23 People On The Creepiest Experience They’ve Ever Had
By 
I only have two memories from before the age of six when I moved a few states away from the home I grew up in. The first is taking a sip from a pop can and discovering that there was a bee inside, and the second was abruptly leaving the swing set in my yard to walk to the edge of the hill it was on top of. I saw what I assume were two ghosts (because if they weren’t, WTF). They were two men wearing army uniforms and carrying a casket between them up the hill towards my house, maybe 30 feet from coming into contact with me. I ran into the house and locked myself in my bedroom. 20 years later my sister still has the same memory as well. I’m not sure if I believe in ghosts, but I do believe something weird happened that day. Today I explored Reddit to collect as many people’s similar experiences as possible, if everyone has a weird story like this, maybe there is some credibility to ghost theories.
If you have a true (or fictional, but specify) account of a paranormal experience and would like to see it on Thought Catalog, email afterdark@thoughtcatalog.com.
1. “Good night”
I was out hunting in Northern Ontario, no roads (except for a logging roads) with in 130 km, i was late on the bear season so no one was out hunting in my quadrant. I found a nice camp site along side a river and hunted from there, on the second day of my hunt i came across the bear tracks i tracked it for about two hours, and then turned around.This is when shit got very fuckin weird, i always track on one side of the tracks and return on the other. About 200 meters down the east side of the tracks i ran into another human foot print which disappeared across the trail and into the woods on the west. My dog (czech wolfdog) didn’t seem to smell anything, so i returned to camp with minimal concern.I got back to camp at around 7:30 at night made a quick dinner and had a cigar by the camp. At around 12:00 i heard a snap of a branch, after hunting for 20 years only two things snap branches, bears, and humans. I grabbed my firearm and a flashlight and went out after the noise. every 100 yards, i would scan with the flashlight. my dog freaked, started growling and advancing into the woods slowly, i pulled back on my leash to slow his advance and switched on my flashlight. I saw a pair of eyes looking right back at me, it stared for about five seconds and disappeared into the woods. on the walk back i felt anxious, scared, and uncomfortable i could feel someone watching me.the next night, the same thing happened. My dog went wild, like i have never seen him he was whimpering, growling, and clearly very anxious. at this point i was terrified, i didn’t go hunting that day and didn’t close my eyes once. That night i sat up with my flashlight, constantly scanning the tree line. I guess i dozed of at around 1 and woke again at 3, i was sweating, confused, and very scared. i scanned the forest, and just barely visible about 25 yards in the forest there was a man and his dog, he was looking right back at me. i stared to approach him, shouting to him. I got with in 10 feet, he looked awfully disheveled and stank, the worst part was that he just stared and smiled his eyes showed zero emotion and whispered “Good night”.i ran back to my tent, packed it into my pack and loaded it onto the trailer of the atv and drove out of there.
2. Can you hear me?
I have two stories!When I was about ten, I was reading in my room late at night. I had gotten up to use the bathroom and on my way back to bed I stood right in front of a woman figure. She was gold and spongy looking, but you could just tell it was a woman. I stood there saying to myself, “Shut up, it’s just your imagination.” So, I put my hand out to touch her and she moved her hand out to do the same. I ran and jumped in my bed scared to death.My mother had died about nine years ago. She had been very sick, mentally as well as physically. We had a bad relationship. A few months ago I was laying in bed, almost asleep, when I heard her voice, crystal clear as if she were in the room with me. She sounded angry and scared and yelled, “CAN YOU HEAR ME?!” A split second after, my baby boy wakes up crying.
3. Near miss
Years backs I was traveling Labor Day weekend to the beach. It was a three hour drive and the highway was quite congested. I was driving at a steady pace lets say 70 mph right along with traffic. Anyway I’d been driving behind the same car for miles and the same car behind me so I was aware of who was around me (that matters at end of story). Anyway I go to light my cigarette and my lighter isn’t where I put it last. I’m searching all over my car and nope no damn lighter anywhere. I get off the next exit and to add to my irritation take the wrong way off the exit. So I turn around and find the closest gas station. I run inside to buy a damn lighter and I jump back in my car and sitting on the passenger side seat is my fucking lighter. I was so confused! I would’ve seen it there. So I go to get back on the highway and traffic is moving at a snails pace. As I drive a little bit down the highway I see the car that was in front of me flipped on the side of the highway and the car behind me was on the other side of the highway along with a few more crashed cars. It had just happened as there were no ambulances or police. I was in shock. Intense emotions were flooding my head. I got off the next exit pulled over and sobbed. I have no idea what would’ve happened to me if my lighter hadn’t gone missing but it was pretty obvious that the outcome wouldn’t have been very good.
