Most people would describe paranormal occurrences and entities as 'horrifying' and 'spine-chilling,' but sometimes, they can be quite amusing and wonderful. Recently, a few Redditors all got together and shared some of their strangest and most terrifying paranormal experiences, and we're here to show you the best few!
But be warned: these stories will make you question reality!
A few years ago, we were living in this old house, and all of a sudden, I started getting this heavy, eerie feeling in my bedroom. I could literally feel a weird, intense kind of energy coming from a specific corner of my room. It was there for so long that I eventually got used to it. I thought I was just scaring myself until one night. I was lying in bed with my eyes closed; after a little while, I began drifting off, and then my body tensed. I began panicking. And I couldn't open my eyes. I got that strong, intense feeling from the corner of my room again, but this time, it was stronger. I then felt a dip in my bed next to me, and for a second, nothing happened.
I thought that if I just pretended to be asleep. I'd be fine, and it would go away, but then I felt hands around my throat, choking me as I went cold. I was gasping for breath, and I still couldn't move. I was crying, and my lungs were burning; I was starting to pass out. Then, it just stopped. I didn't move an inch until I finally fell asleep. The next day, my neck was covered in bruises. Story Credit: Reddit/redfoxxr
I was 12, and I was swimming in this public pool. My grandparents told me that I had to be back at their house in an hour or two. When I checked the time, it was only 2:37, so I still had a bit of time before I had to be home. I kept swimming, and then, what felt like an hour later, I asked a lifeguard for the time. He said it was still 2:37, which was impossible. I knew the time would have passed, a lot of time! Then things got creepy. The lifeguard gave me this horrifying smirk after telling me the time.
It was like he knew something that I didn't. I tried to shrug it off, telling myself it was just a weird, unexplainable event. But about twenty minutes later, I asked him for the time again, and he gave me the same response. I thought he must've been messing with me, so I went into the changing room and checked the time. It was 2:37. Just as I thought I was losing my mind, my digital watch switched to 2:38. Then time continued as normal. Story Credit: Reddit/dahbodsterbruh
It was around 8 pm in the middle of the winter when I went outside for a smoke. It was already very dark out, so dark that I saw a shooting star. I was delighted until the entire sky flashed blue. A second later, a loud, vibrating hum rang in my ears, and I had to cover my ears in pain.
The sound lasted for a whole minute. I live in a small, unknown area, and we rarely ever get planes flying over. I still have no idea what it was. Story Credit: Reddit/frickbiscuitz
I was about four years old when my family went on holiday to Italy. One day, my mom was sitting behind me on the steps, and I looked back at her. I remember thinking that the sun was extremely bright behind her because I could see a clear shadow before me. But then I realized that it couldn't be right because the sun was in front of me. When I looked back at my mom, I saw a figure standing behind her.
It was the size of a human, and the outlines of its silhouette were kind of blurred. Its face was a bright, yellow light, and it appeared to be looking straight into the sun. It was so odd that I still remember it vividly to this day, in my thirties. When I saw it, I said, "There's someone behind you," and when my mom looked back, it was gone. Story Credit: Reddit/SomewhereExternal
One day, my grandma called, and when my mom answered, she said, "Did you just call me a minute ago?" My mom said no. My gran explained that she had just gotten a call from us and when she answered, no one was responding to her. But she said she could hear everything that was happening in our house. She could hear my dad watching TV, my mom vacuuming the rug before him, and them arguing about something while all of this was happening.
She could also hear whatever video game I was playing. She said she also heard a sound "like paper being folded" right next to the phone. This all happened on the exact day my mom's aunt died. Story Credit: Reddit/Eternity_Incarnate
We were living in a 200-year-old house, and one night, my mom made sure all the lights were out before leaving the house. When she got into her car and looked in the rear-view mirror, she saw that the house was ablaze with light. Every single light in the house was turned on. Sometimes, she could smell cigar smoke in my room, but she never saw anyone smoking one.
The smell was so strong that she repainted the house in case the smell was coming from the walls, but it didn't help. One day, we were at church when someone told her that a previous owner—who smoked cigars—had died in the house. Story Credit: Reddit/scare____quotes
This might sound crazy, but a dragonfly once communicated with me. At least, I think that's what it was doing. I was out in the swamp with my friend, on their boat, while looking for salvage. At one point, we took a break and just sat dead in the water, enjoying the view around us, when a big blue dragonfly zoomed up right in front of my face and hovered there. Just then, I felt the words "stay there" somehow get pushed into my head.
