"The key didn't work..."

Was coming home to my place at night when I use to live in the city with my roommate at the time. The key didn't work for the front door so I always had to use the back door that led to our kitchen.

The door had that blurry glass window on it (not sure what that's called) but as I was turning the key I could see a figure walk by real fast. I assumed it was my roommate so I went to my bedroom, then checked his room and couldn't find him. I finally went down to our living room only to find the front door completely open.

I called my roommate and asked where was he going so fast and why he left the front door open. He told me he hasn't been to our place in a couple of hours. So yeah I was walking into my house while someone was snooping around.

MisterMakeYa

"When I was 15..."

When I was 15 I lived on a ranch and cared for my great granny. The only people around were people driving on the highway down the hill, and the neighbor that lived a few miles away.

One night at around 2 am, a man knocked on the door and asked to use our phone. We didn't have any cell service or internet service out there, or a landline. The fact that he knocked on the door meant that he hopped two locked gates and hiked up a hill.

I was so scared I just said "no, go away, I have a shotgun." He left.

RiaModum

"He helped me move..."

Took a photo of my friend on the first day at my new place. He helped me move and then we were just having a couple of beers and chilling. He went home, I went to sleep.

I woke up the next morning cleaned out. TV was gone and my still-unpacked boxes of electronics were all gone too. The door was ajar. I was looking at my photos a few weeks later and I saw a foot sticking out behind my friend in the photo.

It was sticking out from a large overhead storage shelf in a small storage room, which was facing into the room and away from the main space. The robber was hiding there before I even moved in. I have the photo somewhere

69fatboy420

That last one was creepy as hell.

The idea of having someone in the space as you—and not knowing it—is incredibly unsettling.

Your home should be a sacred space; stories like this demonstrate how easily some people out there will violate it.

Let's continue.

"This lady jumps off the truck..."

I spent a year in Thailand when I was about 8 years old. While celebrating their new year (Songkran) this big truck of people stopped near where we were standing.

This lady jumps off the truck and walks up to me smiling and grabs my arm really hard and starts pulling me towards the truck and almost got me on when my brother comes running and asks me where I'm going.

The lady let go and the truck quickly drove away. I didn't realise until I was way older that I almost got kidnapped in a foreign country.

Sisi_Addie

"My mom made me go inside..."

When I was eleven, my friend's dad had a psychological episode that resulted in him standing in the middle of the parking lot in his underwear, screaming and crying and repeatedly cutting himself with a big knife.

My mom made me go inside before the police got there, the next day my friends and I went to look at the bloodstains all over the pavement.

MarkHirsbrunner

That poor man.

We hope he got the help he needed.

Let's continue.

"My dad didn't budge..."

This probably pales in comparison to others' experiences but it stands out in my mind.

I don't remember this super well because I was pretty young. But a contractor that had just replaced the roof on my parents' house apparently didn't pay his employees after my parents paid him for the job.

One of said workers showed up at my house VERY pissed off, yelling and screaming that he wanted money.

I just remember being really scared and comforting my little sister who was crying hysterically.

My dad didn't budge, and finally, the guy gave up and left. We never saw him again.

thanksInCode​

"I got my dad to call the police."

I've got a lot of these moments, but one that stands out to me is when I was little, I got up at something like three in the morning to get a glass of water, and heard something outside the back door. I went and woke up my mom, and when she opened the door to show me there was nothing out there, she tensed up and said "Hello?"

I got my dad to call the police.

That morning I learn that a druggie had broken into our fenced-off yard, used several needles, broke open our outside freezer, stole a brand new bag of pizza rolls, and tried to cook them in the old broken toaster oven we had yet to dispose of.

lookitsadragon

"One particular winter night..."

Alright, this story haunts me.

Basically, I was 17 and working at a high-end retail shop in a big shopping centre - literally the last place you'd expect a ghost story.

The shifts used to run quite late over the Christmas period as we'd be open as late as 9 pm, so it was dark and quiet for a long time.

One particular winter night, I was on a late shift with two other co-workers. My two coworkers were on the shop floor and I was out back taking stock and putting away stocks.

If anybody has worked in clothes shops with large stocks hopefully you'll know what I mean when I say the clothes are stored in rolling racks, like shelves on wheels, and each rack is controlled by a wheel on the side which you spin to move it along the rail. You can also lock the shelves so they don't move.

I know that people say this all the time, that they 'know' they did something, but I truly do know that I locked the shelves and I know this because I was climbing the shelves, using each row as a ladder, to reach the top sections. Had they not been locked, I couldn't have done this as the shelves would've rolled.

So I climb down to grab some more stock, and as I turn around the lights turn off. Now the lights are movement triggered, and I was moving in the space, but even so, sometimes they turn off. For some reason though, this plunge into pitch-black raised all the hairs on my neck and I froze in my place. There are no windows out back so no light at ALL.

