“Worked at a public pool. I would work alone after hours cleaning the building and the pool.
One night around 2 a.m., I'm cleaning the change rooms.
The pool has been closed for four hours at this time...
I hear the sound of a child's laughter and bare feet running across the pool deck.
I go out and scan the area; there's nobody in sight.
The doors are all closed and locked.
There is nowhere a kid could be hiding.
No wet footprints on the pool deck
I re-check the doors and the security monitors.
I am the only person in the building.
It was unsettling.”
– Oldmanenok
“I would see a large dark figure that I believed to be a man who would walk the halls at night.
I would see things happening or hear things happening like a cup would fall off the counter or items on an entry table move.
One evening I remember seeing a black figure that was smaller (size of a basketball) run across my bedroom floor.
It hit the wall and went under my bed.
As I was convincing myself it was imaginary, my mom came running in since she heard the thud.
At the time, we hadn't all concluded the ghost thing.
I didn't say what it was but ran out the house and spent the night at my friend's because I was terrified.
Many times, my mom experienced the feeling of someone sitting on her bed.
She said she'd think it was one of us and look, but there wouldn't be anyone there.
Just an indent as if someone was.”
–ThatThreesome
“In high school, I worked kids’ birthday parties.
The place was basically a giant gym, and gymnastics/dance classes were also held there.
One day, I came in, and one of the girls I worked with was totally freaked out.
During the gymnastics class she taught that morning, one of the kids was staring up at the ceiling.
When she asked the kid what he was doing, he said, ‘There's a little boy up there’ and pointed at the ceiling.
Later, two girls who were working a birthday party before mine came out of the gym and were visibly shaken.
A pair of 5-year-old twins went down a slide and then stared at the ceiling.
They both said that there was a little boy ‘up there,’ in the same spot on the ceiling that the kid from the morning gymnastics class.
We all went in and inspected the ceiling. Of course, it was just a regular, gray, warehouse-y ceiling.
During my party, I was pushing a little boy on the giant swing we had in the gym.
He, too, began to stare at the ceiling. He said DIRECTLY TO MY FACE, ‘Hey, there's a little boy up there!’
The next day, we had downtime between parties, and nobody was in the gym.
There are cameras in the gym that allow parents to see their children playing from the lobby.
My manager called us out of the break room – ‘Guys, check this out.’
We come out and see the screen (which is streaming from the gym) showing that giant swing going back and forth.
Nobody's in there. It's just the swing going.”
– mushroom_gorge
“When I was in my 20s, and newly married, my spouse and I moved for his job.
We needed to find a place to live pretty quick.
We lucked into the perfect house.
It was old. In its previous life, it had been someone's beach cottage.
The only thing that kinda pinged my radar was the landlord.
He was overly insistent that we sign a year lease, and we couldn't break it for any reason.
No matter what, we needed to pay out the lease, whether we lived in the house or not.
I thought that was a little weird, the way he kept repeating that over and over because he wanted to make absolutely sure that we understood.
I worked a 9-5 job. My spouse worked 12-hour on/off shifts.
So, there were lots of times when I would be home by myself.
The first month or two were fine. […]
Then, sometime around the third month, I started to get very strong feelings that someone would be standing behind me while I was reading.
You know, like looking over my shoulder.
Without thinking about it too much, I started sitting in places where my back was to the wall or reading in the bedroom.
When I went to bed at night, I started closing the door between the bedroom and the rest of the house.
I felt safe in the bedroom.
Sometimes when I fell asleep in front of the TV late at night, I'd wake up to catch someone standing in front of the fireplace, just out of the corner of my eye.
I started to stay in the bedroom after dark, with the door shut.
Things started not being where I put them in the big room.
Then one day when I came home after work, I found my knitting yarn wrapped and tangled around all the furniture in the big room.
I don't mean just a little bit.
I mean the yarn was strung between couches and wrapped around the legs of the chairs.
I told myself that my spouse was playing a trick on me, and I cleaned it up. […] I moved my knitting to the bedroom.
My sister came to visit for a long weekend.
After the first night, she told us that the sofa wasn't very comfortable.
She thought she was coming down with something, so she changed her travel arrangements.
She was leaving that afternoon. She seemed agitated, but she wouldn't talk about it.
A few days after she went home, she called me.
She started the conversation with, ‘I know you don't believe in ghosts and maybe I'm just being stupid…’
My heart dropped.
I thought I was the only one and I was being so stoic and pretending I never saw or heard anything.
She went on to tell me that after she went to sleep that night in the big room, noises woke her up in the middle of the night.
She thought it was one of us, but no one was there.
Then, while she was sitting in the bed looking around, the windows started opening and closing.
It just kinda went around the room. One window opened and closed.
Then the one next to that. Then the next one. And the next one.
Then she heard footsteps walking straight towards her. But no one was there.
The footsteps walked right up to the bed where she was sitting, then over the bed, continued across the room.
Then, they went out through the side door into the kitchen area.
She said she ran out the front door and spent the rest of the night on the front porch.
She came back inside when the sun came up, waited for us to wake up, and made excuses to go home.
She didn't want to spend another night in that house.
[One morning while making breakfast,] I opened the kitchen cabinets to get the dishes out to start cooking.
All the dishes were rearranged. Not messy. Not tumbled about.
They were all very neat and orderly, but everything was on the wrong shelf.
My first thought was that someone had been in the house during the night.
I checked all the locks. Still locked.
So, I did what any half-crazed, scared-to-sh*t person would do.
I pretended it never happened.
I pretended that I always kept the glasses on that shelf, and there was nothing strange about having all the plates on this shelf.
I sure as hell wasn't moving anything back because I didn't want to see what would happen if I did.
Later that afternoon, I told my spouse that I wasn't really comfortable in this house anymore.
Could we find somewhere else to live?
My spouse never asked me why.
