Not every childhood memory sticks with us—but the ones that are creepier tend to last the test of time. The type of memories we ponder over late at night, asking why or how they could have possibly happened. These Redditors came together to share their most unsettling childhood memories, and they’re seriously chilling.
1. Gut Feeling
It was late at night and I heard a car crash outside my house. For some reason, I had a gut feeling about who it was and told my parents, and I was right. But that’s not the creepiest part. It was actually a friend of the family that I had only met once years and years ago, and who did not even live close to us. It was either the hugest coincidence-guess in the world—or something else.
2. The Visitor
I was young, 5-7, somewhere in there. I was sleeping in between my parents for whatever reason. I woke up, I remember the clock reading around 4 am. There was something standing by the window, looking out into the front yard. It looked like a man in a brown wool robe, about 6'4" tall or so.
I started to stir and sat up in bed, and the thing turned and looked at me. Dear god, that face. Extremely pale white skin, lots of really pronounced wrinkles, and the face drooped like it was melting, down into a really pointy chin, almost similar to a Scream mask but with all of the features of a living being. Its mouth was hanging open and its eyes were wide, almost like it was worried or frightened.
It kept its gaze on me while it moved away from the window, in front of the bed, and out the open bedroom door. The second it exited the room, the lights turned on on their own and both of my parents jumped up on either side of me, breathing heavily like they'd both just woken up from a nightmare.
To be clear, I was fully able to move during this, I don't think it was sleep paralysis, but I'm not sure what it could have been other than some kind of demon or really ugly ghost. I've never seen it since, but I can still picture it clear as day.
3. The Great Escape
I remember one night my parents tucking me in to bed and I remember falling asleep. I even remember waking up from a dream laughing that night—it was a good dream.
But some point after that I woke up. When I realized where I was, I was stunned. I was in my backyard laying in my shed. The creepy thing is we had an alarm system that would make a loud ring whenever a door opened in my house. I never heard it go off and neither did my parents or siblings.
It was impossible for me to get out of the house that night without waking up my entire family. My family was quite shaken by this and it scares me till this day.
4. Twist And Shout
My mother had these porcelain bells shaped like milk maids. The bells were under the skirts—weird ornamentation, I know. My mother was rather uptight about decorations in general and blamed me for moving them often. I just assumed it was our cat so I started keeping an eye on them and moved them back if they were out of place.
One night I snuck downstairs to watch TV. I casually checked the bells when I picked up the remote. They were all facing the right direction, approximately in the center of the room as they should be. A few hours later I hear a bell. I swatted in that direction, assuming the cat was playing with the bells again.
I realized immediately the cat had been asleep in my lap and all the maids were now facing the walls. I didn't sneak in any late-night television for a while after that.
5. Are You Afraid Of The Dark?
I was about 7 and my brother was 13 and we still shared a room. I was always afraid of the dark when I was a kid. Periodically I would wake up in the night and call for mom to come and turn on the hall light to be used as a night light—much to the enjoyment of my brother.
One night in the middle of winter I woke up and right before I called out for mom, I made a terrifying realization. I noticed there was a man on the deck that was on the other side of the wall from our bedroom. I froze. I was totally freaked and tried to scream, but I could only make this high pitch squeaking sound. The only thing I could do was cry.
After what seemed like hours, my dad heard me and came in to see what was wrong. The man was gone of course when I told him and he blew it off as a nightmare—but that’s when my brother spoke up. My brother, from under his covers, said that he saw it too.
With that my dad went outside with the baseball bat. There were footprints in the snow outside our window and the window of my parents’ bedroom. That one took a while to recover from.
6. The Memory Sticks Out Like A Sore Thumb
I remember playing in my grandparents' backyard when I was like 6. My grandfather was tending to his garden and I was picking up rocks. One of the rocks I picked up looked weird. I realized it wasn't a rock...it was a thumb. A severed thumb. No blood, but it was hard and pale.
I freaked out and threw it. Then I ran to my grandfather. He searched the area I told him I tossed it but nothing. I swear I know what I saw. I was really put off by rock collecting after that.
7. The Stuff Of Nightmares
When I was little, I would have dreams that came true. I'd dream of someone coming for dinner and then there would be a surprise guest the next day. Stuff like that. Then when I was about 5 or 6, it started to get dark.
I was dreaming about cousins in car crashes or a friend's older sister cutting herself and it all happened within a week or two. It started to freak me out so decided to tell my parents. At first, they tried to calm me down—but then they started noticing it and getting freaked out, which only scared me even more.
And then one day, I stopped dreaming. I haven't had a dream, prophetic or otherwise, since and honestly it kind of scares me to think about.
8. Watched Over
When I was a kid, my mom would keep my bedroom door cracked and leave the hallway light on for me. The night-light wasn't enough for me, I guess. One night I remember waking up to the sound of someone calling my name softly from outside my bedroom. It was a woman's voice, but not one I recognized. Also, the light in the hallway was much brighter than normal. Very bright.
I wasn't scared at all but the voice kept repeating my name softly for some time until it faded away and the light in the hallway faded back to its regular brightness. Then I just laid back down and went back to sleep. I still remember it clear as day. I do remember telling my mom about it to see if it was her but she said no and told me it was probably just a dream even though I swore it wasn't.
Shortly after that I got into a really bad car accident with my mom and aunt. They both were badly injured but I only had a few cuts and bruises. I also was the only one in the vehicle not wearing a seat belt. My mom later told me that it was probably a "guardian angel" that visited me before the accident. I was six at the time.
