# What's the worst thing you've ever heard? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 13, 2007, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-thing-youve-ever-heard/399881 "2007-04-13T00:00:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![vivalostwages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d07c76/32.png) [@vivalostwages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vivalostwages)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2007, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-thing-youve-ever-heard/399881/1 "2007-04-13T00:00:19Z")
I don’t mean an irritating song. I mean things that are far more upsetting than that. For me, it was part of the audio recording of the last minutes in Jonestown, Guyana. I saw a documentary about it recently on TV, and I tell you…If you thought the footage was difficult, the audio is even worse. People in their final minutes here, kids crying, and the megalomanical, paranoid delusional Jim Jones–sometimes slurring and mostly just babbling incoherently–urging his followers to give their kids the poison-laced drink first, then swallow their own portion. It was absolutely horrendous. I am not linking to the archival player, but you can find at least one link to it via Wiki, if you must. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2007, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-thing-youve-ever-heard/399881/2 "2007-04-13T01:28:49Z")
I saw some footage of a Soviet medical test where they intentionally drowned dogs so they could ressusitate them, once. Pretty creepy. ---
**Author:** ![Cluricaun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/bb73d2/32.png) [@Cluricaun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cluricaun)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2007, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-thing-youve-ever-heard/399881/3 "2007-04-13T02:40:28Z")
A dolphin with emphysema sucking thick mud through a set of rusty bagpipes? Ok, that’s just the worst think I can think of. The worst I’ve ever actually heard was the sound of a person being hit by a car. Without even looking I knew exactly what it was. ---
**Author:** ![LavenderBlue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e95f7d/32.png) [@LavenderBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LavenderBlue)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2007, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-thing-youve-ever-heard/399881/4 "2007-04-13T02:48:23Z")
One of my neighbors spending an entire day in her front yard crying and wailing and moaning and screaming loudly and then softly and then loudly again and again and again as tears streamed down her face and she held her small daughter in her lap. It was September 12th 2001 and her husband had been killed in the Trade Center Bombing. The smoke in the air was the worst thing I’ve ever smelled. ---
**Author:** ![brendon\_small](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/brendon_small/32/17101_2.png) [@brendon\_small](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brendon_small)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2007, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-thing-youve-ever-heard/399881/5 "2007-04-13T03:29:57Z")
The worst thing I ever heard was in a class on Serial Murders. It was a 911 call from an elderly woman. She mentions that she heard a noise and that there was someone in her house. The 911 person tries to get some information, but the woman is talking and she suddenly stops (as if she just saw someone walk into the room) and then you actually can hear her be murdered over the phone. She was attacked by a serial killer in her home. It just was so horrible to hear because she sounded so friendly, even in the last few minutes before she saw the guy, and it instantly made me think of my grandmother (who wasn’t killed by a murderer, but I miss her and the thought of someone doing that to someone’s grandmother kind of hit at the moment) Brendon ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2007, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-thing-youve-ever-heard/399881/6 "2007-04-13T03:34:44Z")
Well, Betty Ong’s call had to be one of the worst. She was inside one of the towers on 9/11. You can here it here if you choose. [Betty Ong’s Call](http://www.thememoryhole.org/911/911-ong-tape.htm) Then I heard Kevin Cosgrove’s call and I was even more stunned. [Kevin Cosgrove’s 911 call on 9/11](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SbssOdruPQ) ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2007, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-thing-youve-ever-heard/399881/7 "2007-04-13T03:51:03Z")
April 19, 1995. The OKC Water Board (or whatever it was) was having a meeting. It was recorded. The audio tape recorded 9:02 am. All you hear is a blast. 169 people died in that blast. You can listen to the tape at the memorial in downtown OKC. As it plays, the exhibit shows portraits of all 169. It’s a moving experience. But I think the absolute worst thing I’ve yet to hear was my own voice when I told my Dad goodbye for the last time. He couldn’t answer. He was dead. ---
