The truth is, there really are things we can never know for certain. No amount of science, or mathematics, or rational thinking can sweep away that hair-raising sense that what we’ve just experienced isn’t quite right. Whether it’s a ghostly encounter, a creepy sighting, or something else entirely, these Redditors confess their most paranormal experiences.
1. Lost In The Woods
I grew up in a densely forested rural area in central Virginia, and like most kids my age (10, at the time of this story) I spent a lot of time playing in and around the woods. My best friend and I had found a creek one day while exploring different deer trails through the woods.
This creek we happened on was a very rare find and the perfect spot for us to play. It was wide and deep enough to swim around in and had nice, soft mossy banks on either side to rest on after we had tired ourselves out. The water was cool and clear, no copperheads, and no mosquitoes because the water was constantly running. We were psyched.
After a few hours of swimming we had to walk back home for lunch, but made plans to pack lunch the next day so we could have a picnic on the creek banks and spend the whole day there. The next morning we set out for the woods at around 1 pm, planning to have the picnic first and swim after.
We entered at the same spot we had the previous day and followed what we thought was the same deer trail. It was not. This is where it began to get creepy. At the point where we should have found the creek, we walked into a small clearing that was covered in huge, thick ferns. We had definitely never walked past this before.
So, being both hungry and tired of walking, we decided to eat in the clearing. We laughed and played around there for a while, spitting watermelon seeds at each other from our lunch. It was an absolute blast by then and we were both in wonderful, giddy moods. That all changed quickly. It happened soon as we packed up and set back out to find the creek.
As we walked on, the woods started to feel darker and colder. We got skittish and I noticed my friend kept whipping her head around to look behind us. After about a half hour of walking we came upon what looked like an entire overgrown bathroom. Sink, toilet, and bathtub all sitting arranged together and covered in ivy.
It’s pretty common to find weird stuff like this in the middle of the woods, so we just walked on and made jokes to lighten the mood, calling it Bigfoot’s Bathroom. But we still had no idea what we were getting into. After another hour of walking and not seeing anything we recognized, we started to panic. Instead of trying to reach the creek we were now just trying to find our way back home or out of the woods, at least.
I told her we should follow the sun and eventually we would come up on a road or someone’s property where we could find help. She insisted on another way and we began yelling at each other out of fear and, let's be honest, little girl bossiness. I told her if she thought she was so right she should just go her way and we would see who got out first, so we split up.
Now as an adult, I fully acknowledge I was being a stubborn brat, and also an idiot. It was the worst possible thing we could have done. Not 10 minutes after splitting up I began to hear someone walking maybe 100 feet behind me. Thinking it was my friend deciding to go my way after all, I slowed down so she can catch up to me.
Instead, whatever it was matched my pace. I slow down, it slows down. I stop, it stops. This went on for hours. The whole time I was going back and forth on whether or not it was in my head or there was really something following me. I picked up a big stick, swung it a few times to make sure it was sturdy if I had to hit someone, and trucked on.
As it began to get dark, I came up on something that made my heart sink into my stomach. It was Bigfoot’s Bathroom. I had just walked in a huge circle, for hours, despite being 100% sure I was following the setting sun west the entire time. Confused and frustrated, I sat down on a log and just screamed my little heart out while smacking my stick repeatedly into the ground.
As I tried to collect myself, I heard the footsteps again walking up on me from behind. I called out my friend’s name as loud as I could. No answer. Then, after a short pause, the steps began to run towards me. I jumped up and booked it fast as I could in the opposite direction.
Now, this is the truly horrifying part. I typically omit it while telling people this story. As I was sprinting through the darkening woods, I began to hear what I thought were church bells. I looked up to see the darkest, deepest cloud I have ever seen in my life. In the middle it was so black it was like looking into the night sky, and the dark grey around it seemed to be swirling.
It gave me a horrible feeling to look at, almost like the nausea you get when looking through binoculars too long. What sickened me further is that I realized the sound of the bells was coming through the hole in the cloud. They were deafeningly loud, I mean really booming out of this thing. When I realized this, I stopped in my tracks.
I felt a sense of absolute and overwhelming dread that has gone unmatched in all my 24 years on this planet. Something in my head began screaming that if I did not run away from whatever the heck that cloud was no one would ever see me again, I would be gone. I did not want to run toward the thing chasing behind me either, though, so I made a sharp right and took off away from both.
It was now completely dark and I was running blind through the woods, smacking through branches, wheezing, and tripping every few feet for what seemed like another hour. Until I smacked into something low and flew over it, hitting the ground so hard all the air in my lungs was knocked out of me. As I lay there trying to recover, I realized I couldn’t hear the bells anymore.
Then my eyes adjusted more to the dark, and I realized what had just made me fall was an old fence. Grabbing hold of it, I prayed it would lead me to a farm, and sure enough it did. I walked up over a hill about a mile to the back of the farmhouse, explained what had happened, and the farmer graciously gave me a ride back home.
I was covered head-to-toe in scrapes, oozing blood, and more exhausted than I had ever been in my life, but I was finally safe. It was past 9 pm when I finally walked through my front door. That’s when I learned the chilling truth. My friend had gotten back shortly after we split and figured I had as well, so she hadn’t told anybody I was lost.
My family just figured I was still out after dark, which wasn’t uncommon for me. They were shocked when I walked in beat up and crying. Nobody had been looking for me at all. To this day I wonder how long they would’ve waited to come find me if I hadn’t been lucky enough to find the fence, and if it would’ve been too late.
2. Forest Of Friends
When I was about five years old, I planted about 500-600 pine trees on some land our family owns with my grandpa. My grandpa passed a couple years later and no one ever went back—until recently when I decided I wanted to go camp with some friends. I couldn’t believe what I saw.
As soon as I got there, I was amazed at how tall they were, at least 30-40 feet. I also just couldn’t shake the feeling the whole little forest I planted was happy to see me. The whole time I was there it felt insanely positive and I just kept getting the happy vibes from the trees.
3. He Knows, He Always Knows
I have four sons. My oldest is six and he's the one I'm curious about. Since he was very young, first learning to talk, he's occasionally said things that don't make any sense for him to know. We were on vacation with my in-laws at the beach when he was two and he had a blast in the water with my husband and me.
The next day, we got up bright and early to go back and he adamantly refused. He kept insisting that there were alligators in the water. We tried to reason with him that alligators didn't live in saltwater, but he wasn't having it. Well, my husband had taken one of our twins, almost a year old, into the water and they were playing. Then we hear someone start screaming.
A few moments later, a man comes running from the pier yelling at him to get out of the water and for us to get away from the water. He explained that while watching the water from the pier, he saw an alligator just underneath the water, stalking my husband from a distance. He called 9-1-1 and animal control arrived and they were eventually able to locate and capture the alligator.
It was eight feet long. There had been storms during the night and it was mating season. The explanation was that he was looking for a mate and had come in through a freshwater river that runs into the sea. But how could my son have known about that hours before it happened?
Another time, I was going outside to do yard work and he told me not to go near the bushy tree, the fig tree, because there was a rattlesnake under it. I thought it was just childhood imagination. I'm doing the yard work and I go over to that tree to see if any figs are ripe and I heard the rattle.
I looked down and I was about three feet away from a rattlesnake and it wasn't happy to see me. I quickly got away as not to disturb it further and hope it would go on its way. He shouldn't have known it was there. But that wasn’t even the scariest one.
Another time, we were going to go visit my mom and he was asleep. We hadn't told him where we were going because she had a surprise for him. We got in the car and he said you can't go this way to Grandma's because the bridge is out. We always went that way if my husband was driving and the bridge had been fully operational the day before.
Sure enough, we get to the bridge and it’s tapped off with a detour sign. There's no way he should have known because word hadn't gotten out yet, especially since my cousin is the local supervisor and he didn't tell anyone about it until after I called him. I honestly find this all a little creepy because I can't logically explain it.
4. My Roommate Francis
Months back on a Sunday I was having a nightmare where I was yelling for someone to leave and they wouldn’t. I wake up to see this cloud of mist at the foot of my bed and it just glides out of the room. The whole time I’m watching I’m just like “oh cool it’s leaving” then it dawned on me what I saw and got spooked.
Obviously there are a dozen ways to argue that didn’t happen, so although I know what I saw I was like eh, not worth it. But these kinds of things got worse. My thermostat is in my living room. I KNOW the consistent temperature of my apartment. Even through the night I know it, because I do a decent amount of all-nighters.
Now, the big thing with ghosts is they have a cold presence. On Sundays I’ll always wake up sweating buckets with the furnace running constantly as though the thermostat is measuring the house as really cold. But this only happens on Sunday nights. A while back my friend is over.
I just addressed the ghost, being like “Hey let’s set some ground rules, what’s your name? Francis? I’m going to call you Francis. I don’t mind you, but you can’t be messing with me and ruining my sleep schedule”. The random intense furnace stuff stops, but still, someone could say it was all in my head, selective stuff or some logical debunking.
I will casually talk to Francis just when I get home from work, like “Hey Francis I’m home!” Or whatever. Sunday, before the start of my three-day overnight shifts, I go “Hey Francis I’m gonna be doing overnights the next three nights so you got the place to yourself. No parties though”.
Tuesday night, my same friend is over and I’m running late for work by at least a half hour. Clearly Francis is kind of salty because I’m not giving him the space I told him I would. My friend can’t find their socks anywhere while I’m getting ready for work. Get this: I go to the bathroom to brush my teeth and their socks ARE UP ON THE SHELF IN MY BATHROOM.
I’m like what the heck, Francis moved your socks. There is no way in heck those socks were there before. I was in the bathroom earlier that night and they were not there and my friend never went to the bathroom the whole time they were over. That’s the most unexplainable experience of it all. It didn’t stop there, either.
When I am leaving my driveway, my car always shines its light through the back door window all the way to the door of my downstairs neighbor’s. I’m nosy so I always peer through. That night I didn’t but my friend did and jumps in their seat swearing they saw a pale old man staring at them through the window.
I didn’t see it, so it still could be our brains playing tricks along with a trick of the light, although I’ve never had a weird glare or reflection any time I look through that window. Also, I would always shrug off the constant times I’d wake up from a nap or go to one of my doors and see it was unlocked. I’m a forgetful person and didn’t grow up locking doors.
I’ll often even be like “Oh yeah I recall forgetting to lock it when I came home”. But sometimes I don’t recall forgetting to lock it and now I’m thinking that’s because Francis will be opening it when he’s moving around the house. Eventually, I finally messaged my landlord asking about the ghost. He’d never had tenants talk about hauntings, apparently.
I go on, telling him about Francis. Then it got bone-chilling. He stops me mid-sentence BECAUSE FRANCIS USED TO OWN THE HOUSE AND LIVED HERE DECADES AGO.
5. It’s Alright Now
When I was about 12 years old, I met a boy who was only two years younger than me. Unfortunately, he was diagnosed with a fatal and incurable disease known as Batten disease. I knew that he needed a friend so I stayed by his side as he faced sudden blindness and paralysis.
As often as I could, I would go over and help out around the house, read to him, and watch movies. I remember one night I grew very tired and quickly dozed off. My dream started with me walking to his house as usual, and then I suddenly saw him running towards me with a smile on his face.
I was stunned in the dream, looking at him with pure confusion. He came up to me and started talking as I stood there frozen. "So this is what you look like. I want you to know that you were my only friend and I don't want you to worry. I'm not in pain anymore”.
The dream ended with him walking away as I woke up. I lay there processing the dream and an hour or so later, my mom came into my room, crying as she delivered the news. He passed away. Even though it was very sad, the dream made me feel at peace.
6. Fly Away
My brother and I were best friends growing up. He was four years older than me, and he was my biggest role model. As a young boy, probably close to being 10 years old, he was absolutely fascinated by butterflies. He took care of them, loved raising them from cocoons, and he knew everything about every butterfly.
After they died, he would keep them because he thought they were beautiful, and loved them dearly. I partook in it merely because I admired my older brother so much and wanted to do everything he did, because I thought he was the best. The butterflies never seemed to care for me much.
They’d land on him like crazy but wouldn’t land on me—even when we would go to places like “butterfly world” where they’re used to humans, they would land on everyone except me. As he progressed into adulthood he struggled with addiction, which ended up making him fall very ill and his body gave up on him.
He had a heart attack the last time he used a substance, and he passed. He still loved butterflies up until then, when he was 23. Although we weren’t close at this chapter in our lives, as his addiction had really pushed me away, we still talked occasionally when he was going through his good days.
The last time I saw him, a few weeks before he died, we were visiting our mom and had brought up ghosts, since we had both always thought her house was haunted. Growing up he and I had many paranormal experiences, which we both saw together and talked about that last day I saw him.
They were experiences that made us bond even more since no one else saw these things but us, together. While still being very young, we had moved into a rental for the month, and we would play in the attic. We had been in there lots at this point, but one day we went up there to an incredible sight.
It was filled with probably 10 monarch butterflies, which we assumed came in through the slightly opened window. We both saw them and were in awe. We played with them for a while, but by the next day they were gone. I don’t remember us ever even telling our parents. It wasn’t until I was much older that I realized that was very strange.
Anyway, the visit I had with him before he passed, the topic of the paranormal got shifted into reincarnation. He asked if humans could reincarnate into anything, like a butterfly, he wondered. It was a very brief moment, but now that he has passed some strange things have been happening to me and I can’t get the few seconds out of my brain where he mentioned reincarnating into a butterfly.
