There are an estimated 60 million security cameras in the U.S. recording over 8 billion hours of footage per week. One might not know it but they're unwittingly being watched. Despite how dystopian this may sound it does result in some pretty weird discoveries by security guards. Whether it's the petty thief failing at his master plan or something mysterious going bump in the dark, these guards have a wide array of colorful stories to share.
This Guy Needs To Be A Circus Performer
“Back when I was a security guard during my second semester of college, I was checking the CCTV cameras and this guy was juggling bottles in the center where nobody was supposed to be. I grabbed my walkie and went to check it out.
This man was wasted beyond relief, just hanging out, juggling his bottles. When I asked him what he was doing, he said ‘One sec,’ threw all three bottles up int he air, caught two in each hand, and miraculously caught the third WITH HIS TEETH. Given, this man was absolutely hammered but his coordination was bar none. I was nonetheless very impressed. I let him pass out in the break room since he didn’t have a phone or wallet on him. By morning, he said thanks and left. Wish I had the video link.”
That Was The Last Time Anybody Saw Richard
“Years ago I worked overnight at a homeless shelter for men. A good portion of the regular guys that stayed there had mental health and/or addiction problems. There were a lot of fights and the occasional stabbing, but for the most part everyone was relatively behaved and most were good people at heart. I received a lot of threats, but one ever acted on them.
One night when I arrived for my shift I noticed there was a much larger police presence than usual. I walked into our office and the officer in charged started asking me if I had noticed a guy, Richard, behaving unusually at all lately. I had not saw anything out of the ordinary and I told them such. I looked at the dorm list and noted that he was marked as no longer staying at the shelter. He was a long term resident so I thought this was odd.
The police left without telling me anything except the fact they needed security footage from two specific cameras from the night before. I did not work the night before and the guy I normally work with pulled a no show. We were the only two people besides the manager, who was on a holiday, that were trained on how to burn footage to a DVD.
I spent the rest of my shift in shock. When I found the footage they were looking for I felt physically ill. Richard had gone out onto the second floor smoking deck, finished his smoke, got up on the railing, and dove head first onto the cement below.
The first camera on the second floor showed him jump, but the second camera on the first floor was much more gruesome. He landed head first and rolled over in a way that he was staring right into the camera as he lay there dying. I quickly put the footage on DVD and went to throw up.
I was given the next day off. No counseling. No nothing. I will never forget that one. He was a pretty good dude as far as I knew him. Some mental issues, but no one knew he was suicidal or why he did it.”
Attack Of The Nuns
“My first job out of college, I used to work as an electrical engineer for a major security firm. The job was designing cameras, junction boxes, security systems power calculations, etc.
One of my first assignments there was to help write a report about a security breach at a nuclear storage/research facility that was using a security system our company had implemented for them.
To summarize the breach, a group of octogenarian nuns broke into a secure nuclear facility and started painting the storage buildings in their own blood, and we had to review the footage to find out how they breached our security system. The footage was as gnarly as it sounds.
How did they break in? It turns out the site had spent millions on hiring us to design, test, integrate, and train them on a state-of-the-art security system of cameras, motion sensors, microwave detection systems, and fiber optic fence lining, only for them to turn most of it off to save on power/nuisance alarm costs.”
Something Was Definitely Following Him
“I worked security at this college and they had me patrol 3 in the morning.
Now, I didn’t mind and the scariest places on the campus weren’t awful, but this one time, I was definitely creeped out.
The night before, I decided to watch The Grudge with my buddy and that freaked me out for the rest of the day.
I wake up the next morning around 2:20 AM, get dressed, and go to work.
When I got to the campus, the dispatcher had me patrol inside a couple of the facilities. Before I even got to the first building, I was walking and kept hearing rustling in the bushes. I looked around and saw nothing but right as I arrived to the first building, I looked down one of the walkways between two of the buildings and saw this tall, long-haired, dark-headed individual just standing 25 yards away from me. I began to call out to it to see if it was just some college kid, but there was no answer. Without a second thought, I grabbed my flashlight and shined it in the direction but no one was there. I looked around for a bit but just thought to myself I saw a shadow.
