Ever been alone in a darkened house in the middle of the night? Ever hear a noise from downstairs, a footstep in the hall, or a creak on the landing? Ever sense the presence of something when no one was around? We've all had the hairs raise on the back of our necks before, but what if we actually saw something in these moments? These Redditors did, and they're sharing their paranormal experiences.
1. The Thing That Went Bump In The Night
One day, I came home from a date at about 11 pm. The house was dark, but I didn’t switch on the lights because I knew my way around. I went straight to the bathroom, and on my way back down the passage I bumped into my dog, who is about as big as my mid thigh. I told my boy I love him and that he should be sleeping, but good boy for checking on his mom.
I opened my bedroom door, which was three-quarters of the way closed, and switched on the light at the same time as I opened it. What I saw made my blood run cold. There’s my dog on my bed, lifting his head when the light came on, to look at me. I would've heard him or felt him move past me if he'd gone by me and entered the room before. But no. I was totally alone...so what bumped into me?
2. If These Walls Could Talk
When my dad was younger, he used to see a woman in a white nightdress holding a candelabra walking along the hallway at his old house. No one ever believed him, but he thought it was his grandmother. Fast forward 20+ years, and he's talking to someone he works with. This girl says she used to see a woman in a white nightdress holding a candelabra in her old house. My dad asks where she used to live…and it was his old house.
3. An Unexpected Guest
I'm a paranormal investigator, so I live for the creepy and paranormal. I seek it out. Throughout my time as an investigator, I've experienced a lot of creepy things, but the strangest happened at the Sallie House in Atchison, Kansas. My team had arranged toys on the floor in Sallie's room because it's said that "Sallie" will move them if you do that.
We'd just finished a dinner break in the kitchen downstairs and went upstairs to check on our equipment in Sallie's room. But when we got to the top of the stairs, the door to Sallie's room was closed, even though none of us had closed it. Someone knocked on the door and asked, "Is anyone in there?" The response made me jump out of my skin.
We heard a distinctly male voice say, "No. Just leave." I need to point out, we were all downstairs together. No one had gone upstairs to close the door, absolutely not. But, any investigator will also tell you in old houses doors sometimes close. However, no men were upstairs. We had two men in our group, both were downstairs.
4. A Small, Dark Feeling
I had a close friend and roommate who came down to breakfast one morning very disturbed about a dream in which his parents were disappearing and saying goodbye to him. He was very upset by the dream, which was not in his nature. I had never seen him bothered by anything before. He was always a very happy and charismatic guy.
Later, we got a phone call with the awful news that his parents, who lived on the other side of the world, had in fact both passed that night in a car accident.
5. Oh Boy
I was doing Security at a hospital with an ER, ICU, surgical, the whole works and I got called to several paranormal calls. Most were psych cases or paranoid people that heard a strange noise. We never believed them—until one day. This time more than one nurse saw a guy on the camera who was on his death bed. He kept saying "I will not die in a hospital" earlier that day, literally pushing his curtain aside and walking out of his room toward the elevator.
A code was called and everyone immediately posted at their designated locations. Within seconds there were people watching the elevators and stairs and security started combing the area for the patient. As I reached the ICU floor I spoke with the Lead Nurse and she told me several of the nurses saw him leave. At that exact moment, monitors started going off. My jaw dropped. The guy never left. He was still in his bed. He code blue and died right then.
There were 3 witnesses on the report that say he got up and left and were serious enough to call a code which could cost them their jobs if they were wrong. The bosses wouldn't let us watch the video but the looks on their faces said it all. The bosses said the nurses did the right thing and some things just can't be explained.
6. Dark Doppelganger
I was having a tense conversation with someone who I was close to years ago. The conversation quickly devolved into a passive-aggressive fight that ended with the other person getting in the car and driving away. As I started heading back inside, the other person came back, got out of the car, and started our conversation again. Except this time, something was very, very wrong.
Their tone of voice was totally different and their stance was different and the feeling in the air was completely off. I don’t know how else to explain it. As the conversation progressed, the other person started saying some nasty and mean things that were completely out of character. I said, “This isn’t like you, Emma.” Oh my god, their response.
They said “What makes you think that I’m Emma?” I remember continuing the conversation and talking to the “person” for a long time, but I don’t remember anything specific. I do remember becoming more and more alarmed and knowing something wasn’t right. Finally, I told the person to go home. They complied and left.
I went back inside and started telling my sibling about the situation when the doorbell rang after maybe 2-3 minutes had passed. It was Emma coming back to apologize for the original fight. They had been driving around town for a long time and didn’t want to go home leaving things unresolved. I asked why they had said some of the things from the last conversation, and they looked at me like I was crazy.
They had no idea what I was talking about. Totally could have been lying, but that whole situation just felt dark. Scared the heck out of me.
7. When A Stranger Calls
My brother and I were home alone one night watching TV while my mother was working a night shift and my father was out. Eventually, my father came home, pushed the door ajar, and poked his head through to say hello. We both turned around and said hello back, my father closed the door. Thirty seconds after that, another man opened the door to say hello, we both turned around and say hello back, man closed door.
We assumed one of my dad's friends just came over to have a beer. Anyway, about five minutes later, I headed into the kitchen where my father was, making dinner or whatever, and I’m expecting to see his friend again. I see that he’s alone making dinner and assumed his friend was upstairs in the bathroom. I ask my father who his friend is.
My father looks at me and asks me, “What friend?” I reply, “The guy who came back with you.” Dad looks at me, thinking I’m some sort of weirdo. He says, “I came back home on my own.” Biggest whaaaaaaaaaaaat?! I’ve ever experienced. My brother was freaked out to the max. We both remember the man’s face. He was pale looking and had bright white hair.
8. Speaking To Yourself
I showed up at work one night and my boss was shocked to see me—he said I’d just called in sick. Little did I know, that was just the start of a terrifying nightmare I still can’t explain. When I called home, I expected my wife to pick up, but instead, the voice on the other end...was my own. I said in almost a scream, "Where is Ann?"
He said, "Ann's in bed. Who is this?" I dropped the phone and told my boss I had to get home, and took off towards the door. I could hear him pick up the phone behind me and say "Hello?" and then start to scream. I peeled into the driveway and ran up to my front door, but I honestly never could’ve prepared for what I saw.
My wife was sitting watching TV and was shocked at me being home. I asked her who was there and she said no one has been here. After a rather long talk with my wife, I went to call the prison to tell them what was going on, but the phone was dead. I went back to work and when I came in Dave was acting weird and asked me "How on earth are you doing this?"
He told me that when I left, he picked up the phone and the person on the other end sounded like me. He kinda freaked out and hung up the phone. A minute later as he could see my car leaving the parking lot, I had called back from home and asked what was going on. He said that I was a bit irate and said I was sick and did not feel like playing these games and was telling him to stop prank calling me and hung up.
After convincing him I had no idea what was going on we went back to work. Later, I find out that the phone line for my area had been knocked down the night before by the storm. This is absolutely the strangest thing that has ever happened to me.
9. Little Boy Lost
I was eight years old on Christmas Eve and lived on the third floor of a large house that was converted into apartments. I had trouble falling asleep. One night, I saw a boy floating outside my window wearing one of those old beanie hats with the propeller on top. I threw the covers over my head, tried to ignore it, and eventually fell asleep.
The next morning, my parents told me that they saw a figure of a small boy sitting at the end of their bed and asked if it was me, which it was not. Well, a few years later, we had some plumbing work done and they had to tear up the floorboards. They found an old book that had pictures of the property from about 60 years prior. Its contents sent a shiver down my spine.
There was a picture of the boy I saw in there, and it turns out that he was shot during a hunting accident on the property and passed. Still freaks me out to this day!
10. The Red Right Hand
I was sleeping in my basement, which is pretty much my bedroom, and I woke up at some random time in the night for no reason. I rolled over and saw a black figure, probably around 5’ 10” and typical male physique, standing at the side of my bed. It was standing between the bed and the stairs, so there was no way to get out.
I just rolled over and straight up started praying. I rolled back over…and it was gone. The next morning, I was in the shower (also in the basement) and the curtain was pushed to the side, not like all the way, but it noticeably moved. Then when I got out of the shower, my cello’s D string was plucked three times then rung out. But the creepiest thing was yet to come.
I went upstairs, where I saw my little brother. He had this vivid red handprint that reached all the way across his neck and cheek. It was too big to be his own hand. But the man I had seen hovering near my bed? It was the right size to be his...
11. I’m Sorry, What?
I'm a former paramedic. One day, my team responded to a report of a man down on the side of the railroad tracks near an old embankment. When we arrive, we saw that the man had no signs of life. When we tried to revive him, he flat lined on the EKG, with fixed and dilated pupils. He had no visible signs of trauma and the body wasn't cold yet so he hasn't been gone too long. We search the area and find a makeshift tent/campsite where the guy apparently was living and find no medications or anything out the ordinary.
We are not too far from an area that everyone believes is haunted and is a site for satanic worship. Even though all of us on the scene knew about the rumors none of us had actually seen it or had proof. It's dark and we were all waiting around for the funeral home to show up and bring the body to the morgue for an autopsy. Then the freaky stuff started.
A few of us heard what sounded like people whispering but it wasn't from any specific direction. Then the whispering stopped and the people on scene that hadn't heard the whispering started hearing what they all described as children laughing wickedly, but it was all over, not from any specific direction. Those of us that had heard the whispering never heard the new noise. This went on for about 10-15 minutes while we're standing next to the corpse. Officers on the scene told their dispatcher to tell the funeral home to step it up and get out there ASAP.
The next afternoon, we went to the morgue to speak with the coroner and find out the cause of death. The coroner's first question was utterly disturbing. He calmly asked us was why did we clean the body? Me and my partner looked at him kinda strange and asked what he was talking about. He said it must have been a very bloody scene, so we told him there was no blood anywhere around the scene.
He turned pale and said that just added to the confusion, because the body had absolutely no blood in it whatsoever. And there were no marks anywhere on him where blood could have been drained out. He also said he had a weird experience while doing the autopsy but refused to tell us what happened. To this day we have still never learned the actual cause of death, or been able to explain the whispering and evil laughing.
Pinterest
12. The Vanishing
I dropped my mug onto the floor accidentally one day. It should have been no big deal, but it turned into my weirdest "glitch in the matrix" moment. I heard no noise when it hit the floor, and when I went to pick it up, it was gone. I honestly went to bed and pondered what happened and slept feeling incredibly uncomfortable. I never did find the mug; it remained missing even days later. Still bothers me to this day.
13. Get Out, Right Now
My family moved into a new house when I was 11 years old. The previous owners were a family, and the mom passed of cancer. They sold the house shortly after she passed. Growing up, my sister and I always had an uneasy feeling about that house. Strange things would happen, but everything had a plausible explanation...except for one time when I was 16.
In the middle of the night, I was having trouble sleeping. While I was lying there in my bed, the door to my room opened on its own. I could hear footsteps come into my room. I couldn't see anyone, but I felt like someone else was in my room. Ever have someone come up behind you while you're on the computer? It was like that.
I could hear the footsteps get closer to my bed. Then, right next to me appeared compression on my bed, like an invisible person was sitting there. I could even feel the weight shift. I reached out to touch the compression, and all of a sudden a bunch of blue static electricity shot out from the spot I touched. I screamed and ran out of my room, waking up the entire house.
