Whether you’ve had a paranormal experience or not, there’s just something so deeply interesting about the unexplainable. Some part of us needs to know what lies in the great beyond. We long to know everything about this existence, but must settle for our lived experiences. So any glimpse into something out of the ordinary requires our full attention. And those glimpses can come in the most unexpected of places, and in the scariest. The experiences of these Redditors moved them so much they felt the need to share their weirdest paranormal experiences.
1. Ghostly Grandfather
My father passed on when my daughter was 3 years old. The call came in the middle of the night—it was expected. The morning after, my wife and I found our daughter at the living room window, waving. I asked her what she was doing, and she told me: "I was waving to grandpa, he came to say bye-bye to me". We hadn't told her her grandpa had passed on during the night.
2. Deja Vu
About ten years ago I was walking one night with my sister. We were passing a familiar point on the road when suddenly we both found ourselves about 200 meters back the way we had just come, approaching the familiar point for the second time. She turned to me and said "What just happened?" We both experienced exactly the same thing—like we had just been pulled back twenty seconds in time—and neither of us could explain it.
3. Dream Memory or Message From the Beyond?
My father passed on last year. One item he always said he wanted me to have was a shotgun which had originally belonged to his grandfather. For years he had this thing stashed in the attic. After he passed, I had gone in the attic to look for it, only to find that it wasn't there. A few months later, I had a dream in which I was talking to him and I asked him where he had put the shotgun.
He told me it was in the closet of a spare bedroom. I called my mother and had her check, and sure enough that's where it was. Now it's completely possible that my father had told me that when he was alive, and the dream was little more than a memory, but I certainly don't recall that being the case.
4. Coincidence? There’s No Such Thing
Not me, but my dad. When he 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-plus 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. Spooky.
5. The Believer
My grandfather passed on just a few weeks after I was born. Never met the guy, never knew what he looked like. When I was five years old, I started to see this man in our rocking chair. I called him the rocking-chair man. My parents thought it was that "imaginary friend" stage, but it started to bug them when I told them every single day.
They finally questioned me about it. I told them every detail I could remember and finally they showed me a picture of a man. It was my grandfather. To this day, I'm 22 now, every time I dream, he is in the background somewhere. I remember when I dreamed about my high school graduation and I looked in the stands and I saw him with my parents.
I like to think that he's just watching out for me and being there when he's not really there.
6. Let the Man Have His View
We use to live in a very old house that my dad's great-grandparents had raised their kids in. Out of nine children, only four lived to adulthood, all dying in the house along with his great-grandfather. Needless to say the place was creepy as heck. We could never keep blinds up in the upstairs window that faced east, grandma said that her dad would always look out that window with his coffee in the morning.
One day my mom and I were alone in the house and decided to do an experiment. We closed all the curtains in the upstairs room and then went outside to look at them. All the curtains were still closed EXCEPT for in the window pointing east, it was open about six-inches in the middle—enough for someone to look out of. I'm not saying that house was haunted, but that house was TOTALLY haunted!!!
7. Never Mess With the Ouija
I was tormented by a demon that I “met” while using a Ouija board when I was 14. Finally got the thing to go away after three years.
8. Paralyzed With Fear
This is the only paranormal thing that I have experienced and my cat ended up saving my life. To this day I spoil this cat and take extra good care of it because it had my back this one night and I am forever grateful. This was when I was still in high school and I was laying in my bed late at night with the lights on reading a book.
My black cat Teagan was sleeping on my bed as usual just napping away. I ended up drifting off to sleep. I suddenly woke up some time later and instantly noticed a black figure coming from my closest a few feet away from my bed headed towards the foot of the bed. I couldn’t make out exactly what it was. The closest thing I can relate it to is that it looked like a dementor from Harry Potter.
Anyway, in my mind I was thinking this can’t be real, don’t be a baby, handle this situation. So I stare at it trying to determine what to do exactly. My parents are in the room next door so worst case scenario I yell out for them and they think I’m a giant baby. I decide I’m going to make a move for the door which is through this creature.
I then go into panic mode once I realize I am COMPLETELY paralyzed. I can’t move a muscle. I try and struggle as hard as I can but nothing is working in my body. This thing gets closer and closer. I decide looking like a baby is the least of my concerns and I yell out. NO VOICE either...I am laying there completely paralyzed, no voice, thinking I am about to get offed by this creature when it passes over my cat.
Teagan awakes from her nap and in a furry starts hissing and clawing at the air where this thing is. Teagan is going crazy just jumping around and all sorts of stuff. This creature starts to retreat and eventually disappears. Not two seconds after it’s gone, I regain movement in my body and my voice returns.
9. Phantom Smells
My company HQ in Germany was supposedly haunted. I figured the guys were just messing with me hen they told me. So it's like 2 AM and I start hearing stuff coming from upstairs. A broom being pushed down the hallway, voices, heck, I even smelled cig smoke. I go outside to see if there are any cars in the lot, even though to get into the building you had to go right past me.
Nobody parked outside, I go back inside. I'm still hearing voices and the other stuff. I slowly creep up the stairs and I can clearly hear the voice speaking German. I get to the top...Nothing. No people, voices are gone, no brooms left out. But the smell of smokes was still in the air.
10. Roadside Assistance
My mom grew up in a rural part of Guatemala where witchcraft was a real thing and has so many stories of the weird stuff she and her brothers and sisters experienced there. Of all the stories she tells, the creepiest one deals with a young apprentice to a witch doctor who traveled around the country healing people. He was slain west of Guatemala City and they had arranged to bring his body back to be buried there.
They paid bottom dollar to have some poor shmuck go pick up the body and bring it back in his pickup truck. The guy gets there, loads the coffin on his truck and starts heading back, but his truck breaks down on the way. He gets out and frantically tries to get the truck back on the road, as he has to be back in time for the services to start.