4. I saw a man wearing a Fedora in my bedroom
I woke up a few nights in a row around the same time in the early morning hours, looked the the end of my bed (husband next to me), the room dark, and sat up to a dark figure wearing a fedora-type hat, in what looked like a trench coat. No facial features, just black. It appeared to have a male form. Like I said, no facial features, but I still felt like it was staring at me, and it was really pissed off at me. This happened a few nights in a row. I did some “research” (looked it up on the internet) and found other people have experienced something similar. Some people attribute it to sleep paralysis, but I have seen shadows before in previous homes, just not like this one (in both form and the extremely threatening presence).So, who knows. But it was creepy as all hell.
5. My whole family was gone
I was four-years-old. We held something of a family reunion down at my grandparents’ huge, two-story house in southern CA. My relatives were down there, all of them, and we were invited to just sleep at my grandparents’ place as opposed to checking into a hotel. So, we were all spread around the house in various rooms while I slept with my mom on the floor of my grandparents’ room. I still remember the pillow I was using, a purple-red Pocahontas pillow. Anyway, we fell asleep after bidding everyone a goodnight…aand after a few hours, I woke up. It was dark. And I was alone. This sounds bizarre and makes no sense, but I distinctly remember waking up and not finding my mom next to me, or my grandparents in their bed. I guess my young mind hadn’t quite grasped the horror of the situation, because after tugging away their bedclothes and finding nothing, I decided leaving the room would be a brilliant idea! I searched the whole house, left the lights out (for fear of waking anyone, but you’ll see why that’s weird in a sec), jumped on air mattresses, beds, you name it…and everyone was gone. My parents, cousins, uncles, aunts, grandparents… I was completely alone. And the cars were still there, in the garage and out. After searching the house, I went downstairs and curled up on the sofa in front of their big-screen TV, noticing the clock read 2:37. I fell asleep, I guess, and awoke to my mother frantically looking for me because I wasn’t there when she woke up. Everything was back to normal, unlike when darkness fell.I could chalk this up as sleep paralysis or a simple nightmare, but I don’t remember any of my other nightmares and I remember all this with crystal clarity, even to this day, nearly 20 years later. Still freaks me out. I have no clue what could have happened!
6. Shadowy Spiderman
I have no evidence, nor do I have any other witnesses but I remember sleeping at a friends house one night on the floor next to his bed. The way i was positioned was that I was facing the closed bedroom door and I had fallen asleep almost instantly. It was around 3 in the morning and I had woken up almost icy frozen and with sleep paralyses and that feeling of terror.I could only move my eyes and when I did I looked at saw a figure above the door in the top corner of the ceiling holding itself up like spiderman. There was no way to describe what it looked like because it seemed shapeless yet i could make out arms and legs…. and it sounded like it was making clicking noises like it was rattling its teeth, fidgeting around and scratching itself fast enough it looked like motion blur.In horror I stared at this thing, now unable to look away until it decided to climb down onto the floor and OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR and slip out into the house. At that moment i bolted to the door closed it and turned on the lights waking my friend in the process. I asked my friend about it and he grew a little pale but he has only seen shadows but nothing graphic like that.
7. The one night she wasn’t home
I used to work weekend nights and my wife would always be home alone with her car in the driveway. One particular Saturday, I was at work and my wife happened to go out with her friend. Her friend picked her up, so her car was still in the driveway. When I got home at 1:00 am, the power to the house was out. I went to check the circuit breaker and saw that the padlock on it had been cut. I promptly went inside and called 911. Here is the conclusion I have come to (though I’m open to alternatives). Someone had been watching us for a while and knew our habits. That Saturday, they saw her car in the driveway and my car gone. They cut the lock and threw the circuit breaker. This would have baited her outside. She would have been outside with the front door unlocked and quite vulnerable. I bought a nice bottle of wine for her friend and a shotgun for the house.