He simply said that was probably a good idea and let's find something quick.
And we moved out.
[The landlord] came over and picked up the keys.
He never, not once, asked why we were moving.
In fact, he never met our eyes. Just kept looking at the ground.
Months later, I asked my spouse if he ever felt anything strange in that house.
He said, ‘Yeah, that wasn't a good house. Glad we moved.’
And we never talked about it again.”
– rusty0123
“Apparently when we moved into this house, we lived there about a week before we started to receive ‘gifts’ once a week.
Every Friday morning, my dad told me that there would be some sort of hand-crafted gift sitting on the mantle of our fireplace.
My dad was reasonably freaked out by this because we were the only ones with keys to the house, and the last owner moved well out of state.
So, he informed the local police, and they decided to patrol the property every Friday night looking for intruders.
They found nothing, and as you could imagine, the gifts kept coming.
My dad told me they eventually gave up and feeling helpless, he went to our local church.
Eventually, he had a priest come and bless the house, and we stopped receiving the gifts.
What really freaked me out about this was the fact that my dad never believed in ghosts.
He didn’t mention once that a ‘ghost’ was causing these gifts to appear.
He’s an engineer so he always tries to debunk peoples ‘paranormal stories’ with a realistic explanation.
But, he was 100% serious with this story.
One of the gifts we received we actually still have.
It’s a wooden sled with a small painting of a man (presumably my dad), pulling me and my sister on the sled.
We received this gift about 8 months [to] a year before my mother passed away from cancer.
That made the painting on the sled very freaky in hindsight.
My dad only told me this story once, and he denied he ever told me it when I asked him about it recently.”
– Bankok_dAngerUs98
“Once while falling asleep after a movie with the family, I was awoken by what seemed like a small boy running towards the couch we were in.
I immediately sat up and braced for impact.
Now, I would normally chalk it up to falling asleep, [but] my mom and dad also bolted awake at the same time.
Before I could explain, my dad told me he saw a boy running towards us.
His description of the boy matched mine while my mother confirmed as well.”
– Cubic_Ant
“I was visiting my mother after my dad died.
She went shopping with her sister and left me alone.
I heard my dad, as plain as day, up in his room.
He got up from his computer chair walked over to the door and opened it.
He walked down the stairs and stood on the last step for a few seconds before walking back up to his room and closing the door.
I was probably five feet from him in the living room.”
– Ohsoeasy
“When I was 5 years old, I woke up in the night, and my grandma was standing at the end of my bed.
She was wearing a teal blue skirt and a matching blouse.
I remember that it was summer, and the sky was still light but not light enough for me to read, so I guess it was about 9 pm.
I sat up, she put her finger to her lips, and I rubbed my eyes a couple of times.
When I looked back, she had gone.
I just snuggled back under my covers thinking how nice it was to see her because I hadn’t seen her for AGES.
I hoped she would still be there when I woke up.
The next morning, my house was eerily quiet.
My mum was in a worse mood than normal, but she had been crying so I asked her what was wrong.
My grandma died the night before.
She had been crossing a road after her bingo at 8.30 pm (about 60 miles away from where we lived).
She had a massive brain hemorrhage in the middle of the road.
My grandma didn’t even make it to the other side, let alone to my house 60 miles away.
She was wearing a teal blue skirt and matching blouse.”
– MrsMellowCake
“I had a cat who I found in a ditch many years ago.
She was cute, and I pet her, so she followed me back down the train tracks about a mile to my home.
I opened the door for her, and she went in.
She was offered the opportunity to go back out, and did for a moment, but then came back in.
She was mine forever. I've had many pets over the years and loved them all.
But this one was different.
She wanted to be near me all the time.
I'd often said I'd never had a cat who made me feel like my personal space was being violated before.
She followed me up to bed every night and purred me to sleep.
She died fairly quickly.
I barely even had a chance to say goodbye.
I knew she was ill, having been diagnosed with hyperthyroidism.
They waste away slowly, eventually succumbing to either congestive heart failure or kidney damage.
She had taken a turn for the worse, and I thought her treatment wasn't working.
On examination, they found tumors in her stomach and liver.
She had been dealt a mortal blow and was only going to suffer harder and harder.
I put her down, and she even meowed one last time before the end.
I buried her in the yard to keep her close and tried to go to sleep, completely beside myself with grief.
As I lay down, I heard something ... familiar.
I live in an old house, and my bedroom doesn't have a door, so I installed one of those plastic sliding doors.
The slats it's made of makes a tell-tale clacking sound when they're disturbed...like they did when a cat pushes in between them and the doorframe.
I heard this, and a moment later, I felt the foot of my bed compress.
I could feel the mattress deform around my feet, up beside my legs and roughly to my hips...I looked…
No cat.
I don't know how to explain this.
I don't believe in ghosts, and I'm sure grief can cause some pretty significant psychological disturbances.
But to feel my mattress deform like that...in exactly the way she used to circle my feet and come up beside me.
I don't know what to think.”
– Mercurial_Black
“When my son was a baby, he started crying in his crib at about 3 am.
I sat up, dreading having to nurse him back to sleep for the third time that night.
All of a sudden, I hear a soft, sweet woman's voice over the baby monitor say, ‘shhh.... don't cry...go to sleep...’
My son settled right down back to sleep.
In my sleep-deprived state, I was like, ‘cool. She's got him,’ and I went back to sleep myself.
When I woke up that morning, I was like, ‘Did I just let a ghost nanny take care of my baby?! Can she come back tonight?!’
She did not, but I did constantly see orbs fly around over his crib over the video monitor which were clearly not bugs or dust.”
– FeeFiFauxFun
“Once when I worked as a housekeeper in a nursing home.
I worked very early in the morning, and I always stopped by this one lady’s room because she was always awake and sitting in her recliner.
And she always had a pretty sweater on.
