Surveillance Videos and Night Shifts. Distraught People Share Their Creepiest Personal Experiences
No matter who you talk to, everyone has their own creepy experiences. Whether it's a bump in the night or creepy surveillance footage, some experiences just stick with you.
These Redditors were generous enough to share their scary experiences from working surveillance and security on night shifts. Some of these stories just happened at homes with video cameras, but all of them will make you want to double-check that your doors are locked.
In the late 90's, early 00's - my family would put these plastic candy canes along the driveway with Christmas lights strung across the bottoms.
Shortly after installing them, a particular wire was cut in the middle of the night. My dad repaired the wire and it happened again the next night. And the next night.
It became a conspiracy on our cul-de-sac to the point where fingers were being pointed at our neighbor, teenagers, etc. Neighbors set up video cameras in their windows pointed directly at our driveway. My dad even rented one and set it up.
After two weeks of this, my dad wakes me up at 2am and asks me to come look at the viewfinder on the camera.
It was a rabbit. Every night, it would trek the same path, find the wire in its way, and snip it with its teeth.
Half of our neighbors found this hilarious while a select few were kind of disappointed at the lackluster conclusion.
We ended up lifting the wire higher off the ground so the bunny could go under and, needless to say, the wire-cutting bandit never struck again.
I see crazy stuff all the time. One of the creepiest things I have seen was a string of toys moving on its own down an aisle. It was like a duck with smaller ducks. Of course, I had to investigate. When I zoomed in, I was surprised to see that they were real ducks.
I have a home security system.
I left for work one morning, walked out my back door, got in my car, and pulled out of my driveway.
The moment I left the driveway, a homeless would-be burglar, came out from hiding on the side of my house and tried to open my back door. When he found it locked, he reluctantly wandered off after looking around a bit.
Never would have known if it wasn't for cameras.
Makes you wonder what goes on without your knowledge...
I edited together the footage from the security cameras outside Pulse before, during and after the shooting. Though there were many sad and/or disturbing things to be seen, the strange one was a wounded man that appeared out of nowhere.
He waved his hands for help and he cops came over and carried him to safety. I tried numerous times to rewind to find out where he came from, but he was just there or he wasn't. He didn't crawl to where he had gotten, he just appeared.
He looked like he made it out okay.
I worked in a maximum security prison for awhile. I was assigned to central control one night, which is where the camera screens were.
One of the cameras was for the classifications room. I glanced at it and there was an inmate in there. This was super odd because it was two in the morning and nobody was supposed to be in there. Everyone that had keys to that room went home at 5.
Anyways, so this inmate is just sitting in there doing nothing. I got the sergeant's attention and told him someone was in there, and gave him the spare key to the room. He went to go check it out with a couple of other people, but by the time they got there, the room was empty. They searched for like 15 minutes but there was definitely no one in there.
Used to see little crescent shaped light orbs floating around the back dock of a nursing home that I did a little security for when I was young.
First time I saw it I thought it was a reflection of a flashlight and that somebody was screwing around behind the building. I jumped up and ran to that door only to find that it was pitch dark and no movement of any kind going on.
Only explanation I was ever able to come up with is it had something to do with the electrical panel energizing when the ac units would kick on. Don't know for sure but it made me feel a little better.
Also around that time the nurses found a cat that had been deboned, sprawled out on the sidewalk in front of the healthcare entrance. Paws and skull were the only hard bits left.
I used to work at a place which required to be manned 24 hours a day. I handled sensitive documents/files and if somebody needed this information in the middle of the night I would have to fetch it for them. Anyways, security is kind of tight. Bars on windows, multiple locked doors to get to where I am. They would give me work to do during the night, but underestimated how quickly I could get it done. So like most nights, i finished my work in like 30 to 45 minutes and pulled out my phone and played games.
So now it is getting to be the last third of my shift when all of the sudden I hear a door close. I look to the security camera and see someone walking down a hall towards my room. At first I thought it was just somebody that came in early, so I turn around and wait for them to come in. But nobody came in, and the hairs start rising on my back. Now, this isn't a really big building so I figure I'll find the guy wherever he is and start checking offices and storage rooms but come up empty handed, however I do see that a fire door had shut. I go to try and rewind the camera, but the digital recording is password protected and I don't know the password. Anyways the whole thing freaked me out, the way the person was walking down the hallway, like a determined walk right to where I was.
So, I sit with my spine tingling for the last couple hours of my shift and finally people start coming in, my replacement shows up and I tell her what I saw and at this point I figured I must have imagined the whole thing. I'm told to go home and the manager and girl who replaced me would look over the camera. After getting home I call my manager and ask what was on the camera. So they said that the video showed the fire door closing but then the video froze for about an hour, the next thing it records is me reopening the door.
The security guy showed me footage of an old man standing outside the building at 4 in the morning for an hour or so each night. This happened for a few weeks then suddenly he never came back.
