Whether it’s a moving object, an eerily accurate gut feeling, or what seems like a glitch in the matrix…when these things happen in real life, they’re a million times more terrifying than any horror movie jump scare. There are some things in this world that logic simply can’t explain, and these Redditors came together to share their experiences with forces they believe to be paranormal. Make sure to leave the lights on after reading these—you never know what you might spot in a dark closet or out of the corner of your eye.
1. Back To The Future
I have a three-year-old daughter now, but about three and a half years ago when my wife was pregnant with her, I got a phone call from an "unknown number". When I picked up it was a little girl who called me daddy, but I told her "Sorry, but you have the wrong number". She answered, "Mo. You're my daddy". I proceeded to tell her, "No. I don't have a daughter" and the little girl said, in one of the creepiest little kid voices I can remember: "Oh yes you do daddy".
I was so freaked out and strung out on caffeine that I just hung up. My wife asked me what had happened and I joked that our daughter had called me from the future. Sure enough, a few months later we did have a little girl and I was a daddy. Fast forward to yesterday, I was taking care of her and moving some boxes and I heard her on the phone with grandma. That's when things got really creepy.
At first, I thought nothing of it, but then I realized she must have used the auto-dial herself and I was impressed. Then I realized I needed to ask some questions and put the phone out of reach to prevent unwanted 9-1-1 calls and the like. When they were done talking, I asked her who else she called. She said "Just grandma and you”. I'm 100% sure she didn't phone me yesterday even though she maintains it and says we talked.
I checked the call log and it has dozens of numbers on auto-dial that she tried and our home number is in them. So while I'm sure it's just a coincidence, it's a bit spooky.
2. Sibling Rivalry
My older sister has a ghost that's followed her around for years—but that’s not the creepy part. I lived with her once for about 3 months, and so much weird stuff happened during that time. The creepy part was that when I mentioned it, all my sister would say to me was that her ghost "didn't like me being there”.
I’d go to bed with everything locked up and switched off and wake up in the morning with the back door open, lights on, and the kettle switched on. One night my sister and I were getting ready to go out and I asked to borrow her liquid foundation. I used it and put it back where she kept her makeup. 10 minutes later she's asking me for it and it was nowhere to be seen. She accused me of taking it and made me buy her a new one and refused to listen to my side of the story.
About a year or so later when she was packing to move to a new house, she found the makeup in a shoebox with some old letters...the shoebox was in a zipped-up suitcase that was underneath her bed. But that wasn’t the most terrifying experience I had. Probably the most scared I ever felt was one afternoon when I was the only one in the house, which never happened as four other people lived there.
I'd arrived home from work and headed straight to the bathroom. All the doors/windows etc were closed. I was standing in the bathroom and started squeezing a pimple on my chin when a female voice in the hall said "Stop picking your zits”! It was loud enough and sounded real enough and at the time I thought it was my sister. So I laughed, told her to bug off, and asked what she was doing for dinner. No answer.
I stuck my head out into the hall. No one was there. I searched the house from top to bottom and there was no one home. I sat out on the front porch until someone else got home because I didn't want to be in there alone.
3. A Horse Is A Horse, Of Course—Unless It’s a Ghost
Once when I was around 15, I walked around where I used to live, which was deep in the English countryside. I heard a horse approaching me from behind me, which is common as there was a polo club nearby. When I felt the horse was close enough, I turned to let it pass—and the strangest feeling came over me.
When I turned around, there was nothing there. The sound continued to get louder and quieter as if the horse was passing me, but it was not there. There is nowhere it could've been. Creeped me out.
4. Quick Exit
A buddy and I were driving out on some Texas back roads late one night, and it was raining pretty heavily so we had to drive kind of slowly to see where we were going since there were no lights. Farms and ranch houses were usually spaced out a couple of miles from each other, with just open land between them. That's about all there is on a lot of those country roads.
At one point, we saw a woman walking on the side of the road. Nothing really remarkable about her, but it was worrying because it was at least two miles in any direction before there was a house. We figured if she was out in the middle of nowhere in the rain something bad must have happened or maybe her car broke down or something. Little did we know we'd be in for quite the scare...
My buddy got uncomfortable and since he was driving we didn't stop, but not far down the road I convinced him to turn around in case she really needed help. She wasn't anywhere. We couldn't have gone more than a couple of hundred feet down the road, and there was no trace of her. We shined the brights in the fields, down the road, nothing. It was bizarre, and it had us kind of creeped out.
5. Animals Always Know
A buddy of mine lived in a really old building, built in the early 1800s I believe, in a really old small town in Texas. His apartment was upstairs, businesses were downstairs, and the whole building was originally a small factory of some sort that had been remodeled for more modern purposes.
There were some obvious "this wasn't originally an apartment" features, like a small door in his closet that seemed to lead to strange empty space between the walls, with no real reason for existing. Even when the door would randomly waft itself open with freezing cold air, you could sort of write that off as being due to remodels of old buildings, and not all the kinks of ventilation and stuff being quite worked out.
That's kind of the explanation he gave to other stuff. Like the strange noises he would hear coming out of there too. Also, windows would always be open. Not windows he or his girlfriend had opened, just random windows around the apartment. He would always close them, and then later find them open again. Seems like faulty latches that just come open over time, and not a huge deal.
Usually, he wrote it all off—until the day he couldn’t ignore it anymore. He stayed home from work one day, and he heard the window unlatch. Not only did he hear that one latch fall open, but a second later he heard another window unlatch, then another, one after the other, in order as if someone was walking through the living room unlatching windows as they went. Then all at once, each of the windows fell open.
He got the heck out of there for the day and came back that weekend to investigate. Things seemed fine, nothing weird happened for a while, then about a month later his girlfriend experienced the same thing when she was there by herself. After a while, they got used to it. Just weird windows.
But then came the final nail in the coffin. It was when they got a dog. The dog was a puppy, so it was inherently happy, playful, and always running around doing puppy stuff. Except when the door in the closet blew open, or the windows were unlatched. Then the dog would stand completely still, focus its eyes on something that nobody else in the room could seem to see, and the dog's eyes would slowly track around the room as if it was watching someone or something moving through the room.
Nobody could ever figure out what the dog was looking at, and it only did this right after some other "ghost" stuff started happening. They moved out after this happened a few times.
6. Delivering On The “Most Haunted” Promise
When I was around 8 or 9, I had a "camping" trip on the USS Hornet with my cub scout troop. Not that I knew at the time, but the Hornet is on many "most haunted places" lists. I got a horrible night's sleep that night; I remember waking my dad up every few minutes to ask what time it was.
Around 3 or 4, I woke up with a horrible feeling in my stomach and sat up in the bunk. I saw a hazy outline of a person walking up the rows of bunks. I tried to shake my dad awake but he just swatted me away. I think I just buried my head under my pillow. It wasn't exactly the shape of a person, but more of an oblong cloud that seemed to move like it had legs.
I always have trouble trying to explain what I saw but I've believed in ghosts ever since.
7. The Perpetual Patient
The ambulance company I used to work for had a "haunted" ambulance, rig 12. A lot of EMTs had their own stories about it, mostly involving weird noises coming from the patient compartment or the electronics going haywire, but I never put much stock in paranormal stuff—until I had my own experience.
My partner and I were in rig 12 and posted in a rural community at 3 am, so it was pitch dark and totally quiet. We were both dozing up in the cab, I was in the driver seat and she was in the passenger seat. I woke up to a muffled voice and initially thought my partner was trying to talk to me. I told her I was trying to sleep and rolled over toward the window and closed my eyes again.
Then I distinctly heard a male voice say, "Oh my god, am I dying”? followed by what sounded like heavy breathing for a couple of seconds then complete silence. My partner and I both sat straight up and looked back into the patient compartment where it sounded like it came from. It was quiet for a couple of seconds, then we heard the click of an oxygen bottle regulator and hissing like it was leaking.
I turned on the compartment lights and we both piled out of the rig. Initially, I thought a transient might have climbed in the back while we were asleep and it was messing with stuff, so we walked around to the back of the rig and opened up the back doors. We were shaking when we peeked inside—no one was back there. I checked both oxygen bottles, and neither was opened. Needless to say, we kept the lights on in the rig and didn't sleep much after that.
I don't know if I believe in hauntings, but I guess it would make sense for an ambulance to be haunted. Rig 12 had been in service with various agencies for over a decade, and had probably seen its fair share of patients die in the back.
8. Nice Baby
I used to babysit for three children aged 11, 7, and 3. Before having the oldest child, the parents had given birth to a baby who developed leukemia and passed on before her first birthday. The two girls knew about their sister but didn't discuss her in front of the son, Greg, as the parents were waiting for the right time to bring it up. The son didn't know he had another sister.
