Recently, we wrote about things people witnessed that they were NOT meant to see, and now we're back for even more — this time from Quora! Here are more secrets people stumbled upon by accident — along with some of the best from the original posts.
We also used replies from this thread.
NOTE: There are mentions of grooming, sexual abuse, stillbirth, suicide, self-harm, and child sexual abuse images.
1. "My first husband never discussed money with me, except to say that I didn't make enough. I never saw a bill or even my own paychecks from my job. I was working two jobs, and yet utilities were still getting turned off left and right. He had a bag that he carried with him everywhere. Once, when he wasn't around, I opened it. I really just wanted to know how much our utilities were running and how much I was making at the time. Instead, I found a ton of lottery tickets and scratch-offs. A cellphone bill in my name for a number I didn't recognize. And love letters, exchanged by him and my younger sister, detailing their plan to take my son away from me."
"I also found the bills and my paychecks (I was making plenty), but nothing destroyed me like those letters.
This happened nearly 15 years ago, so it's all water under the bridge now. I did confront him, but in those days, in that small midwestern Catholic town, you stayed married and kept your mouth shut.
I've since moved away, and the divorce has been final for nearly 10 years. I went on to raise my son as a proud single mom.
I'm not one to hold grudges, but neither he nor my sister will ever have my forgiveness. My blood still boils when I think of their scheme. It would have worked, too, had I not gone snooping."
2. "I was watching videos on YouTube of bullies/pervs getting caught and dealt with by good Samaritans or police. About 30 videos in, I see my fucking father in a video getting caught surreptitiously filming children near a dressing room in a department store. It was one of the worst moments of my life. My dad has been dead for a long time. I've carried this with me for years. I've only shared it with my wife. I've made the decision not to tell my brother. It still makes me sick and angry."
3. "One Friday, my husband and I were hanging out with friends. I insisted we leave early because I was getting tired (I was heavily pregnant with my triplet boys). He drove me home, but I knew he really wanted to stay a little longer with his friends, so I told him he could go back to hang out with them, and that I would be fine. He returned hours after midnight. He was so tired and a little tipsy, so I decided to help him undress. That's when a message from a pregnant, married mutual friend of ours popped up on his phone. What I read changed my life. I was motionless and holding his phone for 30 minutes."
"They read things like:
Friend: 'I can't wait to be naked in your arms.'
Hubby: 'I get so jealous when your husband makes love to you.'
Friend: 'Wish we had met before our respective spouses. Wish my son were yours.'
Hubby: 'How much do you love me?'
Friend: 'So much, baby.'
I confronted them both. She said she had a crush on my husband, but that it was nothing. My husband said it was just mere flirtations…they both think I'm a fool. I severed my relationship with her, and things have not been the same with my husband and me.
Months later, she gave birth to a stillborn baby girl whom she named Zoey…a name my husband had once told me he would name our first daughter.
A lot has happened, including her husband raising hell and damnation, but that's another story. I am biding my time. When my babies are older, and I start working again, I'll leave and never look back…he has begged me to stay. He says he loves me, and he is still the loving and caring husband and father, but I know nothing has changed because he still talks with her when I'm not around. I don't trust anything he says or does anymore. I hate them for doing this to me."
4. "My ex-husband and I were staying with my in-laws for a carnival along with other family members. On our way back from the carnival one day, our toddler son fell asleep in the backseat. He used to give us a hard time as far as sleep was concerned, so my husband told me to sneak him into the house via the back door rather than passing by his loud family gathered in the living room. I carried my sleeping son as quietly as possible, sneaking up the back staircase toward the bedroom we were using and entering the dark room noiselessly. Then I stopped, in shock. Right there, on the bed, was my ex-husband's married sister having sex with her cousin."
"As he was on top of her, he turned his face and looked at me. They startled. I just turned around whispering, 'I'm sorry,' and left the room, closing the door behind me, and went looking for another bed where I could lay my baby son. I found another empty room, rested my son on the bed, and went down to the living room to join the rest of the family. My husband noticed something was wrong and asked what had happened. I mumbled some excuse. I hadn't done anything wrong, but I felt as if I had.
The fact is, that nine months later, that sister-in-law gave birth to a child. Amazingly, the baby boy looked a lot like her cousin. Her husband was unsuspecting."
5. "The pastor of a church I used to attend accidentally texted me instead of the church secretary because both our names start with 'Ma.' The text read, 'Stop being jealous of me during the services in front of my wife. You know I only want you and will always be here for you.' I replied '...Pastor?...' He replied, 'Please come see me at my office on Sunday morning so I can explain.' I never went back there."
6. "When I was 16, I was cleaning and looked at my mum's phone on the dining room table to check the time. On the home screen was a suspicious notification on an app that looked like a heart with devil horns. I had been having suspicions that something was going on with her, as she had seemed off for about three months. I didn't know her passcode, but I tilted the phone to see a pattern of where her fingerprints had hit the screen and cracked the code through the process of elimination (and my knowledge of common combos of numbers significant to her). In her phone, I uncovered three years' worth of secrets."
"Swingers sites with multiple male partners, living part-time in another man's home three minutes down the road from our family, siphoning money weekly from her and my dad's joint account and putting it in a separate account for herself.
