It's spooky time, fam!
Collectively, we love a good ghost story. Horror films gain cult-like followings. We all know that our passion for a mystery podcast is unmatched. Being safely scared seems to be something we dig.
But when it comes to our real lives, most of us would prefer it if things stayed ghost-free.
It doesn't.
Reddit user numbnesstolife asked
"People who have experienced paranormal activity, what is your story?"
Buckle up, readers. It's about to get spooktastic.
A Face Looking Back
black and white horror GIFGiphy"I grew up in a house that originally served as an 'old folks home.' "
"At night the whole house would pop and crack. It sounded like people were walking up and down the stairs all night."
"My mom was always on board that the house was haunted. My dad said it was “Just the house settling” the house in 1984 was 100 years old."
"One night I woke up to the sound of a door slamming. I walked down the hall and peeked around the corner, looking down the stairs. At the bottom of the stairs was a closet."
"The door was open about six to eight inches, and there was a human face looking at me from inside the closet."
"The face was very shadowed as the house was dark. But there was no glisten to the eyes, just black. It’s face was protruding slightly from the opening between the door and the door frame."
"The skin was a pale grayish white, as I could make out. I didn’t stick around very long to study it."
"I ran into the bathroom and tried to calm down. Finally I mustered the courage to come out of the bathroom and look down the stairs again…. Nothing there."
"There were many experiences in that house that are harder to explain."
- AsphiXiate8888
"Hey, psst"
neverending story 80s GIFGiphy"When I was younger, maybe like 5, I went to bed and I woke up to the sound of something whispering and I thought nothing of it until I heard 'Hey, psst' and I looked up and saw a black dog with yellow eyes standing on 2 legs."
"I started screaming and crying and yelled for my parents and when they came up the thing hid behind a chair in my room. I was so scared I slept with my parents for a week and never saw that thing again."
"I had multiple dreams about it though."
"In the dreams it always had this power that it could make me freeze and not be able to move and he would always do it in front of my parents and they never did anything."
"Really Creepy sh*t."
- CoolQuip1
Nothing's Wrong With The Doorbell
home alone lol GIF by Shalita GrantGiphy"I was about 16 and home alone one night at my stepdad's house. Everyone had gone out for the night except me."
"One thing you need to know about this household; it’s in a pretty rural area, in a little village where everyone knows each other and a lot of families lives in the same town. Because of this, no one would ever use the front door."
"Everyone who came over for a visit would just come through the garden and use the back door and walk right in."
"So it’s about 10pm, I’m watching tv, and the doorbell rings. It startled me a bit; who could that be at this hour? Why would they be at the front?"
"So I look out the window to get a full view of the front doorstep. No one’s there."
"As I’m looking out the bell rings again, but there’s no one there to ring it."
"My whole body becomes red hot with adrenaline and fear and I’m frozen to my seat as it rings again. And again. And again."
"I run to grab my phone to try and call my mom to come home cause I’m scared sh*tless. No answer. The ringing stops."
"About an hour later my parents come home and I freak out and tell them what happened and I’m pissed at them for not answering the phone."
"My stepdad chuckles and says 'Oh yeah, that’s my wife. It happens sometimes.' "
"His previous wife and partner for years had died a few years back. He said he tried to have the doorbell fixed only to find out there’s nothing wrong with it."
"Their theory is that when the doorbell rings it’s her reminding them she’s still with them."
- lxtje
"Outstanding reports"
Twitch Smile GIF by HewFoEGiphy"I used to be a contractor and had to inspect all kinds of places. One was an old psych hospital/asylum that had long been empty."
"I was working on one of the floors and it was starting to feel...off."
"It was August, but got freezing inside all of a sudden. So I decided I was going to calmly, but briskly, leave the building. As I was going down the stairs (i think I was between the 2nd and 3rd floor) something grabbed my ankle."
"I booked it out of there immediately - I absolutely didn't care if someone saw me terrified or panicked. I ran the f*ck outta there, ripped off my PPE and called my contact to confirm I was out."
"And then I left for the day due to 'outstanding reports' and went home and tried to convince myself it didn't happen."
- Wise_Coffee
Mom
canadian comedy GIF by CBCGiphy"I've always slept with my bedroom door open. I have a small room and it feel smaller when the door's closed, also I was very scared of the dark as a kid."
"I had a mirror across my room that faced the hallway. My bed was facing the mirror so I could see the hallway from my bed."
"Anyways, so there was one night I woke up in the middle of the night for no reason."
"And that night I looked in the mirror and I saw my mom in the mirror, and she was looking down and giving me the creepiest smile."
"I blinked and she was gone."
"I'm not sure if that was a sleep deprived hallucination or what, but it definitely wasn't my mom."
- mystic_mayhem03
"One night I woke up and seen my mom standing in my closet smiling at me. I looked at her for a few seconds and she faded away."
"It creeps my mom out when I tell her."
- halfbreed_prince
A Children's Choir
royal wedding choir GIF by BBCGiphy"I lived in a haunted house for a year."
"At this time it was just me and my three sisters. Ages 13, 5 and 2 (I was 10.) My older sister and I were home from school with a stomach bug."
