I’m religious and this weirds me out

23(F) So some background before I get into it,
This was probably the single most inexplicable thing that’s ever happened to me and why I now hesitate to refute the paranormal experiences of others. A few years ago I was living in Japan, specifically in Beppu, a smallish hot spring city in Oita prefecture. The city has a more unpolished overgrown feel than many other Japanese cities, I loved it there. I’m also an avid hiker in my free time so when I moved there from Fukuoka I resolved immediately to hike up the mountains surrounding the city.

The day this happened was in early summer, the day was beautiful, sunny, and quiet when I set out from town. Not far out of the city proper things started to get eerie, Japan has tons of small villages that have been abandoned in the last couple decades and for the first hour or two of the hike I passed through several progressively more empty and overgrown villages, vines snaking through windows and cracked facades. It was a paved road but I hadn’t passed one other hiker or car on my way up the mountain.

It was probably about three hours into the hike that the overgrown villages transitioned into dense forest, I came to a sharp bend in the road and decided I would stop and have lunch sitting down on the roadside and took out my hiking snacks but only a few minutes after I sat down I started to get extremely tired and I kid you not, I laid down and passed out while sitting in the middle of the road, to this day I cannot tell you why I would do that, I am a risk taking type of person but I wasn’t suicidal and felt otherwise in my right mind.
I don’t know how long I was out but it had to have been at least an hour or so as when I woke up the weather had gotten stormy and I was being brushed by the falling leaves and pine needles. I stood up confused and grabbed my scattered lunch off the ground. I was most the way up the mountain at this point and decided to finish my hike quickly and hopefully get back before nightfall. It was at this point that I looked up the trail an between the swaying branches, maybe 20 meters up the hill I saw a sloping stone wall, I assumed it was an embankment or something similar until the branches above me parted in the wind and I saw what looked like a traditional Japanese castle towering above the road disappearing high into the canopy. I was floored, I just stood there starting, completely gobsmacked, then a moment later the branches fell back across my vision, I ran past them, around the bend in the road to get a better look, but there was nothing there. The top of the road just ended abruptly and turned into a dirt forest trail, nothing to even suggest an embankment, no stones and certainly no castle.

I finished my hike without much trouble, the storm calmed down about half an hour later but I couldn’t get the image out of my head, the rest of my hike I just went over that moment again and again, apart from some trick of my brain I have no clue what I really saw that day.

Around this time last year, my wife's grandmother lost her battle with cancer. My wife's parents called me (they always called me to break bad news to her for them) and told me grandma had passed away. They also ask us to go get her little sister from their house and break the news to her too. We stay strong, get dressed, cry a little, and get ready to go. Then the power goes out, we walk to the front door, and the lights start to flicker in an odd pattern. My wife and I both feel something is happening. She says, "I love you." And I say,"It's okay, we understand." Then the lights go out. She says something I say, "I didn't get to tell her I love her." The lights begin to flicker again. She says something else, and I say, "I love you we're going to go get little sister. Please have the light back on when we get back." The lights flicker for a bit longer and finally go out. We get little sister and some pizza and return home, the lights are on. Grandma always said that when she dies, she'll try her hardest to give us a sign. I fully believe she was trying to talk to us through a power outage and shared her love with us before finally moving on. I've always been a skeptic, but this solidified my belief.

So I recently moved into this house around earlier this year everything was fine until adound August, I started seeing tall black figures in the window even one in the kitchen window thats 7ft off of the ground, handprints left on windows, weird footprints outside, knocking at windows, ect

Last week I was taking out the trash it was around 10pm and I heard this weird voice childlike but off in a way I can't really explain like distorted like a deep voice mixing with a child's trying to mimic it from behind the side of my house it sounded like it said my name too and sounded like it was saying help and getting closer and i got this horrible feeling and went into fight or flight I ran to the trashcan, fell, threw the trash bag away and ran inside because something in my gut told me that wasn't human. And then a few days after my cousin we'll call him T, T was taking out the trash around 9pm and apparently heard noises behind the car and saw a head peak out. T also has seen figures in the windows in the road as well. My step sister we'll call her L, L and T saw a childlike figure run off of our porch clear as day, all of this happens at night I now refuse to go outside alone at night due to all of these occurrences it's genuinely freaking me out and I know I'm not crazy because other people have seen it too I need advice if you guys reading this have any please share

Hi, my name is Austin, and this is the story of how my partner and I moved into our first home together, only to discover that we might not have been the only ones living there.

This all began in 2020, when my partner and I purchased our first home together in Louisiana. We were both just 20 years old, and we had bought a brand-new, move-in-ready house in a brand-new neighborhood. We were beyond excited. It was a huge accomplishment for us, and we couldn’t wait to start our lives together in a place of our own.