He passed in late January, so it was still basically winter where we live. Not long after this, a bright orange butterfly was outside of my house. I thought it was so strange, and it of course didn’t make it due to the cold. I didn’t really give it a second thought, other than how weird it was that there was a butterfly in February. But now it’s escalated.
Ever since then butterflies follow me everywhere. It’s gotten to the point where it’s very strange and even the people around me think it’s strange. We are not in a very butterfly-populated place, but they land on my head randomly as I’m walking to work now. They land on my leg when I’m not looking, as I’m sunbathing, and scare the living heck out of me.
We went floating down a river in a different town, and halfway down the three-hour river ride, a butterfly landed on my arm and rested on the tube. The group of 15 people we were with saw it and thought it was so bizarre. None of them could get it to come near them. This morning I got home from work and a very bright, new-looking butterfly was seated on my front step, seemingly unable to fly.
It looks completely uninjured but wouldn’t leave, so I fed it and gave it a nice sunny place to rest and it’s still sat outside the door hours later, fluttering around but won’t fly away. I can’t help but feel somehow my brother is doing this which is a lovely thought, but it fills me with so much sadness and grief wishing I could tell him about all these butterflies.
7. A Night Visitor
I have zero explanation for the event. Before I tell you my story, I'm gonna give you some context about my drive home from work, the state I live in and such. This happened about 10 minutes after I left work today.
I live in northeast Ohio and I got a new job about two months ago as a process technician at a dairy plant. It pays very good money considering it's a 35-mile drive one way. After about 20 or 25 miles, I drive through a wooded area. Nothing uncommon for me, as where I live in Ohio forests are common, and I pretty much lived in the one behind my grandma's house growing up.
I work 4 pm to 4 am and the drive home sucks. Whether it's being tired, hungry or the fog almost every night, I go the same way every day and night. One day I was driving my way home. I just left the residential area of my workplace and was going through the forested area. As I said, there's almost fog every night, so I'm on high alert for deer, raccoons and such critters.
It's just like every other drive home so far. I have a podcast on, focusing on the road, thinking of getting something from McDonald's, and sometimes looking off to the side of the road for any eyes reflecting off my headlights. That’s when I see it.
All of a sudden, I see some reflecting eyes. Out of the woods comes a coyote. Now in my hometown, coyotes aren't too rare. I've seen them by my high school, but had never seen one outside of my hometown, so it surprised me. I start slowing down as it crosses the road…until it turns to my car and sits in the road. It sat about 10 feet from my car.
There had been no cars I had seen since leaving the residential area, so I was going to go around it, but I thought this was too odd of a thing to happen to just drive away from it. I expected it to just get up and walk away at any given second. This is where I began to get very scared.
I honked my horn and after about two or three seconds…it smiles at me. I have my brights on, so I can see it perfectly. This coyote had human shaped teeth. My heart dropped and every hair on my body raised, just as it is now recalling this incident. This lasted about one second, before it sat up and ran into the woods.
I sat there in fear for about five seconds before shoving my foot on the pedal and driving at getaway speed. I didn't stop or get food because I had no appetite now. I thought the rest of the ride home about what I saw, at one point doubting I saw it. But like I said, with my brights on and it as close to my car as it was, I saw it as clear as day.
This coyote had human teeth and there was no doubt about it. I'm very into the paranormal and that includes cryptids. Is it possible I ran into a Skinwalker or some genetically mutated coyote? I am Native American if that counts for anything. It's so weird typing this out.
8. It’s Not Just The Wind
Okay, here it goes. I have a medical background and a certification I rarely use, though I keep going back and paying to renew it. Anyhow, when Hurricane Katrina came through, I volunteered almost immediately thinking I would help those who lived through it. That was not the case. It ended up being the most harrowing experience of my life.
It started with sadness, and got creepy. There were a few of us who are assigned, once the water started to recede, to find houses that had bodies in them. We had to go to each house and go inside in wading boots and look for them. If we found anything, we spray painted a big X on the outside of the house.
This other guy and I had been doing it for a while and we got assigned with each other almost every day. We got along okay. One day we came up to this one old shack. I say shack because it was pretty run down and in what had been a very bad neighborhood. Right away, I got chills down my spine. I knew there was something really wrong. Not like find a body kind of wrong, but chilling kind of wrong.
New Orleans has certain areas that just give off these vibes and my understanding is there is a lot of voodoo practiced in certain areas. Against everything my body was screaming at me, we went in the house. The first thing I could smell was a body, the second was something almost earthy and mold. I looked at my partner, I will call him Jay. He was white as a sheet.
I could tell he was getting that same feeling I had been getting. It was obvious from the weird bones hanging from the ceiling (I would bet money they were cats) that something odd had been going down in the house as well as strange beads and carvings in the bare wood in the walls.
Suddenly, I heard the most unearthly cackling noise I have ever heard in my life and my flight or fight kicked in. Jay and I noped out of there. We quickly painted the X and literally ran to the next house. It still gives me nightmares. Jay and I discussed it that night after we went back to the hotels north of there. He had heard the cackling too but we both said it had to be the wind or something.
9. Not Quite Right
I'm a project manager for a company I can't name. Today when I met with the account manager for a vendor we may bring onto the project something was just off....He was young. Maybe late 30s. Looks as if he had a stroke in the past but that wasn't it. There was something about him.
His mouth smiled too big. His teeth looked huge. His head was so long, I mean almost unnaturally long. In fact, everything about him wasn't quite proportioned right. It sounds like I'm being insensitive and I'm guilty about feeling this way but when he started talking everything just felt wrong. Alarm bells went off in my head. "This is not human" and "You have to get out of here".
It was a normal freaking conversation and I have had hundreds of meetings like this. With all kinds of shapes and sizes of human. And I can't stop thinking about this one.
10. The Other Side
In 2012, I had suffered a stroke that killed me. As I slipped away, I had felt an overwhelming peace come over me like I had never felt before. Things went black, then I was ascending above and I saw the city below. Next to me I heard a voice from this orb of varied colored lights that also had a mist coming off of it.
It was a woman’s voice and she was telling me how excited she was to finally be with her family and see her mom and dad again. I started to feel unsure and told her I wasn’t supposed to be here. Suddenly I was standing in an otherworldly place that was gorgeous. All the structures and buildings were made of what looked similar to marble but it had an iridescent color between the marbling.
The buildings were decorated with colorful stones with gold lining the buildings and glass fencing. I walked along the path with my arms crossed and holding onto my body. I felt lost and everyone around me was chattering happily with each other in these otherworldly clothes of satin like linens.
Some people held hands and were close and joyful with each other. This place was absolutely beautiful. I came upon an old man who was sitting near a tree. He seemed to be teaching a class, with people surrounding him. Some were sitting and others were standing. He called me over to join him.
He was teaching the lessons of what life is supposed to be on Earth, what it was originally supposed to be and how humans were supposed to be caring for the world and the inhabitants on it, but materialism had gotten in the way, among other things. I felt an overwhelming knowledge come over me as he continued to teach this class about the world, the universe, life, and death.
Everyone began to surround me and the old man put his hand on my shoulder and he said, “It’s not your time yet. You will know when it is”. The people from the class all came in and held me in a circle and I was suddenly back.
I opened my eyes and breathed in. I was alive and back in my earthly body. This is how I came to believe in God, and also reincarnation. I don’t claim a religion because my beliefs are now a mix of things. Unfortunately, slowly that knowledge that was instilled into me slipped away over the years, but I feel it in the back of my mind.
To me, religion became several fingers pointing to the same being. I don’t need a religion to dictate my relationship with God. If you’re all wondering, I am 27 now and suffer residual effects that have disabled me but I keep going. My body may not work properly, but my brain still does and I focus on expanding my knowledge in various areas.
11. Where I Keep The Secrets
The other day I was at work and a little girl says “Hey, Sammy is going home”. That was one of the other kids. The thing is, there were no cars in sight and no parent had called. Sammy wasn’t supposed to leave for another few hours so I said, “Not yet but he will in a few hours” but she was very sure this kid was going home.
Five minutes later I get a call from the kid’s mom. He had a family emergency and was going home. I thought it was a weird coincidence at the time…but it wasn’t the end of it. It kept happening with different random things with this same girl, so I asked her parents about it. They said, “Yeah, she always knows stuff before it happens. It’s very creepy, but she’s always right”.
So the next time it happens I ask her, “How do you always know what’s gonna happen?” And she replies, “There’s a crack in my brain and all the secrets go in”.
12. A Darkened Figure
I am right now sitting in my front porch. I cannot bring myself to go back inside my house. There is someone in there. Just over two months ago I moved into a new house after losing nearly everything. I won't go into details or draw this out.
Typing this out is making my eyes well and every hair on my body stand straight up, but God, I saw a human shaped shadow in my walk-in closet. Am I going crazy? Maybe, but I know that I am not at the same time. Okay, this is what happened. I am laying in my bed browsing the internet, and from the corner of my eye I catch movement coming from my closet.
Within literal milliseconds I turn and see someone standing inside of it, looking right at me. You guys. I FLIPPED the heck out, sprung up, ran out of my room, slammed the door, and grabbed a kitchen knife. I yelled and screamed about calling the authorities, that I had a knife, and basically acted like a scared monkey...no response.
After about a minute of yelling and realizing I had left my phone in my bedroom (to call 9-1-1) I slowly peeked in. There was simply nothing there you guys. Nothing. No one could have gone anywhere. I'm so ANGRY and terrified about this. I saw this person. I saw their shape. Their movement. Their arms. There was a humanoid figure in my closet, and that is all I know.
13. Guardian Angel
My daughter was a newborn at this time and I was a sleep-deprived mom. The phone rang at 3 am one night and woke up my husband and I. He got up to answer it and as he left the room I felt something under me. I was laying across my baby. I must have taken her to bed to feed and fallen asleep.
It is exactly what parents are warned about and I feel awful, awful that I made this mistake. My daughter was fine, I must have only just rolled onto her. But it got so much creepier. My husband returned to the bedroom, saying the call was someone speaking in a language he did not understand but they sounded very urgent.
We were very shaken up and I took precautions to ensure it never happened again. My daughter is 18 now and likes to think she has a guardian angel who saved her that night.
14. A Helping Hand
So, my dad died almost seven years ago, when I was 15, and this happened three years later. I was close to graduation, and my final exam in physics was giving me a hard time because I really couldn't get to grips with relativity and those shenanigans. Anyway, one morning, I was really tired, hadn’t slept at all the night before, and I was about to fall asleep in the last row in my classroom.
Then, just as I was beginning to close my eyes, I heard my dad's voice, clear as day, say "Hey, wake up and listen!" It was so clearly his voice. The tone, the "melody" (when he was calling my name in a happy manner, he was almost kinda singing), it was him.
I was baffled for a moment, but when I "rebooted" after that moment of shock, it was exactly the moment when our teacher dropped a very important hint as to what the final exam's theme will be. I would have totally slept through that, had my dad not woken me up...
That same night I had a dream, my dad and I sat on our porch, chatting, laughing, and, which I remember very distinctly, we were drinking his favorite drink together. So when I was drinking the last drops, the sun was setting, and I looked to the chair next to me and my dad was gone. I just once again heard him say "Hey, wake up!"
And that's the exact moment when my alarm clock began ringing.
15. It’s Not Just A Dream
This story has been told to me by my mom a few times, and every single time I still get that creepy eerie feeling that someone is watching me. My mom is from a small town in Mexico located in Zacatecas. When she was around 14, she had the habit of waking her mom up to go to the restroom since it was an older home and the restroom was located outside.
My mom tells me that it was around 3 am when she woke up and felt the need to use the restroom urgently. She began calling out for her mom, and after a while of her mom not responding she began getting agitated and started screaming. At this point my mom turns around—what she saw made her jump right out of her skin.
At the foot of her bed, she sees her mom standing there. She was wearing a white robe but had a very bleak expression on her face and both of her arms were extended. My mom said that she suddenly felt extremely cold and a huge sense of dread. She had never seen her mom wear a white robe…that’s when she looked down and saw her “mom’s” feet weren’t touching the floor.
At that moment she screamed and quickly threw the covers over her head. Her mom, now wearing something completely different, runs in to find my mom shaking in her bed. Nobody believed my mom, everyone told her it was a dream. That is, until a few days later there was a power outage.
During this outage my mom and a few of her siblings with her parents all decided to sleep in the living room. At around the same time at 3 am, they all heard wailing. They think it was La Llorona. None of them slept that night.
16. A Haunted Land
I lived in Adams, Tennessee growing up from about ages 14-18. A couple of weeks after my family and I moved there, something unexpected happened. I was mowing on my dad's tractor (with a big eight-foot-wide back-end mower). I was going down a hill when my horizon line violently was thrown around as the tractor tires hit something.
I disengaged the mower and pulled the tractor around at the base of the hill I had just gone down. I look up through the swathe I had just cut, and my blood ran cold. In that cut lane there were four Native American burial graves. My parents started reaching out to anyone who might be able to help us identify the graves: anthropologists, historians, accredited people, etc.
Those people unanimously agreed that these four graves were from the Trail of Tears. They corroborated this from what I remember because of how the graves were laid (very very shallow, with a giant slab of stone where a gravestone would be), the fact that they were interned on a hillside to keep the water from sinking in and raising the bodies since they had to bury them so quickly, and many other reasons.
