Ever met a person who made you call reality into question? The following strange encounters left these people asking who—or what—they actually saw. Whether these are guardian angels, time travelers, ghosts, or just people in the right place at the right time, these Redditors' stories have us wondering if there really is more out there.
1. Inspiration, For You
There was a young woman in her early 20s, about my age at that time, sitting alone at a nearly empty coffee shop. She seemed like she was trying not to cry, so I went over and asked if I could sit with her. We talked for hours. About everything and nothing at the same time. She didn't go into detail about what was going on with her, but she felt like there was no hope.
I did my best to encourage her; told her not to give up. I tried to give her reasons to hold on, thought of ideas that might give her a spark of hope. Before the coffee shop closed, I wrote my phone number down, told her that I would love to hang out with her again and that she could call me anytime. She looked at me and told me that everything I said to her wasn't for her to hear, it was for me. I must have gone white as a ghost.
I hadn't told her that I was in fact in a dark place. While talking to her, I figured if I could maybe help someone else not feel the way I do, I wouldn't, at least not yet. She hugged me then walked out the door. I ran after her because she forgot the napkin with my number on it. I was no more than two seconds behind her. I got outside and there was no one there. That day, she gave my whole life a new purpose filled with hope. I'm a therapist now, and I help people all day.
2. The Psychic
I was working in Florida as a manager in a large chain of automotive dealers. I was on the service side and dealt with the customers who had the most difficult issues or were upset. One day, an older man came in and I went for a quick test drive to assess his concerns with the vehicle. He was calm and polite, a very easy-going person. After speaking for a few minutes, he asked me if I liked magic.
He then proceeded to start talking about where I was from. He didn't ask a single question; he just began to talk. He narrowed down the area until he was within a 20-minute drive from the hospital I was born in. That hospital is an 18-hour drive from where that dealership was. After a few minutes, he said, "But you didn't live there very long, moved south to the city, right?" He was absolutely spot on. It was starting to get freaky.
Then, he started rubbing his eyes and humming. He asked me how long I had lived in Norway and narrowed it down to the city I lived in for eight years. At this point, I'm thinking he's some kind of weirdo who has done a background check on me, but there was no way he would know where I had lived while overseas. On the return drive from the dealership, I was running every possible scenario through my head. Did a friend set me up? How did he know the name of the city in Norway? He had me so confused, he honestly could have said he was some kind of psychic, and I wouldn't have been able to argue.
3. A Rejected Deal
I was in my 20s, traveling through Italy. I was on a boat trip around Capri when an old man started chatting with me. Whatever the question was, I made some remark about backpacking and wanting to make my money stretch the length my travels, and he responded that he would swap my age for all his money. Felt like the world had stopped, holding its breath while I thought about my answer. It truly felt ominous and foreboding until I said no. I still remember that feeling 30 years later.
4. The Park’s Guardian
One evening in winter I didn't leave work till almost seven PM, so I was walking home and thought I should cut through the park to get home quicker, even though it's really poorly lit. A couple of minutes into the park I could hear a group of people behind me and in front of me. I got a terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach. I was sure I was going to be jumped. Up ahead there was a lamp post with a CCTV camera on it, so I decided to stop there, thinking if I get jumped, I'll get jumped on camera.
As I stood beneath this light, this really tall woman jogged over and stopped next to me. I'm six feet tall and she was way taller than me. She asked if it was okay for her to walk with me, and I told her it was fine. She walked with me to the edge of the park, talking about how dodgy the park was at night. As soon as we got to the edge of the park, she told me to have a good night, then jogged back into the park. It was a really weird experience, and I felt certain I would have been mugged or something if she weren’t there. I walked through that park every day for about a year and never saw her again.
5. Guide To Another World
This is a story from a friend. He was walking home from work at night, when he came to a corner, he had to turn. Normally there was a streetlight above the corner, but for whatever reason it was turned off, meaning he couldn't see around the corner like usual. A man wearing all white clothes—a suit with a tie—came up to him from behind him and asked if he could go with him. My friend was a nice guy, and just felt good about the man, so he said yes.
He said they turned the corner, and BAM. Completely blind. He felt the man grab his arm and silently escort him through the darkness. He said it felt like forever but was likely only a block or so. The man walked the rest of the way home with him, and once my friend went inside, the man was gone. My friend still believes that that corner was some kind of portal to the underworld that night, or some other sketchy place, and that the man was an angel guiding him through.
6. The God Of Pool
I was out a college dive bar on a Friday night. The place would get crowded, and I was an avid pool player. People knew me at parties because I'd always go out to play pool almost every weekend. I'd get money and free drinks for winning. I'd run the table. Sometimes I'd grab a random partner to do "twos." Me and a random person against two other frat kids or something of the sort.
Anyway, this one spring night the place is packed with a bunch of younger kids around 21-24 including myself at this college dive bar. I'm trying to find a partner to play with, and in walks a man who looks in his late 70s, dressed in a tuxedo. It was way out of the norm for this place. He also had well-groomed white hair and dress shoes. I felt like I was playing pool that night with God. This guy did not miss a shot, and he was on my team.
We played people at the bar until it closed, and kids were dropping money on the table trying to bet against us thinking we'd lose at some point. But nope. This tuxedo man and I won every game. I’ve never seen him at the spot since. It was the one and only time.
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7. The Wishing Seat
I was walking in the woods by the sea in southern England and I came across a rock formation that had a sign The Wishing Seat. It was rather like a giant throne, although obviously natural, not man-made. I sat on it, and entirely frivolously made a wish. As I was sitting on it, a young family passed along the path in front of me: a man, woman, boy, and girl, all very ordinary in dress and appearance but strikingly beautiful.
The following year I was walking along the path again, but in a different month and at a different time of day. I came across the Wishing Seat again and sat on it, and the same family passed by again. The world is full of coincidences, some significant, and some not, but this seemed a rather a long coincidence.
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8. Seer Of Malady
My friend volunteered at a home for the elderly last year. One of the ladies she talked to took one look at her and said, "There's something wrong with your right side." She had no symptoms at this point. A month or so later, she had an OBGYN appointment and learned that she had a chocolate cyst in her right ovary.
9. A Sad Goodbye
Back in 1997, when I was 8, I shared a room with my younger brother who was 4 at the time. We used to have our grandparents over for dinner most nights and it wasn't uncommon for them to stay long after we had gone to bed. They would come and kiss us goodbye in bed when they were going to leave. This one summer day, I woke up during the night and saw my grandad standing near my bed. It wasn't unusual, like I said.
My grandfather came and sat on my bed and said, "Yes, I'm saying goodbye for now." He kissed me and then went and sat on my brother’s bed and kissed him as well. Then he left. My intuition picked up that he was a bit sad. The next morning, I went into the kitchen to find my mum crying. When she explained why, my blood ran cold. She told me that my grandad passed last night of a sudden heart attack.