One time I came over and the girls said they were freaked out because, for a while, Greg had been chatting to someone in his room. He had lots of imaginary friends and pets, so they assumed he was just playing. They asked who he was talking to and he said, "The baby”. This didn't concern them, but then the dark truth was revealed. To play along, they asked: "Oh, really? Is it a nice baby”? Greg replied, "Yes, she's Mary. Mary is a nice baby”.
Mary was the name of the sister they’d lost. For a couple of years after that, whenever he was alone in his room they could sometimes hear him talking to Mary, even after he grew out of the imaginary friend stage. Then, after he reached a certain age, it stopped happening.
9. When Night Terrors Become Real
I slept on the floor of my parent's bedroom until an absurd age because I thought my room was haunted. One event finally broke me. One night I was sleeping on their floor—because company protects you from ghosts obviously—when I heard the noise of their bedroom door opening. I open my eyes to see a dozen or so pairs of feet entering the room silently, so as not to wake anyone else up.
I tried to sit up to see what was going on, only to find myself unable to move. I looked above me and there was a figure, clad in a black suit holding me down. That alone would have scared most people—but what paralyzed me with fear was his face. Or rather, a lack of face. It was blank as if someone had taken it. All that was left was a mouth, a ragged oval that sucked at the air and sucked away my breath.
I glanced down at the figures standing at my feet to see that they too had no faces. They knelt down and held me to the floor as one put on a pair of gloves. That's when I had a chilling realization—They were going to take my face. They had theirs stolen and wanted mine to replace it. I would become one of them. I saw my mother's hand, hanging over the bed, just out of reach. I tried to move, to wake her.
Maybe if I got to her in time, she and my father could escape. They could take my sister and get out before the faceless men came for them. But the men held me down as the gloved man placed a blade to my temple. He made a small incision and slipped his finger inside, pulling at the skin and tearing my face away. I struggled to warn my mother but I couldn't move, couldn't breathe, vision fading as my face was torn away.
I awoke to find my parents standing over me, lights on, the dog going bonkers, and my sister standing in the doorway. Apparently, I had started shrieking in my sleep and they couldn't wake me—before my heart finally gave out. My mother, who was trained in CPR, had to revive me as my heart had stopped beating out of sheer terror.
After this incident, we went to the hospital where it was discovered that I suffer from pretty severe sleep paralysis. That, coupled with a birth defect that makes my heart weak, had nearly killed me. Don't believe what they tell you, kids—your dreams can hurt you.
10. Note To Self: Don’t Move Dreamcatcher
When I was a kid, I had an imaginary friend named Haymitch, pretty basic stuff for a kid. He was cool and all, and my parents and I still remember me playing with him, but like all kids, I outgrew him. Around that time—keep in mind I was about 3 so I don’t exactly remember the order of events—my nightmares got really intense.
Every person has nightmares, but in mine, the person trying to kill me, hunt me down or whatever was always Haymitch. It was creepy, yeah, but it got a bit weirder...particularly when I went on a holiday to Ibiza when I was 9, I bought a dream catcher. I hung it above my bed, and I swear to you, I never got another nightmare. I was cured and no longer being ‘hunted’ by my imaginary friend.
Then one day when I was about 16 or 17, I had a friend over (one of those spiritual crystal girls), who saw the dreamcatcher hanging above my bed and said “It doesn’t work there, it will work better over here”, so moved it. I didn’t say anything (classic introvert), but in the following seven days, my no-nightmare streak was broken…very broken. I got three nightmares that week. All featuring Haymitch.
In one particular one, the middle of the three, it began like a normal dream, I was sitting on my bed, door open, and my phone rang I picked it up and it was this Youtuber with a really distinctive voice. What’s weird is he asked me if I wanted to meet up, and I replied “I know you’re not him”. There was an eerie pause. I got up from the bed and there was a silhouette across the hall.
A voice I recognized cried out from the phone “Sophie, why did you forge—" and the dream ended. Needless to say, I moved that dream catcher straight back, but…I still got those nightmares. One of the creepiest things about this story is that to this day, nobody in my family has any idea where I got the name Haymitch from. Nobody I know even knows a Haymitch, so where kid me got the name from is still a mystery.
11. I’m A Believer
I spent a summer living with a friend who had a SUPER religious, Christian family. I started noticing weird things as soon as I moved in. Every morning I'd wake up and my closet door would be wide open, and sometimes I'd be sitting there and it would just open. They just said it was probably an air draft, but it happened a lot when the air wasn't even running.
Things always seemed to happen when the family wasn't there. I'd walk down the hall to go to the kitchen, come back, and the hall closet door would be wide open. The TV in my room would turn off and on, and when it would come back on that thing’s volume would be turned up ALL THE WAY. When no one was there, I'd hear a woman crying...I'd go looking for the source and never find it.
I saw shadows in the living room when I'd walk down the hall, and I'd hear talking when I was alone in the house. They lived out in the country so I knew no one was around. By this point, I thought I was going crazy. The family definitely thought I was crazy. I slept with my light on every night and I hated being there. The family was going out of town for vacation and I made two friends come stay with me to prove I wasn't crazy.
My bed was only big enough for two people, so they were fighting over who had to sleep in the other room. One friend says she refuses to sleep in that room because there were too many mirrors and it freaked her out. They continue to argue and all of a sudden, we hear a HUGE bang.
We try to figure out what's going on, search the entire house and find nothing amiss—except when we walk into the bathroom down the hall and find the huge over-the-sink mirror, that was screwed into the wall, lying on the ground. Somehow unbroken. We all burst into tears and ran out of the house screaming.
I moved out shortly after that...obviously. It made me so paranoid. I don't know what was going on in there and I don't really care to know. But the creepiest part was the family’s reaction. They were super religious and believed that I had brought something evil into their house because I didn't go to church with them.
Seriously though, that whole experience scarred me for life. Now, I’m a total believer in the paranormal.
12. Fast Forward
I was driving a long distance, going home from visiting friends. I got onto the freeway at exit 281, got up to speed, and set the cruise control at 65 mph. The time was approx. 1:45 pm, give or take a couple of minutes. I blinked and the next sign I saw was mile marker 181. Cruise control was still set and when I looked at the clock, I freaked out. It showed that the time was 2:47 pm.
Somehow, I had traveled 100 miles in one hour while driving 65 mph and could not remember any of it. Sometimes things just happen and they can't be explained and, in many cases, there is no way to prove it.
13. I Always Feel Like Somebody’s Watching Me
My family went out and I was left with my sister. It was around 3 am. She was in the living room using her laptop and I was in my room down the hall. My toilet door has these frosted windows on them. You could see when someone walked past but you can't really make out the details. I needed to pee. I was standing and peeing just minding my business. Like in the movies, I saw a white figure with long hair pass by toward the living room when I glanced at the door. It's as if someone had planned to walk when I turned. I thought it was my sister so I didn't think too much.
15 minutes later, I had to use the toilet again. Weirdly, the same thing happened. Glancing at the door, a white figure passed by but now toward our rooms. This time I waited to hear if anyone opened or closed any door. No sound. I glanced at the rooms and it was dark. No signs of anyone had returned home. I had chills. I asked my sister if she had walked and she denied it. She was wearing a red T. When I told her what happened she freaked out. She told me she had been seeing a white figure at the corner of her eye the whole time she was using the computer and she felt as if someone had been slapping the air beside her ear trying to get attention but luckily, she was oblivious.
That was one freaky night.
14. The Prankster
I was sick with mono when I was in high school, so I had a roll of toilet paper under my bed so I wouldn't have to get up. Anyone with mono knows just how little energy you have. Wake up long enough to go to the bathroom or wipe your nose and then back to sleep for another 14 hours. I had it UNDER my bed, not beside it. I remember because when I got up once, I stepped on the roll and I didn't want it to happen again.
Anyhow, I was sleeping facing the edge of my bed and suddenly I was awoken by a very hard smack in the face with that same roll of toilet paper. I was in the middle of the bed. It scared me so bad that I actually didn't go back to sleep for several hours after that. A few days later, my mom came to keep me company and was sitting in my room watching TV with me for a few.
Suddenly, we heard a HUGE crash that sounded like someone had pushed over a giant glass bookshelf full of chinaware or something like that. The only thing we had in the house that could potentially make that sound was my mom’s curio cabinet with all of her Boyd's Bears collectibles. We ran into the other room to see what happened, but there was nothing out of the ordinary. Not even the TV was on to explain the sound. It freaked us out pretty bad again.
15. Don’t Go Into The Forest Alone
I was on a fly-fishing trip with my two cousins, and we had gone out to a stream that was about a 5-10 mile hike from the road so we were pretty much isolated from people and other fishers.
