made him toast with a plastic shark, some Legos, and a brew of presumably luke warm tea with a straw. Their mother They also got him a mug. What a nice bunch of kids. Also weird. 

People love toast. In fact, they love it so much that avocado toast is totally a thing the government even cares about now. But that's not what this mom got when her kid made her a simple breakfast in bed. In her opinion, there's nothing like "coffee and cold toast with huge chunks of unmelted butter and honey. But oh! It is so good."

And yet, it could definitely be much better.

Redditor ztaylor1279 posted on the r/Parenting forum about her four-year-old making her soup for breakfast while her husband watched, which makes the whole thing feel kind of cruel. She wrote: "My son surprised me with breakfast in bed this morning. His daddy supervised, but let the kiddo prepare the meal. It was soup, made with cold water, a whole carrot, a stick of celery, blueberries, and some tomato sauce. He was crazy excited ('Make sure you get sauce and blueberry, Mom'), so I braved a sip, and am still a bit haunted by the aftertaste."

Mick Jagger is one of the most recognizable frontmen rock and roll will ever see. In fact, one could argue Jagger is the quintessential lead singer. The famously pouting face of the Rolling Stones, Jagger's deeply textured voice and otherworldly stage presence have endured for over half a century, an astonishing feat in the annals of music history.

Though it's been an often triumphant run for Jagger and the Stones, it hasn't been without its bumps, and in some cases, almost unbelievable absurdity. Those crazy moments, however, are fitting for a rockstar of Jagger's caliber. They represent a relic of a much more chaotic, and often exciting, time in rock. 

While the casual observer would attribute most of the Stone's weird tour stunts to legendarily debauched guitarist Keith Richards, Jagger has been part of more than his fair share of insane exploits. Let's take a look at some of the craziest Mick Jagger stories.

In 1967, police descended on Keith Richards's home in West Sussex, England, uncovering small amounts of heroin, LSD, and marijuana. Richards had been hosting a small party at his new mansion, and Mick Jagger and a few other friends were in attendance as 18 police officers barged in for a rather paltry drug bust. Richards and Jagger were arrested, and though the amount of contraband was miniscule, the government seemed intent on making them do time. 

Jagger ended up only spending three nights in prison, and very little came of the case, though it was a media sensation. Interestingly, the tip-off to both the FBI and the MI5 came from Jagger's friend and drug dealer, David "The Acid King" Sniderman. It turned out, Sniderman was a Canadian actor whom the government agencies had hired to take down the group, which was seen as a threat to the establishment. 

Texas supermodel Jerry Hall spent 23 years in a relationship with Mick Jagger — a miraculously long time given his well-deserved reputation as a lothario. The two have four children together, and didn't split up until 1999, when it emerged Jagger had impregnated Luciana Gimenez, a Brazilian model. Though the couple had a pretty unfortunate ending, their relationship kicked off with a positive, healthy turn in Jagger's life.

In an effort to win the affections of Ms. Hall in 1977 – who at the time was engaged to fellow rockstar Bryan Ferry – Jagger quit heroin, cold turkey. After Jagger revealed to Hall he had been smoking the illicit drug, along with confessing that he (somehow) took LSD every day for an entire year, she was so disgusted she vowed to not speak to him until he was clean. Mick made good on her request, and the two remained together for over two decades. 

In the early '70s, Mick Jagger and David Bowie became infatuated with one another. Both brilliant musicians and showmen at the forefront of rockstar androgyny, they made for a uniquely cool pairing. Bowie's then-wife, Angie, was not too enthralled with their friendship, however, especially after she caught them in bed together. 

In her words, Angie Bowie returned to the couple's London home after a couple of days out of town, and a maid tipped her off that there was someone in her bed. When she went upstairs to investigate, she opened the door to find her husband in bed with Mick Jagger, both men lacking clothing. 

Jagger and Bowie would go on to have a close relationship that lasted years, making for one of the most underappreciated star couples of all time. 

Stargroves is a massive estate in Hampshire, England, built in the mid-1800s. Sitting on some 850 acres of land, the sprawling Victorian property was purchased by Mick Jagger in 1970, while he was tripping his face off on LSD. The story goes that Jagger was tripping while touring the property, and he suddenly climbed on top of a horse. Oh, and he had never been on a horse before.

The horse bucked and reared, but Jagger calmed it in his tranquil acid haze, and casually decided to buy the mansion. Stargroves would go on to be the recording site for the Rolling Stones seminal album, Exile On Main Street.

Kiss bassist Gene Simmons claims to slept with 4,897 women, which, while a creepily exact figure, might trump Mick Jagger. But not by much.

By his own admittance, the Rolling Stones' frontman has gone to bed with over 4,000 women, at least some of whom are also quite famous. There are those who actually believe that number to be a bit conservative, and it probably is, since he gave that estimate to then-girlfriend Carla Bruni in the early '90s. 

Former talk show host – now Fox News talking head – Geraldo Rivera seems like an unlikely candidate to party with the Stones, but it happened at some point in the summer of 1972. As the story goes, the now-conservative Rivera was hosting a party in his Manhattan apartment, and Mick Jagger, along with his friend dancer Rudolf Nureyev, were guests.

When Rivera went to the kitchen to make some drinks, Jagger and Nureyev snuck up and sandwiched him, with Jagger suggesting they were going to "break him in." Rivera managed to slither away, and has since made enough homophobic comments to suggest the incident made him spectacularly and hilariously uncomfortable.

In 1997, 23-year-old Angelina Jolie made an appearance in the Rolling Stones' video for their single, "Anybody Seen My Baby?" After shooting had wrapped, Mick Jagger became taken with Jolie, and reportedly asked her out for weeks before she finally relented. Jagger's infatuation with the young actress, however, proved short-lived.

According to Christopher Anderson's book Mick: The Wild Life and Mad Genius of Jagger, the legendary singer pulled a remarkably brazen maneuver (read: d*ck move) while on a date with Jolie, one that would doom the couple's romantic fate. While the two were out at a party, Jagger disappeared with actress Farrah Fawcett, apparently for a one night stand. He's certainly not a man known to pass on opportunities.  

Carla Bruni, wife of former French president Nicolas Sarkozy, had a prolonged dalliance with Mick Jagger in the early '90s. When the two met, he was still with Jerry Hall, and she was dating Eric Clapton, who reportedly begged Jagger to not go after her. Bruni, who was a model at the time, became rapt with Jagger, and the two carried on a lengthy affair. It continued even after she moved on to another relationship, one with Donald Trump, who later became the President of the United States.

Trump would later remark Bruni was "desperately stuck" on Jagger, and that her affections likely caused the two to split up. Whether or not Bruni and Jagger still speak is a mystery, but at some point in the mid-2000s, Nicolas Sarkozy turned down a Paris apartment for himself and his wife, allegedly over concerns about the next door neighbor: Mick Jagger.   

Mick Jagger, archetype of '60s counterculture and a man who once called himself an anarchist, is actually... a conservative? In 2015, the legendary hedonist admitted, "I am conservative with a small c. It is possible to be conservative in fiscal policy and tolerant on moral issues or questions of freedom of expression."

Jagger, who was knighted in 2002, also spent some time with conservative British PM Margaret Thatcher in the '80s, and was said to be impressed that she, "didn't change for anyone."

At 73-years-old, Mick Jagger still performs with the same gusto he had in his 20s, and it's due in part to an insane workout regimen (and, presumably, the blackest magic available). The singer covers an estimated 12 miles on stage during a concert, and in order to keep up his stamina for those demanding gigs, he trains six days a week. Through a routine of kickboxing, swimming, cycling, and running eight miles a day, the septuagenarian still boasts a 28-inch waist. 

Jagger also relies on ballet, yoga, and pilates to keep in shape — a far cry from the drugs and debauchery of the '70s.  

In a surprise to likely no one, stories from people who work at Renaissance Faires sound just as harrowing as the prospect of medieval survival itself. It takes a certain kind of eclectic to work a Renaissance Faire, the kind of confident, yet mysterious individual who catches a bus in homemade chain-mail without any sign of shame. Of course, when combined with a whole lot of weaponry, deep-fried turkey legs, and ale, that confidence comes in handy. For every successful puppet show and catapult launch, there are Renaissance Faire stories of people stealing swords, taking jousting too seriously, and the old sex acts no one, even at a medieval far, wants to see. Hello, bestiality...

Fortunately for those of you who haven't sauntered into a Renaissance Faire, Reddit users give it to you straight from the wench's mouth. If you ever wanted to know the full range of wacky stuff going on in those tents, listen to these Renaissance Faire workers tell their worst stories. Despite what history tells you, the Dark Ages never passed.

From maschine01:

“Some guy this year jumped into the show and stole a character's sword. The character's wife (wife in real life as well) jumped on the guy and got him in a choke hold until police arrived. Badass woman.”

From tcgunner90:

“I've been with the festivals for years now and I've got a couple stories.

This happened to some of my buddies. They ship glitter for use in their fairy-themed booths at fest. They have a large white van and were traveling down Arizona. They get stopped by border patrol, who pulls them over and asks them what they are transporting. The driver, being a smart ass, says ‘fairy paraphernalia.’ This of course gets their van searched.

The cops find all these vacuum plastic bricks in the van. Now I bet you don't know, but the way glitter is transported in bulk is in vacuum plastic bricks. Looks exactly like bricks of drugs from TV or movies. The cop grabs one and asks the driver what this is. The driver (still being a smart ass) says ‘I'd like to exercise my right to remain silent.’

So the cop pulls out a pocket knife to open the brick. The driver says ‘Officer, I wouldn't do that if I were you.’ I bet you don't know that when you vacuum pack a powder and then break the seal, it explodes.

The officer stabs the brick, which causes five pounds of glitter to explode all over him. The officer's partner busts out laughing and says to his partner ‘Oh no, you're not getting in my squad car like that.’

So if you're ever driving down I-10 in Arizona near the border. Be sure to say hello to Sargent Sparkles.”

From UranianGirl:

“I only worked one year at faire as a fool with the Court of Misrule for a very well-known Renaissance faire. Each guild was allowed to have up to two of their people stay the night in their guild's area for security. Well, that year, the guy staying overnight from Clan MacColin (which was basically the Scottish guild) got caught f*cking one of the clan's sheep by another guild's security person.

That year the most popular ‘Faire flair’ (little pins you wear on your garb) was one that said ‘BAA MEANS NO.’”

From Shortyh21:

“I worked the Colorado Renaissance Festival my Senior year in high school. I would stay in the back behind the bar where we served drinks and fill up cups. Every freakin' day, this guy who owned geese would come in and sit in the outside area. He could see me making drinks and he would just sit there and stroke his stupid geese. One by one he would pick up each goose and slowly stroke it, never leaving his unnerving eyes from me. Honestly creeped me out.”

From rascal_king:

“A girl working the costume shop was in a Victorian-era dress during the English Monarch weekend. She managed to shart herself, and due to the massive undertaking of re-costuming, she decided to try and play it off. It did not work. 90 degree weather combined with sweat and shitty undies is a horrible mix - there were little kids sprinting out of the costume shop retching and people generally avoided the area all day. The kicker is, for whatever reason, at the end of the day, she revealed the source of the miasma to be herself. She never came back.”

From SerLaron:

“Question from a child at a cooking fire: 'Is that real fire?’

Mother: ‘No, they had no fire back then.’

And then there was the helpful visitor who picked up the red-hot piece of iron that the blacksmith had dropped accidentally.”

From MayDay13:

“I saw a teenage boy walk up and punch the queen in the stomach. She was wearing a corset and as the body is already tightly squeezed and has less air flow than normal it really hurt her. Her guards then chased him down and tackled him. They restrained him until the legit security came and got him.”

From moo_shoe, who was asked if there was a lot of debauched behavior among the staff:

“Yes and no. For the people that have been on the circuit for a while not so much. This is life, this is their job. They raise families in ren faire campgrounds and have classy dinner parties in their $100,000 RVs.

Among the new people and the eternal tent dwellers, absolutely. We're allowed to roam the grounds at night so people race to see how many stages they can bone on. There's a wagon, right in the middle of the grounds, where you go for a quickie during faire days. If the purple curtain is drawn, stay away. Apparently things get really strange in the actor camp some nights, but I don't hang there a lot.

From Secretly_psycho:

“People trying to get away with murder by claiming to be executing witches. Not kidding.

After a bad break up, a man tried to execute his wife on a chopping block by drugging her unconscious. Everyone else thought it was an act.”

From bleak_new_world:

“Good ol' TRF, the Texas Ren Faire. By far the most insane thing I saw was after clocking out and changing, I headed out to party in the patrons' camp ground. One things leads to another and I am with a very drunk party in the pouring rain under one of those wall-less awnings.

As the lighting lit up the sky, I saw what appeared to be two people getting to work in a mud puddle in the rain. I was stunned, this couldn't be real. The sky lights up again and I get a clear view this time. A man who was around six feet tall and rail thin was just absolutely going crazy on a morbidly obese (and I like fat girls, a lot, so this is really saying something) woman who had her skirt hiked up and was face down in the mud. So I did was any responsible American would do, I informed everyone around me and we started cheering for the commitment they had to getting herpes from a stranger at TRF.”

There's a reason you shouldn't meet strangers from the Internet - you never know who's lurking behind the computer screen. You can do everything right, like meet in a public place and never reveal your home address, but creepy Craigslist encounters are bound to eventually happen.

For every time someone has successfully sold a used Xbox or guitar, there are Craigslist interactions gone wrong. When you're strapped for cash, selling extra things to random people on the Internet seems so easy. But don't be fooled. It's almost impossible to tell what's legit and what's a ridiculous ad or scary Craigslist story waiting to happen. Are a few bucks worth a crazy encounter?