I asked how that could be, because last night, he came and said goodnight to me. My mum said that my grandparents left shortly after I went to bed last night. I also remembered that my grandpa said goodbye and not goodnight. It was quite a shock but at the same time a little comforting too. I don't remember a lot from my childhood, but this is a memory that I won’t forget.
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10. What’re Those Lights?
Across the street from my house was an open field that quickly turned into foothills and maybe 300 yards further was a tall ridge of mountain. There was some kind of antenna on top of the ridge, and it had a light that was always on at night. No blinking, just a steady white light all the time. One evening I went out to use the outhouse nearby and happened to notice that the light on the ridge was off.
I walked down the driveway a bit because I thought maybe there was a tree blocking it from this angle or something, but I was stopped in my tracks—suddenly the entire sky behind the ridge lit up. It was like someone had turned on extremely bright floodlights and they were reflecting off of snow to an overcast sky or something, but there was no snow on the ground, and it was not even slightly overcast. It was eerily quiet, even more than normal.
Now I was really curious, so I continued walking down the driveway to see if I could get a better angle on it, only to see a guy come around the curve of the street from the left and approach me in a quick walk. This is a fairly remote neighborhood, there are 2 other inhabited houses on the street, we hardly ever see traffic much less foot traffic, so this was unexpected.
As he got close enough, he said, “You don't want to go over there,” in a cautioning tone. It’s not like I was going to climb the mountain in the dark, but I asked what was going on, trying to keep it conversational. “Couldn't say,” he said, “but you don't want to be a part of it.” I gestured in the direction of the ridge and noticed the light was fluctuating a bit, like a slow pulsing, saying that was really weird, and I was a curious person.
The guy then shifted to a darker, more ominous tone and said, “Your eyes are not meant to see.” The way he said it made me think “your” meant “human,” and in retrospect, it was definitely a warning, maybe even a threat, and it almost sounded like a kind of ritual pronouncement—but I was oblivious in the moment.
I looked back up to the light and said, “Well I can see it just fine, what's the problem?” but when I looked back down, the guy was gone. In the space of the maybe 5 seconds I was looking away he had disappeared. There's no direction he could've gone, no matter how fast he was running, that he could've gotten out of line of sight in that amount of time. I was already freaked out by the weird lights, but this really pegged my freak-out meter.
I went back inside and explained to my roommate what had just happened. I also encouraged him to come out and see for himself, but by the time we got back outside whatever was going on behind that ridge was over. I figured that guy was just off his rocker and there must've been something entirely normal going on over there, so I went online and looked at Google maps for the area.
There was nothing on the other side of that ridge—no roads, no buildings, no signs of civilization whatsoever, just a blank spot on the map. I switched to satellite view and saw nothing but more wooded ridgelines behind it. To this day I have no idea what was going on or why I was warned away from it, but it feels like I had been sent some kind of messenger to keep me from blundering into something terrible.
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11. The Relationship Coach
One day my girlfriend at the time and I were doing an internship in Orlando. We had been fighting a lot, were on the brink of breaking up, and it was just a really tough but pivotal moment in our lives. There was a lot of growing that was about to happen. One day, we were fighting about where to go to eat when we decided to walk to the Hurricane Grill around the corner from our apartment complex.
As we're arguing while we walk in, some random dude walks right up to us, gestures for us to take his hand, and says, "Come on, let’s go in I'll grab us a table. Let's talk." Alarms instantly started going off in my head. I'm trying to make sure that this guy isn’t trying to drug us or hurt my girlfriend, but he seemed safe and oddly confident. He picked a table, ordered food, and just started having the deepest conversations with us about relationships, marriage, life, our personal goals.
At one point in the dinner, he looks over to me, starts crying, and says, "You are going to accomplish everything you want and more, stop doubting yourself so much." It was bizarre because I could feel how much he meant that, it felt like he knew me. So, I teared up too. We finish the dinner, he gives both of us a big hug, and pays for everything. When we ask him if he needs a ride home or anything he says no, and then he just starts walking towards some bushes and trees. I never see him again.
12. Professional Reassurance
I was coming back on the plane from a very important job interview, and I thought I blew it. I was spacing out during the entire flight. When the plane landed and I got up to grab my bags, an older woman three aisles down looked straight at me and said, "Don't worry, it'll be okay. You'll get it." I reflexively thanked her and ignored what she said but a few hours later I got a call that I got the job. Only then did I remember what she said. I still don't know why she said that and how she knew what my problem was.
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13. A Surprise Playdate
As a child, I used to play outdoors with my childhood best friend Kyle. We would either knock on each other’s doors and ask if the other could come out to play, or we would hear each other in our respective front yards and come outside. One day when I was about 10, I walked outside into my driveway because I thought I heard Kyle outside.
I called out to him and a little girl about my age came from around the back of the house instead. I learned her name was Amaya. She told me she was going to be there all day because she’s waiting for her mom to pick her up. I asked her if Kyle was coming but she said no. Kyle didn’t technically live next door, his grandmother did, so it’s not uncommon for him to not be on the block for days because he’s at home.
We spent the whole day playing. I can’t remember the exact time, but I know it was from the hottest point in the day to when the sun almost began to set. It was the peak of summer, so that meant we were outside for hours. We spent the first half of our day inside of my garage playing because it was cool, and as the outside began to get cooler we moved our shenanigans out into my driveway.
After a couple of hours, she said that she had to go because her mom was coming soon. I hugged her, really sad that my new cool friend was leaving but I figured she must be related to my neighbors in some way, so I’d be seeing her again. The next day, Kyle’s mom dropped him off at his grandma’s, so I came outside to play. I asked him when Amaya was coming back. Kyle said, “Who’s Amaya?”
I thought he was just being annoying, but by us going back and forth, I realized he really didn’t know who Amaya was. I told him she had on a blue top and blue khakis yesterday, and her hair was in three large twists with pink hair ties. Kyle insisted he didn’t know who I was talking about. I asked his brother who was 5 years older, but he didn’t know who I was referring to either.
I started to get fully creeped out. I ultimately asked my parents, “Wasn’t I playing with a girl yesterday?” My mom and dad had no idea what girl I was talking to. They thought I was outside in the garage playing by myself. As a last resort, I asked Kyle’s grandma. She told me there was no little girl there yesterday. She was at home with her husband, and she didn’t know a little girl by the name of Amaya.
To this day, Kyle swears he doesn’t know who I’m talking about. I don’t know what to make of the situation. I know I played outside with that girl. We jumped rope, we blew bubbles, and we played hand numbers. No one knows a little girl named Amaya, but I spent the day with her.
