25 of the Most Unsettling Sounds People Have Had the Misfortune of Hearing

Horrifying sounds have an equally horrifying way of burrowing their way into your eardrums. No other sound can drown them out, and they continue to rattle around in your head well after the fact.

For one Redditor, this sound is a blaring alarm that went off mid-excursion while exploring the depths of the ocean in a submarine. It signified that the submarine’s shaft seals had failed and basically meant that anyone aboard could drown at any given moment. The sub managed to make it back above sea level, but that didn’t make the alarm any less scary or any less etched into the Redditor’s mind for the rest of their days. 

Other Redditors have shared the unsettling sounds they can never shake, including an elk’s mating call, a tornado siren during an otherwise calm day and a landline ringing in the dead of night.