He is completely alone in the dark hours of the early morning and a man in a nice suit comes from out of nowhere to help him out. The man gets his truck back in working order and walks back down the road into the darkness. The guy gets the body back in time and after some prep, they begin the services. He happens to walk by the open coffin to pay his respects and sees that the lifeless man in the coffin is the very same man who had helped him with his truck.
To this day, I get shivers thinking about it.
11. Fatherly Follow-Up
My dad lost his life in a motorcycle accident a few years ago, and after he passed on, weird stuff started happening at my dorm when I got back. The clock would fall off the wall and change time, batteries would separate themselves from remotes and bangs and knocks were regular. But the weirdest thing that happened was when I was back home from college and I took a shower, got dressed, and was headed back into the bathroom to finish getting ready and the mirror was just clearing off the steam and lo and behold I see smear marks faintly that looks like lettering.
So, I tip the mirror cause it’s one of those triple pane medicine cabinet mirrors, and I see “Hey” spelled out in his handwriting with the Elven I symbol that was in Lord of the Rings that my dad would put EVERYWHERE. This was probably six-plus months after he passed and I have no idea where it came from since it was only me and my mom in the house and I know she wouldn't do that.
I have a picture of it I will try to find. The crazy part is like a week before that I had broken open a glow stick and it splashed on the mirror, but the writing was UNDER the splashes and none were smeared or touched. Still to this day cannot explain how it happened. We actually took the entire mirror off the wall so it wasn't ruined.
12. There’s so Much We Don’t Know
I saw a “shadow person” once. I didn't know that's what it was called until much later. I was living in a house in Laguna Beach that had been there since the 1920s. In its history, it had been a speakeasy, a bawdy house, and a house for smuggling undocumented immigrants. One day, my new wife and I were having an argument. I can't even recall what it was about.
She walked down the block to get a cup of coffee and cool off and I was alone in the house. The way the place was built was incredibly haphazard. There was a bedroom and living room on one side, then a bathroom with two entrances. On the other side of the bathroom was a hallway that had windows in one side and two bedrooms on the other.
From my bedroom, I could look across the hall into the bathroom, then through the bathroom and down the other hall. I was standing at my dresser, and I just noticed movement out the corner of my eye, and looked down there. There was...and honest to god, this gives me goosebumps just typing it, 17 years later, a black figure.
It was maybe three feet tall, and it was only vaguely humanoid. It looked like black scribbles, like someone had scribbled a human shape, but the scribbles moved, like electricity arcing, that's the best way to describe it. There was no sound that I could remember. I distinctly remember when I saw it I wasn't afraid, just confused. Then it noticed me looking at it.
I can't say it turned around, it just, focused on me I guess. THEN I was scared. I didn't move, didn't scream, nothing, I was just frozen, because it just freaking came at me, it RUSHED down the hall towards me. I have no idea what it intended, but as soon as it entered the bathroom, the door closest to me just SLAMMED shut on it. Then I screamed.
I yelled for my wife. She wasn't home. I went outside, into the daylight, and didn't go back in until she got home about 10 minutes later. I don't believe in ghosts. I don't believe I saw something supernatural, but I know I saw something. I don't know what it was.
13. Drone or UFO
I grew up in a REALLY small town (population around 500), that was the only thing besides cornfields and emptiness between a bigger city and an Air Force Base. One night I was sitting around playing my NES when my mother came rushing up the porch and into the house screaming that a UFO had followed her all the way home.
Naturally my dad and I just kinda laughed, then we saw the look on her face and bolted outside. There was what can only be described as a VERY round/smooth version of the B2 bomber. It was this creepy metallic and shiny color. It would look near invisible unless you were right under it and it would reflect back this huge field of view from the ground light bouncing back off of it.
Also, I was probably 10 years old or so my memory and judgment of distance could be faulty, but as I recall the aircraft was almost totally silent and only traveling around 40 mph. I realize aircraft cannot sustain lift at that speed, but honestly, my father and I followed it in a car for as long as we could (ran out of road), and were easily able to keep pace with the thing.
From my memory, the design was clearly a newer version of an already existing US army aircraft...but it was still freaky as all heck.
14. A Cold and Creepy Encounter
My mom always bought snow globes for my grandma. When my grandma passed on, my mom took them back to our house. My mom put them all up on the shelves that go around the entire living room. A few weeks had passed and my mom found a video that she wanted my brothers and I to watch because it reminded her of our grandma.
We all sat down to watch it and of course, near the end of the movie our mom was crying. Right when the movie ends all of the snowglobes went off at the same time. The figurines didn’t move on any of them, just the music. We all huddled together of course because we're super scared and my mom suddenly said, "Mom?" And all of the music stopped and the room became extremely cold.
My mom suddenly felt really uncomfortable and had all of us run and get into the car and she drove us to our godmother’s house. She cried for hours until she got a call from our dad saying he'd be home in a few minutes and should head back. When we all got back inside it was warm again, but all of the snowglobes were shattered on the ground except for one, the one that was my grandma’s favorite.
15. Fascinating Phantasm
I was living in an apartment with three roommates at the time. I was working all sorts of weird hours, and would stay up late most nights. Our apartment had two hallways that formed a capital L. My room as at the "top" of the L, the bathroom was in the corner of where the lines meet. I walked out of my room to go to the bathroom, no need to turn the light on as this was a trek I had made hundreds of times before.
As I left the bathroom I turned to go back to my room. Just as I turned off the lights of the bathroom there standing where the short hallway and the living room met was a teenage girl. Wearing a white flowery dress, just smiling. She didn't look "evil" just a normal person standing there smiling at me. I freaked the heck out and went running for my room.
About 20 minutes later I finally came out of my room. Turning all the lights on as I went through the apartment. She was nowhere to be seen, however where I saw her standing was noticeably colder than the rest of the apartment should have been for an August evening. Creepy, but not the worst part. I lived there for about another year, and I never saw her again.
After I had moved out I was hanging out with my one roommate who had the bedroom at the end of the small hallway, right next to the bathroom. We were talking and I told him that I never felt comfortable in the apartment after something happened. To which he responded, "Oh, you saw her too". I nearly drove off the road when I heard this.