9. Do Not Disturb
As a kid we played in the basement a lot. The floor was open and cement so we could roller skate around. Also the walls were either dirt or brick so we were allowed to shoot BBs at targets. Basically, I wasn't scared of the basement at all as a kid.
One day my sister was in a side room that had jars of peaches and pickles. Dirt cellar type room, stayed cold even in the summer. She wouldn't let me in and I was sure she was eating peaches. I could see her feet under the crack of the door and I stuck my fingers under and she messed around with my fingers and giggled.
I felt that her fingers were wet and I said "don't eat all the peaches, I want some”. That’s when things turned creepy. She pushed down on my fingers SO HARD and it hurt and she was grunting and basically freaking out. I started screaming and tugging.
Finally I pulled my hands back and she was quiet. She then kicked the door really hard. I ran upstairs to tell on her. I couldn’t believe what I saw. There she was with my mom in the kitchen. It was pretty freaky. No one believed me. In fact my mom just said my imagination had gotten away from me and to forget about it.
10. Poking Around
When I was a child, my grandparents' house always creeped me out. I was terrified of the basement, and there was something off about the rest of the house. Once when I was 10, my mom and I were sleeping in my Grandpa's bed. I couldn't sleep and I was facing the middle of the bed so the back of my head was near the space between the bed and the wall/window.
All of a sudden, I feel something poke the back of my head twice. I was petrified and froze so I never turned my head to see what was poking me. To this day I don't know what could have happened but I can still feel those pokes.
11. No Thanks
It was definitely one of the strangest experiences in my life. When I was 10-12 years old, I was in my room preparing to fall asleep. The lights were already out and I was facing the "open" room with my face and my back to the wall. Suddenly someone sighed directly into my face. I heard it AND I felt it—a sudden gust of air.
I thought it probably was just my dog sitting in front of my bed and sighing to demonstrate how "sad" he is because he wants to sleep in bed with me. I stretched my hand in the darkness to pet him when it hit me that he couldn't possibly be in the room. I let him out before going to bed—he slept mostly in my parents’ room—and closed my bedroom door.
God...I’m still getting chills when I think about how scared I felt, but as all kids do, I just covered 100% of my body with blanket...because you know, monsters won't get you then...and eventually fell asleep.
In the morning after this unpleasant event I woke up when it was already bright to strange sounds, like something or someone is scratching the carpet under my desk. I couldn't see it from the bed. I got scared again but this time made warning noises and threw the books from my bed in that direction, trying to scare it off.
After a while noises stopped and I could stand up and run to my parents. I never experienced anything similar after that ever again.
12. A Shared Experience
I was young, maybe 8. Just so you know, I always go to sleep in my bed and I'd never, ever fall asleep on the couch. My grandpa died and we got back from his funeral. That night I went to bed, in my room as usual, but I woke up in the middle of the night on the living room couch.
When I looked up, I saw my grandpa's ghost. It wasn't scary or anything, at the time it felt natural. He didn't say anything but there was this understanding between us. I went back to my room and went back to sleep. I would've assumed it was a dream but it was so vivid and real that it stuck with me for years—especially since I woke up on the couch, which made the moment stick out even more in my mind.
It wasn't even a "I saw a ghost”! moment. It was just a weird vivid memory that seemed so normal at the time that I didn't think anything strange of it—until much later. When I was about 20 I told my mom that story and she said "Was it the day of his funeral? Because I saw his ghost that night too”. That messed me right up.
13. Who Is Mr. Frost?
When I was 7, my dad had bought a pocket watch that came with its own stand. He put it on top of our TV, since we didn't have any other clock in the house besides the bedroom just yet (we had just moved in two weeks earlier). Me being me, I got up in the middle of the night when everyone was asleep to get a quick late-night snack.
I sneak halfway across the living room when I notice that the pocket watch's tick was getting louder and louder. I stopped to inspect it, didn't seem to be that bad, I ignored it, got my snack, started heading back. Again, I heard the tick of the pocket watch getting louder and louder. I stopped again, then heard the following sung in a song:
"Mr Frost is a bad man, Mr Frost is a snitch. Mr Frost is a bad man, beat us within an inch”. I bolt to my room, hide under the covers and refuse to come out. Ever since then, I've hated that pocket watch. I've tried many times to search for someone named Mr Frost in my area and nothing has come up.
14. Just Saying Hi
I was like 9 years old. I was sleeping in my parents’ bed. At that point I think it was a Saturday morning and my dad had gone bike riding with his friends real early and I woke up and got in bed with my mom. I was having a bad dream and I woke up and looked around and went to go pee. When I got back into the bed there was a white pale hand waving at me from behind the closet.
I thought I was dreaming but I was so shocked I couldn't do anything. I kind of put it in the back of my mind—until a year later, when I made a disturbing discovery. My older cousin said she had seen a hand waving at her behind her mirror when I was at her house. It made me realize I really experienced that and didn't imagine it.
15. It’s Miller Time
The house I grew up during a large portion of my childhood was built sometime in the 1930s. It was pretty big, which was great for a kid like me who loved to explore. Problem was that all throughout the house, I would routinely get this creepy vibe—like as if someone were watching me, or this overwhelming feeling that I wasn't safe and needed to leave particular areas.
Now, it could have had just been an overactive imagination. Kids are definitely prone to having those. Problem was I wasn't exposed to scary movies or stories as a kid; I think my parents recognized how scared I would get by my own imagination, and I couldn't even fathom how bad it would be to actually see or hear something.
Still, even as an adult now looking back, there are two particular events which I can't possibly explain. Both of them involved the basement, which I'll mention was primarily unfinished.