I was still a pretty new fisher at the time, and I had never fished this particular stream before. We were piggybacking sections of the stream, so we would each get to fish a portion and then skip ahead to the front of the group and fish a new portion.
My cousins specifically told me to stay to the right of the stream when we hit the branch. I figured that they meant it was overrun with logs or large rocks, and being the idiotic 15-year-old I was I decided that I'd just go down it because it couldn't be that bad and it's nice to have an entire section to yourself. I should’ve listened to his warning.
I was surprised when I started going down it because it was really nice fishing. There weren't any logs blocking the river, and the foliage wasn't very thick. I remember I started noticing things though, specifically there was an absolute silence over this part of the forest. It didn't really strike me as bizarre at the time, but things kept on getting weirder the further I went down.
I noticed that someone had recently macheted through a really thick section of trees. When I went up to get a better look at it, I realized that there was no way the damage was from a machete. It was easily 10 ft in height and took a bizarre path from one side of the stream to the other as if something had stumbled through. I remember being marginally creeped out at that point, and I decided to turn around and head back.
When I was nearing the halfway or so point on my way back, I saw a sign had been stuck onto a tree. It said, "You're dead”. I started laughing at it because it was just so ridiculous—but then I froze. Something big started moving around behind me. I didn't even bother turning around, I just high-tailed it out of there and didn't stop running until I had found my cousins.
We never talked about what happened to me, because I was afraid of getting in trouble. But sometimes I feel like it might have been some sort of prank on their behalf. The only odd thing is I thought they would've been like "Haha, got you”! at some point and they never did.
16. Mind The Stairs
Back when I was a pretty broke factory worker I found a great deal on a rental. It was a one-bedroom house with a basement. The house also had a studio apartment attached to it with a locked door between the two units. It was an odd setup but the price was amazing so I moved in. There was a strange pentagram hanging from the porch on move-in day—obviously a sign, but I ignored it.
At first, it was little things, odd things, objects being moved or pictures falling off walls. I figured it was my imagination or the house settling. Then, people started to get hurt. I would have small parties at my house on weekends. During the first party, a girl was headed to my bathroom and went to the basement door instead and fell down the stairs. She broke her nose and collarbone. We all assumed she’d had a few too many and made a mistake.
I hung a sign on the bathroom door indicating it was the bathroom so nobody got confused again. At the next party, a guy did the same thing. He had been to my house before, and used the bathroom before but managed to open the wrong door and fall down the basement stairs. He couldn't explain how it happened, he was pretty banged up too.
The basement was pretty creepy, my dog was terrified of it. In the middle of the night, I heard noises that sounded like cats and told myself it was coming from outside. One night, I had a crazy experience. I was hearing the cats but couldn't wake up. I was dreaming and awake at the same time. In my "dream" I felt like something was coming up from the basement and I was scared. I dreamt that I looked over at my dog, who told me "get out". I needed to wake up, but I was unable to open my eyes, I managed to hit myself in the face.
When I woke up I was on the floor. My dog was exactly where he was in "the dream". After this, I took Nyquil or sleeping pills every night just to fall asleep. One day I had a friend over who had a girl I never met with her. The girl told me she knew this house. That’s when I learned the disturbing truth about the place. She was a nurse who used to live in the studio apartment attached to the house. She was the caretaker of the old woman who lived on my side of the house.
She said the woman had a ton of cats and was very particular about her house. She said if you touched or moved anything she would flip out. The woman died by falling down the basement stairs, they think she tripped over one of her cats. I confirmed this with my landlord, who said the house was built for her.
17. Double Exposure
About a year ago, I was home by myself for about 10 minutes tops while my roommate drove in the rain to pick up her boyfriend. While she was gone, a nearby powerline was struck by lightning and I saw sparking and crazy stuff so I picked up my phone and tried to film it all. I was commentating throughout the whole video describing what had just happened etc. I promptly forgot about it.
The next night we had some friends over for a few drinks and one was going through my phone and he played a video in which you can hear me talking and narrating. That wasn't strange, but then I heard the creepiest sound—it was me singing a song I used to sing around that time whenever I was home alone...t the same time that I was speaking in the video. I was talking the whole time so no idea how this is possible. And no, I never recorded myself. My laptop was mid-movie that I had paused and there were no other devices able to be playing that song.
I freaked myself out and deleted the video—now wish I hadn't so I could hear it back.
18. Feels Like Deja Vu
We were an intelligence operation about 50 yards behind an infantry platoon. They had called us on a wired landline to tell us there was an enemy tank just over a hill nearby and we had jumped into our foxhole. So, there we were, scared, waiting it out. That was when I saw it.
In my mind's eye: I had a vision of one of the infantry guys strolling up to our foxhole and telling us it wasn't a tank. I realized the reason they hadn't told us before was that our landline wasn't working though there was no way to tell at the time. I saw the sky lighting up behind him and knew the exact spot in which he would stand. This was all in my mind—until it wasn't.
Hours later an infantry grunt stood in that exact spot, with the light from the sky exactly right, and told us they'd been trying to get through to us on the landline and that it wasn't a tank. I would call it deja vu but I'd had that before and knew it wasn't the same. This was hours before, and I knew what was going to happen.
Nothing like that has ever happened to me since.
19. Run.
I was about 12. All the windows in the house were shut, and I was the last one to come upstairs. I was in the upstairs hallway heading into my bedroom when I felt this sudden urge to just run. This feeling of danger just overcame me within a split second and I just darted into my room, slamming the bedroom door shut behind me. I felt safe.
Skip forward a minute or two, and as I was getting into bed, I felt the same feeling again. Terrified as I was. I huddled in the corner of my bed. Then I heard something slam into my door as if someone had run into it. I stayed deathly still for a good five minutes, plucking up the courage to check. Nothing there.
I ran into my mom’s bedroom and told her what happened. She didn't believe me and told me to get back to bed. So I decided to sleep in a different bedroom. Just so I could hear the stuff around me I left the door open. I was sitting up in this huge double bed with the duvet over everywhere but my eyes. I left the outside light on too.
Just as I was starting to feel sleepy, I saw something black, like a shadow, flicker in the hallway. I froze and immediately thought about running into my mom’s room. I shouted at her a few times and she started to get out of bed, but she opened her door and stayed at her doorway asking what it was. That's when we both saw the same thing—and we were terrified.
My bedroom door opened ever so slightly, then forcibly shut halfway. As if someone used all their force to slam the door and stopped halfway. Then the same thing happened. I heard my mum shout my name and then my bedroom door opened wide, then slam shut. My mom shouted at me again asking if that was me and I screamed "no".
20. Sleepwalk With Me
When I was a teenager, crazy stuff used to happen all the time. My uncle used to stay with us in our two-story house and the far end of the house was an add-on with his room and a bathroom. The bathroom had a three-section mirror that folded out and I was using it to shave one day. There was a large fish bowl with flowers (my mom loved flowers) and marbles in the bottom.
When I was cleaning up I accidentally knocked over the bowl and the marbles spilled everywhere. I was annoyed that I had to pick them all up but had to since it wasn't my bathroom. I went downstairs to the TV room beneath the bathroom when I heard the sound of 1,000 marbles hitting the tile floor above me.
I was so mad that I hadn't fixed the bowl right and that I had to pick them all up again. I stomped upstairs, but when I got to the bathroom, I was stunned. The bowl was sitting perfectly the way I left it. I was home alone so I got freaked out and went into the backyard til everyone came home.
My uncle eventually moved out and I got his old room. I was pumped because it was huge and I got my own bathroom. This is when stuff got really weird. Sometimes I would get to sleep like normal and wake up in the middle of the night like normal, but my pillows would be at the foot of my bed and my blankets and body were switched too. Everything was perfectly laid out like when I went to sleep but reversed end of my bed!
One time I swear I woke up and saw a little white figure in the far corner of my room. I squinted to see better and it looked like a little girl with her head down. The girl started moving toward me and BAM! She rushed toward me! I screamed and leaped out of my sheets and stood on my bed.
This was the worst thing, other than that my mom said she would see me sleepwalking from downstairs late at night but by the time she got up the stairs to help me back I was already all the way back in my bed like normal. I didn't say anything about the creepy stuff, but this Christmas I brought it up to my uncle and he said he understood.
What he told me was terrifying. He said he actually had a spirit that followed him and in his new apartment dishes would fly out of cabinets, doors would swing open and closed, and television static would turn on and off. Every time he moved from place to place the spirit would dwell for a while until it found him in his new spot.
Now that I look back on this stuff I don't know how I lived in that room for so long. I guess when you're 15 years old, you get up the next day and with school and a busy schedule you don't think about what the heck happened the night before. Needless to say, this was an intense period in my life.
