Skeptics Explain Which Things Actually Made Them Believe In The Paranormal

Plenty of people discussed the times they encountered fallen loved ones after their deaths. They couldn't believe when they felt a familiar presence, voice, or even physical feeling.

That Smell 

"I lost my cousin to a tragic car accident. I hadn't seen him in about 5 months prior to the Accident. I was in class when it happened and I sensed his favorite perfume. It felt like he was standing next to me in class for about 30 minutes."

"When I got out of class, I had a bunch of missed calls/txt msgs snd voice mail from various family members who were trying to inform me of his death. This was five years ago and I still sense the perfume whenever I think of him. It makes me smile, even now."

-- afspoty

Last Ditch Effort 

"Me and my gf had an elderly friend who got sick and died rather quickly, my brother called the next day and asked if Ron was ok?"

"My brother had a vivid dream of him in the hospital, he knew what room number he was in, Ron told my brother to take care of his diabetes."

-- Casegreen222

Stay Away 

"My (then) partner's sister passed away and the power went out twice at her viewing. After a few days, we went to her apartment to gather her things and we kept encountering minor inconveniences on the way.. enough so that her mom said 'I don't think she wants us to go today'"

"five minutes later, flat tire."

-- thatsh**hurteddd

A Final Goodbye

"A few days after my mother had passed away I was at the park with my boyfriend at the time and my mum's little dog. I had just let the little guy off-leash to go for his run when out of nowhere I had this overwhelming feeling of being enveloped by the most absolute, pure love and comfort. It felt like my mum was all round me, very hard to explain but almost like when you hug someone and you just feel them and their energy surrounding you."

"I felt completely at peace and had this resound feeling that everything would be alright. I rationalized my experience by telling myself it was just my grief over missing my mum so much and went about my day as usual without telling anyone (other than my partner who was with me at the time and didn't share my experience)."

"The next day I was at home with my older brother; the previous days events completely forgotten by now. We were hanging out in his room when, of course, the topic of mum came up."

"Him: This is gonna sound crazy but I had the weirdest thing happen yesterday afternoon, outta nowhere I just felt completely at peace and like she was here with me"

"Me: *just about cut him off mid-sentence* That's not crazy, I had the exact same thing happen to me yesterday too!!"

"Turns out we had both 'felt' our mum and the feeling complete love and comfort at the exact same time. To this day I don't have a rational explanation for it. My brother and I hadn't spoken to each other at all the day it happened, and the following day was the first time we sat down to chat."

"I like to think it was our mum coming to say one last goodbye and let us know we were gonna be okay"

-- DespicableCi

Other people didn't focus so much on the ghosts they knew. Instead, they touched on their encounters with the unknown spirits that, for whatever reason, chose them.

Free Babysitter

"When I was a baby, we lived in a very old, creaky house. My mum was half convinced that it was haunted as small things, toys, medicines, and pieces of jewelry kept going missing. Sometimes she swore that I was interacting with thin air. She thought that perhaps it was a mischievous child ghost."

"One night, my mum put me to bed, she gave me a blanket and a pacifier, and left the room once I was asleep. An hour went by and I was awake and crying. She came in to soothe me and found that my pacifier was missing. She thought I spat it out or flung it out of the cot."

"She searched the room, pulled the cot apart, shook out all my blankets, checked my clothes and could not find the pacifier. Mum, probably sleep deprived, decided she was going to scold the ghost."

"She put me back in my cot, left the room, closed the door and in her best mum voice said sternly 'that is ENOUGH. You give that back RIGHT NOW.' She waited a few moments, and I stopped crying. Mum came to check me again."

"My pacifier was back in my mouth."

-- honestly_whoknows

Haunted Highway

"I never believed in any ghosts or paranormal sh** until i saw something that couldn't be explained by anything else. Theres an old dirt road i take sometimes it passes by a really small cemetery, like 10 gravestones, that sits unfenced at an intersection on the road."

"One night while driving home in the middle of the winter i saw a naked old man dancing at the stop sign kitty cornered to the cemetery, he was so thin his skin looked like it was tightly wrapped around his bones, and he had this sad look on his face despite his lively movement."

"I thought i was seeing things, until i saw him again in the spring. I was driving down the same road at night going about 120km/h when he slammed on my car window with his fists, i swerved into the middle of the road and then back into my lane. Theres no way a person could've been at the same speed as my vehicle, yet i saw him clear as day."

"I pulled over got out of my car and looked around with a flashlight to make sure there wasn't someone or something there that i didn't see. Nothing. I went home a bit on edge. The next morning in the same spot was a fresh dog carcass with its head missing. I don't drive down that road at night anymore."

-- undeadpimp69

Hearing From Afar 

"2000s, laying down to nap mid day, drifting off at the edge of sleep, and suddenly I hear a SCREAM that jerks me wide eyed awake, startled scared shitless, and has me looking inside & out of my empty apartment, it was freaky, but when I found no 'screamer,' I assumed I just had a weird dream/REM brainfart event even though I was just drifting off to sleep.

"Then my fiancee calls me from her car and starts chatty chatty chatting while I'm still getting my head straight, and when she pauses for a breath I ask 'Hey.. um, You didn't happen to just scream really loud, did you?....' She says, 'Well I did a minute ago, this guy driving was being a jerk and I was super aggravated and I just screamed.... Why?' - She was miles away."

"I'm a skeptic. I had a couple of weird experiences that I don't know what exactly happened. It's weird, unknown, I don't dismiss it, but I don't say it was a ghost, spirit, or telepathy either. It's still more reasonable to assume the events were a strange confluence of naturally occurring events."

-- fanamana

And for some reason, there were several stories that involved dogs.

In some, the dogs themselves were haunted. In others, the dogs were the ones who first noticed the presence of something beyond.

Still Prowling Around 

"We had to put my 15 year old dog to sleep less than a month ago. We have wooden floors at our house and his nails always made a little clicking sound against the floor."

"I've heard him walking around the bed twice since he passed."

-- daysliketoday

A Reason Why 

"Our dog died a year ago. We buried him in the garden with some nice flowers 'covering' the burial so no one really notices, but we know."

"A week after we buried him, a robin came by. We never noticed it in the past, and now from time to time the robin shows up."

"Unlike most birds in the wild, this robin comes and sits very close to our patio where all other birds stay in the garden and swoop away when we get near or go in the garden. This specific robin doesn't show fear and it feels like it comes from time to time to say hello, hang around for a couple of minutes, then leaves."

"My girlfriend is kinda convinced it's our dog reincarnated coming to say hello once in a while. Personally I don't believe in afterlife ghost or whatever. Dead is dead. It is all in the mind."

"She is the same way, but in this case we just like the idea of the robin filling up the gap our beloved dog left behind. Just makes shi**y things in life more bearable."

-- Coldasice_1982

Chihuahua Bait  

"I was sick and home alone one day, for context I had a room with a closet with no doors. I was chillin with my Chihuahua, Tasha, and suddenly hangers started flying out of the closet."

"Then we would hear something in the other room so she would run out there to bark and then hangers would start flying again. It was luring the dog out of the room!"

"Luckily my grandma lived right next door so even tho I was sick I packed Tasha and I up and ran over there."

-- ke1-8ey