Being home alone can be a scary experience. It doesn't matter if you have the most advanced security system or multiple deadbolts on your door—strange and unexplainable things can still happen, and with no one else around, it's up to you to face those horrors on your own. From unexpected visits by disturbing creeps to paranormal encounters straight out of a movie, here are some home-alone horror stories that will make you want to stay with a friend tonight.
1. A True Haunting
The first house I moved into was a very old, very small house in a town that dated back to the Civil War. I lived there during my college years with three other guys since rents were high, but we made it work. The house was built on a hill and it had a small driveway in the front, as well as a U-shaped driveway in the back. It had a full basement and was owned by someone with multiple rental properties in the area. They told us we had full access to the upstairs, but that they used the downstairs for storage.
We never questioned it because the rent for this particular location was low and we didn't want to ruin our rapport with the landlord. We were still technically on campus, but our house was surrounded by other college students, so we could have parties whenever we wanted to. Everything was great—until we started having unwanted visitors. At first, things were pretty easy to ignore or completely write off.
We'd often find rooms with the lights on despite none of us having flipped any switches, or we would hear the bathroom faucet turn on and off by itself. We tried to do what research we could at the time and found that water pressure can cause faucets to do some crazy things on their own and that power surges can do similar things with flickering lights. Unfortunately, things kept getting stranger.
At one point, one of our roommates, who was home alone, got out of the shower, looked into the mirror to start shaving, and noticed that someone else stepped out of the shower behind him and left the room. He searched the house, but he couldn't find anyone else home at the time. Later on, our other roommate had several items go missing out of his room, including his keys and pocket knife. He later found them in our microwave. Again, no one else was home at the time.
Me, personally: I got home on a day when nobody else was at the house for the next couple of hours in between classes. There was a folding chair on the front porch next to the door, and I had an armload of books. I set the books down in the chair, unlocked the door, and pushed it open. I turned around to pick up my books again and just as I was about to enter the house, the door slammed in my face. I thought the wind had caught the door, but when I tried to open it again, the door had locked itself again...both the handle and the deadbolt.
On another occasion, the three of us were sitting together on a couch watching TV when we heard a loud, heavy thud, as though something had been dragged off of a bed in a back bedroom. All three of us later confirmed that we could distinctly hear footsteps walking through the house as well as the sound of something heavy being dragged behind. The back door also opened and slammed shut, even though we were all in the living room, and there was supposed to be no one else in the house.
But then it got more disturbing. A week later, we started to smell gas in the house. We called the authorities in the middle of the night and they searched the house while we waited on the front lawn. They told us that they couldn't find a gas leak and they asked us to open the basement. We had never been in there, at our landlord' request, but since the fire department was asking, we opened the garage door. Right in front of us was a Honda motorcycle with a large pool of gasoline underneath it where the gas tank had apparently leaked underneath.
The firefighters saw this and decided to leave, while we were left to look around the rest of the basement. Most of what we found was shelves and shelves of canned vegetables, but in the very middle of the floor, under everyone's bedrooms, was a mortuary table and a device. I'm still not sure what the device was; it was cylindrical with a small viewport in the front door. It seemed to have some places on the back for hoses or pipes to connect to it, but nothing was attached when we found it.
Soon after, we found out that our land owner worked night shifts at a local hospital. Whatever it might have been, we decided that enough was enough and we all decided to move out as soon as our leases were up. I was the last one there, and I promise that the last seven days I spent there alone are the longest days I've spent anywhere since.
I am a self-described cynic who doesn't believe in the supernatural, but I can also admit when I have absolutely no explanation for a set of events. I just accept that being in old houses alone is not a good idea, and I do my best to avoid them altogether.
2. Inhale, Exhale
About 15 years ago, my boyfriend got out of bed to get ready for work. He would sometimes do a workout before taking a shower, but for some reason, he decided to do his workout in the bedroom. I was really tired and I tried to keep sleeping. I hadn't even opened my eyes yet...but his breathing was getting really heavy and raspy, and I was unable to get back to sleep.
He was making so much noise and I was getting so mad. Little did I know something dark was at play. I turned over and opened my eyes to tell him to shut up—only to find nobody in the room. The breathing suddenly stopped and I got a chilly feeling.
3. A Dark Presence
This happened many years ago when my daughter was still an infant. We were living in an apartment at the time and my wife was at work. I was sitting on the couch watching TV, while my daughter was asleep on a blanket pallet on the floor. Our dog, a German shepherd and wolf hybrid, was about 10 feet away from us, laying in the doorway between our kitchen and the living room.
All of a sudden, the dog started growling, so I figured that he had heard someone walking by through the parking lot. I honestly didn't think much of it. But a few seconds later, I noticed the sound was getting LOUDER, and I could see out of the corner of my eye that he had lifted his head up off his paws. His ears were perked, and he was looking up at the ceiling over the area where my daughter was laying.
