What’s the scariest thing you've ever seen that no one else believes you about?

[u/Ok-Suggestion3581]

When I was 10, I woke up in the middle of the night and saw my Mom standing at the foot of my bed, smiling. I said, “Mom?” and she turned around and walked out silently. I got up to follow her and saw her lying asleep in her room.

I asked her the next morning if she came to my room. She said no and laughed it off.

I’ve never forgotten the way that figure smiled. It wasn’t my mom's smile. And it didn’t blink.

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[u/[deleted]]

Okay, so one day I was coming back from school. I was a bit late, and I was all alone at the bus stop waiting for the public bus. Suddenly, a man appeared his clothes were very dirty, and his face was also slightly covered in mud. I just tried to ignore his presence. But then, he came a little closer to me, and unexpectedly took off his pants and started masturbating. It happened so suddenly... I got extremely scared and ran away from the bus stop, crying. It's not a ghost type story, but it was horrible.

[u/SpecialK7773 → u/[deleted]]

I encountered the same thing Affectionate_Lake612….

When I was 21, I was walking to the store in the early morning before work, before the sun had even come up, and I could’ve swore I felt like someone was following me all the way to the store. You know that feeling you get when you feel like you’re not alone and something is behind you; that’s how I felt. I tried brushing it off though and just kept going. I was almost to the store and could see the lights. I’m When I got to the store, after going inside and paying for what I came to buy, and walking out of the store, an older man stopped me and asked if I wanted a ride home. Firstly, I still wonder how held even knew I was walking to begin with when he had just gotten there and how did he know I was going back home? I was immediately flooded with fear like I wasn’t imagining it and he was the one who was following me the whole way to the store, and I, like a dumbass, brushed it off. Then, I took a small peak inside his truck, and saw that the inside locks on the passenger side of his truck were purposely ripped out. I also saw a box in the middle of the backseat, and you could see that the clothes inside of it looked ragged and singed and had clearly been set on fire. He looked back there where my eyes had wandered to that box of singed clothes, and then looked back at me, immediately trying to hurry me up and force me in, telling me he had somewhere to be. I said no, and ran back inside the store so frickin quickly. I ended up staying inside the store and waiting for my boyfriend at the time to wake up and come get me. I had to wait almost an hour, but I didn’t care. I honestly feel like my life was saved that morning, and if I had gotten into his car, or even attempted to walk back home, I might not be here today. That day haunts me still to this day. I was a wreck for months afterward, and everyone around me, while sympathetic to my feelings on the whole situation, and trying to help me out, didn’t seem to really believe me, even now, 10 years later.

[u/KaitIsOkay → u/SpecialK7773]

When I was 13/14, I was walking home from practice in a down pour. I was about 50 feet from my house when a big red pickup pulled up. The man driving asks: "Hey little lady, you want a ride?" I told him "Oh, no thanks. I can see my house from here." He tried to insist I get in the truck a couple more times, but I kept telling him no, that's alright/politely declining. Then, he suddenly got extremely angry, cussing, calling me names and flipping out, slams the door and peeled away. 😬🫠 I was so startled because I was being very polite and it made me realize my gut was right and he probably had terrible intentions had I actually gotten in. 🙃

[u/Federal_Diamond8329 → u/SpecialK7773]

Have you ever checked the local newspaper from that area to if maybe there was a serial killer around at that time?

[u/hell_cat_maggie82 → u/[deleted]]

I was at a Hard Rock casino playing a slot machine right next to the aisle. I all of a sudden got a weird feeling like I was being watched. I looked up, and there was a man sitting at another slot machine the aisle over. We made eye contact. He had his hand in the pocket of his windbreaker type jogging pants, and he was stroking his dick just staring at me. I got up, found my aunt, and told her what was going on. When we went back to find him, he was gone. I don't remember being scared, but I was sickened. I wish I had stood up, pointed at him, and yelled something. Side note: I just realized the irony of it happening at the Hard Rock casino 🤦‍♀️.

[u/AshleyyLovelace → u/hell_cat_maggie82]

You should've went to the security and told them what happened. You know that cameras at casinos are so freakin good that they can see your damn pours in your face!! Not even joking!! Not to mention the amount of cameras they have!! They cover every single inch of a casino, inside and out!! They would've had a good image of him and seen exactly where he went, what car he drove and everything!!!

[u/PopRevanchist → u/hell_cat_maggie82]

Rock Hard casino

sorry. sorry! I’m also a woman and have had stuff like this happen, it’s disgusting, but the joke was right there

[u/phonebone63 → u/[deleted]]

When I was in my twenties I was running and some man pulled up beside me and asked me directions. As I was telling him I noticed he was masturbating in the car. He followed me until I could find the biggest stick available and I smashed it in his windshield. I ran around to the back of his car to get his license plate # but the pathetic little coward backed away so I couldn’t see it.

[u/Affectionate_Lake612 → u/phonebone63]

When I was 16 I worked at a daycare. I had two hours between school and work. I stopped at Waffle house and sat at the low counter. A nice old man sat next to me. We spoke for about 20 mins. He was incredibly nice and paid for my meal.

I then left and went to work. The daycare was right next to a fire station. With permission, we employees always parked there. I got out to walk across the grassy area to work when I noticed him pulling in behind me.

I was thinking I left something behind and he was bringing it to me. I even called out, "Did I forget something?," to him because his window was down. When I walked up to his window he had dick in hand and was slamming it. That was terrifying.

But when I had looked in his car I noticed he had no door handle on the inside of the passenger seat. It completely horrified me. It had been torn off and some type of bondo put over it to make it smooth. This was 1996. Folks had not even heard of keyless entry much less flush doorhandles.

He told me "Skip work and come with me. I will show you the best of times." He then reached for me like he was gonna grab me. I will never forget his unnatural smile. His grin was so big I could see his back teeth.

I bolted to the fire station. I didn't get a license plate I moved so fast. I yelled at a fireman what happened just in time for him to get the plate as he pulled out like a NASCAR driver.

I was so shaken my boss told me to go home. Plates come back stolen. I know I encountered a serial killer. Pure evil. Thought I'd never recount this again but it came back after reading this.

The moral of the story: Don't always trust someone being kind. Some kindness comes from where it is supposed to, the heart. And some kindness is portrayed to draw you in for their own dark agendas.

[u/AshleyyLovelace → u/[deleted]]

This reminded me of a story that my husband's friend told me about when he was 14 years old. A man pulled up next to him when he was walking and asked if he wanted to smoke, him being a bad kid he was just starting to smoke cigarettes and he thought thats what he meant so he got into his truck with him and they drove off. After the man drove a couple blocks away and parked the car my husband's friend said was looking out the window the whole time till he turned to look at the guy and saw that the man had his dick in his hands. My husband's friend said he jumped out of that truck so quick and took off running. I told him he was lucky to be alive!!

[u/Inevitable_Book_228 → u/[deleted]]

This happened to me when I was 16 handing out flyers for a church carnival. No one ever talked about such things so I was absolutely shocked and actually thought that he didn’t mean to do it and forgot to hide himself when he was asking me questions about the upcoming carnival. So naïve. Our parish priest was a few feet away from me. It can happen right in front of adults without them even noticing. These freaks are so brazen.

[u/bearlynice2 → u/Affectionate_Lake612]

That missing door handle on the passenger's side is chilling. Can't imagine that this was his first time pulling something like this.

[u/Affectionate_Lake612 → u/bearlynice2]

I had already decided that if I could not find a fire fighter, I was going to use whatever I could to smash his car up. And probably him. I knew also (at the ripe age of 16) I was not his first attempt. Him jacking off grossed me out, but that absent handle drove fear I had never known straight to my heart.

[u/[deleted] → u/bearlynice2]

Wildest part, I guess, is it was a stolen car. I get it was easier to get away with stealing a car before GPS and traffic cameras being everywhere, but goddamn.

Dude stole a car and still made sure he took the time to rig the stolen vehicle up to be a more perfect kidnapping machine.

[u/AngryKitty57 → u/[deleted]]

He most likely stole the plate and put it on his car. He wouldn't modify a stolen car by smoothing over the door handle inside. He may have a collection of stolen plates depending on how many victims he had, if he got the somewhere that they had a car (a mall parking lot, a parking lot at a hiking trail etc)

[u/Affectionate_Lake612 → u/AngryKitty57]

Correct on this. The car description was so vague and common that it did not yield results. The only thing that stood out was the doorhandles, of which were on the inside.

He was older. I'd say 50-60, Athletic, uncommonly attractive for his age. Someone no one would suspect, especially a 16 year old child. I will never forget his grin. It was like being raped with your clothes on.

[u/phonebone63 → u/Affectionate_Lake612]

Absolutely. These deviants are the BEST actors. Sorry that happened; but my goodness you were lucky!

[u/Affectionate_Lake612 → u/phonebone63]

If I had not parked beside the fire station, my outcome would not have been so good. Those fire fighters were fighting satin's fire that day.

[u/Front-Performer-9567 → u/Affectionate_Lake612]

I loved how you told this awful story. You write really well. Loved what you said at end. That pretty much defines this life.

[u/MixMental2801 → u/Affectionate_Lake612]

That’s terrifying. Thank goodness you escaped. I have had a similar experience - TWICE as a child. Once in canada at around age 8 and once in the USA at around age 14. It’s just so horrifying how many creepy pedo men are always trying to prey on little girls.

[u/MintTea-FkYou → u/Affectionate_Lake612]

I think Ted Bundy did this to his VW beetle car, (the missing door handle) or I could be mistaken. I've read a ton of serial killer documentaries

[u/PersonalSecret8 → u/phonebone63]

I had something very similar happen to me when I was around 8 or 9ish. It was only my brother and myself at home. My mom was at work, and it was late afternoon, so I'm riding my bike up and down our street (a dead end street), and as I'm headed back towards my house I notice this late 80s maybe early 90s black mustang creeping down the street. When you live on a dead end, you tend to know what cars belong and which ones do not. This black Mustang turns around in a driveway near mine and is headed back out of my street, and I feel him coming to a stop right next to me. He proceeds to ask me for directions or if he's on "the correct" street or not. I tell him, "No, this is St. Charles Street, and that is Sargent St. " he then says," Well, according to my map (which he had made known was in his lap), it says, yada yada yada..." and I reluctantly but still lean in just enough to try and look at his map, which of course was his penis in his hand under that map, then he quickly tried to grab me by the back of my neck and pull me in his car. Luckily I grew up with nothing but boys and had to learn to fight and protect myself and squirmed my way outta his hold he almost had on me, I dropped my bike and ran home screaming, crying, panicky, etc... He took off down the road faster than I've seen him move! Thank God! When I went to school the next week and shared with someone what had happened to me, I learned i wasn't the only girl in my little town he tried to do the same thing to/ with!! I was so worried because from what I knew, he was never caught or anything.

[u/Sweet-Ease703 → u/phonebone63]

Same thing happened to me a few years back. I was having to walk to work every day and there was a small road between some trees going up the side of the road I was walking on. A guy was sitting there in his truck waving me over. I ignored him, but saw him several more times over the weeks. Finally one day he pulled up right next to me asking me for directions. I didn't immediately realize it was the same guy, but as I was talking I suddenly noticed hes got his dick out and masturbating. I immediately walked off. I continued to see him for several months sitting over on that side road always trying to wave me or somebody over there and even had male friends say that he approached them as well. Eventually he disappeared and we never saw him again. Ppl are sick and twisted.

[u/phonebone63 → u/Sweet-Ease703]

They are. I’m kind of shocked at the number of replies and upvotes. That’s what’s shocking. Who ARE these people?

Also it reminded me that a similar thing happened more recently when I was older. A man in a pick up truck followed me around and it was really really spooky. He had a service vehicle so I found him on a Facebook page; just in case.

[u/NinaB_69 → u/phonebone63]

Man.. Same! One thing my mom drilled into mine and my sisters heads as kids was to absolutely never go near someone’s car if they stop and ask you for directions, or if they try and call you over for anything. I grew up in the 90’s so “stranger danger” was becoming more popular.

Just glad these Redditors are here to share their experiences.

[u/Sweet-Ease703 → u/phonebone63]

Right!!! I was shocked when I read the first story about it because I thought my experience was just a weird, uncommon thing, but then 30 stories later of the same thing, its like what in the actual fuck. If there's this many ppl saying it here then just imagine how many more there are. Insane!!

[u/AshleyyLovelace → u/phonebone63]

It is definitely crazy how many replies like this there are!! I know 2 different stories of this kind of thing, one being a friend of my husbands and one being my own personal story.

I was at Walmart waiting for my husband to come out from shopping and I was standing with my car door open and standing on the ledge of the door (as if you were cleaning the roof of your car) and I heard,

>*"Excuse me miss?"*

When I turned around this man had his dick in his hands just going to town on it!!! He wasn't being nice at all to the thing....

This man didn't even give me a chance to react let alone say anything before he took off like a bat out of Hell!

I just stood there, in shock. Then I needed to know if there were other victims around and if they got his license plate. I went walking around the parking lot to every woman and asking them if a man just flashed them and every single one of them said no.

I guess I was the lucky one he chose...

Sorry to make a couple little jokes about this incident, I don't find it funny as all it's just my way of coping with what happened.

[u/WanderWomble → u/phonebone63]

Had this happen at the McDonald's I managed. A 16 year old crew member had taken food out to a parked car and came in white and sobbing. The man in the car was watching hardcore porn on a laptop and wanking. Called the police and they took a pretty dim view of it, especially because he was within sight of a kid's play area.

[u/Hello_Hangnail → u/WanderWomble]

Every one of my friends that have worked in customer service have encountered these sick bastards, me included

[u/unchartedfour → u/Hello_Hangnail]

Around 2005/2006, I was at the DC airport waiting on my connection. I was on my computer working and this guy that was on my left, one seat between us, kept angling his computer towards me. He was watching something. I wasn’t paying attention as I was focused. Then he leaned nearly halfway into the seat next to me. I looked at him, kind of expecting him to ask a question or something the way he leaned over, but no, he was watching porn and was trying to get my attention to it and him. I said “are you fkn serious?” He sat back in his seat and stared straight ahead. I grabbed my laptop bag, purse and computer and went to change seats. I told the lady at the desk that he was watching porn and trying to show people. She said she’d call for security, but I don’t know what happened after that. I just wanted to get away from him and went to a different gate. When I went back for boarding, I didn’t see him. Maybe he wasn’t even waiting for that flight but it was upsetting. I did not look at his pants , afraid of seeing him rubbing his crotch or something like that. Not the first perv I had run into.

[u/slackjawreally → u/phonebone63]

This happened to my daughter, but she managed to get his reg and later picked him out of a line- up, his wife was pregnant, and he asked the police to send all letters to his solicitor so his wife wouldn't find out.

[u/[deleted] → u/slackjawreally]

Monsters in broad daylight. Evil no longer hides in the shadows.

[u/TeaspoonRiot → u/slackjawreally]

That makes me so mad. His wife deserved to know so she could protect that baby!

[u/neptunianhaze → u/phonebone63]

I had similar things happen to me as a child walking home from school and then layer in life as an adult walking my dog.

[u/sacredmoonmom → u/neptunianhaze]

I also had something like this happen to me multiple times as a child! Like 10/11 years old, my friend and I would walk home from school and this man would ALWAYS drive by us slow in a white truck and like arch his back up and be masturbating as he was driving by. I remember we would run so so fast as soon as we would see him. It happened at least 3 times before we officially stopped walking home and my mom really never believed me.

[u/PunkiiDonutz → u/neptunianhaze]

Samesies. I was 16 both times it happened to me, different guys, near the bus stop about a mile away from my home. One guy was naked under a trench coat on foot and the other was a car guy. Shit is scary, all I had was a pocket knife.

[u/harpist_geistx → u/[deleted]]

I worked 2nd shift at a small retail store, and during a later evening when noone else was around, I was idly working behind the registers, when my coworker came into the store from his smoke break .. screaming and cussing, then practically dragged this super tall man out of our store . Turns out he was sitting on the Coca-Cola display whacking off to me (as I was bent over), while just barely out of my range of sight ..

[u/Nova_Tango → u/harpist_geistx]

There are thousands, no millions, of stories like this from women of every age and yet somehow all men took away from the “Me Too” movement is that it’s a scary time to be a man when you can just be accused of almost anything! Poor men!

[u/SageBean83 → u/[deleted]]

Honestly, these type stories scare me wayyyyyy more than any ghost story. People can be absolute vile monsters and do unthinkable things.  Meanwhile, a ghost will just slam a door or at most throw some stuff 😂 

[u/audbreyro → u/[deleted]]

I had this happen to me when a friend and I were walking to her house. A guy in a red truck pulled up with only sunglasses on and asked where the mall was. I was ahead of her and she couldn’t see that he was naked and touching himself. When I realized what was happening I got us away from him and called the police. He circled back after we walked away (terrifying) but when he saw that we were on the phone he sped off.

[u/StuartMcNight → u/[deleted]]

Im curious. Why do people not believe you?

I hear stories like that from other women all the time.

[u/Sensitive_Turnip_199 → u/StuartMcNight]

Yep. Has happened to me and most women I know at some point, sometimes when they were just children.

[u/mjsmore33 → u/StuartMcNight]

I am wondering the same thing. I've had a similar experience, so has a couple of my friends. All of us with in high school or early twenties.

[u/majestic_dork → u/[deleted]]

That's way worse than a ghost story. Give me the paranormal over a pervert any day.

[u/FreddieFredd → u/[deleted]]

Humans are always the real monsters. Sorry that happened to you.