One morning, I went in to say hi, and she looked so beautiful.
She smiled and waved at me.
It was like she was glowing.
Her hair looked amazingly white, and she had on a pink sweater.
She radiated light.
I went on with a few more rooms, then met up with colleagues for a coffee break.
One said to me we have to do a complete cleaning of room (I can't remember number) because the lady passed at midnight.
You guessed it.
That lady’s room.
I never ever forgot how beautiful she looked at 4 am.”
– Maizymo3
“Around 2001, a good friend of mine died of cancer in his early twenties.
He was a tall guy called James, and he had short blonde hair.
Fast forward to around 2010, and my best friend’s nephew, who was about seven at the time, was at his grandmother’s house.
The nephew was out in the hallway playing by himself.
That's when his grandmother (my best mate’s mother) heard the young boy start up a conversation with someone in the hallway.
The grandmother didn't think much of it as kids often chatter when they play.
However, when the nephew came into the front room, the grandmother asked who he was talking to.
The nephew said he was talking to James out in the hallway.
Naturally, the grandmother was a bit alarmed that someone was in the house talking to a child.
She asked the nephew a few more questions about who he was talking to out in the hallway.
Of course, he gave a good description of my friend James.
James had died 10 years or so beforehand, and had been to the house many times before he died.
The nephew would have never met James, as he wasn't born when James died.
He would [have] had no reason to lie or make something up like that.”
–Moonsmooth
“My girlfriend’s grandfather’s ashes were on a little shelf in the living room, right next to a very solid/heavy angel statue.
Well, one weekend she and I are fooling around on the living room couch.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see the angel statue fly off the wall, accompanied with a deep grunt.
Now, when I say this thing FLEW off the wall, I’m talking 7-8 feet of air before landing on the hardwood and leaving a dent where the wing hit.
Even if this thing had fell off the wall, it would’ve dropped straight down, not soared with force.
Well, we both stood there in shock, and I whispered if she had heard the grunt as well, to which she agreed.
So, we both booked it for the day.
That night at dinner, we told her parents what happened (leaving out the naughty bit).
[My girlfriend’s] younger sister suddenly burst into tears.
She said she'd seen a dark figure at the foot of her bed the last couple [of] nights but didn’t want anyone to think she was crazy.”
– longfacepug
“I was 8 when my grandma died.
Around 2 months passed, and I was [staying] at grandma's house where my grandpa lives.
I wake up at 3 am and hear footsteps from the bedroom door.
I froze.
I saw my grandma walking up to me, and she said, ‘hello little sweetie’ and walked away.
It was not sleep paralysis because I could move my hands and feet.
[In the] morning, I told it to my grandpa about it.
He said, ‘I've seen grandma almost every night. She likes to visit, so don't be scared next time you visit.’”
– clipmen666
My grandma use to live with me.
She was in the room next to mine and would get up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom (which is in my room).
There is a drop from her room to mine, so we put a night light outside the bathroom so she could see the way.
It was like this for about 12 years.
A few days after she had passed away, I was in my bed with my cat and dog reading a book or something.
I remember my cat and dog both waking up and looking to the night light.
My cat got up and went to the light, pawing at it and making noises.
My dog just stayed still, not barking.
I would grab him so he would calm down or go to sleep, but he never took his eyes off that spot.
That's when I saw what I can only say looked like light bend around the night light.
I was positive it was my grandma coming back to use the bathroom and/or check on me and the house.
To this day (she died about five years ago), I still have that night light there and turn it on every night for her.
I haven't seen her or experienced anything like it again, but I'm sure she's still around.”
– rperez746
“One morning at a friend’s sleepover, I rolled over.
It was one of those dazed moments where I wasn’t sure if I was asleep or awake.
I looked up and saw my grandmother above me.
She told me she loved me very much and was so glad she had so many years to love me.
She also told me that my boyfriend was wonderful, and we’d have a happy life together.
A few minutes later, I got the call that she had passed away.
I genuinely believe that on her way out of this plane she took the time to say goodbye.”
– ieffinghatemayo
“My grandfather died when I was in a very uncertain place in life.
He didn't get to see me graduate college, because I flunked out and worked garbage jobs for 2-3 years before getting my act together.
He ended up getting mesothelioma.
He went from a fit and healthy old man to a skeleton clutching at his chest and gasping for air within the span of a month.
I got to say my goodbyes before he was really far gone.
My grandparents’ house was like my sanctuary when I was little.
I'd go to their house and eat homecooked meals and play Skip-Bo with him ‘til like 10 pm when it was finally bedtime.
I loved my grandfather, he was a rock for me.
After he passed, I started having dreams about him and their house.
My grandmother had long passed by this point, too.
In them, we'd sit in the living room or at the kitchen table, and he would just talk to me about things in my life.
I very distinctly remember a dream where he warned me to get away from the abusive boyfriend I was seeing at the time.
As time went on, I got my act together, and now, I live a relatively comfortable life.
As these years have gone by, I've had less and less dreams about him.
Now, I don't dream about him at all anymore.
To date, my brother has had 1 dream about him when he was about to graduate college.
An ‘I'm so proud’ dream.
It actually took me a long time to realize I don't dream about him anymore.
I still dream about their house all the time, but it's always empty.
I had one, single dream about my grandmother.
It was her in her kitchen making dinner with her back to me, which is a pleasant memory of how she was in life.
I think the one dream from my grandmother was her saying goodbye, but all those dreams about my grandfather were him essentially watching over me.
And as I got my life together, he realized he didn't need to anymore, so he either moved on or moved elsewhere.
And that's why when I dream about their house, it's still because I remember it as a safe haven.
But now, it's empty, because they're gone and have moved on.
Which makes me happy and so terribly sad at the same time.
But, at the same time, if my grandpa was confident enough in me now to trust I'd be okay, I must be doing something right.”