I kept this secret to myself for a whole year. It only came out when I overheard her finally telling my dad she wanted a divorce and that his depression was the reason. (My dad was suffering after witnessing his father die from a stroke in front of him.)
I heard her feeding him fake excuses and stepped in, equipped with a year's supply of screenshots which I had taken on my own phone. She had no idea I knew and had a complete panic attack when I outed her to my dad on the spot.
More chaos unfolded for years as the divorce and assets were settled, but it's safe to say that none of us has any contact with her anymore. It's been 12 years.
No regrets. It saved my dad from blaming himself for the rest of his life. He is wonderful; she was truly just a piece of shit."
7. "One night when I was 18, I was at home with my girlfriend, and we decided to snoop around the cupboards and drawers a little. Right at the back of one cupboard, we found a small, very old shoebox. Inside, there were documents like my sister’s old school reports and my paternal grandfather’s death certificate. Then I saw a birth certificate with my name on it…except it had a different last name."
"I glanced at my girlfriend in absolute bewilderment. She had a look on her face that I'd never seen, and said I should ignore it, but I couldn't. I rushed downstairs to my mother and handed her the certificate, asking 'What is this?' She instantly began sobbing and said that she was sorry for not telling me sooner, and that I was actually adopted! Then she and my father explained that my birth parents had been 18 and addicted to heroin when they had me. I was originally placed in foster care with my adoptive parents, and they grew to love me so much that they wanted to adopt me, but had to go to court as they were over 40 at the time.
It took me around a week to process the information, and for that week, I was very upset and battling an identity crisis. But I got through it, and now, I know I am no less loved by my adoptive parents than by any biological parent and their child. And I love and appreciate them more than words could describe. I have briefly spoken to my birth parents, and they are still battling their addictions and demons. I feel sorry for them and definitely don't feel any spite or resentment."
8. "I was at the wedding dinner party of one of my cousins. Most of the guests had left, and the remaining ones were having a hell of a time drinking and dancing. I was dancing the night away like there was no tomorrow until nature called. Anyway, the band took a break and promised to be back in 20 minutes. So I headed to the toilet. There were two urinals side by side and two private stalls. One was locked. Since I was merely peeing, I used the urinal. Suddenly, I heard a soft moaning sound, and gathering that it must have come from the locked stall, I entered the one next to it and peeped over the partition, and what did I see? The groom receiving oral sex from one of the members of the all-male band."
9. "In 1999, when I was 9, my two siblings and I were taken in by our grandparents because our mother had been extremely neglectful. She was literally not feeding us. We were unbathed, we always had lice, we rarely went to school, and we had no clothes or even a bed. Her boyfriend was abusive to us, and our father was incarcerated. So our grandparents, who had just retired, stepped in, but they didn't yet have custody. One day, we were playing outside and needed to get something from the back of my grandma's car. I don't remember what, but I do remember what we found: a journal in my grandma's handwriting. Intrigued, we began reading what appeared to be notes...about our mother."
"My grandma had been taking notes about how my mom would be late for visitation, or wouldn't show up, or even attempt to be motherly. It was very thorough and time-stamped. She'd logged every interaction with my mom. She was doing this, I'm guessing, for custody purposes.
But the worst thing I remember reading? My mom had called my grandma one afternoon and offered to sell all three of us to them. She said she wouldn't fight for us in the courts if my grandma gave her $200 for us. That's about $66 and some change for each of us. And then they could have us. Pretty good deal, right?
We stopped reading the journal after seeing that. But it always stuck with me.
I never asked my grandma or mom about it. I'm sure they didn't accept her offer and simply shared this information about her with the judge in the custody case. They did end up getting custody.
We had a wonderful life with my grandparents. But I still wish I had never read that journal. My mom basically attempted to sell us. And not even for a lot of money. I could have gone my whole life without knowing that."
10. "When my mom passed, I found some of her old journals from way back. I found out my dad had abused me when I was younger, most of which I don't remember, and that he was completely dead set against having a kid and was super pissed when he found out I was on the way (I was a surprise). Sounds like he also left all the hard work of being a parent to my mom, so not super surprised there. I mostly remember him being in front of the TV."
"My mom was an awesome person. I'm angry about how he treated us growing up. He's mellowed some now. Surprisingly, my dad and I are on okay terms and are relatively close. It's hard to accept how he used to be, but advanced age has softened him.
When I was a kid, I remember thinking they stayed together for me. But I grew up, and they still never split. I could never figure out why. Still can't. It's just a shame, because I think Mom would have been so much happier on her own."
11. "After returning home from a Christmas party, I went to check on my three sleeping children. I knew my 14-year-old daughter had a big paper due soon that she was concerned about. Her computer was open, so I clicked to see what she had been working on and stumbled across her online journal. Was it an invasion of privacy to sneak a peek? I mean, she'd published it for all the world to see, though with a pseudonym. I decided to read. The latest entry was about my date from the Christmas party ('Ralph')."
"He was a work client I'd known for years. He'd become a trusted friend and frequent visitor to our home, and our families had gone on joint vacations (he was also divorced with kids). Lately, we'd been testing the waters of a romance.