We then both described her, finishing off each other’s sentences describing her. He had seen her twice. I was indifferent about ghosts before that. Now I believe in them...or believe in something. It was very creepy and every time I tell the story the hairs stand up on my arms.
16. Someone Wants to Be Heard
I was probably 11 or 12 years old, and never really had any belief in the supernatural, aliens, etc. Around roughly 5 AM, I was sleeping on my bottom bunk at the end of our hallway when a shadow figure about the height of my dad was standing in the doorway—not doing anything, just standing. I could hear my grandmother (who watched us at the time) in the basement, and I could vaguely remember my dad leaving about an hour earlier.
I closed my eyes twice, opened them, and just stared with a squint so it looked like I was sleeping. Eventually, I was so scared I just closed my eyes and secretly hoped it was all some weird dream. I couldn't sleep, but soon after I heard dresser drawers slamming VERY loud in our spare bedroom. All of the sudden my grandma runs upstairs and tells me to quit making so much noise.
I tell her what's up, she opens the spare bedroom door and there's nothing there. No possible way to escape either—a second-story window with the screen still in tact. Probably one of the two experiences that I can't explain in my life.
17. It Was a Good Touch
When the 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 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.
18. Here’s a Tip: Never Go to an Abandoned Mental Hospital
Me and some buddies were bored one night and decided to head out and poke around an abandoned mental hospital. The only way in was through the autopsy room, the rest of the place was pretty much sealed off. So we go in: me, another guy and two girls. As soon as we get into the autopsy room, one of the girls starts hyperventilating and crying.
She said she just couldn't be there anymore. We tried everything we could to convince her everything was going to be fine, to no avail. She wanted to leave, and wanted to leave NOW! Disappointed, we decided we had to leave. The two girls were walking in front of us, one trying to comfort the other, while me and the other dude walked a bit of a way behind.
I don't know what brought me to look back, morbid curiosity maybe. But I did. Now, I'll admit it was dark, but the moon was out so it wasn't pitch black. Still, I know what I saw. A window on the second floor, what looked just like a little girl in a white dress staring back at us. I looked for a good ten seconds, stopped my buddy and had him look without taking my eyes of the thing, and asked him specifically "Do you freaking see that!?"
I thought I may have been seeing things, or maybe it was a trick of the light. But no, we both saw it and stared for a good 20 seconds after. I might have thought it was some kind of trick, but after 20 seconds or so, it moved. We NOPED the heck out of there, passing the girls and screamed at them to get in the car.
Is it possible it could have been some other people there, who happened to bring a girl who might have looked from a distance to be a lot younger than she was? Yes. There were no other cars around though, so whoever it was would have had to walk a pretty good distance to get there. It could have also been a homeless family that was using the place for warmth.
Who knows. All I know is what I saw. It was a little girl, in a white dress, staring at us. From the second story window of an abandoned mental joint. At 2 in the morning.
19. Some Spirits Like to Hang Around
I was at my girlfriend's house, and she has two cats. One of them is a big fat cat, black, named Taz. He's a pretty creepy cat, I'll often catch him staring at me from under a desk or from the shadows. I was talking to my girlfriend in the kitchen, when I saw a man in my peripheral. I turned to look, but it was just Taz.
I continued talking, and saw a man again, much more clearly, but still like a shade, in my peripheral again. My girlfriend told me previously she's sensitive to spirits and stuff, and while not strictly believing in such things, I'd humor her. This time, though, after seeing this man shape over Taz, I asked her if she saw him, too.
She told me she did, that it was her uncle who gave her Taz. She preferred not to acknowledge him, because she hated him. Since then, I have stopped seeing him. But Taz is still really creepy.
20. I’m Freaking Out a Little Here
My grandmother passed on when I was very young. My grandfather passed when I was 17. Shortly after his passing, I dreamed I was with my grandma and we were catching up on all she had missed. She told me she had to go but I begged for her to stay. She said she couldn't but we would see each other again soon and pointed to a calendar with the date October 16 circled on it.
This was about two weeks from that date. A couple days later I dreamed I was with my cousin’s husband, fishing on their property. It was just a chill, cool dream, but he kept talking about how “This is it. This is forever". A few days later we got a call that my cousin’s husband had lost his life in a freak accident.
While my parents went to the funeral out of state my mom begged me not to leave the house on the day my grandmother had indicated in my dream. Come October 16, I get a phone call from a friend asking if I wanted to go into the city with him. I briefly explained the situation and declined. He said he'd come visit me after he got back to town.
I didn't hear from him until super late that night from the hospital. He had been in an awful wreck, crushing the entire passenger side of his car.
21. I Think This Counts
About 20 years ago I was in a foxhole just behind enemy lines and had the one and only paranormal experience of my life. In a flash, I knew the future. I saw what would happen, approximately when, the lighting conditions, the angle the person would walk up from, everything. It was different from just thinking about the future, or wishing, it was...just a flash of knowing.
Hard to explain. A couple hours later, it happened exactly that way. I've never forgotten it but it's never happened again. I don't understand why it happened, it wasn't crucial or anything, at least I don't think so. Wish it could have been lottery numbers or something.
22. Dark Static Army-Like Figure? Yeah, No Thank You
I was laying in my bed, the room door in front of me, wide open, and to the left. I could see the room where the front door was. There was an antique cabinet that my dad had that illuminated a white glow. I started to freak out for no reason, and started sweating. I for some reason knew something was about to happen and I was about to witness something.
About five minutes later, laying hot in sweat, I freaking saw it. There was a door in the back of the room with the front door, that was storage. A black outlined humanoid figure walks out, mildly static-looking. It takes a few steps toward the front door then stops. Does an army-like turn to face me. At this point I'm freaking out, eyes wide.
