We've all had a chill go down our spines at one time or another. Perhaps we thought we saw a ghost or a person was acting in a way that would freak anyone out. But these stories from Redditors are some of the creepiest around.
1. Creepy Camera
My girlfriend got a yearbook photography assignment to take pictures of a graveyard. She felt scared to go alone, so I went with her. I was walking through a graveyard with her and we were pointing the camera at a grave that had a Freemason's seal on it. It was extremely foggy and overcast. The camera flashed and I started moving on.
She said to me, "Um...I didn't do that". I asked her what she meant. Her reply chilled me to the bone. She says that she didn't press the button. I asked her if she was absolutely sure and she said, "Yes, I am absolutely sure...whoa…look at this picture". I looked at the camera screen and the scene was bright as day and not overcast at all.
I felt a stillness for a second. Then, I said, "Yep, we're going home, come on". But it wasn't even over. As I was walking out of the graveyard, I swear I saw a lady dressed in white sitting between some gravestones in the distance. I did a double take, but on the second look she wasn't there. We promptly exited the graveyard.
I talked to my friend the next day about it and he told me a story. He said he was biking along when suddenly a black blur went past him really quickly. Without warning, his tires locked up and he almost fell off his bike. He got off for a second and looked around, but there was no one to be found. He got back on his bike and, finding that it was back to normal, kept on going. He was right beside the same graveyard!
2. Stranger In The House
I was 13 at the time and it was late at night. My old bedroom faces the door at the top of our stairs, and into my parents' bedroom. One night, my mom was at work and dad was visiting my grandmother, so I was in my room, listening to music when I heard someone coming up the stairs. We don't lock our doors in our neighborhood.
When I looked, it was my dad, in his usual pajamas. I said goodnight, but he never faced me; he just went into the bedroom and that was it. I went back to whatever I was doing. Half an hour later, I heard someone else coming up the stairs, and when I looked, it was my dad, fully clothed, wearing his jacket. He asked me how my night went, and I just went pale.
To this day, we cannot figure out what happened. He checked the house, and no one was there. But, our house has been known for being haunted. We've had several people leave our house because "it just didn't feel right" and some out of ordinary things have happened. I never stayed in my house by myself after that.
3. Break And Enter
When I was 16, I went to a flea market. It was the last day the flea market was open before closing down for the season. I came across a man in a booth selling knives, throwing stars, and all sorts of bladed instruments. Behind him on a rack was a katana. He sold it to me for $20.
Now, what is a 16-year-old guy going to do with a katana? Nothing. I kept it for years. It stayed either in a closet or under my bed for years. When I went to college, it followed. Fast forward to August 18th, 2006. I was living by myself in Charleston on the ground floor of a one-bedroom apartment.
My katana was under my bed. I have a sliding glass door with vertical blinds, a screened in patio, and a hammock hung outside. That night, around 3:00 AM, I woke up and heard my blinds rattling. I thought to myself, "Wow, it's windy outside”. But I soon came to a horrific realization.
I remembered that I never sleep with the sliding glass door open, and that someone was in my apartment. I was laying in bed, thinking of things that I can use as a weapon to defend myself and my home with. Then, I realized that the sword was under my bed. Oh, yes. It was righteous.
With my sword gleaming in the dim light, I crept around the corner and looked into my living room to find two very large men stuffing my belongings into garbage bags. When you're amped up on adrenaline, you say some dumb things. So, I yelled, "YOU! STOP!" They both turned and ran out the sliding glass door. The only thought that going through my mind was that those jerks have my stuff...and I want it back!
I chased them out of the door, through the wooded area behind my apartment and into a marshy area behind that. All of this was in my underwear, no shoes, no contacts, and with a big sword. Sadly, I lost track of them and sanity seeped back into my brain. I realized that they might have a gun, I'm practically blind, carrying a very large blade, and the only people that know that I'm out here are me and them.
I went back inside and called the authorities. The burglars had cut away my screen on the patio and using the blade as a prying instrument, forced the lock on my sliding glass door open. How they managed to get past the hammock in the dark without getting wrapped up like a spider's prey is beyond me. For weeks, I made rounds to area pawn shops, but to no avail.
None of my stuff was ever recovered and I was uninsured. I lost my laptop, my DVDs, all of my video games, and my keys.
4. Saw A Ghost
When I was about five, my family was visiting my grandparents, who lived in a duplex at that time. There were two doorbells and I ran up to the house and rang one of them. A creepy old lady answered the door downstairs (wrong apartment). I remember getting scared and running back to the car. Anyway, 20 years passed by.
At Thanksgiving dinner, I told my family how I was always scared to ring the doorbells in my grandparents’ old apartment because I couldn't remember which one was the right one. I also told them how I was always scared of the creepy old lady and described her looks a bit. Everybody went quiet and I wondered what was wrong.
Then, my mom explained that for the entire time I was alive, nobody had lived in that apartment. But, the last tenant, who died there, looked just like what I described. We were all creeped out and I still can't explain it.
5. Scream
I'm Irish, and was still living in Tyrone, Ireland when this happened. About four years ago, I was lying in my bed in my parents’ house (my bed was right at the window) when I was woken up by a horrible screaming, wailing noise in our garden at 3:00 AM. It was like the noise an injured cat would make, but crossed with the noise of a screaming baby.