Ralph had always been taken with my daughter. When he brought me flowers, he would bring her a smaller bouquet. He would take each of us arm in arm to lunch. He would give her little gifts while ignoring my sons. I took his attention as sweet and welcomed a father figure into her life.
I have never been more wrong about a person in my life.
Her journal entry revealed a sickening story of a young girl who had been slowly preyed upon. Little by little, visit by visit, over two years, things had turned from friendly to sexual. Although she loathed his visits, she felt she could not tell anyone. She was worried about damaging our family and me. She'd become sulky and stoic, and I had recently discovered self-harm and tried to take her to a psychiatrist, but she'd refused to talk. I had told Ralph this, and he seemed so concerned for her welfare.
It all seemed too awful to be true, but it was. The journal became the State's evidence against Ralph. We agreed to press misdemeanor charges to save my daughter from a court trial. The State's Attorney gave him a year in come-and-go prison, where he was free to continue work, but reported to jail every night. He was forbidden contact with any children, including his sons. But Ralph was a charmer; he was still able to finagle special privileges during that time, including seeing his kids. While he'll need to disclose his sex offender status to employers and neighbors for the rest of his life, I bet he has a version of the story that still paints him as 'a great catch.'
Meanwhile, I took my family and ran. We moved to the mountains, and I remarried. We live a simple, rich life. My daughter now lives a beautiful life, too — stronger, more worldly, and confident — and very much loved."
12. "My girlfriend, whom I was madly in love with, told me she wanted to cool off our relationship because we were long-distance and she wanted to focus on her final year of university. I was very hurt but tried to understand. She was perfect for me: down to earth, easygoing, easy to talk to, with a similar sense of humor to mine. But she had a 'best friend' — a guy who I knew with certainty was into her. We'd argued about it before, but she said they were just friends and it was his problem if he still had romantic feelings for her. I'd tried to trust her, but it annoyed me just how much time they'd spend together. Anyways, after she'd suggested we take a step back from our relationship, she took a shower. Her phone went off, and I saw a message from a friend. It wasn't downright incriminating, but it seemed fishy. I unlocked her phone and looked."
"I discovered a whole conversation which basically spelled out her feelings for him. She'd said things like:
'I love you! Please don't be angry! I'll be back soon! I hate this place...!'
And worst of all?
'His dogs are horrible and ugly!'
This crushed me. Not only had I discovered she was secretly in love with the best friend whom I'd always fucking suspected, but she also had the horrible, childish cheek to say that my two fantastic Staffordshire bull terriers were ugly. It was one of those comments that she probably didn't even mean with sincerity. She was just adding more negatives to reassure the guy that she oh-so hated being at my house and wanted to leave as soon as possible to get back to him.
It broke me. This girl, whom I thought I was in love with, was a complete fake. It was like she had died but was still alive in a new form, with a new personality that I knew nothing about. It took me almost two years to feel okay about romantic relationships again."
13. "When I was around 13 years old, I was staying at my father's house (he and my mother are divorced). I opened a cabinet in the living room while he was at work, looking for some DVDs, and I caught a glimpse of several sheets of paper with my father's handwriting on them. Curious, I read them. My father had written down how he was molested by a priest when he was a child and lived in a Catholic orphanage. The priest had crushed his thumb with his shoe when my father had tried to resist him. It broke my heart. I had asked him some years earlier why his thumb was bent and deformed, and he had told me he accidentally hammered it while doing a DIY project. I still carry this secret, 20 years later."
14. "My father has a secret first family. I found out one day while looking in some old filing cabinets. Inside, there was mostly old citizenship paperwork, letters, boring stuff...and then I found letters from my three half-siblings, who I had no idea even existed. They'd written to my dad: 'Daddy, please write back to me.' 'We are doing well; I made my first website!' Reading all those letters just broke my entire heart. Seeing the messy handwriting, with the spelling errors that only a 5-year-old could make, trying to reach out to my/their dad...I could only weep. Did my dad walk out on them? Was my mom the reason why my dad left his other family?"
"I felt really bad, so I decided to try to contact my dad’s other secret family. I found out they had already grown up and were successful adults — but they hadn't heard from my dad for about a decade.
I still haven't asked my dad about them. One day, I want to meet them. I haven't told anyone; I carry this secret alone."
15. "Many years ago, I threw a birthday party at my house and invited a bunch of friends, including my then-boyfriend, who brought along his best friend and his best friend's girlfriend, whom I hadn't met yet (my relationship was pretty new). The party was in full swing, and I noticed that the door to my parents' bedroom was closed (they had gone out for the night to let me have my party), which was strange. I opened the door...on the bed was my boyfriend making out with his best friend's girlfriend!!! At my birthday party and on my parents' bed!!!"
"At my exclamation (don’t even remember what I said), the two of them rushed out of the bedroom and ran down the hall to the living room where the party was being held. By the time I got to the living room, the three of them were leaving. I have no idea what they said to her boyfriend, but I called my boyfriend the very next day to break up with him."
16. "I once overheard my dad talking on the phone to his friend. I heard him discussing how he cheated on his ex-wife and how his current wife (my mom) still doesn't know. Not only that, my older (half) brother was an accident, and my older (full) brother was a result of my dad's cheating on his ex-wife with my mom. It was a very uncomfortable conversation to listen to because I now can't look at my dad the same again. Not only did I find out my dad cheated on his ex-wife with my mom (and didn't tell her), but one of my older brothers was an accident, and the other older brother was a result of that affair. Shit."