This happened a few years before I started working at my current job. The elevators in my building go down to the first and second basement. Late one night, one of our security guards spots a group of people heading into the elevator at Level 4. He thinks it's curious because nobody is supposed to be in the building after midnight, so he keeps a close watch on all the lobby cameras to see which floor the group gets out at.
The doors open at basement two, but nobody comes out. The second guard scurries down to the elevator doors while the first guard keeps his eye on the cameras to make sure no one has left. When the second guard gets to the basement elevator, he looks puzzled and searches around. He comes back to the guard station to confirm that it's empty.
Putting the building on lockdown, the two guards spend the rest of the night combing the building together but they were unable to find anyone or anything. They decide to call the police, who review the footage and see the same thing. In the end, the sighting was still unexplained but my workplace decided to stop being cheap and install security cameras in the elevators too.
I have cameras on my front and back doors that send video to my phone when they detect movement. I was out of town and woke up to seeing several police officers walking around in my front and back yard. I called my neighbor to find out what had happened and found out that someone had crashed their car through my back fence, which borders the highway.
I used to work part time doing surveillance work for an art gallery. I went in horribly sick one day because I worked on a contract and had to meet a quota for so many hours, otherwise I'd have to make it up elsewhere.
So, here I am with a fever and a trashcan, dripping sweat and staring at these screens when, all of a sudden on the lower gallery, I see this black oozing mass creeping across the floor. It just kinda slithered across the brick, up the wall, pooled into a perfect circle in the middle of the room. Then, it stood up into this weird, enlongated shadow person with spindly arms and no eyes, "looked" up at the camera, then very rapidly melted back into the floor and bolted toward the hallway that led to my desk.
I screamed bloody murder. Then, I threw up.
Also, no, that thing wasn't really there. I was just way sicker than I thought; it was a fever hallucination. My boss came in and sent me home shortly after she came to see if I had died.
Had a game camera out once and I had a neighbor who would just walk through my property (I didn't care, the place is pretty and there's no back fence) But I kept having sheep go missing so I set out a camera.
The camera caught my neighbor walking by, then like 30 seconds later a mountain lion walked by it stalking him. It apparently never attacked as he was fine, but he had no idea how close he was to that thing.
I used to work security at a college dorm and I once witnessed one of the doors on a washing machine slowly open itself and proceed to tear itself clean off of the machine. Told my boss this 'creepy story' and showed him the video and he made me review camera footage for the rest of the night to find out who broke the machine despite the fact that he watched it break itself.
I was storing my bike at work while I moved to a new apartment. One day in the middle of the week, I come into the office, walk past the bike rack and notice that it's completely empty. The building has a bunch of security cameras and one more or less is facing the bike rack since it's adjacent to the front entryway.
I sit and watch the security tape with the IT guy. We're watching, see everyone leave the office the night before, see my bike, keep watching, then all of a sudden poof, bike gone. We slowed the tape down and it seemed like when you're watching digital cable or satellite and the image gets garbled.
Literally it was bike there, then poof gone. In the tape's time stamp it literally happened in one second. I assume my bike got taken to the upside down.
I have a home security system with a camera that watches in the living room. I saw my cat and my dog both sitting together in the dogs bed.
The cat hates the dog. I think she was possessed.
When I worked at Sears in high school there was a theft in my department and the Loss Prevention team pulled us into their surveillance room to interview us.
While they were asking me questions, I kept being distracted by all the monitors. Right above the guy asking me questions, I saw a small tv that had 16 smaller screens and realized the cameras were in the dressing rooms.
I didn't see anyone in there at the time and the guy interviewing me saw me looking. He turned to the console and turned that monitor off real quick. Super creepy if you ask me.
I worked in a government-run psychiatric hospital. More specifically a hospital for people who committed (sometimes serious) crimes and are being evaluated for sanity or are in "rehab" after a successful insanity plea. Here are some of the stories:
-Patients having very animated/emotional conversations with "unseen others" (thats what we were trained to call them) in the middle of the night in the dark. I don't believe in ghosts and I know it was just schizophrenia, but it was still kinda spooky.
-A guy who was in "full bed restraints" after assaulting another patients had flailed so violently that he flipped the bed over on himself. It was a heavy plastic bed that wasn't bolted to the floor so we could adjust/position it. That one sucked because some of the restraints came loose and my coworkers still had to flip the bed over and re-restrain him.
I was house sitting in a huge house and set up a canary camera near my bedroom. I had an uneasy feeling someone else was in the house with me so I set up the camera just to make sure no one came near my room.
In the middle of the night someone approached it from behind and turned it so it faced a blank wall. Then a few minutes later turned it back the way it was before. It tripped the canary and I got a notification on my phone. I saw it and searched the house thoroughly the next morning and never found anything.
Needless to say, I slept with my door locked the rest of my time there.
