The creepiest stories are born through first-hand events. These individuals divulge the stories of their scariest encounters, from childhood through to adulthood. From seeing ghosts to being followed in the street, these horror stories won’t disappoint.
1. A Concert Practice Coincidence
During my freshman year in high school, I took a choir class. We were staying after school practicing for our concert when all of a sudden, my teacher ended the session about an hour early. We all started calling our parents to let them know we were finishing practice early that day, but one of the girls in my class had left her phone at home.
She asked if she could use anyone’s phone to call her mom. Of course, I offered mine. From behind me, where she was sitting, I heard her crying. She asked me what my number was. I was confused, but I recited my number back to her. She still had my phone to her ear when she told me a chilling revelation: “Your number is my aunt’s old number. She passed a year ago.”
When she called her mom with my cellphone, her mom received an incoming call from her sister who had passed. It was the craziest and strangest thing. Not scary or bad, but still something I think about.
2. On The Run
I was an 18-year-old Canadian female living in Hong Kong by myself to study Cantonese. One of my good friends wanted to show me Macau since it's been called the Chinese Las Vegas. I agreed, and we boarded the ferry at around 8 pm at night. It takes about an hour to get there, so we arrived at about 9 pm. We took off to the casinos and had a great night.
On a whim, my friend asked me if I wanted to go to mainland China on another ferry from Macau. I had never been to this particular area of China, so I said sure! But there was one little problem: My friend went through the immigration for the last ferry, and I was right behind him. I was denied because I didn't have a visitor's visa for mainland China. My friend was Chinese, so he had no issues getting through.
I had no idea this was a thing, as Macau and Hong Kong don't require them, and they wouldn't let my friend back in. The best part? My phone was dead. I was kicked out back to the streets of Macau, with no way to contact my friend and no idea how to get back to Hong Kong. At this time, it was about one in the morning. I was walking the streets, looking in convenience stores for phone chargers, panicking, and having no idea what to do.
As soon as I left a convenience store, a man came up to me and asked, "How much?" Mind you, I was wearing jeans and a t-shirt, with running shoes, but that's beside the point. I told him no, and kept walking. He followed me. It was dark, and I was walking down an unfamiliar street. I could hear him getting closer behind me.
I realized that just up the street was an alleyway and I remember thinking, "This is going to end badly if I don't do something." Just as I suspected, I got closer to the alleyway and I heard him start running up to me. I turned around and his hand was reaching to grab me. I punched him as hard as I could in the face.
He didn't fall down, so I just took a few steps back and held his face. As luck would have it, a taxi was going down the street. I jumped in and just screamed "GO!" in Cantonese. I finally managed to find my way back home, but oh my gosh, I was so stupid.
3. Down The Block
I was in middle school when this occurred, so I was around 12 to 13 years old. My best friend and I were next-door neighbors, so we often walked to and from the bus stop for school. We were walking home one day from the bus stop when an old red pickup truck slowly drove by us. We didn't recognize this red pick-up as belonging to anyone who lived in the neighborhood.
The truck was going the same way we were walking, and we could see the driver lean forward. It looked like he was looking at us. He then sped off down at the end of the block and turned around the corner. My best friend and I looked at each other and said, "That was weird." We shrugged it off since there were some houses for sale on the block, so we thought he was there for that.
We were halfway down the block when the same red truck turned from the corner and was heading towards us. He was speeding down the road, but as he approached us, he slowed down. The man's driver-side window was now rolled down. I don't remember much of what he looked like, but I do definitely remember him having face tattoos.
Now, we were worried. As we passed him, he slowly passed us. I happened to look behind me to make sure he was still driving. Nope. His brake lights lit up and his truck jerked when he placed it into park. I saw the driver's door open and I yelled to my best friend, "Run!" We proceeded to sprint to my best friend's house since her mom was home.
We practically threw open the front door of my best friend's house, slammed the door closed, and locked every lock on the door. My best friend's mom was mad at us for slamming the door until we told her what happened. As we were telling her, this same red pick-up truck slowly drove down the street as we watched from the front window.
We could see him looking around as he drove slowly. I'm pretty sure, to this day, he was looking for my best friend and me. This scared her mom enough to call the local law enforcement department’s non-emergency number. This guy circled the block of my neighborhood twice while she was on the phone. The officers started to patrol the neighborhood, but we didn't see the red pick-up truck after the officers showed up.
I have no idea what happened after that, but we never saw the red pick-up truck again. We didn't walk to the bus stop for a week after that. My best friend's mom drove us to and from school for that week.
4. A Regular At Work
When I was in college, I worked at a little gas station in the middle of nowhere that was open pretty late. It was a great job because, after 10 pm, we really had no one who came in, so I could turn on music and do my homework. One night, a little after midnight, I was getting ready to count down the register and pack up my things.
I went to the back office and proceeded to count money, when I noticed a heavyset guy standing at the counter, looking at the wall of merchandise behind it. I figured I must have forgotten to lock the door, so I walked out to apologize, only to find that no one was there. I figured maybe the camera was not working, so I shrugged it off after I walked around the store.