17. "I found an old diary of my mum's when I was helping her move. Turns out, when she was pregnant with my brother, my dad left and said he didn't want to be married anymore because he was too young. This was five years before I was born, so I guess he changed his mind."
18. "When I was about 11, my mom asked me to clean out an old sewing table, which had turned into one giant junk drawer. As I was going through all the junk, I found some papers that indicated that my mother had a child as a young teenager, while in a home for unwed mothers. She named the baby Peggy Ann. I was shocked and extremely upset. I didn't know what to do with the papers. I knew my mother didn't want us to know, but she was also careless enough to have the papers in this junk drawer. I hid them in my bureau drawer, trying to figure out what to do. About a month or so later, my older sister came to me, furious. She had come across the papers. She raged at me and accused me of holding on to them to blackmail our mother."
"I was a kid. She was only a year older. I think she tore them up and threw them away, but I honestly can’t remember. This was back in the early '60s, but I clearly still feel traumatized by the situation."
19. "When I was 8 years old, my mother and I were shopping at Costco. After loading our purchases in the car, I pushed the cart back to the collection area. As I was walking back to the car, I heard a strange noise. Looking around, it took me a moment to place where it was coming from. Across the aisle of the parking lot, there was a young girl in the back of a car, crying. We made eye contact for a brief moment, then I saw the head of a man lift up, shush her, and lower back down, then she started screaming for help. My mother grabbed my hand, ushered me into the car, and we left. Years later, I figured out what was likely happening to her, and I wish I could go back in time and do something."
20. "I had a friend I used to walk to and from school with. One day after school, I couldn't find her. I was looking for her in the parking lot when I saw a man lying on the ground holding his stomach, bleeding. I started screaming for someone to help him. Another man stepped out from around his car. He told me to leave the man be, telling me he was a 'bad person' and a 'fool.' I just stood there with my mouth open. He then claimed the other guy had pulled a knife on him and tried to steal his car: something like 'Damned fool, I ain't gonna let him have my car, so I shot him.' I thought he was lying until he showed me his gun. I ran away as fast as I could. I later realized that I was a key witness to a possible murder. This was in San Francisco in 1976."
21. "I found some old letters from my adopted dad to my mom talking about how one of the reasons he wanted to leave us was that he wanted to look at his children and have his own eyes looking back up at him. Fifteen years later and a bunch of IVF, he's now 60 with a 5-year-old kid, so I guess he got what he wanted."
22. "I discovered that my boss was cheating on his wife when I sat beside him at a conference. I glanced in his direction and caught a glimpse of his phone screen. I noticed he was chatting away with someone on his phone, and he's using heart emojis while at it. I got curious, so I peeked discreetly. The text on his phone is set to large so I can read his texts clearly, and I can see the name of the person he's texting. It was a colleague of ours who is HALF HIS AGE. He was 50 at that time, btw."
23. "I found the maid of honor of my friend, who was about to get married, coming out of the groom's room. I accidentally stumbled on them on my way back to my room."
24. "After my dad passed away, I was cleaning out the house and found a letter he wrote to my mom back when she ran away with us to Puerto Rico (without him — she didn't even tell him) with some guy she was cheating on dad with. I don't think he ever gave it to her, but it was fucking heartbreaking to read. It took me years to forgive her for it all."
25. "I basically found my wife's goodbye letter when she had given birth to our first child. She had a horrible pregnancy, so I guess she was certain she wouldn't make it through, so she wrote a letter to me, her parents, and our son. It was devastating to read. I wouldn't be able to live without her, so just imagining a world without her breaks me to pieces. She is my rock in a stormy weather, and she's helped me through so much shit in my life that I will never be able to repay her or tell her how much she really means to me."
26. "After my wife left me, I looked into the search history of my computer and found a secret email address, with a series of conversations in Russian (she was Russian) with a woman named Irina. The conversations went all the way back to 2006/7. But one from 2015 struck me hard. She asked, 'How long do I have to remain married to my American husband after I become a citizen?' Irina answered her, 'Six months to not be investigated, one year to be able to defend any accusation.' We'd gotten married in May 2014. She'd asked the question in November 2015. In March 2016, she became a citizen. In March 2017, she left."
"I wish I had never found the emails. I wish I hadn't started an investigation after she left. I wish I hadn't found the rest of the items, then, too. I wish I could have thought that maybe I was just a bad husband and a poor provider.
Instead, I will always wonder if I am being tricked. If this can happen to me, what else am I wrong about?"
27. "I once found proof that I was being stalked by a guy long before I began dating him. I found my hair, some of my jewelry, pieces of my mail, and a package that was delivered that he stole that I had to get a refund on, and a bunch of things pertaining to me in a dresser drawer in his bedroom. Creeped me out and made me aware that our meeting and all of our 'random' run-ins were no accident."
28. "I saw my neighbor and his friend murder his parents and put their bodies in the back of his friend's truck. They dumped them in a field. Thankfully, all involved were caught and sentenced. I remember vividly when a cop came to our door to talk to us about what happened (neighbor had broken into one of our trucks a few days prior and stolen my dad's guns). I adamantly denied knowing anything because 9-year-old me had seen way too many Walker, Texas Ranger episodes and knew that if you ever testified against a murderer, they always came back to kill you."