**Author:** ![Rodgers01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@Rodgers01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rodgers01)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2007, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-thing-youve-ever-heard/399881/8 "2007-04-13T05:18:26Z")
[QUOTE=brendon\_small] The worst thing I ever heard was in a class on Serial Murders. It was a 911 call from an elderly woman. She mentions that she heard a noise and that there was someone in her house. The 911 person tries to get some information, but the woman is talking and she suddenly stops (as if she just saw someone walk into the room) and then you actually can hear her be murdered over the phone. She was attacked by a serial killer in her home. It just was so horrible to hear because she sounded so friendly, even in the last few minutes before she saw the guy, and it instantly made me think of my grandmother (who wasn’t killed by a murderer, but I miss her and the thought of someone doing that to someone’s grandmother kind of hit at the moment) Brendon [/QUOTE] Do you remember what serial killer it was? And, more importantly, did they catch the bastard? Good lord; usually you hear about serial killers going for young women in some kind of sick, psycho-sexual kind of thing. But what kind of guy breaks into a someone’s house and kills a grandmother? :mad: On a somewhat similar note, there was [this story](http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,984340,00.html). I don’t think the entire recording has been released, but the excerpts that have been are horrible enough. ---
**Author:** ![Khan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3ab097/32.png) [@Khan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khan)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2007, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-thing-youve-ever-heard/399881/9 "2007-04-13T05:24:37Z")
My mom screaming and sobbing out a prayer for our dog as he died in her arms from what we think was a heart condition. The sound of a police officer trying to keep his voice from breaking as he told a woman that they had found her son’s body, and the wailing scream she let out in response. This was on a show on the Discovery Channel called “last seen alive.” On a less morbid note, the sound of a $50,000 pipetting robot bending and snapping away one of its precision tooled-pipette tips on the sample rack I had just commanded it to draw from. At that moment that labored mechanical hum from the motors sounded like me losing my job (I didn’t though). ---
**Author:** ![Manatee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/50afbb/32.png) [@Manatee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Manatee)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2007, 6:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-thing-youve-ever-heard/399881/10 "2007-04-13T06:50:30Z")
Air raid sirens (even if it’s just in a movie or a song) still make my skin crawl. ---
**Author:** ![brendon\_small](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/brendon_small/32/17101_2.png) [@brendon\_small](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brendon_small)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2007, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-thing-youve-ever-heard/399881/11 "2007-04-13T07:30:29Z")
[QUOTE=Rodgers01] Do you remember what serial killer it was? And, more importantly, did they catch the bastard? Good lord; usually you hear about serial killers going for young women in some kind of sick, psycho-sexual kind of thing. But what kind of guy breaks into a someone’s house and kills a grandmother? :mad: [/QUOTE] I’m not sure who the killer was (I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a famous one, but a regional one or something) and my prof. said as far as he knows the man was caught. It is surprising how many murderers did target older individuals. I thought most of the ones would be younger, but we studied 12 of the “more well known” killers and I think only 2 targeted victims under the age of 30. It was probably the scariest class I’ve ever been in, a truly disturbing study of human behavior. It also kind of makes movies and such seem so weird now, since we studied real life horror stories. Brendon ---
**Author:** ![Queen\_Bruin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/e274bd/32.png) [@Queen\_Bruin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Queen_Bruin)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2007, 7:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-thing-youve-ever-heard/399881/12 "2007-04-13T07:39:36Z")
[QUOTE=Manatee] Air raid sirens (even if it’s just in a movie or a song) still make my skin crawl. [/QUOTE] Our (rural) volunteer fire department gets called in with one. First time I heard it, I had just moved in with my husband and we slept in late. Scared the crap out of me, but when I staggered outside the sun was blotted out by smoke and ash was falling from the sky. I was all sorts of :eek:. That air raid siren still gives me the willies, as do the Wandering Soul recordings from Vietnam. Worst sound though is the scream my husband gave one time in the middle of a night terror. I have never been more scared in my life. I thought he was being butchered mid-sleep. ---
**Author:** ![TLDRIDKJKLOLFTW](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/51bf81/32.png) [@TLDRIDKJKLOLFTW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TLDRIDKJKLOLFTW)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2007, 7:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-thing-youve-ever-heard/399881/13 "2007-04-13T07:47:58Z")
A few years back, there was a story on TV about two teens who got lost and eventually froze to death. But the whole time, they had 911 operators on the line as they frantically tried to explain where they were so that they could be found. As they get colder and colder, they get increasingly delusional and hallucinate and the whole thing is **fucking terrifying** to listen to. > [@](#): > > “There’s a lot of Mexicans and African-Americans and they’re all dressed up in, like, these cult outfits, and