It didn't feel like my own thoughts, and then the dragonfly zoomed at my face and left a sharp pain on my cheek. When I looked down, the dragonfly was sitting on the lifejacket on the seat next to me—with a biting fly in his little grabbers. It had told me to stay still and grabbed the fly from my face right as it bit me. It was the weirdest thing that's ever happened to me. Story Credit: Reddit/AppletonAlana
A few years ago, my brother was watching YouTube videos on his computer. Eventually, he left his room and went downstairs to grab some water. He says he could remember specifically that he was watching videos about waterslides.
He swears that his search bar said: "the world's longest waterslides." When he headed back to his room, his blood went cold. When he looked at his computer, the video he was watching about waterslides was gone. A video was playing of some ghost stuff, and the search bar now said: "creepiest ghosts caught on camera." Story Credit: Reddit/FlyingLime05
My mom and aunt always got bad vibes from this one room in our house. So they decided to give it a clean. But after they cleaned it, the uneasy feeling was still there. My mom got some holy water and sprinkled it around the room.
Just as she did, a disgusting smell started seeping through the walls, and a bunch of tall, skinny shadows flashed around and then disappeared. The music box that belonged to my mom's mom started playing once the shadows had disappeared, even though it had been broken for years. After that, the weird feeling was gone. Story Credit: Reddit/child_of_ghostein
Back in college, four of us remained to chat after class one night, sitting on top of the first row of desks. It was sometime between 10:30 and 11 when we heard what sounded like scratching and tapping in the upper right-hand corner of the hall. There was a door up there that was usually locked from the outside, so we figured it was someone on the other side, maybe trying to get in. Well, the sound didn't stop. It kept on going, and it seemed to move along the back wall, and we all started to get this very strange feeling like the air was being sucked out of the room. Two of us decided to go up and check out that corner. We got about halfway up the stairs when the air in the room changed again. It's difficult for me to describe, especially since it was so long ago, but it sort of felt the way it does right before a storm like there's static and pressure and tension. We froze.
I heard one of the two who'd stayed down at the front let out a yelp, and then the tension broke, and this wave of…something crashed over us. It made my stomach drop. We turned and ran back down the stairs; the others had scrambled off the desks and backed up to the door, and we all rushed out of the room together, completely spooked. Once outside, they told us they'd seen streaks of light shooting out of the corner right before the "wave" hit. No clue what it could have been. Maybe some sort of electrical discharge, I don't know. But it's the closest thing I've had to an honest-to-goodness paranormal experience. Story Credit: Reddit/djinnontherocks
My brother and I were home alone one night watching TV. My mother was working a night shift, and my father was out. When he came home, he pushed the door ajar and poked his head through to say hello. We both turned around and said hello back; then he closed the door. Thirty seconds after that, another man opened the door to say hello. He was pale and had bright white hair; we assumed a friend of my father had come back to the house too. We both turned around again and said hello back, and the man closed the door.
About five minutes later, I headed into the kitchen, where my father was making dinner. I was expecting to see his friend again, but I saw that he was alone making dinner and assumed his friend was upstairs in the bathroom. I asked my father who his friend was. "What friend?" I mentioned the man we had seen. He looked at me like I was crazy. He said, "I came back home on my own." Story Credit: Reddit/ZPM89
My sister and I were playing on the family computer on the second floor, which happens to be right next to the stairs. We saw my grandpa go down the stairs, and we said hello to him, but he ignored us and kept walking. We thought it was weird, because he always greeted us. Then, five seconds later, we heard the bathroom toilet on our level flush and saw my grandpa walk out of the bathroom.
We asked him how he had gone back up the stairs without us seeing him. He replied that he had not yet been downstairs that day. Story Credit: Reddit/Akiqueen
Two years ago, my town was hosting a St. Patrick's Day Civil War murder mystery. I had volunteered to help as an actor for the event, and to wash dishes. After the event, I was in the kitchen with the cook, who was a family friend.
I turned and asked her how her day had gone, but before I could even finish the question, plates suddenly went flying off the shelves across the room as if someone had thrown them and landed on the floor with an enormous crash. I won't lie and say it didn't startle me because quite frankly it did; I've had other paranormal experiences, but this is one that I can't figure out. Story Credit: Reddit/ITTWASME
A few weeks ago I was lying in bed trying to fall asleep. I could hear the cat walking around our bedroom and on the upstairs landing, just the soft padding of his feet on the hardwood. I listened to him for a few minutes, smiling and wondering what he was doing. It sounded like he was just calmly walking laps. He was getting old and senile, so I figured this was related.