I opened the window and looked out, and heard the noise again, but coming from the back garden of the house next door, then one more time from the third house. Something about it completely terrified me, and I knew something wasn't right about it. But, I tried to convince myself it was a cat that had been hit by a car.
I went downstairs to go outside and see if I could find it, and my own cat was lying fast asleep. If he had heard it too, he would have been at the window looking out. It was then I realized what was really happening. Only I had heard it. Freaked out, I went back to bed. The next morning, I was talking to my mom at breakfast and asked if she's heard the noise.
She said, “No, but did you heard the terrible news? The man who lives in the house two doors down died at 3:00 AM. You must have heard the Banshee”. That was scary. I know a lot of people think the whole Banshee thing in Ireland is just made up for tourists, but actually quite a lot of people here have seen or heard something like this.
Most families have a story about hearing the Banshee before someone passes. It was the most horrible noise I ever heard, and I sincerely hope I never hear it again.
6. Sketchy Employee
My friend and I were downtown one day and decided to eat lunch at a food court in an old mall. Most of the places were closed down except a subway and an independent pizza place. We each ordered a slice of pepperoni and a fountain drink from the man behind the counter. The first thing that was weird was that he wasn't wearing a uniform, just plain clothes.
The second thing that was off was that he charged us both two completely different prices, despite the fact that we each ordered the same thing. What we each paid was less than the listed price for our items on the menu. My friend and I laughed about it, ate our food and went on with our day. Half an hour later, we both sat down in a hotel lobby.
We each ended up falling asleep at roughly the same time and waking up an hour later. We were both freaked out that we would each fall asleep for no reason and both noticed that we felt pretty drained. A few hours later, we decided to get dinner at the Subway in the food court. As we entered, we noticed that there are two new people working at the pizza place.
They were both wearing uniforms. At the other exit of the food court, on the opposite side, we saw paramedics taking a gurney to an ambulance. Strapped to the gurney is the man that served us our pizza. A janitor was mopping up some kind of mess in front of the pizza place.
We both have no clue what had happened and were too weirded out to even want to know or ask the people at the pizza place what had happened.
7. Intruder Alert
I live in an apartment with my mom. One day, I came home later than she did, so I did what I usually do: pulled in the door, threw my stuff on the floor and got something to eat. I didn’t even think about locking the door. The night went on and both my mom and I went to bed. I must have dozed off around midnight or a bit earlier, and I fell into a pretty deep sleep.
A little background worth mentioning: there are times when my mom leaves something of hers in my room and she has to try and get it in the morning before she leaves while I’m still asleep. She usually does so very quietly, but I can always kind of feel that she is there. So, I was having a good sleep, when all of a sudden, I felt light shuffling around my bed.
This didn’t really wake me up, but I guess it woke up my unconscious because I told myself that it was most likely my mom. I kept hearing this sound, when all of a sudden, there is a loud bang next to my bed. I happened to be laying face down, so I lifted my head up and looked down, expecting to see my mom on the floor because she tripped over the clutter around my room.
I prepared myself to get yelled at in Spanish since my family is Hispanic. What I did hear stunned me. All of a sudden, I started hearing Korean. I had no idea what was going on, so this really woke me up. As I woke up, I immediately realized a couple of things.
It was too early for this to be my mom, my door was wide open (which my mom never does), and there was a little shadowy figure on the floor. When I heard this language, I panicked and jumped off my bed and just started screaming at the top of my lungs. The shadowy figure started getting up in the creepiest way possible, like the girl from The Ring.
At this point, the figure was in between me and my door. Out of fear, I started yelling to turn on the light. I had no idea what I was doing, but the figure for some reason listened and slowly walked to my light switch. The dark figure turned on the light for a second, looked at me in the eyes and turned it back off.
I saw that it was an old Korean lady. She turned off the lights and started to reach for her dentures, which had fallen when she tripped over my mess. At this point, I was sure she’d hurt me. My heart was pounding and I was screaming at the top of my lungs at 4:00 AM. As she put her dentures back in, I managed to drive her out into the hallway with my screaming.
My mom came out of her room asking what I was doing. She assumed I had been drinking or that a friend of mine was drinking. She couldn’t see the lady, so I stepped aside to let her see, and my mom’s jaw dropped. We eventually got the lady outside. Then the whole story came out.
It turned out she was some lady with Alzheimer’s Disease who got locked out of her house and found our door open. I almost threw up later in the night because I kept thinking that at some point, she was watching me sleep. That was the creepiest thing I’ve ever had happen.
8. Uncomfortable Massage
It was my 16th birthday and my stepmom and I went to get massages. After filling out some paperwork, they told us that there were no available females to do our massages (I'm a female), so we both said we would be okay with males. Through the whole massage, the masseuse kept complimenting me and it was just generally awkward.
He also asked how old I was and he said he was 26. At the end of the massage, he asked me for my phone number. It was super creepy, but I didn't want to be rude so I just said I didn't live in the state. A few weeks later, I get a bunch of missed calls on my phone with messages from the same masseuse! He got my cell phone number off the paperwork I filled out.
I never returned any of his calls, but he continued to call me every so often for the next few months.
9. Close Encounter
When I was about nine, I was outside in front of my apartment with my brothers (aged three and six). We were sitting on a blanket pretending to have a picnic. We saw this guy in a baby blue van drive by. At first, we think nothing of it. But, then he proceeds to drive by three or four more times. And it got so much worse.
