We all have a fairly consistent idea of an average person or animal’s mental abilities, sometimes misguided, but accurate enough for day to day use. So when one’s pet does something deeply human like, most folks are typically taken aback.
Someone asked “What is the creepiest display of intelligence you’ve seen?” and netizens detailed things they saw that stayed with them to this day. So get comfortable as you scroll through, upvote your favorites and be sure to share your own stories in the comments section down below.
#1
I’ve been feeding this family of 5 crows for years. They have gotten comfortable enough with me that they’ll come get snacks while I’m still sitting next to the food. I can call them with a specific whistle I use just for them, and they make a rattle noise (that sounds like the Predator) with me to thank me for food.
One late night I hear this horrible loud screeching. It woke me up, so I ran outside to see what it was. There was a guy trying to break into a window in my house and the 5 crows were dive bombing him screaming as loud as they could. He ran away.
So I guess I have guard-crows now.
© Photo: sudomatrix
#2
Was at a party and had a sudden mid conversation realization that we were all standing uncomfortably close to each other. My buddies border collie had slowly herded us all to the center of the room.
© Photo: Herpethian
#3
I ended up working as an adult really close to my family home I lived in since I was born.
The area has always been occupied by Magpies which swoop at you all through summer. For those who don’t know, it’s terrifying.
At work there was an injured Magpie that we fed and took care of for ages. When it got better enough to roam, it “told” all the other magpies in the area and since then, about a decade ago, all the magpies in the area never swooped any of us who worked at the store again. And Alfred the magpie used to fly beside me when I’d ride my bike to work! And on the way back too, to make sure I was safe. So insane.
Sorry for all non-australians, this will make no sense.
© Photo: cxllvm
#4
My dog starts barking at the door so I open it to see what’s going on. there’s a border collie sitting there waiting. I go to check on the dog and he gets up and walks a bit away, sits and stares at me. I follow him. this goes on till I’m in front of a house in my neighborhood.
collie stares at the doorbell. I ring it. no one answers. collie stares at the door. I knock, no answer. dog gets up and walks to the side gate and stares at me and then up at the latch. I open the gate for the dog.
the dog walks into the back yard, turns around, sits and stares at me and then at the open gate. I close the gate and watch the dog relax.
dog used me for my thumbs and wouldn’t even let me pet him.
© Photo: FaithlessnessThin359
#5
Not creepy, but rather endearing.
If you remember Koko the gorilla, she raised and nurtured a kitten. Well, Koko once accidently broke the sink in her enclosure, then used the sign language her caretakers taught her to tell them her kitten did it.
She learned a language, and used it to lie. Prior to this, no one considered a gorilla’s intelligence in this manner.
© Photo: Saltycook
#6
I heard of an octopus who would break out of its tank at night and eat the crabs in a neighbouring tank. The aquarium staff didn’t understand how the crabs kept getting eaten until they watched cctv and saw what the octopus was doing.
Creepy thing is, the octopus knew to replace the lids and return to its own tank. That must mean it understood the need for deception.
© Photo: olija_oliphant
#7
My parents dog learned to open and close their doors. They have doors with door handles not knobs and he very quickly learned he could get on his hind legs and reach them. He didn’t just yank it down. He put one paw on the door frame and the other pushing the handle down and pull back to open. He understood he would have to pull it from the inside to open it and push it from the outside. He also rang the doorbell on multiple occasions to be let inside if he was out too long. I didn’t realize how smart he was until I understood he was communicating through eye contact. I remember sitting on the couch and looking him dead in the eyes while he was sitting on his dog bed and then I looking to the garage door, he huffed and then got up, walked to the garage door and then looked at me like “hey what do you want?”. Only then I realized how smart he was and I felt bad for just treating him like a dim animal that whole time.
That time mom yelled at you for getting into the garbage so you slammed the door on her face will always be a classic.
RIP Gus.
