Is the paranormal real?
While there are plenty of skeptics, there are many who insist that it is, and that they have the experiences to prove it.
And suppose you do think the paranormal is a thing. It would likely scare you. It might even scare you a lot. So much so that you'll be writing about it years later on a Reddit forum.
People shared their stories with us after Redditor Kangaruan asked the online community:
"People of Reddit who have had extremely distressing paranormal activity in their homes, what's your story?"
"When my son was 3..."
"When my son was 3 he started having dreams and visions of people coming out of holes and dancing in his room. He said they were trying to tell him something. He also said he would wake up to see faces in the dark and they were screaming at him."
"There were many nights when his screaming would wake me up and I would run into his room. It honestly sounded like he was being attacked. One night in his room he was telling me about one of his experiences I saw a streak of white light move up over his face."
"Another time I ran into his room and he was up on his knees looking around the room. I didn't say anything and just continued to watch him in the dark. This went on for about 15 minutes and finally he looked at me and he said one word, "Manya" - it was apparently his name for whatever spirit he was seeing."
Another time on the baby monitor and we heard a loud male voice say, "Stop that!""
We happened to know a mother and daughter psychic team and enlisted their help. They tuned in and both said they saw an evil old man spirit from the 40s who brought in other souls to make mischief. He also smoked a cigar (we often smelled cigar smoke in our hallway outside my son's bedroom)."
"They tried cleansing the house remotely (they lived in another city). We thought all was good until one evening we were walking into our dining room to sit down when my son went flying forward into the table. He started crying and said that someone pushed him from behind."
"We kept our son in our room that night and my wife and I both heard what sounded like an old man making gagging noises from my other son's room (he was 11 months old)."
"Our friends put together a whole team and they came and cleansed the house. It was quite a process and our neighbors probably thought we were real weirdos but they got the job done. We haven't had any issues in ten years. It was really scary!"
vacationbeard
This is actually pretty creepy... it's the stuff of horror films.
"To this day..."
"My story isn’t extremely distressing, but it’s halfway there. When I was younger (4th-5th grade) I lived in a small house that was really dark and quiet at night. I always woke up around, what felt like midnight most nights and would look for something to eat in the kitchen."
"So one night as per usual, I woke up and went to grab the first slice of bread from the new bread my mom bought that day. The kitchen is completely dark aside from the two small windows that were fogged so no one could look in."
"There was this small corner around my fridge that was just dark. Like darker than the rest of the kitchen even when there was light hitting it. However, I was partially asleep so I didn’t think much of it. So when I went to grab the slice of bread something hit me in the face. I went to wipe it off my face and all I felt were just long, long fingers."
"I was terrified and ran back to my room and as I ran I could hear and feel something chasing me and I could hear all kinds of things falling behind me as I ran back to my room frightened. When I got to my room I shut my door and felt my eye and it was bleeding. To this day I have a scar."
"Never have I encountered something that terrifying again."
w_aste
That's not extremely distressing to you? What does it take be extremely distressing then?
"Things would slide off of the back of our vanity..."
"This probably doesn’t fall under “extremely” distressing, but I’ll put my story down."
"The earliest memory I have is of an experience with an apparition, based on what I know, I was no more than 3 years old when I saw it. Parents didn’t believe me, always had some explanation for me. We moved houses and tiny things would happen here and there, but once again my parents always chalked it up to an overactive imagination."
"There was a full body apparition that both my brother and I saw as it walked past a doorway while we were home alone. Fast forward to getting married and moving into an old apartment, things start to heat up a little bit. Bins would get flipped over and the contents dumped on the floor."
"Things would slide off of the back of our vanity (about 18 inches deep) and fly 3 feet to hit the footboard of our bed, not gently. More activity then I had experienced before but still not a lot. We moved into an almost brand new apartment, and while one or two things happened things calmed down significantly."
"Then we moved in with my in-laws while my husband went to school. Queue the real events. The house would go through periods of high activity, particularly centered around me. My husband would hear me calling him from another room, I wouldn’t be calling him."
"He would see me pass by the bottom of the stairs as he was coming down and would follow me all the way around the corner into the far room only to dead end with the room empty. I came in from the chicken coop to him upset because I’d been calling him from all over the house."
"I’d been outside the whole time. It would make one of the dogs go absolutely feral, barking and snarling at nothing. I would have small, soft items thrown at me. I would hear clapping and walking around the house, and the dogs would go looking for what made the noise."
"Here’s the main story. My husband was working nights and I was home alone on the farm while the in-laws were out of state on a trip. One of the dogs goes into an episode, staring at nothing in the middle of the living room absolutely losing it, rabid dog."
"I CAN'T get her to calm down. Usually a light touch on the back will snap her out of it but I could not call her off this time. I finally go to my room to take a breather and I hear her stop. Maybe 15 minutes later she’s at it again. I can’t describe how terrifying it is to see her like this, like I said absolutely feral."
"I go halfway up the stairs and am talking to her through the bannister, finally get her to come over to me and stop barking. She keeps looking next to me at the top of the stairs, then a huge slam on the baby gate there happens, rattling the gate and the banister."