14. Party Crashers Everywhere
A little over twenty years ago my friends and I went to a 4th of July party at the house of a guy they went to high school with. It started out pretty chill, but as the night went on it ended up being the kind of party I didn't think actually existed outside of an '80s teen movie. It was a huge house in a rich neighborhood, with no regard for property damage. There were a couple hundred kids in their teens and early 20s, many of whom showed up with literal loads of fireworks.
At some point, these two guys showed up. Nobody knew who they were. They spoke to no one, not even each other. They didn't eat anything. They didn't drink anything. They didn't try to interact with anyone at all that I saw. What they did do was freak everyone out. Visually they were exactly average. Average height, average looks, average build, ambiguous age, ambiguous ethnicity. 100% forgettable.
Except...they absolutely radiated darkness and hostility. They would just stand on opposite sides of a room and glare angrily at each other for a while, then walk into a different room to glare angrily at each other again. They seemed to communicate with each other like that. It was like there was some kind of evil force inside of them that was barely contained by their skin. If they walked into a room where you were it felt like the air itself suddenly became really heavy.
At some point, my friends and I dipped out to go check out another party up in the mountains, and a couple of people we knew took off to a different party in a town in the opposite direction of where we were going, and about 30 miles away from the original party. About halfway to our destination, we stopped at a gas station to get smokes and drinks.
When we walked out those guys were there. They were standing outside of their car, perfectly still, just staring holes through us. I don't know if I've ever felt that creeped out. We all piled into our car in record time and peeled out of the parking lot. Thankfully, it didn't look like they tried to follow us, and we never saw them again.
A few hours later we went back to the first party to find a girl we knew sitting on the floor holding a baseball bat, ready to swing at anything that looked threatening. Apparently, those guys got way creepier after we left. Nobody would go into any detail though, so I never found out exactly what happened. However, everyone who had stayed at the first party looked thoroughly shaken.
The next day I ran into one of the people that took off to the other party, and right about the same time we had our gas station encounter with the spooky twins, they had the exact same encounter with the same guys at a gas station probably 50 miles away from where we were.
Meanwhile, the people who stayed at the first party swear those guys didn't leave the party until hours after we saw them at the gas station. It was all intensely freaky. I don't know who those guys were, or what they wanted, but I have genuine doubts as to whether they were really human.
15. A Piercing Gaze
I was a sophomore in college. I walked into my math class like any other day and sat in my usual spot...about 4 seats in on the third row. Even though we didn't have assigned seats, there was always a girl sitting two seats to the left of me, and her male friend to her left. They seemed to just be good friends; they were always laughing, and there was never any reason to give me concern.
This day in particular, I sat down, got my spiral and pencil out, and just quietly sat there looking forward and thinking about what I was going to do after class. Suddenly, I got this eerie feeling. I looked up to my left, and my heart practically stopped. The girl was staring straight at me, blank face, and her eyes were shining a bright, piercing electric blue.
They were shining like lasers. Nothing at all natural. I can't explain accurately. I was basically paralyzed and couldn't move or say anything. I eventually blinked and looked forward, then looked back and the girl's head was turned back to her friend as he was talking again. It's been about 15 years and I haven't experienced anything like that again, but it messed with my mind for a while.
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16. Dreaming Of The Future
I was about maybe six to eight years old when I had a dream of eating at a marble top counter with two girls. I was eating some kind of pasta. When my parents divorced when I was nine, I went with my dad to live with his cousin. Her family consisted of her husband, two girls, and a newborn son. These two girls were my distant cousins who were from my dream, and the exact same situation played out after two months of me living there.
I had never met them before, nor ever been out to see them. I literally exclaimed to them that I've dreamt about that instance before. They were just as perplexed as I was about it. We spent the whole time trying to figure out how I was able to even dream or fathom the situation, but we came up with nothing other than I could have somehow seen into the future in my dream.
17. A Trickster In The Forest
Years ago, I used to work at a nature facility that was around 500 acres with a few miles of walking trails. One day, I had a lady come into the office and tell me there was the body of an armadillo in the middle of one of the trails. I went to clean it up, and it had a single bite to its underbelly. The next day when I was walking the trails I came across another armadillo. It was the same thing: a single bite to the underbelly.
This went on for 14 days. Every day I had to remove an armadillo. Number 13 was on a trail on the back side of the park. While I was cleaning up the armadillo an old man looking to be in his late 70s with sun-weathered skin walked up on me. He was wearing a western style shirt. He said, “He's just messing with you.” I asked him what he was talking about, and he said, “The trickster.”
I said, “What now?” He said, “The coyote, he's just messing with you. He thinks it’s funny how mad you get." I said, “Well, I wish he'd stop.” The old man just chuckled and started walking off. I tossed the armadillo into the brush. I was less than 10 seconds behind the old man, but when I turned the bend he was gone. I looked all over for him.
I walked the trails for hours asking everyone I saw if they had seen him. No one had. The next day when I got to work I went in the office to check my emails. I opened the window blinds and there was an armadillo with one bite in its underbelly laying under my window. That was the last one, number 14. I sat there thinking, the old man's shirt had geometric coyotes in a desert. I'm pretty sure that old man was the trickster.
18. Aliens At Starbucks
I swear two girls working at my local Starbucks are aliens. They’re insanely tall, stare blankly, and both speak to each other without actually speaking. If you make small talk, they have to think for an awkward amount of time to form the most perfect response in a monotone voice. Their skin is almost the color white, and their eyes are like ice. I told my wife about them, and if she had seen them, and she hadn’t.
A few weeks later she comes in saying she talked to the strangest girl working at Starbucks, almost like she wasn’t human. I described one of the girls and my wife’s face went straight to shock/validation. There is something off about those two, but in a very non-threatening way. Also, they work alone together. Just the two of them. At the only Starbucks for miles.
19. The Traveling Healer
I used to work at a Ben & Jerry’s a few years ago. I had an opening shift and usually, things are slow up until around three when the nearby high school rings the last bell of the day. This was maybe an hour into my shift, and I had already cleaned out one dip case, had a fresh batch of waffle cones, but I'd started developing a really bad limp.
That particular day, since I had woken up, my knee was really bothering me. I even took my brace to work. Being the only one on shift and having to walk back and forth so much honestly wasn’t helping. Then a group of maybe four people walked near the entrance of the shop. They looked maybe mid-twenties/early thirties, and it was two guys and two girls.
Just the girls walked into the shop. I don’t remember their order anymore but when I handed the scoop of ice cream to the second friend I was ringing up, I told her to have a nice day and turned to walk back to my task. I tried hiding my limp the whole time, just because I didn’t want to be hopping around while ringing them up.