The first incident was on a weekend. My Dad and I were sitting in the living room watching NASCAR, and during a commercial break he asked me to get him a Miller. Unfortunately for me he kept it down in the basement in this little mini-fridge, and I was already kind of scared of going down there. Not wanting to upset him by telling him no, I went for it anyway.
Before I even made it to the steps I was already getting that feeling that I shouldn't go any further, and that I should immediately turn right around, but I kept going on. As I got to the basement steps that fear continued to grow and grow. You know that feeling you get when you can just tell that someone is staring at you? Like a sixth sense, your spine gets kind of tingly and you have this overwhelming feeling to look in the direction, that's what I was experiencing tenfold.
When I finally reached the bottom of the steps I was almost completely paralyzed with fear, I slowly turned my head to the left towards where the open/dirt area was and said “Hello”? As soon as I said that two red glowing orb things emerged from that dark part. I'd say they were eyes, but I can't be sure. I didn't study them long enough before I ran up the steps as fast as I could.
My Dad must have heard my running. He met me in the hallway and asked what was going on. I told him about what I saw, and he immediately headed down there. I think he might have thought it was an animal or something, but after a few minutes he emerged with a can in hand and telling me it was nothing.
The second event took place a year, maybe a year and a half later. It was during the summer, and my family and I were outside (Dad, Mom, younger brother, and myself). I had to use the bathroom and headed inside using the front door, as I had refused to use the side door since that previous event.
When I went to go back outside, though, I had the thought I'd try and be brave and face my fear. I headed towards the side door, sat at the top of the basement steps, and waited. It didn't take long for me to get those same feelings all over again. I shouldn't be there, something was watching me, I needed to leave immediately.
I was truly tired of the fear though, I wanted to be brave and face whatever threat was down there, so I stayed. But as soon as I had made that determination I saw a shadow dart across the wall opposite of the handrail. It was human, looked male, seemed extremely large. No real fine details, again not enough time as I immediately bolted out the door.
I told my Dad about it, this time he seemed a bit more concerned. I didn't follow him into the house, but I did hear him grabbing a baseball bat before he descended down. Just like last time, though, he emerged, nothing to be found.
There were other events, but those were the two primary ones. I still have nightmares about that place too. They are always so odd. Before they involved me being inside the house already and going down to the basement to face whatever was down there. That's ended, and now I'm always outside the house. The weather is odd, like it’s not sure if it wants to be night or daytime.
I have this feeling like I need to go in the house and explore it further. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't.
16. The Orb
I was about five or six. One night my parents and I were watching TV in the living room of our ranch style house in the suburbs in the Midwest. A strange light coming from the hallway got our attention. In the bedroom at the end of the hall there was a 1x1 foot glowing orb of light floating about three to four feet from the floor, illuminating the dark room.
The orb seemed to realize it was being observed and moved very quickly and before we knew it the orb was outside like it had passed through the wall or windows. It then very quickly went around the house, jumping or passing through two 6-foot fences in a matter of seconds. We saw it do this through the windows and our dog started freaking out.
My dad freaks out and grabs his revolver and a flashlight and storms outside. It had rained recently and there was mud outside but no evidence of foot prints or anything to rationally explain it. While the event is family legend now, my mom thought it was a ghost or spirit, my dad thought it was aliens, and quite frankly I have no idea.
I lean towards ball lightning but it seemed to have at least some level of intelligence and seemed to make deliberate, not random movements.
17. Classic Wool Eyes
My family lives in a super rural part of east Tennessee, and we have a family homestead that's been passed down for generations called the Turley House. Legend in the family has it that it was a civil war hospital, which I can totally see because it's absolutely ancient and creepy.
We also have a legend in the family that we're all haunted by a demon/spirit/god-knows-what called Wool Eyes. He's so prominent in our family's history that he's just a fact of life at this point, so it's not unusual to hear somebody say something like, "Oh look, Wool Eyes is at it again. He must be upset".
One of the creepy experiences I had growing up has to do with the never-ending rosebush. There were two rosebushes on the corner of the house that weren't very big. I have some distinct memories of playing around them and getting absolutely lost in the rosebushes, running in circles for hours and hours at a time.
Eventually I would find my way out, but it would be hours later and my mom would be super angry that I was gone for so long. I never really thought much of it because kid logic, but I asked my mom about it years later and she said that all the kids in the family have stories about getting lost in the same spot.
Everybody always blamed it on Wool Eyes, saying he was just having fun messing around. I wish I could go back and explore the house some. It’s got some crazy stories through the years.
18. The Other “It”
When I was around 6 or 7, my family and I lived in a two-storey house with all the bedrooms upstairs. My mom would always send me to her room to collect diapers (my brother had just been born) and of course, my parents’ room was at the very end of the hallway.
I remember I had this distinct feeling that I could never recall, I just knew it when I felt it. The feeling was a warning sign that "it" was coming. Don't ask what the heck "it" was because I had no clue. When "it" was coming, I would get comfortable (lie on a bed or sit down) and close my eyes. I had to close my eyes though—under no circumstances could they be open.
I felt like it was forbidden to look at it. It was a like a set of rules that I had to follow or else something would happen. I was too scared to question it. "It" would slowly come in (the feeling would grow as it got closer) and it would come from the hallway through the door. I felt like it was floating because I could never hear footsteps. "It" would literally just talk to me, that’s it.
The subjects would range from small talk to something extremely creepy, like my mother's death. It would usually ask me questions like "How was your day" but I would never answer because, again, I was frozen with fear. At this point, I would wait and listen until I couldn't feel its presence anymore. Only then would it be safe to open my eyes and move.