I looked up, didn't see anything, and told him to knock it off. Right at that moment, he began exhibiting the weirdest behavior—he jumped up and started circling my sleeping daughter while growling more and more intensely, even stopping at one point and snapping his teeth. After about two minutes of this, he laid down next to my daughter, rested his head on her back, and stayed there for almost an hour; still staring at the ceiling.
To this day, I have no idea what the heck was going on or what he saw...but it was creepy, to say the least.
4. The Multiversal Variant
My husband recently took an overnight job to help us out during the pandemic. He's only been there about two weeks and he works evenings and overnights, from 9 pm to 6 am. Last night was no different—he left home around 8:15 pm, leaving me home alone with our 11-year-old daughter. She and I decided to make it a movie night. Around 11 pm, I heard keys in my backdoor and the usual sounds my husband makes when he comes home.
I creeped out to the kitchen to make sure it was him, and it was. He told me he needed to grab his knee compression sleeve. He walked down the hall, said hi to our daughter as he passed the living room, and went upstairs. He came back down, gave me a kiss, and left again. It all seemed so normal, but I would later find out the bizarre truth...
We finished our movie and went to bed. In the morning, when he got home, I made a joking comment about him forgetting his knee sleeve. He was genuinely confused as I recalled the previous night. Our daughter confirmed everything I said, but he was still confused. I pulled up our security motion camera on my phone to show him when he popped in quickly.
But there was no footage from the night before, or any other night, of him coming home after he had left for work. My daughter and I both heard him, saw him, and I touched him, but he was never home during that time. Nothing else out of the ordinary happened that night. We seriously have no idea what happened.
5. Hunted Like Prey
I was a pizza driver for a while back in college. One time, I made a delivery out to a rural area late at night. This was before smartphones, Waze, and all of that GPS stuff. Of course, the road had no streetlights, so the only light came from people's porch lights, my car's headlights, and the full moon. I finally found the right house and delivered the pizza to a sweet little old lady.
But when I turned around to walk back to my car, something felt off and I instantly stopped. There was a strange sensation that I wasn't alone; I was being watched. But I looked around and didn't see anything. I slowly moved toward my car and the feeling didn't go away...it only intensified. It was like I was being watched before, but now I was being hunted or something.
I looked around and still couldn't see anything. After a few minutes, I shrugged and figured I was imagining things. I opened my car door when suddenly I heard a clicking sound; as if something was tapping the pavement in the road really fast. I hopped into my car and barely got the door shut when this giant dog jumped at the driver's side window.
He was growling and you could just tell that he wanted a piece of me in a big way. He had drool coming off his mouth, his breath fogged the window, and it was like I could FEEL the reverb of his growling in my chest through the window. It was only after the fact that I realized how close I came to getting the life mauled out of me by some crazy, bloodthirsty dog.
When I got back to the store, half the drivers had heard where I went for the delivery and they asked me about the dog. Turns out, they'd seen him before but nobody thought to warn me about it.
6. A Guardian Angel
One night, I wasn’t feeling very well. Our upstairs bathroom is larger than our downstairs one, so I figured I might as well sleep in the guest room since I was dealing with a pretty bad case of food poisoning. My wife did not have a problem with that as she had to work early the next day anyway. At some point in the night, I awoke to the door slowly creaking open and a female voice asking if I was feeling alright.
I assumed it was my wife and I replied, "Yes honey I’m fine, see you in the morning". But here's the creepy part—the door never closed and there were no footsteps that I could hear going down the stairs. I would’ve heard them since we lived in an old 1800s home with original wood floors and stairs. We were alone in the house that night.
I asked my wife about it the next morning and she said never came up to check on me, let alone wake up during the night. I was facing away from the door when it happened and the unexpected silence following the "interaction" made me turn over to check. The door was wide open and there were no lights on.
7. The Shadow Crawler
Back in high school, I'd usually be up all hours of the night playing games. I had a large dog at the time that would sleep in my room at night. It was 2 am and I was finally headed to bed, but my dog wasn't with me, so I ventured out to find him. I made my way across the house to the kitchen where we had an island with a stool that the junk mail was usually kept on.
I walked up, called for my dog, and after a few seconds, he walked from behind the island to behind the dining room table, knocking all the junk mail down as he did so. I huffed, flipped on the light...then froze in complete fear. There was no dog. I freaked out, scramble back across the house, and ended up finding him in my parent's room.
The next day, I told the story to my parents and younger sister (who often claimed to see weird things happen in the house). My sister piped up and said, "Oh, that's the tall black thing. Yeah, sometimes it likes to crawl around on all fours". Big nope.
8. I'm Watching You
In Grade 9, my best friend and I were having a sleepover at my house. My parents and younger brother were out of town, so we were home alone. After it was dark outside, we started watching a movie. We were laying on separate couches, watching the TV that was situated next to a door frame that leads to the kitchen, bedrooms, and basement.
