Ghostly apparitions. Glitches in the matrix. Extraterrestrial visitations. Call them whatever, these are the creepiest and most inexplicable experiences from all over the internet. Some of these unsettling experiences are harmless—even benevolent. But others were lucky to escape with their lives. Or did they?
1. Pub Pals
A few years ago, I was at my lowest point in life. Several people close to me had passed away unexpectedly and my co-workers bullied me every day at my job. Basically, my life was falling apart. I was past being depressed—I just couldn't imagine waking up another day. So, I'd planned to end my life. I bought a one-way plane ticket, got sleeping pills, and wrote a series of notes.
On the day I was to fly out to fulfill my “plan”, there was a terrible accident on the freeway to the airport. It was shut down in both directions. So, I drove into a nearby pub to wait out the traffic. The second I sat down on the patio with my drink, a gentleman asked if he could sit with me. Whatever, I thought, sure, who cares.
He began to talk—and I felt my blood run cold. He told me that whatever I was doing next was a terrible idea and I would regret it. I didn’t know what to think. Who was this guy? Why was he talking to me like this? But I listened anyway. He said that he sensed I was in pain, but that I had an incredible life ahead of me, and that this was not the way my story was supposed to end.
Again, I'd never met this guy in my life, and hadn't mentioned a word to him about my “plan.” He asked me to hand him my keys and my wallet, and he'd give them back to me after I talked and he listened. I poured my heart out to this random guy. Told him all my traumas and pains in life. I told him my whole terrible plan.
I told him why I had gotten that one-way ticket to the cemetery across the country where I had buried my family. He just listened. And then he pulled out a lighter, asked me to pull out my letters, and helped me burn them. He told me I was worth so much to the world and that after I finished my drink, I needed to head home and get some sleep.
He told me I was going to be okay tomorrow, and, for some reason, I believed him. He then gave me my keys and wallet back. I left that afternoon and went home, hugged my family, and got some sleep. The next day, I started working on myself. I found a therapist and a new job. Years passed, and I found myself in a fantastic place in life, so, so far from where I had been that day.
To this day, no one in my life knows how close I came to taking my own life. But this random stranger just somehow understood me. And saved my life. I never saw him again. I don't even know his name. It's the most unexplained thing that has ever happened to me. And I think about that guy every day, whoever he is and wherever he may be.
So, thank you, kind stranger, for saving my life that random September day on a pub patio.
2. The Uncanny Disappearance Of My Imaginary Friend
There was this kid in my kindergarten class that I distinctly remember playing with. We were pretty much inseparable. Then, about a month after the Christmas break one year, he just disappeared. That’s not even the creepy part. Or the part that I can’t explain. I mean, he could have just moved or something, right? But then how does that explain what happened after?
When we got back from Christmas break, no one remembered him. Not the teachers, or the other kids in my class. No one. I even asked the school counselor if he was okay, and she humored me by going through the records to see if he’d transferred. She couldn’t find a thing. To this day, no one remembers him. I think about it at least once a month.
3. Ghost Driver
I was delivering newspapers on my paper route when a long-time customer pulled up next to me. He asked me to give him his daily newspaper right there because he was going on a long trip. I handed him his newspaper then skipped his house as I continued my route. It seemed like a pretty harmless encounter—and then things got weird.
The next day I was collecting the weekly fees. We used to have to go collect the money back then because there were no internet payments yet. I went to his house to collect the fee. His wife answered and promptly complained that I missed her house on my deliveries the day before. Even that seemed like a normal reaction. Her husband just hadn’t told her that he had collected the paper.
I explained to her that her husband had pulled up next to me the day before and that I had given him the paper. She started crying. The next thing I know, she told me that her husband had passed away a couple of weeks ago and it was obviously not possible that I spoke with him the day before. That made my face turn white as a sheet.
Despite what she told me; I know what I saw that day. Nearly 30 years later and I still think about that situation. I have no way to logically explain what happened and it still gives me the creeps.
4. Visions Of The Future
I had this neighbor who was around 30 years old. He was such a sweet guy. Let’s just say his name was Adam. I felt like he was the kind of older brother I’ve always wished for but never actually had. He was a really talented guy; gym freak, good at singing and playing every possible instrument, dance, sports, cooking, etc.
He used to take me and my younger brother to the beach wherever possible. So, this incident took place three days before my 14th birthday. I was on my way to school in the morning when this scene flashed in front of my eyes. It was like I had a premonition or something. In this scene, I saw Adam lose his life in a terrible accident.
It felt so real that I almost wanted to cry. I just passed it off as a crazy daydream because I had watched a movie in which the same thing had happened to a character the previous night. I continued with my day normally and it was normal until almost eight at night. That’s when I heard the news that would change my life.
My parents got a call from someone that night. I could see their faces change expression almost immediately. Once the call ended, they said they needed to go somewhere and would be back in a while. I wasn’t sure what was happening yet but I felt that something wasn’t right. The next morning, I woke up to the worst news of my life.
