My parents have a good size back yard that backs up to a small forested creek, and when I was maybe 18 or so I was out there with my cousin & we both had BB guns going after squirrels or something. Turned my head randomly and looked directly down the barrel of a cop's gun. Another house had apparently called about men with long guns, and the cops hadn't announced themselves or anything yet. Still grateful I didn't swing my whole body & gun around as I was moving.
I had a similar experience but in a small park with an airsoft gun. Let me tell you, little Goskers shit bricks for a week anytime he saw a cop car after staring down the barrel of multiple (actual) guns that day.
Mine was in the front yard of my best friend's house. We had our bows and arrows out practicing on hay bale targets trying to earn an archery merit badge for Boy Scouts. The cops poured around the corner, sirens blaring, and Scott and I just stood there holding our bows w/notched arrows wondering, "I wonder who they're after?" When they came screeching into Scott's driveway, we figured out it was us. We were bright that way.
It wasn't particularly terrifying as "Old Lady Clausen" had called them claiming we were trying to kill each other. A quick explanation from us recalibrated the cop's journey and he headed directly toward Old Lady Clausen's door to the sound of Scott and I giggling in delight. He was pissed.
As for terrifying moments, it had to be Flight #403 outbound from DFW to MSP on a Friday afternoon. We were on a fully loaded DC-9 (a flight to MEM got cancelled, so Northwest Airlines put all of their passengers and luggage that would fit onto ours) and thunderstorms were starting to pop in the area. Because of that, Air Traffic Control was really pushing planes out quickly, and we got too close behind a yuge L10/11 and hit what we later learned was an "air knuckle" about 30 seconds into takeoff. The plane made a big "bang" sound, flipped about 40 degrees to the right, and the engines went silent as we started falling towards the earth.
I was looking straight up - yes up - at the female executive from Winnebago Industries seated next to me, and our conversation at the moment consisted of "AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!" until we ran out of air. The plane shuttered, the engines fired up again, and the pilot was able to regain control of the plane and reversed the drop, leveled us out, and got us climbing again.
We were seated towards the rear of the plane, and there was a flight attendant that bolted out of her chair and started down the aisle checking to see if anyone had a heart attack or other medical emergency. Fueled by adrenaline, I flung a big paw out, grabbed her by her lapels, drew her into me and said, "We'll take two (looks a terrified female Winnebago executive) ... make that four scotches" and literally flung her back into the galley. She dropped off four mini-bottles on her way back by. No charge.
The pilot eventually came on, explained the "air knuckle" concept that was basically backwash from the powerful engines of the jet ahead of us, combined with the turbulence from the arriving storm, and said that was a really close call and we got really, really lucky. Air traffic control was informed of our near tragedy and backed off time between takeoffs to prevent another situation like ours.
The WORST part was yet to come. The toilets in a DC-9 are in the rear of the plane in front of the rear galley. There was a long, long line of sheepish looking passengers who had "soiled their armor" in the terror of the moment making their way to the toilets to clean themselves us. All you can do is shrug your shoulders and drink your scotch in a moment like that.
I had an agreement with my then boss Dennie L. that I would remain living in Minneapolis, but fly weekly to Atlanta to teach the sales & management training courses for my employer. I disembarked from that plane, and walked to the first payphone I saw, called Dennie and said, "Fuck it - I'm moving to Atlanta. I'm done flying!" I did move to Atlanta, but still put on another 1/2 million miles or so before moving back to Omaha a few years later.