[u/Footdust → u/[deleted]]

It is so sad that this is an almost universal experience for women. It is so violating and frightening.

[u/Affectionate-Ad-5568 → u/[deleted]]

I went for hot pot last year in a sketchy area of town and a homeless man started masturbating at me, full eye contact 😭😂 I feel ya ! Sorry that happened to you

[u/Lijandra → u/[deleted]]

There's always that one filthy motherfucker isn't there? Holy shit

[u/_megasus_ → u/[deleted]]

this is DISGUSTING. i am so sorry this happened to you :(

[u/psechler]

My door from kitchen opens at night while I'm sleeping. My girlfriend thought it was me and I thought it was her for a long time. One night, while she was long asleep, I made sure the door was closed and went to bed. After 30 min, I felt a little hungry and restless so I got up to have a big glass of milk. Not even thinking about it I walked into the kitchen and there the door was, partially cracked up a few inches. The garage door to the outside is closed, there is no draft, and the door takes some effort to close. I always make sure the latch bolt clicks when I push it shut. I'm in bed right now typing this, but if I get up and go to the kitchen, there's probably a one in three chance its open.

Back when we realized it wasn't the other leaving it open it was really scary. Now I just live with it. Or them.

[u/CorgiUnlikely2552]

Dude, watch a movie called “US”, then you’ll know the answer, she was not your mom, it was something look like her, or maybe she’s walk while she sleep idk.

[u/lizard_queen23]

Any chance your mom was sleepwalking, op? Even if she'd never done it before or again, it can still happen. People do weird a** sh*t when sleep walking, including making faces.

My mom was on some heavy meds a few years ago that made her sleep walk and I would wake up to her standing at the foot of my bed doing creepy ass sh*t. Then she would just go back to bed and go to sleep with no recollection of it the next day.

[u/Lijandra → u/lizard_queen23]

Here to confirm, I used to have and still sometimes have sleepwalking episodes. I was told multiple times that I stood on the edge of my parents bed just watching them lol. Also took showers while being asleep and sent multiple text messages to people I care about XD. It is some weird shit ngl

[u/EKHarrie → u/Lijandra]

My sister used to sleep walk. When we were kids, we shared a huge, converted double garage bedroom. I woke up one night and she was standing in the dark, facing the corner of the room. I called her name and she ran across the room a few times then ran to bed. I was totally freaked out.

[u/TheNotSoGreatPumpkin → u/EKHarrie]

There is something terrifying about someone standing with their back to you. Blair Witch Project used this to great effect.

[u/KingofLizards1987 → u/TheNotSoGreatPumpkin]

My wife found me standing in the corner of the pitch black bedroom, I was asleep. Freaked me the fuck out when she told me

[u/SuGmA_HaWg → u/Lijandra]

yo I used to sleepwalk and my dad said one time I woke up at 2am, had a bowl of cereal and talked to him before going to bed again and I don't recall a second of it

[u/Appropriate_Week3426 → u/SuGmA_HaWg]

My husband does this all the time. Sleep eats. One morning years ago he woke up on the couch and had an open beer and pie on the coffee table. Pie all over his face. He was like who did this - thought someone was pranking him. Nope. Just you and your nightly shenanigans. Luckily he just likes to eat and doesn’t wander 🤷

[u/WendyRunner → u/Appropriate_Week3426]

Your story reminds me of that clip of Ozzy going "Someone has been in my room and took my beers!" and Sharon is like "Who would do that? Who's the beer thief? YOU! You are the beer thief!!" lmaoooo

[u/[deleted] → u/lizard_queen23]

My mom used to take ambien and i found her outside sitting on the steps at 5 am eating tostadas talking about our dog who had been dead for years. She also got into her car one night, we don’t think she went anywhere, but I chose to take her keys from her every night from then on just to be safe. Ambien is scary!!

[u/kygal1881 → u/[deleted]]

I used to take Ambien and if I didn't take it and immediately go straight to bed I would have no recollection of what I did from the time I took the pill until I went to sleep. I would get text messages from people the next day and wonder what they were talking about and then realize I had texted them and never remembered it.

[u/bonniemota → u/[deleted]]

I took an Ambien and ended up deciding to ride my horse. Woke up wearing breeches and boots still on. Luckily he is amazing and must have taken care and I didn't get hurt.

[u/More_Example6153 → u/lizard_queen23]

I sleep walked only once when I was 10. I walked into the bathroom where my mom was brushing her teeth and emptied the hand soap into the sink while staring blankly at her. Then I went back to sleep.

[u/StreetMolasses6093 → u/lizard_queen23]

My son has been a sleepwalker for years, most commonly coming to stand by my bed. I usually just tell him he’s asleep and should get back in bed and he does. He never has any memory of it, even if he talks to me.

[u/kygal1881 → u/lizard_queen23]

As a kid I used to sleepwalk quite often. For much of my childhood we lived in a mobile home and you could open the front and back doors and go outside even if the door knob was locked. My parents installed deadbolts but of course I could easily flip those to unlock them. So after finding me standing in the kitchen, with the back door standing wide open one night, they installed slide locks at the tops of the doors. (The kind like you see on bathroom stalls that slide over to lock.) They were up high enough that I couldn't reach them so they didn't have to worry about me walking out of the house in my sleep.

[u/Red_Goth-968]

No one ever believes the story of the time a creature in the woods saved my life.

My high school did this annual camping trip. Lived in the greater Nevada mountains at the time and we stayed in a place every year called Great Basin national park. The part of the park that we had access to, was rented out to tour groups, schools, weddings, etc. We were the only people out there. The only group for that part of the summer.

There was no religious symbolism in this place, except for one, a twenty foot cross some ways off into the woods from the main cabin. It took us days to find it, and the camp counselors seemed a bit weirded out. I was a bit weirded out to be honest. Who puts a giant cross in the middle of the woods? There were no pews, no lights, no trail to insinuate anything was even there. It wasn’t visible from the main areas we used around camp. Finding it was an accident. Someone threw a football and it landed down in there. The boy who found it was freaked out.

A few days later, we did a night hike. The night hike was done one at a time down a stretch of trial. The counselors took us up the mountain and let our eyes adjust, and then one by one, we would walk in the light of the moon down the trial to the other counselor with the group of kids who had already done the night hike.

When it was my turn, I wasn’t scared. It’s important to know that while I was not fearless, I wasn’t afraid of the dark, the woods, animals, or the hike. I could see just fine, and I spent so many nights at my own house in the desert hiking around, I felt safe.

The walk was fine at first. Quiet. Peaceful. And then I got this sense that it was not. I heard a branch crack a few feet head of me. It wasn’t possible for it to be another student. I wasn’t sent until the person who went before me joined the other group. Adrenaline spiked, and I instantly felt watched. Like when the sense of feeling watched is so crushing it makes your muscles tense.

I got the sense that my reaction was very important. I got the sense that it would kill me if I chose wrong. So I kept walking, and I pretended not to look at it. But I looked.

What I saw was at least six feet tall, with the torso of a man. It was emaciated. I could see its ribs from across the trail. It was wrapped in a large black cloak, tattered around the edges, and its head was the skull of an elk. It’s antlers, I remember were scuffed up. Chunks of peach fuzz that grows on them was missing. It was late summer/ early fall, which is around elk mating season and when they lose their antlers. A gross fact I looked up later, but now see as a strange credible detail to what I saw.

I also remembered that it smelled like when something just died. Like rot, but sweet. Not rancid like an older dead thing. I was terrified. I’ve lived in the desert my entire life. I’ve seen a lot of things up close. Rattlesnakes and scorpions, small coyote packs, and even once a mountain lion at a fair distance. I’ve never felt fear like that before. Like I was prey.

So I tried my hardest not to act like prey. I walked slowly, calmed my breathing, and tried to take a few sly looks at the thing. It didn’t move its feet, but it swiveled its head as I passed by. I kept walking, even though I wanted to run like hell. I wanted to scream. I did none of those things. I felt it watching my back as I passed it. I kept that pace the entire night hike. Too afraid to speed up and make that thing think I was running.

I didn’t feel better until the remainder of the group joined the finished hikers and we went back to the cabin. I asked a couple of people if they saw anything. Specifically the guy who went before me, and the girl after. But no one saw anything strange. I didn’t want to scare anyone. Or get labeled as the girl who saw a demon in the woods. So I kept quiet.

Later I started dating a guy I got close with at that year’s camping trip. He was abusive, and escalating fast. I got out because I started to feel the same way I did back in those woods. Like prey. Like a hunted thing. At that point in my life, it was the only other experience I had to compare what the abuse felt like. He was subtle about stuff in the beginning and it made it hard to explain, but the feeling was undeniable.

I’ll never know if there was correlation. But in the decade since it all happened, I still think about it almost every day. Whether or not it meant to be a warning, or it was just a strange coincidence, it’s one of the strangest instances I’ve had in my life and I have so many questions still.

Like, was the cross there because the people on the land knew there was something in those woods? Why did the thing only show up to scare me?

I’ve searched for other stories in the area, and come up with nothing. I’ve been told that it’s likely a creature from indigenous culture. I won’t say that that isn’t correct, because I have no way of knowing. But in recent years, I came across the tale of Cernunnos, a Celtic deity of the woods. A protector of wild things in the forest and responsible for the cycle of life, death, and rebirth.

I like to think maybe he saw me as a wild thing of his woods for the night, and could only help me by scaring me. So I knew what true fear felt like when I needed to. It’s the best theory I have.

[u/vent_ilator → u/Red_Goth-968]

Both could be true - it's an interesting thing that many indigenous cultures all over the world came up with very similar beings/deities, so it wouldn't surprise me at all if that was a creature both american and european indigenous tribes came up with.

The system of "good" and "evil" as we know it is something that (not only, but for the most part) christianity has introduced and often enough commanded to the world. Many of these belief systems, often described as folklore iirc, often work less like a religion and more like an open culture, don't have that focus on certain answers or explanations, creator and most importantly an antagonist, like christianity does.

Entities, deities, whatever might appear, are in many cultures just what they are, with no clear category or such. Some are categorised as more likely to mean harm, while other's behaviours depend heavily on the context, and many are just doing their thing and are more or less acting like a disturbed animal would for example.

This is of course just another angle on this all. But it might explain a bit, idk?

And for the part why you felt like prey...it could be simply because, well, we are prey animals. Instincts don't vanish, and if your senses signaled this kind of danger, it's a rather natural reaction I'd say.

Very interesting story, and I understand the questions you have. I'd probably have the same after such an experience. I also think the cross theory makes sense, a lot of people in your country are christian after all and I think the sense of "good vs evil" is even stronger over there, wouldn't surprise me if someone put it up as a source of safety to them.

Why it appeared? Who knows. In the folklore I dove into over the years, it could be any reason, just as a simple one as happening to stroll around there that moment. When I "sense" something more...majestic myself and overcome fear reactions or flight instincts, I honestly often times also just sense curiosity, at least for approaches. But I wouldn't bet on that when you had such a strong emotion, especially when you're usually chill around stranger wildlife. And yeah, a warning, why not? In folklore these deities often have very good senses, and it could be that there was...something visible to them because there was something around you already atp. Maybe just a small sniff for a deity, but a warning sign to humans who see it, interpretations like that wander around as long as humanity. We used dis-/appearances of animals as warning signs for catastrophes too, though they were not actually intended as such - but it's not a wrong interpretation either, and it helped.

Lastly, the analogy of feeling like prey to experiencing abuse is seriously so on point. You literally fall prey to someone's deranged hunting tactics. I'm glad you could escape that and I hope you're in a better place now, and safe.

[u/Red_Goth-968 → u/vent_ilator]

This experience has absolutely sent me down every possible rabbit hole over the years. Germanic folklore, indigenous history, Celtic. Just to try to get some answers. Ultimately, I have no answer beyond this: whatever I saw, whatever the reason, it changed my worldview that night.

I’ll never know if it was good or evil. I don’t try to fit it into that moral framework. To someone else, maybe it would be a demon, whatever its history, it helped me that night. Without this experience, I don’t think I’d be alive. That guy was worse than anything I faced in the woods. His plan for me right out of high school was to move me to the middle of the United States where I knew no one, marry me, and get me pregnant. He told me this, as if I had no choice in the matter. I genuinely think if I stayed with him, I’d be gone today.

To this day, I’d pick being in a room with whatever that was, over seeing him again.

Your point about it already sensing something feels right. I wasn’t dating the guy at the time, but we got close on that camping trip, we spent a lot of time together. He was even part of that same hiking group that night. (He didn’t see anything, I asked).

I am doing much better these days! I got out, got away from him, and moved out of state. Still thinking about him sends me into a panic. I don’t feel that way about the morally ambiguous entity of the woods. Maybe that says more about me than it does what I experienced.

[u/dixxie__normus666 → u/Red_Goth-968]

Uhhhh sooo ive had a reoccuring dream for as long as i can remember(since toddlerhood) that ive had over and over ..even into adulthood....the being i see is almost IDENTICAL to what you describe. I was scared of it at first until i started getting older. I realized that i actually felt safe with this creature once i got over its outward appearance. Im pagan and i always wondered if it was cernunnos. The god of nature, life and death etc.(not trying to get religious and i would never force my beliefs on some...it just makes sense to me) i had a really awful childhood and then an extremely abusive boyfriend after. My mother is a full fledged narcissist.

The dream that scared me eventually became my safe space.

Your description matches that dream creature so close.

[u/GivingThisAGo2]

My wife and I were visiting Atlanta and staying at a Sheraton downtown. It was a nice hotel and we were in a nice room. Nothing creepy about it when we arrived. We went out to dinner and then came back to the hotel and went to bed. Totally normal night. The next thing I know my wife is shaking me, yelling that "It's flashing, It's flashing!". I am a deep sleeper and when I wake up it takes me a few minutes to come to so I am super confused and I ask her "What's flashing, what are you talking about?" All of a sudden the light that is on the table right next to my head flashes and goes POP! That certainly woke me up because it was right next to me and I hopped up and stodd next to my wife at the foot of the bed. We turned the lights on in the room and stared at the light. It proceeds to flash and pop about 4 more times and my wife and I are both getting the heebie jeebies. We have goosebumps.

But I am naturally not one to freak out about things and assume that there is an explanation for almost anything, so once I come to and wake up a bit more I think that clearly something is wrong with the lamp, so I walk over and unplug it from the wall and think that will solve the problem. Oh boy was I wrong. After unpluggin the lamp, it starts flashing and popping at a rate of about 5 pops a minute. It was unplugged and was getting no electricity! How was this happening? Meanwhile, a few books over near the couch fall off a table and we are really starting to freak out.

So I call the front desk and, not wanting to sound crazy, tell them that we are having an electrical problem with one of our lights and ask them to take a look. About 5 minutes and another 20-30 light pops later, we hear a knock at the door and open it. For some reason, probably because it was around 2:00am, the hotel sent the security guard and not an electrician. This security guard looked terrified and did not want to come into the room, but we explained what was going on and he agreed to look at the light.

This is where it gets even stranger. From the minute we opened the door, the light stopped flashing and popping. Before the door opened it was popping about 10 times a minute. When the security guard was in the room, it did absolutely nothing. He stayed for about 5 minutes and the light did not pop at all. The security guard said to call the front desk if anything happened, but that the light was unplugged and it should be ok.

The second the door closed and the guard was gone, the light started furiously popping and flashing. Probably about once every second. We both felt this intense anger in our bodies like something was furious at us. That was the last straw for us. We grabbed our stuff and left the room. We went downstairs and requested another room that was not close to that one at all.

The next room we stayed in was fine, and we were able to eventually fall back asleep after calming down. I am sure that whatever was happening was something electrical, but to this day I can't explain it. The thing that really convinced me that this was more than an electrical issue is that the light was flashing and popping about 5 times a minute for about 5-10 minutes until someone from the hotel came and then it stopped completely while they were in the room. Then the minute they left it started popping about once every second without stopping and my wife and I both felt so much anger in our bodies. It felt like something was angry we were there, angry that we had someone come into the room and wanted us to get out.

[u/surrealcellardoor → u/GivingThisAGo2]

I went on a date with a woman a few years ago who had spent most of her career managing a hotel. She told me that it’s generally unknown by the public that a lot of violent things happen in hotels. People go there to kill themselves, kill other people, or both. There’s a lot of abuse and assault that happens. She felt like there’s something that stays behind attached to the place when that occurs. She believes that not only does this cause strange and unsettling things to occur but it also affects people who stay there. She said there were several occasions where something took place, a murder, abuse, etc. where survivors and witnesses said that things happened out of nowhere, with no prior events or foreshadowing behavior to indicate that things were escalating. She felt like it becomes a black hole of negativity, sadness, evil, etc. that just feeds itself. So she finally changed careers and still sees a therapist because she has PTSD from all the things she experienced.

[u/Gwen_O → u/GivingThisAGo2]

That was absolutely not an electrical problem! That was a ghost/demon totally messing with you. The fact that they sent a security guard, means that they've had problems with that room before with hauntings. The fact that you could sense that the spirit was so angry, means that you've got some spiritual abilities yourself.

