People always seem to want to “go where no man has gone before.” But if we actually found ourselves in a situation like that, chances are we’d be scared witless. Just ask anyone who has ever been through an eerie “glitch in the matrix” moment. Those strange shifts in reality aren’t for the faint of heart…and these stories are proof.
1. Face Off
I saw a dude with no face driving a car. No features at all, it was just blank. I did more than just glance at him, too; I was staring. Just smooth skin and a men's haircut. I've never told anyone because it's so ridiculous sounding and I don't think people would believe me. Maybe there’s a rational explanation, but I know what I saw.
2. An Intersection Of Eeriness
I had an Android phone that had a Google "cards" feature option that could notify you like "15 minutes to home" if you were out. I thought this feature was annoying and useless, so I kept the feature off. After several months of no cards notifications, the strangest event happens. One night I'm at home and a card pops up saying "35 minutes to home."
It then pins me at a random intersection on the other side of town, let's call it 1st St. & Story. I think, that's weird, I'm not even way over there, I don't even know where that is, and I’ve never been to that area. I go to my cards setting to turn it back off…but it's already turned off. "That's weird." The next night, exact same thing happens.
"35 minutes to home from 1st St. & Story." What the? Still definitely not over there. I check the cards feature and the notifications are still turned off, so no idea why I'm getting a notification. A few days later, a friend and I are out running errands, and he misses his intended exit so he takes the next one. Once on the streets, I ask "Where are we? I've never been over here."
Suddenly, a car to our right tries to turn left and crashes right into us. It messed up my friend’s wheel, so he pulled forward to the curb to call a tow truck. We had our kids in the car, so I call my sister to pick us all up. When my sister asks me for the location, I was chilled to the bone. I look up at the street signs: 1st St. & Story.
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3. Coincidence Or Conspiracy?
I was 11 or 12, and this was in the early 1970s. Dad came home one Friday and announced we were going to King's Island, which was a fairly new amusement park, the next day. I begged him to let me invite my friend Chris to come along. He said ok, as long as Chris could pay his own way. Great! Off to the phone I went.
Pick it up, no dial tone. "Hello?" "Wait, is that you?" "Chris? I was just calling you, what's up?” I said. He replies, "I was calling to ask if you'd like to come to King's Island tomorrow, but you have to pay your own way." No phone ever rang, but we both called each other at the same time, to ask the exact same thing.
4. A Unseen Presence
It was like 4:00 in the morning. I’m quite the night owl, so I’m headed downstairs to grab something to drink. The kitchen is separated from the living room by a dividing wall, but I realize someone is in there because I can see a person's shadow from around the corner. I think to myself, "Oh my roommate must be up already. Maybe he has something to do."
So as I turn the corner I say, "Hey, good morning." I then immediately get a chill up my spine. No one is in the kitchen besides me. I’m totally, completely alone. In fact, I search the entire first floor of the house frantically, and no one is there at all. So I head back upstairs and give a hard knock on my roommate's door.
No answer, so I slowly open the door. Roommate is passed out asleep, and doesn't seem like he is waking up anytime soon. There is no way he could have made it back up to his room that fast without running, and I would have noticed because the floors are creaky, especially on the staircase. When he woke up in the morning, I told him about what had happened. His eyes got real wide and he turned pale.
He looked me right in the eye and said, "That isn't a funny joke don't mess with me." It turns out, he had been having bad dreams all night about someone being in the house who shouldn't have been, but whenever he confronted the person, he could never see their face; all that was there was a black silhouette. Haven't had that experience since, and we agree not to talk to each other about it.
5. Bon Voyage
My family goes to a garden center near my town every winter for the pretty Christmas lights. Well this one year, the day before we were supposed to go, I had a dream that on our way, the tire of the car came off and we crashed hard. It was such a horrible, graphic dream. My mom’s legs had been crushed, my dad got stuck, etc.
Well, I told my mom in the morning and she joked that she’d check the wheels. She actually did—she said the car had felt weird and the dream unnerved her. Her discovery unnerved her more. Lo and behold, the tire is loose and needs to be taken to a mechanic. Really weird experience, especially as I’ve never had a dream feel so real before.
6. Pennies From Heaven
I was once showering, and after about 10 minutes in the shower I hear something ping and hit the floor. I looked down and saw a penny. I was pretty perplexed as you can imagine, but figured, whatever, I'll keep it as I thought it could be good luck. I kept the strange penny in my wallet for a few years in a zipped side pouch.
I never really told anyone because it was kind of pointless to talk about a random penny I was superstitious about. So a few years later while at a music festival, a girl in our tent woke up to a penny in her clothing. We all laughed it off as having a wild night. However, I remembered the penny I had, and when I looked in the zipped pouch I was shocked to find it was gone.
I told my friends and they didn't believe me.
7. Ring Me Up
When my son was about four years old, one night he started hounding me to ring Nana. I thought it odd to begin with as he had never asked to call her before, so I just put him off for an hour or so until he came back and insisted that I call her. It turned out to be an eerie premonition. It turns out, she was sitting on her lounger experiencing a massive tachycardia event and couldn't breathe.
