15 people share their creepiest, can't-be-explained stories

Warning to the Easily Creeped Out – you should probably avoid this.

After reading these 15 ghostly stories from Reddit users who had creepy, unexplainable, possibly paranormal things happen to them, you may start sleeping with the lights on.

1. ‘My grandma lives in a very stereotypical horror movie house – small Midwest town, white and old looking home, on a farm. She even has a chipped wooden Mary nativity in the front yard. She also has a cemetery about a half mile down the road. I used to sleep in the room in the corner on the top floor (my aunt's room) and it had a wooden rocking chair in it. When I was younger I would wake up because I thought I heard it rocking, to the point where I would wake up my grandma and have to stay in her room. About ten years later my mom, aunt and I were talking about how creepy my grandma's house was. My aunt goes on to talk about how when she was younger the reason my mom and her ended up sharing a room was because she thought her room was haunted. She said she woke up one morning and the rocking chair was about two feet closer to her bed, and after that night, it would start rocking on a nightly basis at midnight.’

2. ‘Until a few years ago I still had a flip phone phone. One day I got a random call asking for some girl named Sarah. I told them they had the wrong number and they hung up. For the next few months, I would get these calls asking for Sarah about once or twice a week, coming from different number and different sounding people. Sometimes these calls came at three in the morning. One day I got a call and, like usual, I said I didn't know Sarah. After they hung up I went to my contacts and hit redial; the answering machine said that number did not exist. I went back through my call history trying to call some other people that had called me with the same result, a machine telling me the number did not exist. Every time I would get these calls I would redial the number and still got the machine. I googled the numbers but all I learned was that were coming from North Dakota, Montana, basically everywhere in the Midwest. The next time I got a call asking for Sarah, I said, 'Oh yeah, she is right here' and the other person on the other end said 'No she isn't' and hung up. Things started getting weird when I started getting calls from 'unknown' numbers calling me. Whoever or whatever on the other end hung up the second I said hello. Once I got a call where they didn't hang up after I said 'hello' and I could hear someone was on the other end just listening but they didn't say anything, just something really uneasy about it.’

3. ‘I was staying in the Flamingo Hotel in Las Vegas (oldest property on the strip with a sordid mob history). In the middle of the night, I woke and saw a dark figure moving around the foot of my bed and coming up the gap between the twin beds. I hit the light, and there was a full figure of a man in a '60s sports blazer with blood all over his face. I yelled 'Go away!' and start flinging my arm in his direction. Just like that he disappeared. I woke my friends in the other bed and my buddy said 'What the hell you swatting at?!' I told them and they laughed at me. The following morning, my buddy said after I had fallen asleep water was dripping on his head, but there was no leak on the ceiling and was convinced we may have shared a paranormal encounter.’

4. ‘I had a black cat called Casper. We adopted her after she ran away from the previous owner. She was missing for days before the previous owner found her in the bushes, skittish and frightened. After carrying her home, the owner discovered she was allergic to cats when her arm broke out with rashes. She put out a call for a new home, which was answered by my animal-loving family. For ages, she was scared to come near anyone and was totally averse to being petted. Eventually, she turned into a total ham, never missing the chance to jump on you and lie with you. We loved her, and I loved her heaps. Then one day she lost the use of her back legs. Not long after, she passed away. I was having a rough time then, and she was a big comforter. Point is: my parents and I were sad. A few days after, I'm sitting on my front step having a smoke, and I gear a meowing sound identical to Casper. I look out front and there, at the gate, was a cat meowing at me, that looked just like Casper. I went over, and it ran away. I looked down the street after it, and it was gone. I mentioned it to my parents. They both said the same thing happened to each of them separately, which was a surprise to them, too. Now it could have been a similar cat from the neighbourhood, but it only happened once to each of us then was never seen again.’

5. ‘When I was 16, I was riding horses with my friend in the field beside her house. The horse threw me and I hit my head, HARD. The next thing I know, I'm on my back in incredible pain staring up at my friend, who is frantically screaming at me. Dazed, my gaze shifted and then refocused on her friend behind her, a tall, thin man wearing a black suit and an old-fashioned, wide-brimmed hat. He was staring unblinking into my eyes over my friend's shoulder. Days later she came to visit me in the hospital, and I asked her about the man I'd seen. I thought it was the new boyfriend she'd recently told me about. She told me there was no one there but me and her.’

6. ‘This past year, I went to bed on a normal night, and in mid-dream, everything stops and a voice says, 'The fire alarm is about to go off.' I wake up about five minutes later when the fire alarm starts in our building. I asked my roommates the next day if anyone said that, and I just happened to hear it, but they said the alarm went off around 4 a.m. and they were all sleeping prior to it going off. Plus, none of us knew they were testing the alarm beforehand. I was weirded out after.’