It walks into my room and stops beside my bed. Does one more army-turn to face me. At that point I figured, what have I got to lose? I noped right out and ran through the thing, ran upstairs to my parents’ bedroom and knocked furiously at the door waiting to let me in. Eyes focused on the stairs making sure it wasn't going to follow me.
Nothing. I slept with my parents for the next few nights. One of the scariest things that happened to me as a child.
23. Family Legend
So this is a story from my family. When my mom was a young girl growing up in Vietnam she had this weird dream about being in a darkened church. Everyone was talking in hushed tones, but it was English so she didn't understand what was going on. But she remembered certain details, like the stained glass windows and the baptismal font.
She told her parents, but they were kind of dismissive. They just told her it was a weird dream. A few years later she was forced to flee South Vietnam because of the Vietnam conflict. Her family relocated to Florida, and they started their life over. About 10 years later she went to the local Catholic church for her younger sister's confirmation.
And suddenly she realized it was the same church she had dreamed of as a child. The same darkened church, the same stained glass, the same baptismal font. She talked to her parents again and they remembered her having the dream and describing the place exactly. Maybe some of it is altered memory, but it's one of our family legends.
24. Unexplainable Helpful Spirits
It was in my first year at university, completely new to the city and its surroundings. One evening, my friend and I decided to take a trip to the mall. It was 8 PM and we got on a bus that my friend claimed would take us to the mall. We ended up at an empty bus terminal, it was around 10 PM at that time. We waited and waited for another bus back and there was no one there but us.
A while later, an old man walked by and told us that since it’s so late, another bus won't be coming for an hour or so. He told us to turn and walk down the road and we'll find a bus stop in the middle where a bus will soon come. We followed his instructions and entered this single lane road with tall trees on each side.
There were only a few street lamps working so the area was dimly lit. The road was sort of built on a slant—our bus stop was in middle, so we could see all the way up the road and down the road, and it was a single lane road. All we could see was the road and trees on either side for at least half a kilometer on each side.
Anyway, so we're waiting and waiting. My phone battery died and my friend had forgotten hers in her dorm room. We were starting to think there won't be any bus coming and started to panic. Then, as we were waiting, I turned around to see two kids with backpacks walking down the road. I was relieved to see them and so was my friend.
When they were close by, I asked them if they knew about any buses coming. There were two kids, maybe around 12-13, one was a boy and other was a girl, both had backpacks.
Me: “Hey! Do you know if there are any buses coming?”
Boy: “Let me check,” takes phone out, walks towards the bus stop sign (but it’s empty and doesn't say the timing nor the stop number, just a picture of a bus—I knew this from before).
Me: “The timings aren't there and there's no number to text either, I've looked at it before".
Boy: Still looking at phone, “Oh it’s OK, your bus will be here in 10 minutes, I think".
Meanwhile, during this conversation, my friend started talking to the girl:
Girl: “Where are you guys from?”
Friend: “We just started University here, what about you?”
Girl: “Oh, we're in school, and we're just going back home from school".
Friend: “Oh OK".
After the boy told me that the bus would be here in 10 minutes, I turned my head to tell my friend this, turned my head back to thank the boy and he was gone. Gone. The girl and the boy were nowhere to be seen. I literally probably looked away for a second MAX. We both looked down the road, up the road, and by the trees.
They had a fence around them but even if they went there, we would've seen them. I literally looked away for a second. Needless to say, both of us were scared as heck until our bus arrived. It was the last bus and it was around 12:17 AM. when the bus came. I know because we asked the time from the bus driver.
I asked my brother about the area later, I didn't tell him what happened. He said that there's a graveyard there. And then it hit me that what the heck would two 13-year-olds be doing in the middle of flipping nowhere coming back from school at midnight?
25. The Strange House
A few years ago, my best friend and I moved into a rental house. It was definitely a weird house and I got some weird vibes out of it. Every night when I went to sleep, I would hear music. Not singing, just music, like someone had a distant radio on, and not any song I could ever name. I had dreams every night of a crowd of faceless people with a little boy standing in front.
He never spoke but I could tell he was trying to tell me something. The fridge would often open on its own and the cats would hiss at corners and such. We would smell cig smoke coming from the back room at three o'clock every day. My aunts were (still are) big into ghost hunting so they set up cameras in my house one night.
We didn't catch much, but one of the cameras was spun in circles for about fifteen seconds and at three in the morning, the front porch light turned itself on and got really bright and then faded off. When I moved out of the house after two years, I had trouble sleeping because I didn't have the music anymore. It was definitely a strange, strange house.
26. Shower Visitor
About 20 years ago, my mom came out of the shower, pale, shaking, and frantic. She said to my dad and I: “My aunt spoke to me and she is here to pick someone up...I know she is talking about my father". Her aunt has been deceased for many years. Two days later, my grandfather (mom's father) was in the hospital. He was in a coma and passed on shortly after that from undetected lung cancer.
27. It Came From Inside the Room
I was in seventh grade and we'd just moved into an old house. The upstairs area always gave me an eerie feeling, but I shrugged it off as the discomfort of living in a new place. From the beginning, I had trouble sleeping, and was jolted awake in the middle of the night repeatedly for no apparent reason. Then, I started hearing the thumping.
It started as occasional, soft thumps, seemingly coming from the attic. I had my dad check it out to ease my mind, but he found no explanation. Fast forward a few weeks, the occasional knocking was becoming louder and I continued to wake up in the middle of the night. One night, I was jolted awake again, but this time I heard a loud BANG accompanied by the sound of breaking plastic.
I looked to my window across the room, and the blinds had been completely torn and were in disarray. My door was closed, the windows were closed, and the house was locked up tight. I don't think I've ever run so fast in my life. I made it downstairs pretty quickly and the sound woke my parents, so they went upstairs to check it out.
They found no cause or explanation. I slept on the couch downstairs until we moved shortly afterward.
