Some people regularly experience creepy phenomena while others may only experience it once in their lifetimes. Luckily, people love to retell their most spine-chilling stories. From having a ghost cat at home to passing through time and space, read on as these people unveil the most harrowing details of their creepiest experiences.
1. Sleepwalking, Sleep Talking, Sleep Crying
When my brother was about seven years old, he woke up one day acting really strange. He didn’t get out of bed. My mother went in to check on him and he started sobbing. It was awful and he sounded so full of despair. It wasn’t the cry of a seven-year-old. He was so, so upset and it really worried us both. My mother kept asking, “What’s wrong? You can tell me!”
After a long few minutes, he finally confided in her. He told her that he had been living the same day over and over and over and that it was always the same. But, that’s not what upset him. What made him cry was that today was the first day in a really long time where something had changed. We never spoke about it again. He was seemingly fine after a few days, but I still have no idea what happened.
I know my brother, and it’s not something he’d come up with out of the blue. It was completely unexplainable from my perspective.
2. Just Keep Watching
I was a young mother with two kids about eight months old and three years old. We lived in Pittsburgh in an old Victorian home—very common there. We had just come home from a long Easter Sunday at my brother-in-law’s. The kids were tired and we needed to get up early for work and daycare so we were hurrying to unload the car and get them into bed.
I ran upstairs and got the baby down in her crib. My husband was unloading and parking the car, etc. When I returned to get my son to put him to bed next, this strange feeling came over me that I can’t fully explain. Instead of taking him upstairs, I just walked over and turned on the TV in the living room and asked him if he wanted to watch it for a while with mommy.
Peter Pan was playing that night. So, he happily snuggled with me on the couch in the dark living room watching the show. My husband came in and asked me what in the world I was doing? Why had I turned on the TV when we needed to get him into bed? I really couldn’t explain my impulse and I just told him not to worry about it, I’d get him down in a little while. And we kept watching TV.
As time went by, my husband got more and more concerned about how late it was getting and why I wouldn’t put our son to bed. He kept asking me to turn off the TV and take him upstairs. The more upset he got, the more stubborn I became about not taking him upstairs. I knew this made no sense as we both knew he needed to go to sleep.
We were usually very strict about bedtime and we were way past our son’s. Plus we rarely let the kids watch TV. So, my husband was right to be upset with me as I was behaving very uncharacteristically. But in spite of his pleading with me, I just wouldn’t budge. It was baffling for me as well as my husband. It was like part of me knew he was totally right and the other part of me was helpless to explain why I was behaving so oddly and was so determined to keep him downstairs and NOT take him upstairs.
Just as my husband started to get really frustrated with me, we heard a terrifying noise upstairs. We looked at each other and both ran to the stairs and saw what looked like a white cloud rolling at the top of the stairs and starting to come down the stairs. We both thought something had happened in the baby’s room, like her crib had collapsed or something large had fallen in her room.
So, we raced upstairs and found she was fine. She was still asleep and nothing in her room was disturbed. But in my son’s room, we saw a cloud of white dust still coming out the door. We looked inside and saw that his entire plaster ceiling had collapsed. Only wooden lath remained and big heavy chunks of thick plaster had fallen all over his bed.
It was covered. One big piece was lying on his pillow right where his head would have been had we put him to bed when we got home. He would have most likely been seriously injured, if not worse. But, instead, he was downstairs watching Peter Pan and Wendy. To this day, I can’t explain why I turned on the TV or refused to put my son to bed as expected.
Or, why I became more and more stubborn as my husband begged me to stop the madness and get back on track. There was a very strong force in me at the time that I really couldn’t override even though I knew that what I was doing made no logical sense. But, whatever it was, it saved my son’s life. My husband and I were both extremely thankful. Nothing like that has ever happened to me since then. My son is now 38 with two young sons of his own.
3. Deep Into The Fog
I was playing with a drone with my friend at our elementary school after-hours. I went to pick up the drone, and when I did, it became incredibly foggy and quiet. I went back the way I came, since that's where my friend was. I kept running in that direction. Terror welled up in my chest. It just kept getting foggier and it felt like I was being watched. Eventually, my friend just appeared, and the fog went away.
Me: "Weird how the fog went away like that." Friend: "Fog?" Me: "Yeah, it was foggy for nearly 10 minutes. I could barely see." Friend: "It hasn't been 10 minutes." Me: "But I was running back here for what felt like ages." Friend: "No, you've been standing still for about 30 seconds." To this day, I still don't know what happened.
4. Seeing Into The Future
In 2015, I had just started a business with my brother flipping houses. He had been on a road trip with his daughter for a little over one week and had just gotten back home. I spoke with him on the phone and he said that he would be down to meet me at the property that we had just remodeled that Friday to finish it up and get it listed.
When I hung up the phone, I was walking into the kitchen when I had a thought so disturbing, it’s unforgettable. It just suddenly popped in my mind: “He isn't coming because he is going to have a heart attack and die tomorrow." I have been scolded in the past for being negative, so I just kept it to myself and tried to put it out of my mind. The following day, I was sitting on the edge of my bed, when my phone rang.