Out of nowhere, I got chills up my spine—I saw a feminine figure standing in the doorway, facing me. For some reason, I instinctively yelled out, "Don’t leave me"! My friend also saw the figure, and he said to me, "Don’t worry, he’ll go away in a second," thinking it was my younger brother. The figure just faded away, kind of like mist, into the other room.
We looked at each other and realized what had just happened, then quickly turned on all the lights and sat on the same couch. We’re 28 now. We still have absolutely no idea who that was or why I said what I did, but I still think about it often.
9. My Mother's Imposter
I was upstairs in my house. I saw a doppelgänger of my mom a few years back, and I think she saw mine. I was sitting in my bed and I looked up when I heard her coming up the stairs. She walked by my door, looking straight at me with no expression, then walked into her room and closed the door. I said hi as she walked, but figured she didn’t hear me or that maybe she was getting something from her room.
Then, about five seconds later, she yelled from downstairs, asking, "Did you call me"? That's when I freaked out. She came upstairs, looked down the hall, and asked, "Did you close my door"? I didn’t, and neither did she...In fact, she never closed that door because one of our cats primarily lived in her bedroom, and she always kept the door open so the cat could come and go as she pleased.
My mom said she had very clearly heard me yell, "Hey mom, come here" from upstairs. I had done no such thing. I’m never entirely sure what I believe and what I don’t, but I was totally sober, not tired, and it wasn’t some "movement-out-of-the-corner-of-my-eye" thing.
10. Signs From Charly
Years ago, when I was 16, my dog died. He developed stomach cancer and we had to put him down. I had him since I was eight years old—for literally half of my life—so it was a huge loss for me. He was a beagle and basset hound mix, and he was probably the most chill dog you could ever meet. Anyway, when we had to put him down, I was really sad about it and I missed him a lot in the following months.
My kitchen had a tiled floor and our hallway had hardwood floors, so when he was alive, his nails made a very distinct sound on the floors. We also had a small bell tied to his collar for a time so that we could hear him if he was getting into stuff. Well, after he passed, I started getting a weird feeling. When I was home alone, I continued to hear the very distinct sound of his nails on the floor and his bell jingling every now and then.
At first, it really freaked me out, but after the first few times, I found it sweet that my little guy was still hanging around. It stopped after a few months and I took that as a sign that my little man had moved on. Not really scary or unsettling, but it’s something I can’t explain. We have no other animals and, as I said, these noises are very unique. I miss you, Charly.
11. Twister Terror
I managed to lock myself out of my house on my birthday during a tornado while trying to bring my cats to the basement for safety. I later found out a shocking truth—the tornado was approximately a couple of miles or less from me at that exact time. The sky was green and it got weirdly calm before I could hear what sounded like a train coming.
Thankfully, I found an unlocked window to climb through. Wild times.
12. The Black Void
I was in my college apartment and my roommate had just moved out. Her room was right across from mine. I cleaned out her room and then closed the door. One night, I left my bedroom door open when I went to take a shower. My bathroom was connected to my bedroom, and I had left the bathroom door open. While I was in the shower, I thought I heard a strange sound.
It sounded like a woman talking. I had never been able to hear my neighbors talking before, but I figured they were probably just talking loudly on the other side of the wall or something. When I got out of the shower, I was met with a bone-chilling surprise—I saw this black void when there should have been the closed door of my old roommate's room. I figured I just forgot to close the door, so I walked over and closed it.
The next night, I went to take a shower and I left both my bedroom door and the bathroom door open. This time, I checked to make sure my old roommate's door was latched and the front door was double locked. When I came back out, I once again saw the black void with the door wide open. I slammed my door closed and locked it so fast...
I convinced myself there must be a logical explanation, so the next night, I once again checked all of the doors and then closed my bedroom door. This time, I came out of the shower and MY bedroom door was open along with the other door. I showered with my bedroom door locked from that point on.
13. A Dapper Ghost
When I was a kid, I used to sleep with my door closed. I have no idea what time it was, but one night, I heard my door creak open. When I opened my eyes, I freaked out—I could only make out a figure of a strange, tall man with a hat and a coat. He just sat on my bed and stared at my door. This went on for a few minutes before he got up and left.
I don’t have many memories of my childhood, but this one I can recall very well.
14. Chill In The Air
My sister and I were home alone when we heard someone big running up the stairs. The stairs in our house make lots of noise with slight pressure, so when there’s someone big on them, you can tell. When I went out of my room to check, I immediately got scared—I saw no one anywhere, but I could feel a chill in the air. My sister also came out of her room and she asked if that was me...I said no.
We both looked around to see if there was anyone, but after checking the whole house, we confirmed that no one was there. We were so confused. We called our parents and just waited until they got back.