28. Coyote Spirit Goodbye
I went to pick up my daughter from a dance on the waterfront. I was early so I walked near the lake. I saw something very bright...not moving at about 20 degrees up (Sirius was at about 40 degrees that night). Then I looked down and saw a pure white coyote walking along the water's edge. Even though I purposefully made a lot of noise so as to not startle the coyote, it didn't acknowledge I was there.
I looked back at the "star" which was still not moving but suddenly went from exceptionally bright dimming down to nothing. I looked back to the coyote and it was gone too—although it was a very dark night. This all happened at 12:30 AM. The next morning, I woke up to a phone call telling me my best friend had passed on in Norway. He died at 6:30 AM local time...12:30 AM my time.
29. Rackety Ghost
When I was 15, my mother and I were standing in the kitchen talking. There was a rack on the wall holding keys about 8 feet away. A key from the rack flew across the room and hit the floor near our feet. This is the only event in my life I for which I have no explanation.
30. The Unworthy Rescue
About 20 years ago, I was T-boned on the passenger side of my car by an intoxicated driver who ran a red light. I went flying across the intersection, and my car was stopped by slamming driver’s side into a utility pole. I don't remember being hit. I only remember someone helping me out of the broken window. My car was absolutely totaled, and I did not have a scratch, bruise, or sore muscle to remember the accident by.
When the authorities showed up, they did not believe that I was in the car crash, and had to rely on witnesses to attest to the fact they helped me out. I sometimes think I was somehow "protected" by something I don't understand, and that I was to go on to accomplish something major in my life. Then I get a little sad, because I don't really think I accomplished that.
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31. Mysterious Noises
I was in my dad’s office at his old house around 1 AM, let me give you the layout. Once you open the door to walk out of the office you have a direct view of the hallway in front of you and that connects to the stairs to the second floor. I was playing Halo CE online and I heard a bouncing ball being thrown from the stairs hitting each stair on the way down then the tile floor.
It was unusual because I knew no one was upstairs at the time. My little brother was in the den area watching TV, my older brother was on the couch asleep and my parents were in their bedroom asleep. I assumed one of my brothers happen to go upstairs for some reason and along the way, they kicked a ball or something. So I just continued playing Halo.
Well, I hear it again but this time it bounces all the way down the hallway and hits the door which was closed. I got mad because I didn't want my brothers to wake my parents because I just didn't feel like hearing them yell. So I got up mad and flung the door open to tell them to knock that stuff off. Well, when I opened the door I looked down the hallway and up the stairs and noticed a small girl at the top of the stairs in a formal white dress.
I stared for about five seconds then closed the door. I wanted to see if this thing was still there but I didn't want to open the door and realize it’s standing right in front of the door or something you see in the horror movies. So, I grabbed my phone and called my little brother hoping he was still awake and had not dozed off watching TV.
When he answered I told him to come to the office to check out this sweet double headshot I got. So I hear his footsteps coming from the den. When he comes in the door I just say oh never mind and start walking towards the den really fast. I didn't tell anyone until the morning because it sounded made up.
32. Strange Faces in Windows
I have memories that are very early, and most of them are scary, but I had one thing...When I was very young (I am talking between age two and three), I used to see this man who looked JUST like my dad when he holds his cheeks to make this goofy fac—only the dude's face was like that without even holding it.
I recall playing Legos with my brother in our room, and the guy walking by the window, turning slowly to look in, bulging eyes, and starts yelling. I would sit on the floor frozen in fear. My brother didn't see these things...and now that I think of it, this man I saw was never directly in front of me...I only saw him through windows…
33. Old Old Magic
When my mother was young, she was very sick and needed medicine. Not everyone in the area we lived in liked Natives (we’re Native American), so we relied on a local medicine man. Years later, we discovered that the medicine she was getting wasn't helping her any more because she wasn't sick, she was haunted.
She remembers seeing a demonic figure when she was younger, but at the time, she didn't know if it was real or not. This happened from when she could start to remember things up to when she was about five. Well, 30 years later, that demonic figure started showing up again. But I know she wasn't just imagining it, because I could see it, hear it, and sometimes even feel something, like some sign of its presence.
She started having nightmares, and we all knew what was happening. We decided to move back to our reserve to see if the problem or haunting was with the house, but it wasn't. No matter where she went, this thing followed her and us. I'll be honest, for a very long time, I thought she was basically faking it, until one night.
My mom used to cope with this haunting by drinking tea and coloring. This night, she was coping in the living room, and nothing seemed to be happening, so none of us expected that anything would happen. Suddenly, we heard screaming in the living room coming from my mom, and we all ran to see what was wrong. She was crying and screaming that something was scratching her back.
I didn't believe her until I lifted the back of her shirt and flipping saw it with my own eyes, she was being scratched. There weren't just scratches already there, but scratch marks kept appearing as I watched, big, long and red, over and over. I was terrified. I ran to grab some sweetgrass, and I was across the house when I heard the door open; it turns out my mom was walking towards the lake.
Keep in mind that it's a Canadian winter, so it was about -35C when she walked outside, barefoot and wearing nothing but her pajamas. After it happened, she didn't remember it, and to this day doesn't remember that night, but I still remember everything. We're afraid that it's starting to happen again: she is having brutal nightmares, and the entire family is starting to see black shadow figures.
Another terrifying sign of this: We have a cat, and from time to time we'll notice it staring at a fixed point as if it is looking at someone or something, then it'll run away as if it's scared.
34. You Never Know Where You’ll Encounter UFOs
I saw a UFO while driving out in eastern Long Island with my old roommate. This green orb-type thing came down through sky, going way too fast for how far away it was, it hovered in the sky for about three seconds before it flashed and disappeared. We both looked at each other and said at the same time, "Dude. What the heck".
35. Not Sure What to Even Make of This
I was hitchhiking across the country. This one night, I was trying to get the heck out of Colorado (long story), and it was very stormy. It was cold and wet, and I hadn't seen a car for at least half an hour. It was raining so hard I could only see a few feet ahead. Out of nowhere, this car stops beside me. I hopped in and went to thank the driver, only to realize that there wasn't a driver in the car at all!
