There's no such thing. Right...?

Well, maybe, but, maybe not, too. The world is full of unexplained things, and the paranormal--a subject of great controversy--is so impossible to prove, aside from word of mouth stories. Even skeptics have had their fill.

Redditor u/MegaMango000 asked: Redditors who don't believe in the paranormal, what's the scariest experience you've had that you still can't rationally explain? Serious Replies Only.

Here were some of the spookiest stories.

Poltergeist

I had a lot of weird things happen at my parents house growing up, but I still consider myself skeptical of anything paranormal.

The master bedroom has a walk-in closet where the light would constantly come on by itself, especially when I was home alone. The dogs were also weirdly obsessed with the closet. One would sit in there for hours, and the other would always stand and growl and bark. Even years after I moved out, my mom still has this happen on the regular.

The freakiest time was when I was 15 and my parents were out for the evening at a work party. I was in my room playing a computer game and listening to music. Suddenly I got a really uncomfortable feeling like someone was behind me. I turned around, and there was a black shadowy figure in the middle of the room. As soon as I saw it, it moved towards me and I could literally feel it move through me. I noped the f out of the house and sat outside until my parents came home.

The most recent time was after I moved out and was at my parents to do some laundry. As I was loading the dryer, I clearly saw somebody walk by the laundry room door and into the furnace room. I assumed it was my dad, but it turned out they were both upstairs at the time.

My mom is also a complete skeptic, but she almost wanted to come stay with me one time because she swears she saw a dark figure crawl across the kitchen floor. She also says she's seen the chandelier swinging one time during the night.

I've never had anything weird happen to me anywhere else but that house, so it's kind of freaky. I'm really not sure what to think.

Poor Puppies

Stayed with a friend for a couple months post divorce. He had an old farm house and I bunked in the top floor room. One night as I had just gone to bed I heard creaking on the floor just in front of my bed. After a couple seconds, I rolled over and just ignored it.

After a few minutes, I hear it again. I roll over and sit up. I see what looks like a blur (mist perhaps, who knows) pass by the end of the bed. At this point I'm more confused than anything.

Suddenly, I hear what sounds like light footsteps on the stairs - about 7 in total. A small creak, possibly the door opening to the downstairs and then the dogs go ballistic. I run downstairs and now we are all awake. The dogs are focused on the stairway and bark like mad for about 3 minutes.

No real explanation, but after telling my buddy and his wife what I heard we were all creeped out for a few days. I stayed there for a few weeks and nothing else ever happened.

WTF

I was laying in my bed sleeping one night and I woke up feeling uncomfortable. My daughter has health issues and years of worry about her condition caused us to be light sleepers. When I woke up this night I watched a white figure come down the hall from my daughters room and go by my door. At the same time my dog slid off of the bed (he didn't get up just slid) and followed the white figure.

I was freaked out so I got up and followed the dog to our front door. The dog was facing the door looking out the glass in the door down the street. The moon was lighting up his face and I noticed his eyes were completely shut. I put my hand on his neck and he jumped... He was 100% asleep.

I checked my daughters room and she was happily sleeping and in good health. I've often wondered what visited and how often its visited our home. Ive also wondered if I've ever been the one staring out the front door instead of the dog completely asleep...

NOPE

1. On my first nursing job, I would work in a unit that served as an overflow, and that unit would close if the census was low (less patients in the hospital). The hospital was only a few years old, but there were strange things happening like the TV turning on its own in a room where one patient died and patient doors closing. I always joked that sun-downing in a hospital could might as well be someone being possesed.

2. Two of our coworkers has the bright idea of going upstairs to that unit, turning on phone video, and asking aloud to the spirits to show themselves. I didn't join them since I was busy. But to their disappointment, nothing came of it and even the possessed TV did not turn on. But later, when they reviewed the video, they turned up the volume on their phone. They started to hear audible whispers and that freaked them out.

3. Not my story but a veteran coworker. She got consent from family for a patient for a surgery who was paranoid "I'm going to die...I'm going to die...I know I am, you bring me there I die." The patient didn't have any significant medical problems, no red flags with anesthesia history, and the surgery was a simple ex-laprascopic gallbladder removal.

The dude died on the table.

Can't Explain

Repost, not really scary just a portion of it I can't explain:

So, this was about 13 years ago. My wife and I moved into our brand new condo in July of 05. We were new to the area, and knew no one besides my dad. Fast forward to April 07. We had some "weird" things, such as the tv turning on in the middle of the night and a few glasses shattered on their own when no one was in the room. Strange... but we just explained it as new construction/wiring and perhaps the glasses were weakened by the move/age.