15. Moonlight Mirage
I grew up in a very rural area. Our house was on the end of a road in the middle of farm country. In high school, I was in cross country and track, so I found it easiest to run in the late evenings on nights when there wasn’t practice. One night, which was fairly well lit by the moon, I was running the last quarter mile to my house when I saw someone else running toward me on the road from the direction of my house.
There is nothing but farm fields behind our house and it definitely wasn’t my mom running. It surprised me so much that I stopped for a second to consider what I was seeing. Something was really, really off. I remember exactly what the runner was wearing and I watched her run another couple of strides toward me before she disappeared into the night like the Predator or something.
Now, it could have been exhaustion or dehydration I guess, but I’ve run a lot farther and a lot longer than I did that night without seeing anyone materialize and evaporate. It was the scariest thing that ever happened to me. I anime-ran home, crying panic tears. I couldn’t bring myself to run at night again for a month.
16. Yellow Vision
I got up in the middle of the night to pee and I happened to glance out the window to my backyard. That's when I saw it—the glowing yellow figure that spooked the life out of me. It looked like it was collecting soil samples from my backyard. I was so shaken by the sight of it that I bumped into the sink. The figure stopped what it was doing and looked at me.
I bolted back to my room and woke up my wife, but when we went back, it was gone. The funny thing is, I've told this story to a friend of mine and when his wife overheard, she burst into tears. She said she had seen the same thing when she was a child but nobody believed her. We both described her in the same way—it looked to be about seven feet tall since when it stood up, it was well taller than my fence.
It was glowing so strongly and seeing it made my adrenaline pump like crazy.
17. What A Mess
Once when I was 17 years old, I was home alone for a week with our family's dog, who was pretty small. He was starting to have trouble climbing stairs in his old age. I worked every morning that week while my parents were out of town. I came home from my shift on Friday and I was met with a totally unexpected surprise. The kitchen table was a mess.
The napkins were taken out of the holder, all of the mail was thrown on the floor, the salt and pepper shakers were not stored away together, and one of the chairs was pulled far away from the table. Our dog had never done anything like that before, and he was barely even capable of climbing on top of the table at the time. Still, he was the only one who could have made that mess.
I shrugged and reset it all before going to bed. Then, on Saturday, I came back from work to find the exact same items in the exact same configuration. Everything was just as I found it the day before. At that point, I began to believe something dark was at play. I was convinced there was a ghost coming to get me. I slept horribly that night and was barely alive for work the next day.
Before I left for my shift in the morning, I made sure the place was orderly when I left because I knew my parents would be back before I came home. When I went on my lunch break, I called my mom and told her about what had happened over the past two days. She just replied, "Yeah, why did you leave such a mess"? To this day, I have no idea who or what was behind that mess on the kitchen table.
18. Oh, Those Eyes
When I was younger, I used to live in this really old house in the middle of the woods. It had a small clearing with an average-sized yard and the rest of it was the forest. One night, I was walking up to our gate to go inside and I suddenly froze in fear—I saw a very tall figure looking into my bedroom window. My light was on, which was weird since I hadn't been in there, or so I could see the figure with its face and hands pressed up against my window.
Whoever it was must have heard me because they looked in my direction before booking it to the back of the yard. He presumably ran into the woods since there was nowhere else to go and the backyard area wasn't fenced in. I never slept in that room again.
19. I'll See You Again
When my dog passed, I had the strangest experience. I think he visited me in a dream to let me know he loved me and that he was at peace. It was just as vivid as my waking life, to the point that I remember seeing his individual whiskers. As soon as he sat on my lap, there was this INSANE feeling of euphoria and peace that vibrated through my whole body...I used to be an addict and I never felt happiness like that while I was under the influence.
I was almost a decade sober at the time it happened, by the way. I just hope other people get to experience the same thing sometime when they lose a loved one. I'm an atheist, but that dream was just so crazy that it convinced me there is some sort of afterlife. I know I'll see him again.
20. Scaredy Cat
Many years ago, When I was 14 or so, I had my first night alone in the house when my parents were out. I was lying down on the living room floor reading a book, and my cat sleeping next to me. Suddenly, my cat woke up, stared intently into the dark corner of the room behind me, and then bolted out of the room. I looked behind me and I saw nothing, but I followed the cat upstairs and hid under the covers.
It freaked me out.
21. A Warning Call
It was just me and my small dog at home. I had started getting ready to go to bed and my dog was already in my bedroom. When I was turning off the lights in the hallway, I heard something in the living room. It was this low growl coming from the dark. I turned off the lights and booked it to my room.
22. The Thin Man
I woke up in the middle of the night to someone standing next to my bed. I thought it was a friend of mine, but then I remembered that he didn't drive and I had never given him my address. I talked to my parents in the morning, but they slept through the night. All I remember is that the person was rail-thin—definitely neither my mom nor dad. I still don't know 100% of all that happened.