I called an ambulance and met her at the hospital. That same week, she had a pacemaker and defibrillator unit implanted to fix the problem. To this day, I cannot explain what drove him to get me to call, but I’m very glad he did. He doesn't even remember it.
8. Satan Take The Wheel
I was driving home from work one morning and was waiting to turn right at a stop sign on a somewhat rural road. A number of cars were turning left onto the road I was on. As the last one passed, a blue minivan, I locked eyes with the driver. I nearly jumped out my skin from fear. I am 100% convinced that I either saw a demon or some physical manifestation of pure evil.
The minute I noticed him, the hair on my neck stood up and I felt physically sick. From what I remember, he had no deformities or anything explainable, but something still felt so...off and terrifying about him. It was like looking at something ALMOST human. This was probably two years ago now, and I've never forgotten that otherwise normal ride home.
9. You’ll Pay For This
I stopped at the gas station on my way to work one morning. I take out my debit card and take my car keys with me and leave everything in the car. Pay for my stuff and throw my debit card in the metal cup I have in my car. Literally half a second later, I look down and my card is gone. I pulled apart everything trying to look for it and couldn’t find it.
I go to work and go home…to find it sitting on my desk. But that’s exactly when it got terrifying. I double-checked my bank account to make sure it was the card I used, and it was. To this day, I still have no idea what happened. I had no carbon monoxide leak; we have a monitor in our house and that was the first thing I thought to check. And no concussions in my life ever.
10. Deja Vu
I had a dream of some kid that I had never seen before dancing at a busy party. He was wearing a blue shirt, black pants, had Beiber Hair, and there was a purple strobe light on the wall behind him. I wake up and think to myself "Huh, what an odd dream," and carry on with my life. Several years later, it all came back with a vengeance.
I was at my cousin's wedding reception, chilling and hanging out with a different cousin. The music comes on and we start jumping up and down, and then I realized that I was reliving the dream. Same clothes, same hair, same purple lighting in the background.
11. Sneak Peek
I had to do an exam at school. It started off pretty normal, then pretty soon I realized I’d done it before somewhere and I remembered what I got wrong the first time, so I pretty much aced the text. The thing is, this was a national test, so there is no way I could have done it already. I have no clue where I would have even done it before, and none of my classmates remembered it.
That was the only time I got a high distinction in Science class.
12. Call On Me
One day, I visited my father for the weekend. At night, I put my phone on the charger next to my bed and went to sleep. The morning after, the phone is gone. Like, literally gone. I spent the rest of the weekend searching for it, inside every pot, box, drawer or small locker. I searched through my old man's ties and underwear looking for it.
Every nook and cranny in the apartment and NOTHING. I had to buy a new phone. About 10 months go by, I visited my father a couple more times. Last week, I took my wife with me. It was raining and we got soaked. She went to change in the small guest room and thought there were spare clothes of mine inside a small drawer. In there, she found a small folded pair of socks that were neither my father’s nor mine. Inside the socks? The lost phone.
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13. Romeo Ruined
I was kind of interested in a girl a few years back. I didn't know her too much, but I'm sure she noticed it. I didn't want to rush things, though, so I didn't insist too much. I just saw her a few times at friend's parties and the like. Then suddenly within one week, I crossed her path twice, completely randomly in the city.
The first time it was awkward, the second time she was clearly afraid and apparently thought I was following her. Total coincidence.
14. Signals Over The Air
When I was 15 years old, I was on a small road trip with my family. My younger brother and I were in the backseat, and I start thinking about a song in my head, from the video game Road Rash 3, which at that point I hadn't played in a few years. A few seconds later, my younger brother starts humming the song out loud next to me.
I still have no idea what happened. Did we both think about that song randomly at the same time? Did I think it and project it telepathically? Did I read his mind? Why that song, years after we had last played the game? Still bugs me to this day.
15. Drive Me Crazy
I'm so glad this question was asked because the craziest stuff happened today. After class today, my friend and I were driving back home and a car passed us…only there was no person in the driver’s seat. There was just a dog. A freaking dog and nothing else. My friend and I both saw it and freaked. A lot of weird stuff goes down in my town.
16. A Stitch In Time
I arrived 10 minutes early to school one day, so I put on my headphones and started to listen a 10-minute track I loved. When it was over, I started walking to the entrance…but nobody was there. It was usually full of people waiting for the school to open. At first, I thought I miscalculated the time and I was late, but the truth was much creepier.
When I checked my watch, only two minutes had passed since I arrived, and I sat there for the remaining eight minutes thinking what the heck had happened.
17. Mother Knows Best
When my mother was in high school, my grandma had recurring dreams where mom was marrying a brown-haired professor who wore a fisherman's cap and smoked a pipe. Well, my dad, who my mom met maybe five years or so after grandma had those dreams, is a brown-haired professor who wears a fisherman's cap, and smoked a pipe…until mom made him quit.