–beepborpimajorp
My family moved into an old farmhouse when I was 12.
This was a very old farmhouse with a build date around the civil war.
The original owners’ name was still on the old barn out back.
We also found numerous old antiques built into the walls when we completely renovated the place.
The upstairs consisted of two bedrooms.
One bedroom was the room at the top of the stairs, [and] the second bedroom was in a separate room just to the left of the top of the stairs.
I had the ‘private room,’ and my sister's room was the landing.
When someone walked up the stairs, it was VERY distinct.
You could hear each individual step, and the creaks got louder as the person approaching got closer.
One night, I am sitting on my bed watching TV or something.
I hear my sister come up the steps and go lay on her bed.
So, I start talking to her.
When she doesn't answer me, I get annoyed and go into her room to figure out what her problem is.
Only she is not in there. My mind was blown because I KNOW I heard her.
I call for her, and she had been downstairs the entire time.”
– younggreezyy
“Once I was babysitting my cousin who was two at the time, and we were watching TV.
He went up the stairs to get his blanket, and no sooner than he turned the corner he suddenly screamed.
I went to him, and he was just standing on the second step and bawling.
He cried a lot, but this was just non-stop screaming and giant tears, and he was very scared.
The apartment we were in was known to have a faceless lady and a little boy pop up every now and then on the second floor.
And the stairs had a little alcove above it that made you feel like someone was constantly watching you.
I still hate going up to the second floor when no one’s up there because it never feels like you’re alone.
Aunt who lived there said she would often see the faceless lady in her room, sometimes in broad daylight.
You could also see into the hallway from the upstairs bathroom mirror.
Once my eldest cousin was washing his face and looked up into the mirror.
He saw a little boy standing in the hallway.
He turned around and no one was there.”
– soleil_is_here
“I was staying in the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, CO.
You know, the hotel that inspired Stephen King to write The Shining.
Around 1 am, I heard what sounded like children running up and down the hallways interspersed with laughter.
Opened the door to see what the hell was going on and didn’t see anything.
Quick little buggers, I thought.
Then, the next morning when my SO and I took a tour of the building.
The guide stopped directly in front of our room to tell us the story of young girls whose ghosts can be heard running up and down that same hallway.”
– banwagl
“I was dog-sitting at my great aunt's house while she was out of town for a few days.
A little after midnight, I'm watching a movie, and my aunt's dog starts barking like crazy and runs up the stairs at full speed.
Suddenly, I clear as day heard a gravelly voice at the top of the stairs say, ‘Bad doggie.’
The voice was deep and masculine.
I went upstairs because I was certain nobody else was supposed to be there.
I looked around and there was nobody in sight.
The dog was still barking at something that I couldn't see.
She was just barking at an empty hallway.
That's when I heard footsteps walking away from us down the hall and into my aunt's bedroom.
I could hear the footsteps, but I couldn't see anybody making them.
I noped the f*ck out of that house with the dog and went outside in my car.
The dog and I slept there for the night.”
– dailydonuts16
“I was younger, I was petrified of ‘The Man.’ I don't remember any of this because I was too young.
However, I'm told that on multiple occasions, I would stand completely still and whisper...
‘Who is that man,’ and when questioned what he wants I would say ‘I don't know, it's the man.’
Anyway, most people would blow that off, but I happened to have 3 younger sisters.
Two of which had similar experiences. Petrified of ‘The Man’ or for my other sister ‘The Guy.’
My mom was super creeped out and started seeking religious guidance.
So, growing up I was always told about this and when I questioned it as a teenager my mom brought me a photo.
A photo of me as a baby. I'm in a rocker, the TV is off behind me, and there is a perfect glare of a close-up man.
Distinctively looks like a 50-60-year-old man.
Oddly enough my parents took picture from multiple angles that night. […]
There is nothing in the room to cast a shadow or make it appear like a man’s face.
Well, I'm suspicious but never really believe it.
But then one day, I'm at my parents’ house at 24.
My 2-year-old is staring up my parents’ steps and whispers ‘Daddy, there's a man.’”
– Lugnut7
“One night, my cousins and I are playing hide and seek [an] empty apartment.
We’re running from the seeker, and the hallway door slams shut in front of us.
We freak out and end the game because we are too scared.
We tell our parents, and my aunt happens to have a night vision baby camera.
She sets it up in the living room, and we can all see it on the tv in her house.
We are watching it for about 10 minutes, dust is flying everywhere, and nothing is happening.
Out of the darkness, a Pepsi can rolls up and hits the base of the camera. […]
I never went up the stairs alone to get to her house again, I was too freaked out.”
– Gr8B8M8
“When I was in 5th grade, I was playing with silly putty in my room when my mom called me down for dinner.
I had molded it into a ball and placed it down directly behind me (I’m talkin’ as soft as can be here).
When I stood up to go downstairs, I felt something hit me in the back of my head with some force.
So, I turn around and see my silly putty ball not on the ground anymore.
It was bouncing on my windowsill until it eventually rolled back onto the floor.
Needless to say, I ran downstairs hysterically trying to tell my mom what had happened.”
– Pyromaniac0398
“I lived in a haunted house. I would see the previous owner in shadowy corners or in the attic window when I was outside.
There was a black cat that would show up in the house and disappear, but I couldn't find where it was getting in or out.
Sometimes, I would leave the spoon in my coffee, and it would just start stirring itself.
A fork left on the edge of a plate would fly through the air like someone smacked the end of it.
Sometimes I would find the door to the little closet in the dining room open, and close it, and it would be open when I came back.
Once, I put a piece of furniture in front of it, and I came back through the room.
It was moved, and the door was open again.
I started saying, ‘ok, I know you're here!’ If my coffee started stirring itself, and the spoon would stop.”
– Chaithecat
“When I was 12, one of my aunts (dad's sister) was visiting us after years of living outside my country.