8. Stalked for years
Back when AIM was big and I was 14, I went to an anime convention. I wanted to make some friends there, so I met some people, and gave them my AIM screenname so that after the convention we could keep in touch.After the con, only one person contacted me. I couldn’t remember precisely who he was, but I gathered that he was a guy and a couple of years older than me. Our conversations were very normal at first “How are you” “Whats up” sor of things, But then he started to talk about sex. Like I mentioned, at the time I was 14, and I was a late bloomer, so I wasn’t interested in sex at all.I remember during one of these conversations he mentioned that it would be “funny” to see me having sex. I responded awkwardly and tried to change the subject. Then he started sending me pictures.The pictures he sent me were of his penis photoshopped into a mushroom. But the penis underneath was still very obvious and apparent. I freaked out and stopped talking to him immediately. After a couple of weeks I blocked him and changed my screen name just to be sure.About 3 years later, I had forgotten about him and was going on with my life as usual. Then I got an email in my inbox.I read it, and to my disbelief, it was from the same guy. I remembered his AIM screen because it was very distinctive. The email said something like “Hey I talked to you a couple of years ago and found your email by googling your old AIM screenname.”I was like, “What the fuck.” Because my new email address had NOTHING to do with my old AIM screen name. I had stopped using that AIM name YEARS ago. In fact, I hadn’t even used AIM in over a year.I deleted/ignored the email.A couple of years after that, I am in college. I took an abnormal psychology course that was held in a lecture hall. After the first week, I started getting to know the people sitting around me. One guy in particular seemed to know me. I didn’t remember him at all.
he mentioned meeting me at a convention a couple of years ago. Still, I wasn’t concerned because at this point I had been to about 20 conventions (2 a year since I was 13). I pretended like I remembered him to avoid the awkwardness of the situation. He gave me his facebook name so as I was sitting in class, I pulled up his facebook page.I looked over his general information, and then I saw it. The same AIM screen name that kept haunting me. I tried to not freak out right there in class, but chills ran down my spine.How the HELL could a guy, I met at a convention, blocked, turned up a couple of years later in my email, turn up once AGAIN in my psychology class in my college?
9. Good thing I woke up
When I was a young child living in one of the high crime areas of town, I woke up in the middle of the night out of nowhere. This was something that never, ever happened to me, given how sound of a sleeper I was. I left my bedroom, went down the stairs and past the front door to get to the kitchen.
After getting a drink of water I turned around to go back upstairs to my bedroom. The front door was open. It hadn’t been open just a moment ago. Our car had been broken into a day earlier, so I was already on high alert. I stood, completely frozen, staring at that door for a good ten minutes before I could bring myself to move.
When I finally did go over and shut the door, our porch creaked in the background as though someone was walking on it as I closed it. It was the scariest moment of my childhood. I still get the willies thinking about it.
10. Homeless ghost
Down around where I live in Texas, we hunt along an old dried up river. One night I was out hunting some boar and found a nice camping spot. Made camp and got set up and out of nowhere a guy walks up and asks for food. Instantly i knew something wasnt right about this guy, he gave me a terrible terrible feeling. 25 miles from any road or civilization and someone just happens on my campsite? Fuck that shit. As soon as I saw him I knew to unlatch my pistol from the holster and keep the safety off. I make dinner and we eat and chitchat. After we eat, he says his thanks and walks off into the brush. I passed out around 3am with my hand on my gun, slept lightly. I woke up and decided to try and find where he came from and where he went. Normally, I’m a damn good tracker, but I couldn’t find his tracks leading in or out of camp. It was soft kind of muddy ground and should have shown his tracks. Nothing. Not even a broken branch or a smashed leaf. Haven’t been hunting there since.
11. I heard my coach’s sex CD
JV soccer, my coach drove a minivan and put all the balls and equipment in the back. At the end of practice I had two ball bags and was putting them in the back of the already open trunk, and the van was turned on while my coach was off picking up cones and what not. As I put the ball bags in the back I start to think I’m hearing porn or people fucking in one of the back seats. I walk around and see nobody, but discover the noise is coming from the radio. The dude was playing sex noises through a CD in his van. I guess I missed it when the genre got popular….