I open the front door of the first building and check everything like usual. Because of the size of the building, I couldn’t turn the lights on from anywhere close so I usually patrolled in the dark. That morning, nothing was out of place and I was able to make it out in pretty good time. I would always use the elevator to get to each floor so once I was done, I took the elevator to the ground floor, did emergency phone checks on both, and walked to my last assignment for the building.
Once I finished checking the north wing of the building, I walked back to the entrance until I heard a loud bell sound come from the elevator. This noise is always rung when the elevator reaches a floor, but I previously looked at both elevators and saw they were on the ground floor already. Without looking behind me, I straight up ran to the front doors in the lobby. Once I was safely out, I flashed my light inside to check but there was nobody there and the elevator doors were all shut. This had never happened before.
While it was creepy, I still managed to keep my composure and move on to the next task. Once I reached the other building, I did the same things as previously done with the other building. For this particular facility, it was a well-known fact that the inside makes noises. Always was creepy in the beginning but you would get used to it. However, this morning was different. After I finished checking all of the exterior doors, I make a quick elevator phone check and begin to walk out when I heard this loud thump from upstairs. I grabbed my flashlight and started to yell out, “Hello?” multiple times but there was no answer.
At this point, I was scared out of my mind so I make my way to the exit when I see out of the corner of my eye, the same strange figure I saw in the walkway up top on the second floor peering down at me. The same very tall figure with long, dark hair. This time with a white gown.
After seeing her/it, I feel my teeth start to chatter and I run out of the building all the way to the security office and report my findings. My dispatcher only shrugged it off, but I still was terrified for the next couple of hours until daylight.”
Weird, Just Weird
“While working at a department store at the end of a strip mall, I saw a bobcat run past the doors, heading towards Target. Several seconds later, I saw a mother, father, and two children go running past in the same direction.
A few minutes later, the family walked back past the doors, with the father carrying the bobcat. A big bobcat. It was kinda odd.
And then this other time, I watched two people meet up in the parking lot. They both parked, then the guy got out and got in the gal’s car with her. This happens a lot. It’s almost always an affair.
Anyway, what ensued was some of the most bizarre.. intimacy.. I’ve ever witnessed. She was a bigger gal, and when she unbuttoned her pants and lifted her shirt, I figured I knew where this was headed.. but he never went lower than her belly. This grown man just sat there for a half hour jiggling and jostling her massive belly. Shaking and patting it. The strangest part: he didn’t look like he was into it at all. He alternated between looking bored and horrified. I imagine my face was doing the same thing.
About a half hour later, he answered a phone call and left abruptly. She buttoned up and drove off. I never saw them again.”
The Rats Run This Place At Night
“Was working in a manufacturing facility that did injection molded plastic. One night about 2 am one of the machines came on and started running all by itself. I could see it running on two of the cameras. Went to investigate and shut it off. Back to my desk.
Two hours later i see it come on again. Shut it off again. Turned the controllable camera towards it and zoomed in to watch.
About an hour later, just before staff usually starts coming in, I see the problem. There was a rat that was furiously clawing and gnawing at the panel. He managed to bump into the start switch and kick it on.
They weren’t allowed to leave the machines “ready to go in the morning” anymore.”
The Rocket Chair
“Worked IT for a company. One day, a lot of the head managers of this certain department come barging into my office demanding I pull some footage. I think somebody is about to get fired so I start scrubbing through footage. Finally I get to what they want me to see. One of their team leads is rocketing through the office on an office chair when it gets stuck on something in the carpet and she gets EJECTED out of her seat. She must have landed like 10 feet from her chair. As soon as the scene happens, the group of managers bust out laughing their heads off. I nearly peed my pants laughing, I had never been asked to pull camera footage of something so funny. The best part is the girl just laid on the carpet for a while everybody around her in the room collapse with laughter.”