"My mom had to go get my 5-year-old sister from school and asked us to watch our youngest sister."
"We were sitting in the living room and she was eating some snacks and had a sippy cup of water. The top to the cup must’ve not been screwed on tight enough because when she knocked it over, water spilled everywhere."
"My older sister went to the kitchen to get some napkins to clean it up. When she came back she handed me some of the napkins and we both started cleaning."
"We were on our hands and knees wiping up the water when we started to hear banging coming from the second floor. We both paused, looked at each other, and said nothing. But we both had that look of 'you heard that too, right?' ”
"We stayed silent and kept cleaning."
"Then again, another bang. At this point we stand up and are still silent, just staring at the ceiling."
"Then came the giggles. We heard little kids upstairs laughing. Then the laughing turned to singing. It sounded like a whole children's choir singing."
"My sister scooped up the baby and we ran outside. It was a clear day out that day, but I remember once we got outside it started to rain on us."
"We had no choice but to go back to the house. We stayed on the front porch until my mom got home."
"We saw things in that house that I still have nightmares about, 20 years later, but for some reason that giggling and singing bothered me the most."
- Cat523
My Shadow Roommate
music video mv GIF by Lady GagaGiphy"The apartment where I'm currently living seems to have some sort of resident shadow figure. I tend to see it moving in my office."
"Sometimes when I'm out in the hallway I'll see a shadow that looks like a medium-build man moving in there. Sometimes when I'm in the office at my PC I'll see it out of the corner of my eye like someone's standing at my shoulder and turn expecting to see my boyfriend - but nobody is there."
"Sometimes I'll see the figure down where the stairs meet the front door. The closet near the front entrance (right by where I've seen the shadow lingering at the end of the stairs) has opened itself a few times when I've been home alone & cooking in the adjacent kitchen."
"It's never seemed frightening to me, though, so whatever it is - some trick of lighting or bonafide shadow dude - I don't really worry about it much."
"I did recently have a bad bout of sickness. There was one night that I was running a temp of 103 and was just absolutely miserable, falling in and out of sleep while being anxious about my rising temp & how laboured/difficult my breathing was becoming."
"I was kind of scared since my aunt had died in her sleep due to COVID relatively early on in the pandemic - she had been on the phone with her boyfriend and mentioned she wasn't feeling well suddenly and was going to take a nap. I couldn't help but think of her because of how quickly it seemed like things were accelerating that night."
"At one point I did manage to fall asleep, but was woken up by a shadow figure opening my door & coming to stand over me. It wasn't my boyfriend."
"I was staying completely isolated in a diff part of the apartment to protect him since he has asthma & is a high risk, I asked later to confirm he hadn't randomly decided to break that quarantine that night and he was like 'of course not!' "
"I couldn't see anything but a shadowy outline. The figure was saying something to me; it was unintelligible but seemed like a question. Then it eventually walked back out of the room."
"I would've assumed it was a fever hallucination if my cat didn't jump up from her sleeping position to stare at the figure. Who knows, maybe it still was and I even hallucinated her reaction?"
"But I kind of like the idea that my shadow roommate came to check on me at my sickest point when I was anxious about being alone since my boyfriend couldn't!"
- junipercoffee
The Audacity Of This Girl
Tired Monsters Inc GIFGiphy"I used to babysit my niece and nephew when they were 4 and 5 while my sister went to work. She lived down the street from me so I would walk down in the morning before she left and before the kids woke up."
"I got there one morning and after she left I laid down on the couch. I heard one of the kids run down the hall and I immediately pretended to be asleep so they would go back to bed and not get the day started yet."
"I felt my niece run by me on the couch. Her running stomps shook the floor and I could hear the trinkets on the shelves shake. And I felt the wind of her blow by me."
"Then it was quiet but I knew she was still there. She leaned over my ear and moved my hair out of the way and laughed in my ear."
"I just thought to myself 'The audacity of this girl!' "
"Then she hid under the end table of the couch. Realizing she wasn’t gonna go back to bed until I woke up and played with her, I just got up and looked under the end table."
"There was no one there."
"Completely baffled at how she got up and out of the living room in literally 2 seconds without me hearing shook me. So I went down the hall to her room and was starting to freak out."
"My nephew was sound asleep in his bedroom and I got to my niece’s room, she was sound asleep tucked under her covers."
"My heart almost fell out of my body."
- FootstepsofDawn
The Blue Cup
Britains Got Talent No GIF by Got Talent GlobalGiphy"Years ago, when I was just a kid, my mom and I lived in this old apartment in MA. One day, when I was watching TV while she was cooking, all of a sudden she started to scream, yelling for me to come over and 'look at this!' "
"I ran over. She was standing right by the dining room table, which was empty except for a blue plastic cup at the end of it. I was confused, and asked her what the hell was going on."
"She didn't say anything. She just picked up the blue cup, and set it down at the other end of the table. As soon as she put it down, the cup just slid over all the way to the other end of the table, by itself. It stopped right at the edge."
"I jumped back, perplexed. My mom picked up the cup and did it again. And again for a third time."