29. "I was bartending, and it was slow. I was putting away glasses by the only two people sitting at the bar. They seemed a new couple, very touchy, etc. At some point, I noticed that she was wearing a wedding ring and he was not. Right as the music died down between songs, he turned to her and said, 'You know, they're going to ask you where you were when he drowned.' Noped out of there real damn quick."
"This was five years ago now, but from what I remember, they definitely knew I heard them. I was like two feet away. I froze for a second and then turned and went straight into the kitchen. I was freaking out with the kitchen staff and trying to figure out what to do. When I came back out, they had paid cash and left. I debated calling the police, but had no other info besides what I thought I heard. I never heard anything about anyone drowning. I didn't keep it a secret, either; I have told this story a LOT. And this was a small town where people had nothing better to do than talk, so if there was a scandal, it was common knowledge what I had heard."
30. "When I was about 11, I found my mom's diaries and read them. I found one from when she was pregnant with me and was seriously contemplating adoption. Then one from several years later, where she wondered if she made the right choice."
"When I read the entry, it didn't come as much of a surprise. We always had a strained relationship, even from the time I was a young child. She just never wanted the responsibility of having a child, I think. Our relationship now is superficial."
31. "I walked in on a black market plastic surgery. I was in my first year of college and hanging out with an old buddy from middle school. He was shady about only staying in his room, entering through his back door, and being quiet. We were leaving when I turned down the wrong hall to his kitchen, and there was a doctor and assistants in scrubs — tubes, machines, and plastic wrap everywhere. I was ushered out, screamed at, and told not to talk about it."
"It was either lipo or a tummy tuck; I don't remember. He told me the doc only did those and Botox, if I remember correctly. This was done in a lower- to middle-class neighborhood. To me, it was not done in a clean environment, but who am I to judge, lol.
Update: I just texted my friend, and he said the doctor got caught a few years ago for transporting drugs (Botox, antibiotics, and painkillers), and his parents haven't heard from him in a while. He apparently only did weight-loss stuff and did discount diagnoses for poor people. He told people if stuff was serious enough to go get appointments/tests done."
32. "I found my dad's will. I was on his computer while he was at work (actually searching for his porn) and ended up finding a strangely titled Word document. At first, it didn't seem like a big deal. It contained a note to each of his kids. It wasn't until I got to the last one, my youngest brother, that I realized it wasn't just a will. The start of that line read something along the lines of 'If anything is going to make me change my mind now, it's writing this part.' I realized I had found my dad's suicide note. I was about 14 or 15 at the time, and I had no idea how to go about talking to him about it."
"I decided to just keep it to myself. He started buying us gifts and stuff, and I would get really scared, but I still just kept it to myself. I remember one day on the weekend, I woke up in my bed to a loud bang coming from my dad's room. I lay there in bed for probably half an hour, frozen. Once I worked up the strength, I went to his room and opened the door.
He wasn't in the bedroom. I was so confused until I saw that the bedroom window was open. What had happened was that there was a gust and the wind had slammed the door shut, but my paranoid brain had heard a gunshot. After that, I was laughing hysterically, and I don't have much memory of the day that followed.
Shortly after this incident, my dad returned most of the gifts he had bought us kids, and I slowly started to believe that he had changed his mind. I never confronted him about it until last year, about 14 years or so later, but I never fully accepted that he was okay now.
I called him distraught about a separate matter, and he started talking to me about depression. He told me on his own about how he had considered taking his life, and went into detail about it, and all I could do was cry and tell him 'I know.' We talked a lot longer after that, and we were finally able to put it all to rest."
33. "Leaving work late one evening, I saw the HR director and CFO in a dark office shredding papers (no, that's not a euphemism). I didn't say anything but quietly walked on down the hall. Two weeks later, we were raided by the SEC, and several people were charged with cooking the books."
34. "When I was around 10 years old, my mom and I went to visit an aunt and uncle, as my uncle, my mom's brother, had just had a major surgery. During the visit, my aunt and my mom cooked a big dinner, and my aunt told me to call my cousin to invite them to dinner. I went to his room and opened the door to be greeted by the sight of guns lining the bed. I vividly remember seeing bricks of what I later learned were cocaine and big burlap sacks of weed. I blurted out, 'YOURMOMSAIDCOMEEAT!' and immediately slammed the door shut. It was no secret to anyone in our family the type of business that our cousins were in. He came out of his room a few minutes later and scolded me for not knocking. I was scared shitless, but the young kid brain in me was also extremely fascinated to see that they were real-life 'drug lords.'"
35. "I have two best friends who I've known for 15 years. One best friend (we'll call him Adam) got married to a woman (let's call her Beth). I later walked in on the other best friend fucking Beth. They saw me, too, and said I couldn't tell Adam. I've held the secret inside for about three years. I just don't think it is my place to tell Adam. And to be honest, I don't want to get muddled in the middle of all of them."
36. "My husband (and the father of my newborn) texting his affair partner that he loved her and would be on one knee before she knew it...as well as a recounting of their sexcapades. That one hurt."