Creeps And Dealers And Ghosts. Oh My!
“I’ve seen a lot of weird stuff in a decade of working in a 300 camera control room at a major art gallery.
Small Asian male subject acting suspicious wearing a large trench coat, came around the side of the building to the front where he watched the people on the mezzanine floor dancing, subject then removed trench coat and was found to be wearing a white lace bra, white lace panties replete with stockings/suspenders/garter belt, subject begins to touch himself in public. Police were called and the guy was arrested mid wank.
Lots of naughty stuff, so many people think an art gallery is the correct place for a quick shag but no. They were always caught.
Rats. Giant rats in the cafe…because they don’t close the external doors at night.
I can’t even count the amount of times I’ve seen people do narcotics in the gallery. It must be in the tens of thousands of times by now.
I watched four French looking guys in tuxedoes sitting in the amphitheater with wads of cash and suspiciously make a phone call. Subjects begin bagging the weed and police arrested them. Turns out they were French tourists who were funding their holiday by selling dope. They were arrested on Friday night so they got to spend the weekend in jail, most likely deported. Guys had sheets of acid and a couple hundred assorted pills as well.
Let’s not forget the ghosts. Let’s just say I’ve seen weird shadow play at night on the cameras in empty spaces.
I remember seeing balls of light floating through the gallery spaces. One ball floated through four gallery spaces then stopped at a Picasso piece. The ball suddenly disappeared in a flash of light. The phone next to me rings and it’s the museum director. He informs that one of our major patrons has passed away and that if any members of the press call today that I should refer them to him. I had my boss run the eerie footage back the next morning. He was spooked then deleted the footage. He refuses to speak about the incident.”
Hey We Caught This Guy Being A Pervert On Camera Lets Give Him A Promotion
“I used to work in loss prevention at a very large retail store. I had been finding wrappers and discarded packages in a place called the fixture room. This is where they keep all the peg hooks, shelves, and racks to display products. Not many people go in there so I put up a hidden camera thinking I would catch someone stealing stuff. Around 1 am, a guy walks in, pulls his pants down and rubs one out all over a shelf leaning against the wall.
I show the video to the store manager and he said that the guy was his 3rd shift supervisor. As he watches the video, he starts getting mad… at me for showing it to him! I take it to my boss and he tells the store manager to fire the guy. Two weeks later I come in early one morning to see the guy clocking out. I ask the store manager why he didn’t fire him and he said, ‘I talked to him about it and he explained what happened.’
I said, ‘Ok I gotta hear this one!’
The manager explained, ‘He had been drinking and smoking weed before he came to work and was just out of his mind. So he’s not a pervert or anything.’
The manager then told me that as punishment the guy had to clean every thing in the fixture room, on his own time (unpaid) and had to submit to four random substance tests the next year (which never happened because the manager was a cheapskate). The guy got promoted to assistant manager a year later!”
Synchronized Office Chair Swimming. It’s A Sport!
“My wife and her co-workers scheduled some fun office olympics events for their team. One of them was synchronized office chair swimming, where they choreographed routines of riding around in spinning office chairs.
About an hour later, her friend is chatting it up with security and they are laughing their heads off. They call her over where they are watching the security camera video of synchronized office chair swimming hilariously trying to figure out what these people could possibly be doing.”
Beware Of The Screamer
“Now, back in my days as an officer, I’ve seen some spooky stuff go down. Occasional unexplained phenomena, impossible occurrences, bizarre creatures, and hundreds of other things. However, one that sticks with me was when I went to patrol a small area in Illinois, known as Ursa.
This was in 2012, so maybe a couple thousand were living there, but that was enough people to have their own urban legend, a.k.a. ‘The Screamer.’ Now, The Screamer was supposedly a man that would randomly appear near abandoned buildings and let out a scream that would forever ring through your soul, a never-ending, piercing scream. Supposedly. I, of course, thought that this was ludicrous mumbo-jumbo. A screaming man appearing out of thin air? Absolutely not – Not even in my wildest dreams… But I was eventually proven wrong.
