ladies and gentlemen welcome aboard delta airlines flight 2998 pound for atlanta georgia with continued service to dallas fort worth international airport all carry-on items should now be stowed securely either in an overhead bin this happened around 10 years ago when i was around the age of seven my family's always been one to travel a lot and therefore even though i was only seven i'd flown in an airplane more times than i could count along with this i'd also become very familiar with our local airport and its layout this time specifically we had shown up to
our gate around two hours early i remember waiting for around half that time when i had to use the bathroom i told my parents this and them obviously knowing i knew the layout of the airport or at least enough to get to the bathroom they'd let me go alone and so i did i made the five minute walk to the main bathrooms which should be noted were actually the only bathrooms i knew of it was around 3am at the time and i guess that's when the bathrooms get cleaned as they were completely roped off which
signified they were closed i again being seven and not the best decision maker proceeded to aimlessly walk around parts of the airport i was unfamiliar with to find another bathroom that i could use and this led me to a hallway which was sort of sectioned off from the rest of the airport i thought i saw a bathroom sign near the end of it and so i proceeded to walk down it but when i was maybe halfway down the hallway i clearly saw a head peek around a corner it was a man i instinctively stopped in
my tracks hey hey kid come over here without even giving it a second thought i continued walking down the hallway now towards this man i honestly at the time just thought it was an employee and that he was going to direct me to a bathroom i could use but no the man explained how he was lost and needed me to follow him so that i could help him find the right gate for his plane at the time i not only trusted and believed him but i was actually excited at the thought of helping this man
like i said before i was familiar with a good portion of the airport and i guess the thought of being able to help an adult made me feel special i responded saying i would help him but that i wanted to let my parents know what i was doing real fast not even as a precaution i was literally just excited and wanted to tell them i told the guy i'd be right back as i turned around and started back towards my gate the guy began yelling at me and told me that we didn't have enough time
as his plane was about to leave but i responded telling him i would be quick shortly after exiting the hallway i looked back and saw the man practically running out of the hallway and down the stairs that ultimately led to the airport's exit i figured that was that i thought it was weird but i never brought it up to my parents and after finding a bathroom i could actually use i practically forgot about the whole thing fast forward to a couple years ago and some co-workers and i were talking about weird stuff that we experienced
as kids and that memory just suddenly came back to me being a lot older it only took a second to connect the dots and realize what actually almost went down it was a really disturbing feeling to only realize how much danger i was in years later in retrospect i definitely should have told my parents about it right after it happened but i just hope the dude didn't try it on any other vulnerable kids like me i'm a college student and obviously with all my money going towards school pretty much any amount of extra cash helps
and because of this mid-semester i decided to pick up a part-time job as a ramp agent at my local airport basically what this means is i'm the guy responsible for loading and unloading your airplane baggage now every once in a while we have dead bodies transported in cargo bins and this night was one of those occasions on top of that it was raining not just lightly raining but pouring rain with decently close lightning and of course my manager assigned me to be throwing this plane basically all throwing means is that i was the one that
had to pull the cargo out of the storage bin of the plane i was already tired from school earlier that day but it was the last plane for the night and all things considered there wasn't too much cargo to unload my co-worker dave pulled the ramp to the plane and raised it up so i could walk up the conveyor belt to enter the storage bin i climbed into the small and cramped space and made sure to sit as far away as i could from the white cardboard box carrying the dead body i was the only
one up there and i tried to be quick because honestly i was just trying to go home and go to sleep although there wasn't really much i could do to speed things up the conveyor belt we use moves insanely slow so as to give the guys on the floor time to scan each individual package i was setting down packages for maybe five minutes when i realized the lightning was not only becoming more frequent but was also seemingly right on top of us i had my earbuds in and was trying to just ignore it but that's
when i heard the loudest crash that had ever filled my ears it was lightning but so close that i literally fell to the ground almost immediately i instinctively looked up and that's when i saw the most haunting sight i'd ever seen down near the end of the storage bin of the plane in the darkness i could see the lid to the cargo bin with the dead body fly off it was now sitting upright the body quite literally went from laying down into an upright position so forcefully that the lid had flown off in a full-on
panic at this point i ran as fast as i could down the ramp all the while my co-workers were screaming at me that the plane had just been hit by lightning we went inside and after i caught my breath i explained to them what i had just witnessed in the storage bin of the plane i will never forget how quickly the color on their faces disappeared followed by looks of pure horror after maybe five minutes of discussing the situation and hearing the fear in my voice my manager ultimately decided it was best if i just