We noticed that he stops the van and he is staring at us. He waved us over to the van. I got freaked out and grabbed my brothers, went into the house, locked the door and told my mom what happened. Later on that night, when we were watching the news, the guy we saw earlier was on the news for kidnapping a kid in our neighborhood. Creepy that it could have been us.
10. The Ticklish Stranger
I'm always being approached by strangers. It's almost uncanny how often it happens. Usually it's just friendly chit-chat, and I end up going home with someone's life story. But, sometimes it gets really weird. There was this one guy who approached me when I was inside a bus shelter. He was a really thin guy with blonde hair and braces.
He walked into the bus shelter and sort of stared at me for a minute. That's when I knew that he was going to be a creeper. Then he said, "So, how are you on this fine evening?" I told him I was fine. He said it was good that I was fine. Then, he said, "I'm really ticklish". I tried to ignore him and stare off in the direction the bus would come from.
A minute later, he said, "I am so very, very ticklish". All I could think so say was, "So is a friend of mine". I made sure I said it in a quipped way that should signal I was done with the topic. But, that didn't work. The creepy guy asked me if I was ticklish. I said no, which was a lie, but I didn't want him coming anywhere near me.
So, he responded with, "That's too bad. But, I like being tickled more than I like tickling". I struggled for something to say, but said, "I don't really like tickling in general". He asked me what I meant, and I said that I didn't like to be tickled and that I didn't like tickling people. He said, “That’s too bad”. Too bad for him.
There was no one else at the bus stop, but it was a semi-busy area, and I knew if I screamed, someone would notice. Plus, I had a hot beverage, which was almost full. So, I resolved that if he moved so much as a foot closer to me, it was going in his face. He asked me where I was going. I said, “My boyfriend’s birthday party”.
He fell silent, and just stared at me. Then my bus came, and he took off running across the road.
11. Behind The Book
I was in a bookstore reading a book when I happened to glance up and see a guy standing in a nearby aisle facing me, presumably reading a book of his own. I didn't pay much attention. Maybe 15 minutes later, I looked up again and he was still there. I also noticed he was watching me and his book was lower than where it would've been if he was actually reading it.
I ignored him and continued reading. I thought maybe it was just a coincidence and we had both looked up from our books at the same time. After a little while, he walked around the bookshelves to stand on the opposite side of where he had been. He turned around, still holding that same book, and resumed watching me.
He stayed there for a few minutes, then went back to his original position. His book was still lowered and he was definitely staring at me, but I didn't make eye contact. Then came the tipping point. I noticed that the hand not holding the book was in his front pocket. And he kept adjusting that hand.
He was moving it around a little in his pocket. I tried not to look at him and by now I was thinking, "No. He's not... is he? This is not normal. I'm out". I glanced at him as I stood up and I made eye contact for the first time. He gave me this big, toothy smile and a slow nod. I made a circuitous trip around the store, making sure he wasn't following me. Then, I went out of the store with a group of people.
12. Living Dolls
When I was a kid, I used to sleep with dolls. One night, I woke up and heard a sneeze and my face got all wet. I didn't sneeze, and the only thing next to me was my doll.
13. The Hills Have Eyes
Many years ago, I was in Boy Scouts and our troop was going on a camping trip to a summer camp that was closed in the winter. We'd gotten permission, and we'd planned to hike in. Myself and another scout went up there the day before, so we could set up the rifle range. We had just finished setting up as it was getting dark.
That’s when we noticed what looked like a set of glowing eyes down the hill from us. No big deal, probably a coyote or something. Except that they never blinked and never left the area. After several minutes, we started to freak out. Keep in mind, we'd watched the Blair Witch Project the week prior, and were only 15 and 16.
Our rational brains were trying to come up with explanations for what we were seeing, but our reptilian hind brain was screaming so loud, we couldn't think. We ended up in the back of my friend's Explorer. Each of us had a loaded shotgun and a loaded rifle. We laid there for about an hour scared as ever.
And that's when someone else went over to the building on the other side of the lake. They turned off the light. The eyes immediately disappeared. Once we realized we were only looking at a reflection, we felt insanely stupid. We never told anyone, either.
14. Stalker Dude
One night, I was chilling in my basement during the summer at around midnight. My parents were asleep. I was on AIM talking to people when I got a message from someone named StalkerDude314. It said something like, “I’m outside your house”. I figured it was just one of my friends playing a really annoying trick and talked to the person for a little bit.
I went to bed after blocking the guy because things got too creepy for my sixth grade brain to handle. The next day, my dad woke up at 5:00 AM to go to work. He got ready and walked out to the car. He was met with an unsettling sight. He saw a gold truck sitting at bottom of our driveway. It turns on and goes away.
My dad hopped into his car and drove after them for a while and ends up losing them. I didn’t tell my parents about the AIM thing for a couple days. We also saw a ton of footprints in the grass leading up to our house. It was creepy to think that StalkerDude314 was actually stalking me.
15. Stalker In The Night
I work at a hotel and in the dining area. There are a lot of windows. It was a slow night, so I was sitting and watching television. I kept looking out the window at this old ‘89 hatchback mustang. I thought someone parked to run in quickly to see a guest or was a guest. I continued to chill out, but I kept getting this weird feeling someone was in the car watching me.