I rolled over in bed—and screamed as I heard a yowl. I had nearly smothered him! He'd been sleeping next to the dog and I the whole time! I have no idea what I heard to this day. Story Credit: Reddit/retroverted_uterus
My grandmother's sister stayed with our family during her final years. She always sat on the terrace of our house, overlooking the garden and streets. She loved staying there, as she could watch the people go by. She died when my little brother was only three or four. Nobody really went up to the terrace after she passed away.
A year later, my little brother and I decided to go up. Halfway through the hallway, he stopped, staring out the window at the terrace. He pointed at where our grandma's sister had always sat, and asked me, "Who's that? Is that one of our grandmas?" There was nobody there. Story Credit: Reddit/rcvinci
When I was eight or nine, my family volunteered for a company that basically purchased historical buildings and set them up like huge outdoor showrooms. All the volunteers were dressed up in period clothing appropriate for the buildings they staffed, so it was like getting shot straight back to the pioneer days, full immersion. There were seven or eight kids out there most weeks, and not a lot of supervision, so it became a bit of a Lord of the Flies situation. One day, we all wandered out into the open land between the show areas, to a field that had an enormous old oak tree in the middle of it. I was walking beside another girl who stopped suddenly and froze. I asked her what was wrong, and she just pointed and said, "Look!" There was a beautiful woman beside the oak who neither of us had ever seen before.
She was dressed in a purple Victorian dress, and she was dancing by herself. It took us a second to process, and in that time, she completely faded away. We all ran back to the main building. Nobody had any explanation, and she wasn't a volunteer as far as anyone knows. Story Credit: Reddit/TiaTelltale
I worked at a haunted house. Once, when looking down the hall, I saw a figure. It was an all-black, somewhat transparent silhouette of a human, standing motionless in front of me. I stayed at the hall entrance, called my boss over, and asked her to look down the hall. I didn't give any indication that I saw anything so that I wouldn't give her a false impression. I wanted to figure out if I was crazy or not. When she looked, her expression turned into pure, cold fear.
"Who the heck is that?! I can see through him!" And before I could say anything more, it came full sprint at us. My boss screamed and ran away, but I was curious about what it would do, so I stayed. It got right up to my face and just stopped, inches away from my nose, and then suddenly dissipated into thin air. I still occasionally see my boss, and she confirms every time that we saw the same thing, and thinks I was an idiot for staying. Story Credit: Reddit/MadBunch
My family went out for the day and as we got back, the neighbor waved us over to talk. She asked why my baby sister had been laughing so much. My mother asked what she meant, and the neighbor said, "Natalie was laughing really loud earlier, and for quite a while. I was laughing at her laughing!" My mother then told her that we had been out all day and that the house was empty. I began researching the house, and it turns out that the land the house stands on used to be an old children's home, which was closed due to negligence and lack of care for the children.
That might explain the little girl's laugh…I was always skeptical about the paranormal until I moved into that house. I am now a 100% firm believer. I never want to go back in that house again. Story Credit: Reddit/MooseVevo
My sister and I were alone in the house when we heard a thud from upstairs. We went into the room where the thud seemed to have originated, and it was freezing cold. Then out of nowhere, the TV remote flew off the sideboard and hit the wall! The back of it came off and the batteries flew in different directions when it smashed.
My sister and I ran downstairs, terrified. Later, after building up some courage for a while, we decided to go back up. We got into the room—and the remote was back on the sideboard, completely fixed. Story Credit: Reddit/MooseVevo
My mother used to work part-time as a substitute lunch monitor at a school that was near our house. She used to commute to the school by walking nearly the entire length of a massive cemetery. She would travel from its Northeast corner to the school near its Southwest corner. During one of her commutes, she found the entire ground completely covered with crows.
They were everywhere, as far as she could see. My mom didn't think too much of it, as they mostly just hopped out of her way as she walked down the path. What she didn't think about until later was the fact that not a single one of them was making a sound. Story Credit: Reddit/Eternity_Incarnate
I was having a Skype call in my room with a friend and at some point, I left the room with the video chat still on, facing a somewhat shiny section of my bed frame. When I came back, my friend looked shaken. I asked him what had happened—and he explained that he'd seen a face pass by in the reflection on my bedframe while I was gone.