Then she called me over and said it seemed like I was in pain. I downplayed it and said it was nothing, but it was like she knew how much pain I was in. She had a heavy accent. I couldn’t make out from where, but I understood that she and her friends like to travel, then asked if it was ok to hold my hand and say a prayer.
I thought it was a bit strange, but she just made me feel so comfortable with her, I couldn’t say no. She held my hand and in mid-prayer, I swear I felt the pain literally lift off of my knee. It was amazing. I asked her name, she gave it to me, and now for the life of me, I cannot remember it. Since that day, my knee has never bothered me again. I’ll never forget her.
20. A Final Hand
As a kid, my grandmother lived in a different country. She was super affectionate but due to a severe back problem, she couldn't give many hugs, so the most physical touch we had was holding hands. She always had the most tender and warm hands, even on the coldest days or when the AC was on. We used to sit and talk for hours.
When I was 21, she suddenly had a stroke. My last words to her before I saw her last were, "I love you very much," and that really comforted me at the time. In accordance with my culture, we bury our lost ones, and since I am one of the only males in the family, I bore the brunt of digging most of the grave. I was exhausted and sad from the whole day that I didn't get to express my emotions until the evening when I got home.
I rushed to my room and let my emotions out, cold and drained from working so hard and especially being outside during winter. As I lay on my bed, my entire body cold, suddenly a weird feeling of warmth felt one of my hands. My hand became searing hot, and I felt so eerily calm and placid. I knew she was there that night holding my hand and saying goodbye.
21. Sally The Ghost
To preface, I lived at the main party house and the people who lived there and the people who lived there years prior have said that it’s haunted. It was a running joke in my frat that the house was haunted, but the kids who lived in the house were always super serious when they said this, saying that they would hear noises all the time and stuff like that.
My friend would even say that he knew where the ghost lived, in his room in a crawl space that he would always keep shut. They even had a name for the ghost which I forget exactly but it was something like Sally the Ghost. A few years ago, when we were still at school, we had frat meetings every Sunday to talk about important things, but at the end we would share any cool stories from the weekend.
The same friend raises his hand and starts telling this story. He said he was at the only bar in our college town that everyone goes to, we were actually all there. This bar always hosted the same people so most people knew each other to an extent. He says it was later on in the night when most of us had left that he met this really pale girl with silver-blonde hair.
He says she was alone which was weird because most people would go with a group of friends or go alone and meet up with a group of friends. He says they hit it off, but he said there was something off about her. For starters, she was alone and he didn’t recognize her, and secondly, she would not tell him her name. He said he tried asking a few times, but she would bring something random up as soon as he would ask to get around it.
They end up going back to his house to hook up. This is where it gets freaky. He says that he doesn’t remember doing anything with her all he remembers in waking up the next morning alone. When he wakes up, he felt very scared because his door was still locked, and it could only be locked from the inside. He had not opened it because the ghost lived there, and it was drafty in wintertime.
Well, he woke up with the mystery girl gone, and his door was still locked, so how did she leave? Turns out the crawl space was open. He ends his story with, “Guys, I think I slept with Sally the Ghost last night.”
22. The Soldier From Before
I was five years old, and my brother was three. My family decided to take a day trip to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Dad is a Civil War enthusiast, and he was excited to see a spot there called Devil's Den, where there had been a high number of casualties in that battle, it was one of the bloodiest. I remember it was August, it was HOT and humid that day. I also remember walking with my parents up this hill when my parents were approached by this one guy dressed in a full-fledged Union uniform.
I think I remember wondering why he was dressed that way when it was so hot. I genuinely thought he was a tour guide because they made the tour guides dress that way. I don't remember the conversation between him and my parents. I think I just shrugged it off as adult talk. We got up to the top of this hill, a rocky cliff where he was pointing out stuff to my parents, but mostly my dad. There was only one way off and on this hill, and that was the path we just took.
I remember starting to get bored when he pointed something out for my brother and I to look at. I remember walking up to the edge and looking down, seeing nothing. When I turned around to tell him so, he...wasn't there. Like, at all. He just vanished. My parents, brother and I walked all the way down that hill looking for him but didn't see him. Years passed before I learned the full truth about that day.
He greeted my dad by his first name, which spooked him because he'd never seen that guy before in his life. The man told my dad he was from a town not far from Gettysburg and pointed out various towns to him on that hill; we later found out all those towns were destroyed. The park also didn't make any tour guides wear the uniforms because it was too hot that day. Dad said he even noticed the guy wasn't sweating.
23. Missing The Picture
I was in the Kroger parking lot loading groceries in the back of my car when I heard a voice behind me say, "I miss my mother. " I turned around and there was a woman standing there. She just looked... odd. I couldn't tell if she was old or young. Her hair was in a bob with bangs. She was wearing a yellow sweater with mismatched stickers. It was almost as if a child drew a picture of a woman, and it came to life.
“Excuse me?” I said. “My mother’s gone. I miss her,” the woman replied. "I'm so sorry, " I said. She then asked if I could give her some money. I told her yes and gave her a couple of bucks from my wallet. She said thank you as I was putting a bag in my car. I said, "You're welcome," but as I turned back to her she was gone. I looked all around and there was no sign of her. In less than two seconds she had completely vanished.
24. A Fashionable Alien
I had three separate interactions with this person a few years ago while still in college. The day started out normal, went to work tabling for a student visit day. Right near the time to wrap up for the day, I hear a hush come over the crowd and look up. Walking through the ballroom was a very tall, very tan man in an outfit that looked like concentrated Hot Topic.
He was just sauntering through, but what made him stand out though, was the Macklemore/Cruella de Vil-esque giant fur coat he was wearing. He walked through, looking at no one. I was bewildered. Later, as I was bringing stuff back to the office, I saw him very animatedly arguing with a group of girls tabling for the Student Republican Club. No fur coat to be seen.
Even later that day, I was walking home after my one class of the day, and I saw him again, fur coat back in its rightful place. He was standing at the entrance to the Engineering lab building, holding the door open for no one, and singing in a high falsetto. I hope he enjoyed his visit to Earth.
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25. Neighbors Next Door
I moved into a new apartment complex last year and I am positive one of our neighboring couples are aliens. Both seem to be in their 40s. The husband is nice, but it seems very "fake" nice, not snobby or anything but genuinely trying to put on a show. When I greet him, he always slowly raises his hand, stares, and then after a few moments gives me a very weird, "Hi there." He is also constantly working outside of his garage area on "man stuff" but none of his projects or purchases ever see the light of day. It's like it is all a show.
The wife is even more bizarre. Unlike her husband, anytime I say Hi to her she stares at me and kind of follows me with her eyes and doesn't say anything. She'll stand in the apartment entrance and if I pull my car in she just stares and doesn't move until my car is weirdly close to her. The wife's weirdest trait? I have never seen her wear shoes, but I have never seen her feet.
