There are some things in life we just can’t explain. The moving shadow out of the corner of our eye, the strange encounter on a darkened highway, the eerie dream that foretold something in our future. Whether they're paranormal or just plain creepy, some experiences become unforgettable mysteries. Here, Redditors reveal their most chilling stories.
1. The Thing That Went Bump in the Night
One night, I got home from a date around 11 pm. The house was dark, and I didn’t turn on any lights because I knew my way around. I went straight to the bathroom, and on my way back down the hallway I bumped into my dog, who’s about as tall as my mid-thigh.
I told my boy I loved him and that he should be asleep, but also that he was a good boy for checking on his mom.
I opened my bedroom door, which was about three-quarters closed, and flipped on the light as I pushed it open. What I saw made my blood run cold. My dog was on my bed, lifting his head when the light came on to look at me. I would’ve heard him or felt him go past me if he’d walked by and gone into the room first. But he didn’t. I was completely alone... so what did I bump into?
2. If These Walls Could Talk
When my dad was younger, he used to see a woman in a white nightgown holding a candelabra walking down the hallway in his old house. Nobody ever believed him, but he always thought it might be his grandmother. Fast forward 20+ years, and he’s talking with a coworker.
She tells him that she used to see a woman in a white nightgown holding a candelabra in her old house. My dad asks where she lived… and it turns out it was his old house.
3. A Small, Dark Feeling
I had a close friend and roommate who came down to breakfast one morning really shaken up about a dream where his parents were disappearing and saying goodbye to him. He was really upset by it, which wasn’t like him at all. I’d never seen him bothered by anything before. He was usually such a happy, charismatic guy.
Later, we got a phone call with the terrible news that his parents, who lived on the other side of the world, had both died that night in a car accident.
4. Get out, Right Now
My family moved into a new house when I was 11. The previous owners were a family, and the mom had died from cancer. They sold the house not long after she passed away. Growing up, my sister and I always felt uneasy there. Weird things would happen, but there was usually some reasonable explanation… except for one night when I was 16.
It was the middle of the night, and I couldn’t fall asleep. I was lying in bed when my bedroom door opened by itself. I heard footsteps come into my room. I couldn’t see anyone, but I could tell something—or someone—was there. You know that feeling when someone walks up behind you while you’re on the computer? It was like that.
The footsteps moved closer to my bed. Then the mattress sank down right beside me, like an invisible person had sat on it. I could even feel the weight shift. I reached out and touched the spot, and suddenly a burst of blue, static-like electricity shot out from where my hand was. I screamed and ran out of my room, and I ended up waking everyone in the house.
I still can’t explain what happened that night. It shook me so much that I honestly started questioning myself, which is why I don’t tell the story very often. For the record, I was completely sober. And since I could move, I don’t think it was sleep paralysis.
The strangest part is that years later, my sister ran into the previous family’s daughter. She told my sister her mom had actually died in the house, not at the hospital.
5. The Basement Dweller
I heard what I was sure was my brother singing. When we were teenagers, we had a piano in the basement, and early in the morning or late at night he spent a lot of time down there playing. We also lived in an old house where sound carried really well, so even when he tried to be “quiet,” you could still hear him all the way up on the top floor.
One morning around 8 AM, I woke up and started getting ready for the day. I could hear my brother singing in the basement, loud and annoying. His voice is really distinct.
I remember stepping out of the bathroom, leaning over the stairwell, and yelling down for him to be quiet. He didn’t stop, so I yelled even louder.
Then it hit me—my brother wasn’t home that day. He’d left earlier that morning with my parents. Right after I realized that, the singing stopped. I went downstairs and found the basement completely dark. I was alone in the house.
Pikrepo
6. The Voice Inside Your Head
I heard this story about a family friend. A woman—we’ll call her Ann—was reportedly at home reading when she suddenly heard a voice in her head. The voice said, “Please don’t be afraid. I know it must be shocking to hear me speaking to you like this, but this is the easiest way I could think of.
My friend and I used to work at Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital, and we want to help you. We need you to go there.”
Ann reacted pretty much how you’d expect. Scared and confused, she tried to brush it off, but the voice kept calming her down and gave more details about the hospital it wanted her to go to. By then, Ann was convinced she was losing her mind, so she went to her family doctor, who referred her to a psychiatrist.
After an exam that found no medical reason for what Ann had experienced, the psychiatrist diagnosed her with a functional hallucinatory psychosis. Along with supportive counseling, he prescribed medication, and within a couple of weeks the voices stopped.
But several weeks later, the voices came back—even though she was still taking the medicine.
This time, they were even more specific. They told Ann to go to the diagnostic imaging department at a nearby hospital. Then they said she had a brain tumor and needed a scan to confirm it. They even claimed to know roughly where it was—near her brain stem.
Even though the doctor hadn’t found any signs of a tumor, Ann was so upset by this point that he agreed to order the scan.
That took some back-and-forth, since the test was expensive and there didn’t seem to be a clear medical reason for it other than what Ann had heard. After a lot of discussion, the scan was done—and the results stunned everyone. It showed evidence of a tumor in her brain stem.
The neurosurgeon told Ann and her husband they could do surgery right away or wait until she developed symptoms. After thinking it through, Ann chose immediate surgery (and, according to her, the voices strongly supported that choice).
The operation went smoothly, with no surgical complications. Ann said she heard the voices one last time after she woke up. They told her, “We’re glad we could help you. Goodbye.”
Needpix
7. Monsters Under the Bed
My old house was definitely haunted. My usually calm dog would start growling at empty, dark rooms, and I’d catch shadows darting across the hallway.
The scariest moment, though, was when I was about 9. I couldn’t fall asleep. I was just looking around my room when I saw some kind of creature crouched in the corner, with a dark body and a bright red face.