These brave Redditors tell their Craigslist tales, from the hilarious to the utterly insane. From complicated insurance frauds to savvy Redditors running sting operations for stolen gear, what these Craigslist stories all have in common is that none of them went as planned.

From BMac1977:

"This isn't a horror story at all, but the guy I sold a TV to a couple of years ago pretty much assumed that I was going to murder him and his boyfriend. I got the impression that he thought that I was going to scam him so I offered drop the TV off at his house and he could just Paypal me the money. He didn't want me knowing where he lived, so I offered to have him pick it up after my daughter's soccer game. Wouldn't do that either, because he said I'd have too many of my 'people.' So I then switched it to the parking lot of my town's grocery store at 3:30pm. Nope. He finally agreed to meet me in front of the town's police station with his boyfriend and 2 other guys only after he called an officer outside to witness the transaction. The cop told the guy he probably shouldn't be buying stuff on Craigslist anymore. The funny thing was that he brought so many people that the TV wouldn't fit in his car."

From the_woot_shoot:

"Was moving out of an apt that had washer and dryer hookups into one that did not. So I sold my washer and dryer. Ended up having separate buyers. Guy who bought the dryer was great, he was getting it for his daughter who was going to college, I helped him load it up in his truck, he gave me the payment, and I never heard from him again.

The guy who bought the washer was a different story. I got a text from him, asking if it was still available, we haggled the price, all normal stuff. We set a time, and I waited for him to get there.

Now I only had 1 week left in the apt so I didn't care too much about random people coming to my home like I normally would. Pretty much all of my stuff was moved into my new place but the internet wasn't turned on yet, so I was still just sleeping on an air mattress in the old one for the time being. He ended up being a few hours late and showed up in a truck that was used for transporting large glass panes, like this. He had like 5 people with him all crammed onto the front bench seat of the truck. They loaded it onto the truck with it leaning at a 30 degree angle against the glass pane rack (or whatever you would call it). He tried to haggle it down to a lower price, but I didn't budge. He left and I thought it was done.

Later that night I start getting texts from him about how it doesn't work and he wants his money back. I told him as it was written in the post that it was sold as is, and was working. I assume he damaged it in the way he rigged it on his truck. Well after a day he starts calling me and cussing me out, texting death threats, and I have other random numbers calling me doing that same. Two nights after I sold it I wake up at 3am with people banging on my door yelling. Luckily I lived on the second floor with no easy access to the windows. I sat there for about 15 mins while they continues to yell through the door. The next day I moved the rest of my stuff into my new apt and never went back other than to turn the keys in. I still got call calls / texts from him on random numbers for 2 months over a $150 washer.

I don't sell stuff on craigslist anymore."

From Jaydickchest:

"My friend was trying to buy something off craigslist (Houston if anyone's interested).
He made arrangements to meet somewhere, agreed on a price, blah blah blah.
Couple minutes later, the guy calls my friend back and says, 'Hey man, don't come. I was just going to rob you, but i heard some kids in the background when we were talking on the phone.'"

From CougarAries:

"Bought a Keurig on Craiglist. Used it for a couple of days, started noticing coffee grounds in my cup. Ignored it. Saw a cockroach in my kitchen, and found out it was coming from the Keurig. Took a flashlight to the inside, and it was infested with a nest of cockroaches. It wasn't coffee grounds in my cup."

When Reddit user Blinkanboxcar182 was selling their car on Craiglist, they ended up meeting a very personable man named James. After test driving the car, James asked if he could wait two more days to make the purchase. Blinkanboxcar182 agreed, but then this happened:

"Two days later, James follows up and we meet again - mid day, normal neighborhood in an urban city. James and I test drive the car one more time. He gives me a Chase Bank cashiers check, which I said was fine. I tell him he needs to come to the bank with me to cash this check and to get the title notarized over to him. This is when he starts acting nervous. We're pulled over on the side of my street discussing this - James in the driver seat and me as the passenger. I figured if he was gonna steal my car he would have two days earlier. Now I'm fairly comfortable with him. He asks me to do one more car inspection with him then we'd go to the bank. I agree but I'm very set on doing the transaction at a bank. As we both get out to inspect the car again he jumps back in and floors it as I try to get back in with him. He pulls away quicker than I can react, passenger door wide open."

The Redditor called the police, and ended up in the back of a cruiser:

"The guy gets away and the officers drop me off at the police station to file a report. I file an insurance claim too and am so mad at myself for letting this happen. I suppose it's better than if I was in the car with this guy, but I'm still mad. Of course, 'James' burner cell phone doesn't work as soon as he had left.

I go through insurance and their protocols to ensure I'm not committing fraud for about 3 months. The week I'm supposed to get paid, I get a call from police. They found my car... 3 states over.

'James' was working with a partner in crime (don't remember his name, let's call him Dickface). James stole the car and gave it to Dickface to sell so it wasn't traceable back to James and Dickface would have plausible deniability if he was ever questioned. Well Ddickface sold my car to an Average Joe who actually did have a daughter in college who needed a car. The daughter tried to register her new car at the DMV and it came up as stolen. So the cops arrange for me, the Average Joe, and Dickface (whose contact info Average Joe had, as he paid him with a check and there was a paper trail) to meet with them at the station for a little chat.

Dickface denies any involvement with James but agrees to give us the money back that average Joe paid him if he can just leave without any problems. We all agree to this. Average Joe and I say his daughter can keep the car and I'll take the money from Dickface.

So eventually I got paid for my car. But this experience sucked balls and was very stressful. Since then I have bought and sold cars on Craigslist again. So no lesson was learned (except now I take a photo of the drivers license of all people I interact with at the start)."

From Jetskier2313: 

"So here is a good one: My laptop got stolen out of my truck one night. Filed a police report and everything but they weren’t going to do anything. So being pissed off I thought I would check Craigslist and guess what? The guy who stole was trying to sell it on Craigslist two towns over. I had him send me some pictures of it to confirm that it was mine.

I contacted the police and we set up a sting operation at the local Starbucks and caught the guy. It turned out to be a minor and he had weapons and other stolen crap in his car. I was pretty proud of myself for that! I never thought I would see that laptop again. Guy didn’t even wipe the hard drive."

From SparkitusRex:

"I had an engagement ring that I purchased that was never used because he left me for my best friend about two months later. But because I purchased it not him, I kept it.

Well at that point I figured I'd never actually get married so I tried to sell it. I'd gotten it for a steal (preowned) so was selling it for between the value of it brand new and what I paid for it, so I was making a slight profit.

Guy is very interested. He meets up with me at the mall, we go to the jewelry store it came from, they verify it is, indeed, this ~$2000 ring that I am selling for ~$1200. He sees he's getting a steal and says he will meet me the following day to purchase it, again at the mall because I don't want someone showing up to rob me instead or something.

The next day I get a text message. I can't find the screenshot of it now, but the general message was 'She accused me of cheating, I wasn't. She looked through my phone and found noting. In retaliation I looked through her phone and found messages from multiple men.'

This dude had his life together and was getting ready to propose to her, spoke of nothing but her and the ring when I met up with him, and she was running around on him.

He did not buy the ring."

This is a reminder to never pay before you have a Craiglist purchase in your hand. Redditor JethanR thought he was buying a used motorcycle. He paid for half of the motorcycle when the owner realized he forgot the title. The owner said he'd be right back with the title in hand, but then he never showed up. Instead, this is what happened:

"Two police officers show up at the house I'm renting. They bang on my door. I answer, dumbfounded. 'Is that your motorcycle in the driveway, sir?' They ask. I start to explain the situation. After telling them that the guy will be back soon with the title, they say, 'Well, sir, this bike was reported stolen two days ago. The person who reported it stolen said he drove by here and saw it, and called us. Did you steal this motorcycle?' I'm freaking out. No, I didn't steal it."

The Redditor eventually figures out that he's been framed for auto theft. The police tell him that they have video of him stealing the bike, and he asks to see it. They agree, as long as he comes down to the station:

"So I get to the precinct. I get taken to this cop's desk. He asks me a few questions, then asks me to watch the video. It's on a cd. He pulls it up. Sure enough, it's me getting on this guy's bike. But the guy isn't in the frame. It was then it really became clear to me how detailed this whole facade was:

The guy had the bike around the back of his house, but we spoke around front, and I parked my car around front; the bike had the keys in it already. When I brought the bike back, I left it around front of his house per the guy's request. Because of this, the video showed me getting on a bike, at 10 p.m. with the keys in the ignition, pulling it out, and seemingly never bringing it back. He even managed to stay out-of-frame, and aside from a couple glances in his direction, I don't seem to be interacting with anyone off-camera. I'm really screwed, here.

This post is already really long. I'll sum it up: after spending the entire day at the local police station, the guy shows up and starts asking if I'm the guy who stole his bike. The situation got worse for me, until the police managed to make the guy slip up. He couldn't keep his story straight. He breaks down and admits that he made it all up. He needed the money to pay some bills, but couldn't bare to sell his bike, so he set up a plan to make an insurance claim for someone stealing his motorcycle, but then created a plan to keep the bike, get some money from a 'buyer; who would be framed as a thief, and all would end well for him. Except it didn't. I think he ended up going to prison. I'm not sure. I got my money back, and put the whole ordeal behind me. So there. That's my creepy Craigslist story."

From Rottenscred:

"My buddy responded to an ad for a cheap ass car. He took it for a test drive, and it ran well, so they agreed to a price of $200. After the money changed hands, the seller said he [would] go inside to get the extra keys and bring the car around. About two minutes later the car passes by and continues down the street. My buddy freaks the f*ck out and [chases the car]. Unfortunately the car gets away, and he is left to go back to the house and see if he can sort it out.

As it turned out, the car that passed by was just an innocent motorist with the same car merrily going about his business. It's very fortunate my buddy never caught up to him. I could only imagine the seller back at the house, wondering why someone would hand him $200 and take off running.

He did get the car after all and it ran for two years."

From NWBoomer:

"We were selling a house on Craigslist and we started getting calls about it being for rent. Sure enough there was a 'for rent' ad picturing our house and giving a phony realtor email address. I contacted the advertiser who claimed he was the owner away doing missionary work in Africa. He wanted me to wire the deposit. I played along with some back-and-forth emails until he got suspicious and stopped communicating.

We reported this fraud to Craigslist who responded by blocking OUR email address. Now when we use Craigslist we have to use a different email when placing ads."

Of all the ironic ways to die, being killed by one of your own booby traps has to be one of the most ridiculous ways to bite the dust. While everyone who has been killed by setting some kind of booby trap is different, people whose own booby traps killed them rest squarely in the center of a Venn diagram marked "creative" and "paranoid." In these stories about booby trap deaths, you’ll notice that the hapless victims were either afraid of someone breaking into their home, petrified someone would discover their drugs, or attempting to hide from enemies.

Some of the contraptions that you’ll read about in these stories of accidental deaths caused by booby traps resemble the traps in the Home Alone movies, but some of them are just straight-up bombs. Whatever the specifics, these stories are both horrific and darkly comic. Loss of human life is always terrible, but some of these deaths could have been easily avoided if the individuals in these stories would have simply relaxed.

Two ISIS militants were killed in March 2017 as they were attempting to set up a series of explosive booby traps in a house in Mosul. According to the Daily Mail, the home belonged to a security member who was executed by ISIS years previously.

In early 2017, after a house exploded in New Hampshire, police discovered a corpse in the home's basement. They believed it was the owner, who had left a series of "devices" around the home to keep people out. The investigators theorized that the explosion was a planned event that happened a few years too late.

A spokesperson for the police said, "It definitely looks like this was something that was planned, or at least preparing to prevent either police or fire to get closer to the residence to either extinguish the fire or whatever else the person may have had planned."

In June of 2017, several Taliban members killed themselves when they drove across their own landmine. According to a spokesperson for the allies in the Middle East: "A Taliban vehicle hit an IED planted by the fighters of the own group in eastern Nangarhar province of Afghanistan, leaving at least eleven militants of the group dead or wounded."

Louis Dethy was a Belgian pensioner who apparently hated his family. In fact, he filled his three-story home in Charlerois with tons of deadly traps to exact his revenge on his estranged children and grandchildren. According to his neighbors, Dethy was only seen outside when he went to the store, but after he hadn't been spotted for quite some time in late 2002, police went to his home.

The authorities discovered a deceased Dethy, who they believe had been accidentally killed while futzing with one of his spring-loaded traps. Along with his body, they uncovered at least 19 traps, including an exploding crate of beer. The house also contained a series of notes that seemed to be clues about the booby traps; one read, "The 12 Apostles are ready to work on the pebbles."

In Bakersfield, CA, in 2014, a toolmaker named Paul Morningstar accidentally shot himself in the head with a spring-loaded booby trap that he was setting. A neighbor heard the shot, and had to warn police that the home was covered in traps. Police used a bomb-squad robot to find Morningstar, and they discovered three different traps, including a shotgun triggered by mousetraps. According to people who knew Morningstar, he believed that someone was trying to kill him, which is why he started booby trapping his home with trip wires, flares, and shotguns.

Homer and Langley Collyer were paranoid, shut-in, hoarder brothers who lived in a Harlem home that they filled with trash. Homer had grown blind over the years and needed Langley to take care of him, but Langley thought that vitamin-C would reverse his vision problems, and he fed his brother 100 oranges a week. Langley was also saving daily newspapers for his brother to read once he was cured of his blindness.

