13 Times Real Life Took an Unexpectedly Dark Turn

Some things just can’t be explained, and that’s what makes them so terrifying. When the impossible happens, it tends to stick with you. In this collection, you’ll find real stories from people who’ve shared their most unsettling experiences online. Each one leaves you with a deep, lingering sense that something isn’t right.

1.

One time I was coming in from seeing a movie, and my dad called me over to our computer. He said, “When did you go to Costa Rica with your school? They just posted a group picture with you in it.” I hadn’t gone on the trip with the community college I was attending and had no idea what he was talking about.

But no joke, the guy he was referring to looked just like me, down to the white polo that I was wearing a lot at the time. It was the most surreal experience I’ve ever had. © Capt_GingerBeard93 / Reddit

2.

My dad went missing when my son was 5 months old. When he started talking, he always said that a man stood by his bed at night. We brushed it off as childhood imagination. A few years later, I hung a photo of my dad, the last one I had of him. My son pointed to it and said that was the man in his room. It gave us chills, especially since my dad never reappeared after going missing.

3.

I was alone in the house and decided to adjust the temperature on my water heater. I sat down in front of the water heater and removed the gray 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. When I went to put the metal plate back on, it was gone. I never saw that metal plate again. There is literally nowhere it could have gone, but it did. © GameVoid / Reddit

4.

When I was nineteen, 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 and 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. 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. © lydsbane / Reddit

5.

Once I adopted a street kitten. He was bothering me while I painted 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. This was about 30 feet away. It really freaked me out and I have no rational explanation.
© subud123 / Reddit

6.

My son Leo went camping with his uncle. One evening, I got a call from him saying they’d stay an extra night. But when he came home, he apologized for not telling me. I said, “But you did call me!” Leo turned pale and said, “No, I didn’t. We were hiking all day and had no service. I didn’t call you at all.” I was sure I had spoken to him. I checked the caller ID on our old cordless phone, but there was no record of the call.

7.

We were in a 150-year-old family house on Cape Cod that my sister-in-law had refurbished. She was talking about how she heard music there when she was a kid and couldn’t go to sleep. Just at that moment, a light bulb from a chandelier fell onto the kitchen table right in front of her.
© sosorrynoname / Reddit

8.

I was about 16, in the car with my mom, and we were just chatting while she was driving. 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 had said something. When I asked her, “Hey, did you say something about a bus stop?” she replied, “No, but I was just thinking that this area here is where I used to get on the bus to go to school when I was a kid.”
SUPER strange. © CluelessCanary / Reddit

9.

When I was younger, I woke up in the middle of the night, and standing in my brother’s (who was asleep) and my room was someone playing a guitar and saying “shhh, shhh” every few seconds. It wasn’t any of my parents, because they don’t know how to play the guitar, let alone any instrument.
© timelordoftheimpala / Reddit

10.

This lasted for a year when I was 9 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 was her for sure. I never guessed nor got it wrong. © Waitwhyyyyyyy / Reddit

11.

Several months ago, I was in bed, asleep, when my brother came in and turned on the light. He was wearing his school clothes. I told him to get out of my room, but he just laughed and hid behind the bedpost. I got up to make him leave, but when I reached the bedpost, he wasn’t there. When I told my brother about it, he just laughed and said he can teleport. © dynawesome / Reddit

12.

At the time, I was a 10, my parents decided to run an errand while I was home alone. The doorbell rung but I didn’t make a sound. My parents had keys so I thought it was odd that they’d ring. So, I quietly went to look at the peephole and saw a grown man smiling right at me. I jumped back and he must’ve heard me because he said, “I know you’re in there. I just want to talk about school.”

I was dead silent, but he insisted on coming in. So I told him my parents are coming really soon. But in a weird whiny tone he said, “Well, I don’t want to talk to you either.” He stomped like a little child and walked off. I was never this relieved when I heard my parents’ footsteps downstairs.

13.

I live in an apartment complex, and one day my neighbor and I took the kids to the pool to swim for a while. For whatever reason, I had the random thought about how much it would be terrible if I came home to my apartment being flooded by a leak or something.

We left the pool, went into our own apartments, and a few minutes later, I saw her outside calling emergency maintenance because a pipe had leaked in her apartment, soaking her bedroom and bathroom. © dekuthered / Reddit

These unsettling tales sure do give us the goosebumps. Some stories can get so creepy, that you have to look around you and turn the lights back on like these ones.