I couldn't explain what I saw that night. I was almost questioning my own sanity, and that's why I don't tell this story often. For the record, I was 100% sober at the time. Also, because I could move, I don't think it was sleep paralysis. The strange thing is that years later, my sister ran into the daughter of the previous family. She told my sister that her mom had actually passed in the house, not at the hospital.
14. The Basement Dweller
I heard what I thought was my brother singing. We had a piano in our basement as teenagers, and early in the morning or late at night, he spent quite a bit of time on it playing music. I should note, we lived in an old house, and sound traveled relatively well, so even when he was being “quiet,” you could hear him all the way up on the top floor.
One morning, around 8 AM, I woke up and went about getting ready for the day. My brother was singing in the basement, being loud and obnoxious. His voice is very distinct. I remember walking out of the bathroom, leaning over the top of the stairwell, and shouting down for him to shut up. He kept going, so I shouted louder.
But then I remembered my brother wasn't home that day. He'd left earlier that morning with my parents. The singing stopped. I went downstairs to find the basement dark. I was alone in the house.
Pikrepo
15. The Voice Inside Your Head
I heard this story about a family friend. This woman, we’ll call her Ann, was reportedly sitting at home, reading, when she heard a voice in her head. The voice told her: “Please don't be afraid. I know it must be shocking for you to hear me speaking to you like this, but this is the easiest way I could think of. My friend and I used to work at the Children's Hospital, Great Ormond Street, and we would like to help you. We need you to go there.”
Ann’s response to this voice was about what you would expect. Frightened at what was happening, she tried to ignore the message, but the voice reassured her by providing her with additional information about the hospital she would need to attend. Convinced by this point that she had gone mad, she consulted her family doctor who referred her to a psychiatrist.
After an examination, which showed no medical explanation for what Ann had heard, he diagnosed her with a functional hallucinatory psychosis. Along with supportive counselling, she was also treated with medicine and the voices disappeared after a couple of weeks. But the voices returned several weeks later, even though she was still taking the medication.
This time, the voices were even more specific in directing Ann to the diagnostic imaging wing of a nearby hospital. The voices then informed her that she had a tumor in her brain and that she needed a scan for proper diagnosis. They even told her the approximate location of the tumor, in her brain stem. Though the doctor had found no evidence supporting the presence of a tumor, Ann was distressed enough by this time that he ordered the scan done.
This actually took some negotiating, since the test is an expensive procedure and the lack of any apparent medical justification, aside from a hallucination, made the request hard to fathom. After considerable debate, the scanning was done. The results made their jaws drop. Sure enough, the scan showed evidence of tumor in her brain stem.
The neurosurgeon gave Ann and her husband the option of immediate surgery as opposed to waiting for actual symptoms to appear. After weighing the pros and cons, Ann decided on immediate surgery (the voices were in full agreement). The operation was carried out with no surgical complications. According to Ann, she heard from the voices one last time after regaining consciousness. They said, “We are pleased to have helped you. Goodbye.”
Needpix
16. The Haunting Of Lover’s Lane
When I was 19 or so, I was dating this guy. Since we both lived with our parents, we would drive out to abandoned lots to make out. One time, we pulled into an old abandoned shopping plaza. A couple minutes in, I get a very uneasy feeling. I kept thinking about a man whose hair was on fire. I don't know how I knew this, but I just sensed that he wanted us to leave.
My boyfriend noticed I looked scared. Then he says, without any prompting from me, "I have this weird feeling like someone is watching us and... And...He's on fire." We booked it out of there so fast. Drove by again a few days later during the day...There were distinct burn marks on the building that we hadn't even noticed before.
17. No Laughing Matter
My dad bought this old run-down house as a fixer-upper. I was about 8 or 9 at the time, so I couldn’t do too much to help him, but I remember helping him clean out the attic. It was full of tons of old newspapers and toys; the people must have been hoarders. Just tons of toy dolls and cars and all that. That creeped me out on its own, but I only found out the real story much later.
This is the really scary part, the part my dad waited until we were grown up to tell us. One person came by to look at the house when it was near finished and for sale. She said she really wanted it because it was full of spirits. My dad thought she was wacky but whatever, if that's what she liked, good for her I guess.
Some time later, my dad and mom are laying in bed at the house when they hear a woman laughing somewhere in the corridors. They both rolled over and just looked into each other’s eyes as they listened. They stayed that way until it stopped, then never talked about it for a long time. They both get chills when they tell that story now.
18. A Visit From The Other Side
At my dad's funeral, my sister, my aunt, and I all sat around the table discussing various things. One of the things we talked about was my cousin's funeral. She passed about 12 years earlier (she got hit by a drunk driver while on vacation). She was just 10-11 years old, and going into 5th grade. My sister was 8 and I was 5 at the time.
My sister told the story about how she and a friend had gone to play at the playground where my cousin had gone to school. While they were playing, they saw a little girl hanging out around them but never coming up to them and never saying anything. Both my sister and her friend were freaked out. The girl was wearing jean short overalls, a white flowery tee, and had long brown hair braided into two pig tails.
I chimed in and said that that girl must be really poor and not able to buy new clothes, because when I would play there, that little girl was still there, and she would follow me around the playground. My friends all saw her too, and they thought it was weird. For some reason, though, she didn't weird me out. I just thought she was shy and wanted friends.
She was always wearing the exact same outfit my sister described and had long brown hair braided into pigtails. This is when my aunt burst into tears. It turns out that my cousin was buried in a brand new pair of blue jean short overalls, a white tee with flowers on it, and with her long brown hair braided into two pigtails. My sister and I now have no doubt that the girl with both saw on the playground was our cousin.
Pxfuel
19. The Lady In Blue
when I was in high school, I’d have my then-girlfriend over to my house almost every day. every night, I’d have to drive her home, and since I was like 16 I had the whole “no driving after 9:00” thing. so, I’d drive her home at like 8:30 and get back on my road at around 9:00. But this is when something strange and bizarre happened. To this day I can't explain it.
One day when I turned off onto my road, I went up it about half a mile and see this girl, like a teenager, in a blue dress with a light blue ribbon tied around her waistline, walking down the road. It was around fall and she was barefoot and grinning ear to ear with mascara stains running down her face from some heavy-duty crying.
I told my then-girlfriend the story, and she didn’t really believe me. It happened the next three nights, and each time I just stared at her, my heart beating hard in my chest. I never stopped to see what was the deal—who in their right mind would? The fourth night, I waited until 10:00 to bring my girlfriend home. I didn’t see anything, and I haven’t seen her since.
20. A Ghostly Imprint
When I was four years old, my grandfather died by suicide. Not long after when I would come home on the bus, I would see him standing by the pond by my house just watching me. So I would go home and tell my mom what I saw. What I learned much, much later is that he had shot himself next to that very pond. I know it was him.
21. The Fatal Aura
When I was in high school, my girlfriend’s parents would let me stay overnight on the weekends so long as I slept in the RV that was parked in back of the house. I had done it multiple times, and my girlfriend would come sit outside with me for a while until she got tired, and then she would go inside and I would listen to my Walkman while I tried to fall asleep.
I remember one night I was having trouble falling asleep. This wasn't so unusual for me, but as I lay there, I started to notice an unfamiliar background noise. When I removed my headphones, I realized that it sounded like people outside the RV were having a loud discussion. Then the number of voices started to multiply and multiply and get louder and louder until it was unbearable.
I searched round and round, peering out of the windows, but nobody was there. I was very shaken at this point, and I decided to run into the house and sleep in the living room and try to explain myself in the morning. Problem was, every time I got about 6 feet away from the RV, there would be a flash of white and I would open my eyes and find myself back in the RV. Now, I was nearly having a panic attack, so I called my girlfriend on the phone.
She could hear how terrified I was, so she told me she was coming outside to get me. I heard the back sliding door of her house open, I heard her walk across the deck, down the steps, across the garden stones. I finally heard her hand fumble on the RV door, but when it swung open…no one was there. Now I was pretty much in tears when suddenly I felt the presence of something behind me.
I turned around and found this massive red aura hovering there. I was overcome with this immense sense of dread and I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I remember feeling like this energy was draining me, like absorbing my life force if that makes any sense. I dropped to my knees and realized that if I didn’t break free real fast, I was most certainly going to die.
I don’t know where I found the strength from, but I willed myself back to my feet and slammed the RV door open and bolted for the house. This time I actually got inside. I hollered for my girlfriend, and she came downstairs with her mom to much confusion. I explained everything that had happened, getting especially angry that my girlfriend never came outside like she promised.
She said that we never spoke on the phone and she had no idea what I was talking about, but when we compared our phones, mine showed a 1:25 am conversation completed to phone while hers showed nothing. That's when she and her mom started taking me seriously and began to look quite scared themselves. The rest of the night was uneventful, except that I couldn’t sleep. Every time I closed my eyes, I would see a small circle of intensely burning white light.
22. The Midnight Visitor
This happened about two months ago. I was alone in the house, as my parents were away working for the weekend. They were due back that evening, but then my mom texted me to say that they'd broken down and were waiting for a tow truck to pick them up. I asked them if there was anything I could do, but they told me to go to sleep as they'd probably be back late.
Fast forward to 3 am, I woke up to use the toilet. When I left the bathroom, I glanced over to my parents' bedroom. The door was shut and I could see a light on inside. It had been open and dark when I went to bed, so I thought "Oh, they must be home." I stumbled toward the door and remember stopping myself, thinking "No, I won't go in, I'll just speak to them in the morning."
So I turn back toward my room and go back to sleep. I awoke to terror. The sound of the front door opening downstairs. I glanced at the clock. It was 45 minutes after I'd last woken up. I thought it was a bit strange, and got a tense feeling in my stomach. I walked out of my bedroom and glanced over to my parents’ room, only to see the door open and the light off.
The bed was also made, so no one had been in it. I felt sick. I went downstairs and nervously asked my mom "Have you just got home?" She was like "Yeah, why?" I just sat staring into space wondering what the heck happened. I'm still wondering now.
Unsplash
23. Father Knows Best
March 2015. My father had just passed a month ago. I wasn’t sleeping well and I would stay up later and later every night. When he was alive, my father always used to scold me if I stayed up so late because it would ruin my sleep schedule and affect my work, y'know, just standard parenting stuff. So I'm thinking about this one night when I couldn't sleep. It’s about 2:30 am, and I’m watching YouTube on my PS4 to distract myself.
Then, the power in the house flickers. I didn't realize it at the time, but that was the start of the strangest night of my life. I check the window, there's no rain or wind or anything. I figured somebody hit a pole somewhere. Couple minutes later, power goes out for a second, then comes right back on. Nothing was affected, which is weird because when power goes out, the electronics usually reset. So I check the window again, but still see nothing happening outside.
A couple minutes later, power goes out for almost a whole minute. From the couch, I can see the streetlight outside is still lit, as well as the other houses on the street. Power comes back on and EVERYTHING is still as it was. Video continues where it left off, clocks haven’t reset, nothing. It’s now 2:37 am. I audibly said “ok” and went to bed.
Next morning, I wake up for work. The clock on the oven says 11 am. My phone says 7:23. It was around 11 when my father left the house the day he passed. Fast forward to January of this year, the third anniversary of my father’s passing, I can’t sleep. I’m upstairs at my NEW home, watching Netflix. Power flickers and goes out.