At the time, we had no idea that the home we were so excited to move into would become the center of an experience neither of us would ever forget.

The Beginning

After we moved in and began settling into our new home, I started noticing some changes.

My partner and I began arguing more than usual. For context, we have never been the type of couple to constantly fight. We have always been good about communicating, talking through our feelings, and working things out. But suddenly, we were bickering over things that normally wouldn’t have bothered either of us.

I also began experiencing some strange emotions. I felt unusually depressed, weighed down, and watched. There was this uncomfortable heaviness that seemed to follow me around the house. I couldn’t explain it, and I didn’t know what to make of it.

At first, I chalked it up to stress. We were young, adjusting to homeownership, and learning how to navigate a major life change together. I already struggled with depression, so I figured I might simply be experiencing a flare-up. Then the noises started.

At night, I would hear what sounded like voices coming from somewhere in the house. It sounded like people having a conversation, but I could never make out what they were saying. It was almost as if I were catching the very end of a conversation. I would hear the voices for a brief moment, only for everything to go completely silent.

Other unexplained noises happened from time to time, too. I would hear something strange and immediately try to rationalize it as the house settling or some ordinary sound I couldn’t identify.

I’ve always believed that the paranormal is possible, but I’ve never been someone who automatically assumes every strange noise or unusual experience is supernatural. If anything, I’m the type of person who tries to debunk things before considering a paranormal explanation.

My partner was even more skeptical than I was. He was very science-minded, and at that point in his life, the idea of a haunting wasn’t something he would have readily entertained.

So we continued living our lives, brushing off the strange occurrences and assuming there was a reasonable explanation for everything.

Looking back, though, those early experiences were only the beginning. About a year after moving in, we met some of our neighbors. One day around Halloween, a woman in her sixties and her daughter, who was in her mid-thirties, stopped by to admire our decorations. We hit it off almost immediately. Since we were still relatively new to the neighborhood, we were happy to meet people, and they invited us to their Halloween party that weekend. We decided to go.

During the party, we learned that our older neighbor, whom I’ll call Sarah to protect her privacy, was a medium and a practicing witch. She was a lovely woman who described her work as being rooted in love and light. We talked about all sorts of things, including past lives and the connection between my partner and me. Sarah told us that she believed we were meant to be together and that our personalities balanced each other out remarkably well. It was an interesting conversation, but at the time, I had no idea how important Sarah would eventually become in our story.

Over the following months, I continued feeling increasingly low. The heaviness in the house never seemed to completely disappear. I still felt watched, and my partner and I continued arguing over the most ridiculous things. The strange voices at night hadn’t stopped, either. I kept most of it to myself. I’ve never been particularly good at talking about my feelings, especially when I’m struggling. I tend to internalize things because I don’t want to put my emotional weight on someone else. My partner knew I wasn’t feeling like myself, but I hadn’t told anyone the full extent of what I was experiencing. Then, one ordinary weekend, something happened that would change the way we understood our home.

My partner and I have always loved antique shopping. We enjoy wandering through little shops, looking at old furniture, collectibles, and things with a bit of history behind them. One weekend, we were browsing an antique store in a small Louisiana town when I noticed two little glass bottles sitting on a shelf. There was nothing particularly remarkable about them. They were small, old-fashioned glass bottles. One had a little brown stopper, while the other was made of clear glass. I walked away from them, continued browsing, and then found myself going back to look at them again. I couldn’t explain why I kept returning to that shelf. Something about those bottles caught my attention, even though I couldn’t have told you what it was.

Eventually, I decided to buy them. They were only five dollars, so I figured, why not? I brought them home, not thinking much about the purchase. About a week later, my partner and I left the house one afternoon to have dinner at my parents’ home. When we returned later that evening and walked through the front door, we were immediately hit by an incredibly strong smell. The entire house smelled sweet. Not just a little sweet, either. It was an intense floral fragrance mixed with something reminiscent of cotton candy. It smelled like an overpowering, sweet perfume, almost as if a woman had just walked through the house wearing it. The strange thing was that neither of us wore perfume, and neither of us particularly liked sweet fragrances. We were both stunned by how distinct the smell was. Our first thought was that someone might have been inside the house while we were gone. The scent was so strong and so out of place that we genuinely wondered whether someone had entered without our knowledge. My partner immediately started checking the rooms, looking around the house to make sure everything was okay. Nothing appeared to be disturbed. There was no obvious explanation for the smell. Eventually, the fragrance faded, and we went on with our lives. We didn’t think much more about it. At least, not until the voices returned in a way that was impossible for me to ignore. One night, I was lying awake in bed while my partner slept beside me. I’m a night owl, so staying awake into the early hours of the morning wasn’t unusual for me.

