There are some things in life we just can’t explain. The moving shadow out of the corner of our eye, the strange encounter on a darkened highway, the eerie dream that foretold something in our future. Whether they're paranormal or just plain creepy, some experiences become unforgettable mysteries. Here, Redditors reveal their most chilling stories.
1. The Thing That Went Bump in the Night
One day, I came home from a date at about 11 pm. The house was dark, but I didn’t switch on the lights because I knew my way around. I went straight to the bathroom, and on my way back down the passage I bumped into my dog, who is about as big as my mid thigh. I told my boy I love him and that he should be sleeping, but good boy for checking on his mom.
I opened my bedroom door, which was three-quarters of the way closed, and switched on the light at the same time as I opened it. What I saw made my blood run cold. There’s my dog on my bed, lifting his head when the light came on, to look at me. I would've heard him or felt him move past me if he'd gone by me and entered the room before. But no. I was totally alone...so what bumped into me?
2. If These Walls Could Talk
When my dad was younger, he used to see a woman in a white nightdress holding a candelabra walking along the hallway at his old house. No one ever believed him, but he thought it was his grandmother. Fast forward 20+ years, and he's talking to someone he works with. This girl says she used to see a woman in a white nightdress holding a candelabra in her old house. My dad asks where she used to live…and it was his old house.
3. A Small, Dark Feeling
I had a close friend and roommate who came down to breakfast one morning very disturbed about a dream in which his parents were disappearing and saying goodbye to him. He was very upset by the dream, which was not in his nature. I had never seen him bothered by anything before. He was always a very happy and charismatic guy.
Later, we got a phone call with the awful news that his parents, who lived on the other side of the world, had in fact both passed that night in a car accident.
4. Get out, Right Now
My family moved into a new house when I was 11 years old. The previous owners were a family, and the mom passed of cancer. They sold the house shortly after she passed. Growing up, my sister and I always had an uneasy feeling about that house. Strange things would happen, but everything had a plausible explanation...except for one time when I was 16.
In the middle of the night, I was having trouble sleeping. While I was lying there in my bed, the door to my room opened on its own. I could hear footsteps come into my room. I couldn't see anyone, but I felt like someone else was in my room. Ever have someone come up behind you while you're on the computer? It was like that.
I could hear the footsteps get closer to my bed. Then, right next to me appeared compression on my bed, like an invisible person was sitting there. I could even feel the weight shift. I reached out to touch the compression, and all of a sudden a bunch of blue static electricity shot out from the spot I touched. I screamed and ran out of my room, waking up the entire house.
I couldn't explain what I saw that night. I was almost questioning my own sanity, and that's why I don't tell this story often. For the record, I was 100% sober at the time. Also, because I could move, I don't think it was sleep paralysis. The strange thing is that years later, my sister ran into the daughter of the previous family. She told my sister that her mom had actually passed in the house, not at the hospital.
5. The Basement Dweller
I heard what I thought was my brother singing. We had a piano in our basement as teenagers, and early in the morning or late at night, he spent quite a bit of time on it playing music. I should note, we lived in an old house, and sound traveled relatively well, so even when he was being “quiet,” you could hear him all the way up on the top floor.
One morning, around 8 AM, I woke up and went about getting ready for the day. My brother was singing in the basement, being loud and obnoxious. His voice is very distinct. I remember walking out of the bathroom, leaning over the top of the stairwell, and shouting down for him to shut up. He kept going, so I shouted louder.
But then I remembered my brother wasn't home that day. He'd left earlier that morning with my parents. The singing stopped. I went downstairs to find the basement dark. I was alone in the house.
Pikrepo
6. The Voice Inside Your Head
I heard this story about a family friend. This woman, we’ll call her Ann, was reportedly sitting at home, reading, when she heard a voice in her head. The voice told her: “Please don't be afraid. I know it must be shocking for you to hear me speaking to you like this, but this is the easiest way I could think of. My friend and I used to work at the Children's Hospital, Great Ormond Street, and we would like to help you. We need you to go there.”
Ann’s response to this voice was about what you would expect. Frightened at what was happening, she tried to ignore the message, but the voice reassured her by providing her with additional information about the hospital she would need to attend. Convinced by this point that she had gone mad, she consulted her family doctor who referred her to a psychiatrist.
After an examination, which showed no medical explanation for what Ann had heard, he diagnosed her with a functional hallucinatory psychosis. Along with supportive counselling, she was also treated with medicine and the voices disappeared after a couple of weeks. But the voices returned several weeks later, even though she was still taking the medication.
This time, the voices were even more specific in directing Ann to the diagnostic imaging wing of a nearby hospital. The voices then informed her that she had a tumor in her brain and that she needed a scan for proper diagnosis. They even told her the approximate location of the tumor, in her brain stem. Though the doctor had found no evidence supporting the presence of a tumor, Ann was distressed enough by this time that he ordered the scan done.
This actually took some negotiating, since the test is an expensive procedure and the lack of any apparent medical justification, aside from a hallucination, made the request hard to fathom. After considerable debate, the scanning was done. The results made their jaws drop. Sure enough, the scan showed evidence of tumor in her brain stem.
The neurosurgeon gave Ann and her husband the option of immediate surgery as opposed to waiting for actual symptoms to appear. After weighing the pros and cons, Ann decided on immediate surgery (the voices were in full agreement). The operation was carried out with no surgical complications. According to Ann, she heard from the voices one last time after regaining consciousness. They said, “We are pleased to have helped you. Goodbye.”
