Who hasn't been woken from a sound sleep by a glass breaking? Or who hasn't been rattled to the core by a car engine exploding in the tranquil middle of the day? We all have been victim to forms of sound terrorism. One of the worst for me is sudden tsunamis of thunder. That makes me jump sky high. Let's see who can relate.

STRIKE!

Lightning striking a nearby gas tank (as in about 100 meters away at max) and the thunder that followed right after the explosion of the tank. Nearly sh*t myself that night. I could've been dead.

BeMyHeroForNow

Water Issues

When I was younger, I was home alone and I thought I heard foot steps in my house. I started to freak out and I could barely get up off my bed to go to my bedroom door. I started to ask if anyone was there but I didn't get a response but I couldn't hear the foot steps anymore. I closed the door and locked it to prevent anyone from getting inside. Then, I realized it was just our water boiler making weird sounds and I was just being a dunce. :/.

suchcows

Compressions

I was at my desk, working. Suddenly this absolutely piercing scream erupted. This sound was so loud that it hurt my ears even when I cupped my hands over them and pressed as hard as I could. Several of us exited the office and ran down the stairs, but that's where the sound was coming from.

Turns out, one of the pipes exploded off TWO 2000-gallon air accumulation tanks pressurized to 200psi by an industrial screw compressor. This thing made a train whistle sound like a whisper. I physically couldn't get close enough to turn the ball valve- it hurt too much. One of my coworkers was practically deaf, so he just walked up without a care in the world and shut it off.

A_Garbage_Account

Love is Angry

As a young and impressionable teen, I heard this horrible noise outside that sounded like an animal dying. Looked out my window. Nope. Not dying. Just the neighbor's cat having a cat orgy.

I thought they were killing each other first. Something I never want to witness again.

jenskal

Cat Drama

I live alone now and heard footsteps on the stairs. I looked up, expecting to see a burglar, but I saw nothing as the noise continued. Closer to the bottom and... it's my 9 pound cat who absolutely STOMPS down the stairs. She's tiny but seems to have her own gravitational field that makes her ten times as heavy when she wakes up from her nap on my bed. She has faked out multiple people since her footsteps sound human. It's creepy.

auntiepink

Yeah, animals are the worst when it comes to shattering the peaceful silences. They just stir a ruckus without a care in the world. Also, any of these situations would send me for a Xanax.

"whooooooosh" 

I was sitting in the office and heard a low "whooooooosh" sound coming from the living room. My cat came tearing out of the living room like something had really spooked her. I ran into the living room and my couch was in flames! Our laptop was charging and the battery exploded and ignited the underside of the couch.

The noise I heard was the fabric on the bottom burning instantly (it was a thin material). What's crazy is I didn't know what that noise was, I just knew something really bad and dangerous was going on and my immediate gut reaction was to leave the apartment.

Apprehensive_Check97

FEAR

I was VERY close to a lightning strike one time while watching a thunderstorm outside a friend'd beach house. When it's that close it's not at all like the lighting sound you know, its like the loudest CRACK noise you've ever heard with snapping noises and even the smell of an electrical fire. We immediately all started screaming like a band of monkeys and ran inside.

To this day I can remember there was such an intense feeling all the way in my gut, inside of my primordial soul that said GET THE FREAK AS FAR AWAY FROM THIS AS YOU POSSIBLY CAN OR YOU WILL DIE. In that moment there was NOTHING that could have kept my lizard level brain function outside with that lightning. Some real caveman primal fear crap I'd never felt before and haven't felt since.

Crisscrosshotsauce

Dinner

Wild dogs tearing apart our food provisions while camping lakeside in Mexico. The growls were deep and methodical. They were keeping us scared while also establishing dominance amongst each other. Freaking terrifying.

rapalosaur

When in Cyprus...

Air raid sirens at 5 am, and I thought war had broken out.

I had just arrived in Cyprus, having landed at like midnight. I was staying with friends in their guest bedroom, and after close to 24 hours of travel I was dead to the world.

But then the air raid sirens started.

I hid under the bed, and it felt like it went on forever, but then I slowly realized no one else seemed to be reacting to the sirens. No one outside screaming, no jets actually flying overhead, nothing.

It turns out it was the annual commemoration of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, and my friends forgot to tell me.

kikaslova

In the Night

Woke up to something that literally sounded like a woman/person screaming from pain or something. Turns out foxes make some freaky noises.

BMammaJamma

Well I'm glad to know I'm not alone in my nerves. What is it about sudden sounds of impending doom that sends us all a flutter? You'd think we'd all be use to violent cacophonies by now. I ponder that thought over some vodka later.