She wears socks all year. I have on two occasions caught her outside in the pouring rain doing things with only socks on her feet. She takes walks with socks and plays with her kids in only socks. Everything this couple does seems straight out of a Men in Black movie.
26. The Freaky Retreat
I went to a meditation retreat where we would spend most of the day sitting and meditating. You would hear the instructions and close your eyes. You were not supposed to make any noise and keep your eyes closed until they told you to open—like about an hour at a time. Being my first time, I could never be still and meditate for that long.
I would open my eyes and look around and watch people. Sometimes there would be others also looking around too. On the third day there I notice this woman two ahead and one to the right. She was moving very weirdly. She would have jolts of arm movements. She would shake uncontrollably. I just sat there and watched a bit shocked and a bit confused.
It got progressively worse as the days went on and it was freaking me out. On the sixth day I am sitting there trying to meditate and open my eyes to see her shaking and moving one arm above her head like one of those blow-up balloons we see at gas stations.
She moved up and down as if a gust of wind lifted it and then it fell while at the same time shaking her torso and head. I watched it, gobsmacked. Then she suddenly stopped abruptly, her head falling forward so her chin is touching her chest and she starts twisting her head to the left all the way until she locks eyes with me.
Oh man! My heart never beat so fast. It was like a horror movie. Her face turned towards me in that weird position. Her hair was covering most of her face but through it I could see her eyes watching me. She did that for about 10 minutes until the sound for us to stop started. The song would be a sort of song to “raise” you back into consciousness.
She turned forward, sat up straight, got up, and went ahead with the day as cheery as can be. That cut me off from meditating altogether. I am still scared of her and had nightmares about her coming into my dorm room the rest of my stay at the retreat.
27. A Time Traveler?
I used to work at a service deli and this guy walked in one day looking around at everything. He asked me a few questions about how we get our meat, how it gets shaped that way, what kind of currency is accepted, and how the interaction of a purchase is made. Then he just kind of smiled and said, "So sorry if I come off as strange, I'm from the future so this is all overwhelming to me." Then he spent time at the whole meats department a little distance away from the deli counter and asked my coworker similar questions.
He also asked him if people purchasing meat of creatures is a significant part of our infrastructure. Me and my coworkers talked about it all day. He could have just been a goofy guy. He seemed like a regular person, and he was wearing office attire that looked expensive, maybe silk, and he spoke clear fluent English. I never encountered or had a conversation with anyone like that before.
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28. Phantom’s Hug
I was standing listless at my friend’s memorial in a shopping center parking lot where it happened. It was around midnight, and I was alone. For reference, I'm a 6'4" man. Not someone generally approached by a lone stranger in the middle of the night. As I'm looking over all the pictures for the umpteenth time, a blond woman of average height walks over to me, says she is waiting for some friends to get off work, and if she can give me a hug.
I nod woodenly. She reaches around my neck, and we hug like two people trying to occupy the same space. After a long moment, she lets go and walks back toward the entrance to the parking lot. The thing is, there was no car, and no place open where her friends might work. I never really questioned it until much later. I also couldn't have picked her out of a lineup the next day.
29. Am I The Time Traveler??
When I was in my late teens I was working at Wal-Mart and these two teen girls came up behind me hollering another guy's name. I just ignored it until I got tapped on the shoulder. They said the name again, right to my face, and asked why I would just walk right past them and not say anything. I told them I wasn't who they were saying, and they continued to argue with me that I was someone else for a while. They eventually gave up, saying I was not being funny, and left.
Maybe I'm the traveler.
30. The Jogger In Pink
I used to drive to a park that was near me, run around it for about an hour, and then drive home. One time on the hottest day of the year I saw this woman who was somewhat overweight, and I'd never seen her before. I remember thinking that a 98-degree day was a terrible day to be going for walks or jogs. I saw her from a bit of a distance, but I could see that her mouth was wide open. Her walk was a very fast paced shuffle like a person running with their pants around their ankles.
I saw her a few more times over the coming weeks, always in pink, always with her mouth open, always shuffling, and always from a distance because the park path had many splits and turns and such. I had mentioned her to friends of mine who thought maybe she was power walking, but after watching videos of that I don't think that was it. One day I was running the opposite direction from her, and our paths were going to cross.
As I got closer to her I said good afternoon and waved. As I was saying this I noticed that her eyes were very dark brown, and it was very hard to distinguish the iris from the pupil. She stopped in her tracks, stared into my eyes, and smiled at me. And by “smiled” I mean her mouth moved very jerkily like something out of a horror movie. It went from an O to a frown, to completely straight, to a smile, and then back again. It was so creepy. As I was leaving the park that day I saw her sitting on a bench and staring at me as I drove away. I never saw her again.
31. The Wind Spirit
A long time ago, when I was little, maybe around six or seven, I always slept with my window's blinds open, and I would look at the stars as I fell asleep on the windowsill. One night when I did this, I felt a presence below me. I looked down into my driveway from my room, and saw a lone shadowy figure that looked like a man with a very long beard. I remember my vision distorting and warping around it, and it felt like I was physically blown away from the window.
Obviously, I was pretty freaked out, so I ran to my parents' room, and my dad came with me to the window. He said he didn't see anything, and to go to bed. In the morning I asked my dad about it. I told him I thought it was a monster, and he said he didn't remember a thing. My mind was very alert, mind you, because I came into the room yelling that there was a man in the driveway, and he came into my room ready to fight them off. But he didn't recall anything. I haven't slept by the window since.
32. I Can See Your Aura!
I was going through a really hard time back then, and I was walking back home after getting something to eat alone at a local food court. I was standing at the traffic lights, saw this guy kind of off to my right, and got a weird feeling. It was like he had an aura or something. A totally normal-looking man, by the way.
A few minutes later he comes up to me as I'm walking and says, “You have one of the kindest energies I've been able to see.” And I'm like…Oh God, is he trying to pick me up? Please leave me alone. But then he continues and accurately, like insanely accurately, tells me what's been going on in my life.
He knows that specific things are happening but in a broad sense, like, “I think recently you probably lost a family member close to you that you love, you had a falling out, but you need this to push forward.” When I clearly look freaked out he just smiled and said, “Yeah I have a gift. People don't believe me, but it's a thing,” and just wandered off.
33. A Good Talk
My girlfriend had broken up with me and I was walking home crying. Out of nowhere, a younger-looking girl maybe three or four years younger looking than me, comes up and says, “Hi, umm it's dark and I'm alone. I see that we're going in the same direction, and you've been crying. Should we keep each other company?” I said sure. I asked what her name was, but she just replied with, “Maybe later, let's get to know each other first.”