Needpix
7. Monsters Under the Bed
My old house was definitely haunted. My normally quiet dog would growl in empty dark rooms, and I'd see shadows quickly move across the hallway. The worst moment, though, was when I was about 9. I couldn’t fall asleep. I was randomly looking around my room when I saw some sort of creature crouched in the corner, with a dark body but a bright red face.
Now, being a wimpy little kid, I immediately wrapped myself up in my bed covers and forced myself to sleep. I never saw the thing again, but it still creeps me out to this day.
Unsplash
8. A Ghostly Imprint
When I was four years old, my grandfather took his own life. Not long after when I would come home on the bus, I would see him standing by the pond by my house just watching me. So I would go home and tell my mom what I saw. What I learned much, much later is that he had shot himself next to that very pond. I know it was him.
9. A Message From Beyond the Grave
My mom had cancer when I got married. After the wedding, she was pretty persistent that my wife and I send thank you notes to everybody in attendance. We finally got them out and she was very thankful. Unfortunately, she passed due to surgical complications six months later. After the funeral, my dad and I were sending thank you notes to everybody who brought flowers.
When I signed the last one, sealed it, and tossed it on the table, I said to my dad, "It's done. That was the last one." Just then, the phone in the kitchen made a ding noise, like it was about to start ringing. I said to my dad that the phone was about to ring, but then nothing happened. He picked it up after some back and forth, and when he did the line was dead. I'm convinced that it was my mom thanking us for sending those thank you notes out.
10. Luck of the Draw
I was playing poker at the local casino and got into a hand with this guy who was wearing some sort of space-themed hoodie. The second the first three cards hit the board, I had the strongest deja vu I have ever experienced. I had a dream about that exact moment like a year ago, and I knew the exact next two cards that were going to come out.
They came out just as I had expected to the point of me calling them, and I won a huge hand.
11. The Haunting of Lover’s Lane
When I was 19 or so, I was dating this guy. Since we both lived with our parents, we would drive out to abandoned lots to make out. One time, we pulled into an old abandoned shopping plaza. A couple minutes in, I get a very uneasy feeling. I kept thinking about a man whose hair was on fire. I don't know how I knew this, but I just sensed that he wanted us to leave.
My boyfriend noticed I looked scared. Then he says, without any prompting from me, "I have this weird feeling like someone is watching us and... And...He's on fire." We booked it out of there so fast. Drove by again a few days later during the day...There were distinct burn marks on the building that we hadn't even noticed before.
12. No Laughing Matter
My dad bought this old run-down house as a fixer-upper. I was about 8 or 9 at the time, so I couldn’t do too much to help him, but I remember helping him clean out the attic. It was full of tons of old newspapers and toys; the people must have been hoarders. Just tons of toy dolls and cars and all that. That creeped me out on its own, but I only found out the real story much later.
This is the really scary part, the part my dad waited until we were grown up to tell us. One person came by to look at the house when it was near finished and for sale. She said she really wanted it because it was full of spirits. My dad thought she was wacky but whatever, if that's what she liked, good for her I guess.
Some time later, my dad and mom are laying in bed at the house when they hear a woman laughing somewhere in the corridors. They both rolled over and just looked into each other’s eyes as they listened. They stayed that way until it stopped, then never talked about it for a long time. They both get chills when they tell that story now.
13. A Visit From the Other Side
At my dad's funeral, my sister, my aunt, and I all sat around the table discussing various things. One of the things we talked about was my cousin's funeral. She passed about 12 years earlier (she got hit by a drunk driver while on vacation). She was just 10-11 years old, and going into 5th grade. My sister was 8 and I was 5 at the time.
My sister told the story about how she and a friend had gone to play at the playground where my cousin had gone to school. While they were playing, they saw a little girl hanging out around them but never coming up to them and never saying anything. Both my sister and her friend were freaked out. The girl was wearing jean short overalls, a white flowery tee, and had long brown hair braided into two pig tails.
I chimed in and said that that girl must be really poor and not able to buy new clothes, because when I would play there, that little girl was still there, and she would follow me around the playground. My friends all saw her too, and they thought it was weird. For some reason, though, she didn't weird me out. I just thought she was shy and wanted friends.
She was always wearing the exact same outfit my sister described and had long brown hair braided into pigtails. This is when my aunt burst into tears. It turns out that my cousin was buried in a brand new pair of blue jean short overalls, a white tee with flowers on it, and with her long brown hair braided into two pigtails. My sister and I now have no doubt that the girl with both saw on the playground was our cousin.
Pxfuel
14. Small Difference, Big Impact
I had a crack in my right tooth a year ago. Now that crack is in my left tooth. I swear to God, it really was in my right, and something about it freaks me out to this day. Sometimes, it’s those tiny things that stay with you the most.
15. The Midnight Visitor
This happened about two months ago. I was alone in the house, as my parents were away working for the weekend. They were due back that evening, but then my mom texted me to say that they'd broken down and were waiting for a tow truck to pick them up. I asked them if there was anything I could do, but they told me to go to sleep as they'd probably be back late.
Fast forward to 3 am, I woke up to use the toilet. When I left the bathroom, I glanced over to my parents' bedroom. The door was shut and I could see a light on inside. It had been open and dark when I went to bed, so I thought "Oh, they must be home." I stumbled toward the door and remember stopping myself, thinking "No, I won't go in, I'll just speak to them in the morning."
So I turn back toward my room and go back to sleep. I awoke to terror. The sound of the front door opening downstairs. I glanced at the clock. It was 45 minutes after I'd last woken up. I thought it was a bit strange, and got a tense feeling in my stomach. I walked out of my bedroom and glanced over to my parents’ room, only to see the door open and the light off.
