Even if something truly hair-raising has never happened to you, chances are it’s happened to someone you know. Some of these stories can be truly outlandish, but that doesn’t mean they’re not worth sharing. From seeing a sibling one last time to a brush with “The Hat Man,” these are some of the strangest things that have ever happened to people.
#1 You Were Right
My grandma was always irrationally afraid of dogs. She liked them, but they made her nervous because they were too messy, loud and unpredictable. She would always tell us not to leave the door open on nice days. She’d tell us, “Close that door! A big black dog might walk in.” She had this fear that one day she’d turn around and there’d be a big black Labrador slobbering on her floors.
We always laughed at her oddly specific fear. We knew everyone who lived nearby (and their dogs). The biggest, blackest dog within one mile of her house was a Yorkie, so her fear was unfounded. Anyway, years later my grandma passed away. My dad and I had the sad task of clearing out her house. Things were a bit stuffy, so we left the door open to the yard and got to work. After a while, we both heard a strange noise and looked up. It sounded like... panting?
We turned around and — I kid you not — there was a big, black Labrador sitting in the middle of the kitchen. It was just gazing up at us happily, drooling on grandma’s linoleum. We lost it; uncontrollable laughter, crying just a little. We gave the dog scritches and escorted him back outside. My dad shut the door, looked upwards and said, “Sorry, Ma! You were right.”
#2 Identical Twin
When I was 19, I was walking home from the library and a cop pulled up to the curb, asking to see my ID. I wasn't sure what was going on, but I showed it to him. After a moment of verifying that I was who my ID claimed I was, he apologized. He then handed me a printout of a missing teen, a couple of years younger than me. She could've been my identical twin. I told him that I didn't blame him for thinking I was her. I don't remember her name because I was too shaken up by the picture. But, I still wonder what she's doing and if she's okay. It was nearly twenty years ago.
#3 Attack at Work
I developed schizophrenia then had my first attack at work. I was working like any other day, but out of the corner of my eye I could just see things shift and distort. Usually, I'd see bugs, but that was normal at that point. This time it was just different. Then, out of nowhere, I looked and directly saw a hooded person burst in through the doors. I yelled and dropped to the floor while everybody looked at me like I was the craziest person on earth.
I was so panicked that I didn't care. I could still see the guy and apparently I was rambling. They started asking what I took and what I was on. I don't remember much after that, I kept getting this horrible, sinking feeling of dread in the back of my mind, like an atomic bomb was dropping right next to me and there was nothing I could do. I still have days like that, but that was six years ago.
#4 Things are Peaceful
A few years ago, my uncle woke up at around two in the morning because the telephone beside his bed was ringing. He picked it up and it was his friend asking how my uncle was and such. After a brief conversation, his friend said that he was peaceful where he is, things felt great, and that he was happy. My uncle was glad to hear that and said goodbye. As he put down the telephone, my uncle woke up and realized that he was dreaming. The next day, he heard news that his friend had passed away.
#5 Scythe Gardener
My sister used to work at a pancake place that closed at 2:00 a.m. Despite the time, she’d ride her bike home because it was a very quiet suburban area. Nothing else was open at that time. One night, she rounded a corner and there was a guy on the footpath holding a scythe. A full-on scythe. At 2:00 a.m. He wasn’t moving, just looked at her. So, she kept riding since it was the safest thing to do. The road was curved, so she could easily see him after going past a fair way. He just started trimming his hedge. So, apparently, he was just a friendly neighborhood scythe gardener.
#6 Woman in Bed
My mom was 14 when this happened. She and her stepdad were watching TV one day when all of a sudden they heard the family dog barking its head off. My mom took a look outside and didn't see anyone. So, she dismissed it as the dog just being a dog. Cut to an hour later, my mom headed upstairs to go to bed. Upon reaching the top floor, she noticed the light in her room was on.
Growing up with prankster brothers, she assumed that they were in her room doing something nefarious. She opened the door, preparing to tell her brother to get out of her room, and was met with a horrifying sight. Everything in her room was upturned and a disheveled woman, dressed in my mom’s clothing, was on her bed.