It was weird because I seemed to forget the experience until the next one. After "It" left, I would just continue on with what I was doing like nothing had happened. The only time I'd actually acknowledge it was when the feeling would wash over me and I'd realize that I messed up by being alone.
I really don't remember much. Everything would kind of blur together (pretty much all my memories from then are like that), I only remember my thoughts and feelings at that time.
19. A Close Call
When I was about four and my brother was around two, we were playing outside in the front yard. We had a sprinkler so me and my brother were running around in it. I guess my mom was busy or taking a nap because she didn’t come outside while we were out there. I remember a man and a woman in a car driving down our private road. They stopped and called us over.
I remember them taking a few pictures and laughing and asking where our parents were. At this point my little brother had decided to take off his trunks and was running around. They kept taking pictures and told us to be safe and left.
I remember when I told my parents they were so mad and I thought I had done something wrong. Looking back now, I’m surprised we didn’t get kidnapped or something.
20. The Sixth Sense
Since I was born, up to when I was around 18, I could see and feel things that no one around me would. My parents discovered I had that weird power of sensing things that they couldn't and told me I was making it up, but knew I was right. They tried to force me into believing that the things I saw or sensed were just my imagination.
We lived in my aunt's house for a few months when I was around 7. Our bedroom door, which didn't have an actual door but the space where the door would go, was across from my aunt's bedroom door, and I could see my aunt's bed, where she was sleeping with her husband, from my bed where I was sleeping with my parents.
It was about 2 am when I started hearing a noise that sounded just like an airplane that is going to land. It kept getting louder and closer. I woke up my parents because the noise was getting too loud, and they said they didn't hear anything and got upset at me for waking them up. So they moved their heads to where their feet were and told me not to wake them up again.
At that point I got really scared, because I could hear this loud noise and all I can hug is my parents’ feet. Suddenly a bright light lightens up my aunt's bedroom, but the light only lit the bedroom and would not light any other part of the house. I could hear the airplane hovering outside my aunt's bedroom. We lived on the second floor.
Scared of the situation, I decided to close my eyes. Next thing I see when I open my eyes is this white transparent person shape thing that walks to my aunt and sits on the edge of her bed, waking her up but not her husband—but it got ten times worse. She then sits up on the bed and they start having a conversation.
I could hear them talking but I couldn't hear what they were saying clearly. After a few minutes, the thing walked to the window, which had iron bars for security, and walked through it. My aunt went back to sleep, the lights from outside turned off, and the hovering airplane noise started sounding like it was going away.
The next day while we all were having lunch, my aunt mentioned that Anthony, her brother/my uncle who I was named after and who passed after a brain tumor when I was one, came to visit her one last time to tell her that he will not visit her anymore because he was going on a long journey.
21. Dark Waters
I was about 8 or 9 when this happened. My family had a boat that we trailered back and forth from Lake Hopatcong in NJ. We were coming in from a day on the lake and it was already dark. I was obsessed with fishing at that age and the dock was a great spot to fish, so as my family was getting the boat hitched to the trailer I decided to throw some casts out.
I noticed some activity in the water about 30 yards from where I was standing which was about 60 feet from the boat ramp my family was hitching the boat at. I threw my line towards what I thought was fish feeding/jumping and whatever was causing the activity turned towards where I was and started swimming towards me with a kind of serpentine motion.
It was too dark to make out any distinctive features except a large head. I got the heck out...dropped my fishing pole and ran. No one believed me at the time but 20 years later my story hasn't changed and I still wonder what that thing was.
22. Thanks, I Guess?
I was in my grandma's car, in a parking lot. Grandma and Mom went into the store to grab something while I stayed behind. I rolled down the window for fresh air, but this caused the car alarm to go off. Some middle-aged guy walked up to the car and asked me if he should turn the alarm off, so I said yes. He then pulled out a fob and turned the alarm off.
I'm not sure how one is able to turn off somebody else's car alarm. It’s strange enough that I’ve never forgotten it.
23. Woke Up On The Wrong Side Of The Bed
I remember I used to sleep with a lot of blankets on my bed (top bunk) during winter, but when summer came around, I was too lazy to fold up the blankets and store them in the closet. I would just kick them to the end of the bed and leave them there. Back when I was a kid, I never made my bed either, because trying to make the top bunk was frustrating, and it's above eye level, so who cares?
Anyway, at the time I had a big down-blanket and a soft, fleecy one. It was summer, but I slept under the down blanket because it was a cold night. In the middle of the night, in a half awake/half asleep trance, I woke myself up because I was just patting my blankets on my stomach. I had no idea why I was doing it, but I recognized instantly that I was under the fleece blanket, not the one I went to bed under.
I rationalized that in the heat of the night, I kicked the covers off the side of the bed and when I got too cold, pulled the fleece blanket up from the foot of the bed. I shrugged it off, giving my subconsciousness kudos for almost fixing the problem without waking me up. The second thing I realized, before falling back asleep, was that my pillows were insanely plush and comfortable. It was the most comfortable thing I’ve ever felt.
Fast forward to morning, and a reluctantly pull myself from the bed. I look over the side of the bed for my blanket, but it's not there. It had been neatly folded into fourths up and placed under my head, which was why my pillow was so comfortable. I still have no idea what happened. I've never been active at night or done strange things like this, but even the fleece blanket, that was queen-sized, had been folded neatly to fit on my twin sized bed.
I can believe that I could pull my fleece blanket over myself without waking up, but there was no way I could have folded up my blankets and made major bed re-arranging, in my sleep.