21. Fishing In The Dark
My brother, my husband, and I all decided to go catfishing one night. As usual, we get there around dusk, pick out spots, and gather firewood before dark. Night falls, it's a breezy early summer evening, and the sky is cloudless and full of stars...but it's a new moon, so still quite dark. We're fishing, not catching more than a few perch, and it's getting close to 1 am so we're starting to talk about packing up.
But first, the guys head downriver a short way (only about 50 yards, maybe less) to check a few other spots. I stay by the fire and decide to lie down a little and enjoy the quiet. A few minutes go by and I hear my brother call out "Hey uh, are those flashlights”? I sit up and look where he's pointing, a spot upstream and across the water past me.
Flashlights would be kinda odd because of the location and time of night (anyone who would be out there would have already been there). There are three little round lights, and they do look like flashlight beams...but not really. For one, they're very concentrated and circular, there's no "beam". That part of the riverbank is also a very steep, muddy cliff, just full of brush, so it's kinda weird that there's someone there when there are at least half a dozen easier ways to approach, and the lights aren't moving right.
They're sort of erratic, but the movements are smooth and don't bounce like someone walking down a cliff would be moving a flashlight, and the movements are in sort of figure 8 patterns, one breaking off and moving to the side before rejoining the others. We watch for a minute, commenting on how weird they're acting. But if it's another person, we need to know, because they aren't getting closer and apparent flashlights just pointing at us is creepy behavior. All I could do was shake in fear.
So, I move over to where they were sitting, and my husband and brother take off at a brisk pace toward where the lights are. I'm watching the weird things, and as the guys get closer they start really getting weird. One vanished completely before reappearing not 30 seconds later. On the top of a pecan tree that had to have been 15 feet tall at least. The other two split, one heading upstream where the guys are about to round a cluster of the brush before they hit the water’s edge and could see the other bank clearly, and the 3rd one sort of hovering toward me but then back.
The guys round the brush, and as soon as they do, the lights flash once and all of them blink out suddenly. The guys are peering across with their own flashlights. I can see the beams faintly from where I am but see and hear absolutely nothing. We never heard anything at all, no brush crackling or twigs snapping, no water splashing.
They head back and we all unanimously decide that that was weird and it's time to leave. Multiple visits to that spot afterward and it still produced some fish for us in the daylight, but when night hit we would never get a single nibble. We all still talk about it sometimes, and we've still never figured out what the heck those lights were.
We tried scaling that bank at a later date (in the daytime), and it's just not possible at that exact location because of the steep cliff and dense brush. You can get from that side to the river, but you have to come out in a spot that's about 30 years upstream and further back. No explanation.
22. It Follows
I used to work at a hotel that was haunted. We had a lot of customers that mentioned seeing a ghostly cowboy in a room, they would hear voices in other rooms and stuff like that. Even had people take off in the middle of the night because of the activity. I was hanging out on the patio in front of the main office with a co-worker and my brother. It was about 2 or 3 in the morning and we started hearing voices coming from the office.
We would get up and check out the office, conference rooms, etc only to find no one in the building. So we turned on some music and went back to the patio. While we are chilling outside we hear the music volume going up and down. All the way up and then back down to silence. This would go on for like 10 minutes then it went back to normal. Once again, we search the building and find no one.
About 15 minutes after the music volume fluctuated, I hear my brother say "Who the heck is in the office right now”? That’s when things got really creepy. My co-worker and I turn around and see a tall man in a white t-shirt, and red baseball cap poking around a corner in the back of the office. We all rush into the office to see who it was, but after searching everywhere we couldn’t find anyone.
Fast forward a week or so. I just got off work from a late shift and I decided to crash at my co-worker’s house. It was maybe 2 or 3 in the morning when I started getting ready to sleep in the guest room. I get in bed and start trying to fall asleep. A few minutes in, I feel a slight pressure on my chest. The pressure got stronger and stronger to the point I couldn’t breathe.
I open my eyes and sit up. I look around the room and see nothing. I shrug it off and try going to sleep again. A few minutes in again and I feel the same pressure on my chest and neck. Stronger and stronger till I couldn’t breathe. I get up and walk around the room looking to see if my co-worker is just messing with me somehow. He is passed out in his room and there is no one else in the house.
I shrug it off again and try going to sleep...again...Almost instantly I can’t breathe, the pressure was intense. I open my eyes. I’ll never forget what I saw. I see the man with the red baseball hat and white t-shirt clear as day. He is just hovering over my face, hands around my neck. He had no face, it freaked me out a lot. I was just staring into this faceless man while he is choking me.
After what seems like an eternity, the man vanishes. I jump out of bed catching my breath. Look around the room to see if I can find him. I found no one again. I get back in bed and chalk it up to a bad dream. I try sleeping again. Roughly five minutes into that, I feel a hand grab my ankle, and a mighty strength yanked me from the end of the bed.
I completely came off the bed and landed flat on the floor. I scramble back onto the bed and start chanting to myself "Go away, you do not belong here”! And then there was nothing. No activity the rest if the night.
23. A Sexist Spirit
This happened to me when I was visiting my ex-girlfriend’s family in England with her. We were staying in her aunt and uncle’s house, which was a nice four-story house. The house used to be a slaughterhouse where they would take the cows up to the top floor and process them down to the basement. The first thing her cousin let me know was that it was haunted by the woman who used to run the slaughterhouse and that she only haunts men.
A week goes by and we would occasionally hear footsteps in the room above us when no one else was home it didn't freak us out that much since we were on the third floor and not the fourth floor which had the activity. One night when we were sleeping, I heard a creak in our room, which woke me up a bit but not full-on awake.
My eyes had adjusted to the darkness so I could see the wardrobe in our room and that is when I saw the wardrobe closet doors open completely by themselves. So I did what every 21-year old-male would do and put the covers over my head hoping for the ghost or demon to take my girlfriend instead of me. After a little bit of hiding under the covers, I peeked out and the wardrobe was still open so I rolled over to look what time it was and that is when I saw it.
Just a big grin coming out of darkness, kind of like the Cheshire cat in the dark from Alice in Wonderland. I woke up my girlfriend, turned on a light, and barely slept the rest of the night. I told her aunt and uncle in the morning about how I thought I saw the ghost; before I could get to the part about the smile in the dark her uncle stopped me and said let me guess, all you could see was a smile right? It made everything even more terrifying.
After I finished my story with him, he told me a story about how one time during the day he was napping and felt something crawling on the bed. He thought it was his wife wanting to snuggle up next to him, but he just wanted to rest. So he told her to leave him alone but he kept feeling something slowly crawl up the bed.
He opened his eyes and what he described as a full outline of a young woman crawling on his bed and looking at him. He started yelling and his wife came upstairs to him with a terrified look on his face. Oh and the night before we were flying back to the US, we stayed on the fourth floor since our room was being used by my girlfriend’s grandma.
We watched a movie in their media room and then got ready for bed. My girlfriend didn't tell me what happened after we left the media room until we got back to the states because she knew I wouldn't sleep. She said she heard something in the room and every electronic turned on in the room and then quickly shut off. I haven't had any paranormal things happen to me since England.
24. The Watcher
I picked up my boyfriend and we stopped at my house so I could take a bath before we went to my mother's house. He stayed on the porch to have a smoke while I went inside. At the time, there was no one else in the house. I went back to my bedroom, where there is a chain on the inside to lock it, chained the door, and ran the bath.
My room is tiny and there are no places where a person could hide, and no way that a human can slip in the door once it's chained. Can't open the window either without a lot of noise and effort. I was washing my hair and out of the corner of my eye, I saw something. I glanced up and a hand came out of nowhere and grabbed the handle of the bathroom door, slamming it shut.
I didn't freak out at first, because I thought my boyfriend had snuck in behind me to play a prank. I laughed, stepped out of the tub, and opened the door. There was no one in the room, and the chain was still locked. I started to flip out, walking in circles in the room trying to find who had slammed the door, checking to see that the window was still locked. No one. My boyfriend was still on the porch when I came out.
A few days after, the lights started flickering. I live in a double-wide trailer, so I thought it was just faulty wiring. It still could be. But then one night I was walking out of the bedroom to get a glass of water and the hall light went out, which wouldn't be so strange except that the broom (which was propped behind the washer) fell over, barring my path down the hall.
I was more annoyed than scared—until I saw a dark black shadow. It darted forward past me into the kitchen. I thought it was my cat but I glanced back into the bedroom and my fat cat was sitting right behind me. I took this as a sign to go to bed. Thought I was seeing things.