Adam had died. Apparently, he’d been in a major accident the previous night and passed away on the spot. I didn’t know how to react because a few hours before the accident had happened, I had a bad feeling that I couldn’t explain. For days I couldn’t even sleep and I blamed myself because I felt like maybe I could have warned him about it and maybe he would still be alive.
It’s been almost seven years since that incident took place but every time, I think about it, my heart aches and I still wish he was alive. I still can’t explain that premonition that I had or why I had that sort of sinking feeling hours before it actually happened.
5. Hot On My Trail
I was driving home from work late one night when I had the weirdest experience. I left the hospital and turned off the main road to a bunch of side streets. At one point, I became aware of a car behind me that made the same left turn as me. They sped up to get close behind me. I thought nothing of it at first. Maybe they were just in a hurry.
Then, I briefly thought about running to a convenience store to grab some food and turned on my right signal. But I realized I had food at home, so I turned my signal off. The car behind me turned on their right signal and turned it off as well exactly as I had. At that point, I got a bit spooked. I thought that it was too odd to be a coincidence.
So, I turned my right signal on and they did as well. Instead of turning right at the next intersection, however, I turned left. They did as well. They proceeded to follow me through a series of odd turns. Eventually, I turned onto a cul-de-sac I knew about and figured I could turn around there and look at the driver to see who was following me.
As I approached the end of the road, they figured out what I was doing. They stopped and did a fast three-point turn and sped off. It was weird. I still don’t know who was following. And what for.
6. Knock, Knock. Who’s There?
In my last year at university, I lived in a four-bedroom house with a ground floor, then two floors with two bedrooms each. My friends had the first-floor bedrooms and I was on the second floor. The bedroom next to me was empty because the guy who had rented it was staying with his girlfriend. I don't think he ever slept there.
My bedroom and the other one on the second floor had these small crawl space cupboards in the corners. I came back to university after going home for a while. My friends were discussing noises sounding like footsteps that they had heard from my floor at night, when I was asleep. I laughed because I hadn’t heard anything myself despite my friends saying that the noises were loud.
Because I didn’t believe them, I offered to go look at the crawl spaces. We went upstairs and I opened the door of the empty room. Right as I opened that door, I heard a noise that sent chills down my spine. The door to the crawl space in the other corner of the room slammed shut. It was as if someone had pulled it closed in a hurry. The door slammed shut with a bang.
We freaked out. There was no reason for that door to have been open in the first place. So, we grabbed kitchen knives, holed up in one of the rooms on the first floor, and waited for another friend to come and check the cupboards and attic. We never found out what those noises were. Honestly, I’m not sure that I want to know.
7. More Things In Heaven And Earth
I used to work in this really old Shakespearean Theater. It was 1985. I had worked there all summer when I was 17. I had landed a cool job as a stage operations crew member the summer after high school. I worked the "upper theater" high above the stage on the catwalks. I was working in a far corner of a theater's rafters through my lunch break so I could leave early that day.
I had to walk off the catwalk, cross a wooden plank, and drop a rope down then pull up a larger rope to tie off on the rafters. We were getting ready for the season, and slowly stringing lights and scenery to the "drops" that were bars on pulleys and counterweights. It was a safe enough job if you knew what you were doing.
As I left the catwalk—which was very sturdy—I stepped onto a plank. It was so dark up there that couldn't see into the middle of the building but I could see a plank rising upward on the other side of the darkness. “Ok, it must hit a platform there at the bottom and go up again,” I thought. Boy, was I wrong about that.
I walked four or five steps down into a very dimly lit part of the rafters on the plank when a man stopped me. "Turn around slowly,” he said. “The plank is missing. No light. Get light.” I grumbled like any other teen would at someone telling them what to do. “Fine,” I said. I had no idea that that guy had just saved my life.
I turned around and got back on the catwalk, walked to the ladder, and climbed down to the stage to get a flashlight. My boss asked, "Why are you down here?" I told him that I needed a flashlight and that his guy up there told me that a plank was missing. "What guy?” he said. “You were the only one up there.” I wasn’t buying it.
"The old guy with the beard and wool cap,” I said. My boss, who headed the technical/carpenter/electrical part of the theater was in his late 60s and had worked in that theater for nearly 40 years. He looked amused at first. Laughing, at me. He asked, "How'd you know about that?” I was a little confused at first but then asked, “Know about what?”
"You're serious?” he said. “You saw him?” I was like, “Say who? What are you talking about?” That’s when my boss told me a story that filled me with sheer terror. “It must have been 1954,” he said, “and a rigger fell from the rafters and hit the floor. He fell all the way to the stage. I think his name was John. In '74 my assistant made up a story about talking to him.”
I told my boss that I know what I had seen and invited him to go back up to the catwalk with me. Sure enough, when we got up there, the plank was missing. There was the plank I was on, a platform then nothing. In the dust along the plank were my footprints leading right to the edge. One more step and I would have fallen to the stage.