24. The Dance Of The Dolls
When I was about 7 or 8, I went to my grandma's house for Christmas and caught a bad flu. Every time we went either I would get sick or my mom would get sick. It got so bad, my mom stopped going whenever we went. Anyway, I was sick so I was put to sleep in one of the guest rooms that had a bunch of Troll dolls (the ones with the pointy hair and the jewel bellybutton) inside.
I remember being awake and just sort of watching the dolls. I wasn't afraid of them, but I couldn't exactly fall asleep so I was just looking mostly in their direction. Slowly, one started to move. Just a hand at first. Then a wobbled step. Gently and silently, I watched as the dolls "woke up" and started a weird kind of dance.
They would spin awkwardly in a circle like a dosie-do kind of dance. Every turn they would stop and bow to each other. I felt that if I moved they would notice me, so I just stayed still. They didn't scare me, but I remember being uncomfortable and confused. After a few minutes, they quit the dance and went back to their places.
I got up and almost told my parents, but even then I knew they wouldn't believe me if I did, so I went to another room to sleep. I never saw this again, and the dolls were shortly after removed from the room and I've never asked about them since. It could be a fever dream, but in my memory it's clearer than any dream I've ever had.
25. Silent Scream
10 years ago, I woke up in the middle of the night with a man standing over me. He was black and bald and had no expression what-so-ever on his face. I screamed and scrambled away from him. I then watch my two dogs walk right past the man. Both dogs looked right at me and kept moving as though the guy was not there. I felt as though I was in another "world".
My dogs didn't even react to me screaming and I was aware enough to know that what was happening wasn't real because my dogs would have freaked out with the guy in the house or me screaming. Years later, it happened again and someone was home with me and they didn't hear me screaming either. Not sure what happened, but so far it hasn't happened again.
26. Adult Supervision Required
Back before we lost it to Hurricane Sandy, my parents and my aunt and uncle jointly owned an old storehouse near Seaside Park in NJ. It wasn't too old but it was built around WWII and it was right on the bay. It had a lot of character. There was this really cool round window that overlooked Barnegat Bay.
We spent a lot of summer weekends there. But this strange thing would happen. It would only happen whenever my mother and her sister would be there without my dad or uncle at night. It never happened when it was just the boys, or the kids in the house alone, or when it was empty in the winter. Only when my mom and aunt were the only adults. The round window would shatter, but not just shatter.
It would explode outward into the bay. A couple of times it happened when me and my cousins were sitting in the dining room where the window was, even on calm windless nights. There would be no broken glass inside. Strangest part is that one time my uncle replaced it with Lexan, this polycarbonate acrylic sheet. It was fine for most of the summer, then one evening in late August my dad and uncle were out late.
My cousins and I were in bed when there was a HUGE boom and the whole house shook. It was like someone set off a stick of dynamite. We rushed downstairs and my mom is in tears. There is a hole in the dining room where the window was. My aunt was in the kitchen and my mom was drinking tea when it happened. No one was hurt.
When it got fixed we installed a bay window instead of replacing the round one. It never happened again. When Sandy hit, the storm surge picked up the house off the foundation and swept it into the bay, where only the finished attic and roof survived.
27. The Room Remembered
We were renting a house, and for some reason they rented it with no carpet in one room, just concrete. One day my mom was doing the usual, hunting socks for laundry. My sister and I were playing outside, and she goes into the concrete room and sees a puddle of blood. She immediately calls for us to be certain we're alright.
She goes back and it was gone. Later, we found out the previous tenant had shot himself in the head in there.
28. Peekaboo
When I was about 4 or 5, my dad was doing some work in the basement of our house. He was covering a hole in a wall that was left since house was built. Because I was too short I asked him to get me up there so I can look through the hole. He did. I remember this like it was yesterday, I could see an entirely different apartment from our own, differently styled furniture, drapes, floor, everything.
It was like looking in on a completely foreign apartment. I didn't think much about this at that time, but now I wonder what happened that day.
29. I’ve Got A Bad Feeling
When I was about 8, I was playing outside in the snow before I was going to go downhill skiing with my neighbor and her family. While I was outside playing, my grandfather called my mother and asked if I was okay, because he'd gotten a phone call from the hospital asking if he knew someone in the hospital, a young girl.
He was really confused, since the only person they could be talking about was me. I only have a much older brother, and my (girl) cousin lives on a different continent. But that’s not the eeriest part. Many hours later I got into a skiing accident and ended up in the hospital—two hospitals actually, and two ambulances.
30. Guardian Angel
I was walking home from school and noticed a man follow me. I took a shortcut near the church in hopes that a church member would be there. It was empty, and I swear I saw my uncle, who passed three years prior, standing there waiting for me.
The man turned away and I held this figure's hand for a good minute before my mom walked up to me, asking me what I was doing. My hand was holding nothing but air.
31. Sleepwalk With Me
I was about 10 or 11 years old at the time. I woke up in the middle of the night to get a drink. As I come out of my bedroom, I pass my dad in the hallway. He is walking to the front door. I ask him what he's doing but he doesn't say anything. Then I stand there and watch him walk out the front door. I go up to the door after he closes it and look out the window.
He's sitting, hunched over, on our sidewalk. He's under a large tree, just staring into nothing. I walked to my parents’ room and woke my mom and asked her what dad was doing. What happened next was so disturbing, it’s unforgettable.
She woke up and said, “What do you mean? He's right here”. She turned over and there was my dad, passed out in the bed next to her.