We joke about it, and eventually I'm due to drive back to Chicago to do my oral defense for my Masters Degree. I take showers daily, as does my wife. Don't remember the actual dates, but lets say Monday my wife and I take our showers, no worries. Tuesday, I take a shower and get out. Our bathroom has a full wall mirror over the dual sinks. In the steam, at the VERY VERY top is written, "Chicago". I'm like, "Uh... that's odd." Call to my wife and ask her, "Why did you write that?" She is just waking up and comes in, is confuse and starts to get mad at me cause SHE didn't write it. I quickly write in the steam below it without thinking... as does she. The writing doesn't match either of us. Plus, it is written at the TOP of the mirror. We have ten foot ceilings. Both of us would have had to have gotten on the counter and stood to reach it.

I run through the condo (its not very big) everything is locked. We had no people over inbetween the daily showers, and hadn't had anyone over in weeks (still didn't know many people here). My wife is not a prankster, she has never pranked me in in the two decades I've known her.

The kicker, the next night I had an incredibly realistic dream of my grandma who passed in 05. She was on my bed, rested her hand on my leg and said, "Don't worry Hyperion, that b-stard is gone." Nothing weird happened after that. I can explain away everything except that writing though.

Wormhole

When I was in middle school, I had just come into my classroom and sat down in my desk that was directly across from the door, so I could see out in the hall. I had looked up and saw a black circle, or I guess a circular void (pitch black, no shadow or anything) perfectly centered out of the doorway. A really rough estimate, it was maybe two-three feet tall and wide?

And I do wear glasses, so you'd think it was vision spots right? But a kid out in the hall passed in FRONT of it so that freaked me out and I really don't know what it was. It was only there a few more seconds after that.

The Drink

When I was about 9/10 years old I was with my friend and we went to my house to get something to drink. We got the drink and we heard something weird coming from upstairs even though there was nobody in the house but us (I had just opened the front door with the key myself and the door was locked).

So we went upstairs and directly on the left there is a door to the bathroom which is about where the noise seemed to be coming from. I looked at the door and realized the little marker that says if it's closed or opened was about 3/4 red and 1/4 white (so it was almost fully locked from inside). When we approached the door to knock on it since nobody was answering our calls to ask who was inside (it's about 3 meters from the end of the stairs) all of the sudden with some noise of force (it was not an easy lock to unlock, but required some power) the thing just popped to fully white like someone turned the lock fully open again from inside the bathroom.

The quickness and force of the movement caused me and my friend to both run out of the house to his house and when we told his mom about this experience she went with us to see what was up.

When we got back, there was nobody in the house nor was there anything missing in the house and there were no windows opened for someone to get away that was in there before. The strangest thing about it all to me was that there was just no way someone could have gotten in and out without a key, and the only people with keys were all away at work.

I still don't understand what happened to this day, but I'm convinced there was someone in that bathroom that day.

A Car, A Car

I was alone in my house. When I was just about to open a door leading downstairs to my basement I heard what I swear was a person running up the stairs towards the door very quickly. Can't recall if I opened it or not but I was certainly the only person home. I noped out to my buddies place. I'm sure it was actually just something stupid but at the time I was scared af

I Do Believe In Spooks

My ex and I were the last ones to move out of his house, so it was large and empty, no furniture, very creepy. We lived in his room in the basement. In my time living there I heard alot of unexplained minor things. I used to hear footsteps upstairs, like his dad had gotten home in his work boots and was walking around, but id go upstairs, and he wasn't home yet. In the basement, there was a door to the unfinished half of it (next to his room) and I would go out in the hall and it would be open, after we had already closed it. He had told me also, he used to hear voices and footsteps when no one was home.

This one particular time is the point where we were living there alone before moving out. I was alone, and was upstairs in the empty living room, broad daylight, midmorning. I had the laundry I was bringing to my parents house to do, and had stopped upstairs to say bye to the cat. While I was petting the cat, someone laughed. Clearly laughed out loud like they were right behind me. The cat all of a sudden bolts and runs into an empty run and i follow, looking for anyone at all who could have been there. No one was there. the cat ran again and disappeared into the basement. I grab the laundry and run.

All very minor things, I'm one to believe more if I see it, kind of thing. Those are my only stories to lead me to believe in ghosts or spirits. That story still creeps me out. But I now believe more in it than I used too.