We had the most wonderful conversation. She was super insightful, had an answer to my every question and a comment to my every word, to this day it has been my favorite conversation ever. We walked for blocks and blocks. As soon as I said, “Hey thanks, I was super sad, but I'm not anymore, I felt super lonely and I don't anymore, this talk has been incredible,” She said, “Okay, this is my house.”
I asked for her name, but she said it’s not necessary for me to know that and thanked me for keeping her safe. She kissed me on the cheek and entered the house. I had lived in the area for five years and lived there for an extra five years after that. Had to walk very often by that house. Never again did I see that girl.
34. Advice From The Future
A few years ago, I had family and schoolwork issues. I was also feeling terrible throughout the day. I was just chilling in a park at my college and there's this one guy sitting at a waiting shed that looks like an aged version of someone I knew but I can't recall who it was. He just initiated a conversation and seemingly knew what was bothering me, then proceeded to give out advice. I had to leave after an hour since it was getting late, but I was creeped out after that. I wondered if this was someone from the future or something. I never saw that guy in the waiting shed again.
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35. Embodied Calm
I was nine at the time and my family had taken a trip to the beach. One day we decided to go visit Fort Sumter because my dad loves history and I had never seen it before. The day goes by, and the tour is fun. The fort is what you might expect and the day is a nice sunny day. On our way out I see a child crying in the distance and he is looking around for I assume his parents. He looked to be about five.
A woman in bright red hair walks up to him and grabs his hand and he immediately stops crying. As my family walks past her on our way out of the fort I look at her and she looks at me. I am immediately struck by the light in her eyes as it is almost beyond blue into a more intense version that is possible. She smiles and me and in my mind I literally hear, “Everything will be okay” in a soft voice. I am overwhelmed with a warm feeling of peace and calm that I cannot describe.
The boy has stopped crying and is smiling as she leads him into the guest service area. As she walks away the peace slowly goes away and I feel more normal and active as a nine-year-old does. She had an energy and a presence to her I have never experienced before. It was the combination of the soul-piercing eyes, the voice in my head, and the aura of peace and calm she generated as she helped that kid. I believe she was an angel on Earth.
36. The Floating Eyes
I saw a pair of glowing orange eyes standing in my dad's front yard when I was 12. It stared at me for a good five seconds before falling to the ground and running away extremely fast, looking back at me every few seconds before it disappeared into the woods. The next morning, I go down and look at about the level where the eyes were and it had to have been 10 to 15 feet tall, and then scrunched down to no more than a foot.
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37. So You Were Reborn?
A new guy had been hired at the restaurant I was working at, and he was definitely a little…off. This dude made people seriously uncomfortable with how outwardly strange he was. One day, about a week into his tenure, I’m in the side station filling up some glasses with tea. He walks up, and without any small talk or acknowledgement of one another or beginning of a conversation he looks at me and tells me, with total seriousness: “In the early 1400s, in one of my past lives, I was brutally questioned and executed as punishment for attempting to burn down a cathedral.”
He then just looked at me awaiting a response. I was caught so off guard, the best I could manage was to stammer out, “That’s rough buddy.”
38. Whoops, Thanks!
I was a latchkey kid. This would have been early-mid 90s. Home alone. Made eggs. Was watching cartoons. It’s probably like six or seven PM in the summer so the sun is still out. The doorbell rings, I go open it and it’s a man in running clothes. He is younger—I’d say maybe mid-30s and in good shape. He is jogging in place and politely asks for a glass of water. Well, I’m like 7-8 years old and I invite this man into the house. No one else is here, so I show him to the kitchen.
He grabs a glass, fills it up, guzzles it down. He pauses after drinking, holding the empty glass near his face. He smelled gas from the stove. I must have bumped one of the other burners or something when I made eggs because the stove was leaking gas. He turned the burner off and said the gas was on. He thanked me and left after that.
39. The Man In The Woods
One time we were canoeing, and we’d flipped twice. Everything we had was soaked. We were soaked. It was raining. I almost drowned because I got tangled up in some ropes when the canoe flipped. Everyone was super bummed out. We were on the North Saskatchewan River and it’s pretty desolate. That said at this really low point it just so happened that we bumped into this dude who lived on the river.
It was really weird given that nobody lived in the area that we knew of. Anyway, this dude basically just came out of nowhere and helped us with everything. He helped us dry out our clothes, let us use his campsite. He even had a phone so I could call my mom. I think he even gave us food. On top of that, the weather changed. We got sun showers and warm rain. Anyway, we stayed the night on his property. Even though he was super friendly we never heard from him again. Ever.
40. A Vampire, Maybe?
I was in my teens, attending some event where I was more or less unsupervised. I was hanging out in the venue, waiting for the event to start. There was a pretty good-sized crowd, a couple thousand people, most of them in small groups. As I was waiting and people-watching, I noticed this guy walking around in the crowd. No one was really looking at him, but they were getting out of his way as he walked, instead of the other way around.
As I was noticing this and thinking how odd it was, suddenly he looks over at me. Then he came over with the crowd parting around him, but not paying any attention to him, and talked to me for a bit. Here's where it gets really strange. I don't really know what we talked about, and I don't really know what he looked like. I remember he was male, taller than me and I think he had dark hair, kind of longish. I think I specifically remember his hair because I was actively trying to remember something about him, so I was concentrating on what his hair looked like, to see if I even could remember it.
I think he noticed I was staring somehow, because in the middle of our conversation, he said something like, "Don't do that." Not in a menacing way, but just as a casual "you're being rude" comment. And I think we may have gone somewhere briefly, because I have a vague sense of being somewhere away from the crowd, although I don't know where and I don't remember going anywhere with him or coming back.
At some point, I was just alone again. I went to the event, had a good time, and at some point after I was home, I noticed I had a pretty good-sized scratch on my arm. It didn't look like something you'd get scraping up against a nail or playing with a dog. It looked more like an incision: not long, fairly deep. It didn't hurt unless I noticed it, and it was hard to notice it.
I feel like it must have healed pretty quickly, or else I just didn't notice it healing. I had a scar for a few years, but not anymore. In my mind, the man and the scratch are linked, but I don't actually know if they are or what any of that was really about. I've always kind of wondered if I met a vampire that fateful night.
41. The Shapeshifter
When I was maybe seven or eight, I was playing in a big park/wooded area in California. Exploring, climbing trees, etcetera. My parents were within ear-shot, as was an aunt of mine, but they were talking and certainly not in line of sight. Then, I saw a fox. Brownish-reddish-gold, pretty. I'd not grown up around there, as mentioned, and had never seen a fox before.
In the manner of a curious child who didn't get to run around as much as he'd like and was hyperactive when he could and knew nothing about wild animals, I chased after it. It ran, but with no particular urgency; a good bit faster than me but not getting out of sight. It headed down a big hill, with a fair amount of brush, and a number of crooked trees growing out at angles from the hillside. I alternated between running down, clambering down, and sliding down, depending on steepness.