I immediately said “ok I’m going to bed.” Power comes back on. Next morning, getting ready for work, oven clock says 11:41am. Dad doesn’t like when I stay up too late.
24. Somebody’s Watching Over You
A disembodied voice may have saved my sister's life. When I was about 12, my family lived in my great-grandmother's house. She had passed in that house before my sister and I were born, but we knew that it was her home we were staying in. I'm sitting in the front room as my sister walks toward the front door, and she suddenly stops and turns to me.
"What did you say?" she asked. I hadn't said anything, I was sitting quietly with headphones on. We're looking at each other, confused, and suddenly a car spins out in the street in front of our house. The driver regains control and takes off at high speed again. My sister was about to walk to her friend's house and might've crossed paths with that car if she had left the house earlier.
We're both startled, and my sister tells me that a stern voice that sounded like mom told her to "SHUT THAT DOOR." Mom was in her bedroom, but when we asked her, she hadn't said anything or left her room. Thing is, my sister had talked about dreams she had before this where she would come home and speak to an old woman.
One day, my mom finds an old photo album and my sister instantly recognizes a picture of the old woman from her dreams. It was our great-grandmother, whose home we were staying in. From what I've learned over the years, things like this are common for the women in my family. Even so, it still really freaks me out sometimes.
25. Don’t Go Into The Light
20 or so years ago, I was driving east on Highway 60 at night. There were two of us in the car, and we noticed a really bright light on the right rear side. I mean really bright. We then remembered that the train tracks were there, so we kept driving without really thinking about it. Well, the light stayed with us, which was weird because trains usually don't go that fast out there.
So, then my friend rolls down the window and looks back to see what it is—and suddenly the light vanishes. Also no sound. So now we're a little freaked. We pull over to check things out. A chilling realization sets in. There are no train tracks next to the road on this section of road. Now we're really freaked out, and bolt out of there ASAP.
Wikimedia Commons, Tony Webster
26. Don’t Look Now
I have a weird warning system that functions without any obvious triggers. For example, I once hiked through the forest to some old castle on a hill. To get there, I needed to cross a bridge that goes over a 20-meter deep canyon. I've been there a thousand times, as I used to live in the area. This particular time, though, I started to get a weird feeling as soon as I stepped into the forest.
It got stronger and stronger until it was pure fear. I thought I must have eaten something wrong, because there was no reason whatsoever to be afraid. So I tried to ignore it and went on. Right before I stepped onto the bridge, that weird feeling acted up so wildly I almost turned back. Again, I convinced myself that I was being stupid and made it to the middle of the bridge.
One has quite a nice view from that position into the forest and the rock formations below, so as always I stopped and looked down to the right side of the bridge. Then I turned to the left, but before I could look down, that feeling didn't let me. At that point, I really thought that I must be going crazy, but still I "obeyed," didn't look down, and made my way to the castle ruin complex that started right behind the bridge.
After I’d been there for 15 minutes, some officers arrived, started to scream at me to come down, interrogated me about who I was, what I did there, who I saw on my way to the castle, how long I have been there…and how come I didn't see the dead guy under the bridge, on the left side. Apparently, he jumped shortly before I arrived.
27. A Glitch In The Matrix
My sophomore year of college, I lived on campus but my boyfriend didn't. He worked on campus, however, and would often hang out in my dorm with me between class and work. My bed was lofted with my desk underneath it, and sometimes I would take a nap while he sat at my desk doing homework. One afternoon I woke up from a pretty vivid dream and started telling my boyfriend about it.
I remember hearing him respond, and in the middle of my response, I felt this eerie shift in the atmosphere. It was like the whole room suddenly became slightly darker and colder. I quietly said his name, but he didn't respond. That’s when I remembered he had been at work for about three hours. I grabbed my backpack, ran out of there, and did homework in the library until he was off work.
28. The Endless Night
I was driving down this back road after work, trying to get home since the main road was blocked from an accident. I enter this area where there are no houses and trees overhang the road, almost like a tunnel. Well, about as soon as I enter the tree tunnel, my headlights shut off. It’s like 9 pm in the fall, so it’s pitch black.
I immediately stop and back up, but my reversing lights aren’t working either, so I just hold the wheel straight. I had only driven a couple seconds in, so I was maybe a hundred feet into the tunnel, but I had been reversing for about a minute at this point and couldn’t see anything still. I check my phone, it’s gone, the screen doesn’t turn on or anything, my watch stopped ticking, and nothing electronic in my car is working.
At this point, I’m freaking out. I'm looking around and I can’t even see the road or the trees that were supposed to be around me. I step out of my car and look up, and can’t see any stars or anything, no moonlight. I walk to about where the other side of the road should be, and I just keep walking along a flat plane. I walk backwards straight so I don’t lose my sense of direction.
I manage to get back in my car and just start driving. I was going about 80 for a solid 10 minutes, on what was supposed to be a winding back-country road with a 40mph speed limit, before I just decided to wait it out and sleep until morning, if there was even going to be a morning. I fall asleep, and wake up to the sunlight coming through my window. In the middle of a field.
In the middle of nowhere. No houses nearby, nothing. I go to check my phone, and it’s still dead, but the screen turns on to let me know it has no battery charge left. Car turns on and all of the lights come on. Onboard GPS tells me I’m about 5 hours away from my house, in a borderline uninhabited part of the state. Full tank of gas. No mileage difference from the day before.
My watch is ticking normally and showing about what would be the correct time given the sun’s position. I start the long drive home and haven’t travelled that road again and never, never will.
29. Monsters Under The Bed
My old house was definitely haunted. My normally quiet dog would growl in empty dark rooms, and I'd see shadows quickly move across the hallway. The worst moment, though, was when I was about 9. I couldn’t fall asleep. I was randomly looking around my room when I saw some sort of creature crouched in the corner, with a dark body but a bright red face.
Now, being a wimpy little kid, I immediately wrapped myself up in my bed covers and forced myself to sleep. I never saw the thing again, but it still creeps me out to this day.
30. Not All Ghosts Are Nice…
My family was having a giant party for my dad. The house was completely packed with friends and relatives. Two of my girl cousins were upstairs doing their own thing when suddenly they came rushing down. One of them is trembling and clearly shaken. They claim they thought they saw somebody in one of the rooms, but didn't think much of it. They continued on for a bit like nothing happened, until one girl (the one trembling) said she saw a hand reach out and pull her leg.
The adults basically say to just not go upstairs anymore for the rest of the night. So the party continues. Later that night, my baby cousin comes tumbling down the flight of stairs. Apparently everyone had lost track of her. She's completely fine, but she keeps looking up at the stairs and pointing. She says she was pushed by a man up there, but of course, nobody was up there. We don't even know how she got up there herself.
31. The Thing That Walked Through Walls
My mom has the best paranormal ghost experience that I've heard recounted to me, and it’s impossible for me to find a believable rational explanation for it. She's Kate. It happened when she was on holiday with her parents. They were on their way to Devon from Suffolk, and this journey took a long time and required an overnight stop.
She was around 14 years old at the time, very precocious and wilful, but enjoying the prospect of a small holiday with her mom and dad. They arrive at a hotel for the overnight stop, and Kate goes to relax for a bit in the TV alcove they have upstairs while her parents go for a drink at the bar. Happily watching TV, she's surprised to see a man poking his head into the alcove.
The only way she can describe how he looks is "he had very old skin." Despite being startled, she apologizes and offers the use of the TV to the man, who just stares back at her blankly, and then leaves just as suddenly as he arrived. Kate is a little freaked out by this, and upon reuniting with her parents before getting to their rooms for the night, she remembers telling them about the man, hoping she hadn't upset anyone.
She expected an "Oh, that's probably the man in room three...." but instead they seemed confused and "perturbed" to use Kate's words. Kate has a room to herself, so she says goodnight to her parents and goes to bed. Once in bed, Kate starts to read her book, fully enveloped in the story. Then the strangest thing happens.
I'm going to use the words she used when she first told me this story; "I felt a man walk through the wall behind me to my left. I was so scared that I immediately hid under my bed covers and shut my eyes as hard as I could and wished for him to go away. I felt him slowly walk down the left side of my bed, around the end of the bed, and he continued in that direction until he went through the wall facing the right side of my bed."
When she couldn't "feel" him any more, she came out from under the covers, and decided that she must be going crazy, letting her imagination get away from her. To this day, she is a very pragmatic, skeptical person, so she thought it was in her head and that was the end of it. Fast forward to 10-14 years later, and she's having dinner with her parents.
This isn't a regular occurrence as she's moved to London, where she would meet my dad and later have me, but her parents still live in Suffolk. They are talking about weird experiences they've had or their friends have had, and my mom remembers this experience, leading with, "I got myself all worked up in that hotel we stayed at thinking someone walked through the wall..."
Once her mom hears this, however, she goes white and has a very serious look on her face. She explains that she had exactly the same experience. Upon discussing the night further, they work out the wall the "thing" walked through from my mom’s room was the wall straight into her parent's room. Absolutely bone-chilling.
32. Gone Forever
When I was a kid, I was playing outside at our farm with a Dr. Fate action figure. I was in the middle of the lawn and I was throwing it up in the air and catching it, pretending he was flying. I go to throw it up…and I swear it just disappeared and didn't come down. I thought I lost it squinting in the sun or something, and searched the whole yard for it.
No trees or bushes around, and the house was too far away, so it couldn't have ended up on the roof or anything. There was nothing around me but freshly mowed lawn. It was my favorite toy, so I spent so much time searching that day and even into the next. I never saw it again. All I remember it that feeling of it flying away from me.
33. We Are Not Alone
I used to work at a place that had to be manned 24 hours a day. I handled sensitive documents and files, and if somebody needed this information in the middle of the night, I would have to fetch it for them or confirm that I had it. So security is really tight. I’m talking bars on windows, and multiple locked doors to get to where I am.
They would give me work to do during the night, but they underestimated how quickly I could get it done. So like most nights, this one, I finished my work in like 30 to 45 minutes and pulled out my phone and played games. No one else was in the building with me. It was getting to be the last third of my shift when all of a sudden I hear a door close.
I look to the security camera and see someone walking down the hall toward my room. At first I thought it was just somebody who came in ridiculously early, so I turned around and waited for them to come in. But nobody came in. Now the hairs start rising on the back of my neck. I decide I’ve got to do something about this or I’ll go crazy.
This isn't a really big building, so I figure I'll find the guy wherever he is and start checking offices and storage rooms. I come up empty handed, but I do see that a fire door had shut. I go to try and rewind the camera, but the digital recording is password protected and I don't know the password. The whole thing freaked me out.
I mean, the way the person was walking down the hallway, like a determined walk right to where I was. So, I sit with my spine tingling for the last couple hours of my shift and finally people start coming in. My replacement shows up and I tell her what I saw. At this point, I figured I must have imagined the whole thing. I'm told to go home and the manager and girl who replaced me would look over the camera.
After getting home, I call my manager and ask what was on the camera. They said that the video showed the fire door closing…but then the video froze for about an hour, and the next thing it records is me reopening the door.
