14 True Stories That Made Us Break Out in a Cold Sweat

Horror movies can be thrilling, but when spooky stuff happens in real life, it’s a whole different ballgame. Those creepy moments can stick with us long after they’re over, and some people decide to share their chilling experiences online.

• My mom used to clean the house of an elderly couple. They didn’t have any kids, and the husband passed away. A week later, I was in their bedroom. I had my back turned to the bed. When I looked into the mirror, I saw the deceased husband standing next to the bed and looking down at it. He looked up at me through the mirror, and I quickly turned to look at their bed, but he was gone. I immediately went to look for my mom. © indigo-10 / Reddit

• I was staying at my grandparent’s house for the summer. It was 11 p.m. I went out to the kitchen and saw my granddad sitting at the table and eating a sandwich. I say hello, grab a glass of water, and head back to my room. My grandfather came out of his room and asked who I was talking to. but there’s no one there. It freaked me out and continues to freak me out to this day. © Lucanthethird / Reddit

• I had an accident in which I lost 2 full weeks of memory. I have seen pictures where I’m in a wheelchair being pushed around the hospital by my parents and brother. I have my eyes open, I’m laughing, but I remember zero of it. Nothing. It’s a void. © mahade / Reddit

• This happened to me when I was about 8 and still scares me to this day. One evening, I went to let my dogs in from the back garden at around 9 pm. It was pitch black, so I quickly opened the door and my dogs came bounding in. As soon as they came in, I locked the door, and at that moment, a person on the other side pulled the handle down, trying to get into my house. We had a glass door, so even in the dark, I could see the outline of a man standing there.
  I ran to my dad, and he ran into the back garden after this man and saw him running down the road. Since then, I have closed and locked doors at the speed of light. © ActiveSloth1234 / Reddit

• I entered a friend’s place for the first time without prior knowledge that he was a hoarder at age 40. Total shock. The dude has a normal job, friends, etc., but he’s an absolute hoarder. Mice in the flat, trash in the kitchen reaching almost to the ceiling, and mold everywhere on one wall of the bedroom. I didn’t dare to use the bathroom... Utter shock. © R***lutionary-Mud194 / Reddit

• I work for a bank and had a guy always come in and do international wires of very large amounts of money. One day, when we were verifying his info to complete this wire, I had a specific warning that meant I had to call a number the bank had listed as unspecified. Well, that number was the FBI, and they asked if this man was still at the branch, and I said yes.
  I went out and acted like nothing happened, and within 5 minutes, the whole building was swarmed. He looked me straight in the eye and asked, «That’s for me, huh?» And I shook my head yeah.
  I got transferred to another branch and haven’t heard anything other than he was sending money to violent organizations. © po*tictroll / Reddit

• I was walking in the hallways during passing period at school once, and a kid had a seizure. It was horrifying to witness; I was walking right next to them. The ambulance and other people had picked up the poor kid a few minutes later. © AcanthisittaSuch6340 / Reddit

• I was fast asleep and was suddenly woken up by the sound of loud hums broken by giggling. I look over, and there’s my husband, in some kind of trance, humming and giggling in bed. I shake him. No response. I turn on the light, and he doesn’t flinch but begins flapping his arms.
  I call 911, and the paramedics come. Over that time, he slowly emerges from it and starts talking. They insist on taking him to the hospital.
  We spend several hours there, and over that time he begins freaking out at me for calling 911. He takes off his wedding ring, throws it in the garbage, and tells me I’m a horrible person he never wants to see again. That’s when the nurses sit me down and tell me what’s going on.
  To my horror, they informed me that he had bipolar disorder. He’s in deep mania and is psychotic. They involuntarily admit him, and he spends the next few weeks coming down from it. At that time, I grieved as if I had watched him die. Watching your partner go completely psychotic is so heart-rending. They’re just totally gone— their body is there, but they are not. It took me a long time to recover.
  He’s now, after two years, stabilized on the right meds. He’s able to hold down a job, he’s back to his whole self, and we’ve talked everything through. It’s a cruel disease, but treatable. © ke_marshall / Reddit

• I lived in a house once that had child-sized footprints on the ceiling of one of the bedrooms. The ceilings were extremely high. I could think of no way someone would get a child’s feet up there. Not even climbing up a ladder and holding a kid upside down could’ve done it. © madeanotheraccount / Reddit

• I saw a tornado flatten a carnival when I was a kid. That was terrifying. It flipped a Ferris wheel, smashed a grandstand, and blew away all the merchants’ tents. I don’t think anyone got hurt, luckily. © Jerry_Williams** / Reddit

• I woke up one night around 1 am, and heard the shower was on... I first thought it was my brother; he works night shifts, so I thought he had come home late and was in the shower... It went on for about half an hour until I got up and went to see what he was doing... No one was in the shower, my brother wasn’t home yet, I was the only one in the house.
  Still to this day, I have no idea how it turned on or who did it... Almost 5 years later, I still think about it and get scared... Even writing this now, I feel like turning every light on in the house. Why do I do this to myself?! © designerlogic / Reddit

• When I was about 6 years old, I was in my house playing a game on the PS3. All of a sudden, I heard my mom screaming, and I went outside, her boyfriend at the time was having a heart attack, and I had no idea what was happening. I remember going back into my room and hearing the ambulance come. I never really understood the situation until I got older. © optimisticcolgate / Reddit

• I woke up to my child seizing, foaming at the mouth with blue lips. That image and the fear I felt will always haunt me. She’d never had any seizures previously, so I had no idea what was happening, and words can’t express the terror. She is okay; she has since been diagnosed with a rare brain disorder that causes frequent seizures. That was just the very first one. © M***adone_Martyr / Reddit

• Heading to my then-boyfriend’s house one night, we took this back road as a shortcut. It was dark— I don’t remember being able to see the moon at all, and very few other cars were on this road, so all we had were our headlights as far as sources of light. I was talking to him and turned my head back to look down the road when I saw this old man crossing, wearing a plaid shirt and moving rather quickly.
  I remember the plaid vividly, and he seemed to stand out in the dark. Before I had time to react properly, my boyfriend drove through the man. I watched him pass through the hood, the dashboard, down the middle of the car, and vanish. It was like time had suddenly slowed down, then caught back up with itself. My boyfriend saw nothing, but I insisted we never take that road again after. © illumi***** / Reddit

Imagine finding out a shocking family secret that turns your world upside down. That’s exactly what happened to the folks in this article. Their jaw-dropping revelations will leave you speechless too.