So, I went behind my desk and the car did not pull off until a few minutes before my relief arrived. I had my nightly smoke with my co-worker then headed out to get gas before I went home. Well surprise, surprise…mustang man showed up. He circled around the pump lane then parked by phones. I finished pumping my gas.
Then, I jumped in the car and pulled out. I kept an eye on him to see if he would follow. I drove down the service road and sighed with relief because my imagination was really acting up. That’s when I noticed that the headlights of a mustang are slowly catching up. I loved mustangs up until this point and an ex of mine drove the same year make, so I knew the headlights.
At this point, I called my co-worker back and told her I’m headed back and that someone is following me. I pulled up to work and ran inside. My co-worker made sure the doors were locked and she has her baseball bat. She is ready. The creepy car pulls in the parking lot and naturally parks. We called the emergency number and they sent out two patrol cars.
One of them questions him, while the other cop comes in to ask questions, but his radio went off and he quickly headed back out. 10 minutes or so later, one of the cops came back in all sweaty looking. He says the stalker did not want to cooperate, so it got rough. So, the stalker was arrested and had a warrant out for him.
Anyway, his car was towed and a week later, he came back to the hotel for his car. He came up to the window, saw me and smiled. Then, he waved. It was a creepy smile and wave. I then informed him that his car was towed.
16. Clowning Around
I was driving home with a buddy from my high school summer job at the local amusement park. It's about 3:00 in the morning, and there is no traffic at all. We got stuck at a red light that never ends and while we are waiting, another car pulls up next to us. I couldn't believe my eyes. It was a big, black hearse in immaculate condition, with a clown in the driver’s seat.
He had full makeup and costume on. He never moved, didn't look at us, nothing. He just stared straight ahead the whole time. It was the creepiest thing I’ve ever seen.
17. Psychopath In The Making
About 10 years ago, I was at a small fair in a Midwest town. It was the middle of summer and I was sitting in a barn-like place that had some picnic tables set up. I noticed a young bird that couldn't fly, off in the corner. It had probably jumped out of its nest. No big deal, it was off in the corner by itself and nothing would bother it.
This little girl (maybe about four or five years old) walked over to it to get a closer look. I kept my eye on her to make sure she doesn't pick it up or anything, but she stayed her distance and just looked at it. And I heard her say a couple of things like, "Oh, such a pretty bird, you're a pretty bird".
I looked away for about a minute. When I looked back up, I wanted to puke. She was standing over the little bird, stomping on it. This went on for a few more seconds and then she quickly covered it up with dirt and ran off into the crowd. No one else saw this except for me and I was way too awestruck to even do anything about it.
Even to this day, I'm not sure what I really could have or should have done. I'm pretty sure I saw a future psychopath born that day. It really creeped me out.
18. Close Call
I worked at Blockbuster Video around 2001. I was working with my store manager the Wednesday before Star Wars Episode II was to be in theaters and saw that I was scheduled to work the night of the midnight screening. I asked if I could be off to go, since I wouldn't be able to go if I had to work until midnight. So, the manager changed my schedule.
The day of the screening around 4:00 PM, I got a phone call from my roommate telling me that there’s an emergency crew in front of the store. I tried to call to find out what was going on and did not get an answer. Me and another friend decide to drive down to see what was going on. Just before we arrived, I was able to reach one of my co-workers by phone.
They answered the phone crying and telling me that the store had been robbed and that two employees had been murdered, along with two customers. Of course, I was devastated. It was also creepy to think that had I not taken the day off, that could have been me.
19. Home Alone
One night when I was 11 years old, I was watching television with my two older sisters (who were 13 and 15 at the time). Our parents were out late at a party, but being home alone was nothing new to us. Just before 1:00 AM, our dog got up and left the family room. He began to stare out the back door of the kitchen, just off the family room.
A minute later, he went absolutely crazy. It was not the typical barking sound, or the growling at a stranger, cat, etc. It was an insane mixture of incredibly loud barking and wild animal growling, the sound one would make in a truly life or death situation. This, of course, freaked us out. We went to our dog to comfort him.
After 20 seconds of discussion, we decided we had better secure the house as quickly as possible. It was a large house with many doors and windows to check. So, we all ran frantically to lock up everything as quickly as possible. The last door I got to was the garage door.
A split second after locking it, I put my hand around the handle to verify it was locked. That's when it happened. I felt someone from the other side viciously shaking the handle. They were pushing, trying to open the door. We of course made quite a few phone calls within the next few minutes. The memory of feeling that violent shaking and knowing that a person was one foot from me on the other side creeps me out even now.
20. Daughter In Danger
I worked at a call center as a customer service representative for a Medicare-based company. All patients were on Medicare, meaning probably 90% were elderly, and the other 10% were disabled. It wasn’t a great job, as you can imagine, trying to explain complicated concepts to elderly people when money is involved, or having to tell someone that a cold, emotionless corporation won't make their lives easier.
Well, one night, I was one of only a handful of people working. Since elderly people go to bed early, we never really got late calls. It was about 10:00 PM central time, when the customers were all on the west coast. I answered, and a woman was on the other end, sobbing. She sounded fairly young, early middle-aged or something,
She just kept saying, "I don't want to do it. I don't want to do it". I was thinking, "Holy, my first suicide call, what do I do? I'm not the one to talk to!" Then, I heard the kid. It was a little girl in the background, also crying, "Please mommy, don't hurt me. Don't hurt me, mommy". The mom was still crying over the phone.