18. The Man In The Mirror
I have a not-so-common name, but let’s say it’s John Doe. All my life, through school, college, and the Air Force, I never met another soul with the same name. The one day in the mess hall, someone is calling for “Sergeant John Doe,” and just as I'm about to stand up, I hear “here” from across the room. There's another guy there with my name.
Same rank, same name, same corps, too. Worked on the same base for 10 years and our paths never crossed once.
19. Multi-Tasking
My bedroom at the time led into the living room, which you could see into the kitchen. We also had a bathroom that was directly off our room, in the corner. You couldn't get to it unless you were in our room. I woke up one afternoon. I remember sitting up and checking my phone. I got out of bed, opened the bedroom door, and walked into the living room to turn the thermostat up.
I saw my ex in the kitchen fiddling around with the coffee pot. Then he started walking towards the back of the house, into the other bedroom. I said "Hey! You're up early." He looked at me, and kept on walking. I went back into our room and sat on the bed. I started to get a strange sinking feeling in my stomach. After a few minutes, I called his name.
He opened the bathroom door and said "Yeah?" Apparently, he was in the bathroom the whole time. I was very confused and super freaked out because I could have sworn I saw him in the kitchen. Except there's no way it was him if he was in the bathroom. It shook me up pretty bad.
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20. Seeing Double
I have a doppelgänger out there. This happened to people I know, not to me directly. A woman who works with my mom was out doing her grocery shopping one night and ran into “me” at the supermarket. She told my mom about the encounter the next day and asked why I didn't recognize her, as we saw each other once every few weeks.
My mom confirmed that it couldn't have been me as I was at home. The woman also mentioned feeling oddly nauseated during the interaction. I was about 16 or 17 at the time. Another woman I know said she didn't know I walked through the park near her home after work. Dumbfounded by her observation, I listened as she explained—and my blood ran cold.
She said she’d seen me every so often after work, walking briskly through a large park—which I do know of, but have only driven past—as if I was exercising. She said I walked close by her the previous evening and she was going to speed up to catch up with me and say hello, but as she started to she began to feel ill so she slowed down and then sat on a bench for a few minutes.
By then, she'd lost sight of me. This happened about three years ago and both occurrences were miles apart. Then, it happened again. When I was 20, I was living on campus on the ground floor of a three-story building. There were only 36 people in the building, so I knew everyone by sight at least when this happened. A new guy moved in on the third floor.
We'd exchanged pleasantries and I knew his name and what floor he lived on, but not much else. I was coming out the front door one morning and he was coming down the stairs. He said, "Oh I just saw your sister going up the stairs!" I asked him what he meant and he said, "Your sister, she's here all the time. She wears her hair the same as you."
I used to change my hair a lot. At the time, it was midway down my back and fire truck red. There was nobody on campus with hair like mine. I noped out and went back inside.
21. Doesn’t Make Cents
Early last month, I went online to pay a bill, like I've done for years. I get to the last page before finishing and the webpage freaks out, with a multitude of display issues before finally I receive an error message. After several attempts to pay I give up, assuming the site is having issues. I go back two days later and pay my bill, and it goes through normally, with me getting my usual text and e-mail notifying me I paid.
So I'm very confused a few weeks later when I check my e-mail and find a notice from the company whose bill I paid, with a semi-threatening e-mail saying the bill is due that day and do I need to set up a payment plan? I've been dealing with the company for almost a decade and have never been late in paying in that entire time.
I check my credit card account, and there's no record of me paying, nor of the text or e-mail I received. I pay the bill and chalk it up to a senior moment on my part. Last week, I get my one credit card bill. It says I never paid my last bill, so now I've got that bill to pay, plus the interest. I find my previous bill, open but with the invoice in place, in my living room. Thing is, this is actually terrifying. Here’s why.
I'm physically disabled and can't drive, and I always pay that credit card bill in person, after they messed up my payment years ago. So a family member always takes me to my credit union to pay that bill, and like me, he remembers us going down to pay the bill they say I never paid. He and I even remember a conversation we had on the way down to the credit union, and going grocery shopping afterward.
But yet the bill is unpaid and the bill is in my possession still.
22. An Honest Mistake
I was sitting in a seminar when I was in university, waiting for my girlfriend to arrive. She was late, and when she came into the room she looked around and took a seat in the same row of seats I was sitting in. I was a little confused since I kept the seat next to me clear for her. We’d made a plan to meet there and go to lunch afterward.
So I was looking along the row of seats to catch her eye and make her recognize me, since I thought she just didn't see me there and took a random seat. When our eyes finally met, it got weirder. She looked at me in a very confused way, then leaned back to let me see who was sitting next to her. The guy looked just like me.
Face, body, haircut, clothing. She thought he was me, took the seat next to him but realized that it wasn't me, since he didn't seem to recognize her when she said hello. We never saw him before and never saw him again after he left the room that day.
23. Disappearing Act
When I was doing my internship, there was a guy across the way from me as we were traveling on the public transport line. I noticed him because he was wearing an intricate brown suit and checking a pocket watch for the time often. When we both got off at the same stop by the school, he had a quick pace and was rushing ahead of me.