© Photo: I12kill1
#8
Crows can memorize the specific facial features of a human who wronged them, and they will hold a grudge. But the creepy part is they communicate that face to other crows. You can throw a rock at a crow once, and for the next five years, crows who weren’t even born yet will dive-attack you when you walk down that specific street. They literally pass down intergenerational hits.
© Photo: shameless254
#9
I worked at a company, where 2 very senior developers spent 4 months writing some software. The whole company had been involved at one time or another to give advice and presentations after presentations. But when they finished it ran really badly it leaked memory and crashed every time it ran,.
One of the other developers was definitely on the spectrum, he could not even manage to shake hands, never spoke in a meeting, conversation was unusual when talking to him. But he said he would fix it and left early on Friday.
On Monday he presented it 100% working and vastly faster. But he had given up on fixing it and just decided to rewrite 4 months of 2 full time developers and he did it over the weekend.
© Photo: Technical_Ideal_5439
#10
Watching a crow drop nuts on the road so cars would crack them open, then waiting for the traffic light to turn red so it could safely walk out and eat them.
#11
Guy I went to University with was both the most intelligent and most socially awkward person I ever met, I’m sure nowadays he would be quickly diagnosed as being on the spectrum. He was training to be a software engineer and he would be given a program assignment, pause momentarily, then write perfect bug free code in a few minutes. I’ve never met anyone before or since who can do that. I’m sure these days he’s making bank in a very senior position.
And yet, one day I had to help him get out of a bathroom stall because he said the lock was broken. I said what’s wrong. He said “I keep turning it and it won’t unlock”. I said “try the other way?” *click!*. He came out all flustered and stated simply “Locks don’t turn that way”.
© Photo: zerbey
#12
One day, my wife really had to use the bathroom, but after going in for a second she came out looking befuddled and said “well I guess I can’t use that bathroom…because the cat is using it.” Cat had taught himself to use the human toilet. To this day, we have no idea how.
© Photo: Plug_5
#13
Seeing a crow solve a puzzle box in seconds after watching it once gave me chills, it felt like it was actually thinking things through. Stuff like that makes you realize some animals are way smarter than we usually give them credit for.
© Photo: HarryPotter-372
#14
I knew someone who predicted the entire course of a conversation between several people in a group down to the sequence of how these people would leave and their excuses to leave. She only met them a few times and could deduce how they would behave. Back in the day she would have been burned at the stake I guess.
© Photo: SingleReporter
#15
My dad’s German Shepherd figured out how to open the fridge, take out one slice of ham, and close it again. We only caught him because my dad set up a camera thinking my brother was sneaking food at night. The dog looked directly at the camera once and never did it again while we were home.
© Photo: Remarkable-Air1628
#16
Not creepy but my family always thought one of our dogs was the dumb one when really he was just lazy.
One day he didn’t have a bone while the other two did, he got up and started barking at something out back which got the other two excited. The other two bolted out when we opened the door and he stood stock still.
He did a quick check, bolted backwards, grabbed a bone and ran to hide lmao.
© Photo: LightofNew
#17
My dog knows how to turn on my wife’s heated blanket, and he knows he likes it on the 2 setting. He will change it to the 2 setting if she has it warmer or colder.
#18
I work with a guy who’s doing some programming work, he was using a high end PC to run something he’d written and it worked fine. then he loads up a laptop with the software and it fails. he looks at the laptops error logs and goes “this laptop’s CPU has X fault lets send it to the manufacturer for repair.” and graps a 2nd device which his software works on fine.
a week later the warranty guy returns the laptop and goes “yea the CPU failed on the exact test your guy told us to run. never had that happen.”
its like watching a basketball player blame the court for being wrong and it turns out there’s a dead spot right where he said there was.