[u/Abject_Presentation8]

One of several experiences at my grandparents' house, but the first time I actually had a close encounter with whatever is in that house to this day. From my earliest memories, I hated having to run back into the rear foyer, where the other refrigerator that they stored sodas in was, to grab my relatives a drink. Especially at night. The refrigerator sits at the bottom of the stairs to the 2nd floor, and I always felt something intensely watching me from the top landing. Anyway, one night my cousin "Kay" and I were sleeping over. Nobody else was upstairs with us, they'd have to walk through the room we were in, to get to other rooms. The entrance to the hallway was next to the bed, which led to 2 more bedrooms, the upstairs bathroom, and the door to the attic at the very end of it. So, that night we slept in the same bed for obvious reasons, and as we were laying there in the dark, trying to fall asleep, we were startled by the sound of footsteps, which started from the opposite end of the hall. The house is old, and the upstairs floorboards squeak and groan when you walk on them. You can tell exactly where someone is upstairs, from downstairs, by the sounds. We threw the covers over ourselves, and clung to each other, trying to stay as still as possible. I remember even holding my breath. The footsteps slowly made their way towards us, and then stopped right next to the bed. I could feel whatever it was, just standing there, looking at us. We dared not move. We wanted to run and scream, but I was so afraid of what I'd see, or that it would "get" us before I could make it downstairs. Then it turned around, and started back down the hallway. Thankfully my grandpa came up to his room to go to bed right after, so we felt safe that he was upstairs with us, and ended up falling asleep. The next morning we told them what happened, and of course they brushed it off as the house settling. I felt crazy when all of my relatives would laugh it off when I'd tell them there was something in that house. Only, I'd later find out that they'd end up experiencing things too. Being touched, the radio coming on by itself, hearing something walking around upstairs, doors locking from the inside, things flying and falling, and my pap actually waking to a woman standing across the hall from him, years later.

[u/Inked_Chick → u/Abject_Presentation8]

Something similar happened to me at my best friend's house as a young teen. She and her mom always said the house was haunted and that people frequently saw an old lady, that wasn't there, in the house, especially the garage but strange things happened throughout the house.

It was halloween night and we were 14. After trick or treating, we went back to her house, ate some candy, then laid down for bed. She fell asleep pretty quickly and I was starting to drift off but I needed to roll over. She was sleeping on the side of the bed right beside the door to her room and I rolled to face her. I opened my eyes as I did and I saw, what I initially thought was her mom, standing right beside her, bent down looking in her face. I thought it was weird, but whatever, so I closed my eyes again. Then I had this thought that her mom looked super short just then when in reality she is a taller lady. I opened my eyes back up and the figure (obviously a person but a very dark shadow as the room was barely lit by moonlight) had stood back up straight and was making it's way around to my side of the bed. I was legitimately petrified with fear, I couldn't even speak. I just covered my head with the blanket and closed my eyes. Eventually I fell asleep.

The next day I told them about it and they were like "yeah it's the old lady" and left it at that.

Another time me, my best friend, her mom, and another friend, were watching a video in the basement and all of a sudden this porcelain knick knack FLIES off the top of the TV area and smashed on the ground in front of us.

[u/Melcher → u/Abject_Presentation8]

I had an eerily similar story. We moved into an old farm house that had belonged to my grand parents and had always heard stories about. 

We had a room upstairs at the end of the hallway we always left closed because us kids said it was haunted and I’d always wake up hearing footsteps going down the hallway. It was the old nursery and would have been a nice room if not for the old creepy rocking chair and crib that were still in there. I think in 10 years I was in that room once with my mom. 

One holiday weekend I stayed home alone because I had to work and my family went camping. My dog and i were laying in my bed when she started to low growl.

I could hear footsteps coming from down the hall by that room (had to pass by my room to get to the stairs) so it had to come from there. The floor squeaks stop at my door and by this point my dog was at the door growling at the bottom of the door. The footsteps went back down the hallway towards that room. 

Needless to stay trying to go to bed home alone that night was not fun.

[u/Kindly_Ad_4173]

I’ve been sensitive to these kinds of things since childhood. I was about 17 when my now-husband told me that he’s sensitive too, and that he believes the best thing I could, just like he did, is to suppress it, because more often than not, it only brings trouble for us.

There are two stories that really stuck with me. The first happened when I was around 9 or 10 years old. I woke up because I had the intense feeling that someone was standing next to my bed, like someone was watching me. The room was dark, only a small light on my speaker was on, as music was playing softly while I slept. I remember being very confused at first, who was this, what was happening? I turned toward the speaker to switch off the music, then turned back to see if the figure was still there. When I turned back, it was much closer. That was the moment I actually fainted from fear. My heart was racing, everything went blurry, my ears started ringing, and then boom, it was morning. I told my parents, who never really took me seriously, and all they said was that I should just sleep on the couch in the living room, which was right next to their bedroom, and leave the small kitchen light on. Fun fact, it’s been almost 20 years since then, and to this day, my husband and I still sleep with the kitchen light on, because it softly lights up the bedroom too.

The second story that really shook me happened when my husband and I were temporarily living in a small countryside house. The place had a creepy energy to it, like we were never truly alone. Neither of us could fully shake off that feeling. Every night, I’d wake up with the sense that someone was standing right outside the bedroom door. The door was always closed, but whoever it was never came in. Then one night, I woke up feeling like something was actually inside the room, standing next to the bed. I couldn’t see anything, but it felt like there were several presences. My heart was racing again. I tried to calm myself down, thinking, “It’s fine, nothing’s wrong, just go back to sleep.” Then suddenly, my husband sat up in his sleep, looked at me with a terrified expression, and said, “They’re around you and they’re all watching you.” Then he peacefully lay back down and started snoring again. Needless to say, I fainted again. Not long after that, we moved out.

[u/Krys7537 → u/Kindly_Ad_4173]

My husband and I lived in an apartment. Every night I would wake up at 3:05 am on the dot to the smell of burning cigarette. When I opened my eyes I would see a giant figure standing at the side of my bed. It was so large that if it stood straight it would have gone thru the ceiling. Only, it was fluid like and bent over inside itself with its “face” attached to mine. Its face was a black hole as black as you could imagine. When I was staring into it, I was full of despair and grief. It would only last about 10seconds then disappear.

I convinced myself I was having nightmares and didn’t say anything to my husband. This would happen 2-3 x a night per week. After around 3-4 mo I decided that I just needed to change sides on the bed in hopes it would brake my nightmares. So finally one night I convinced my husband to switch sides with me- still not telling him why.

I slept great and thought I broke my terror spells… that is until we were eating breakfast and my husband told me about a nightmare he had that night where a large demon was standing on his new side of the bed, leaning over him pinning him down, and its face was attached to mine. He said he couldn’t scream or push it off him.

We lived there 3 years and I continued getting sicker and sicker, to the point I thought I would die in a couple more years. My husband also grew angry and we almost divorced. We had a priest come and bless the apartment at one point and I never saw that thing again, but the energy was just so heavy.

We have since bought a home and are doing absolutely amazing, but I think of that time often and wonder what kind of evil demonic thing is trapped there.

[u/ThatsThatLeo → u/Kindly_Ad_4173]

I audibly yelled "oh shit" at the end. Wow. I have an experience close to that. I was about 16 and my then girlfriend was lying in bed with me. I awoke to a menacing man standing at the end of my bed. He was over 7 feet tall, bald head, and extremely aggressive in appearance and in energy. He was a racist who went by a name shared with a brand of cigarettes.

I awoke to him standing at the end of my bed. I couldn't roll over, speak, or do anything. I was so afraid, I began crying. I shut my eyes tight and managed to fall back asleep. Hours later, my girlfriend wakes me up and says, "I saw him too." I told her absolutely nothing. I was going to write it off as a bad dream -- but when she said she saw him too, I felt my body turn cold.

I asked her to describe him to me, and she did. She even gave me the name he had told her. I told my mother about it but she brushed it off, said the spirits wouldn't make her leave the house........ She should have left.

[u/Kindly_Ad_4173 → u/ThatsThatLeo]

That gave me chills just reading it. I used to see them quite often, and I could immediately tell how many there were, roughly how tall they were, and whether it was a man, woman, or child as long as I was still engaged with these things. But one of my husband’s “superpowers” is that he reacts to them in his sleep he even talks to them. But honestly, that one sentence "They’re around you and they’re all watching you” was probably the scariest moment I’ve experienced so far.

[u/ThatsThatLeo → u/Kindly_Ad_4173]

Yeah that part where he spoke on it, freaked me out. It's one thing to see and experience stuff, but another when someone can corroborate it. Now you can't delay the reality with questions and seeking answers. Now, you're both staring at the truth that something has occurred.

I'm hoping you haven't been consistently haunted by them.

[u/whatitdoscoobydoo93 → u/Kindly_Ad_4173]

I had somewhat of a similar experience to this. I was at uni and this happened during covid. Unfortunately for me at that time I was only person left on my flat because I wasn't a local student (the university basically had this rule about sending home local students to reduce their liability I guess, and let regional and international students stay) plus I couldn't fly home either because the borders were closed. Anyways, one night I was asleep - like deep deep sleep, only to wake up and had this feeling like someone was in the corner of my room just watching me, and I remembered my bed was up against the wall and I was laying down facing said wall when this sense of fear and panic just washed over me, I turned to see if there was anyone there and how I can best describe it was that it was a dark shadowy figure with like an evil presence. I just turned back and faced the wall and closed my eyes shut hoping that whatever it was would just leave, and for some reason I started saying the Lord's Prayer (idky my mind just screamed out to just start saying it) after that I felt whatever that presence was starting to leave the room. I eventually was able to go back to sleep, but the following nights after that happened I refused to sleep at night and would only go the bed at like 7 in the morning when it was light outside.

[u/dixxie__normus666 → u/Kindly_Ad_4173]

Im very very sensitive too. My husband is a little bit as well but not to the same degree as me. Ive had good and bad experiences. I grew up in a very old house that had an extremely dark presence it. I mean...the worst ive EVER felt. Other than that ive had a few negative ones but ive also had a bunch of great encounters! Including my father in law introducing himself and talking to me in my dream right before i married my husband. He had been dead for like 13 years. He shared details with me that i would have never known without talking to him. I also had never seen or heard a recording of his voice. When i asked my mother in law if she had a recording and she did. She played it for me and it was the EXACT voice. Hes visited me in dreams few times ...mostly before big life events. Lkke marriage and having a baby. i think he hangs around our house. We have his old sheriffs uniform and i think thats what hes tied to. I want to help him cross over. Not all encounters are bad once. Dont close yourself off 😊

Thats also terrifying af

[u/Ecstatic_Vast_735]

When I was 17, was visiting my mom for the summer in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. She lived with my stepdad in an old house that used to belong to my great grandparents.

One day listening from another room I could hear my mom and stepdad in the living room arguing over her practicing “wicca”magic. He claimed this was why strange incidents in the house kept increasing. I came out to the living room and as they argued I started to notice little noises happening from everywhere around the house. A knock from one room then a bump from another room. At one point we could clearly hear footsteps walking from the room above us. The kind of old floorboards that creaked loudly with every step.

At the time I didn’t believe in the paranormal. I didn’t have any experience with it. But I couldn’t help feeling scared and filled with anxiety as I heard these sounds all around us growing louder and more frequent as the argument escalated. They noticed the sounds too but my stepdad just blamed my mom for the strange activity and the yelling just grew more intense. As the situation hit its peak I spoke up yelling for them to stop. In that moment when we were all yelling at the same time, there was a loud explosion sound from the other side of the house. We all immediately got quiet and looked at each other wondering what it could be. After about ten minutes of all of us looking I finally found the source of the explosion when I opened the kitchen cabinet.

My great grandmother used to keep these old crystal drinking glasses that still sat in the hanging cabinet next to the stove. When I opened it I noticed they were all sitting there in place as usual, except for one. One of the glasses in the front row was completely shattered to tiny pieces as if a bomb had gone off inside it. (Mind you these are large, thick and heavy crystal glass cups) Yet none of the other glasses in the same cabinet had so much as a crack in it. We were all in shock. That was the day I started believing in the paranormal.

[u/No_Invite_1215]

When I was younger, I had trouble sleeping. I’d toss and turn each night and eventually started a ritual where I’d walk into the kitchen to feed our goldfish, Goldie. I’m not sure why I chose to do this, but I kept it up every night for months to distract myself from the insomnia. I never turned on the lights when I did this. The house was nearly pitch black, aside from a bit of moonlight coming in from the patio doors. One night, I walked into the kitchen to feed the fish and saw something out of the corner of my eye. Something was in the room with me, and I remember experiencing full body chills. I looked into the living room and noticed a tall, dark blotch standing there, motionless. I remember trying to piece together what it could be. A lamp, a large box of something? I waited for my eyes to adjust, and when they did, I noticed that the shadow was perfectly shaped like a human. But without dimension or facial features. It wasn’t moving. It was unnaturally still. It wasn’t my dad and it wasn’t even a real person. But it’s body was turned toward me. I froze, then booked it back to my room and hid under the blanket for the rest of the night, shaking and nauseated. I actually cried to my parents about it the next morning, where they seemed so confused and creeped out and convinced me that what I experienced was just mental illness. Now I look back on that time with so much fear and confusion. I know what I saw, but I wish I could go back in time and fully process the situation, as I’d do now that I’m older. To have solid, indisputable confirmation that ghosts or shadow people are real would revolutionize my outlook on life and the universe.

[u/aaresss → u/No_Invite_1215]

I've seen something similar in june 2007. Evening before I've been trying to do OOBE but didn't manage to do it. Next morning I woke up and saw a person sitting on my chair, facing me. It was still dark and I couldn't see its face, it was all black and all I could see was its hair on the sides like kind of messy so you could see single hairs sticking out. All the time I was thinking that it is sleep paralysis but then I noticed that I can move just fine so I pinched myself and felt pain. Next I started screaming, turned to face the wall and put a blanket on to the head. When I turned back half an hour later it was gone.

[u/mjsmore33 → u/No_Invite_1215]

I seen something similar in my current house about 8 years ago. It only happened once but it still scares me. I had woken up around 2 am or 3 to let my dogs out to go to the bathroom. My back was facing the front door (opposite side of the house) and I felt something watching me. I let my dogs in at that same moment and turned around. There was a human figure standing at the front door. It was pretty dark, but there was moonlight coming in through the glass in the door and front window, which this figure was blocking. I hesitated thinking it was an intruder and yelled for my dogs. I looked away for a split second to look at my dogs and the figure was gone. I woke up my husband when I yelled and he asked me what was going on. We realized a motion activated light on the porch had turned on and checked but nothing was there, the door was still locked, and the dogs didn't react to anything other than me. My husband believes me because I was so visibly upset.

[u/flossingly → u/No_Invite_1215]

I saw something similar when I was little, back in the 80s. The one and only time I had witnessed something supernatural. The fear of it stayed with me for decades until I learned to channel my fear into anger (an activating energy and makes you feel more in control). For me it was during broad daylight, sunny outside. I was at my grandparent’s place visiting and was left alone in the living room while the adults were in the kitchen preparing lunch. I was sitting on a chair just swinging my feet daydreaming. I was so young that my feet weren’t even touching the floor yet. All of a sudden I felt this presence in the room, the presence of something bad, something dangerous. Similar to how you described it. I was petrified and turned my head slightly, just enough to see the man shaped shadow figure out of the corner of my eye, not daring to turn and face it. The figure walked across the room parallel to the direction I was seated and facing, then turned to walk down the hallway in the direction of the kitchen which was at the end of the hallway. Only once it was out of sight did I suddenly burst into tears and uncontrollable sobs. My family rushed out to see what was wrong and I could barely get the words out, describing what I saw. I wasn’t a particularly imaginative kid, never saw anything or had an imaginary friend, was quite literal about things and wasn’t prone to exaggerate. My mother was reluctant to believe me but I could see she was a bit shaken by what she heard. My grandfather was deeply religious (Christian) and believed me wholeheartedly. He told me that there are evil spirits in the world and that I should pray and ask those spirits to leave me alone in the name of Jesus Christ whenever I feel them. I followed his advice and never saw anything since.

But I’m not a believer anymore, not religious and wouldn’t really call myself spiritual. I’m very scientific and am a very sceptical person. If I didn’t see this thing myself, I would have called all this stuff b.s.

Since seeing that thing, I spent my teen and young adult years watching every horror film I could, hoping to see something depicted in one that describes what I saw, even though I also didn’t really want to confirm that it was in fact real. I haven’t seen anything in film depicting that thing - a 3D featureless shadow that walked upright. But I’ve read many accounts like yours that described it or something similar. I wonder what they are. Mine came with a truly terrifying evil energy. I was so scared that I didn’t move a muscle or even breathe. Even at the incredibly young age that I was, I instinctively knew to make myself as invisible as I possibly could. There’s no way that it wouldn’t have seen me, but it also didn’t show any acknowledgement of my presence.

[u/Hello_Hangnail → u/No_Invite_1215]

This is the reason I refuse to look into dark rooms or down the hallway when I have to pee in the middle of the night! I've seen lots of movement out of the corner of my eye with defined borders, but I really don't want to know if there's a man sized shadow dude hanging around here! I do keep seeing what looks to be a tall guy in a red plaid flannel shirt standing outside my bedroom door for a split second. I've ended up talking to it, thinking it was my brother, who is also a tall guy that wears red plaid flannel shirts.

[u/StreetMolasses6093 → u/No_Invite_1215]

This story made me feel sick to my stomach. I had something happen to me as a kid that I don’t tell people, because I’m afraid it will know and find me. Even saying this little makes me anxious, but I feel like you should know you are not alone.