I thought he was crazy when he walked into traffic. He made it past the work van coming at him from the right, and I was terrified for him because a car was coming fast from the left. However, when the work van stopped and blocked my sight, so I couldn’t see what became of him...Then he was gone. What? The? Heck? I still wonder where he went six years later.
24. Made For Each Other
I dated this girl a few years back and our first date was…weird. She was a friend of my brother and we had known each other a while before going out. Anyway, we’re on the date and she tells me that she had a weird dream about me. But the creepy part was yet to come. See, I had also had a weird dream about her that evening.
She goes first: "I was driving my teacher's car on my way to see you. We were on the phone trying to find each other. You kept saying I just drove past your apartment, but I was in the middle of nowhere and got really confused." Without really thinking about it, I reply: "I was on the phone with you as you constantly drove past my apartment. But it wasn't your normal car and you were really confused."
She's just staring at me like I was pulling her leg. Then it dawned on me, “Oh my God, we had the same dream!" We shared four-five more dreams throughout the relationship at totally random times.
25. Altered State
I was staying in the hospital after a concussion when I was 15 years old from landing on concrete. I had been out for a few days, only waking for short periods, and I wasn’t able to keep food or drink down. They gave me multiple CAT scans as I wasn't “coming to” as expected and they were worried that I was badly brain-damaged. A lot of this people had to tell me later.
My hospital bed had the side rails up, and I was somehow strapped-in as my equilibrium was messed up and I couldn't get out of it without nurse assistance. Except that’s not what happened at all. This is hard to write, it's just so hard to explain the feeling of this moment, but I did get up. I got up, stepped over my mom who was sleeping on a mat on the floor, and walked to the window.
I saw the amazing view of the hills cast in early dawn light. I looked at the cars way down in the parking lot, the trees behind the wall, the houses and roads and nature leading to the hillside. I felt, I guess, reset. No pain, no memory, no idea why I was there or where there was. I knew it was me, the way you do, but all the "stuff" that would've normally been running through my head was absent.
I felt completely lucid, still, fresh, new, and very much at peace. I’ve never felt that way before or since. Except I didn't get up, I couldn't have, it wasn't possible. Yet I know to my core, in the way you feel yet can't describe in words, that I saw what I did, and I know that I was there, awake, looking out that window at one of the clearest visions my eyes have ever witnessed, with this incredible feeling of redemption.
I don't know, but it felt incredible and so true to me soul. I don't know, I remember it like a one-man alien abduction. The next few weeks I needed help walking, eating, etc. and it was months before I was “okay” again. I still have minor equilibrium issues 20 years later. I was at the hospital with a friend recently and saw the view from the same floor, but the wrong side. Chills, man.
I feel like maybe that was the first time I became aware of my “soul,” but everyone experiences that, and most don't need concussions to get there.
26. In The Cards
I'm a pretty big gym enthusiast. When I enter my condo unit, directly in front of me is a small shelf. It's there that I keep my gym gear: knee wraps, weighted belt, lifting belt, bands, boxing gloves, shoes, etc. On top of the shelf, I always leave my gym card. The shelf is black, the card is black and red, and the red stands out.
About six months ago, I couldn't find my gym card. I searched throughout my unit. Usually, I just leave it on my shelf as described, but sometimes it may be in my wallet or on my kitchen table. But after searching thoroughly, I couldn't find it. Over the next four weeks, I probably searched for it another half dozen times.
My girlfriend at the time helped me search a few times as well and we couldn't find it anywhere. I figured I'd lost it. One day, I do one last major search and when I can't find it, I figure it's definitely lost. I go to the gym front desk and tell them I lost my card—but I'd forgotten to bring my wallet so I told them I'd pick it up and pay for a new card the next time I came in.
I do my workout and head back home. I open the door and sitting directly in front of me, on the black shelf, in the same spot I always left it, was my gym card. I even called my girlfriend and asked her if she'd found it or seen it, and she reminded me we'd both searched for it and couldn't find it. Was so bizarre. But I've had multiple weird things happen in this condo.
27. He’s Got Your Number
My wife and I were driving out of Texas to come back home to Ohio. We stop at a gas station in the middle of nowhere. Kind of a run-down little place, and my wife goes in while I’m filling up. I finish and pay at the pump and decide to head in and use the restroom real quick. I walk out, and my wife is at the checkout paying with the cashier.
I walk up, and the cashier just starts looking at me. He then calls me out by my full name. “John?” “Yeah...?” “Your name is John Lastname right?” “Yeah...do we know each other?” “Nope!” “Then how do you know my name?” “Ha, I dunno!” My wife and I look at each other and we both got the heck out of there. I don’t have a common name, I had never been to that gas station let alone that town ever.
Every time my wife and I think about it, we can’t explain it.
28. Missing Something?
I was playing with my friend when I was young by the pond. We spotted some boys, and being the bad girl that I am, I pulled a blueberry flavored lip gloss that I got free in a magazine out of my pocket for us both to use to make the boys like us. I thought that's how life worked. We started hopping along the stepping-stones on the pond, and the lip gloss falls out of my pocket into the pond.