Below us was a thick fabric curtain that separated the stage from the rafters, blocking light from below. In the horizontal folds of the curtain, we found a wool cap. To this day, I've not stepped back into that theater. Not even to say thank you to the ghost who saved my life.
8. The Call Is Coming From…
I was alone at home when an unknown number called. I probably shouldn’t have answered that call. On the other end, I could hear the same TV show that I was watching playing in the background. I kept saying, “Hello?” and my voice would echo back to me. I thought it was just one of those broken calls, but what happened next creeped me out.
Right before I put down the call, I heard a voice whispering, "Goodbye. Goodnight." I stared at the phone confused. Then I said, “Hello?” again and the static and the echo disappeared. The line went totally silent until I heard, very clearly, "Hi." I put down the phone, turned off the TV then ran to bed.
9. Hello, Stranger
This was the creepiest thing that has ever happened to me. I was chilling in a cafe several years ago when someone I had never seen before walked in. I’ve racked my brain trying to place this person’s face. I’m totally positive that I didn’t know this person. Anyway, he came up to me and asked, “Are you [my full name]?”
I said, “Yeah?” kind of unsure what he wanted. Then the guy just nodded and then walked out of the store and I never saw him again.
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10. The Un-Twinning
When I was a freshman—or sometime in high school—we had a pair of new students start who were twins. I remember both of them because while they were twins, they had slight differences so I could tell them apart. Anyways, a few years after high school I got a friend request from one of them. It was nice to reconnect so I accepted.
I was looking at her Facebook page randomly one day. When I was going through her pictures, I didn’t see any of her sister which I thought was odd. I mentioned it to my friend and she looked at me strangely and said, “She doesn’t have a twin.” I asked another couple of people we went to high school with and they all said the same thing.
I have no idea what happened and it still baffles me because I distinctly remember two of them, but apparently, there was only one.
11. The Uncanny Hitchhikers
I was driving down the freeway in a big city after work and my car stalled in the left lane. Some guy immediately came up and offered to tow me to the next off-ramp. He dropped me off, and I tried giving him some money. He declined, telling me to instead do something nice for someone else. I got my chance a week later.
There was a rare downpour as I got in my car after work. Two scruffy-looking guys came running up to me and one said, “Hey brother, we missed our bus.” He wanted to know if I could give the two of them a ride. This was not the best part of town, and I would have declined but I remembered what that Good Samaritan had told me. Pay it forward. “OK,” I said, “hop in.”
We drove onto the freeway and I made all my usual turns heading home. It was the same way my two passengers wanted to go. After a while we got to an exit where they asked me to stop. It was the same exact spot, in a city of millions of people, where that other guy had unhitched my car from his truck and told me to do something nice for someone else.
12. Where Do Babies Come From?
I was at my best friend’s 18th birthday party at her big brother's house. There were like ten of us there. The party started at around eleven at night and at three in the morning, one of my friends ask to go to sleep because he started feeling tired. He went upstairs to an empty bedroom but came back right back downstairs.
He said that he couldn’t sleep in that room because there was already a baby sleeping in the bed. We were all confused because no one of us had kids and neither did my friend's brother. So, we decided to check and, in fact, there was a baby. We tried to wake the baby up by touching him but he didn’t stir. We were all afraid but decide to let him sleep.
30 minutes later, the baby suddenly started crying. All together, we went to the bedroom and tried to calm him. We fed him and he fell asleep again. We went back to the living room. We started cleaning the house around five in the morning when a friend screamed “Where’s the baby?” Sure enough, the baby had disappeared just as it had appeared.
13. Repressed Memories
I have this weird memory, almost like a dream. In it, I'm a boy in a suit and tie. I'm at a party in a huge ceremonial church and there are lots of men and women wearing fancy black clothes. They all gathered in a circle. It was the middle of the day and light was brightly coming in through the windows. There are older couples dancing in the middle of the circle.
There was classical music and I was trying to look at the dancing couples through people's legs. Suddenly, without cause, a man fell. Then a second man fell. Everyone started screaming. People were running away but the men were running towards the men who had fallen. I think the crowd trampled me because I was lying on the floor and then everything went black.
I'm really creeped out because I know that memory isn't mine. I've never gone to a fancy party in a church when I was little.
14. Déjà Vu
I was driving from Northern California to Southern California through the middle of the night about a decade ago. I was tired, and the scenery along the freeway through the central valley isn't very interesting. I remember passing an old silo, looking at my car clock, and seeing that it was 3:17 AM. I drove some more, passed a powerline, and noted that it was 3:21 AM.
A little way down the road and I passed that same old silo, and it was back to 3:17 AM. I was in disbelief. I just stared at my clock for a few moments. I drove a little bit more, passed the same powerline. 3:21 AM. I don't know why or how, but I went backward about four minutes. I’ve never experienced anything similar or since.
15. Pet Cemetery
When I was about eight years old, a car struck my kitten and she didn’t make it. I was devastated. I had rescued her with my older sister from a box in the rain. It was a miracle our parents let us keep her and her brother and we loved them so much. Anyway, later that night, I was lying in bed and I felt someone or something kneading (or “making biscuits” as some may call it) on my legs.