34. The Tell-Tale Foot
My parents’ house was brand new in a really nice subdivision, and I was five when we moved. I wasn't ever an anxious kid or anything, but I was TERRIFIED of the house. I refused to be upstairs alone, and I had really frequent panic attacks. We lived there for 15 years before I moved out, and I was never comfortable. I live in a 75-year old farmhouse now, and I don't get uncomfortable the way I did in that house.
Only one creepy thing actually ever happened to me there, though, and this is it. Last year, 32-week-pregnant me went back up to see my grandmother before I had this baby, and I was staying with my parents. My dad was traveling for work, so it was just my mom, my sister, and me. My mom had gone to the grocery store, and I was lying on the sofa.
The way the living room is set up, you can see the reflection of the bottom two feet of the foyer and staircase in the TV, and also the kitchen on the other side of the living room. So I'm lying there messing around with my phone, and I hear the stairs creaking. I look up at the reflection in the TV and I see a pair of bare feet standing in the foyer.
I think it's my sister, so I tell her to come and sit with me and feel the baby kicking. There's no reply, and the feet turn and walk toward the kitchen. So I sit up to say hey…and there's no one there. At all. My sister wasn't even home—she'd gone to work. My parents have moved closer now and they're closing the sale of that house at the end of this month. They're a little sad, but honestly I'm incredibly relieved.
35. Living In Slow Motion
When I was a little kid, I remember I was running around my room and I decided to go on the bed and jump from it. As soon as I jumped, suddenly, everything went into slow motion. It was like there was no gravity for some time. I got really scared, so I just closed my eyes and I slowly landed back on the ground eventually. I’m absolutely sure it wasn’t a dream.
36. Leave The Boy Alone
We lived near an American Civil War battlefield and cemetery for a few years. There were trails through the woods that we would hike a lot. One day, we were looking at the cemetery, and my wife hears me walk up to her. We were the only ones there, so she turns to say something. Well, I'm nowhere nearby. I’m on the other side looking at a cannon. From that day on, we started experiencing things that were just...odd.
My wife's car was always kept in the garage, and its inside mirror kept moving overnight. It wasn't drooping from a loose fitting, and it would be in a random direction. Sometimes it would be pointed up. Other times, sideways. Weird, but I dismissed it as her bumping it while getting her purse or other items when getting out.
Then her car went into the shop, and the next morning I went to go to work and the mirror in my truck, which I parked in the driveway with the doors locked, was moved upward. Next morning, same thing, different direction. She got her car back and my mirror never moved again. There were little goofy things too, typical "haunting" stuff like things moved, the sense of somebody behind you, etc.
Also, our house was a ranch style with the master bedroom on the first floor and our son’s bedroom on the second right above ours. The flooring job was substandard, so we heard his every movement. He started going to the bathroom, which was down a hallway and halfway across the second floor from his room, a lot. Yet every time we'd go check on him, he'd be asleep.
So one night, we decided to catch him coming out of the bathroom for no reason other than to make sure he was okay and to tell him to quit stomping like an elephant because come morning, he never remembered going. We never were able to. Every time he'd go to the bathroom, one of us would head upstairs while the other stayed in bed.
We wouldn't hear him return, and the other would find him asleep in his bed. The next morning, we asked him if he was up and walking around last night. His reply made me turn white as a sheet. He said no, but that for weeks something would walk up to and away from his door but not open it. My wife turned to the room and said, "You're welcome to hang around, but please stop walking up to our son's room at night, you're scaring him."
The footsteps never reoccurred after that, although the car mirror thing kept on. Could she have been pranking me? Maybe. But one of the times my truck's mirror moved was after I'd gotten home and I went to go to the store a couple hours later, the only set of keys to it had never left my pocket. Could our son have been pranking us? Again possible, but the darn flooring was so bad in one spot that even our cat walking over it caused it to squeak, making it nearly impossible for him to get back to his bedroom without us noticing.
Pikist
37. A Ghostly Message
I must have been sleep walking during the creepiest moment of my life, because I don't remember it, but my family insists that it's true. On the night that my grandpa passed, I apparently woke up, walked into my mom's room, shook her awake, and told her that papa loved her and wanted to her to know he would always watch over her. She was ushering me back to bed when the phone rang. That phone call was my grandmother telling my mom that papa had passed.
38. A Bridge To Another World
I was driving home late one night, somewhere between 1 and 3 am. The stretch of road I was driving goes through the back end of a couple of counties in the Deep South. Nothing around but forests, fields, and the occasional group of shacks huddling under a light that only barely keeps away the night. I'd driven this stretch of road many times before, even at this time of night, so it wasn't really a big deal. Just a long trip.
Since there was rarely any traffic that time of night, I was able to turn the stereo up and push the pedal down. And then I came to this bridge. Nothing really noteworthy about it—it's not ancient or a covered bridge or all that spooky. Just a concrete span over swampland, trees growing right up near the edge and turning the road into a dim trail at the bottom of a dark canyon.
I didn't think anything of it. Until that night. It was humid out, and as the temperature dropped there was a little bit of fog. Not enough to really slow me down, but I had to turn off the high-beams. So I'm shooting across the bridge and it hits me that it seems to be taking longer than normal to get across it. Maybe I was just tired? Maybe my mind was playing tricks on me?
And when I thought I was finally getting to the end of it, I saw a figure walking on the opposite side of the road. At first, no big deal, right? Guy walking in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night. Probably lives nearby, probably not sober. Watch them to make sure they don't fall in front of the car. But my mind is already racing.
I mean, this is the middle of nowhere. There are no houses around. There are no lights but the stars and my headlights stabbing out at the darkness. And as I whiz by going way too fast for my own good, I notice two terrifying things: First, the figure is wearing what appears to be a straight jacket, the sleeves undone, and the straps trailing to the ground. Second. It has no face. Not like, there's no head there. There's a head shape. And the place where a face should be, but no face. Just an expanse of darkness that I took to be his skin.
I chalked it up to going really fast, contrast between white jacket and dark skin at night, and thinking creepy thoughts. I mean, surely I couldn't have just seen that. I tried to spot him in my rear view mirror, but it was so dark there was nothing to be seen. I slowed down a little, and was suddenly off the end of the bridge and on normal two-lane blacktop again.
I briefly considered turning around and seeing what it was. Surely it was just a trick of the light or my mind playing tricks on me. Right?
39. A Mysterious Ailment
A woman I knew began to have pain and fatigue and a whole suite of other vague symptoms shortly after being treated for mastitis, as she'd recently had a baby. She went to the doctor, who pretty much dismissed her. She continued for years to suffer with extreme fatigue, migraines, low-grade fevers, etc. without any relief.
She got diagnosed with fibromyalgia pretty much as a "no one knows what the heck this is, so we'll stick a label on it and call it good." She got referred to psychologists, and even her husband started losing patience with her. One night, she'd made up her mind to wait until her husband was at work and her daughter was at school the next morning, then take an overdose of pills.
As she was falling asleep, though, she heard a voice, loud and clear, tell her, "It's your implants. Get them taken out." She'd had breast implants years before, when she had done some modelling. She called a plastic surgeon and set up a consultation, and midway into describing her symptoms, the surgeon interrupted her by saying she'd seen this before, and the implants had to come out as soon as possible.
When the surgeon removed them, they were black. They were completely full of mold, which had been playing merry havoc with the woman's immune system. Once the implants were out and she was treated with an antifungal, she recovered quickly. Oh, and her husband felt terrible for doubting her when he saw these black implants.
40. The Lady In The Rocker
My grandmother passed when I was in 8th grade or so. After a few years, my grandfather came to live with us for a bit, and then had to go into an assisted living home. I am in college and we have decided to open up their house for a family reunion. One of my cousins, Kate, flew in early with her 5-6-year-old son, Tom, to open the house and air it out.
This was in rural Mississippi. Kate and Tom were going to a hotel that night, and come back the next day. As they pulled away, Kate notices Tom looking out the back window and waving at the house. "What are you waving at, buddy?" "I'm waving at the lady." "What lady?" "The lady in the rocking chair on the porch." Now, there were several chairs on the porch, but only one rocker.
It was the chair my grandmother sat in and waved at all of us as we drove away from a visit. She always sat and waved until we were out of sight. The next day, some aunts and cousins open up the one room they hadn't opened the day before; my grandparents' bedroom. As they are sweeping and dusting, Tom wanders in. Then his words chilled us to the bone.
He points to a picture of my grandmother on the bedroom mantle and says, "Hey Mom, there's the lady I was waving at yesterday." To Kate's knowledge, that was the first picture of his great-grandmother Tom had ever seen.
41. The Phantom Intruder
When I was in college, I housesat for my parents. I’m a bit of a scaredy-cat, so I locked every door leading up to the bedroom when I went to bed at night. I had the weirdest dream that someone unlocked each door and turned on every light, and I felt cold and woke up to my dog barking. Sure enough, all of the lights in the house were on and every door was open and unlocked.
My dog wouldn’t stop barking in the hallway, but there was nothing there. I sat in the shower with my dog and phone the rest of night, scared out of my wits. To this day, I still have no explanation for that night's events.
42. Monsters Are Real
Once upon a time, I lived with a couple and their child. They asked me to babysit so they could have an evening together. I agreed. Fast forward to bed time: The child doesn't want to go to sleep because of the "monsters." The child is adamantly sincere, which creeps me out a bit. But I play it cool. I look around the room, pretending to scare them away.
This does the trick and the child falls asleep. Later, I'm sitting in the living room, which is oriented so the couch faces away from the main entry. I'm watching TV, expecting the couple back at any minute. That's when I hear the entry door open and close, just like I've heard it many times before. With a smile on my face, based on my success with the child and the knowledge of my good deed, I stand and turn towards the door.
There is no one there. I'm skeptical of the paranormal, but this unnerved me. Once the couple actually returns, I tell one of them about it. He says, "Oh, yeah, we were going to tell you that stuff happens here all the time, particularly in the child's room, but we didn't want to scare you." Needless to say, I slept poorly in my basement bedroom for several days.
43. Daddy's Home
When my family first moved to California, the house we lived in had a lot of weird things occur. My room happened to be close to the front door/dining room area, and I could hear the front door open and close. So one day, I'm in my room playing games. It's after school and everyone is home except my dad, who's not home from work yet.
I'm almost 100% concentrated on a game, but I hear the front door open. I quickly turn to look out and I see somebody walk upstairs, who I assumed to be my dad. Immediately after, I hear my youngest brother yell out, "Daddy’s home! Daddy’s home!" My siblings and my mom all rush upstairs to go after my dad. I don't think much of it and kept playing.
Just a few minutes later, they all bolt downstairs. There's a big commotion, and my little brother is in tears. I'm still into my game, but I can kind of hear what's going on. My brother saw a figure go upstairs and thought it was my dad. When they got up there to the master bedroom, no one was there. I knew I heard the door open, and I also saw somebody go upstairs…
44. It’s Coming From Inside The House
My sister was visiting my parents for the weekend. That night, I called her about something, just wanting to chat, but when she picked up, she was clearly very upset. She told me she was home alone and "something was happening." I asked her if there was someone in the house, like an intruder. She told me there were animalistic growling noises coming from the corner, and my mom's dog was going nuts.