The next day my fountain drink exploded. No reason. It wasn't particularly hot or cold, so the Styrofoam had no reason to combust. AC or heat was not on. There was no one near it. It just exploded in a sticky, syrupy mess all over the couch. I thought I was going crazy until my boyfriend and a few friends mentioned weird experiences in the house as well.
I would chalk it up to hysteria, or exaggerated stories for attention, except that I hadn't told anyone else about my own experiences. Sometimes I still see tall shadows in the bathroom, which I reason away by saying it's my cat so I can get some sleep. When these things happen, it's either the paranormal passing through…or I'm just scaring myself. Either way, no one will come to harm, and that's what's important.
25. Heed This Warning
I will swear by this until the day I die: When I was a kid, I was riding my bike on some hills next to a bayou with my brother. I crashed at the bottom of one and while trying to straighten my handlebars, a little girl with a German shepherd was standing on the hill I had just come down and asked what we were doing there. We said "Just riding" and she said we shouldn't be there because a little girl was killed over there and pointed into the grass.
When we looked and turned back around, our faces went white—she was gone. We ran to the top of the hill and there was nothing. It was about 75 yards of open space to the road and fence. It was either a nearly-impossible prank pulled off by someone that never took credit for it—or a ghost.
26. The Plague Doctor
I worked as an orderly last summer at a hospital, and one part of that hospital is incredibly old, built in the 1920s, which is old for where I live. I was working night shifts along with day shifts and some of the other, older, male orderlies told me to watch out for ghosts on my first night shift, but I just brushed them off as trying to scare me.
Nothing happened for a long while. It wasn't until my third night shift that something happened. One of my duties was to collect samples of body fluids and bring them to the lab. One night I had to go to the OR section of the hospital which is in the old part. The main elevator was busy, so I had to go into the X-ray section and get the elevator there.
While I was waiting for the elevator I felt this enormous feeling of intense fear. It was right in my gut! And I felt like someone was staring a hole in the back of my head as if they hated me. When the elevator came I was quick to get in there, but the elevators were added in the 1960s, so they have windowed doors and open elevators moving up and down, and as I'm in the elevator waiting for it to go up, I swear I saw someone—or something—enormous move past.
It sort of looked like a plague doctor, which makes no sense because we didn't have those here. It was black, more than 2 meters tall, and scary, but I also only saw it for one split second before the elevator rose up to the OR. Needless to say, I waited for the other elevator next time.
BrainCharm KONICA MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERA
27. The Red Coat
My family had a rental in the middle of nowhere New York for a few months that always gave a weird vibe, and I'd hear doors slam when I was home alone; Probably the wind right?
Until one day my dad, stepmom, and I were eating dinner, with my stepmom and I facing away from the door and staircase, and my dad looking where we couldn’t see.
Suddenly, my dad gets a confused look on his face and asks if our family friend’s son Jake was over, stepmom replies, "No, but did you just see a kid with a red pea coat on?" My dad had the strangest look I’ve ever seen on his face that gave me the willies. My stepmom swears she's seen a kid running around the house a few times when home alone, always wearing a red coat.
A few months later my second cousin stays the night. He swears he's seen things on his own before but is really calm about it because he's had it multiple times, which I always thought was interesting, but of course never really had any solid belief. The next morning at breakfast out of nowhere he asks if we've ever seen a kid in an old red coat wandering the house.
I got the freakiest chills that morning. He said he woke up on the couch and saw the kid watching him on the stairs for a few minutes, then the kid got up and walked upstairs. Needless to say, I spent more time at my mom’s house the rest of that summer.
28. A Case Of Mistaken Identity
I've always had an odd feeling about my current room, it's the only bedroom on the ground floor and the doors on the wardrobe are these huge sliding mirrors. It's creepy. This room used to be a guest room, frequently guests would cut their stay short without much explanation, and often their kids would get really upset, but only when they were made to stay in that room, taking them into the lounge would calm them down fairly quickly.
Now it is my bedroom. I’m a 21-year-old male and have been known to have, uh "sleepovers" with casual female acquaintances, a couple of whom have commented that they heard strange noises coming from the wardrobe. Not voices, but voice-like noises. One girl asked me if my grandmother was living with me at the time. My grandmother's on the other side of the world and has never set foot in this house, she told me she heard the voice and movements of a very old woman.
I've been awoken several times by the feeling of being touched on my face, really gently though, it never hurts, it feels like I’m being petted, it's kind of unnerving, but has never been threatening. My friend’s girlfriend is pretty "spiritual”. I let it slip to my friend about how I felt about this room and he told her so she took it upon herself to check it out. She told me the scary truth.
Apparently, there's an old woman's spirit who lives in this room and she thinks I'm a family member of hers. Normally I wouldn't think much of it, but I never told my friend about the grandmotherly vibes myself and my acquaintances had been getting so I'm a little more inclined to believe her "spirituality" nonsense.
29. Ghost Hunting
I actually followed footsteps I could hear in the woods once. I had been at this campsite for a week and it was the last day. Strange things had been happening the entire time we were there. I was 14, and the ages of the kids ranged from 10-15 with one or two adults around to watch us (it was a Girl Guide camp). I know the area is haunted, my family lived and worked on the grounds a few generations ago and the stories have been passed on. I didn't mention any of this to anyone.
The first morning, one of the girls and I got up before everyone else and decided to sneak off to the obstacle course in the middle of the woods while we collected firewood. Everything was normal on the way there, but on the way back, the woods felt different and I decided to scare my friend, who ended up running back to camp screaming. When I was alone I saw a figure of a man walking through the trees. I quickly went to find him because no one should be near our campsite, but no one was there, he couldn't have just vanished because I was right next to an open field and he had gone that way.
Nothing happened for a few more days, I forget about it and have fun. Then one day we were playing a game of being on an alien planet and had to survive there so we had to stay in the woods all day building shelters, etc. The kids from my tent chose a spot where I had seen the figure. I went back to camp and saw them all crying inside because they had seen the man. But here's the crazy part—I hadn't told them about the man.
So on the last day, I went ghost hunting with two kids. I ended up following the footsteps of heavy boots through dried leaves I could hear in front of me—there weren't any dried leaves in this old path. I followed them out into a clearing where they stopped. I sat down and did the whole, "If there is anything here can you give me a sign”. I got a sign, and the kids with me ran back to camp.
I just sat and watched this strange mist hover in front of me, shapes moved behind it. I said thank you and it blew away like a huge gust of wind caught it, but there was no wind.
At the time I thought it was a cool game, but it turned out that the woman who took us out there had her own experiences and refuses to camp there ever again.
30. Mom? Mom? Mommy?
My room was about 15' x 15' and I was in the back corner with the door diagonally opposite me. It was really late and for some reason, I woke up and was looking out my door. That’s when it happened. All of a sudden, a lady walks in really slowly. I couldn't see a face, only the moon light from behind going around her body. She was the same height as my mom and it looked like she was wearing a nightgown.
This was not a slight ghost image out of the corner of my eye. I was sitting in bed looking directly at her. I could see her walk. I could see her figure and everything like a normal person, but with a creepy silhouette like you get with a backlight and darkness. She walked really slowly toward me. I could only see the outline so I thought it was my mom.
I called "Mom" in a quiet voice, but no reply. With each step she took I called again, but no reply. I thought it was my mom not wanting to answer and trying to trick me. With each call, my voice got a little higher. She walked very slowly to me and got within 6 or 7 feet of me. Then she started walking back out.
I could tell if she turned around or just was walking backward. I was freaking out somewhat, but still not sure. She walked out as slow as she came in and I watched her back out the door. At the time no one was in the house but my mom and me. So being a curious little kid, I got up to see if it was her. The whole time I wondered if it was a ghost or her, but despite it looking like a ghost, I thought it surely was my mom. I was a rational kid.
I walked out my door and into my brother's room where my mom had gone to sleep that night. As soon as I looked in, my heart started racing—I saw her in bed, snoring. Instantly I went from rational to what the heck!? I knew then it was a ghost and screamed really loud. But the nightmare didn’t end there.
The dog on my mom's bed woke up and ran after me, biting and attacking me. Here I was, rolling on the ground, being bitten by a dog, and losing it over a ghost, knowing I had to go back to my ghost room to sleep. My mom woke and was also like what the heck are you doing. I tried to explain, but to her, I was just a kid with a ghost story.
As I write this, I have goosebumps.
31. Coming Back Home
I lost my brother when I was 15. He was really high from a mixture of bad stuff, on his third relapse, and hung himself early one morning. He was always in and out of the house at all times but he had a distinct routine and dying really didn't stop him from continuing to do just that.