Since I was a pretty scared kid, I pulled the blankets over my head and made myself go to sleep. I never saw it again, but it still freaks me out to this day.
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8. A Ghostly Imprint
When I was four years old, my grandfather died by suicide. Not long after that, when I’d come home on the bus, I would see him standing by the pond near my house, just watching me. I’d go inside and tell my mom what I saw. Much, much later, I learned that he had shot himself right next to that same pond. I know it was him.
9. A Message From Beyond the Grave
My mom had cancer when I got married. After the wedding, she was pretty insistent that my wife and I send thank-you notes to everyone who came. We finally got them sent, and she was really grateful. Sadly, she died from surgical complications six months later.
After the funeral, my dad and I started sending thank-you notes to everyone who brought flowers.
When I signed the last one, sealed it, and set it on the table, I told my dad, “That’s it. That was the last one.” Right then, the phone in the kitchen made a ding sound, like it was about to ring. I told my dad the phone was about to ring, but then nothing happened.
After a little back and forth, he picked it up anyway, and the line was dead. I’m convinced it was my mom’s way of thanking us for getting those thank-you notes out.
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10. Luck of the Draw
I was playing poker at the local casino and ended up in a hand with a guy wearing this space-themed hoodie. The moment the first three cards hit the table, I got the strongest déjà vu I’ve ever had.
I’d dreamed about that exact situation about a year ago, and I suddenly knew exactly what the next two cards would be.
They came out exactly the way I expected—I even called them—and I ended up winning a huge hand.
11. The Haunting of Lover’s Lane
When I was about 19, I was dating this guy. Since we both lived with our parents, we’d drive out to empty lots to make out. One time, we pulled into an old, deserted shopping plaza.
A couple minutes in, I got this really uneasy feeling. I couldn’t stop thinking about a man whose hair was on fire. I don’t know how I knew it, but I just sensed he wanted us to leave.
My boyfriend noticed I looked freaked out. Then he said—without me saying anything—“I have this weird feeling like someone is watching us and… and… he’s on fire.”
We got out of there so fast. We drove by again a few days later in the daytime, and there were clear burn marks on the building that we hadn’t even noticed before.
12. No Laughing Matter
My dad bought this old, beat-up house as a fixer-upper. I was about 8 or 9 then, so I couldn’t do much to help, but I do remember pitching in while he cleaned out the attic. It was packed with old newspapers and toys—like the previous owners must’ve been hoarders.
Just piles of dolls, toy cars, and everything else. That alone gave me the creeps, but I didn’t learn the real story until much later.
Here’s the truly scary part—the part my dad waited until we were grown to tell us. When the house was almost finished and ready to sell, a woman came by to take a look.
She said she really wanted it because it was full of spirits. My dad thought she sounded strange, but he figured, if that’s what she was into, then fine.
Not long after that, my dad and mom were lying in bed in the house when they heard a woman laughing somewhere out in the hallway. They both turned over and just stared at each other, listening.
They stayed like that until the laughing stopped, and then they didn’t talk about it for a long time. Even now, they get chills when they tell that story.
13. A Visit From the Other Side
At my dad’s funeral, my sister, my aunt, and I were sitting around a table talking about different things. At one point, we started talking about my cousin’s funeral. She died about 12 years earlier—she was hit by a drunk driver while our family was on vacation.
She was only 10 or 11, about to start 5th grade. My sister was 8, and I was 5.
My sister told us about a time she and a friend went to play at the playground near the school my cousin had gone to. While they were there, they noticed a little girl hanging around close by, but she never came up to them and never said a word.
My sister and her friend felt really uneasy. The girl was wearing jean overall shorts, a white T-shirt with a floral pattern, and she had long brown hair in two braided pigtails.
I jumped in and said I remembered that girl too. I said I used to think she must not have had many clothes, because whenever I played there, she was still around, and she would trail behind me on the playground. My friends saw her too, and they all thought it was strange.
But for some reason, she didn’t scare me. I just assumed she was shy and wanted someone to play with.
She always had on the exact same outfit my sister described, and the same long brown hair in two braids. That’s when my aunt suddenly started crying.
She told us my cousin had been buried in a brand-new pair of blue jean overall shorts, a white shirt with flowers on it, and with her long brown hair braided into two pigtails. After that, my sister and I couldn’t shake the feeling that the little girl we both saw at the playground was our cousin.
Pxfuel
14. Small Difference, Big Impact
I had a crack in my right tooth about a year ago. Now that crack is in my left tooth. I could’ve sworn it was on the right, and something about it still unsettles me to this day. Sometimes it’s the little things that stick with you the most.
15. The Midnight Visitor
This happened about two months ago. I was home alone because my parents were away working for the weekend. They were supposed to be back that evening, but my mom texted to say their car had broken down and they were waiting for a tow truck.
I asked if there was anything I could do, but they told me to just go to sleep since they’d probably get back late.
Jump to around 3 a.m.—I woke up to use the bathroom. When I came out, I glanced at my parents’ bedroom. The door was closed, and I could see a light on inside.
It had been open and dark when I went to bed, so I thought, “Oh, they must be home.” I started walking toward the door, then stopped myself and thought, “No, I won’t go in. I’ll just talk to them in the morning.”
So I turned back to my room and went to sleep. Then I woke up feeling terrified—because I heard the front door opening downstairs. I checked the clock. It was about 45 minutes after I’d last been up.
Something felt off, and I got this tense feeling in my stomach. I stepped out of my room and looked at my parents’ room again, but this time the door was open and the light was off.
The bed was made too, like no one had been in it. I felt nauseous. I went downstairs and, feeling really nervous, asked my mom, “Did you just get home?” She said, “Yeah—why?”
I just sat there staring, trying to make sense of what had happened. Honestly, I’m still wondering about it now.