When the lights flickered back on, all three shelves, all of which I had LOCKED IN PLACE, were rolling towards me on their track, completely unpushed. I have to emphasise that firstly, they were LOCKED! And secondly, if you know what I'm on about, these shelves are heavy - they require pushing and won't move on their own.

It's probably quite unprofessional of me, but I couldn't stand another minute and I dashed out into the shop floor completely unable to speak. Luckily we're a small team and I'm quite close with all my coworkers, and my boss could see me visibly shaking. Once she'd calmed me down enough for me to tell her what happened, she said, 'C'mon let's just go check the security cameras and see what happened.'

Here's where it gets really creepy: we went into her office, brought up the security footage, and all that had been captured was the moment the lights went dark, and then it skipped straight to a minute later and you see the door shut after me as I dashed onto the shop floor. The 30 seconds - a minute where the shelves rolled towards me was completely unrecorded.

Creeps me out just rewriting it.

bitterbenjiBXX

"I was down the street..."

My friend and I were 11 at the time and were out walking my dog around our neighborhood one night. I live near rural/suburban Illinois so anyone from around there knows what i mean when I say it's cornfields, houses, and just more cornfields wherever you go.

We were ding dong ditching and managed just fine since my dog was pretty chill and never barked/growled. we are alongside the back of the neighborhood now since we walked in a long circle.

It was just a road with about a football field length grass clearing and then more towering corn stalks, parallel to the street. everything was going normal until my friend and I rung a house, then ran into the clearing and dove to the ground. we were about 30 feet into the grass.

Now, important to note that earlier in the week my neighbor's relatively decent-sized boxer had gone missing.

I had been in this clearing before, played soccer and football there countless times but when we sat there waiting for our angry neighbor to come out, something drew me to look away. Not a noise, but rather my dog's intense shaking. She only did that when she was focused so heavily on something I would have to directly touch her eyeball to move. She was turned around staring, and when I turned I noticed something at this wall of corn staring at us.

I thought I was just seeing things, but it was definitely big enough to make out its shape, even without any light other than the moon and street lamp at the far end of the street. Thinking back, there's no way I should have seen it but god damn I somehow did. once I looked, I couldn't take my eyes off of whatever it was. I thought it was a person, but I shrugged the thought off bc they were at the edge of a cornfield at dusk, who does that right?

When I turned to my friend, he was white in the face. He asked if I could see it too, to which I whispered a yes to because i still couldn't make out what I was seeing. We still don't know if it's a coyote, person, bear, wolf, I mean we were really sitting there silently freaking out deciding to run or what to do instead.

We decide to sort of army crawl towards the street and houses and almost at the exact second we turn to start running, we see the figure go back into the corn. We get home and say nothing to my parents, off to sleep and he leaves the next day with no incident.

Later that evening, police show up at the door asking if they had seen a man who was wanted for stabbing his girlfriend to death, along with his 2 sons. My parents turn them away and say they haven't seen anything lately, but luckily I was eavesdropping from the stairs and chimed in.

Now, maybe I shouldn't have been so quick to assume I was 100% correct and tell these cops they had to listen but I'm glad they did. I take them to the field, with my parents and point to where I saw the figure in the corn last night. I was so terrified about last night, I told them I saw him there last night and was sure of it.

Lo and behold they bring about 9 cars out to the street and enter the cornfield. After 15 minutes we hear a scream and one of the officers ended up finding the boxer that went missing above. completely gutted. after about 45 more minutes of searching, I hear a ton of screaming followed by orders and more shouting. Out comes a cop, with this psycho cuffed in front of him. The same guy from the picture. I couldn't believe it.

I was down the street when they were walking across the clearing since I was not allowed to be near the scene. The creepiest part about all of this is he was staring directly at ME the entire time he walked. no variation, head nod, blink, or anything. It was as if he knew it was me, that I told the cops he was there.

I started crying in my dad's arms when I saw him come out, and I have no idea why. it felt like I did something wrong, and that I was going to pay for it eventually. my parents always claimed I imagined that look, but it led to me having nightmares for a few months at least.

Sometimes I still get night terrors/sleep paralysis and I see the figure coming after me, 9 years later. I am the only one here allowed to be legitimately afraid of cornfields.

webbur21

"In my early 20s..."

In my early 20s, I visited Auschwitz with a close friend who was a prisoner there in 1944-45 and lost his whole immediate family.

He gave me a guided tour of his memories.

CrowVsWade

There were some sensitive stories here...

...but they were all fascinating. If you're reading this at night, we're going to apologize to you in advance.

We certainly don't mean to make you second guess the next thing you hear go bump in the night.

Have your own stories to share? Want to creep us out? We'd be open to it. Feel free to sound off in the comments below.