7. ‘Back in 2005, I was in a band that toured the country in a 15-passenger van with a trailer. We were on the way from Columbus, Ohio to Erie, PA. The show had been cancelled in Ohio due to a power outage, so we decided to get on the road early as we had friends in Erie who were taking us in for the night. I'll never forget this moment for the rest of my life. We were all having a conversation; there were eight of us total in the van when the driver and passenger both shouted simultaneously, 'What the was that?!' I'm getting goosebumps on my arms right now just remembering the event. I was sitting being the driver with my back against the window, and I didn't see anything but we heard a 'whooshing' noise as if something flew right over the van. My friend who was sitting next to me looked like he had just seen a ghost. We wound up pulling over on the side of the road because everyone was freaking out, thinking we hit something. Nothing was found. Both the passenger and driver said they saw a tall black figure lunge at the van from the shoulder of the left lane; my friend who was sitting next to me said the same thing. The next day we inspected the van in daylight and noticed there were streak marks across the roof of the van.’

8. ‘When I was about 11, I was walking home and an old guy who was pushing a stroller out of the blue put his hand over my eyes for about a second as he was passing by. I have no idea why I still remember this.’

9. ‘When I was 7, I suddenly awoke in the middle of the night to a young child kneeling near my bed praying. At first I thought it was my younger brother, so I asked him what he was doing. After I asked, he slowly looked at me and stood up and started running, so I hopped out of bed and followed him down my stairs and out my front door. We had a long driveway, and I followed him all the way to the end and then he simply vanished. I went back to my room and nothing like that has happened since.’

10. ‘When I was about 14, I was staying up way too late on the computer. It was about 2 in the morning, and everyone else was asleep. I got thirsty, and wandered down the hallway to get a drink. I didn't bother to turn on any lights since there was a nightlight in the hallway, and there was enough light to get by. I'm walking back to the bedroom when I get this weird feeling like someone is watching me, and turn around. There is this big white mist just floating right behind me. I immediately turned around and went back into the safe bright room. The thing is, there were no windows facing that hallway, and I hadn't passed the nightlight yet, so it definitely wasn't a trick of the light. All the doors leading to the hallway were also closed. A few years later when I was moved to the small room closest to that spot, I got the heebie jeebies and couldn't sleep without a lamp on. It wasn't until some time later after the sighting that I learned that in the '80s, a guy was renting out the house. He was arrested for the kidnap, rape, and disappearance of a bunch of kids in the area, and for the suspected murder of his wife. They never found her, and she supposedly ran away, according to him. Cadaver dogs went over the farm, but they never found anything. The cops must not have done a good job though because when they moved in, my mom found a pair of boy's underwear in the toilet tank. The missing wife was never found, and he died in prison about a decade ago. I think she's still there, though.’

11. ‘I went to bed one night after watching a bunch of spooky paranormal videos and was thoroughly on edge. I was ridiculously paranoid about ghosts even though I had never had anything ghosty in the house at all, nor has anything bad happened in it that I know of. Then at around 3 a.m., still not asleep because of fear, the band on my boxer briefs snapped as if someone pulled on them then let go.’

12. ‘This happened when I was just about 4-years-old. We lived in a really small apartment that had two rooms. When you enter our room, you could just see the kitchen and there's a doorway on the left which is our bedroom. I was playing in the bedroom and got my slipper stuck under the bed. I can't seem to get it since there's only a 2-inch gap under the bed. I don't know what got into me, but I started chanting something like 'Slipper, get out now,' over and over again. Then I got this feeling of dread and I got scared, so I ran away. After a few minutes, I sneaked to the bedroom and found my slipper a foot away from the bed. I ran inside to get it and got out as fast as I can. I don't know how it could have happened. As a little girl with an overactive imagination, I just assumed a rat passed by, heard me and just pushed my slipper out of there.’

13. ‘I was home alone and in the bath, but I had closed the door so that my dogs wouldn't run in and try to jump into the bath too. I was in there for a good 45-50 minutes and when I climbed out and opened the door, there had been a table moved right in front of the door, I never heard a thing while it was happening, never even heard my dogs bark and they bark for anything, and they were playing outside which is so strange for them.’

14. ‘When my boyfriend was about four years old, he would talk to a man he saw in the mirror. Naturally, his parents were curious about his behavior, and asked him questions about the man. He told his parents details about the man including his appearance, hobbies, and how he died. It turns out that one of the former owners of the house was a man who had committed suicide in the house, and he matched the descriptions of the man my boyfriend saw in the mirror. When his parents found out, they moved out of the house a month later.’

15. ‘I was visiting my dad last summer and trying to fall asleep when suddenly I felt a hand grab my ankle. I kicked furiously at whatever was grabbing me, jumped out of bed and screamed. There was nothing there. My dad came running into the room and found me sitting on the floor facing the bed. He asked me what was wrong and didn't believe me when I said nothing, that I thought something grabbed me, and even checked the closet. I immediately felt embarrassed but it felt so real. I've never had something like that happen before or since.’

All posts have been edited from Reddit for length and clarity.

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