37. "My dad gave me a piece of furniture one time. When I got it home, a Post-It note that had been stuck to the bottom floated down to the floor. I picked it up, and in my dad's unmistakable handwriting were various notes about gay personal ads he'd been responding to with details about the other guys. Their names, ages, sexual interests, the status of their conversations, etc. My dad was, at least I thought, very straight. I put two and two together and realized this piece of furniture was from an apartment he'd kept briefly while he and my stepmom were on the outs for about a year. None of this bothered me one bit, but I got the distinct impression that my stepmom (an older, very conservative lady) would have NOT been cool with any of this...I let him go to his grave without ever telling him."
38. "We were playing in the street at night when I was, like, 11–12 years old. A shady truck came down the road and stopped so that its window aligned with another truck's window. As a curious kid, I walked closer to get a better look and witnessed an illegal sale of high-power firearms. I just stood there for a second processing what I'd just seen and realized that the selling party was my neighbor, and I'm sure we made eye contact. My neighbor and his family suddenly disappeared, probably because they were dealing with some illegal shit. Guns are illegal in my country; any kind of gun. Even airsoft needs permissions for traveling through certain mediums."
39. "When I was a kid, maybe 8 years old, I went over to visit my friend who lived across the street. I'd often come over unannounced and just knock on their door to ask if my friend wanted to hang out. As usual, I knocked on the door and waited; no one came, but I could hear noises indicating that someone was home. My friend would often play video games with headphones on and would be slow to answer the door, so I just kept waiting and knocking. Through the glass, I saw my friend's dad walk into the hallway to see who it was. He stood there fully naked, dick swinging, and we made eye contact through the glass. I turned to walk away, but he saw me leaving, approached the door, and opened it. At this point, I saw a woman appear behind him who was very naked and very much not his wife."
"My friend's dad panicked and just stared at me. I panicked, too, and asked if his son, my friend, was home. He awkwardly said, 'No, he's not here,' and decided that now might be a good time to finally cover his nakedness. I didn't say anything else and just turned to leave, at which point my friend's dad just blurted out, 'Don't leave!' I looked back, confused. He hurriedly left the room for a few seconds, while I was forced to say a very awkward hello to the naked lady standing in my friend's house. The dad came back, handed me a fistful of cash, and said, 'Don't tell anyone,' or something to that effect. At the time, I didn't comprehend why he was giving me money, so I refused it and just walked back home.
It wasn't until years later that I fully comprehended what I had witnessed and why my friend's mother kicked their dad out of the house soon after that."
40. "Around 2000, I was working for a large business that makes telecom/networking equipment, managing an internal project. During the holidays, while everyone was out, I was still in the office (being an exempt employee). I encountered a problem and, while troubleshooting, noticed that there was some seriously high network usage happening across the switch, from one particular machine. I had a local administrator on all the machines in my department, so I logged on to this machine. 'Oh, hey, this guy is running LimeWire off his freakin' user-level account! That's not good; we're going to have to write this guy up. Let me just have a look at what pirated music and movies this…Oh, Jesus Christ.'"
"One of the functions of my job was to carry 'The BatPhone,' which had a direct line to an FBI office, because our corporation was pretty big on turning network intrusions into federal cases, and if the FBI wanted something, the FBI got it, warrant not required.
The guy had brought in a case of burned CDs full of child sexual abuse images and was distributing them off our network via LimeWire.
I missed dinner that night and had to keep what was happening from my wife for about a week before they finally arrested him, which put a strain on our relationship.
But that guy got sent off for a long time."
41. "My parents worked at a prison when I was younger. My mom had left her BlackBerry on the counter, and one day I thought I would check it for some reason. Kids really didn't have phones back then, or at least I didn't. I opened the text messages, and there were two separate numbers, without contacts, that showed dick pics of two dudes in prison blues. I have never had a good relationship with my mom, but I lost whatever respect I had for her after that, because she has always acted like she was so much better than everyone, especially me (having a criminal past), and here she was, obviously committing a serious crime and having very questionable morals."
42. "My computer broke, and my ex was letting me use his MacBook for a school project. I was sitting in the same room as him. He had his text window open on his computer, and all of a sudden, I saw a convo between him and another woman in which she said she was planning to come over as soon as I left for work. They were trying to time it so she got there right when I left. The worst part of it all was that she kept going on and on about how she couldn't wait to play with MY CAT! My fucking cat! Those are fighting words. Fuck them both, I'm happily married to someone else, and my cat is still my bestie."
43. "I went to knock on my older neighbor's door to ask him if I could help him shovel the snow in his yard. Nobody answered. That's when I noticed a strange smell and a lot of heat coming from under the door. For some reason, I opened the door. A cloud of white gas immediately enveloped me, and I ran away. It smelled awful, like antifreeze mixed with nail polish remover. I saw out my window that he'd closed the door. At this point, I was throwing up and felt really shitty (feverish, shaking). I managed to put two and two together and called the police. He had been running a meth lab."
"This wasn't Breaking Bad-type stuff; the 'setup' was really small from what I saw. It looked like it could all fit in a dorm room kitchen. It made a lot of smoke, though, and I guess he didn't have any windows open because it was a WALL of smoke. I honestly thought there was a fire and I was about to die in a backdraft, until I noticed the smell."