You could clearly hear him pull up in his old, rusty car and the squeaky door would swing open. He'd stomp up the drive, kick off his boots, swing open the metal door and bounce up the stairs to his room. This happened every night for about two weeks. The weird thing was when I finally got the guts up to look out the window, nothing would be there. The house would be still and completely silent. But if you stayed in your room, you could hear the whole routine.
I began thinking that I had gone crazy with grief. It wound me up until one night, things really spooked me out. I burst out of my room at the exact time his ghost would be passing my door on his way to his room. I was scared of seeing his ghost but thought that it might somehow prove that I wasn't going insane.
Instead, I found my little brother in the hallway looking around too. He just simply asked me, "Can you hear him too”? Turns out we were hearing the exact same sequence of events. It stopped not long after that. I'm an atheist and really don't believe in these kinds of things but that rocked me.
In my personal opinion though, due to the number of illicit substances, he was on when he passed, maybe he just didn't know that he was gone and was continuing to come home until one day his spirit realized.
32. Voices From Beyond
I've sat on this for a while but I'll tell you what happened to me. Before I start I want to say, I don't believe in ghosts that but…this genuinely happened and I don't know how to explain it. When I was around 15 and learning how to record music at home, I thought it would be cool to record the sound of rain and use it within a song (corny I know).
So I had this little dictaphone, it was raining and I was going to sleep. I left the dictaphone recording the rain by my window and went to bed. My intention was to transfer the rain recording onto a silly little 4 track recorder I had. When I played the rain back the next day, I heard something that made me freeze in my tracks. It was a blip, like someone talking quickly.
The dictaphone had a little button that let you play things at half speed, so I flicked it. What I heard when I listened again was an old lady saying "Hello”? I was pretty shaken up. However, I tried it again that night to see what would happen. I listened back to it and again I heard a blip. I slowed it down and heard an old lady saying " Put me down"! I didn't try it again. But that wasn’t the last thing that I heard.
Some months later I was home alone because my parents were visiting family abroad and one night I heard choking coming from the bathroom. I have never been so scared in my life, I didn't go and check it out. I just pulled the covers over my head and shook.
33. Exit Here
My grandmother and I were both into the paranormal, and would often go ghost hunting, either in areas that the locals would claim were haunted to nationally recognized landmarks. One day we went into a very old graveyard dating to the 1700s, which had several gated areas devoted to the original families who had settled into the region.
We approached one of these gated areas, and I had to literally wrench open this wrought iron gate to get into the family plot. Not only was it rusted (the hinges squeaked angrily) but there were also many weeds growing into it. It was a great deal of effort just to move. We toured around the family plot as I snapped a few pictures on the Polaroid camera for about half an hour when we noticed storm clouds were moving in. Everything got scarier from that point on.
Grandma said it was time to pack it in before it hit. I agreed. As we finished up and turned to that wrought iron gate again, we noticed that it was no longer open, but had closed to its original position. We stood for a moment registering this, and before we could comment on it, the gate (which was an ordeal to open in the first place) soundlessly opened up allowing passage.
We wordlessly walked to the car and started driving home. Once we were free and clear of the graveyard, we started talking about what had just happened. We couldn't decide if the gate opening was a friendly "Have a nice day" or "Get out".
34. Got Lost On The Way Out
The funeral home I work at is regarded as haunted. It’s the oldest in the city and the building is around 80 years old. We all have experienced things like doors being closed and opened, the lights going off and on, and just general creepiness, especially late at night. It’s likely just the old building, as it’s drafty and likely has bad wiring.
The most paranormal thing I experienced was actually at the newer building. It’s only 12 years old. We had a young man in, who was in his 20s and had overdosed. It was a heartbreaking service. The family was obviously extremely distraught. After the service, he was going to be cremated, and we were waiting for the family to finish up.
Finally, the director decided that we should take off, he would close up, and we'd cremate in the morning. I’m going to the back hall to clock out, turn the corner, and saw a guy standing at the end of the hall. I was about to call out to him. I figured he was family that walked down the wrong hall. I walked toward him and saw him turn to the door at the end, and walk out. The door didn’t open, but he walked out of the door. I was taken aback—he had on a brown suit and dark brown hair. I thought I was just losing my mind. When I came in the next day, I realized the chilling truth.
When I showed up, I helped the director load him into the retort in the crematory. Before we did, we checked the ankle tag to make sure it was the right guy, for our security. I was slightly shocked as I hadn’t seen him yet. He was a young guy who looked peaceful. What shocked me was that he had dark brown hair and a brown suit.
35. In A Pinch
I took a tour of the old Missouri state penitentiary at night about two years ago. We got to the area where they kept really troubled people underground in pitch black where they were left to die with the bare minimum of food every so often. We (the tour group) were put into one of the cells and had the lights turned off to see how it felt to be in there. Immediately, I felt a surge of darkness overwhelming my body.
I was in the back corner of the cell and my right elbow was pinched. As the pinch backed away my jacket was pulled to the back corner. After the lights came on there was I turned around and there was no space for a person to have that. I talked to the tour guide after and he said that people actually complain about being pinched the lights go out.
36. What Was That?
My friend Ian and I had decided to head up to Overland Park, Kansas to hang out with some friends. We arrived at my friend’s house around 7 PM. We hung out, lit off some fireworks as it was a couple of days before the Fourth of July, listened to music, and just caught up. Around 10:30, we decided to head back to my hometown of Lawrence, KS, which entailed getting onto I-70 and heading west.
The highway was rather empty as it was a Wednesday night and most people have to work, but as kids getting ready for our first year of college, we had the summer off. After about 15 minutes of driving, we had seen barely any cars and there were no cars in sight. I was looking out the passenger window to the right of the car just taking in the cloudless night, the small rural houses, trees, empty fields, and fields of crops.
Then suddenly it came into my view. It was about 100 feet in the air and probably a couple of hundred yards away from the highway floating above an empty field and patches of trees. I immediately told Ian to look at it and he too could see it. We both started freaking out as it was like nothing either of us had ever seen before.
It was a giant floating triangle hollowed out with the tip pointing upward toward the sky. There were lights inlaid in the triangle structure changing extremely quickly from yellow, to green, to red and then repeating the cycle. As we passed by the UFO we realized it was high up enough that we were going to be able to see it for a couple of minutes. I got out my phone to start filming it.
I kid you not as soon as I pointed my phone at it the screen turned black and wouldn't turn back on. That's when we really started getting scared. Did it know we could see it, what the heck was it, an alien, something human, something spiritual? We had no idea but if it could interact with my phone then we felt it had to know we were there.
After a couple of minutes, the object finally disappeared below the horizon, it hadn't moved the entire time. During the whole experience, we didn't see a single other car. We were pretty freaked out and just wanted to get home after that.
Wikimedia Commons, Tony Webster
37. Grabbed In The Back
When I was 15, I had gotten into a fight with my mother's boyfriend and I holed myself up in my room to surf the web on my laptop while I was lying in bed. I heard footsteps come down the hall and figured my mother came to talk to me, but I didn't feel like talking so I shut my laptop and pretended I was sleeping. I wasn't facing the door.
I felt the door open, and I realized it wasn't my mother, it was her boyfriend. He's a really big guy, my mom is a tiny mousy thing. He didn't say anything, which I thought was really weird. He's a loud guy, he doesn't appreciate silence and he's not the dramatic type.
He walked over to me and stood next to my bed for a few seconds. My eyes are wide open and I can see the shadow cast over me by the light of the hallway behind him. At this point I had no idea what I should do, I had been pretending to sleep and I didn't want to stop but I was also extremely uncomfortable.
I was getting ready to say something like, "Uh, hey, weirdo! Get out of my room”! when suddenly he did the unthinkable—he reached down and grabbed my lower back, digging his nails in. Immediately I tried to scream for my mother in response but I couldn't move anything and for a few seconds, I stayed like that in full panic mode, heart pounding, adrenaline pumping.
Seconds later I could move again, I flipped over to make him stop and found no one there. I immediately started crying in some weird mixture of relief and disappointment and horror. Then I composed myself and went downstairs to hug my mother. I didn't explain what had happened because I was still really weirded out.
I want to dismiss it as sleep paralysis but I wasn't asleep. I was wide awake the entire time. My back was sore for the rest of the night.
38. Make Like A Tree And Cry
Recently, I was sentenced to a Department of Corrections rehab facility in rural North Carolina. I had never seen a place like it...it looked creepy. Five buildings from the early 1900s were evenly spaced along a loop that went in a semi-circle from the main road. The administration building was home to an old crematorium and a tunnel that went a mile or so to the mental hospital up the road.
Upon arriving, I immediately was uneasy. I had been there three days and was having trouble sleeping. That night I was drifting off and heard a scream. It was a woman’s voice...in an all-male facility. This was a blood-curdling scream and it woke up two other guys in my dorm room.
