Real-Life Ghost Stories

April 7, 2022 | Scott Mazza

Real-Life Ghost Stories


Deep down, we are all afraid of the dark. Out of the corner of our eyes, there are always shadows lurking, and every once in a while, one reaches out and touches us. These moments might not be logical or easily explained, but one thing is for sure: When the paranormal happens to us, it’s unforgettable. These Redditors know that better than anyone.


1. Young And Restless

The night my grandfather passed, I dreamt that a more youthful version of him came into my bedroom smiling and laughing in a kind and friendly way. I remember going up to him and asking about his hair. I've never seen him in pictures or in real life with a full head of hair, but there he was! I thought it odd, but I also thought it was my mind doing weird brain things thinking about him.

Fast forward to 10 months later, and I shared my dream with my family at Christmas. My sister looked stunned. She explained that she too was visited by him in a dream that very night, also in a younger body and a full head of hair. This experience changed my views of spirituality.

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2. The Music Of The Night

It was back when I was in middle school and I received violin lessons from one of my teacher’s old students. My teacher always told us to be careful and be respectful in the "practice" room, which was a soundproof room we had in the orchestra/band building, because that was the most haunted room. My teacher said you don’t want to anger anything or anyone in there.

While I was waiting for my violin teacher to come into the practice room, I set up a chair for me and a chair for my violin teacher and placed them side by side. I ended up practicing for a couple of minutes by myself in the room. And that's when it happened. As I was playing music, the chair next to me looked like it was being grabbed by someone. It spun around and faced me.

The chair even slid back a bit as if someone had just sat on it. I freaked out and was screaming internally, but I decided to keep on playing because whatever it was, it wanted to watch me play. As I continued to play, my violin teacher walked in, saw my freaked-out face, and saw the chair facing me. He kind of just smiled at me and said, "Oh, so it happened to you too huh?" He just shrugged it off and grabbed a different chair and sat next to me. We proceeded with the lesson with that chair still facing me. Never been so freaked out in my entire life if I'm being honest.

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3. Ghost Dog

I was staying over at my sister's in-laws' house. Their dog Baby had passed a week previously. Baby had a very distinctive walk across the kitchen floors. Her paws would drag and make scratching noises as she slowly would go to her bed in the other room. The night I stayed there, I was on the couch sleeping and woke up randomly in the middle of the night.

Everyone in the house is asleep and it's dark. All of a sudden, I heard the sound of dragging paws scratching the kitchen floor and walking to the other side. I immediately got goosebumps. I threw the blanket over my head and tried to “nope this is not happening” myself back to sleep. It eventually worked, but I will never get that sound out of my head.

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4. Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here

Back when I was nine years old, I lived in a house up on a mountain. This house was built on an ancient Native American burial ground so it was pretty haunted. My parents bred, raised, and sold English mastiffs. These dogs were big and strong enough to scare off and tree a bear. But past this one point of the house just beyond the laundry room, they wouldn't dare go to after the sun went down.

One night the power went out at our house for some reason, even though all the other neighbors had the lights on. I remembered I had to pull my laundry out of the dryer for tomorrow so I went ahead and grabbed a flashlight and my laundry basket. I went to go into the laundry room and something felt off. I looked behind me and saw that all three of the dogs were at the doorway and were refusing to go any further when I called them.

Being young and not really caring, I went ahead without them. I then turned the corner to face the washer and dryer and shined the flashlight towards them. When I could see clearly, I wanted to drop everything and run. Between the appliances and me was a solid black mass hanging from the ceiling. At the point closest to the floor I saw nothing but a grin that was only a couple shades brighter than the rest of its form.

A little closer to the floor I saw two bright red eyes. Needless to say, my laundry remained there with the flashlight on the floor until the next morning. As we were moving out of that house eventually and were wrapping up the packing, we only had a few boxes, cleaning supplies, and the last rites crucifix still hanging in the entryway. One day, I was coming down the hall as my mom was walking underneath the cross.

She got halfway across the room and I saw the cross fly off the wall and hit her in the back of the head. Shocked, we hurried up and finished. I went back in for the last box and as I grabbed it, I saw the broom that was in the corner of the kitchen fly from the kitchen to the dining room. I grabbed the box and forgot the broom. I figured the entity and next tenants or the landlord can keep it.

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5. Axis Of Evil

My family moved to a different state right as I started high school. Our new house was only a couple of years old, on a beautiful lot with a golf course nearby, and it was the biggest house we'd ever lived in. I had my own bedroom and bathroom. Needless to say, I was super excited to live there. Well, the first night in my new room, I was visited by the sleep paralysis demon.

It was horrifying, because I'd never had a sleep paralysis episode before living there, but after moving in, and throughout the entire time I lived there, I suffered from sleep paralysis episodes like, every single night I slept in that room. Just that room, though. If I fell asleep on the couch, I was fine. I also would see a particularly vicious shadow figure pretty much every time I turned off the lights in my room at night.

I wish I could adequately describe the terror of this thing; you could just feel how it absolutely hated you and wished you harm. Even when the lights were on, it was like it was always there, just hiding in the deepest shadows, just waiting for its chance to come out. So when there wasn't any light, I could see the shadow figure clearly standing in the corner, or in front of the window, or in the doorway.

I had a mirror in my room and that was the most unnerving place to see it in. I always kept a light on in my room, and that kept most of the nastiness away. But my little brother wasn't so lucky. Unlike me, who really only got spooked at night, my brother's bedroom was legit haunted. It didn't matter what time of day it was, or if the lights were on or off, it was always frightening to go into that room.

Even passing by the door was uncomfortable. Once you stepped inside, an unwelcoming chill enveloped you, and you felt like you were being watched by something evil. Like, honestly, truly, evil. Something so wretched and malicious that you just somehow knew it caught you, something terrible would happen. Like, if your soul had instincts, then they'd be screaming at you to run.

And that's just how it felt to drop off laundry in the middle of the day to his room. It was so, so much worse at night. Unlike me, who had a measly shadow figure to contend with, my brother had something actually manifest at night. I'm not really sure how to describe this entity: terrifying, vicious, mean, evil. It both had a form, but also didn't.

It was like an embodiment of hatred and ill intention. Everyone in my family had encounters with this entity. My parents saw it right after we moved in when they went into my brother's room to set up his bed. I would often catch glances of it when I passed his bedroom, and the door was ajar. My sister saw it when she went inside to help with chores. It was suffocating to be in my brother's room.

My brother spent only a couple of nights in his room before moving in with my youngest brother. He only kept some clothes in there, otherwise he never went inside. From then on, we just never went in my brother's room, and I kept the lights on in my room. It was scary, but it was our house, so...We just dealt with it, I guess? We moved out a couple of years later, and whatever it was that was haunting my brother's room luckily stayed in that room.