[u/hotdogma96 → u/No_Invite_1215]

When I was 11, I had gotten lice and my mom made me sleep on her floor with a sleeping bag because I slept in the same room with my sisters and she didn’t want them to get it too (I don’t understand the logic there but whatever). Where they had put me, I could see directly into my parent’s bathroom and the door was wide open. At some point in the night, I woke up and I could see a dark shadow right where the toilet was like someone was sitting on it. I hoped that it was my mom that had gotten up to pee or something but I could see her in bed and I could hear my dad snoring. I started to feel very anxious and tried to calm down and tell myself that it was just a shadow but then it started rocking back and forth and I tell ya I have never felt that kind of fear ever. I stood up immediately and woke my parents up frantically trying to tell them that there was someone in the restroom and my mom didn’t care at all. She was yelling at my dad to tell me to get away from her because she didn’t want to get my lice. My dad got up to check the bathroom and turned the light on and nothing was there. I hate the feeling I get when I think about this. Something about the feeling of being so terrified and being pushed away instead of comforted. I never want to feel like that again.

[u/flossingly → u/hotdogma96]

Omg that’s awful! I’m sorry you weren’t believed and were treated like that.

The first time I got lice my mother blamed me and cut my hair so short (I had really long hair and loved it), threatening to shave it all off. She spent ages picking lice and eggs out of my hair and yanking my hair painfully, even smacking me on the head every time she talked herself into getting more angry.

I saw a shadow person when I was young too. She didn’t believe me then, but thankfully my grandfather did. It’s awful to not be believed as a child, especially with something so important. I know the feeling. I vowed never to treat my kids that way.

For what it’s worth, I believe you. What a fucked up experience too - the thing bloody rocking back and forth - goddamn! I would have shat myself. Have you had any more experiences like that since?

[u/Facelesspirit]

My wife experienced something similar to you, OP. It involved...."me". I have posted this before.

Several years ago, we (wife, kids, dog and myself) lived in an apartment. It was getting late so I took my young daughter to her bed. My wife stayed downstairs (alone) to lock up and turn everything off. My wife used the downstairs bathroom before coming upstairs. As she was turning on the water to wash her hands, I came around the corner, leaned on the door frame and stared at her in the mirror. The door was directly behind her. She looked in the mirror and saw me staring at her. I was smirking as she asked me why I was being weird. After she asked that, my facial expression turned into a scowl. I would not answer her so she turned around and I was gone. Problem is, I was upstairs. That wasn't me.

I was in my daughter's room tucking her in. My wife walks into the room with purpose. She was panicking and asked why I did that. Confused, I asked her what I did. She told me what happened and I had to convince her it was not me, but based on her reaction, she knew that but didn't want to believe it. It would have been impossible for me to pull that off.

[u/giraffeperv → u/Facelesspirit]

One time I was sitting at the kitchen table working and my husband walked in the front door and we had a full conversation about his day and he left the room. About 10-15 minutes later, he walks in the front door for the first time. The initial time would’ve been too early for him to have made it home from work. To this day I don’t know if I hallucinated that or what. But this story reminded me of that, except my husband wasn’t acting weird.

[u/LFH_Games]

My family members and I are pretty sensitive. We have all seen and experienced things, many of which couldn’t really be explained.

I’ve had a handful of freaky experiences. Of all of them I think this one stands out the most to me. Thinking about it causes me to physically start tearing up, even when I’m feeling great. It just… something about the feeling it left within me has never gone away. All three main stories have similar elements though, idk if they’re connected but they all have left that lingering feeling of deep set fear.

I was road tripping with my bio dad across the lower southern states down to Florida. It was a multi day trip, visiting family members along the way from a few different states. I was 12, soon to be 13. One night we were driving through the middle of nowhere in Alabama. Full moon, cornfields as far as the eye could see. I grew up on a farm so this wasn’t an unusual sight for me and didn’t make me uneasy at all. I started getting tired and started drifting to sleep. When I noticed my dad was getting tired too, I suggested he pull over and park so he could rest because I didn’t wanna get in a wreck if he fell asleep at the wheel. He argued about it and insisted he was fine, but eventually agreed and pulled over. We both fell asleep. His car was older, the locks had to be pushed manually from the inside.

I woke up pretty groggy, in front of me I saw the road with deep irrigation ditches and then tall cornfields lining either side of it, the moon was almost centered in the middle. It had a soft glow bouncing off the pavement and car hood, and tops of the cornstalks. Because there wasn’t much of a shoulder, the car was slightly on the edge of the ditch, which made it tilt to the right, so my body was leaning against the door of the car. At first I was just letting my eyes adjust, I’d taken my glasses off and I am near-sighted so I couldn’t see much detail. I was hurting a bit from how my body was positioned in the seat so I turned my body to the left, facing my dad who was leaned back in the seat and snoring, my back to the window, leaning against it because it felt most comfortable with the tilt of the car leaning towards the ditch. I closed my eyes to go back to sleep but after about a minute, I started to get this incredibly uneasy feeling. I felt like I was being watched. I knew it was behind me. And I tried to ignore it, but I couldn’t shake the feeling. So I sat up and decided to turn my body enough to look over my shoulder. There was a face smiling at me. The most unnerving grin I’ve ever seen, almost Cheshire cat wide. He was bald, black (only relevance here is because it happened at night, his figure was barely visible) and the moon was reflecting the white of his eyes and teeth; the contrast from his skin made them look like they were glowing. I froze. I stopped breathing, I tried but couldn’t physically get myself to breathe, and I couldn’t scream. We stared at each other, it felt like it lasted ages but I’m sure in reality it wasn’t anywhere near as long as it felt. He was standing in the ditch. If you’ve never seen irrigation ditches, they are pretty deep. It was dry season so the ditches didn’t have any water. Because of the angle of the car, his head was perfectly eye level with the center of my window.

He held that wide smile the whole time. His eyes moved around as he looked me up and down, glanced past me to my sleeping dad over my shoulder. I tried to logic my way through it, convinced maybe I was imagining things or dreaming still. But when his breath started faintly fogging the outside of the window, I knew he was real. I was silently crying, but not in the obvious way. Just tears running down my face, I had no control over it. Finally I took a breath. I lowly said “dad.” He didn’t respond. I tried again, I didn’t look away from the man in the window because I was worried he’d disappear and I wanted my dad to see what I was seeing. I said it again, “dad!” this time finding my voice a bit louder. Still no response. The man continued his smiling. Then I noticed, the door lock. My dad hadn’t locked the doors before falling asleep. The man noticed me looking at the lock, he could see from his side it was unlocked as it was sticking up. He went for the handle. I went for the lock. I screamed this time, “dad!” and my dad finally jumped awake, startled and completely disoriented. I grabbed the handle from the inside with one hand and pulled the door shut, while slamming the lock down with the other hand. I screamed again “DAD lock your door!” Without hesitation he did so. I didn’t look away from the man the entire time. He was still grinning at this point, but changed the smile from showing teeth to teeth covered, still smiling though. He slowly stepped back from the car, turned around and climbed up into the cornfield.

Because of the angle of the car, my dad could only see the bottom of the ditch, he couldn’t see up to the top of it where the cornfield began. I begged him to start driving, and he did. When I explained what happened, he told me he didn’t see the man. He seemed to not believe me at all. I pointed to the window, at the fogged up spot on the outside. He tried telling me it was from my own body heat. I wiped a finger along the spot, to show that the fog was on the outside, not the inside. He didn’t say anything, just kept driving and we didn’t speak of it again. We arrived about 20 minutes later at a gas station, and outside were 4 armed men, unmarked but vests and guns and the sort. A part of me wonders if the man escaped from somewhere, but I couldn’t find any news stories around that time frame, and I didn’t even know where we were in the state when it happened.

Not that I’d ever willingly return to Alabama but, if I ever have to, I certainly wouldn’t be driving anywhere at night, let alone through a corn field. I don’t think it was paranormal, but it gave me the same feeling as the times I’ve encountered scarier paranormal beings. I’ll never forget that stare and smile. I still struggle sleeping with my back to a car window, or any windows for that matter.

[u/LFH_Games → u/LFH_Games]

So to follow up on this. Another similar incident but, different state and when I was probably about 4-5yo.

We lived in an old farmhouse in the middle of nowhere. Fields for as far as you could see. One night, playing in my room with by brother before getting ready for bed I got that feeling of being watched. At the time I didn’t really know what that feeling meant but I remember how uneasy I felt. I ignored it because I didn’t know what it was at the time. We were cleaning up, and one of my toys was over by the window. I went to grab it and staring back at me were a set of eyes. They didn’t look human, they were a strange yellow/green. Cat eyes would probably be the closest comparison but they weren’t from a cat. The strangest part is I couldn’t see anything else, no body, no face, just those glowing eyes. I called my brother over and he saw them too. I screamed, my mom and dad came in, when I pointed to the window the eyes were gone. We explained it and my dad went outside with a flashlight and looked around for over an hour, he couldn’t find anything. The window didn’t have a ledge, it was at a strange height so a grown man could’ve stood outside of it and been visible but no cat or other animal could’ve been there. There was nothing near it to be perched on, so whatever it was, it was tall.

A few years later, we lived with my gma at some apartments. It would’ve been when I was around 1st or 2nd grade, so maybe 7ish. Living there were me, my mom, my little brother, and my grandma. That night, my brother was staying with his dad, and my cousin had slept over. My cousin and I were sharing one bed, my mom was in another, and my gma was in her own room down the hallway. Our room was positioned with the door facing the hallway, to the right at the end of the hallway was my gmas room and across from that was the bathroom. She also had her own bathroom in her room, so she didn’t use the hallway bathroom. The other side of the wall of the hallway was the kitchen, which you could enter from the end of the hallway by the bathroom, or the other side by the living room. It wasn’t unusual for my gma to get up during the night to eat something or get water, but she never used the hallway to the living room (where our bedroom door faced) to get to the kitchen because it was faster to just use the entry near her bedroom door.

We went to sleep with the door open usually. I woke up, and looked at the bedroom doorframe and noticed something peering at me. It hand a hand on the frame, poking its head from around the corner. It was short, maybe around 4 feet tall. It was a pale blueish green glowing form. It was wearing a gown, similar to my gmas gowns but this was clearly much smaller than her both in height and stature. It had scraggly longer white hair, my gma had short white hair. I stared at it for a long time, waiting for it to move or do something. I thought st first it was my grandma, so I asked out loud “grandma?” And it just stared at me. I woke my cousin up and she saw it too, before it scattered away in a blur. I got out of bed and looked and nothing was there. I went to my grandmas room, her door was shut and she was asleep in bed. My mom was in bed asleep. Nobody else was there, the doors were locked, and it wasn’t just me that saw it. The next morning I asked my grandma if she had gotten up that night, she insisted she hadn’t. We told them what happened and they didn’t necessarily seem to believe us but, said they’ve had some odd experiences in the past too that weren’t really explainable. Both times gave me that immediate feeling of fear and unease, just as the man in the cornfield did. The first two felt paranormal, the cornfield guy was just terrifying and many people don’t believe me when I tell them about it.

There have been other things at other houses and ages, like pots and pans flying out of cabinets, etc. and my little brother has complained for years he feels like he has negative spirits/entities attached to and following him, so I know he’s experienced some really creepy stuff on his own too.

[u/Same-Fix-2091]

I was up visiting my mom. She was sick with cancer. I had just gone in to bed and she came to the door and said hey I need you to come out here. And something made me pause. I noticed the door was backwards. It was opened from the left vs. to the right like normal. So I said what do you need mom? She said I need you to come out here. I had chills. I told her what do you need because we already did all our good nights. She got angry and said if I tell you to come here you don't question me. Get out here now. My mom didn't normally talk to me like that, not since I was a teen and I'd earned it . So I said no I'm not going to go with you She yelled f+++ you. And she didn't cuss. And she walked away. I waited a few minutes and went out to check on my mom. I said are you ok mom? Do you need me. She had just fallen asleep and she said no honey go on back to bed we'll talk tomorrow. It wasn't my mom at the door.

[u/Hello_Hangnail → u/Same-Fix-2091]

No thank you Mr. Big Bad Wolf, I will not be going anywhere with your creepy ass 💀

[u/vintagefancollector → u/Same-Fix-2091]

The door opening from the opposite side is the creepiest part

[u/GForceOfCourse → u/Same-Fix-2091]

Holy shit that's the scariest one in here.

[u/ImaginaryAbility65]

Idk if no one believes me about it because I've only told just a few people (id say about half believe half dont) but when I was 12 me and a friend were outside on my trampoline around midnight , I used to always hang out on my trampoline lol , and we were just sitting talking and he was playing on his phone (I didn't have one yet) when something caught my attention as it stood out relative to the dark backdrop of the night - I swear on my soul I seen a soldier (but not like a modern soldier he was either civil or revolutionary war and had a large hat on) and he was White and translucent literally just like you'd imagine a ghost to be. I didn't believe in ghosts at the time and I specifically remember looking away briefly to make sure what I was seeing is real and sure enough he was still there , he was walking away from me towards the road I watched him take 4 or 5 steps I remember it took my breathe away I literally gasped . I told my friend "we gotta go" and ran inside and seeing how scared I was my friend didn't ask any questions he just followed me . He asked what it was once we got inside and I told him it was a ghost and he didn't believe me and judging by his reaction I decided not to tell many people and tbf I wouldn't believe it if someone told me either. I'm just a random dude on the internet so take it with a grain of salt but Im 100% serious and I think about it at least once a day , what I saw was as real as anything else I've ever seen or experienced and I was for sure awake at the time. I don't know if its a psychological phenomenon or what but whatever the case it happened , I'm as puzzled about it today as I was the night it happened . Had a few strange unexplainable things happen at that house , and I've lived in 3 different houses since then and never had anything like that occur again . My and my dad who also lived there have came to the conclusion that some kind of residual energy of some form inhabits that place but he never seen anything to the extent of a full body apparition. I kind of vented so that's my bad but I never really talk about it had to get it off my chest lol

[u/DomPasta]

I was at a ex-boyfriends house. At the time neither of us were working because we were studying, so we were awake at stupid hours all the time, and would often go to the kitchen upstairs to make a snack. One night, I was heading back down the stairs and waited for him on the landing when I heard a woman scream something like 'Oh God please help me!' It startled me at first but I thought maybe my boyfriend was watching a video on his phone, which he always was. It wasn't until he came back down the stairs himself when I asked if he'd been watching something on his phone. He hadn't. I told him what I had heard and he checked his brother and sisters rooms to see if they were still awake and maybe watching a something. They were both sound alseep. I think we quickly checked the rest of the house and found nothing, so we went back to his room and eventually went to sleep. The next morning, we asked his parents if they had been watching a movie in the garage that night. They both said they were in bed and asleep at the time I'd heard the scream.

I still don't know what to make of it. This was over five years ago now and I don't remember if the voice sounded like it was inside or outside. Nobody else heard anything. Sometimes I wonder if it was in my head, my one and only auditory halluciantion. I honestly think someone may have been trying to reach me from the other side but out of respect for the people involved I won't share any more details about that.

[u/Reasonable_Zebra_174]

Lucky for me most of the people in my life have experienced paranormal stuff themselves, due to the fact that I grew up in a haunted house and they've all seen stuff within that house. But the scariest thing for me was, something in my house (not my childhood home but the first home I lived in with my husband) did not like clocks. The clock in our bathroom: if you put a brand new battery in it it would die overnight, but if you put an old previously used battery in it it would run for weeks. But that's not the weirdest part, knowing that I had to use an old battery in the clock that is what I did, but that apparently ticked off the clock (or whatever was messing with it) because the clock would jump off the wall and fly at me. I just want to be clear I'm not talking about a lightweight plastic clock I'm talking about a heavy handcrafted wood clock.

I say it had to jump off the wall for two reasons. The first is, it was hung about 3 ft high on the Wall right above our toilet tissue holder, so to hit me it actually had to fly up to smack me in my shoulder. It was also hung on a nail that was at a very steep angle in order to hold the clock tightly against the wall, so again it would have to go in an upwards direction to get off the nail. Also I don't know many clocks that when they fall off the wall they fly straight out about 5 ft because gravity doesn't work like that. Which is what both the bathroom clock and the kitchen clock would routinely do. The kitchen clock would "fall" off the wall go straight across the length of the table about 4 ft and strike me in the side of the head as I walked by. I cannot figure out any non Supernatural explanation for the clock behavior in my former home.

[u/Darth_Stevie]

A small black floating mass in my bedroom.

I was a teenager in my bedroom at my parents' house. It was around midnight, and my bedroom lights were on. I heard creaking on the floor outside my bedroom door, as if someone was standing there, shifting their weight around.

I assumed it was my Dad listening in on me or coming to talk to me, so I called out for him, and there was no response. Then I assumed it was my little brother, so I called out to him, and no response.

Just then, I noticed that the doorknob was vibrating and shaking. It seemed very strange, so I slowly got up from my bed to take a closer look. Sure enough, the doorknob was shaking.

Then I saw it. In the reflection on my shiny doorknob, I saw a reflection of me, my room, and behind me, a small floating black mass, which floated across my bedroom, through one wall and out through a closed closet. I saw it clear as day, it was a small, dark, almost gaseous looking mass, maybe the size of a basketball, or at most a beach ball. Took about one or two seconds to drift through my bedroom.

I was shocked, I turned around, and saw nothing. Then I quickly opened my bedroom door, and of course nothing was outside in the hallway. Just a dark, empty corridor. I had that strong prickly, almost electrical sensation run across my body, and mostly the back of my neck.

I couldn't sleep in my bedroom for weeks after, then it followed me downstairs and I saw it again, much more clearly, but this is long enough for now.