Both my friend and myself saw this happen. I was angry because it was the only make-up my mom allowed me to have. Cut to about five hours later, I get home and go up to my room. The blueberry lip gloss was on my pillow.
29. Well-Read
One time when I was maybe seven or eight, my mom was reading The Hobbit to me, and we got to a spot I had heard somewhere before. I told her I think she read this part already. She insisted we had never read it and went back to reading it to me, so I started saying the lines with her, word perfect. She stopped and looked at me while I continued quoting it flawlessly.
30. A Message From The Universe
When I was 23, I went abroad to Barcelona for a workshop. The workshop was based in an obscure part of the city and I always thought I’d never be able to find that area again. Fast forward about 15 years, I score a job in Barcelona, get off the plane, and go to the hotel near my new office…and it’s across from said workshop.
I worked there for three years, and when that job ends, I move countries again for about five years. About a month ago, I was invited to interview for a job, and guess where the offices are? Yup, around the corner from the workshop that I thought I’d never find again. It’s got me wondering if it’s coincidence or if I should just move to that area until I work out why the universe keeps sending me there.
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31. Missing Time
After a bath, I went to put on clothes, blacked out, and woke up on the floor, sitting upright against the sink and dressed. I have no idea what happened, didn't feel sore anywhere (like if I had fallen over), and it was as if I sat on the floor and dressed myself while I was unconscious. It felt like 20 minutes had passed, even though the bathroom still had steam in it.
32. As Seen On TV
When I lived with my dad, long before he passed, I was dozing off to sleep in my room while my TV was on low volume. At some point, my TV got super loud randomly, then low and then loud again. Thinking I was laying on the controller, I started searching for it. I spotted it on the floor and I adjusted the volume, then rotated the batteries in case of whatever and began to rest again.
A few moments later, it happened again and I sat up irritated. I'm thinking the batteries are low, so I go to turn off the TV—when my door suddenly swings open and my closet door creaks open. I just sat in bed frozen for a moment. I called for my dad and sister, thinking they might've opened my door for whatever reason.
There was no response, so I got up and hauled down the hall to my sister’s room. I woke her up and she was like, "whatever you big baby." Goes to my room, checks it out, and comes back. Her reply somehow made it even creepier. She tells me I need to stay in her room for the night. Never explained why, and refuses to tell me what she saw or heard.
33. School Boy Terror
I was around seven years old, and at the end of school we all had to line up in our year groups in the yard and we would be led by our teacher to the front of school and either onto the bus or picked up. The pathway from the back to the front of school was narrow, so we were all in single file. I was walking along, chatting and laughing with my friends in front and behind of me.
Next thing I know...I’m stood on the path completely alone. The teacher comes running back from around the front of the school and says, “Craig! Hurry, you’ll miss the bus!” I’d literally missed or skipped a few minutes of time.
34. Wibbly Wobbly Timey-Wimey
It was my senior year of high school, on my 30-minute lunch. My buddy and I drove all the way from my school to McDonald’s, which is normally about a 10-minute drive one way, so 20 minutes round trip. However, we stop by my house, which is in between the school and McDonald’s. I grab a shirt, change, leave, and we drive down the street.
While driving again, we get into an altercation with a guy who we flipped off for tailgating. His wife in the passenger seat starts yelling at him, we part ways. We finally get to McDonald’s and order food, and as we eat in the parking lot, we decide we are late regardless. We had no access to the time in my car and our phones were in our lockers at the school, but it’s been way over 30 minutes now.
Turns out this all occurred in 18 minutes on the dot. It’s freaking impossible, but it happened. My buddy and I still talk about it to this day, saying we went through a wormhole or something like that. Or my Nissan, rest in peace, could somehow time travel or slow down time.
35. It’s Not In Your Head
My brother and I lived in a small apartment together with his girlfriend when we were in our late teens. One night, I woke up in the middle of the night crying about my brother’s girlfriend having a bandage around her head in the hospital, with my mother in the background screaming “She’s too young.” She then passed on in my dream.
I kept telling her she needed to get her head checked out and that I think something is wrong with her head, but she always reassured me she was fine. Nothing could be further from the truth. Fast forward four years. My brother walked up to me at work, bawling his eyes out. He’d been up all night crying.
Apparently, his girlfriend’s mother hit her with her door of her car and she hit her head on the concrete. She passed from a brain hemorrhage. I loved that woman, she was so innocent and beautiful.
36. Clowning Around
I have one that I wish I had an answer for because I’d really just like to know what was going on. It was Christmas night and I was hanging out with a friend after we were done with our family get-togethers. We were just driving around listening to music, and I was looking out the window, people-watching. We drove up next to a four-door sedan and there was a family inside; a man, a woman, and two small children.
But they were all dressed as clowns. Like big, poufy red wigs, white faces, red noses, the works. The weirdness of seeing a car full of clowns and also seeing them on Christmas really freaked me out and I started screaming at my friend to look over. He’s afraid of clowns, so needless to say, he lost his mind, and as we were sitting there freaking out they all looked over into our car.