I also checked the door and it wasn't locked, so I locked it. I went back to the office and there was nothing on the camera screen, so I went back to counting. A few minutes later, I looked up at the screen again and the dude was still there, but now he was standing with his back to the camera pressed up against the fridge. I walked back out, now extremely scared.
No one was there. I was terrified, grabbed the can of wasp spray, and searched literally every inch of the store while trying to call my boyfriend to drive to me. He was sadly too intoxicated to do so and said, "You're probably fine," before hanging up. I summoned the remaining courage that I had and went back to the office, locking that door behind me as I did before I hurried through counting everything again.
Looking back up at the screen one more time, I saw the same dude, standing there and looking at the office door, where I was. He was perfectly still, not moving—literally just standing there. I quickly finished counting the money down, threw it in the safe, and pretty much ran out of the store...not shutting off the lights behind me.
The next morning, probably about 4 am, I was called by my boss asking me to open the store because he had a family emergency. The extra money was nice, so I agreed...but asked if I could bring my friend with me since it would only be for an hour or two and I told him what had happened the night before. "Oh, you saw him, huh? Yeah, go ahead. He scares me too."
5. The Great Escape
Coming back from a New York Giants football game as a 12-year-old, we were driving past a bunch of old abandoned factories when I saw a teenager in rags and what looked like chains around his body, limping away from one of the factories like he just escaped from a horror movie chamber. By the time I told my friend's dad, we were already past where I saw the kid. It was very strange. I know what I saw that day and it was something serious.
6. Worst Trade-Off, Ever
My parents were not together and I was being traded off every weekend. It was my dad's weekend and I went over to his house. He was acting super weird the whole day, but I didn’t notice it much as a little kid. I remember him taking me and my little sister to run errands with him. He ran into different places and we just played in the back seat.
He stopped at a friend's house and came back flustered and angry. He sped out of the driveway. The next couple of hours were normal and we were fine, but our dad was super anxious. I remember it being dark outside when he told us to get in the car. We drove to a rundown motel on the bad side of town and got out of the car.
I asked him what we were doing there and he told me we were hanging out with some of his friends. I didn’t think anything of it and we went into the motel room. It was a small room with one bed and a jacuzzi tub beside the bed. Our dad started drinking with the group of guys in the hotel and he told us we could go swimming in the hot tub.
We didn’t have bathing suits so he had us in there with just underwear and a t-shirt. After a couple of minutes, he left without saying anything to us. I asked the guys where my dad went and he told us he would be back in a couple of hours. Something in my seven-year-old brain didn’t feel right about the situation. One of the guys started talking to my sister and me, acting really friendly.
He told us he wanted to get in the hot tub with us and started to undress completely, exposing himself to us. He tried to get really close to us and I held my three-year-old sister close. This man was entirely exposed in a hot tub with two little girls and our dad wasn’t there to stop it. I was really scared so acted like I was taking my sister to the bathroom, but went out the front door of the motel instead, still wet and in our underwear.
I held my sister while she cried and we walked down the hallway away from the room. Luckily, there was a lady in the hall and she asked if I was lost. I asked her if I could call my mom on her phone to come and get us. Thankfully, my mom came right away and after that, my dad lost visitation rights. I’m so glad that they forced us to memorize our parents' phone numbers at school.
I’m grateful that woman was in the hallway before one of those guys found us.
7. Wafting Through The Window
I lived way out in the country in the woods several years ago. It was a nice summer night, so I had all the windows open. I was a single female, and men's cologne came wafting through the windows so strong I could taste it. It completely scared the living heck out of me. I couldn't shut or lock the windows fast enough.
8. Fast Forward To The Future
16 years ago, I got pregnant at about the same time as my sister-in-law. In my country, the first ultrasound scan you have is at about 12 to 14 weeks in to check for physical abnormalities and the possibility of Down Syndrome. It's not uncommon to find out whether the baby is female or male then too. My sister-in-law was about three months further along than I was and she had found out they were having a boy. I wanted a girl.
Three weeks before my scan was due, my partner and I were looking at a house to buy. It was an old villa with a front door and hallway that led straight down to a lounge, kitchen, and dining room that went across the top; kind of a T shape. The bedrooms were off the hallway. My partner and the real estate agent were in one of the bedrooms.
I was standing in the lounge to one side and I could see the doorway, but I couldn't see up the hallway. I could hear them talking. It was midday on a Saturday, I was well-rested and slightly hungry. I felt totally normal. There were only the three of us in the house. Then, all of a sudden, two floppy-haired brunette toddlers were running and giggling towards me.
They were wearing 'messy play' kind of clothes and I got the impression they were going to run past me and through the kitchen behind me into the backyard. As I stared at them, I had a strange thought: "Am I seeing my future child and niece or nephew?" I was trying to figure out which was the boy, so I could see what the other kid was. It was surreal, but I wasn't frightened.
It only lasted a few seconds and then I suddenly snapped back to reality. There were no toddlers and my partner and real estate agent started walking down the hallway. So, long story short, we ended up buying that house. And at my scan, I found out we were having twins...who grew into two floppy-haired brunette toddlers.
9. The Second Opinion
My mom always tells us her deceased twin sister follows her. Her sister passed at a young age. I always called nonsense and asked her questions like what is she wearing, or how did she follow you from the Caribbean where she passed? Then, one day at work, my mom came to drop off my lunch that I forgot. After she dropped it off, she went to say hello to the guy playing music at the back.