Then the car started moving very slowly. There was a curve ahead, I thought for sure the car was going to run off the edge of a cliff. I was in full-on panic mode and I couldn't move. I darn near pooped myself. Then, just before the car hits the safety rail, a hand appeared from the window and turned the wheel.
This happened a few more times before I got my stuff together and took the opportunity to escape. I booked it, full on adrenaline rush...before I knew it, I was at a gas station on the edge of some dinky town. I was soaking wet and freaked the heck out. I started to tell the guy at the gas station what just happened.
He hooked me up with some hot coffee and we swapped stories for a little while. That's when, from the haze of the rainstorm, I see three guys walking up to the cashier. One of them says to the other "Look, it's the weirdo that jumped in the car while we were pushing it!"
36. Haunted House
When I was like seven I stayed the night at my friend’s house. He had a very lavish house, all the cool stuff and so on. They had tons of rooms. I woke up one morning and as soon as I woke up, I heard a woman scream. My heart started racing, I didn't know what happened. My friend rolls over and looks at me—I didn't know he was awake too because he was facing the other way—and says "Did you hear that??"
And of course, I tell him yes. Then his mom walks by his open door like 10 seconds after that and he stops her. He asks his mom if she heard it and she said no. His dad and sister were not at the house. To this day we still remind each other that it happened. NOW, that happened about 8 years ago. A few months ago that friend went out of town and my other friend was housesitting his house.
Him and his friend arrived one night with food and they heard a woman ask "Hello, is that you?" and they about poop their pants and left. To this day, we’re still creeped out by his house.
37. The Shadow People
I first starting seeing shadow people as a child, when I was around five or six years old, just prior to my great-grandmother's passing. I was getting ready for bed, got in my room, turned out the light, when I could hear our German shorthaired pointer start barking and growling. She never growled like that before.
I look out the window, and there were at least five of them out there. They were just dark shadows. Almost like they were absorbing light. They were either holding something or they had long arms, I couldn't make it out. They appeared to be teasing our dog. They would stand just at the edge of her reach (she was on a chain) and walk back and forth outside.
I ran to my parents. My parents were deeply religious people and told me to pray the next time I saw them. Sure enough, the next night they returned. I was scared stiff, so I prayed. A light seemed to turn on from the house, but this was different than the other lights. Instead of absorbing this light, the beings sort of burst away when the light hit them.
I asked my parents to turn on the light again, but they did not have a light back there at the time. After that, I never saw them again, but I did have the feeling I was being watched until we moved out of that area. I thankfully have not had these hallucinations since then.
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38. Kids Know More Than They Let on
My mom told me this story the other day and it freaked me out. When my oldest sister was little, like 3 years old, she asked my then-pregnant aunt to pick her up to hold her. My mom said she was like "She can't pick you up, honey, she has a baby in her tummy". And then my little sister was like "That baby is dead!" My mom freaked out, but my aunt and grandma were fine and were telling my mom it was all good, she was just a toddler and didn't know what she was saying.
Well, lo and behold my aunt goes to the doctor the next day for a routine pregnancy checkup, and the baby was deceased. Give me the willies just thinking about it.
39. One Last Goodbye
I attended the same university for my bachelor and my PhD. There was a lovely woman by the name of Jennifer, who was my “Reading in the Content Area” instructor. The guys all swooned over her (she was gorgeous) and I loved her because she read us The Giver out loud. She was an awesome instructor, and was doing her PhD in literacy.
Fast forward a few years, and Jen has moved to South Carolina to teach literacy. I'm now in my PhD program, and in the same grad student office she used to work in, with other literacy people that were her colleagues. And then, we got the news that she’d been murdered by her boyfriend. Everyone was totally devastated. It was a huge hit to the department, as she was genuinely loved by everyone who knew her.
So a few days after her funeral (her body was brought home), I'm in the office suite at school very early in the morning, when nobody else was around. The grad students had a fishbowl office (10 of us, with group desks) within a larger office suite that was locked and had light motion sensors. I'm walking in and pass a locked door with windows, and I see a woman with short, dark hair walk the other way inside.
Which was weird, because the lights didn't flicker on when she moved. So I walked around the corner to the door with a key code and let myself in. I walk inside, and head to where I saw her. The lights flicker on when they sense me. Nobody is there. It's just me, and an entire suite of empty offices. I swear to god, it was her, saying goodbye to a place she spent so many years, and where she had so many friends.
It spooked the heck out of me, but made me sad, too.
40. Lost Time in the Arctic
I grew up in the Arctic. In the town I lived in, as long as it was a clear night, it was an extremely normal occurrence to see all sorts of strange lights move across the sky. Keep in mind the winter is long in the Arctic, which means longer amounts of time being spent under the stars. It's quite beautiful, as long as you don't mind the cold so much.
Sometimes I would drive a snowmobile a few kilometers out of town, shut it down, and just lay down on the snow looking up at the majesty of it all, the only thing disturbing the silence being the occasional breeze. The Northern Lights are also a common occurrence. Doesn't happen everyday, but often enough that they start getting ignored after a while, as long as they aren't too spectacular anyway.
On one particular night, without asking my parents (it was their snowmobile), I decided to go on one of my midnight drives out of town. I drove a few kilometers over the hills to find a spot devoid of light pollution from town, shut off the machine, and settled into a good spot to look up and be introspective. It wasn't all that interesting a scene.
A few satellites passing here and there, some relatively boring activity affecting the magnetic field, etc. And then I started noticing a clicking noise...At first, I thought it was the sound of the snow machine cooling down, as engines expand and contract a lot in the cold. But the source of the sound definitely wasn't coming from that direction.
My next thought was there must be an animal nearby in which case I need to get out of there fast (you don't really want to mess with a wild animal). But, the clicking is far too regular for an animal to produce it. It was fairly mechanical sounding. And again, the source of the sound isn't coming from anywhere around me laterally. It was coming from up.
