Stadiums exist to make noise. Chants, whistles, music, thousands of side conversations- it all blends into a constant hum. Which is exactly why the opposite sticks with people: the second when nearly everyone stops at once. Sometimes it’s planned. Sometimes it’s shock. And every so often something happens on the field that leaves tens of thousands of people with genuinely no idea what to do with themselves.

1. Christian Eriksen Collapses at Parken Stadium

Denmark’s Euro 2020 match against Finland, June 12, 2021, had been loud and lively right up until Christian Eriksen went down near the touchline just before halftime. Medical staff sprinted on, Danish players formed a wall around him so cameras couldn’t get a clear shot, and the roughly 16,000 fans inside Parken went quiet almost immediately. One supporter later said the place went from carnival to “you could hear a pin drop” in about a minute. Eriksen ended up in the hospital, stable.

2. Damar Hamlin Goes Down in Cincinnati

Monday Night Football, January 2, 2023. Bills at Bengals, supposedly one of the NFL’s marquee regular-season games. Then Damar Hamlin collapsed after a routine-looking tackle in the first quarter. It took only a few seconds for players on both teams to realize this wasn’t a normal injury; guys were kneeling, crying, huddled together while paramedics worked on him at midfield. Paycor Stadium, packed and loud a minute earlier, went dead silent. The game was suspended and never picked back up.

3. Brazil Realizes Germany Isn’t Going to Stop

Nobody called for silence at the Mineirão on July 8, 2014; it just happened. Brazil, hosting a World Cup semifinal, was down 5-0 to Germany after 29 minutes. The stadium had opened the night singing, fully expecting a trip to the final. Instead, Germany scored four goals in six minutes, and the BBC’s commentary described stretches of the ground going eerily quiet as it sank in. Eventually the mood flipped again — first to anger, then, strangely, to Brazilian fans applauding Germany’s football during what finished 7-1.

4. Fabrice Muamba Collapses at White Hart Lane

Tottenham vs. Bolton, an FA Cup quarterfinal, March 2012. Bolton’s Fabrice Muamba dropped to the ground with no contact, nobody near him. The typical London derby energy evaporated within seconds. Medics worked to revive him while players stood around in tears and the crowd swung between chanting his name and going completely quiet. The match was abandoned; even people leaving the stadium afterward were unusually subdued. Muamba survived cardiac arrest and eventually made a full recovery.

5. Wembley Falls Silent After the Paris Attacks

Four days after the November 2015 Paris attacks, England hosted France at Wembley. More than 70,000 people sang La Marseillaise together before things shifted completely — a whistle, a minute of silence, players from both sides standing shoulder to shoulder at the center circle. Whatever happened in the match afterward barely seemed to matter.

6. The Undertaker’s WrestleMania Streak Ends

For years, The Undertaker losing at WrestleMania barely seemed like a real possibility. Then, at WrestleMania 30 in New Orleans on April 6, 2014, Brock Lesnar pinned him after a third F-5 and ended his 21-match undefeated streak. The reaction inside the Mercedes-Benz Superdome was almost surreal: WWE itself described 75,167 people going silent at once, followed by long seconds of confusion as fans stared at the ring and the 21-1 graphic on the screens. The noise eventually returned, but the first reaction was not booing or cheering, just stunned quiet.

7. Arena Condá Stops Singing for One Minute

Thousands of Chapecoense fans packed into Arena Condá in November 2016 after the plane crash that killed 71 people, including most of the club’s playing squad. For close to an hour, the vigil was all noise, songs, chants, phone lights, people holding each other. Then, abruptly, a minute of silence. The contrast is what made it land: going from that much sound to none.

8. Staples Center Counts 24.2 Seconds

The Lakers’ first game back at Staples Center after Kobe and Gianna Bryant’s deaths, along with seven others, in a helicopter crash was built entirely around Bryant’s career, right down to the timing. Before the January 31, 2020 game against Portland, the sellout crowd held 24.2 seconds of silence: his number, 24, plus Gianna’s, 2. Only once the clock ran out did the building start chanting his name.

9. Old Trafford Remembers the Munich Air Disaster

There was real concern beforehand that this one might not hold. Before the Manchester derby in February 2008, United planned a tribute for the 50th anniversary of the Munich air disaster, which had killed 23 people, including eight United players. With nearly 76,000 fans in the ground and City in the away end, some worried someone would break it. Nobody did. The managers laid wreaths at the center circle and the whole stadium stayed quiet together.

10. Anfield Goes From Singing to Silence

Few grounds can flip mood as fast as Anfield did before Liverpool played Manchester City on April 13, 2014. Fans were mid-song  “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” scarves up, when the referee’s whistle cut through it. The minute of silence was for the approaching 25th anniversary of Hillsborough, where 96 Liverpool supporters had died. People who’d been making as much noise as they could ten seconds earlier just bowed their heads.

11. Shea Stadium Hosts Baseball Again After 9/11

Ten days after September 11, professional sports returned to New York when the Mets hosted the Braves at Shea. Firefighters, police, emergency crews, a long pregame ceremony. The quiet moments before first pitch carried a different weight than any normal night at the ballpark. Over 41,000 people showed up. The game is remembered now mostly for what happened later, when Mike Piazza hit a go-ahead home run in the eighth.

12. Fenway Park Pauses After the Boston Marathon Bombing

The first Red Sox home game after the 2013 marathon bombing was half baseball game, half civic gathering. Victims, first responders, volunteers, and officials were all honored before first pitch. There was a period of reflection, then the crowd came roaring back, especially once David Ortiz grabbed a mic and addressed the city directly. Fenway still pauses games today at the exact moment the first bomb went off.

13. Cardiff City Remembers Emiliano Sala

Cardiff fans had barely gotten used to the idea of Emiliano Sala in their shirt when the plane carrying him disappeared over the Channel in January 2019. Before the next home game, against Bournemouth, supporters put together a blue-and-yellow mosaic spelling out his name. Then came a minute of silence that nobody broke. The rest of the tributes continued once the match kicked off, but for that one minute, an entire Premier League ground just stopped.

14. A European Final Pauses for Manchester

United and Ajax reached the 2017 Europa League final in Stockholm two days after the bombing at Manchester Arena. The match went ahead, but the usual pre-final buzz was gone. Players from both clubs gathered at the center circle, and roughly 50,000 fans inside Friends Arena joined them in silence for the victims — before it gave way to applause that went on for a while.

15. Wigan and Tottenham Stop for Remembrance Day

Before Wigan Athletic faced Tottenham Hotspur on November 11, 2007, the players lined up at the JJB Stadium while the crowd observed a minute of silence for Remembrance Day. For sixty seconds, the usual pre-match noise disappeared as both teams and thousands in the stands stood still together. It was a planned silence rather than a reaction to something happening during the game, but the effect inside a football stadium was just as striking.

In the mood for more?

Check out 19 Photos of Packed Baseball Stadiums From Decades Past, or take a look at 20 “Impossible” NFL Stadium Facts: The Engineering Behind America’s Biggest Game. If you want to see more sports history, you can check out 18 World Cup Facts That Even the Most Devoted Soccer Fans Get Wrong.