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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Presence of evil

793 replies

beachcitygirl · 17/01/2022 14:03

Aibu to ask if you've ever felt yourself in the presence of evil. Following on from
The intuitiion thread.

I once met a friend of my ex in a coffee shop. The man was nothing but civil & friendly. Soft spoken & was an ex police officer. My then husband was there also.
I went to the loo & spent ages as something about him made me feel afraid. I stress it was just a feeling. Zero untoward behaviour.
Many years later he was arrested & found guilty of violent rape.

Has anyone else ever sensed evil? (For want of a better word)

OP posts:
MorningStarling · 17/01/2022 14:05

In a tunnel at Newhaven Fort. You walk down steps into the tunnel, fine. Walk along the tunnel, fine until there's a very evil presence. If you walk past it the atmosphere suddenly lightens again, but at some point you have to turn back and walk through it again to get out.

MaryAndGerryLivingInDerry · 17/01/2022 14:05

Well evil doesn’t exist, so no, but you can certainly form accurate gut instincts about people based on unconscious signs they give off.

ladygindiva · 17/01/2022 14:06

Yes. I felt like this about a man who came to do some maintenance at my house, rather niche, won't name it as outing. I started to use someone else's services even though they were farther away and more expensive. Found out on the grapevine a few years later that he had been very abusive to his young partner and her son, seriously nasty stuff. I know exactly what you mean op.

Letsbekindplease · 17/01/2022 14:07

I helped care for a woman and her son would sometimes be there. Very strange guy. He scared me but I never let him see that he made me feel uneasy. I knew he had drug habits etc. he murdered his girlfriend last year. I think you know a feeling. It’s more than a feeling I think

halulat · 17/01/2022 14:08

Not me but think my dog has! He dog reacted very odly in one specific part of a castle . Apparently most dogs react in the same way. Just refused to enter one area and was desperate to get away.

buntybanana · 17/01/2022 14:08

Yes. I've met several people in my life that give me a stomach knot of discomfort for no apparent reason. Fear and nerves around them that I can't shake, especially when they make eye contact.

Interestingly enough, my friend's very friendly dog growled at one of them and kept eyes on him at all times. Friend was shocked as doggo had never behaved that way before!

MoirasWigStand · 17/01/2022 14:11

The thing is, you may have got "feelings" about a few people, but only remember/confirm them when you later found out what they did. SO it doesn't prove anything.

Original poster
beachcitygirl · 17/01/2022 14:14

@MoirasWigStand i would like to believe that as I'm a very logical person. But I had talked about the way I felt about this chap to my whole family & my ex. They all contacted me to call me witchy when he was arrested. I just felt his eyes were dead

OP posts:
Joined4this · 17/01/2022 14:17

I had a feeling of dread before meeting a client a couple of years ago. When I met them within two hours they had threatened to stab me (under their breath but still). I actually walked out of that meeting and didn’t explain why.

Mrsweasleysclock · 17/01/2022 14:19

Yes. I used to walk to school with my DD and DS. A man was on a bicycle riding towards us and said good morning (he also said it to other people so he was just a friendly type guy I guess) this went on for a few days but each day a little more conversation. For some reason I just got a creepy vibe from him, just felt like behind the friendly exterior there was a very bad man. Felt like he was scoping out the kids somehow. I changed the route I walked but I still felt the kids, especially my daughter, were somehow at risk. I even spoke to her teacher at the time to make it clear that only I would ever pick her up from school and we set up a password with the office so incase in an emergency I ever did have to send anyone else to get her, she would only be released to them with that password. I never told anyone because it seems like such an over reaction but there was just a stomach churning bad feeling I got from the man.

52andblue · 17/01/2022 14:19

Yes: 2 people I have met. One (I later learned) has a reputation for being evil, one I knew intimately for a long time. Both were, I believed, in some way 'evi'l. In reality they were both very damaged & sought no resolution for this so continued to damage others (but also took pleasure in that).

Places can feel 'evil' too. In reality, they are probably cold / dark, but also may have some sort of energy left from bad things that happened there? There are sometimes threads on MN about places that feel 'spooky' & there is quite a lot of consensus. Mine are: Kielder Forest, Chillingham Castle, Culloden Moor. And my current house :(

Isaw3ships · 17/01/2022 14:21

Evil doesn’t exist but human intuition and instinct about danger, and ‘something ‘ off’ or creepy about people does.
One of my parents friends gave me the heebies, offered me free sports lessons which I never took because there was something about him I didn’t trust. Everyone lived him, life and soul etc.
25 years later he was in jail for sex offences. He wasn’t evil, just an extremely damaged individual, but I knew there was something I didn’t like
There.

inaninstant · 17/01/2022 14:21

Eh, I don't know. Generally I am very unbelieving of any sort of woo.