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6. Crossing Over

When I was about 12, my sister who is five years older than me was out with friends after work. We shared a bedroom. I was up late, doodling in a notebook in bed. I had an older, glass TV next to my bed that was turned off. At one point I looked up and saw, in the reflection of the TV screen, my sister walk out of our bedroom doorway and into the stairwell.

When I turned around to greet her, she wasn’t there. I get up and walk into the stairwell and all of the lights are still off downstairs and in the bathroom next to our bedroom. So I think to myself that she must have run downstairs really fast. I head down myself. That’s when a truly eerie feeling hit me. I find no one again. At this point, I’m getting a little spooked.

I wanted to prove myself wrong, though, so I went outside and my sister’s car was still gone. I SPRINT back inside and run back upstairs to my parents’ room. I wake my mom up to tell her I was pretty sure I had just seen a ghost. She was too tired to do much for it and so I went back in my bedroom, petrified. When I thought back on it, I realized the girl was in a long-sleeved dress that looked somewhat vintage and my sister was very much a tomboy in those days.

But she had blonde hair like my sister and was looking toward me while walking out of the room. I stayed awake with my light on until my actual sister got home and I felt safe to sleep. It still creeps me out a bit to think about it to this day. I don’t really believe much in an afterlife but I know I saw a young girl walking out of the door. I wasn’t really tired, and I hadn’t been watching anything earlier in the evening to scare me.

I can’t explain it though. Never saw her or anything like it again.

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7. Stranger To Enemy

My own story is on the scarier side of paranormal things. I was about 10 years old and I had just moved into a new room in my house. I was super happy to have a bigger room, but I had always avoided sleeping in it when it was a playroom for some reason. On the first night, I found out why. As I lay in bed that first night, unable to fall asleep, I began to see some sort of figure standing in the corner of the room right near the light switch.

It was a very vaguely humanoid shape, but that's all I could make out. I stared at it all night until I was finally exhausted enough to fall asleep. Over time I kept seeing the figure, always standing in the same spot, unmoving. As time would go on, the figure became more defined. After about three years of seeing this figure almost nightly in my room, I was able to see it clearly.

She had a feminine figure, but was very tall. She had shoulder-length hair that was straight and fell over her face. She had abnormally long arms that reached down to her knees. Her fingers were long and sharp, almost as if they were blades, and they reached down to the floor. She had no color to her, just a mass of pure darkness. Most nights she would be staring into the corner.

These nights I felt fine, and I felt no bad emotions coming from her at all. Some nights she would be looking at me, but I could not see her eyes. These nights I would feel uneasy and struggle to sleep, but nothing really scary ever happened. When I was about 16, things got truly terrifying. One night when she was facing me, I caught a glimpse of her eyes.

I froze up completely. Her eyes were piercing and pure blood red. What I felt that night was pure hatred and malice towards me. This was the first time since she started appearing where I couldn't sleep, at least until I passed out from exhaustion. She didn't move at all, thankfully. After that night, things changed. The shelf in her corner would always have things moved around.

Sometimes she would wake me by throwing things from that shelf on the ground. Eventually she even tried throwing things directly at me, but she never left her corner. One night when I was 17, I saw her move for the first time. It was one of the bad nights where she would throw things at me. I woke up to a book hitting the wall dangerously close to me.

I immediately looked to where she would stand and I saw her slowly but surely lifting her spindly arm to point at me with her blade-like fingers. The emotions I felt in that moment were all over the place. Fear, anger, sadness, malice, and all sorts of negativity. They overwhelmed me to the point of passing out. When I woke up after that it was still dark, and the negativity was just as intense. Then I noticed the bone-chilling truth.

I noticed she had moved from the corner entirely. She was standing above me at the side of my bed. I tried everything from screaming to running away to punching at her, but I could not move. All I could manage to do was cry. I don't remember how I got out of that situation. The next week, I slept on the couch in the living room. I tried to go back to sleep in my room after a week, and she was still there.

She never got that intense again after that night. Eventually I went away to college, but when I came back home for breaks she was no longer there. I have not seen her since I turned 18.

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8. Girl Meets Ghosts

My wife and I swear that our daughter used to talk to ghosts when she was a toddler. She was an only child at the time. The first instance I remember, she was telling me that she was talking to “Nana.” That's what I called my grandmother, who passed about 15 years before my daughter was born. My daughter was young and so I hadn't even talked about Nana to her yet.

I showed her a picture and asked if she had spoken to anyone in it. There were four women (three of whom I didn't even know), but without hesitation she pointed to my Nana. Ok, no biggie. Some months later, my wife and I are trying for baby #2. After my wife gets pregnant, my daughter is sitting next to her on the couch and puts her head on her belly and says, "Mommy, there's a baby in there."

Ok, maybe that's a coincidence. She overheard us saying something. A few weeks later, my wife miscarries. Maybe my daughter picked up on our sadness, who knows, but she again puts her head on her stomach and says, "Mommy, there's no baby in there anymore." Then, several months and one more (very early) miscarriage later, my daughter tells us yet another spooky thing.

"I was talking to my brother last night and he said that my sister is coming to live with me soon." Again, she's an only child and had no (living?) brother. We were still trying at this point, but had not taken any tests. We picked one up that night and sure enough, pregnant. When the time came to reveal the gender, I wasn't even interested. My daughter had already said it was a girl. Sure enough, I have two daughters.

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9. A Guardian At The Gate

Once when I was in university, I went to go see my therapist whom I had been seeing twice a week for about five months. On this day, he was uncharacteristically quiet and I asked him if he was all right. He said he was fine, and we continued through what would be one of our most breakthrough sessions. A lot of repressed memories came up through it that have helped me to heal.

At the end of the session, I asked him why he was acting differently today than other days. His reply shook me. He said when I walked in, I was accompanied by a warrior-like person. He said he had the overwhelming feeling to perform as best as he professionally could that day, and that he got the sense this “warrior” had fought a lot of battles to protect me.

This would seem coincidental, except for 10 years later I was living on the other side of the world. I had a Puerto Rican neighbor I would see occasionally and I eventually got pretty close with him and his family. One day as I was walking by, he kind of gets quiet and weird and then says in broken English, “So you know there is a soldier who follows you around?”

I knew instantly who he was talking about. In both instances, the warrior was described the same. Just over six feet, blonde curly hair, wearing primitive warrior clothing, and strangely “a white guy.” Neither of these people could have known that my closest brother who passed was over six feet tall with blond curly hair, and always was my protector.

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10. I’m A Believer

My girlfriend’s grandfather’s ashes were on a little shelf in the living room, right next to a very solid and heavy angel statue. Well, one weekend she and I are fooling around on the living room couch and out of the corner of my eye, I see the angel statue fly off the wall, accompanied by a deep grunt. Now when I say this thing FLEW off the wall, I’m talking 7-8 feet of air before landing on the hardwood and leaving a dent where the wing hit.