At night, they were remembering stuff from the past and started telling me and my siblings about their childhood stories.
At some point, they talked about all the horrible things that their stepmother did to them.
From forcing my dad to sleep on their house roof at night, to breaking plates on my aunt's head when she didn't like the food this woman cooked.
Out of nowhere, my aunt turns very pale and starts to hyperventilate, then choke.
Then in between what we thought was a panic attack, she said something along the lines of: ‘leave... alone... f*cking... mouth...’
And then she passes out.
A neighbor from across the street was a doctor, so my dad ran to get her.
She checked her, and she said she was good and looked like she was just sleeping.
Out of nowhere, my aunt wakes up and starts crying nonstop.
The doctor and my dad tried calming her down, and my mom hushed us out of the living room.
While she was crying, I could hear she was telling my dad, ‘it was her, it was her! She was screaming at me!
She continued to scream, 'She wanted us to leave her alone, to get her name out of our f*cking mouths.’
Years later, as I questioned if this might have been a response to stress caused by reliving those traumas, and not a supernatural occurrence.
I talked to my cousins about it.
They were all surprised.
This has never happened before, even though she would always tell them the stories of her stepmother.
My theory was out of the question.”
– jmphenom
“I was sleeping in a hotel room and something woke me up-- I looked next to the bed.
There was a woman sitting cross-legged on the floor below me.
She locked eyes with me, cocked her head sideways, and then floated up toward me before dissipating.
I prefer to think it was one of those hallucinations people can have in that pre-awake stage but d*mn it was terrifying.”
– silveralgea
“One night, I was watching tv, and I watched my older brother walk down the stairs holding my little brother (five months old).
He walked over to me, handed me the baby and walked out of the room.
My brother was on a three-day field trip to DC. Let's just say, I didn't sleep for a while after that.”
– totallyhomosapien
“We were in the process of moving from an apartment over a business, and I told the landlord about an experience I had one night.
I got up to go to the bathroom, and in the hallway, I saw three dark shadows moving along the wall.
They were man-shaped, and it looked as if you could reach through them into an infinite void.
I was terrified and started yelling.
My father came out of his bedroom to see what was the matter, and [he] said I was dreaming it.
I know, to this day, I wasn't. It was very distinct, and I was standing in the hallway.
So, as I tell the guy [landlord] I am glad to leave the place, no offense.
He tells me sincerely that years ago, the shop was a bakery.
There was a fire that burned the place.
It was rented by 3 brothers who perished.
He had the most bizarre look on his face trying to see if I was pranking him.”
– [deleted]
“I lived in a haunted house for basically all of my life.
It used to scare the heck out of me when I was little, but I basically just got desensitized to it.
We always experienced hearing footsteps, voices upstairs when everyone was downstairs, dogs following nothing around the room.
Typical ghost stuff.
Some of the stranger experiences include my grandma seeing her mother in her room at night.
My mom seeing a ball of light floating in our hallway.
My brother and I separately heard fingernails tapping on the walls of our bedrooms.
When we called our mom in to listen, the sounds would stop, then as soon as mom left it would start again.
We experienced this at different times (my brother for a week or so and then me) without knowing that the other one was having the same experience.
The kicker was when my mom started feeling like something was climbing into bed with her.
She describes it as like a dog trying but failing to climb up on the foot of the bed.
She thought it was my dad moving his feet, but then she felt it when he wasn’t there and she was wide awake, so she knew it wasn’t him.
She kept this story to herself.
Then a few days later, my uncle stayed the night in the guest room and described feeling the exact same thing.
At that point, my mom waited for a day that everyone was out of the house.
She opened up the windows and told the spirit that it either had to leave and move on, or it wasn’t allowed to bother us anymore.
Since then, we’ve gone from activity every day to one-off experiences every few months.
We’ve been told by several people (who have slept in the guest room and had nightmares about it) that there is a portal in the closet of our guest room.
Sometimes, I think that spirits just pass through occasionally and cause a flurry of activity.”
– Musician_Moneyless
One night in particular comes to mind.
I have on and off sleep paralysis and other parasomnias.
But, one stands out and I have doubts over what I saw.
During a more difficult part of my early 20s, I had to move back in with my parents.
One of those nights, I was having strange dreams.
I kept waking up from the dreams and finding myself in yet another dream, inception style.
In one layer, I found myself in a room that was a bizarre mixture of my room at my parents’ home and a room from one of my buddy's homes.
A girl walked up to my bed and tucked me in. I couldn't make out her face.
She started walking away, and I reached out in the dream and said "Wait a minute!"
At this point I woke up, fully alert, and I was very securely tucked in with even spread bedding.
Instant red flag for me.
My parasomnias often cause me to thrash in my sleep, and I rarely fall asleep that easily to begin with.
I also am incredibly lethargic when I wake most days, especially if I have a sleep paralysis episode.
I freaked out a bit, as my body felt numb but I was able to move around normally.
I turned to my left, the side of my bed the girl was on in my dreams.
Right there, there was a distinct shadow figure bent over me. I froze.
It was unique, I can't quite describe it.
My sleep paralysis visions are normally two-dimensional, and usually somewhat vaguely colored or “textured.”
Almost like a very dark cardboard cutout.
This figure was distinctly three-dimensional but featureless.
It had depth, but it was somewhere between refractive and black in how it behaved with light.
It was distinctly in the shape of a woman, but I couldn't make out any distinguishing features outside of the shape.
I froze there, and stared, and made what I assume could have been eye contact with the figure.
It eventually slowly leaned back up, and walked around to the front of my bed, and then faded away.
That was another distinct difference from my normal episodes. Usually, figures blink out of existence.
I have never been shaken by a sleep paralysis episode, but I couldn't go back to sleep.
I crashed on a friend’s couch in following nights, and it took me weeks to readjust.
I slept with the lights on for weeks.