A customer she walked past stopped, turned, and went to his knees while doing the holy cross. I asked him if he was OK and he stared at my mom, saying a woman was following her. My stomach crunched because it was all too coincidental.
10. Not So Big And Strong
The scariest thing happened just before my dad passed. Someone broke into our house. I thought my dad was invincible and strong, but that night, I learned he wasn’t anymore. He hid in the closet of the spare room with us and kept us quiet. I was really young, not quite seven, and I think that was the scariest part for me—at that moment, realizing as a child that my dad’s brain cancer was winning.
I think my dad only lived another six months or so after that.
11. That Seriously Blows
This wasn’t one incident, but about a hundred. For about a three-year span, I would have a light bulb burn out over my head about once a week. It wouldn’t turn off, but completely blow out. It even happened twice on one drive home a few miles apart. I have witnessed as many as five bulbs burning out over my head in one night.
12. A Soul Left Behind
I did some work emptying an old house. The house was infested with cockroaches and it all just felt depressing. When we emptied the basement, it always felt like someone was right behind us. There was a cut rope hanging from the ceiling. Turned out, the woman that lived there had hung herself. We didn't find out until the last week of work. We never went down to the basement alone after that.
13. Bad Went To Worst
A couple of decades ago, when I was still in elementary school in my home country, I went to my mom's clinic after school with my brother. We ate an early dinner there. My mom was a dentist at the time, and I usually went home with both of them after my mom closed her shop every evening. However, on this particular day, I asked my mom if I could go home ahead of them.
I got home, darkness fell, and they hadn’t arrived home yet. After another hour, I was starting to get worried, wondering if something bad happened. All three of us normally came home before nightfall, and it was just very odd they hadn’t come home yet. I was scared and worried, having endless thoughts of what could have gone wrong.
As a kid in elementary school, I couldn't handle the stress and I started crying like crazy. Midnight struck and they were still missing. Finally, at two in the morning, I heard a knock on the front door and I quickly rushed to open it. I was scared of opening the door that late, but I couldn't care less. I just wanted my brother and my mother to be the two humans knocking.
I opened the door and I saw a peculiar sight—my mom and my brother were pale white, soaking wet, barefoot, and shaking like crazy. We just stared at each other for a good few minutes until I finally broke the silence with, "What happened?!" My mother told me the most messed up story. They rode a passenger bus around evening time after closing the shop, and everything was going well, until near the end of the trip.
While on the bus, they heard a couple of loud 'thuds' just underneath the bus, making the whole vehicle shake a bit. They heard metal scratching through concrete and all. The bus had to stop, and in my country, the roads are very dark with no lighting so they had to resort to flashlights given by the bus driver and conductor.
The driver was the first one out of the bus with his flashlight to check the underside of the bus. He went back inside the bus with a face that looked like he was about to puke and asked everybody to get off the bus and find another form of transportation. My brother and mother got off and they peeked under the bus, only to realize a truly disturbing sight—there was a mangled body of someone riding a motorcycle underneath the bus they were on.
It was dark, but with the help of some flashlights, they could see flesh, brains, and blood on the concrete, all that meshed with the twisted metal underneath the bus. The bus hit a motorcyclist and he went under the bus, crushing him. I could not sleep that night. The next morning, just as we were trying to heal from what had happened and all the trauma, my aunt broke the news to us later that following day that her husband never came home last night.
The mangled body underneath the bus was my uncle's body.
14. Mother Nature Knows
A friend and I were riding our bikes in a neighborhood on a lovely, breezy summer day. We found a paved hill, so we went down it and came to a run-down house just behind a bunch of other houses. Outside this house, there was a tall, spindly cross. We both swore that the wind stopped blowing entirely and clouds had suddenly filled the sky.
We high-tailed it out of there after the eerie silence got unbearable. A couple of weeks later, we went back and it was gone; nothing left but dirt. In retrospect, it was probably nothing at all and the change in weather could’ve been due to the trees in that area at the bottom of the hill that stopped the wind...but as young kids, we were spooked.
15. An Adventure Gone Wrong
There is a small cave system near my house. My brother, a friend, and I decided to go explore it one day when I was about eight. The cave starts off being quite spacious and is even equipped with light, as it is located in a bit of woods near the town, so lots of people go in it. But, we decided to move further than this known part, with the ceiling getting closer and closer with each turn.
After 20 minutes or so, we came to a point where we had to continue on our knees until eventually, we couldn't progress unless we crawled on our stomachs. No natural light was to be seen anywhere, but we still decided to do it. That was a big mistake. We crawled for quite some time before I started panicking. There was no way to turn around in that position.
There was no way anyone would hear us screaming for help if we got stuck or hit a dead end. No one even knew where we went. Cell phones weren't a thing yet. Luckily, eventually, the ceiling got higher, the light became visible and we found an exit...but gosh, I was never so scared for my life.
16. Not What You Want To Hear
In high school cross country, we did a Christmas event where we’d run to the closest elementary school and hang out with the children there. We’d run with them, dance with them, etc., just whatever they really wanted. I am a nervous wreck and could only talk to one kid at a time, so I hung out with this shy little girl who didn’t want to dance or run.