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16. Stranger Than Fiction
I was catching a train one day and noticed a DVD sitting on a seat. I looked around to see if anyone had left it there, but the car was empty, so I slipped it into my bag. That night, I watched the short film on it. In the film, the main character finds a DVD on a train, and later he actually meets the star of the DVD he found.
A few nights later, I was at a restaurant and spotted the actor who played that main character. Not totally believing what I was seeing, I walked over, introduced myself, and told him I’d found the DVD of the movie he starred in—on the train.
At first he was like, “Oh, cool.” Then it really hit him: his face went pale, his jaw dropped, and we both ended up needing a drink to calm down.
17. Somebody’s Watching Over You
A disembodied voice might’ve saved my sister’s life. When I was around 12, my family lived in my great-grandmother’s house. She had died there before my sister and I were born, but we always knew it was her home.
One day I’m sitting in the front room while my sister walks toward the front door. She suddenly stops, turns to me, and says, “What did you say?”
I hadn’t said anything—I was sitting quietly with headphones on. We just stare at each other, confused, and then a car loses control and spins out in the street right in front of our house. The driver gets control back and speeds off.
My sister had been about to walk to her friend’s house, and she might’ve crossed paths with that car if she’d left a few seconds earlier. We were both shaken, and she told me she heard a stern voice—one that sounded like our mom—tell her, “SHUT THAT DOOR.”
But Mom was in her bedroom the whole time. When we asked her, she said she hadn’t said anything and hadn’t even left her room.
The strange part is that before this, my sister had told us about dreams where she’d come home and talk to an old woman. Then one day my mom found an old photo album, and my sister immediately pointed to a picture and said it was the woman from her dreams. It was our great-grandmother—the woman who used to live in that house.
From what I’ve learned over the years, stuff like this isn’t unusual for the women in my family. Still, it freaks me out sometimes.
18. Not All Ghosts Are Nice…
My family was throwing a huge party for my dad. The house was totally packed with friends and relatives. Two of my girl cousins were upstairs doing their own thing when, all of a sudden, they came running back down. One of them was trembling and looked really shaken.
They said they thought they saw someone in one of the rooms, but they brushed it off at first. They kept going like nothing happened, until the one who was trembling said she felt a hand reach out and grab her leg.
The adults basically told everyone not to go upstairs for the rest of the night, and the party kept going. Later on, my baby cousin came tumbling down the stairs. Somehow everyone had lost track of her. She was totally fine, but she kept staring up at the staircase and pointing.
She said a man upstairs pushed her, but of course, nobody was up there. We still don’t even know how she got up there in the first place.
19. You Will Meet a Tall, Dark Stranger
I was hiking through what was left of a remote, long-abandoned town and the surrounding area. To get as deep into the woods as I was, you had to cross fallen trees over a creek three different times. I’d just crossed the third “bridge,” was about five miles in, and something blue up ahead caught my eye. What I saw made me stop cold.
There was a man—at least in his sixties—wearing shiny blue satin pajamas, sitting up in a tree. The closer I got, the louder he laughed. It wasn’t an over-the-top, scary laugh, but it still set off every warning bell in my head.
He didn’t have any shoes on, but he looked clean and well put-together. I gave him a friendly nod as I walked past, and he just kept laughing. Then it stopped.
I turned around, and he was gone. No branches snapping, no leaves moving, nothing. He was just gone. It still doesn’t sit right with me. The trail out there was a tough hike and really secluded—most people don’t go that far in. I have no idea what was happening, and honestly, I’m not sure I ever want to know.
20. The Thing That Walked Through Walls
My mom has the best paranormal ghost story I’ve ever heard, and I still can’t come up with a convincing, rational explanation for it. Her name is Kate. It happened when she was on holiday with her parents. They were traveling from Suffolk to Devon, and the trip was long enough that they needed to stop overnight.
She was about 14 at the time—very bright and a bit headstrong—but excited about a little getaway with her mom and dad. They arrived at a hotel for the night, and Kate went upstairs to relax in a TV alcove while her parents headed to the bar for a drink.
She was happily watching TV when she looked up and saw a man poking his head into the alcove.
The only way she could describe him was, “he had very old skin.” Even though it startled her, she apologized and offered to let him use the TV. He just stared at her with a blank expression, then left as suddenly as he’d appeared.
Kate was pretty unsettled by it, and when she met back up with her parents before they went to their rooms, she told them about the man, worried she might have offended someone.
She expected them to say something like, “Oh, that’s probably the man in room three,” but instead they looked confused and—using Kate’s word—“perturbed.” Kate had her own room, so she said goodnight and went to bed. Once she was settled in, she started reading, totally absorbed in her book. Then the strangest thing happened.
I’m going to use the exact words she used the first time she told me: “I felt a man walk through the wall behind me to my left. I was so scared that I immediately hid under my bed covers and shut my eyes as hard as I could and wished for him to go away.
I felt him slowly walk down the left side of my bed, around the end of the bed, and he continued in that direction until he went through the wall facing the right side of my bed.”
When she couldn’t “feel” him anymore, she came out from under the covers and told herself she must be imagining things—getting carried away and scaring herself. She’s always been a very pragmatic, skeptical person, so she decided it was all in her head and tried to move on. Then, 10 to 14 years later, she’s having dinner with her parents.
That wasn’t a common thing anymore because she’d moved to London, where she’d meet my dad and later have me, while her parents stayed in Suffolk. They were talking about strange experiences they’d had, or stories from friends, and my mom remembered the hotel.
She brought it up by saying something like, “I got myself all worked up in that hotel we stayed at, thinking someone walked through the wall…”
But as soon as her mom heard that, she went pale and got this serious look on her face. She said she’d had the exact same experience. As they talked it through, they realized the wall the “thing” walked through from my mom’s room was the wall that went straight into her parents’ room. Truly bone-chilling.