Even if this thing had just fallen off the wall, it would’ve dropped straight down, not soared with force. We were both stood there in shock, and I asked in a whisper if she had heard the grunt as well. She said she had, so we both booked it for the day. That night at dinner, we told her parents what happened (leaving out the naughty bit). Suddenly, her younger sister burst into tears.

She said she had seen a dark figure at the foot of her bed the last couple of nights but didn’t want anyone to think she was crazy. The grandfather who passed had mental health issues that caused a lot of pain. Welp, after that day I was a believer.

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11. Can’t Let Go

My grandmother came to me in a dream to tell me she was gone. I was in China at the time. When I called home, though, my family and girlfriend lied about it. The next night, I had the same dream and called home to check-in, but they lied again. I finally got my girlfriend to admit it. Then it turned truly strange. The dream stopped after that, and when I got home, I was told that the last thing my grandmother said was to ask for me by name.

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12. Get Out Of My House

We started hearing knocks as if someone was at the door. This was followed by a loud banging in the basement every night. I decided to record through the night to see what was going on, and this snowflake ornament started spinning long after we all had gone to bed. There was no draft as the other ornaments didn't move. When I played it back, I heard a man's voice repeatedly calling me names. I still live there.

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13. Testing, Testing

My parents split up when I was a kid and I went to my father's new home when I was something like 15 (I'm 30 now). This house had quite a story, and my father as well. He was a kind of healer. To be honest, I grew up with a lot of doubts about his "gift," but he actually helped a lot of people so I went along with it. He claimed several times that he had the capacity to sense the souls around him.

He would also talk about his "guides." He was a believer, a lot more than me. Anyway, he bought a house that was almost in ruins. He bought it from a friend who was an eccentric potter. Like, this guy had made an entire wall on this house with clay pots mounted on it. I heard he was bullied in his village and he eventually took his own life in this very house.

His spouse didn't want to sell the house to the other potters in the village where they’d come from because she held them responsible for his death, so that’s why she sold it to my father. When I walked into the house for the first time, it just kind of felt like an old country house. Not anything special. The stone floor was cold, there was a big wood stove, and my father made a mezzanine in front of his bedroom.

It was a house for one person, with a living room blending into the kitchen, a bathroom on the east, his consultation room (for his healing sessions) on the west, and just the bedroom upstairs with the mezzanine I would sleep in. We spent a few hours in the living room first. While there, at some point I realized I had been seeing something by the window.

Like, I literally thought my dad had a visitor. It was just in the corner of my eye but I was sure of it. So when I went to look at what was really going on, my father said, "Oh, so you saw him too?" He told me about several other experiences. Things falling, voices, or generally the feeling that he wasn't alone. So, a few weeks later I went and slept on his mezzanine.

Actually, I couldn't sleep at all because my father snores like a bear and I could hear him, so it was like 2 am and I was wide awake. Then I heard something downstairs. The next moments are etched in my memory forever. The front door opened, even though I knew it was locked. At first, I felt scared, but mostly because I thought someone was breaking in.

But what I heard after scared me a LOT more. I heard steps. I could tell someone was walking downstairs, dragging his feet. So at some point, I had to verify. I slowly walked to the stairs, just sticking out my head to see if there was anyone. And then I saw a foot coming out of the shadow. A pale, bare foot, just in front of the first step. I was completely petrified.

I don't know how long I saw it for, but at some point it turned back and I quickly went back to bed. I heard the steps again. A few hours later, I managed to have to courage to dress and go downstairs. The door was closed, the wood stove was off, and the living room was extremely cold. And just when I went to verify if the door was locked (it was), I heard new steps, so I ran again upstairs.

The next morning I told my father about it, and this guy just laughed. He just said "Yeah he visits sometimes. He's probably just testing you." My father thinks I also have gifts just like him, but I honestly don't believe much in it. However, I know I was completely up and sober when I experienced it that night, so it made me think a lot about it and the paranormal.

My father still lives in the house, but apparently, he doesn't have too many paranormal activities like that anymore. He says that the previous owner probably got bored.

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14. A Message From Beyond

My great-grandma passed in 1992. My auntie got the phone call that night. The next morning, my then-three-year-old cousin came out of her room and sleepily mentioned, "Mama, Gramma Rose visited me last night. She said to tell you that her hip doesn't hurt anymore."

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15. Come Play With Me

My biological dad lives in a creepy old farmhouse that he renovated. Late one night, I was helping him build out the office. He went to the bathroom, and I kept plunking away. I was on the floor and set my hammer down. I felt something—a presence—and looked to where I thought someone would be. Nothing. I reach back down for my hammer…and it's out of arms reach.

It’s maybe five feet further than where I had set it down. I hadn't moved, at all. My dad comes back after he's finished and I tell him what had just happened. His reply sent a huge chill down my spine. He laughed and said, "The little girl must be playing with you." Um, little girl, what? He then tells me that every now and then, he hears a little girl laughing, and has even seen her.

She's always wearing the same pair of overalls and she just kind of wanders around upstairs. I'm not one to believe in paranormal experiences, but I have no explanation other than a little girl ghost just wanted to play.

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16. Shared Delusion, Or Just Reality?

I use to work in a bar that temporarily held people awaiting court hearings and sentencing. Everyone had stories about the residential ghost, who we called Sebastian. The first time I saw Sebastian, I looked down the stairs while I was opening and saw some legs in black pants and smart shoes. When I went downstairs to ask how he got in, he ran down the hallway and vanished.

A few other staff members mentioned seeing a man in a black suit who would be in the bar after hours while you'd be cleaning, but when you'd approach or speak to him, he'd turn a corner and disappear. Sometimes after closing, you'd hear someone ringing the bells on staff members' bikes downstairs, or you'd hear a crash and the bikes would be moved to a different place.

Other times, you'd see a man in black duck into the office, and by the time you'd enter he'd be gone. The clincher that convinced us all was the day the new chefs came. They didn't speak much English and would leave once dinner service was over, so they never engaged in the Sebastian stories. One day, one of them asked about a man in black who kept leaning on the ordering window while they were cleaning.

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17. Shutting Him Out

I was once visiting a friend in Chicago. She told me under no uncertain terms that the ghost of a woman who lived there wasn't really fond of men staying there. I was told that I needed to make sure I closed any door behind me, lest “she” slam the door behind me. Sure as heck, first night I'm there, I get up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

I didn't close the bedroom door when I came back from the bathroom. Door slammed so hard it knocked a piece of art off the darn wall.

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18. Sad Grandma

My mom passed when I was a pretty young adult. The way I found out was unimaginable. I couldn’t get her to answer her phone so I went to her house to check on her and found her body. Now, my mom’s sister and I have always been very close. When she came in town for the funeral, we decided to spend the night at my mother’s for a few nights to feel closer to her and be amongst her things.