She was saying, "I don't want to do it, please don't make me do it. I don't want to do it. Please don't make me do it". All I took from that was that she was about to hurt the kid or something. It was intense. The supervisor was basically my age, and we were pretty similar. I jumped up, hit mute on the mic, and started yelling, "SUPERVISOR, SUPERVISOR QUICK! 9-1-1 TRACE QUICK!"
As per the rules, the supervisor came and got on the phone. Crisis calls require a supervisor, usually. She ended up trying to talk to the woman, while the top manager on duty for my department came out of the office and got the emergency call going. It took the emergency crew about 11 minutes to show up to her house. I was only on the phone for about 30 seconds, maybe 60.
I was sitting right there the rest of the time, though. The supervisor was crying. everybody was, basically. It turned out the woman had some serious mental issues and had stopped taking her medication. She called us because she had no idea who else to call for help. If she didn't get committed to a mental ward somewhere, she was going to hurt her child.
Turns out, people calling the insurance company to try to have themselves committed isn't totally uncommon.
21. Perverted Producer
Back in the summer of 2001, I was an aspiring actor and filmmaker in Baltimore. I was in line at a Rite-Aid and this guy dressed like Don Draper from Mad Men approached me. "Are you an actor?" I tell him I am. "I knew it. You have 'the look.' I'm a producer and represent modeling talent. Why don't you come by the studio? I'd like to see what you can do".
I was 21 years old and thought this was amazing, so I agreed. A few days later, I drove to the address he gave me. At first, I thought it was the wrong address because I pulled up in front of a row-house in the very slummy west side. But I knocked on the door and he answered, wearing a dirty white t-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops.
"Welcome to my house," he said and we walked in. The place is a mess. He starts breathing really loud. I turned around and asked, "This is your studio?" He stares at me with really cold, bleak eyes. "No, the studio is out back. I'll show you". He led me out his kitchen door to a garage. As we entered, he hands me a photo album, "Want to see some of my work?"
We're walking up stairs, to a room above the garage. I look through the album and see pictures…amateur pictures shot on a point-and-shoot, of underage boys, in their underwear, in various poses. One boy, looking about 10, was wearing a banana hammock and is laying in the backseat of a car. My adrenaline started racing.
I looked up and saw "the studio". It was a huge, white room. It was empty, except for a stained mattress in the middle of the room, surrounded by four large mirrors, propped up by chairs. The man was behind me. I had a sensation that I was about to get hit in the head. I spun around. And he's just staring at me, again with a cold, dark look. "Sir, I'm going to leave," I said.
Nothing. He was just standing in the doorway, blocking my way. "Please step aside, sir. I am going to leave". I dropped the photo album and it made a very loud slap on the floor. This startled him and he moved in to pick it up. I walked by him, down the stairs, and back out to my car. I looked back at the house to see him standing in the doorway, looking straight at me creepily.
I drove directly to the liquor store, bought a bottle of vodka and drank myself into oblivion. I told my Mormon fiancée at the time the whole ordeal. Her response? She screamed in my face about how I sinned for drinking and then went to her parents' house for a week. But, yeah, that's the creepiest thing that ever happened to me.
Public Domain Pictures
22. 3:20
A friend of mine had died. A few days later, I dreamt I was walking in an empty school hallway and saw someone emptying their locker. I got closer and saw it was my friend. I asked him what was going on. He said he had to spend some time in this place (purgatory?) for 40 days. I noticed a clock in his locker that had 3:20 as the time.
He said when I see the clock at that time again, I'll know that he'd moved on. A few weeks later, I got woken up by the crack of some loud thunder. I opened my eyes and my clock read 3:20. I remembered my old dream and got up and went to the kitchen to check the calendar. He had died 42 days previous. Maybe an odd coincidence, but I still think it was freaky.
23. Haunted Mobile
Our baby daughter had a wind-up mobile that played a lullaby. It hung over her crib. We'd wind it up at bedtime and she loved to stare up at it. One night, hours after we put her to bed, we heard the thing going off by itself. My wife and I ran in there to see what was going on. She could not have wound it up by herself.
She was lying there, smiling up at the mobile. We found out soon after that my mother, her grandmother, had died very close to that moment, a hundred miles away.
24. Man In The Mercedes
I lived in the middle east when I was in high school. One day, as I was walking home from school, an old Arab man in an old Mercedes pulled up like he was lost and rolled down his windows. He leaned out like he was about to ask for directions. So, I walked over and he asked me if know if there was a massage parlor nearby.
That immediately struck me as odd, so I said I didn't know and walked on. But, he kept up with me and said that since there wasn't a massage parlor around, maybe I could give him a massage. I ignored him and started walking faster. He then started offering me a lift home, but I told him to leave me alone and kept walking.
He just kept following me, so I had to duck into the nearest house pretending it was mine. I hid in their garden until I was sure the guy was gone and then continued on my way home. I am still suspicious of men in old Mercedes to this day.
25. Sleepwalking Girlfriend
My girlfriend is a sleepwalker. It only really comes on when she's incredibly exhausted or stressed out. We had just come back from Tokyo, and it was our first night back in our bed. I got up to take a leak and when I turned around, she was standing in the door, with her eyes semi-open but glazed over and face slack.