went home during the whole duration of my drive home i was stuck in a state of shock i didn't know what to think i didn't know if what i saw was real or not but shortly after i got home at least part of what i saw was confirmed real as one of my co-workers had texted me and he explained how when he went back up into the storage bin the lid to the cargo bin with the dead body was off but that the dead body itself wasn't sitting up i did some research on whether or
not a lightning strike could give off enough energy to cause a dead body's muscles to tense up enough for it to physically sit up for a few seconds but i couldn't find any results on this so to this day i still have no idea whether what i saw could be explained by the lightning a trick my mind was playing on me because of fatigue or something else altogether but either way i would quit my job at the airport the very next morning i honestly couldn't see the money as being worth it anymore at that point
the trauma i had experienced was far more than the money was worth i live in portland oregon but because of my job i'll often find myself in a completely different city for the weekend or even sometimes a couple weeks at a time what i do is similar to an event manager and obviously this forces me to have to travel around the country a lot to be present at different events the company i work for obviously pays for my flights but it felt like no matter where i had to be i was always put on the
cheapest flight possible i mean i get it the company was trying to save money but this often resulted in terrible flight experiences to say i saw some interesting people would be an understatement but to be completely honest i didn't really mind i guess i figured as long as i got to my destination in one piece that was all that really mattered or at least that's what i thought at the time i was in the dallas airport on a flight back home to oregon it was a sunday night and i just finished working pretty much the
whole weekend and of course i had to be in the office monday morning i was already exhausted from the whole weekend which forced me to have to practically drag myself to my gate something i probably should have mentioned is that my flight was actually in two parts so i would go from dallas to sacramento and then to portland the first flight wasn't that full i was in the window seat and only one other person was in my row it was a middle-aged man he looked pretty average other than his clothes looking a bit old and
torn up but i mean at the same time who dresses up nice for a flight we may polite small talk for a few minutes although honestly i just felt like leaning up against the wall to fall asleep as like i said before i was completely exhausted i pulled out my phone to have something to watch while i did before i could even close my eyes i noticed the dude looking over his shoulder in my direction i honestly just tried to shake it off i figured he was just trying to look out the window rather than
my movie but not even a minute later i could hear the guy mumble something like oh great just ignore me then this happened several times but i convinced myself i was just misreading the dude but eventually i noticed the guy fiercely scribbling writing on a page and a leather book he was holding instinctively i kept peeking over at it and i quickly realized pretty much the whole page was filled with handwritten words so small i could barely read them i tried to make out what he was writing and that's when i realized he was writing
about me my name had clearly been written down i figured i must have given him my name when we had been talking earlier i tried to make out more words but i couldn't they were too small and too far away this made it almost impossible to fall asleep i was honestly really disturbed as i'm sure anybody would be finally we landed in sacramento and people started getting off the plane but the guy sitting next to me made literally zero effort to start packing up his things it got to the point where it was aro's turn
to get off but still nothing he was just sitting there with his head down forcing the rose behind us to start getting off i finally spoke up explaining the night a connection flight to catch and then he needed to move but still with his head down and almost mumbling he said i'm gonna follow you you're not leaving this airport alive i forced a laugh thinking he was joking but the dude sounded serious he got up and let me out but as we exited the plane it became clear he actually intended on following me my walk
turned to a jog and looking behind me i realized he did the same after maybe five minutes of this i reached the gate to my connecting flight still with the guy right behind me i went up to the desk doing my best to maintain my composure and firmly i explained that i had no idea who this guy that was now standing right next to me was they both laughed thinking i was joking but after seeing the desperation in my eyes their smiles faded hesitantly they asked to see our boarding passes and i handed them mine
but so did the guy that had been following me the employees made a few calls and shortly after told me to follow them they immediately took me through the boarding door and closed it before the man could follow us i was being boarded 10 minutes before anyone else eventually the rest of the passengers were let on and a woman who sat behind me asked what had happened i gave her a quick summary and that's when she replied saying yeah that guy had a complete and total freak out the second you got on the plane the
dude was screaming and practically tearing his hair out police were actually called to take him away this absolutely horrified me and started to make me think that guy actually wanted to kill me it's clear the dude had some sort of mental problems or i guess i can't confirm this as i haven't heard anything else regarding the situation but if that's the case i just hope the guy gets the help he needs