So, we just talked and drank Gatorade in the back of the room. I don’t know what we were talking about, but she told me she didn’t like her uncle and I asked why. Her dark truth shook me to my core. She said he touched her inappropriately. I freaked out internally. The teachers called all the children to get into line shortly after that. I told a senior friend of mine what she said and she told the teachers.
I felt totally awful after the girl told me as if reality had just hit me. I had to text my mom about what happened to vent and, even after that, I still didn’t feel better. I don’t know what happened to that kid—I hope she never sees her uncle again. I couldn’t do the event next year. This probably sounds ridiculous when I wasn’t even the victim but it’s how I felt.
17. The Familiar Becomes Unfamiliar
I was sleeping at my girlfriend's apartment and while we were falling asleep, my girlfriend turned to my side and said, “Who are you? I don't know you...You have some strange eyes...You aren't the person I know…” My heart was racing like crazy and I couldn't sleep for the rest of the night. It was terrifying. I was scared she would start screaming for help in the middle of the night or harm me.
18. I Can’t Hear You...
When I was younger, I was riding my bike up and down the street when suddenly a car pulled up beside me. Some guy I didn't recognize leaned over and asked me for directions. I honestly didn't know how to get where he was asking, so I said that. The guy responded, "What? I couldn't hear you, can you come closer and repeat that?" Alarm bells were ringing at that point, so I shook my head as I took off on my bike. Luckily, he didn't follow me, so who knows...Maybe he really was an innocent guy who couldn't hear, but I wasn't going to find out.
19. The Worst Form Of Scarecrow
This was like 40 years ago. My mom, dad, and I were driving in a very rural part of Indiana. I was about 10 years old and sitting in the back seat. As we crossed a short bridge over a stream, I looked out my window and saw a naked woman tied to a tree. I told my dad what I saw, and he reversed the car back over the bridge. To this day, I’m very grateful to him for believing in me even though I was just a little kid.
Anyway, as we drove back over the stream, we could see that the property owner had tied a mannequin to a tree with a KEEP OUT sign over her head. He was a really sick guy. That haunted me for years.
20. The Unwelcome Bedfellow
Five or six years ago, my husband would wake up way earlier than me, come to my side of the bed, and give me a kiss before he left. He never missed a day. Then, I would go back to sleep for another hour before getting up for work. He always did this in the dark so as not to wake me with the lights. This is so hard to explain, but one day he did this—He said goodbye, and I went back to sleep.
I heard the door close and I closed my eyes. Maybe 10 to 15 minutes passed and I felt a weird presence; like someone was walking towards the bed. I thought, “Maybe he forgot something…or maybe he never left and I dreamed that.” It felt like a dark shadow sat on the bed like he normally did, but something didn’t feel right...I felt like the shadow wanted me to acknowledge it…but I didn’t!
It didn’t say anything, so I rolled to the other side of the bed and ran into the living room! I turned all the lights on…the doors were locked. My husband had definitely left!
It was so early in the morning, and still dark! I don’t know why it freaked me out and I knew I was awake! After that, I told him to turn on my lamp when he kissed me goodbye! I told him to never ever leave me in the dark again...to this day. It really freaked me out.
21. Stopped On The Street
I lived in North Chicago in the '90s. I was the only white person in my neighborhood. I didn't have a car so I'd take the bus to work and back, but at night, the drop-off was a few blocks from my neighborhood and I'd walk home in the dark. I’m female, but I never had a problem. One day, during the daytime, I was walking back from getting some groceries, and a cop car pulled up beside me.
It was a white officer, asking what I was doing. I told him I was walking home. He insisted the neighborhood wasn't safe and that I should get in the car. I had a horrible feeling in my gut. There is no way that officer was assigned to that neighborhood. I'd met the other officers on patrol, and had no idea who this officer was. But, he kept insisting that I get in the car and kept following me at a slow speed.
Honestly, the vibes were not good. I went to a random house, told the officer I was 'home,' and opened the door, and walked in. It wasn't my home and I didn't know the people that lived there. They looked so surprised that this white girl was suddenly in their house. I told them what was going on, and even they were like, “What the heck? No white officers are assigned to this area.” They let me stay with them in the house for a few hours until the officer left and then walked me home.
22. Lost and Found
I got lost on a really long hike because of a faded sign and poorly marked branching trails. It wasn't a high-traffic hiking trail since it was mid-July and hit temperatures of 105 degrees Fahrenheit at noon. We left early in the morning to avoid the afternoon heat, but getting lost put us a few miles off track, so once we got back to the right trail it was perilously close to noon on a moderately difficult return trail.
My friend and I had enough water for the normal trail length, but nowhere near for the extra time spent out and the extreme heat. Heat exhaustion swiftly set in and our water went quickly. We would move from shaded spot to shaded spot when we could, but there was little tree cover for the last few miles. Eventually, it got so bad I collapsed in a semi-fetid pool of standing water to cool off as best as I could.