She surprised me, but I thought she just needed to use the bathroom. But it got creepier. She just stood there and wouldn't let me pass until I spoke to her. "Hey,” I said. "We have to get out of here...they're coming for us," she said. The hairs on my neck immediately stood up. The way she said it was so cold and mechanical, it was like it wasn't even her voice.
That's when I realized she was sleepwalking. "Go back to bed". She spun around and shuffled off to bed. I know it doesn't sound like much, but it was so creepy. It's like she was possessed. I didn't even get back in the bed with her. I went into the living room and slept on the couch.
26. Not So Secret Admirer
While going to college, I used to work at a drive-thru espresso stand in an industrial area near Tacoma. I was your usual bubbly, blonde barista who excelled in small talk and boosting egos (it helped the tip jar, of course). One day, a much older gentleman stopped by and ordered a can of Diet Coke for $1.
He gives me $1 and put $5 in my tip jar. That’s not the first time it’s ever happened, so I thought it was no big deal. He continued to come by two to three times per week, always when I'm in the stand. He continued to get the $1 coke and tip me $5. Nice man, always easy to talk to, never came on to me. But then he did something that made me get nervous.
Eventually, he bumped it up to a $20 tip. I always want to think the best of people, but something was definitely awry. Valentine’s day came up and I was working. The $1 coke man drove up and I went to the back to grab his drink. When I came up to the window, there laying for me was a box of chocolates, two dozen roses, and $100.
I was freaked out. I didn't even know how to react, I thanked him for the chocolates and the flowers, but refused the money. He stuck it into my tip jar before driving off. At this time, school was overwhelming anyways so I came to the decision to give my two weeks’ notice. For the following weeks, the $1 coke man continued to come by and tip me $100.
I kept asking my boss for advice on how to handle the situation, but she'd laugh it off and tell me just to take the money. On my very last day, he came by, ordered his coke, tipped me $100, and before he left he asked me what I was doing that weekend and if I'd like to go out with him. I was shy and avoided saying no in this situation!
I said I had to wait for the schedule to come out from work and work around my school schedule and I'd let him know next time. At the end of the day, I blacked out every bit of information about me, wrote notes to everyone who would come after me to never give out any of my information. Locked up and left.
27. Who’s Playing The Piano?
My parents didn't have a lot of money when we were growing up, so when my big sister started taking piano lessons they bought an old piano. It was an old player piano (but I think it had the guts of the player removed). Anyway, I was probably in sixth grade, got home from school, and I heard a noise coming from the basement.
So, I opened the door and called my sister's name out, but there was no answer. I was kind of nervous now. I yell my little brother's name...still nothing. I started walking downstairs and got about halfway down the steps and something was making that piano play. I ran upstairs and decided to sit outside until someone else got home.
I am 34 and sometimes I still get the chills when I am in that basement.
28. The Darkness Is Coming
My daughter is two and is generally laid back and not really afraid of anything. One night a few weeks ago, she walked up to the glass door leading out to the patio and stared motionless into the night for several minutes. Shortly after, she runs into my arms saying "Scary. Too scary". She wouldn't let me put her down.
She demanded that I hold her and rock her for the next half hour. Eventually, she started repeating over and over: "The dark coming inside now. The dark coming inside now". It was definitely the creepiest thing that has happened to me.
29. Peckish Guests
I was at work and there were only two of us in a small office, on Halloween. We were busy and then we heard some light tapping on the door. So, we said, "Come in". Nothing. A little bit later, we heard the light tapping again and said, "Come in". Nothing. So, I got up and went to the door, opened it, looked down and saw three ravens pecking at the bottom of the door.
I slammed it shut, walked back to my chair and just sat there staring at the wall for a moment.
30. Same Ghost, Different Day
In my grandparents’ incredibly old house in Long Island, my cousin once confessed to me that when staying there, he would wake up in the middle of the night and see a figure in the doorway. He said the man was very tall, looked grim, and had a beard. He said he looked a lot similar to Abraham Lincoln. But there's a twist.
His younger brother was shaking at this point. He said that he saw the same man several times. I'm glad I never had to stay in that house.
31. Terrified Of The Toilet
When I was about six or so, I lived with my grandma in a small apartment. I don't know how old it was. Every night that I would take a shower, I would hear the toilet seat slam shut. Naturally, I thought my grandma or someone else was messing with me. So, the next time I went to take a shower, I locked the door, and made sure the toilet seat was down.
I watched the door through the side of the shower curtain. That toilet seat slammed so hard that time that I thought it was gonna fly off. And lucky me, I had shampoo in my hair so I had to wait until I got it out before I could get out of the washroom.
32. Swallowed A Spider
My friend's daughter (who was two years old) had the bad habit of picking random things up off the floor and putting them in her mouth. One day, her mother heard a choking sound and came over to see what was in her mouth. Upon opening, there was a gigantic wolf spider (still alive) that scurried out of her mouth, up the little girl's face and into her hair. But it's grosser than that.
The spider had thousands of baby spiders on its back that all fell off in her mouth. Imagine thousands of spiders crawling down her throat, on her teeth, on her lips, up her nose, on her eyes, in her ears, etc. Her mom flipped out.
33. Bloody Woman
We bought a house from my aunt and uncle. When my aunt lived in our house, she was sitting at the kitchen table at night. The table sat next to a large sliding glass door that looked out across the clear backyard in the middle of farmland. In an instant, a young woman covered in blood was standing with her hands pressed against the glass, pawing and banging.