I looked at the caller ID and it was my mother. I immediately knew what the phone call was going to be about. I picked up the phone and my mother said that my brother had just had a heart attack and they were trying to revive him. She said she would call me back. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that he was already gone. I walked into the kitchen and stood there in a daze.
I looked up at the wall where the late afternoon sun was casting a bright spot and found myself staring at it. It seemed to get brighter and wider and in an instant, it had surrounded me and was holding me. I wasn't scared. I just stood there letting the bright light envelop me. Just as quickly as it happened, it was gone and I was brought back to reality by the sound of my phone ringing.
I realized I had been holding my breath and answered it. It was my mother saying that he had died. To this day, I cannot explain this.
5. Someone Is Lurking
To this day I don't know if this actually happened, or if I dreamt it. I experienced waking up in the middle of the night with my eyes closed and my shoulders lifted off the bed, as if I'm doing half of a sit-up. My right arm was also raised upwards and hanging in mid-air with my hand pointing towards the ceiling. With my eyes still closed, I felt a firm grip on my hand, as if someone had it in a handshake.
I opened my eyes and looked into the dark empty space. I still felt a very firm grip on my palm. I felt a male presence, but I couldn't see anyone. After a few seconds, my arm and shoulders dropped and I went back to sleep. I told this story to my mother, who I lived with, five years later. She said she often felt the presence of an old man in the house, and once thought she saw him in the early hours of the morning.
6. The Holiday Horrors
We had an Elf on the Shelf as a kid. I walked downstairs and it was in the same spot as the previous day, in a little glass candle box that had a latch on it. Being small, I assumed the poor thing was locked in there overnight, so I opened the door and went upstairs to tell my parents. They were both asleep when I got up there, and the only other person in the house was my baby brother.
After I told them our elf was trapped, I walked back downstairs and it was on the chandelier. At the time I thought, “Well duh, he's alive.” Now, I am terrified of the thing. I sometimes wonder if I imagined it.
7. Briefly Back In Time
While at university, my friends and I ran out of booze. Hardly any shops were open because it was later on, so the only option was to walk the mile or so to the nearest 24-hour supermarket. Between the supermarket and the dorms we lived in was just row after row of suburban houses which all looked the same. As we were walking down one road, we passed a field with a large campfire and some people riding horses around it.
There were people playing musical instruments, and general sounds of a good time going on. The horses, fire, and the lanterns which were dotted about, gave it a very old fashioned feel. Maybe five minutes after passing the field, now walking past houses again, one of my friends commented on how weird and out of place that gathering of people had been.
My other friend and I had been thinking exactly the same thing so, out of curiosity, we turned around and walked back to find out exactly what was going on. There was nothing there. Not just no people or horses, there was no field; just more and more houses. Even though we were absolutely certain we were on the right road.
We'd simply turned around, we walked up and down the neighboring roads too. We found nothing. We weren't intoxicated, though we'd had some drinks, and so I've got absolutely no idea what happened that night.
Shuttersrtock
8. The Unforeseen Pet
The first apartment my wife and I lived in had a ghost cat. We’d both see it quite often run into or out of a room or by a door in our peripherals. It wasn’t our cat being elusive either, because she’d be next to us already or in a different room completely asleep in a window sill. I think even our cat played with it a couple times. It was friendly though, so we got used to it.
9. Only A Few Steps Away
I was in the eighth grade. My parents had left town to visit my sister in college and my brother was hanging out with his girlfriend. I was home alone, except for my three, big white labs. We live out on a ranch, maybe 10 miles from town, so really far from everyone else. Our house is built on a hill, so the bottom of the house is a giant concrete block, and there are a few old wooden steps you have to climb to get from the back porch to the ground.
Anyway, my bedroom window is right next to these stairs. I'm laying in bed, watching YouTube, and I hear something on the steps. I'm not talking about a raccoon, cat, or dog...I'm talking boots. One step, two, and three. My blinds are down so I can't see out the window, and I don't really want to. A few minutes go by, and here it is again.
Now I'm done. I called my mother. I'm in the hallway, almost in tears, asking my mom what to do. She says, "Are the dogs even barking?" I realize that they are not. I hung up the phone, and think I must just be paranoid. I’m not kidding you. Two seconds pass and my dogs erupt. They were barking as loudly and furiously as they could, with their hair up and snarling.
I ran back into my room and locked the door. I'm shaking, almost in tears. The closet in the house is across the main room, which is nothing but windows, and I don't want to be seen by the mystery thing, and possibly shot. I hear the steps ONE TWO THREE rapidly go down the stairs. I call my brother in tears, and he scoffs making fun of me, and begins heading home.
I sat there, and one last time, I heard one SINGLE step on the stairs and then nothing. All I have to do is pull back the curtain and look, but I cannot. Eventually, my dogs went to sleep, my brother came home, and nothing happened. I have no idea what was out there. Our yard has a large wooden fence with chicken wire, so no cows or other large animals could get in, but nothing small made that noise.
Being a teenage boy, I thought I was tough...I got really humbled that night.
10. The Demons Are Back
My mother told me when she was pregnant with my brother she used to get crazy nightmares of “shadow-figures” that kept harassing her two or three times a week claiming that they are coming for “him.” She never understood what it meant until one fateful day. That’s when she gave birth to my brother, but eight weeks premature. He unfortunately didn’t make it.