She also said the hallway lights were flashing on and off. I told her to get her jacket and calmly walk out of the house, taking the dog with her if she could, and that I would be by soon to pick her up. She went outside and brought the dog with her. Her friend was even closer than I was, so she picked my sister up and they hung out at her friend's house for a while.
About twenty minutes after that, my brother, who also lived nearby, stopped by the house to return some tools he'd borrowed for my dad. He went inside because he saw the lights going on and off, and he's an electrician. Once he was inside…they stopped. He kept hearing someone walking around in the other room, but when he'd go in there, no one was there, and when he called out no one responded.
He checked the whole house and then also heard animal growling noises from the same corner as my sister. This is an outside wall corner, with windows, not enough space for a raccoon or something to be trapped inside the wall. My brother felt really unnerved and left.
45. The Bloody-Faced Man
One afternoon in college, I came back from classes and decided to sit on the couch and have a snack. After that, I just passed out. I had a nightmare of some bloody-faced demon thing screaming in my ear at the top of its lungs. I then woke up and went about the rest of my day. My roommate comes back later that night, and goes into his room as I’m sitting in the main living area.
At some point, he lets out this random startled scream. Panicking, I run down the hall to see what’s going on. His reply made my heart pound. He looks at me and goes, “I swear to god, someone with a bloody face just walked from your bedroom into the bathroom.” I never told him about my nightmare I had earlier in the day. After that, I didn’t sleep for two days straight.
46. The Disembodied Voice
A lady’s voice was coming from my closet and asking for help. My closet door was cracked and she said, “Help me. I see you through the cracks.” Every synonym for the word scared was coursing through my body. I went and checked to see if there was a woman in need of help, but nothing was in there but my clothes and shoes.
47. It Came In A Dream
I had just moved into a new house. One day, I was downstairs when I heard what sounded like furniture moving around upstairs. I went up to investigate but when I got up there, everything was quiet and nothing had moved. I then went back downstairs, only for the dragging sounds to start again. I go back up; nothing. This went on for about an hour. I almost called the authorities because I was positive that someone was in my home.
I ended up calling a friend and kept them on speakerphone while I searched the attic, thinking maybe an animal could be hiding, but I never found anything. Eventually, I gave up my search and went to bed. But it was far from over. That night, I had a dream that I was driving to work in the rain and fog and crashed my car. Someone approached me and asked "Are you ready to move on?" That's when I woke up.
At the time, I was working mid-shift, so around 10 PM that same day I got in the car on a foggy and rainy night and made my way into work without any issue. The building I worked in had security cameras all over, and it being so late, I was the only person coming in. When I get inside, the person I was relieving asked who I came in with. I was alone, but she swore someone followed me inside. It was a very unnerving 12 hours to say the least.
Unsplash
48. Guardian Angel
Way back when I was in junior high, I was sitting on some bleachers after school watching an intramural floor hockey game. Now, these bleachers were pushed all the way in, so we would literally climb to sit on the top of them, which I'm estimating was probably about 10 feet. So I'm sitting up there, and I stand up to move and my foot gets caught.
I try to save myself, but I end up falling. What's really odd is that I don't remember the fall at all. I remember starting to, but then I "wake up" just as I hit the floor, but it was like I had fallen only a few inches and landed on my back. I heard the gym fall silent as I popped right back up. The teacher asked in a panicked voice if I was okay, I said "Yeah," and then just climbed right back up. I should've bounced my head off the floor and had some kind of injury, but I felt literally nothing.
49. Open Door Policy
I used to work at a 24hr Subway. Well, one day I was doing the dishes, and my co-worker was cleaning the toaster oven and bread oven. Out of nowhere, around 3:30 am, I heard our door chime go off. Out of habit I say, "Welcome to Subway" as I turn around. But nobody's there. My co-worker's gone too. I thought "Okay, maybe he hopped the counter and went outside."
Heading back to the sink to finish the dishes, I hear the door chime again. Nobody. Checked the bathrooms. Nobody. "What...the...heck." I ignore the dishes, and stand at the front counter, eyeing the doors. A couple minutes later, my co-worker comes through the back door where we get our deliveries. "Where'd you go?" I asked him, turning towards the back door area.
"To take out the trash," he replies. Okay, I think, I'm just imagining things. But nope, just then, the door chimes again. We both turn around to see nobody there, but this time the door was wide open. But here's the freakiest part: Our doors are weighted so they'll close on their own if you let go of them. Door stayed open for a couple minutes as we stared...Then suddenly slammed.
Not a windy night, and our doors wouldn't even stay open like that on the windiest of days. Have no idea what caused this, or why it happened on that particular night, but after I got a different job, I was told it never happened again. Told my boss about the incident and we all looked at the cameras. Nobody could explain it.
Wikimedia Commons, Corey Coyle
50. It Lives In The Attic
In the house I grew up in, it always felt like you were being watched. I’d see shadows out of the corner of my eye and dark mists that would dissolve when you looked straight at them. My older sister was always scared of the attic especially. She would barricade the door to it whenever we were left home alone, just in case.
I went in the attic quite often to get various things. It’s where we kept large toy containers, old clothes and stuffed animals, and I just liked seeing what I could find. It always felt like I was being watched, though. One time I went up there, and as I reached the top of the stairs, I saw a large, translucent alien-shaped white head looking at me from behind a box.
I froze, terrified, and locked eyes with it for a few seconds before it slowly lowered itself down to hide. I turned right back around and left, telling myself I had imagined it, but I was too scared to go in the attic for years after that. I didn’t tell anyone for years. My parents eventually sold the house and we moved, and I’ve never felt the same way anywhere else I’ve lived.
51. The Bad Omen
I was living in New York in 2001, just a few blocks from the World Trade Center. Early on the morning of September 11th, my roommate came downstairs for breakfast, but she looked so exhausted. When I asked her what was the matter, she said she hadn't been sleeping well the past few weeks, and that she kept having dreams about lots of people perishing. We shrugged it off…until a few hours later. She didn't have any more of those dreams after that night.
52. The Music From Next Door
I lived in an old house in Athens, Ohio, which is reported to be one of the most haunted American cities. During the first year I lived in my apartment, I frequently noticed this strange music that seemed to be coming from inside the house. It's hard to describe, but it sounded like a keyboard or an organ. It sounded faint and was played in the minor key.
Always sounded the same. Regardless, I just chalked it up to my downstairs neighbors, and it never bothered me enough to investigate. It was definitely coming from inside our building, though. The following year, my original neighbors moved out, and my new neighbor, Sarah, moved in. We became friends. One night, she was hanging out in my apartment and the music started up.
She asked me pointedly where the music was coming from, and I said I didn't know—she didn't have music playing in her apartment? She said no and we both looked at each other uneasily. Sarah asked me if I ever saw or heard weird things, and I said that other than the music, I hadn't. The way she asked implied that she had, but she didn't want to talk about it.
A few months later, her boyfriend moved in, and she later confided in me that she saw and heard things: Specifically random tendrils of what looked like smoke swirling inside their bedroom. Doors slamming or opening without explanation. Her boyfriend hated going to the basement so much that he'd sing the whole time he was down there to do laundry.
Thing is, I hated the basement too because it hadn't been changed much since the house had been built and there was a creepy room that looked like where you'd keep nefarious things. I always felt like I was being watched when I was down there. One day, I graduated and was getting ready to move. I went out of town for a few days, so my parents were watching my cat at their place a few hours away.
The night I got back to Athens, I decided to start packing some of my books. I fell asleep and woke up in the middle of the night to pure fear. I heard a giant crash. I was tired and disoriented, so I assumed the noise came from Sarah's place. The next morning, I went to my living room to find that a giant antique mirror hanging over my fireplace had crashed and shattered into hundreds of pieces.
The nails supporting the mirror were intact, still in the wall. After that, I was finally prepared to admit that the place was haunted. I know Sarah saw and heard way more than she ever admitted, but she didn't like talking about it because she still lived there. She moved recently, so maybe I'll get more out of her now. I never really believed in ghosts, but too many unexplainable things happened.
I did do some cursory research into who owned the house. I learned a woman was the original owner. Back then, the house was for a single-family. She sounded like a quiet woman—a widow who died at an old age. In her obituary, I learned she loved to play music and had founded the Athens music appreciation group. I wonder if I kept hearing her favorite song to play . . . .
53. Nightmare On Elm Street
My boyfriend and I woke up in separate parts of the house in hysterics, naked and covered in sweat, just totally drenched in it. When we both finally calmed down and talked, we made a disturbing discovery. We both realized that we had the same dream of being surrounded by a group of black and white people with no mouths.
54. The Last Goodbye
A few years back, I was preparing for an overnight camping trip in an area that didn't have any cell phone service. My mom called me to tell me my grandpa was going in that day for a quick routine surgery and that I should give him a call before I headed out of cell service to send him my love and well wishes. I did so, and went off camping without a worry in my heart.
That night, I had the most incredibly vivid nightmares of my life. I dreamed that I was at the hospital where my grandpa was, and that things weren't going well. I was watching my mom panic and worry, as well as my grandma. They discussed whether to "let him go" or not. I saw him on the operating table. I was THERE, I swear it. I was with him when he passed.
When I woke up the next morning crying, I told my boyfriend that my grandpa had passed and that my mom was probably trying to get a hold of me. He reassured me that it was just a bad dream brought on by the worry of someone I love being in the hospital, but I knew. I just felt it. So we drove to the nearest town and I called my mom.
She answered in tears and told me that my grandpa had indeed passed from unforeseen complications. But then it got even creepier. I told her about my dream, and she was shocked. The scenes and conversations I described were exactly what happened in the hospital. I described what the hospital looked like, even though I had never been there, and sure enough my mom confirmed my descriptions.
I have never before or since experienced anything like this, or anything paranormal whatsoever. I know though, that I was with my grandpa in his final moments, in that hospital.
55. The Road That Never Ends
My daughter and I still wonder what happened that night. We were traveling along the 401 highway in Canada from London to Kitchener. We'd done this trek many, many times over the years. My daughter had to go to the bathroom really badly. We were almost home, so I tell her that the next exit ramp is ours and we'll be home in 15 minutes, tops.
So we keep going, watching for our exit, which should be no more than a few minutes, but it doesn't come. We keep going and going and going, all countryside. Finally, an exit comes up—but it's not the one we're expecting. Somehow, although we hadn't thought so much time had passed, we had missed at least four exits. We were watching for them and passed through two cities without seeing them.
56. Hallway Of Horrors
I was living with my now mother-in-law in a house she had just purchased a few months before. We had all had various weird "feelings" or experiences in the house, but two really, really stick out. Collectively, there were three dogs living in the house at the time. One evening, we are all sitting with our backs to the hallway (this is significant) watching a movie.
All of a sudden, my German Shepherd and my terrier both perk up their ears and start staring down the hallway behind where we are sitting. I mean, full attention. I notice and turn around. The light in the hall was off and it was dark, so of course don't see anything. Five minutes later, they're still staring and now growling intensely.
This time my wife and I turn around, and our jaws drop to the floor. We both watch as the light switch on the wall gets flipped to “on.” Dogs went CRAZY and so did we! Then, a few weeks later: Same scenario, light is off and we are watching a movie. My German Shepherd loved to play fetch and we always had a million balls around to entertain her.
