- Security cameras are typically used as a protection device against theft, to monitor children and to protect your home or business from burglars. However, they can also be a great asset for capturing weird and unusual happenings.
- Unusual events are frequently caught on security cameras and video, many times after business hours.
- Whether it's capturing people behaving weirdly or not-so-typical pets being walked on leashes, video cameras can protect your business and provide you with a bit of entertainment.
It's important to take the security of your business seriously. From cyberattacks to thefts, your business can be targeted on multiple fronts, and it's hard to be profitable when you can't protect your assets.
Some business owners use security cameras to protect their property and products. However, security cameras also capture odd situations on tape. We talked to business owners, and here are eight weird things they have caught on camera.
Lightning striking a tree
"I arrived at the office one day, and a VERY large tree was laying in the parking lot," said Bret Bonnet, president and co-founder of Quality Logo Products. "Turns out it got hit by lightning and the camera captured the entire thing. It looked like something straight out a Hollywood movie or National Geographic."
Someone 'fertilizing' the bushes
"I've caught people defecating in the bushes outside of the corner office," Bonnet said. "When looking through the footage, I saw a suspicious person walking through the parking lot, and before leaving, they dropped their pants and fertilized the bushes for us."
Someone stopping for lunch while parking
"One of the weirdest things I've seen on a security camera at work was someone taking 30 minutes to park their car in our parking lot," said Brian Sheehan, marketing and sales manager at Hollingsworth. "They would pull out, back in, turn too wide and almost hit another car, [then] they would go to a different row, only to come back to their original spot."
At one point, Sheehan said, they got out of the car, looked through their trunk and then ate lunch. "They then went into the car and reparked it again. It was confusing to watch, and I do not know what their intentions were."
Casual bird-walking
"I've also seen a person walking around with a bird on a leash," Sheehan said. "It would fly from their shoulder to the ground and walk in front of the person like a dog."
A door slamming itself
"During the nights, there is a security guard at the entrance hall," said Eric Anderson, CEO and organizational development manager at elMejorTrato.com. "Every hour, he walks around the building to check if everything is in order."
The security guard said he usually had to turn a light off in an office on the second floor multiple times every night because it would turn on by itself.
"One night in July, he was walking down the aisle of the second floor when the door of the same office started to fling open and slam shut very quickly," Anderson said. "Our guard ran down to the entrance hall and waited for a while till the door finally was shut. When he told us the following morning, we checked the security camera, and we saw it with our own eyes."
A twirling friend
"I once made a post on Facebook casually mentioning that I was doing a routine check of our security cameras," said Cat Jones, director of operations at Equality House. "When I checked the video of the backyard … I found two-day-old footage of my friend twirling around with some sort of wings attached to her arms. She danced around for a good five minutes and then twirled off camera. Never got an alert – or an explanation – about that one."
Moving guitars
Whether you believe in ghosts or not, The Guitar, Amp and Keyboard store in Brighton, England, may find it difficult to find employees after their ghostly video was released. Security cameras are typically installed to help ward off theft and shoplifters, but the security cameras at the Guitar, Amp and Keyboard store captured guitars moving on their own and a price tag being thrown on the floor. The security cameras have captured various things over a period of time, including a spirit moving toward a customer that is minding his own business while standing near a wall.
Hungry bear
The Edelweiss Restaurant in Colorado Springs offers its customers German cuisine, and it must be delicious because they have had a return visitor who decided to take the entire dumpster of leftovers with him. The restaurant staff couldn't understand why their dumpsters were being moved every night, so they decided to look at their security system video when they discovered the culprit. Each night, a bear made a trip to the dumpster in search of leftovers from the restaurant, but instead of dining on location, the bear dragged the dumpster by holding onto and walking backward. After finding a more convenient location, the bear was able to open the dumpster and enjoy a good meal.