We checked to see if there was any way to move the camera to an angle that might have reflected his own face back to him, but we couldn't find one. Didn't sleep well that night. Story Credit: Reddit/redfoxxr
Back in 1984 when I was ten years old, I was out shopping with my mother when she suddenly collapsed. Some people and I helped her to a nearby seat, and after a few seconds she turned to me and said, "Your grandmother has died." We went home, and upon arrival, she learned that her mother had indeed died half an hour earlier.
To this day, it's the only inexplicable thing I've ever witnessed, but I have no doubt in my mind that there was some sort of link between the two of them that was broken that day. Story Credit: Reddit/badlydrawnhampster
I always had an off feeling about one of the houses we lived in. We heard strange noises, but I never thought much of it because I don't believe in ghosts. However, one night I had my girlfriend staying over for the night, and it was just us in the house. We both witnessed everything suddenly being thrown off of the very crowded and messy coffee table in front of us, as if invisible hands had pushed it all off.
Then, the TV switched itself on and the light in the corner of the room switched itself off simultaneously. We were both freaked out, but just put everything back in place, neatly, and haven't talked about it since. Story Credit: Reddit/frickbiscuitz
A few days before I had my daughter, my grandmother had emergency surgery and didn't wake up from it until a week later. She never really recovered from it, but did tell some of my cousins that she had momentarily died when my daughter was born, and said she had seen us driving home from the hospital. She knew details about that drive that she couldn't possibly have known.
She died a month later. Story Credit: Reddit/marble_sunrise
I was at a beach house with my family when I was a kid, sharing a room with my siblings. My big brother (already in his late teens) got the top bunk, and I got the bottom one. I went to sleep while he was still out with his friends and my mom was watching movies in the living room. I had a horrible nightmare. I woke up gasping, in a cold sweat and shivering, scared out of my mind.
My brother evidently noticed it from the top bunk and climbed down to calm me down. I distinctly remember him hugging me and telling me that it would be ok and that it was just a dream. In the morning, I went to thank him for not making fun of me for being scared of a dream, and he was very confused. He said he didn't come home until the early morning, and since he was so late getting home, he had slept in the other room so as not to wake me. Story Credit: Reddit/BatmanDosPampas
I went to Salem, MA and visited this extremely old graveyard where actual pilgrims of the Mayflower are buried. I was with my friend, and we both didn't believe in the paranormal. As soon as we stepped past the gate into the graveyard, we saw this purple-grayish haze wash over the graveyard from the other side toward us. It was almost like being able to see the wind, and it was blowing in our direction.
We both looked at each other in confusion and unease, but nothing else happened. I'm so glad I wasn't the only one to see it. Story Credit: Reddit/milkhilton
My maternal grandmother was dying in the hospital. She had a DNR, but my grandpa wouldn't let her go. I was at school in the journalism room when suddenly, I was overcome with a suffocating sadness. I HEARD my grandmother tell me she needed grandpa to tell her he would be ok so she could finally pass. I called my mom at the facility and relayed the message. My mom was silent for a few seconds but then agreed to pass on what I had said.
An hour later, I got the call that grandma had died. At her funeral, I was devastated by grief and guilt; I was convinced that I had killed her by relaying the message. As I sobbed, I felt two hands gently press on my shoulders from behind me. Again, I HEARD my grandma; she said she was grateful, and thanked me for helping her move on. I immediately stopped crying and the guilt lifted. Story Credit: Reddit/RallyCow
We lived in a house for a few years that definitely had something paranormal going on, and my mother knew it. My dad, however, was skeptical. However, this changed one night when all of us kids were out of town, and my parents heard the distinct sound of footsteps upstairs. By instinct, he yelled, "Go to bed!" and then realized none of us were home!
He rushed upstairs to a whole lot of nothing, and this repeated through the night. He believed us after that. Story Credit: Reddit/occasional_mooning
My son left to spend the night at a friend's house. Later that night, I went into his room to turn off the lights. I walked in, looked to the left—and there was a long-haired, slender child, possibly 8 to 10 years old, wearing a sleeveless gown. She slowly floated backward through the exterior wall behind her as I stared. I looked around to see if she had been some kind of reflection or something, but there was nothing.
We had recently purchased an antique mirrored vanity and put it in his room, and I had a feeling that this girl was attached to it. So, we removed the mirrored vanity within days of the occurrence, and nothing like that ever happened again. Story Credit: Reddit/unclerico74 Disclaimer: To protect the privacy of those depicted, some names, locations, and identifying characteristics have been changed and are products of the author's imagination. Any resemblances to actual events, places, or persons, living or dead, are entirely coincidental.