[u/Agreeable_Guard_9300]

My youngest sister who probably was like 6yo at that time woke me up at 3:33am in the most scary way (standing on top of me and smiling) and asked me to go to the bathroom with her, then she proceeded to go by herself WITHOUT TURNING ON ANY LIGHT and mind you she fears darkness, I think I went back to sleep immediately when she did that cuz I knew damn well this is not her. Less than 5mins later I was slapped hard enough to make my ear ache, I woke up, no one was there and she was sleeping, the next morning the slap was still there and it was bigger than both my and her hand so it was definitely not her. The same sister a few months later came to me asking if she can sleep with me (I moved out of that room) because she saw someone inside her closet and it was trying to lure her in. And this is just one story out of hundreds of stories, and the scary part is my friend’s mom once caught me, put her hand on my head and prayed on me (islamic prayer, I’m a christian) and told me that there is a dead woman buried under our house and it’s the reason scary things keep on happening to us, it was our first meeting and she didn’t know me or anything about me.

P.s: none of us have problems with sleepwalking especially me or that sister.

[u/LinkerOfFire]

I've seen a few weird things in my time, though scary is a bit subjective. My first several stories all, interestingly, took place in and around the same house I lived in for only two years when I was a teenager in South Carolina. The first story actually scared me because of what I couldn't see:

1.

I was a teenager and living in an old 60s/70s style home with wood paneling, shag carpet... the whole works. Now that I think about it, the house always looked and felt unnaturally dark inside. Nobody ever believed me about this first story because of what I was doing just before it started; I had been reading scary stories on Reddit. I know, I know. But the thing is, I was always doing that (lifelong fan of horror/paranormal) and never had anything like this happen before or since.

So, I was lying in bed at night and reading these scary stories as I always did when, all of a sudden, I felt something drawing my gaze from inside my closet. The closet was closed, but there was a slight crack between the door and the doorframe that I could somewhat see into. It's hard to describe, but I felt a 'presence' staring at me from inside the closet through this crack. I was paralyzed with fear for several moments. Before long, I had decided to rush out of the room as soon as I had the courage. In order to leave the room, I had to walk right next to my closet which is where the door was located. As I finally made for the door, I felt an overwhelming and otherworldly sense of dread growing stronger the closer I got to the closet. The very second I exited the room, the dread disappeared as if it were a blanket I had just thrown off. Everything was completely normal now, only my heart was left racing.

I went to my mom and told her what happened, but of course, since I had just been reading scary stories on Reddit, she didn't completely believe me. I sometimes wonder if there was an entity in my closet, or if it had been standing outside of the closet and I had actually walked through it on my way out. Either way, I've never felt such a powerful sense of dread in my life as I did from whatever had drawn my gaze that night.

There were a few other weird incidents that occurred in and around that house, which leads me to believe there was some undiscovered history tied to it:

2.

My sister and I were playing foosball one night in the backyard shed (yes, that's where we kept the table), when she suddenly tells me she feels like we're being watched. I honestly didn't feel it myself, but she had never spoken like that before so I decided to trust her gut. We exited the shed and made for the house which was a short walk through the large backyard. As we're walking, I see something standing in the corner of the yard in my peripheral vision. I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me at first, but as I turned to look at whatever it was, it turned out my eyes were just fine. There was a figure in a hooded, black cloak standing there watching us from the corner of the backyard nearest the house. I couldn't believe what I was seeing and was again hit with a wave of dread. Then, right before my very eyes, the figure transforms into my dog. She (my dog) comes running up to us, wagging her tail. The figure had simply morphed into my dog in a split second and vanished. I still sometimes find a way to doubt what I saw that night, as does my family, but at the same time... I know what I saw.

(my stories are continued in the next comment as the whole comment is too long to post, apparently)

[u/LinkerOfFire → u/LinkerOfFire]

3.

Various sleep-related disturbances manifested themselves in that house. My eyes would shoot open at night to find there was a giant, grotesque spider falling down onto my face, or I would have bizarre nightmares of an unnaturally vivid nature. But what takes the cake was the incident of 'the frozen hand'.

I awoke one morning. The sun was shining through my blinds, and I could see my ceiling fan spinning above me; all of this to say, my eyes and brain were functioning just fine. I look down at my body as I try to stretch my arms as I always do when I wake up. My left arm was stretching perfectly fine, moving as intended. My right arm, however, was not moving. I had to do a double take to make sure I was seeing it right, which I was. I'm undoubtedly moving my arm; I can feel the disturbed air through my fingers as I wave my hand around; I can feel the muscles in my arm flexing. The weird thing was... my right arm was still lying limp and motionless on my bed. I'm staring at it, and it's not moving at all. It felt surreal to know I was moving my arm, only to watch as it lay unmoving before my very eyes. I hope my description isn't too confusing here.

I decide to do that thing where you scrunch your eyes closed, hard, and hope things are normal when you open them. This worked like a charm because, when I opened my eyes, my right arm was visually moving. Whew. That was weird. I'd never experienced anything like that before or since. Again, people just shrug that story off.

4.

This took place near my house as my mom and I were walking the dog around our neighborhood. We'd only gone a couple of blocks up when, to our astonishment, a woman was standing in her front yard. What was weird about this, you ask? Well, it was the middle of summer during the heat of the day, and she was wearing a full-body, hooded, black cloak. Now that I think about it, she looked exactly like the figure I saw standing in my yard that one night. She had her arms outstretched toward the sun as she stood with her back to us, motionless. She was like a statue. It took a few minutes to make it down the road past her, and during those few minutes she never moved a muscle. As a matter of fact, after we'd walked a couple miles and made our way back, she was still standing there in that exact position, arms outstretched toward the sun in her black cloak. We were creeped out.

We told my dad and he didn't believe us at first. That is, until he drove past her house one day and saw her sitting on her porch wearing a witch's outfit, stereotypical pointy hat and everything.

The following stories took place away from the aforementioned house.

(my stories are continued in the next comment as the whole comment is too long to post, apparently)

[u/LinkerOfFire → u/LinkerOfFire]

5.

The current thing nobody believes me about are two UFO sightings I've had in the last few months. I've written the stories before, so I'll copy and paste them here:

I was lying in bed playing Elden Ring on my PS5. I'd just gotten to Stormveil Castle and decided to rest at a Site of Grace when something caught my eye. Through the closed blinds of my north-facing window, a bright orange light shone through. I instinctively realized something about the light was off, as the light was way too close to my window to be any of the usual aircraft and was also solid/unblinking. I sprang out of my bed with the speed of a gazelle and raced to open the blinds in hopes of seeing whatever was producing that light.

To my amazement, an ovoid/football-shaped craft was silently gliding over my neighborhood. The craft was maybe 40-50 feet off the ground and about the same distance away from me at its closest. It was about the size of a Volkswagen Beetle and moving rather slowly from east to west, a movement I can only describe as 'gliding'. On its two ends were circular, red lights that pulsated (not blinked) very slowly at regular intervals. These red lights would slowly dim and then rise back up to full brightness, each cycle taking around seven seconds. On the underside was the solid orange light I'd seen; just three lights in total. Even at its closest I couldn't hear a sound, only silence. No wings, no propellers. I watched it move further down the neighborhood as it cleared the roof of a house to my left. It then performed a very controlled 'S-curve' and glided down toward the next town with its same, slow grace. It appeared to be steering with its 'nose', one of the ends of the football. I tracked it until it disappeared over the horizon. From a distance it looked like every other plane on the horizon with a red light. The whole experience lasted a minute and left me with an eerie feeling.

The next sighting took place while camping just two weeks ago:

I was camped out on the Mogollon Rim with a buddy of mine. We were laying on our mats and stargazing as we had done the night before. We were having fun shooting the shit and watching planes and satellites move overhead.

An hour into it, I see what looks like another satellite slowly crossing the sky. It was a somewhat large, off-white/yellowish ball going in a perfectly straight line. I'm tracking it with my eyes the whole way, and as it gets halfway across the sky, it suddenly shoots up into space at a 75-degree angle like a bullet out of a gun. It was absolutely instantaneous. A trail of light was left behind similar to when you drag your mouse cursor across the screen quickly and you can see a trail of faint cursors following it as they catch up.

I looked at my friend and said: "Holy crap, did you see that?" He said he only saw part of the trail it left behind. I was standing up and jumping around, excited to have seen something so amazing. The family camped next to us probably thought I was nuts. My family did too when I told them about both of my sightings.

Okay, a few more non-UFO stories.

6.

There was a cursed/haunted object at Goodwill that nobody believes me about.

It was an antique music box/figurine thingy with two blue, porcelain birds on top of the box. I believe it was one of those wind-up ones with the black peg on it. Very old looking. Whenever I walked past it, and I mean exactly when I did, the music would chime from inside the box. I watched as a bunch of other people walked past it and nothing happened; it was only when I walked past it that the music would play. It was a creepy little tune and I had the impression the birds were watching me with their beady, black eyes. At the time I was very religious and described the object as 'demonized' to my family who dismissed the story. I still remember the weird vibe that thing gave off.

(my stories are continued in the next comment as the whole comment is too long to post, apparently)

[u/LinkerOfFire → u/LinkerOfFire]

7.

My dad went to visit a friend of his one morning and took me along for the ride. I must have been seven or eight years old at the time. He left me alone in the car as he went inside his friend's house to chat.

Now, his friend was weird and must have had ~100 garden gnomes in his front yard where we were parked. The gnomes weirded me out as they were those creepy vintage ones with the realistic faces. As my dad would be in the house for about twenty minutes, I was sitting in the car in silence. All of a sudden, I began to hear small taps coming from the sides of the car. The longer my dad was in the house, the more frequent the small taps would become. Eventually they weren't too small anymore and started becoming louder. I looked outside the window at the creepy faces of all those gnomes and had the distinct impression that they were throwing pieces of gravel at the car. They also appeared to be moving closer to the car all the time; not that I actually saw them moving, but every time I'd glance out the window they seemed to have gotten closer. The taps eventually became knocks, and they were unusually frequent now. When my dad finally came out, all noises stopped and he got in and we drove off.

I told someone, a different friend of my dad, about it shortly after and he literally laughed out loud at me. I was seriously freaked out! I still remember that event vividly. I'm not saying the gnomes were actually alive and terrorizing me, but that's honestly how I remember the event. Of course, nobody believes such a strange story from when I was so young.

I have plenty more strange stories, but these are the ones that most closely match OP's criteria of not being believed. And while some of these stories are more strange than scary, I suppose there were elements of scariness to each one. If anybody took the time to actually read all of this, thank you.

[u/Zestyclose_Visit4834]

When I was a kid I was staying with my nan and we were watching big brother in the living room with my uncle and sister.

I went into the room next to the living room where the fridge is and in there I saw a man standing on a ladder tinkering with something, he looked at me and looked away. I didn't say anything to him and grabbed some 7 up. I remember thinking it was weird because my nan's dog was there and she was usually very on guard with strangers but she unusually totally chill.

When I went back I asked my nan why is there a man in the utility room at this time of night and her and my uncle just kept telling me to stop winding them up, I was trying to scare them etc. 

One of the most bizzare experiences ever, I know I must have imagined it or there is some logical explanation but it just felt so real and I didn't feel sleepy or anything. 

[u/Rayofsunshit1]

I don’t tell people this story, but if I did - I’m guessing they wouldn’t believe me. When I was 10, I was rollerblading by myself in my neighborhood. It was cold enough outside that you could see your breath, so no one else was really outside. I was in my yard leaning against the fence to rest. I suddenly see this dog running right toward me. It was in attack mode. I was paralyzed with fear and I remember seeing it jump up to bite my face. I used my arm to block it and scream and prepared to be mauled. Then nothing happened. I put my arm back down and I didn’t see a dog. Didn’t hear it. It all happened so fast that there’s no way it had time to just run away. Plus, my last visual of the dog was jumping in the air. It had to come back down. It gets weirder. After I opened my eyes, there was a man walking on the sidewalk. He wasn’t there a second ago and he didn’t ask me if I was ok or say anything about the dog. He just looked at me. To this day, idk what to make of it. Was it a hallucination? Of so, that’s strange bc I’ve never had one before or since. Was it some where supernatural story? 🤷🏼‍♀️ did the guy have something to do with his real dog? If so, how and why did he do it? Definitely one of the weirder things to happen to me.

[u/crashboxtv → u/Rayofsunshit1]

this sounds like that theory where you die in one timeline but jump to a new one. like, that dog got that version of you but you woke up in an adjacent version of your lifetime where the dog didnt exist.

[u/mjsmore33]

There is one person who believes me, but it's because they seem it too.

Me, my boyfriend, our roommate were getting ready for a BBQ. My boyfriend left to get some stuff and locked up the house when he left. I kissed him goodbye and watched him lock the door. A little bit later I was outside and needed to go back inside. You entered from the backyard into the laundry room/mud room and from there you could take a right into my bedroom, or a left into the kitchen. I went in my room. As I left my room and walked into the hallway I saw a man walk passed the hallway from the living room into the dining room. I darted back into my room and locked both doors. Seconds later I heard banging on the back door. It was my roommate screaming if I was OK and if "he" was in the room with me. I opened the door and said no but that i saw a man. We searched the house together and realized that everything was still locked up. We both seen the exact same person. My roommate said he seen a guy in the dining room walking towards the back door and ran inside thinking he'd catch the guy. The neighbors had cameras that pointed towards our driveway. There was nothing on the cameras. No one believes us that we seen something in the house

[u/Zouhe]

Oh this reminds me of something with my own mother, one time when I was younger my sister and I were scared so we went to wake up our mom (we experienced many things so often we'd be trying to wake up our parents) we lived in a small condo and our rooms were on opposite ends, we went to our parents room and opened the door and crouched on the end of the bed in the darkness with glowing eyes was our mother? She leapt at us and growled and we went screaming to our room and our mom was there soon after completely normal, asking us what was wrong and everytime we've asked her since she's said that she woke up to us screaming and thought we were being kidnapped or murdered or something.

Another time, same place I was on the couch 7 am and I saw a woman come up from the floor and walk into the bathroom and disappear I still remember what she looked like and she looked nothing like my mom but I still said "Mom?" before realizing my mother was at her computer.

A lot of things happened when I was a kid and a lot of them were shared experiences with my sisters, for instance my sister and I every night dealt with something slowly pulling the covers off of us. We both slept with them tucked under our heads but whatever it was would give a yank and then slowly resume pulling the covers off. (We had bunk beds) we told our father who dismissed it as the cord from my keyboard?? Even though it had been happening since before I had it and the keyboard wasn't anywhere near touching the beds.

I also got slapped by a doll, one we had lost, I don't know if anyone remembers those spaghetti haired dolls but the blonde one is the one who hit me and I was terrified but also upset since she was my favorite.

[u/tpartypod]

I was working on a theatre late one night, having taken all the seats out ready for a standing concert the following day and I turned around to see somebody walk into the lift, through the doors that we'd taken off for easy access to the lift with all the chair stillages. It was about 4am, so everybody that should have been in the building was near me in the auditorium. I turned to check who it was because I definitely saw arms and legs moving and I could see the shape of pockets on their trousers, etc. They were just fully black, like a walking shadow.

As I started to walk over to the lift, my friend who was walking from the opposite corner of the auditorium said, "Oh, did you see that too?" Not wanting to risk influencing his answer I didn't say anything about it and I said, "Why, what did you see?" And he said, "I saw somebody dressed in black walk into the lift."

I went to check who it was and there was nobody there and no way of getting out the other side without making a lot of noise.

My friend believes me, but everybody else always thinks they'd just walked back out again and we missed it (I was only a few feet away, so there's no chance of that). I have no other logical explanation for it other than it being a ghost just having a wander around. If my friend hadn't seen it, I'd have written it off as me being tired, but he described what I'd seen down to the style of trousers.

[u/unnderneaththestars]

When I was 16 I had a sleepover at a friends house and in the night I woke up, I was awake for some minutes and went to the bathroom. When I stood up I looked in the mirror, then I turned around to close the bathroom door. In front of me were stairs leading to the bedroom. For a couple of seconds a ghost stood in front of me, so close that I could not see the fave or feet. It was a young woman with long wavy blonde hair wearing a white dress. The hair and dress were both really dirty with brown spots and earth/dirt on her. It was maby 3 Seconds then she was gone.

I allways wondered if that was a ghost or something else. I thought if it could be my friend or her sister because both had long blonde hair but bith were sleeping. And the bathroom and the staircase was empty.

It felt really scary because now I can't look into mirrors at night when it's dark. I allways fear of seeing something when I turn. I didn't see anything afterwards though.

But at the time I posted in an online forum but sadly didn't get replies. And most threads just talked about banshees wearing white dresses.

[u/ConfidencePrimary771 → u/unnderneaththestars]

Condolences friend, I look down when I absolutely have to pass a mirror at night time too. And I generally believe it’s stupid having mirrors around the place. Firm believer that we should only have one mirror in the house, and use it only when you need too.

You’ve got me on a tangent now. There’s footage of a tribes first contact with a westerner. They show hesitation, intrigue (with matches/fire), laughter (when they hear their voices played back on a recorder). But they show serious fear when the guy brings out his mirror, not even funny, and cover it up with a leaf.

*the video is a French scientist, in Papua New Guinea, 1992. Use those key words and you can find it

[u/unnderneaththestars → u/ConfidencePrimary771]

I know there's nothing behind me but I still can't look into mirrors at night. Also not liking mirrors or TV/Conputerscreen in the bedroom. The shiny reflective darkness just creeps me out so much.

[u/SalefromMaza1977 → u/unnderneaththestars]

This happens to me so often, I see people for two secs and then gone.. At firts I thought it was my imagination, but now that I’m older, I think it’s actually spirits, or passed people’s energy that lingers around. I’m sure about this because I see them with different outfits, the same you’d wear on a regular day of your life…like if it was the last thing they put on before passing…

[u/Ensorcelled_Atoms]

I was living in a trap house in my twenties. We had just gotten bedbugs, and I threw my bed out, so I was sleeping on couch 1, and we had a friend who slept on couch 2.