Sudden Music

I'm a police officer and I was working a fresh homicide (had occurred within the last hour). We'd checked the house, and it's me, 2 other patrol officers and a homicide detective standing there talking and waiting for the medical examiner. All of a sudden the stereo kicks on, playing a song I don't know the name of, but sounded like something you'd hear at a funeral. None of us were near the stereo or had the remote (it took us like 5 minutes to figure out how to turn it off).

Was very eerie to me.

Awww

My dad died when I was 5. Was raised by my mom and I have a twin brother who I'm really close to but we aren't inseparable. I was on my second year of college bombing all my classes, had not seen family or friends in months and one of my best friends died a month earlier. Not trying to complain but it was a hard time in my life. Anyways I'm alone in my dorm on my bed trying to to homework while I'm panicking about my future. All of a sudden my blanket moves up my bed and around me while i was all alone, I hear a mans voice say "your going to be ok"

Aliens

I was in bed one night and for no reason at all I woke up.... heard scratching going on above my head and then every single electronic in my room turned on at once.... I'm talking TV, computer, monitors, xbox, laptop.... I summed the scratching up to mice... but I still cant explain the second part....

Weeeeeeird

Not scary exactly, but pretty weird.

My coworkers disappeared for two or three minutes one day. This was about 10 years ago, about a month/six weeks or so after I started my first office job. The company was in the top two floors of an office building, and I think the set up was a bit jury-rigged somehow because the only way up to the top floor was through the fire escape - the lifts didn't go that high. We had to keep the top fire escape door permanently open because you couldn't open it from the inside - I've got no idea how you were supposed to get up there originally.

It was the last day in that office before the company moved to a new building and we were packing our things up; boxing files and labelling computers and all that. My boss, who had a major sweet-tooth, got peckish and asked me to get some lollies from the 7-11 that was at street level in the building next door. I went down, bought something and took the lift back up. The lights were out.

I went to my office - we were on the lower floor - and it was padlocked shut. The other office on that floor, which had a glass door, was dark and empty. I knocked on the padlocked door, and when there was no answer, I went to the fire escape to check the upper level. The door was closed. I couldn't get right back to my floor, that door had closed behind me, so I walked back down to the ground floor and took the lift back up. Everything was back to normal. The lights were on, doors were open, there were people. I mentioned what had happened and no one knew what I was talking about. I thought it might have been a practical joke for a little while, but no-one ever said anything about it.

Brother//Uncle

The first one happened when I was about 7 years old. I had my own bedroom and always slept with the door open. One night as I was laying in bed, on my side, facing the door, I saw my little brother (who would have been 2 at the time) run by my bedroom door wearing those old 90's LA Gear light up sandals (If you grew up in the 90's you know the ones, with the red lights that blink on the back heel area when you take a step). I sat up at bit when I heard/saw this as I could hear the distinctive crumple sound of a diaper being ran in and saw the lights clearly. I whispered his name and asked what he was doing. I saw him come back to my door way, sandals lighting up, and then stop at my doorway looking at me. At that point I could tell something was off, I could not make out any features on him but I chalked it up to being dark and he ran back down the hall and I went to sleep.

The next morning, I went to my Mom and asked why my brother was up running around last night. She told me that he wasn't, I said that I saw him and he even had on those sandals that light up. She looked at me funny and said, "Your brother slept in our bed all night last night, and I threw away those sandals over a month ago....

The second one, I was about 9 years old.

Our front room was a wide open space with a couch on the left wall, a couch towards the back of the room and a bay window you are able to sit in at the front. A family friend named Tom came over to stay with us. He was going to sleep on the couch in the front room, and me, wanting to hang out with my older cool "uncle" Tom (who was about 20 years older than me) asked if I could sleep on the other couch as a kind of slumber party. He of course said yes and my parents could care less.

We go to sleep and in the front room through the blinds on the bay window you could see some light filtering in from the street light outside. I woke up at some point and was by default staring at the bay window and I saw Tom casually sitting on the bay window looking out towards the street. I whispered his name, he slowly turned his head to look at me, and then slowly moved back to looking out the window. I looked at the couch and did not see him there, so I got up and walked towards him asking what he was doing. As I got closer and closer, he became more and more translucent until I got right up to him and reached out to touch him and my hand went through thin air... he was gone. I looked at the couch and he was there sound asleep.

It wasn't sleep paralysis because I was wide awake in both situations but I have no explanation for what it might have been.