Now, in Ursa, there is an extremely unknown location known as Dwight’s Pool, a very serene, remote pond with a small asylum facing away from it, towards the main town. I was sent there by the local dispatch team (I was a floater at the time) to check out two reports of a man with a weird mask watching young couples swimming from the treeline. My first thought is: “Welp, we’ve got ourselves another creep.”, and I believed myself to be right, as well as my temporary partner Ricky. Him and I got out there immediately, as the town was too small for needing constant watch. Well, it’s around 8:45 pm, and the pool is eerily foggy and dark. We have flashlights, but they were unable to penetrate the thick fog. I told Ricky that I’d check out the asylum and its surroundings. He agreed, but not before long, he began acting strangely.
“Winger, I’m getting a weird feeling. We need backup, don’t go near that asylum.” Now, when you hear your own partner say stuff like that, you definitely need to take it seriously, especially as an officer of the law. He calls in backup while I watch the asylum, just waiting for something to happen. I literally gasp as I see the figure of an incredibly large man emerge from the roof of the building. The building was at least 300 ft. + away from us, so that’s what makes this part so much stranger. The figure stands as tall as it can, and begins talking in a low, mumbled tone: ‘PLEASE, LEAVE.’
The figure, as I said, was at least 300 feet away. However, when it said those words, its voice seemed to be pressed right against our ears. Ricky and I booked it out of there back to the local station. Backup arrived for us later, but we were too shaken up to continue our duty.
We found out later that when the dispatch searched the asylum, they found a camera and an old lantern. Nothing else.
Anyway, this was definitely one of the weirder experiences I’ve had during my time as a patrol officer. It is but one of several odd stories I have, and trust me: In the line of an officer, things just keep getting weirder and weirder.”
The Adventures of Mr. Inebriated Spider Man
“Used to review security tapes for individuals who were held while they were inebriated. Needless to say, I’ve seen a lot of crazy stuff.
Tops had to be a tie.
A gentleman was not behaving in the general population and was placed in a temporary holding area until police took him to a more secure spot. This was when this facility wasn’t fully finished and thus had drop ceiling instead of a hard ceiling. The room he was in was more like a closet that was about five feet wide by about eight feet long, had a mesh gate instead of a door and wasn’t visible from where staff were sitting. They were supposed to check on him but didn’t.
You see where this is going? Mr. Inebriated Spider-Man climbed the walls and tried to escape through the ceiling. Remember, this is a drop ceiling and I truly think it earned its name on that day. As he was attempting his Ocean’s Eleven escape he came crashing down ten feet in the entryway onto a cement floor. The best part? It was right in front of a police officer that was bringing someone else in. I got to present that to my boss who didn’t believe me when I told him what I saw.
Fire system was malfunctioning and the fire alarm kept coming on every twenty minutes or so. Each time it happened a lady would stand up, strip, and swing her clothes around. Staff had to chase her around the room and get her covered each time. The first few times they’d get her clothes back on, and a few minutes later the fire alarm would go off and start the whole process over again.”
“They Acted Casually Like This Was Normal…”
“I worked for a security integrator doing physical security. Some of my colleagues did electronic access control & CCTV and I occasionally got roped into assisting on those jobs.
I was asked to assist on a survey at a large Canadian restaurant chain which was having issues with cameras that they had recently had installed in their freezers. Their last security contractor had installed cheap cameras inside the freezers which were not rated for such use. This was potentially a very large job which had hundreds of locations across the country. We were called in to survey a few locations and quote a fix.
So I showed up to a location and we had a look at the setup inside the freezers. No big deal, simple enough fix. I don’t even specialize in this stuff and I could easily see the problem and solution. It’s a big job, we didn’t want any mistake or complications, so we asked to look at their NVR and monitoring setup just to get an idea of the equipment… We walk in to the manager’s office and there are two managers watching a woman undress on the monitor. We kind of stood there in horror but the guys didn’t react. They acted casual, like this was normal. After a couple seconds I notice the girl is putting on the company’s uniform and name tag and then I see the OSD indicating I’m not looking at a smut film or something, but this is live feed from their CCTV system.