"I've always liked technology and science (I grew up to become an engineer) so rather than being scared, I tried to figure out a rational explanation for this."
"I picked up the cup, and looked at it closely. I looked under and around the table. The table was spotless, and there was nothing else there."
"It wasn't a trick, there were no wires or magnets or anything of the sort. I tried the same thing with other objects, and nothing happened. It only happened with this particular blue plastic cup."
"I eventually tried it while looking directly at the cup, literally 2 inches away from it, and followed its path. The cup would actually vibrate as it moved, and did so in such a way that you could only notice it up close."
"Cups move when there's condensation under them, but they usually move a few inches, not the length of a fairly long dining room table. Also, the cup was made entirely of plastic, no seal, and dry. The table was dry as well."
"I've just never seen anything else like that, before or since. And the faint vibration was very, very freaky."
"To this day, I am not sure what caused the cup to move."
"That wasn't the only strange thing I experienced in that apartment..."
- JohnnyTwoTimes21
Steve
Driving Rush Hour GIFGiphy"My Dad has heard my mom calling him when she needed him. No phone or anything."
"One example - one time she dropped him off for a half day conference in a big office tower downtown and was going to do some shopping while she waited to pick him up."
"She drives away and 30 min later starts feeling very sick."
"She drives back to the building but doesn't know where in the building he is or where to call him. She said she just tried to focus and thinks his name really hard over and over ... like 'Steve, I need you. Steve, I need you.' "
"10 min later he came running out to the car and was like, 'What, what do you want?' "
"He drove her to the hospital and she needed her appendix taken out."
"Another time, my Dad's driving a car down a busy road. It's one of the ones where the main road has the right of way and all the side roads have stop signs where people have to stop then merge into traffic when there's a break."
"Anyway he's driving along and hears 'Steve!' "
"He looks around. No one's in the car with him, the windows are closed plus he's doing 50 miles per hour - but maybe someone he knows is in traffic?"
"Then he hears it again, 'Steve!' So he slows down and looks in the rearview mirror. He thinks it might be his friend."
"He slows down a bit more... and a dump truck blows through the stop sign at the crossing before him."
"If he hadn't slowed down he would have been flattened like a pancake."
- wellchelle
Avoiding the unexplained might be preferable for some, but it sure does make for a good story.
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As much as we'd like to assume spirits, ghosts, and paranormal happenings are relegated to movies and books, plenty of real-life stories abound.
Inexplicable sightings, things heard, and cold pockets of air are encountered by plenty of people all the time.
It's up to you if you want to believe them. But it's hard to argue with the conviction of the contributors to a recent Reddit thread.
Redditor ihadanightmarewithu asked:
"What is the scariest / paranormal story you have ever experienced?"
Many people talked about the things that caught their eye once upon a time.
Two Places At Once
"I was staying with a group of friends rock climbing in Spain. Really creepy air bnb, lots of strange things happened while we were staying there. The creepiest was one morning we were getting ready for the day, packing food and generally getting our things together, and I went upstairs to grab something."
"As I was heading back downstairs I walked past my friend's boyfriend on the landing and saw him turn and go into his and my friend's room; I think I asked him something but he didn't reply. I thought 'rude' and headed downstairs."
"Walked into the kitchen and he was there sorting food out with my friend."
"Everyone swore he'd been downstairs the whole time, plus there was only one staircase and it would have been impossible for him to overtake me and get to the kitchen before me without me noticing. I went back upstairs and checked their room and there was no one up there but me."
"I've never experienced anything creepy or inexplicable before we stayed in that air bnb and I'd say I'm v. sceptical about supernatural/paranormal stuff but multiple things happened on that trip that spooked me."
Classic
"A floating head."
"I was putting beef in the slow cooker because I wanted it done for morning, it was late at night. I reached up to grab some seasonings, and heard creaking. I told my kids to get in bed."
"I see something out of my peripheral vision and there was no body but a head of a bald, pale man floating 3 1/2 maybe 4 feet off the ground in the middle of the floor. It's face kept looking as if it was sad, or like it was begging. It locked eyes with me....I froze."
"I had a darker wall, with a coat rack with my husbands work jackets so it stood out like a store thumb. I looked away thinking it was my imagination but when I looked back it was still there so I ran out the back door because I'd have to pass it to get upstairs with my husband and kids."
"I ended up calling him on my phone to come walk me in. I was wide awake, not sleepy, not out of it, on no medication. I have no reason to see that ever."
Presences, Seen and Felt
"When I was a kid my mom took my sister and I on vacation. I only remember this happening one night while we were there but the hotel we stayed at was pretty much all flats with one bedroom. I slept in the bed with my mom and my sister was on the pull out sofa. I can't remember if I was trying to go to sleep or woke up in the night to this but I just know everyone else was asleep."
"It was really dark with just a little light from the street outside coming in on the sides of the curtains. On each side of the bed stood a black silhouette and it felt like they were all staring right at me acknowledging their presence. I didn't feel threatened or afraid of them at all and turned on the bedside light and not surprisingly nobody was there."