44. "While looking for my birth certificate, I found a death certificate for a brother I never knew I had. This made me curious. I looked a little further and found family photos from my mom's previous marriage that I had never been told about, as well as her divorce records. She had a whole other family before ours and never told us."
"I'll never bring it up to her because it's really none of my business."
45. "I worked for a downtown metropolitan hotel for a long time, and I've seen a lot I wasn't supposed to see. Probably the worst was a kid with an older man. I checked this guy in around one in the morning (not uncommon, since people travel at different times), but he was alone. Like, an hour later, he asked for something, like a towel or blanket. Anyways, we dispatched our runner to deliver it. After the runner came to me and said he thought something was wrong because he caught a glimpse of someone, and the old guy was trying hard to block the entrance. Being that we were supposed to take stuff like human trafficking seriously, I asked our maintenance to cut his power, so we would get a call to come up to try and fix the problem. He did, and I went up with him to apologize for the inconvenience because the guy was also a top-tier member. Sure enough, we heard a kid hiding in the bathroom."
"I tried to ask who the kid was, and the old guy tried everything to shut us down, from throwing his status around to bribing. I called the cops and let them deal with it.
I had the next two nights off. I was called in on my last day to meet with a detective from HR and a lawyer from the hotel chain's legal team to take my statement.
I talked to the cop a bit afterward, and she told me to just kinda keep quiet about it all because I could be called to testify if there was a trial.
I never ended up getting called, but for a few months, I would run the older man's name through our in-house system to see if there were any company notes on his account. It took, like, two months, but his status was revoked, and his name popped up on our DNR (do not rent) list.
So I didn't learn specifics, but I learned it was bad enough for me to talk to cops and be prepared to testify if needed."
46. "My childhood best friend found her stepmom's diary a few years back. Her mother died almost 15 years ago. She read through it out of curiosity and found pages and pages of her stepmother wishing she and her brother would have died with their mother, saying they were the worst kids ever, and that she was glad their mother died because she deserved it, etc. She even showed me one day when I was at their place. It made me sick. I never looked at her stepmother the same after that."
"To clear things up, this woman is pure evil to their faces, too. Anytime her stepmom starts an argument with my friend's dad over the most ridiculous things, as if she's just trying to start something, she always goes straight to trash-talking the kids loud enough for everybody in the house to hear. If I recall correctly, she actually put her hands on both my friend AND her brother. This is my friend's house legally; her mom gave it to her in her will. She could very easily kick her out, but she's scared of what will happen to her dad. She knows it will cause even more trouble. He doesn't know about what's in the diary because we've always been scared to bring it up."
47. "I saw my neighbor having an affair. I stayed home from school sick one day and thought it was odd that the woman next door was home. Then her child's soccer coach showed up. All the houses on our street had giant picture windows in the front. I sat in my living room, plainly seeing them walk around her living room naked. A few days later, I told my best friend. By the end of the day, everyone in school was talking about it. I watched her daughter be told by her friends. I watched her fall apart as we waited for the bus home."
"Later that night, the woman showed up at my house and cornered me in my bedroom alone. For literally 45 minutes, she crouched next to me as I lay in bed, her face inches from mine, demanding that I tell her I lied. I'm still not sure why. She knew I knew. I knew I knew. Nobody was there to hear me lie to cover her ass. All I could remember thinking was, 'Wow. This woman is not only sleeping with her kids' coach, but she's also forcing a child to lie about it.' It was the first time I realized not every adult deserves respect.
A few months later, the soccer coach's wife found a receipt for an expensive necklace. She saw the cheating neighbor wearing it at a child's basketball game. A fistfight ensued. Divorces came shortly after. The neighbor ended up marrying the soccer coach.
I felt bad, but I was in fifth grade. I had no idea how to process the information I had. To me, it was a story about how I saw the hot mom next door naked, not something that would destroy marriages."
48. "A while ago, my friend from work googled my name and found a really ugly photo of me. He sent it to everyone in a group chat, so in friendly retaliation, I googled his name, trying to find bad photos of him, too. The only photo was on the first search that came up, which ran alongside an article detailing how he was placed on the sex offender registry for eight years after being caught with 100 photos of child sexual abuse images."
49. "Many years ago, I worked a graveyard shift on a major network reality show as a tape librarian. One night, one of the producers came in with her camera woman and AC, all three of them white as ghosts. They handed me a tape and had me file it away for shipment to legal, with the instructions that absolutely no one be allowed to watch its contents. Well, that was way too juicy to pass up (especially working awful hours seven days a week for terrible pay), so as soon as 3 a.m. rolled around and I was the only one still on set (aside from the security guards), I kicked back and popped that sucker in. It was a video of a female contestant freaking out and repeatedly punching her boyfriend in the face until he bled. I get why it had to go to legal, especially since they were minors, but it was some grade-A Springer shit."
"Anyway, it was not mentioned or shown on the show, so I'm guessing legal said 'hell naw.'"
50. "I found my ex's Reddit with a bunch of naked pictures of me I didn't know existed. He's since deleted the entire account, but I bet they're still posted somewhere."
51. "An email from my dad's affair partner on his computer. I mentioned it to my mom, and that's when she told me my dad had been having an affair for the past seven years, and I have a half-sister because of it."