I remember sitting there, nauseous, shaking, and barely able to stand, thinking we were going to die out there because we read the wrong trail sign and got off course. Thankfully, fate decided to spare us—a group came down the trail, saw us, and immediately offered water and assistance to get us the last couple miles out and back to our vehicle. What was supposed to be a four-hour hike turned into 10...I lost 13 lbs, my feet were covered in blisters and sores, and I was so weak I couldn't get out of bed for days. So yeah, that was terrifying.
23. Could’ve Been Me
I was getting ready to leave work for the night and the night manager, who had just returned from Iraq, came out to smoke. I remember walking out the door of the Walgreens, feeling utterly terrified, and I turned immediately back into the store. When the manager came back inside, I said, "I need you to walk me all the way to my car. Somethings not right."
He was like, "Yeah sure." So, he walked with me all the way to my car, checked it, shut my door, and watched me drive away. I found out two days later that somebody had gruesomely taken advantage of a woman in the parking lot across the street from my store, on the night I had my manager walk me to my car. Holy. That was almost me.
24. Saved By The...Prostitute?
When I was 12, I was waiting outside my cousin's house for my dad to pick me up. After swimming all day, I was in a towel and bathing suit, and shorts. Thinking my dad was approaching, I got down onto the curb to get in. Quickly realizing it wasn’t my dad, I took a step back. An older man stopped the car and parked it in the middle of the street and came walking towards me.
I froze in shock. Luckily, a woman walking down the road started screaming at the man. She was belligerent and stumbling, swearing saying she was no idiot and how dare he. He jumped in the car and drove off. Still to this day, I thank god that intoxicated woman was there. I truly believe if it wasn’t for her, I’d be a goner.
25. Watching...Always Watching
We lived three houses from the corner when I was growing up. There were really tall privacy fences backing on the house behind ours. We didn’t close our breakfast room blinds because that window was facing the backyard. I was eating breakfast before school, reading the cereal box as one did in the '90s. It was dark outside, but that’s because it was super early.
I saw my reflection in the window. As the sun started to rise, I could see the outline of the swing set right outside the window. Then it got lighter and lighter out and…huh, the swing set looked weird. Then, it hit me…there’s someone on the swing set watching me eat my breakfast. I screamed at the top of my lungs, “DAAAAAAAAD!!!!!!”
He came barreling in, but by that time, the peeping Tom had taken off. A couple of years later, we learned that the cop’s son who lived around the corner had been watching people all over the neighborhood for years.
26. Forever Burning Bridges
My ex and I lived in apartments for years. She would always make enemies and would go out of her way to hurt them. Once, she hired a private investigator to dig into a janitor's past and stage a harassment scene to get him fired. Since our bridges were toasty at that place, I figured a house would be better. There was no one to become enemies with! Except me.
Things got bad fast—she was calling me names, screaming at me, throwing things. We had weird conversations where she would start talking for me, so I just became a spectator. She switched from Christianity to Wiccan, started drawing pentagrams with her blood outside, and insinuating I shouldn't fall asleep because she needed another sacrifice.
She would casually talk about committing suicide and would remind me that if I called for officers, she'd have the upper hand. After all, she was a small, female, professional actor and I was a large, athletic man. Her threats kept getting more explicit and at one point, I started sleeping in a room by myself, propping chairs under the doorknob just in case (but jumping awake in panic at the smallest creak).
Eventually, I realized what an idiot I was and I left. I had nightmares for months and would wake up screaming. My room has a deadbolt on it and if I'm traveling, I sleep in my own room with a chair under the doorknob. I just really love being able to sleep without worrying about getting harmed.
27. Hypnagogic Hallucinations
When I was really little, between two and three judging by what house this took place in, I turned in my bed and saw my father laying in a plank position. He was balanced perfectly on top of the flimsy plastic safety rail. My father is a disabled veteran and at the time he could barely walk without a cane. But he was just laying there, perfectly balanced, on an inch thick plastic rail.
But the scariest parts are in the details—his arms were rigid against his side, his eyes were open and staring up, and his mouth was gaping. I got freaked out so I got out of bed and his eyes shifted and looked at me while the rest of him was completely still. I ran into my parents' room, where my father was asleep in bed. I'm convinced this was sleep paralysis at a young age. Several other events have happened throughout my life and I still get hypnagogic auditory hallucinations when falling asleep each night.
28. Just Keep Breathing
I was house-sitting for a friend. I got intoxicated and grilled some chicken. I overcooked it but decided to eat it anyway. I took a bite and it was really dry and got stuck in my throat. I tried water, but it wouldn’t go down, so I ran to the sink and I puked it back up through my nose. By this time, I had been choking for about 30 seconds.
I was alone except for my friend's dog who was staring at me like, what the heck, dude? I kept trying to swallow with no luck. It had been 60 seconds which felt like five minutes. I was starting to panic and tried the water again, which didn’t work. At that point, a grave thought passed through my mind—maybe I was going to choke and simply pass, and no one would know for days…except for the dog.
At the very last moment, I told myself I just absolutely had to take a breath or this was it. I looked upward and took the biggest, hardest breath I've ever taken, and it worked just enough to make me actually throw up the chicken. I coughed at the sink for a few minutes and drank some water. That was a pretty close one.