One day in 1947, New York City police received a tip that someone had died in the home. When they entered the house, they discovered the bodies of both of the brothers. They concluded that Langley had died bringing his brother oranges; he had been caught in one of his homemade booby traps and was crushed to death. Without his brother to care for him, Homer died shortly afterwards.

The body of a 67-year-old shut-in, Ernest Gaylord Michelberger, was discovered by his son in 2015 after one of his insane booby traps cut him in half. Savannah Police Department spokesperson Melinda Yarberry noted that, "after a thorough investigation of the scene and interviewing family members, cause of death has officially been ruled an accident by way of booby trap." Michelberger's son said that his dad had become more paranoid over the years as more minorities had begun to move into his neighborhood. 

The booby trap that killed Michelberger was apparently constructed out of "an elaborate system of levers, pullies, and two chainsaws."

In 2013, a marijuana farmer in upstate New York got drunk and accidentally drove his quad bike into one of his many booby traps, killing himself in the process. The farmer, Daniel Ricketts, was almost decapitated by a string of piano wire that he had strung around his crops. His corpse was discovered by a group of hikers, who promptly called the police. Officers later discovered a series of traps made of barbed wire around the property.

Dad rock, that most boring of genre of music, which encompasses everything from California country to blues-inspired folk, is so snooze-inducing the musicians who play it must be the most insipid people on Earth, right? Well, not exactly. There are some boring musicians who used to be hardcore af. Before they cleaned up, there were plenty of boring bands who were crazy back in the day. Like, chainsaw-through-a-hotel-room crazy. It’s time to expand your musical knowledge with this collection of crazy musicians who calmed down with age.

With a few notable exceptions, most of the musicians who were addicts covered here had their heydays in the '70s, when their brand of dad rock peaked. While some had continued success into the 2000s, many of these dad rock musicians who did hella drugs became so boring as time went on the world stopped listening, so they started racing yachts or opened tea shops.

It shouldn't really come as a surprise that a musician, no matter how boring the music, can get up to no good on the road. All of the crazy Led Zeppelin stories you've heard exist because four lads from England had lots of money and nothing to do for hours on end, so they got into witchcraft and started shoving fish into people. The same goes for everything you’ve heard about Ozzy Osbourne. But audiences expect crazy stories about those artists, whereas the boring AF dad rock artists on this list might actually surprise you with their shenanigans. 

Everyone knows Billy Joel sucks. He's just the worst. His music is boring and he looks like the dad of every guy's high school girlfriend, the one who showed you his samurai sword collection.

It turns out that, while Joel was recording "rockers" like "Uptown Girl," he was also heavily into drugs. He told Howard Stern his song "Scandinavian Skies" is about heroin, saying:

"This was back in the late '70s, I think. We were in Amsterdam, and there was all this stuff going on, so I said 'Let me see what this is like.' It got me so high I didn't know how to deal with it. You just get way out, just go to another place, and you're into the blues. All you want to hear is the blues. You start drooling, and you get sick."

But that didn't stop Joel, who continued his hard partying New Jersey ways into his twilight years. In 2004, he crashed his third car in two years. That's dedication to being hardcore. 

There's a good chance you know David Crosby's down-and-out, aging clown look more than his music, but this guy was a huge part of the Laurel Canyon scene of the '60s, and part of a lot of very boring bands that still influence new boring bands. He released some of his sleepiest music in Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young and as a solo artist. While busy writing music that sounds like it should be in a Ken Burns documentary, Crosby was going harder in the paint than anyone who has ever lived. 

For instance, in 1985, he was already on probation for DUI when he was arrested for driving through a fence while in possession of a gun and cocaine. He blamed John Lennon's assassination. In an episode of VH1's Behind The Music, one of the guys from CSN said Crosby ruined one of their incredibly boring recording sessions when he walked out after his crack pipe broke.

When you think of Eric Clapton, what pops into your head? Lilting acoustic ballads? Middling white man blues rock? Well, that's probably because he used up all of his freaky powers in the '70s, doing drugs and shredding solos. In his enigmatically entitled autobiography, Clapton: The Autobiography, the guitarist describes how audiences absolutely loved it when he got super effed up and put on the worst shows possible. 

"I'd wander off the stage and somebody... would have to try to persuade me to go back on. There seemed to be a post-psychedelia drunkenness that swept over everybody in the entertainment business during the early '70s. To be on stage, you were almost expected to be drunk. I remember doing one entire show lying down on the stage with the microphone stand lying beside me, and nobody batted an eyelid."

Clapton battled a three-year heroin addiction in the '70s. During the making of Derek and the Dominos' sole record Layla, the whole band was out of control with drugs and alcohol. Bandmate Bobby Whitlock recalls, "We weren't doing a bunch of drugs during our recording. But if you’re drinking whiskey and snorting cocaine and heroin it's still going to be in your system tomorrow." 

Put your pitchforks down. Boring doesn't mean bad, especially not in the case of Fleetwood Mac. Everyone knows,you develop an instant appreciation for this classic snooze rock behemoth as soon as you turn 30. But were they really that crazy? Oh yeah.

According to members of the band, there wasn't a day they weren't fighting and/or having sex with each other, or snorting miles of cocaine. The members of Fleetwood Mac were legit crazy people who once calculated Mick Fleetwood (the band's drummer, who wore faux testicles on a belt) snorted seven miles of cocaine during the height of his debauchery. And that's nothing compared to Stevie Nicks, the group's front woman and good witch, who burned a hole in her nose by snorting so much cocaine. 

It's okay if you don't know who George Jones is. He sang boring, crooner country that didn't have the heart of Roy Orbison and never reached the flashy heights of Elvis. He had a sustained career built on mediocre hits, and was also a mega-drunk. According to his autobiography, I Lived to Tell It All, he had crippling stage fright, and used alcohol to temper his fear.

A low point came when Jones was so drunk his wife hid the keys to all of his cars so he couldn't drive to the liquor store, so he rode a lawn mower eight miles to buy booze.  He wrote, "I imagine the top speed for that old mower was five miles per hour. It might have taken an hour and a half or more for me to get to the liquor store, but get there I did."

The famous scribe behind The Eagles' sleepy time rocker "Take It Easy" definitely didn't heed his own words when it came to his personal life. While Jackson Browne was writing laid-back California country jams you would be hard pressed to name, he was also involved in a murky back-and-forth with former girlfriend Daryl Hannah, who accused him of assaulting her multiple times. No one ever sued anyone over the assault vs defamation battle the two wages, but it's obvious that Browne was anything but boring in his home life. 

He's seen fire, he's seen rain, and he's put a generation of people to sleep with very boring, blues-inspired folk music. While James Taylor's music was a gentle flower on a spring morning, his personal life was a fire threatening to consume an orphanage. First, he was into acid, which had him "jumping great gaps between the roofs and swinging on fire escapes.”

In 1968, at age 20, Taylor moved to England to record his debut album for Apple, the label run by the Beatles. While in London, he got way into heroin. While recording sleepy acoustic jams, he liked to hole up in the studio bathroom and get high, much to the chagrin of the Beatles, who were recording in the same complex. 

Joe Walsh was the most exciting member of the Eagles. If the band were a Starbucks pastry display, he'd be the lemon loaf. When he wasn't playing dad country with the Eagles, Walsh was playing wonky dad blues rock on his own, which was also very boring.

Outside his boring musical escapades, Walsh was a legit crazy person. He once chopped up a hotel room with a chainsaw. When asked about the urban legend of him going all lumberjack on a room that costs more than your apartment, he said it is "absolutely true." In fact, he routinely brought a chainsaw to hotels, but only used it once. 

“If you go down to the lobby you can get your point across, you don’t really need to start it up,” he said. There's really nothing as fun as a millionaire terrorizing people who make minimum wage. 

Walsh also struggled with drugs and alcohol for years. He doesn't go into explicit details in interviews, though talks at length in relatively vague terms about cocaine, alcohol, and other drugs being a major problem throughout much of his career, and causing personal and professional problems in the '80s, as things reached their nadir. In 1993, he went to rehab, and has spoken about the disease of addiction ever since. 

Moby, the human equivalent to skim milk, has never struck anyone has being all that crazy. Even at its most experimental, his music is fairly danceable, and that one "thrash" record people talk about is just a high school jock's idea of what Minor Threat sounds like, with some dandy ambient tunes tacked on and a very '90s-sounding Mission to Burma cover shoved in the middle.

That was all to say Moby is fine but boring AF. However, in the '90s, Moby was losing his mind. He was living in New York City, DJing, hanging out with a dominatrix, dating strippers, and squatting in a warehouse with people who wanted to set him on fire. As you might be able to surmise, there was a liberal use of substances. 

In an interview with the Guardian (the headline of which is "There were bags of drugs, I was having sex with a stranger") about his autobiography, Porcelain, Moby described the process of looking back at his life in the 90s: 

"I still recognize that person, stumbling through life without much agency. There’s enthusiasm and a good work ethic, but ultimately complete cluelessness, being baffled by everything. It’s like being a snowball rolling down a mountain. The snowball might have started kind of pure, but by the end, it’s filled with dead squirrels and sticks and rocks and wellies and garbage. You’ve got this snowball at the end, but to what extent does it relate to or resemble that original snowball?”

Everyone knows the grimiest Rod Stewart ever got as a solo artist was when he sang a cover of "Downtown Train" by Tom Waits, and even that's a pretty slick song choice. Most people probably don't even know he was in The Jeff Beck Group, a heavy-stomping proto hard rock band that paved the way for Led Zeppelin. 

In the '70s, while Stewart was churning out barely passable rock-disco tunes like "If You Want My Body," he was also busy indulging a saucy predilection for Columbian nose candy. Admittedly, doing coke every once in a while doesn't make you party monster, but shoving nummy powder up your butt does qualify you for hardcore status, and shove it up his butt Stewart did.  

Stewart later said of his salad days, "As far as the drugs are concerned, I was never an addict. I was never, you know, in rehab. It never affected my family or my relationships. I was just a social user." So social he shoved cocaine in his ass. 

When you think "rock 'n' roll," wild Guns N' Roses stories probably spring to mind. The band seemed primed to be unstoppable after they formed in Los Angeles in 1985. They released their first album, Appetite for Destruction, in 1987, and it almost instantly smashed records: it sold 30 million copies worldwide, and became one of the best-selling debuts of all time. By 1988, GnR was basically the biggest band on the planet. Guns N' Roses songs are some of the most massive hits of the '80s, and a number of their albums are considered rock classics.

But early success doesn't always guarantee staying power. GnR's big hits came with big personalities, and clashes within the band led to countless lineup changes and prolonged breakups fans feared would be permanent. But Guns N' Roses couldn't keep off the stage - even though the guys performing under the name weren't the same.

Even GnR newbies can appreciate the gnarly tales from Guns n' Roses that have popped up over the years. Rumors tell of countless trashed dressing rooms, mountains of consumed drugs, and even a few brushes with death. The craziest things Guns N' Roses ever did are the stuff of rock legend - what other band dabbled in everything from fights with other musicians to petty theft from groupies?

In the spring of 1987, GnR was recording "Rocket Queen," a charming little ditty about doing the nasty. Nineteen-year-old Adriana Smith was dating drummer Steven Adler, but he had recently cheated on her. For revenge, she decided to get drunk and have sex with Axl Rose - and to add insult to injury, they decided to record the audio and use it as a sample on the track. You can hear Smith's contributions at around 2:30 on the track.

Axl apparently had notes on her vocal performance, though, telling her, "Come on, Adriana, make it real. Stop faking!" Smith later said she regretted the stunt.

On March 26, 1986, Guns N' Roses was set to sign their first deal with Geffen Records - but Axl Rose almost blew the whole thing by throwing a tantrum. Apparently, he couldn't find his contact lenses, and after accusing his bandmates of stealing them, told them to "go [to the signing] without him."

The other GnR members "eventually found him sitting on top of the Whisky A Go Go." Slash told Axl they had found his contacts, and convinced him to come down. They showed up to the Geffen meeting several hours late and penned the deal.

On August 27, 1989, GnR rhythm guitarist Izzy Stradlin was on a flight from Los Angeles to Indianapolis. Apparently, he had been drinking pretty excessively, and had to use the bathroom. Unfortunately, none were available:

"I was drunk in the middle of this bunch of senior citizen types. I was smoking, and the stewardess came over. I told her to f*ck herself. I was drinking so much I had to take a piss. The people in the bathroom... man, it seemed like I waited an hour. So I pissed in the trash can instead... Next thing I know we've landed, I'm walking out and I see 10 policemen... And I remember thinking: 'Uh-oh! I think I f*cked up again.'"

On a layover in Pheonix, police met Stradlin at the gate and charged him with "public disturbance for smoking in a non-smoking section, making obscene gestures to passengers and verbally abusing a stewardess."

After their 1989 world tour, Guns N' Roses took a break from the road. Apparently, the routine of touring was all that was keeping Slash's addiction problems from spiraling out of control. As he wrote in his memoirs, "It turned out to be the start of a long and nightmarish obsession with heroin that lasted from 1989 through 1991."

After one particularly gnarly binge on heroin/cocaine cocktails, Slash started tripping pretty hard at an Arizona golf course. He remembers "Predators with rubbery-looking dreadlocks chasing after him with machine guns and harpoons."

Fearing for his life, Slash punched through a glass door to escape. The totally nude musician even grabbed a maid as an impromptu "human shield." He recalled the story to the police in great detail: "I was still high enough that I told the story without a shred of self-consciousness."