32. Exorcism Needed
Not sure if this counts as a kid, but I was 18. I was at a party at my friend’s house and I had got high. Got pretty tired from it, so I laid down on her couch for a bit. As I was dozing off, I see this shadow figure put his face very close to mine and snap his fingers in front of my face as he whispered "Wake up".
When the fingers snapped, a white light shot out and I opened my eyes to see the rocking chair on the other side of the room rocking. I got up and looked around to see if any of my friends had just left the chair but everyone was out in the backyard, and no one else was in the house.
I passed out in my friend’s bed later that night and when I woke up the next morning, I heard her mom talking in the kitchen about getting an exorcism in the house. I never went back there again.
33. Coming Out From The Cold
When I was a kid, maybe from about 6 to 10 years old, I had a recurring nightmare. I am standing at the end of my dark basement hallway, just staring into the utility room. The room housed a sump pump, water heater, miscellaneous tools and decorations, and most notably a pastel blue 50s-style fridge. I know I am not supposed to be down here and frankly I have no idea why I’m even there.
I feel like a character in MarioKart at the starting line of a race. The countdown has started but I can’t quite move until the countdown hits zero. Out of the fridge climbs a slim shadowy man. Slowly at first, but within about ten seconds he’s moving at an inhuman pace toward me. Countdown has hit zero and now I can move. I turn and run toward the stairs.
Sometimes I made it up the stairs and closed the door. Other times I didn’t. About two years ago, my mother sold that house and needed to be rid of this fridge. She had hoped my older sister and I would help move the thing to the curb. We both immediately say “NOPE”. It turns out she and I had the same wicked dreams about that thing. The same freaking dream.
34. Kids Say The Creepiest Things
I used to talk in my sleep as a child. I still do it, just not as much. Anyway, the spooky bit is that I would also sleep with my eyes open. I was constantly doing weird stuff in my sleep.
In my memory, the creepiest one was when my mother came into my room to see me sitting up, eyes open, staring at my closet door. When she asked what I was doing, all I would say was "It's almost ready" in a weird monotone. She shook me awake after that and I still remember the look on her face. The close second is when I heard someone whisper "Be careful where you leave your body" as I was trying to fall asleep.
35. Blue Bear Gone Bad
I had this bear when I was younger, my absolute favorite. It was a dressed in blue pajamas with one of those sleeping caps—almost like a Santa hat, but blue. One night I was asleep atop my bunk bed and I had woken up and had seen my Blue Bear walk—like Ted does from the movie—across my bedroom floor.
Blue Bear noticed me watching halfway through walking across the room. He stared at me and gave this evil look, and then continued into the cupboard. I was petrified, but never could explain it.
36. When Fears Come True
When I was around 7 years old, I was horribly afraid of being kidnapped. Every time I was alone and a sketchy car drove by I would hide in the nearest bush, tree, whatever. One time I did this when a very sketchy white van was coming up the street. It was the first time the car actually stopped.
I was frozen in terror behind a bush in front of my house. But then it got even scarier. The driver got out, walked up to the bush I was hiding behind, stood there for a minute and left. To this day I have no idea who it was and what the heck they were doing.
37. Blood Mary, Bloody Mary, Bloo—
My three sisters (two older, one younger) and I were playing Bloody Mary when I was about 6 years old. With the entire group in the bathroom, we were only brave enough to say her name twice. My oldest sister and I decided to sit in the bedroom directly outside of the bathroom and listen to our 8-track player, while my other two sisters mustered up the courage to try again.
About a minute later, they threw open the bathroom door and ran out screaming, screeching that they had indeed seen Bloody Mary in the mirror after repeating her name three times. After ten seconds or so we got them to calm down a bit, until my oldest sister asked them if they remembered to throw water on her to send her away.
To their horror they realized that they hadn't, and as they were telling us so, the 8-track we were listening to stopped on its own. Everyone looked at it, wide-eyed for a moment, before we all raced into the bathroom to dispel Bloody Mary with the glass of water we had prepared beforehand.
38. The Fridge Raider
When I was about 11, I was staying at my grandma's house. It was incredibly rural, like it didn't have a yard it was just woods. For some reason my grandparents had to go to the nearby town at night, so I just stayed in the guest room and played RuneScape on the laptop. Around 2 am I heard loud chewing, but assumed it was their cat eating.
That morning my grandpa marched into the room, furious, and dragged me into the kitchen where the fridge was open and there were strips of ham and pepperoni on the floor. He didn't believe it wasn't me, so I got grounded. Thing is, cats can't open the fridge.
39. The Visitor
I thought I saw God as a baby-toddler. This is my oldest memory/dream, but I remember seeing a white ghost-like face smiling over my crib. They had a white scarf and I remember them touching my stomach. I remember telling my mom as a four-year-old, and she was horrified.
40. Flashing Lights
I remember this evening so clearly. It was a warm evening, the sun had just set, the evening was calm, no wind or inclement weather. My cousin and I are walking back to my dad’s house. We're talking and as we come about 50 meters close to my dad’s house, this blinding white light flashed twice. We both just stood there. We were both silent, standing there.
We both looked at each other and said "Did that just happen”? We both freaked out and ran the rest of the 50 meters back to my house. We, both very excited by this event, told my parents and his dad what happened outside but nobody witnessed this, as the curtains were closed inside. None of the adults believed us.
They said nothing, just kind of acknowledged us and continued visiting. The light wasn't accompanied with thunder because it wasn't lightning. The light was blinding, and the acreage is located in the prairies. I don't know if there is any logical explanation for this event but ever since then I have always believed that maybe, just maybe, it was aliens or some astronomical event.
