To get an overwhelming sense of danger from a stranger?

[ThisIsCheese]

The weirdest thing just happened. I’m in the supermarket and as I’m stood selected and bagging vegetables I suddenly feel very uncomfortable.
There is a man about 50 something stood with his elderly mother a few feet away to the side of me and I felt very sick and uncomfortable when I looked at him.
Absolutely no reason for it but it was overwhelming, like a sense of fear he was not a good man.

Completely clueless why I felt that way I moved along quickly but I crossed paths with him again in another aisle and knew he was there before I saw him because the sick / anxious feeling returned.

Anyone else ever had this? I don’t have anxiety or anything but this feeling was so odd, like I could sense he wasn’t a good person.

Never met him before, he could be perfectly lovely but my physical reaction to him was so strong

I suspect dogs pick up on pheromones and other smells we give off, which we may be subconsciously aware of, but not consciously - like dogs can detect seizures; and that woman in Scotland who can detect the smell of Parkinson’s before its apparent!

Interesting theory about pheromones. I remember reading an account of a bear attack, a group of friends were hiking on a remote trail and all had a strong sense of foreboding about ascending a particular path. The group split, 2 went ahead despite their feelings and 3 took a different (longer) path. The 2 who took the original route were mauled by a brown bear and one died. The theory was the group had detected the smell of blood, as the bear had a fresh kill nearby.

I'm not sure if I detected the smell of a predator on the campus that day. I think it more likely I detected something out of place, like a flash of clothing or movement in the trees, or the snap of twigs, without fully registering. It was a windy night so perhaps that contributed, the sound of the wind would have masked the sound of someone approaching, so made that route seem less safe. Or the shadows from the moonlight were extra dark, and those expanses of shadow around the trees made me uneasy.

There's a steep hill leading up from town to where we live now, after dark it's a quiet, eerie road. The houses are set far back from the road, with long driveways and foliage that throws shadows across the pavement. In winter, walking home after a late shift I often walk up the middle of the road instead of the pavement (rarely any cars in the evening). It just feels safer to avoid the shadows.

The only time I've felt really afraid on that road is the time I looked over my shoulder to see a man in a hoodie, pushing an empty shopping trolley. I felt intense fear, probably because an empty trolley is so out of place, there were no supermarkets nearby and he seemed to come out of nowhere. I crossed over and walked very fast!

Dogs.

If you go by the school of thought of Cesar Milan, he's figured out that dogs respond to the energy a person is emanating in terms of how balanced that person's energy is or how strong in whatever end of the scale it is.

Then this energy is responded to by the dog.

So a person who is calm yet assertive will likely get a dog with the best chance of good behaviour.

A person who's unsure or nervous will get that reflected back from the dog.

It's not a leap to think that they could detect whatever energy (pulsating malevolence?) coming off a person in waves that only some of us can detect.

I think also whether we fully realise it or not, sometimes we can sense the physical presence of someone even though we can't see them and it's not necessarily that they're evil, but we sensibly go onto a higher state of alert (as you sensibly would). For me that's different to the sensing evil thing but of course the person could both be hidden and evil!

I've had two, the first was when I'd made my first new friend in a new area i was living with my daughter. I was really chuffed. Quite soon after the friend introduced me to another of her friends, who I instantly didn't like. But he proceeded to try and be my friend, helped put curtains up, offered to do my washing when my washing machine broke down, would just turn up. I was told time after time he was just a nice person and he was a good friend. He turned out to be a paedophile. He didn't hurt DD, as I'd never allowed her alone with him. I knew something was off, I just couldn't shake it.

Second time I was at a friends house, another friend of hers turns up, shes told me about this amazing, intelligent, lovely friend of hers multiple times. I didn't like him. I was repulsed by him. Completely and utterly. I got home, friend texts and says, what did you think of her other friend.
My reply was I dont like him, he really thinks everyone is below him and hes dangerous. Pls dont have him anywhere near the kids. Her reply, you got him. He raped and tried to kill his ex. He went to prison, he has to tell everyone before they sleep with him for the rest of his life.
As her friend, I've tried to talk her out of ever, ever being around him because he gives me seriously bad vibes.

Lily019 when you said bad smell and strange/aggressive behavior I immediately thought of this
m.youtube.com/watch?v=XB0QgwVffvk
I wonder if he had Parkinsons or similar

www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-scotland-42366104/the-woman-who-can-smell-parkinson-s-disease

See what I said about dogs Devil?!!

That being in response to the woman who said she was halfway between a human and a dog :-).

YANBU! I’ve had it loads of times. Currently with my NDNs they just look nasty in the face if that makes sense? You can clearly see that they’re horrible people and have found a suspiciously accurate article on the offenders register but that’s another thread! My DM always used to tell me that nastiness shows. They don’t get visitors, don’t let anyone in their house, are very security conscious in a safe area etc. Well not while I’m here anyway. I think it’s our brains picking out things that are ‘bad’ and protecting us

“They don’t get visitors, don’t let anyone in their house, are very security conscious in a safe area”

Sound like perfectly normal mumsnetters!

I get it, and never ignore it. As a teenager I bumped into a girl I had been at school with on the bus, I got such a hideous feeling that I got off the bus at the next stop. No idea why.

At 13 I was supposed to go on a trip with a local youth club. Then I got a horrible feeling about it and decided not to go (my mum thinks it’s because she was skint and I didn’t want to ask for money). My best friend went to the trip. At 5pm that evening I got a horrible feeling of panic. At 530 my cousin arrived at the door hysterical to tell my mum there was a serious accident on the bus taking the youth group home.My cousin calmed down when she saw I was at home. That night 5 girls and 2 adults had died in the bus crash.