Just two days before Christmas in 1987, Guns N' Roses was out on the road with Alice Cooper and Mötley Crüe. GnR guitarist Slash and drummer Steven Adler were snorting fistfuls of cocaine with Nikki Sixx of Mötley Crüe that night. According to Adler, he stepped out of the room to shoot up, and when he returned the door was blocked by Sixx's unconscious body.

Adler tried to revive Sixx with cold water, and when that didn't work, he "started smashing the him in the face with his cast" (he had broken his hand punching a streetlight). The blows eventually resuscitated Sixx.

The next day, when Adler stopped by the hospital to see Sixx, he asked, "Stevie, what the f*ck happened to me last night? My face is killing me!"

Slash apparently developed a fondness for exotic pets. By the early '90s, he had collected a number of venomous snakes and lizards in his Los Angeles home, as well as a mountain lion he named Curtis. But when the Northridge earthquake hit in January of 1994, Slash's house was damaged. He temporarily moved to a Four Seasons hotel in Marina del Rey - and Curtis came too.

Even Guns N' Roses' pad developed a reputation. Former rhythm guitarist Izzy Stradlin recalls the debauchery the band got up to in the summer of 1985, while they were crashing in a spot called "The Hell House." The band was so strapped for cash that they resorted to desperate measures:

"We sold girls. If one of the guys was f*cking a girl in our sleeping loft, we'd ransack the girl's purse while he was doing her."

They were apparently selling drugs as well. Soon, that behavior caught up with them; the LAPD caught wind of the illegal activity, and the GnR guys had to hide out from the authorities for a while.

When GnR returned to Los Angeles from their first tour in June of 1985, they got into a nasty car accident. The guys were in bassist Duff McKagan's car, and another vehicle broadsided them at an intersection going 60 miles per hour. Miraculously, the band walked away with minimal injuries, though drummer Steven Adler broke his ankle.

Slash wrote about the incident in his autobiography: "Duff's car was totaled and we could have been too. That would have been a sick twist of fate: the band dying together after we'd just gotten together."

Guns N' Roses had a rough night on October 23, 1986. They were scheduled to open for Alice Cooper at the Arlington Theater, but Axl Rose didn't make it. He showed up late and security turned him away, so the band had to improvise. Guitarists Izzy Stradlin and Slash made up lyrics and asked audience members to come up and sing to cover for their missing frontman. Out of frustration, "the band trashed the dressing room and broke all the mirrors."

It's rare to find someone who had beef with David Bowie, but Axl Rose managed it. In 1989, Bowie dropped by the set where Guns N' Roses was filming the music video for "It's So Easy." Axl didn't like the way Bowie was talking to his girlfriend, Erin Everly, and hit Bowie and threw him out.

Ever the class act, Bowie apologized, and the two made up with a long night of clubbing.

You've heard the term "sugar daddy," but do you know what it really means? "Sugaring" is a paid arrangement between two consenting adults - typically a younger woman and an older man - that includes an agreed upon number of hours or days spent in one another's company. Many of these relationships begin by using a niche dating site geared specifically to hooking up sugar daddies with sugar babies. While such arrangements almost always include sexual contact, some sugar daddies also seek out the "girlfriend experience," which can include just hanging out together, having someone to talk to, or serving as a dining and travel companion. Sugar babies set the rules and payment, and often are the recipients of free accommodation, shopping sprees, spa treatments, and much more. The money can be quite good, with lots of free time and perks included.

True sugar daddy stories are not always what one might expect, though. When sugar babies talk about their sugar daddies, it's clear that their experiences are a mixed bag. Ideally, it's a win-win situation for both baby and daddy, but there are many less than desirable scenarios and date horror stories from real life sugar babies.

So, what's it like to have a sugar daddy? It's best to let the babies speak for themselves.

From AmethystRose:

"I used to sugar, and escort - I'm taking a break from both because of mental health reasons.

Honestly, I'd prefer not to go into my stories too much. I've been in two long-term sugar arrangements - One at 16, one at 17. 700/800 per week + gifts, respectively, for roughly one date and one round of sex and post-sex cuddling. It wasn't negotiated that way, it's just what ended up happening. I did negotiate the money, though - silly little me actually negotiated down from 1.2k/1k respectively, because I thought too much cash lying around would tip off my parents. I was such a stupid f*cking child, ugh. Granted, I shouldn't have been sugaring anyway, but y'know.

Being a sugar baby is not work for just anyone. If you want to succeed in it, as an actual business venture, you need to be very cold, brutal, and detached from both men and sex (or at least, sex with those particular men). It's inherently a very unbalanced dynamic - he's wealthy and has a lot more life experience than his college-aged (or potentially younger) sugar baby. It isn't uncommon for these men to try twist that to their advantage.

Honestly, sugaring isn't worth the hassle unless a) you want professional connections and are smart and charismatic enough to make them through dating your SD or b) you cannot handle escorting."

From imhereforthemeta:

"I did it once... by that I mean one attempt/date. I was going on a lot of dates so I could experience the far away city I moved to and I decided YOLO and responded to a sort of skeezy ad I found locally. TBH I had just left my boyfriend of about 7 years after some really f*cked up stuff happened and I was pretty numb.

I had the guy pick me up under a false name at an apartment that wasn't mine. He was about 55 years old and we got together on the precedent of a 'sugar baby' relationship sort of 'trial run/first date'... He took me to a really fancy Italian place. I admit, I was super fascinated with what made the guy work... like why are you trying to pick up chicks... over half your age?

Turns out there was nothing interesting about him, and promises to pay my bills and buy me things were very unappealing when he started opening his mouth. He was married and a total pig about his wife, who he basically described as a god damn saint but who was too old/ugly for him now so he f*cks younger girls instead. He kept commenting about how I was the same age/etc as his daughters (whom he was very proud of, ick) I was very very uncomfortable at this point but had no car, so I just kept agreeing with him and buttering him up. I then decided to proceed to order the most expensive things I could off of the menu and chowed down.

He dropped me off at that apartment a few miles from my house and we parted ways. He tried to kiss me. It was gross.

I don't think I would have taken him up on the full baby offer regardless of his personality because the idea of that kind of dependency makes me anxious, butttt yeah."

From Suckulaa:

"Sugar baby for about a year now, on/off. Was having trouble finding work and always liked older men so I put the two together. I'm plus size and I thought I wouldn't have any luck but I do surprisingly well. Had a couple CEOs, attorney, etc. Got to meet really interesting people and had a lot of opportunities to travel. It's a lot of work though. Need to market yourself, look put together and be prepared to f*ck some old dudes. Had really high points and lows. Usually SDs do a monthly allowance or PPM, it always depended on scheduling for me."

From misscolinsxx:

"It's been on and off for me, my family is well off financially however I'm not the kind of person that would expect my mum to cater to my every whim and need so that's why I decided to get a sugar daddy.

So the process or usually goes something like this, you go for lunch/dinner/drinkies for a meet and greet and if yous choose to continue then a arrangement will be discussed e.g meet me 5 times a month and I will pay you $500 per week, $10,000 monthly or $1000 PPM (pay per meet).

From then on your dates can range from holidays to going to a work function or simply going to the cinemas and dinner afterwards, essentially you're a on call girlfriend/boyfriend.

My arrangement was that I meet him a few times a month in exchange for 5000€ (per month) which equates to just under $8000nzd (he lived in Paris and I live in NZ) and I would get all the lovely perks such as shopping sprees at designer stores, cosmetic work, his black Amex card just whatever I wanted (within reason of course)."

From love_lavender:

"I met men up with a few men on Sugardaddie.com. First off, stay away from this site. There are nothing but creepy, lying weirdos on there...

The second guy I had met was from San Francisco and didn't post his pictures on his profile. We chatted a lot on the phone and texted each other frequently. He wasn't very good looking. Shorter than me (I'm 5 foot 9 inches) and looked like Nick from that 1980's sitcom 'Cheers!'. He was also missing a front tooth. He told me he had just gotten divorced so he wasn't looking for a relationship yet. He gave me a pseudonym. When I figured it out and asked about it, he gave me this long-winded, weird reason why he used it. I got an uneasy feeling, but dismissed it.

He really seemed like an ok guy. He showed interest in me, allowed me to use his address to look for a job in SF, he showed concern about my well-being too. He even offered to send me some money when I told him I was broke.

He wanted to meet up in Nashville - I canceled. He wanted to meet up in San Diego - he canceled last minute saying his mom had breast cancer. We kept in touch and he kept offering me to fly me to SF to be with him. Finally, I flew to SF on my own. We had dinner and alcohol. He came across as sort of passive-aggressive. He kept telling our waiter to tell another table to stop being so loud. He had to fly to NYC while I was there, but he kept wanting me to come over, take me to the Four Seasons, he was constantly angling for sex, but I just didn't feel comfortable.

After I got home, he offered to rent me an apartment close to him in SF. He even CC'd me on the email to the landlord. HE bought me airline ticket to come to SF and start my new life. I ended up chickening out.

We chatted a bit after that, but he never responded to an email and text I sent to him. I took the hint. That was it.

Fast forward to a year or so later... I get back on Sugardaddie and there is his profile. He had shaved 5 years off his age and this time he had pictures. Here's where it gets more interesting. I Googled him and found a short bio of him on his new company's website. It said that he was married to his opera singer wife (the one he said he had divorced) and they had homes in Sonoma, CA and SF. I looked at his Instagram pictures and there they are having dinner, site seeing in Paris, kissing and hugging.

I just looked him up on that website. HE IS STILL ON THERE. His recently activity was yesterday. His wife has no clue. Who knows what would have happened if I moved to be with him. He's definitely a liar and who knows what else.

If you want an experience, then this will give you one. Just remember, it is a REALLY BIG RISK and something bad can happen. I recommend making your own money and staying safe."

From IAMASugarBaby:

"So I am very keen on creating a genuine relationship experience. This means that I think it is important to go on several dates before there is any private physical interaction, and even then I dole it out and keep it to a minimum. At the end of the day if someone asked me in private if my daddy is my boyfriend I would laugh and say no, it's really just an act/a game and the daddies know this too. I've even maintained real relationships while doing this on the side. Some get caught up in it and feel its real but that's why I choose to create a persona instead of revealing too much about myself.

As far as jobs go I really can't complain. I get to play dress up and have a ridiculous salary for basically being an actress. It's certainly not ALL about the money; I can't keep a facade up forever and if I find someone to be completely repugnant (or even just no chemistry) I will not go out with them again."

From handshoes101:

"Former sugar baby here!

It's something I did for a few months, and it was a great way to help me out of a difficult financial situation.

To start off, before any sugar relationship starts, there is usually a platonic meet and greet over coffee/dinner/drinks so both parties can see if they actually like each other. Out of every 3 meet and greets I went to I probably only saw 1 again. There's no sex and usually no money is exchanged (although I have been given money at meet and greets a few times). Sometimes you will also discuss allowance at the meet and greet, but you can also do this before or after.

Allowance is always agreed upon before any actual dates, and it can either be a monthly or weekly amount, or pay per meet (PPM). I used to always do PPM.

Once that's all established, you start having dates with your sugar daddy. These can be anything from hotel meetups for just sex, to going to an art show, dinner, and drinks, before heading back to his place for sex. It's never said out loud but sex is absolutely expected.

In my experience, most guys who are sugar daddies are very busy business men who don't have the time or energy to sustain a real relationship. The money ensures that everything will go smoothly, and they still get a genuine (or what I make seem to be genuine) emotional, fun, and intimate experience.

I enjoyed sugaring when I did it, because it was a good way for me to make money, while still being in control of who I spent time with.

My regular rate was 500€ per date. For one sugar daddy that I really liked, I went down to 350€ because he wasn't super rich, and that's a more average number for my location (Berlin, Germany). I know that in some places in America the average per date can be as low as $200 or as high as $600. But even the local average isn't the best guide for choosing a number, because it depends on what you value yourself at, what you're comfortable with, what the daddy values you at, and what he can afford.

Also, monthly allowances are quite common, but I don't have any personal experience with those. They depend on the same factors though, along with how many times you meet per month."

From Dahliayy:

"I've met 3 salt daddies. These two kept on talking about sex before I even met. They asked for nudes and even tried sexting with me. Every time we tried to meet they would cancel last minute, give some stupid excuse and then try to lure me to their house or whatever hotel they booked. One met up with me and then left me with the lunch bill...

One time me and a POT [potential sugar daddy] agreed to meet up for lunch just to know each other. After we both ordered he suddenly started asking if I'm interested on going to a hotel with him after lunch (which ofc i said no). We tried to talk over lunch but GOD HE WAS SUCH AN ASS. I hated all of his views but idk why he was so smitten with me. Dude kept on touching me and I just tried to avoid and eat my lunch as fast as possible.

I clearly didn't like this guy so after we were done with lunch, I just said that we're not getting along well and I wasn't interested with having an arrangement with him. He didn't take it very well so he just straight up walked out of the restaurant and left me with the bill. I didn't have enough money but I was so lucky to have my friends around to pay the bill for me."

From omcthrowingaway:

"I did online arrangements similar to Sugaring in college. I exclusively offered 'Online Girlfriend Experiences' where a person would pay me to act like his girlfriend online, including sexing, but without my face in any photos.

While I don't want to do it again, it was probably one of my favorite jobs. The money was fantastic and I had complete control over whoever I worked with. If they were being rude, I could end the arrangement.

Despite a hard rule of not showing my face and other safety measures, a lot of guys would open up to me, tell me about their life, and send nonsexual pictures of themselves. My average client was generally only slightly overweight, in their later 20s to early 30s, average looking, and a little socially awkward. There's a misconception that only men who are very unattractive or old pay for these things. I had my fair share of men who were divorced, married, and/or conventionally good looking. Generally, they were either too busy or too shy to maintain a real relationship. Most men were just lonely.