Hands

When I was still a kid I stayed with my cousin at my grandma's house, it's a very old ryad in Morocco (like 400ys+ old). My grandma left us alone and went to visit a friend of hers and she was the only one with the keys. As I was playing with my cousin we heard heavy banging on the door, we went running to the door and checked who it was but there was noone outside, so we went back playing in a room till we heard a very loud bang on the window overlooking the interior patio, and there was a huge man's hand on it, we got out of the room running to the patio but noone was there. We went hiding in another room for like 2hours super scared till my grandma came back. We told everyone the story and noone ever believed us.

A Song

Once, i was laying in my bed and was about to sleep while listening on my ipod the song : hell awaits from Slayer for the first time. So there is a 1 minute intro to the song where the phrase "join us" is repeated backwards. When the intro was over there was the sudden drums. Right then i saw the door right against my bed turn into white as if striken by lightning. My 15yo self almost s--t my pants and straight up ran to my mom in the kitchen. My guess is that it was a near-sleep hallucination triggered by the sudden drum beat. Never heard this song again, neither am i planning to!

Mystery

I was about 6 years old, playing with some toy soldiers out front of my house. I turned my head to the left (towards the house) and vaguely saw some man watching me. As soon as he saw that I had seen him, he looked like he quickly jolted back behind the house. I got up and followed and... he was gone. But there was no where for him to go from where he ran. He just vanished.

Strange Figures

As a teenager I would babysit for my cousin, let's call her A. I was about 16 at the time. Her and her husband had just moved into this large house and had a newborn daughter. I never liked the vibe of that house but just thought I was being irrational. One morning I'm alone with the baby and I hear someone going down the stairs, a bang, and some murmuring, I tell myself the house is new and it's just settling and maybe the TV is on. I pick up the infant and make my way downstairs. Once you get to the bottom of the stairs it opens up to a large living room to the left with a TV on the floor, to the right is the kitchen area. I go to the kitchen to make a bottle and it feels like someone is watching me, I shake it off but start packing up a diaper bag just in case. Not 2 minutes later I hear the TV turn on, volume all the way up, to static white noise.. I. Flip. My. Sh-t! I run to the living room and turn it off. I call one of my cousins who lives near by to come get me, let's call her S, as I'm talking to S on the phone the TV turns on again. I waited for her outside after that. Later that night my cousin S, another cousin who is the sister to A, and I go back to A's house to drop off the baby and get my stuff I left there. We ring the door bell no answer. We hear them running up and down the stairs, we saw someone look at us through the window, and we can hear them talking and laughing. We have no clue what game they're playing so we ring the door bell again and start yelling at them, they're laughing at us now. All 3 of us are getting irritated and start to leave, as we get in the car, here comes A and her husband coming up the street in their car... We have no clue what the hell happened that night, I don't believe in the paranormal but I have no explanation for that.

Static

We have an office next to our living room. One night, my wife gets up in the middle of the night and the TV in the office was turned on. Nobody had been in the office for a few days.

Two days later, I get up for work really early, 6am, and I'm in the living room putting on my shoes. I notice the TV is on again. When I walked in the office to unplug the TV, I got chills worse than I've ever had in my life.

I can explain the chills as my active imagination, but the TV turning itself on, twice, still creeps me out.

OKC Creeps

This is really confusing and still confuses me to this day. But as i remember it, I was in kindergarten and me and my family were living in an apartment in oklahoma city. It was in the middle of the day which is what still trips me out but my mom had went out grocery shopping and had been out for about over an hour while me and my dad were at home so we had been expecting her already. We both CLEARLY hear the door being unlocked, OPENED, and keys being set on the table. Almost like a routine for whenever my parents would get home. I exclaimed "mommy's home!" while both me and my father leave the room and go into the living room. No one is there. Me and my dad are both confused and search around then as my dad calls my mom to ask where she's at, she unlocks the front door and comes in like nothing happened. We asked her if she had already been inside and went to the car or something and she said she literally just arrived for the first time. It was a really small apartment so it was pretty clear we both had obviously heard something from inside the apartment just only 15 steps away. The weirdest part to me which my dad doesn't seem to find significance in because he was the "aware adult" but that I VIVIDLY remember that happening at one apartment while my dad says he clearly remembered that happening at the apartment we had lived in previously. I was old enough to distinguish the names of the apartments and we've talked about it to clear any confusion but it's just odd to me that we both have the exact same story with exact details but remember it as two different places