This time, she's staring down the hallway and wagging her darn tail. This time, we all notice again and start to watch. I swear to God, a ball, a single orange tennis ball, came rolling down the hallway towards her. We all went white. There were a few others, but man I hated that hallway. It never felt like a bad energy, but my feeble little brain was still scared nonetheless.
One more story...My mom-in-law was having these dreams a few weeks after moving in about the house catching on fire and burning to the ground with us all inside. Horrible. About three weeks after these dreams, we woke up one morning and distinctly smelled smoke coming from the house somewhere. Panicked, we all started searching and eventually came to the garage.
On a rafter, we noticed smoke coming out from around a fluorescent light fixture. At that moment I realized...my God, it's attached DIRECTLY to this old dried-out beam! The light was left on all night and it was clearly burning the rafter ever so slightly. Lights are not supposed to be secured on to a rafter like that. So we like to think our ghost hosts were looking out for all of us. After that, her dreams stopped.
57. The Ghost Of Houses Past
When I was about five or six, I was sitting on the back deck of my family home, which was an old farmhouse. I remember this old lady walking up the steps and going straight into the house without acknowledging me. I followed her inside to see who it is, and my mom is standing in the kitchen, which was right off the back deck.
I ask her who's here in the house, and she gives me this confused look. Around that time, the original owner of the farmhouse passed, and I am 100% convinced it was her.
58. Alarm Bells Are Ringing
As a child, I was an Army Brat who moved around a lot. Because weird stuff would always happen, I kept insisting that every house I moved to was haunted. It wasn't until my second year at university that I had a chilling realization. I clocked onto the fact that it was me who was haunted, not the houses.
Last year I was on the way to my house from my job at a bar at about 3 am. To get into the house, you have to walk down a privately owned alleyway. Just as I reach the entrance to this alley, a man runs up behind me and spins me around. He's clearly had a bit too much to drink and starts trying to grab me, touch me up, and convince me to remove my T-shirt. Naturally, I'm very uncomfortable and scared.
I remember that the window to the house had an alarm that went off if the window was hit. I figured if I could get down the alley and hit the window, my two male housemates would wake up and help. The only issue was that every time I walked down the alley, he'd grab me again. After maybe five minutes of a struggle, the man hit me.
Next thing you know, the alarm on the window goes off, waking up my housemates and scaring off the man. The next day the authorities were called. We gave them access to the CCTV footage at either end of the alley. Later that day, my housemates and I decided to check the footage to see what caused the alarm to go off. There was nothing.
No bird, cat or any other animal. The alarm just went off. This had never happened before and didn't happen anytime after, either. I'm convinced it was my ghost. It used to freak me out but I'm kind of glad it's around now.
59. Fire In The Sky
I used to live out in the country, way back almost to the end of a long road. There were only two houses that were actually lived in that far down: my dad’s and the old lady at the very end of the road. There’s my dad’s house, and around it kind of off to the side were a bunch of old medium-sized barns and sheds scattered around.
I used to let my cat out sometimes and she would roam around the yard, then come back up and paw at my window when she was ready to come in. One night, I had done just that, but after a long while I got a little concerned. She usually only stayed out for an hour or two tops, but it had been way longer than that. So I decided to go out and get her.
I go out through the side door on the house. That's when I started to feel like something wasn't right, like I wasn't alone. I needed to get my cat, though, and if something was there, I chalked it up to a raccoon or other critter. I grabbed the flashlight and set off for the barns, calling for my cat. I found her huddled up in one of the barns, and she did NOT want to leave.
It was like she was terrified of something, and she was very stiff when I picked her up. I hadn’t taken but two or three steps when this light shoots across the sky directly over me, illuminating everything almost like lightning. It made this odd “wooWOOM” sound as it passed. My cat FREAKED out and started growling and clawing at me, which she never does.
I actually dropped her because of it, and she took off towards the house as though she were running for her life. I did the same. I’ve never figured out what that was. I’ve read about comets and things like that, but nothing says anything about the odd noise I heard, or the reaction my cat had. It could’ve been something simple and explainable, but man did it freak me out at the time.
60. Monster Hospital
I was working at a nursing home, and did the night shift from 10 pm to 8 am. First, I took care of 16 ladies on night duty, on my own. The halls have 16 rooms, with a sister hall, same layout, next door, only separated by a sliding door. There's a nurse who oversees the two adjoining halls, but I never saw her very much, so it often got lonely.
As it was a nursing home, the ladies who live there are older and can get really sick really fast. One lady was sent to the hospital for pneumonia and was gone in four days. One night, around 3 am, another lady—same hall neighbor to the lady at the hospital—started screaming "Get him out of my room!" Thinking a male resident had wandered from the other side of the building, I ran over to her room...
But I didn't see anything. Now, this is a lady who is VERY with it and never has issues or hollers out. But tonight she is absolutely beside herself. I figure she had a bad dream and try to calm her down. It took about 15 minutes. When I leave her room and get back to the office, I see that the nurse is on the phone...It turns out that the lady at the hospital had passed. Exactly 15 minutes ago.
61. The Lizard Man Of East Saint Paul
I used to have this recurring nightmare about this lizard man/monster who could see what I could see out of my eyes. So I'd run and hide, and he didn't know where I was, but then as soon as I peeked to see if it was safe—he'd know where I was! So I'd have to leave that hiding spot and go find a new one, and then it would happen over and over and over again. A literal nightmare. But here is the real spooky part...
I once mentioned the lizard man to my dad. His reaction freaked me right out. His voice was all shaky and he just said, "This dream took place at our house in East Saint Paul? The one with the apartments right behind it?" And I said "Yes! That's where I'd always go to hide!...how did you know that?!" And he said, "Because I have the exact same dream."
I don’t know if it was just the way he said it or just the overall situation or both, but I still get goosebumps thinking about it. It's quite chilling.
62. Midnight Train To Nowhere
I was driving to pick up my friend from the airport around 10 at night. His girlfriend was also with me as she wanted to see him as soon as possible. We were going down some dark, super lonely back road. I've never been that way before, but I was following good old Apple maps. Eventually, we came up alongside a train that was matched with our speed, so we couldn't see out past it on the right side of the car.
After a couple minutes of that, we came upon a train yard on our left. A very spooky, very generic horror movie train yard. Nothing crazy yet, except for the fact that it went on and on and on. We probably spent 10 minutes driving at 45 miles an hour down a dark back road with a train yard on our left and a train on our right blocking the view.
Eventually, we made it back into society and picked up my friend from the airport. We told him all about the spooky train yard and train and were excited to drive back and show him just how much it was like a generic horror film. We drove back down the same roads. It wasn't there. We never passed a train yard. There were no trains on the tracks.
Friend's girlfriend and I flipped out. We swore up and down we drove right along the train yard for a long time. The drive home felt much shorter.
Wikimedia Commons, Vince pahkala
63. A Sixth Sense
My great-great-aunt was in a nursing home about a year ago. Her husband had passed back in 2012. They had been together since she was 19, and she was in her 90s. We would visit, and once a nurse took my mother aside and told her, "This may sound crazy, but I am a sensitive and there has been this man standing in the corner of the room watching her. When I see this, this usually means she doesn't have long, maybe two days at most."
My mom calls me, tells me about it, and we rush to the nursing home to give her our goodbyes. After the last person visited her, she passed.
64. The Friendly Ghost
When my wife and I were in our second apartment, I saw stuff all the time, but the first encounter was the weirdest. I was hanging curtains, standing on a poufy chair, when I started to lose my balance. I felt a hand on my butt steady me. I finished drilling in the last screw, then turned around to thank...Nothing. I expected my lady there. As soon as I turned around, that's when the feeling of the hand left my butt. My wife had been in a completely different room the whole time.
65. Sleepless Nights
Not my story, but my maternal grandmother's. She was born in 1910, and lived to be 97. One story she used to tell me took place when she was a young girl, when she and her family lived in an old house in Tennessee. Her parents often experienced the sheet and blanket being jerked completely off them during the night by an invisible presence.
66. Touched By An Angel
I was about 17, and I was in my bedroom crying my eyes out over something. Home could be difficult at times, and that evening I was really upset. I really needed someone to talk to, but the only phone in the house was downstairs where my parents were, so calling a friend wasn't an option. I didn't know what to do to deal with what I was trying to live with, and I really felt that it couldn't go on for much longer.
I remember thinking "Please, someone, just help me!" Not a prayer as such, as I'm not really sure if that does any good, more sort of a mental scream into the void. There was definitely no one in the room with me, and I had my back to a chest of drawers. And then I felt something on my left shoulder, as if someone was standing behind me and resting their hand on me.
I could feel the weight of each individual finger, and the palm cupping my shoulder, and I could feel warmth from it. It didn't scare me, but it was enough to stop me crying. I guess the feeling lasted for a minute or so and then just stopped. I have no idea what it was, but it was enough to calm me down. I wish I could feel it again.
67. Kitchen Creep
The very first hotel that I worked at, I started at the front desk and worked the 3pm-11pm shift. There was someone there with me from 2pm-10pm, so I always had a little more than an hour where I was alone at the desk. Our kitchen closed at 10pm, so usually by 10:15pm, it was only the bartender and me still there, just hanging around.
One night, it was almost 11 pm and there was a huge noise that came from the kitchen area. The bartender and I ran back there and saw that every single pot, pan, ladle, spoon, everything else that was hanging from the ceiling racks, were on the ground. After our shift, we watched the camera back. The footage was completely inexplicable.
There was NO ONE in the kitchen when it happened. I have no explanation for it other than it was one of the scariest things that has ever happened to me, and I could not get out of there fast enough.
68. The Man In Black
My mom and I visited my grandma at her senior home and left at like 10 pm. I went out the front doors and bumped straight into this dude's chest. I said sorry and backed away, but when he didn't respond I felt a bit weirded out…and looked up to see this HUGE tall middle-aged dude (I think he was like 7') with a black fedora and black suit and really wide eyes and a briefcase.
He had huge wide eyes, and he kept staring at me without blinking or saying a word. Then my mom called for me to hurry up and follow her to the car. When we got in the car, I asked her who she thought that man was. She said "What man?" I explained what literally just happened, and she said she didn't see any man. I turned around and the dude was gone. Creepiest thing that's ever happened to me.
69. In Search Of Lost Time
When I was younger, I was at a friend’s house and my mom called me to come home. I left on my bike, but when I got home, my family was crying and freaked out. I asked what was wrong and they asked me where the heck I was. I eventually looked at the clock, and it took me over three hours to get home from my friend’s house, which was only like 4 blocks away. I still to this day have no idea what happened and don’t remember the bike ride home.
70. Goodnight, Moon
I don't believe in ghosts or the paranormal, so this one freaked me out. My parents own a 300-acre ranch in George West, Texas. My stepdad and mother were going out of town for a week and asked me to look after the animals. I decide to spend the week there in the guesthouse and make myself comfortable. Now, this ranch is in the middle of nowhere and the nearest neighbor is probably like 10 miles down the road.
One night, I finish feeding the cows and decide to take a walk in the woods behind the cow pen. It was late, and I'm scanning the woods with a flashlight and just walking. I remember taking my phone out because I had thought I felt it vibrate. The screen says the time, but I see there is no signal. Okay, whatever. Seconds later, I hear what sounds like a woman singing a lullaby.