"I turned the light back off and there they were still in the same positions. I just looked at them for a while but must have eventually fell asleep. The only other detail of that experience I remember is waking up the next day and mentioning it at breakfast and my sister saying she felt like she was being watched the whole night. I have no explanation for it but it's a memory that has stuck with me over many years now."
-- obev369
Paranormal?
"One time I was going home in my car and saw a guy that appeared to have no arms no hair and a longa** neck in a JUST a hoodie no pants no underwear trying to climb a tree in the woods with their legs and idk know if that's paranormal but it was such a fu**ing weird experience that I think it qualifies"
-- Setoz_
For others, it was all about the things they heard.
Preferred Number
"This is something I've never been able to rationalize."
"For months after my dad died, we were getting landline calls where no one would answer on the other end. This was in 2002, so, while robo callers were a thing, it definitely wasn't as prevalent as it is today, but we did assume they were probably wrong numbers or something. (We didn't have any phones that displayed caller id at the time.)"
"Well, one time, after getting yet another call with only silence on the other end, I jokingly said, 'Dad, if that's you, call my cell phone.' "
"I want to preface this by saying I rarely ever got calls on my cell phone, and never spam calls in those days. I was 18 with an unlisted number that only my family and a few friends had."
"Just a few minutes later, my phone rang with a number I'd never seen before. With what I'd just said fresh in my mind, I kind of freaked out and didn't answer. I was on my way out to go somewhere with my mom, so when we got in the car, I told her what happened. We made the decision to call the number back."
"It never rang, but there was activity at the other end: muffled static and the sound of numbers being dialed slowly. It was the weirdest thing. Both my mom and I said hello, but no one ever answered."
"Has anyone ever had something like that happen to them when dialing a number? I've never had it happen before or since."
-- huglife247
And the Crying Stopped
"About 10 years ago (I'd have been 24) I was still living with my parents. My bedroom was in the basement. One night, around 3am I was woken up to the sounds of a young child crying. It sounded like it was coming from just outside my window. I couldn't just look out the window because it was covered in ivy, so I quickly hopped out of bed to go help the kid."
"As I got closer to my bedroom door I could hear the crying was actually on the other side of the door. I opened the door. No one is there and the crying stopped. Spooked, I immediately jumped back in bed and the crying started again."
"Later that day at dinner, my family was sitting around the table and I brought up my experience I had. One of my sisters told a story about how when she was a kid she'd always leave her room at night to go sleep with my parents because she'd see a little girl walking out of her closet."
"As she left her room and got to my parents' door waiting to be let in because the door was locked she'd see the little girl walking up the stairs that were right there. After her telling this story my youngest sister looked scared and asked, 'the little girl, is she wearing a pink nightgown with shoulder-length brunette hair?' "
"Now my other sister was scared because that is exactly who she saw. My youngest sister told how she had similar experiences with that little girl coming out of the closet at night or walking up the stairs at night."
"I'm convinced that something happened either in that house before we moved in or on that land that my parents' house was built on."
-- JSparx597
Crying From Afar
"Not my story but my moms, apparently when I was just a baby I was always a calm sleeper and once when my mom was having a friend over downstairs they could hear a baby crying so they naturally went to check on me and I was still calmly asleep..."
"...but every time they went back downstairs they could hear some more crying, but apparently the crying was somehow off in a different way as well, one day when mom and dad were downstairs watching tv while I was sleeping upstairs, they heard crying and finally pinpointed the thing that was off..."
"...apparently it came from the opposite side of the house compared to my room and that room had the latch to the attic. Creepy stuff, but I'm not that surprised. This place is totally haunted in my book, I once heard my mom call me downstairs while I was home alone."
-- lukkisboi
Finally, some people interacted directly with the spirits.
Advice From Beyond
"So once while I was home alone, my neighbor knocked on my door. This was when we still lived in Oklahoma, and I was homeschooled. He was bit younger then me but we still played Halo together. I was thirteen at the time."
"I let him in and we had a conversation about what I thought the afterlife would be like, and this was really odd for him. We talked for a few minutes before he decided to leave. When my parents got home they told me he had a heart attack at school and died."
-- Maxraser33
One Time Only
"I once felt a hand on my face when I was sleeping. I had the covers covering my entire face and felt something push down lightly and then a bit harder."
"I was absolutely terrified and when I finally mustered up the courage to look, nothing was there. It never happened again but there have been a few times where something similar has happened."
A Very Helpful Ghost
"I was staying in the Banff Springs Hotel in 95 for a snowboard trip and I was leaving the room and forgot my jacket."
"When I remembered right at the door, I turned around to grab it from the bed where I left it and it was being held 2' above the bed like it was being being pinched by fingers."
"The moment I turned around it dropped to the bed."
"That blew my mind!"
"My GF's sister at the time was working concierge and she said there was a bell hop ghost and gave the paper story...lol It wasn't threating at all, but was crazy to see!"
-- GTR4L1F3
Here's hoping you manage to sleep well despite all these spooky stories!
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Image by Amber Avalona from Pixabay |
It's tough believe that there is life living in an ether that surrounds us. I mean... ghosts? Spirits? Demons, floating about us?
Sounds like fun on paper, for a movie script, but for real life, I don't know. But strange occurrences do abound, and often a simple explanation just doesn't suffice.