The bed was also made, so no one had been in it. I felt sick. I went downstairs and nervously asked my mom "Have you just got home?" She was like "Yeah, why?" I just sat staring into space wondering what the heck happened. I'm still wondering now.
Unsplash
16. Stranger Than Fiction
I was catching a train one day, and I found a DVD on a seat. I checked to see if anyone owned it, but the train car was empty so I stuffed it in my bag. That night, I watched the short film that was on the DVD. In the film, the protagonist found a DVD on train and later on in the film, he met the star on the DVD that he had found.
Fast forward to a few nights later, and I was at a restaurant and saw the actor who played the protagonist. Not quite believing what was happening I walked up to him, introduced myself, and told him I found the DVD of the movie he starred in, on the train. Initially he said something like “Oh cool.” Then as it sunk in, his face went pale, his mouth gaped, and we both had to have a drink to recover.
17. Somebody’s Watching Over You
A disembodied voice may have saved my sister's life. When I was about 12, my family lived in my great-grandmother's house. She had passed in that house before my sister and I were born, but we knew that it was her home we were staying in. I'm sitting in the front room as my sister walks toward the front door, and she suddenly stops and turns to me.
"What did you say?" she asked. I hadn't said anything, I was sitting quietly with headphones on. We're looking at each other, confused, and suddenly a car spins out in the street in front of our house. The driver regains control and takes off at high speed again. My sister was about to walk to her friend's house and might've crossed paths with that car if she had left the house earlier.
We're both startled, and my sister tells me that a stern voice that sounded like mom told her to "SHUT THAT DOOR." Mom was in her bedroom, but when we asked her, she hadn't said anything or left her room. Thing is, my sister had talked about dreams she had before this where she would come home and speak to an old woman.
One day, my mom finds an old photo album and my sister instantly recognizes a picture of the old woman from her dreams. It was our great-grandmother, whose home we were staying in. From what I've learned over the years, things like this are common for the women in my family. Even so, it still really freaks me out sometimes.
18. Not All Ghosts Are Nice…
My family was having a giant party for my dad. The house was completely packed with friends and relatives. Two of my girl cousins were upstairs doing their own thing when suddenly they came rushing down. One of them is trembling and clearly shaken. They claim they thought they saw somebody in one of the rooms, but didn't think much of it. They continued on for a bit like nothing happened, until one girl (the one trembling) said she saw a hand reach out and pull her leg.
The adults basically say to just not go upstairs anymore for the rest of the night. So the party continues. Later that night, my baby cousin comes tumbling down the flight of stairs. Apparently everyone had lost track of her. She's completely fine, but she keeps looking up at the stairs and pointing. She says she was pushed by a man up there, but of course, nobody was up there. We don't even know how she got up there herself.
19. You Will Meet a Tall, Dark Stranger
I was hiking through the remnants of a remote, long-abandoned town and the surrounding area. To get to as far into the woods as I was, you had to cross fallen trees over a creek three times. I had just crossed the third "bridge" and was about five miles in and something blue caught my eye just ahead of me. What I saw made me stop in my tracks.
There was a man, in his sixties at least, wearing blue satin pajamas and sitting in a tree. The closer I got to him, the louder he laughed. It wasn't a maniacal laugh, but it set off all the alarms in my head nevertheless. He also wasn't wearing any shoes, yet he looked well-groomed and cleaned. I gave him a friendly nod as I passed, and he just kept laughing. Then it stopped.
I turned and he was gone. There was no branch cracking, plants rustling, nothing...He was just gone. Still rubs me the wrong way. The area I was in was a pretty rough hike, very secluded. Not very many people venture as deep as I was that day. No idea what was going on there, and honestly I’m not sure I ever want to find out.
20. The Thing That Walked Through Walls
My mom has the best paranormal ghost experience that I've heard recounted to me, and it’s impossible for me to find a believable rational explanation for it. She's Kate. It happened when she was on holiday with her parents. They were on their way to Devon from Suffolk, and this journey took a long time and required an overnight stop.
She was around 14 years old at the time, very precocious and wilful, but enjoying the prospect of a small holiday with her mom and dad. They arrive at a hotel for the overnight stop, and Kate goes to relax for a bit in the TV alcove they have upstairs while her parents go for a drink at the bar. Happily watching TV, she's surprised to see a man poking his head into the alcove.
The only way she can describe how he looks is "he had very old skin." Despite being startled, she apologizes and offers the use of the TV to the man, who just stares back at her blankly, and then leaves just as suddenly as he arrived. Kate is a little freaked out by this, and upon reuniting with her parents before getting to their rooms for the night, she remembers telling them about the man, hoping she hadn't upset anyone.
She expected an "Oh, that's probably the man in room three...." but instead they seemed confused and "perturbed" to use Kate's words. Kate has a room to herself, so she says goodnight to her parents and goes to bed. Once in bed, Kate starts to read her book, fully enveloped in the story. Then the strangest thing happens.
I'm going to use the words she used when she first told me this story; "I felt a man walk through the wall behind me to my left. I was so scared that I immediately hid under my bed covers and shut my eyes as hard as I could and wished for him to go away. I felt him slowly walk down the left side of my bed, around the end of the bed, and he continued in that direction until he went through the wall facing the right side of my bed."
When she couldn't "feel" him any more, she came out from under the covers, and decided that she must be going crazy, letting her imagination get away from her. To this day, she is a very pragmatic, skeptical person, so she thought it was in her head and that was the end of it. Fast forward to 10-14 years later, and she's having dinner with her parents.
This isn't a regular occurrence as she's moved to London, where she would meet my dad and later have me, but her parents still live in Suffolk. They are talking about weird experiences they've had or their friends have had, and my mom remembers this experience, leading with, "I got myself all worked up in that hotel we stayed at thinking someone walked through the wall..."