Most of my clients were very kind and interested in getting to know me and my personality. As someone else stated, sex work isn't unskilled...

Of course, you occasionally have the bad eggs. One of the creepiest men I worked with was a very good looking married man with young children. He also liked to send me nonsexual pictures of his wife behind her back at the grocery store, driving, etc. Basically, he got off on talking to me while spending time with his wife. Eventually, this creeped me out enough to end it."

From BunBunPurrPaws:

"I was one on and off for years. Like any job, it's a mixed bag. Like any job, it gets old after a while. The big difference between it and a 'straight' job is that you control everything, which also means that all the risks are on you to mitigate to the best of your ability. You pick who to meet and make an arrangement with, you set your hours, you get cash to do with as you please. That might all sound great, but it can be horrible if you don't have excellent street smarts and intuition. You HAVE to be hyper aware to do it safely. You will be alone with men who you don't know well, who feel like you owe them something (because you do if you want to get paid. This job is 100% paid companionship INCLUDING SEX in almost all cases).

There's also some myth that sex work is unskilled. It's definitely not. Being a sugar baby takes a lot of natural and learned social abilities. You have to be able to play girlfriend to a wide variety of men, not to mention have some sexual abilities worth paying for. It's actually a pretty challenging job. 90% of it is being able to talk about anything, while making him feel like the center and king of your universe for those hours every week. That's not easy with someone who you would never probably date for free. It requires a lot of patience and intuitive people skills to do that every single week for a long time.

That being said, it came very naturally to me and I never ended up in a bad situation. I enjoyed it while I enjoyed it, then I quit. Knowing when to get out and having a plan to do so is another important factor in being a sex worker."

For those of you who ever walked in on your parents having sex, know you remain in good company. While it may burn the back of your subconscious, the memory of your parents' sex life is one that many other kids have of their own guardians. Sometimes a child misunderstands the nature of what they heard, and goes to investigate at their own risk. At others, kids may return home when the parents aren't aware, leading to some pretty awkward doorway moments. As mortifying as it must feel for the parents whose kids saw them having sex, think of the children! How can they be expected to carry on the future if they're too busy thinking of their parents mid-Whoopee?

Nevertheless, people who caught their parents having sex know of ways to cope, and that includes sharing their tales on Reddit. Less emotionally damaging than catching your SO having sex with someone else, walking in on your parents just serves as a reminder your parents are people too. They, like everyone else, come with kinks that need some smoothing out.

From a deleted user:

“Walk in? I was stuck in the same room as them from beginning to end.

Growing up, I lived in an old stone farm house that was way too small for my parents and their three children. So I ended up sleeping on a small couch in my parents' bedroom until my brothers moved out.

Around the age of 10 I woke up early to muffled panting. I laid perfectly still and didn't make a sound for fear of the embarrassment it would cause my parents. After maybe twenty minutes, my friend's mother knocks on the door (hallelujah) and interrupts them mid-coitus to take me to my morning swimming lessons. I feign sleepiness and slowly get up to put on my swimming trunks and head out the door.

It wasn't as traumatic as it was funny, but luckily I didn't have to see any of it.”

From thedrun:

“Oh...I suppose I have to tell it.

This was in 2008, I was 24. Thanksgiving in my hometown involves everyone going out the night before and getting hammered at all the downtown bars. I had met up with all my friends around 8 PM, got dinner, and then proceeded to get hammered. All in all a great night, a chance to see some of my friends I never get to see otherwise. I had seen my brothers out, so I knew that the house was empty sans my 14-year-old brother and my parents.

Afterward, we got drunk munchies and all made our way home. This was at about 2:30 AM. I don't know why I got it in my head that I should go up and tell Mom and Dad that I was home safely at that hour of the morning, but I did. I stumbled up the stairs and without knocking just opened the door to their bedroom. It was dark, but the light from the hallway illuminated what can only be described as sobering and vile at the same time. I instantly apologized and just ran to my room.

I kinda sat there in the dark and pondered what I had just witnessed. I eventually passed out and the next morning through the haze of my hangover, I heard a knock on my bedroom door. It was my Dad, who said only these words. 'It's a beautiful day, you wouldn't know that if I hadn't knocked before I came in here.'

Needless to say, most awkward Thanksgiving dinner ever.”

From vicious_punk_chic:

“When I was six, I woke up to foreplay. I had always slept in my parents' bed. I was attached to my mom and one night my dad decides to get frisky. Rather than move me, he leaves me there and I wake up randomly. They weren't even making noise I just knew something was up.

I lifted my head up slowly (I was lying on my stomach and facing away from them) and I see just the outline of my dad kissing my moms' ass (she's lying on her stomach). I stared thinking I was dreaming but it went on for like 10 minutes. I then had to stop it because I was getting a uncomfortable. I just pretended I had woken up and told my mom I was scared. My dad got off, her put her underwear on and went to the bathroom, I'm guessing to finish off because he took a long while in there. My mom just hugged me and I drifted off to sleep. I never mentioned it and slept in my own bed more often after that.”

From a deleted user:

“When I was a child I was scared of the dark. I would run up to my parents bedroom if I became afraid of whatever monsters were lurking in the closet. I didn't like to wake them, so I would crawl and tiptoe.

One evening, I slipped underneath the bed after being startled by stirring above me. My father apparently woke and well, it was long and awkward. I breathed shallowly and remained motionless for near an hour-and-a-half.

Nothing happened after. They never knew. Or maybe they did. I slipped out from underneath the bed after a lengthy portion of time.”

From kuetwo:

“Not my story but going to quote my ex. Her parents were quite young and her mother was a reborn Christian. We both never thought her parents had sex

My ex used to wake up really early in the morning, and one day she woke up and went into her parents' bedroom. Imagine her confusion seeing her mother down on her knees at the foot of the bed, with her father sitting on the edge of a bed getting a blowjob.

She really should never have told me that story. She became the butt of far too many jokes.”

From user elliok7:

“I walked in on my mom giving my dad a handjob. He sleeps naked in the summer but their quick movements gave it away. He told me I don't need to tell them I'm home anymore just turn on the alarm; that's cool because now it's easier to come home drunk.”

From ashbashass:

“I don't remember this, but my parents have told me how I would always come into their room when I was young to sleep in their bed. Apparently I did it multiple times when they were having sex. I would just barge in, climb into bed, and completely miss the fact they were getting it on. Then they'd have to wait until I fell asleep and they'd go into another room to finish up. I was a real c*ck-block as a kid.”

From a deleted user:

“I walked up to my mom masturbating. I left quickly and grabbed my towel to shower thinking I'd been silent enough that didn't hear me. She then showed up to me acting all nervous and weird, and offered me a sandwich.”

From DungPuncher:

“Walked in on my mum giving my dad a blozzer. I had woken up and gone downstairs (nightmare I think) and walked into the living room. My mum dived behind the sofa and my dad pulled his trousers up. I ran back upstairs. The next day he came up with some guff about her checking him for testicular cancer and that checking is very important. Nice try dad.”

From Talthyren:

“I was eight and going over to my friend’s house, who was just down the street. I told my parents I'd be there for an hour or so.

I walked there, discovered he was not home, and walked back. When I opened the door to my house I heard this blaring Beatles music or some other hippy sh*t.

I walked downstairs towards the source of the music... and caught them in the act. My Dad hastily shoved my mom under the covers to make it seem like he was there alone and said 'I thought you would be gone for an hour?' 

I immediately poker face'd.”

Pizza delivery workers deal with unsettling stuff all the time, and not just the more adult-themed scenarios your dirty mind might be thinking of. When it comes down to it, pizza delivery horror stories happen to drivers as regularly as Domino's upsets its customers' stomachs. If anything, scary pizza delivery stories sounds like a horror trope just waiting to be explored by the Rob Zombies of the world. Putting a young adult alone behind the wheel and sending them off exposes these workers to the world's worst drivers, weather conditions, and customers - and for what? A delivery horror story to go along with their terrible tip? Just what an HR office wants to hear.

Many pizza delivery workers share their worst stories on the echo chamber that is Reddit, all for their catharsis and your entertainment. Featuring disgruntled customers, nudity, and a gun or two, pizza delivery nightmares come packed meatier than a deluxe meatlovers' pie.

From H8erRaider:

"I had a delivery under a mile away for a James McCloud. The name already stood out to me being that it's the father of Fox McCloud in Starfox. The total was just over $20. I arrive knock on the door. He answers completely naked hands me two $20 bills and says 'hope you enjoy the big tip' then does a wiggle to each side so his d*ck slapped each thigh once and closes the door.

I enjoyed both tips."

From abortionlasagna:

"This is not only my scariest experience, but also the time I almost got my now boyfriend murdered because of a sh*tty sexual innuendo.

I used to work at a Pizza Hut in a pretty sh*tty area of Tucson. Think lots of trailer parks, crappy apartments, and shitty duplexes. Most people were on drugs and welfare so tips were very rare. That evening a man had ordered a large meat lover's pizza with extra sausage and another driver took his delivery. Before the driver even came back, the man already called the store complaining his pizza was so spicy that it was inedible, and he would like a new one. While it was likely impossible the pizza was actually spicy and this dude probably just wanted free food, we obliged and handed the driver a new pizza when he returned to take back to the customer. Well, this did not appease him. Over the span of a couple hours the man called two more times insisting that the pizza was way too spicy, he couldn't eat it! We kept bringing him new pizzas, but this time we're taking back the old ones for 'quality checks' when really we were just tossing them in the dumpster in hopes that this guy would give up his scam.

Finally it got to be about 11 PM, with one hour left until closing. And the man had once again called back saying that he cannot eat his pizza, he needed a new one! At this point we suspected that there's something seriously wrong with this guy, and no one wanted to go out there in the middle of the night to confront him. So the manager informed him that there was unfortunately no way that we could appease him, but if he came down to the store tomorrow he would be happy to issue him a refund. We thought that was the end of it.

I was not a closer that night, so I was cashing out at the front register when a beater truck screeched into the parking lot and parked right at the front door. A rather disheveled and overweight man came in holding a pizza. He put the pizza on the counter and informed me he's here for his refund. I called the manager. While I was still up front calculating my cash for the night, the man opened up the box and started talking to me 'Dude this pizza is so f*cking spicy. You gotta try this sh*t. It's unreal. Someone musta been putting chiltipins in the sauce or some sh*t!' I just awkwardly let him know I believed him and moved out of the way so the manager could issue the refund. As this is going on, the man started getting more agitated. He pushed his pizza towards the manager, repeating 'Man you gotta try this pizza! You gotta believe me! It's so spicy!' all the while jabbing his pointer finger into the pizza and mashing it up into a disgusting mess. My manager kept telling him it's fine, he believed him, but the man remained insistent and shoved the pizza towards my manager. Finally the manager let him know 'No, I do not want to eat that pizza. And now I need to ask you to leave.'

The man then took his pizza and walked out. During all this the waitress, cook, and other two drivers had come up to the front to see what all the yelling about spicy pizza was about. The other driver who I had a bit of a crush on was standing next to me. Once the man got into his truck and started to pull away, I turn to the driver and say 'Hey, Kevin, wanna try my pizza?' And everyone just burst out laughing. Our laughter was short lived though as the truck screeched to a halt and zoomed back into the parking space. Tweeker man stormed back into the store, seriously pissed off and out for blood. He began screaming at my fellow driver 'Do you think something is f*cking funny? Am I funny? Are you fucking laughing at me? You think this pizza bullsh*t is f*cking funny?' Everyone was dead silent as my fellow driver sputtered along trying to get a word in but the man wouldn't have it. He climbed onto the counter and started screaming 'I'll teach you to laugh at me. Let's f*cking go outside! Right now! I'll f*cking teach you!"

For context, this man had to be about 40 - 50. My now boyfriend was 22 and spindly thin. This was frightening as f*ck. My manager managed to coerce the man off the counter and got him outside, immediately locking the door. The man screamed at the door for a few seconds before retreating to his truck and pulling away. So we thought that's the end of it... until the truck began circling the building with a f*cking gun being pointed out the driver's window. Everyone immediately hit the deck. The waitress started sobbing, and my manager blindly reached up trying to grab the phone off the counter to call 911. Every once in I while we peaked up, and this insane f*cker was still circling. When he finally stopped everyone crept to the back of the store and peek out the window. Dude had parked next to the driver cars, waiting for one of us to come out on a delivery. Nope.

The dude stuck around for around 15 minutes before taking off. The cops of course didn't show up until like an hour later because it's freaking Tucson and they suck. I had to sneak out before they came in hopes I wasn't going to get shot.

The next day the man repeatedly called the store to scream at people, claiming we attacked him threw crushed red peppers in his eyes. Since we had his address and phone number in the system, cops finally picked him up and we didn't hear from him again. He also got himself a nice place on the Do Not Deliver list."

From tacticoolmachinist:

"I was a driver for Domino's and our store was closing for the night. I was helping out with the closing duties and had just taken out half of the daily trash to the dumpster. When I came back to grab the rest of the trash, I left the side door ajar so I wouldn't have to deal with the keypad with my hands full. Well, a robber decided that was his opportunity to come in and brandish a gun in our faces. The scariest and most vivid moment for me was staring at the ugly brown tile thinking it would be the last thing I ever saw.

I was given a week off, but when I got back I was still a jumpy wreck for months.