21. Gone Forever
When I was a kid, I was outside on our farm playing with a Dr. Fate action figure. I was standing in the middle of the lawn, tossing it up and catching it, pretending he was flying. I went to throw it up again… and I swear it just vanished and never came back down.
At first I figured I’d just lost track of it in the sunlight or something, so I started searching the whole yard.
There weren’t any trees or bushes nearby, and the house was too far away, so it couldn’t have landed on the roof or anything. It was just fresh, newly mowed grass all around me.
It was my favorite toy, so I looked for it for hours that day and even into the next. I never found it. The only thing I really remember is that strange feeling of it sort of flying away from me.
22. We Are Not Alone
I used to work at a place that had to be staffed 24 hours a day. I handled sensitive documents and files, and if someone needed information in the middle of the night, I’d have to pull it up for them or confirm I had it. Because of that, security was really strict—bars on the windows, and several locked doors before you could even get to my area.
They’d give me tasks to do overnight, but they didn’t realize how fast I could finish. So most nights, including this one, I wrapped everything up in about 30 to 45 minutes, then took out my phone and played games. I was completely alone in the building. It was getting into the last third of my shift when, all of a sudden, I heard a door close.
I checked the security camera and saw someone walking down the hall toward my room. At first I assumed it was someone coming in way too early, so I turned around and waited for them to walk in. But nobody came in. That’s when the hair on the back of my neck started to stand up. I knew I had to do something or I’d just sit there spiraling.
It’s not a huge building, so I figured I could find the person pretty quickly. I started checking offices and storage rooms. I didn’t find anyone, but I did notice that a fire door had shut. I went to rewind the camera footage, but the digital recording was password protected and I didn’t know the password. The whole thing really rattled me.
And it wasn’t just that I saw someone—the way they were walking down the hallway felt purposeful, like they were heading straight toward me. So I sat there, tense and on edge, for the last couple hours of my shift until people finally started coming in.
My replacement arrived, and I told her what I’d seen. By then, I was starting to think maybe I’d imagined it. They told me to go home, and said the manager and the person who relieved me would review the camera.
After I got home, I called my manager and asked what the camera showed. They said the video did capture the fire door closing… but then the footage froze for about an hour, and the next thing it recorded was me reopening the door.
23. Astral Projection
When I was seven, I was in my bedroom coloring. We lived in a 300-year-old cottage, and my room was only separated from my mom’s by a thin partition wall—no hallway or anything. My door opened straight into her room, and when I was little I always left it open because it made me feel better knowing she was close by.
I remember looking up into her supposedly empty bedroom (she was downstairs) and seeing a Buddhist monk sitting cross-legged, smiling, on top of her closet. It wasn’t scary—just completely strange and out of place.
He stayed there for maybe 10 seconds, and then he was gone. I was a seven-year-old white kid in Wales in the 90s; I’d never even seen a Buddhist monk before.
For years afterward, I just called him “the Indian,” because I knew some Indian men wore bright silk robes. It wasn’t until I watched more TV that I realized the person I’d seen looked like a Tibetan Buddhist monk.
Honestly, part of me still thinks someone meditated so deeply that he somehow projected himself onto the top of a little Welsh girl’s mom’s wardrobe.
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24. The Tell-Tale Foot
My parents’ house was brand new in a really nice subdivision, and I was five when we moved in. I was never really an anxious kid or anything, but I was absolutely terrified of that house. I refused to go upstairs by myself, and I had panic attacks pretty often.
We lived there for 15 years before I moved out, and I never really felt comfortable. I live in a 75-year-old farmhouse now, and it doesn’t bother me the way that house did.
Honestly, only one truly creepy thing ever happened to me there, and this is it. Last year, when I was 32 weeks pregnant, I went back to visit my grandmother before I had the baby, and I stayed with my parents.
My dad was away on a work trip, so it was just my mom, my sister, and me. My mom had run to the grocery store, and I was stretched out on the sofa.
The living room is set up so you can see the reflection of the bottom couple feet of the foyer and the staircase in the TV, and you can also see into the kitchen on the other side of the room.
So I’m lying there scrolling on my phone when I hear the stairs creak. I look up at the TV reflection and I see a pair of bare feet standing in the foyer.
I assume it’s my sister, so I tell her to come sit with me and feel the baby kicking. No answer. Then the feet turn and walk toward the kitchen. I sit up to say, “Hey!” …and there’s no one there. Nobody.
My sister wasn’t even home—she’d gone to work. My parents have moved closer now, and they’re closing the sale on that house at the end of this month. They’re a little sad, but honestly I’m incredibly relieved.
25. Living in Slow Motion
When I was a little kid, I remember running around my room, and at some point I decided to climb onto my bed and jump off. The second I jumped, everything suddenly went into slow motion.
It felt like gravity just stopped for a moment. I got really scared, so I closed my eyes, and then I slowly came back down and eventually landed on the floor. I’m completely sure it wasn’t a dream.
26. Leave the Boy Alone
We lived near an American Civil War battlefield and cemetery for a few years. There were wooded trails nearby that we hiked all the time. One day we were at the cemetery, and my wife heard me walk up behind her. We were the only people there, so she turned to talk to me. Except I wasn’t there.
I was on the other side of the cemetery looking at a cannon. After that, we started having things happen that were just…odd.
My wife always parked her car in the garage, and the rearview mirror inside would be moved overnight. It wasn’t sagging from a loose mount, and it would be in a totally random position. Sometimes it was pointed up, other times turned sideways. It was strange, but I brushed it off as her bumping it while grabbing her purse or other stuff getting out.