Once her mom hears this, however, she goes white and has a very serious look on her face. She explains that she had exactly the same experience. Upon discussing the night further, they work out the wall the "thing" walked through from my mom’s room was the wall straight into her parent's room. Absolutely bone-chilling.
21. Gone Forever
When I was a kid, I was playing outside at our farm with a Dr. Fate action figure. I was in the middle of the lawn and I was throwing it up in the air and catching it, pretending he was flying. I go to throw it up…and I swear it just disappeared and didn't come down. I thought I lost it squinting in the sun or something, and searched the whole yard for it.
No trees or bushes around, and the house was too far away, so it couldn't have ended up on the roof or anything. There was nothing around me but freshly mowed lawn. It was my favorite toy, so I spent so much time searching that day and even into the next. I never saw it again. All I remember it that feeling of it flying away from me.
22. We Are Not Alone
I used to work at a place that had to be manned 24 hours a day. I handled sensitive documents and files, and if somebody needed this information in the middle of the night, I would have to fetch it for them or confirm that I had it. So security is really tight. I’m talking bars on windows, and multiple locked doors to get to where I am.
They would give me work to do during the night, but they underestimated how quickly I could get it done. So like most nights, this one, I finished my work in like 30 to 45 minutes and pulled out my phone and played games. No one else was in the building with me. It was getting to be the last third of my shift when all of a sudden I hear a door close.
I look to the security camera and see someone walking down the hall toward my room. At first I thought it was just somebody who came in ridiculously early, so I turned around and waited for them to come in. But nobody came in. Now the hairs start rising on the back of my neck. I decide I’ve got to do something about this or I’ll go crazy.
This isn't a really big building, so I figure I'll find the guy wherever he is and start checking offices and storage rooms. I come up empty handed, but I do see that a fire door had shut. I go to try and rewind the camera, but the digital recording is password protected and I don't know the password. The whole thing freaked me out.
I mean, the way the person was walking down the hallway, like a determined walk right to where I was. So, I sit with my spine tingling for the last couple hours of my shift and finally people start coming in. My replacement shows up and I tell her what I saw. At this point, I figured I must have imagined the whole thing. I'm told to go home and the manager and girl who replaced me would look over the camera.
After getting home, I call my manager and ask what was on the camera. They said that the video showed the fire door closing…but then the video froze for about an hour, and the next thing it records is me reopening the door.
23. Astral Projection
When I was seven years old, I was in my bedroom doing some coloring. Because I live in a 300-year old cottage, my room was only divided from my mom's room by a thin partition wall, no hallway or anything. My door opened straight into her bedroom, and I always used to leave it open when I was a little girl because it comforted me to know she was near.
So I look up into her supposedly empty bedroom (she's downstairs), and see a Buddhist monk sitting, cross legged, smiling on top of her closet. It wasn't scary, just completely weird and out of place. He was there for maybe 10 seconds and then gone. I was a seven-year-old white kid in Wales in the 90s; I had never even seen a Buddhist monk!
For years after, I just called him “the Indian” because I knew some Indian men wore bright silk robes. It wasn't until I started watching more TV that I realized the person I had seen was a Tibetan-looking Buddhist monk. I really think some guy meditated real good and found himself projected onto the top of a little Welsh girl's mom's bedroom wardrobe.
Needpix
24. The Tell-Tale Foot
My parents’ house was brand new in a really nice subdivision, and I was five when we moved. I wasn't ever an anxious kid or anything, but I was TERRIFIED of the house. I refused to be upstairs alone, and I had really frequent panic attacks. We lived there for 15 years before I moved out, and I was never comfortable. I live in a 75-year old farmhouse now, and I don't get uncomfortable the way I did in that house.
Only one creepy thing actually ever happened to me there, though, and this is it. Last year, 32-week-pregnant me went back up to see my grandmother before I had this baby, and I was staying with my parents. My dad was traveling for work, so it was just my mom, my sister, and me. My mom had gone to the grocery store, and I was lying on the sofa.
The way the living room is set up, you can see the reflection of the bottom two feet of the foyer and staircase in the TV, and also the kitchen on the other side of the living room. So I'm lying there messing around with my phone, and I hear the stairs creaking. I look up at the reflection in the TV and I see a pair of bare feet standing in the foyer.
I think it's my sister, so I tell her to come and sit with me and feel the baby kicking. There's no reply, and the feet turn and walk toward the kitchen. So I sit up to say hey…and there's no one there. At all. My sister wasn't even home—she'd gone to work. My parents have moved closer now and they're closing the sale of that house at the end of this month. They're a little sad, but honestly I'm incredibly relieved.
25. Living in Slow Motion
When I was a little kid, I remember I was running around my room and I decided to go on the bed and jump from it. As soon as I jumped, suddenly, everything went into slow motion. It was like there was no gravity for some time. I got really scared, so I just closed my eyes and I slowly landed back on the ground eventually. I’m absolutely sure it wasn’t a dream.
26. Leave the Boy Alone
We lived near an American Civil War battlefield and cemetery for a few years. There were trails through the woods that we would hike a lot. One day, we were looking at the cemetery, and my wife hears me walk up to her. We were the only ones there, so she turns to say something. Well, I'm nowhere nearby. I’m on the other side looking at a cannon. From that day on, we started experiencing things that were just...odd.
My wife's car was always kept in the garage, and its inside mirror kept moving overnight. It wasn't drooping from a loose fitting, and it would be in a random direction. Sometimes it would be pointed up. Other times, sideways. Weird, but I dismissed it as her bumping it while getting her purse or other items when getting out.