© Photo: iridael
#19
I’m obsessed with the animals that use the pre-programmed word buttons to “talk”. At first I was skeptical, thinking their owners were just cherry picking certain interactions and maybe some are. But I’ve also seen animals having some really interesting and disturbing interactions through them. The most interesting to me are the button cats. They can communicate to their owners when they are in pain and what specifically hurts (once they know the right words). I’ve seen some that understand concepts of time like tomorrow, the day after tomorrow or even days in the future. They express complex preferences like asking to go with their human if they known they’ll be traveling.
The most fascinating to me is Flounder the cat. Now that she has the words, she very adamantly insists her humans don’t refer to her as a cat, but thinks of herself as a fish. She has a favorite movie (Pocahontas) that she ask to watch and understands that Pocahontas in the TV is pretend but a woman who dresses up as Pocahontas is real. She has a favorite little toy called Mousetoy that is so loved it’s broken down so their human put the left over husk of it in a hamster ball and she rolls it around. She uses the toy in the ball to press buttons and uses words to ask for things from the toy’s perspective. So Mousetoy wants a treat or to go on an adventure, not Flounder. Having small kids, I know they don’t have theory of mind (being able to see things from another’s perspective) until like 5 or 6 so it fascinates me that this cat has developed it.
#20
I saw a cat figure out the latch on its cage, and then it went and showed another cat how to do it.
#21
My Coonhound/Doberman mix is incredibly smart, but I think I overlook it bc she’s also incredibly anxious and high energy. She’s 13, only has a little white in her chin, and acts like a puppy. No amount of brain games, nose work or hiking has ever been able to wear her out for long.
One night she asked my husband to go out by standing at the door in the living room that went into the garage, and from the garage there was a door that went into the backyard. I watched as my husband opened the door to the garage and walk out to open the door to the backyard. Our other dog ran out ahead and picked up a ball to play. My husband started throwing the ball (I could see this through the open doors and the windows that faced the backyard) and my Coonhound/Doberman girl watched them for a second before heading into the kitchen to counter surf.
I thought it was just a one time thing, but started watching her more closely after this. Turns out, she had both my husband and I trained to this. If we were cooking, she’d bring a shoe into the kitchen and while we were putting it back she’d eat our other dog’s food or again try to counter surf. She KNOWS she’s not supposed to do this, we took her through three levels of dog training where she graduated “top of her class” in each level.
She just figured out that if we’re distracted she can be naughty. She has no remorse when she gets caught. Does not care at all.
© Photo: SpaceTrash42069
#22
Maybe not creepy, but definitely unexpected and surprising – last year, we decided to adopt a second dog. Our older dog is getting up there in years, and we thought it would make the transition a little easier (when he eventually passes) to have a second dog in the home. Our local shelter offers what they call a ‘slumber paw-ty’, where you can take home a prospective pet for a few days to see how they fit into your household before doing the official adoption.
So we met some of the dogs available and found one we thought was a likely candidate. We brought her home for a 10-day trial, and everything went well for a few days. About a week in, she got aggressive toward our older dog and we had to separate them. A couple hours later, it happened again. After separating them a second time, I said something like, ‘We really thought you were a good fit, but now we may have to rethink the whole adoption.’ I swear she understood every word. She wasn’t just acting apologetic, she actually seemed depressed. Our older dog is very intelligent, but I’ve never seen him reason through complex conditional sentences.
We got some advice from a trainer, and figured out the reason behind the aggression, and it’s never been repeated. The younger dog has been part of our family for almost a year now. She has a lot of energy, and our older dog prefers his peace and quiet, but they get along well. Yesterday, he was out in the yard when the younger one wanted to go out. My wife told her, ‘He likes to have the backyard to himself. After he comes in, you can go out.’ I swear, the moment he knocked on the door to come in, she was right there tapping to go out. I’m starting to think that she understands absolutely everything that we say, and can reason out ‘if…then’ statements better than some humans. It can be a little unsettling to look her in the eyes and see how much understanding is there.
© Photo: palad
#23
When someone predicts exactly what everyone in the room will do before they do it.