My aunt was scared. She called the cops and eventually got the frantic woman to calm and sit down. Apparently, she and her boyfriend were in a car wreck down the road, and she struggled from the wreck to the very visible kitchen where my aunt sat. The boyfriend didn’t make it out alive.
34. Whose Footsteps Are Those?
When we got married, my wife and I moved into a new house. Often at night I would hear what sounded like someone walking around the carpet in our bedroom. My wife never heard anything, so I just ignored it. She did start to pay attention when, twice, we had friends say they didn't want to housesit for us anymore because there was something weird about the house.
After a couple years, we got a cat who liked to sleep on the bed with us. One night, I was woken up by a noise and the sound of someone walking around was louder than ever, even though there was no one there. I was not the only one who heard it. The cat also woke up, tracked her head in exactly the same direction as the sounds I thought I was hearing,
After a few seconds, the cat meowed at it. The sounds immediately stopped. After a few seconds of watching the cat, I decided all was good and went back to sleep. I do not believe in ghosts or any of that sort of stuff, but that was enough for me. We moved several months later. We're on our fourth house now and I've never experienced the same thing in any of the others.
35. Man In The Mirror
I was sitting at my computer really late one night, and had a mirror sitting next to me because I'm paranoid. There was a door and a pillar right behind me. So, I glanced at the mirror, and saw a horror. There was a hand waving through the little window, next to the door. I blinked, turned around and saw the guy’s hand trying to reach the lock on the door.
I called the authorities as quietly as I could, while he tried for an entire 20 minutes. They showed up a few minutes later to open my door. I was standing to the side of the window, holding a baseball bat.
36. Guardian Angels
I was sitting at an intersection, waiting for the red light to change so I can turn left. As it changed, I heard the words “accident,” “stop,” and “no” whispered into my ear. It distracted me for about two seconds, which was just enough time to watch a GMC van blast through the red light. I would have been killed otherwise.
37. When I Was Big Before
This is not something that I remember, but my mom told me it was one of the weirdest things that has ever happened to her. I started speaking at a very early age, but I still didn't comprehend a lot of concepts because I was so young. My mom was trying to explain something I didn't understand to me and I said, "Oh, I remember that from when I was big before".
38. Footsteps In The Dark
I was in bed one night, drifting off in the darkness of my bedroom. I couldn't quite get to sleep, though. The weather was warm and my room was getting a little stuffy, so I went to open my window up and let some air in. I went back to bed, staring at the ceiling, hoping I would fall asleep out of sheer boredom. That was when I heard the sound downstairs.
Now, I wasn't yet asleep, so my heart started thumping. You know the feeling, when fight or flight kicks in. When I was younger, I went on work experience at my grandad's sheet metal work factory. One of my best memories of us bonding was when we both made an axe at the workshop, which he let me take home. So, I reached for this axe and creeped out of my room while undressed.
I heard that sound again, this time closer. It was dark and I didn't want to alert the burglar, so I stood at the top of the stairs, in the dark with this little hand axe raised shoulder height. I had no idea what I was going to do with it. Could I really hurt someone with it? I don't know. Anyway, I heard these quiet footsteps moving up the stairs.
It was only a few steps away from me now. I'm aware of them, but they’re not aware of me. Three, closer, two, closer still, one! I switched on the light and with my hand axe held high, screaming at the top of my lungs. I am met with another undressed man, with fear seared on his face, also screaming. It was my mother's friend, whom she had been seeing without me knowing for months.
39. My Dog Wasn’t There
One time, I was laying in bed about to go to sleep and my door opened. Figuring it was the dog, I called his name and did the double pat on the bed and told him to come up. The bed sunk and moved, much like a 100-pound Labrador had just jumped on the bed. After he jumped up and laid down, I went to pet him, but he wasn't there.
40. Not Coming In Today
This was when I was about four or five years old. My mom was self-employed as a housekeeper and was always willing to take along anyone who wanted to help out. She would split the day's pay with them. One of her favorite assistants was Ruth, an older woman that lived next door. She was the nicest person you could meet.
So, she and my mom worked together for a few months until the day that Ruth’s life was taken in a car accident. My mom heard about the incident from my grandmother and didn't tell me about it because, well, I was four years old and that wasn't something you usually want to talk about at that age.
On the same day that she learned about Ruth's passing, something odd happened. She went into the bathroom and the phone rang. I was pretty good with picking up the phone and asking the basic questions, so she asked me to answer it. When she came back out from the bathroom, she asked me, "Who was it?" My answer? "It was Ruth. She said she can't go to work today". That really creeped my mom out!
41. Growling Girl
I went on a date a few weeks back with this awesome circus performer girl. We had a very fun night, which did end up with me sleeping over. Anyway, it was like 4:00 AM and I woke up to this growling noise. I looked at her and she was staring at me, just doing this feral animal growl. It didn't even sound human. Freaked me out.
I tried to talk it off a little bit and then it sort of dawned on her. She apologized and said she talks in her sleep. The next morning, she didn't remember anything had happened. Makes my skin crawl just thinking about it.
42. Blood On The Bed
I’m a male and when I was about five or six years ago, I was going to bed one night. When I pulled the covers back, I noticed a large puddle of dried blood in the middle of the bottom sheet. I had no idea where it had come from. Anyway, it freaked me out a little and after dismissing the possibility of a practical joke, I could only assume that I was ill and bleeding.