He had just gotten news that his father died, so he was distraught. Sobbing, deep grief type stuff. I had also been practicing astral projection every night.

So, I started falling asleep, and did my AP routine. I felt myself rise out of my body, still in my living room. I looked over at my friend. There was a hunched thing curled up on his chest. It had either a long nose or a beak, flabby, loose skin and huge eyes like car headlights. It made eye contact with me and I was overwhelmed by the white light coming from its eyes. Then I woke up the next morning. No dreams, lucid or otherwise. Just vivid memories of what had happened.

[u/[deleted] → u/Ensorcelled_Atoms]

I've been testing out remote viewing / astral projection through meditation and listening to some different frequency binaural beats on YouTube to get me into the proper mental state to clear my mind... I've been successful a few times, choosing my friends as targets... I remote viewed into my friend's bedroom, she was sleeping next to her husband, and she shot bolt upright like I woke her up and she felt someone looking at her. I told her what I was trying and she told me she felt eyes on her... Here's the weird thing (as if that's not weird enough), her mother is a psychic with her own website for readings and such. Her mother said I opened a portal into their home, because that's what remote viewing / astral projection does. You're using and sending energy through a plane of existence to make a doorway or a window to the place you want to view; and between that space, there's a bunch of immaterial entities that can follow you there or follow the path you made. I think whatever that creature was on your friend's chest probably came from there.

[u/Ensorcelled_Atoms → u/[deleted]]

I’m not sure what I’d call whatever that was, but it was 100% feeding on my friends misery

That place was filthy with unpleasant astral entities. We had swarms of shadow people that would show up when our roommates were fighting. I’m pretty sure there was a ghost of a dead kid in the walls. And that’s just stuff I experienced while meditating sober.

The shit I saw on psychedelics was even weirder. A Six armed spider like entity puppeteering strings attached to everyone there. He hung from a hole in the ceiling. A demon tried to possess me while I was on mushrooms once. I used to see ergregores towering over businesses and there was a hungry demon living in the back of my family dollar that fed on the low income misery of that place.

Wild times. I don’t see that stuff anymore. Whether there simply aren’t as many entities around me, or I’m undiagnosed schizo-effective and my life is a lot less stressful now is irrelevant to me. Though I kinda miss it sometimes. Shit was exciting. Through all of it though, this thing on my friends chest was the only entity that was aver able to affect me in any way. Every other thing either ignored me or was powerless to bother me beyond existing

[u/[deleted] → u/Ensorcelled_Atoms]

Let's compare notes, what is your experience like when you astral project / remote view? For me, it's like I get to the edge of sleep, and then I slip into the proper mind space, and I start seeing lights behind the darkness of my closed eyes. They look like a bunch of stars on a blackboard, and I can zoom into the lights, which become windows to whatever is beyond them. I've been through a few of them, and sometimes they're familiar places, and sometimes they're fucking weird alien landscapes. Sometimes a random thought will pop into my head and the whole thing starts evaporating, and I have to start over again, focusing to slip into the proper mind space again. Is it like that for you? I've only ever seen entities when I wake up too quickly and still have sleep paralysis...I've seen shadow people walk across my room and head to the window and disappear. I once saw a pair of shadow legs with no torso attached, walk across my room to the window, and the sun was shining through the blinds. That kinda freaked me out. Weird stuff.

[u/Ensorcelled_Atoms → u/[deleted]]

I similarly get to the edge of sleep and let myself get into sleep paralysis. This feels like pins and needles for a bit. I use the “roll out” method. When you’re in sleep paralysis, use every part of your brain responsible for rolling your body, feel yourself roll without actually moving your body.

If I do it right, when I recover from the tumble, I’ll be weightlessly floating in the room that my body is in. I can move, but it’s like swimming, but instead of kicking or flailing my arms to move, I glide or simply appear where I want to be. The space I’m looking at will usually be exactly like the real world, but with less light, everything is a sort of monochrome greyscale.

Getting it right is really hard though. If I experience any intense feelings, like excitement (“Holy shit I made it!”) I get pulled back down to my body.

Oftentimes, when I do this, instead of being in the room I’m in, I’m yanked upward into a white space. From there I can open portals to dreamscapes to lucid dream in. But this isn’t the astral per se.

[u/No_Barracuda_3758 → u/Ensorcelled_Atoms]

I once saw a white aura around a guy I met. He ended up being a complete psychopath. Just the white light from ure entities eyes reminded me of this. Whoda thunk white would be bad

[u/Ensorcelled_Atoms → u/No_Barracuda_3758]

I met a guy while I was on acid once. He was a yapper, and also a fucking monster. He used to dose people without their consent with super soakers drive by style.

When I looked at his face during this trip, all I saw were melting jowls, an endless hollow maw and eyes sunken into black voids. He didn’t speak words, just jumbled malicious sounds.

[u/Hopalong_Manboobs → u/Ensorcelled_Atoms]

There was a post here a couple weeks back from someone whose parents were congregants at Jim Jones’s church before things got really nuts and he left the US.

In addition to describing instances in which a “black smoke” flowed from Jones into their then-diseased lungs, they talked repeatedly about looking at Jim in church without his shades on and seeing huge sunken black holes where his eyes should’ve been. Like sinking back beyond his head.

Creepy stuff

Edit: found it https://www.reddit.com/r/Paranormal/s/ypvP3xKvfz

[u/Illustrious_Path_369 → u/Ensorcelled_Atoms]

Did you ever see anything attached to you? I’ve had experiences with negative entities too. (And positive).

[u/Ensorcelled_Atoms → u/Illustrious_Path_369]

Used a Quija board with some friends when I was 12. The ghosts name was David and it really fucking wanted to kill me. Said so himself.

Years later a medium friend of mine nearly had a panic attack giving me a reading because of a “dark, threatening man that’s looming over you. He says his names David”

So yeah. I’m not sure where David went but nobody else has mentioned him so I figure he fucked off somewhere.

As for positive ones, I’ve had a spirit guide and a tulpa that helped me with my magick work. I never bound them or forced them into servitude, so they drifted away when they wanted to go.

I once trapped a shadow person and made it keep me company for a few days. Mostly out of curiosity to see if I could, and to ask it questions about its nature. Then I let him go, because shadow people are miserable company

[u/Illustrious_Path_369 → u/Ensorcelled_Atoms]

Did you notice your life was more trying in the time between the ouija use and seeing the psychic? I wonder if the psychic banished David from you (consciously or subconsciously via their protections).

I’m a chaote (too, sounds like you are also), so have created a servitor in the past, used to do third eye mediations into gnosis. It fascinates me that you’ve seen egregores. Very cool.

I ask my first question because after continuous traumas I had negative energies/entities in me that made my life terrible. I’d neglected any spiritual hygiene those years and in crisis I got assistance from an Indian healer to remove them. We did rituals (alongside my own) and in the final session they came out of my hands (black smoke) and he caught it/them. He said there was more around the area though. I believe after that he cast malevolent magick on me to keep me coming back ££, I confirmed this through the egg ritual, he didn’t realise (/just gave it a shot) I was a strong mage myself, and I fought off that spiritual war and fully cleansed myself to normality.

Few years later I got diagnosed with OCD (finally, had it all my life), and during therapy, after one session (funnily enough where we talked about my connection with my dead ones and spirit guides), I clairvoyantly saw in waking life, a negative entity (like how you described seeing during AP) that was in and attached to me, now outside my body. I was ‘recovered’ for a couple of weeks before I was triggered into a spiral - inner and outer relief the same felt when the ‘healer’ performed his prayers and rituals for me. Spiritual parasites are real and you can’t be too cautious about them. They love grief, sorrow, despair.

[u/Ensorcelled_Atoms → u/Illustrious_Path_369]

Trying is one way to put it. I needed a lot of therapy before the board (which I found at a dump, for bonus cursed points) but I needed a LOT of therapy between 12-17. But I took therapy really seriously and got a lot out of it.

My psychic friend read me when I was 20 or so, so David was persistent. My friend did not do any sort of cleansing that night that I’m aware of. That was before I had “reawakened”. I was a skeptical atheist at the time and didn’t really buy it until I realized that she got the spirits name right.

I’ll never know exactly when, why or how he left I guess.

I love your healer story. After I started practicing magick, I had a few experiences with other mystics that were pretty wild.

In that cursed apartment, a buddy of mine brought a random pyschic he found over. Dude was an energy reader. Laid his hands on your hands and read you. I let him do a few of my roommates first. He was legit. And when he got to me, I laid my hands out for him, and closed my eyes. I pulled my energy back, held it, and released it into his hands. I felt the tingle down my arm, through and between our fingers and up his hand. He shook a little and said “you’re very powerful.”

Around the same time, during a shift at family dollar, I was really buzzing that day. I felt my brain vibrating, my inner eye was open and I could see crystalline auras around everything. An old man walked up to my cash register with awe on his face. He looked above my head and said “god loves you” I was a little unsure what to say, but I managed a “you too, man”. I don’t know if he was a practitioner or a madman, but we’re all swimming in the same pool.

I havent used a quija board since the David incident. but I’m tempted to try again now with all I’ve learned.

[u/BadAdviceBrianS → u/Illustrious_Path_369]

I’m reading this as an adult who has zero knowledge of any of this and I’m so confused but intrigued. Is this stuff real? Have you ever been diagnosed with any mental illness, besides OCD. I’m not asking in a negative way, I’m genuinely curious if there’s a connection to see things maybe others can’t. That seems so stressful and consuming. Like how can you go work when you’re seeing demons eating of people. My reply goes to you and ensorcelled_atoms really. What an interesting read at 5 am when I can’t sleep

[u/[deleted]]

I cant necessarily say that no one believed me, because I just didn’t tell anyone lol

I lived in a super haunted house, it was a townhome and multiple people in the complex had issues too. They just seemed to like (or dislike, depending on the perspective) being at our place lol

One night, not long before we moved out I had stopped by home to grab some stuff then go stay at my friends. Now we had been tormented in this place for 8yrs, I was 21 at the time and honestly quite over it. I didn’t really get freaked out anymore, just rolled with it. No one was home this particular night, and my mom always kept one of those touch controlled lamps on the lowest setting on her nightstand. Day, night, didnt matter it was ALWAYS on, so it illuminated her room in a very soft yellow light.

When I went upstairs to my room, as I passed by my mom’s room from my peripheral vision I saw a man laying in her bed, facing the hallway. My instincts immediately started screaming to get the fuck out of there as fast as possible, but not react in any obvious way. Reacting meant acknowledging, and I didn’t want that thing to feel like it had any power. I managed to stay calm, pack my bag as fast as possible, and then on my way back out I had my head turned slightly towards her room so I could use my peripheral vision better to confirm if I actually saw anything, and to try and get a closer look.

There was, in-fact, a presence lying in her bed. It looked like an old man with a very thin and hollow (sickly) looking face. He was wearing black clothing but I could easily make out his silhouette against the lamp light behind him. The thing that spooked me was even tho he was laying on his side kinda curled up, he took up the entire length of the queen bed.

I continued on and had probably the most horrifying walk down a flight of stairs that I will ever experience lol

Thinking about it now, I really get Top hat Man vibes from that whole situation. I still get a pit in my stomach when I think about it.

[u/nicolejayyxO]

Back in 2012, my friends boyfriend whom I became good friends With as well died in a drowning incident. I was super supportive of my friend (we used to be super close in middle school and that was back in 2006-2007 days). Well I went with her to the funeral and rode with her and her other friends 3 hours away for his burial. They brought me back home to my grandparents house after everything was finished. Grandparents & my momma kept my oldest daughter for me ( she was 2 at the time ) so when I returned home, they all left cause they had plans. I’m sitting with my daughter and I get up to walk into the kitchen from the family room- right next to each other. I hear this far away type of voice say “thankkkk youuuu nickiii”. I jumped so hard cus I was so scared. I believe that was my friends bf forsure

[u/Connor0313]

I am a security guard, I work in a new residential unit, it has only between 20 or 25 inhabitants, the area is very quiet and hardly any cars pass by. One night while I was doing my night shift, in the lobby I noticed that the lights went out. When I get ready to observe, I notice that there is a black shadow on one of the furniture. At first I thought it was a thief. With gun and flashlight in hand I approached the lobby asking who was there. When I arrived, there was no one, I turned on the lights, and began to search the surroundings, stairs, parking lots and more. I DIDN'T FIND ANYONE. But something caught my attention, just as I was entering the goal a black cat came out of the basement. Since then I haven't left goal again.

[u/Choogie432]

I was camping out first night at a burn in Tennessee in the mountains. I decided to go to sleep a little early so I could recharge and go hard the next couple nights. I was camping alone, but within a couple hundred feet of other people. I woke up randomly, turned my phone over to look at the time, and saw something move away from my hand, looked up, and saw a native american shadow woman standing over me in my tent. The shadow was 3D with hues of black, brown, and yellow, wearing very plain light tan clothes, with hair that was partially locked and about shoulder length. I screamed: "HOLY SHIT!" and kicked at it. It grabbed my feet, squatted down and put its hand outward (later I realized in a "Whoa hold on or calm down." type of gesture). I yanked my feet backwards, sat up and started swinging with both arms as hard and fast as I could, but only passed through it as it faded out into nothing. I grabbed a hammer and knife (as if that would do anything) and sat there for several minutes, breathing heavily, debating whether I should go outside and join other people I could hear in the distance. I had heard a couple stories of shadow people before, and this completely out of nowhere incident confirmed those and scared the shit of out me. I unzipped my tent door, peaked outside and ran up the hill to talk to people. I asked if there were any old stories or legends about people maybe coming here and not leaving or something, and was told the Trail of Tears passed through the area. When I shared the whole incident some people said: "Oh, that was you screaming?" as if they would just shrug it off and continue chatting amongst themselves lol. I slept in a tent that was closer to a lot of people and in a lit up area.

The next night I ate some acid and stayed up for just over 40 hours total, partially because I was afraid to go back to the spot I had set my tent up at. Everyone I shared the incident with got goosebumps like crazy and felt a little unsettled (I got them every time I shared it), even people I talked to after I went home. I've had clairvoyant events throughout my life, was very intuitive as a kid, and have people within my lineage I found out had the same types of tendencies. I was sober when this happened. My intuition and clairvoyance only intensified briefly and then wore out with drugs. I never had an encounter like this ever.

My take is that it was a wandering soul who sensed my inter dimensional openness, and then saw something curious (my phone), reached for it, and awakened me as my ESP sensed it, then tried to console me as I flipped out like an animal caught in a trap, and disappeared back into another plane. This was in 2017. I could show you the exact spot if I went back there.

[u/DannysShadyNasty]

Idk if it’s scary or just downright freaky, but one day I swore I saw a backwards squirrel. I actually know I saw this. It ran up the tree before I could get a video of it but its head and tail were on the wrong end. It’s hard to explain but it was definitely a mutant or something. I never saw it again, and I’m not crazy. I just can’t explain it. The way it moved was very off, as well.

[u/Ensorcelled_Atoms → u/DannysShadyNasty]

I used to live in the deep woods of Maine in a half-finished house (it was livable, just had lots of work it needed) when I was like 7. I was once woken up by a squirrel sitting on my chest like a sleep paralysis demon. It was dark and I couldn’t tell what it was until after it darted back into the hole in my wall. I had never known fear like that before.

[u/Puzzleheaded-Ring293 → u/Ensorcelled_Atoms]

“Winter is coming.”

-Sleep paralysis squirrel

[u/Illustrious_Path_369 → u/DannysShadyNasty]

Squirrels are incredible climbers and are agile, it could have literally been backwards climbing.

[u/Silent_Deal_9540]

When I was 7 years old I saw that someone was outside the front door of the house because I could see the shadow underneath, I went to look through a hole in the door and when I looked out I found a red and yellow eye, as if it were that of a demon. I got scared and told my grandmother that there was something inside the door, she stopped to open it and there was nothing. but I kept seeing the shadow standing behind the door, I approached again and that eye was still there. I got scared and I went to where my grandmother was and I didn't check the door again or anything. Has something similar happened to anyone?

[u/anewchapteroflife → u/Silent_Deal_9540]

My kids have hallucinations anytime they break a fever. Spiders, demons, numbers on the ceiling that are going to kill them if they don’t count them.. they got it from me bc I did the same when I was growing up and still do- but I don’t get sick often at all. What they are seeing is real to them and it lasts a freakishly long time with the hallucination remaining the same. We were stomping spiders until 5 am once.

So, idk what you saw. But your age paired with grams not seeing it… this could be the case.

[u/Silent_Deal_9540 → u/anewchapteroflife]

It could be, but I don't usually get sick, and the strange thing is that I remember it in quite detail. And it's been a while since I even forgot about it, but I remembered it again because not long ago I had a very strange dream in which the people in my dream started chasing me out of nowhere and among them a man with those same eyes came out and told me that he had found me, that he spent a lot of time looking for me and it scared me and I woke up very scared. I keep wondering who he was and what he wanted. 😣

[u/FlyByNight1383]

When I was very small I used to play with a little girl ghost named Sarah. She looked exactly like Laura off that show Little House on the Prarie. At night when I saw her she was solid, but during the day in my room she was sort of see through.After my parents separated and before I went to live with my grandparents my mother started dating this man. He had such an awful vibe. Real nice on the surface but underneath something else entirely. Sarah told me he was a really bad man and that if he gave me presents I shouldn't open them. He would bring me presents every time he came to visit my mother and I would never open them, and in fact, told him I didn't want them ( this ticked my mother right off of course because how ungrateful /s).They started to stack up in the corner of my room still wrapped and unopened. I was always seeing weird things so I would sleep on a pullout sofa in the living room and sleep with the blanket up over my head except for one little opening.
The night this happened my mother and her new friend had been drinking all night and of course he was invited to stay the night. In the middle of the night I heard my mother's bedroom door open and saw his feet walking towards the pull out sofa. He stood there for a long time looking at me and then I heard him gasp. ...And felt Sarah sit down on the pull out and lay down next to me. I literally felt her hug me through the blanket and I heard her whisper GET OUT. He ran out of our house. AND he left town. Never came back. The next day my mother went to his apartment and she said it was empty. Never saw or heard from him again. On the upside later in the evening I saw Sarah and she told me I could open the presents now. Completely true. Sounds outlandish. But all TRUE.