The way it shook me up and drove panic into me…
It really makes me believe whatever I saw was not just a sleep paralysis episode.
I have never had a physical and mental response like that, before or after
--- FerralOne
One time, I was sitting in the kitchen when I felt two cold fingers tap my shoulder from behind.
I whipped around and nothing was there I was freaked out.
I got up and switched seats, so my back wasn’t facing that way anymore.
I sat down and started to look in the direction that the cold fingertips came from.
Sure enough, I saw a tall male figure in my doorway.
It was a very tall man, and I could make out most of his facial features.
He was completely black but somehow darker than the pitch-black rooms which he stood in.
He seemed to have a very, very subtle dark blue aura.
I was so shocked and so scared we were holding eye contact.
I blurt out, “can you talk to me?”
He just shook his head no, and just like that, he was gone.
I go back to my bedroom and lay down.
I saw him in my bedroom doorway.
He put his finger up to his mouth as to say “sssshhhhhh,” like he was shushing me and went away again.
Now I’m already completely freaked out.
I know I’m not hallucinating, and I just want to go to sleep and all this be over.
So, I laid down and closed my eyes and I felt someone sitting down on the edge of the bed right beside me.
I can feel that he’s staring at me so I open my eyes and jump up.
I didn’t see anything when I opened my eyes.
I close my eyes to sleep again, and once again I feel someone sitting on the bed next to me.
It was heavy enough to where I could feel the mattress shifting.
This time, he starts blowing air on my face.
At this point, I’m terrified but also super annoyed cause he did this like four times.
I pulled the sheets up over my face, and he got right up close in my face and just stared.
That was the last I ever saw or felt of him hands down the scariest most bizarre experience of my lifetime.
--- MilaKsenia
This happened at one of my ex-boyfriend's houses.
So, the house was in front of a wooded area. I wouldn’t call it a forest because it wasn’t that “thick.”
Anyways, I always felt super freaked out walking into his house.
I mean all the time; I would run full force.
It always felt like someone was watching you and just this super uncomfortable feeling.
I would feel it even if I was floating in the pool during the day.
One night, me, my boyfriend, his brother, and his girlfriend were all out on the deck having a drink and sitting by the fire.
There was a visible light back there like it looked like a flashlight.
It was so beyond weird, so the boys went to check it out and found nothing.
There were a couple of experiences I had in the house.
One night, I go downstairs to use the bathroom and grab a drink of water.
As I’m walking back through the living room I stop dead in my tracks.
There was something standing right in front of me.
It was this big black shadow. I literally reached my hands out thinking I was going to walk into something.
I couldn’t see anything through whatever this was, but I could see the outlines of the other things in the room.
I got so cold and so scared that I ran so fast up the stairs.
Another time we were lying in bed, and we hear what sounded like something running across the room to the side of his bed.
My boyfriend grabbed me so tight, and we turned on every single light.
Like this thing literally ran across the room to the side of the bed.
This other story happened when I was house-sitting his step-sister's house.
His step siblings grew up in this same house and they have a ton of stories.
Mine isn’t that crazy but still freaked me out.
I was getting ready in the bathroom, there was a big staircase that was right in front of the bathroom.
Their dog was laying on top of those stairs.
As I’m getting ready, I hear the sound of her tail wagging, like hitting the floor, so I peek out the bathroom.
I see her laying there with her eyes open, wagging her tail as if someone was walking up the stairs.
I ran and locked myself in the bedroom and made him leave work to come and get me.
--- Ashlaylynne
I was living with a family member in a house that has had things happen before.
I woke up early to go fishing with my dad, so it was about 4:30 am to 5 am.
I take a step out of my room and look towards the front door.
I saw a half-figure man about 6ft tall standing in front of the door facing it.
He was dressed in a Victorian-era tux (the long coat tail kind).
When I looked at him, he looked back and we just kinda looked at each other for a few seconds.
Long enough for me to even rub my eyes and still look at him.
After maybe 10-15 seconds he walked through the door.
Never saw him again. The really odd thing is I felt calm.
He made me feel like everything was ok.
I found myself actually hoping I would see him again, but I never did.
--- SecretBi92
My boyfriend and I were in our house, eating dinner.
Our front door was open, and the screen door was closed.
We heard the screen door swing open and slam shut.
We both went to the living room, then out onto the front porch.
As soon as we went outside, we were hit by a thick, cloying floral/sweet smell.
It smelled like funeral flowers.
If you've ever smelled that scent before, it’s just overwhelmingly strong and concentrated right in front of our house.
We both felt kind of creeped out, so we went back into the house and to our bedroom.
I sat on the edge of our bed, which faced the hallway, and one of our dogs came and hopped onto my lap.
My boyfriend and I were speculating about what the door slamming and the smell was all about.
I was looking straight ahead into the hall during a lull in the conversation.
I saw a dark shadow pass down the hall, go past our bedroom door, and into another room at the end of the hall.
It was just... tall, vaguely human-shaped, and solid black, like the area where it was somehow just had all the light sucked out of it and you couldn't see through it.
Our dog saw it, too. He went nuts, barking and growling and whining.
For some reason that scared me more than anything, that he saw it too.
I started crying and said I wanted to leave the house, so we got our dogs in the car and left.
We were having plumbing problems anyway, so we ended up just staying in a hotel room that night.
When we came back the next day, things seemed totally normal, and nothing like that has happened since.
Definitely one of the spookiest things I've ever experienced.
--- halikadito
My family was hiking at a place called turtleback falls on the east coast.
At the end of the trail is the main attraction, a big waterfall that you can slide down into a small river.
Anyways, about halfway through the hike is a rest spot where my family decided to eat our lunch.
The rest spot was a large wooden platform w some tables on it.
The platform was elevated and hanging to the side of a cliff.
Below the platform was about a 50-60 foot drop maybe more and a waterfall was directly across from it.