12. Found a body in a bag on the side of the road
The summer after I graduated from high school I worked as a highway litter crew supervisor (I drove two younger teens around and had them pick up litter on the side of the road). One day one of the kids flagged me over to him and showed me a weird bag he’d found. The bag was a very thick, semi-translucent plastic, double bagged and tied off at the top with black electrical tape. It was down in a ditch covered with brush, so the kid and I dragged it to the side of the road for closer inspection. It was really heavy and it took two of us to get it out of the ditch. Once we got it to the road side it became apparent that the bag was filled with a reddish-brown slush and a bunch of hard pieces . . . bones. It was then that I realized that this was a sack filled with a rotting corpse of some kind. I called my boss, and he told me to call the police. The police showed up pretty nonchalantly, but became visibly upset once he’d inspected the bag himself. He took down my statement and contact information then shooed us along as he called into the station for assistance. We never heard anything back from the police, and I never did find out what, or who exactly, was in the bag.
13. Prankster ghost
I had a family member pass away and after that I kept seeing this crow coming around. It would land on the back of the worktruck and stay there while we were driving. It would also land on the roof where i was working and continue to caw at me over and over. A few weeks later I’m watering my garden and the crow is up in the tree cawing at me. I look up and say what’s up uncle Nick. As soon as i turn to return to the house and turn off the hose, I get sprayed in the back with it. I instantly whip around and look and its laying about 6 or 7 feet from me just trickling out on the ground. I don’t know how it happened but definitely scared me
14. Lightning
Three years ago, on a VERY VERY hot summer day. We could see some dark clouds forming on the horizon from our garden. So me and my little brother fired up our pc and checked the weather radar, there was a pretty bad patch of rain and thunder on a collision course with our town.
When the clouds were finally over our heads, the whole family was in the yard looking at lightning that was cracking some miles away. Out of nowhere lightning hit our greenhouse, wich i was 2/3 meters away from. I could actually feel the static on my armhair, and saw my own shadow in the whitish blue light as i ducked out of refex. The buzzing sound was intense as an arc of lightning crawled across the iron gutters of the greenhouse.
This all happend in one and a half second, next moment, all of my family members where with me under our back porch. All quite literally shocked, no one hit. Creepiest thing I can recall by far.
15. He knew about my motor oil
Being the manager of a clothing store, I sometimes help other stores out too. A few weeks ago, I was asked by my boss to work a night shift at a store located in a different mall. I’ve never been to that mall before and figured working there would be interesting, so I took the shift.The mall closed at 10:00pm and I left the store by 11:30pm. Walking back to the parking structure was kind of creepy. The concrete structure was dimly lit. There were still several cars left in the structure , probably belonging to mall employees.I had completely forgotten where I had parked, so there I was, aimlessly wandering the parking structure looking for my car. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw an elderly homeless man coming towards me. He asked me “You looking for your car?”, and not wanting to be rude I responded “yes”.the homless man nodded and beckoned for me to follow him. Not really knowing what to do, I decided to follow. We walked for about 5 minutes across the structure and up a flight of stairs.Then he stopped right in front of my car and told me “Its not safe to drive a car that’s low on motor oil, you know” and then proceeded to walk away.
Getting into my car I noticed that it WAS low on oil. I have no idea how he knew where my car was or how he knew it was low on oil.
16. “They’re scratching my face”
I was babysitting my 4 year old cousin last week. Everything was normal. I put him to bed, read him a book, and he fell asleep. 20mins later I’m laying on the couch and I hear him whispering from the hallway. I get up and sneak up to hear what he’s saying. “They’re scratching my face, they’re scratching my face.” He said it in a calm voice and I asked him who but he didn’t answer. I walked him back to bed despite my racing heartbeat. Shit seemed like it was straight out of a movie.
17. Bathroom mystery
In was visiting a school in New York a few months back; I’m from the West Coast. My mom and I are on the train from Grand Central to Poughkeepsie, and this train had a bathroom on it. When we got on there was standing room only, so we and about five other people were standing by the bathroom. this older man, about 45, starts chatting with us. He asks where we’re from (we had our bags with us), what brings us to New York, and talks about how this was his daily commute. He was very kind to me and my mother.So as we’re riding along a man comes out of the bathroom in quite a huff, and the kind man we’d been talking to excuses himself to go to the bathroom. Remember, the train is moving at full speed at this point.A couple minutes later, a woman and her small child ask if the bathroom is occupied, so all of us who were standing around the bathroom answer yes. Five minutes pass, then ten minutes, until she becomes skeptical. She pulls open the door, and it’s unlocked. The bathroom is empty.