I looked behind me, as I was laying on my stomach, only to see nothing there. I laid back down and the feeling came back again. Every time I would look behind me, it stopped. To this day, I still believe it was her.
16. Put Your Hand In Mine
You know how, on cold days, you can breathe on the window inside your car and draw on the glass? Well, yeah. I got in my car one morning and as I looked at the windshield, I saw a few small baby hands. I thought it was strange that someone would let a baby play on my car’s windshield. I went to touch the prints out of curiosity.
As I touched them, I wiped them away. That’s when I realized that the handprints were on the inside of my locked car. This is probably the strangest and creepiest unexplained phenomenon that’s ever happened to me. I don’t have kids.
17. A Picture Is Worth A Million Screams
My best friend and his mom were moving out of their house and he went to take one last selfie in his room. When he showed the picture to his mom, she asked, "Who is that?" Upon further inspection, he noticed there was a white face almost like a mask looking over his shoulder from the attic hatch above his room. He had always heard things from the attic but never saw anything.
A few weeks later we went on a wrestling trip and stayed in a hotel. He showed the picture to everyone in our room and then some spooky things started happening. We began hearing knocks on our door when nobody was there. We saw flashes or glimpses of a figure in the mirror in our room. Everyone was pretty freaked out about it.
We thought it could be the demon from the picture. My friend who took it became so paranoid that he played Bible verses to ward off any demons at night. He said ever since he took that picture, he has had weird things happen to him.
18. The Parasite In My Dreams
I had a recurring nightmare of a terrible parasite sucking the life out of me. Sometimes it waited for me in dark corners to go to bed. My cats always slept on my bed during that time. For me, it was a very stressful time. I got an itch at the place of my chest where I dreamed the parasite had latched onto me. I ended up making myself sick with worry.
I went to my doctor. As it turned out I had male breast cancer at the age of 28. My doctor ordered a biopsy of the lump that I thought had been this parasite. After I got well again the dream never came back and my cats slept in their places again and not on my bed. The dream was creepy enough that it made my cats protect me.
19. Silent Night
I had a schnauzer that could hear a cat stalk across a Persian rug. The slightest noise could wake her from a slumber and set off her constant barking. She made a great tent companion while on solo backpacking trips. One morning, we woke up from a night without interruptions in the backcountry of southwest Colorado and I found my tent’s central line had been replaced.
The aluminum stake that I had used was gone and instead, there was a piece of aspen branch that had been carved into what looked like a tiki statue. Someone, or something, had carved a snarling face with teeth into the branch and had heated it in a fire to give it a brown color. My dog—with the most sensitive ears--hadn’t made a sound all night.
I scrambled out of the tent and looked around the small alpine lake and saw no other campers nor any sign that people had been around. I cut my trip short and hiked the eight miles back to my car.
20. I’ve Heard It All Before
I used to get déjà vu a lot as a child. Most times it was just a weird feeling of living in a memory, but there was this one time where I actually felt like I could predict the future. I was having a conversation with my brother. I felt like I had had that exact conversation before. I could also "remember” five or ten seconds ahead of time so I was completing his sentences.
He was freaking out.
21. The Eyes Have It
I had this very lucid dream once. In the dream, I got up to use the bathroom. When I got out of bed, however, there was a demon standing in my doorway. It had bright, golden eyes. It was such a lucid dream that it freaked me out so I told my brother about it. But when I got to the part about what the demon looked like, my brother freaked me out even more.
He finished my thought for me and said, "...with golden eyes?" Turns out he had had the exact same dream as me.
22. You’ll Never Leave This Town
This happened to a friend of mine and their sister a few years ago. They were driving from one town to another. The ride out of town went fine but, on the way, back, about 15 minutes into their 30-minute drive, things got weird. They drove past an abandoned and creepy-looking house out in the middle of a field then drove past a forested area.
A little while later, they passed the same house again, then more trees. Then the house again, then trees. It went on about half a dozen times and they were both freaking out. It seemed like they were stuck in an endless loop. Finally, they drove past the same trees again and were right outside the other town. They had skipped the last half of the physical distance of their journey.
23. Attack On The Track
I used to train a lot in high school. That meant a lot of late-night runs at the middle school track. It was an old gravel one close to the woods with no lights. I'd hold my phone to time my laps. One night, while I was looking down at my phone for my lap time, someone tackled me out of nowhere. It was all just a blur to me.
We rolled around on the ground and he never said a word. Just grunted. Luckily, I got up and ran towards the middle school. I left all of my stuff behind and when I went back with officers, it was all still there. He hadn’t taken any of it. It was pretty strange.
24. iPods Save Lives
My oldest friend and I went to different high schools but we kept up with holiday messages just to keep the friendship going. The only way I could text her was through my Facebook account but since I only had the account on my old iPod, I only checked it every couple of weeks. So anyway, one day I just get this sudden urge to charge up my iPod and see if she sent me anything.