I know this sounds absolutely ridiculous to some people but my cousin and I don't try to convince other people what we experienced, because we both know what we experienced.
41. Free Ride
My mom put me to bed in my room but I woke up downstairs. I thought it was a dream but some man picked me up when I was almost asleep, carried me downstairs, and put me down on some blankets between a sofa and chair. I was quite young so my parents still had a safety gate.
My dad wasn't in—he worked nights then—and my mom was asleep, so no one knows how I managed to get downstairs. I can still remember this now, strangely.
42. The Toilet Of Terror
I grew up on the central coast of California, and my family would frequently visit Big Sur for camping, hiking, or just hanging out and having lunch at one of the restaurants. I must have been about 7. Old enough to visit the bathroom independently, but still rather new to the freedom of walking around somewhere that wasn't my neighborhood or the woods alone.
I went into the bathroom at a restaurant called the River Inn, and there were three stalls—one handicapped, and two regular. All but one of the stalls (a regular one) were taken. I distinctly remember looking under the doors for feet, because I was a little kid, and for whatever reason preferred the handicapped stall. I saw no feet, but the doors were locked. Whatever. I went into the one open stall.
There was a HUGE SQUID in the toilet. Like, the body had to be at least a foot long, plus tentacles, coiled around the inside of the toilet bowl. It totally filled the available space. Cloudy blank squid eyes, gazing up at me from the pooper. I ran out of the bathroom in horror, told nobody, and held my pee for the 45-minute drive home.
What the heck was that squid doing there?? All I can surmise is it was a line cook prank, in an area that ubiquitously has squid on the menu. 25 years later, that terror toilet squid still haunts me.
43. The Haunted Castle
A friend of my family is very wealthy and has a big house that we all affectionately call "The Castle". Now it's no mansion, but from my low state of living it seemed like it. Somewhere between 6-8 rooms, a pool, two living rooms, giant basement filled with a flat screen and pool tables and all that. My friend and I would always crash in the basement when we stayed over.
It was close to Halloween time, so we just finished watching a scary movie and were called upstairs for dinner. I had just finished using the bathroom, so I closed the bathroom door and went to eat like usual.
When we came back down to the basement, though, the bathroom door was open. Because it was so close to Halloween we got all spooked and ran upstairs, telling mu mom. "We closed the door, and it's open!” Her response was seriously bizarre. She said: "Oh that's just Beakum”. And told us his story.
Beakum is the house owner's brother's imaginary friend from when they were kids. They made sure to emphasize that it was friendly, but whenever something moves, or doors open or close, they just blame Beakum and laugh it off. So my friend and I went back downstairs, terrified. For the rest of the night we kept watch on the doors to see if anything was different but sure enough if ever we both left the basement, when we came back one of the three downstairs doors was opened—and we got into the habit of closing them all.
My mom tried to scare us once with a wolf mask, which was funnier than anything. But anyway, as we were going to sleep there are two half-windows (I say half because they’re the small ones people have in basements) and two couches. I lay on one and my friend lays on the other one, and from the way we're laying we could each see one of the windows. And on my window is a white face.
It's very dark and hard to see, but it looks like three black holes on a white field that might just happen to make a face. But when I get up to look closer it moves away, almost like it's more of a reflection of light than anything else. I deliberately didn't tell my friend about it because we’d had enough fear for one day.
Two years or so later, we are all talking about the scariest things that had ever happened to us, and of course Beakum gets brought into the situation. I'm listening to my friend tell the story—and what he said sent chills down my spine. He ends with "Yeah that night scared the bejeesus out of me. I never told you this but when we were sleeping I saw this super creepy white face looking at me through the window”.
But we could only see different windows. I lost it, and was never more creeped out. It's been some time since we've been to the castle, but that story will always spook me.
44. A Sober Psychedelic Experience
When I was about 15 and sober, late one night I went with a group of about seven people to this supposedly haunted woods in our area called Okie Pinokie. There are various stories about these woods, the main ones being that seven bodies had been found in the woods and were never identified.
Parts of the woods were used as Native burial grounds or battlegrounds in the past. Also, a little girl named Stephanie who was sacrificed by some cult in the 1800s haunts the woods and you can sometimes hear her scream. Some of these are true, others doubtful.
The jerk of the group swore he knew the trails of the woods like the back of his hand, which it turned out he didn't. We got lost for about three hours wandering these woods until we wound up exiting on the opposite side. These woods are dense and dark, and being the geniuses we were, only one flashlight was brought along for the whole group to "share".
The light was conveniently in our tour guide’s hand at the front of the line the whole time, leaving the rest of us to follow behind in darkness. I was at the back of the line, right behind my girlfriend at the time because she didn't want to be last. After about an hour into wandering these trails aimlessly, I saw what I figured to be a "fresh" yellow glow-stick on the ground about 10 feet off to the side of the trail.
Didn't think anything of it. A few minutes later, I see another, but up in in tree and a different color. Then another, and another, way high up in trees and in just odd places. They gradually started increasing in number and variety of colors to the point that they were EVERYWHERE, and I finally realized that these were not glow-sticks when some were seemingly suspended in mid-air.
At first, they were only stationary, and then some were literally flying through the air, weaving through trees, slow and fast. At the first sight of these, I began to wonder if the darkness was beginning to make me hallucinate. I asked "Am I the only one seeing this”?, to which my girlfriend replied "No, but let's please not talk about it".
Everyone seemed very tense and intimidated, but I followed at the back of the group in disbelief, just observing and admiring whatever it was that we were seeing. These baseball-ish sized "orbs" had energy that I "felt", like personalities. Some felt bright and joyful, and sometimes seemed like they were dancing.