The night was a blur. I remember only bits and pieces.
23. Time To Panic
I was living in this house a few years back that was notoriously weird. One night, I was sleeping when I felt something touch me. Thought it was my brother because we shared a room. It was not. He was at his girlfriend's mom's place. I felt a hand on my back, then a sharp pain. The next morning, I looked in the mirror and found a scratch on my back.
There was nothing on my bed, and it was a memory foam mattress with no springs. Even if there were springs, I sleep on my stomach. The next night, I woke up in the middle of the night again, but this time, I caught a glimpse of this dark figure. It ran from my bedside and out the door into the living room where I never saw it again.
Having already been mentally messed up by recent bouts of depression, that encounter triggered the worst panic attack I have ever had yet.
24. Intruder Alert
I was home alone for a bit when someone knocked on my front door. I went to go check who it was, but I was confused because I wasn’t expecting anyone. Nobody was there, so I shut the door and locked it. But a few minutes later, I looked out the window and I saw these two people with a ladder attempting to go through the door to my porch. Thank God I was able to see them through the glass sliding door in my living room or else they might have actually entered my house.
I was so scared...but the strangers ended up seeing me looking at them and they left. 10 minutes later, a patrol car showed up outside of my house on the street...but he seemed to know the two people. To this day, I have no idea what that was about—the officer didn’t talk to me, but they never did come around again.
25. Crossing Over
When my dad passed on, I was at home by myself. I kept hearing a small bell ringing, which was weird because I lived there for years and I'd never heard that sound before. I searched around the house and it was coming from my mom's bedroom. On the window, there was a small porcelain bell, but it didn't have the ringer inside. I shrugged and went back downstairs... but the ringing started again.
I called my mom and asked her if she knew where it could be coming from. That’s when she revealed the devastating truth. She broke down crying and explained that years before I was born, she and my dad had agreed to ring the bell if they ever passed to let the other person know they were okay.
26. Ring, Ring
My husband used to leave for work at 4 am. Most days, I was asleep when he left the house, but one morning, I woke up early and made a nest on the living room floor, right in front of the TV. After an hour or so of playing video games, I heard the eeriest music. It was behind me and the sound was getting louder and louder.
After thinking the worst, I suddenly remembered that my baby sister had left her broken phone at our house. It was her ring tone...playing The Walking Dead theme song (which I don't watch).
27. The Clock Strikes
One night, when my parents were out and I was home alone, a chain broke in the grandfather clock in the living room, causing the pendulum to crash to the bottom of the case. It "resounded" through the house, as if a break-in were underway. I hid in my room with the door locked until my parents got home. But here's the thing—when I went to check on the grandfather clock later, the pendulum still intact and swinging.
28. It's Moving Time
When I was a child, I had "life-size" Power Ranger dolls. I usually kept them in my room stationed around my canopy bed to guard me at night. One day, I was planning to take them all to pre-school for show-and-tell. As I was preparing them to bring them downstairs with me, the Red Power Ranger "came to life" and pushed me down the stairs.
I only vaguely remember this incident, but when I brought it up recently at a family gathering, my mom said that it wasn’t the first time I had mentioned the Red Power Ranger being lifelike. Apparently, she had frequently heard me talking to "people" in that particular apartment. The incident of me being pushed down the stairs frightened my parents so much that they went to drastic lengths to protect me.
They took me away and we stayed with my grandmother until my parents could find a new apartment to live in. Needless to say, the Power Rangers did not move with us.
29. A Bear's Revenge
When I got home one evening, I had to shoo some cats away from my trash cans. 30 minutes later, I heard rustling at the trash cans again. I ran out the front door annoyed, and when I turned the corner, I ended up face to face with an enormous black bear. I yelled, "YAAAAAAAAA"! at the top of my lungs, and the bear bolted up a tree in a blink, faster than I would’ve thought possible for something that big.
So I was marveling at the speed, just staring at the bear (which I’m now aware was a terrible move), and the bear was staring back at me like, "Huh…you’re not as big as I thought. I’m pretty sure I can end you". He shuffled back down the tree, and at that moment, I think he resized me again and reaffirmed, "Yeah, I can definitely end you". So I started backing up while making myself as big as possible.
I slowly scooted back inside to get my rifle. Then, I remembered I don't have one. So I grabbed a handful of silverware instead, headed to the second floor, and start chucking knives and forks at the bear who was back at the trash cans. A fork connected with his head, pointy end, and he motioned a swipe with his paw, knocking over both of the trash cans. He then lumbered off into the woods.
The only slightly strange part is that a week later, 60 miles away from my house, a Rutgers University student was fatally mauled by a black bear. I couldn’t help but wonder if it was the same bear, still upset about getting hit with that fork.