29. Something In Common
So, I see people. My parents said since I was old enough to speak, I would tell them about people I saw. When I was a teenager, I went to multiple psychiatrists and psychologists to rule out schizophrenia, etc. I started to reach out to people when I started receiving messages from others, and I joined a paranormal team for a while to help out.
I could describe people the people I see to a T. With that said, a couple of them have followed me around for years. I was at a convention once and they had a psychic medium in a class. A friend wanted me to go with her to it. I'm very skeptical about other people who claim to do the same thing, so I didn't think it would be anything special. I was pleasantly surprised.
The host made a speech and started doing her thing. Then, all of a sudden, she singled me out and made me stand up. She says there was a person with me, and she described her in full detail. Another time, I was walking to cosmetology class and one of my classmates' boyfriends went to drop her off. He saw me walking in the parking lot and he grabbed her arm.
Later on, when I asked what that was all about, she told me that her boyfriend also sees people and that he saw a group of them following me. I replied, "I know; don't worry. They don't bother me most of the time."
30. Take The Bait
I was driving home from my stepmother’s after staying there for a night or two. There was a long road with only a few homes on it that I needed to take to get home. As I was driving back, I came upon a line of construction cones. There were no cones on the road on my way up to her house just the day prior, so I found this strange. There were also no outlets on this road, so I had no alternate routes to take to avoid construction if it were really happening.
Anyway, as far as I could see, there wasn’t a second line of cones to identify an established area of the road that was being repaired and the road itself looked perfectly fine. At that moment, I got this scary feeling—maybe someone wanted me to exit my vehicle to move the cones, considering these cones happened to be right outside the home of one of the few houses on this road. I decided to simply run one of the cones over as that felt less risky at the moment.
31. Don’t Talk About It
I’m from northern Alberta in Canada. When I was five or six years old, my uncle was babysitting me and called me inside to have lunch. I was sitting in front of french glass doors when I heard our dogs barking like crazy. I just happened to glance to my left and noticed this tall thing. I thought it was the Grinch. No one told me the Grinch wasn't a real animal, so I didn't get scared when I saw that thing. Anywho, my uncle saw it too and we never spoke about it until about 17 years later.
32. The Big Bad Boy
While living in the Panama Canal area, I went with my friend's family on their boat to an island. My friend's dad gave us scrapers and masks and told us that while we were anchored in the shallow area, we needed to scrape the barnacles off of the boat. There's a fairly good-sized catamaran and we were up under there for a short while when his dad started banging on the deck.
I went up to check on what he was banging for, and he yelled at me to get my friend and get the blankety-blank out of the water. When I saw what he was going on about, I froze. We were no sooner on the boat taking our masks and fins off when a huge shark fin circled us. It seems that the little barnacles attracted little fish that attracted bigger fish that attracted a big bad boy.
33. Shadows and Silhouettes
I moved into my current home three years ago. We originally planned to not have a TV in the bedroom and have a cool hangout spot in the main living room, then give the kids a separate den. This worked out well for maybe the first six months to a year. I started to not like watching TV at night in the living room. There was something wrong with the lighting there, and it just bothered me.
It felt like the normal shadows in there were constantly moving. After a few weeks of just being quiet about that and the weird bumps and noises, I finally said something to my significant other. He seemed relieved that I could see it too. It always looked like someone was walking back and forth behind us when we were on the couch, and sometimes we'd see the silhouette of something reflected on the TV.
Now, we avoid the living room at night but have noticed a weird dark shadow in the shape of a tall person in our bedroom doorway. It never fully comes into the room, but it really creeps us out. Our pets react to it too.
34. Sick Or Seeing
There was a day I was really sick and I was sleeping almost all day. I woke up almost every three hours to take some painkillers and to eat some food and then fell asleep afterward. I woke up around 2 or 3 am to see a shadowy figure sitting at the end of my bed. It looked like it was facing me, but I could only make out its outline as everything was too dark to see.
I talked to my cousin once about seeing this shadowy figure and said she saw it walking to the garage and followed only for it to disappear.
35. The Birthday Curse
In my tribe, I received a curse when I was young that caused three members of my family to pass on my birthday, in a row, for three years. My 11th, 12th, and 13th birthdays. They all passed “naturally.” Ever since then, I haven't celebrated my birthday. I consider it a bad omen and I remember the curse and how it affected me to this day.
36. Did That Really Happen?
I love rain and thunderstorms. My mom knows this and on rainy days she'll let me stand out on our metal deck. One day, when I was five, I was doing just that when the rain quickly became a thunderstorm. I said nothing because I knew she would immediately pull me in. Lightning started flashing all around me. Suddenly, there was a huge flash of light in front of my eyes and the loudest "boom" I've ever heard.
I squatted down and closed my eyes. I could see white even though my eyes were closed. My ears were ringing and I could smell ozone. I swear lightning struck right in front of me. After what felt like a few minutes, I heard my name and opened my eyes. My mom was calling for me to go inside. But the weird thing was the smell of ozone was gone and everything just looked normal.
The next day, I went outside to the spot and found the deck deformed but it looked like it had been painted over from years ago. I'm really not sure what happened. Did I just make all of that up in my head?
