12 Real Stories That Grow Eerier the Further You Read

The most unsettling experiences are those that defy reason or logic. These strange occurrences linger in the mind, their mysterious nature leaving us questioning what truly happened. Each story in this compilation comes from real people who have shared their chilling encounters online—incidents that continue to haunt them long after they’ve happened.

• My husband died 8 days before my daughter was born. My son was 5 then. He was 18, when I was telling a friend how my husband never got to meet our daughter. My son turned and said, "No, he actually did."
  What he said next made my spine tingle. He said that his dad used to visit them at school every single day for seven years, then suddenly stopped, and they never saw him again.
  What really unsettled me were the details my son remembered. He described the man—the red hat he wore, his gestures—everything was identical to what his dad used to do.
  I asked my daughter, and she described the same man, down to the exact details. It still gives me shivers because that man couldn’t have been their dad. He had already passed away. To this day, I still don’t know who that stranger visiting my kids really was.

• I blinked away a whole day in 1st grade. I was really tired for some reason at recess, so I just sat down on the grass and rapidly blinked, because kids just do weird things. After 11–13 blinks, the sky suddenly darkened. I got up and went inside, because everyone was gone. My teacher said I was late.
  The shock: everything was different, new assignment, new materials, it was all new. Also, it had been 2 hours. Only when I looked at the wall did I see it was September 20. The previous day was September 19, which was when I sat down.
  I looked in my backpack and everything was different too.
  My only explanation is I somehow randomly had short term amnesia for one day. No other explanation unless I sat still on the grass for 26 hours. © Denpants / Reddit

• I was sleeping in my father's apartment. I had gone to bed, right where I always do, in my bedroom. I woke up in the middle of the night, except it wasn’t in my bedroom—it was in a room I had never seen before. It had couches, a television, and a chair, just like the living room, but everything was in the wrong place.
  I got up and came back to get my stuff from that room and went to bed. When I woke up, it was gone. I’ve never been able to figure out what that room was, though I spent a few minutes in every room of that apartment, trying to decide if that had been the room I woke up in, but I never had any luck.
  The strange thing is, when someone experiences something like that, they usually have a negative feeling, a slightly scary experience. Yet, I felt no such thing. It was a comforting room, like I had been there a thousand times. © CilliamBlinton / Reddit

• About six years ago, I was living at my family's old farmhouse. My entire family lived there too at the time.
  One night, I was feeding the dog and letting her outside. As I turned to head back to the kitchen, I saw my brother's figure walk into the laundry room. The laundry room has no other doors, just the one that connects to the kitchen. I started talking to him as I followed into the room.
  There were no lights on, just the faint glow from the kitchen. I looked around, and the room was completely empty. My brother wasn’t there, and no one else had gone in, even though I was certain I saw someone walk in.
  I went to the living room, where my brother was sitting, and asked if he had been in the laundry room. He said no. I avoided that room for the rest of the night. © ShamefulIAm / Reddit

• I was driving to college one day and had to make a turn over a bridge. While taking the turn, I noticed a black object floating in the sky, about five miles away. It was sort of elliptical and a darkish gray. I knew it wasn’t something in my car because, as I turned, the object went behind a house and then reappeared when I passed it.
  I was late for class, so I didn’t have time to investigate, but I returned to the same spot about three hours later, and it was gone. A few years later, a massive hole—about 300 feet wide—appeared in that exact spot, taking a street with it. It still makes me wonder if there’s any connection. © HANDS-DOWN / Reddit

• When I was about 14, I was lying in bed, struggling to fall asleep. As I lay there, I suddenly heard a little boy fake a sneeze and a little girl say, "Danny died," both voices coming from the next room. Confused, I thought I must’ve dozed off for a second, until I heard my mom scream and my dad jump out of bed, running across the room.
  The next morning, my parents told me they had woken up to see two children staring at them from inside their room. As my dad got up, the kids disappeared through the wall. © person987654 / Reddit

• After my cat of ten years died in December, I would still hear him meowing. Usually, I could brush it off as just thinking too much about him.
  We had this routine where we’d talk back and forth—he’d meow, and I’d call back, “Clyde!” He’d meow again, I’d say, “Clyde!” Then he’d run up, and we’d cuddle.
  One day, I stepped outside and heard him, as if he were just ten feet away. Right after, I heard my own voice calling from far off, “Clyyyyde!” The meowing and my voice repeated a few times. It was extremely nerve-wracking. When it stopped, I turned around and went back inside. © Unknown author / Reddit

• Growing up, my brother and I had this small toy that made train noises when you pressed a button. By the early 2000s, we got bored of it and put it on top of the TV stand.
  For years after that, whenever my dad stood up from the couch, the toy would randomly make the train noise. Not every time, but at least 5 times a week. It got so annoying that we took the batteries out, and it finally stopped.
  About 5 years later, my dad stood up from the couch, and it made the noise again. We checked—no batteries. Freaked out, we moved it to the basement and put it in a keepsake box.
  Every so often, when my dad stands up from the couch, we still hear that train noise coming from the basement. The toy’s still battery-free. © zoozema0 / Reddit

• When I was about fifteen, I was sitting outside, relaxing in a chair, when I noticed my mom come out of our guest house. She walked toward me, then turned around with a gesture like, "Oh, I forgot something," and went back inside. A couple of minutes later, I went inside the main house and into my room, only to find my mom sound asleep on my bed. My room had blackout blinds, so she often napped there if her headache was bad.
  I woke her up, and she said she had been there for a while. I like to think my mind just had a crazy hiccup and I imagined the whole thing. Just to clarify, it was broad daylight, and nothing seemed odd about my mom when I "saw" her. I even called out to her, but she didn’t hear me. © hungry_lobster / Reddit

• I was 22 years old when something strange happened. One day, while doing chores in our backyard, I spotted a group of large black birds in the neighboring yard.
  I walked closer for a better look and saw that one of the birds was perched on a stump, while the others were on the ground, looking up at it. The bird on the stump was getting very animated, making a lot of noise and flapping its wings erratically, as if it were delivering some sort of crow speech.
  I must have made some noise because, suddenly, all the birds looked over at me and flew away. It was the weirdest thing I have ever seen. © aylandgirl / Reddit

• The house I grew up in was built by my great-grandmother, who passed away in that very house. None of us, including me, really believe in ghosts, but this one had us scratching our heads.
  When I was about 8, my mom randomly lost her wedding ring. She had no memory of taking it off, but sure enough, it was gone. I remember searching for it with her for months. After a while, she gave up and figured it was lost forever.
  A year later, I brought up the missing ring again and jokingly said, "What if great-grandma took it?" My mom looked up to the sky and, half-joking, said, "You’d better give it back." About an hour later, my dad comes home from work and says, "Look what I found in the driveway!" Boom...wedding ring. © Alxorange / Reddit

• When I was about 10, I went downstairs to get a drink, and I heard my mom yell from upstairs, asking me to bring her the tweezers. I went into the living room, grabbed them, and suddenly felt scared.
  Walking back to the stairs, I turned around and saw a little girl standing there in a white dress. She smiled at me, and I smiled back, continuing toward the stairs. When I reached the bottom, I turned around, and she was right behind me.
  Just as I was about to ask her what she was doing, my mom called out, asking if I had found the tweezers. I turned my head to answer her, and when I looked back, the girl was gone. When I told my mom about it, she just told me to stop lying and go to bed. © XenomorphEmpress / Reddit

One of the most unsettling feelings is uncovering disturbing secrets about the friends we trust most. This is exactly what happened to the people in this article, who courageously chose to share their stories online.