I consider myself a very logically driven and rationally minded person. Basically I let my empirical senses try to explain something before I'll open myself to other possibilities. Yet, there were things that happened to me and my whole family while on that property that we weren't able to rationalize with the scientific mindset or anything logical.
The activity in our house started shortly after the mowing incident. We heard heavy knocking and pounding on the brick outer wall of the house, encircling the house. No matter where you were in the house you could hear the knocking. Some nights I would hear running footsteps accompanying the pounding. This activity happened nearly every night.
As the nights passed, it got so much worse. I started feeling a heavy presence in my room, a suffocating one, like a heavy weight sitting on my solar plexus constantly. Whatever was happening decided to latch onto me. Things continued to escalate. One night I was letting my golden retriever out to go pee.
We had a ranch-style house overlooking the Red River. The door we were exiting was on the backside of the house facing the river. As I open the door, I start hearing faint whispering. It was something akin to leaves being blown and scratching across the ground. I looked up at the trees to see if the wind was blowing, but everything was perfectly still.
The scratchy/blowing leaf noise continued, but as it continued it grew closer and louder. It sounded like a language of some sort, like how'd you imagine an incantation or something nefarious in the tone of the sound. I looked down at my golden retriever. ALL of the hair on her back was standing up and she was snarling like a rabid wolf.
I started getting extremely nauseous and could smell sulfur. I was completely frozen when my dog launches herself through the door's threshold and starts gnashing her teeth in mid-air, snarling and chomping. It wasn’t close to over. The voices were now coming from directly in front of me. I could hear them as if someone was standing there a foot or two away.
I grab my dog and pull her quickly inside, slammed the door and threw the bolt into place. The door and frame shook violently as a vicious pounding started hammering on the threshold. I ran with my dog to the center of the house, flipping on every light along the way. We sat there alone all night until the sun came up.
Ginger, my golden retriever, laid across my lap the entire night, pressing into me while she whimpered for hours. All I could do was pet her and try to calm her down, which was also helping me down-regulate, too. This was impossible though, as the entire night until sunrise the back door was thumping.
The next event happened when I was coming home from football practice. I had all my gear in a gym bag over my left shoulder. This is important, because of how I entered the house. As I closed the front door behind me, I began setting down the gear bag from my left side, which caused me to look right.
The room when you first walked in was our "library" where we had a leather couch, chair, piano, bookshelves, and a wooden rocking chair. What I saw still haunts me to this day. There was something sitting in the rocking chair. My peripheral vision caught it first, with the chair going back and forth.
As my vision centered on the chair there was a humanoid-looking shape sitting there, head glancing downward at the book it was holding. It had long black hair drawn down over its head and was completely void of light. To picture what I saw, imagine the silhouette of a person, but rather a "void" of light.
The light coming in around the edges of it seemed to be eaten up by the presence/void, as the light spilled over the contour edges of the humanoid shape. It felt like I had jumped off a bridge into ice cold water. I blasted myself backwards against the door, screaming, and fell down.
As I was falling I saw the "void" blur suddenly as it shot across the walls of the house and out through a huge bay window overlooking the river. My golden retriever was in the next room and she sprinted to chase the shadow across the walls, barking and clawing at the walls. After it left through the window my dog came to me and laid on my lap until my parents got home.
Next time, I was fishing with my cousin Jack on the river by our house. We were right on the bend of a river, so the moon would be shining on both sides of the river racing out at two lines like a 90-degree angle from the house, super beautiful when you weren't on edge. The reason I bring this up is there was a lot of light on the river that evening.
Jack was about 10 or so at the time. He reaches up and taps me. Then he asks a terrifying question. "Does that lady need help?" I looked to where he was pointing and there was a pale woman dressed in white clothes going back and forth picking up stones just to the left of us across the river.
I had seen her many times before around the property, and whenever I would get close she would disappear behind a tree or something similar would happen. Knowing this, I told Jack as calmly as I could that it was time for dinner and he needed to go up to my mom immediately. When I walked him up and made sure he was on his way I looked back over and she was gone, but I could hear a splashing in the water below.
Then myself, my dad, his friends, and some other family members were staked out along the river bend on the gravel bar beneath the rise to our house. Nothing out of the ordinary at first, it was July 4th and we were having an actual good time for a change. We were all spread out about 15 yards from each other.
Each man had a low-end gas Coleman lantern. As the sun was setting my dad looks over at me like something was bugging him. He told me later he felt like someone had just thrown a bucket of ice water over him. And then it all began. The sun had just gone down. In unison all the lanterns were cranked up full blast, then just as quickly became barely a flame, then the fires roared to life again, down to barely a flame, roared to life, then they went completely out.
Right as the flames went out, we heard the most God-forsaken scream by some woman across the river. Whatever it was kept on screaming despite our best attempts to call out to help. As her scream reached a crescendo, it sounded like what I could only imagine a person's throat being cut interrupted her scream.
The sound of a dead-weight fall of a human body tumbled down the hillside across from us and splashed violently into the water. At this point all the guys had their flashlights out. That's when something started swimming and splashing around in the water on both sides of the river bend. The splashing receded towards the opposite gravel bar.
Whatever it was got out and started pacing back and forth across the rocks there. We were pointing all of our flashlights to where the sound was coming from but we couldn't identify where it was originating. It's safe to say we were running up the hill at this point.
We all got inside the house, locked the doors, then gathered in the central living room. Nobody wanted to leave for fear of what was outside. We all stayed up that night because the wall pounding was more violent than it had ever been. Bam. Bam. Bam. All night like the ticking of some demonic clock. I didn't sleep for two days after this event.
Then there was the lost time. I was walking through the woods near the Bell Witch Cave, a famous haunted place near me. One moment it was completely sunny and blue skies about mid-afternoon. The next moment it was overcast and looked like maybe 4 pm.
There were Night terrors. Being held down and brutally drawn and quartered, dreams of walking through the house and the "void" person placing their hand on my chest and "pushing" through my solar plexus, body violently shaking in the dream like a having a seizure. Once I went to the Bell House (again a haunted place) in a tobacco field adjacent to my family's property.
I brought friends to try and prove that something crazy was happening to my family. The rite of passage in the area is to go to the stone marker where the paranormal events happened hundreds of years ago, then dance on the stone saying "I don't believe in the Bell Witch!"
I got them to promise that they wouldn't do that while we went. Of course the moment we get there, one guy who doubted the legends in a massive way jumps up onto the stone marker and starts screaming "I don't believe in the Bell Witch!" as loud as he could. I get so upset at him. I'm the only one that knows the way back, so I said come on guys we're leaving.
This are is known as the Tennessee River Valley. So there's tons of flowing water around these tobacco fields. We're making good time walking back across this crop field, hundreds of yards long. A mist starts rolling in from the river bends and begins to saturate the field.
The temperature drops easily 25 degrees or so and we start seeing our breath. I begin to smell sulfur in the breeze. As the mist became a fog it began all over again. I started hearing this wheezy and deeply cavernous-sounding breath around us, like being inside a cave that was breathing.
Out of nowhere we started hearing these giant blasting sounds and I realized something was walking on the chopped tobacco stalks. When you step on said stalks, they disintegrate in a very loud way as they burst apart. This starts happening all around us like an army of native spirits running around as if we were in a bandwagon battle. The blasts were coming from every single direction in the fog.
That's when I hear it. That deep cavernous noise turns into this giant sniffing sound, like some Lovecraftian beast smelling its prey just out of eye sight. At this point I yell RUN in pure panic mode. We take off across the field, trying not to trip and be skewered on the stalks (they dry out and get really sharp where they harvest them).
As we are exiting the field and our feet hit the gravel road, the lower center part of my back suddenly EXPLODES in agony. I look down and there's a massive rock laying at my feet and I realized that I had just been assaulted. By the time I got to my house and examined my back in a mirror, the bruise was about the size of a basketball and was already turning black. But the most chilling event came last.
One time, I woke up outside at about 3 in the morning. I was laying next to the four graves on the property. The night was awfully cold but I woke up soaked in sweat. We lived there for so long that I have many events to share and process. It is really hard for me to talk about this stuff without re-traumatizing myself, but my friends and family are encouraging me to share my experiences so I can try to find peace surrounding my trauma.
17. Open Sesame
I saw this about four years ago at work and it creeped me the heck out. I work for a digital surveillance company that runs the "eye in the sky" for thousands of restaurants, bars, and gas stations across the US. From time to time we get calls for investigations to look into robberies, theft, etc.
So one day we get a call from a popular fast food chain located in the heart of Detroit. They say an employee OD'd by the dumpster and they needed us to get some answers on the situation. First, they want to know basically what happened and how long was he there? The next question is where it starts to get weird.
See, the dumpster had a brick wall around it. It had two entrances to the dumpster, a gate you had to pass when you walked out the back door and the big gates where the garbage truck has access to the dumpster to empty it out. They claimed those big gates were ALWAYS open and the small gate by the back door was locked from the inside.
Nobody ever used that smaller gate. The weird thing was when the body was found an employee walked out, and that gate that was NEVER open was indeed open. The body was sitting there on full display. So their next question was WHO THE HECK OPENED THAT GATE? So we download the footage.
One night the employee goes outside, throws out the trash, and you can kind of see him through the locked gate that was never open (it was see-through but very difficult to see through). The way the camera was angled you could kind of see over the top also. He does his stuff then keels over behind the dumpster.
He was out there for two and a half days. No employees ever came to look for him. It's pouring rain both days. For two days employees come and go, taking out the trash and not seeing him. Then, on the third day in the morning sunshine, clear as day, the gate just...slowly opens by itself. Nobody comes, nobody goes.
The gate just….opens...by itself and the body is sitting there in the same position it was 2.5 days earlier. I literally felt chills down my spine. To this day I can't explain it without thinking it was paranormal.
18. A Glimmer Of Light At The End
My grandma suffered for nine years with Alzheimer’s before she passed. She lost any ability to speak (other than mumbling gibberish quietly), feed herself, or do much of anything around year seven.
When she was moved to hospice, my mom and I visited her every day. Four days before she died, my mother and I were sitting and talking to her. Out of nowhere, she began praying the Hail Mary and speaking perfectly. She said the whole prayer three times in a row before she stopped. That was the last time she ever spoke.
It was really amazing to be there and I still can’t believe it happened. May her soul rest in peace.
19. A Premonition
This happened a few years back and I never told my mother or my father since it was a sensitive subject. One night, I had a dream my friend Dylan and I were in a two-storey home. He was showing me his new guitar. We’re having a good time, joking around, when we hear a gunshot downstairs. We look at each other and book it down the stairs.
When I hit the bottom step, I wake up to my mom on my bed in tears. She tells me my aunt who lived on the other side of the country just took her own life. When I ask what happened, she told me she shot herself.
We weren’t ever close as she lived 1,500 miles away from me. My father had a rough childhood, she was his half-sister and a bit older than he was. I never met her in person, it was just such an odd moment. Like I said, I’ve never told anyone. Just my current husband and my best friend at the time. I never knew what to make of it.
20. They Never Really Leave You
Years ago, in early 2000, I suffered a bad miscarriage. I was about 10 weeks along. My husband and I weren't able to find out if it was a boy or a girl due to how early it was in my pregnancy and the technology wasn't what it is today.
About a week before all hell broke loose, I had a very vivid dream, which I still remember to this day, that I gave birth to a baby girl who looked back at me and smiled. That's the only part I remember—she popped out, turned around, and smiled. A week later I started bleeding.
I have never mentioned my miscarriage to my kids. Never even talked about it. Fast forward to present day. My husband and I have two wonderful boys. Our 17-year-old, however, has terminal cancer. He is also autistic. I mention the autism because over the past few years he has always asked what our cat that passed years ago is doing in Heaven.
Just last week, he creeped me right out. He started to talk about his sister in Heaven. My hands are shaking as I type this. He mentions his grandfathers, both of whom have passed, and different people he met along the way. I never told him about my pregnancy loss, and I don't think he'd understand if he found out.
I've heard that some people with a terminal illness can sometimes "see" things, and he has said some pretty wild things thanks to the autism. But he asks what his sister in Heaven is doing. Just a thought, but I think our first child is with her family members and watching over us.
21. Repeat After Me
My three-year-old son was sleeping next to me in my bed last night. Now does anybody else, when really tired and just as you start to try and go to sleep, get a random word or phrase thrown into your head automatically by a random voice that’s louder than your usual thoughts? This usually seems to happen to me as I start to try to sleep.
The words or quick phrases never really make sense, and I don’t ever feel a presence near me or anything. It’s literally just someone else’s voice yelling into my mind really quick. Just seems like some weird glitch while my mind is starting to go into sleep mode or something. Doesn’t feel paranormal at all. Until last night, that is.
Last night the phrase was by a woman’s voice saying “Enjoy Happiness” and RIGHT after it was said in MY head, my son (sleep talking) said “I enjoy!” Like as if he was agreeing with the statement. It’s just too bizarre to be a coincidence, it’s like we had the same thought at the same exact time.. I swear there’s so much more to this life than we know..
22. Sky High
My aunt used to work in a nursing home. There was an old woman who lived there, universally beloved by all the staff, who often talked about how much she wished she were young again and could wear high heels. Every single photo of her in her room, she was wearing high heels. This woman loved shoes.