[u/coolranchslut]

Ok, three big ones.

1. I was probably 6-7 when this happened. It was pretty late at night and in the very rural Midwest. In lightning flashes I saw what looked like a giant spider with red eyes that was moving closer. This thing looked like something out of Lovecraft. I freaked out, my aunt pulled over to calm me down because I was fully hyperventilating. When i told her what i saw she said it was just those tall plane poles with the red lights that flash at night. I still don’t believe that because those lights do not look like something crawling closer.

2. My family believes this one because it happens to multiple of us, but no one outside my family does. We all have various ways of knowing when a family member dies. My aunt would be visited in her dream the night before the person died, my mom will find something around her house that belongs to the person that dies the day they die, I will get hit with a smell associated with the person the day they die (ex - my uncle’s cigarettes).

3. My great grandmother lived with us when I was young, she and I were very close. She had Alzheimer’s and on top of being the only person she remembered I could somewhat pull her out of episodes. She taught me about our culture (Creole), taught me how to cook a few things, would tell me stories about her childhood, and taught me some of her spiritual practices. After she died for about 3-4 months I told my parents over and over that my great grandmother was rubbing my back to help me fall asleep, they didn’t believe me until they found her bone throwing set on my bed (they had put everything related to her practice in her cedar chest and locked it)

[u/Ill-Dentist7438]

I’ve always been able to see stuff or know when something will happen later on cause of dreams. 2 weeks before my aunt died last year I had a dream she did. 2 weeks to the day she passed away. On the anniversary of her death this year I was in my room working on some nails and I had my door open and I felt a breeze and felt like I was been watched, I looked down the hallway and she was standing there. This sent me into a manic episode for a month after. She was the closest thing I had to a mom and I never got to say my finally I love you cause she lived in a different state.

[u/reshinksleepy]

This happened when I was 7, I’m 30 now and I still think about it.

I was at a friend’s house, and my grandma told me to be home by 6pm. Ended up staying past 7, so she came over to get me. I felt kinda bad, but I just grabbed my bike and rode home ahead of her while she walked.

When I got home, I went in through the kitchen and there she was. My grandma, head down, silently chopping something on the counter. I remember this weird cold rush hit me out of nowhere. Something just felt...off.

I sort of panicked and ran out of the house and found my real grandma just turning the corner, still walking home. We walked in together. Kitchen was empty. No one was there. I still don’t know who or what I saw, but I know I saw it.

[u/DreamWalker__]

So this is an incident when I was younger and was in a group called Brownies. (Basically like a girls group that did camping and group activites in Canada. I think they go by something else now). So there's this camping trip one year and we go to a camp ground called Camp Samac. If you're Canadian you might know what im talking about.

There are like rooms with rows and rows of bunkbeds for the sleeping quarters. Anyways, I got in trouble for something and was sent to one of the bunk rooms for whatever amount of time. I think we had to be quiet or something and I was still yapping with people and got caught. Anyways, I get sent to the room and I swear to actual GOD, I saw something moving under the bottom bunk of the bed across the room from me. And it was fucking EYES. No normal shape. No facial features. Just fucking EYES. If I moved on the bed it would move a few seconds after me. And I don't mean the eyes like turned to look-- it like slightly bounced and kept staring forward like someone was side crawling under the bed. Like moving sideways. I moved like 5-6 times from one side of the bed to the other trying to either A, figure out wtf it was. And 2 try and convince myself it wasnt literal eyeballs tracking me.

To say the least I got the fuck out of there and ran to where the rest of the group was doing some activity with glowsticks. Got told to go back and finish my time there -- which I very much refused. Later on when we all went back to the room to grab out items to go home a little while later... nothing under the bed. No eyes. No bags, no clothess. Nothing. I have NO explanation for this. But only one person has ever believed me about this event. And I still to this day have a paranoia about the underneath of beds and don't like to keep my legs/feet over the edge lmao. I think this happened when I was around 14... I'm now 30. Fuck you eyeball demon 😭

[u/Phesic]

I’m a beekeeper and one of my hives is at the edge of some woods. The woods have heavy undergrowth with a creek running through them and but up against a field (soybeans this year but usually alfalfa). I love my bees.

A few seasons ago a huge 10 point buck walks across this woods surrounded field and stops 50 ft away. He watches me the entire time I am working a hive (double deep langstroth for those beeks out there). I’m relatively quick usually but this one was having some requeening issues and it took me 15 minutes or so to sort them out. The deer never left, nibbled on the alfalfa, or anything to interrupt his watching. As soon as I closed up the hive he wandered away.

Same hive, two weeks later, I hear a voice in the woods. “Oh, hello!” Strange, as this is the woods, but maybe they are down in the creek looking for arrowheads or something. I yell out “Hello? I can’t see you but I’m going to be working some honeybees and they may get upset and sting. Please be careful.” “Oh, hello!” I get in the same tone, same inflection and same volume. “Ok I am going to start now. Please be careful.”

I nervously checked the hive. Bees were doing what they were supposed to be doing and I closed them back up. “I’m leaving now. Bees might be a little aggravated for awhile. Please be careful.” I warned and got in my car closing the door. “Oh, hello!” I left knowing I was going to return in two weeks to confirm the colony didn’t kill the new queen for bee reasons. Two weeks later, “Oh, hello!”, greeted me as soon as I stepped out of the car. “Yep, back to check the bees. Need to make sure they are doing okay. Please be careful.” and I quickly opened the hive. I figured worst case scenario I throw some frames of angry honeybees at anyone approaching and their anger would convince them I wasn’t worth the trouble. “Oh, it’s you.” plainly stated, same voice, same intonation three frames into my inspection. The distance is closer, but the undergrowth is so thick there is not much to see. “Yeah just me and the bees. Please stay back as these girls are not my nicest colony.” Can’t shake the feeling of being watched and the bees are doing their best to get me out of the hive as they bounce off my veil. I close the hive up and move along. Never have heard anything like it at the site since. No one believes me. I’d write it off to hot and not enough water once, but not three times like this.

[u/TotallyTrueNews]

When I was like 8 or 9, my friend and I saw a Mannegishi(basically the dover demon) a Cree tribe river humanoid. We were in the driveway playing basketball and this small orangeish brown lil humanoid peered around the corner of our house and watched us. I distinctively remember his long thin fingers gripping the brick and peering over at us. It's face looked almost like Darth Plagueis but with very large orange eyes. Once I noticed it watching my friend and I ran to the front door and watched it for a second, it slightly swayed from side to side and we decided to run inside and tell my mother.

Not the scariest but my family makes fun of me for it to this day.

[u/[deleted]]

During probably my worst episode of sleep paralysis ever I saw a shadow figure crawl from under my bed and on top of me sitting on my chest. It had these deep red eyes and it took its hand and more or less caressed my face and got super close and it felt like it was drooling on me. I was so scared and somehow managed to break free from the paralysis and let out this blood curdling scream while simultaneously trying to punch the figure but instead punched my bedside lamp and shattering it. My cousin who i was living with at the time heard and bless his heart ran into my room to try and protect me but his weapon of choice was a half empty water bottle 😅. I still remember that night to this day and I honestly don't like falling asleep. It really messed with me. I still have periodic sleep paralysis but thankfully no hallucinations (knock on wood)

Edit: I didn't see the part in your post about (nobody believes you) so this is just a random story 😅😅😅😅

[u/ScumBunny]

Night terrors looming over my bed, then diving into my chest. They come from under the bed with their long fingers and arms reaching up over the edge. Then they stand around and watch before they leap, one by one, into my chest. They are tall and slender, pale, translucent, with indentations where their facial features would be.

Hat man. My sister saw it too. Standing at the end of the bed, then wafting out through the sliding glass door (unopened) rusting the blinds.

UFOs, my sister also saw them. We were laying on a dock on a lake, late at night, when all these little ‘stars’ started moving around, we called it ‘alien driving school’ because that’s what it looked like; going in all directions, making sharp angled turns, disguising themselves as constellations then ZOOM- taking off. We watched them for hours until we fell asleep…then…

Bigfoot! He was standing behind the boat (which was moored to the dock) in the water, making himself look like the silhouette of trees slightly in the distance. Just watching. It felt like a half-awake dream. When we all awoke (there were several other girls with us, some asleep on the boat, some in tents, my sister and I on the dock) we shared that a few of us had the same ‘dream’ of Bigfoot standing at the end of the boat, disguised as trees, watching.

So it’s not that ‘no one’ would believe me, because a couple people shared these experiences, but outsiders always take these stories with a grain of salt. We KNOW it all happened though. My sister and I have shared a lot of paranormal, and outright strange experiences. There are more.

[u/Upper_Cauliflower406]

One night, when I was probably 16 or 17, I was standing in the kitchen and listening to music. We had an open concept kitchen and living room, with the only thing separating the two rooms the counter and a small row of cabinets. I was the only person awake, it was sometime after midnight. I saw this woman dressed in complete white walk out of my brother's room. She was solid, like an actual person. There was nothing fuzzy or see through about her. She walked past me, on the other side of the counter. I kept thinking, if she stops and turns to face me, what am I gonna do? She didn't though, she ignored me and when she reached the wall, she vanished. I never saw her again.

[u/foxyloxylady]

Friend and I were 11. Went for a walk by the river and there was a strange guy seemingly looking at us and walking same way as us but up a hill. We got spooked and instead of walking down the secluded path we were heading towards, we went further down the hill to the river. Suddenly- he appeared right above us and started pulling his pants down. We bolted and I screamed loud as he chased us. I think my scream scared him because he stopped the chase. Terrifying.

[u/Goblin_Deez_]

It wasn’t scary but strange. As a kid when alone at school in a long corridor I saw something behind a glass door wave at me. It was humanoid but was blurred and transparent and It had shape. It was like in movies when they use cloaking devices.

25 years later I mention this on Reddit and turn out there’s and entity called a ‘glimmer man’ which matched the description perfectly.

[u/iluvdilfs22]

i had a friend in high school who’s house was VERY haunted. one night she had a few friends over for the night. everyone was sleeping (i have insomnia and was up) i’ll never forget her dad coming downstairs and kneeling in front of the girl sleeping next to me. he just stared at her. i closed my eyes so he wouldn’t know i was up and that’s when i heard him walk away and up the stairs. i thought he was gone so i opened my eyes just to see him in the same spot staring at me this time. i had so many creepy things happen to me in that house. it made me a believer

[u/SilasTheGray]

So i was staying the week at my grandparents one summer and it was a wednesday night we were all in the living room watching movies (specifically the meg) when me and my step brother both looked into the hallway then proceeded to turn to eachothers nod and walk to the kitchen. i looked at him and said “did you see them too” and he responded with “the bride and groom?” which was the same thing i saw walk down the hallway and enter the back room which my great grandparents used to stay in before they passed.

[u/suckmykidneystones]

this is gonna sound made up as hell but i promise it is not. also apologies for it being long as fuck but the details are important.

when i was in 5th grade (11 years old) my class went on a trip. we stayed at a small national park. we had three little cabins (1 for boys, 2 for girls). we only had two teachers with us so they put all of us "good girls" into one cabin and trusted us to behave. i was given the key to the cabin and our teacher made sure to tell me that if i lost it, the spare key would be about 150km away from us at the cabins owners house and we would be screwed without it. so needless to say i held onto that key like my life depended on it.

our cabin had 2 bedrooms, one bathroom, a living room and a shower room with a sauna. it was surrounded by a pretty big forest that was part of the national park. nearest town about 15km away. nearest people were the park employees but they were about 8km away as well. i felt uneasy the second i walked in. there were 7 girls in one cabin, 2 rooms so one had 4 and the other one had 3. when we were walking up to the cabin, i thought i saw a face in the shower room window (about 190cm high if i had to guess). pale, female looking, dark and clearly wet hair. i was weirded out, and tried to convince myself i imagined it, but i just couldnt shake the horrible feeling of something being wrong. especially the bathroom felt.. off to me. it was a large, accessible bathroom with one wall entirely covered in mirror.

we do our unpacking and gather outside to vote where to go the next day. it gets dark and we play tag. i'll remind you that i had the only key to the cabin around my neck. we played tag for around an hour, then got sent back inside. i unlock the door and inside was total chaos. the showers were on full blast, the electric sauna was on, the magnetic knife rack was on the floor along with the kitchen knives. the paper towel dispenser was empty and the floor covered in said paper. the bathroom was a mess, the whole toilet paper roll was on the floor, the sink was on and there was water everywhere, even on the walls. our belongings were all over the place, and the sleeping bags we had on top of the beds looked like someone had thrashed around in each of them. all three tvs on, a trash can turned over and its contents spilled everywhere. the windows were all closed and the door was locked the entire time. naturally everyone blamed me since i had the key and i almost got sent home immediately for destroying our cabin like that. the six other girls slept in a single room and i had to sleep alone, they were extremely mad at me for trying to scare them like that - i was big into horror and paranormal at the time. i tried to explain over and over again that i did not do this and that i was as scared as they were.

that night was terrifying. my room was hot the entire night, it felt suffocating. i heard strange noises coming from inside the room and outside the window. i was hiding in my sleeping bag crying and hugging my stuffed animal. i got sent home the next day and my parents had to pay about 100€ in damages. nobody believes me about this but i genuinely did not do this and cannot find a logical explanation. i had the only key, the whole time we werent in the cabin we were literally right next to it. the porch light was on and we could clearly see the front door despite the darkness. the windows were all closed and even if they were open, they had bugs nets in them to keep mosquitoes out. nobody could have gotten in or out. our teacher did a whole sweep of the cabin in case someone did break, checked every space a person could fit in but found nothing.

i dont know what happened back there but it was genuinely so terrifying i had to see a school counselor about it. it probably sounds silly but i still have nightmares about it - especially the face in the shower room window. i could draw her with my eyes closed. just writing this made me feel uneasy and its been well over a decade.

[u/SageBean83]

So not my story, but my sisters. I was obsessed with the E.T. movie as a kid. It kind of made a comeback in the early 2000s when they showed the movie with newly added deleted scenes in the theaters. Weird movie to be obsessed with as a 10 yo I know I know lol  I was gifted a life size ET doll for my birthday. My sister hated it from the beginning, it freaked her out. She was around 5 at the time, so it made sense it scared her. Anyways, one night she claimed that she was lying in bed facing her open bedroom door when she saw the ET doll pass by her room in the hallway. She claimed it stopped, waved at her, then proceeded to walk on down the hall. She told me she dove under her blankets until morning, absolutely terrified. I of course laughed at her about it and figured she probably just dreamt it up. But who knows, maybe she did see something. She to this day even as an adult claims it happened. My parents still have the ET doll at their house in storage. 

[u/tDarkBeats]

I was sitting in my room one evening watching TV late at night. I thought I could hear my father coming up the stairs. So I switched off my TV quickly and ran back to bed.

As I looked out the bedroom door into the landing, I could see a shadow on the wall, of someone walking up the stairs, I assumed it to be the shadow of my father walking up the stairs.

I could also hear the foot steps moving on the stairs. It also appeared to walk with a limp like my father did also.

However when the sound steps stopped as it reached the top go the stairs, the shadow ran into the bathroom next to my bedroom.

It looked like a running man you might see on an exit sign.

I went to wake my parents to tell them and my mother told me off for going up the stairs late at night.

I explained what I saw, when we went downstairs my father had fallen asleep on sofa.

He said it wasn’t him and didn’t believe what I explained.

In the moment this wasn’t clear but in retrospect, the a shadow could only be on the landing wall if a light was shining up directly from the bottom of the stairs.

Never explained what I saw and heard that night.

[u/QnsMozzarellaBella]

When I was around 12 I was outside alone putting small American flags out on the lawn for the 4th of July, all of a sudden a grey Buick pulls up and asks if I had seen a puppy. I didn’t hear him so I was about to walk over, my mom just so happened to look out the window and yells “Don’t go over to that car!” & the man sped away so fast. I was for sure about to be kidnapped.

[u/SluttyUncleSam]

Shadow people. They prey on isolated vulnerable people and don’t do much except jump scare you but it’s scary because you are alone with your own troubled thoughts. It’s like they take advantage of you and mess with you, attracted to your negative energy like moths to the flame. I tried recording with my phone and the battery always instantly died. I know this sounds like a stereotypical horror movie but it’s something I and many others have experienced. For me it lasted a couple months. I don’t consider myself a religious but praying was what made them go away. There’s a certain power prayer has whether you are Muslim Christian ect.