That caused him to really freak and he sped off. Why the heck were those people dressed as clowns!? Is there a weird association between clowns and Christmas I don’t know about!?
37. Total Recall
I occasionally have dreams where a few months or weeks down the line, I experience that moment. But I always forget what the dream was about right up until it happens. My first experience was in sixth grade, when I had a dream where I was having a conversation with my teacher. At the time I was sat in the back of the class, and that was about when I had the dream.
Fast forward two and a half weeks, and I've been moved to the front of the class and it happens. There she is, taking to me about some work I need to do because I was absent for a few days, and then I have this déjà vu moment and as she's speaking. I'm staring blankly at her remembering this conversation. I told her and her reaction was the exact same as in my dream, facial expressions and all.
To this day I still occasionally have these dreams and moments, and to this day there's no way in heck I can explain them.
38. Specters At Dawn
This happened to me several years ago, while I was living in California and working at a great job in a downtown coffeehouse. I loved everything about that job: I worked with fantastic people, and our shop was located in the city's historic district in a very old, very beautiful building that had once been a hotel in the 1800s, but had since been converted into apartments, lofts, and of course, the big coffeehouse on the main floor.
Being an early bird and living only a couple of blocks away from the coffeehouse, I was always scheduled to work the opening shift, which started at 4:15 AM. It was the most unpopular shift, but it happened to be my absolute favorite one because I loved walking to work in the quiet of the early mornings as the rest of the city was sound asleep.
Normally, downtown was quite loud and busy, full of people and constant activity, but in the early hours of the morning, it was still and silent and I felt as if I was the only person in existence, walking through a ghost town. Every day I arrived about 10 or 15 minutes early for my shift and would wait for my manager on the patio outside of the shop.
It was always just the two of us working that early shift, and my manager was often running a little bit behind and never arrived before I did, but I didn't mind at all. I liked to spend some time by myself on the patio outside of the darkened shop gathering my thoughts while I waited for him to walk up with his keys to unlock the doors. But one day, everything changed.
One morning, as I was walking to work and approaching our building, I noticed that the coffeehouse was brightly lit up, as all the lights were already turned on and shining through the store's giant glass windows. I was about 10 minutes early that morning, so I was very surprised to see that my manager had arrived before me and had already started opening up the shop.
I walked up to the glass door and pulled on the handle to let myself in, only to find that it was locked shut. That wasn't really unusual, as we often kept the doors of the employee entrance and main entrance locked while we got everything ready for the day and went through our morning procedures until 5 a.m., which was our official opening time.
What was unusual, though, was the sound of music I could clearly hear drifting through the speakers inside the store. This was during the holiday season, so we were playing Christmas music throughout the day, but we never turned it on until around 9:00 or so in the morning, out of respect for the all tenants living in the apartments above us.
But on this particular morning, I could hear the Christmas music already playing its familiar loop at a rather high volume inside the store. I thought it was odd, but decided that maybe my manager was just feeling extra festive that day and wanted to listen to some tunes while we worked. I knocked on the employee entrance door and waited for my manager to come and let me in. I looked through the glass and watched for him.
He didn't come, so I knocked again and waited some more. Now I start getting a really bad feeling. He still didn't appear, so I knocked again. And again. I then walked to the main entrance doors and tried knocking on those, with no luck. I checked my watch and saw that I had five minutes until I needed to clock in. I knocked again, much louder this time, and looked inside through the glass door for any signs of my manager.
And that's when I heard the muffled sound of voices coming from the back of the store, where the kitchen of our coffee shop was located. At that quiet, early hour in the morning, every sound seems to be amplified, and what I could distinctly hear was two male voices talking and laughing together. That was very unusual, as I had mentioned before that it was normally just me and my manager who opened up the shop, but I figured someone had probably just needed to pick up an extra shift.
I knocked yet again and continued to listen to the sounds coming from the coffee shop. The men kept talking and laughing (loudly). They seemed to be having a really great time. In addition to the music and the talking and the laughter, I began to hear the sound of clanging dishes and also the sprayer of the three-compartment steel kitchen sink being turned on and off, which was very, very unusual as there would be no dishes to wash before the store had even opened. But something else bothered me more.
I was also confused as to why my manager—and whoever was with him—were in the kitchen in the back of the store, because so much of our opening procedures—setting up the pastry case, brewing the coffee, preparing everything for the espresso machine—were done at the front of the store, where I was waiting to be let inside.
At this point, I was getting a bit irritated as I was supposed to start work in just a few minutes and I needed to punch in on our time clock. I hated clocking in late for work. I dug out my phone and dialed my manager's cell number. He didn't pick up. So, I dialed the number to our coffee shop instead, and the two phones inside the shop—one in the back office and one up front by the register—started ringing.
Once. Twice. Three rings and no answer. Now four rings. And five. I hung up and immediately dialed again, annoyed that they were making such a racket in there with the music and all the talking and the laughter that they probably couldn't even hear the phone at all. Just as before, nobody answered. I hung up and re-dialed the store for the third time.