What the fuck.There are no windows in this bathroom. There is only one door. We all agreed we hadn’t seen him leave, and all of us who had been there when he went in were dumbfounded. Where had this guy gone? I never found out. I never saw him again. I still have no idea what happened.
18. Gardening
My mom was about 8 when this happened so it was the mid-seventies. This happened in a small rural town in Canada, so stranger danger wasn’t a big thing there.My mom was leaving school and an older, dirty looking man pulled up in a beat up old sedan and told her that he knew her parents and that they had asked him to pick her up. Side note about my step-grandfather: he was an alcoholic, abusive asshole who hung around a bunch of equally slimy losers, and my mom tried to avoid him and his friends as much as possible, so it didn’t seem odd to her that she didn’t recognize a friend of her parents.She got in his car and was completely oblivious to the fact that something was wrong as he started driving, because he was headed toward her house. In retrospect though, she said it made sense that he took that route, because her house was right near the edge of town on a fairly secluded road, so he was taking a route out of town that avoided the more populated areas.He approached my mom’s home and my grandma happened to be standing out in the front yard gardening. My mom piped up, assuming that he was about to pull up in front of the house and let her out (she hadn’t said a word up to that point, she was a quiet kid) and said thank you. The driver, confused, looked over at her and followed her gaze to the woman standing on the lawn in front of them. Since it was a pretty remote road that didn’t get much traffic, my grandma glanced up at the approaching car. She saw my mom in the car and met eyes with the driver. Knowing that he’d been seen by my grandmother and could be fairly easily identified, he decided to stop the car and let my mom out and sped off out of town.My mom remembers my grandma collapsing on the lawn in a fit of tears, freaking out and my mom being completely oblivious to the very real danger she’d just been in.
19. Wrong house
When I was 12, my friend and I went to a church swim thing, and afterward, I spent the night at her house. To my surprise, her mom wasn’t home when we got back. She left a note saying she went grocery shopping with the grand parents. I had never been without adult supervision, and I was on edge.Their apartment building had that door handle where you punch in the right pegs, and each apartment had a patio or a balcony. Her mom had mobility issues, so their apartment was on the ground floor, and their sliding glass door was right next to the main door of the building.So we are sitting there, watching Nickelodeon, and this man tries to open the sliding door. It was locked, the block of wood was in the track so it wouldn’t budge, and the vertical blinds were halfway shut. After a few seconds, he leaves. Then the inside door opens but gets stuck on the chain. We screamed and the man said “oh, I’m sorry, wrong house.” Then he left. My friend relocked the door, and said her mom would be home soon.Not 5 minutes later, the same man put his hands on the sliding door and looked in at us. He made eye contact with me, smiled, and then started pulling on the handle. “Let me in, I need to talk to you!” We screamed and said we called the police. He then ran off.About 10 minutes later, her mom and grand parents came home and we told them about it. They were mad we hadn’t actually called the police,but we didn’t care because it was over…. except it wasn’t.Her mom was sitting in her motorized recliner, and she was a large woman, scary as hell when she was mad too. (I used to think she was Ursula, but thats another story.) We heard metal clicking, and the door opened. He was standing there, bug eyed at seeing my friend’s big momma. She said “What the fuck you doing!” He said “Oh I’m sorry, wrong house.” and ran.Her mom called the police this time, and the police said he obviously knew someone in the building since he knew the pegs to open the inner door, but he also had some lock picking stuff on him because the door knob showed signs of tampering. The police haven’t found out who he was either.I’m just glad he didn’t get in.
20. Stolen check
I had gotten a check and I distinctly remember putting it on my desk where I always put important papers so I wouldn’t lose it. Later that day when I went to grab it it was gone. I looked for the check for weeks without any luck. One night after getting home from work I was just about to get out of the car and I looked down and the check was in my lap. How it got from my desk to my car I still have no idea.