The woman turned around to see who entered. Upon seeing my mom she threatened her and charged after her. My mom got out of there and told her stepdad, even though he didn’t believe her at first. Eventually, they called the police and reported her. Long story short, this woman had escaped from the local asylum and had snuck past my mom and her stepdad, which is why the dog was barking.
#7 Late Night Visitor
My family and I lived in a tiny house when I was a kid. The front door opened to the living room and faced my bedroom door, which was probably 15 feet away. I was about 10 or 11 at the time. One night, I heard a pounding at the front door. Like, someone just banging. It was somewhat rhythmic and would start and stop suddenly. I thought maybe it was our dog, who had a utility room to himself. Sometimes, he'd dig at the door to that room when he got bored. But, he was sound asleep.
I peered out the side windows, but saw nothing on the front porch. I walked up to the door and the banging sounded again. I put my hand on the door, but didn't feel any vibrations until I ran my hand to the lower right corner of the door. Maybe someone was kicking the door? The odd thing was that we had a screen door that was locked at night. I checked the windows again, but saw no one outside.
At this point, I was completely creeped out. So, I went back to my room, and put a few things behind the door. The next morning, I asked my parents if they heard the noise. They said no, but we went to investigate. When we opened the door, there was a set of muddy footprints going up the sidewalk, to the door, and back again, a few times.
#8 Name in Pencil
In college, I took a local history course. Part of the course required us to dig into the local museum's archives and read the journals that had been collected over the years. We then had to write an essay about a certain subject. Once I had narrowed down my topic I spent several nights digging through the 100-year-old field journals of this local surveyor.
They were mostly dull, uninteresting notes about the local geography, survey coordinates and other mundane details. While delicately going through probably the 15th straight book, I turned a page. Written in pencil, in the middle of the page, was my name in the surveyor’s handwriting. My first and last names were spelled exactly the same with nothing else written down around it. Just ordinarily written down like when someone quickly jots down the name of a contact.
It really creeped me out since the notebooks were probably close to 90-100 years old. As far as I knew, nobody had opened them since they were donated to the museum. Now, the combination of my first and last name isn't exactly rare, but to see it spelled the exact same way in the author’s writing was odd to say the least.
#9 Just in Time
My significant other and I were driving on the motorway. For whatever reason, he felt the need to change lanes, so he did. Just then, a car moved to where we were. A couple of minutes later, there was a crash and we were hit on the side of the vehicle. There had been an accident, and a lorry had hit a car and literally rammed it under another lorry.
We got out of the car and their vehicle was absolutely wrecked. I went to check on them and, since I was 17 at the time, thought they were gone until they started moving. So, we called an ambulance. They both survived, simply because their car was longer. If it was us and he hadn't decided to move lanes, they say we would have lost their lives if we were in their place. My partner doesn’t know why he moved lanes, he wasn't trying to overtake or go faster. He just had a feeling to move.
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#10 Last-Minute Save
My dad grew up on a farm. He was playing in the hay loft where he wasn't supposed to be. At some point, he got too close to the edge and started falling backward. That's when he felt a hand forcefully pushing him up and back to safety. He thought it was his dad, who was going to be mad at him, but he turned around and no one was there.
#11 Ms. Grace
When I was in elementary school, I went to ridiculously early swim practice. Turned out, it was canceled and I only found out when I got there. That meant that I had the whole school to myself. I waited near the school gate and soon enough my homeroom teacher arrived. I greeted her, saying, "Hi Ms. Grace!" But, she ignored me and walked past me. Confused, I looked toward the gate, then back at where she was walking. Except... she wasn't there.
I was a bit frightened at this point, so I went to wait outside my locked classroom, which was next to the restrooms. I sat down on the floor. A few minutes later, I heard the eeriest, creepiest laugh coming from the restroom. It was really high-pitched, almost witch-like. It made my hair stand on end. I was so scared I ran back toward the school gate.
A few minutes later, my homeroom teacher (the one who ignored me and then vanished into thin air) passed through the gate. She saw me and greeted me. I was too freaked out to reply. Until now, I have no idea what on earth happened. It's the only paranormal experience I haven't been able to explain to this day.
#12 Special Kitty
Once, I adopted a street kitten. He was bothering me while I was painting, so I put him in my room. As soon as I closed the door, I heard a bang on the other side of the house. I went to investigate and found my kitten. The bang came from about 30 feet away. It really freaked me out and I have no rational explanation.