The phone rang and rang and went unanswered, and so I banged on the door yet again, to no avail. I looked at my watch. I was officially late for work. As I was standing in front of the locked door with my phone against my ear, becoming more and more irritated, I noticed a pair of headlights reflecting in the glass, rolling up behind me. I turned around and saw something I did not expect at all.
It was my manager. "I'm so sorry I'm late," he said as he climbed out of the driver's seat and shut his car door and hustled up to the shop's entrance. "I tried to get here as fast as I could," he said, as he moved toward me and fumbled with his keys trying to find the one to the shop door. "You're mad," he said, "I can tell. I'm really sorry."
Completely confused, I put my phone away and turned to head into the store with him. And that's when I lost my breath for a minute. The coffee shop was totally dark. None of the lights were on. Not one single light. And it was completely quiet. The Christmas music had stopped and so had the voices and laughter—all of the loud noise had disappeared.
Every sound I had been listening to just seconds before had suddenly vanished. "I promise I'll be here on time tomorrow," my manager said as he fit his key into the lock. "I'll even be early! You'll be shocked!" Little did he know that I could not possibly be more shocked to see him than I was at that very moment, as he opened the door to the silent, completely empty coffeehouse.
39. An Act Of God
I used to collect cards as a kid—baseball cards, hockey cards, comic book cards, etc. I was collecting cards from the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie at the time and there was only one card missing in my set. I couldn’t get my hands on it no matter how many packs I bought, and I was getting more than a little obsessed.
My family was on a road trip and I was in the back seat with the window open. A truck passed us on the highway and there was a huge gust of wind. My one missing Ninja Turtles card blew into the open window and landed on my lap.
40. Follow The White Rabbit
When I was first teaching myself to speak Croatian, I would come home every day from work with a few new words in my vocabulary and the day I learned the word for "rabbit," ("zec") I came home to my dog bouncing through a few feet of snow like a rabbit, so I nicknamed her "bielo zec," or "white rabbit" in Croatian. I called her that literally a half dozen times or so that day when there was no one around.
Later that day, my 10-year-old sister with Down syndrome came home from school. She doesn't speak English (or any other language) very well and she has trouble pronouncing more than a word or two at a time. But when she came home, she went right up stairs to my room, pointed at my dog, and to my absolute astonishment, she VERY CLEARLY said "white rabbit."
I had never called the dog that in English, and that was the first day I ever heard the Croatian word for rabbit, so there is nowhere for my little sister to have heard this before. Needless to say, the experience gave me goose bumps. My sister has continued to surprise the family and keep us guessing about the nature of our reality.
41. Higher, Further, Faster, More
In middle school, some friends and I were skating to the mall. We were in the street in a residential area when a car backed out of a driveway right in front me, on the right hand side of the street. There were cars parked at the curb so I couldn't see it coming until the back fender was already in front of me. Stupidly, I veered to my right, hit the curb and left my board, airborne and on a pretty flat trajectory.
I closed my eyes and braced for impact, and landed on my back in the grassy front yard of the guy who backed out in front of me. It knocked the wind out of me, but it wasn't too bad. When I sat up and looked around, I nearly had a heart attack. I was on the other side of a fence, wrought iron and brick with hedges, and had to be 10 feet from where I hit the curb.
There is no way I should've cleared both his car, the fence, the hedges and everything.
42. Night Moves
I was in my bedroom. It was winter, and night time, so the windows were shut, all doors were shut, no fans on, and no breeze basically. I think this is a thing other girls do, or maybe I just got it from my mother, but my bra was hanging vertically from the closet doorknob, like one of the straps was on the doorknob and the bra just hung down vertically.
It had been there like that all night. Out of nowhere, it swung like a pendulum, from completely motionless, to almost a 45-degree angle to the left, then to the right, back to the left, and did this a few times before coming back to a complete stop. It’s really weird, and doesn’t make any sense. There was nothing happening that could have caused that motion.
It also swung in such a stiff way. It didn’t twist or turn, just like a pendulum, back and forth a few times, then stopped. No idea what it was.
43. Recurring Dream
I had a dream when I was about seven where I got a T-shirt and hated it. In my dream, I decided to throw it away in a corner of my room in a pile of other stuff. About four years later, I got another shirt in real life exactly like the one I threw away in my dream. A couple of nights after I got the new shirt, I had a dream where I went to the corner of the room where I threw the shirt away and picked it back up, and starting wearing it.
Not unexplainable, but it was bizarre to know that I remembered such a random dream four years later.
44. Let’s Play A Game
When I was young, probably around ten years old, we kept all of our family board games in my bedroom closet. They were on a shelf that was much taller than me and I would have to reach to get them on my tippy toes. Over time, they started to dust up because I was the youngest and my older siblings were always out and about and didn’t care for our games anymore.
They were there for so long that I knew where each game was because I saw them every time I needed to grab a shirt. One night I’m sleeping in my bed, I’m still preteen at this point, but I’m sleeping and wake up to a super loud crashing noise in my closet, as if something fell or broke in there. Now I’m young, it’s dark, and I can’t really see anything so I’m absolutely terrified right now.