they’re moving all the vehicles,” she said. > > She said people were taking the cars apart and putting them in the trees. She gave their location as “Trees above the Mandalay” — the Mandalay apartments in Omaha. > [@](#): > > Wamsley also said they had encountered people, but he didn’t think they spoke English. “We’ve tried, we’ve asked for help, we’ve begged,” he said. > [@](#): > > The last call came at 4:20 a.m. The couple had been out in below-freezing temperatures now at least four hours. Wamsley’s last call was short, less than two minutes. > > “Hey, this is Mike Wamsley,” he told Viberg. “I have just escaped. Please come get me.” > [@](#): > > He also has a theory about the “people” that Wamsley mentioned in his phone call to 911. > > “It’s quite possible he sees the cattle, hears the breathing of the cattle, and thinks these are people. These ‘people’ aren’t helping him. He’s calling out for help and they are not responding,” Yost said, adding that his theory was speculation. [I just found a webpage with trascripts of the calls and mp3’s of them. Have a listen if you don’t mind not sleeping for the next few days.](http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_np=0&u_pg=1636&u_sid=1316263) ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2007, 9:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-thing-youve-ever-heard/399881/14 "2007-04-13T09:08:46Z")
[QUOTE=VCO3] A few years back, there was a story on TV about two teens who got lost and eventually froze to death. But the whole time, they had 911 operators on the line as they frantically tried to explain where they were so that they could be found. As they get colder and colder, they get increasingly delusional and hallucinate and the whole thing is **fucking terrifying** to listen to. [/quote] They sound high to me. [This story](http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Primetime/story?id=549455&page=1) seems to confirm my suspicion, I think, though I’m not sure. I’m not sure because, even though the story says they were high on meth, it also says toxicology showed they had taken meth two to three days _before_ the 911 calls. Meth high doesn’t last that long, does it? -FrL- ---
**Author:** ![MerryMagdalen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c2a13f/32.png) [@MerryMagdalen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MerryMagdalen)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2007, 9:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-thing-youve-ever-heard/399881/15 "2007-04-13T09:47:46Z")
I didn’t listen to the tapes (I tried) but there is an ad playing in the Seattle area stations now of 911 callers high on meth who got frozen in a snowstorm…and their bodies were found later. They took out any mention of where the callers were (around here, you’re not going to get caught in a blizzard but around here there’s also a crapload of meth). I have a feeling it’s the same people. It’s like an OnStar ad, backwards. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2007, 9:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-thing-youve-ever-heard/399881/16 "2007-04-13T09:55:11Z")
When I was in Baghdad, I would hear explosions every day, some near and some far, and some big, and some small. They were so common that I didn’t even react, but you’d get this knot in your stomach and you knew some people were had just been slaughtered somewhere. Sometimes there’d be one explosion and a couple minute later a series of other explosions and you knew that they had phased the bombs so that they would catch people fleeing the first bomb or rushing to help the injuried. Also, my dad beating up my mom. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2007, 11:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-thing-youve-ever-heard/399881/17 "2007-04-13T11:27:43Z")
The audio from the [Jane Dornacker crash](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Dornacker) is pretty chilling, especially with the horrible grinding noise you can hear over the radio as the rotors seize up. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![fisha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/da6949/32.png) [@fisha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fisha)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2007, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-thing-youve-ever-heard/399881/18 "2007-04-13T13:13:57Z")
An interview with the general of the UN peacekeeping forces during the Rwanda genocide and his meeting with some of the leaders. It’s the program excerpt 3, about 10 minutes in. I watched this 3-4 years ago, and this stuck with me, almost verbatim. [http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/ghosts/video/](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/ghosts/video/) ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2007, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-thing-youve-ever-heard/399881/19 "2007-04-13T13:20:38Z")
My stepdad beating the crap out of my brother. I threw up. ---
**Author:** ![Wee\_Bairn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/90db22/32.png) [@Wee\_Bairn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wee_Bairn)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2007, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-thing-youve-ever-heard/399881/20 "2007-04-13T14:14:52Z")
Not the worst, but still creepy- years ago 20/20 or some show was playing a video tape of an arsonist watching one of his fires burn, and the voice and comments by the arsonist were definitely that of a mentally disturbed person. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-worst-thing-youve-ever-heard/399881.md?page=2)