#13 Nighttime Scratches
One time, my brother woke up with scratches on his back, arms and stomach. He was probably eight or nine years old. Our rooms were separated by a bathroom and at two or three in the morning, he woke up screaming and crying. My mom couldn’t see him. She was terrified because he was supposed to be in his room.
But, when she opened the door, she said she couldn’t find him (I assume it was a case of night blindness). When she found him and turned on the lights, she was very anxious. My mom decided to bring a dog to the house, bless the bedroom and made us share a room for at least a year. Weird stuff always happens to my brother.
#14 Red Splat
When I was around 13, I was in my room getting dressed. I leaned over and felt a splat on my back. I put my hand there and it comes back covered in red. I was pretty disturbed and couldn’t find any sort of source. Yet, I cleaned it off and continued to clothe myself. The next time I leaned over, I felt it again. I now freaked out and searched my ceiling and anything that might have had a red substance on it. My room was spotless. Haunts me to this day.
#15 Brother Left Behind
I was on a family road trip with my mom, dad and a friend of mine. We were talking about where we originally came from and then I asked my dad if he had any family left in Czech (where his father escaped). He said not that he knew of. I swear, literally 10 minutes later, his sister (my aunt) called him and told him that he had a brother that my grandfather left in Czech. She called to say they just got a letter from him that very day. It was the weirdest thing to ever happen to us.
#16 That’s Not My Name
Everyone who has ever forgotten my name thinks that my name is Thomas. It's happened over 15 times now, and when I ask why they always say I “look like a Thomas.” My parents were originally going to call me Thomas, but changed their minds a few days before I was born. Pretty weird, but probably a coincidence?
#17 Sheet of Steel
In 2011, I was in the passenger seat as my mom drove. My two sisters were in the back. We were driving behind a truck and I got a weird feeling. I started nagging my mom to change lanes. A couple of seconds after we changed lanes, a sheet of steel flew off the truck at windshield height and obliterated the grill of the SUV behind us.
#18 Spared the Same Fate
I fell off a dock and into the water when I was around seven years old. The water was way above my head. I remember freakishly "standing" on the bottom of the lake and seeing a little girl about 50 feet away from me. She was also standing at the bottom of the lake. She pointed up and I suddenly got pulled up. I was standing back up on the dock before any member of my family could get to me. I found out later that a little girl fell victim to the lake decades before.
#19 Like a Brother
I remember having a younger brother. I remember waiting back after school was over so we could leave at the same time. I remember my dad taking us out to watch Wall-E . I remember having a lot of memories with him. But, it turns out my brother never existed. My parents don't remember him, my friends don't remember him, all the pictures I took with him are gone. Turns out, I just had an imaginary friend.
#20 Loose Tire
My family goes to a garden centre near my town every winter. Well this one year, the day before we were supposed to go, I had a dream that on our way, the tire of the car came off and we crashed. It was such a horrible, graphic dream. I told my mom in the morning and she joked that she’d check the wheels. She actually must have (she said the car had felt weird and the dream unnerved her). Lo and behold, the tire was loose and needed to be taken to a mechanic. I’ve never had a dream feel so real before.
#21 Mirror Man
When my mom was a kid (back in the late ‘60s) she would always wake up at 3:39 a.m. This went on for months on end. One night, she woke up to what she described as a figure at her bed, but it was slender and silver (almost metallic). Frozen in fear, she yelped and the figure popped up and dashed out of the room.
The next thing she heard was a mirror breaking in the hallway near the stairs that woke up her parents and brother. They came out to broken glass all over the floor and asked what happened. My mom described what happened and everyone laid silent after the end of her story. They didn't have a mirror in the hallway.
#22 Dropped Ball
I had just finished gym class at school and was walking to my next one. I had a habit of getting changed early, so no one was around at all. As I was walking, a basketball dropped out of nowhere in front of me. It bounced directly up and down until I grabbed it. The college balls always had “WC” written in black marker on them, but this one didn't. It looked brand new and was in traditional style. What confused me the most is how it appeared seemingly out of thin air when no one was around.