My parents had to make the decision to pull the plug and let him rest peacefully. Two days after that whole ordeal, she had the same nightmare, but instead, they were taunting her saying, ”We got him, he’s ours now.” She never had a single one of those nightmares again. That was 20 years ago.
Pexels
11. Question And Answer
I was 12 years old. My grandmother was sick in the hospital and I was at the mall with my two older cousins, trying to clear our heads and get away from the grief for a while. An older gentleman walked up to us smiling and handed one of my cousins a piece of paper. It read "Why didn't the family answer the door?" We looked at the man confused and he gave us a second piece of paper, still smiling. What he said next chilled me to the bone.
He continued, "Because they were already dead." He then giggled and walked away. My cousins grabbed me by the hands and basically ran with me all the way back to our car. We were desperate to get back to the hospital where we wouldn't feel so alone and vulnerable. I still get goosebumps when I think about that weird man and the creepy way he laughed and smiled at us.
12. The Avoidant Wanderer
I was camping in a valley all by myself with no cell service. I stayed late on a trail and ran into a nice local dude as it was getting dark. He showed me a local camping spot close to the road and the river, but camouflaged. I had a fire, drank a little, and listened to my friend’s comedy podcast. I was loud and visible.
Because it was dark already, I decided to sleep in the back of my truck under my topper next to all of my gear as opposed to setting up my tent. The next morning I made a fire, cracked another drink, and started making breakfast. Then, I notice that there is a man at the edge of my camp. He comes closer but never looks directly at me.
This dude looks homeless, has a long ratty beard, and has at least a hundred plastic grocery bags tied all over his clothes. I comment about how nice the day is. There was no response from him. I begin to get creeped out. I offer him breakfast, nothing. He sort of paces around the perimeter of my camp. I offer him a drink, but he just turns around. The dude is just standing there, back to me wandering around.
I’m realizing that there isn’t going to be anything good happening here. I had my bear spray and buck knife super close. I give him an ultimatum, “Hey, you are either going to acknowledge me or leave immediately!” He ignores me. I grab the bear mace and walk a few steps towards him. He sulked away and I threw my stuff in my truck and left that place right quick. I wonder if he had watched me during the night and I thank my laziness for staying in my truck instead of a tent.
13. Through Time And Travel
I was driving at night on an unfamiliar forested road during a thick fog, just outside of Vancouver, Canada. Suddenly, we were going through an “old-timey” town with tin sign advertisements for 1920s type products with similar era buildings. Then, we drove under a sign saying, "You Are Now Leaving the United States." Seeing as I didn't think we had entered the States, it was quite unsettling.
14. Nowhere To Be Found
I was a summer camp counselor when I was in my late teens. I woke up in the middle of the night having to pee, so I climbed out of my bunk and left the cabin. I wasn’t going to walk the quarter-mile to the bathrooms, so I peel it out and pee on the back wall of the cabin. The front faces out into the big open courtyard, the back is against a tree line.
Not long after it's flowing, I hear a bit of laughter. Two kids were giggling and whispering to each other. It was no big deal, there are like 250 kids here for the session. There was a pair of troublemakers in the one cabin over from mine, so I figured it was them. My first thought, however, is to make sure whoever these kids are don't stare directly at me while I pee.
So, I start to waddle around the far corner, and once I'm there, I peek around in curiosity. I watch two kids, eight years old or so, walk down from between the two cabins into the wooded area. It's dark out, so I wasn't able to identify the campers, but all I'm sure of is a couple of kids left their cabin for some late-night shenanigans.
Again, no biggie, I used to get into the same type of nonsense as a camper. I finally finish relieving myself, zip up, and walk out from behind the cabin towards the trees, shrouded in darkness, where I had just watched these two rogue campers escape to. By now, the laughing has stopped, and I'm soaked in the silence of upstate Michigan wilderness.
There's nothing and no one to be found, except for myself, who at this point is starting to freak out a bit. As my eyes dart around, I quietly call out for the kids I know are near. I know they are, because I saw them. I must've spent an hour creeping through the woods, and out to the other side where there is a massive open grassy area the size of ten football fields.
The silence is deafening and I start to cry...not because I can't find the kids, but because I'm realizing there may have never been any kids to begin with. I just sat out there for another 30 minutes or so. I told myself I was waiting for them to pop out from the dugout or behind the archery targets, but really I think I was just too scared to move a muscle at that moment.
I know how powerful the mind is, especially in the sleepy state I was in. But, I also know what I heard and I know what I saw that night. Over a decade later, I still have trouble explaining this to myself in any sort of rational way.
Shutterstock
15. Hailing The Darkness
It was the middle of the night and I could have sworn I was lying awake in my bedroom for a long while. My wife was leaning towards me and snoring softly and otherwise being endearing. She started whispering unintelligibly in her sleep which I thought was adorable right up until it suddenly became rhythmic, like a soft chanting—but that wasn’t the scariest part.
The accordion door on my closet creaked open slowly, and out stepped a tall, dark, demonic-looking thing. I was petrified and completely paralyzed as this thing crept closer, all while my wife is still whisper-chanting inches from my ear. I blinked and it was over, just like that. I was just awake in my room, my wife snoring quietly. I felt like I was in shock for hours afterward.