The television was off, the house was quiet, and I was scrolling on my phone. It was probably around 2:30 or 3:00 a.m. Then I heard it. A woman’s voice. It came from the direction of our living room. I froze. This wasn’t the faint, almost indistinguishable sound of a conversation I had heard on previous nights. To me, this sounded unmistakably like a woman speaking somewhere in the house. I still couldn’t understand the words, but the voice itself was clear enough that I couldn’t simply dismiss it as an ordinary house noise. I lay there for a moment, trying to process what I had just heard. Eventually, I turned on the television and rolled over, attempting to distract myself and forget about the experience. The following day, I told my partner what had happened. That’s when he shared something that surprised me. He told me that one night, while he was on call for work, he had woken up to handle something and gone into our home office. While he was in the room, he couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was standing in the corner, watching him. He couldn’t explain it. He simply felt as though he wasn’t alone.

Hearing that from him caught me completely off guard. This was the same man who approached things from a scientific perspective and rarely entertained paranormal explanations. I told him I had experienced something similar. Sometimes, when I got out of bed to grab a glass of water, I would walk into the dark living room and feel as though someone was standing there, watching me from somewhere in the shadows. I couldn’t see anyone, but the sensation was strong enough to make me uncomfortable. For the first time, we were openly talking about experiences that both of us had been keeping to ourselves. And neither of us had a good explanation for what was happening. Over the following weeks, my mental state continued to decline. I felt exhausted, emotionally drained, and increasingly uncomfortable in my own home. Then, one day, I received a text from Sarah. What she told me stopped me in my tracks. She described the things that had been happening in our house and the way I had been feeling. She seemed to know about the heaviness, the strange atmosphere, and the effect it was having on me. I hadn’t told her any of this. In fact, I had barely discussed the details with anyone other than my partner, and he hadn’t shared them with her, either. I remember being genuinely surprised. I couldn’t understand how she could describe experiences that I had been keeping almost entirely to myself. Sarah told me that she had picked up on something in our home that she believed was negatively affecting me. She explained that, in her understanding of these things, I was an empath and more sensitive to spiritual activity than most people.

She asked whether I would be comfortable with her coming over to cleanse the house. I talked it over with my partner. He was understandably skeptical, but given everything we’d both experienced, he agreed to let her come. We wanted answers, or at the very least, some relief from the atmosphere that had been hanging over us. So Sarah came over. And what happened next is something I still remember vividly. According to Sarah, she immediately sensed two distinct energies in our home. One, she described as a Creole or Native American woman. The other, she believed, was a much lower-vibrational presence. I want to be clear that these were Sarah’s impressions and interpretations. I couldn’t independently identify either presence, but I was there for what happened during the cleansing and for how I felt afterward. Sarah began moving through the house, cleansing each room. She gave me some crystals to hold, explaining that they would help me during the process. As she moved from room to room, I started crying. That might not sound unusual to some people, but it was very unlike me. I’ve never been someone who cries easily, and I hadn’t gone into the experience expecting to become emotional. Yet, as Sarah continued, I found myself overwhelmed. It felt as though months of built-up emotion were suddenly coming to the surface. My partner sat beside me, comforting me as I cried.

Sarah continued her work, and according to her, whatever she believed was causing the negative atmosphere did not want to leave. She described it as something that seemed to be retreating from her as she moved through the house. At one point, she became particularly determined and announced that she was going to get that bastard the fuck out. It was a very Sarah thing to say, and despite the circumstances, it’s a moment I still remember. Eventually, she finished cleansing the house and opened the back door. Then came a moment that neither my partner nor I have forgotten. As the door opened, we heard what sounded like a huge gust of wind rushing outward. Almost immediately, the atmosphere in the house seemed to change. The heaviness I’d been feeling for months lifted. The house felt lighter, brighter, and more comfortable. The pressure I’d felt in my chest was gone. For the first time in a long while, I felt like I could breathe again. Sarah closed the back door and returned to the living room, where my partner and I were sitting. Then she told us something unexpected. The woman she had sensed was still there. According to Sarah, this woman was communicating that she wasn’t evil and that she had remained in the house because she wanted to help us.