We were sitting in the living room with her cat. When I found her, her cat was curled around her head. She loved that cat. We were talking about her life and it got a little bit deep. We were both crying and hoping she was at peace. Suddenly the cat, who was sitting between us, jumped up and started hissing at the fireplace. But that was just the beginning.

Then the flue to the fireplace slammed shut really loudly. We then heard footsteps above us in her bedroom where she passed. It was scary and not comforting for us or the cat. My mom had taken her own life and had been really despondent after my dad passed. She was also the kind of person who never wanted anyone to feel sorry for her. Honestly, I think we got too personal about her life between us and made her angry.

I had several other uncomfortable moments in her house while cleaning it out. My then eight-year-old son and I were packing boxes and her bedroom door slammed shut. It was a nice day, no windows or doors open. My son looked at me and asked, “Why is granny so sad?”

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19. To Greener Pastures

When my dad became somewhat of a believer, he was in his 50s. My grandmother was in hospice and we received the news she had passed. My dad and I were on the back porch hanging out talking about everything. He seemed off, though. Yes I know his mother had just passed, but this was different. Like I said: He seemed...off. I asked him about it and he said he had the strangest dream the night my grandmother went.

He was in the room with her where she lived in Michigan, and my grandmother stood up, hugged and kissed him, and told him everything would be ok. She proceeded to somehow walk out of some new door in the room that led to a green pasture with other relatives who had passed. He could only recognize his grandparents in the crowd. The others he didn't know, but something in his gut said they were other relatives my grandmother knew.

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20. No Clean Answer

When I was seven, my great-grandpa passed from natural causes. Now keep in mind, I was a total slob as a child, never cleaning up after myself. I wake up one day in a half-asleep daze a few weeks after the funeral. What I witnessed made me scream. I see my great-grandpa putting away all my clean clothes that were on the floor the night before. He’s there clear as day.

He says to me, "Hey sweetie, go back to bed, I'm just cleaning." I wake up a second time a few hours later, walk over to where he was standing, and see all my clothes that were on the floor neatly put away in my dresser. I asked my mom if she put away my clothes. She said no and her jaw dropped after I told her what I saw.

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21. Just Letting You Know I’m There

My dad passed when I was 19 and his ashes were separated between me, my sister, and my brother. Maybe a week into having his ashes, the lights in my apartment start to flicker non-stop. We tried changing the bulbs, calling maintenance to fix it, etc., but nothing worked. I texted my sister and asked her if she had anything weird happen since receiving his ashes.

She had the same problem with her lights that she'd never experienced in her house. In any case, the flickering light was annoying me to no end. I said out loud, "If you're here Dad, could you please give me any other sign that doesn't involve messing with my stuff?” I got a knock on my bedroom door at 2 am. I was home alone, and the security footage showed no sign of a break-in.

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22. Blame It On The Weatherman

My Uncle Bill passed when I was four. He and I were incredibly close. He was my favorite and I was his. I lived in Colorado but we went down to Alabama for his funeral. I’m 31 now so I don’t remember him actually “visiting” me, but I do remember telling my mom, “Mom, Uncle Bill says it’s going to snow!” My mom calmly reminded me that Uncle Bill was gone, and we were in Alabama in 1995. It doesn’t snow here.

Uncle Bill and I got the last laugh when we all woke up the next day and it was snowing in Alabama! Very lightly, but it was there.

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23. A Dark Premonition

When I was a kid, must have been like 10-12 or something, I had this guy in my neighborhood who was four years older than me. We used to play together, and he would tell us these stories about how he used to see fire in certain areas of his house. Apparently, the visuals stopped when his grandfather got some holy rituals done in the house. But back then I never believed him.

A few years later, we are all grown up and adults. And this guy’s mom accidentally caught fire in the kitchen. His elder brother tried to save her and got his hands burned in the process. No one knows how it happened. After being in hospital for days, she succumbed to her injuries. Later that year, a bunch of our friends were just having a late-night walk and talking about ghost stories.

We were just joking around trying to scare each other. This guy was all quiet and listening. And all of a sudden he says, "Do you remember I told you I used to see fire in my house?" He was horrified.

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24. Knocking On Heaven’s Door

My friend Tyler’s dad was an alcoholic. They were extremely poor, and then his dad got diagnosed with tuberculosis. He was hospitalized and things were bad. In the apartment below Tyler’s, there was a family who had this mentally-challenged man, in his late 40s or early 50s. He's not married and he rarely steps out of the house.

So one morning around 5:00 am, while Tyler's father was hospitalized, this old man knocked on his door. Tyler opened the door and the man said, "Why aren't you ready yet? Go get ready and visit your dad for the last time." That was the day his father passed in the hospital.

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25. Up, Up, And Away

When I was 17, I was at my friend's apartment building, which his parents owned. It was a pretty old building in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago. It also had a dark secret. According to my friend’s dad, the building used to be owned by Al Capone. In any case, my friend and I had an apartment on the top floor that they let us use to just hang out. This also allowed us easy access to the attic, so we could go out to the roof.

One night, we were about to go up, but I had to pee, so I told him I'd meet him up there. After I was done, I went up the stairs to the attic portion that was connected to the roof. There were no lights, so we always used our phones to guide us. We had those old flip phones without lights, so you only had the light from the screen to help navigate the cluttered mess that was up there.

As I made my way to the roof door, I saw a shadow pass by me. Now this wasn't like the shadow of something moving with the light of my phone. It was much creepier than that. This shadow felt solid, like a person. I followed the direction it went, thinking it was my friend. I kept saying that I knew it was him and to stop playing around. It passed me a few more times, before heading to the other side of the attic.

That's when I heard my friend’s voice from downstairs. Apparently, he’d gotten a call from his girlfriend and was in another room talking to her the whole time. It really freaked me out, since I know I was following something. I basically jumped down the stairs. I told my friend what happened and that I did not want to go back up there. He agreed, so we decided to go for a walk instead.

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26. Constant Companion

My Chow-Chow passed in December 1999; she was almost 14 years old. One evening in the late spring of 2000, I got an unusual urge to go out onto the front porch. The porch and front of the house were brightly lit by a streetlight across the street. While standing outside, I hear a chuff-chuff-chuff noise coming from the left and getting closer. This sounded exactly like the sounds my Chow-Chow would make when doing a fast walk.

The chuff-chuff-chuff continued approaching from the left. By now, I am looking up and down the street, in the yard, over the railings, trying to ascertain where the noise was coming from; there was no one on the street, no one in my yard, no one else outside. I looked and looked but could find no source. And the noise kept coming. When the sound was right in front of me, it stopped as I felt the sudden presence of my Chow-Chow.