At the bottom of the hill was a clearing, with a big tree in the middle, trunk wider than I was tall. At the foot of the tree was a sort of lean-to structure, a pit dug into the ground, with sticks and branches and some cardboard leaned up around it, making a sort of tent-like enclosure. Like something a homeless person would make to get out of the rain, or an enterprising kid would build as a clubhouse. The fox trotted into that structure, and I, who was still getting down the last stretch of hill, lost sight of it.
Around the time I got to the bottom of the hill, a girl crawled out of the lean-to. She looked to be my age, or a little younger. She had messy hair with leaves in it, blue denim overalls, and no shoes. I would love to say that it was the color of the fox's fur, but I can't remember for sure. At that age, very few things had crystallized into seeming impossible yet. I checked the lean-to, no fox, nor anywhere I could see that it could have gone.
The girl was standing there looking at me, so I asked something to the effect of, "Were you the fox I was chasing?" and she said "Yes," with a sort of proud aren't-I-cool tone. I asked, "Are you a person who can turn into a fox with magic?" and she said, "I'm a fox, but I can look like this too." I asked, "Do you live here?" and she said, "Yes." I asked, "What do you do for fun?" She said, "I play games. I catch bugs. I hunt mice. I hunt birds. Sometimes I get cinnamon buns from the vending machines." Pretty sure her responses are all word-for-word what she said, but it was a long time ago.
42. The Strongman
Two engineers and I arrive at the gate of a mill to pick up a purchase, but the guys there are very busy. We loiter a bit, and after a while they send their junior machinist to deal with us. Out comes a guy whom you would not accuse of looking like a professional machinist. Tall but skinny, long hair, scraggy beard, and an eyepatch. He had this strange life-worn face that could be 25 or 55. Add to that a hippie linen shirt and some torn jeans. If not for the hardhat and a tool belt, he would be looking like a malnourished pirate-turned-hippie.
He greets us in accented, overly polite and formal English. At first, he kinda sounded like if he was mocking us, using over the top and antiquated polite language. For example, he referred to us as "Kind Sirs." We thought the purchase would fall through because the Swedes clearly don’t care about us and sent a junkie to deal with us, but the guy turns out to be 100% professional, if extremely strange.
Finally, under Eyepatch Guy's supervision, the forklift operators load up the pumps and hatches we were to buy, start palletizing it, and securing it with belts. We finish the formalities and head up to see it all loaded on a truck. Then, something happens. One of the forklift guys screws up and hits a pallet with another. A heavy industrial pump slides off the pallet and almost falls off the ramp. The warehouse guys panic and pull at it to align it back, to no avail.
Our Swedish Cotton-Eye Joe casually pushes past them, grabs the edge of the pump—which is like, 350 kilograms—and with an effortless tug, pulls it back on the pallet. The guy weighs as much as a wet mop, yet he effortlessly pulled more weight than strongman competitors manage. We stare in disbelief, and the Swedes laugh. Apparently he does that kind of stuff all the time to amuse them.
43. Is This A Test?
My wife and I tried for years to have a baby. I travel for a living, so I see a lot of different cities. I was in Dallas, Texas and stopped for gas and a bite. This young woman was sitting in her car with three kids and was crying her eyes out. I reluctantly asked what the matter was. Crying, she says, “I’m on my way to North Carolina because my dad is alone. I'm trying to move us there.” Her car broke down, she has no way of fixing it and barely enough money for gas to get there, so she was stuck.
I asked them what they liked from McDonald's. The kids were excited to tell me their order, but the mom hesitated. This was a truck stop full of truckers so I asked loudly whether or not there were any mechanics in the house, then explained about the young mom and her kids. A couple gentleman followed me to her car. I gave them their food and while they ate we looked at her car.
30 minutes later, at no cost to her, she was on her way, but right as I was getting in my car her youngest girl, who hadn't said a word the whole time, walked over to me and stuck her little hand out. I took her hand and she said, "You will make a good dad." Then this feeling came over me and I just sit there in my car weeping like a child. Weeks go by and one night I'm on another trip and my wife calls me barely able to talk, “I'm pregnant! I'm pregnant, my love!” I know it wasn't a coincidence.
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44. Medicine Dispenser
When I was young, I was sick in bed one night. It was pretty bad. I have a memory of someone walking into my room in the night, a lady I didn't recognize. I wasn't scared of her, even in the slightest, because she was nice. She came in and took my medicine off the table, handed some of it to me, and told me I need to take my medicine, so I did. The lady then put the medicine up on a high shelf where I couldn't reach at the time, left, and I promptly went back to sleep.
Now, I normally am a bit of a realist, but I have no explanation for this one. I told my mom the story and she started freaking out asking everyone in the house who gave me that medicine. I couldn't have done it himself, as the medicine was actually up on that high shelf where I couldn’t reach, and where it definitely hadn't been placed the night before.
45. A Warning In The Wind
I'm deaf in my left ear. I stopped at Walmart one morning, the sun wasn't up, and I wasn't paying attention. What sounded like a gust of wind entered my left ear, and it felt like it opened; a voice very desperately said into my ear, "Turn around!" I turned around and there was a man following me at arm’s length. When I saw him, he began stammering and falling all over himself; he finally sputtered out, "Do you have a smoke?" I didn't say anything as I was totally shocked. Without explanation, he turned and ran away.
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46. Spirits In The Doorframes
The third floor of the Victorian house I grew up in was odd. If you walked down the long hallway at night, you’d see what looked like a single drop of water falling from the top center of the door frames down to the floor, but they were bright white illuminated drops. I would never see them if looking directly, but always out of my peripheral vision, in every single doorway and only when it was dark.
47. The Skeleton In The Wall
I was around four years old and in bed ready to go to sleep. As a child, I was scared of the dark, so I used to put the whole bed cover over my head. Due to this, I got hot fast, so I decided to put my right-hand out of the bed cover into the open. I felt bone-like fingers move down my hand and fingers. I quickly pulled my hand back inside under the cover. I didn’t know what to do, I just stayed waiting, listening, but I heard nothing, I built up the confidence to have a look, but when I did nothing was there.
Nothing happened for about two and a half years until my mum found a skeleton in the living room wall. She rang some specialists to come look at the skeleton, I was moved into my bedroom whilst my mum was questioned, and I was only allowed out when they had gone. The specialists took the skeleton to do tests and find out the gender, age, how it had gotten there and how long it had been in the wall. Two weeks later, my mum got a phone call from the company saying they had done the tests and that the skeleton was a woman and she had been there since the early 1900s.