‘What is she doing?!’
‘Changing…’ He says this like I asked him a really dumb question.
‘Don’t you have changing rooms?!’
‘That IS the changing room…’
‘There’s a camera in the changing room!?!?’
‘Of course, otherwise they’d fill their backpacks with steak every night…’
We were dumbfounded. We made a couple notes and walked out. My buddy went up to one of the waitresses on the way out and asked her if she knew if there was a camera in the changing room. She also acted like we were stupid.
Long story short, we surveyed two other locations that day. All had cameras in the change rooms. All had managers who thought that was normal and all had waitresses who seemed to enjoy this fact or were completely unconcerned.
I left that company four years ago but from what I hear this is still ongoing to this day.
That was a huge lesson to me about corporate culture and brainwashing. It no longer surprises me when I hear corporations get caught engaging in illegal behavior and the kind of mass ignorance that corporate culture can create.”
When Ya Gotta Go Ya Gotta Go
“We occasionally have to watch security footage if a theft or other crime occurred, etc. Anyway, a few years ago I was leaving the building when I noticed a MOST foul smell in our entrance way. This is where our mailboxes are, as well as a few small garbage bins. As our building is pet-friendly, I assumed someone picked up their dog’s waste outside and placed it in one of the bins (rather than taking it to the outdoor dumpster). Another board member was exiting, we discussed it and decided to check the footage in order to write up the resident and potentially issue them a fine for a bylaw infraction.
We didn’t expect what we saw when we watched the footage.
An elderly woman was leaving the building with someone else when she suddenly ran back and started frantically buzzing someone to be let back in. They must have been taking too long because the woman then dropped her pants, bent over the small garbage bin nearest her and took a dump. The resident she was buzzing eventually came down and led her to her suite.
We watched the video in stunned silence, later deciding to write a letter asking the resident to clean the area, which they did. The following morning when I went down, all I could smell was bleach.”
No Cash, But At Least This Thief Made Off With Something
“So I get called in by our general manager one night because the alarm sounded. I was within walking distance and get there first. I’m welcomed by two cops, and our front door is shattered. We walk up, review the security footage, and I guess it was worth the laugh.
Guy sprints from out of the darkness across the street with the biggest rock he can find. Throws it and the glass on the door just explodes like in the movies. Without stopping he lunges through the window, slides to the register and sees its open with nothing there. Panic mode set in as this guy looks EVERYWHERE. Alarm is going off, and he is straight losing it as his master plan falls apart.
So our ‘thing’ was we just had a giant glass jar of tootsie rolls and they were free, people would just take a handful with their meal.
This man locks his eyes on the tootsie roll bin. Snatches it up and just bolts out the door and right back into the darkness from which he came.
End of story is cops ‘gather the facts’ and go on a two hour patrol to look for any bandits with tootsie rolls on them. Insurance fixes the door and we all move on. I just hope that man, wherever he is, knows I want that jar back.”
Ma’am Please. No Bathing In The Sink.
“Worked as an assistant manager for a grocery retailer. Store is closing and few employees left. I’m finishing paperwork and happen to look up at the monitor displaying 16 different cameras.
The one in the deli caught my eye because I happened to notice the deli employee filling a sink. Didn’t think anything of it and kept on going with my work. Looked at the time and was thinking, okay everyone should be out. Look through the cameras and see the girl in the deli… Bathing in the sink.
Dread comes over me. What the heck do I do?
I wait until she’s done, burn the video, sterilize the sink, bleach the sink, pour boiling water over the sink, and scrub it until my hands hurt, then leave the store in night crews’ hands.
Next morning, I speak with the store manager and show him the video. Pull the girl upstairs and let her go for violating all sorts of health and safety violations.
Turns out, her water was turned off and she needed to bathe for her date with her parole officer the next morning.
The things people do when they think others aren’t watching.”