#23 Baby Maria
I had a dream one night that I was given this baby to hold. She was beautiful, but looked like my sister. When I woke up, I cried uncontrollably about this baby and couldn't calm down for nearly two hours. Fast forward six months and I had another few of these dreams, mostly the same, but now I knew she had a name: Maria. I told my parents these dreams just lightheartedly, but their faces just shut down. A few hours later, they told me before I was born they lost a baby named Maria. They asked me what the baby looked like and they kept crying. I never had the dream again.
#24 Best Friends
This lasted for a year when I was nine years old. Whenever my home telephone rang, I could always tell whether it was one of my specific friends calling or not, even though I didn’t know she was about to call that day. My home telephone was one of the older models that didn’t show whose number was calling. So, when it rang and I got the premonition it was her, I’d always tell the rest of my family that it’s her for sure. I never guessed nor got it wrong.
#25 I Have to Go Now
I was working with someone once who told me that they were disturbed by a dream they kept having about their grandfather. They didn't remember the details, just the end where their grandfather kept repeating, "I have to go now, I have to go now." Turned out that the grandfather passed away from a heart attack that same night.
#26 Not Really Gone
Almost every morning, my dad used to pull out a chair in our kitchen for breakfast. It made that distinct sound of a wooden chair being dragged across the floor. When he passed away, our whole family would still hear that same sound early in the morning. I also used to hear footsteps and banging upstairs when I was the only one in the house all the time.
#27 Running Downhill
I was running downhill on a trail one morning, coming down off a mountain. I'm not a great downhill technical trail runner. I tripped over a rock and started flying forward off the side of the trail toward a nasty-looking drop-off. The next thing I knew, I was yanked back onto the trail. I was safe, but no one was around me.
#28 The Oak Tree
My mom's whole side of the family was raised Catholic. They all went to the same church in a small town in the south. I was there one summer as a kid with my mom, maybe around 10 years old. My uncle's farm land backs right up to the church. Things weren’t going so well on the farm. Crops weren’t growing right, healthy animals randomly dropped. It was just weird things that never happened before.
So one day, the adults were acting super weird and cagey. My grandma, mom, uncle, aunt, some older cousins, the priest and another man from the church were all hanging out on my uncle's farm. But, they basically kicked me out of the house to "go play." Naturally, being a very curious kid, I climbed as high as I could in the nearest tree to the house, trying to eavesdrop. I heard snippets, but couldn’t figure out what they were up to.
Everyone left the house, following the priest to the barn, stables, chicken coop, etc. This entire time, I was watching from the tree. While they were all down at the stables, I heard the door to the house open. A woman I'd never seen before, maybe 30 with brown hair and a blue dress, casually walked out the door. She briefly looked up at me in the tree. I waved. She ignored me and walked off down the dirt road. Okay then.
Once the adults were done, we all gathered in the dining room of my uncle's house to have some lemonade. I decided to pipe up and ask them who the woman in the blue dress was, since I'd never seen her visit before. Every adult in the room freaked out. My aunt started crying and the priest looked like he might barf. I was told the woman was "just visiting." Okay, whatever.
A decade later, my uncle finally told me that the woman I saw was an apparition that had started appearing to parishioners at the church and on my uncle's land. They assumed she was a lost spirit trying to pass on, but after she attacked the priest at his house and hurt farm animals started showing up, they decided she was some sort of demon. They thought she appeared as a young woman to hide her true nature. The day I saw her from the tree, the adults had gotten permission from the Catholic church to perform an exorcism on my uncle's land. It appears I witnessed her leaving.
I'm 26 years old and the story of “Evelyn” (as the parishioners started calling her) still gives me goosebumps. She was completely expressionless when she looked up at me in that tree. Didn't seem in any hurry to leave either. The moment she was gone, the crops started recovering and we stopped finding eviscerated livestock. I'm generally a pretty big skeptic, but I'll never be able to explain what I saw from the oak tree that day.
#29 From the Headphones
A couple of years ago, I had a terrifying episode of what felt like sleep paralysis, but could have just been pure fear keeping me from moving quickly. As I was sleeping with my headphones in, something very loudly screamed my name through the headphones. It wasn't a brief moment. It kept screaming until I pulled the headphones out of my ears. It took me a long time to pull out my headphones because I was so stunned I froze for a while.