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48. Victoria
In October of 1998, I rolled my dad’s car along a lonely dirt road in Arvada, Colorado. I lost control of the car because I was speeding on a dirt road and swerved to avoid a woman. I remember the accident clearly, including the actual rolling, the following moments, and flagging down some help. However, from my point of view, I was only stuck on the road for an hour before help arrived. The truth is though, I had been out there for three hours, so there was a two-hour gap in my memory.
About a year and a half after this, I got that memory back. It was triggered in my doctor's office while I was being treated for Meniere's disease. At this appointment, a cocktail of steroids was injected into my ear canal's labyrinth via syringe through my eardrum. After the doctor injected me, he left the room and a nurse came in to look after me, and I swear it was the woman I had swerved to miss.
Seeing her must have triggered something. Those missing two hours from my car accident came flooding back to me. So did her name—Victoria. Not Vicky though, she hates that name. Something I clearly remember her telling me more than once during our conversation next to my dad's wrecked truck. I asked her about it, and called her by Vicky, but she didn't answer me. Instead, she shoots me a dirty look, does a couple of checks, and walks out.
About 10 minutes later the doctor comes back. I asked him the name of the nurse that had just been in the room looking after me. He looked confused, so I went on to describe her, and he said I must be mistaken. He explained to me that all the nurses were busy at the time and none of them fit the description I had given. Then I asked, "What about Victoria?" Confused, he told me that no one there is named that.
Twelve years go by and in September of 2012, I see this woman again. This time, she's working at PetSmart. It's Labor Day weekend, and they're having an adoption event. I was in there to pick up supplies for an adult dog I had picked out at the Denver Dumb Friends League. She approaches me and steers me towards the litter of puppies they were trying to adopt out. She talks me into at least holding the female puppy that was kind of off to the side doing her own thing.
After a few minutes of that, she tells me, “This is your dog." Then she asks me if I want to spend some time alone with the dog. I agree and she leads me back to the PetSmart employee break room. As I'm about to go in, I take a peek at her nametag. It read "Victoria." Right before she closed the door to leave me alone with the dog, I said, "Thanks, Vicky."
She responded with "It's Victoria. You know I hate Vicky." Then shuts the door. I screamed, "I KNEW IT!" and then fumbled with the door, puppy in hand to confront her, but when I opened the door, she was gone. I took that as a sign and adopted the dog.
After that, there was an eight-year break before she popped up again, this time at my vet's office. She released my dog to me after a surgery to remove a tumor, and wouldn't you know it, she still looked like she was only 25 years old. Since it was a bit later and there was no one else around, I decided to trust my memory and instead of testing her by calling her Vicky, I straight up just asked her why she kept popping up in my life and how she still looked young as she did in 1998.
Without missing a beat, she takes a deep breath, turns to me, looks me directly in the eyes and says: "Because I owe you." Then she motioned for me to lean down with her finger. When I leaned down, she kissed me on the cheek, then said, "Thank you for what you did that night. I'll see you again soon." I don't know what I did for her even though the memory of that night is fairly clear to me. There has to be something I'm missing...or I'm just going crazy. Either way, it's been weird.
49. Little John’s Spirit
I used to work in a small art gallery. The building that housed the gallery is old, and it was many things over the years before it was a gallery. It's also very quiet. Having a dozen people through during a day would have been considered busy. So, you can very clearly hear when somebody else is in the building. You're aware the second somebody else enters. It's not like they can sneak by you. The only other door requires a security code, so it's not accessible to the public.
I'm working an evening, sitting at the desk, and movement in the main gallery catches my eye. It's a little boy—maybe five or six years old. He’s just staring at the artwork. It wasn't any one piece in particular, he would look and move on to the next, but very intently. He'd spend a few minutes with each piece. I was startled.
I hadn't heard or seen this kid come in, and he definitely didn't have an adult with him. So, I went up to him and asked where his parents were. He ignored that question, and instead asked me all about the artwork. We probably spent a good 20 minutes chatting, and this kid was incredibly intelligent. It felt more like a conversation with an adult.
I had a weird feeling looking at this kid, though. There was just something that wasn't quite right about him. His color was just a little off, like that sort of grayish skin tone that terminally ill people have. That's probably the closest I can come to describing him. His movements were also just a little strange and kind of jerky. It was unsettling, but not quite scary. Just... off.
The phone rings at the desk, and I excuse myself to go answer it. Maybe two minutes I'm gone. I turn around when I'm done, and the gallery is empty. The kid just vanished. I never saw him again. But a few months later, there's this old man in the gallery, the kind who will spend the whole day telling you stories.
I was talking to him about when he worked in the building roughly 50-60 years ago when it was a post office and not a gallery. We're looking at a painting of a little boy on display, and it reminds me a lot of the boy I'd seen, though I didn’t tell him that. The old man chuckles and says it reminds him of John—a little boy who would randomly appear and watch them sort the mail. The conversations he had with that boy blew his mind. That kid could talk about anything. I couldn't believe it—but there was more.
Shortly after he retired and before it was a gallery, the building was turned into a public library. I met the woman who used to run it a few years later, and I told her the story of this little boy, curious if she'd ever seen him. She nodded and said it sounded exactly like John—a little boy who they'd find between the shelves, staring at the rows of books.
You could talk to him about anything, and he had an amazing range of knowledge. The little boy never aged in all those years. It's the only time in my life that I think I've seen a ghost. I haven't been back to that building in a long time, but I still wonder if he's there, watching and learning.
50. Blue-Eyed Devil
The man was a customer I was helping out. There was nothing that really stood out with him. He was handsome, but in a normal way. He dressed normal and talked normal. He was blandly friendly, as you are with strangers. Just a normal upper-middle-class type guy. The only thing that really stood out was his blue eyes.
Not in a goofy supernatural way, he just had very, very blue eyes. But for some reason, he made every hair on my neck stand on end. Alarm bells were going off in my head like crazy, all I wanted to do was hide. I have NEVER felt this way, before or since. Even when I was followed home by someone, I have never felt such gut-deep "you are in danger" as I did with this guy.
After ringing him through, he reached out to shake my hand. This is not common at all here, but out of politeness I took it and shook. I instantly got so nauseous I almost gagged. The moment I got nauseous, he just held my hand and smiled, and something in that smile made me absolutely sure he knew what I was feeling, and he enjoyed it. I'm not religious in any way, but I remember thinking in that moment, "Oh no, is this the devil?"
After he left, I was still so sick feeling I had to go to the back and sit down. I'm not sure if he was a bad guy or what, but to this day I have never experienced something even close to that encounter. I absolutely felt bone-deep certainty that I was in some sort of danger. I felt every bit the prey. It's a hard story to explain because it's all based on feelings, so I haven't told that many people about it. But to this day it is absolutely one of the scariest and weirdest things I have experienced.
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