30. Secret Life Of Legos
I grew up in a haunted house. One time, my family and I had come home from being out. They stayed outside to clean up a bunch of toys and bikes that we had left out in the front yard, while I went into the house to pee. While I was inside alone, I could hear someone sloshing their hands back and forth in the big box of Legos that my little brother had in his room.
I finished up and went to check it out. As I turn into his room, I saw the box of Legos in the corner with the lid on. No one was there, but I could still hear the sloshing sound. I ran out of there as fast as I could.
31. Tipsy Magic
This happened when I was still living at my mom's place. One night, we were both at home when we heard the sound of keys entering our front door. That was scary enough...until the door actually opened! We were the only two people who had keys to the front door, so we were absolutely terrified. Luckily, it was only our neighbor's tipsy daughter who'd gotten the houses confused, but we had no idea how she had used her own key to her house to get into ours.
We checked the keys, and they were completely different. We even tried it several times to see if it was just tipsy magic. No amount of force or twisting and wiggling could open that door with her key. It was definitely tipsy magic.
32. The Ominous Voice
When I was younger, I lived with my mother and sister in a three-bedroom house. My parents had recently divorced. One night, I heard a muffled, foreign-sounding voice booming from the hallway. It sounded like it was giving a speech. I froze, scared witless, and went back to sleep. In the morning at the breakfast table, I told my mom what had happened. She froze and said, "You heard him too"?
Apparently, two weeks prior, she was vacuuming and heard a voice speaking in a foreign voice coming from upstairs. Stressed from the divorce, she chalked it up to stress and just ignored it, continuing to vacuum. Shortly after, my sister flew down the stairs screaming and crying. I found out the next morning that the voice woke her up and was coming from the corner of her room. She assumed it was her computer but her computer was shut off.
Neither my mother nor I had told my sister what we had heard, so this turned out to be the third, isolated instance. To this day, we have absolutely no idea who or where the voice was coming from.
33. My "Gotcha" Moment
On one of my first nights in my new house, I thought I heard a door opening while I was reading in bed. So I very loudly got up, turned on the main light, smacked the wall a few times, to make sure I was heard, grabbed my handy dandy intruder-repelling stick (which I have literally never used), and headed out into the living room. My cat was staring at the front door, and I discovered it was unlocked, which was NOT normal.
When I looked out the peephole, what I saw made my blood run cold. I saw two dudes staring at the house. I stuck my head into the window near the door and waved at them. They immediately got into their separate cars and drove off. I was a lone female living with my cat. My friends stayed over the next few nights and we added some more locks.
34. Animate Objects
I live alone with my cat. Every night when he leaves my room, I shut my door and make sure it latches because he will often push against it. I always stuff a shirt under the door so my cat doesn't bounce it in the morning. I got to sleep around midnight one night, and I woke up around 3 am needing to turn over. That's when I noticed that, not only was my bedroom door open, but the shirt wedging it closed from the bottom was tossed aside.
If it had been my cat just figuring out how to open the door, that wedged shirt would have definitely prevented the door from opening. I have no explanation for this and I get the super goosebumps thinking about it.
35. A Warm Welcome
I just moved in and I was being followed by some small padding sounds. I am blind, so it’s not uncommon for me to get startled. Anyway, I just went about my business, but I kept being followed around by this sound. Eventually, after I was royally freaked out, the stalker decided to announce himself. Turns out, it was my new neighbor's dog trying to welcome me to the neighborhood. He’s my best friend now.
36. In The Arms Of An Angel
I was playing outside my townhouse alone. The parking lot was close to a tiny grass patch and sidewalk, with a big garage in the middle, so cars had to come around to the other side of it to be able to see where I was playing. I was using chalk to draw on the blacktop in my neighbor's parking spot (she was gone and let me do this) and one of my chalk sticks rolled into the part where people drove by. I walked over to get my chalk and was bent over when I heard a man call my name.
He crouched to give me a hug. I felt like I knew him, but I didn't know from where. I ran over and gave him a hug just as a car came flying around the blind corner of the garage. I looked at the car because I would've been hit if I hadn't gone over to give this man a hug, and when I looked back, he had completely disappeared. Years later, my mom and I were going through old family photos and I saw a picture of him. I picked it up and asked my mom who he was.
Her answer made me burst into tears. She told me he was my great-grandfather, her papouli. It's not necessarily scary, but it is strange and unexplainable. I never got the chance to meet him when he was alive, but I did get to see him that one time.
37. Great Balls Of Fire
I was sitting in an armchair when I heard a faint buzzing noise coming from the fireplace directly behind me. I whipped my head around because I thought it was a wasp and I'm terrified of them, and I saw what looked like a little glowing blue ball of electricity hovering a foot off of the ground in front of the fireplace. It startled me and I jumped out of the chair; then, when I looked back, it was gone. It all happened within a couple of seconds.
I still can't figure out if I hallucinated or had some kind of medical episode. There was a thunderstorm at the time so I wonder if it was a weird static reaction or something...