21. He was filming us
When I was about 8 years old, I was playing at the local park with my best friend (who was 7). This was during the time of “get yourself home before the streetlights come on”.It was getting dark, but not dark enough for us to go home. We lived in a small, well-to-do village in the Lake District where everyone knew each other and everyone was friendly (in the eyes of an 8 year old).We were both playing on a swing set when I looked at a nearby house and saw a guy (mid-30s) filming us.Just standing on his doorstep with a camera pointing straight at us.Being naive, we just ignored him, but 10 minutes later he was still there, the camera up to his eye and looking at us. We freaked out and ran home to tell our parents. (Their response: ‘If it happens again, tell us and we’ll call the police’).Typing this out doesn’t convey the soul-freezing fear I felt at the time – but just thinking back makes me feel cold and paranoid.
22. He was in the corner
When I was younger like 10 or 12 I had an obsession with checking dark corners.. just to make sure nothing is there. One night I went to get a glass of water from the kitchen. For some reason the sliding door to the kitchen is closed.. not an uncommon thing in my house. As I’m getting water, I look to the corner. It looks particularly dark.. but I’m trying to break this habit of checking dark corners so instead of turning on the lights to check, I instead wander back to bed in my half asleep state and close the kitchen door on my way out. That night my house was robbed. He got in from the kitchen patio door.
23. A man I never knew existed lived in my apartment for months
I never even met him, I didn’t know his name or face. I was, blissfully unaware, of his very existence.I will never know why, or when it started. I’m glad for that I guess. I moved into my very small apartment in February last year. My landlord, Olivia, was a sweet older woman who would cook to much and bring me much appreciated leftovers. She was great to me, even after telling her my problem. I’m antisocial, but she didn’t mind renting to a reclusive young girl who reminded her of her daughter.Every few weeks she would knock on my door then leave, letting me know she was leaving something for me. I loved that. Not even my family would cook so well. The next morning I wash and leave her empty containers outside my door and by an hour or so she would take them back again. My other neighbors seemed fine, but I never talked or visited with them.I work from home so anytime I ever was forced to go out I rushed out and into my apartment avoiding an, uncomfortable situation. I loved living alone, it was everything I hoped for. I could just, breathe. By April though, I started noticing things were not right. They were moving, or plain disappearing. I was convinced it was just anxiety caused by my new medication and the move, another side affect was it would make me so drowsy. Since I hated seeing the doctor I just dealt.I took naps during the day now and eventually stopped caring. Until one incident doubled my paranoia, Olivia brought me some sort of greek tossed salad and dressing for lunch one day and I enjoyed it with my friend netflix. I fell asleep in the middle of Portlandia, and woke up that evening at 5pm. Per usual, what was not usual was my bedding on the opposite side of me was disturbed. I only sleep on the right side. Always. Even more it felt.. warm. My first thought was I must have rolled around a lot, but I knew it was to odd to dismiss.I got up and searched my apartment gripping my phone with 911 typed in. Nothing else was disturbed, everything was exactly like it should be. I let it go, for the next few weeks everything was normal pardon the occasional misplaced shoe or drawn back shower curtain. I thought about telling someone, my parents, maybe Olivia, but if it’s not life or death I am not reaching out to anyone.I wasn’t scared, I was nervous, maybe a little stubborn.. But I stayed. I am not letting some stupid anxiety ruin my lovely lonely world. May came and It was getting worse. My panties, toothbrush, hell even my food was being misplaced. Every time I woke up there was this strange odor in the air. I finally realized this won’t go away by ignoring it. I called my mom and begged to come stay a few days, when I got home I told them everything. Saying it out loud solidified any creepy suspicions.That weekend my dad went to my apartment and what was found was true horror. Written all over that walls: “COME BACK” “BABY PLEASE” He ran out and called the police. There was no one living in my apartment but someone definitely had access besides me. The investigation revealed a man, Henry, the son of my landlord Olivia, was in a projected relationship with me.They showed me his confession on tape. He admitted coming into my apartment every night and everyday with his mother’s extra key. He claims we were in love and he had my permission. He drugged his mother’s food she left out for me causing my drowsiness and falling asleep so he could come in and watch me sleep, touch my hair, kiss my shoulder. The leftovers I had in the fridge were tested and confirmed. I was absolutely, horrified and disgusted. A man, I never knew existed, collected my drain hair, clothes, and trash and practically lived in my apartment for four months.
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