I’ve never ignored my instincts since

My sister can usually “sense” child abusers.

When she worked in a shop there was a customer who seemed great with kids who made her so uncomfortable and she said she could just tell. It turned out he had the most hideous family background (was abused by his father, his brother had murdered his sister), and of course, he was abusing young boys.

She also is determined one of our relatives is a child abuser. And strangely enough, another relative now claims they have been abused by him.

One thing I think protected me from him was that my parents were very open and had told me that I should say no to anyone who tried to do anything I didn’t like (tbh I assumed that meant over enthusiastic beardies from grandad)

Chance you wouldn't be the local busybody by any chance with your 'finding a suspicious article' ?

Nastiness doesn't always show. Do you also say things like 'no smoke without fire' etc?

“My sister can usually “sense” child abusers.“

No she can’t. She really, really can’t. This is the sort of thinking that lets offenders go free and demonises innocent people.

With respect to the reactions of children, I did this when I was wee. I grew up in a very remote village in the Highlands with very few people who didn't look like me. My dad's pal came to visit when I was about 3 and scared the willies out. I remember people asking me what was wrong but I didn't know, I was just really scared and it bothered me for years, I usedto dream about him. He was very tall and it being the 70s had an amazing afro. It was years later, while watching the telly I realised that an afro was just a hair do and had the realisation that I'd been frightened because I though it was his head
Dad kept in touch with him, I've met him a few times since and he's a very nice, kind man.
I'm not saying kids don't have better sense than older folk or that we should ignore our hunches but it might be nonsense as well.

In the early 90's our local church got a new vicar. He was young and very modern, and really ingratiated himself within the community. Suddenly the church started having events like bonfires and fayres and barbecues and May Day festivals, and bingo. Stuff that had never happened before, and it brought everyone together and he was popular even with non religious people. The church became a community hub, like I suppose it always had been in the past. His children attended our school and quickly settled in made friends.

Anyway, they then decided to set up a Sunday school and a few of us went. One little girl would literally scream whenever she saw the vicar. She was only around five but would recoil and shake whenever she saw him and would say that she didn't like him. It was weird because he was so nice. So we all sort of laughed it off.

Fast forward a few years and the vicar and his family had since moved away. A story appeared in the press about a vicar who'd be sentenced to time in prison for sexual offences against children. It was our old vicar. His wife had divorced him and we heard on the grapevine that it was his own children that he'd been abusing.

Ive often wondered if that little girl at Sunday school had been picking up on things that the rest of us had missed? The scary thing was how nice he was and how he's been so easily able to endear himself to the local population.

dollydee doesn't it sound like your colleague 'Mary' had an hallucination - auditory and visual? No doubt it was a terrifying experience. If I ever had a scary hallucination I'd be terrified for my mental health (if I was otherwise well enough to recognise that that's what it was, I wouldn't think that I'd actually seen a manifestation of an evil spirit. I'm surprised at the number of people who went straight for that conclusion. Mary was a woman of science, in the company of other scientifically trained people. Did she offer 'I had a horrible hallucination' as an explanation for what she experienced?

“Ive often wondered if that little girl at Sunday school had been picking up on things that the rest of us had missed? ”

Isn’t it more likely that he had actually abused her?

@Bertrand
"Isn’t it more likely that he had actually abused her?"
That was my first thought!

So many of these stories show how we must trust our instincts as women. Never worry about offending some nasty creepy bloke.

We went to a christening the Vicar gave me the creeps, I had to shake his hand wanted to find a sink and some bleach he really freaked me out. Afterwards at the party another friends husband suddenly said I was at school with that Vicar, he was a creepy little kid and we were told to keep away from their house. Unfortunately his parents never elaborated on why the family were to be avoided.

“Afterwards at the party another friends husband suddenly said I was at school with that Vicar, he was a creepy little kid and we were told to keep away from their house.“

“Creep little kid” You really see nothing wrong with this at all?

“So many of these stories show how we must trust our instincts as women. Never worry about offending some nasty creepy bloke.”

Even though the overwhelming majority of the stories have no actual conclusion- and many of the most dangerous men have been perfectly ordinary even charming and their guilt cane as a complete shock to everyone?

I had one of these experiences when waiting for hospital treatment. I'd taken some crochet to do because there were unpredictable timings, & I noticed an older man looking at me every so often as though he wanted to talk to me. I didn't like the look of him & didn't want to talk to him so I carried on crocheting & avoided looking directly at him.

Then he asked me about my crochet & I had to say something, but as soon as he'd got me talking, he switched to being only interested in himself & talked on & on, & everything he said was horrible. Looking at his face as he was talking I got that sense of pure evil lurking inside him. It was weird & no, he didn't remind me of anyone. It was actually quite frightening.

Thank goodness the nurse called me in. I was so shaken that I said to her that she'd saved me, but the only polite explanation/excuse I could think of was that the old man was telling me his entire life story. At that, of course, she looked at me askance as though I was a heartless bitch & said that sometimes people need to talk. "Yes, but it was all horrible," I said, & she looked as though she understood.

Treatment over, I went back out via the waiting room - to see the old man had moved & was having the same effect on another woman that he'd had on me. Her body language & facial expression spoke volumes. I thought about saying something to a hospital empoyee to try to save her from the experience, but what on earth could I say? I just left & hoped that one or other of them would be called in next.