I freak the heck out and become paralyzed due to shock, I scan the woods with a flashlight in hand. I don't see anything, but the singing is getting louder. I ran out of there like a little girl and went back to the guesthouse.
71. Passing The Torch
This was a couple of years ago, but I still remember it vividly. It kind of happened in a dream. The dream itself wasn't that creepy. In fact, it was very pleasant. In my dream, I spent the day with my step-grandfather. He tried to teach me how to golf, we jogged together, and ended the day at his house. He needed help cleaning out his room up in the attic, and I was happy to help.
As we were cleaning, though, I started to notice a theme between all the items we got rid of. Old baseball cards, baseball caps, his entire Strat-O-Matic records...all of these things were very important to him. When I asked him why we were getting rid of these things, he just told me that he didn't need them anymore. It was about then that the dream ended.
The creepy bit came when I woke up. That morning, my parents broke the news to me that my step-grandfather had passed in his sleep. As for all the things he and I threw away in the dream? That was the extra chilling part. Those were all given to us in his will.
72. The Floating Children
Not me, but my mom. She grew up in a ranch house in Colombia that used to be some kind of hospital ward. When she was little, she and one of her sisters saw little white gowns floating around their bed at night. They were obviously terrified and fought against sleeping in that room so fiercely that my grandmother actually had a priest come and bless the room to set their minds at ease. After that, no more floating gowns.
73. Don’t Make A Move
About 15 years ago, I played with a Ouija board with two friends. I felt I was just playing along and didn't take it seriously at the time. I left that night, walked home, and went to sleep. Then I had a dream like I've never experienced before. This demon thing dressed in plain clothes paralyzed me, and my vision went blurry and I fell over in the dream.
I woke up, and I was in the same state. I couldn't move and I couldn't see straight, which lasted for a good 30 seconds. I know it was sleep paralysis now, but I’ve still never had a dream like that before or since.
74. Past Lives
I bumped into a girl at university in the alley behind my college, and she seemed really familiar. I felt like I knew her better than anyone, but at the same time couldn't place her at all. She was looking at me funny, too, and I asked if she was okay. When I did, she expressed exactly what I had been thinking about her. She felt exactly the same way.
She said she felt we might even be married, and it seemed that way to me too. Even though I'm a gay man. I kind of figured I would bump into her again at some point, but I never did.
75. The Haunted House Of Mouse
I work at several attractions at Disney. I first started working for the Mouse, I learned that most of the buildings were haunted in one form or another. Generally, I take this stuff with a grain of salt. Show me the science or prove it to me, then I'll believe. But I swear I've had two separate encounters with two ghosts in two different attractions, and let me tell you, I believe a heck of a lot more now.
Experience one: In a slow-moving journey through time, you come across a scene where a famous painter is lying on his back, painting the ceiling of a building. There is a ladder going up to that scene, and the rumor was that a maintenance guy had a heart attack during his shift one night and dropped at the base of the ladder.
No one found him until the next morning, and he had already died. It became a tradition upon closing the ride for the night to tell him good night, or else havoc would come down upon the ride the next day. Silly, I know, but we all played along with it for kicks. I never really believed in it, everything seemed very circumstantial. Then, I had an experience that changed everything.
On one particularly slow day, I was riding through the attraction when all of a sudden, it stopped in that scene I mentioned earlier. Now, if you've ridden this ride, you'll know that it's basically a train car with two rows. Well, as far as I could see ahead of me, there was no one. As far as I could see behind me, there was no one.
The ride system is pretty sophisticated: When someone hops out, there are pressure-sensitive mats on one side that trigger the ride to stop and show on our ride display screen exactly where it is. On the other side of the ride vehicle, there are photoelectric beams that also give the exact location of this intrusion, as we call them.
Now, we stop this ride pretty often. If someone takes too long to get into the ride vehicle, we stop it and then start it back up again. Well, in this case, they started speaking over the intercom into the entire ride. That usually means someone is out of a vehicle somewhere on the ride. A few minutes into sitting there, I start to hear keys jingling, two sets headed in my direction.
I'm completely alone, and here come my fellow Mouse employees, looking rather concerned. "Did you jump out?" they ask. Of course, I hadn't, which I told them. They look at each other, and back at me with this creepy expression on their faces. They asked, "Did you see anyone?" I hadn't. It was just me. Then they reveal why they were so freaked out: "The mat and the eyebeam were both triggered in this scene."
We all sort of stare at each other and sort of whisper the ghost's name at each other. They leave, and within five minutes, we are moving again, but I never went on that ride alone again.
76. Animal Instinct
I was around 15 years old and babysitting a neighbor girl down the road from my parents’ house. The house was older, but I never thought it was "creepy." They also had this awful rat terrier that would bark at everything...worst dog ever. Once the girl went to bed, I sat in the living room and was watching TV. The dog started freaking out, but instead of barking at the door like normal, she started barking at the corner of the room.
Then she would run to another room and bark and come back to where I was like she was following something. Finally, she stayed in the kitchen barking for a solid two minutes. Afraid that she was going to wake the girl up, I went into the kitchen to quiet her down. When I walked in, I immediately froze. Every single cabinet door in the kitchen was open.
All of them! I grabbed the dog and ran into the living room. After she stopped barking, I went back into the kitchen and closed everything. Thankfully, the dad finally came home soon after. I refused to go back and my parents never believed me. I still get freaked out when I think about it.
77. Bizarre Mementos
A few years ago, I ran into someone from high school at a pub in my hometown. I was never really close with "Ryan" in school and I don't think we ever talked, but this night we actually spent a lot of time chatting and having fun with a couple mutual friends. He was so friendly and we shared a lot of interests, so it felt kind of incredible that we'd never hung out before. Our city isn't that big.
After the group of us concluded the evening with a terrible rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody at around 2 am, I went to leave and walk to my boyfriend's house nearby. When I mentioned that I was walking alone, he insisted that he and a couple of his friends walk me. It was a short distance and I didn't want to impose, but they were going the same direction. I said sure, and off we went.
As we finally reached my boyfriend's street, I turned to head toward his house and Ryan gave me a pack of cigarettes with three inside. I'd been mooching them from him all night. About a month later, I woke up for work on a Wednesday and was craving a cigarette. This was really unlike me. I leisurely enjoyed the last of the three from the package Ryan had given me and headed to work.
During my lunch break, I was on my Facebook and saw many "RIP Ryan" messages posted by mutual friends. I thought it was a hoax because he was known as quite a jokester. Turns out, he had committed suicide the night before. Why that day of all days to wake up craving a cigarette? I've always been interested in the symbolism of the "meaning" of the number three, so to finish the third and final cigarette that day—hours after his end—felt odd in retrospect.
78. As Seen On TV
Nickelodeon used to do these commercials in between the shows where they'd have a celebrity and one of the animated characters "interact" as they would introduce the show. One day when I was probably around 9 or 10, I'm about to turn off the TV and the commercial goes something like "blah blah blah, you better watch this show Taylor." Still haven't been able to explain it, but I know it happened.
79. Life In The Strange Lane
I had a glitch in the matrix experience just today. I was doing a damage audit and an inventory audit on our fleet vehicles today. I did the damage audit first. I found a vehicle with significant damage and listed out the details. This was among about 10 damaged vehicles inside of about 30 we have on our lot. Well, upon turning in the damage audit, I'm told this vehicle is not on our lot.
Befuddled, I went and checked. And it was not where it was when I inspected it. I searched the whole lot. Gone. We had no transports today, meaning the vehicle was never moved. We also checked the location history of it and it had only been rented and returned out of one location about 20 minutes away. It's never been on our lot before. Here's where it gets creepy.
I'm thinking "Okay, I just had the unit number wrong." Nope. I pulled up previous inspections and it had the exact same damage on it that I had written out. So somehow I inspected a vehicle properly that was not, and had never been, on my lot.
80. Missing In Action
We lived in a house a few years back, and random things would just go missing, then they'd turn up somewhere else. We never really thought hard on it because they were never expensive or important things, so because of this none of us ever mentioned it to each other. Fast forward and my mother loses an earring one day.
Not a huge deal, but it's a nice dangly pair she wears frequently. Maybe a month later, I come home and find it perfectly laid out in the middle of the ground at the end of a high traffic hallway. I take a photo and show mom when she gets back, give her back her earring, and we discuss the oddity. I mention that lately I've been misplacing random inconsequential stuff like staplers, and she looks at me sharply.
She goes that's weird...Me too. Our housemate gets home and we mention it, and he goes “Oh man so weird, my razor vanished for a while and I found it back on my sink one day.” So basically, we're all convinced there was a friendly ghost attached to that house that just misplaced things to let us know they were present.
81. Astral Projection
When I was seven years old, I was in my bedroom doing some coloring. Because I live in a 300-year old cottage, my room was only divided from my mom's room by a thin partition wall, no hallway or anything. My door opened straight into her bedroom, and I always used to leave it open when I was a little girl because it comforted me to know she was near.
So I look up into her supposedly empty bedroom (she's downstairs), and see a Buddhist monk sitting, cross legged, smiling on top of her closet. It wasn't scary, just completely weird and out of place. He was there for maybe 10 seconds and then gone. I was a seven-year-old white kid in Wales in the 90s; I had never even seen a Buddhist monk!
For years after, I just called him “the Indian” because I knew some Indian men wore bright silk robes. It wasn't until I started watching more TV that I realized the person I had seen was a Tibetan-looking Buddhist monk. I really think some guy meditated real good and found himself projected onto the top of a little Welsh girl's mom's bedroom wardrobe.
Needpix
82. A Waking Nightmare
I once had a test coming up on a Saturday that was a really darn important English test. My parents had paid a lot of money for my classes, and the test itself wasn’t cheap either. So I was under huge pressure. Well, I didn’t study the whole week, even though I felt really guilty. I took the test. It went okay. Not too good and not too bad. A few weeks later, I get the results. I failed.
I had a breakdown and couldn't tell my parents how recklessly I had failed. I was legitimate going crazy and then...I woke up. It was Monday. I still had five days to Saturday. I took the test and passed it. The dream was so real. I knew what I had done on each day during the dream. I had even imagined facts that I had studied and could recall them in my dream. It was so real, it made me feel uneasy. Thinking about it today still gives me the creeps.
83. You Will Meet A Tall, Dark Stranger
I was hiking through the remnants of a remote, long-abandoned town and the surrounding area. To get to as far into the woods as I was, you had to cross fallen trees over a creek three times. I had just crossed the third "bridge" and was about five miles in and something blue caught my eye just ahead of me. What I saw made me stop in my tracks.
There was a man, in his sixties at least, wearing blue satin pajamas and sitting in a tree. The closer I got to him, the louder he laughed. It wasn't a maniacal laugh, but it set off all the alarms in my head nevertheless. He also wasn't wearing any shoes, yet he looked well-groomed and cleaned. I gave him a friendly nod as I passed, and he just kept laughing. Then it stopped.
I turned and he was gone. There was no branch cracking, plants rustling, nothing...He was just gone. Still rubs me the wrong way. The area I was in was a pretty rough hike, very secluded. Not very many people venture as deep as I was that day. No idea what was going on there, and honestly I’m not sure I ever want to find out.
84. From Beyond The Grave
My mom had cancer when I got married. After the wedding, she was pretty persistent that my wife and I send thank you notes to everybody in attendance. We finally got them out and she was very thankful. Unfortunately, she passed due to surgical complications six months later. After the funeral, my dad and I were sending thank you notes to everybody who brought flowers.