After we had finished eating our lunch, an older man with a white beard and mustache and a rock and roll band t-shirt came up to my family.
He said, “this view truly is beautiful huh? Well, I’m gonna be on my way, you folks should do the same!”
My parents decided that the man was right. We didn’t wanna spend the whole day at this part of the hole and that we should get going.
We followed the man up the trail away from the platform.
After about 15 seconds of being off the platform, a loud cracking noise like dynamite could be heard.
We all turned around and watched as a massive tree fell onto the platform we had been sitting on moments before.
When the tree made contact with the platform, one of its supports snapped and the platform started leaning towards the water.
The craziest part is that when we turned around the man was gone.
Even once we had gotten to the end of the trail he wasn’t there.
My whole family believes we encountered an angel that day.
--- SchmickyUh
Not me but my dad. He grew up in a small village in Greece.
One day on his walk home it was storming quite heavily.
He was standing under a tree in an attempt to wait it out.
As he's waiting, he's approached by a slow old woman who he'd never seen before.
She had an umbrella in one hand and a walking stick in the other.
She asks him "What are you doing?"
He says "I'm waiting out the storm so I can go home. I don't want to catch a cold."
She tells him "You have a long life ahead of you, I would risk catching a cold if I were you."
And with that, she starts to slowly walk down the street and out of sight.
My dad waits for a few more minutes and takes her advice, and he starts walking home.
A few more minutes pass, and he hears an explosion.
He turns around and sees the tree he was waiting under was hit by lighting and blew up.
Frightened, he runs to his home, hoping to bump into the old woman to thank her but he never saw her again after that encounter.
He's convinced she was a paranormal being since he never caught up to her that night even though she was so slow.
He had never seen her in the village before or after that moment, and no one knew who he was referring to when asking around for her.
--- Bored-Kim
My Grandpa enlisted in WWII at the very end of the war when he was 17.
During his training, he was at a firing range.
He was standing off to the side waiting for his turn, or maybe he was finishing up, not important.
A Lieutenant he never saw before came up to him.
The Lt. told him very sternly “You're not supposed to stand there! Move.”
A little flummoxed he moved to a different area.
Just a minute or two after he did, a bullet ricocheted right where he would've been standing.
He never saw that Lieutenant again.
He figured he may have been saved by a legitimate guardian angel.
--- [deleted]
In my hometown in northern FL, we would sometimes get a thick fog that was terrible to navigate.
I was always told by my grandparents that if I ever saw confederate soldiers walking in that fog, keep my head down and move along even if they talk to me.
That’s rare advice for the south.
As for Yankee soldiers, I was to nod and point them in a direction if they said they were lost.
And if I ever ran into a woman in a white dress named Caroline, don't tell her your name and excuse yourself before she touches you.
I was told that I wouldn't be able to find my way home if I talked to her.
She was the ghost of a confederate soldier's adult daughter.
One of the neighborhood kids disappeared for a couple of days after she said she spoke to her.
I don't remember exactly why she took the children though.
But, Several kids did go missing during the fogs.
--- eli-the-beta
I was in a minor car accident. T-boned at an intersection.
About 100m before I hit the intersection, I felt a hand on my shoulder and a male tell me to slow down.
I was already a few km under the speed limit - doing 55 in 60 zone.
I was in the car with my then 3.5-year-old daughter.
She was on the passenger side in the rear and would not have been able to touch me through her restraints.
Just then, another car hit me at high speed on the front passenger side.
If I’d been going any faster, my daughter would have taken the impact and not survived.
A few days later my very healthy and uninjured daughter was babbling in her bedroom.
I went to check on her and she told me she was just talking to Grandpa K.
I asked where he was and she pointed to the corner of her room, I figured it was just her imagination and walked away.
About a week after that, she was at my mum’s house.
She said something like, “Hey Grandma, Sonny says to say he is sorry he left but he is looking after mum for you”
Grandpa K is my mum's dad.
He died before I was born, and mum never really mentioned him or her mum.
Grandpa K’s nickname was Sonny. I didn’t even know that until that moment.
--- LitttleSm45H
My mum's experience with what she thinks was a ghost.
She went outside around 10 pm for a cigarette years ago.
She saw a very elderly woman walking up to our neighbours back stairs to their veranda.
Mum said she wanted to ask if she was alright.
It was very rare for our neighbours to have visitors that late, and they were also elderly.
Mum said she completely lost her voice and felt stunned, though she couldn't look away.
She ended up getting out a “hello” and the woman just.... disappeared.
The next morning mum made a joke to our neighbours asking why she wasn't invited over for their night cap with their visitor.
They very casually replied “oh, so you've now seen our ghost, too!”
They were excited over it and not at all scared.
Barry, (the neighbour) says an elderly lady follows Elwyn (his wife) everywhere.
They feel pure comfort around her, but their own children and grandchildren are frightened by the lady on the stairs when they stay.
--- shiny_blackdress
I was camping with my husband and his family at a small, remote lake in our state.
Our state (NM) has always had many stories of paranormal activity just about everywhere.
Well on this camping trip, there were about 10 of us off the shore of the lake.
There was also one other group of people camping – maybe like 6 of them, at the next site over off the shore.
It was nighttime and both our group and the other were doing typical activities.
We were all making s’mores, having a few drinks, telling stories.
All of a sudden, we all heard what sounded like a little girl yelling out for help.
The other group of campers asked us if we had any children in the group, we didn’t.
Neither did they.
We were all positive we were hearing a little girl and decided to search the area we heard the noises from together.
Rather quickly we found something.
There was a field behind our campsites, and we all saw a very tall, pure white figure standing maybe 100ft away from us in the field, making the noises.
We all agreed this thing looked maybe six feet tall, skinny, and white as can be.
Everyone got quiet, but we were all together still and made our way closer to investigate.