I broke into happy tears and enjoyed her presence and thought how much I loved her and missed her. I thought how it would be to have her with me all the time again. Something inside me said having a ghost, albeit a dog-ghost, with me all the time, may not be the best thing. So I told her I loved her but she needed to go on with her journey and that we'd be together again later.

The chuff-chuff-chuff started again, moving to the right, away from the porch. It continued for a short while, getting fainter and fainter. I never heard the chuff-chuff-chuff again, but I believe we will be reunited one day.

Ghost Stories FactsUnsplash

27. Just Came To Say Hello

This occurred when I was around two years old, so I personally have no memory of the experience. This is mostly based on what people have told me. I was staying with my paternal grandparents, and I described to my grandmother how a lady with a dog sat down and read to me in her backyard. My grandma asked me what the name of the dog was, and I told her that its name was Bo.

My grandmother called my mom and told her what I had said. As she listened, my grandmother’s jaw dropped. My mom said that my maternal grandmother, who passed a few years before I was born, had a dog named Bo for a while. There was absolutely no way that I could’ve known about that prior to telling my other grandma, so I 100% believe that the ghost of my maternal grandmother decided to pay me a visit that day.

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28. Don’t Look Away

I had just moved into my current apartment a few years ago, and I was home alone one day. It was mid-day on the weekend. I'm walking through my living room and out of the corner of my eye I see a shadowy humanoid figure standing on my balcony. Startled, I stare right where it was, but it was suddenly gone. I laugh at myself and look away…but as soon as I do I see it in the corner of my vision again.

I look, and it is gone. Thinking it’s a trick of the light, I then take a few steps forward and then look away. Once again, it is in the corner of my vision.

Supernatural Experiences FactsShutterstock

29. Not Just Another Day At The Beach

I was working private security about eight years ago and was contracted out to a bicycle race event. I was on the night shift, meaning I was just sitting for 12 hours a night watching where they stored many of the bicycles and other event gear. Specifically, everything was stored on a little lakeside beach that the hotel owned. The beach was far from a scary or secluded place.

The hotel was right up to the beach and the whole place was dimly lit. There were signs up saying that the beach was off-limits after event hours, and people mostly respected this. It was near the start of my shift and it was after event hours at the time this took place. The sun was nearly fully set, so it was getting pretty dark. That’s when I saw her.

I see a woman with black hair, a white blouse, and a long skirt sitting on a boulder next to the water. I start walking up to her to inform her the place is off-limits, but about 15 feet away I stop. I never understood the phrase "frozen in fear" until this next moment. The hair on the back of my neck stood up, my stomach churned, and everything in my body told me not to get any closer.

I couldn't do anything but stare at the back of this woman. I don't know how long I was standing there before one of the event coordinators came up behind me and said a brief goodbye. They also said that all the staff/volunteers were gone for the night. I briefly looked to him and said "okay" and looked back. The woman was gone. I had a pretty clear view of both directions so unless she hopped in the water, I have no idea where she went.

For the rest of the night I kept trying to walk over to the area the woman was sitting at, but every time panic and fear would build up inside me and I couldn't do it. The next night, I had zero issues going over to that area and there was nothing out of the ordinary. It was just that one night. To this day whenever I think of the event, I get a bit shaky and fearful. I keep telling myself that my memory must be false and I looked away much longer.

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30. Not A Moment Too Soon

When I was younger, my dad inherited his father's car. One day a year or so later, we were in the car with my father getting me and my sister to school. Near a crossroads, we all had the feeling that my grandpa was with us in the car for a short time. We could all smell the scent of his cologne. Right after this feeling, my father stopped the car as fast as he could.

An out-of-control truck was crossing an intersection illegally. If we hadn't stopped, it would have ended all three of us in an instant.

Jason Bateman FactsShutterstock

31. A Picture’s Worth A Thousand Chills

My sister's best friend lost her father on Christmas Day in a car crash. I want to say it was in 1994. Her dad was a great guy, and a creature of habit. He'd get home from work, sit in his recliner to watch TV, and their little terrier Kayla would sit between his leg and the arm rest of the chair. Left side, every time. Any time you came over and he was home, he was in that chair, Kayla right next to him.

A few days after his passing, they had the funeral service and a reception at the house. My sister's friend took a Polaroid picture of the living room during the reception, with the recliner almost perfectly centered in the frame and Kayla sitting in her usual spot, sans dad. After waiting a few moments for the photo to develop, we took a look. Everyone was shocked at what they saw.

Her dad sitting in the chair. Like, you could see a translucent image of him in the chair, almost like when film would have a superimposed image. The right side of him was pretty well defined. You could see his glasses, shirt, hand, leg, and foot. The left side of him was not well defined and mostly not visible. The weird thing is, the left side of his body was severely injured in the accident.

They thought it must have been an issue with the film or camera, so they sent it off to Polaroid to check it out. They sent everything back with an evaluation stating there was no issue with the camera or the remaining film in the cartridge.

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32. Getting Cross

My grandma, great-grandma, and their dog moved into an old cabin. There were many stories she had about strange things that happened in the house. Sinks turning on in the middle of the night, noises of footsteps in the attic, motion-sensing night lights turning on when my great-grandma was asleep with the dog in another room, etc. Also, there were crosses carved above many of the doorways.

When they moved in, my aunt helped with some painting and covered the crosses in the process. As they covered them, though, they heard noises coming from another part of the house. The next day, the crosses were all back. Coincidentally, my mom's boss's son just recently moved into the same house, 15 years later, and the boss was telling my mom about her son's haunted house.

This was before she was ever told that my grandma and great-grandma had once lived there.

Secret Rooms factsPixabay

33. A True Haunting

My mother opened a clothing store downtown, and the building she and her partner rented was at one time a popular, er, spot to pay for women. It’s a beautiful building, but very haunted. One night, she had closed up for the night, locked the doors, set the alarms, and went home for the evening. Around 3 or 4 am, the authorities called her and told her someone was in her store.

Apparently, they had turned all the lights on and it looked like items were all over the floor. The officers told her that they didn’t suspect anyone was in the building anymore but that the doors were still locked. They also said by the looks of things, it was extremely unnerving and that it’d be better if she went to check on things. So, she did. When she got to the store, she went into the basement where handbags and merchandise were kept in storage.

She said the door was wide open, the handbags were thrown around, and clothes were scattered all over the place. Fast forward a few months. Both my parents decided to open up a restaurant. Suddenly, things get even weirder. No one who owned the building prior ever mentioned any paranormal activity, but after working in the kitchen there for almost three years now, I’ve got a few stories that are unexplainable.

On a busy Friday night in the summer last year, a stack of pizza trays flew off a rack and almost hit me in the face. I think that same week, the fridge door opened up and a box of pork flew out maybe four or five feet onto the ground. My head chef saw this and we freaked out together. More recently, this ghost has become a fan of turning on mixing bowls and moving plates around.