The next day, I hear this dude who works there singing about "Abigail". I ask him who she is. The story was seriously disturbing.
He told me "Abigail was here a long time ago back when this was a Black-only mental institution”. The guards did some really terrible stuff to her and she hung herself. He finished by telling me: “They say Abigail is still in the buildings".
At this point, I remember the scream. I'm not one to believe stuff like this but I heard it. Throughout my three-month stay there, I saw and heard a lot more stuff. There was a black cat that would walk around through the trees and behind the buildings. The only animal I saw there. Jet black and would just stare.
Also in the bathrooms on multiple occasions, the showers, sinks, or hand dryers would turn on by themselves. The lights would turn on and off. A guy in my dorm claims to have been shaken awake by seemingly no one as well. But that wasn’t the creepiest thing.
Lastly, the strangest of them all is the crying tree. I forget who told me of the crying tree but that isn't important. This tree was in the corner of our rec yard just outside the fence but the branches hung over slightly. It was next to the crematorium/tunnel building. Literal tears would fall on you when you stood under this tree.
It was a sunny day, midday, with not a cloud in the sky…and 2 drops hit my arms. I tasted it out of curiosity. They were tears.
39. The Perpetual State Of Emergency
I used to live in an apartment that was once the emergency department of a hospital. The whole complex was an old hospital. I didn't really have any beliefs about the paranormal before I moved in—but I was forced to reconsider after living there. There were lots of little things. Hearing footsteps but nobody being there, bangs and knocks in the night, and our bedroom door often opening by itself while we were trying to sleep. You could hear it unlatch and everything.
But there were bigger things too. The worst was the children's voices. I'd say on about three occasions we woke up to the sound of small children. The first time my wife thought that our son was calling her, but he was fast asleep. It was this drawn-out whisper, like "Moooom...Mommyyyy…” over and over. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up just thinking about it. When we had a newborn, we heard a little girl saying "Hey, come here, come look at your baby”. Sounded like it was right next to the bed.
It wasn't just children's voices though, we both woke up one night to hear two adult voices having a heated conversation right in our closet. It is impossible for a full-size adult to fit in our closet, it was tiny. My wife said something to make it stop and there was a BANG! Like something was knocked over. But like I said, nothing could really fit there, so there was nothing to knock over.
Also, the apartment next to us had some interesting tales. We had several sets of neighbors come and go over the years. In the first set, a husband and wife, the husband was driving into the parking lot after work and saw, very distinctly, an old man in a hospital gown sitting on their bed. The bedroom window was right there as you drove in.
He confronted his wife about it, she didn't know anything, and it was actually a pretty big fight. They were having marriage troubles and he must have thought she was cheating on him. A few weeks later, when she was coming home from the grocery store, she saw the exact same thing—an old man in a hospital gown sitting on the bed.
Fast forward a few years later. Totally different sets of neighbors. We were chatting with them and somehow got on the subject of this building being an old ER. One of the neighbors said, "You know, we saw the weirdest thing when we pulled into the parking lot last week”. Yep, an old man in a hospital gown, sitting on the bed.
I don't consider myself superstitious but man, that place gave me the creeps.
40. Even When They’re Gone, They’re Not
My mom took her own life years back when I was just out of college. About two years later, her mother (my grandma) passed. I was having a really rough day at work and had just gotten off the phone with my dad, who reminded me that even though she was gone, there wasn't anything stopping me from talking to her.
I never felt the urge other than to scream my anger at her before that. I put my iPhone on top of my wallet, face-up on the left side of the coffee table, sank into the center of the couch, and started to cry. I felt silly but was willing to try anything to make it stop. I remember taking a deep breath, wiping my eyes, and looking up, saying, "I love you, Mom. You know that, right”?
I thought it might have been the drama of the moment, but the best way I can describe it is that the air suddenly had a vacuous quality, like all sound had been taken out of the room. My phone's screen, without call, text or push notification, came alight, thrice flashing between the bell symbol with and without the cross through it—which requires the silence knob on the side to be flipped, rapidly back and forth in this case.
I was shocked and immediately skeptical. In my biggest smug tone and smile to match, I looked up and said, "What, are you going to tell me that was you”? More silence. I turned my head to look at my phone. Nothing, black screen. Suddenly, my car horn beeped from just outside our driveway, pulling my head to the right.
That was THE longest two seconds of my life—and I know it was my car. It had a very distinct high-pitched, nasally horn because it was so worn out. And it did not come with a remote so you had to lock it manually. I looked back at my phone, that smug smile wiped clean and eyes wide.
As if she were waiting behind the black screen, it came alight again, without a push, waiting a moment before flashing the bell symbol once. I wanted to say something but the ambient noise in the room was back. I remember thinking to myself, "And just like that, she's gone again”. I went to bed and fell asleep immediately, smiling.
Now, my aunt (her sister) is into this stuff. She's always claimed that there are two ways that people we’ve lost speak to us: through electronics, and (despite science/logic) by leaving groups of pennies for you to find, especially around significant items.
When I walked out the next morning, my phone was still on top of my wallet, but literally, a disjunct ring of pennies, almost all face-up, surrounded them. I asked my roommates about loose change on the table when they got home—nothing but puzzled looks as to why I would ask.
I've only told that story to people very close to me, for fear of others thinking I was going crazy from the stress of my family dying. Even now, I'm welling up retelling it. Remember that even when they're gone, they're not.
41. Spoiler Alert
When I was a child, my dad was grilling burgers in the backyard. My sister and mom were setting the picnic table, and I was a ways off pulling honeysuckle blooms and eating the sweet juice. Suddenly, I saw my grandmother behind the bush, crouched down like she was hiding. This is my grandmother who lives in California and we are in Georgia. She whispers to me to tell my father to go in and answer the phone. I can't hear it ringing from the backyard, but I go tell him anyway.
"Grandmom says to answer the phone”. I pointed to the bushes, but there was no one there.
He was puzzled but runs in and answers the phone as it starts ringing. And then it hit me— it was my grandfather calling to say my grandmother—the one I’d seen—had died unexpectedly.
42. Now That’s Standing Up For Yourself
In my childhood home, my room faced the bathroom and I would look at the lights we left on in there before I fell asleep. The thing was both lights were on separate circuits so when one went out the other would stay on. I was watching it for a while when all of a sudden both lights snapped out at once. My digital clock was still working so there was still power. I scratched my face with my nails and it hurt, so I wasn't dreaming.
I had enough time to think "Well, this is going to be unpleasant”. Before I started getting rocked back and forth in my blankets by what felt like two enormous hands. I fell out of bed and I was met with the freakiest sight—there was a man's face under my bed but it was blue and he had this rictus of terror for an expression. I didn't want to die afraid, so I threw a punch at it.
Eventually, everything stopped, and I kind of just laid there for a while. I talked to my parents the next day about what happened and apparently, the former owner of my house had passed on in my room.
43. Peeping Tom
When I was roughly 6 or so, I always used to look out the blinds at night, though I only "peeked" normally by moving just the first one as my bed was against the wall because I enjoyed looking at the lizards, frogs, and other random critters in our privacy hedge between our house and neighbors.
We also had a narrow dirt path that lead on that side of the house between my room and said hedge that allowed you to walk to the back, in addition to allowing light from the flood light in the back of my house to show most anything at the angle of my window, hence my interest in watching the nightlife.
Of course, one random night as I peeked out of the window, I saw something unusual in the lighting, it was a bit off to the side so I opened my blinds. What I saw really freaked me out. Lo and behold, there's a person standing there (male) in his late teens to early twenties with a baseball cap turned backward, casual skater gear we'd expect to see today, probably around 5'10—separated from me only by a thin sheet of glass.
The floodlight from the back illuminated the privacy hedge to the point that I could literally see anything, so I recall the details quite vividly. The issue, however, was that I could literally see the privacy hedge and light THROUGH this man! He had no color, more like a static-y black & white TV but he was absolutely visible, though the light didn't hit him.
He was staring me directly in the eyes, not breathing, not moving, just staring. It actually gives me chills recalling the look. So lifeless, his eyes weren't dark, but he had a very serious expression on his face and presented a horrifying vibe directly in front of me like he was looking into my soul or judging me. It must have only been 10 seconds but felt exponentially longer.
I immediately screamed and ran to my parent's room, who then checked. Nothing was there. The next morning we looked for prints in the dirt to no avail and for the next week flooded the path just in case any movement was around so deep tracks and squishing noises would be left in case it was a kid. Nothing. I never figured out if there was some sort of history or something to the house, but I know for a fact it wasn't my imagination. Things like this, you don't forget as a child.