I once had a coworker who could read people almost perfectly. Before meetings he would quietly say things like:
“John will disagree with this, Sarah will try to soften the discussion, and the manager will end the conversation early.”
And then the meeting would play out exactly like he said.
It wasn’t manipulation. It was just an extremely sharp understanding of people and patterns.
It honestly felt a little unsettling.
#24
Goering’s testimony at the Nuremberg trials. His intelligence was used for evil and it was creepy hearing a intelligent person explain his evil actions.
© Photo: LoveDistinct
#25
I have an autistic 11-year old and a Carolina Dog that we got when he was two. After about a year the dog started regularly bringing him food. She would sneak toast off the kitchen counter and lay it on the foot of his bed while he was sleeping, or lift a sandwich from a plate I had just set down and when I’d track her down she’d be nudging it toward the kid while he watched TV, oblivious. Whenever I try to give her people food like a hamburger or burrito, she waits for me to walk away, carefully removes it from her dish, then trots upstairs to drop it wherever he’s playing.
I keep telling him this is an *exceptional* dog—he’s just ‘meh, whatever.’.
#26
Not necessarily creepy, but I have no explanation for it – I’ve told this story before but when our dog was maybe 6 months old we took her to the groomers for the first time. My wife took her there in a taxi, she was lying on the floor the entire way with no way to see out. She had never been to that area before, and it was about 4 miles from our apartment, which itself was on the third floor of an apartment block. We get a call about 30 min later saying our dog had jumped a gate and ran out of the groomer, everyone’s freaking out, she’s a labradoodle but still a puppy, and she’s alone and scared in central London in the middle of the day. We started searching and my wife was inconsolable so I said maybe she should wait at home – she got there and our dog was sitting on our doorstep on the third floor, happy as Larry, just chilling her beans.
She had jumped a 4 foot fence, got out of a locked door, then ran across 4 miles of central London traffic, crossing at least one highway, through streets she’d never been to or even seen, and got home around 25 minutes;es after she left the groomers. So she basically ran straight home. It made me realise that although I know dogs have better senses than us, I have absolutely no idea about how they perceive the world – absolutely no clue what she picked up on that made her that sure how to get home that quickly.
Then a year later we were out running, again in a place we’d never been before, again when we’d got there in a cab, and she got hit by a guy falling off a bike – she was ok but scared and she ran and once again just went straight home, this time 6 miles away. Dogs are amazing.
#27
Saw a kid, maybe 8 years old, at a family gathering casually deduce exactly how our uncle was related to a distant cousin we’d never met—by cross-referencing birth years, village names, and old wedding photos on his tablet in under 2 minutes. No one gave him the full story; he just pieced it from snippets of chatter. Felt like watching a tiny Sherlock profiling us all.
© Photo: Miserable_Vacation88
#28
A cockroach hiding behind a pop can when it saw me then waiting a bit and peeking out from behind the can to see if I was still there.
© Photo: Ordinary_Professor_3
#29
Had a coworker who could walk into any room and within 60 seconds accurately identify who had real authority, who had influence, and who had neither. never made a show of it. just quietly oriented his behavior accordingly and was almost never wrong. the part that was genuinely unsettling was that the people he was reading thought they were making organic impressions. he was running a calibration pass the whole time.
© Photo: AttitudeGlass64
#30
My 5 year old son was diagnosed with autism at 2 years old. He’s pretty much non verbal but repeats things he has heard. One day a couple months ago, during ABA therapy at home he was drawing letters or shapes and we had no clue what it was. The therapist looked it up and he was drawing the Greek alphabet. Then he sang it. He did it was Russian as well and learned how to read without anyone’s help. I’m awed but a bit freaked out when I find some new knowledge he somehow picked up. He’s a gesault learner, so even drawing he will be able to draw it almost identical to the image or video he has seen.
#31
A kid memorizing entire conversations and repeating them word-for-word weeks later like a recording was oddly creepy.