One night, my aunt was talking to another nurse, when they suddenly heard the distinct loud sound of someone walking through the corridor wearing high heels. The sound moved away from them and faded away. Both my aunt and her colleague instinctively knew what had happened.
They checked on the old woman, and she had passed in her sleep. It’s nice to know that she could finally wear her favorite shoes again on her way to wherever she was going.
23. Playing Haunted House
Buckle up, we’re going on a journey. To give you some visuals about the land. It was a scrappy old trailer sitting on about five acres in a really beautiful valley in the South West. There is a seasonal arroyo, which during monsoons would turn the back three acres into nearly a lake. The back half of the property was lined with a wooded ridge in mountainous area.
Very rural. About nine miles from town, down the worst dirt road that has ever existed. As with most adults, I entered a period of life with some pretty big obstacles and struggles. It was a sequence of events which led me to renting this run-down trash can.
At the time it seemed serendipitous. An acquaintance had mentioned a property near her I could possibly rent for dirt cheap while we were hanging out under the new moon. Fast forward to the next new moon, this property owner contacts me and after some chatting we agree to meet.
This place was not the Ritz. It was a run-down trailer that hadn’t been cared for in, probably ever. I believe firmly in listening to my gut but any red flags that came up were squelched by my excitement to maybe have an opportunity to pull myself out of the financial hole I’d dug myself into.
The property manager needed work done on the property and would trade for rent. I was swept away at the glimmer of freedom I was staring at. I hands down accepted the keys. Before moving in, I had to first clean the entire place. So much bleach. As I cleaned out several years of other tenants’ things, it started to get real weird.
I took note of how many sentimental items had been seemingly abandoned in closets. Some of it I set aside with no idea what I’d do with it, it just felt wrong to throw it to the dump. After several weeks of bleaching and blessings, I was nearly ready. I invited a dear friend of mine, Mark, to come out with me to celebrate.
While Mark and I are finalizing the cleaning and working on a broken water pump, my new-moon acquaintance (now neighbor) comes over with her entire family in tow—two kids, two teens, and her husband. The energy shifted in a way I couldn’t not notice. The husband was behaving....off.
He wasn’t being social nor was he being antisocial. In the spirit of don’t rain on my parade I brushed it off. Some time in the course of the day, they realized they had locked their keys in the vehicle, and the husband would need to go fetch the spares from next door.
He invites my friend Mark to go along with him, leaving me with my acquaintance and children. We are chatting and listening to music. I knew a storm was coming and was feeling excited for an early summer storm. She, on the other hand, was becoming increasingly anxious. She has no, known to me, fear of storms.
She is pacing with one of her small kids, looking out the windows for headlights. I was in the kitchen and she was on the porch looking for the returning men. Then chaos came loose. There was the biggest, loudest, boom I have ever heard. My entire body swayed with it.
I said to the kids in the kitchen that Mother Nature was very vocal tonight and giggled to ease their surprise. The youngest she is holding is screaming and she has come back in the door, absolutely bawling her eyes out. I am completely confused. I take the baby to comfort him and I hold her in my other arm.
She cries and weeps for the next however many minutes until the men arrive. She departs shortly thereafter. Her husband is absolutely invigorated, and my friend is quite obviously shook. When he told me the story, my eyebrows went right up. Turns out, they were driving on the road back when the lighting struck the ground directly next to their vehicle, scaring my friend half to death.
The strange part, though, was the drive takes less than three minutes, but from the boom (lightning striking) and when they arrived was at least 20 minutes. After the neighbor family departs, my friend is ready to go. Go, right now. After arriving home and checking in with one another, he tells me he loves me but he will never go out there again.
At the time I thought maybe he was just really freaked by that freak storm and it would pass. He never would come back, and in fact our relationship took a nosedive after this. Fast forward to move-in time. I’ve got all my stuff in place, and my dog, rabbit, and cat seem very content to have places to play.
I was feeling so good that this was my ticket. I had a bonfire soon after and burned all those items I’d kept when cleaning the house. It just felt right to let them go ceremonially. Then it started. The first night I had a nightmare. The worst I have had in many years. I kept waking up and falling right back in. Each waking I awoke screaming. I know I know, it sounds dramatic. It was.
This dream took place entirely at this new place. I was so afraid. No one would help me. There was one of my acquaintance’s teen boys curled up in the corner wearing flower patterned swim short type things, but he wouldn’t answer my pleas. I kept peeking out windows into the blackness, knowing there was something outside.
I finally summoned the courage to open the door. On the doorstep were snakes. Green snakes twisted around one another. I screamed for someone to call the neighbor and that he needed to bring a gun. He arrives and gets out of his truck with a shovel and a nonchalant way about him.
The nightmare left me a little on edge, as when I have nightmares I’m typically under stress and I didn’t feel stressed in the least before it. Two days later, I am lounging in my hammock enjoying the sun and watching the rabbit and the cat play in the fenced area while the pup is sniffing about outside looking for treasures.
I hear a very loud noise near the dog and simultaneously the dog jumps back. I go to investigate—and nearly scream. There’s a darn rattlesnake right outside the fence. I have never in my life seen one or heard one for that matter. I decide I have to “take care” of it because of the cat and rabbit’s safety.
I know there’s a pellet gun inside that might do the trick. I stare at this snake a moment longer, and realize it looks weird. That’s when I see the second head. Never have I seen ONE rattlesnake in my years of life but here I am staring at TWO all entangled together. I immediately decide this job is above my pay grade and I call the neighbor over and ask him to bring a gun.
A few moments pass and he arrives. The moment he exits the truck I flash back to my nightmare and my breath just caught in my throat. He exits the vehicle with a shovel and a sardonic grin. His teenage son exits as well…wearing the exact shorts I had dreamt.
He dispatched both snakes, noting to me how dangerous it may be for me to live here without a gun. His tone and look made my skin crawl. As time went on the nightmares grew worse, but they were always at the property. I would wake up screaming multiple times per night.
In my nightmares I would scream “bruja”—a word I have never used in my life was now always inside my mind’s eye. The dreams shifted to images of something dark and slimy (I can’t describe what it looked like but I “knew” its texture) in the back room. This was terrifying for one reason.
The back room was vacant because after moving in I had felt increasingly uneasy in that space. I couldn’t go near it in the dark without feeling a fear so deep I wanted to vomit. The neighbors around me became increasingly rude and seemed to be making a point to make me feel unwanted.
I finally got to the point where I was terrified to be there and was so sleep deprived I called on a shaman to come visit me to help me bless and clear whatever weird things were hanging on. She asked me what exactly was happening that made me feel I needed an outsider. I told her. She asked me where it was. I told her. She was quiet. Her next words shocked me.
She told me no. She would not visit and it was her advice I leave, and leave immediately. I wasn’t ready to give up that easily and told her no, I would not be chased away. I called around until I was connected with two women who agreed to come perform a cleansing for me. During this we walked the yard and came to the bonfire ring and she stopped in her tracks.
“What did you burn?!” I was kind of taken aback at her tone but I told her and she says “You shouldn’t have done that”. Directly after that she informs me she needs to leave. I never heard from her again. I became increasingly isolated as anyone who would visit me wouldn’t revisit. Dear friends who point-blank told me the area made them uncomfortable.
I began to wake in the night between 1-3 am, every single morning. One of those times I woke to a deep male voice saying words I could not discern. Another was a woman’s voice saying words I could not discern. Yet again a deep male voice saying, “I’m not ready yet”. These incidents left me feeling crazy. There had to be an explanation. Had to be.
This is where I should say my belief in the paranormal was tested and I realized I don’t think I had ever really believed before then. It got to a horrific climax. One morning I feel myself wake but I do not open my eyes and I say in mind’s voice No, I will not look at you. I drifted back to sleep. I was suddenly awoken again, and this time it felt like I had a fever.
My body was so hot and my mind’s voice says It’s time to wake up. I glance at my phone and it’s 2:30 am. I downloaded a sleep recorder, because why not. And what I captured was...a thing. The most distinguishable was a woman’s voice, saying “Come Home”. Another was singing in the far distance. Another was a woman’s voice screaming “Shut Up!”
It was around this time I started seeing the thing in my peripheral vision, in the kitchen. My dog would growl at windows into the darkness and wake up barking often throughout the entire duration. She was aggressive to every single neighbor and my landlord, but no one else.
The items I burned were love letters, children’s cards to their mother, and items such that had no real value. I placed cameras outside hoping to find a person coming and messing with me, but the only thing I ever caught was a big deer coming through. I was told by ghost-chasing types that this place was a portal being used by otherworldly things.
When I finally moved, the neighbor dropped by on my last night and point-blank told me I couldn’t leave, he wouldn’t let me. The night the neighbor came over there was a lot of rambling that evening coming from him. Some it included random comments about me being a Scorpio and him a Leo, that he was stronger than me.
That I knew what I had done. On multiple occasions various vehicles would stop on the road by my driveway and sit there. This was not a traveled road by any stretch. So, coupled with the unexplained, there was a lot downright strange human behavior, too.
It was the absolute worst eight months of my life, and I contacted multiple shaman/seer/ghost people during this time and they all told me under no uncertain terms that I needed to move and I needed to move immediately. The reasons why varied. I think I can summarize it down to the area was full of nasties they were not willing to work with and these nasties meant me no good.
I reconnected with my dear friend after I had moved from the terrible place, thank God. This entire experience tested what I believe.
24. Kids Say The Creepiest Things
When I was three or four, I remember telling my aunt that I was flying some feet off the ground, and from above I saw my mom and dad in a restaurant through a window. I could also see my dad’s black truck that he owned when I was a kid parked right outside the restaurant.
Then suddenly three men with bats come up to the truck and start hitting it and my dad comes out and starts fighting them. My aunt said, “that’s cool sweetie,” and went back to playing with my toys. It wasn’t until years later when I was like 15 that my parents had a dinner party with some friends and they started to talk about paranormal stuff.
My mom said that I scared them when I was younger, then she proceeded to tell the story I told my aunt when I was a kid. She finished by saying “nobody ever told him this story and the thing is that it actually happened”. The guy who beat my dad’s truck was my mom’s ex-boyfriend, who brought two of his buddies to help because the guy was still mad my mom broke up with him.
But here’s the kicker: I wasn’t even born yet when it happened. It was actually their first date.
25. An Old Friend
This happened to me around 15 years ago, when I started study in a town away from my parents’ home. There was one man, let's call him Tony, who was a good friend of my father. He helped him at work sometimes, so I hung out with them too occasionally. When I was 17, I moved to a bigger city to start university, so I traveled every two months to visit my parents for long weekends or vacations.
After my second year away, this friend Tony passed from alcohol abuse. My father told me on a phone call how it happened, or at least how he heard it happened. Around two months later, on The Day of the Dead here in Mexico, I went to visit my parents and also to go and visit the tombs of the family as the traditions goes.
At this point I literally forgot about Tony's passing. Now, I ended up missing my bus and had to take the one that arrives at my parents’ at 2 am. It is quite a small town, so since I didn't find any taxis near the bus station, I decided walk home. Around five blocks away from the house, I had to pass a bridge that people say is haunted.
I was a little scared, to be honest. But then suddenly this friend Tony reached me on his bike (he was always cycling) and asked me if I was just arriving from university. Again, I had totally forgotten Tony was long gone at that point. So I started to talk to him, and we walked past the bridge and a couple more blocks, for around four or five minutes, talking about the school, the food in the other city, and stuff like that.
Just once block away from my parents' house he just told me "Ok, I have to go check some things over here (pointing at another direction), but keep safe, say hello to your father for me". We said goodbye and then I got home. Since it was early morning, I walked directly into my room and waited until the next day to go and see my parents.
It wasn’t until next morning, when I was just about to tell my father about Tony, that I remembered that he was already dead. At that moment I didn't tell my parents, but a bit later into the day my father told me that he saw me arriving. He asked me if I was drunk or something because he saw me "talking to nobody".
26. Who Are You, Patty?
For backstory, my family and I have been staying with my parents for three months because I’ve had some health problems. We didn’t tell a lot of people because we were still in the same town. Last Monday my mom told me I had received a letter in the mail and I could tell by her voice she was intrigued.
It was strange that I was getting mail at her address as they had only lived there about two years and it had never been my permanent home. I head downstairs—and it got more bizarre in an instant. She hands me a written letter addressed to me, but using my maiden name. I’ve been married over 10 years and my name is now distinctly different.
The return address is in town from “Patty C”. I don’t know anyone by that name. To reiterate, my parents didn’t own this home when I went by my maiden name. So we’re obviously very interested to see the contents of this envelope. I open it and unfold a hand-written note on 9.5x11 ruled notebook paper.
The letter is very personal so I won’t type it out but it goes into detail about my health struggles and how this Patty C person cares deeply for me and is praying for me to get better. She wrote like we are best friends. At the bottom she signed her name with a PS to call her anytime.
My mom and I are so incredibly confused and concerned about who this person is, so I decide to call the number. It got even crazier. A woman picks up and I ask for Patty C. The woman pauses and then sighs and explains that her mother, Patty C, died a year and half ago.
I apologize and am about to hang up, more bewildered than ever, when this woman, let’s call her Kim, asks why I’m calling for her mother on her (Kim’s) cell phone. I’m not sure what to say and stumble through an explanation that I received a letter from her mother and it listed this number. Kim is silent for a while.