If skeptics have been haunted, it just all leads to more questions and no answers.
Hoping to connect with other unsure "non-believers" Redditor u/LordMaboy asked to hear about:
"What is the most creepiest thing you saw even though you are very sceptical about paranormal things?"
I have to admit there have been a few instances in life when I've been... spooked. But then right away I think, "Is it just my mind? Is it the light hitting that corner at that certain angle in just a certain way? Is that last episode of Law & Order: SVU, I told myself not to watch before bed?" So many questions.
25 Years Later
shaking the exorcist GIFGiphy"A handful of times, I would feel the corner of the bed lower as if someone sat down on it. Whenever it happened, I would refuse to turn over and just face the wall until I fell asleep."
"That was over 25 years ago."
What my Cousins Saw
"This happened back when we were like in 3rd grade."
"It was around 7pm right when the sun was almost set. My cousins swore that one of my grandma's friends was in their backyard, knocking on the window in their room and trying to talk to them"
"Although not entirely strange for her to be back there (she regularly helped my grandma with her garden), at this point she had been reported missing and nobody even knew where she was."
"It was only later that we learned she was already dead sometime that morning. She had been stabbed several times and her body found in a dumpster nearby."
"I don't know who the heck my cousins saw that night."
'Omg you saw it too?!'
"The girl I was babysitting one night came running out of her room crying. Saying something was walking by her window."
"Now I get a lot of creepy stories and things from the kids I babysit. They have crazy imagination. So I go check not really thinking anything."
"Something runs by the window as I'm checking it out. A distinctly humanoid figure. At this point, I needed a diaper as much as the little girl I was babysitting. So I text the parents asking about it. And no sh!t this is the response I get."
'Omg you saw it too?!'"
"Yeah I cried. Called the cops too. They came by and said they didn't see anything around."
"The thing is. The parents had called the cops several times before too for the same reason. One of the freakiest times I've ever babysat."
The Dog Knows
"My parents have a long hallway that runs down the entire length of their house, a big bungalow. Bedrooms at the end, bathrooms in the middle with the lounge off to the side etc, but if you're sat in the kitchen you can just about make out the end of the corridor, as it has a slight slant or kink in it like a chicane on a track."
"Anyway, my nephew is like 1 years old at this point being fed in his high chair, he's banging and giggling and blah blah blah. Then suddenly he and our dog look down the hallway and are just staring at it. Our dog has her ears up and just stood in the kitchen doorway looking down the corridor, then dips her head and gets lower down like she's stalking or something."
"Nephew is still staring. Not a sound, just looking and not moving."
"Then they both just... stopped and went back to normal again. Dog trots over to me and gets a scratching from me and goes and gets her ball."
"Such a weird experience, freaked out my sister and my mum as well as they were there feeding my nephew. I went down the corridor with a knife in hand as we were the only ones there. Nothing. No open windows or anything that could have caused a noise or anything."
In the Bunks
Let Me In Conan Obrien GIF by Team CocoGiphy"Was working as an EMT in a rural small town for a few years. Was up late after a run finishing my report when I started hearing someone come down some wooden stairs in the bay about 40 ft from me."
"The stairs go up to a training room and it's just me and my partner there. I go look, nothing there. I go sit back down and try to finish the report. Sound gets loud and fast down the stairs so I just get up and start walking out when the plug in for the ambulance just shoots out and crashes against the wall. Decided to finish my reports in the bunk rooms."
Ok, so far all of this sounds like it's coming from the mind of Stephen King; or worse, Wes Craven. I enjoy their work immensely, but I do not want to live in their brains. And why do dogs always know?
Redrum
The Shining GIF by Top 100 Movie Quotes of All TimeGiphy"Had a room in our hotel where a murder occurred, got multiple complaints that the sheets have blood stains and the lights won't turn on from different guests every couple weeks."
"Whenever we'd check the room, no issues."
"One time after moving the guests, got a noise complaint that there was screaming coming from the room. Check the room, empty. Listened to the neighbours rooms and didn't note any noise either."
"We had never publicly release that the murder occurred in that room, and nobody but staff knew. I'm skeptical but creeped me out."
Don't Look Back
"My aunt has a story of her and her siblings sharing the same experience while in three separate rooms."
"My aunt and I were driving in the town she went to school in. We drove past a house and I remarked how bad it looked. She replied "it is worse inside. That place is haunted". I had never heard my aunt talk of anything paranormal and I haven't since."
"The story goes that the three of them rented out some sketchy house while going to school. Apparently, strange things would happen that made them feel uncomfortable but never anything crazy."
"They would all notice on a few occasions they would wake up in the night with the blankets off and at the foot of the bed. Nothing strange, people kick of blankets when they get too hot all the time."
"One night, my aunt recounts that she had a dream she was falling and needed to grab onto something to save herself. She suddenly realized that she wasn't dreaming and she was being pulled by her ankles out of her bed. She grabbed the rails of the headboard and after a few horrifying moments she gets the strength to scream."
"AT THE SAME TIME she hears screams from her siblings rooms."