I hadn't checked for around a month or so. Once I charged my iPod, I saw that she had recently sent me a message. Literally thirty minutes earlier. It turns out that she was in a mental health institute for youth after attempting to take her own life and she wanted to call and talk about it. I went through an incredibly similar situation a year or so previously so we talked for hours about what she was going through.
She's in a much better place now. I wonder if it was all just a coincidence or if some greater power had “tapped” on my shoulder.
25. Flash Of Horror
When I was 16 or 17, I was taking a warm bath. It was a stormy night with lots of thunder and lightning. I was enjoying looking out the windows at the storm when, suddenly, a flash of lightning exposed a silhouette in the darkness. It was a tall and very skinny creature with long arms and a head that made me think of Martians or space aliens or something.
I think about this moment every now and then and it gives me the creeps.
26. Just Gone For A Dip
I was exploring an area behind my house shortly after we moved in. The area back there had once been a small quarry that had since filled with water. It was a real pit that supposedly went straight down sixty feet if you stepped into it. I was walking along the edge when I came across something really weird and kind of creepy.
There was a backpack filled with old video game cartridges and a set of clothing just lying on the ground. They were for the N64 and we found this around 2004 so they were obviously outdated. Next to it was a set of clothing. The clothes were on the ground, spread out, pants and shirt, so it looked like someone laying down.
They looked like they'd been there a long time. Same with the backpack. I told my parents and they called the authorities. There had been no reports of missing children or anything in the area. We never got an explanation but it was weird.
27. Boo! Good Morning
I fell asleep on the couch in my apartment in Detroit. I lived on the 16th floor of a high rise. It wasn’t a shady building but it was right on the water/international border so there was a bit of an issue with trafficking and the like. Sometime after midnight, I had a feeling that something wasn’t right and it woke me up. I couldn’t believe what I saw when I opened my eyes.
There was a strange man standing in my entry hallway, backlit by the hallway light. He slowly backed up upon seeing that I was awake and closed the door. I ran to wake up my then-boyfriend in the bedroom and we went out to the hall to see who it could have been, but there was no sign of him. He just disappeared into the hallway.
It was probably a neighbor who got the wrong door but it’s still the creepiest thing I’ve ever woken up to. It was the only night that we hadn’t locked our front door. The odds just seem small.
28. Mixed Berries
As a kid, I went to a friend's house after school. It was a sunny day so we went to the park near his house then through the woods there. His younger brother was with us as well. In the woods, beside the path, there were red berries on the ground. Someone had arranged the berries into three stick figures, which was weird as there was three of us.
We got back to the house but we were still wondering about the berries. My friend and I decided to go back to take another look while his brother stayed at the house. When we got back, there were only two stick figures. My friend snapped a photo on his phone then kicked the berries and we ran back to the house. I don’t know if it was some kind of prank or witchcraft or what.
29. Taste The Rainbow
I received a package in the mail once. While that’s not creepy in and of itself, I hadn’t ordered anything. Whoever sent the package definitely intended to send it to me as the package had my name and my address on it. It was the strangest thing I’ve ever gotten in the mail. The package contained one pink starburst and nothing else.
To this day, I have no idea who sent it or why. The return address was a vacant office space across the country.
30. A Miraculous Vanishing Act
I was traveling from Texas up to Washington state with my family. We were almost out of money, almost out of gas, had no food, and were stuck in California. I sat in the car while my mom took my younger sisters to the restroom at a gas station. I was really anxious about our situation. Suddenly, the car door opened and I looked up.
This lady that I had never seen before sat in the seat and faced me. She said, “It seems like you’re down on your luck. Take this and give it to your mom. Tell her to pay it forward someday to someone who needs it.” I looked down into my hand and there was a $100 bill. I looked up to thank her but she had already disappeared.
She was nowhere in the parking lot. Just vanished. When my mom came back, I told her what happened and she cried. We got gas. There was a guy selling oranges on the side of the road and we bought a bag and went to a local park. We got back on the road a few hours later. I never saw the lady again. She saved us and we made it up to Washington to start our new life thanks to her.
31. Why I Never Do Laundry
My grandma and I both saw something really creepy in our laundry room once. One afternoon, my grandma needed a hamper. So, I followed her to the laundry room. When we opened the door, we got the fright of our lives. There was this ghostly figure in there. It looked to be about my height—I was six or seven at the time—and totally black.
It was slumped near the washing machine. We only saw it for a split second, enough time to register that it was there, and then it was gone. I remember my grandma saying, "Did you see that?" and then laughing it off. She got the hamper and did her thing as if nothing happened. I avoided the kitchen for a while after that.
32. A Dark And Lonely Road
I was driving home from work on a long and somewhat dark road. I was tired and cold and just wanted to get home. The speed limit was 60mph and I was doing closer to 70. Suddenly, a girl with long blonde hair, a black coat with brown fur on the hood, and jeans just showed up in front of my car. I have no idea where she came from.