My door is closed and everyone is asleep, so there’s no possible way someone is in my closet right now for any reason. I was so scared that I was paralyzed, can’t move and I start to sweat. I was NOT about to go into the dark and open the door, and I wasn’t going to get up and turn on the light. I was just paralyzed. Eventually, I sit long enough in fear that I do fall asleep.
The next day, I wake up and look in my closet. I actually see a game on the ground, open with pieces lying everywhere as if it did fall off the shelf. But there was a reason it made me even more terrified. The game was one of the ones stacked under three or four others, and those were still up there, stacked just without the one on the bottom.
Those games had ALL been sitting there for months and months now, so there’s no way it was in a position to fall or anything like that, and there’s no way in the middle of the night an older sibling was coming into my room, into my closet, and throwing a game on the ground, then staying in there afterward long enough for me to fall asleep again before leaving.
So strange. I still remember the fear and confusion of that night as a kid, and have no idea how that happens. Or why. Why did that happen?
45. Banking On It
I was at a gas station getting a coffee. I went to pay for my coffee and I tap my card, and the lady at the till tells me it was declined. I try inserting it with my pin because maybe my tap wasn't working. The lady said it was declined again. There was no one else in the gas station at that time, so I’m like "Hold up. Let me check my online banking."
I had just gotten paid and knew I had money. I go to my online banking…and it says that I paid. I show her the transaction and she starts insisting that it didn't go through on her end. Like okay lady, I am not paying for the same coffee twice. Eventually, she lets me go and says she will check her settlement later. Next day, I go in to grab another coffee and the lady tells me that I stole the coffee the other night but doesn't make me pay for it.
I am angry because I just got a lecture when I know the money for the coffee came out of my account. I check my online banking later and there was no transaction for the coffee....
46. Secrets Locked Away
My grandparents own a small cabin that my family uses from time to time. In the basement is a small laundry room, with a deadbolt that locks on the inside and with only one entrance. No windows. One day, my brother and I were watching TV and my mom comes and gets us. She tells us to go outside and wait for her there.
She comes out and calls my dad who was running errands, and then the authorities. Apparently, the laundry room downstairs is locked from the inside. We were not staying with anyone else. Officers come and get the door open. They revealed a chilling truth: No one was in there. It's a deadbolt so you literally cannot lock it from the outside. That was probably 15 years ago, and I still think about it all the time.
47. Playing Prophet
I remember begging my mom not to drive to the beach this one day, because I’d had a really awful and eerie dream that she’d get into an accident. Instead of asking me how I knew that’s where she was going, she told me to enjoy my day at school. I was proven right in the worst way possible. When my grandmother walked into my classroom to collect me, I burst into tears instantly.
All that dread I’d carried all day just came out. I ran over and asked if mom and my sisters were okay. Her and my teacher exchanged weird looks and I was taken home. Thankfully, my family somehow made it out unscathed despite having a telephone pole land on the center of the car. Still, I really wish my mom had listened to me.
48. Playing Hooky
In high school, I remember going to English and the teacher did roll call. She called my name and I raised my hand and said, "I'm here," then she stopped. The eeriest thing happened next. The teacher looked around and said, "So he's not here then?" My friend and I laughed because I was obviously here. I thought she might be messing with me.
That night, though, my mom got a call telling her I wasn't at classes today. I was actually marked absent. I go back to school the next day and tell my friend, "Mrs. English Teacher actually counted me absent" and he just said, "Why wouldn't she?" Though to myself "Ha ha, you're not funny" but I just let it slide because I thought again I was being messed with.
Then one of my other friends sits down and asks, "You feeling better today? Or were you just playing hooky?" I was so confused. Then I go to my first hour and that teacher hands me the work I supposedly missed from that day. I looked in my bag and had the same stuff, the guide and assignments, already there. To. This. Day. I don't know if I missed that day of school or not
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49. Strange Happenings
You know the creepy child in a horror movie, the one who doesn't smile and just stares at you? I saw one at an IKEA one time. It just stared at me as if it can penetrate my soul with its eyes. I thought that was the end of it, but I was so, so wrong. I went to a wedding the following week, and there's that kid again, looking creepy as ever because now he's wearing a bow tie.
I asked its parent if they were at IKEA or if by any chance this kid could have been at IKEA last week. They said no. This kid's parents were actually nice. At the reception, they said they have a single friend they wanted me to meet. It turned out it was my first girlfriend's sister.
50. The Uninvited
Once, I walked into my living room from the hallway and saw my mom in the kitchen pouring a bowl of something. She was fully clothed, which is important to the story. I said. “Hey what are you doing?” Her response unnerved me. She ignored me, put something in the fridge, and walked into her room without a word.
I was rattled, honestly, because something felt off. But I convinced myself she didn’t hear me and walked into my room. Not even two minutes, later she walks into my room, soaking wet, in a towel, and tells me she had fallen asleep in the bathtub and had just woken up. Weirdest moment ever. I get chills just thinking about it now.
Sources: Reddit,
