The thing which makes them all more-so unnerving is just how random and erratic their behavior tends to be.
FUN FACT 1: If you are looking at one, and it seems to be not moving at all, and growing larger........ That means it is headed directly in your direction.
FUN FACT 2: A few individuals have actually survived being right in the core of a tornado, living to tell the tale of what they saw inside. The only way this would be possible would be if a vortex touches down directly over them, and they are trapped in the low pressure core of the cone, a calm zone almost resembling the eye of a hurricane, and then lifts again before the "eye wall" and it's wind and debris moves over the observer.
Will Keller was a 40 year old farmer from Greensburg, Kansas, who became one of these very few individuals on the afternoon of June 22, 1928. After having ushered his family into an underground shelter, Mr. Keller turned his head to look back in the direction of an approaching monster of a vortex. Unbeknownst to him, the funnel had lifted slightly and enveloped him inside it's core. What he saw, and recounted, will provide the inspiration and material for the producers of one of the most pivotal scenes in the movie
Twister (1996), where Jo and Bill tethered themselves to a water pipe with belts in the final moments before an EF-5 tornado strikes them head on.
Here is his primary source eyewitness account:
---------- Mr. Will Keller, a farmer of near Greensburg, Kans., is the man to whom reference is made, and the following is substantially his story:
It was on the afternoon of June 22, 1928, between 3 and 4 o'clock. I was out in my field with my family looking over the ruins of our wheat crop which had just been completely destroyed by a hailstorm. I noticed an umbrella-shaped cloud in the west and southwest and from its appearance suspected that there was a tornado in it. The air had that peculiar oppressiveness which nearly always precedes the coming of a tornado.
But my attention being on other matters, I did not watch the approach of the cloud. However, its nearness soon caused me to take another look at it. I saw at once that my suspicions were correct, for hanging from the greenish-black base of the cloud was not just one tornado, but three. See Figure 2.
One of the tornadoes was already perilously near and apparently headed directly for our place. I lost no time therefore in hurrying with my family to our cyclone cellar.
The family had entered the cellar and I was in the doorway just about to enter and close the door when I decided that I would take a last look at the approaching tornado. I have seen a number of these things and have never become panic-stricken when near them. So I did not lose my head now, though the approaching tornado was indeed an impressive sight.
The surrounding country is level and there was nothing to obstruct the view. There was little or no rain falling from the cloud. Two of the tornadoes were some distance away and looked to me like great ropes dangling from the clouds, but the near one was shaped more like a funnel with ragged clouds surrounding it. It appeared to be much larger and more energetic than the others and it occupied the central position of the cloud, the great cumulus dome being directly over it.
As I paused to look I saw that the lower end which had been sweeping the ground was beginning to rise. I knew what that meant, so I kept my position. I knew that I was comparatively safe and I knew that if the tornado again dipped I could drop down and close the door before any harm could be done.
Steadily the tornado came on, the end gradually rising above the ground. I could have stood there only a few seconds, but so impressed was I with what was going on that it seemed a long time. At last the great shaggy end of the funnel hung directly overhead. Everything was as still as death. There was a strong gassy odor and it seemed that I could not breathe. There was a screaming, hissing sound coming directly from the end of the funnel. I looked up and to my astonishment I saw right up into the heart of the tornado. There was a circular opening in the center of the funnel, about 50 or 100 feet in diameter, and extending straight upward for a distance of at least one half mile, as best I could judge under the circumstances. The walls of this opening were of rotating clouds and the whole was made brilliantly visible by constant flashes of lightning which zigzagged from side to side. Had it not been for the lightning I could not have seen the opening, not any distance up into it anyway.
Around the lower rim of the great vortex small tornadoes were constantly forming and breaking away. These looked like tails as they writhed their way around the end of the funnel. It was these that made the hissing noise.
I noticed that the direction of rotation of the great whirl was anticlockwise, but the small twisters rotated both ways -- some one way and some another.
The opening was completely hollow except for something which I could not exactly make out, but suppose that it was a detached wind cloud. This thing was in the center and was moving up and down.
The tornado was not traveling at a great speed. I had plenty of time to get a good view of the whole thing, inside and out. It came from the direction of Greensburg, which town is 3 miles west and 1 mile north of my place. Its course was not in a straight line, but it zigzagged across the country, in a general northeasterly direction.
After it passed my place it again dipped and struck and demolished the house and barn of a farmer by the name of Evans. The Evans family, like ourselves, had been out looking over their hailed-out wheat and saw the tornado coming. Not having time to reach their cellar they took refuge under a small bluff that faced to the leeward of the approaching tornado. They lay down flat on the ground and caught hold of some plum bushes which fortunately grew within their reach. As it was, they felt themselves lifted from the ground. Mr. Evans said that he could see the wreckage of his house, among it being the cook stove, going round and round over his head. The eldest child, a girl of 17, being the most exposed, had her clothing completely torn off.. But none of the family were hurt.
I am not the first one to lay claims to having seen the inside of a tornado. I remember that in 1915 a tornado passed near Mullinville and a hired man on a farm over which the tornado passed had taken refuge in the barn. As the tornado passed over the barn, the door was blown open and the man saw up into it, and this one like the one I saw, was hollow and lit up by lightning. As the hired man was not well known, no one paid much attention to what he said. [Mr. Keller thought that this tornado was the one shown in photograph opposite p. 448 of MONTHLY WEATHER REVIEW of 1919.] ---------- 