Then she says she’s only had this cell number for six months, well after her mother’s death. I apologize again and say there must be some mistake and hang up. My mom and I decided to google the address; it’s a small public park in town. I’m so confused. Paranormal occurrence? Extremely strange glitch? Extraordinary coincidence? Who knows. This is going to bother me for the rest of my life.
27. They Do Have Nine Lives
I had a kitten pass away yesterday. He was my little shadow. He slept on my chest every night, never left my side during the day, and literally gave me kisses all of the time. He would lick my mouth whenever I made the kissy face/noise. He was an amazing little creature.
He was only a couple months old. He got a cold when the weather got hot suddenly. This isn't uncommon. It's similar to allergies in humans. I immediately took him to the vet to get him some medicine. The vet gave me some medicine for him, but warned me that he may not make it. He passed yesterday.
He was not in pain, he was in my arms, and not alone. I was heartbroken, still am. So, I bury him in the corner of my garden, a lovely little shaded spot under a tree. I put a couple rocks over his grave and picked some flowers and placed them there. I miss him desperately, and I cried most of yesterday and today.
This evening I am going out to my car, and I walk out the front door to head to my car. You must understand that while I buried my kitten in the front garden, when you leave the front door you have to turn to look where he is buried; the path to my car is heading in the opposite direction. I walk toward my car and I hear a voice in my head say "turn around"... I stop because it startled me.
But I listen and turn around and look toward my kitten’s grave. The sight made tears well up in my eyes instantly. Curled up sound asleep on his grave is a small kitten. I walk over slowly because I don't want to startle him. He doesn't startle, but he does wake up and look at me. He appears to be blind.
He stretches out and meows and I bend over and pick him up. He immediately starts purring and licking me. Just like my kitten did. I know this is probably a coincidence…but the timing is amazing. My kitten passes. I bury him, and the next day I find a little kitten curled up on his grave.
I have never seen this kitten before. He by some miracle was sent to me. I promise I will not take this gift for granted.
28. In Another Life
My grandma lived to be 99 years old and passed about eight years ago. I’m now in my 40s and to this day I’ve never quite felt a connection to another human being like the one I shared with her. My wife was around two months pregnant with our first child when I had gotten word that my grandma wasn’t doing so well.
I was crushed that she likely wouldn’t be able to meet my firstborn child. At this point I lived across the country from where my grandma was, just started a new career, and my mom told me my grandma had developed bad dementia and suggested it was okay to stay home and handle my priorities instead of seeing her in this state.
I ultimately decided to stay home to help my pregnant wife. My grandma hung on for a couple months, then passed, and a few months later our son was born. Now this is an important detail for later: My son has these insanely piercing bright blue eyes and platinum blonde hair.
Fast forward six months or so and I’m in my son’s room one night, trying to get him to sleep. He was in his crib and suddenly turned his head a bit to look up towards the corner of the ceiling, almost as if startled. Then he started laughing…like so hard he could barely catch his breath. I’m following his line of sight and looking up there.
There are no nearby pictures or decorations up there, just a blank wall in that corner of the room. The next day it happened again, so I went to get my wife from the other room so she could see how hard he was laughing. Her response creeped the heck out of me. She told me that he was doing the same thing during the day the whole week while I was at work.
It became a regular occurrence multiple times a day and really unsettling because he was clearly seeing something up there. A couple months later my mom came to visit. One night she’s helping me get my son ready for bed and we get into a conversation about my grandma’s last days, particularly how her dementia was getting worse and worse as it went on until this one specific day. Here’s the first kicker.
She tells me this one day she goes to visit my grandma and she’s in bed, her feet dancing back and forth with a huge smile on her face. And it’s the first somewhat normal conversation they have in about a month. Mom: Wow, you’re so happy today! Grandma: Yeah, my friend came to visit me again.
Mom: Who’s that? Grandma: The boy with the penguins. Mom: Oh, is he a boy visiting someone in the nursing home? Grandma: No, he lives in there. Then she points to the corner of the room near the ceiling. To humor her, my mom asks what he looks like. Grandma: The boy with the blue eyes and white-blonde hair, he’s going to visit me every day now. At this point my jaw is practically on the floor.
She proceeds to tell me how from that day forward it’s all my grandma will talk about. Every single day until the day she passes, a blue-eyed blonde boy with penguin friends who lives on a tropical island inside the wall pops in to visit her. I then tell my mom about my son and the giggling and the ceiling.
We’re both shocked at the coincidence, and I ask what’s with the penguins. My mom has no clue, neither do I. I WANT to believe at this point my grandma and son had some sort of otherworldly connection. But the rational side of me is like...she had dementia, babies do weird stuff sometimes and penguins and tropical islands make no sense. But here’s the second kicker and I can’t deny it after this.
Fast forward, my son is roughly four and a half. Out of the blue he starts talking about this place where he used to live before he was born called Kryptodon every single day. (This is my best interpretation of spelling it). He says Kryptodon is like a planet, but not near Earth and where people can fly and animals talk (among many other details).
I listen to his stories about it and am happy he has a big imagination. At this point I had forgotten about the penguins. One day I’m going through an old photo album and see a picture of my grandma. I call my son over to come see the picture and this is the first time I’ve EVER shown him a picture of my grandma. He says, “I know her, she’s my friend from Kryptodon”.
My hair stands up and I ask him to tell me more about her and he says, “She came over and ate pineapples with me and my penguins on my island when I lived there”. I then burst into tears as the details of my mom’s story came rushing back to me. I feel like the probability of all this being only coincidence is nearly impossible.
I don’t know what it all means but I’m grateful to be able to finally share this. I’ve always been hesitant to put this out there because it is very personal to me. My son is now seven years old and rarely talks about Kryptodon, and if I ask he says he remembers and will acknowledge it, just with nowhere near the level of detail he once did.
I left out so, so many details above, too. He drew literally 100s of pictures of it and I’ve saved most in a binder. He talked about it for hours at a time on a daily basis until he was around six. He asked me once if I remember being there, I said no and he said “We’ve travelled together for a long, long time”. I asked how long and he said, “higher than people can count”.
He also claimed he was once my dad a long time ago. My wife bought him a stuffed animal when he was a newborn, a gray elephant. He named it Ellie when he was older and told us that there was an elephant on his island that taught people to travel to other places. And that since his mom gave him the stuffed elephant, that’s how he knew he was in the right place.
I know this ultimately proves nothing...but I will say when you’re a parent, you know the difference when you see your child speak with true conviction.
29. Keep Him Safe
This occurred over 20 years ago but is still fresh in my mind. My son was born early at 32 weeks. We were lucky and he had few issues and we were able to bring him home a month after he was born. He came home on oxygen and caffeine due to bradycardia.
Once we were home, strange things began to happen. The cat refused to go in his room. Before he was born, though, I was forever removing said cat from his room. Our dog would sit at the bottom of the stairs and tilt his head as if he was listening to something. I would be changing his diaper and start talking as I thought his dad just came into the room, only to turn and find out I was alone.
A friend gave him a peek-a-boo big bird toy that would say "peek-a-boo" when you covered and then uncovered its eyes. This toy would go off all the time. Even after I put it into a box in the closet. I often felt I was not alone in that house. My parents had given us an angel care baby monitor as a gift.
This had a pad that was placed under the mattress and an alarm would sound if it did not detect any movement after a certain amount of time. As our son was tiny...only five pounds when he came home...this alarm would often go off. I would wake up, walk into his room, turn it off and check on him.
He was always fine. And I never felt that it was anything but the fact he was so tiny that the pad didn't pick up his breathing. During this time, I would often dream of a woman I would find in his room. I never saw her directly but would dream I saw the shadow of a woman with long hair standing and reaching into his crib.
The dreams never scared me but I did find them very odd but comforting at the same time. I can't remember how long he had been home, but it was at least a month. He was still on oxygen and still on caffeine. Our bed was to the left of our bedroom door and I slept on the right-hand side next to the door and my husband slept on the left-hand side.
I was asleep and was woken up by being shaken roughly on the door side of the bed. I woke up and looked over at my husband and said why are you shaking me. Then a chill ran down my spine. I realized he was completely asleep and on the wrong side to have shaken me.
I immediately jumped up and ran to my son’s room. I flipped the light on (something I had never done up to this point) and heard a gasp from the crib. Often when babies spontaneously stop breathing, you just need to startle them to begin again. I truly believe that he had stopped breathing and my turning on the light startled him into breathing again.
After this episode, the dreams and strange occurrences with the pets and toy continued, until my son came off the oxygen and caffeine. Once that happened the odd occurrences stopped. The pets stopped acting weird and the big bird toy never went off on its own again. I believe that someone came home with him to keep him safe.
30. Little Boy Boo
I drive for Uber and I stopped at this house a few hours ago. As I'm waiting, a light turned on upstairs and this little boy was turning the lights on, waving at me, then turning them off. He did it a few times and was smiling and looked like he may be laughing. I waved back and smiled and even though it was late, I didn't even question it.
The girl got in my car a few minutes later. I thought she took so long because the kid was hers and I commented how cute the kid upstairs was. Her face immediately went pale. She looked me straight in the eye and told me no one lives upstairs. I laughed because it's spooky season and I thought she was messing with me.
I stopped shortly after looking in the rear-view mirror and seeing that she was starting to cry. She took a few deep breaths and asked me what I saw. So, I told her about the little boy turning on the lights. She called her boyfriend who was still there and was full on freaking out. Turns out her boyfriend had several people mention the kid that plays with the lights and waves!
I would have thought it was a joke, but she was shaking and almost had a panic attack about this. Her boyfriend was woken up by the call and the entire downstairs was dark when I picked her up. I have no other explanation for this because of her reaction. My hair is still standing on end thinking about it.
For anyone worried about the child and suspecting foul play, I did place a call to the local authorities and they did confirm that there is no child at the residence, although they wouldn't tell me if the upstairs apartment was occupied or vacant. I also went back to the house. I sat there for a bit and nothing happened.
I could sort of see into the window where I saw him. The lady wasn't kidding, there is nothing up there. No photos or furniture that could be seen. The apartment’s on the second floor but it is has those long windows that almost reach the floor. Anyway, there was no movement inside. However, as I started to drive away, I saw a kid in the yard running...but there was no noise to it...no crunching leaves or anything.
I had my window open, radio off, so I would be able to hear footfalls or at the very least the shuffling of leaves. It was just a glimpse and I waited for something else but there was nothing. I think it is safe to say that there is something on that property.
31. A Figment Of Your Imagination
I am currently 21 years old, and up until recently I had not experienced anything that I would call “supernatural”. I’m still not sure what to think of the supernatural/paranormal, but this really freaked me out. I don’t know if something brought it on, but I was out with my friends when I suddenly started thinking about the past, particularly about my childhood friend Brendan.
We went to elementary and middle school together, and when I was remembering this, I just assumed that he went to a different high school than me and we drifted apart. So I decide that I’m going to track him down and reconnect with him. It was off right from the beginning. I can’t find any of his social media profiles or information about him online.
I sort of forgot about it for a while. Then about a month ago, I was out with another one of my friends, Amy, whom I’d known since elementary school as well, and I ask her if she’s been in contact with Brendan or if she knew how to get a hold of him. She seems to hesitate, but when I mentioned his last name she remembered.
She told me she hadn’t spoken to him in probably eight years, but remembered his parents’ address. I drive over there, seeing as it’s not actually that far away. Then his parents open the door, and I recognize them. They say hi to me and invite me inside. I introduce myself and they remark on how much I’ve grown. It got utterly chilling after that.
They say that they don’t have a son. I immediately assumed that maybe he had gotten into substances or something and they disowned him. But no, they insist that they do not have a son at all, just two daughters. By the way, I do also recognize the daughters, so there’s no doubt that this is his family.
I ended up outright accusing them of lying and they got really defensive. So I just apologized and went home. I don’t think I got the wrong house. I recognized them and they recognized me. But regardless, I phoned Amy and told her what happened, and asked her if she was sure this was their address.
I stopped thinking about it for a little while again, until about two weeks ago Amy texted me saying that he wasn’t in any of her yearbooks. And sure as heck, I check mine and he’s not there. We met up a few days ago and we both went in separate rooms to draw what we thought Brendan looked like, just in case he was a shared hallucination.
But no. We both came back with drawings that looked almost the same, down to the way he parted his hair, and the location of his three face moles. In the last few days we’ve both been going down a rabbit hole of talking to old teachers, friends, etc. I swear to God it’s like he never existed.
We even went down to our old middle school to see if he was in any of the class photos, and nothing. I also got some old birthday photos from my mom, and on most of those birthdays I am 100% certain Brendan was there. But again, nothing. Not even my parents remember him.
Amy and I want to check hospital records for some kind of birth certificate or anything, but it’s really starting to scare both of us. If it were just me I’d think I dreamed him up, but Amy pointed out the “correct” address, and we both came up with near identical drawings of him.
32. Man Or Monster?
Have you ever met a person who just gave you these inhuman vibes, even though they appear entirely normal? It happened to me today. I saw a lady at the hospital who was SO stubborn and ignorant, but through it all she just gave off these weird vibes.