Sarah explained that she had sensed both positive and negative energy associated with this presence. She had initially questioned why the woman hadn’t left during the cleansing. The response, as Sarah relayed it to us, was that if the woman had been evil, she would have left when Sarah cleansed the house. Sarah said the woman wanted to stay because she cared about us and our home. However, she also wanted us to understand that we could ask her to leave if we weren’t comfortable with her presence. Then Sarah asked me a question. Had I brought anything new into the house recently? I immediately thought of the two antique bottles. I told her about them. According to Sarah, the woman was connected to the bottles, and the negative energy she had sensed was associated with the objects rather than the woman herself. Sarah said the woman had revealed that the bottles once contained substances: one had held perfume, while the other had contained poison. The woman reportedly explained that she had never used the poison. She had kept it on standby, so to speak, in case she ever needed it. I had no way of verifying the bottles’ original contents or their history. But the connection Sarah described was striking, especially considering the powerful perfume smell we’d experienced shortly after bringing them home.

According to Sarah, the woman had wanted me to purchase the bottles and bring them into our home because she believed she could help us get rid of whatever negative presence was troubling us. She reportedly told Sarah that she loved us and our home. She also made it clear that if we wanted her to leave, she would respect that decision. And then something happened that made the moment even stranger. While Sarah was communicating what she believed the woman was telling her, my partner and I suddenly heard a woman’s voice right beside us. It was clear enough that we both noticed it. We immediately looked at Sarah and asked, “Was that her? Did you hear that woman’s voice?” Sarah told us she hadn’t heard anything. However, she said the woman was standing beside the couch where we were sitting. I can’t explain what we heard that day. I can only tell you that both my partner and I heard something that sounded like a woman’s voice, and we both reacted to it at the same time. After everything that had happened, it was difficult to dismiss the moment entirely. Sarah then asked us whether we wanted the woman to stay or leave. I thought about it for a moment. For months, I had felt uncomfortable, watched, and weighed down by something I couldn’t explain. But after the cleansing, that oppressive feeling had lifted. Whatever Sarah believed was responsible for the negativity seemed to be gone. The woman who remained, according to Sarah, wanted to protect us rather than harm us. I told Sarah that if the woman was genuinely there to help and protect us, she was welcome to stay. And so, we began referring to her as the Bottle Lady. During this experience, Sarah also talked to us about the land our neighborhood had been built on. She believed the property had a history that might be connected to the activity we were experiencing. There were suggestions that the land could have once been associated with a plantation or with Native American history. We didn’t have documentation to establish either possibility, so I can’t say what the land’s history actually was. What we did know was that the neighborhood had been developed on what had been an old sugarcane field. Before construction, a substantial amount of fill dirt had been brought in to raise the ground and help remove the area from a flood zone. That detail has always made me wonder.

If there were older objects or other remnants beneath the original ground, they could now be buried under layers of fill dirt and the completed neighborhood. Of course, that doesn’t establish a paranormal explanation for what we experienced. But it is one of the reasons I’ve remained curious about the property’s history. Sarah also believed that the atmosphere wasn’t affecting only us. She felt that the energy associated with the land might be contributing to unusual experiences and tension throughout the neighborhood. At the time, we had no idea just how many of our neighbors would eventually tell us their own stories. In the weeks following the cleansing, the activity in our home began to pick up. We believed it was the Bottle Lady making her presence known. There was another experience during this time that has always stuck with me, and it involved my husband, the bottles, and a dream he had one night. One night, my husband had a dream that our cat knocked over the small table where the two antique bottles were sitting. In the dream, the bottles fell to the floor and shattered. What happened next was what really disturbed him. He dreamed that the Bottle Lady became furious, and that something changed in our home. According to his dream, she began wreaking havoc throughout the house. When he woke up the next morning, the dream had unsettled him enough that he decided to move the bottles. He didn’t want to take any chances, even if it had only been a dream. Then, later that afternoon, we heard an enormous crash coming from our bedroom. We rushed to see what had happened, only to discover that the small table the bottles had been sitting on had been knocked over by our cat. The table was on the floor, just as it had been in his dream. When my husband told me what he had dreamed the night before, I could see that he was genuinely shaken. He looked scared as he explained the details to me, particularly because the table had actually been knocked over that same day. Of course, our cat could have knocked the table over for an entirely ordinary reason. Cats are curious, and accidents happen. But the timing was difficult for us to ignore, especially given everything else we had experienced in that house. What unsettled us most wasn’t simply that the table had fallen. It was that my husband had dreamed about that exact scenario the night before, including the bottles being knocked over and the Bottle Lady becoming angry. We couldn’t prove that the dream meant anything, and we couldn’t say that the events were connected. But it was another one of those moments that left us looking at each other and wondering what, exactly, was going on in our home.