16. Time Does Not Exist
I drove a 50 mile (80km) round trip in 12 minutes a few weeks ago. I have the time-stamped “I’m leaving” text to a friend I sent while pulling out of the drive at 8:00 pm. I confirmed that the time on the car’s dash clock and the wall clock near the door was close to eight when I walked out my door to my car. I drove 25 miles (40km) to my parents’ home to grab my laptop I had forgotten, and 25 miles (40km) back home.
I got home at 8:12 pm. The dash clock in the car, cell phone, and every clock in my apartment confirmed this. Some of those are analog, so it couldn’t have been a weird hack. It can’t be a prank. Nobody knows there’s a watch in my nightstand except me and there’s a clock on the nightstand. So, if somebody somehow was just messing with me, they’d have missed that one that I checked when I got home. I used my phone as an alarm to get up early that next morning. All the clocks are still synced.
17. Dreaming Into The Future
I work at a home improvement store and I work around powered equipment all the time. One night, I had a dream I was spotting for my coworker carrying a unit of 2x4's, on aisle 29. I remember my vision went black and I thought to myself, "That guy actually destroyed me!" Then, I woke up and was relieved it was only a dream.
Fast forward a couple more days, I was spotting for my coworker, and he was carrying a unit of 2x4's, on aisle 29, and something flipped in my brain. It told me to walk a little faster. The next thing I know, the driver of the forklift unexpectedly floored it and slammed into the panel saw. It would have easily crushed me if I didn't listen to my brain.
After that, I remembered that dream. I freaked out on the driver and some harsh words were said. He lost his license.
Shutterstock
18. Someone’s Creeping Around The House
I was watching a movie in the basement of my parents’ house and making out with my girlfriend. My parents and little brother had left for the weekend at one of his youth hockey tournaments earlier that night. They boarded the dogs somewhere too. All of the sudden, without ever seeing a car pull up into the driveway from the basement window or hearing the side door at the top of the stairs open, I heard a noise that sends chills down my spine.
There are HEAVY steps across the length from the kitchen on one end of the house through the dining room and through the hall to the other end where my brother’s and my bedroom were, then they stop. My girlfriend confirms she hears it too when she looks at me spooked and confused and says, “Who’s home?” I ran up to the kitchen and didn't hear anything, the door was still locked.
I go into alert mode, grab a knife and start searching the house. There was no one. All windows were shut and locked, all doors too. There was nothing missing, nothing disturbed. My girlfriend went home because she was spooked. I kept the lights on all weekend. The house had never felt haunted before and nothing really ever happened after. I don’t know who we heard.
Pexels
19. Who Played The Prank?
I was 17 and the oldest of four and lived on the far end of a house next to the garage. I liked it over there because it was quiet and dark and I had space away from everyone. When I slept at night, I’d occasionally leave my door half open to let the light from the laundry room shine a night light into my room. One night, I did exactly that around 10:00 pm and cozied up into bed.
From the orientation of my bed, I would actually face the door laying down, and there was no other way in or out of my room. I hadn’t quite closed my eyes yet when my bedroom door slammed closed. I didn’t think much of it...I actually thought my brother was playing a prank on me. At this point, I should say that when the door is closed, I could see absolutely nothing in my bedroom at all, and this was before cell phones, so I couldn’t exactly shine anything to see what was going on.
I said something like, “Not funny Erik,” thinking that he was on the other side of the door playing a prank. As soon as I finished saying that, I heard a bizarre noise. It was the crinkling of paper. If you grew up a few decades ago, it’s the same type of thick paper that you used to get from grocery store bags before they switched to plastic. You know how if something is loud enough in a closed space, you can kind of triangulate exactly where it’s coming from?
It was just like that in the center of my room. It lasted about four or five seconds. Now, I’m starting to sweat bullets and kind of praying that it’s my brother just really committed to a joke. About 15-30 seconds pass of dead silence and I muster up the courage to jump to my feet, rush to the light, and flip it on. There was absolutely nothing on my bedroom floor that could have made that sound. I checked under my bed and in the closet for Erik, and nothing.
I marched out to the other side of the house and all my siblings were asleep in their beds. I asked everyone the following morning if they had closed my door and no one had. I could never quite explain what happened, but several other eerie things happened at that house over the next few years. The eeriest of which was to my sister who complained of the “tall man” that would visit her at night through the walls. It still gives me goosebumps typing it out even 20 years later.
Shutterstock
20. Three’s A Party
Me and my friend were haunted for a whole summer by a ghost we called “Victor.” He’d torment us at both of our houses. When we slept over at my friend’s house, the haunting grew horribly worse. One of the two scariest things that happened included when my friend had a bloody handprint in his attic. Well, one day, we went up to his attic to get some stuff and that bloody handprint was gone—but that wasn’t the scary part.
There were dozens of bloody handprints scattered across the attic ceiling, like almost too many to count. It freaked the heck out of us. We hurried up and climbed down the ladder and got his dad. When we all went back up, every handprint was gonna except the original one. Yet, we both saw all the other ones on our previous trip to the attic.
