The Creepiest Displays Of Intelligence People Have Ever Seen

You don't have to be booksmart to be considered a genius.

In fact, those who possess superior intelligence slip can fly under the radar undetected until they open their mouth to espouse a mind-blowing fact nobody ever saw coming.

While brainiacs can impress, it's those whose intellect is on another level that can make us question if we're of the same species.

Curious to hear about these superhumans among us, Redditor InsaneLazyGamer asked:

"What's the creepiest display of intelligence you've seen by another human?"

They are different than the average human person.

Wild Wisdom

"My dad. He knows so much esoteric and absolutely off the wall, strange knowledge that you sometimes have to question how and why he knows it."

"One day, while him and I were shooting the breeze about a job he had before I was born, he casually started talking in detail about the processes and ingredients needed to weaponize anthrax as an aerosolized dust."

– CircleWithSprinkles

The Guestimator

"I knew a lady who counted pills in a pharmacy basically her entire life. One time she looked at a container of ibuprofen that was supposed to have 100 pills in it and said it looked off. She recounted and it had 99 pills in it.... 1 less. My mind was blown."

– Aleacam

It's Always The 'Chill' Ones

"When I was in medschool I was tangentially friends with a guy who never showed up to uni at all. Skipped all lectures, called in sick for all lab and tutorial sessions."

"The night before 2nd year finals he was around my house and said he had spent the last week watching every lecture at 2x speed. Dude placed top 10 (out of 300 students) in every exam. And mind you, it wasn’t just he remembered everything but he had a functional, lateral applicable knowledge of all the stuff we had to know much better than most people who actually showed up."

"I always shuddered to think that if he applied himself he would be a monster of a man, but dude was content to just chill."

– fruit_shoot

We normal people can't process what's going on in these examples.

The Polyglot

"I had to learn collegiate-level German in the military, which was a 9-month class. We started off with 15 people and graduated with 6, it was really hard and I barely made it through."

"The top kid in my class was a basic white kid from Indiana who had already tested out with top scores in Spanish and Portuguese in a matter of weeks. He not only knew those languages perfectly fluently, he could switch dialects fluently between like the DR and Spain, or Brazil and Portugal."

"His story was the schools were scheduled for a specific length of time, with a report date already set that was kind of far out, so the Defense Language Institute (our school) kept throwing languages at him. He figured that out and started taking his time in class, but like halfway through German he turned in a science fiction book that he had written to our teachers, completely in German language. Then they put him in Arabic, then Farsi, which were each 1 ½ year long schools on their own."

"So in the nine months I was there to learn how to read, write, and speak German, which already had an expected high failure rate, he did the same for Spanish, Portuguese, German, Arabic, and Farsi, including different dialects, accents, wrote a couple of books…. "

"Before he came he said he knew 'some Spanish' from working construction after high school and liked the idea of becoming a linguist, but had never tried actually learning before. Besides languages, he seemed extremely normal, but no one knew he was writing books, we already had like 4 hours of homework every night. It was insane."

"Edit to add: We were friends, and I asked him his method. He said his favorite way to learn was to take songs he knew in English and then translate them into the new language. The trick was he wouldn’t translate it word for word, he would learn about the people and say the lyrics 'how they would say it'. How he figured that out I have no idea."

– Gal_GaDont

By The Book

"Not creepy but my high school algebra teacher apparently had the textbook memorized. We were doing work in class by ourselves and struggling with a problem. 'What page and what problem #?' he asked. He then proceeded to write the problem out in the board without referencing the book. Blew our high school minds away."

– PiecesMAD

"My math teacher was like that. I had him for the last two years of his 45-year-long career. He had been teaching math for so long there was no need for him to do any sort of lesson planning. He never had any notes or anything because he had countless examples on his head. He was a great teacher and a great guy."

– SpaceStation_11

Anonymous Customer

"I knew a guy who worked retail and was able to memorize customer credit card numbers."

"He used them to buy pornography."

– TheWraithKills

These gifted individuals boggle the mind.

Precision Swing

"I once watched my cousin with down syndrome just start hitting golf balls at the range like he was the course pro."

"He went to a few of my matches growing up and occasionally I would take him to the range with me because he loved watching me hit them and riding in the cart if I played. One day he was messing with one of my wedges and I offered him a couple balls."

"By no means was he sending these hundreds of yards (considering it’s a pitching wedge) but every shot was practically identical to the one before. He was consistently hitting them 80 yards within what seemed like a 5 yard grouping."

"Since then, I’ve tried to get him to hit more balls, but he just doesn’t want to. By far the most unexpected thing I’ve witnessed."

– CommunicationIll4733

Memory Master
 

"I knew a guy who could remember everything he ever read, but that's not the creepy part. the creepy part was how he wouldn't tell you. so he didn't like telling people because it becomes a game for people. 'What is the fifth word of the second paragraph on page 93 for this book?' "

"so anyway, anyone new, he just wouldn't tell them (fair) up until they pissed him off. Then it was like a court drama 'on January 16, 2007 you said that John and Jane were seen flirting at the coffee shop and, quote, 'omg John is cheating on Mary with Jane again!'"

"look through past messages, and sure as sh*t the message would say that."

"Anyway, dude was super smart but really jaded and depressed. Fell out of touch so idk what he's doing now."

– adorablecynicism

Generous Genius

"I used to go to school with a genius dude. He was super shy and introverted, but his ability to solve complex issues had everyone ask for his help, and he eventually became a super quiet leader in our classroom."

"He would correct teachers left and right, score perfect grades while everyone else was struggling, photocopy his extremely clean notebook for everyone to use, solve the tests multiple times in multiple variations with errors, and pass it along the class for everyone to copy."

"Did a few people's final project for a fee in addition to his own. He carried us all through the toughest classes, all while staying extremely humble about his intellectual skills. Finished every semester with near-perfect grades. We all looked up to him."

– Teminite2

In Demand

"I'm not saying it was creepy, but my late friend Bruce could just learn anything on a whim. Languages, history, technology, you name it. He had been running science fiction conventions for 21 years, and when he stopped he said, 'I am going to become a CCIE. I heard they make a lot of money.' " 

"Now, the CCIE certification is f'king hard; normally it takes many years, thousands of dollars in courses, step programs, test exams, and then usually you have to fly out somewhere to take the exam. He just got some used books, and got a CCNA, then a CCNP, then a CCSI within about 6-8 months."

"Out of knowing nothing about Cisco or modern computer networking, just ended up becoming an Cisco-certified instructor in less than a year. Then went to get a CCIE. I believe, like most people, he failed the first time, but passed a second time. From zero to CCIE in 18 months."

"Companies paid top dollar for him. Some paid just to have him on their letterhead."

"His entire life was like that."

– punkwalrus

The examples above show that it doesn't matter how many years of education you've had to make you smarter.

You're either born with an incredible sponge inside your head that can absorb a ridiculous amount of knowledge or you might have to work a little harder to even attain a fraction of their extraordinary level of mental prowess.

It's "creepy" not because they're disturbing people but because it's difficult to comprehend how some individuals are like walking computers while others don't come nearly as close.