Others seemed shy and timid, and tended to be dim and slow. One in particular was dark and stationary, like a black/purple color that really blew my mind (as if being surrounded by flying balls of light in the middle of the woods isn't mind blowing enough) because it's pitch black but I was looking at a "dark light”? and it felt ominous.
I didn't feel comfortable walking past that one. But regardless, they were beautiful. They were around for no longer than a half hour, and gradually disappeared in the same way they appeared, shortly before we stumbled out of the woods and right into some guy's property in the middle of the night.
He was kind enough to tell us where we were and called the sheriff to give our friend a ride back to his van so he could come back and get us. No idea what it was that we saw. I obviously did a ton of searches on the Internet and never found any reports similar to what we experienced anywhere.
I've been back numerous times in hopes of seeing them again and never have. It's something I'll never forget, and unfortunately I have learned that I will rarely be able to share this story with anyone without being looked at like I'm insane.
45. The Witness
When I was like 4 or 5, me and my mom lived on the second floor of an apartment. I used to like to watch the scrolling text on the bank sign next door through the window. One day, there was a young lady—maybe 20s or younger—walking and a van pulled up next to her. I’ve never forgotten what happened next.
Some guy threw the sliding door open, jumped out, and started dragging her in. Of course she starts screaming for help and I called my mom into my room. She looked out the window, looked at me, and shut the curtain. She told me I was wrong and the girl was fine.
Not sure what happened or if anyone called 9-1-1. My mom might have and just didn't tell me because she didn't want me to be scared, but she doesn't remember it at all now. I hope that girl was okay.
46. Told You!
My dad was sick of me being scared of the dark and shut my door with no lights on. What happened next was seriously terrifying. Like less than a minute later I felt scratching and biting all over me. I screamed, and he ran back in and I had scratches all over me but we couldn't find anything that could cause that in my room.
It could’ve been a vivid dream where I self-inflicted those injuries but I'm a pretty light sleeper, and nothing similar has happened since. It still bothers me.
47. Lost & Found
I was about six years old at the time and we were at an old cemetery where my mom was trying to find an old grave of a relative. She couldn't remember where the gravestone was and was standing still, looking around. While she was standing there, I suddenly felt compelled to run off in a certain direction.
I kept running among the headstones until the feeling to stop came over me. I came to a stop in front of a headstone and looked at it to find that it was the headstone of the person my mom was looking for.
48. Firestarter
When I was 10 years old, I stayed the summer with my Aunt Joan in Heath, Ohio. Her home was really old and spooky. It had the creaky doors, dark basement, attic, and standard horror movie vibe going on. Lots of my relatives were freaked out being there, but I always enjoyed it.
My aunt and I were preparing dinner one night when a framed picture in the dining room fell off the wall. I asked who the bearded man in the photo was since I hadn't seen him before. Her answer was horrifying. She firmly told me to not ask about the person in the photo because they "died angry, and stayed angry". Okay then…
About halfway through dinner, my aunt went into the kitchen to get dessert, so (being a little twerp) I took the opportunity to ask Uncle Mark about the guy in the photo. He stopped chewing and looked at me with annoyance clearly written on his face. "What did your Aunt say about that thing”?! He barked.
I kind of winced because Uncle Mark was typically a very low-key kind of guy. My aunt walked into the dining room, ready to chastise me as well, when a dish towel on the table began to smolder, finally erupting into flames. Uncle Mark slowly stood up and smothered it with his napkin.
He didn't say a word to me, but he promptly raised his voice to his wife in the other room. Neither one mentioned it again and I wasn't invited back for anything other than whole family trips. My Uncle Mark is nearly 90 now and has suffered from dementia for some time.
My only interaction is to send him a card once a month. Last Christmas he was pretty chatty and I got the nerve to ask about that night from my youth. What a mistake. He became very still and asked me "Do you want James to burn this whole house down”?! My parents both told me to "let it go".
49. Deep In The Forest
I was out at our cabin in the remote mountainous wilderness of Colorado with my dad, and had to use the bathroom in the middle of the night. This necessitated a flashlight and shoes, because the outhouse was far away. There was no one but me and my dad for miles in any direction. Or so I thought.
I suddenly heard voices in the distance and stopped in my tracks. It seemed to be coming from my right, deep in the woods in the middle of nowhere a quarter of a mile from the road. Being 11 and unafraid of the world, I foolishly yelled "Who's out there”? There was silence for a few seconds, then a shouted string of profanity so vulgar it terrified my virgin ears.
I stood stock still for a moment like a terrified rabbit but heard nothing else, so I ran back to the house and woke my dad up. He got up, loaded his gun, and turned all the lights on, but we never heard another sound. To this day, we have not seen or heard another person within 15 miles of the cabin.
50. Looking For Help That Won’t Come
I lived in Pennsylvania and my house was always creepy. My parents joked around that it was haunted. One day though, their jokes proved to be true. I was playing basketball like a normal kid when all of a sudden, a little girl starts running at me. She was drenched in blood and she was screaming for help. She shrieked, "Help me please”!
I ran inside to get my mom and help the girl. We went back outside and she was gone. Since that day, we didn’t speak of the incident until a couple of years ago. One day I looked up that old house after we’d moved. That’s when I made a chilling discovery.
Reports came up of a girl who perished after a car crash who had lived in that house. I clicked on a picture of her and it was the same exact girl that came up to me that day I was playing basketball. I mentioned it to my parents and they were already aware, and we were all convinced that house was haunted.
Sources: Reddit, ,