I knew there was another car to my left up ahead but it was black and I could barely make it out. All I managed to see was that it stopped before I saw the girl. I managed to maneuver around her. I turned to a side street and stopped to figure out what was happening. Then a tall guy with a black coat and short hair got out of the driver’s side of the stopped car.
He grabbed her, dragged her to the car while she was fighting him, and put her in his car. I called the emergency number and gave them the description of the car and the direction it took off in. I never heard anything about it. I have not stopped thinking about her since. It's been two years.
33. A Night In The Woods
I was camping alone in a small one-person tent. I went to bed one night, all snug and secure in my tent. I made sure to close the inner and outer zippers — I was sleeping alone in the woods, after all, and you can never be too safe. At around three in the morning, a loud thunderclap woke me up. When I looked around the tent, I discovered both the inner and outer tent “doors” were wide open.
I don’t know if it was the wind or something else, but it totally creeped me out.
34. A Homeless Shelter
I had a really creepy encounter when I was 18. I was at my dad’s house. He lived on the ground floor of a busy apartment building. It was my birthday so I had a few close friends over to celebrate. We had drinks, watched movies, and used the pool on the second floor. We all got pretty tired and crashed out in the living room. There were about five of us, plus my dad in his room.
At about five in the morning, I woke up to use the bathroom. On my way to the washroom, I noticed the front door was open. I didn't really think much of it and locked it on my way. Nothing seemed amiss, so I used the bathroom and went back to sleep. Everyone else appeared to be sleeping as well. It all seemed kosher to me.
Well, at about nine that morning, we all woke up to my very angry father shouting at someone, "Who are you?" There was a 40-something-year-old homeless woman in the living room. She had snuggled up to my best friend, Stan. Apparently, Stan had left the front door unlocked and this lady just let herself in. Thankfully she didn't steal anything or hurt anyone.
It was cold outside and she was looking for somewhere to sleep and found our door unlocked. I now always triple-check all the doors before I go to sleep.
35. The Creepy Caller
I got this voicemail out of the blue about two years ago. I still think about it to this day. It was from a number I didn't recognize. I think it was a Texas number. They called twice early in the morning while I was sleeping and left this really weird voicemail. It was an old woman. She sounded like she was leaving a coded message about some type of meeting.
The weirdest part is there were two sounds of someone hanging up at the end of the message. I don't know if that means that someone called me and played a recording or if there were somehow multiple people on the call. The whole thing was really bizarre and creeped me out. I even Googled the number various times but had no luck finding any sort of clue about who left the message or why.
36. Don’t Be A Tool
My brother had the craziest experience. He was working at our house because he kept a vintage car in our garage. It was a detached garage in a gated yard and he was totally alone at the house. He was just working away when all of a sudden, his tool box moved across the floor. There was no one else there and no wind or anything else like that.
He got totally creeped out and packed up and got out of there. That house was odd, though. It was Edwardian and quite big. We had a couple of other odd happenings there. My father-in-law saw a figure walk behind him in a mirror and I saw a figure in our bedroom. I don’t know if that figure was the same one that moved my brother’s toolbox or not.
37. Don’t Be Afraid To Dream
The strangest thing happened to me when I was 14 or 15. I played soccer at the time, and I had a dream about being in front of a mirror...like where the mirror and sink are separate from the rest of the bathroom, almost like the kind they have at hotels. I was brushing my hair and putting it up like I always did before games. It wasn’t the weirdest dream I’ve ever had.
I quickly forgot about it and a few weeks later I accepted a position on a team that would be going to a national tournament in Tennessee. Flash forward like six months and I was in the hotel brushing my hair…exactly like in the dream. The mirror, sink, and room were exactly the same. I thought maybe it was a good omen. Or that I had powers or something.
38. Wonderful Witchcraft
A couple of things happened to me and my housemate when we moved into the top apartment in an old building in Europe, right next to a forest known for witchcraft. The locals even have a witches' parade every year. They said it was a harmless bit of fun, but we had some experiences that made me think otherwise. There was definitely something going on.
The apartment was huge—three bathrooms, two bedrooms, a study, two living rooms, a living space, a kitchen, two balconies. The bigger one was upstairs, across from a door to the attic, that ran across the entire house. It was dark and full of a lot of old stuff. It was stuff from like a century ago. We found porcelain, really old wooden furniture, and a doll neither of us wanted to touch.
Apart from some of the odd stuff, it was a wonderful place to live and the cheap rent made it even better. It didn’t take long for both of us to get mildly creeped out in the apartment though. We used to hear stuff while in our rooms, like banging or footsteps, or like something had fallen on the carpets. My housemate would text me, “Did you hear that too?”
When we couldn’t explain the noises, she never wanted to talk about it. I guess she didn’t want to give it any power by acknowledging it. If that’s how witchcraft works, I guess. I clearly remember the first time she was out. It was winter, so it got dark earlier. I needed to grab groceries, so I left all the lights on to make myself feel better.