Then her car went into the shop, and the next morning I went to go to work and the mirror in my truck, which I parked in the driveway with the doors locked, was moved upward. Next morning, same thing, different direction. She got her car back and my mirror never moved again. There were little goofy things too, typical "haunting" stuff like things moved, the sense of somebody behind you, etc.
Also, our house was a ranch style with the master bedroom on the first floor and our son’s bedroom on the second right above ours. The flooring job was substandard, so we heard his every movement. He started going to the bathroom, which was down a hallway and halfway across the second floor from his room, a lot. Yet every time we'd go check on him, he'd be asleep.
So one night, we decided to catch him coming out of the bathroom for no reason other than to make sure he was okay and to tell him to quit stomping like an elephant because come morning, he never remembered going. We never were able to. Every time he'd go to the bathroom, one of us would head upstairs while the other stayed in bed.
We wouldn't hear him return, and the other would find him asleep in his bed. The next morning, we asked him if he was up and walking around last night. His reply made me turn white as a sheet. He said no, but that for weeks something would walk up to and away from his door but not open it. My wife turned to the room and said, "You're welcome to hang around, but please stop walking up to our son's room at night, you're scaring him."
The footsteps never reoccurred after that, although the car mirror thing kept on. Could she have been pranking me? Maybe. But one of the times my truck's mirror moved was after I'd gotten home and I went to go to the store a couple hours later, the only set of keys to it had never left my pocket. Could our son have been pranking us? Again possible, but the darn flooring was so bad in one spot that even our cat walking over it caused it to squeak, making it nearly impossible for him to get back to his bedroom without us noticing.
Pikist
27. A Ghostly Message
I must have been sleep walking during the creepiest moment of my life, because I don't remember it, but my family insists that it's true. On the night that my grandpa passed, I apparently woke up, walked into my mom's room, shook her awake, and told her that papa loved her and wanted to her to know he would always watch over her. She was ushering me back to bed when the phone rang. That phone call was my grandmother telling my mom that papa had passed.
28. Seeing Double
I own this really random photography book called 100 Young Americans that I bought around 2007, maybe earlier. I know I still own it because I recently reorganized my bookshelf. Just last week, though, I was getting into my car and I saw something sitting on top of the trunk of my car. I get out. It's a copy of 100 Young Americans, just sitting on my hood.
Why is that random photography book that I've literally never seen anyone else have sitting open on the hood of my car? Also, yes, my copy is safe and sound in my bookcase.
29. A Bridge to Another World
I was driving home late one night, somewhere between 1 and 3 am. The stretch of road I was driving goes through the back end of a couple of counties in the Deep South. Nothing around but forests, fields, and the occasional group of shacks huddling under a light that only barely keeps away the night. I'd driven this stretch of road many times before, even at this time of night, so it wasn't really a big deal. Just a long trip.
Since there was rarely any traffic that time of night, I was able to turn the stereo up and push the pedal down. And then I came to this bridge. Nothing really noteworthy about it—it's not ancient or a covered bridge or all that spooky. Just a concrete span over swampland, trees growing right up near the edge and turning the road into a dim trail at the bottom of a dark canyon.
I didn't think anything of it. Until that night. It was humid out, and as the temperature dropped there was a little bit of fog. Not enough to really slow me down, but I had to turn off the high-beams. So I'm shooting across the bridge and it hits me that it seems to be taking longer than normal to get across it. Maybe I was just tired? Maybe my mind was playing tricks on me?
And when I thought I was finally getting to the end of it, I saw a figure walking on the opposite side of the road. At first, no big deal, right? Guy walking in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night. Probably lives nearby, probably not sober. Watch them to make sure they don't fall in front of the car. But my mind is already racing.
I mean, this is the middle of nowhere. There are no houses around. There are no lights but the stars and my headlights stabbing out at the darkness. And as I whiz by going way too fast for my own good, I notice two terrifying things: First, the figure is wearing what appears to be a straight jacket, the sleeves undone, and the straps trailing to the ground. Second. It has no face. Not like, there's no head there. There's a head shape. And the place where a face should be, but no face. Just an expanse of darkness that I took to be his skin.
I chalked it up to going really fast, contrast between white jacket and dark skin at night, and thinking creepy thoughts. I mean, surely I couldn't have just seen that. I tried to spot him in my rear view mirror, but it was so dark there was nothing to be seen. I slowed down a little, and was suddenly off the end of the bridge and on normal two-lane blacktop again.
I briefly considered turning around and seeing what it was. Surely it was just a trick of the light or my mind playing tricks on me. Right?
30. A Mysterious Ailment
A woman I knew began to have pain and fatigue and a whole suite of other vague symptoms shortly after being treated for mastitis, as she'd recently had a baby. She went to the doctor, who pretty much dismissed her. She continued for years to suffer with extreme fatigue, migraines, low-grade fevers, etc. without any relief.
She got diagnosed with fibromyalgia pretty much as a "no one knows what the heck this is, so we'll stick a label on it and call it good." She got referred to psychologists, and even her husband started losing patience with her. One night, she'd made up her mind to wait until her husband was at work and her daughter was at school the next morning, then take an overdose of pills.
As she was falling asleep, though, she heard a voice, loud and clear, tell her, "It's your implants. Get them taken out." She'd had breast implants years before, when she had done some modelling. She called a plastic surgeon and set up a consultation, and midway into describing her symptoms, the surgeon interrupted her by saying she'd seen this before, and the implants had to come out as soon as possible.
When the surgeon removed them, they were black. They were completely full of mold, which had been playing merry havoc with the woman's immune system. Once the implants were out and she was treated with an antifungal, she recovered quickly. Oh, and her husband felt terrible for doubting her when he saw these black implants.