"I ignore it because I’ve heard that’s the best thing to do when something’s right next to you. The dog barks but I get her stopped again. Then right in my line of sight I see a pen slid forcefully off the table, flying multiple feet before hitting the ground."
"The dog immediately runs to attack, and goes into another fit looking at something next to the table. I start to lose it, immediately go back downstairs to my bedroom. I sit on my bed next to my cat napping there. He stands up and comes to me since I’m upset and crying."
"I hear the dog move back to barking in the living room, closer to my room. A minute later my cat turns to look at the doorway, his back raises up ears pin back and his hair stands on end looking straight at the doorway. I ran out of the house at that point."
"That was the worst it ever got. I have lots of other little stories though. I just moved into a brand new house and (knock on wood) nothing yet. I refuse to talk about paranormal activity aloud in any home I stay in, and I think subconsciously I pushed myself to only move into a new construction for fear of stirring anything in an existing house up."
"With what I know about the experiences through my life compared with where I was staying, I’ve kind of begun to think I might be a poltergeist. A new construction home was the only place I felt safe moving into. So while my story isn’t to the level of a horror movie, I’m happy to be out of old houses and apartments!"
mermaidkimberly
Uuh, for the record, that falls squarely under "extremely distressing."
"My childhood home..."
"My childhood home was notoriously haunted. We moved into the house when I was around 6 and my brother was 3."
"It started slow with him and I seeing weird things at night and constant nightmares. Things would go missing only to return a few day later. We would constantly hear people talking, foot steps, and doors slamming when no one was around."
"Over the years is started to escalate and there are a lot of stories so I have included a few."
"One parent was in their bedroom during a party when they heard a child running and the door to their walk in closet creeked shut. She assumed it was me or my brother and went to open up the door. When she did some of the t-shirts that were hung close to the floor were swaying."
"Peaking out from behind them was a little girl she did not know. The little girl vanished before her eyes."
"I was home alone waiting for my boyfriend to come over. I heard him call my name so I came out of my bedroom and headed towards the front door. When I came to the stairs that separated my room from the front door I saw this...thing?... it almost resembled a person, pitch black, crawling up the stairs...it cracked its neck to look up at me and i ran."
"I called my boyfriend and he wasn't there yet. I hid in my room until he came."
"The last one I'll put is after my family moved out we rented it for a while. the tenant complained of similar things that we experienced in our first few months there. He went out of town and left his dog in the garage."
"His friend came to check on it and the dog was missing. He later fount the dog (who was fine just scared) locked in the crawl space that was completely separate from the garage and two closed doors away from where the dog was left. This crawl spaces was the worst place in the house for negative activity."
MoistWormPower
Excuse me, you're telling me that creepy vanishing things are a thing?
No thank you.
"This happened when I was 11 and visiting a lighthouse in Michigan that was supposedly haunted by a boy. My parents wanted to take a tour with the tour guide, but I wanted to play outside considering we had been touring various sites in the upper peninsula that day. No one was around, so my parents ended up letting me play outside the lighthouse while they took a quick tour."
"As I played outside, a really beat up ball rolled up to my feet. I bent over to pick it up, and as I stood back up I saw a boy standing next to the edge of the lighthouse looking at me. I assumed the ball was his, so I tossed it over to him and he wandered away."
"I didn't think any about it, but when my parents were done with the tour they asked what I did. I told them something along the lines of "I was just wandering around. Oh, and I helped this kid get his ball back."
"The tour guide was with my parents, and when I mentioned the kid he looked startled because as I mentioned earlier, there was no one other than us at the lighthouse. Only three cars. My parent's car, the tour guide's car, and the car belonging to the person at the front desk."
"The tour guide asked me to take a look at a picture in the lighthouse. I know this sounds super cliche, but when he showed me the picture, it was the picture of the exact same boy with the exact same beat up ball. Apparently, that kid died at the lighthouse. (On a side note, we checked around and there was no boy.)"
"So you might be asking me, why was this creepy, especially considering that the boy never scared me or tried to scare me. What creeps me out is that I touched that ball. When it comes to ghost stories, most people only report a ghost not other objects."
"Assuming that was a ghost with his ball. What the heck did I touch? Also, it felt solid, like a real ball. If it was a "ghost ball" then how the heck do you explain what I touched? This still bothers me to this day."
1Dividend
That's creepy! I really need to stop reading these late at night...
"Something was violently throwing the chairs..."
"While a friend (the biggest skeptic, I'd say) was sleeping over, him, me and my sister were discussing my friend's girflriend at the time. It was the middle of the evening, not too late and we were sitting in my sister's room."
"Something was violently throwing the chairs around in the kitchen. The sound was as clear as day. Thinking it was a burglar, we lock the door and press the alarm button."
"When the security guys arrive all the doors are locked and their s nothing amiss in the kitchen. This was truly frightening."
Kangaruan
Nooope.
Does anyone know where the nearest church is? Anyone? I really need to get my hands on some holy water or something.
Have stories of your own? Tell us more in the comments below!
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