"Just as soon as it started, the feeling ended and she ran to check on them. They all had the same feeling of being pulled out of their bed."
"Needless to say they moved out and didn't look back."
The Boots Made for Creaking
"I didn't see anything but in my old house I would be laying in bed watching tv at 2/3 am and could distinctly hear someone wearing heavy boots walk from the bathroom to the kitchen... they would do it four or five times then it would stop. At first I thought it was my mom or my grandma (I lived with both) and I would go check to see what they were doing up so late but no one was ever there."
"One day at dinner I brought it up to them and my grandma had told me she had heard the same footsteps since she first moved in. I'm pretty skeptical, the house was old and creaky it could have been anything but it sounded just like human footsteps and I can't explain the repetition... usually in a creaky house you'll hear one or to sounds then it goes away so."
The "L" Area
"I worked in the memory care unit of a nursing home facility. I was 2-10:30pm and from 8-10:30pm I would be the only employee in the unit. All of our residents were in their rooms either sleeping or watching tv around 9:30pm."
"Our unit was an L shape with a living room/dining room in the bend of the L. ANYWAYS, one night around 9:45, I was just walking from one end of the unit to the other."
"We had quite a few empty rooms at the time and we always kept their doors closed but not locked. I walked past some empty rooms, turned around at the end of the unit and as I passed back past the empty rooms one of the doors was wide open."
"I turned on the lights and looked through the entire room (they weren't very big), but there was nothing to find. There was no way any of my residents could've gotten up and opened a door and gotten back to bed without my noticing."
"I shut the door and checked that it was truly firmly closed. I sat in the living room area the rest of the shift just staring down the hallway terrified."
"Of course, I had been warned that weird things happen in nursing homes because there's bound to be lots of death. But I never talked to anyone who had a negative experience, they said it was more things that felt like a resident who passed getting confused and going back to their old room or favorite areas."
Who She Is?
The Ring Movie GIF by Arrow VideoGiphy"It was a Saturday, I was taking a nap, in my dreams a girl with a white dress came to me, got near my ear, and started screaming."
"I instantly woke up, and i heard the door ringing, it was a friend that came over, the moment he comes in he asks if I'm with a girl at home, I was like why are you asking, he said that he ringed the bell and a girl answered, he asked if i was home, and she said "yes, he's sleeping, ill wake him up, just a second." I was freakin' traumatized."
Yeah, no. I'm not cool with this. I also don't believe it all. Maybe that is the root of this line of thought. Maybe we're all just trapped by the unknown of it. Without proof it's not real... there is no proof that it isn't real. God I'm deep.
Belief in the paranormal has long been a polarizing topic.
Some people absolutely swear by the existence of life after death, citing all kinds of experiences and articles that supposedly attest to the presence of ghosts and spirits swirling around all of us.
Others, though, couldn't be bothered by the whole idea. They refuse to entertain stories about interactions with the undead. They find any rational explanation possible to explain what actually happened.
But there is a third group. These are the people that were once naysayers, but began to believe when they had an experience of their own.
When it happened to them directly, no amount of rationalizing could make them conclude anything other than a total acknowledgment that the paranormal is out there, and it's moving.
People who came around shared their experiences on Reddit.
EwokalypseNow asked, "Skeptics of Reddit, what moment in your life convinced you about the existence of ghosts/the afterlife?"
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."
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."
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."
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."
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
Perhaps this list didn't mean much to you. Maybe you have a reason to explain each and every one.
But have your head on a swivel in case something ever comes your way.
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I think everyone has gone through an explained paranormal experience, whether they realize it or not. I know I have--my dad died at a haunted hotel which was then featured on Ghost Adventures. Weird flex, but I couldn't not mention it in this article.
Anyway, whether or not you believe in the paranormal is up to you, but I'm pretty positive that every single person has questioned their beliefs on the matter at least once. Here are a few pretty wild examples of paranormal happenings, courtesy of our friends at Reddit.
U/andrebotelho asked: What is your best ghost/paranormal experience story?
First up, you can’t go wrong with haunted houses. They’re number one on the creepy list for sure.
You should’ve left the moment you saw clown paintings.
Camping at a friend's family property with a group of friends. They had a huge dingy shop full of old tools and old furniture that was super creepy. Dirt floor, clown paintings in the loft (not even kidding). We stayed up late drinking by the fire and I was the last one awake. Went to go pee on the side of the shop and stood about 5 feet away looking inside through the window.
There was a florescent light on and I noticed what looked like a piece of paper or dollar kind of floating around. I thought it was a moth at first but it was moving in a very flowing figure 8 pattern that was very rhythmic. It reminded me of dangling a carrot. I watched it for maybe 20 seconds, which felt like forever. Then it quickly floated back to the corner of the shop where it was dark. There was also a wood chair near the corner that added to the creepiness. Could have been a moth though.
I sat back down by the fire to finish my beer and have a smoke. No one else was awake so I played robot unicorn attack 2 on my phone for a while. I noticed my friend Mark pop out of his tent to pee, then go back in to go to sleep. I decided sleep sounded good, so I went to my tent and feel asleep.