31. The Lady in the Rocker
My grandmother passed when I was in 8th grade or so. After a few years, my grandfather came to live with us for a bit, and then had to go into an assisted living home. I am in college and we have decided to open up their house for a family reunion. One of my cousins, Kate, flew in early with her 5-6-year-old son, Tom, to open the house and air it out.
This was in rural Mississippi. Kate and Tom were going to a hotel that night, and come back the next day. As they pulled away, Kate notices Tom looking out the back window and waving at the house. "What are you waving at, buddy?" "I'm waving at the lady." "What lady?" "The lady in the rocking chair on the porch." Now, there were several chairs on the porch, but only one rocker.
It was the chair my grandmother sat in and waved at all of us as we drove away from a visit. She always sat and waved until we were out of sight. The next day, some aunts and cousins open up the one room they hadn't opened the day before; my grandparents' bedroom. As they are sweeping and dusting, Tom wanders in. Then his words chilled us to the bone.
He points to a picture of my grandmother on the bedroom mantle and says, "Hey Mom, there's the lady I was waving at yesterday." To Kate's knowledge, that was the first picture of his great-grandmother Tom had ever seen.
32. Monsters Are Real
Once upon a time, I lived with a couple and their child. They asked me to babysit so they could have an evening together. I agreed. Fast forward to bed time: The child doesn't want to go to sleep because of the "monsters." The child is adamantly sincere, which creeps me out a bit. But I play it cool. I look around the room, pretending to scare them away.
This does the trick and the child falls asleep. Later, I'm sitting in the living room, which is oriented so the couch faces away from the main entry. I'm watching TV, expecting the couple back at any minute. That's when I hear the entry door open and close, just like I've heard it many times before. With a smile on my face, based on my success with the child and the knowledge of my good deed, I stand and turn towards the door.
There is no one there. I'm skeptical of the paranormal, but this unnerved me. Once the couple actually returns, I tell one of them about it. He says, "Oh, yeah, we were going to tell you that stuff happens here all the time, particularly in the child's room, but we didn't want to scare you." Needless to say, I slept poorly in my basement bedroom for several days.
33. A Glitch in the Matrix
My sophomore year of college, I lived on campus but my boyfriend didn't. He worked on campus, however, and would often hang out in my dorm with me between class and work. My bed was lofted with my desk underneath it, and sometimes I would take a nap while he sat at my desk doing homework. One afternoon I woke up from a pretty vivid dream and started telling my boyfriend about it.
I remember hearing him respond, and in the middle of my response, I felt this eerie shift in the atmosphere. It was like the whole room suddenly became slightly darker and colder. I quietly said his name, but he didn't respond. That’s when I remembered he had been at work for about three hours. I grabbed my backpack, ran out of there, and did homework in the library until he was off work.
34. When a Stranger Knocks
When my family first moved to California, the house we lived in had a lot of weird things occur. My room happened to be close to the front door/dining room area, and I could hear the front door open and close. So one day, I'm in my room playing games. It's after school and everyone is home except my dad, who's not home from work yet.
I'm almost 100% concentrated on a game, but I hear the front door open. I quickly turn to look out and I see somebody walk upstairs, who I assumed to be my dad. Immediately after, I hear my youngest brother yell out, "Daddy’s home! Daddy’s home!" My siblings and my mom all rush upstairs to go after my dad. I don't think much of it and kept playing.
Just a few minutes later, they all bolt downstairs. There's a big commotion, and my little brother is in tears. I'm still into my game, but I can kind of hear what's going on. My brother saw a figure go upstairs and thought it was my dad. When they got up there to the master bedroom, no one was there. I knew I heard the door open, and I also saw somebody go upstairs…
35. It’s Coming From Inside the House
My sister was visiting my parents for the weekend. That night, I called her about something, just wanting to chat, but when she picked up, she was clearly very upset. She told me she was home alone and "something was happening." I asked her if there was someone in the house, like an intruder. She told me there were animalistic growling noises coming from the corner, and my mom's dog was going nuts.
She also said the hallway lights were flashing on and off. I told her to get her jacket and calmly walk out of the house, taking the dog with her if she could, and that I would be by soon to pick her up. She went outside and brought the dog with her. Her friend was even closer than I was, so she picked my sister up and they hung out at her friend's house for a while.
About twenty minutes after that, my brother, who also lived nearby, stopped by the house to return some tools he'd borrowed for my dad. He went inside because he saw the lights going on and off, and he's an electrician. Once he was inside…they stopped. He kept hearing someone walking around in the other room, but when he'd go in there, no one was there, and when he called out no one responded.
He checked the whole house and then also heard animal growling noises from the same corner as my sister. This is an outside wall corner, with windows, not enough space for a raccoon or something to be trapped inside the wall. My brother felt really unnerved and left.
36. It Came in a Dream
I had just moved into a new house. One day, I was downstairs when I heard what sounded like furniture moving around upstairs. I went up to investigate but when I got up there, everything was quiet and nothing had moved. I then went back downstairs, only for the dragging sounds to start again. I go back up; nothing. This went on for about an hour. I almost called the authorities because I was positive that someone was in my home.
I ended up calling a friend and kept them on speakerphone while I searched the attic, thinking maybe an animal could be hiding, but I never found anything. Eventually, I gave up my search and went to bed. But it was far from over. That night, I had a dream that I was driving to work in the rain and fog and crashed my car. Someone approached me and asked "Are you ready to move on?" That's when I woke up.