Then, one day, his parents were out of town and I was staying over. Anyway, we both worked at Taco Bell and I had gotten off before him, so he just gave me a house key and told me to go to his house and just wait for him, because he got off like 30 minutes after me and his house was about a 20-minute drive. Anyhow, I went to his house and let myself inside.
But, when I got to his room, I felt his hand and heard his voice whisper, “Gotcha,” in my ear. I even felt his breath. So, I turned around to tell him he scared me…yet I was home alone. I completely freaked out. I went and sat on his bed then he calls me crying saying he got an immediate feeling of dread, like something bad was about to happen to me.
He told me to get out of the house, so I took the heck off and got in my car, and drove to the end of the driveway. Well, he got home like 15 minutes after that and we went and checked the house out kind of shouting, “Get out of the house Victor, this is our home, not yours!” The haunting didn’t last much longer after that.
21. Lost And Found
I was driving down a road and someone ran a stop sign. It totaled my car. Officers came and took all the information. The next day, I go to get a rental car and they ask for my driver's license. It was nowhere in my wallet. I think, “Well maybe it's in my totaled car.” I went to where they towed it and searched the car, but found nothing.
I called the officer from the accident and asked if he forgot to give it back. He says no, he handed it back to me. So, I take everything out of my wallet. There was nothing. Even my wife went through it. So, I get my information together and go to the motor vehicle center to get a replacement. I got everything done and they handed me my replacement license.
I opened up my wallet to put it away and there is my original license where I always keep it. But, I know I checked there as the first thing. I still can't figure out where it was or how it got back in my wallet.
Pexels
22. A Dream Becomes Reality
One time when I was 17, my girlfriend at the time and I were laying in bed. She was sleeping and I was just laying there, cuddling her. We were facing towards my window with the bedroom door on my back, which was closed. It was pitch black. I wasn’t on my phone or anything, just laying there. All of a sudden, I felt something touch my shoulder, not just a light touch but it felt like a physical person had touched me.
It scared me so much that I jumped up and shot down towards the end of my bed. I looked behind me and nothing was there. I ran to turn on the light. My girlfriend asked me what was wrong. I told her what happened and she told me right before it happened she was having a dream. When she explained, I was stunned. In the dream, she was looking at us in the third person and saw someone behind me.
Then, the person touched me. As soon as it did in the dream is when it did in reality. Up to that point, I already believed in the paranormal, but that experience definitely solidified it.
23. Mom Always Calls
A while back, I was in my kitchen making breakfast. I distinctly heard my mum call my name. Bear in mind, I'm 36 and have lived away from her since 21! After that morning, I had an overwhelming feeling I should go to her house. I'd only gone over the day before and there was no need to, but hey, I heeded it and went anyway. I’m so lucky I did.
I found my mum lying on the floor unable to get up and in pain. She had Parkinson’s, so she had fallen and couldn't move, as her tablets had worn off. I called the ambulance and they helped check her over and popped her shoulder back into place. How did I feel that and where did that audible voice come from?
24. Get Out Of The Car
My parents live about an hour away in the middle of nowhere. There’s a hiking spot I love, especially around this time of year, on the way. So, I stopped there around nine in the morning. The trail was “temporarily closed” and no other cars were there, so I just got out real quick to snap some pictures of the fall foliage.
All of a sudden, I hear a cough. Me being paranoid, I immediately got back in my car and locked the doors. There was a man walking up the path from the highway. He doesn’t say anything, just stands in front of my vehicle and motions for me to get out. I started my engine, naturally, and he didn’t budge. I shakily gassed it, maneuvering past him through the grass.
I’m a 90lb. woman. I’m never going to the middle of the woods alone again. Especially miles from civilization.
25. A Guardian Angel
When I was little, I was crawling to a dresser and playing with the bottom before I felt my legs being pulled away from it. It totally scared me, but now I realize the dresser could have fallen on me if I had messed with it more. Maybe the spirit just didn’t want me to get hurt really badly, so it pulled on my legs away from it so nothing bad would happen. Also, thanks to whoever it was that passed on.
Baby crawling
26. Who Moved The Furniture?
When I was about seven or eight, I was playing in a large closet with two girls. My dad and their dad were best friends and they were hanging out so I was there. They came up and told us they were walking to the store, probably for drinks. They told us to stay there and they left. At some point, one of us tried to leave the closet and the door was blocked.
We started freaking out and screaming. When our dads came back, they made a seriously chilling discovery. Someone had blocked the door with a dresser. They were gone probably for 10 minutes. I remember the fear in their faces, so it wasn't them. Nothing was missing and we have no idea what happened to this day.
Pexels
27. Someone Wanted To Lend A Hand
I once saw a disembodied hand waving at me from my bedroom window. It totally scared me and I ran to the living room, where I was semi-expecting the perpetrator to come through the front door to laugh at me. It never happened. To this day, I'm still uncertain as to the origin of this floating hand.
Pexels
28. Putting On Brave Faces
My family has a ranch in California that has an apple orchard attached to it. When I’d stay there to visit family, my cousin would always tell me stories of things that have happened there since my last stay. There were ghost sightings, voices...the usual stuff. I took it all with a grain of salt because, well, as a kid your mind will play tricks on you, especially at one in the morning in a dark and empty orchard.