The next morning, we were having breakfast and Mark said," I saw you guys sitting by the fire super late, how late did you stay up?" I told him I was probably 2 or 3 am. Then he said," who was up with you?" I told him I was the last man standing. He said," I got up to pee and saw you on your phone and 2 people over you're shoulder watching you play". He said one person looked bigger so he thought it was one of our friends, who was a bigger dude. He said the other person was taller and skinny, but none of us are noticeably tall, or skinny.
Freaked me OUT!! We still camp at that property once a year, but I don't go in the shop, and I go to sleep whenever my wife decides she's tired.
Sounds like someone is a skeptic....
laugh lol GIF by SpongeBob SquarePants GiphyMy brother's bedroom was next door to mine growing up. One afternoon, he asked me what I was doing the previous night that made me laugh so much. Confused, I pressed him for details.
"About 3 am last night, your laughter woke me up. It sounded like you were pacing your room, too. Pacing and laughing."
At this point, I told him that I wasn't home last night. I'd been at a friend's house. He went pale.
To this day he swears blind that it was my laugh. I have a very distinct laugh, apparently.
As a New Englander, I can confirm that all the ghosts check you out.
Small but weird: I rented a room in a New England farmhouse, grad school. First night, about two in the morning, I had a very, very clear feeling I was being checked out by some sort of house spirits but they approved. I went back to sleep.
First time my girlfriend came over, she sat up in bed. I asked what's up, and it was almost word for word, something was checking her out but there was no threat. A few weeks later my brother came over, next morning, unprompted as he came downstairs he said he felt like something was checking him out at night but it was OK. A new housemate, later, said the same thing his first morning. None of them knew each other, it was weird.
TL;DR: four guests in an New England farmhouse said spirits checked them out the first night.
A lot of times, people can sense ghosts just by the energy of the space.
See, this is the real reason why we work from home.
I had just started a new job. The building I worked in was really old, definitely pre-war. I had to stay a bit later than I normally would to get something done, and by the time I was packing up to leave, my floor was pretty empty. I needed to use the restroom before I left, so I walked over there, and as I approached the door I saw someone else open the door and go in. I remember vividly that they were wearing a pink shirt and khakis, because that's what I was wearing, too. I was also mildly annoyed, because I don't like being in the bathroom when someone else is in there.
After deciding I still definitely needed to pee before the commute home, I entered the bathroom. But when I got in, it was completely empty. I don't know how to describe the energy in the room, but it was very tense. Completely silent. I remember being able to hear my heartbeat. After standing completely frozen for what felt like 10 minutes (it was probably like 15 seconds), I turned right around and left.
I had nightmares about that bathroom for weeks. It seems so simple and uninteresting compared to a lot of other peoples stories here, but it really shook me. There was something definitely off about the whole thing. Glad I work from home now!
Definitely LARPers.
civil war reenactors GIF by South Park GiphyI've got a few from my grandparents ranch, the original house was built in the early 1800s and the graveyard from the original family is still there.
When my family first bought the property the previous owners were still living there for a few weeks until they moved. My grandpa was out riding around and saw a guy from a distance dressed in slacks and a white shirt/suspenders, my grandpa assumed it was the previous owner so he drove up to say hi. As he got closer the guy walked behind a bush and seemingly disappeared into thin air. He told the previous owner about it and he asked "was he wearing a white shirt and suspenders?" Apparently they've seen him a lot wandering around in the evening, almost always where my grandpa saw him too.
A few months later when I first visited, me and my cousin were playing PS2 in the living room around midnight. There is a huge sliding glass door facing the backyard & barn. I notice two people walking around outside with what looks like rifles and civil war caps. It looked like they were marching almost, eventually they kept going into the darkness while me and my cousin were shitting ourselves in silence.
Nothing really happened for the next few years besides footsteps and weird feelings. I would hear super loud footsteps at night and assume it's someone walking into the kitchen, I got creeped out so if someone else was awake I would take that opportunity to go get food. When I realized no one else was awake I ran back into my room lmao.
Fast forward to when I lived there during college, I had my own little cabin down the road and it was really creepy, but cool. One night I had a friend over and we were up pretty late. We heard some footsteps on the gravel outside and then louder footsteps on the front porch. Then I saw a silhouette of someone through the window walking around. I jumped up to go make sure it wasn't some methhead but when I walked out front there was nobody there. And it's an open area so there would be no place for anyone to run or hide. Safe to say we didn't get any sleep that night.
That's about all the super creepy stories I have but plenty of your typical paranormal things have happened over the years. This was on the Devils Backbone in Texas btw, if you know the stories of that area you know it's a creepy ass place.
TLDR my families ranch is either haunted or civil war LARPers keep fucking with us
This is actually kind of sweet.
In 2012, my grandmother suffered a major stroke resulting in hospice in her home with her children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren by her side. Friends and family were able to come by freely and spend time with her.
I was very close to my Grandma and was lucky to be able to share much of this time with her. For anyone that has ever been through hospice with a loved one, you will understand how hard this type of thing can be.