37. Should They Stay Or Should They Go
I was in my early 20s, looking for some substances when my buddy’s girlfriend said she knew a guy. I was visiting from out of town, so I drove the three of us to some random house in the middle of nowhere. This guy answered the door and invited us in. All seemed well. I bought what I came for and was ready to go...but he didn’t want us to leave yet.
He asked us to stay and hang out a bit. He offered us some candy from his country of origin, and I obliged. It was disgusting—it ended up being some guava sweet candy chew wrapped in banana leaves. I hate guava. This guy got so highly offended when I told him politely that it wasn’t my thing. He had us sit down on his couch and he put on the movie Goodfellas.
About 20 or 30 minutes into the movie, he disappeared for a bit and reappeared with a machete. He was talking some nonsense about how he could, “cut a man in half, it’s so sharp.” He was swinging it in the air dangerously close to me. I was frozen in fear and just looking at my buddy’s girlfriend to diffuse the situation since she brought us there.
I swear I had never been so scared in my life. I couldn’t feel my body, my adrenaline was pumping so hard. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, she told the madman with a machete that we had to leave. I remember the look on his face—it was that of someone making a choice of “Should I let them go? Or…” He finally gave a fake smile and said sure.
38. The Giving Ghost
I was lying in bed in the middle of the night trying to get some sleep when, out of the blue, I heard a creepy voice in my head say, “I’ll do it for you.” Keep in mind, I was not thinking those words; I have no mental illnesses to my knowledge, and I wasn’t thinking of anything other than “I need sleep.” I was obviously incredibly scared, so I made sure I was awake by flicking myself and asking, “Say that again.”
After what felt like the 20th time, I got the same response, “I’ll do it for you.” After a minute or two, I relaxed and went to sleep.
39. Polite To A Fault
When I was a kid, my family moved into a new flat. I think that the previous owner gave the landline number to someone to play a prank because I started getting those calls from a stranger. He never introduced himself and just spoke with me in a mildly creepy tone. Here’s the thing though—As a kid, I was polite to a fault. I was also kind of slow.
So, I couldn’t even hang up like I should’ve...that would have been rude! But, the creepy factor flew over my head completely. I was basically having a confusing conversation with a man who tried desperately to scare me. Several calls in, he busted out the big stuff. It was stuff like, “We’re gonna meet sometime soon, are we not?” I just didn’t know how I was supposed to react, so I replied with something like, “I guess?” And that was the last straw. I didn’t hear from him again.
40. Saved By Responsibility
About a year and a half ago, there was a massive tornado that ripped through the area where I lived at the time and it was a huge tragedy. The night of the storm, which happened mostly overnight, I was out on a date with someone. We were having a good time and we were talking about going to another bar before calling it a night.
I eventually used my better judgment and decided to go home instead, because it was a bit of a drive and I had to work the next morning. Plus, I didn’t want to risk getting intoxicated and not being able to get home. 30 minutes after we had stood outside the bar, debating whether to go in for a drink, the worst-case scenario happened—the tornado came down that street ripped through the building, and injured everyone inside. I was safe at home.
41. The Ghosts Of Christmas’ Pasts
11 years ago, my ex and I were living in a shoddy apartment just outside of city limits. The apartment itself was used as barracks for the navy during WWI. So needless to say, it was a super old building. That Christmas eve, all of the surrounding neighbors in the complex had left to stay with family overnight for Christmas.
While laying in bed, and after we had just turned off the lights, we heard a door open up at the front of the apartment upstairs. This was a fourplex, with stairs going up the center to the second floor. After the door upstairs closed, we heard two sets of footprints coming down the stairs, and then the hallway door opened.
Out of nowhere, I heard a voice whisper, "Aww, let's come back later. They're already asleep." Both my ex and I just laid there, scared to our bones. I told her she was closer to the front door, so she should go take a look. She informed me, "Screw that, you're the protector here." So I grabbed my aluminum bat, and walked out to the entryway, with her attached to my back, peeking over my shoulder. Sure enough, both the deadbolt and doorknob were locked.
42. Just Keep Sleeping
I used to sleep in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco and we would hear things most nights. One night, someone called for help and we managed to find them, but their assailant had disappeared. Other times, we would hear loud moaning, almost sobbing, but we had no idea where it was coming from
43. Could’ve Been Warned
I ran into a bear while jogging in the woods between my neighborhood and a nearby office park. The bear made no move to attack me, and it looked about as spooked as I was, but holy moly, that was terrifying. I just walked backward slowly until it was out of view and then booked it. But the best part? I passed two ladies standing on their lawns about two minutes before, and when I came back, I told them about the bear.
They said, "Was it a big one?" I said yeah. They said they have seen him around. Huh?! Why didn't they tell me that like, two minutes prior? For reference, I live in a suburb about 30 minutes outside Seattle. Bears are more common around here than you might think, but we almost never see them. Recent deforestation and development have pushed them out of their habitats, and the one that spooked me was probably lost and scared...poor thing.
44. Get Out Of The Way
I was a USS Ranger somewhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, in the winter of 1991, in transit to Japan from San Diego. I encountered the ghost of the deck nine ladder well, on my way to mid rats. I did not even realize it until I emerged from the ladder well at the forward mess decks to a group of terrified sailors who asked me if I had seen it.