It hasn’t thrown anything at me recently, but the one time it threw a pitcher at me and it did hit my hand. My head chef said he’s seen the ghost and it’s a woman wearing a red dress who looks like she’s from the early 1900s. Sometimes at night, we will hear someone walking around after everything and everyone has left the building. The ghost doesn’t like women and has actually pushed my general manager up against a window and held her face against it.

That manager no longer goes into the kitchen at night, understandably. We believe this ghost is connected to the clothing store ghost and that my mother carries her spirit around. It’s very odd and sometimes scary because the ghost is not always peaceful. Sometimes new hires get excited and agitate the ghost, in which case I get very serious and tell them to knock that out, it’s not funny.

Waiters awkwardUnsplash

34. Animal Familiar

When I was younger, I used to see a “black cat” that would follow me around. It wasn’t an everyday occurrence, but sometimes I would see it and once I got a real good look at it. It was a black cat with bright green eyes. Anyway, I never really talked about the cat following me around and don’t remember mentioning it to anyone at any point in my childhood.

As I got older, I noticed it less, until one day my brother asked me out of the blue: “What happened to the black cat that used to follow you?” That freaked me out a little. I tried to convince myself I was imagining things, but how did he know about the cat and that they were missing?

Caught on Home Security Cameras factsPixabay

35. I Love You Forever

My mom passed in early November of 2005. I had gotten married at the end of May of that year and she waited to tell the family that she was sick until the end of June. She didn’t want to take away from the joy of the “baby” of the family getting married. It was way too fast and none of us were ready to let her go. She always said she wanted to go at home (no hospital or hospice)

She’d said this for years, especially after my dad passed when I was 16. He passed at home, surrounded by all of us up until the end. That was what she wanted too. In the house he built with his bare hands and the house they raised the family in. So, that’s what we did. Basically, her six children moved back home and stayed with her for the final two months.

We took shifts to see our family during that time, but at any given point, there were four of us there 24 hours a day, making sure she was surrounded by love and never alone. Now, I didn’t take her passing well. I mean, I did everything that needed to be done and kept myself together, but we were close and this was so fast and I didn’t want to believe it.

I can’t tell you the number of times I caught myself calling her to then just stare at the phone mid-dial and realize she wouldn’t pick up. Well, a month after she had passed, I was alone at my own home watching TV. It was only about 7:00 pm, so dark at that time of year in New England, when movement caught my eye from my eye on the left. I seriously couldn’t believe my eyes. 12 feet from me, my mom walked through my kitchen stirring something in a bowl. She paused in the doorway, gave a little wave with her fingers (from the hand wrapped around the bowl) as her head tilted with a smile, and moved past the doorway.

I was frozen to where I was sitting, so I called out “Mom?” and heard her laugh. It was her healthy laugh, from before she got sick and couldn’t even smile anymore, let alone laugh. I went to the kitchen, but there was nothing. I swear on my life that this was real. She was there. Thing is, my mom was a great baker. She passed a lot of her recipes onto me and while not as often as I would have liked, we baked together.

It was the time together that made both of us happy. We laughed, chatted, gossiped, and drank tea while we waited for some delicious concoction to come from the oven. To this day, whenever I make her cheesecake, cookies, cream puffs, or meringues, I’m happy. I dance around the kitchen as I stir the bowl and I think of her and the time she visited me that night.

She has only visited me in my dreams since. It’s always to warn me or help me with a problem that I’m having. I like to think that she was able to muster the energy to come see me in person, just this once, so that I knew that she was OK. That I didn’t have to be sad and that she would always be there.

Worst Ways They’ve Been Dumped FactsShutterstock

36. Hush-Hush

My best friend and I volunteered to help clean up a cemetery after a big storm my senior year. We were walking along, talking, picking up branches from the storm, tidying up stuff left on graves, just making an afternoon of it. And suddenly, at the exact same time, we both froze, and turned to look at the same spot behind us. After asking what each other heard, we confirmed that we both heard a woman's voice go "SHHH!!" right behind us.

It wasn't like the wind in the trees; it was like when the librarian catches you talking louder than five decibels. And we both looked at the exact same spot where it came from. There was no one there. The closest person to us was a good 50 feet away. They'd have had to yell just for us to hear them. Curious, my friend took a look at the headstone right there, then looked at the one next to it.

Y'all, it was a mother buried next to her infant. We were disturbing the baby.

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37. An Unwelcome Visitor

One night, I woke to something settling over my face. Initially, I thought it was my bed covers, but then I realized it all felt wrong and reached up and grabbed the cloth and threw it. I then reached over to turn on my bedside light. I froze because of what I saw. All of my clothes, which previously had been folded neatly in a basket, were now stacked atop of me, neck to toe.

The piece of cloth that was settling over my face was a pair of my son's shorts. So, of course, I listened for whoever was in my home. I stayed that way for about 10 minutes and heard nothing. At that point, I got up and started to search my house. The only other person that lived with me was my eight-year-old son, and I found him fast asleep in his top bunk.

I know he didn't stack those clothes because the bunk he was in was metal and very squeaky and he would have definitely made noise getting in or out. He’s also a pretty serious kid and I've never known him to play tricks. In any case, I felt that last piece go over my face, so he wasn't there for that. I searched the entire house and no one was there but us.

I believe it was poltergeist activity. Apparently, stacking is typically what poltergeists do. I also found a random puddle of water once in the middle of the living room when no one had been home. There was no place that could have come from either. Strange stuff.

Heart-pounding momentsShutterstock

38. The Ghost Of The House

My dad passed this past December. We were close and I was (and still am) devastated. Dad was an Air Force officer, avid bird watcher, practical joker, and amazing cook. He also put black pepper on darn near everything. After he passed, I went to his farm to hold things down there and take care of his dogs and chickens until they could be rehomed.

While I was there, my stepbrother came by to visit and keep me company for a day. While he was there, we lit a fire in the backyard fire pit and cracked a few drinks. 30 minutes into our conversation, a bald eagle buzzed us. This thing was literally less than five feet over our heads. It wasn't going after prey and had no reason to swing that low other than to get a look at us and let us know it was there.

There's no doubt in my mind, that was dad. After my stepbrother left, I go walking into the house. There's a back door that leads straight into the kitchen with a spice rack next to it. As I'm opening the door, a single container of black pepper flies off the shelf and lands about four feet away. There were a bunch of other spices on that shelf that didn't get moved.

Just the black pepper. I'm convinced that was also dad. I immediately pour a double bourbon. And another. And another. That night, I cried my eyes out, howled at the moon, and screamed into the heavens everything I ever wanted to say to my dad but didn't get a chance to. I walked into the kitchen the next morning to find one of the mousetraps up on one edge. There's no way that could have happened naturally. Dad heard me.