Then her car went into the shop. The next morning I went out to leave for work, and the mirror in my truck—parked in the driveway with the doors locked—was tilted upward. The next morning, same thing, just in a different direction. When she got her car back, my truck mirror never moved again. There were other small, silly things too—classic “haunting” type stuff like items not being where you left them, or that feeling like someone was standing behind you.
Our house was a ranch, with the master bedroom on the first floor and our son’s room directly above it on the second. The flooring work upstairs wasn’t great, so we could hear every step he took.
He started “going to the bathroom” a lot at night, even though the bathroom was down the hall and halfway across the second floor from his room. But every time we went to check on him, he was asleep.
So one night we decided we were going to catch him—mainly to make sure he was okay, and to tell him to stop stomping around like a herd of elephants, because in the morning he never remembered getting up. We never managed to catch him. Any time we heard footsteps toward the bathroom, one of us would go upstairs while the other stayed in bed.
We’d never hear him go back to his room, and whoever went upstairs would find him asleep in his bed. The next morning we asked if he’d been up walking around. His answer made my blood run cold. He said no—but for weeks, he’d heard something walking up to his door and then walking away without opening it.
My wife looked toward the room and said, “You’re welcome to stay, but please stop walking up to our son’s room at night. You’re scaring him.”
After that, the footsteps never came back, although the mirror thing kept happening. Could my wife have been messing with me? Maybe. But one time my truck mirror had moved after I’d come home, and then I went back out a couple hours later—and the only keys had been in my pocket the whole time.
Could our son have been pranking us? Also possible, but the floor was so bad in one spot that even our cat made it squeak, so it would’ve been almost impossible for him to get back to his room without us hearing it.
Pikist
27. A Ghostly Message
I must have been sleepwalking during one of the strangest moments of my life, because I don’t remember it at all—but my family swears it happened. The night my grandpa passed away, I supposedly woke up, walked into my mom’s room, shook her awake, and told her that Papa loved her and wanted her to know he’d always be watching over her.
She was guiding me back to bed when the phone rang. The call was my grandmother telling my mom that Papa had passed.
28. Seeing Double
I own this really random photography book called *100 Young Americans* that I bought around 2007, maybe even earlier. I know I still have it because I recently reorganized my bookshelf. But just last week, I was getting into my car and I noticed something sitting on top of the trunk.
I got out—and it was a copy of *100 Young Americans*, just sitting there on my hood.
Why is this random photography book that I’ve literally never seen anyone else own sitting open on the hood of my car? And yes, my copy is safe and sound in my bookcase.
29. A Bridge to Another World
I was driving home late one night, somewhere between 1 and 3 a.m. The road I was on cuts through the back end of a couple counties in the Deep South. There’s nothing out there but forests, fields, and the occasional little cluster of shacks gathered around a light that barely pushes back the dark. I’d driven that stretch plenty of times before, even that late, so it didn’t really feel like a big deal. Just a long drive.
Since there’s almost never any traffic at that hour, I turned the stereo up and let the car run. Then I came up on this bridge. There’s nothing special about it—it’s not old, not covered, not especially creepy. It’s just a concrete span over swampland, with trees growing close to the edge so the road feels like a dim path down in a dark canyon.
I didn’t think twice about it. Not until that night. It was humid, and as the temperature dropped, a little fog started to form. Not enough to make me slow way down, but I did have to switch off my high beams. So I’m flying across the bridge, and it hits me that it feels like it’s taking longer than it should to get over it. Maybe I was just tired. Maybe my brain was messing with me.
And when I thought I was finally close to the end, I saw a figure walking on the opposite side of the road. At first, it didn’t seem like a big deal.
Someone walking in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night—maybe they lived nearby, maybe they weren’t thinking straight. You keep an eye on them so they don’t step out in front of you. But my mind was already running ahead of me.
Because this is the middle of nowhere. No houses. No streetlights. Nothing but the stars and my headlights cutting into the darkness. And as I sped past—way too fast for my own good—I noticed two things that made my stomach drop. First, the person looked like they were wearing a straightjacket, with the sleeves undone and the straps trailing along the ground. Second: there was no face.
Not that there was no head—there was a head shape. But where a face should’ve been, there was nothing. Just a flat, dark blank that I took for skin.
I told myself it had to be the speed, the contrast of a pale jacket against the night, and my brain filling in the worst possibilities. There’s no way I’d really seen that. I tried to catch a glimpse in the rearview mirror, but it was so dark back there that there was nothing to see. I eased off the gas a little, and suddenly I was off the bridge and back on normal two-lane blacktop.
For a second, I thought about turning around to see what it was. It had to be a trick of the light—or my mind playing games. Right?
30. A Mysterious Ailment
A woman I knew started dealing with pain, exhaustion, and a whole list of other hard-to-pin-down symptoms not long after she was treated for mastitis, since she’d just had a baby. She went to the doctor, but she felt like she was brushed off. For years afterward she kept struggling with extreme fatigue, migraines, low-grade fevers, and more, with no real relief.
Eventually she was diagnosed with fibromyalgia—more like, “We don’t really know what’s causing this, so we’ll give it a name and move on.” She got sent to psychologists, and even her husband started running out of patience.
One night she decided that the next morning, after her husband left for work and her daughter went to school, she would take a large amount of pills.
But as she was drifting off to sleep, she heard a voice, loud and clear, say, “It’s your implants. Get them removed.” She’d had breast implants years earlier, back when she did some modeling.
She called a plastic surgeon and scheduled a consultation, and while she was describing her symptoms, the surgeon cut in and said she’d seen this before—and that the implants needed to come out as soon as possible.
When the surgeon removed them, they were black. They were filled with mold, and it had been seriously affecting her immune system. Once the implants were out and she was treated with an antifungal, she got better quickly. And when her husband saw those black implants, he felt awful for ever doubting her.