I just thought he was a visiting sailor from a foreign navy because of his strange uniform and appearance, but it turns out, the truth was way creepier. Apparently, the ghost was wearing the US Navy working uniform he passed in, from 40 years before. He just stood there at the edge of the hatch looking straight forward; with a full white beard holding a dark blue dixie cup cover in his hand wearing a dungaree shirt with three chevrons.
When I saw him, I stood next to the hatch waiting for him to descend down to the next deck, but he didn't move and I was hungry, so I just said excuse me and went on my way.
45. Straight Out Of A Horror Film
I worked at our college's info desk for AV stuff, and there was always another info desk person there with us. Around 9:50 pm, a girl came up and said that as she was leaving the planetarium, she heard a weird noise down the hallway, around a corner from our desk. As she went partway down the hallway, the lights started to flicker, and then she noticed what looked like blood drops on the floor leading down the hallway and peaced out.
We figured it was just a spilled drink, but we checked it out anyway. When we got there, we were fully spooked—and the entire wing was dimly lit and the hallway lights were about 15% as bright as they should be, flickering like when someone is about to get hurt in a horror film. The door at the end was partially opened and we heard what sounded like metal hitting against something coming from it.
We saw drops and it was more like a small trail of it. It was definitely red but didn't have the color of blood...it was more orange-colored than a deep red. After a louder noise banged out of nowhere, we peaced the heck out of there and radioed campus officers. They took a brief statement and we locked up the info desk for the night. We never did find out what it was.
46. Startling The Scarer
My creepiest experience ever was the time I woke up to find an intruder in my bedroom, standing beside my bed looking down at me. I chased him out and wasn't physically harmed, but the officers were certain that, despite him taking a number of things, I was actually the real reason he broke in. Waking up when I did probably saved me from a dire fate.
47. Keeping An Eye Out
I used to live in this horrible little apartment in a horrible neighborhood. Just three streets over there was a place that boasted the first murder of the year just after midnight on New Year’s Day! Anyway, the place was above a restaurant and the dumpster was right up against the wall of the building. From there, you could absolutely hop right on top and gain access to the first-floor roof which happened to be right outside my bedroom window.
One day, I noticed there was an EYE traced into the grime on the outside of the window. I started sleeping in the living room after that with a hammer.
Public Domain Pictures
48. Ring, Ring, It’s Me?
I was sitting at home alone one evening when my phone started buzzing because of an incoming call. I reached out for it and when I looked at the screen, I was very confused. The caller ID was that of my own number. In that split second, I had just assumed it was a glitch and canceled the call. Seconds later, the same thing happened. I canceled the call once more.
When the same thing happened the third time, I felt kind of freaked out. But, I plucked up my courage to answer the call. After I said, “Hello”, there was nothing but silence. Then, I heard some labored breathing noises...almost like a whisper...on the other end. That did it for me. I was so freaked out, then, I just hung up.
49. Who’s At The Door?
One night, I was waiting for my boyfriend to get home from work. He was due any minute. I was sitting on the couch in the living room and had a clear view of the front door. I saw the front doorknob start to rattle and our new puppy started losing her mind. I just took a couple of minutes to calm her down, figuring my boyfriend would make it inside before I managed to get her out of my way.
But oddly, the door didn't open. I figured maybe my boyfriend was struggling with his tool bag and other work stuff, so after I got the puppy calmed down, I opened the front door. No one was there. I thought maybe he went back to his truck, so I shut the door and waited for him. Several minutes passed. I called him and asked, "Hey, where'd you go?" He asked me what I meant.
"Weren't you just here? You tried to open the door?" He said he'd gotten caught up talking to his mom as he'd swung by his parent's house, and he was still about 15 minutes out. I was creeped out but chalked it up to my intoxicated neighbor trying to get into the wrong apartment again. The next day, I found out a shocking development—another neighbor down the street had opened their door to someone and got tied up and robbed at gunpoint.
I don't know if it was the same person at my door. I don't know if that would have happened to me, as I had a habit of just opening the door without checking the peephole. I was really naive. But, I was really grateful that my puppy kept me from opening the door immediately and really grateful that my boyfriend had gotten me in the habit of locking the front door when I'm home.
50. The Undiscovered Photographer
A few years ago, I was home alone with my sister and my parents and siblings went out for about six hours. we were sitting at the TV watching Dr. Phil when we heard a lock being fiddled with. All our doors were locked, so I was confused. I checked the house and found nothing. The next night, I was in my room walking around in booty shorts and a sports bra.
I heard a click sound. I thought nothing of it and laid on my bed facing the window. Then, I heard another click. I put on a t-shirt and I went to my window to slam it shut. When I glanced outside anxiously, I froze with horror at what I saw. A guy with a camera was hiding and he bolted. I screamed for my dad and he went after the guy. Eventually, the dude was caught.
It turns out he had multiple pictures of me over the course of two months of me sleeping, showering, and changing along with multiple pictures of other underage girls. So of course, he was incarcerated. That was by far the creepiest experience. I'm 17 now and I still get a pit in my stomach when I tell the story and I always feel watched
Sources: Reddit,
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