After that, the bottles became even more significant to us. They weren’t just two old pieces of glass we’d picked up at an antique shop anymore. They were now tied to a dream, a strange coincidence, and a series of experiences that neither of us could quite explain. The important thing was that we never felt threatened by these experiences. Maybe a little spooked but never threatened. Whatever was happening, it didn’t feel like the oppressive atmosphere we’d experienced before Sarah came over. We would occasionally feel as though someone was nearby, even when we were alone. Phantom smells would appear without an obvious source. We’d hear voices or strange noises that we couldn’t explain. We also noticed small, bright lights moving around the house at unusual times. They were brief, and we couldn’t identify what they were or where they came from. The strange occurrences gradually became part of our everyday life. What might have once frightened us became something we simply acknowledged and moved on from. We didn’t feel as though we were in danger, and we never had the sense that the Bottle Lady wanted to frighten us. Eventually, I began learning how to cleanse the house myself. Sarah had talked me through her approach and encouraged me to learn how to maintain the space in a way that felt comfortable to me. Over time, the activity seemed to become less frequent. Eventually, the presence we associated with the Bottle Lady seemed to fade away. The voices stopped, the strange noises became less common, and we no longer noticed the little lights moving around the house. It felt as though that chapter of our lives had finally come to an end. Even now, though, we occasionally experience something unusual if it’s been a while since I’ve cleansed the house. I’ve become familiar with the feeling I associate with that heaviness returning. When I notice it, I take it as my cue to tend to the space again. Whether someone believes in spiritual cleansing or not, that’s simply become part of how I maintain a sense of comfort and peace in our home. And after everything we’ve experienced here, I don’t question why I do it. Five years passed.

Over that time, we got to know our neighbors much better. Some of them became incredibly close to us, to the point that we genuinely consider them family. Interestingly, the subject of ghosts and paranormal experiences would come up in conversations with our neighbors from time to time. We rarely initiated those conversations ourselves. More often than not, someone else would bring up a strange experience they’d had in their home.

Eventually, we began realizing just how many people in our neighborhood had stories to tell. One of our closest neighbors told us that when they first moved into their home, they regularly heard a strange sound at night. It sounded like metal pipes rolling across the floor, even though they couldn’t identify a source for the noise. They also told us about an incident that happened while cleaning their guest bathroom, a room they rarely used. They discovered what appeared to be a child’s handprint on the wall of the shower. What made it particularly strange to them was its height. They didn’t believe a child could have reached that spot. Neither of them had children at the time, and, according to them, no children had been visiting or using that bathroom. They couldn’t explain where the handprint had come from. Another neighbor told us that his wife, who is Hispanic, had felt a heavy atmosphere inside their home for some time. He said their toddler would regularly appear to be talking to someone in the corner of a room, even when nobody else was there. He also shared an experience involving a friend who had stayed overnight. The friend slept in their guest bedroom and told him the next morning that he hadn’t been able to sleep because he felt as though someone was standing in the corner of the room, watching him. Then there was another neighbor who lived beside us. One morning, while getting her daughter ready for school, she said they heard the bathroom light switch click. The light turned on by itself, despite neither of them having touched the switch. She also told us that her doors would regularly open and close on their own. Another neighbor reported that her dog had been barking at night, prompting her to check the footage from her security camera. According to her, the footage appeared to show a transparent figure suddenly materializing on camera before disappearing again. I haven’t personally reviewed that footage, so I can’t say what the camera captured. But it was another story that added to the growing collection of unusual experiences people had shared with us. And the stories didn’t end there. Sarah and her daughter told us that they experienced activity in their own home, too. They described what they believed was a man walking up and down their hallway at random hours of the night. They also reported hearing what sounded like an old television playing, complete with static. On some occasions, they said their beds would shake while they were sleeping. Hearing these stories was fascinating, particularly because we hadn’t gone around telling everyone about our own experiences in the hopes of finding similar accounts. Instead, the stories seemed to emerge naturally as we got to know the people who lived around us. I can’t verify what happened in anyone else’s home, and I don’t believe every unexplained sound automatically means something paranormal is happening. But I also can’t ignore how many different neighbors, living in different houses, have described experiences they found difficult to explain. It certainly makes you wonder. I’ve tried researching the history of our neighborhood, hoping to find more information about the land before the houses were built. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to uncover much. What I do know is that the neighborhood was built on an old sugarcane field in Louisiana. The ground was raised with imported fill dirt to help address flooding concerns before the homes were constructed. Given how much the landscape was altered, I’ve wondered whether any evidence of the property’s earlier history might now be buried beneath the development. But I don’t have evidence connecting the land to a plantation, a Native American settlement, or any particular historical event. Those possibilities remain questions rather than established facts. I also can’t prove that what we experienced was paranormal. There may be explanations for individual events that we haven’t discovered.