#30 The Hat Man
I fell out of a tree when I was a young boy, hitting several branches on the way down and hitting the ground hard. I was alone and wasn't found for maybe 10-15 minutes. I was heavily concussed, but I can clearly remember an elderly man in a dark suit with a dark hat standing over me while I lay on the ground. He was just looking at me the entire time and offered no help. Piercing eyes. He scared me.
Some teenagers found me and when I came to and there was no man in a hat. I asked them if they saw him and they said there was nobody there. They stood me up and walked me home. I just kept asking about this man and kept looking for him. Years later, I learned about "The Hat Man.” I'm convinced that I was close to passing that day and that he was there to take me to the other side.
#31 Kissie Sykes
I grew up in a military family and we moved around a lot. When I was about three, we moved to a military base in Cherry Point, NC. Every night for the year and a half we lived there, I would run to my parents' room, screaming that there was a lady in my closet staring at me. When my parents came in to check, she was gone.
Eventually, they started locking their door because it was an every night thing and they got tired of it. Fast forward 18 years. I was sitting with my mom, just googling all the places we used to live for memories’ sake. Turns out, there's a legend on that base of a ghost woman. When they built the base, her grave was separated from her children's and now it's said she roams the bedrooms of kids on the base looking for her own. I had a panic attack when I read it. Her name is Kissie Sykes.
#32 Late Night Jog
I was jogging home from work at 1:30 a.m. along the road down in Patagonia, carrying my backpack and wearing earbuds. After about 20 mins into my run, something grabbed my backpack and yanked me backwards, making me stop completely. I was running full speed, so to come to a complete stop, this thing really had some pull.
I turned around immediately and took an earbud off, looking around. Absolutely no one was there. There was nothing but complete silence and darkness. There wasn’t anywhere for someone or something to run off without being seen as I looked back. I put my earbud back on and ran about as fast I ever have.
#33 Friend in the Mirror
I had an imaginary friend who used to live in the mirror. According to my parents, I would spend hours in front of the mirror talking gibberish. They never thought much about it as they thought I was just a child admiring herself in the mirror. For me however, she was very real. She had a face and everything. I have had photos taken with her (which were just of me standing beside the mirror), but even in the pictures I could see her. I don’t know when, but eventually I grew out of it and forgot about her.
#34 Future Daughter
Years ago, before I met my wife and had my daughter, I had three dreams in one night where I had a daughter. In the first one, she was a newborn. In the next, a toddler, Lastly, she was an adult. All three felt very lifelike and I woke up from each with this huge feeling of love and emotion. I felt like I missed her the rest of the day following the dreams.
I forgot about it eventually until I had my daughter. It all came back and it was the same feeling as the first dream I had. She is five now and I still get that feeling. It could (probably) be just a coincidence, but I feel like I had a vision of my future that night. The biggest reason I feel like that is the case, is my daughter has blonde hair and blue eyes. I remember that sticking out in my dream because nobody in mine, or my wife's family, has blonde hair.
#35 The Other Mall
For her birthday, my sister was going to get her ears pierced at the mall. We have two malls here, Westroads and Oakview. My family had all agreed to go to Westroads, but the day of, my sister said she wanted to go to Oakview instead. When asked why, she said she didn't know. Being her birthday, my family obliged. Right when she was at the mall, there was a crazy crime at the other mall she was supposed to go to. My family never doubts our gut instincts anymore. It was honestly terrifying thinking I could have lost my sister, mom, and grandmother in one day.
#36 Hello?
I was briefly working a job at a college bookstore, where one of my tasks was to call customers who had ordered books that were out of stock and let them know we had received their books. I'd already called a large number of customers that day and was in the groove of it. I had the process figured out: you either called and got an answer, where you had a script to tell them about their book, or you got the answering machine and had a slightly different script to give. Simple enough.
Until I called one number and got neither. Just silence. It threw me off a little and I just hung up after a few seconds. I called back again. This time, I heard what sounded like someone picking up and quietly listening. But, for some reason, I held my tongue and listened too. I could hear sounds, like people faintly talking in the background. Then, I heard a quiet "Hey, how can I help you today?" A man responded something along the lines of, "I need to pick up my book."