To this day I wonder what I truly saw, I don't necessarily believe in many paranormal events, but what I experienced is enough to still give me chills apparently over 15 years later. That stare will stay with me for the rest of my life.
44. At Least They Follow Orders
A couple of years ago, I spent the night in my mother's home while she was in the hospital recovering from surgery. Her home, my childhood home always had a certain feel to it—not very warm or welcoming no matter which room I was in. Growing up we heard noises like furniture being moved around, the sound of someone walking the stairs, tromping footsteps in the hallways, and soft conversations coming from empty rooms.
The night I stayed, I was awoken by awful banging sounds coming from the hallway—like someone was walking down the hallway and bashing the walls as they went along. I sat up, turned on my light, and listened. It didn't stop. I went to my bedroom door and pulled open my door and called down the dark hallway "Could you please stop doing that, it's really scary”. The banging stopped.
Relieved, I started to close my door, but then I heard something coming from the bathroom directly across from my bedroom. The sound was the cabinet doors under the sink opening. The bathroom was dark but I knew that sound from years of hearing them open and close when the house was filled with siblings using the bathroom. The two doors were being opened and closed. Open and closed—faster and faster until they were banging furiously.
I screamed, "STOP THAT”! It stopped. I went back into my room and turned on every light. I proceeded to turn on every light in the house and stayed up the rest of the night.
45. The Grey Man
My aunt took her own life while I was in my early 20s. I went home from university to grieve with the family and help. Since I didn't have my own room or bed, I slept on the couch for the duration of my stay. So, I'm on the couch with my blankets and pillow watching Pawn Stars quietly and trying to fall asleep, when I get that "creeped out" feeling. It's like when you're reading scary stories and you just have to check behind you or in a corner or something.
I try ignoring the urge but eventually, I give in and heave myself up from the sunken couch to check over the back and into the kitchen, fully expecting nothing to be there. That’s when I saw him. He was totally naked—with no genitals. Smooth greyish, almost blueish skin that the under lights of the kitchen cabinets made almost transparent over his ribs and lungs.
I distinctly remember watching the fast flutter of his breathing. His eyes and mouth were black holes and slanted as if you bunched up all the skin on the back of his head and pulled tautly. No hair. And the arms and fingers were elongated so that they hung past his knees. He didn't do anything, he just stared at me with an open mouth but I remember feeling so afraid that I shouldn't be looking at him.
Then I woke up. I never remember falling asleep, but I quickly sprang from the couch and turned on all the downstairs kitchen lights. Of course, nothing was there. I had this same dream for two more nights. Same thing every time—incredibly lucid. Never remember the transition from watching television to sleep. The thing never moved closer or did anything but always awoke with panic.
Now, naturally, my parents were curious why every morning they came downstairs the lights were all on and when everything finally came to a head is when my stepmother and I were sharing breakfast alone. My father has taken my younger siblings out for something fun to get their minds off the approaching funeral.
My stepmother isn't very spiritual. She’s more of a soccer mom than a hippie mom. She corners me and asks what's been going on, if I'm okay, etc. I explain that I've been having nightmares and begin to divulge the dream. Suddenly, her face changes. I can tell she wants to speak and interrupt with great urgency.
She explains, slightly panicked, that she has also been having bad dreams. In her dream, she awakes from bed scared that something is wrong with her siblings. Leaving the master bedroom to check on them across the hall she thinks to check on me and so peers down into the kitchen/living room. And then she sees someone standing in the kitchen, looking at her and she wakes up.
While my stepmother is not spiritual, my grandmother is and had burnt sage around my aunt's house where she took her own life to "cleanse it". She has dropped off a box of my aunt's things three nights previously when the dreams started and had left some of the burnt sage in there. It was almost completely un-voiced, our agreement to get the sage and burn it around the house. We were giggling at our silliness but hey—never had the nightmares again after that.
Obviously, I can rationalize that grief does weird stuff to people. Maybe it was just my psyche hallucinating with sleep paralysis, who knows? My stepmother and I just know that it was really strange and very frightening.
46. A Push In The Right Direction
In college, there was a girl I was interested in, but she had a boyfriend. We worked together in class a bit, but that was all. One day I went out to eat with some family at a Japanese steak house where a chef comes to your table and cooks in front of you. They often sit in multiple small groups at the same table since the table is so large.
Anyway, as they were taking us back to our seats, when we were walking down a hallway, I got this image in my mind of a table with this girl I liked sitting in the corner. Then we came into the room and there she was, just as I had seen her in my mind. I was in shock the whole night. Never said a word to her as she appeared to be with her boyfriend and another couple. I hardly spoke to my family. I just couldn't believe what had happened.
Long story short: they broke up not long after and she and I have been married for a number of years now. She later told me that she had a similar experience as I walked around the corner. We both felt like the universe was trying to give us a little push. Just a kind of "pay attention" message. "This is an important moment for you”.
Nothing else of note really happened that night, but I definitely took her more seriously after that. It has paid off.
47. What A Gas
One time I ran out of gas in a residential neighborhood. It turns out my gas meter was messed up. So I glide as far as I can and end up parked outside of this house. I'm thinking ugh, do I call AAA or maybe just walk to a gas station?
Just then a young woman pulls up into the driveway right where I'm parked. I'd gotten out of my car and she sees me standing by the curb looking flustered. She asks if I need help, and I tell her I ran out of gas—she looks at me like she'd seen a ghost.
After an awkward pause, she offers to run to the gas station and fill up the little gas canister I had. I figure she's being awkward cause I'm a dude and it's getting dark, I don't offer to go with her. She gets back about 10 minutes later and hands me the canister. I say thanks and then she goes, "Wanna know something kinda weird"? Of course, I say yes. I couldn’t believe what she told me.
She goes: "well, today when I was at work I got this super weird call. I guess it was a prank, but the guy on the other end just kept repeating: 'Have you ever run out of gas? Have you ever run out of gas? Have you ever run out of gas"? When I ran out of gas, her house was the one I happened to land in front of. THAT SAME DAY she had gotten that call.
No wonder she was acting like she was worried I would kill her. We kinda chuckled like yeah, weird, huh? Both speechless. Still get chills thinking about it.
48. I Came To Say Goodbye
Down the road from us, there was an old couple. They were so kind, warm, and loving. Seriously, words fail to describe how FRIENDLY these people were. And not in any weird way. I basically thought of them as my third set of grandparents. Well, one night after midnight I randomly smelled cocoa butter lotion. I was like "What the heck”? and smelled around.
It was INCREDIBLY strong, and only in my room. I had no idea what the source was. So I asked my Mom to come up and she smelled it too. It stayed for a few hours and went away. The next day, I found out a terrifying truth—that the abovementioned elderly lady had passed on during the night. In fact, it happened a little before midnight. Which was shortly before the smell appeared.
Yeah, she liked cocoa butter lotion. It was her favorite. I smelled it again the next night, at the same time. This time I realized she was back. I spoke to her for a while and said my goodbyes and stuff...but the smell wouldn't leave. It stayed for hours and I was trying to sleep, but I couldn't sleep because come on, there’s a ghost in my room! So I lashed out in anger and said that she was scaring me and I needed to sleep.
The smell disappeared less than five minutes later, and I broke down in tears because I lashed out in anger at her and I realized she was gone. I would never see her again. Never feel her kindness again. Never see her warm smile again. All she wanted to do was say goodbye and I lashed out at her. And that's not the worst part.
I smelled it again several years later when her husband passed on. Same deal as before—it happened before midnight, and the smell came after midnight. It didn't come back the next night.
49. Meet The Neighbors
Our house is next to a graveyard. It's not scary or anything it's just a nice grassy area that happens to have gravestones in it, so everyone walks around there a lot. Apparently, when I was about 4, my mom and I were walking through it when out of the blue I just asked "Can I go play with that boy”? It's not unusual to bump into other people so my mom didn't really think anything of it. When she looked around to see what I meant, she suddenly froze.
"Look by the stone," I said again, pointing back at a tombstone about 50 or so yards behind us. There was literally no one else in the graveyard. Apparently, my mom just freaked out, she says she grabbed my hand and half ran all the way back home and we didn't walk that way for a good few weeks.
50. Pushed Out
I was only about 5 and I was playing hide and seek with my sister and family friends. I hid in the cupboard in my sister's room where we also had a few dresses etc. hanging up and some toys on the bottom. Anyway. I was a pretty tiny kid and I was definitely able to fit in the cupboard.
I was just standing there in the clothes when I felt a chill up my spine—two hands were on my back and I was forcefully pushed out of the cupboard. I'd managed to get the doors nearly completely closed and flat out fell out of the cupboard.
Sources: Reddit,
.jpg){kind=link}
_at_night_02.JPG){kind=link}