When I signed the last one, sealed it, and tossed it on the table, I said to my dad, "It's done. That was the last one." Just then, the phone in the kitchen made a ding noise, like it was about to start ringing. I said to my dad that the phone was about to ring, but then nothing happened. He picked it up after some back and forth, and when he did the line was dead. I'm convinced that it was my mom thanking us for sending those thank you notes out.
85. Stranger Than Fiction
I was catching a train one day, and I found a DVD on a seat. I checked to see if anyone owned it, but the train car was empty so I stuffed it in my bag. That night, I watched the short film that was on the DVD. In the film, the protagonist found a DVD on train and later on in the film, he met the star on the DVD that he had found.
Fast forward to a few nights later, and I was at a restaurant and saw the actor who played the protagonist. Not quite believing what was happening I walked up to him, introduced myself, and told him I found the DVD of the movie he starred in, on the train. Initially he said something like “Oh cool.” Then as it sunk in, his face went pale, his mouth gaped, and we both had to have a drink to recover.
86. Shadow Play
Something happened to me last night. I got home from work very early in the morning, 2:30 am. My house has an entryway or mudroom before you actually get into the main living area. I open the front door, step inside, close the front door and proceed to try and find the key to get through the next door to get into my house properly.
So the only light in this entryway is through the glass on the front door, the rest of the room is completely black. I can barely see my hands in front of my face. All of a sudden, I start to hear this...buzzing/vibrating?...noise behind me off to the right. House is old, so maybe just weird house noises. I’m still looking for the key when I notice that the noise is getting louder, closer, and it has risen in pitch to something as if a woman was humming loudly. Maybe it's just ringing in my ear. But that was just the beginning of the nightmare.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see a shadow that I thought was from light reflecting outside. Nope, it’s moving towards me and creeping along the wall...that's when I noticed the vibrating noise was also getting closer to me, and it seemed to be coming in the same direction as the now-moving shadow. I'm desperately trying to open this darn door and when I finally do, the noise stops, the shadow disappears, and I'm hoping it was all in my head.
PxHere
87. The Imprint Of Life
My grandfather passed when I was eight and my little brother was two or three-ish. He had this big Lazy Boy chair in the living room that he always planted himself in. Everyone knew this chair was "grandpa's chair." Anyway, we went down to my grandparent's house in Florida for a long weekend to attend the funeral.
We're all chatting the first night there in the living room, and my mom was sitting in the chair. My little brother goes up to my mom and says, "Grandpa wants his chair back." My mom asks him where grandpa is, thinking the little boy probably didn't understand death, to which he responds, "He's right behind you." My mom BOLTED off that sofa immediately.
88. The Eeriness Of Ordinary Things
One time, I was coming back from a fly fishing trip up with my friend Caesar. We stopped at a Mexican restaurant for lunch. While we were waiting for the chips to arrive, both of us looked at each other and simultaneously, without prompting, sang the exact same stupid made-up song to each other, "Mex-i-caaaan Restaauuraantt!"
Neither of us had ever sung it before, or sung anything out loud before. Neither of us sing. We both kind of furrowed our brows at each other in surprise and have never spoken about it again. It was weird, and completely stupid, but I have never forgotten it.
89. Seeing Double
I own this really random photography book called 100 Young Americans that I bought around 2007, maybe earlier. I know I still own it because I recently reorganized my bookshelf. Just last week, though, I was getting into my car and I saw something sitting on top of the trunk of my car. I get out. It's a copy of 100 Young Americans, just sitting on my hood.
Why is that random photography book that I've literally never seen anyone else have sitting open on the hood of my car? Also, yes, my copy is safe and sound in my bookcase.
90. Luck Of The Draw
I was playing poker at the local casino and got into a hand with this guy who was wearing some sort of space-themed hoodie. The second the first three cards hit the board, I had the strongest deja vu I have ever experienced. I had a dream about that exact moment like a year ago, and I knew the exact next two cards that were going to come out.
They came out just as I had expected to the point of me calling them, and I won a huge hand.
91. Small Difference, Big Impact
I had a crack in my right tooth a year ago. Now that crack is in my left tooth. I swear to God, it really was in my right, and something about it freaks me out to this day. Sometimes, it’s those tiny things that stay with you the most.
92. The Banshee’s Cry
One time, I was camping with friends from high school. We had decided to sleep around the fire, not inside of the tents, since it would be nice to sleep under the stars. I fell asleep in the chair after a while, but I woke up to very loud screaming from the forest surrounding the campground. It sounded exactly like a friend of mine, Jeff, who had been sleeping right by me.
Well, I didn't see him in his chair anymore. I woke up the person next to me and asked where Jeff went. They told me he was just across the way, sleeping elsewhere on a bench. I then went “Okay” and fell asleep. The next morning, I was asking people about the screaming. It turns out that nobody else heard it but me. To this day, I know I heard screams. I just don't know who was yelling.
93. Guardian Angel
My great-grandmother had a favorite rocking chair. The night she passed, my mom and I had already been to visit my grandparents and my great-grandmother a couple of days before. We all knew her time was coming soon, so we wanted to make it memorable. She even met her first great-granddaughter when my cousin brought her daughter to see them.
The night after my cousin left with her daughter, I had a dream that I was talking to my great-grandmother and she had been sharing some wisdom and saying goodbye. My mom woke me up in the middle of that dream, at 4:30 in the morning, to let me know that she had passed peacefully in her sleep and we needed to say goodbye.
Of course, in the grogginess that comes with being woken up from a sound sleep at 4:30 in the morning, I had said “but I just said goodbye...” and freaked my mom out. Fast forward a couple days past her cremation, we noticed her perfume scent randomly in the halls, the kitchen, and occasionally hovering around her chair. Now, any time I go to see my grandparents, I’m always greeted shortly after entering their home by the smell of her perfume. It’s paranormal, but the heart-warming kind. Miss you, grandma.
Wikimedia Commons, Levi Clancy
94. The Headless Horseman
Me and my wife both saw a green, severed, floating head when we woke up in the middle of the night. This happened on separate occasions and in different rooms. Neither of us believe in ghosts.
95. Voices From Beyond
My godmother is on a paranormal research team, and she uses an EVP machine, and the things it catches terrifies me. After she walked into the child section of a cemetery on a case, you can hear multiple voices on the EVP tape say, "Go away. We don't want you here. Let us rest." Her daughter was also having weird stuff happen to her in the cellar at the restaurant she works.
She felt like she was having her hair pulled and stuff. So she took the EVP in, and the tape has a voice saying, "Pretty Hannah. Love Hannah." That's her daughter's name.
96. Not Feeling Secure At All
I used to work in a small office, which was about 60 people at maximum capacity. We had a security guard on duty 24/7. One night, I had to stay super duper late by myself because I had to leave early the next day and needed to finish my workload. All of my other co-workers are gone by around 10pm, cleaning crew comes in, and now it's just me and the security guard.
The place is dark, but I'm not at all frightened because I'm not scared of most things, the security guard is a really nice dude, and we're in a safe neighborhood. The security guards are required to make their rounds every couple of hours just to make sure things are fine. Sometimes they say something to us, most times they don't.
Tonight, nice guy security dude stops by my cubicle and asks, "Everything alright?" Big friendly grin on his face as per usual. "All good here, thanks!" I go back to work. 20 minutes later, he's back again. Big grin. "Everything alright?" "Yup! Nothing yet!" 20 minutes later…he's back. Big grin. At this point, I am getting a little creeped out.
There is no need for him to come by this frequently. In fact, it's disruptive. I also noticed that the way he interacts with me is always exactly the same, as if I were in a time loop. Same big grin, same intonation, same rhythm of speech. Not only that, I noticed that he whistles the same thing at around the same time, so if I turn off the music on my headphones, I can HEAR his whistling coming closer before he asks..."Everything alright?"
It's around midnight and I'm totally freaked out. I try to rationalize this with myself because I have to get this work done. I'm rushing through my work and I keep hearing that whistling behind me. Surely, he won't come back again..."Everything alright?"At this point, I'm fully terrified. I no longer trust this guy I used to feel so safe around.
I was a young woman in her mid-20s, and the security guard was a dude in his 50s. I couldn't finish everything, but I wrote an e-mail to my supervisor saying that the security guard was acting VERY strange and I didn't feel safe. I shut everything down and tried to rush to the exit. I don't run into the security guard…or so I think.
Just as I'm feeling free and clear, I hear "Bye now," behind me. He's standing there in the dark hallway, big grin. Just standing there and watching. I mumble something and sprint to my car. The next day, I rush to my supervisor to try to explain what happened the night before. In the light of day, it kind of felt like I might've overreacted or maybe my mind was playing tricks on me. Then I learned the dark truth.
Turns out, the dude just disappeared. He's missing. I'm pretty sure they still haven't found him to this day. The security guard company just kind of dismissed it as some flaky guy who quit for no reason and no one seemed to be pursuing it much. He must've been suffering some kind of mental health issue or SOMEthing, but up until that night, he was just a super nice, trustworthy, reliable security guard who everybody loved. It also felt like some kind of weird paranormal stuff because it really felt like something had "taken over" inside of him.
Pikist
97. The Trauma Ward
I was on call at a hospital, and as I was going to leave for the night, I walked the long, empty hallway to return my pager. As I returned down that hall, a terrifying sight made me stop in my tracks. I noticed a woman limping down the hall toward me, sobbing and crying, "Help me." Mind you, it was 2 am, and no one should have been in that part of the hospital. When I blinked, she was gone.
98. The Others
My mom and older sister describe how I used to randomly start crying and asking where my mom was, even when she was right in front of me. When my mother would try to comfort me by saying she was right there, I would shout for my other mom. I would then describe this person, who apparently always held a bloody hammer. They said it scared them out of their wits, but one day when I was two years old, they tried to ask me about it and I couldn't remember anything.
Pxfuel
99. Frighteningly Accurate
My dad watched his mother die of a ruptured gallbladder when he was 12 and still remembers it vividly. My sister, one day, randomly gets up almost an hour after she's gone to bed and goes up to him. The conversation went like this: Sister: Daddy, your mommy died in a red sweater, jeans, sneakers and with her hair in a ponytail, right? And her hair was blonde?
Dad: Drops book he's reading and stares, wide-eyed, and then says Yes... Sister: What color were her eyes? Dad: Blue... why?Sister: Oh, she doesn't have them anymore, just empty sockets. I was curious. And she goes right back to bed.
100. Friend Bear
I saw my baby babbling on the video monitor, using sign language to say "fun” but then "don't like." I was alarmed—but I never could’ve prepared for what I found when I entered her room to check on her. I asked her who she was talking to, but all she kept telling me was “friend” and “bear.” Finally, I got fed up and demanded to know who “Friend Bear” was—and her response gave me chills. Even though she couldn’t speak well, she managed to say, very clearly with the most serious expression, “No name, no name, shh.”
Well now I am well and truly freaked out so I tell her to ask "No Name Friend Bear" to go home because it is too late to play and I did what any good loving mother would do. I gave her a pacifier, went back to my room, turned off the monitor entirely and hid under the covers in my room where my good and loving husband would protect me from nameless invisible bears.
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