I was confused for a split second, until my co-worker, standing behind our desk, suddenly said, "Hey, how can I help you today?" She was speaking to a customer — a man — who told her, "I need to pick up my book." Suddenly, I got goosebumps. I listened for a few more moments. On the line, I heard their conversation, but about a second before it happened.
I hung up, walked out from behind the desk, and said to my coworkers "I'm going on my break." My break consisted largely of me sitting at a table outside and silently wondering what had happened. I didn't do any more phone calls for the rest of the day and I never told any of my co-workers what I experienced.
#37 Metal Plate
I was alone in the house and decided to adjust the temperature on my water heater. I sat down in front of it and removed the grey plate covering the thermostat. This plate is metal and about half the size of a sheet of copier paper. I set the plate down next to me and adjusted the thermostat. I then went to put the metal plate back on, but it was gone. I never saw that metal plate again.
#38 Stealing Bikes
My son was playing with some blocks at his grandma’s house one day when he was three. All of a sudden, he looked up and proceeded to tell his grandma and aunt, "One day, when I was 17, I was bad and took a motorbike. The police chased me, so I went round a truck but I crashed into a tree and passed." Then he turned back around and continued playing with his blocks like it was no big deal.
#39 Brotherly Love
I was in surgery and it took much longer than expected. But while I was under anesthetic, I was in another world. I was hanging out with these two boys I never met before — Willian and Nathan — and they were teaching me how to ride a bike. It was like I knew them instantly. It felt like I spent days with them, but realistically it was about eight hours.
I had such a vivid picture of them when I woke up and could remember how they smelled and sounded. I told my mom about it and she left the room. When she came back, she told me that she lost two fetuses, both of them boys and my parents had named them William and Nathan. For my mom’s birthday, I gave her a vivid description of both boys. It wasn't "creepy," it just felt normal at the time and I felt safe with them.
#40 Burned Hair
There was one day in my house that I smelled something like hair burning. My cat refused to leave the bathroom and would hiss, yowl, and spit every time I opened the door. I turned everything off, but kept smelling this scent in the center of the dining room. I grabbed my mom’s holy water after I felt more and more on edge and began to sprinkle it around. The smell began to move from room to room until I finally stood at the basement door.
When I tried to squirt the water down the steps, my hands just seized and the bottle went flying down the stairs and around the corner into the basement. When my mom came home, she complained about the rancid smell coming from the basement. When I told her what happened, the local priest was there within the week.
#41 Dreams of Meat
I used to have a really awesome dog and whenever he would sleep on the bed, I would have dreams about meat. Dream transfer, I assume, because he was huge. So, if he was in bed, he was definitely touching you in some way. However, I never really thought that was a thing until all of this randomly happened to me.
I eventually found out that these dreams were happening to my husband too, so I knew I wasn't crazy. As he got older, our dog stopped sleeping in our bed eventually and it never happened again after that. It didn’t happen to either one of us. Nothing like that has ever happened with any other pet, before or since then.
#42 Friend’s Disappearance
My buddy disappeared for two weeks straight. It was extra concerning because he left no note and had no plans on his calendar for the time period in question. We all went looking for him, and when we couldn’t find him at his usual spots, we filed a missing persons report with the police. We eventually found him because he just walked through the door of our apartment one day.
We kept barraging him with questions, but he didn’t remember going anywhere. He thought he was at his old dorm room playing piano for about an hour at most. Just like that, he practically disappeared from existence for two weeks and had no recollection of it. It still weirds me out to this day, because when the doctors gave him an examination, they found nothing wrong with him.
#43 The Blue Thing
I once woke up in the middle of the night and saw a blue orb-like thing. This orb wasn’t humanoid, but it didn’t light up the surroundings. It would pass the door a couple of times and leave. It scared the absolute daylights out of me. I called it “the blue thing.” It happened a couple of other times, but no one ever believed me.
#44 Colorblind
I once woke up in the middle of the night, in cold sweat. I found that everything around me was in complete greyscale. There was a very grainy quality to everything, like an old horror movie. I stepped out of my bed and walked around a little to make sure it wasn’t a dream, but I still couldn’t see color. Only after I slept again and woke up did my vision go back to normal.