I found myself staring at her for a while, and she must've noticed because she stared right back. Shivers actually ran down my spine when our eyes made contact. Every bone in my body wanted me to get the heck out of there. It freaked me out because she was old and frail, but radiated the most evil energy I've ever experienced.
Something about her just screamed “not human” to me.
33. I’ve Got Your Back
This just happened half an hour ago. I came back to my hometown for the holidays. It's a fairly rural area with woods and everything is peaceful. I love going to pick wild berries and I was doing just that when I encountered the first paranormal experience of my life. It happened in the backyard of my neighbor.
So I used to have an old man who lived alone as my neighbor and he was a very kind person. He used to give us his berries as candied sweets. He passed due to cardiac failure when I was in high school and his house has been empty ever since. This year, I wanted to make those sweets for my family as a holiday comfort food and thus, went to his place.
Now as he passed years ago, there was a lot of undergrowth and wild grass in his yard and everything was messy. I cleared some of the growth and made my way to the shrubs, cleaning the place as much as I could and thinking about how clean he used to keep everything. All this time I had a feeling that something was off and that I was being watched, but I brushed it off.
I was two minutes into picking when I heard my neighbor’s voice. I'm sure it was him, and he was saying I should be more careful and to pick up the rake immediately. Then my whole world changed. It was as if I was fainting, and everything was too fast or maybe too slow. But as soon as I picked the rake—some homeless man who had been on the property tried to stab me with a knife.
I used the sharp end of the rake to scare him off and kept shouting loudly. He ran off. After I gathered myself, I had tears but couldn't shake off a smile I had. It was eerie, but I am unharmed. I think I'm going to clean my neighbor’s place. I owe him that much.
34. Can’t Quit, Won’t Quit
I work with one other person closely throughout most workdays. Today we got to work early as we knew we had to get stuff done before this snowstorm hit. I work at a burial vault manufacturer and we deliver and set up funerals graveside if the customer wishes.
On this morning I walk to the back and turn on the lights to each section of the shop. On the very last switch I turn it on and I see an older gentleman facing away from me, leaning against the back wall facing the back of the shop. It startled me and I turned around to ask my co-worker if there’s someone in the shop.
My co-worker kind of laughs as I tell him. Then he terrifies me to my bones. He says “Oh so you saw him did you?” Apparently it’s the owner’s father, who has strong ties to the workplace and has been gone for 10 years. There are three recorded sightings of him and mine was the fourth.
I’m fairly new there so this completely caught me off guard. I felt like I was dreaming. I had to sit in the bathroom for 10 minutes to calm down. I literally saw someone back there and then they disappeared. I’ve always thought ghosts and spirits weren’t real but this has completely turned me sideways. I see life in a whole new way.
I can’t stop thinking about him though. Those blue overalls and white hair with a cap on. Clear as day right there and it was a ghost. My co-worker telling me he saw him too has turned me into a believer because I know I’m not losing my mind.
35. Joshing Around From Beyond The Grave
Last week my wife and I attended a wedding and had to have a babysitter watch the kids overnight. When we returned home, everything was fine except that the remote for the living room had gone missing. Usually when this happens it is stuck in no man’s land under the couch but I could not find it anywhere.
I actually gave up and ordered two more remotes off of eBay. Problem solved right? So last night right before I got up to go to bed, my son came out of his room and asked if he could sleep with his mom. I told him yes, and got the couch ready to sleep on. While I was asleep, I had the first dream of my deceased brother since he passed in 2011.
In the dream he was holding my remote in his hand and saying he was sorry for making me spend money—he knows I don’t like to waste it on things I didn’t need. He said that he would “put the remote back where it usually is”. The first thing I did when I woke up this morning was to check the spot that he told me in the dream…and it was there.
I had checked that spot at least once a day since it went missing. When I told my wife about the dream and showed her the remote she started crying. Between her and I, that spot in the couch was checked and rechecked at least 20 times. I also told my sister about it and she was ecstatic because my brother would mess with both of us when we were kids by hiding things in really tough spots until he was sure that we had looked everywhere.
He would then put it in an obvious spot when we weren’t around. This is like classic Jeff. Thanks Jeff, I’ll return those new remotes as soon as they arrive.
36. A Very Good Boy
In 2014 my beloved stink dog Jesse passed. He was 14 glorious years young. Heart disease came fast and took him faster. But I wasn't there when he passed. My mother and I shared him, two years on and two years off around. We got him from a man who had 15 puppies in a huge laundry basket in Morgan Hill, California.
I was nine and my mom told me to pick one. I couldn't believe it. We hadn't had a dog since Fritz, our Doberman. But the one I wanted was in another girl's arms. She was around 19 with tattoos and piercings, like me now, and said that he was hers once her mom came out of the dentist’s office.
I almost started a fist fight over him, telling her she had my dog and to give him to me. While we were arguing, her mother came out. She immediately told the girl no way and to put that thing down. I just grabbed him out of her arms and politely thanked her for holding my dog for me. I was a determined, smart-mouthed, little jerk.
We paid 15 bucks for a super dog. A Chow/Husky/Shepard mix. Stout stocky boy, Chow size with Shepard markings and husky fur. Jesse knew over 85 commands and would always make us laugh. He was the smartest, most wonderful dog ever. I could go on and on about him...Well, in January of 2014, we made the switch.
I was moving from New Mexico back to Washington with my grandparents. We stopped in California and it almost ruined me to give him to my mama. I just knew that this was the last time I would see him. I didn't know why but I loved him as much as I could before leaving. Honestly I was mad at my mom because my brain thought, "She won't give him back!"
I never acted on that thought or took it out on her. It was just a thought. That day in August I was swimming in the lake with grandma. My phone went off. Something told me not to answer yet. When I checked it, lake day was over. It was like my world ended. Dramatic I know, but I treat my animals like my children and nephews (I'm infertile).
From his death to 2017, stuff was going down in the family and I was depressed. I had my boyfriend, now husband, move in with me and things were going well. But I was still depressed. All I wanted was to see Jesse one more time. He was all I wanted in my worst moments. I would beg for him to visit me in my dreams since the day he passed.
It's so hard for me to let go. All our other dogs except grandma’s had passed. Only my cats remained with me. And I was still begging for him to visit. One night I rolled over on my back, asleep but aware of my surroundings, if that makes any sense. My man was next to me within inches. But between us...I felt him!
His form, warmth, his wiry fur. It was amazing. My skin tingled and I could actually feel his weight on me. But I knew if I opened my eyes, he would disappear. It was bittersweet as I enjoyed laying with my boy one more time. Even though I wasn't able to actually see him with my eyes.
I'm greedy and want him to visit again, but I know he's busy guarding the gates above. My mom always tells me that our dogs will lead us home. Those who have passed, we have told them to look for Jesse. He will take you to the pack. All the animals and people who have left us.
Sorry this is long, there must be onions growing in my closet. I don't fully let go until I start what I call another generation. Another dog is finally in my near future, but Jesse will always hold a huge piece of my heart. Jesse, I hope you visit me again. I will always love and miss you.
37. Something Evil
One night my wife, son, and I went to stay over at my wife's parents’ house. It had gotten dark and my son, who was about two at the time, got sleepy and I decided to put him to bed. Let me try to explain the room to you, since it’s relevant for later.
The door opens on the right side of the room, and immediately to your left is the light switch and the queen-size bed is just beside that. It’s a small room, just big enough for the bed and enough room to walk around the bed. The wall in front of the bed has a window. To the left of the bed is a closet with those weird accordion doors.
I'm laying in bed with the lights out with my son, who is laying his head on my arm. He finally falls asleep, and I just lie there for a few minutes to make sure he is completely out. Then out of nowhere I get this horrible feeling. Goose bumps, hair standing up on my neck and arms. It was such an evil feeling. Have you ever got goose bumps up your scalp where it feels like your scalp is shrinking?
I did that night, so bad in fact it literally felt like someone had a hand on my head, squeezing it. I was genuinely scared. Not so much for me, but for my son. Somehow I knew deep down if I turned away from my son, something bad will happen to him. I thought if I could turn on the light, I could grab my son and leave the room.
So where I was on the bed, I could just barely touch the plastic thing on the light switch. I was afraid to move because I knew if I did that whatever this thing is, it will get my son. His head was on my arm this whole time. I finally chanced it. I jerked my arm out from my son and turned on the light.
It honestly took a split second. When I turned back to grab him, he was at the bottom of the mattress, like something had pulled him from the top to the bottom in a split freaking second. And I know he didn't crawl down there because he was still fast asleep. I grabbed him up and we left the room and slept in the front room that night. Something evil wanted my child...that is truly terrifying.
38. The Cat Came Back
I can't explain what happened rationally. I am not a spiritual person, nor do I believe in the paranormal. BUT...Three weeks ago my cat died in my arms. Our bond was remarkable. I found him as a kitten. He was crossing a dangerous country road, so I stopped, opened my door, and he just jumped into my lap and curled up there.
I was his. I'm an animal lover and I've had special pets, but Solomon was almost like a familiar to me. We even had our own special language. The week he passed, he went missing on a Monday. I knew something bad had happened because he ALWAYS came to me when I called to him. I searched every square inch of my house, the woods and land around the house, and each neighbors’ properties for days.
I even arranged to bring in search dogs. I'm telling you, if he was out there, I would have found him. I was devastated. Then Wednesday came around. By this time, most of the friends and family members helping me search were exhausted and losing hope. Can't lie, I was too. At dusk, I prepared to turn in.
My body ached and my spirit was broken. But I was just so darn restless. So, setting out solo for the first time, I leashed up my dog and decided to walk the property one last time. And that's when he found me. I was losing light when I spotted him out the corner of my eye, sitting on the bank opposite the creek—a place I had already searched a dozen times.
I called to him and he looked toward me, almost as if he was searching my face to make sure it was really me before responding, and then he literally BOLTED toward the house. Something was strange about this interaction, but we'll come back to that at the end. So I ran back up to the house, went down to the spot where I had seen him, and searched all around the woods with the light I had left.
The entire time, though, I had a small, dark feeling. I felt pulled toward the cellar, another place I had also searched many times. And in the cellar he was. I knew as soon as I started down the steps. He answered my calls this time. The way he always has. But he was not right. He could not move.
It turns out he threw a saddle thrombus (a massive blood clot), cutting off all circulation to his hind legs and tail. SOLOMON COULD NOT WALK let alone move or sprint across acres to make it from his spot by the bank to cellar in just the few minutes between these two encounters. He purred from the moment I picked him up until the very second he threw major clots to his lungs and brain three hours later.
He died in my arms. My Solomon found me in the beginning and he found me again at the very end. I cannot explain what I saw or how it happened. When I spotted him by the creek, I found it almost impossible to focus on his face, almost as if I was looking at a poor-quality recording of him. And, more significantly, his eyes were completely black, not cloudy—his most distinguishing feature.
Even the vet agrees that there was no way that it would have been physically possible for him to have run from the spot I saw him. I don't understand what this experience was, but I'm starting to believe that he found a way to come back to me as the end was nearing. I will never forget this moment.
39. Tales From The Asylum
The Trans Allegheny Lunatic Asylum, formerly known as Weston State Hospital, is a Kirkbride building that housed the mentally ill from 1864-1994. In 2007, it was privately purchased and has become a museum/historic location and ghost hunting spot. It has a most unpleasant and dark history that I've regaled to thousands of people, and it pains me to be an expert on the subject.
In 2021, I retired from my position as a guide and ghost hunt event manager under severe burnout. After all that I experienced there, it solidified in my mind that paranormal things that defy rational explanation do indeed happen, and certain phenomenon are absolutely real.
Here are a couple of strange things I experienced in my time there: One evening while training for the job, I was on the first floor with a couple co-workers while everyone else was touring upstairs. We were just kind of wasting time, quietly observing the area. Light from outside was coming in through the windows, casting on the inner hall's wall.
In that light, I saw something I’ll never be able to explain. I watched the perfect silhouette of a man from head to hip walk through that light from left to right. I said something about it, and the three of us watched as an arm and hand moved into the light from the right side. I immediately ran into the room and began looking out of that window for someone outside.
There was no one there. At that time, the realization that from the ground to the bottom of the window is like seven feet didn't even occur to me. I will never forget the crisp, clear silhouette shape for as long as I live.
We would run experiments with a "spirit box". It rapidly scans radio frequencies to communicate. One person would use one with noise canceling ear buds, so all they're able to hear is the radio static and blips of a few random stations. When they hear a word or phrase, they are to say it out loud (I always liked this role in the experiment).
One evening, my co-worker and I ran one of these experiments in a notorious room where a murder in 1987 took place. For 10 minutes, I sat and listened to nothing but radio static through the spirit box—no blips of radio—nothing except chchchchchchch of the static.
I was starting to get bored, and then it happened. I heard a woman's voice say "Evil," so I spoke up and repeated the word, "Evil" ....Next thing I know, my co-worker is shining her flashlight in my face to get my attention. I pull out the ear bud, and she was practically frantic saying, "It's time to go, time to go!"
So we haul out of the room, down the hall, down the next hall to the center section before she would even tell me what happened. Apparently while I was hearing nothing but static, she said she kept hearing what sounded like someone shuffling their feet and walking around just outside of the door. This next part makes the hairs on my neck bristle.
She said she spoke up and asked, "Whoever is out in the hallway, are they nice?" That was when I spoke out and said "Evil". In the wee hours one night, we figured it would be cool to see what would happen if we shut all the doors of the ward. On one of the doors, as I was closing it, the knob twisted in my hand and was forcibly pulled closed.