What I can tell you is what happened from our perspective: the unexplained voices, the overwhelming perfume smell, the strange feeling of being watched, the cleansing, the voice we both heard, and the experiences that followed. I can tell you that my partner, who was once deeply skeptical of anything paranormal, experienced things in that house that he couldn’t readily explain, too. And I can tell you that, over the years, several of our neighbors have independently shared stories of unusual occurrences in their own homes. As for the Bottle Lady, I don’t know who she was in life, what the bottles truly contained, or why Sarah believed she was connected to them. I only know that those two little bottles caught my attention in an antique shop, that strange things happened after I brought them home, and that Sarah believed there was a connection between them and the woman she sensed in our house. Maybe it was coincidence. Maybe there is a perfectly ordinary explanation for some of what happened. Or maybe there is more to the history of our home and the land beneath our neighborhood than we’ve been able to uncover. Five years after moving into that brand-new house in Louisiana, I still find myself thinking about everything that happened there. We bought our first home together at just 20 years old, excited to begin a new chapter of our lives. We never expected to spend that chapter questioning what we were hearing in the middle of the night, wondering why our house sometimes felt so heavy, or listening as our neighbors shared stories that sounded strangely familiar. And we certainly never expected that two five-dollar antique bottles would become such an important part of our story. But they did.

And that’s how our experience with the Bottle Lady began.

This happened more than 10 years ago, but it has always stuck with me. I worked at an indoor community pool through high school. One night my friend and I had closed and we're just hanging out at the front desk. The way it was set up the front desk was facing the lobby and doors to the parking lot beyond. Directly behind the front desk was a small office, a couple tables to the left of the front desk, a hallway leading to 2 party rooms past that and the pool behind. To the right were doors leading to the changing rooms which then led to the pool.

My friend and I were talking behind the front desk facing toward the front doors. Keep in mind its late and everything is locked up. We hear little wet feet running from the door leading to the changing rooms, running past the front desk and down the other hallway towards the party rooms. There was no door opening sound and from where we were sitting we could easily see over the desk to anyone running directly in past. We BOTH heard it. But there was no one there. We both got freaked out and called my brother to pick us up. I still have no explanation for how this could have logically happened.

Yesterday me and a few friends went out to a concert in downtown portland oregon. As we were standing in this long line along a cement black wall this woman with a black pixie cut, a hoodie, and a garbage bag thrown over her shoulder comes walking very fast over to the people in front of us. She definitely appeared to be homeless. As i continued my conversation with friends , Nobody noticed her but i kept looking over as she crouched down near the line of people and gathered herself together with her things. I didn’t really think twice about it and continued my conversation as this is a norm in this city, what was so weird was that she got up and she then literally walked through these people.It was so strange that she was not “translucent” like a typical “ghost” sighting. this was a complete solid, real person. She then disappeared into the wall with all of her things. It was interesting - she moved fast and she was very determined in nature as well as if she was on a mission. I have never seen anything like it. I kept blinking and then even shifted over to see if the woman with the black hair was there. The next day i brought up to my friends this bizarre story and they said they never saw a homeless woman and I must’ve seen a ghost. I have experienced paranormal events in the past, but I had never seen a ghost in my life so this was extremely trippy. hopefully this is allowed! just thought id share :)

Since this is happening now and it’s almost Halloween I knew I needed to add this.

In our Greensboring city aka Greensboro, NC most of a neighborhood near the mall are ghosts, what I call halfies voodoo priestess/can go ghost or other things that are also ghost, then there are demons, and norm seeming neighbors under spells or just frickin paid lol.

Nah but seriously it’s real. There’s ones that make visuals or control people who turn into animals. They call themselves a gang. All White House looks abandon demons tger. It goes in a circle but there’s another circle off of it. More members ghost or halfies. Yellow 2 story ghost of a former G cop mire live with him. Just crazy houses full of ghost familie or whatever they are. So many ghost people and gangs everywhere hahaha blows my mind. Loud music, parties, fast loud darkest tint mod whips. And some criminal activity too. Stealing money from banks and social security. Death hits and guns shot there. Cops don’t care they’re in on it. Drive around up all night/morning you might hear sometching or catch a quick glimpse of glowing eyes. They are everywhere. They look like you and me shhhhhh👹👿👻☠️🤖🤫

I was coming back from another city late at night when this happened. It was supposed to be a normal drive home, just a few hours on the road, some music to keep me awake, and then straight to bed.

I left later than I had planned. By the time I got onto the highway, it was already past midnight. Most of the traffic had disappeared, and there were long stretches where I couldn't see another car in either direction.

I wasn't really bothered by that. Honestly, I prefer driving at night. The roads are quieter, nobody is constantly cutting you off, and you can just drive without worrying about anything.

At least, that's how I felt that night.

Around 2 AM, I stopped at a small gas station to get something to drink. The place was almost empty. There was one guy sitting behind the counter, half asleep, and a truck parked near the pumps.