The common story was about a demon that haunted the orchard and would chase you till you left the orchard. One night, I was outside a little after midnight, staring out into the orchard when my cousin and her friend came out to meet me dressed up. They were saying how they think it’s absolute garbage and are going to go spend the night in the orchard.
They invited me, but I told them, “No, thank you, and be careful as there are wild animals in there.” 40 minutes later, I see them come bolting back out and into the house rambling about the giant bat that chased them. For the rest of the night, we heard what sounded like dog paws on wood floors, the closest thing I could pin it to, on the ceiling the rest of the night.
When the sun came up, it sounded like whatever the animal was ran off the side and landed pretty heavily on the ground. I never visited them again.
29. Who Played Who?
My brother and I were once watching a horror movie at around midnight. Around halfway through, the unmistakable noise of a deep sigh came from where my brother was sitting. I took it as nothing, but I did look over at him because I assumed it was him being bored of the movie or something. When I saw that he looked over at me at the same time, we knew neither of us had made the noise, but we both heard it.
We paused the movie, rewinded it a few times, and replayed the last 30 seconds a few times to try to see if the sound we heard had come from the movie. After being unsuccessful, we laughed it off and finished our movie. Later that night, while on completely opposite sides of the house, I heard the same noise again. A deep sigh—this time, originating from behind me.
In absolute panic, I ran upstairs without even looking towards the source. I found my brother who was just looking at me as if he was waiting for me to tell him what had just happened. It turns out he heard the same noise upstairs at the same time that I heard it downstairs. We tried recreating it without luck. We experienced it again a few weeks after that, but this time we were both in separate rooms from each other and both came out of the rooms at the same time after hearing movement downstairs.
It sounded like small bare feet on a hardwood floor. We both stood there for a good 30 minutes while the sounds continued for at least 10 of those 30 minutes. Finally, sometime after that, I had a solo experience where I was downstairs late at night and heard the same sigh noise along with the same bare feet noise behind me. Needless to say, I got out of there and went to bed.
It has been quite some time since either of us experienced anything, but he and I firmly believe it was paranormal in some way.
Shutterstock
30. One Last Goodbye
I came home from work at around 2:30 in the morning. I sat down to take my boots off. While I was bent over, I felt someone put their hand on my shoulder. I looked but there was nobody there. I felt a shiver run through my body. Shaking a bit, I went to bed. About a half-hour later, the wife's phone rang—and when she picked it up, she was shocked.
It was my uncle calling to get help because he just found my aunt dead in her chair. It turned out she passed around 2:30 in the morning from a heart attack. We were very close. I think she was saying goodbye.
31. No Chance To Try
Almost 10 years ago, I bought two bottles of drinks. One was a clear red liquid and the other was a cream one. I don’t know the names. It was local stuff here in Germany. I bought them and drove home. I placed them on my kitchen counter and went to the bathroom to wash my hands. Halfway there, I heard two loud sounds, as if bottles exploded.
I went back to find exactly that. Both bottles had exploded. They didn’t have carbonic acid in them, there was no temperature difference, nothing special. They just exploded all over the kitchen both within a second. Almost at the same time.
Pexels
32. Someone Is Out There
I was visiting my Navajo family on the rez earlier this year. Me and my cousin went outside at night to smoke in his dad's broken-down car. We were talking deeply about how different life is out in the city versus on the reservation and in the middle of the conversation we both heard footsteps in the dirt coming towards us. We weren’t scared at first, because we just assumed it was his girlfriend coming to join us.
When we poked our heads out of the car to look there was nothing. Nobody. That’s what we call a yeni, or what’s more commonly known as a skinwalker.
33. Always A Hand To Hold
Several times in my life, a ghostly child-sized hand has grabbed mine. The two most memorable was visiting an old restaurant with my dad and his wife when I was around 11. We were climbing the stairs up to the second floor and the host/hostess was leading us, explaining how old the building was and all this. Suddenly, I felt someone grab my hand. I turned around because it felt like a small kid had run up and grabbed me mistakenly but no one was there.
The second time was when I was in college, standing in an elevator on my way up to my friends' apartment. I felt a distinct grab on my hand, from down below, like it was a little kid. I have had many kids grab for my hand like that back when I babysat, and the feeling was so real I immediately looked down to see if I'd somehow missed a kid in the elevator with me.
But again, no one. Maybe kid ghosts like me or maybe I have weird nerve things going on with my hand. Who knows
34. One Last Visit
I was helping my dad take care of my grandma after my grandpa passed. He unfortunately shot himself down by the detached garage they had on their property after being diagnosed with terminal cancer. One morning, after my dad leaves for work early, I get there while she is still asleep and I doze off in the back room until she wakes up.
I wake up in a very dazed state while it's still dark outside and walk into the living room and see my grandpa standing there next to his chair, glowing gold. I say to him, "Papa?! What is going on??" and ran up to hug him. He said to me, "It's alright, I'm no longer in pain, I love you." I woke up in the backroom to a picture falling off the wall that hadn't been touched in ages.