Either way, I went to the doctor to get checked out. Everything was fine. No infection, no piles, no fissures, nothing. Still no idea where it came from. I've also had a similar instance where I've woken up with dried blood on the pillow. I have however put this down to an early night nosebleed, but oddly no dried blood on my face or hair.
43. Funky Peach
I used to really like peaches. I would always just munch them straight from the tree, but one day I grabbed a beauty (perfectly ripe, unbroken skin), took a big bite out of it, and a massive black spider crawled out of the center. Luckily the bite I took was all fruit, but after that, I refused to eat a peach that hasn't been sliced.
44. Mysterious Mass
I woke up to a swirling black mass in the corner of my room and my computer speakers were making this awful noise. I starred at the mass for several minutes as it swirled in the upper corner of my room. Then, it disappeared into the wall and made a distinct noise. The power surged and the noise coming out of the speakers stopped.
I've never experienced it again, but I wake up in the middle of the night a lot and look at that corner. It’s very unsettling.
45. Tugging Sheets
I was sleeping in the middle of the day when something grabbed my sheets and tugged them hard. I had the sheets tucked up and over my head to keep out the sunlight, so my head got yanked back. But, I was so tired, and still basically sleeping, that I just fought against it. It was only when I woke up later on that I got seriously freaked out because I live alone.
46. Alien Abduction
When I was 12, I was visiting my grandmother for her birthday. She lives in the middle of nowhere, in a typical farmhouse surrounded by woods. It's kind of creepy on its own, and definitely creepy at night. My family lived a good distance from her, so we decided to spend the night and drive back home in the morning.
As usual, I got stuck sleeping on the couch. In the middle of the night, I was awoken by the sound of something moving around the room. I didn't get up, but I opened my eyes to take a look. When I realized what I was seeing, I nearly screamed. Across the room, about 10-12 feet away, stood an alien.
It was a stereotypical alien: short, giant forehead and small chin. All I could see was the silhouette of his head in front of the window. He kept looking around, just standing there, surveying the room. Of course, I was scared and didn't do anything, but really, what could you do? It's an alien.
Awaiting my inevitable abduction I lay in bed, paralyzed. But, he just stayed still, looking around, for what seemed to be forever. I decided to get a better look, so I very slowly sat up. I was trying to get a look at what he was up to. As I sat up, more of his body came into view, but where his neck should've been there was only a knot.
Below that, string. It was a balloon, from my grandma's birthday party, swaying back and forth due to a vent somewhere. To this day, I've never felt a bigger sense of relief.
47. Possessed Doll
When I was a kid, my sister always loved playing with dolls, but I was terrified of them. There was this one that would sing a song when you pressed a button on its back. It only had like three to four songs it could sing, and it would cycle through them, so you knew what song it would sing next. Well, shortly after she got it, it got lost around the house.
A year later, she found it again and tried to make it sing, but when it started singing, it was in a really distorted voice. So, she figured it was running out of batteries. She found me and let me hear one of the songs, and I was slightly disturbed by it, but not legitimately scared. We then found my mom and my sister asked her for new batteries.
When demonstrating the distortion to my mom, the sound clip completely died out halfway through. We attributed this to the batteries losing the little juice they had left. The next moments are burned into my brain forever. When opening the battery case though, my mom accidentally hit the button, and it started singing in the same distorted voice as it had before, except this time it was a slow version of "Jimmy Crack Corn".
It had never sung that song before. It wouldn't stop until we took out the batteries. Afterward, we checked the instruction manual that came with it, and it confirmed that "Jimmy Crack Corn" was not one of the songs it sang. Being young and already scared by dolls, this was the scariest thing ever.
48. Reflections
One night, when I was about 12 years old, I woke up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, bleary-eyed and half conscious. I saw the reflection of someone in the bathroom on the tile. I ran downstairs to my parents and they wouldn't believe me. My dad came up and looked in the bathroom, living room and kitchen, but saw nothing.
He let me sleep on the couch, but a few hours later (having come to the conclusion that I would never sleep again), I heard footsteps and the front door open and shut. The next morning, we noticed that some food from the cabinets and fridge was missing. I think the guy had hid in my sister's room, which was attached to the bathroom. Good thing she wasn't home that night.
49. The Good Liar
When I was 17, I had to do a work-study program for a charity that dealt with mentally delayed people in their 20s and 30s. I worked with a 34-year-old man named Ryan. I spent three weeks training him to do simple person-to-person interactions, so he could be a Wal-Mart greeter or something. I came home after a session to find an emergency crew at my house.
They told me my mother was fine, but she had been attacked and cut on her right arm. It turns out that Ryan had become obsessed with me to the point where he walked into my house with a knife, probably to attack me. Oh, but that's just the beginning. The most messed up part of the story is that he was only POSING as a mentally challenged person to meet high school boys.
50. The Sleeping Bag
I have a developmentally delayed nephew who was really young (about four years old) and one night, he started talking about a man in the sleeping bag with a beard. Completely out of the blue. Why it is creepy? There was something he didn't know. We had an uncle that was murdered in a sleeping bag years before my nephew was born. He had a big "mountain man" beard.
There aren't any pictures in the house and obviously nobody would tell my nephew the tragic story. My only guess is that he saw my uncle’s ghost.
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