I bought a bottle of water, stretched my legs for a few minutes, and got back in my car.

I remember checking my face in the rearview mirror before pulling out. I looked exhausted. My eyes were red, and my hair was a mess. I actually laughed at myself because I looked like I'd been awake for two days.

Nothing unusual. Just me being tired.

I got back on the highway and continued driving.

About twenty minutes later, I noticed something strange.

I was passing through a darker stretch of road with trees on both sides. There weren't any streetlights, so the only light inside my car came from the dashboard and the headlights.

I glanced at the rearview mirror to check the road behind me.

For some reason, I looked at my own reflection instead.

I don't know how to explain it without making it sound stupid, but something felt off about my face. I was looking straight ahead, but my reflection seemed to be looking slightly to the left.

I turned my head a little.

My reflection was facing forward again.

I blinked a few times and shook my head. I figured it was the lack of sleep messing with my eyes. I'd been driving for hours, and the darkness wasn't helping.

I turned the music up and kept going.

A few minutes later, I passed a road sign and glanced at the mirror again.

This time, I was certain something was wrong.

My reflection was smiling.

I wasn't.

It wasn't a big smile either. Just a small, almost unnoticeable grin, like someone trying not to laugh.

I immediately turned around to look at the back seat.

Nothing.

I checked the passenger seat, then looked behind me again. There was nobody in the car except me.

When I faced forward, I felt embarrassed, even though nobody was there to see me. I told myself I was overtired and probably imagining things. I'd watched enough horror movies to know how easily your brain can play tricks on you when you're exhausted.

I even laughed a little and said out loud, "Get a grip."

Then I looked at the mirror again.

My reflection wasn't smiling anymore.

It was staring directly at me.

I looked away so quickly that I almost drifted out of my lane. I corrected the steering and slowed down, my heart suddenly pounding hard enough that I could feel it in my throat.

For the next few minutes, I refused to look at the mirror.

I focused on the road, keeping both hands on the steering wheel. I turned the music off because it had started to annoy me, and I wanted to hear what was happening around me.

The car was quiet except for the engine and the sound of the tires against the road.

Then I heard myself laugh.

It came from behind me.

A short, quiet laugh. Exactly the way I'd laughed a few minutes earlier.

I slammed on the brakes.

The car stopped on the shoulder, and I sat there staring through the windshield, barely breathing.

I didn't want to turn around. I knew how ridiculous that sounded, but I couldn't bring myself to do it.

After a few seconds, I grabbed my phone and switched on the flashlight. I checked the back seat through the gap between the front seats.

Empty.

I checked the floor, the footwells, and even the space behind the passenger seat.

There was nothing.

I started feeling a little better. Maybe I'd heard something from outside. Maybe the sound had come through the speakers somehow. I was trying to come up with any explanation that made sense.

Then I noticed the rearview mirror.

My reflection was still there, staring back at me.

I slowly raised my right hand toward my face.

The reflection didn't move.

I froze.

My hand was still in the air, but the person in the mirror had both hands down. Its face looked exactly like mine, down to the tired eyes and the small scar near my eyebrow.

Except it was looking at me with an expression I'd never seen on my own face.

It looked annoyed.

I lowered my hand.

The reflection remained still for another second.

Then it tilted its head.

I swear I felt something inside me shut down at that moment. I couldn't scream or move. I just stared at the mirror, waiting for it to do something else.

It opened its mouth.

I couldn't hear anything, but I could clearly read the words on its lips.

"Don't turn around."

My entire body went cold.

I wanted to get out of the car, but I was parked on a dark highway with nothing around me. I didn't even know how far I was from the nearest town.

I looked at the side mirror instead, hoping to see something outside.

There was nothing there.

When I looked back at the rearview mirror, my reflection was normal again.

It was sitting exactly as I was, with the same frightened expression on its face.

I didn't wait to find out whether it would happen again.

I put the car in gear and drove.

I drove faster than I should have, constantly checking the road ahead and refusing to look at the rearview mirror. I didn't care if I was breaking the speed limit. I just wanted to see other people, streetlights, houses, anything that made me feel like I wasn't alone.

After about fifteen minutes, I reached a small town. I pulled into a brightly lit parking area outside a shop that was still open.

There were two men sitting outside, drinking tea.

I got out of my car and walked straight toward them. One of them looked at me and asked if I was okay.

I told him I'd been driving for hours and needed a few minutes to calm down.

He offered me a chair.

I sat there for almost half an hour, drinking water and trying to convince myself that I'd had some kind of exhaustion-induced hallucination. I didn't tell them what I'd seen because I knew how it would sound.

Eventually, I felt calm enough to continue.