52. "I was working for a software company in NYC. I decided to come in really early, around 6 a.m., to catch up on some work. The executives all had glassed-in offices, and as I was coming in, I clearly saw my boss sitting across from another guy. I went over to say hi and noticed a brick of $100 bills wrapped in rubber bands on the desk between them. The other guy was clearly not happy that I'd seen it, and he left right away. My boss called me in and asked me to close the door. That's when I learned that his family was connected to organized crime."
53. "My wife and I vacationed in London a couple of years ago. It was about 11 p.m.; we had followed some locals to a pub. I really had to pee, but I couldn't find a restroom anywhere. I asked the guy working the front door where the restroom was. He looked at me kinda funny and said, 'Upstairs. First door on your left.' I found the staircase in a back corner, blocked by a table, which was odd. You could tell that these stairs weren't meant to be used, but I had been drinking, and my bladder was about to bust. On the second floor, there was a long hallway with about five doors. I tried the first one on the left, but it was a dark room with empty kegs. The first door on the right just had supplies. Then I noticed that I could see light under the door at the end of the hallway. That must be the bathroom, I thought. I opened the door to find a group of people in very sharp business attire seated around an oval table."
"They all froze in place, and we all looked at each other for a good 15–30 seconds. Finally, one of the guys said, 'What the hell are you doing, mate?' I replied, 'I'm just looking for the bathroom; the door guy told me it was up here.' The guy responded, 'We don't have a restroom in this building, now please leave.'
I apologized and headed back down the staircase, confused as hell (but good news: my urge to pee was gone). I returned to my wife and told her what had happened. We both agreed it was strange, but ordered another round.
Five minutes later, one of the men from the room came downstairs. He went to the security guy at the front, said something to him, and pointed at me. I almost shit myself. The bouncer walked up to me and said, 'You guys have to leave.' I told him that I had not paid my tab yet, and he said not to worry about it, just to go ahead and leave. We obliged.
To this day, it's one of the weirdest events of my life. We have no idea what happened, but we love to tell this story and hear everyone's theories."
54. "I saw one really weird message, and then got sucked into reading a whole huge text chat of my dad's really disgusting text messages with his girlfriend, wherein he refers to her by the same very specific (and highly personalized) nickname that he has referred to me as since I was a child. It was like a train wreck; I couldn't look away. The messages had a really strong dd/lg (Daddy Dom/Little Girl) fetish vibe as well, and I have never recovered. It seems he refers to her by nickname whenever they are being sexual or romantic."
"For more horrific context: Said nickname isn't some common thing like 'baby girl.' It's a reference to a misprint on my middle school soccer jersey. It's incredibly specific, sounds a lot like my actual first name, and to make matters weirder, this girlfriend of his had heard him refer to me by that nickname probably hundreds of times, so it can't be lost on her (it also sounds NOTHING EVEN CLOSE to her own name).
I have racked my brain a million times about it to try and make myself feel even slightly less grossed out, but I only ever feel more upset. It seems most likely that they do some kind of sexual role play wherein she role plays as *me*. I have no idea what using that nickname for their sex life would ever be a thing. So, I'm traumatized and haven't looked at my dad the same way since. I sure as shit don't want to ask him about it."
55. "As I was coming out of a dollar store, I noticed two guys in the parking lot who were doing an obvious drug deal. Sirens started wailing, and three or four cop cars pulled into the strip mall. One guy threw something into a large dumpster, and the other guy took off running as I was reaching my car. I went back inside the dollar store and watched as they were both arrested. I waited for about 15 minutes until they were all gone, then I walked over to the dumpster and actually jumped in. I found an envelope with $8,000 wrapped in plastic wrap. I shoved it into my pants and got out with some pieces of wood (acting like I was looking for scrap wood in the dumpster)."
"That was 12 years ago...I used most of that money to put a new roof on my house."
56. "As a teen, I'd poke around some of the many boxes of random stuff my borderline hoarder mom would collect over the years. I found a box of old photos and letters. Being a nosy teen, I opened one of the letters. It was written on a typewriter, which, as a teen in 2002, seemed like ancient technology, so I was already intrigued. Then I realized it was a letter my mom's parents wrote to my aunt back in 1982. My grandparents died when I was 6; this was a rare glimpse into their lives, so I kept reading. Anyway, turns out my older cousin is not, in fact, the biological child of my uncle."
"My aunt (mom's older sister) apparently got pregnant out of wedlock, and this letter from my grandparents was about how disappointed they were and what types of financial/emotional support they were willing to provide. I don't remember details, because it was at this point that my mom walked in and saw me reading the letter. I don't remember the details of that either, because I was flustered due to being caught, and she was flustered due to a family secret having been leaked. I have no idea if my cousin knows."
57. And finally..."I saw my upstairs neighbor and another man push a crying girl through a door. I knew they were involved in drug-related business, so I felt it necessary to call the police despite suspecting that I was being a busybody. I'd asked for my name to be kept out of the case, so I wasn't told the specifics, but my neighbor was gone for good, so he was definitely up to no good."
What did you see, find, or hear that you weren't supposed to? Let us know in the comments below or via this anonymous form.
Submissions have been edited for length/clarity.
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