So naturally, I look up determined to ascertain the origin of this strange noise. I see what I always see: stars, Northern Lights, a lazy satellite crossing the sky...all normal stuff. But before I dismiss it altogether and begin heading home, I notice something strange in the Aurora Borealis. There were three rather strong points of light.
I ignored them at first thinking they were oddly symmetrical stars, but this proved false. They were definitely getting brighter. I kept staring in morbid fascination as they grew stronger and stronger, yet still only remaining single points in the sky. All the while the clicking noise is getting louder and louder and more pronounced, almost like someone started with tapping a pen on a desk to clacking billiard balls together inside my head.
Then it stops. The lights are gone, the clicking is not heard, and aside from being a little stiff, cold, and rather petrified, I'm fine. So I jump back on the snowmobile thinking maybe I'm going crazy. The machine takes a little longer than usual to start up, and I'm beginning to worry, but soon it's running and I'm heading back to town.
As I'm driving back several plausible scenarios as to what occurred are running through my head. I'm thinking it could've been a helicopter from the mine, or some strange Northern Lights behavior, etc. Probably not that big a deal. I pull up to my house. Lights are all dark. Strange. It wasn't that late when I left. Open outer door as quietly as possible, remove winter gear, enter inner door.
House is quiet. Really quiet. My parents are teachers and are usually up late marking or watching TV. All I'm thinking is I have to get to bed without anyone noticing. Proves to be easy as I'm soon under my covers. I go to set my alarm for the next day. All of a sudden everything makes sense. Engine hard to start, stiff, rather chilly, nobody up when I was gone what felt like relatively short period of time...
It was almost 11:00 PM when I left, and now it was creeping up on 6:00 AM. I stood, staring at clicking lights for almost seven hours. I never ended up sleeping that night, and I don't go on late night rides anymore.
31. Clench Worthy
In my late teenage years, I came into some money after my father took his own life and I received an inheritance from him. At the time of my dad’s passing, he and my mom owned a cabin up in Oregon by Mount Bachelor. My mom had put it up for sale but it was going to be vacant for a month. I saw this as a chance to get away for a while and clear my head in light of all the things going on.
I quit work, packed up my snowboarding gear, grabbed my dog and headed up in my dad’s car (that he had willed to me) to the cabin. My first two days at the cabin were normal and nothing out of the unusual happened. Spent my days playing with my dog in the snow, snowboarding, and the evenings playing PlayStation or listening to music, drinking out on the balcony.
Had already stocked up on food, smokes, and booze so I was pretty much a shut-in aside from the occasional out to hit the slopes. With my dog Midnight as company and DVDs/PlayStation as entertainment, I was quite content and started to feel relaxed after all the drama that had preceded my outing. The cabin itself was two floors, the bottom story had the living room and a side guest bedroom along with a small kitchen.
Upstairs had another two rooms along with a walkout balcony attached to the master bedroom. Most my time there was spent either in the living room, kitchen, or master bedroom. I never ventured into the other rooms and always kept the doors leading into them shut (open doors to dark rooms always creeped me out). Anyhow, the third day came around and I was going through my usual routine of playing with my dog, playing games and watching DVDs.
That day it was pretty heavy snowfall so I did not feel like trekking down the hill to the main road in my car and decided to stay in. That’s when things started getting a bit weird. In our area, there were only two other cabins adjacent to ours (maybe a block away from each other). All other cabins aside from these two were around a mile away from ours.
Surrounding us was mostly forest and very tall pine trees. Both these cabins were empty and from the past couple of days, I knew that no one was currently staying there. Around midday, while outside with my dog I noticed what looked like footprints in the snow around the area surrounding our cabin. It was still snowing so the footprints looked semi-fresh like someone had been there in the last 20 or 30 minutes before me.
I thought that maybe someone was staying in the cabin near me that I may not have noticed…maybe they were shut-ins like me…alright…whatever, the prints lead away from my cabin and they disappeared in the snow towards the denser part of the trees…disregarded the footprints and went back inside. Nighttime came around and decided to head to bed.
My dog was laying on the bed with me when I noticed his ears perk up to a standstill/listening position. This was followed by him quickly jumping off the bed and running downstairs to the living room. I lay in bed and stayed silent (I was kinda freaked out) and could hear him moving around downstairs back and forth.
After around five minutes he ran back upstairs to me and started to do his doggy dance for the sign that he had to pee or that he wanted to go outside. Shoot…well fine. I can’t say no to him so we both went downstairs to the outside driveway for him to do his thing. Only, he didn't want to pee. As soon as we were outside he started to pull on his leash trying to drag me to where he wanted to go.
He kept looking into the dense part of the trees where the prints had been earlier. But he also kept sniffing the side of the house and looking up towards the roof. After he figured out that I was not going to go to where he wanted he sat himself down and just stared into the darkness…a bit unusual for him but alright, maybe there are forest animals out there that he wants to chase down.
I did not want to chance anything so I pulled him back inside and we both headed back upstairs. Around half an hour later, I was lying in bed when I heard what sounded like hooves walking on my roof. It was only a series of around six steps and I rationalized that it could be a pine cone falling from a tree onto the roof or maybe a kind-hearted forest animal running around.
But here’s the thing, the steps seemed to be spaced apart like a man length stride. So it was really freaking me out. Midnight also heard the noise and was quick to run to the balcony screen door expecting for me to let him out. Alright, you know what, I’m a tough guy and at the time considered myself to be fairly well built and strong enough to handle myself.
So, I grabbed my coat and shoes along with my smokes and flashlight and went out onto the balcony. Screw it right? As soon as I was outside I lit up a smoke and started canvassing the roof with my light…nothing there and the snow on top was undisturbed. Weird, must have been all in my head? What about the dog hearing the noise?
Maybe he was feeding off my fear or paranoia. I started to calm down and relax again. My eyes started to adjust to the darkness and I kept puffing away and just staring at the stars and trees next to our cabin. That’s when I saw it. In a tree that was a little taller than our cabin and around 20 feet from the balcony, I saw what looked like a man crouched in a squatting position between two branches.