One night I was sitting at home in my office catching up on some work, when all of a sudden the room filled with the scent of perfume. I'm not talking about a faint smell, I'm saying it was very distinctive and strong throughout the entire room. I stopped everything I was doing and said out loud (to myself) "Something is wrong, that is Gram!" I had not spoken to my family that day, but felt an urgent need to send a text message to my uncle (whom was staying with her) to ask "you guys ok?" This was at 11:20PM. I got a response right away saying "might want to come say goodbye. Not ok." I quickly rushed over.
Upon arrival, the living room where my family was congregated was very silent filled with blank faces. Without saying anything I walked straight to my grandmother and kissed her on the forehead, saying I love her. She was still warm ... but no longer breathing.
I told my uncle that I was there because Grandma had brought me there. I asked when she passed and he replied saying 5 minutes before I sent my text. This puts the perfume in my office at nearly the exact same moment.
Now, I'm going to say that I was born into an Irish Catholic family, but I am in no way a religious person. I would have been the first person to discount this type of story if you told it to me. But, I must say, this experience had me thinking that there really is something more out there.
I felt it.
Confirmed: babies can see ghosts.
Back in 2001 there was a show called The Amazing Race, and my then wife and I were watching the first ever episode. While my son played on the floor. As the episode ended I thought to myself that my mom would have loved this. (My mom had passed away about a year earlier.) As soon as I had that thought, a cold chill ran up through my body starting at my feet and up through my head.
At the same time my wife said "this is something you and your mom would have done, and probably won." We both laughed partly because we both had similar thoughts and partly because it was a sad reminder that she was gone.
Right then my son, who was about a year and a half old started waving at the ceiling saying bye and bye-bye. He often talked to the "ceiling" and would stop playing and sit and look up at it, so we started asking who was there and what were they saying, just kind of playing along with his game. He wasn't saying real words yet but we wanted to encourage talking so we'd listen and ask questions that he'd "answer".
This time when he started saying bye-bye we asked who was there and where were they going, just kind of normal play-along stuff and he was saying something that the closest I can spell of what it sounded like was annel or anyul. "Ok tell anyul to be safe."
A few months later I had out an old photo album and was laying on the floor looking through it. My son came "walking" over saying hi hi and laughing . I said hi back but he wasn't talking to me. He started chatting with a picture in the album and was waving and "talking" to it. The picture was my moms official graduation picture from nursing school. He had first met my mom when he was six months old and only a couple of times between then and when she passed, but he was carrying on a conversation with the picture.
I asked him "Do you know who that is? Who is that?" He put his finger right in the middle of the picture and said "Anyul... ANYUL!" and started laughing and talking to her again. He knew what angels were... is that what he was saying? I don't know.
True story.
You ever meet a mean ghost? How about a ghost that’s just plain petty?
It was HIS room.
angry get out GIF GiphyWhen I was young, I lived in a broken town called Uniondale, in the outbacks of the Karoo in South Africa.
The house I lived in had several long corridors.
One day, I went to my room to play with my toys, and when I walked in, this random guy was just sitting on a chair in my room, he told me to get out, and he told me that this was his room.
So I ran to my mother and told her about it, but when she stormed into my room, the man was gone.
Fast forward a few months, I was in the kitchen baking a cake with my mom, when several potatoes literally rolled into the kitchen from the corridor. No joke, they rolled into the room as if they had their very own momentum, but my mother and I were the only ones in the house at the time.
Fast forward a few more months, my gran came to visit.
After a few days of staying, she ran into the living room telling us she saw a guy walking down our corridor, she described him, and I noted that her description fit the guy that was in my room.
We moved out not long after.
Can confirm, this is the best way to get rid of ghosts.
My mom has tons. But I'll just tell one that makes me laugh.
We lived in a pretty haunted house. Many people heard/felt stuff. Actually the first 3 houses on our street were haunted but that's another story.
Anyway, my brother and I were gone to our fathers for the weekend and my mom was watching Jerry springer in the living room. She hears the tap in the upstairs bathroom turn on and after dealing with this sh!t for years at this point, she just yells "you can turn the water off cause you're not f*cking scaring me!".
Water shuts off. Haha
I don't know how she stayed alone in that house but I laugh at the thought of my mom telling the ghost to knock it off. Lol
Ok, this ghost definitely had a bone to pick.
We lived in a haunted house and my friend and I both 12 year olds at the time. We were playing in our living and in the coffee table stood an artificial plant. I set my soda down and all I see is drips of what I assumed to be blood coming from this plant. I immediately ran to tell my mom and to not scare us she told me that it was paint.
A priest came and a couple of her friends to see the plant. My mom was hysterically crying and the guy grabbed the vase and looked inside the vase only to find ripped up pics of me and my sister covered in blood. No one lived with us so this was unexplainable. Also, my mother would wake up early for work and see a woman in a white gown go to our room and disappear when she followed.
Honestly, my best advice if you experience a ghost sighting is to just treat them like human beings. Don't be scared of them, just let them do their thing. And if they start to bug you, then smoke cleansing is your friend (just don't use white sage- it's endangered).
Or you can just tell them to f**k off. That works too. Either way, paranormal experiences are bound to happen. Brace yourself for these experiences- they'll surprise you.