But I do get 'feelings' about people and take instant dislikes to them, strangers included. I've never been proven right to my knowledge though (except when I've met someone socially and they've given off the impression of being a snidely bitch and then they have been but that's not evil, or difficult to read with some people!). So no, I don't think I can accurately predict a presence of evil BUT I do get gut feels about people, that I act on.

FindingMeno · 17/01/2022 14:21

In a house I lived in there were really bad vibes.
Never had it before or since and I've moved a lot.

TheMissingMango · 17/01/2022 14:22

We had a plumber in last year. He didn't do anything odd, but my intuition was to get away from him and get him out of the house quickly. Something about him really frightened me.

coodawoodashooda · 17/01/2022 14:22

@MaryAndGerryLivingInDerry

Well evil doesn’t exist, so no, but you can certainly form accurate gut instincts about people based on unconscious signs they give off.
You are wrong. Evil most certainly does exist. Just ask Women's Aid.
Pixie537 · 17/01/2022 14:25

Yes! When I was 19 I started working at a heritage place, I really liked everyone who I worked with except this one woman who I just got a terrible vibe from. Didn’t want to be on my own with her and interacted with her as little as possible. Everyone else seemed to like her and she was well respected in her profession. After a few months she got fired for stealing from the organisation, not necessarily evil but a time when I had an unfounded sense that someone was bad and it turned out to be correct.

BurnDownTheDiscoHangTheDJ · 17/01/2022 14:26

The remaining gas chamber at Auschwitz II-Birkenau. Which is hardly a shock, I know. The rest of the camp was horrible but didn't make me feel prickly and uneasy and sick like the corridor down to that chamber did. When I got in there I felt like I was going to faint; the walls seemed to be sweating evil. Terrible place.

MaryAndGerryLivingInDerry · 17/01/2022 14:31

You are wrong. Evil most certainly does exist. Just ask Women's Aid.

As a victim of DV I can assure you that it is all human force that abuses women.

Wreath21 · 17/01/2022 14:32

I think some people have more finely-tuned instincts than others so can detect something 'wrong' with certain individuals. Nothing woo about it, just an awareness: it might be a turn of phrase or a look in the eyes; could even be something about the way they smell.

It's a useful survival instinct, really. (I am old enough to remember watching Jim'll Fix It on the telly regularly, and I certainly found Savile, even onscreen, creepy. I might have liked to have certain wishes granted, but I wouldn't have wantedto sit on his knee...)

ghostyslovesheets · 17/01/2022 14:32

I am 100% NOT woo - don;t believe in ghosts etc but Clifford's Tower in York makes me ill - visited a few times as a child and adult - makes me headachey and nauseous - I even have some old photo's of a visit I made in the 90's with a BF and they are all mixed up and odd - like the film was effected - all the other holiday pics where fine!

Original poster
beachcitygirl · 17/01/2022 14:32

A few posters have said evil doesn't exist. I myself said I used it for a want of a better wordZ fwiw I still think it's the best for what I mean.
But for clarity I suppose I meant what some would call psychopaths or a deadness in the eyes or as others have said, just a gut churning instinct that a person is wrong. I can't describe how cold inside that man made me feel. I've never felt it before or since. Chilling

OP posts:
Original poster
beachcitygirl · 17/01/2022 14:33

Ooh @52andblue culloden made me feel freaked out too.

OP posts:
SituationCritical · 17/01/2022 14:35

I have been in places that felt "wrong". Used to work in HR for a company and we had one guy who I felt incredibly uncomfortable around. He constantly seemed furious and had done several things that other staff had complained about. We had him in a disciplinary meeting for his part in a verbal argument with another staff member. He was very menacing but quiet. He had a union rep with him while my colleague sat the other side of him with me across the table. Half way through he muttered "I'm coming back to kill him". Let's just say the meeting and his employment were terminated and the police were informed. I used to see him walking around town in his uniform that he refused to return and was always terrified he would come back in and do something terrible.
That said we also had a guy who was the sweetest person you could imagine. Happy, incredibly helpful, kind. Never did a thing wrong at work, everyone really liked him. Turned out he was a paedophile who was jailed for him crimes and he also used to abuse his wife. So sometimes you can't tell at all

foxychox · 17/01/2022 14:40

2 places made me feel really uneasy and not surprisingly - a cave in Kanchanaburi in Thailand where UK prisoners used to hide from the Japanese and the Tuol Sleng detention centre in Cambodia. in Tuol Sleng I literally couldn't enter a room even though I really wanted to...