I tried to look for my earphones for some music along the way, but I couldn’t find them and I left without them. When I returned every single light in the house had been switched off except for the one in my room. When I went into my room, my earphones were lying neatly rolled up on the top of my bed. My housemate wasn’t home.
I guess they were nice witches.
39. Let’s Have A Ball. Or A Bawl.
I worked as a tour guide in an old 18th-century mansion. Lots of unexplained things would happen quite regularly. This one time while I was with some guests in the former ballroom, a little boy asked his mother, “Mommy, why are there children crying upstairs?” Of course, nobody else could hear it, but the little boy was totally convinced.
Above us in the ballroom would have been the old nursery where two young girls tragically lost their lives in the 19th century. That nursery was on the third floor and the entire level just had a very strange vibe to it. It still gives me the creeps just thinking about it.
40. The Least Relaxing Bath Ever
I woke up in the bath at 5:45 PM. I wouldn’t be making a big deal of it if I had any idea how I had gotten into the tub in the first place. But I had no memory of getting there. I had some fragments of memory, like seeing my own hand turning on the tap. I wasn’t on any kind of medication or anything so that can’t explain the memory loss.
The worst thing was the fear. When I woke up, I felt an inexplicable, almost primordial, dread. It lasted for hours. I was shaking, couldn't even function. It still freaks me out thinking about it—and that’s not even the eeriest part. That would be when it happened again. Ten years later. Exact same thing.
41. Shared Dreams
A few years ago, I woke up to two text messages from my girlfriend and a friend of mine. Both asked if I was alright. Apparently, they had both had the same dream. In their dream, a giant red truck had struck me down at an intersection I routinely took. The two of them weren't close and I had no reason to suspect that they were playing a prank on me.
It was just really spooky that they both had the same dream, the same night, with the same details. I don’t think I’ll take that intersection again any time soon.
42. The Phantom Plumber
My wife and I had bought a new house a while back. After we took possession of the keys, we stopped by to look it over and plan some projects. We had some big plans for the house but, apparently, the house had bigger plans for us. No matter how I try, I can’t explain what happened in the house on that first day. It was so creepy.
As we walked around the house, I noticed the faucet in the kitchen dripping. I took it apart to change the washer but couldn't put it back together. I was really frustrated and my wife was impatient so I just left it with all the parts scattered across the counter. I was going to tackle it later. But there would be no need for that.
When I came back the next day, the faucet was fully reassembled and wasn't leaking anymore. No one else had keys to the house. If the place was haunted, they were the nicest ghosts ever.
43. Let’s Play Ball
Growing up I had a basketball-themed room. I had a basketball hoop on my wall as a decoration—the kind without the pole that you would hang on a garage. Our actual basketball hoop was outside, and the net had become extremely weathered and tattered. Our homeowners’ association made us replace it, so we used the net from my room's goal.
When I got around to replacing the net in my room, it was late at night right before going to bed. The new net was way thicker than the old one, and I couldn't get even one loop through the hooks on the rim. I probably tried to get just one loop of the net on for ten minutes before throwing it across the room in intense frustration. I went to bed angry.
Now, I have always slept with my door closed and locked—even to this day—and that makes what happened extremely creepy. After falling asleep, the next thing I remembered was waking up in my bed. I was hazy, but eventually woke up enough to see that my door was open. This instantly confused and startled me. What I saw after that was even more confusing and startling.
A black, hooded silhouette slowly waddle its way into the open frame of my doorway. It stood completely still and just stared at me from my open door. This frightened me so much that I jerked awake, for real this time. I rubbed my eyes to be sure that I was actually seeing what I was seeing. When I opened my eyes again, the door was still closed and locked.
It was the middle of the night, so I started falling back to sleep. But when I rolled over, I noticed that my basketball goal net was completely attached to the rim. Not just one loop, the whole thing. The plastic hooks had been bent and contorted in order to fit in the insanely thick net. Needless to say, I couldn't sleep for the rest of that night.
44. I Will Not Say, “Cheese!”
When I was in high school, I applied for a job in a supermarket. I had just come from school and was still wearing my uniform. The counter to apply was a little high for me so I had to stand on my tippy toes. Anyways, after being there for about five minutes, a woman tapped me on the shoulder and said, "Not sure how to tell you this but I wouldn't feel right not saying anything, that man just took a photo under your skirt."
I looked and there was this dude speed walking to the subway entrance. I couldn't catch up but even if I did, what would I have done? It was the creepiest thing that has ever happened to me. Sometimes, the perfectly explicable things are scarier than the mysterious ones.
45. That’s How You Get Unfriended
I went to a bar about 20 minutes from my apartment in Brooklyn once. Because of construction and because I didn't know the way home—I had only lived there for about a month—it took some time to get home. When I got there, I noticed I had a message on my phone from someone I didn't know. When I checked the message, my blood ran ice cold.