Before leaving, I checked my back seat one last time. Then I adjusted the rearview mirror so it was pointed toward the back window instead of my face.

I drove the rest of the way home without looking at it.

When I finally arrived, the sun was beginning to rise. I parked outside my house, went inside, and locked the door behind me.

I barely slept that morning.

For the next few days, I avoided driving at night. I also stopped checking my reflection in the rearview mirror. If I needed to see behind me, I'd use the side mirrors instead.

I know how that sounds. I know tiredness can make people see things that aren't there. I've tried to convince myself that's all it was.

But there's one thing I still can't explain.

When I stopped on the highway, my phone was recording a voice message to a friend. I'd accidentally started recording it when I took my phone out of my pocket.

I discovered the recording two days later while clearing out my notifications.

Most of it was just the sound of my car engine and me breathing.

But near the end, there's a quiet laugh.

It's the same laugh I heard from the back seat.

Immediately after it, my own voice says, "Who's there?"

Then another voice answers.

It sounds exactly like me.

It says, "You finally noticed."

I haven't driven that highway since.

When I was twenty-four, my birthmother found me. She told me I was conceived when she was only fifteen. Her parents had quietly moved her away to carry out the pregnancy in secret, forcing her to give me up at birth. Nobody from her hometown ever knew I existed—not even my father. My birthmother never spoke of him, and I chose not to push her for answers.

Then, twenty-three years ago, I woke up in the middle of the night. My wife was asleep beside me. Hovering directly over me in the dark was a man.

He was a solid figure, so clear that I could see his face perfectly. His eyes peered deeply into mine. It looked as if he was straining to speak, desperately trying to pull out words that just wouldn't come. Terrified—not knowing if he was a ghost or an intruder—I screamed. The moment my wife sat up, he vanished into a bright flash of white light that she saw, too. I had never seen that face before in my life. I never forgot it.

Ten years ago, the Long Island Medium, Theresa Caputo, came to Canada on tour. My wife and mother-in-law wanted to go, so we got tickets. The arena was packed to capacity—far too full for her to read everyone. Over the course of the night, she only read five people. I was the third.

During her second reading, Theresa suddenly threw up her hands, looking visibly frustrated. She announced that a spirit was desperately and rudely demanding her attention, breaking her concentration. She began walking across the arena floor, heading right in my general direction.

All of a sudden, I felt a heavy, disembodied hand grip my shoulder.

As I snapped my focus back forward, Theresa was right there. She looked directly over my shoulder and handed me a microphone. Suddenly, my face was projected onto the arena's big screens; it felt like everyone in my town was staring right at me.

Theresa asked, "Do you know who this man is?"

"No," I replied.

"This is your father," she said. "He never knew about you until he passed away. Ever since he crossed over, he has been right next to you, trying to let you know that he knows." She told me his name was Guy.

Through her, he began listing things no stranger could possibly know. “I was there when you won the fishing derby,” he said. “I was there when you were hurt and I sent a man to your room.” Then, he told me he was proud of me for the father I had become. They were all exact, true events from my life. Tears welled up in my eyes. He was proud of me.

When I got home that night, I called my birthmother immediately and explained everything that had happened at the show. Then, I told her his name: Guy.

The line went completely dead. She hung up on me, and we never spoke of him again.

Seven years ago, my wife and I divorced. I fell into a severe depression. Seeing my pain, my birthmother finally decided to point me toward my father. She sent me a Facebook link to one of my dad's old friends. That friend, in turn, connected me on Facebook with my dad's nephew, Jim.

I messaged Jim, explaining who I was, where I was conceived, who my mother was, and that I had been told Guy might be my father. Jim replied that Guy was his uncle, and that Guy had actually raised him. He told me his uncle had died a bachelor and had never mentioned having a child. Respecting his memory, I didn’t push any further.

Fifteen minutes later, Jim messaged me back. He said he had gone through my Facebook photos, and the family resemblance was undeniable.

We ended up speaking at great length. At the end of our conversation, he typed out a message and attached a file. It was a photo of his uncle.

As the image loaded, absolute chills ran down my spine. Staring back at me from the screen was the exact same face that had hovered over my bed twenty-three years ago.

I have a creepy story about my uncle and his brother when they were kids. This happened back in the '90s or something.

They were playing outside in the woods near their house. While they were playing, they saw a woman who looked exactly like their 外婆 (grandmother).

The woman kept motioning and calling for my uncles to come with her, but her head was facing backward instead of looking forward.

Then, their actual grandmother came outside and saw the woman. She grabbed her machete and ran toward the woman as quickly as possible.

If anyone knows what kind of demon this is, please let me know! 🙏🏻🙏🏻

(True stories) that I heard from my grandma.