About three weeks after the robbery, I was at a customer's door when he quickly swung his door open and pointed a pistol in my face, almost touching my forehead. He held it there for about ten hours (two seconds) before exclaiming 'It's just a joke, I thought you were my friends,' and showed me that it was just an airsoft pistol.

I carried my pistol every single day after the robbery. The guy with the airsoft pistol was super lucky my hands were full of pizza."

From moneyf0lder:

"I delivered pizzas from age 19-23 (2009-2013) in a crappy part of town.

One night near close, we got a shady sounding order (I didn't take the call) to a fake address, and they changed it to another when we wouldn't deliver. We had a sneaking suspicion something was up, so I brought the cook with me and we both brought large metal pipes with us. He just stood next to my car while I went to the door.

When I knocked, the porch light flicked on and off a few times. I knocked again and the porch light flickers. It happens a few more times until some grouchy middle age man opens the door (think Carl from Aqua Teen Hungerforce), bluntly tells me he didn't order, and shut the door in my face. When we left we noticed a bunch of hooded guys in the bushes across the street. Later that night a rival pizza chain driver was robbed on that street."

From ElToberino:

"I worked as a delivery boy in College Station, TX and had to work the day when Hurricane Ike made landfall. It was horrifying driving in that weather, and I got less than $10 in tips the entire shift because the people who order delivery in a hurricane are the same type off a**holes that don't tip."

From rabbitANDme:

"My first night as a driver, I went to this regular customer's house. She opened the door in a very see-through lingerie slip thing. I'm female and I should point out the drivers we had were exclusively male for about a year up until this day.

She closed the door very quickly upon seeing me. She reopening it after a minute in a long, fluffy robe that covered all her bits.

She was not attractive."

From Cytomorphenstein:

"I delivered pizzas for a long time in my early 20s in south GA for a local owned pizzeria. It was a great job, I got minimum wage, a two-dollar delivery fee went to me for every delivery, and I got to keep all my tips.

Scariest experience while doing this? Going to the local Kampgrounds of America campsite and delivering pizza to shirtless people who hung out on the porches of their cabins, smelled like cat piss, and we're visibly armed. Fun fact: heavy meth use or cooking meth results in a cat p*ss smell."

From WadeWilsonforPope:

"I had a very drunk guy try to force his way into my car in a sketchy part of town. I think he thought I was a taxi because of the light on the top of my car. I peeled out of there before he damaged my car door.

Also had a cop pull a gun on me. Twice."

From Jollyonreddit:

"I once got chased like you see in the movies. A little information about me: I'm an 18-year-old male student. To make a little money I part-time deliver pizza's at night and on the weekends. Note that I ride a moped to make deliveries, so my top speed is about 50 km/h. (31 mph)

So here's the story: it's a warm summer night, sun was almost set so in some directions visibility was very poor. I knew the street I was on very well, and knew narrow roads lay ahead of me. What I didn't know about was a car coming at me from the opposite direction, at a high speed with its headlights off. I simply didn't see them because of the sun blocking my eyesight. We almost had a top speed frontal collision there, and with me being on a moped I would have at least suffered from heavy injuries. I managed to dodge the car at the very last moment and didn't hesitate a second to trow the good ol' middle finger at them for not turning on their headlights in those conditions.

I still remember the car: a bright blue Fiat Punto with black rims.

So a few days later I spot the exact same car, waiting at a yield sign for me and some other vehicles to pass. I was on my way back to the pizza place and had to make a left into the same street they were on. Time for me to mess around for a bit. Extremely slowly I passed the front-end of their car. As I passed the driver's window I noticed it was rolled down a little bit. I peeked inside and saw the biggest, most terrifying looking gym rat wearing the douchiest sunglasses ever, next to him a beautiful blonde girl. So the guy immediately starts swearing and calling me out and I was like 'B*tch come at me!' I heard myself say it and instantly regret doing so because this was not a guy I wanted to get in a fight with. I'm a pretty tall guy but this dude, hell no.

So I got away from that car as fast as I could, but a few moments later, I sh*t you not, the Fiat appears in my mirror, the guy now chasing me.

I was driving as fast as I could but with him being in a car he could easily top that. There was a roundabout coming up which I knew I could take on easily while doing full throttle. The car of course could not. This slowed him down for a bit, but it only took the guy a matter of seconds to get at my back-end; he was now tailgating me and I was scared as f*ck. This wasn't enough for him, and he decided drive right next to me, passenger window rolled down, shouting at me to stop so we could 'talk.' Well I was not going to do that. He was closing in on me, the girl looking at me the whole time, the car and me almost touching sides.

At this point, I saw the golden opportunity: a side street on my right. I yank the break of the rear tire, and powerslid myself into that street. It wasn't my intention to lock the rear wheel but I can assure you, that looked cool.

But this wasn't the end, as the guy saw it coming and slammed the breaks too. Once again, he was right behind me. Suddenly I saw a narrow alley on the left. I did a hard left in and the blue Fiat knew he wouldn't fit. I drove back to the pizza place as fast as I could.

Sometimes I still spot that bright blue Fiat, and I hide or quickly turn into another street to avoid it as much as I can."

From giraffedot:

"I delivered pizza to a pretty dodgy area of town once.

I'm at the guy's door when their neighbor comes running out of her house and across the lawn. Her dad follows her out screaming, threatening to stab her and throwing stuff, including a knife. The guy I deliver it to says it happens pretty often.

The walk back to my car was probably the scariest part."

Usually, weird things people found in their yards are fairly benign: an interesting rock here, a particularly beautiful flower there. But every once in a while, someone unwittingly stumbles across a historical treasure - or the horror of a lifetime. Of course, backyards aren't the only places people find unexpected things; construction workers and people who made the mistake of going into a basement have found an oddity or two, as well. But, somehow, unsettling discoveries are even more shocking when they occur so close to home.  

A couple from Sierra Nevada, California, literally struck gold when they noticed the top of an old canister sticking out of the ground while walking their dog around their property in 2013. Inside the canister were a bunch of old gold coins from the 1890s, and when the couple returned to the spot where they’d found the canister, they discovered another seven canisters just like it. All in all, there were 1,427 gold coins buried on their property with a face value of $27,980 – but once the coins were restored and valued by professionals, they were found to be worth around $10 million. Not bad for a walk around the yard!

In February 1978, The Los Angeles Times reported a shocking story: two Los Angeles children found a Dino 264 GTS Ferrari, which had apparently been stolen several years earlier, buried in their backyard. The Ferrari, claimed the reporter, was in shockingly good condition, with only a small hole over the right taillight belying the truth of its underground burial. Sounds fantastical, right?

As it turns out, the story of the buried Ferrari is a little more complicated than that. In 2012, Mike Spinelli of Jalopnik contacted one of the detectives that worked the case back in 1978. The detective, Dennis Carroll, claimed that a snitch tipped off police about the location of the car - the story about the two kids finding it was a plant to shield the snitch's identity. And, the snitch alleged, the car wasn't exactly stolen: the original owner hired a few guys to stage the crime so he could collect the insurance money. The police could never prove it, though, so the owner was never charged. And as for the Dino's condition when it was dug up? It was an absolute wreck. A passionate mechanic got his hands on it, did some extensive restorations, and is still driving it around today.

There’s nothing like going out to pick some fruit in your backyard and somehow coming back with a wooly mammoth femur, but that’s exactly what happened to one Iowa family in July 2010. After the astounding discovery, scientists at a local university determined that the bone was about 12,000 years old and did, in fact, belong to a wooly mammoth. 

There’s a 12,000-acre space in Orlando, Florida, that used to be a World War II bombing range. Since 1992, over a hundred rockets and bombs have been discovered on the campus of a local school and in the yards of several housing developments. In spite of a $10 million cleanup effort on the part of the Army Corps of Engineers, there’s still a very real possibility that more bombs will be found in the area - much to the dismay of the area's residents. No children have been injured by the bombs and rockets, but two adults suffered burns when they found explosives on the school property. 

In 2011, Vincent Marcello, a man living the French Quarter of New Orleans, attempted to dig a hole for his new swimming pool. Instead, he accidentally unearthed an 18th-century graveyard. The historic cemetery came complete with 13 caskets full of human remains – as well as a healthy supply of the heebie-jeebies. Marcello was aware that his property had historic ties, but until the discovery of the cemetery, he didn't know just how deep the history went. 

In October 2008, a nine-year-old boy in Cambridgeshire, UK, came running inside to tell his mother about the cheetah in the backyard - but, shockingly, she didn't believe him. But as she glanced out the window of her kitchen, she realized he was telling the truth! The animal had found its way out of a sanctuary nearby and, luckily, the cheetah's keepers arrived shortly thereafter to take it back home. 

In 2007, a man in Austria was digging in his backyard when he made the casual discovery of 650-year-old buried treasure, including a couple hundred rings, some brooches, and lots of other bits and pieces worth a pretty penny. The discovery was described as a "fairy-tale find" by authorities, and the man, known only as "Andreas K.," has elected to stay anonymous. 

If you’re an amateur historian looking into the history of your home, there’s pretty much nothing more satisfying than finding a standing stone from 2,500 BCE on your property. That’s what happened to Stephen Davis of Stroud, Gloucestershire, England. in November 2001. Davis learned of the stone’s existence while researching his home and went looking for it in his yard. Luckily, his historian friend Clare Forbes helped out, and the two were able to put their heads together to find it - after an 18-month-long search. It's believed to mark a Bronze Age burial site.

In August 2014, an unsuspecting man in Calgary, Canada, discovered an unsettling item between the fence and his garage. It was a plastic bag with a pillowcase inside – but inside the pillowcase was a loaded hunting rifle and a cell phone. The original owner of these items remains unknown, and how they ended up on this man’s property is anyone’s guess. 

In March 2014, a Salt Lake City, Utah, boy was digging up his backyard pond when he found something completely unexpected - human bones. He called the police immediately, and the bones were sent off to the state medical examiner for testing. Whoever was under the man's pond, they hadn't died recently; the bones belonged to a Native American who lived in Utah about a thousand years ago. 

If Indiana Jones ditched the temples and instead went looking for historical items discovered in parking lots, he may have found some very interesting stuff. Artifacts from the past often lie hidden under the concrete slabs and garages where people stash their cars, forgotten until curious archaeologists wonder what's underneath. Just like strange items found on construction sites, artifacts found in parking lots can include bodies of famous people from history, bygone building foundations, or items that were used in daily life way back when.

Anyone can dig for buried treasure in their backyard, but digging up (and therefore destroying) a parking lot is no easy matter. Sometimes, archaeologists will use radar devices to scan the ground before bringing their case for excavation before the parking lot's owner. Other times, a parking lot was in the process of being turned into something else when an archaeological find was unearthed. There are even some artifacts that have just been left where they were, as digging them up would pose a problem.

These historical artifacts found in parking garages and lots may surprise you, and lead you to wonder what's underneath your own parking spot.

When a parking lot was dug up in order to build the University of Edinburgh's Edinburgh Centre of Carbon Innovation in 2013, workers made an unusual discovery. A sandstone slab was unearthed, along with a skeleton and an ornate sword. The Calvary cross was carved into the slab, leading historians to believe the body was that of a knight, and the slab was his gravestone. The foundations of the Blackfriars Monastery, founded in 1230 by King Alexander II and destroyed in 1558, were also discovered under the same parking lot.

Archaeologist Ross Murray once attended school a few feet away from the discovery and was amazed at the find, saying, "We used to take breaks between classes just a few feet away in the building's doorway and all that time the grave was lying under the car park."

A month later, archaeologists found what they believe to be the knight's family. Eight skeletons were unearthed, including those of a woman and an infant. Since they were discovered buried behind a wall, it is believed they are related to the knight and were placed together in the family crypt.

A team of archaeologists using radar to detect objects under the ground found something big under a parking lot in Jerusalem, Israel, in 2007. They got permission to dig up the lot and were pleasantly surprised at what they found: Queen Helena's Palace, a Second Temple structure near Temple Mount. The palace and the Second Temple were destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE.

Archaeologists used coins and pottery found at the site to date the structure. This major find proved the ancient city was bigger than anyone previously thought.

A 2011 dig under a San Francisco, CA, parking lot excited archaeologists greatly, as they kept discovering new treasure the deeper they dug. Tableware made in Philadelphia, liquor bottles, and serving platters were found at around 11 to 12 feet below the surface. But further down, they discovered items dating back to California's Gold Rush, such as pieces of tent.

"We got down to just immediately after the Gold Rush, like 1850 and maybe even late 1840s," noted lead archaeologist Heather Price. She also pointed out that the area was a working class section of town, and the variety of artifacts from all over the country demonstrated just how many people traveled to California at the time to seek their fortunes.

In 2014, a downtown waterfront parking lot in Miami was set to be turned into a new building project. But before construction began, an archaeological dig was requested – and some incredible finds were made. In addition to shell and bone tool artifacts, evidence of an entire village was unearthed. Archaeologists dated their find to be about 2,000 years old, and were amazed to find carved holes they believed to be the foundations of homes built by the Tequesta native people, as well as the remains of boardwalks used to connect the village.

Archaeologist Bob Carr was thrilled, commenting, "It’s one of the earliest urban plans in eastern North America. You can actually see this extraordinary configuration of these buildings and structures.’’

At one point in history, Jerusalem was under the control of Greece. Being the crafty construction artists they were, the Greeks built a fortress called an Acra around the Temple Mount in order to control who could come in and out of the temple.

Until 2015, archaeologists were unsure of the Acra's exact location. Artifacts found beneath a parking lot at Jerusalem Walls National Park have led them to claim the location as the fortress's site. The artifacts discovered include arrows, sling shots, coins, and stones featuring the trident symbol of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, ruler of Greece at the time.