It was some guy who had messaged me on Facebook saying, "Nice apartment. Can I come in?" I looked outside and there was a guy outside my place. He had obviously followed me home from the bar. I hadn't given my friends my new address yet, and he may have gotten my Facebook from a friend at the bar. I bolted the door and blocked him.
The fact that he followed me and just randomly texted me rather than talk to me at the bar was unnerving.
46. Call Collect
My nana (great-grandmother) and my mom were very close but lived overseas from one another my whole life. They talked on the phone every Sunday but because it was an international call, it was extremely expensive. They took turns calling every Sunday at 8:00 AM to make the cost equal. However, due to a four-minute difference in clocks, nana always ended up calling at 8:04 AM.
For some reason, whenever my nana called, the caller ID never showed up. Anyhow, my mom learned that my nana had passed away on a Tuesday following their Sunday call. The following week, we were sitting at the table eating breakfast and my mom noticed that it was 7:50 AM. Nana would have been calling any minute. Needless to say, my mom got emotional.
Just then, at exactly 8:04 AM on the nose, the phone rang. The caller ID, once again, showed that it was an unknown caller. We looked at each other like, “What’s going on? Is this some kind of joke?” My mom mustered up the courage to answer the phone. There was nothing but static at the other line and some garbled voice recording.
The only decipherable words were, ”We hope you enjoy your trip to paradise!” then the phone cut off. I have absolutely no explanation for that one. It still baffles me to this day. And creeps me out. Sorry nana, that’s weird.
47. Prison Sentence
I was serving in Iraq. My unit and I were staying in a former prison in Baghdad. During the night we would see and hear strange things. The base at that time had no civilians living in it but we would hear children playing from inside the prison. One day we decided to dig deeper into this mystery, to see where the kids were.
When we finally found where the noises were coming from, we found a room with the ceiling caved in. We didn't find any kids but, instead, we found kids’ books, toys, and clothes. Everything looked like it hadn’t moved in weeks. We continued to hear the kids in the year we spent there.
48. Kitty Power
I was (stupidly) talking on my phone while walking home one night. I saw a man who was talking to himself near a park and I deliberately chose to walk down another street to avoid him. He seemed really off. In the middle of my phone conversation, this orange cat came up beside me and started walking next to me. We walked in tandem for about three blocks.
I was telling the person I was talking to on the phone how funny it was that I had this new cat-friend. Suddenly, the cat turned around and headed back the other way. I was going to say goodbye to my new friend when I saw that same man I'd seen earlier. He had changed his original direction and had been following me for a few blocks—but then, things got even more bizarre.
The cat got in between us and howled at him until he turned around and went the other way. Then the cat and I walked another block together at which point he peeled off into a yard. I double-checked and the man had disappeared. I can't be sure that the man wished me harm, but I know I wouldn't have noticed him if it weren't for that cat.
I never believed in guardian angels or anything of that sort until I had that experience.
Piqsels
49. Am I Sleeping, Or…?
When I was 13, I moved into my brother's old bedroom. It was an extension to the original house with an en suite. Originally, it was a tiny box room with the entrance to the attic but my parents had extended it outwards. The attic entrance was always open, with a permanent set of metal ladders angled up into it. It was far larger than my old room and I was pretty excited.
Within a few weeks of moving in, I was ready to move right back to my small old room. I'd wake up in the middle of the night to see a ghostly figure staring down at me. It had a white head like a skull and a formless black body. It would slowly move down to the foot of my bed and stare at me until I moved, at which point it would sink into the floor.
I thought to myself, it’s just sleep paralysis, right? Furthermore, I couldn’t ask my parents to move back into my old room. I'd begged to move into my brother’s room and had just gotten it all set up. So, ghost or no ghost, I wasn't going to leave. I didn't really talk about it to anyone and it gradually became less frequent over time.
Eight years after I moved into my brother’s old room, I got chills down my spine. At a family get-together, my brother mentioned that he used to see a sleep paralysis demon when he lived in his old room. When he went on to give the details, he described the exact same thing that I saw in that room! I nearly swallowed my stomach.
Neither of us had mentioned it to anybody else at the time it was happening so we have no explanation for us both experiencing the same thing.
50. Childish Game
I used to work in a nursing home where I cared for dementia patients. Every patient on the hall I worked on would steal spoons from dinner. It got to the point where once a week I’d have to go through everyone’s room to take back the spoons. It was the strangest behavior so one day, I just to ask why they were taking the silverware.
Apparently, the patients, all of them, took the spoons to give to “the kids” because “they like shiny things.” I asked the patients about the kids many times but never got a good answer. I’d hear things like “they just live here” or “they stand outside in the snow and look in the windows” or “they’re my friends who visit.”
It wouldn’t be so weird if they all didn’t do it but it was everyone—the ones who were still capable of speaking anyways. One time at three in the morning one of my patients started screaming so I ran into her room and found her lying in bed, seemingly fine. I asked what was wrong and she said, “That boy is here again and won’t get out of my closet! I’m scared!”
I was like, “Yeah, me too, Dolores.”
Sources: Reddit,