It was squatted on one branch and its arms were extended above its head holding onto the branch above it. Screw me…what the heck is that? I wasn’t sure if I was really seeing this thing and stood just staring and sat there motionless. I noticed the dog stand up and start pacing behind me and lightly barking at the same time.
The thing still did not move. I put my dart out and was debating on shining the light in the thing's direction, but something in my head kept screaming not to. So I walked backward to the inside of the room and pulled the dog with me. Once inside I locked the door and shined the light in the thing's direction but there was nothing there.
I shut the curtains to the screen door and retreated back to bed. But later on in the night, I heard light tapping at the screen door, like someone was tapping on the glass with their fingers. It was consistent and did not stop for nearly an hour. Midnight seemed to stare at the door but he wouldn’t go near it anymore. The weirdest part was that I had a feeling like someone was inviting me to open the door.
But at the same time, I kept hearing my dad’s voice in my head telling me to stay in bed and not do it. I listened to my dad’s voice and just stayed where I was. Passed out eventually and woke up in the morning and everything was normal. The rest of the week I spent there was non-eventful and nothing else out of the ordinary happened.
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42. Belief Shattering
I was at a friend's dinner party once when he revealed that one of the guests was a respected psychic. I am a huge skeptic but the psychic agreed to do a reading for us. We were all in the living room—maybe 20 or so people. She began with the expected stuff we think of when we think of a psychic doing a cold reading.
I had had a few drinks and was feeling pretty loose so I was just observing and waiting for her to do anything interesting that an observant person or someone trained in cold reading couldn't do. About 20 minutes into it, she stopped and said "OK, there is a stronger power than mine here and it needs to be acknowledged".
I perked up, thinking things were about to get interesting. She said anyone who had anything to say should speak up. She asked us to look around the room and allow ourselves to see one another clearly and look into each other’s eyes. If we felt impressed to tell someone something, we should. I will admit that I felt a little drawn toward a woman I had never met.
Her name was Tammy. I didn't say anything. The room was silent and the silence got awkward, like when a teacher waits overly long for a student to respond to a question s/he clearly doesn't know. So she probed again. "Someone here has a strong gift and needs to tap into it. There are messages waiting to be heard. If you feel drawn to someone, say so".
There was another silence. Then, she looked right at me and said, "Oh my God. It's you. You are a gifted empath. You must speak". I blushed and kind of laughed it off, but several of the guests insisted that I must speak my mind. So, I said I was feeling drawn toward Tammy. The psychic asked me to let my guard down, "reach out with your mind" she said.
So I tried to let my mind go blank. Suddenly, I could hear the Journey song “Don't Stop Believin'” in my head. Not my usual stuff. Then I started to feel sad. I'm normally a pretty happy guy, and this odd wave of sadness just came over me. At the same time, the name "Mark" came into my mind followed by an urge to tell Tammy thank you.
I didn't know what to do. The "psychic" told me to just start talking—describe what I was experiencing. So, I did. I closed my eyes and started to talk. As I got to the "thank you" part, I started to choke up and cry a little like I was actually feeling extreme gratitude. I opened my eyes and Tammy was white as a ghost.
Her friend Mark had passed on in the early 90s from complications with AIDS. She had been the only person in his friend group to visit him, and she did so regularly. The song had been their "pep" song, and she said Mark had passed unexpectedly after seeming to have rallied a bit. Tammy was trembling. I was shaken.
The psychic was smiling and the guests were all staring at me. A bevy of questions followed—almost none of which I could answer. I've always relied on my gut, but had never had that specific of an experience before. I do not believe in an afterlife, and as I said earlier, I've always been a huge skeptic. I couldn't explain what had just happened.
Others asked me to "read" for them. I didn't know what to do, and was frankly a bit weirded out. The psychic told me to hold people's hands and look deep into their eyes. That night, I told a man I'd never met that Sharon, the woman that allowed her friends to pay her for the "right" to touch him inappropriately as a boy, was sorry and in torment.
This huge, burly man crumpled into a pile and said he had never told anyone about that ever in his life and that I had even nailed her physical description. I told a young woman I'd never met that the relationship she was in was not working because she was too focused on wanting a child and that the stress was causing her to not become pregnant and making her act out in anger toward her husband.
She left in anger because "People had been talking about her behind her back and told (me) her secrets". That was not the case. All total, there were about five instances out of six attempts that night that were right on. The one that did not work was my partner. Nothing I said was right. I was left very, very perplexed by the whole night.
So, being a student/researcher, I decided to explore it. I worked that summer with the psychic (whom I have befriended) on exploring things I do not understand. She determined that I am, she believes, indeed an "empath" and that I can feel/read/interpret emotions from people that allow my intuition to put together stories.
She also believes that the world is full of emotional impressions/scars and that empaths can feel their echoes. Since then, I have determined that I AM indeed able to do something unusual. I don't do it as a hobby. I don't make money off of it. To be honest...I do it as a "I've had one too many drinks" party trick because that's about how seriously I take it.
However, I do it one on one now because I've discovered one too many uncomfortably personal things people don't want everyone in earshot to know. Here's what works best for me to "read" someone: The expectation is that I will tell them something they need to hear and that they do not tell me anything about themselves or what they HOPE to hear.
It works best when the person is an absolute stranger. I ask for an item that they usually have on their person often. So, a favorite ring, someone's glasses, etc. It has to be something they have touched often. I've found the absolute best results come from pillows people sleep on often. I will spend five to ten minutes holding the object in silence, allow my mind to wander, and then I will ask for the person's hand.
Then I just talk. I let my mind wander, and I talk. About 90 percent of the time, when I open my eyes again, they're staring at me in disbelief, crying, or smiling an incredulous smile. I don't understand it. I don't get it. I do like doing it, but it challenges my beliefs to the core.
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