Whatever it was that we saw started backing off as we got closer until it disappeared beyond some trees.
Every single person in both campsites was freaked out by this.
That night while we tried to sleep, we continued to hear that little girl calling for help sounds.
It gives me chills to think back on this.
--- anonymous10982
We live in a small town considered semi-rural over an hour outside Houston, Texas.
My son is 14, his two best friends 13 and 14.
They are ‘country’ kids who fish and explore the creeks around our neighborhood almost as much as they play video games.
They are into fishing, camping, bushcraft - just really outdoorsy teens who keep out of trouble and go fishing a lot.
Our neighborhood is about 150 acreage homesites with the smallest being one acre and the largest around 20 acres.
Lots of woods, tall pine trees, and creeks.
The neighborhood is basically surrounded by wooded flood plain.
Around two months ago my son came home and told me he had seen a glimpse of something in the woods.
All three boys were at a part of a creek they had not frequented much before.
My son glanced up and saw the unclothed unusually light grayish skinned back of an extremely thin humanoid.
It seemed to be four to five feet tall and moving away from them.
It was slouching and moving in a weird, distinct way while on all fours with really long arms.
He directed his friend’s attention to it, but it was just a glimpse as it moved away from them behind some brush next to a large, thick old tree and just seemed to be gone.
They didn’t hear it move off or see anything else.
The reason he felt comfortable telling me is because I had already warned him that there were things living in the woods.
My great-uncle who lived to 83 spent his entire retirement “deer hunting” with little more than binoculars on his property in north-central Texas.
He clocked literal decades sitting in tree stands in the woods.
Once I was in my early 20s, he told me there were “things in these old woods we don’t even know about but they’re there”.
I’m certain he had seen things/creatures, so I told my son what my uncle had told me.
Today my son and 13-year-old friend were back fishing the creek, just the two of them.
They had been exploring in the sandy creek bottom, crouched overlooking at things in the water.
They got hungry so they packed up their small gear items to head home.
My son stood up while putting on his day pack and locked eyes with this gray-skinned thing that was watching them.
It was peeking out from behind a tree and as my son saw it.
He said it ducked its head behind the tree impossibly fast.
My husband and I were outside our house when he rode up on his bike.
The creek area is accessible from one of the neighborhood cul-de-sacs.
His pants were fully drenched, and he looked like he had fallen in or scrambled through the water and sandy banks pretty good.
Later, when it was just us, he told me what had happened.
The thing was watching my kid. My only child.
He had told his friend that he had just seen it watching them.
The boys immediately left the creek area.
But yet again, he described it as looking to be four to five feet tall.
He said it looked like it had no mouth. It is small enough that it hasn’t terrified him, just kind of disturbed him.
All three boys have told me the creek in that area feels creepy.
But now that they’re teenagers, they seem to get curious again.
They go back, even though I request they fish elsewhere.
--- country_woods
I was told the carousel was haunted and didn’t believe them.
One night, the maintenance door was open after I emptied the ride of guests.
My second insisted they hadn’t opened it.
I closed it, loaded guests, and it was open again.
It has a turn latch that you put a padlock on, so it could only be opened intentionally.
I went inside the center of the carousel.
I closed it, loaded guests, and it was open again.
It has a turn latch that you put a padlock on, so it could only be opened intentionally.
I went inside the center of the carousel.
In the center of the carrousel, it’s mostly just the breaker and all the mechanical parts in there.
I switched on the light to check for a maintenance guy that hadn’t talked to me.
Empty. I’m a little spooked.
I say loudly, “I’m not dealing with this tonight. We got one hour left so get your act together.”
I start to do safety checks before starting the ride.
That’s when the phone rings.
When I answer, there’s no one on the other end.
A few minutes later, it happens again.
After I hang up, I call base to tell them somethings wrong with the phone.
The supervisor calls back and says sometimes the phone rings randomly. I don’t worry about it.
I recant the tale to a coworker.
She looks at me funny “Did you turn the lights off before the music?”
I responded, “No, I need the lights to get to the switch”
She then said, “Oh, well, make sure you never do, and if the phone rings after that, don’t answer, just leave.”
I figure it’s some kind of electrical short that causes it and goes home.
In the following days, I keep thinking I see it move out of the corner of my eye or hear it running after I’ve closed for the night.
But I shake it off as I was working 15-hour days continuously.
The next time I open the carrousel (we took turns), I go to take a potty break.
When I come back, the security guard is standing next to my ride.
He says, “I saw him while you were gone, just be careful.”
I asked, “What are you talking about?”
He then said, “The ride op? The one that tries to grab operators.”
I try to think which of my coworkers is that rude.
He then goes on to explain that one of the three park ghosts is attached to the carousel.
He’s the only mean one. He tries to grab operators and causes bad luck and ride malfunctions.
Apparently, I made him mad by yelling at him.
So, he decided to haunt the heck out of me.
--- mpmwrites
Growing up my sister and I were good friends with our neighbor, Matt, who had a dog, Molly.
Molly ran away one day so the three of us set out into the nature preserve behind our houses to look for her.
Matt’s brother, Chris, set out separately.
In the preserve is an old dam/mill from the 1700s that is rumored to be haunted.
When we got to the mill, we saw Chris and the dog on the other side of the river, maybe 30 yards away.
“Matt, I got her, I’m bringing her home,” Chris yelled.
Something didn’t feel right, and the three of us gave each other that “look.”
We headed home knowing Chris would be a bit behind us.
He’d have to go a mile or two out of his way to cross the bridge.
When we got home there was Matt’s mom and the dog.
“She was under the porch the whole time,” she said.
A little while later Chris showed up, having never even gone into that part of the woods.
--- International-Pie400
Shout out to this creepy comment about the Chris and Molly story:
Plot twist: you saw the real Chris and Molly in the woods.
The ones who showed up later took their places.
--- barrelsofmeat