I stood there for several moments opening/closing that door trying to replicate what happened, trying to explain it. Finally the person with me was like, "What the heck are you doing?" It was so weird, I'd never felt an invisible force like that before.
We also once had three people spend the night one night and they had thermal imaging video. They set it up, pointing down the hall where we could all watch on a tablet. We thought it would be interesting to leave a device at the far end of the hall that would alarm us if the field around it was disturbed.
As one of the dudes walked down the hall to put it there, we could see his form on thermal imaging. It was clearly human shaped and in colors representing heat and warmth. When he walked by one of those doorways about 1/4th way down the ward, though, the shape of a head, neck, shoulders, and upper body of a person in colors indicating cooler temperatures lean-peeked out as he walked by.
It was like someone popped out of the room for a second as he walked by to check him out. I've never seen anything like it, won’t forget it, and would give anything for a copy of that footage. That happened a lot, a guest capturing something far out, and not sending a copy to us. But there is one more thing that absolutely changed me and that I still don't understand.
I remember the exact night and time of these occurrences—that's how profound and unsettling they were. It was June 3 and June 4th of 2017, 3:40 am. June 3, after an hour or so of hearing a female's voice (one instance even sounded like she said my name) as well as banging around, footsteps, literally running sounds on the hardwood floor toward us, I sat quietly on the floor with a group.
I started to feel dizzy, lightheaded and gross. I told myself it was my imagination and that I’d be fine. A few minutes later, I started to feel this intense burning sensation on my lower back, just to the right of my spine. Again, I told myself it was all just my imagination. The burning sensation kept amping up, getting worse and worse.
I told myself that I didn't want to be "that guy" and say anything in front of these people, you know? Finally, it got to the point where I had to say something, though. I asked my co-worker with us if there was anything there on my body. Her face went white as a sheet. She was like "Oh my GOD”.
There, on my lower back, just to the right of my spine, was a mark that looked like a burn or an abrasion about 3-4" long and about 1" wide. Now, I'd seen other such claims made by visitors of "scratch marks" and the like (often writing them off) and the marks were always gone within an hour at most. I had a visible marking on my back for almost a week.
My nerves there, to this very day, often feel weird—sometimes chilled, sometimes like a skin soreness. Especially when I think on the experience. June 4th we were in the same part of the building at the same time of night. I noticed that my voice recorder ran out of memory, so I'm holding it in my right hand, using the flashlight in my left so I could see what I was doing.
Suddenly, I feel a burning sensation on the underside of my right forearm, and shifted my flashlight to it. The person beside me and I watched as three welts began to appear down my arm. Needless to say, that blew my mind. It is one thing to see marks like that, it is a whole other thing to watch it as it happens on your own skin.
Like the majority of instances I've heard about, those marks were gone within 10-15 minutes. No lasting effects. Scared would be the wrong word, but I have no true ones to describe my frame of mind around those events. I took a week off from work after it to try and process it all and was nervous being in that hallway for the rest of that summer.
Like I said, I still don't know what to think or believe. I've got enough stories of experiences to probably fill a book, but I'll leave you with those for now. I will add a final note about how constantly poking around in the dark and talking about past true horrors of human experience day in and day out truly takes its toll, spiritually and emotionally.
Since my resignation, my mental health and overall level of happiness has greatly improved. I used to tell people for a while afterwards that it felt like I'd gotten out of a toxic relationship with that place.
40. Words From Beyond The Veil
This happened in January of 2019. My stepdad had been in our family's life for 30 years before he was diagnosed with cancer. He never had any biological children but he had me and my sister and we couldn't have asked for a better stepdad or granddad for our children.
I was with him when he was diagnosed and with him for all his treatments. From the very beginning there was no question of who would take care of him. It was going to be me. He and my mother were split up at the time and it just seemed natural that I would be the one to do it because of how close we were. And honestly, I considered it an honor.
Unfortunately his prognosis was not very good and they gave him less than a year to live. He barely made it six months after his diagnosis. He was in the hospital the last six days of his life. He had a DNR and as hard as it was, I didn't argue with him about it. Two days before he passed he was in and out of consciousness and was barely able to talk.
His last night he was able to communicate that he REALLY wanted me to go home and check on the dogs. This was just after 3:00 in the morning. I told him I would do that and then I would be right back. He gave a small smile and nodded. It took 20 minutes for me to get home, and 10 minutes after walking through the door the hospital called and said he had passed.
I felt so guilty for leaving until I thought, "He knew there was already someone with the dogs but he insisted that I check on them. Perhaps he didn't want me there at that time. I don't know". I still don't know. Now....what I do know is this.
The morning after he passed, I had a missed call from his phone that had been in my purse the whole time he was in the hospital. The call was made at 3:47 am and the voicemail that was left said "Thank you for everything sweetheart. I love you”. That message was left in my stepdad’s perfect loving voice.
Not the raspy out-of-breath strained voice he had moments before he died. Some people have said that it may have been an old message that I had JUST received that morning but either way, I thought it was amazing.
41. Be Here Now
I’m currently battling cancer—doing well at the moment. I just woke up from a dream about my little sister who passed at age six, and when I woke up there was a near perfect facial indention in the pillow next to mine of my little sister. Again, she passed more than 11 years ago. It was startling and also comforting.
42. Close Call
I was 14. It was winter and the local canal had frozen over. I went for a walk and there were some younger boys playing on the canal. As I walked by them, one boy fell through the ice. I instantly jumped into action to get him out. I managed to get him, drag him to the shore—and then disaster hit.
My foot got trapped up in something under the water. The other boys pulled the boy I was helping out, but I went under. The next thing I see is a man doing CPR on a boy. I watched hoping the boy would be OK…and then noticed the boy I saved stood next to me. I looked over the shoulder of the man only to see it was me laying there, lifeless.
All of a sudden I'm coughing up water and I open my eyes and the man is leaning over me asking if I'm okay. I was so shocked I just got up and ran home.
43. One Last Message
I’ve been a career paramedic, but this happened when I had only been one for five years. This has never left me to this day, and I kid you not...it happened exactly like this. I was driving home on a rural highway one rainy afternoon. It was really pouring and traffic had slowed to about 50 mph.
I was following two vehicles, and we rounded a bend in the road as a small sports car on the opposite side crossed the center line and hit the small SUV that was leading the three of us vehicles on my side of the road. I immediately pulled over and called 9-1-1…it was a bad one. I got out to check on everyone.
There was wailing coming from the SUV on the side of the road. That’s always a good thing, because people are breathing. I went down into the field past the ditch to check on the sports car. There were two young guys in the car, and the force of the impact had driven the engine to where the front passenger seat should be.
The passenger was still buckled, his hand crumpled in the overhead handle, but he was clearly deceased. No pulse on the him, and I tried to figure out how to deal with the driver, but there was nothing I could do either. Listening to his dying breathing, I apologized out loud to him that I couldn’t do more, told him I was sorry to leave him, but others needed my help too.
In my heart, I knew he’d never make it, so I went to render aid where it was needed. In triage, we call this “black tagging” a patient who isn’t going to survive. I did what I could for the family in the SUV. Emergency medical people and fire services got to the scene and took over. The entire family had injuries, but all survived. But the whole day, those two guys in the red sports car stayed on my mind.
That night, I went through a chilling ordeal. I was home alone and getting ready for bed with just the bedside lamp on, and I heard something in the hallway. It got louder as it came closer down the dark hallway toward my open door. It was like a “thump... drag... thump... drag...” I absolutely froze. A broken hand curled around the frame of my doorway. And then, that kid from the passenger seat was standing there, busted up just like he was in the car.
I’m totally serious. He looked at me and I can’t recall the exact words of what he said, but it was something along the lines of, “Hey. My friend wants you to know he understands. He wants you to know he’s okay. We both are. Thanks for trying”. He stood there for a few more seconds, just looking at me. And then he stepped back into the shadows, let go of the doorframe, and I listened to him drag back down the hallway into nothing.
I turned on every darn light I could. I slept with the lights on for two full weeks. I clipped out their death notices from the paper later that week. Turns out they were both high school seniors, on their way home from a wrestling tournament. Their car hydroplaned, from what the investigation determined.
I’d never have recognized the blonde-headed kid had he come to me as his healthy, unwrecked self. Freaked me the heck out that he came to me busted up. I still have the newspaper clippings. I’ll never forget them, nor the ghostly visit. Anyway, that’s my experience. I’ve seen a lot of stuff in my 29-year career...but nothing quite that visceral before nor since.
44. A Wrinkle In Time
I think I somehow ended up…in another world on my drive home? Let me explain. It was about 10 pm, and I had just dropped my kids off with their dad for the weekend (he lives about 30 miles away from me). I had my radio on, and was just singing away. I love night-time drives, they bring me peace. The road I was on is a road I take every single day of my life, LITERALLY.
I am very familiar with this road, I know it like the back of my hand. The road is a back road that leads from the town my kids’ father lives in, straight to my town. I always choose taking this back road over the interstate, because they’ve been doing road construction and the interstate is restricted down to one lane.
Anyways, I was driving along, radio blasting, singing to the very top of my lungs and only about 10 miles from my house...when the radio completely went static. When I say static, I mean it actually did the weird static sound and then completely WENT SILENT. I looked around and all of a sudden I couldn’t recognize where I was.
I hadn’t made any wrong turns. I knew for a fact I was where I should be. The landmarks were all the same. Same hills, SIMILAR tree lines, but the buildings that were there before were all gone and the road looked...well...old??? I slowed down, just to take it all in I guess. There was a wooden structure on the side of the road, it looked maybe like an old cottage house and I had never seen it before.
The strangest thing about the house was that there was an old buggy outside. When I say buggy I mean like, horse and buggy type thing. A little further ahead, I noticed a light. When I got closer I realized it was a small little fire out in the front of another structure. This structure was very similar to the other, it looked super old, I believe it was a house.
Next to the fire was a man. He was dressed in old time clothes. I literally STOPPED to look at him, was so shocked. He had on suspenders, a white shirt, very long beard, and he actually noticed me and ran inside.
I started to pull away when he came back outside, but this time with a woman. The woman was dressed in one of those dresses that bell out at the bottom. It was like they were from a total different century. He pointed to my vehicle, and his wife or whoever she was covered her mouth with both hands like she was in shock.
It’s almost like they had never seen a car before. The man and woman just stood there, with HUGE looks of disbelief on their faces. They kind of seemed scared honestly. I pulled away, kept going and noticed that NOTHING was the same as how I remembered it! Literally nothing. There were no street signs anymore, side roads that were once there were completely gone, only to be replaced with fields…and again, I knew for a fact I wasn’t going the wrong way.
It’s literally just a straight shot from my kids’ father’s house to mine once you get on that road. You don’t even have to make any turns. Impossible to get lost. There were wells on the sides of the road that I had never seen before, old structures that looked like 18th- or 19th-century houses, there were horses tied up, fires going, people dressed in old time clothing, and NOBODY HAD A VEHICLE.
Everyone that saw me pass by looked absolutely petrified. Even the AIR felt different. Everything was DIFFERENT. I kept driving for about three or four more minutes, passed a few more structures, some that looked like little stores, and then all of a sudden.....boom, my radio comes back on, the air feels normal again, and I look around and I’m right where I’m supposed to be.
I’m driving on the road I knew I had been on the entire time, just a little further down, and everything looked normal again. The road didn’t look old anymore, and there were no more old houses or strangely dressed people. I was so confused that I actually pulled my truck over, did a quick U-turn and went back, only to find absolutely NOTHING OUT OF THE ORDINARY THERE. NOTHING.
I know what I saw. It was not a daydream; I didn’t fall asleep...none of that. I literally made eye contact with the one guy in the suspenders before he ran to grab his wife to show her my vehicle or whatever he was pointing out to her.
I have lived here my entire life. 25 years. There are no Amish communities here, though there are a few about three hours north from me, but none here. I truly don’t understand. Why wasn’t it there when I immediately turned back around? I don’t know what has happened to me. It’s almost like I stumbled across an entirely different time or place. Maybe slipped through some sort of portal?? I do not know.
My background is very normal. I have no history of mental illness at all, I’m a very happy person. I was totally sober. I can’t explain it away because I vividly remember exactly what I saw, right down to the look on those people’s faces and how OLD everything seemed.
45. A Safe Space
When I was 12, my parents could no longer pay for my horseback riding lessons, so they contacted a local rescue stable and asked if I could hang out there. To my surprise, it was just one lady who owned the farm and had 32 horses at the time. She invited me over and told me I could have my own horse if I helped muck stalls and do barn chores with her.
So that summer I spent over eight hours a day there. My mom would drop me off before she went to work at 7 and pick me up a little before the sun went down. I'd bring food and I could go in the owner's house as I pleased if I wanted to. In those long hours I was pretty much entirely alone except when the owner was giving me riding and training lessons.
With 32 horses pretty much free roaming the fields and old dairy barn (it was built in 1911 and had 40 stalls) there was a lot of cleaning to do, so I would muck the stable aisle a lot. On nice days all the horses and various dogs and cats would hang out in the pastures. But then came the oddities.