The same team of archaeologists who discovered the remains of Richard III also made another important discovery in 2013. The remains of a Roman cemetery they believe to be about 1,700 years old was found in Leicester, England. Along with 13 different skeletons, the team unearthed many artifacts such as belt buckles and jewelry.

However, the burial site was different than the archaeologists expected. They noticed bodies were buried pointing in different directions, and the skeletons were a mix of ages and genders. They concluded that the section of the cemetery possibly displayed a combination of various burial beliefs.

Richard III, a 15th century King of England and one of the more prominent jerks from history, suddenly made news again in 2012 when his remains were believed to be discovered. Greyfriars, the friary in which he was buried, was thought to be hidden under a parking lot in Leicester, England.

The supposed discovery was so big, archaeologists had to give the press daily updates to appease the interest of the public. They first found the remains of the building, and eventually a skeleton. Its condition seemed to match that of the late King, mostly due to evidence of scoliosis and a battle wound to the head. DNA testing later proved the archaeologists to be correct: it was Richard.

Evidence of a mound believed to be an ancient Viking gathering spot was discovered hidden under a parking lot in Dingwall, Scotland, in 2013. Such establishments – or "Things" – were places where the parliament or governing body could meet.

Archaeologists believe the mound was built at the request of a Viking known as Thorfinn the Mighty. It is the second such structure to be discovered in the UK. Radio carbon dating places the mound's construction around the 11th century.

In the 1800s, before it became a state, the Republic of Texas had its own navy. The steamship Zavala was originally a passenger ship, but it was later purchased by the Texan Navy and used for battle. But the Zavala was badly damaged in a storm, and was run aground at the Port of Galveston and left to deteriorate.

In 1986, novelist and underwater adventurer Clive Cussler discovered the ship's hull buried under a wharf parking lot. He wrote about the find in his book, The Sea Hunters.

Located on what was originally the grounds of the Palace of Placentia, the royal chapel was believed to be a worshiping spot for Henry VIII as well as other monarchs. The palace was built by Henry VII, but destroyed in 1699 to make way for a hospital. The chapel was believed to have been torn down along with it.

The chapel was lost for 500 years, but unexpectedly rediscovered when construction workers hit brick lying underneath a parking lot in the Greenwich district of London in 2006. Archaeologists carefully excavated and discovered walls, a floor that was once covered in checkerboard tiles, pieces of stained glass, and decorative stonework. Expanding their search, the experts also found a nearby room for storing religious objects and a river frontage.

No reason to mince words: Dennis Hopper was a crazy person. In the best way. The type of crazy that drives you to great art, mind expansion, and profound social change. Unfortunately, for some, Dennis Hopper is nothing but an eccentric, as crazy Dennis Hopper stories, and some of the more outlandish things he's said, eclipse the brilliant work he's done and cultural shifts he helped intiate.

Hopper was born in Dodge City, Kansas, in 1936. His family moved to San Diego when he was a teenager, where he caught the acting bug in high school. After appearing in a few films in the '50s and '60s, Hopper starred in and directed the groundbreaking 1969 film Easy Rider, which essentially kicked off the great wave of American filmmaking of the '70s, which climaxed, and began dying, with Apocalypse Now, in which Hopper appears.

Hopper was also really, really into drugs. At one point, he took responsibility for making cocaine available to the masses, noting: "The cocaine problem in the United States is really because of me. There was no cocaine before Easy Rider on the street. After Easy Rider, it was everywhere."

Dennis Hopper's addiction issues were a major problem through the mid-'80s. He openly admitted to being an alcoholic who used cocaine, LSD, and other drugs to fuel his creative expression. After an incident in a Mexican jungle and a stint at a psychiatric hospital, he gave up alcohol for good, and thereafter only occasionally smoked marijuana. Dennis Hopper's death from prostate cancer at age 74 was a loss for the film industry and audiences alike. 

Hopper reportedly went to jail on at least seven occasions. For the mug shot you see above, Hooper was arrested in July, 1975 by authorities in New Mexico. He was charged with reckless driving, failure to report an accident, and leaving the scene. He pleaded guilty and paid a fine.

According to Tom Folsom, author of Hopper: A Journey into the American Dream, the real story is: Hopper won LSD in a poker game, dropped it, and, while tripping, shot a .357 into a tree, thinking it was a grizzly bear.  He then fled the scene, but was eventually arrested and put in the same jail in which he filmed a scene in Easy Rider.

Another time, Hopper was drunk and hallucinating and caught randomly firing a gun in the air. Willie Nelson and his wife Connie picked Hopper up from jail in a Mercedes and they drove to Las Vegas together.

Hopper's life was controlled by drugs and alcohol in the early '80s. Over the years, he was very open about his alcoholism; in 2009, he told Piers Morgan, for a piece published in GQ, that, at the height of his addiction, he drank about half a gallon of rum, 28 beers, and snorted three grams of cocaine every day.

Hopper believed the drugs and alcohol made him a better actor, and it never interfered with his job. As a result, no one told him to stop. 

An excerpt from the interview:

"Morgan: That's a lot of consumption for a little guy. I would die if I did that, how did you stay alive?

Hopper: Oh, it's not as hard as it sounds. If you mix the rum, like I used to, then you can drink it all day long, no problem.

Morgan: Yes, but half a gallon? You make it sound perfectly normal, Dennis, but it's not.

Hopper: [Laughs] I used to get thirsty, you got to have a beer or two if you get thirsty... "

Riding high on fame brought by the success of Easy Rider, Hopper directed and starred in The Last Movie, which was shot in Chinchero, Peru, in 1970. As a piece on the making of the film from Business Insider notes, 

"The baby-faced Hopper informed Universal that he would be making the movie in Peru. What that studio didn't know was the region had become the cocaine capital of the world.

'Every coke head in LA wanted to work on the picture in order to smuggle drugs back up north,' author Peter Biskind wrote in Easy Riders, Raging Bulls." 

Hopper caused a fracas by smoking weed and calling homosexuality "groovy" during an interview in Peru during pre-production of the film, in 1969. As quoted from a piece by Brad Darrach for Life:

“Taking a long reflective pull on an odd-looking cigarette. Dennis said he thought everybody should ‘do his thing’ and then allowed that he himself had lived with a lesbian and found it ‘groovy’…Within 24 hours the government denounced the article and issued a decree repealing freedom of the press.”

Darrach writes of the day the actors and crew arrived to begin production on the film:

“Somebody made a cocaine connection and a number of actors laid in a large supply at bargain prices — $7 for a packet that costs $70 in the States. By 10 p.m. almost 30 members of the company were sniffing coke or had turned on with grass, acid, or speed. By midnight, much of the cast had drifted off to bed by twos and threes. At 2 a.m. I was awakened by screams. A young actress had taken LSD and was ‘having a bummer.’"

The ranch where the cast and crew stayed was the site or "whipping parties," which began when:

"... an actor chained a girl to a porch post and, inspired by the notion that she looked like Joan of Arc, lit a crackling fire at her feet. Another actor swallowed five peyote buds in too rapid succession and almost died.”

As for production, Hopper told Uncut in 2005:

“It was one long sex and drugs orgy. Wherever you looked there were naked people out of their [expletive] minds. But I wouldn't say it got in the way. It helped us get the movie done. We might have been drug addicts but we were drug addicts with a work ethic… The drugs, the drink, the insane sex, they all fuelled our creativity.”

In 2002, Kris Kirstofferson recalled:

“[W]hat [Hopper] did was what he was filming. He was filming the corruption of a little town by the movie people, and I mean they ruined the town. I think he got a priest defrocked…”

The movie wasn't particularly well received. Roger Ebert's review starts: 

"Dennis Hopper's The Last Movie is a wasteland of cinematic wreckage. There are all sorts of things you can say about it, using easy critical words to describe it as undisciplined, incoherent, a structural mess. But mostly it's just plain pitiful." 

While working on Rebel Without A Cause, Hopper had a ménage à trois with actress Natalie Wood and director Nicholas Ray. Ray, 43, was Wood's first lover, and Hopper, 18, was her second. Hopper admired "the cool way she handled two simultaneous affairs," which he praised as "way ahead of her time." She was the aggressor in their relationship, which was unusual for a young woman in the 1950s, and it turned him on.

According to a piece on the affair from the Huffington Post, one day: 

"Hopper picked Wood up at the Chateau Marmont hotel, where she spent the afternoon with the 43-year-old Ray, and drove up to a lover’s lane to make out. He was about to go down on Natalie when she exclaimed, 'Oh, you can’t do that.' 'Why?' Hopper asked. 'Because Nick just f*cked me,' she said."

Ray became jealous of Hopper's affair with Wood, and used his position to push the actor around on set. Fed up, Hopper confronted Ray, saying:

"Nick, I know you've been f*cking Natalie. You're now using that against me. I know that you've told the studio I'm having an affair with her. This has gotta stop... [or] I'm gonna beat the sh*it out of you right now." 

Hopper was renowned for throwing legendary parties at places like Chateau Marmont, the famed hotel on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, where Jim Morrison and Roman Polanski both lived, John Belushi died, and artists from Billy Wilder to F Scott Fitzgerald and Hunter S. Thompson stayed and worked at some point. 

Hopper being Hopper, his parties weren't just groovy shindigs, they were orgies with at least 50 women in attendance. As he told IndieWire in 1995, one of the orgies included actress Natalie Wood, who attended on one condition: she could take a champagne bath. Unfortunately, Wood got a crotch rash, freaked out, and was forced to go to the hospital. Hopper said the actress missed the orgy, but he thought the whole ordeal was "funny."

Hopper's first wife was Brooke Hayward, daughter of Broadway producer Leland Hayward. Their marriage ended in 1969, likely because he beat her up and had a penchant for hosting drug-fueled orgies. Speaking of his relationship with Hayward to the Guardian, Hopper said: 

"I hit her. There was a moment when I became violent with her. And she was probably afraid of me after that. That was a very young and stupid mistake because I didn't understand her illness... She had an illness. She was manic depressive and I couldn't cope with it."

Hopper was later married to Michelle Phillips from the Mamas and the Papas for eight days. He had taken acid when they tied the knot, and didn't realize they were married. Phillips claimed he handcuffed her and fired guns in their home. When she tried to escape, Hopper followed her to the airport and drove on the runway to prevent her from leaving. She ended it purportedly due to the star's "unnatural sexual demands."

Hopper later conceded he slapped some women in his life, but blamed it on his alcohol abuse.

While filming Easy Rider, Hopper, Peter Fonda, and Jack Nicholson spent a lot of time at the headquarters of a production company called BBS. The secretaries knew how to roll joints and inject drugs as well as prepare tables with cocaine for guests. One BBS executive kept the ashes of his dead wife in a gold dish. One day, while looking for drugs, Hopper, Nicholson, and Fonda accidentally snorted the woman's ashes, assuming they were cocaine.

On the director's commentary track for the blu ray release of Apocalypse Now, Francis Ford Coppola discusses casting Dennis Hopper as a military office. When Hopper showed up on set stoned out of his mind, long-haired, and drinking nonstop, Coppola knew that was out of the question, so he crafted a new character for the actor based on Sean Flynn, a Vietnam War photographer know for outlandish, drug-fueled behavior who disappeared during the war (and was the son of old Hollywood legend Errol Flynn). 

Intent on creating an atmosphere conducive to creativity and camaraderie, Coppola wanted to make Hopper feel at home on set. According to George Hickenlooper, who directed the acclaimed documentary Hearts of Darkness about the making of Apocalypse Now:

"Dennis recounted the story to me that Francis came to him and said, 'What can I do to help you play this role?' Dennis said, 'About an ounce of cocaine.' So he was being supplied by the film production drugs that he could use while he was shooting."

The cocaine inspired Hopper's manic performance, include his dialogue, which was largely improvised, according to Coppola. Fun bonus fact: Coppola forbade Hopper from having film in any of his prop cameras, lest he take, then try to sell, behind-the-scenes photos. 

During his drug and alcohol-fueled days in the early '80s, Hopper experienced a nervous breakdown in a Latin American jungle, after trying to climb onto the wing of a moving plane in Mexico City. In the jungle, he was found wandering around naked, and tried to bait police into shooting him. 

Hopper told the Guardian in 2007:

"I was making a movie, but I never made it to the set. They found me running around the jungle naked. Before that, at Mexico City airport, I thought I was in the middle of a movie and walked out on the wing. I was out of my mind. It was around then I decided it was time to get into rehab. My liver, my body, my brain were all shot. Hahahahahah!"

Hopper was admitted to a psychiatric hospital in Los Angeles after the incident. Some Hollywood friends got him released, and took him to rehab.

As Jack Nicholson remembers, the set of Easy Rider was a drug-fueled nightmare for pretty much everyone. "Everyone wanted to kill one another or put one another in institutions," the actor recalls. 

At one point during the making of Easy Rider, Hopper, the film's director and one of its stars, insisted co-star Peter Fonda climb on top of a statue of Madonna and tell everyone present about his mother, who slashed her own throat when Fonda was 10. Hopper prodded Fonda to confront his dead mother (maybe he wanted him to talk to her spirit?) about her suicide, reportedly shouting, "Ask her why she copped out on you."

If you understand the freewheeling nature of life on the road, you also understand that scary truck stop stories get much more horrific than the casual observer might think. A truck stop provides a 24-hour hub for people from all walks of life pass through on their way to somewhere else, and who knows who they are or where they're going. For all you know, they just escaped a kidnapper, or they're Aileen Wuornos. For truckers and truck stop employees, these creepy experiences may sound like just another day or night on the job, but listening to truckers describe scary sights at truck stops should give anyone goosebumps.