#45 Twirling Her Hair
Many, many nights of my childhood I felt something twirl my hair as I fell asleep. I always chalked it up to myself doing it because I had a habit of doing that same thing and maybe I didn't do it consciously. After a few years, however, I knew it wasn't me. One morning, my eldest brother was looking at me really funny all through breakfast. I finally asked why he was staring at me. He shook his head and said nothing, but he looked so shaken.
He later told me a shadow man was sitting at the head of my bed, playing with my hair the night before. It scared him and, of course, it scared me. He had weird details like how he wore a top hat, but it was all shadow. Considering this happened for years, I believed him then. If my brother hadn't looked so shaken and pale, I would have thought he was just picking on me to scare me.
That said, my daughter woke me a couple of years ago saying she saw a shadow man in the living room who wore a big hat. You can bet your boots that reminded me of the same visitor I used to get as a kid. My first thought is to brush it off since I don't believe in stuff like that, but it still can creep me out when it comes up.
#46 Disappearing Act
My teacher disappeared. We were in eighth grade, in a French immersion school, and according to the family, our teacher showed no signs of any reason to disappear randomly. All I know is that he planned it. Why else would we only have noticed a day after he walked out? We had a substitute that day, so his family assumed he was at school, while the school assumed he was absent. It wasn't until the next day when he didn't show up for our field trip that they realized he was gone.
We were called down to the gymnasium, where our principal announced the news to us while we could only sit there, stupefied. It was scary to know that our teacher was just gone. The family was devastated, and the ponds froze over shortly after he left, which meant we couldn't look for him. We never found him.
#47 The Bus Stop
I was about 16 in the car with my mom and we were just chatting while she drove. Afterwards, we stopped talking and I kind of zoned out. All of a sudden, an image came into my head, sort of like a memory of me or someone as a child getting onto the bus. It was so vivid that I thought my mom said something. So, I asked her, “Hey, did you say something about a bus stop?” She replied, “No, but I was just thinking that this area is where I used to get on the bus to go to school as a kid.”
#48 In the Same Cage
I came home from work one night to find my two-year-old daughter standing at the top of the stairs. She was staring up at the full moon in her jammies with a teddy bear in hand. She should have been in bed by this time. Not wanting to scare her, I walked up the stairs, knelt down next to her and asked her what she was thinking about. She turned to face me, with a very serious look and in a very creepy monotone, said to me, "We’re all in the same cage." I literally recoiled from her and ran back down the stairs. I couldn't believe it.
#49 Scent of a Rose
There's a cemetery near where I grew up called the Hungarian Cemetery. Old gravestones are written in a foreign language in an overgrown forest. It’s super creepy. There's a gravestone of a woman named Mary there. Supposedly, if you knock on the stone, you’re supposed to smell roses. So, a friend and I went there and knocked, but we didn't smell anything. We went back to our car, got in and the car reeked of roses. I don't believe in the supernatural, but I can't explain that one.
#50 Ricky’s Brother
My friend Ricky is a very serious guy, conservative, mid 30's. He's not particularly religious and he doesn't believe in anything supernatural. He’s into really simple things like fishing, hunting, and that’s about it. I know he's not the type to tell tall tales, which is why I believed him when he told me this.
When Rick was 24, he was in the bathroom and he heard someone walking around his house. It was his brother, Mikey. Rick was really surprised to see him because his brother was at college across the country. "I just want to tell you everything is cool, man. I'm fine," Mikey said. At the time, Rick asked what was happening and what was going on. Mikey just said, "I gotta go now, sorry. I don't have time to stay. Love ya!"
He then simply walked out the front door. Rick was confused and couldn’t speak. He said it felt like he was frozen, actually got shivers and could barely get any words out the entire time. He tried to follow Mikey out the door, but he was gone. There was no sign of him. No cars drove away, no footprints, nothing at all.
Rick immediately called Mikey. No answer. So, Rick called his mom. She answered and he told her that Mikey just showed up at his place acting weird. She had no idea why he was there or what to tell him. Both of them tried to contact Mikey for the rest of the day, to no avail. Rick then drove around the neighborhood looking for him. About an hour later, Rick’s mom calls him. Mikey passed in a car accident late the night before. The car wasn't found until morning. It was in a field way off the road.