My boss owns several retail stores, which I work in, and an ice cream shop on a downtown strip. One day I had the most creepy person come in. Big tall man in combat boots and long trench coat. With a red woman's wig and tons of blush on his cheeks and bright red lip stick. I'm a gay female with plenty of diverse friends so it was a non-issue.
The creepy part was the fact his hands were moving through the clothes as if he was pretending to look through them but his eyes were on me. The entire time. Through the entire store. I had other customers at the time but was giving him my best 'don't steal anything I see you' stare so eventually he left.
I called to warn our other retail store, she said he was in there doing the exact same thing and had been in a neighboring store as well. Everyone did the same as me, gave him the look and he left.
Well our poor ice cream worker who was alone in her store and only 18 years old was apparently the situation he was looking for. They have video cameras and my boss let me watch it so this is what I saw.
He walks in and hides behind one of the freezers for a minute. Then walks toward the girl, throws the trench coat wide open.
He is only wearing a white bra with holes cut out. He stops right in front of the counter she is behind and just stands there staring and pinching his nipples.
Her face is just solid shock. Her jaw drops. She panics for a few seconds, yells something at him, and picks up the phone to call police. He never speaks, stays for another minute then runs out.
Police never caught him and no other reports of it happening.
My boss owns several retail stores, which I work in, and an ice cream shop on a downtown strip. One day I had the most creepy person come in. Big tall man in combat boots and long trench coat. With a red woman's wig and tons of blush on his cheeks and bright red lip stick. I'm a gay female with plenty of diverse friends so it was a non-issue.
The creepy part was the fact his hands were moving through the clothes as if he was pretending to look through them but his eyes were on me. The entire time. Through the entire store. I had other customers at the time but was giving him my best 'don't steal anything I see you' stare so eventually he left.
I called to warn our other retail store, she said he was in there doing the exact same thing and had been in a neighboring store as well. Everyone did the same as me, gave him the look and he left.
Well our poor ice cream worker who was alone in her store and only 18 years old was apparently the situation he was looking for. They have video cameras and my boss let me watch it so this is what I saw.
I used to be an on site security guard on third shift. I was walking a site, an old Catholic school. Anyways, there was an old statue of the Virgin Mary out behind the school with a spot light. Someone thought it would be funny to make it look like it was crying blood, it was red paint.
There was another instance where I was patrolling one of the classroom buildings and all of a sudden I heard people laughing upstairs. I walked up the stairs and I started hearing furniture moving, but every single light was off and all the doors were locked. I ran out of there and never went in that building after my first walkthrough for the night.
It was incredibly creepy, especially when you heard the heat kick on, every pipe in that place would start knocking, very grateful for my 9-5 in a cubicle now.
did overnight security for my college while I was taking classes. There was one building that students complain about, it was a weird one. I had several strange experiences in and around it.
One morning in particular at around 4 am, I was doing a round of the campus. As I walk past the building and approach our auditorium I felt that weird feeling you get when someone is staring at you. I turn and look at the problem building instinctively. I see motion on the 3rd floor at one of the windows. My eyes focus and a see a person open the window and proceed to wave at me. My rational mind thought, "maybe a faculty member came in early." All doors were locked and nothing was out of place when I checked it 5 minutes before. That was the best explanation. So I wave back and continue my round.
I almost finish my circuit when I come across a resident of the neighborhood who is walking their dog. He stops me with some social niceties. Then out of the blue he mentions that he walked past the problem building and someone opened the window on the 3rd floor and waved at him. Said it creeped him out. So I got to thinking about it. No lights were on in the entire building. All entry ways were locked and in order. I immediately went to search the building. Didn't hear or see anything strange. That is, except for the fact that the window this person opened and waved through was nailed shut.
If that man hadn't mentioned it, I never would have given it much thought. Now he's the only reason I can't write this story off as the product of hallucinations brought on by sleep-deprivation.
I work in the office of two people who were murdered at work. My desk is actually from one of the victims. I have a CCTV surveillance monitor that sits on my desk and shows me the front door entrance so I can see whenever someone approaches. (Door stays locked for security, I am the only person in this office).
I don't believe in ghosts but EVERY day my eyes play tricks on my and I feel like I see someone on the screen coming and going. Its in my peripheral vision. This happens probably 3 or 4 times a day, every day. I hope its not ghosts, I can't imagine being stuck at work for all of eternity.
lostkarma4anonymity
My sister's boyfriend works at a Family Dollar during summer break and told me that at closing time his manager yelled out "Store is closed everyone please exit" and by the time all the people left, my sister's boyfriends manager locked the front doors.
Then they heard movement in the back of the store so the manager yelled again. Nobody came out so the manager went to check it out and no one was there(they thought somebody could have been hiding in a blind spot). 5 minutes later they hear more movement and can't figure what the sound is, so they go into the cameras.
The first round of noise was rolls of toiler paper on a top shelf being moved, so they thought it was a rat or something. They went back to the second movement and see a stack of 5 24 packs of water being shaken. I was going to go to that store today but when he told me this last night, I will gladly go somewhere else.