I don't believe in ghosts nor am I religious, but I told my dad about it and he said he had a similar dream. It didn't scare me but I really don't know if it was a dream or a supernatural experience.
35. The Phone Goes Flying
I had gone home with my boyfriend after work, and we were just relaxing in bed watching YouTube on his phone. He was on the left lying on his side and I was on the right side, but I got up from bed and put my phone face down on the right side of the bed. It was easily at least two feet away from him. I was going to massage his back and as I walked around the bed to his side, I suddenly saw him curl up in pain and let out a yelp.
As I leaned over him to see what was wrong, my phone just suddenly fell from next to his face. I was instantly shocked because I knew it wasn't in my hands, so I couldn't have just dropped it on his face. He looked back at me and also looked very confused, asking me if I had thrown it on the bed, therefore making it bounce back at his face.
I shook my head, and we just started trying to replicate that exact moment but we just couldn't. Everything we tried, all possible ideas, didn’t work. There was literally no way my phone could've made that distance. He asked me what it looked like when it happened, and I said it just looked like my phone had suddenly teleported next to his face and he actually agreed with me, saying he never saw it move.
But, it felt like someone had flicked his ear instead of a phone hitting his face. We spent half an hour trying to find a logical reason. I'm just more concerned with the fact we couldn't replicate it. Not even once did the phone ever come even half as close. I have absolutely no clue how that happened and neither does he.
36. A Comforting Presence
I know it's strange. Sometimes I'll see figures of my parents doing things outside. It's most commonly my dad cooking on the barbecue and I'll often see him out of the corner of my eye. But when I inquire into it, he'll disappear. Sometimes, it'll just be a black figure or shadowy animal running across the front of my house that I'll see from the corner of my eye.
But, those are probably actually squirrels or the crows who love my backyard for some reason. The thing with these shadow figures is that they make me feel safe, comfortable, and a little happy.
37. A Way To Show Appreciation
Growing up, my grandparents lived in a very small town of about 500 people. My mom tells me a story about how my grandpa's late mother used to sing at the local church. The story goes that one time, after she passed, grandpa went to church and saw her floating around the rafters. Apparently, this happens whenever a member of the family plays music/sings in the church and it's the ghost's way of showing appreciation.
One time after hearing this story, the whole family goes to church. Grandpa stares in awe at the ceiling the whole time. I was too afraid to look up, but I swear I heard something moving in the rafters and felt a weight like there was something above me. I don't know if it was my nerves telling me what I wanted to hear, but that church gives me a creepy vibe anytime I drive past it.
Shutterstock
38. Skipped A Whole Day
When I was in the third grade, there was a day where it seemed like I didn't exist. I walked into Spanish class first thing in the morning the next day, and we all went over our work from the previous day. I didn't have mine and had no recollection of having it assigned or learning the material on it. I asked some other students about it, and they said they remembered me being there, in the class.
After leaving Spanish, I went back to my normal grade school classroom and we did some math-related stuff. We were supposed to go over our work from yesterday, but once again, I didn't remember there being homework at all. Occurrences like that kept happening for the rest of the day. My friends all unanimously stated that they remembered me being there for the whole day, but I didn't remember anything. And it was only that one day. I still have no idea what happened.
Shutterstock
39. To Youth And Back
I remember when I was little, my mom took me to Disneyland and we stayed at a super nice hotel nearby. But...yes there is always a but...it was next to the fire escape. For some reason, that put me off. I remember turning the other way on the bed and seeing something horrific. It was a younger version of my mom looking at me wide-eyed and smiling very creepy. I closed my eyes and turned the other way to face my real mom and once I turned back the other way the young version of her was gone.
Shutterstock
40. The Ghostly House Guest
We think that the house that we currently live in is haunted. The previous owners left because the father and son passed in a plane crash, and we’ve been thinking the son is haunting us. One day, while talking about him haunting us, his mother called, seconds after we said his name. Other instances have occurred where doors have shut and televisions turned on or off randomly.
My cousin was in our shower and heard heavy breathing, yet nobody was in there but her. I have been in the same shower and heard someone yell, but in the tone of a whisper, the word “death.” Again, nobody else but me. My dog has awoken in the middle of the night and stared out my window at the trees and not moving, except for a trembling lip.
One time, I was trying to sleep and I heard a screeching/scratching sound that was almost deafening. I then got an impression to close my eyes and not open them until morning. The sound stopped. The next morning, I found out I was the only one to hear it.
41. Where Could Mom Be?
When I was a kid, I was drawing in the kitchen. I saw my mom outside getting the dry laundry back from the ropes, so I decided to spend some time with her. She came inside and passed me, so I stood up from the chair and followed her. I was almost running, so sometimes I had to slow down to not bump on her back. She went to my parent's bedroom, on the second floor.
I found it weird because usually, she puts the dry clothes in a room on the first floor. I then go into the bedroom and...She is nowhere. I look for her, but...It's just a room. Nothing more. I came back confused and I saw her in the first-floor room, already ironing the clothes. She just smiled at me and asked what I was doing. I stared for a while, said "nothing," and just stayed with her. Thinking about this 20 years later is unsettling.