At the time, I was working mid-shift, so around 10 PM that same day I got in the car on a foggy and rainy night and made my way into work without any issue. The building I worked in had security cameras all over, and it being so late, I was the only person coming in. When I get inside, the person I was relieving asked who I came in with. I was alone, but she swore someone followed me inside. It was a very unnerving 12 hours to say the least.
Unsplash
37. Guardian Angel
Way back when I was in junior high, I was sitting on some bleachers after school watching an intramural floor hockey game. Now, these bleachers were pushed all the way in, so we would literally climb to sit on the top of them, which I'm estimating was probably about 10 feet. So I'm sitting up there, and I stand up to move and my foot gets caught.
I try to save myself, but I end up falling. What's really odd is that I don't remember the fall at all. I remember starting to, but then I "wake up" just as I hit the floor, but it was like I had fallen only a few inches and landed on my back. I heard the gym fall silent as I popped right back up. The teacher asked in a panicked voice if I was okay, I said "Yeah," and then just climbed right back up. I should've bounced my head off the floor and had some kind of injury, but I felt literally nothing.
38. The Bad Omen
I was living in New York in 2001, just a few blocks from the World Trade Center. Early on the morning of September 11th, my roommate came downstairs for breakfast, but she looked so exhausted. When I asked her what was the matter, she said she hadn't been sleeping well the past few weeks, and that she kept having dreams about lots of people perishing. We shrugged it off…until a few hours later. She didn't have any more of those dreams after that night.
39. The Road That Never Ends
My daughter and I still wonder what happened that night. We were traveling along the 401 highway in Canada from London to Kitchener. We'd done this trek many, many times over the years. My daughter had to go to the bathroom really badly. We were almost home, so I tell her that the next exit ramp is ours and we'll be home in 15 minutes, tops.
So we keep going, watching for our exit, which should be no more than a few minutes, but it doesn't come. We keep going and going and going, all countryside. Finally, an exit comes up—but it's not the one we're expecting. Somehow, although we hadn't thought so much time had passed, we had missed at least four exits. We were watching for them and passed through two cities without seeing them.
40. The Friendly Ghost
When my wife and I were in our second apartment, I saw stuff all the time, but the first encounter was the weirdest. I was hanging curtains, standing on a poufy chair, when I started to lose my balance. I felt a hand on my butt steady me. I finished drilling in the last screw, then turned around to thank...Nothing. I expected my lady there. As soon as I turned around, that's when the feeling of the hand left my butt. My wife had been in a completely different room the whole time.
41. Sleepless Nights
Not my story, but my maternal grandmother's. She was born in 1910, and lived to be 97. One story she used to tell me took place when she was a young girl, when she and her family lived in an old house in Tennessee. Her parents often experienced the sheet and blanket being jerked completely off them during the night by an invisible presence.
42. Don’t Make a Move
About 15 years ago, I played with a Ouija board with two friends. I felt I was just playing along and didn't take it seriously at the time. I left that night, walked home, and went to sleep. Then I had a dream like I've never experienced before. This demon thing dressed in plain clothes paralyzed me, and my vision went blurry and I fell over in the dream.
I woke up, and I was in the same state. I couldn't move and I couldn't see straight, which lasted for a good 30 seconds. I know it was sleep paralysis now, but I’ve still never had a dream like that before or since.
43. Bizarre Mementos
A few years ago, I ran into someone from high school at a pub in my hometown. I was never really close with "Ryan" in school and I don't think we ever talked, but this night we actually spent a lot of time chatting and having fun with a couple mutual friends. He was so friendly and we shared a lot of interests, so it felt kind of incredible that we'd never hung out before. Our city isn't that big.
After the group of us concluded the evening with a terrible rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody at around 2 am, I went to leave and walk to my boyfriend's house nearby. When I mentioned that I was walking alone, he insisted that he and a couple of his friends walk me. It was a short distance and I didn't want to impose, but they were going the same direction. I said sure, and off we went.
As we finally reached my boyfriend's street, I turned to head toward his house and Ryan gave me a pack of cigarettes with three inside. I'd been mooching them from him all night. About a month later, I woke up for work on a Wednesday and was craving a cigarette. This was really unlike me. I leisurely enjoyed the last of the three from the package Ryan had given me and headed to work.
During my lunch break, I was on my Facebook and saw many "RIP Ryan" messages posted by mutual friends. I thought it was a hoax because he was known as quite a jokester. Turns out, he had committed suicide the night before. Why that day of all days to wake up craving a cigarette? I've always been interested in the symbolism of the "meaning" of the number three, so to finish the third and final cigarette that day—hours after his end—felt odd in retrospect.
44. As Seen on TV
Nickelodeon used to do these commercials in between the shows where they'd have a celebrity and one of the animated characters "interact" as they would introduce the show. One day when I was probably around 9 or 10, I'm about to turn off the TV and the commercial goes something like "blah blah blah, you better watch this show Taylor." Still haven't been able to explain it, but I know it happened.
45. The Last Goodbye
A few years back, I was preparing for an overnight camping trip in an area that didn't have any cell phone service. My mom called me to tell me my grandpa was going in that day for a quick routine surgery and that I should give him a call before I headed out of cell service to send him my love and well wishes. I did so, and went off camping without a worry in my heart.
That night, I had the most incredibly vivid nightmares of my life. I dreamed that I was at the hospital where my grandpa was, and that things weren't going well. I was watching my mom panic and worry, as well as my grandma. They discussed whether to "let him go" or not. I saw him on the operating table. I was THERE, I swear it. I was with him when he passed.
When I woke up the next morning crying, I told my boyfriend that my grandpa had passed and that my mom was probably trying to get a hold of me. He reassured me that it was just a bad dream brought on by the worry of someone I love being in the hospital, but I knew. I just felt it. So we drove to the nearest town and I called my mom.