31. The Lady in the Rocker
My grandmother passed away when I was in about 8th grade. A few years later, my grandfather lived with us for a little while, and then he eventually moved into an assisted living home. Now I’m in college, and we decided to open up their house for a family reunion.
One of my cousins, Kate, flew in early with her 5- or 6-year-old son, Tom, to open the house and air it out.
This was in rural Mississippi. Kate and Tom were going to stay at a hotel that night and come back the next day. As they pulled out of the driveway, Kate noticed Tom looking out the back window and waving at the house. “What are you waving at, buddy?” she asked. “I’m waving at the lady,” he said. “What lady?” Kate asked. “The lady in the rocking chair on the porch.”
There were several chairs on the porch, but only one rocking chair.
It was the chair my grandmother used to sit in, waving at all of us as we drove away after a visit. She always waved until we were completely out of sight.
The next day, some aunts and cousins opened the one room they hadn’t gotten to the day before—my grandparents’ bedroom. While they were sweeping and dusting, Tom wandered in, and what he said made everyone go quiet.
He pointed to a photo of my grandmother on the bedroom mantle and said, “Hey Mom, that’s the lady I was waving at yesterday.” As far as Kate knew, that was the first time Tom had ever seen a picture of his great-grandmother.
32. Monsters Are Real
Once upon a time, I lived with a couple and their child. One night, they asked me to babysit so they could have an evening out together, and I said yes. Later, when it was time for bed, the child refused to go to sleep because of the “monsters.” They sounded completely serious about it, which honestly made me a little uneasy, but I tried not to show it. I stayed calm, looked around the room, and pretended to scare the monsters away.
It worked, and the child finally fell asleep. After that, I went to the living room. The couch faced away from the main entry, and I sat there watching TV, expecting the couple to come back any minute.
Then I heard the front door open and close—exactly the way it always sounded when someone came in. Smiling, feeling pretty proud of how I’d handled bedtime, I stood up and turned toward the door.
Nobody was there. I’m usually skeptical about paranormal stuff, but that definitely rattled me. When the couple actually got home later, I told one of them what happened.
He said, “Oh yeah—we were going to mention that weird things happen here all the time, especially in the child’s room, but we didn’t want to freak you out.” After that, I barely slept in my basement bedroom for the next few days.
33. A Glitch in the Matrix
During my sophomore year of college, I lived on campus, but my boyfriend didn’t. He did work on campus, though, and he’d often hang out with me in my dorm between classes and shifts.
My bed was lofted with my desk underneath, and sometimes I’d take a nap while he sat at my desk doing homework. One afternoon, I woke up from a really vivid dream and started telling him about it.
I remember hearing him reply, and then, right in the middle of me responding, I felt this strange shift in the room. It was like everything suddenly got a little darker and colder. I quietly said his name, but he didn’t answer.
That’s when I remembered he’d actually been at work for about three hours. I grabbed my backpack, got out of there fast, and did homework in the library until he got off.
34. When a Stranger Knocks
When my family first moved to California, the house we lived in had a lot of strange things happen. My room was close to the front door and the dining room, so I could always hear the front door open and close. One day, I’m in my room playing games after school. Everyone is home except my dad, who still isn’t back from work.
I’m almost totally focused on the game when I hear the front door open. I quickly turn and look out, and I see someone walk upstairs. I automatically assume it’s my dad. Right after that, I hear my youngest brother shout, “Daddy’s home! Daddy’s home!” My mom and siblings all rush upstairs to meet him. I don’t think much of it and keep playing.
A few minutes later, they all come running back downstairs. It’s suddenly loud and chaotic, and my little brother is crying. I’m still playing, but I can hear bits of what they’re saying.
My brother saw a figure go upstairs and thought it was my dad too. But when they reached the master bedroom, no one was there. I know I heard the door open—and I’m sure I saw someone go upstairs…
35. It’s Coming From Inside the House
My sister was visiting my parents for the weekend. That night, I called her about something—just wanting to chat—but when she answered, she was clearly really upset. She told me she was home alone and that “something was going on.” I asked if there might be someone in the house, like an intruder.
She said she could hear these animal-like growling noises coming from a corner, and my mom’s dog was freaking out.
She also said the hallway lights were flickering on and off. I told her to grab her jacket and calmly walk outside, and to bring the dog with her if she could. I said I’d come as soon as I could to pick her up.
She went out and managed to get the dog outside too. Her friend lived even closer than I did, so her friend picked her up, and they hung out at her place for a while.
About twenty minutes later, my brother—who also lives nearby—stopped by the house to return some tools he’d borrowed from my dad. He went inside because he saw the lights flickering, and he’s an electrician. As soon as he was inside… the lights stopped.
He kept hearing what sounded like someone walking around in another room, but every time he checked, no one was there. When he called out, nobody answered.
He searched the whole house, and then he heard the same animal-like growling from the same corner my sister mentioned. It’s a corner on an outside wall with windows, and there isn’t really space for something like a raccoon to be stuck in the wall. My brother felt really unnerved and left.
36. It Came in a Dream
I had just moved into a new house. One day, I was downstairs when I heard what sounded like furniture being dragged around upstairs. I went up to check, but when I got there everything was quiet and nothing had moved. I went back downstairs, and the dragging started again. So I went back up—nothing.
This kept happening for about an hour. I almost called the authorities because I was convinced someone was in my house.
I ended up calling a friend and leaving them on speaker while I checked the attic, thinking maybe an animal was hiding up there, but I didn’t find anything.
Eventually I gave up and went to bed. But that wasn’t the end of it. That night, I dreamed I was driving to work in rain and fog and crashed my car. Then someone walked up and asked, “Are you ready to move on?” That’s when I woke up.
At the time, I was working mid-shift, so around 10 PM that same day I got in the car on a foggy, rainy night and drove to work without any problems. The building I worked in had security cameras everywhere, and that late I was the only one coming in.