Ghost Stories FactsPexels

39. A Menagerie Of Ghosts

My mother was involved in union affairs, so I often had to accompany her on business trips. One time we both stayed in an old tuberculosis hospital that had been converted into cheap motel/hotel suites. As I soon learned, the place was awash in horrifying ghost stories. Let me paint a picture: This hotel was extremely conservative in its interior design.

Everything seemed to be utilitarian, from the rooms having exactly two beds, a table, chair, a desk, and nothing else, to the bleach-able plastic linoleum covering the floors, to the exposed white pipes that came through the ceiling that still had its original plaster crown molding. Along both sides of the very wide hall that composed the main building, there were rooms beside each other that clearly were patient rooms once.

But running down the very center of this hall were its own rooms, with windowed walls and doors leading into these little "courtyard" rooms, usually with some couches and a TV or other things like that. The doors could be slid open, so you could easily pass through to the other side. You could see through the large window walls to the other rooms lining the other side of the hall, so this center "boulevard" of lounge areas barely felt like rooms at all.

The various tales surrounding this infamous long building of rooms went like this: The flute-playing girl. A girl with long hair would be seen in windows, on top of roofs, in mirrors, or too far away to properly make out, and she would play a flute in a strange disjointed manner, if at all.  The nurse. A woman who worked at the hospital couldn't handle seeing so many deaths and hung herself.

Apparently, nobody had any idea she had been so badly traumatized and didn't see it coming so it was a shock. People report leaving their beds at night for some reason—the bathroom, getting a snack, etc.—and returning to see their beds made up. One woman I spoke to had this happen literally every night, and had assumed that some sort of janitor or hospitality worker had just popped in to do it quickly at, uh, like 3 am for some reason.

The yelling group. People reported hearing loud, heated-sounding arguments between several men, coming from down the hall. It was too far to make out the words but definitely angry and violent-sounding. People would call the front desk about it and get "Oh, yeah, that. Just ignore that, it's nobody." This was because they'd grown so used to getting reports of fighting noises.

The odd thing is that one room would hear it, but no other rooms on the floor ever would. Then the most famous one: The "where are you?" ghost. The hospital used to be located near a river that was used frequently by First Nations communities before it was settled by immigrants. A man was returning home by canoe when he heard someone screaming in fear, begging for help.

He began shouting, "Where are you?! who's calling?!" etc., trying to find them and help them, but it just ended slowly in screams until it was gone. Unnerved, he hurried back to his village, only to find it entirely razed to the ground. Those who stand on the bank of that river will hear the sounds of people crying or begging for help.

Ghost Stories FactsShutterstock

40. The Man In The Window

When I was 15, my dad was driving me to a friend's house to practice some roller hockey. My buddy lived in a two-storey log cabin with a long winding driveway. It was the first time I had been to his house and I had been told his parents wouldn't be home until later in the evening. As we drove up, my dad says he thought my friend's parents weren't home and I told him they weren't.

He then points to a second storey window and says, “Well, someone is here." I look up and see an older male dressed in western clothing and wearing a big cowboy hat. This was Texas so that isn't unusual. I said I guess they got home early and shrugged it off. A while later, I mention something about asking my friend’s parents something, and he says they won't be home until later.

I point out that both my dad and I saw someone in his house, and he freaks out because no one was supposed to be there. We then go in the house to check it out and don't find anyone...After his parents got home, we were in a back room of the house and I see a picture of the guy who had been upstairs. I point it out to my buddy and he turns white as a sheet.

He says that was his grandad…who passed six years earlier. Turns out my buddy's parents believed the house to be haunted by multiple spirits.

Creepiest Experiences FactsShutterstock

41. The Woman In White

My girlfriend and I were driving back to her parents’ house when I was probably 17 or 18. We went down this one road and she suddenly screamed for me to swerve. I figured she had seen a deer. When I turned my head, though what I actually saw was a woman dressed in white and pushing a white bassinet. When I looked again, they weren’t in my rearview mirror.

Ghost Stories FactsShutterstock

42. Watch Your Back

When I was four years old, I barely remember a guy living next door who was named Steve. I don't remember what he looked like or how he talked, but I remembered that he passed at some point. Cut to about nine years later and I randomly remember that guy dying. I wondered about it so I asked my mom how he had passed. She said that he had the flu, and that no one knew he had passed for a good long while.

She then admitted there was something about his passing she hadn’t told me when I was young. She apparently didn’t want me frightened. When she finally confessed the truth, a chill went through my whole body. A few days after Steve's passing, my mom, my older brother, and my younger brother were in a room together. My mom and my older brother were talking about his passing as my younger brother, who was two, sat in front of them.

At some point, my younger brother asked something along the lines of what had happened to Steve. My mom replied that he had passed and that we wouldn’t see him again. Then my younger brother said, "Mommy, who's the man behind you?" Mom and my older brother turned to see no one. Freaked out, mom grabbed my younger brother and ran out of the house with my older brother.

They returned a couple of hours later to see no evidence of any person being in there. Nowadays my younger brother doesn't even remember the event.

Urban ExplorersShutterstock

43. An Invisible Presence

A couple of years ago, I moved into a four-bedroom home with my family. One of the bedrooms always had a vibe to it. Nothing bad, but definitely a sad place. The rest of the house is fine but my daughter and I stayed out of that room whenever possible. When my daughter was about eight, out of the blue she asked me who died in that room. I told her it felt like a dog.

She said, “I was thinking that. Somebody loved him.”

Law Enforcement Creepy Calls FactsPixnio

44. The Revenge Of The Devil

So I went to a boarding school called Gordonstoun in Scotland. The school is built in what used to be the residence of the Gordon family, who were lesser Scottish nobles. Most famously there was a man named Sir Robert Gordon, a third Baronet, who was referred to as "the wizard of Gordonstoun." He had an interest in alchemy and the occult.

He built a round building known as “Roundsquare” where local folk from Elgin and Duffus believed he conducted his magical experiments. They say he sold his soul to the devil and built a round building so that the devil couldn't hide around the corners. One night, a demon came to claim his soul, and he trapped it in stone at the center of the square.

Eventually, one Hallow's Eve, the devil came and took his soul, and the wizard was no more. I thought this was just a myth until one chilling day. When I was at Gordonstoun, my house was in Roundsquare, and we lived in the literal round house where Robert Gordon supposedly trapped the demon in the stone at the center of it. On Halloween night, me and my floormates went to this school dance, and on our way back we were talking about the legend of the wizard.

So legend had it that if you took the rock that sat atop the stone in the center of the square and knocked three times, the demon trapped in it would come out. So we tried to see who was brave enough to do it, not because we thought the demon would come out but because if you walked in the grass at the center of the square, the seniors would beat the heck out of you (weird tradition).