So many times I would have all the stalls shut and be sweeping/mucking and hear a horse stumble or shuffle in their stall. Turn around and of course no horses in the stalls. Sometimes I would be inside a stall sprinkling sawdust around and feel a prickly muzzle touch my neck. Turn around and no horse.
I would feel cats paw my hands, no cats around. A dog nudging my hip, nothing there. One day I literally watched two white cats sprint across the barn and race into a stall. I followed and looked inside and....no cats. Nowhere they could have escaped.
There was an old white Arabian named Corona I rode a few times who passed at age 36. His best buddy was a leopard Appaloosa named Hopper who was 30 when Corona passed. About three weeks later, I had put Hopper in his stall to groom him. He suddenly turned from me and reached over into Corona's empty stall and breathed heavily and pricked his ears and was quivering the way he would when he would greet Corona in the next stall.
I just had the weirdest chills come over me as I watched him say hello to thin air. My theory on why so many horses and animals stuck around: The owner bought the farm in the 80s and since then had rescued hundreds of horses. Lots of the horses there were misfits.
So many animals that were beat, scarred, walked with a limp, would tremble when you touched them. Some of them were just abandoned because they had cancer or they were too old to ride and people got bored of them. People routinely dumped animals there. I am not kidding when I say a few times a year the owner would wake up to a new horse in her yard because someone literally just dropped it off without caring.
And yet that farm was the most peaceful place in the world. All those animals that never really passed stuck around to hang out with their friends, and just to be in a place they knew they could never get hurt.
46. More Than Just A Lucky Guess
I originally come from Ukraine, and I have traveled a lot all my life. I studied and lived in England from 12 until 21 years old, and now am working in Belgium. My mother knew this fortune teller who was known to diagnose diseases just by holding your hand, as well as predict your future (at least key events).
My mother was worried about my future and she took me to see this guy. I had exams coming up, and it was a good way to both distract myself and learn something new. The guy made a total of seven predictions. It’s starting to get really creepy. Many of them have come true.
Just to let you know, this guy lives in a tiny village and has never travelled outside of it, nor does he have access to the internet. Anyway, here goes. First, he said I would get 82% in my exams. He guessed the exact percent. I wasn’t doing well in my studies at all, and I only started studying properly in the last months.
He put his hand on my forehead and immediately said I shouldn’t worry, as I will get 82%, which is what I needed to get into a university I wanted. That came true and I went to university. Second, he said I have problems with my liver. I was a very healthy kid, and did a lot of sports semi-professionally.
In my school I played football and was on the rowing and tennis team. I barely drink, and eat properly and had a very healthy body. After he said I have problems with my liver, we went to a doctor and guess what—I had an enlarged and hardened liver. Doctors had no idea what caused it, and to make it normal I had to do a special diet for two months.
After that, it all went back to normal. Third, he said I would travel to Finland for work at 23 years old, but not before then. I had a business trip to Estonia and Finland last December. And guess what—I literally travelled to Finland the day before I turned 24. I had no control over booking the tickets or scheduling this business trip.
My management sent me on this mission. I never been to Finland, nor any Nordic countries ever. But the future holds even stranger things. At 28 I will have 1,000 employees under my management. It hasn’t happened yet, but I am currently trying to work myself up to become a project manager.
I’m still not sure if it’s possible for this to happen. Right now I manage around 30 employees, so it’s a big jump to 1k, but we will see. In my entire life, I will travel to Russia only twice. I will marry a blond woman and will have two daughters. It was always a dream of mine to have daughters, not sons. I can’t explain why, just always wanted to.
I have mostly females in my family (loads of sisters, aunts and grandmas), so let’s see. I will move and live in Finland most of my life—this one actually might happen soon. This is quite unbelievable. He said that when he concentrated on my future, he saw the word "Suomi" around me a lot. At the time none of us knew what it was.
He also said that I would live and probably die in Finland. When I came home and googled what Suomi is, it turned out to be a language spoken in Finland. And as for working there, when I had a business trip, I made some connections with other colleagues who invited me for some potential working position.
So I might end up moving there sooner rather than later. So that’s that. He predicted a lot of things, like prostate cancer in the early stage for my dad’s friend, which saved his life, as well as healing my grandma’s depression by one 15-minute talking session. I don’t know if there is anything to this guy, but it’s for sure not just accidents.
47. A Hungry Spirit
I was eight years old when we first moved into the house on the edge of the forest. My parents had their doubts about buying a house with a backyard bordered by forest. They had concerns about wild animals getting into our bins or hurting our dogs, and were worried one of us might go too far into the trees and get lost.
But it was cheap, my dad liked the seclusion, my mom loved the house itself, and my siblings and I were excited about playing in the backyard and exploring the forest. But then we got our first sign that something wasn't right. Our dogs were absolutely terrified of the forest. They never went into the forest for any reason.
If a toy they'd been playing with found its way past the tree line, they would refuse to retrieve it, and when one of us went in they would pace anxiously until we returned. On occasion we'd notice the dogs staring at a spot in the forest in obvious distress, sometimes growling or barking, but we could never see anything there.
My brother once carried one of the dogs into the trees to show her there was nothing scary about it, but she wriggled out of his grip and sprinted into the house in a panic. If we were in the backyard when it was getting dark, we sometimes heard noises like someone was walking through the forest, sticks crunching underfoot, branches being pushed aside.
If we called out there was no response, but if we shined a flashlight around we would occasionally catch a glimpse for just a split second of something that we could swear looked like a person walking around in the dark. My parents quickly banned us from entering the forest at all after dark, and even during the day we weren't allowed to go out of sight of the house.
My sister's bedroom window looked out at the backyard and the forest beyond, and she remembers looking out her window one night and seeing a shadowy figure standing right at the edge of the backyard. She says there was something wrong with it. Like it wasn't quite standing on the ground, and it was a little too tall to be a person, and it was sort of distorted.
And she was convinced it was staring at her. She called for our dad, saying there was a man in the yard staring through her window, and when he ran outside to chase off whoever it was, she continued to watch the figure. It didn't move away, but when the light from our dad's flashlight passed over it, something worse happened. Suddenly it just wasn't there anymore.
We regularly heard knocking at the back door at night, with no one there. Our parents thought it was teenagers playing pranks, and stopped bothering even opening the door, until one rainy night when the knocking was persistent and agitated. My mom pointed out there might be someone needing shelter from the heavy rain outside.
But when she opened the door, not only was there no one there, but there were no wet footprints on the porch. The knocking continued the whole time we lived there. It would happen several times in the span of a few weeks, then stop for months, then start up again. My parents eventually installed a security camera, and there was never anyone at the door.
The camera wasn't all useless though. About three years into living there, my brother started having night terrors and sleepwalking. When he went sleepwalking, he would always go out the back door and start walking towards the forest. My mom, being a light sleeper, would hear the door open, and would run out to get him before he made it into the forest.
After the third or fourth time it happened, my brother asked to see the camera footage, because he wanted to see how he looked when sleepwalking, I guess thinking it'd look funny. What the footage showed was terrifying. It was him walking out onto the porch, then pausing as if listening to something and shaking his head, then reluctantly walking forward as if being pulled or forcefully guided by something.
One evening my dad was in the backyard, and he heard my sister calling him from the forest, seemingly in distress. Thinking she'd gone exploring in the forest and fallen over and hurt herself, he ran in and started calling to her, but quickly realized it was too dark to see her, and he couldn't pinpoint where her voice was coming from.
He told her to wait where she was while he grabbed a flashlight. When he ran back into the house for the flashlight, he saw my sister inside, safe and completely unconcerned. At the time my dad hadn't told us about hearing my sister's voice in the forest, so when I heard my mom's voice coming from the forest months later while I was outside with the dogs one evening, I didn't question it.
This also despite the fact I'd seen my mom inside recently and hadn't noticed her walk past me. Anyway, my "mom" was calling to me, saying she'd gotten her sweater caught in some branches and needed me to come in and help her. As I walked in, the dogs started barking, alerting my dad, who saw me through the window wandering into the forest.
He came outside and called to me, and I said I was just helping mom. He yelled back that mom was inside and I needed to run back to the house as fast as I could, which I did. After this, my parents had a fence built around the backyard and started looking for a new place. In the time between the fence being built and us moving out, it got way worse.
We'd hear knocking at the door more regularly, as well as tapping on the windows, as if someone was walking the perimeter of the house and trying every window. We would often hear scratching and scraping sounds on the fence, and voices beyond it. My brother's night terrors got more frequent, and one night my mom didn't hear the door open when he went sleepwalking, and he woke up standing at the fence, staring into the forest, with the dogs barking at him.
The last morning we spent there, less than four years after we moved in, we woke up to find the back door fully open, and the security camera footage showed it slowly swing open on its own. Since moving out, my brother's sleepwalking has stopped, though he still gets night terrors and he suffers from pretty severe anxiety.
A few nights ago, he called me out of the blue, and after a bit of small talk he asked me if I think the door being opened that final night means whatever was out there finally got in. He was trying to make light of it, saying he was getting into the spirit of Halloween, joking about how maybe we should all get exorcised just in case something latched onto us all those years ago.
But I think he's deeply bothered by everything that happened. I know I still am a little. I still get nervous around dark wooded areas. I don't know what I think was out there, in the forest behind our house at night. But I get the feeling that, given the chance, it would have swallowed us whole.
48. The Man In The Corner
This past year my family went on a sabbatical in another country. My daughter, who is four, talks a lot about returning to our old house. Something she said recently gave me chills.
Daughter: “When we go back, can I sleep in Mommy’s room?”
Me: (no backbone) “Yes, sometimes we can have sleepovers. But don’t you remember, you have a huge bed to sleep in in your room. All your toys are in there...your stuffed animals...”.
Daughter: “But that guy, remember, I wake up at night because he’s there with me”.
Me: (mentally freaking out) “What? No I don’t remember. What man?”
Daughter: “He sits in the corner. He’s all black, he doesn’t talk he just sits by me”.
Me: “What, what does his face look like?”
Daughter: “He has no eyes, but I think he has a mouth”.
Me: (in shock) “Well.....you can definitely sleep in my room....”
What the heck is that. Also how is she so nonchalant about some terrifying thing in her room like this?
49. My Silent Friend
When I was 13, I babysat a little girl named Emma, who was one of the sweetest kids you could think of. I was a regular babysitter for her, so much so that when I couldn't babysit for a few months, she called all her other babysitters by my name. This story happened after I came back to being a regular babysitter for her.
It was about 10:30 at night. I had already put Emma to bed and had been channel surfing. The house was set up so that the front half was open concept. The living room, dining room, and kitchen were side by side, and in between the living room and dining room was an open doorway to the back half of the house. At one end was Emma's room, while the other end had her parents’ bedroom with the bathroom connected to the parents’ room.
Now while sitting on the couch, I heard something run down the hall to the bathroom. Assuming it was just Emma going to the bathroom, I let a few minutes go by. When I heard the feet heading back down the hall, I turned to tell her to go back and make sure she flushed as I hadn't heard it. What I saw almost made me scream.
I saw the tips of black hair that had run past the open doorway. Here's the problem, Emma is blonde. I quickly jumped up and rushed to Emma's bedroom, throwing open the door. Her nightlight was bright enough to make her out as she sat up and looked at me, rubbing her eyes in confusion.
I asked her if she had gone to the bathroom. When she shook her head I did a once-over of her room, checking under her bed and a quick peek in her closet. I didn't see anything and I just told Emma I was double-checking for monsters. I tucked Emma back in saying goodnight as I headed out of her room again, leaving it slightly open.
I began to walk away but stopped when I heard Emma speak, thinking she was going to ask me something I turn to listen—only to hear the single most terrifying thing of my life. "You should have said something, don't scare her, I really like her”. I didn't say anything to the mom about it and continued to babysit Emma until they moved away.
I always made an effort after that to "include" the being. If Emma was drawing, an extra spot was set up. It seemed to make Emma happy and nothing ever startled me again.
50. The Phantom Call
I still don’t know what happened. I have chills. I left for work around 9:00 and my husband was home with my son for the day. I went to lunch at 12:30. At 1:00 I get a call from an unknown number. Usually I ignore these calls but something told me to answer. As soon as I heard the voice, I panicked. My five-year-old son was on the other end crying.
He said he was taking a nap and when he woke up his daddy was gone. I said ok, I will come over since I’m still on lunch. I thought maybe my husband went to work in the garage or to take a shower or something and just freaked my son out a little when he woke up. I tell him to stay on the line and that it’s about a 10-minute drive for me.
He doesn’t say much but I can still hear his breathing on the other end. This is where it gets freaky. I have chills writing this part. As soon as I enter the end of my block, the phone call ends. I pull into the driveway and my husband’s car is still there, the front door is shut. My neighbor is getting groceries from his car so I say a quick greeting and head inside.
My son and husband are sitting on the couch watching tv. My husband is playing on the cell phone. I asked him what happened, and he is extremely confused. I tell him about the call and he acts like he doesn’t believe me. I thought it was a mean prank from him so I asked my son.
“Did you call mommy and say you couldn’t find daddy?” “No. Can I have a juice box?” He’s too young to be good at lying so I 100% believe him. I feel like I’m going crazy at this point. I asked if my husband ever left the room or gave our son the cell phone. He says no to both. I check the call logs on that phone and there’s nothing.
We don’t have any other phones of any type in the house. I still don’t know what happened but I’m beyond creeped out at this point.
Sources: Reddit