© Photo: Eaglehunter03
#32
My dog pretending not to understand commands when my wife says them… but doing them instantly when I grab the treat bag.
#33
When my cat learned how to open doors, I realized I was living by his rules.
#34
Some people’s election campaigns are pretty smart in very evil and creepy ways. No need to name anyone because I’m sure we’ve seen it in our countries but their ability to plug into general consciousness and manipulate the masses is very very smart (even if I disagree with them).
© Photo: melbamonie
#35
I lived in an apartment in overland Park Kansas, no matter how clean you were the roaches came every night. One night I spent hours watching a mother roach playing, actually playing with it’s baby’s. I have no other explanation other than playing like tag, peekaboo/hide and seek looking stuff.
Disappear come hustling back tag the baby play chase a bit and hide while the other seeks. It legitimately wigged me out how can such a small brain have games and rule based play they can’t but none the the less they were playing. I sometimes still have bad dreams of intelligent anthropomorphic bugs.
#36
The ability to remain silent while holding eye contact had me thinking “this person can see right through me” and then I didn’t stop yapping.
Silence makes people uncomfortable, so they’ll talk on their own without needing to be pressed for information.
© Photo: Ancient-Demand3590
#37
Not “creepy” like others here, but I have a friend with a photographic memory. Say any date, she remembers what she did on that day, even the topic of conversation if I was with her.
© Photo: BricksFriend
#38
I saw a crow speaking Russian recently and that was terrifying, frankly.
#39
Too many people here are amazed animals and insects can see humans.
© Photo: hatethiswebsight
#40
Some ppl are so good at reading body language of people they know that you dont even have to talk and these ppl im refering to can see whats up.
Then of course…. the FBI and Intelligence communities work on this stuff also.
© Photo: ambientthinker
#41
My oldest daughter influencing me, and her two siblings to go to a specific restraunt, because she wanted a specific meal – but she made the decision seem like it was a consensus we’d all arrived at, it wasn’t… It was her choice entirely.
© Photo: MaxMouseOCX
#42
There was this perv that worked at 711, he had a record, that used to give us cigarettes when we were like 14 (yeah i know wasnt smart we should have known better) and i came back a few years later and he said “isn’t today your birthday?”
it was.
© Photo: Ivan-Ilyich-Bot
#43
I’ve written about it before, but I accidentally surprised a grizzly once, when I was bouldering in the Peace Reach back country alone.
I didn’t know what it was at first, only that I had startled something large, and that it had run off into the brush.
Could have been a moose, elk, etc. But we had gotten a positive for grizzly on some scat lab results that week. So I was on alert. Saw and heard nothing further. Until.
When I retraced my steps, to head back to the lodge, I saw a very large fresh print at the edge of the clearing I had been resting in. It definitely knew I was now aware of its presence too, because it immediately quit being sneaky.
My day instantly got very intense. Cue a couple of hours of cat and mouse. I changed levels on a rock face, to buy some time, while I tried to think of a way out.
It may have started as curiosity, but that big smelly jerk was now obviously herding me from above, towards a bottleneck, and being pretty cheeky about it.
Not sure if it was trying to panic me, or just didn’t give a frick, and was enjoying a nice walk before dinner.
I got a bit smart about my ETA at the bottleneck, and a lot lucky with the wind direction, and that my very dodgy and off the cuff plan worked.
Had to run a fair bit near the end, but I managed to leave behind an outraged and scattering herd of formerly grazing elk.
And one confused and pissed off grizzly bear.
I’ll admit. I laughed a bit once I figured from the noise that I wasn’t anybody’s main focus anymore. Also far enough away to feel safe taking the seemingly ice cold pee I’d been holding in since I went down that rock face.
That jerk had me cold.
If I hadn’t known the area and local wildlife habits so well, and kept my stuff together? I’d have been just another local ghost story and cautionary tale.
IQ can be an exceedingly relative unit of measure. Depending on the perspective from your current rank in the food chain.
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