When I got inside, the person I was relieving asked who I came in with. I told her I was alone, but she insisted someone had followed me inside. It made for a really unsettling 12 hours, to say the least.
Unsplash
37. Guardian Angel
Way back in junior high, I was sitting on the bleachers after school watching an intramural floor hockey game. The bleachers were pushed all the way in, so we actually had to climb up to sit on the top row, which I’m guessing was about 10 feet up. I’m sitting up there, and when I stand up to move, my foot gets caught.
I try to catch myself, but I end up falling. The weird part is I don’t remember the fall at all. I remember starting to go, and then I kind of “come to” right as I hit the floor—but it felt like I’d only dropped a few inches and landed flat on my back. I heard the whole gym go quiet as I immediately jumped back up.
The teacher asked, sounding panicked, if I was okay. I said, “Yeah,” and then just climbed right back up. I really should’ve hit my head or gotten hurt somehow, but I honestly felt nothing.
38. The Bad Omen
I was living in New York in 2001, just a few blocks from the World Trade Center. Early on the morning of September 11th, my roommate came downstairs for breakfast, and she looked completely worn out. When I asked what was going on, she said she hadn’t been sleeping well for weeks and kept having dreams about a lot of people dying.
We brushed it off…until a few hours later. After that day, she never had those dreams again.
39. The Road That Never Ends
My daughter and I still wonder what happened that night. We were driving along Canada’s 401 from London to Kitchener, a route we’d taken countless times over the years. My daughter suddenly really had to use the bathroom. Since we were close to home, I told her our exit was coming up next and we’d be home in 15 minutes, max.
So we kept driving, watching for our exit, which should’ve been just a few minutes away—but it never showed up. We just kept going and going, with nothing but countryside around us. Finally, an exit appeared, but it wasn’t the one we expected.
Somehow, even though it didn’t feel like much time had passed, we’d missed at least four exits. We were looking for them, and somehow we’d driven through two cities without seeing them.
40. The Friendly Ghost
When my wife and I lived in our second apartment, I noticed strange things pretty often, but the first experience was the strangest. I was hanging curtains and standing on a puffy chair when I started to lose my balance. I felt a hand on my backside steady me.
I finished drilling in the last screw, then turned around to thank…no one. I thought my wife would be right there. The moment I turned around, the feeling of that hand on me disappeared. Turns out, my wife had been in a completely different room the whole time.
41. Sleepless Nights
Not my story, but my maternal grandmother’s. She was born in 1910 and lived to be 97. One story she used to tell me happened when she was a young girl, when she and her family lived in an old house in Tennessee. Her parents often felt the sheets and blankets being pulled completely off them during the night by some unseen presence.
42. Don’t Make a Move
About 15 years ago, I used a Ouija board with two friends. I was basically just going along with it and didn’t really take it seriously. I left later that night, walked home, and went to sleep. Then I had a dream unlike anything I’d ever had before. Some demon-like figure in normal clothes pinned me down, my vision got blurry, and I toppled over in the dream.
I woke up and felt the same way. I couldn’t move, and I couldn’t see clearly, and it lasted for about 30 seconds. I know now it was sleep paralysis, but I’ve never had a dream like that before or since.
43. Bizarre Mementos
A few years ago, I ran into someone from high school at a pub in my hometown. I was never really close with Ryan back then, and I don’t think we’d ever even talked, but that night we ended up spending a lot of time chatting and laughing with a couple of mutual friends. He was so friendly, and we had a lot in common, so it honestly felt kind of unreal that we’d never hung out before. Our city isn’t that big.
After we wrapped up the night with an awful, off-key version of “Bohemian Rhapsody” around 2 a.m., I got ready to leave and walk to my boyfriend’s house nearby. When I mentioned I was walking alone, Ryan insisted that he and a couple of his friends walk with me. It wasn’t far and I didn’t want to make it a whole thing, but they were heading the same way. I said okay, and we started walking.
When we got to my boyfriend’s street, I turned to head toward his place and Ryan handed me a pack of cigarettes with three left in it. I’d been borrowing them from him all night. About a month later, I woke up for work on a Wednesday and really wanted a cigarette, which was not like me at all. I took my time smoking the last one from the pack Ryan had given me and then went to work.
On my lunch break, I was scrolling through Facebook and saw a bunch of “RIP Ryan” posts from mutual friends. I honestly thought it was a prank, because he was known for joking around. But it wasn’t—he had died by suicide the night before. Why did I wake up craving a cigarette that day of all days? I’ve always been interested in what the number three can symbolize, so finishing the third and final cigarette that day—just hours after he was gone—still feels strange when I look back.
44. As Seen on TV
Nickelodeon used to run these commercials between shows where a celebrity and one of the animated characters would “interact” while they introduced the next program. One day, when I was probably around 9 or 10, I was about to turn off the TV and the commercial said something like, “blah blah blah, you better watch this show, Taylor.” I still can’t really explain it, but I know it happened.
45. The Last Goodbye
A few years ago, I was getting ready for an overnight camping trip in a place with no cell service. My mom called to tell me my grandpa was going in that day for a quick, routine surgery, and she asked me to call him before I headed out—just to send my love and good wishes. I did, and then I left for the trip feeling totally at ease.
That night, I had the most vivid nightmares I’ve ever had. I dreamed I was at the hospital with my grandpa, and that something was going wrong. I watched my mom and my grandma panicking and trying to figure out what to do. They even talked about whether to “let him go.” I saw him on the operating table. It felt so real—like I was actually there. In the dream, I was with him when he died.
When I woke up the next morning, I was crying. I told my boyfriend that my grandpa had died and that my mom was probably trying to reach me.