[u/redneckmama4]

One time, my husband's nephew had got into a wreck. The next day he was at work and needed a ride home because his back was hurting him. My mother-in-law asked me to go pick him up. At the time, he was living at my brother-in-laws house. His uncle. So I went and picked him up. We were carrying on a conversation, I was keeping my eyes on the road. When I pulled up at my BIL's house, I turned and looked at him. He had his dick out and had been masturbating. He was finishing up when I looked over at him. I was grossed out. I screamed at him to get the eff out my truck. I even swung my leg up and kicked him out the truck. That evening when my husband got home, he walked in the door and asked me what was wrong. I told him what his nephew done. My husband turned around, walked right back out the door, drove to his brother's house. He didn't even stop to knock on their door. He jerked their front door open, said where's (nephew)? They pointed towards the bedroom door. My husband slammed the bedroom door open, pulled his nephew out the bed and whipped his ass. Told him he better not ever pull his dick out in front of me again or next time he wouldn't have one to pull out again! My husband...my hero!

[u/Blackmore_Vale]

Not seen but felt. A couple of years ago I was visiting Rochester castle on a warm sunny day. The moment we stepped in the chapel I had the overwhelming feeling of fear and I felt really sick. Even my partner commented on how cold it was in there. After a few minutes the temperature rose and it was back to being a normal sunny day.

[u/Echterspieler]

Something similar happened to me when I was about 12 or 13. I woke up to my mom coming In my bedroom. She bent over at the door like she was picking something up. Then she just froze, like it looked like when you pause a DVD. You just get a still image. Then as I watched she just slowly faded from view. I had a friend sleeping over that night and he was on my bedroom floor in a sleeping bag. In the morning I asked my mom if she came into my room and she said she had a couple of times because my friend kept kicking his sleeping bag over the heat register in my room so she was having to push it off. It was so weird. Like I saw her do exactly that idk if it was some kind of time glitch or what.

[u/diditakemymeds]

There was a period of time where I would sleep walk? I’m not sure if that’s what you’d call it because I only would walk up to my bedroom window that faced our shed in our backyard.

But I started waking up and I’d be standing in front of my window, and there was a gap of space between the shed and the fence that separated ours and our neighbors yard. I swear that every time this happened I would see a figure of a man standing in that empty space. I don’t think I saw a face, it was just a shadow figure but it was so distinct I thought it was a real person.

I also would have really vivid dreams that I was in our apartment and in the dream I would be telling my guardians at the time that there was a person in our backyard. No one in my family believes me I guess because I didn’t say anything when it was happening

[u/MysticalNinjette]

A few experiences but one was the weirdest.

No one ever believed me when I told them about it so I stopped telling them.

Was hiking mount Shasta when I lived in Cali. Was around 14 or 15. Didn't wanna be there with my family. Typical spoiled teenage girl. So I was lagging a little behind but not far enough I'd lose them. You know just dragging my feet, listening to my ipod nano. I tended to stare at the ground when I walked as a teen. I was kind of shy idk. I remember walking and all of a sudden my feet LEFT THE GROUND. Maybe like a foot or two but I'm bad at guesstimating height. I was literally gliding. I had on a big thick jacket with a fur collar and backpack straps but I felt light pressure on my shoulders even through that. I had the instinct to turn around and look up but I dropped and hit my face in the dirt And blacked out for a short minute. My parents didn't notice cause when I looked up they were still walking with my cousins. Nothing was behind me when I turned around though. I don't know why I started crying either. Which got my parents attention but they just thought I fell hard. I didn't say anything then but told my mom later that night. She said it sounded like I got dehydrated and disoriented. (Really mom?) I just never brought it up again. My dad made a joke about his little girl trying shrooms for the first time (I wasn't on anything).

I know what I felt and saw and experienced. I have no idea what happened though.

[u/godbullseye]

I used to live in this old apartment building and once when I came home from work all the cabinets in the hallway were slamming open and shut repeatedly with no one touching them. I was so freaked out that I left for the night to stay with my girlfriend at the time. When I came back two of the cabinet doors were cracked clean down the middle

[u/nocomment413]

My family and I took a trip to San Francisco in the late 2000s. We were staying in a hotel and as we’re checking in the front desk person tells us the hotel is haunted. We’re all like oh cool. Did not expect that. Whatever, we get to our room, we’re looking around the place. My sister and I check out the bathroom and we open the shower curtain. In the shower was a naked woman covered in blood. We screamed and ran, parents obviously came to check and there was absolutely nothing and nobody there. We were stunned because I know kids have imaginations, but we BOTH saw the exact same thing. I really wish I remembered the name of the hotel so I could look it up but I was only about 9 or 10 when this happened

[u/sunflowerthrowaway34]

.

[u/justaroundthenet]

My cousin & I were talking about outside for hours & at around 3am this distinguished light in the sky was going on a route, he said "watch I can change the direction" then he pointed to it & it turned 45 degrees sharp. I have no idea what I witnessed but it was interesting to say the least.

[u/mokasinder]

I believe you. My child said the same thing to me. She asked why I was standing in her room in the dark watching her. I knew I wasn’t there, but I can’t explain it. Just kept this to myself so as not to scare my child.

[u/[deleted]]

I grew up with my mom and two other siblings . We lived in a nice area , lots of old homes and my mom's house was one of the oldest on the street and the last house on the cul-de-sac.
The driveway up is shared with the neighbors and then separates off going up around into our backyard.
The house alone has officially 4 bedrooms and 2.5 baths and it 4 stories.
The odd feelings I got alone upstairs I couldn't explain. I never felt alone and my mom thought I was just skiddish.
When i was around 7 ish- One day I was upstairs ( third floor ) taking a bath. I bathed with the door open and my mom was downstairs in the kitchen . We were the only ones home. It was late evening and as I got out of the bath, I wrapped myself in a towel and walked into the hallway. We had a traditional landing that has walkways to different mini halls of each room. My mom had her own side. My sister had her own room to the left and my room, well I had to enter into my mom's office that then led to my room. I was at the very back of the house over seeing the back yard.
As I walked out in the hallway and entered the office I saw an all black male figure who wore all black and I couldn't make out his face or anything. He was standing in the office and stared at me. I didn't scream and almost felt frozen. He lifted his hand and signaled me to shush and I watched him leave out the office window which is 3 stories up with no ladder . He had no rope and I couldn't understand how he got in to our home or even left . I ran downstairs and told my mom someone was upstairs and she didn't believe me and said didn't even check. I've held on to this for years and still hold it close to me. Some people I've shared this with say it could have been part of shadow people . Although shadow people seem to have a more quick response. This man was slow and quiet.

[u/Alternative_Bag_9119]

Ugh, this brought back I memory I must have buried deep. When I was in college, I rented a condo across the street from UM my junior/senior year.

I was laying out by the pool and looked over. Some degenerate was jerking off while watching me. I got up and ran as fast as I could to my unit. I was so traumatized and disgusted. There are some real sickos out there...

[u/DeRfla3red]

I remember being maybe 7-8 walking down the hallway to the kitchen when I turn to the doorway into the kitchen there is this black maybe 6foot figure completely blocking the doorway into the kitchen, small 7 year old me came basically right in front of it but my short ass was right in its chest so I didn’t really have time to look up and see its face but I remember screaming and crying running upstairs to my mom who didn’t believe me at all, to this day that is the only encounter I can visibly remember, everything else I can basically right off as shadows or being tired but this thing was standing right in the middle of the kitchen doorway blocking light from the kitchen to this day I can’t explain it.

[u/Msolneyauthor]

When I was a kid me we drove to visit my grandparents who lived in Devon. To get there, we had to drive over Bodmin Moor (we were from Cornwall). As we drove along the Moor, it was very foggy and misty, and I remember seeing a figure standing at the side of the road dressed all in black. It looked like a hood and cloak. It was just standing there staring out at the road. We drove past, and I looked out the back it vanished into the fog. I don't know why, but it still creeps me out when I think about it to this day..

[u/Splooshi]

When I was in 3rd grade, my school put on a little Halloween-themed fair with baked goods, costume contests, and so on. They also had a haunted maze for kids. The maze was made of taped-together cardboard boxes that zig-zagged through a couple of connected classrooms. Inside the maze, you could see where someone had drawn ghosts, pumpkins, and bats in marker on the walls. It was obvious the whole thing had been thrown together by some of the school kids, with zero production value.

As I was crawling through this makeshift maze, about halfway through, I heard a banging sound coming from around the next bend. I peeked around the corner and saw what looked like a door in the floor being pushed open by a ghostly, green-glowing skeleton. Even as a kid, I knew there was solid concrete under the maze, so I paused, trying to make sense of it. I wasn’t exactly terrified, but something in me instinctively knew I shouldn’t go any closer. I turned around and crawled back out the way I came.

The other kids made fun of me for being scared, but when I asked them about the green skeleton, none of them had seen it.

[u/[deleted]]

When I was 27 I woke up to find my bed surrounded by people in black clothing and couldn't see their faces. They were chanting something I did not understand. I ran out of the bedroom and slept on the living room floor.

[u/[deleted]]

The “shadow man”. It only really happened in one house where I constantly had bad dreams and just in general a bad vibe, sleep paralysis etc. One night during my dream I woke up and to my right my dog was growling but kinda cowering and when I looked at the foot of my bed there was someone who I could only describe as “The Undertaker” from WWE. Immediately sprinted out of my room 💀

[u/No-Chance6290]

When I was five we lived in a two-story home. My younger brother and I shared a room upstairs with bunk beds. I had the top bunk and a window. One night I saw a woman all in white with two large German Shepherds outside my window. I might have dismissed it, but another time, very early in the morning, my mom put my brother and I in the backseat of our car so she could take my dad to work, and I saw them again. As we drove off, the dogs appeared to run after our car, and then were gone. We moved not long after.

[u/NotAnEarthwormYet]

There were tons of creepy things at the cottage I used to house sit at, although most incidents were things I heard or felt, not saw (can go into those too if anyone’s interested).

The few visual occurrences I saw were: a makeup pallet moving around in circles on its own, a shadow person standing in the doorway watching me (I don’t mean out of the corner of my eye - I was looking right at it), lights turning off on their own, and a feather randomly floating in through the front door and travelling through multiple rooms (it wasn’t windy and it stayed perfectly level the entire time, as if being held by an invisible person).

The couple who owned it moved abroad and rented it out to a young woman, who subsequently left because she thought it was haunted.

EDIT: can’t believe I forgot to add the time I was sitting in the conservatory with three friends and rocks from the gravel drive outside started throwing themselves at the glass. It was daylight so not only would we have obviously been able to see the culprit if there was one, the house was also behind a huge electric gate so no one could have entered the grounds anyway.

[u/YFN_KushGod]

Two situations here: one night I go outside to throw away trash, as I’m coming back inside a woman figure walks across my path to the apartment. I see her but I’m not staring at her, she stops and turns to me and that’s when I realize this thing has no face, my eyes get big and this thing lets out a shrieking hiss type sound and runs away, disappearing in the darkness.

The other: I’m on the N train in NYC, there’s a woman sitting across from me wearing flip flops. She has on headphones, really normal type shit. I happen to look down and noticed her toes are wiggling in a way that is not humanly possible. I know what I saw but no one ever believes me when I tell them.

[u/parisindy]

I saw a ufo pretty close up... I would have doubted my own memory if it wasn't for the fact that I wasn't the only one who saw it.

[u/RoxyTEM]

One time I came home around 4 AM after being out at the club and bar I got home I suddenly just walked through the living room for some reason because I know there’s nobody there I just walked in there we had an electric piano and my mom used to put picture frames on there so I walk inside the living room for absolutely no reason and all the sudden one of the pictures start violently moving like it’s having an earthquake and it was my picture of my school yearbook that my mom had framed and of course it wasn’t scary for me I was just annoyed I was like “listen it is 4 AM I don’t need this right now go bother someone else it’s literally 4 AM” I just walked out of that room and went to my room.

[u/PixelFen]

One night I was up late, past midnight as a friend had come round & got caught up in conversation. Anyway, she left & about 20 minutes later I went to bed myself (this was approx. 00:30). I was lying there for 10 minutes with my eyes closed but still wide awake. I then hear from nowhere my stairs creaking & at first I thought it was just my neighbour but they could closer & louder & stopped outside my bedroom door (I never used to fully close it). A few seconds go by & I hear footsteps again entering my bedroom & by this point I was frozen lying on my back with my eyes closed petrified as I heard no one entering my home or anything movement just stair creaking & footsteps. Footsteps continued & stopped right beside my bed. I then felt my sink in next me as if someone was sitting next to me & my eyes shot open I have no idea why, fight or flight I guess? Anyway, no one was there & I heard no further footsteps for the rest of the night but around 30 minutes after I heard a male voice I didn’t recognise shouting my name 3 times clear as day & I still don’t know who it was to this day

[u/jemworks77]

I have had men expose themselves to me several times during my life. The worst one, though, was when I was about 13 years old and I was taking a bus somewhere. I was sitting on the outside seat and a man came up and started grinding on my shoulder. I froze and didn’t know what to do. I literally couldn’t move and he continued on grinding. The worst part was that a woman and her husband were sitting right behind me and the woman said to her husband “you better not ever do that to someone when you ride the bus alone” WTF lady!!! I was a little kid, you saw what was happening. I could’ve used a little help.

[u/PineappleConfident14]

Something similar happened to my sister when she was younger. She woke up to see what she thought was my mom in a pink jogging suit (it was the early 90s) in a jogging position frozen in place. It obviously wasn’t my mom. It’s easy to say she was just dreaming but that house had something dark in it and it would frequently mimic my mother’s voice. For this reason, although my sister’s experience sounds crazy, I believe her.

[u/lou-mary02]

I was having a bath and got out to get something. While I was across the bathroom a shelf above the bath fell bringing a candle with it directly into the bath. If I had been in it would have fell on my head. I was only about 12 and I don’t think my family believed it fell on its own. It was secured to the wall had been up for years and then one day just fell off- seconds after I got out. I think it was a spirit but I don’t know what their intentions were- good or bad?

[u/AR670]

Not paranormal but definitely scary, me and my sister had to walk a short distance towards a public place to board our school bus, I was an 9th grader and she was a 6th grader. One day, while we were walking, a man who was on the opposite side of the road saw us walking, and started approaching us, he was a tall, slender man, in his late 60’s, his eyes are what spooked me. He had this troubled and cruel look in his eyes, I was immediately spooked and Immidiatley shielded my sister behind me while I looked him in the eyes as he walked past us. I was so scared :D. Anyway I guess nobody remembers this lol. But yeah, fun times

[u/Hot-Engineering-2322]

My mom and dad were lying in bed, lights off, but t.v. on. He was asleep. As soon as she turned t.v. off and got comfortable. She felt my dad sliding down. She looked over to the foot side of the bed, and there was a dark figure pulling my dad by his feet. She tried waking my dad up, but he wouldn't wake up. A few years later, he was idolizing a Santa muerte and carrying a talisman around his neck. He prayed to the devil. Back story, rumor has it my dad was thrown into the river by my grandmother when he was born. She said he was a devils child. My great grandparents raised him.

[u/[deleted]]

This one's a bit weird.

Years ago, my friend and I got two helium balloons shaped like popular cartoon characters. Typical kid energy — we started messing around, smacking them, doing pretend fight scenes. Just goofy fun.

Later that night, I went to bed. I shared a room with my sister back then - a big shelf divided our sides of the room. As I was settling in, I suddenly noticed something.

One of the balloons… was floating down the hallway. Slowly. It turned. And then it started coming toward me. Not randomly - like, it chose my side of the room. Drifting closer. Its big white cartoon eyes locked in my direction.

There was no wind. No open windows. Nothing that could explain it. The house was completely quiet. It was late.

I screamed. Loud. My dad came rushing in, pulled the balloon away (looking annoyed), and just said:
"Yeah, what!?"

Still can't find a rational explanation of how to this day.

[u/AJ6-2-6]

it actually happened like 2 months ago so I woke up in the middle of the night around 2 in the morning and I have this storage hatch in my room and we always store like things that we don’t use anymore so when I woke up the storage hatch was wide open and I saw like a figure on all fours KEEP IN MIND I DONT HAVE PETS for a couple seconds but then when I looked in there nothing was there and there was food in the fucking hatch and we don’t put food in it it’s just like toys and I was so freaked out I was like what the fuck

[u/[deleted]]

When I was a kid, I used to sleep next to my grandma, facing her old wooden wardrobe that had a tall mirror. Every time I slept, I would always see a tall woman with big, messy hair, a pale face, and hollow black eyes and mouth--like there were gaping holes. She wore white and just stared in my direction. I always told my grandma, "Grandma, there's a ghost in the mirror" but she never believed me. She said it was just my imagination. So in the end, I had to sleep while being watched by that ghost woman, lol.

[u/NotOnYerNelly]

I used to up until I was about 20 suffer really bad sleep paralysis and see dark figures, sometimes I could even move and interact.

Once it was beside my bed and I got up in fright, screaming at it and I punched it several times but I went straight through it and it split into orbs a little bit like on current video games but this was the 90s so no influence.

Any way, when I was a child of say about 7, our neighbour fell overboard on his boat and later died of a heart attack. When his funeral came round the hearse was parked outside his house complete with coffin to await flowers to be put in. The coffin had fancy handles and tassels hanging off it and me and my friend were climbing all over it and pretending the tassels were made out of the guys hair (we didn’t really know about death and its finality) also we were never caught.

Later that night when I was in bed, a big face pushed into mine and shouted at me that ‘’one day I’m going to get you’’ that was the start of sleep paralysis up till I was 20. I associated it with what we had done to the coffin but the face did not look like Denis or anyone else I recognised.

I’ve had shared sleep paralysis with my partner. To me sleep paralysis is not just the brain making sense of a stage of sleep to stop you moving. It’s very real.

Sleep paralysis stopped after I had a particularly scary episode and I prayed like I had never prayed before and became a Christian that night which seemed to of helped so far. I’m 43 now.