These creepiest things people have seen at truck stops were described on Reddit, and they include the paranormal, the bizarre, and the downright strange. Like rest stops and the murders they get associated with, truck stops do sometimes live up to their reputations as places you might not want to find yourself alone. With tales about other truck drivers committing crimes, supernatural women, shadowy men, and some odd animal sightings, these creepy truck stop stories will ensure you use the restroom before you leave the house.

From moonpilot:

"There was a story on here a while back by a trucker who shared his creepiest experience while out on the road. It was getting very late (and very dark) so he pulled into a rest area off the highway in the middle of nowhere. The place was totally empty, meaning there weren't any other vehicles or people there. While he was getting some shut-eye inside his truck, he heard a faint sound of a barking dog that seemed to get louder and louder as time went by.

"Eventually the nasty barking sound was coming from right outside his driver-side door. As he got up to look in the window, he didn't see a rabid dog but instead it was some crazy-eyed person looking directly at him, growling and trying to get in. He started the engine and got the heck out of there."

From YellowerClimes:

"Pulled over to stay the night near the Arizona welcome center on I-40. I hear a light knocking on my door. An old lady wearing nothing but an oversized sweatshirt is standing outside. I roll down my window and ask what's up. In the tiniest, creepiest little voice she says that there's something in her car making a weird noise and that she needs help with it. I didn't help her."

From suspecrobot:

"Not a trucker, but my neighbor's son was. One night he was parked and asleep in his cab when someone stole his load. Then they set fire to the truck with him in it still asleep. He didn't get out in time."

From dreezy:

"My uncle was a truck driver for many years... He spent several years doing cross-country trips, often loading up his trailer in the middle of the night. While he waited for his trailer to be loaded he’d make his way over to a nearby truck stop, have a late night meal, and shoot the sh*t with any other drivers there. After a while, he would make friends with drivers that were on a somewhat similar schedule. He befriended this particular guy that he would run into about once a month or so.

"One night the guy invites him back to his semi. He wants to show him something he’s built. This guy’s semi has a sleeper on the back, so it’s pretty big. Basically it’s a semi-truck with a small room right behind the driver to sleep in. My uncle is intrigued by what kind of custom work this guy has done so he goes along with him.

"Once they’re in the truck the guy show him what he’s built in the sleeper of his semi. It’s a big, heavy duty box. Apparently it has hydraulic arms on either side so he can open and close it with the push of a button. He says once he pushes the button it seals shut, it can’t be opened. My uncle is kind of weirded out by this and cracks a few jokes about the box. The guy starts to get a little agitated. My uncle realizes this and decides it’s time to leave this guy’s semi.

"A few months later he finds out that the guy was a serial killer stuffing truck stop hookers and others into this custom hydraulic box. At this point in the story his hand starts shaking and he can barely drink his beer. 'That guy was massive,' he says. 'His hand could cover most of my head. He could’ve stuffed me in the box and there’s nothing I could’ve done to stop him. Or sh*t, maybe there was someone in there already!' He says he still has nightmares about it years later."

From megustamikey:

"I had just pulled into a truck stop inside Billings, Montana... I was playing slots and a beautiful American Indian girl was serving drinks. After quite a few drinks I started chatting with her on a more personal level.

"She told me that her shift ended in a few hours and that she would be behind the truck stop with a case of beer if I felt like partying (I did). I hung around the front of the building, and when everyone started filing out of the doors, I went around back to meet her. I couldn't find her, but I found an older, Mexican woman who seemed to know my name and acted as if I had just been talking to her inside. I was buzzed, but not drunk, or stupid. I knew this wasn't the same person. What also struck me as odd is that she had no personal belongings besides the clothes on her back. No purse, or key ring, nothing. I, starting to feel a little 'tripped out' because of this, began to act like I didn't know her and didn't want anything to do with her. She became cold and stopped trying to talk to me... okay, well that was freaking weird.

"I walk all the way back out to my truck, climb in the back, change into my sleep wear and laid on the bunk to re-read a book. Only a few minutes into the book I hear three loud bangs on the side of my sleeper, I'm talking 'Holy-Crap Your Truck's On Fire You Have To Get Out NOW' loud! I opened the curtains and rolled down the window and saw that the young American Indian woman I had been speaking with was standing next to my truck. I immediately picked up something wrong about her. It wasn't her lack of speech, odd, disheveled look, or rigid body movements. It was her eyes that got to me. Solid black.

"I could say that the dark night coupled with a few drinks could make me think her eyes were black, but I'm not. When I hit a switch in the back of my truck, the inside lights up like a baseball stadium. Her eyes seemed to be pulling the light into them, like miniature black holes, it reminded me of when a woman wearing mascara cries and she kind of looks like a raccoon, afterwards. It looked like she had rubbed charcoal around her eyes.

"It also felt like my body was acting of its own accord, like my body was screaming at my fragile psyche to open the door and let her into my truck, despite the fact that she looked freaking terrifying and hadn't said a single word to me since meeting her again. I remember having to choke out the word 'No.' It reminded me of when you're on the verge of tears, but you choke through them to speak to someone.

"I was too damned terrified to look out my side vents to see if she was still standing outside, I was too terrified that I might have ended up looking back into darkness, only to know, in my mind's eye, that she could be staring right back at me. I've got the shakes just from remembering that. "

From Ethansick101:

"I live in a smallish town about an hour south of Salt Lake City Utah. I am a 15-year-old male and professional mountain biker. I live on the south side of town, but the town is small enough I can ride my bike from one end to the other in around 30 minutes. Anyway this story happened about a year ago.

"I got in a fight with my parents about not being able to have a sleepover that night, and rode off to help get over it. As I rode up a hill to the rode that goes all the way through town, I thought of were to go. I decided I was going to go to a closed down Flying J on the other side of the town. I took off, and got there about 30 minutes later. As I was approaching the Flying J, I got an uneasy feeling. I didn't think much of it and shook it off. But as I rode onto the property, I had another uneasy feeling. Trucks still park there at night and I had seen drivers in them as I drove past several times. "

"The first thing I noticed was none of the trucks were running and none of them had a light on. Now note it was only about 8:30 PM so it was just past dark and that's when most trucks pull in. I know this cause my dad is a truck driver, and I had spent two months with him on the truck that summer. I started just riding around to the back of the parking lot with that uneasy feeling getting stronger the farther I went into the parking lot. About half-way through I noticed a dark figure standing by one of the trucks. I couldn't tell if it was looking at me or not but I thought it was just a driver getting some fresh air. As I started getting closer I noticed I could see through the figure and see the air intake on the side of the truck. For those of you who don't know where that is, it is right in front of the doors on both sides, and looks like a big barrel.

"As I got even closer to the figure, I suddenly felt like someone had slugged me in the gut with dread. I looked back up at the figure and it was gone...I looked back where I was going and a seven-foot tall completely black figure stood in front of me and had red eyes like fire balls floating in mid air. My quick mountain-biking reflexes made me swerve to the side of the figure. I started peddling as fast as I could and went around a row of trucks. I looked back and the figure was chasing me. I changed to a higher gear and started to get away from the figure. As I rode past the fence I looked back, and it was stopped right behind the fence.

"I rode back home as fast as I could. I didn't tell my parents cause they wouldn't believe me. The next day I was hanging out with some friends and told them about it. One of them said they knew kids who used Ouija boards and did really bad stuff there at night. I shook it off, until this year when my dad's trucking company bought the lot. I have to go there late at night to help my dad unload and tarp trucks. Almost every time I'm there, I see that figure standing by something, staring at me."

From CassTheGryffindor:

"All growing up, my dad was a semi truck driver. He drove full-time, all over the country. We didn't get to see him very often, but he used to call home almost every night, and in the summers, my sisters and I got to travel with him for a week or two. We called it 'trucking.' 

"This story happened when I was really little, probably four or so, and I don't really remember it. I was trucking with my dad, and he was experiencing some minor engine trouble. Before he was a truck driver, my dad was a mechanic, and did most of his own truck repairs. He had pulled over in a small truck stop to work on the truck. There was a tree next to the parking lot, so he sat me down underneath it with my doll, and he worked on the truck right next to me.

"It was really hot, and while he was laying underneath the hot truck, my dad blacked out. Who knows how long he was out. He was having a heat stroke. He finally came to with a splitting headache. He looked over to the tree to check on me, and I was still just sitting there playing with my doll. But there was a guy creeping up behind me, reaching out to grab me. I don't know how, but with the little energy my dad had left, he jumped out from under the truck yelling and swinging whatever tool he had nearby. The guy ran off, and my dad collapsed.

"A lady working inside the truck stop saw the whole thing, and came running out. She got me and my dad inside, and took care of me while he cooled down.

I don't know what would have happened if my dad hadn't woken up when he did."

From TraciaWindsor:

"My friends and I drove out to the Greyhound station along the highway to drop one friend off. There were five of us in total, with me sitting in the middle seat in the back. The station is adjacent to a truck stop, with the parking spots for the station perpendicular to the spots for the trucks. It just so happened that the spot we were parked in was in line with the cab of the truck parked perpendicular to us.

"We were just sitting there in the car waiting for the bus, and my two friends in the front were turned so that they faced us in the back. Nothing special was going on, just general chit chat. With me being the only one with a clear view out the windshield, I happened to look up at the cab of the truck in front of us. I noticed a blinking little red light that seemed out of place at the bottom of the window. I look a little closer and realize that the little red light belong to a camera the trucker was holding that was pointed unmistakably directly at us. After I pointed this out to my friends and all attention turned to him, the camera and creeper holding it quickly disappeared from sight. Needless to say we also disappeared from sight, moving to a space as far away from truck parking spots as possible.

"Not the worst thing that could have happened, but definitely creepy. I just don't understand what he was wanting to get out of filming us. I mean we were just sitting in a car, chatting. I just don't get it."

From undermoonandstar:

"When I was a fresh faced 18-year-old college student, I worked at a fast food restaurant near a truck stop. I had just moved from a relatively small town of around 3,000 to a city of around 65,000, not including the college kids. Somehow I was not familiar with creepy men.

"So it's my second or third week there on cashier duty and it is busy dinnertime. Everything is going fine and I'm doing pretty well because I'm a relatively friendly person while still making sure the line went through smoothly. A lot of truckers come in and a relatively heavy set gentleman with the typical trucker's outfit (jean jacket, dirty jeans, so much denim!) is next at my register. He's at least 45 and smells like the worst BO ever. He orders and I tell him it will be a few moments. I look behind him indicating that it is time to move on because I'm going to help the person behind him. Then it starts.

Trucker: 'You look pretty young to be working.'

Me: (awkward laugh) 'Yeah, this is my first college job.'

Trucker: 'No, no way are you in college, you are just a baby.'

I spurt out more awkward laughing and I address the person behind him. He still doesn't move.

Trucker: 'You look tired.'

Me: 'Yeah, I had a long day of classes.'

Trucker: 'I'm tired too. Want to take a nap with me in my truckbed?'

"Yeah, okay, moving on. I readdress the person behind him and even move a little to the side so the customer can see me. Luckily his food comes up and he disappears. Good thing too, because he was making me uncomfortable. My manager, who saw the whole thing, started asking if I knew that guy and if he was bothering me. I told him that I didn't know him but he's gone now so it's no big deal. I figured that would be that. Nope.

We begin closing up around 10 PM as we close at 11 PM. I'm doing some light cleaning up when we get a drive-thru. I have a headset and my manager has another along with the grill cook. Right now it is just us three there for the night because our store was famous for being understaffed. My manager takes the order and does the standard greeting. Instead, we get the familiar voice of the 'Trucker.'

Trucker: 'What time is the cashier girl done?'

"My manager turns to me. I'm completely frozen and not sure what to say. My manager turns the headset off and asks again if I know this guy. I say no and I can tell he is immediately in attack mode.

Manager: 'I'm sorry sir, we have many females on registers throughout the night and I'm not allowed to give out - '

Trucker: (After interrupting him) 'The baby faced girl, I know she is still there, I told her I would give her a ride.'

Manager: 'I cannot give out that information.'

Trucker: 'Tell her I'll be waiting.'

"He then drove off. My manager immediately runs in back and leaves me and the grill cook standing there confused and scared. In 15 minutes the GM comes in and asks me various questions such as if I'm sure I don't know this man and then tells us to shut down lobby and just keep drive-thru open. They both go in the back room and shut the door. At around 10:45, the grill cook, who came up to talk to me as I was visibly shaken, notices an unmarked police car sitting in our parking lot. At 10:55 my manager comes back out and tells us to just shut the store down.

"Around 11:45, we are finished and I grab my coat from the break room. Normally, just myself and the grill cook would have just walked out together but instead both the manager and GM both walked us out. Sure as hell, there is an 18 wheeler, with his lights off, waiting outside of the normal parking in the truck stop and instead in our parking lot as if no one would notice the big truck. As we make our way to our cars, the trucker turns his lights on and starts his engine. The undercover gets out and walks up to us and then walks with us to our cars. Trucker must have seen the cop and the manager and GM and instead drove away. Although nothing happened, it changed our store's policy on how the closers could leave the store. Now they had to go in packs of three and couldn't leave until everyone's cars started and their lights were on."

From lincunguns:

"Given the nature of their work, truck drivers can be pretty unhealthy and will sometimes die in their sleep at rest stops. The sad (and gross) thing is that they can go unnoticed for a decent amount of time."