Shutterstock
42. Ghosts Pee Too
I went to use the bathroom at work and when I entered, there was no one in there. The bathroom has four urinals and four stalls, one handicap, and I did not see any feet in any of the stalls. I took up my normal spot inside one stall and was doing my business, when I heard the sound of someone peeing into one of the urinals...but no one had entered the bathroom.
The door is heavy and loud when it closes, so I would've heard someone entering. After a normal amount of time, the peeing stopped, and I heard a few footsteps. But, the door never opened. When I finished up, I did a cursory look and there was no one in the bathroom. It's a ridiculous story, but I definitely heard a pee ghost.
43. Woken Ahead Of Time
At the time I was around 14, I’d asked my dad to wake me up early that morning at about five because I had some work to get done. That morning, I was woken up, and I flung my legs over the side of my bed. I felt a tug on both of them, what I thought at the time was just my dad trying to get me to hurry up. I reached over to pick up my phone and turned it on. It was 3:30 in the morning, and I looked over at the black figure I had assumed was my dad—it was gone.
44. The Drums Keep Thumping
I was camping in the middle of nowhere. Around two in the morning, I hear distant native drumming. I look around, but can't see anything. But, it keeps getting louder and louder and LOUDER. Soon, it sounds like there is a huge group of people banging on these drums all around me! I freaked the heck out, ran in the dark towards my car, jumped in, turned the lights on, and saw NO ONE. So, I took off, all at around 2:30 in the morning.
45. Unexpected Mind Control
One time, I was in my basement watching TV, and I looked at the TV and thought to myself, “I wish I could turn it off without getting up to get the remote or hit the power button.” Suddenly the TV just shut off. I freaked out and ran upstairs. It turned out that the TV had broken and we had to throw it away.
Pexels
46. From A Former Life
I had a flashback to a former life. I was trapped in the hold of a wooden ship that was sinking in the ocean. It was freezing and I could hear crew members yelling faintly above me. The walls were wet and covered in grime, and I knew I wasn’t going to get out. It was incredibly real, and nothing like it has ever happened before or since.
Shutterstock
47. The Unwanted Visitor
We bought a house in the Fairmount section of Philly. Our front steps faced Eastern State Penitentiary. I never thought much of the fact, but there were so many times unexplained stuff would happen at the house. We eventually had kids, and it scared the heck out of them too. There were doors opening and closing randomly at three in the morning.
One time, our large kitchen window just completely shattered. So many times, I would wake because I swore I heard someone walking up our long stairway. At first, it was easy to ignore because I don't believe in the paranormal. But then there was the night that it happened. That night, a drugged-up lady somehow got into our house and when I heard the noise, I went down to see and this lady looked like a zombie. She was screaming at me about her husband and kids. It was somewhat traumatizing. We ended up moving two years ago after eight years of it.
48. Check The Cameras
I used to work as an assistant in an old mansion that was converted into an art museum in New England. The basement and old kitchen quarters were turned into the museum shop with back wings being more smaller galleries. The servants' staircase opened into a very narrow hallway that led towards the back rooms of the basement, or to the front of the shop...all beneath ground level.
The stairs were kept locked from everyone except staff and the only way to the basement was to enter from the outside courtyard through a door that was right beside the shop counter. In front of the counter was an old TV mounted in the upper corner that showed security cameras to the back galleries, but the camera switched only when motion was detected in the area.
It's a late winter night. I’m staying late doing homework while the owners are in New York. The only other person in the building should be the house manager who I know is working on the fourth floor. I am hanging out at the shop counter in the basement when I hear some noise in the back galleries. I assume it's a patron who was making their way out but no one comes out from the hallway.
So, I call down to the back that the museum is closed, and I'd be happy to show them out the back way. There was no answer, but then the security camera started switching to different empty galleries. Only slightly on edge, I pick up the phone to call my manager when, on the opposite of the shop counter, a revolving card stand full of classic postcards starts slowly turning.
I think the look on my face was more surprising than anything else. It was a heavy, old stand, and it takes some force to get it going, but when the turning of the stand abruptly stopped and began going the other direction, I noped right out of there.
49. The Recurring Ghost
We lived in a small town with a bridge connecting to the small island that me and my family lived on. While my auntie dropped me and my sister back off at our house around five in the morning, she was heading back towards the city and took the only road that exits out of the small island. She stopped at the stop sign and reached for her purse on the floor which was on the passenger’s side.
When she looked up, she said she saw something that made her blood run cold. There was a girl wearing all white with her hair covering her face. It creeped her out and she booked it. What was even creepier is that the same thing happened to my other auntie who came into town around three in the morning, but they saw her when they were going towards my house on the other side of the island.
There was a legend I heard about the island being cursed by spirits. Living on the small island for most of my childhood, there have been a lot of scary experiences happening to everyone living there and a lot of bad luck.
50. The Disappearing Stranger
A family friend of mine and her sister were once walking their dogs through a huge empty field, and they noticed an older-looking man coming towards them on an even older-looking bike, wearing clothes from what seemed to be the 1930s. He looked right at them, smiled, and said "Good morning ladies." They just smiled and nodded as he passed them.
They both turned to look around at him no less than 30 seconds later, to see no sign at all of him. It was very odd.
Pexels
Sources: Reddit,