38. Man's Best Friend
I’ve seen figures moving and they look like my deceased dog. Sometimes, people go through denial and make things up to comfort themselves, but I know I wasn't in denial. I know that I see my old friend walking around and sleeping under beds or pawing at the door. I can see her hop off the couch from the corner of my eye. I mentioned it to my mom once and she was like, "I miss her too bud".
39. Message From Beyond
One night, I was falling asleep on the side of the bed that was nearest the sliding door to the balcony. Suddenly, I felt a VERY cold wind hit my back. I cursed myself for leaving the door open but also wondered why there would be so cold a breeze at that time of year; the end of April. I got up to close the door but it was already closed. Weird—but the story didn’t end there. My wife got a call a few hours later from a relative of hers informing her that her grandfather had just passed on a little while ago.
40. Musical Hands
My piano started playing unexpectedly in the middle of the night. It was maybe 60 feet away from me and I was completely terrified. I grabbed the safety bat and shouted out warnings, but the piano just kept playing. Not a song, just kind of plinking. As I inched down the hallway, I was thinking to myself, "This house is haunted, I've got to spend the night in a hotel and sell the house immediately".
I should add that I had my girlfriend over for the night. Scared as heck, I made my way to the piano with every hair on my body standing straight up. The lights were not on and the piano was still steadily plinking. When I threw on the lights, there was a big possum standing on the keyboard. I can't say I was relieved at that point, but the supernatural fears had evaporated. It came in through the dog door and it was probably after some dog food.
I had a big fishing net in the basement, so I grabbed it and threw it at him. He did his very best to get out, but I ultimately got him outside.
41. Treehouse Trespasser
I grew up in a remote mountain area. When I was around 16, I was left alone at home one night as my parents had gone to some kind of work party. It was mid-summer, so I had my window open to keep my room cool. My window overlooked our backyard and we have a tree house built between two huge pine trees. It was the only time I had ever heard such a sound.
I thought it was a screaming baby or something, but it was creepy and raspy. Our dogs went insane at the back door. When I went to check the door, it became clear to me that something was in our tree house. I went to grab my dad's spotlight and I could see a pair of eyes looking back. I think it was a mountain lion—the sound they make is just bone-chilling.
42. Real-Life Toy Story
I was not allowed to own toys that made noise growing up. So no toy pianos, no toy drums, no electronic toys that talked, etc. I always wrote that off as my parents not liking loud toys. I was giving my mother heck about it one day because my kids have all the annoying loud toys nowadays. Turns out, when I was five, right after we got stationed in Germany, we moved into an old German apartment building.
For about a week, when my mom would get home from dropping me off at school, my little completely mechanical xylophone would just start randomly playing in my empty room. I guess she talked to a couple of the other moms in the building who said, "Yeah, that's a thing that happens. Stuffed animals also end up on the floor". She was invited to a seance to talk to the spirits that lived in the building.
She said big nope to that. All my loud toys got donated, and all my stuffed animals got put in boxes in a closet in the guest room.
43. When A Stranger Calls
I got a random phone call asking how my TV was holding up. I thought it was just the company we bought it from doing their normal customer support stuff until I was told exactly what channel I was watching. I asked who it was on the phone and their answer made my blood run cold. They said, "Don’t worry, I can see you but you can’t see me".
I was nine at the time and my parents were out of town for work, so my older sister who was 17 got us all to hide in my parent's closet and we called 9-1-1. When they arrived, they called us to let us know they were knocking on the door. They found footprints but no person. We installed security cameras not soon after and never had a problem again, but it still creeps me out to this day.
44. A Close Encounter
This happened to my mom. She grew up in Wichita, Kansas during the time when BTK was active. The house of one of his first victims was down her block. One day, she was home with her brother—she was upstairs in her room and he was downstairs. Apparently, he heard a noise in the backyard moments before the power cut out (this was one of the key things that BTK did before entering a home). She then heard her brother scream and yell for her to run away.
She hopped out her window and sprinted barefoot to a Pizza Hut a couple of blocks away. She called the authorities who went to the house, but they didn’t find anything and everything turned out fine.
45. You've Got Company
I was staying at my parent's place, sleeping in their bed while they were away when suddenly I woke up paralyzed. I saw someone sneaking around, and the bedroom door was open. The person—wearing dark clothes, face obscured—eventually came into the room, sat on the bed, and leaned closer, and closer, and closer. When I was finally able to break out of the sleep paralysis, I first made sure the front door was locked. It was not.
46. Switching Hooks
The towel hanger on my bathroom door has four hooks, but I only use two. So, I keep my towels (completely different in terms of size and color) on the first hook and another one on the third hook. I live alone and I kept them like that for more than a year. The only times I move the towels is when I put them in the washing machine. No more than two weeks ago, during the day, I opened my bathroom door and the face towel was on the fourth hook instead of the first.