She answered in tears and told me that my grandpa had indeed passed from unforeseen complications. But then it got even creepier. I told her about my dream, and she was shocked. The scenes and conversations I described were exactly what happened in the hospital. I described what the hospital looked like, even though I had never been there, and sure enough my mom confirmed my descriptions.
I have never before or since experienced anything like this, or anything paranormal whatsoever. I know though, that I was with my grandpa in his final moments, in that hospital.
46. Life in the Strange Lane
I had a glitch in the matrix experience just today. I was doing a damage audit and an inventory audit on our fleet vehicles today. I did the damage audit first. I found a vehicle with significant damage and listed out the details. This was among about 10 damaged vehicles inside of about 30 we have on our lot. Well, upon turning in the damage audit, I'm told this vehicle is not on our lot.
Befuddled, I went and checked. And it was not where it was when I inspected it. I searched the whole lot. Gone. We had no transports today, meaning the vehicle was never moved. We also checked the location history of it and it had only been rented and returned out of one location about 20 minutes away. It's never been on our lot before. Here's where it gets creepy.
I'm thinking "Okay, I just had the unit number wrong." Nope. I pulled up previous inspections and it had the exact same damage on it that I had written out. So somehow I inspected a vehicle properly that was not, and had never been, on my lot.
47. A Waking Nightmare
I once had a test coming up on a Saturday that was a really darn important English test. My parents had paid a lot of money for my classes, and the test itself wasn’t cheap either. So I was under huge pressure. Well, I didn’t study the whole week, even though I felt really guilty. I took the test. It went okay. Not too good and not too bad. A few weeks later, I get the results. I failed.
I had a breakdown and couldn't tell my parents how recklessly I had failed. I was legitimate going crazy and then...I woke up. It was Monday. I still had five days to Saturday. I took the test and passed it. The dream was so real. I knew what I had done on each day during the dream. I had even imagined facts that I had studied and could recall them in my dream. It was so real, it made me feel uneasy. Thinking about it today still gives me the creeps.
48. The Eeriness of Ordinary Things
One time, I was coming back from a fly fishing trip up with my friend Caesar. We stopped at a Mexican restaurant for lunch. While we were waiting for the chips to arrive, both of us looked at each other and simultaneously, without prompting, sang the exact same stupid made-up song to each other, "Mex-i-caaaan Restaauuraantt!"
Neither of us had ever sung it before, or sung anything out loud before. Neither of us sing. We both kind of furrowed our brows at each other in surprise and have never spoken about it again. It was weird, and completely stupid, but I have never forgotten it.
49. Not Feeling Secure at All
I used to work in a small office, which was about 60 people at maximum capacity. We had a security guard on duty 24/7. One night, I had to stay super duper late by myself because I had to leave early the next day and needed to finish my workload. All of my other co-workers are gone by around 10pm, cleaning crew comes in, and now it's just me and the security guard.
The place is dark, but I'm not at all frightened because I'm not scared of most things, the security guard is a really nice dude, and we're in a safe neighborhood. The security guards are required to make their rounds every couple of hours just to make sure things are fine. Sometimes they say something to us, most times they don't.
Tonight, nice guy security dude stops by my cubicle and asks, "Everything alright?" Big friendly grin on his face as per usual. "All good here, thanks!" I go back to work. 20 minutes later, he's back again. Big grin. "Everything alright?" "Yup! Nothing yet!" 20 minutes later…he's back. Big grin. At this point, I am getting a little creeped out.
There is no need for him to come by this frequently. In fact, it's disruptive. I also noticed that the way he interacts with me is always exactly the same, as if I were in a time loop. Same big grin, same intonation, same rhythm of speech. Not only that, I noticed that he whistles the same thing at around the same time, so if I turn off the music on my headphones, I can HEAR his whistling coming closer before he asks..."Everything alright?"
It's around midnight and I'm totally freaked out. I try to rationalize this with myself because I have to get this work done. I'm rushing through my work and I keep hearing that whistling behind me. Surely, he won't come back again..."Everything alright?"At this point, I'm fully terrified. I no longer trust this guy I used to feel so safe around.
I was a young woman in her mid-20s, and the security guard was a dude in his 50s. I couldn't finish everything, but I wrote an e-mail to my supervisor saying that the security guard was acting VERY strange and I didn't feel safe. I shut everything down and tried to rush to the exit. I don't run into the security guard…or so I think.
Just as I'm feeling free and clear, I hear "Bye now," behind me. He's standing there in the dark hallway, big grin. Just standing there and watching. I mumble something and sprint to my car. The next day, I rush to my supervisor to try to explain what happened the night before. In the light of day, it kind of felt like I might've overreacted or maybe my mind was playing tricks on me. Then I learned the dark truth.
Turns out, the dude just disappeared. He's missing. I'm pretty sure they still haven't found him to this day. The security guard company just kind of dismissed it as some flaky guy who quit for no reason and no one seemed to be pursuing it much. He must've been suffering some kind of mental health issue or SOMEthing, but up until that night, he was just a super nice, trustworthy, reliable security guard who everybody loved. It also felt like some kind of weird paranormal stuff because it really felt like something had "taken over" inside of him.
Pikist
50. The Others
My mom and older sister describe how I used to randomly start crying and asking where my mom was, even when she was right in front of me. When my mother would try to comfort me by saying she was right there, I would shout for my other mom. I would then describe this person, who apparently always held a bloody hammer. They said it scared them out of their wits, but one day when I was two years old, they tried to ask me about it and I couldn't remember anything.
Pxfuel
Sources: Reddit,