He tried to reassure me that it was just a terrible dream, maybe triggered by knowing someone I love was in surgery—but I didn’t believe that. I just knew. I could feel it. So we drove to the nearest town and I called my mom.
She answered in tears and told me my grandpa had passed away from unexpected complications. But then it got even stranger. I told her about my dream, and she went quiet. The moments and conversations I described matched what had happened at the hospital. I even described what the hospital looked like, even though I’d never been there—and my mom confirmed it was accurate.
I’ve never experienced anything like that before or since, and I’ve never had anything else that felt paranormal. But I still feel sure that, somehow, I was with my grandpa in his final moments at the hospital.
46. Life in the Strange Lane
I had a real “glitch in the matrix” moment today. I was doing a damage audit and an inventory audit on our fleet vehicles. I did the damage audit first. I found one vehicle with pretty significant damage and wrote down all the details.
That was one of about 10 damaged vehicles out of the roughly 30 we have on our lot. But when I turned in the damage audit, I was told that vehicle isn’t even on our lot.
Completely confused, I went back out to check. And it wasn’t where it had been when I inspected it. I searched the entire lot. Gone. We had no transports today, so the vehicle shouldn’t have been moved at all. We also checked its location history, and it had only been rented and returned at a location about 20 minutes away. It’s never been on our lot before. And that’s where it gets unsettling.
At first I thought, “Okay, maybe I just wrote down the wrong unit number.” Nope. I pulled up previous inspections, and it had the exact same damage I had written out. So somehow I inspected a vehicle accurately that wasn’t—and apparently has never been—on my lot.
47. A Waking Nightmare
I once had a test coming up on a Saturday—a really important English exam. My parents had paid a lot of money for my classes, and the test itself wasn’t cheap either. So I was under a ton of pressure. But I didn’t study all week, even though I felt really guilty about it.
Then I took the test. It went okay—not great, not terrible. A few weeks later, I got the results. I failed.
I completely fell apart and couldn’t bring myself to tell my parents how carelessly I’d messed up. I felt like I was seriously losing it, and then… I woke up. It was Monday. I still had five days until Saturday. I studied, took the test, and passed.
The dream felt so real. I remembered what I’d done each day in it. I even made up things I “studied” in the dream and could recall them while I was asleep. It felt so real that it unsettled me. Even now, thinking about it still gives me the creeps.
48. The Eeriness of Ordinary Things
One time, I was driving back from a fly-fishing trip with my friend Caesar. We stopped at a Mexican restaurant for lunch. While we were waiting for the chips to show up, we looked at each other and, at the exact same time—no warning, no reason—sang the same silly, made-up little jingle: “Mex-i-caaaan Restaauuraantt!”
Neither of us had ever sung it before, or really sung out loud at all. Neither of us are singers. We both just frowned at each other, totally confused, and we’ve never talked about it since. It was strange and completely ridiculous, but I’ve never forgotten it.
49. Not Feeling Secure at All
I used to work in a small office—maybe 60 people when it was full. We had a security guard on duty 24/7. One night I had to stay really, really late by myself because I needed to leave early the next day and had to finish my workload. Everyone else was gone by around 10 p.m., the cleaning crew came through, and then it was just me and the security guard.
The building was dark, but I wasn’t really scared. I’m not frightened by most things, the guard was a genuinely nice guy, and the area was safe. The guards were supposed to do rounds every couple of hours to make sure everything was okay. Sometimes they’d say hi, sometimes they wouldn’t.
That night, the security guy stopped at my cubicle and asked, “Everything alright?” He had his usual big friendly grin. “All good here, thanks!” I said, and went back to work. About 20 minutes later, he came back. Same big grin. “Everything alright?” “Yup! All good!” Another 20 minutes later… he was back again. Same grin. Same line. That’s when I started feeling uneasy.
There was no reason for him to check in that often, and honestly it was distracting. And the way he talked to me was always exactly the same—like he was repeating a script. Same grin, same tone, same rhythm. I also noticed he was whistling the exact same tune around the same times, so if I paused my music, I could hear the whistling getting closer before he’d ask, “Everything alright?”
By midnight I was really freaked out. I tried to talk myself down because I needed to finish my work, but I kept rushing and then hearing that whistling behind me. I’d think, surely he won’t come back again… and then: “Everything alright?” At that point I was genuinely scared, and I didn’t trust this guy I’d always felt safe around.
I was a woman in my mid-20s, and the guard was a man in his 50s. I couldn’t finish everything, but I emailed my supervisor saying the guard was acting very strange and I didn’t feel safe. I shut everything down and headed for the exit as fast as I could. I didn’t see the security guard… or at least I thought I didn’t.
Right when I felt like I was in the clear, I heard “Bye now,” behind me. He was standing there in the dark hallway with that same big grin—just standing and watching. I mumbled something and hurried to my car. The next day I went to my supervisor to explain what happened. In daylight, it almost felt like I’d overreacted, or like maybe exhaustion had made me imagine things. Then I found out the unsettling part.
Apparently, the guy had just disappeared. He was missing. As far as I know, they still haven’t found him. The security company mostly brushed it off like he was flaky and quit without telling anyone, and it didn’t seem like anyone pushed too hard to figure it out. Maybe he was dealing with some kind of mental health issue or something, but up until that night, he’d been a kind, dependable guard that everyone liked. And honestly, the whole thing felt so strange it was almost like something had taken over him.
Pikist
50. The Others
My mom and older sister tell me that, when I was little, I would sometimes suddenly start crying and asking where my mom was—even when she was standing right in front of me. When she tried to calm me down and said she was right there, I would insist on my “other mom.” I’d describe this other person, who I apparently said always carried a bloody hammer. They said it terrified them, but one day when I was two, they tried to ask me more about it—and I couldn’t remember anything.
Pxfuel