I had nobody visiting or anything like that and I've never switched hooks on purpose before.
47. Knock Three Times
I was home alone once when I was about 12 years old. I was watching a movie on my laptop when suddenly the back door slammed shut. I had locked it, so I knew something wasn't right. I got up with a metal baseball bat. Then, the front door, which I had locked, slammed shut as well. I locked the back door and went to check out the front door.
That's when I heard a knocking at the back door. I ran into my room, called the authorities, and hid until they arrived. The knocking was continuous for about three minutes, nonstop until I heard sirens. They had a look at our surveillance video. It showed the doors opening on their own and no one at the back door when I heard knocking.
Now there are two deadbolts on both doors.
48. A False Call
I woke up in the middle of the night and realized I had forgotten to lock the front door. For reference, my bedroom door was about two feet from my front door. Out of nowhere, two shadowy figures passed by. One of them low to the ground and the other one much taller. My heart was beating out of my chest. Nervously, I screeched, "Who is it"?!
A man said, "It’s Doug"! As I was thinking to myself, who the heck is Doug, he muttered, "Oh, shoot". He had the wrong house. He turned around to go back out the front door and said, "Sorry". I asked, " Didn’t you have a dog with you"? He replied, "Oh, yeah. Hey, c’mon"! He left, his dog ran out after him and I locked my front door.
49. Good Looking Out
The first time I saw her, I was six. We were playing the opposite of hide-and-seek. One person hides while everyone else looks, and once you find the person, you hide with them until there’s only one person looking. It was my turn to hide and I chose to hide under the stairs where my dad kept all the camping gear. There was only one person left. With all of us cramped in the room under the stairs, the last person left was sitting on the stairs above us.
It was my brother, and we could hear him yelling in his defeat to get us to surrender. In my hiding spot, I could see the door that led out and it was cracked open a little bit. A girl about my age poked her head into the room and waved at me. I asked her, "What’s your name"? What happened next made my blood run cold. With no reply, she vanished, which prompted me to follow after her. I yelled at her to come back, ultimately giving up our hiding spot.
Everyone under the stairs, my brothers and cousins, started yelling at me, asking what the heck I was doing and who I was talking to. Nobody else had seen her and we couldn’t find her upon searching. The next time I saw her, I had gone over to the neighbors' house to play with a boy my age because they had just gotten a new puppy. The boy had eight siblings—all boys—and his oldest brother had come home to visit. He came into the basement where we were playing.
Shortly after, I heard my name being called from upstairs by a girl. It was the same girl I had seen before, standing at the top of the stairs. She told me to call my older brother and get him to walk me home right away. We lived right next door. I didn’t feel scared, but I did exactly what she told me to do right then and there. My older brother was furious and couldn’t understand why I couldn’t just do the 15-second walk home by myself.
I later noticed that I would see her often in the presence of the neighbor's oldest brother. I’m not sure why I had never questioned her or feared her. I was one stubborn child and I hated being told what to do, but for some reason, I trusted her. One day, I woke up in the middle of the night and I saw her again. She told me I needed to be really quiet and that I should wake my dad up because someone was outside my window.
I did what I was told and went to wake up my dad. He got his gun out of the safe by his bed and instructed me to stay with my mom. A few seconds later, he started screaming at my mom to call 9-1-1. Sure enough, there was someone outside my window. When the officers were questioning me, I mentioned the girl, which freaked my parents out. They later took me to see the bishop, and he started me on all types of church therapy nonsense.
They thought that would stop me from seeing her, but it didn't work. A few years later, I saw her on the way home from my boyfriend's house one night. I was driving at around midnight through a backroad that had trees on all sides. I was coming up to an intersection. She walked out from the tree line in front of me causing me to slow to a stop just before the intersection. As soon as I stopped, a car blew through the stop signs, just in front of me.
I turned back to where she was and she just smiled before walking back into the tree line. Had I not stopped, I would have been hit on my side of the car by the person who blew through the stop signs. I’ve seen her on many other occasions. Call it hallucinations, call it "divine" intervention, call it whatever you want—but I'm grateful for her. I’ve never been scared to see her. Actually, I'm more at peace whenever she's around; it's kind of like seeing an old friend.
50. Lost And Found
I was at home by myself on a call with some friends when all of a sudden my dog started barking like crazy, It was odd since it was the middle of the night and he was usually asleep. I went downstairs to check on him and I found him barking at our hall closet. Terrified, I grabbed the bat that I kept in my room just in case and I opened the door.
There was nothing out of usual at first, but then I looked down and I noticed something strange—it was a familiar-looking object at the bottom of the closet. It was my mom's necklace that she had lost six years prior. I showed it to my mom at breakfast and she was just as shocked as I was. I still have no clue how it got there or how my dog knew it was in there, definitely one of the oddest occurrences of my life.
Sources: Reddit,
