14 Scary Memories From People Who Believe They’ve Seen Paranormal Phenomena

Eerie stories, reminiscent of scenes from a thriller, can offer a glimpse into the unsettling experiences that have left a lasting impression on those who lived through them. From mysterious occurrences to unexplained phenomena, reality blurs with the unknown.

• My great-grandmother died when I was 6 or 7. That night we stayed in her house, and I slept on the couch. I woke up in the middle of the night to the sounds of someone walking through the kitchen. That’s when I saw my great-grandmother walk about 10 feet off me and just stop.
  I froze in fear for what felt like 10 minutes, and she just disappeared. I’ve been obsessed with ghost TV shows since. That’s the only time I’ve been frozen in fear. Interesting feeling. © DarkLight9er / Reddit

• When I was a kid, my mom was driving me to school one morning, and we were stopped at the lights. The light goes green, but my mom doesn’t move. After a second or two, I tell her the light went green. She says, “Yeah, I know, the car won’t move.” I could see her pressing down, but the car wouldn’t go.
  As she says that, a truck flies through the intersection, nearly hitting the car in the other lane. Then my mom presses the gas again after a few seconds, and mysteriously the car goes again. © gkieran / Reddit

• “I had fever very often when I was young. The medicines didn’t help. One day, a stranger on the street asked my mum if I was always sick and who was the elderly following me. My mum was confused as there was no elderly nearby. The stranger pointed into the air and described my dead paternal grandmother’s look, hairstyle and the clothes she wore to her grave. My dad was from a different town and my mum would have known it if the stranger was a mutual friend. The stranger instructed my dad to call my grandmother to go back. My mysterious fevers stopped.” Reddit-Loves-Me / Reddit

• An elderly lady phoned 911 and requested that they send some policemen to her house because she saw a shadowy figure lurking in her backyard. She was living by herself at night and didn’t feel safe watching someone through her window.
  When the policemen arrived, the door was unlocked. They walked in and found the lady seated facing the window, and they went to check the backyard. There were no signs of anyone attempting to break in, and nothing was missing. She had very tall fences surrounding her property, making it nearly impossible for anyone to get into it.
  They did, however, find footprints on the inside of her home. It was quite possible that she had left the door unlocked and wasn’t looking outside but rather at a reflection of someone inside her home, behind her. © ca***nedcat / Reddit

• The night my grandmother died, I had a dream that she visited me. She was wearing an unusual outfit I had never seen (a blue dress with weird pearl-like piping around the collar and waist). I didn’t think it was more than a dream until years later when I told my mom about it. She turned white and said that my grandmother had visited her as well. The creepy thing is that my mom described the same blue dresses. © mrwhibbley / Reddit

• Five years ago, my wife and I awoke in the middle of the night to the theme from American Horror Story blasting in our apartment. If you’re not familiar with the theme song, look it up. It is very creepy and was a terrifying way to wake up. I still am not certain how or why this happened, but we had been watching the show the night before, so I figured my PC did an automatic restart and somehow reloaded the stream in the middle of the night. © Kerrious / Reddit

• My childhood home was haunted. Lots of weird stuff happened that my brother and I just kinda accepted. Once, when my brother and I were 7 or 8, we were in the kitchen drawing pictures with crayons. They were in a big butter tub with a flimsy plastic lid. My mom said she was going to shower and put the crayons away because we were going to dinner.
  She went upstairs, and the water turned on, but my brother and I could not find the lid to the bucket. After a few minutes of looking, I finally asked, “Did someone take it?” It then flew at us like someone had tossed a Frisbee, and someone laughed hysterically. We were the only ones in the house, and mom was in the shower. © Hollyberry3140 / Reddit

• Mom and sister occasionally check on me while I’m sleeping. Apparently, they would find me with my eyes wide open around two or three in the morning, staring straight ahead. Sometimes, I would be holding one of my teddy bears up and staring straight into its eyes.
  Mom usually just closes my eyelids. Sister would just tell me off to go back to sleep. That’s what I’ve been told. I have absolutely no recollection of any of these happening. © sweetbutbitter / Reddit

• As a kid, my house had a backyard patio that was elevated about 5-10 ft up, so you could still access my basement doors which were right under it. I opened the patio door when I was like 6 or 7 years old and screamed out “HEY” a few times. I saw a hand come up between the wooden safety rail that waved to me and quickly went back down. Quickly closed the door, put a few chairs in front of it, and ran to my bed. Never went out at night again. © fbjac01 / Reddit

• A previous owner died in my childhood home. Strange things happened there that drove us absolutely insane, but it became exceptionally creepy when my sister, who was sleeping in the basement apartment, began insisting that somebody was watching her at night.
  We later found, hidden in the walls, an old camera and learned that the previous owner was arrested for spying on the person who rented his basement apartment. © Unknown user / Reddit

• On my previous job when our building was still under construction, the only floors that were occupied were the 1st, 2nd, 5th, 6th, and 7th. One time I was alone inside the elevator going from the 1st to the 6th floor when suddenly it stopped and opened on the 3rd floor. Normally I would just disregard it, but rumors were all over that a ghost child was playing around on the vacant floors. So I pressed the closed button as fast as I could. When it closed, I heard noises like someone was tapping their fingers on the walls of the elevator. © sizzlorr26 / Reddit

• “I came home after dropping my kids at their school, and my bathtub was full of hot water. Just a hot bath, no running water, filled just below the side drain, perfectly full. I ran as fast as I could out into my driveway, thinking some freak was in my house, going to take a bath. I didn’t know if I should call 911, but the conversation sounded so ridiculous to me. I called my then-husband and walked to the coffee shop to stare at a cup of coffee for an hour while he came home. He was thinking I was insane until he went up to the bath, stuck his hand in and it was STILL HOT. He pushed the plug open and drained the water. And that was that. No evidence of anyone coming into the house, and the cat isn’t that smart.” narwhal-narwhal / Reddit

• My ex’s mom told me that when she would be in bed just about to fall asleep, she would hear this little girl talk in her ear. This went on for a while and scared her every time. They moved, and she stopped hearing the little girl. A couple of months go by, and just as she’s about to go to sleep, she hears, “I finally found you.” © _Sweater_Puppies_ / Reddit

• When I was 10 or 11, I had pneumonia. Towards the end of my week off from school, my mom started leaving me alone at home so she could go to work. So, I’d wake up, and the first thing I did was turn on my N64 and play. I used to sit on the edge of the bed right in front of the TV.
  One hour into playing, I clearly felt someone sit next to me. I freaked out and ran out of the room to call my mom on the phone. Later that night, I learned my grandmother had passed away in the morning. © awesomexpossum / Reddit

Discover 9 more spine-chilling stories from people who’ve experienced something mysterious and unexplainable in this article.