Anyway, I was the idiot who decided to knock on the stone. Nothing happened. So I ran back before any seniors could see me and we all hung out and chatted, had some sweets, and went to bed. Around 3 in the morning, though, I woke up and was completely paralyzed. I could only move my eyes and saw on the floor of my room something crawling up to me, moving ever so slowly towards me.

I could feel its weight on my legs, then my chest blowing all the air out of my lungs. Creeping all the way to my face where I could smell its breath and see only that it was a mouth without a face. I could see its teeth. I wanted to yell and couldn't. I couldn't even breathe. I was suffocating. Then suddenly I felt a rush of air sweep my lungs and I yelled to wake up my roommate.

As soon as I let out a sound, the thing was gone.

Ghost Stories FactsWikimedia Commons

45. Go Crying To Mommy

One night in like 2005, I was lying in my bed reading a book or playing on my laptop, I can't remember. My younger sister was asleep a few feet away. My mom was downstairs, drinking, and playing tapes on the stereo in the living room. I heard what sounded like a girl say, "Mom! Mom!" My mom turned the stereo off and went to the bottom of the steps.

She shouted, "What’s up?” I stepped out onto the landing and said, “She’s asleep, mom. What was that, though? It sounded like a little girl said, 'Mom.'" My mom replied, "I heard it, too." To this day I don't know what it was, but there was a story about our property. They said that a little girl was autistic and was kept in a shack with her grandmother on the back part of the property.

I don't know how true the story was, but it fit the weird ghost girl calling for her mother that absolutely did happen.

Paranormal FactsShutterstock

46. Blink And You’ll Miss It

When I was eight, my cousin passed from a collision with a semi after her car lost control on black ice. About a month or so passes, and I'm put in grief counseling because my young brain couldn't process such an early, violent end. One morning at my grandma's, I wake up and my cousin is on her knees on the floor, smiling at me. She said, "When you're ready, I have the kids’ table set up for some tea, okay?"

I don't remember if or how I reacted, but I blinked and she was gone.

SO Said in Sleep FactsShutterstock

47. Double Vision

When I was around seven years old, I woke up in the middle of the night because I thought I heard a loud noise in the house. I walked out of my room and glanced down the long hallway, where I could see the street light shining through the window onto the kitchen floor. I rubbed my eyes and I saw what appeared to be my younger brother standing just beyond the beam of light in the shadow.

I walked toward him to see what was going on, and as I got closer and closer, it became more and more clear that this small boy was not my brother at all. It was standing there super still, head tilted. But that wasn’t the worst part. He was just staring at me with these piercing dark eyes that I’ll never, ever forget. I ran straight into my parents’ room as fast as I could and slept in their bed that night.

I never brought it up to them and I did my best to try and forget it. I think I almost convinced myself that I made it up in my head. Fast forward several years later and I’m a senior in high school hanging with my then-girlfriend, my brother, and a few of his friends at our house. It was dark and stormy outside and our power had just gone out.

I decided to light a candle, put it in the middle of us, and we were all just lying there talking on the floor. Someone randomly suggested that we tell ghost stories and I immediately thought about my encounter 10 years prior. I said, “Guys, I’m going to tell you all something that I’ve never told a single soul—I saw something many years ago right here in this very house and I don’t care if you believe me or not. I 100% saw something paranormal right over there actually.”

I then pointed over to the kitchen. Before I could even start my story, my brother’s face went white. He goes, “Wait a second…are you serious? I glanced over at him, confused as to why he interrupted me. He then looked me in the eyes, his face distressed. “Did…did you happen to see a little boy?” My jaw dropped and I was at a complete loss for words.

Everyone around us immediately started freaking out too because they instantly grasped that we had both seen the same “thing.” I still get goosebumps thinking about it.

H.P. Lovecraft factsShutterstock

48. Casting A Long Shadow

My younger kids are ages two and five. Their dad Bill passed last month after a year-long battle with brain cancer. The kids co-sleep with me in my bed. Ever since Bill passed, at random times during the night while the kids are asleep and I'm still awake, I'll see a large shadow moving across the room out of the corner of my eye. I tend to dismiss that as my mind playing tricks on me.

But last night my two-year-old son woke up in the middle of the night. I heard him laughing and looked over at him and he was pointing up at the ceiling and then he waved. Then he smiled and whispered, "Dada!" and reached his arm upward. Then my son made a series of sounds that his daddy taught him to do. He never does those sounds on his own, and he only ever did them with his dad.

It was like their little game. Then I really did see a large shadow move slowly across the ceiling over to the window and then it was gone—and I was looking directly at it this time.

Ghost Stories FactsShutterstock

49. Touched By An Angel

One night, my grandmother was driving and she came upon an intersection. She had the right of way so she was going to just keep driving, but suddenly a bright white figure darted in front of her, causing her to slam on the brakes. She was shocked and took a moment to look around for whatever had appeared, but nothing was there. Seconds later, an 18-wheeler came barreling through the intersection.

If whatever figure did not dart in front of my grandmother’s car, that truck would have hit her dead on.

Ghost Stories FactsShutterstock

50. Little Boy Lost

So in high school, I worked kids’ birthday parties. The place was basically a giant gym, and gymnastics and dance classes were also held there. One day, I came in and one of the girls I worked with (who was very spiritual and very religious) was totally freaked out. I asked her what was wrong, but I wasn't prepared for the answer. During the gymnastics class she taught that morning, one of the kids was staring up at the ceiling.

When she asked the kid what he was doing, he said "There's a little boy up there" and pointed at the ceiling. Strange enough, but whatever. Kids are weird. Later, two girls who were working a birthday party before mine came out of the gym and looked visibly shaken. A pair of five-year-old twins went down a slide and then, wouldn’t you know it, stared at the ceiling.

They both said that there was a little boy "up there," in the same spot on the ceiling where that kid from the morning gymnastics class had seen him. We all went in and inspected the ceiling at that point. Of course, it was just a regular, gray, warehouse-y ceiling. But we were all super freaked out. During my party, I was pushing a little boy on the giant swing we had in the gym. He, too, began to stare at the ceiling. He said DIRECTLY TO MY FACE, without me asking, "Hey, there's a little boy up there!"

We told all of our co-workers and managers about the three separate experiences we had today with children from different parties and classes having seen a little boy on the ceiling. The next day, we had downtime between parties, and nobody was in the gym. There are cameras in the gym that allow parents to see their children playing from the lobby.

My manager called us out of the break room: "Guys, check this out." We come out and see the screen (which is streaming from the gym) showing that giant swing going back and forth. Nobody's in there. It's just the swing going. I like to think that the ghost was truly a little boy who just wanted to play, and he finally got to go on the swing.

Nightmare clientsShutterstock

Sources: Reddit,


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