One aspect of watching a horror movie that always makes the film a little bit less scary is remembering that it’s not real. Even if it’s an allegedly “true story,” it’s not actually happening at this moment, and you can always just cover your eyes or turn off the television to make it stop.
It’s much creepier, however, when you spot something terrifying in real life… Redditors have been recalling the scariest things they’ve ever witnessed that nobody else believes happened, so we’ve gathered their spookiest stories below. It may not be time to get ready for Halloween yet, but we’re always in the mood for a spine-chilling tale! So enjoy reading through these stories, and be sure to upvote the ones that you’re totally convinced happened.
#21
Two stories here, both about my grandma.
Near the end my grandma had trouble controlling her bowels, wore a diaper and would typically go all over the toilet. After she passed(she passed in the house under professional care) my family cleaned out the house, took the wallpaper down, cleaned the place spotless, because we were going to move in in the next month or two. About a week after we finished cleaning we went back to make sure everything was good, we get to the bathroom my grandma used and there was literal s**t everywhere, the walls, the ceiling, behind the shower curtain, literally the entire bathroom was essentially coated. Freaked me out because I knew it had to be my grandma, no burst pipes or anything wrong with the plumbing.
Second story:
We ended up moving in after the “shituation”. My parents were out of town, so my brother and I had some friends over, we were in the basement playing magic the gathering when I went upstairs to grab everyone drinks. In line of sight from the fridge was the tv in our family room, out of nowhere the tv turns on full volume to the show The Commissioner, which was my grandmas favorite show, she was also hard of hearing so it being at full volume was normal for her. I freaked the f**k out and ran into the basement to get my brother, we go upstairs and the tv is off but the recliner is reclined. I shouldn’t have been scared because it had to be my grandma, but I young. We lived in that house a few more years and a few other things happened but those two stick out to me because they were so close to when she died.
Near the end my grandma had trouble controlling her bowels, wore a diaper and would typically go all over the toilet. After she passed(she passed in the house under professional care) my family cleaned out the house, took the wallpaper down, cleaned the place spotless, because we were going to move in in the next month or two. About a week after we finished cleaning we went back to make sure everything was good, we get to the bathroom my grandma used and there was literal s**t everywhere, the walls, the ceiling, behind the shower curtain, literally the entire bathroom was essentially coated. Freaked me out because I knew it had to be my grandma, no burst pipes or anything wrong with the plumbing.
Second story:
We ended up moving in after the “shituation”. My parents were out of town, so my brother and I had some friends over, we were in the basement playing magic the gathering when I went upstairs to grab everyone drinks. In line of sight from the fridge was the tv in our family room, out of nowhere the tv turns on full volume to the show The Commissioner, which was my grandmas favorite show, she was also hard of hearing so it being at full volume was normal for her. I freaked the f**k out and ran into the basement to get my brother, we go upstairs and the tv is off but the recliner is reclined. I shouldn’t have been scared because it had to be my grandma, but I young. We lived in that house a few more years and a few other things happened but those two stick out to me because they were so close to when she died.
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11points
#22
We had this punching bag (On the ground, not hanging on the air) that we took the bag off of, leaving only the thing that brings the punching bag back to you. We were wondering what to do with it. The next few days, my mom was doing some arts and crafts project (she was big on it lately) and made this dragon head. She called it George and hung it on that punching bag thing. When I slept, it was directly in my eyesight if I looked through my bedroom door. Sometimes, when I was having trouble sleeping, I could swear that the head turned 90 degrees to look directly at me. When I blinked, it was back to normal. This happened many times over the course of 4 years before George started falling apart. I was happy, but my mom was sad. Even when I told her what I saw, she thought I was just having bad dreams. I'm sure that dragon head was looking straight at me.
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10points
#23
It was afternoon in the middle of summer. I was delivering soda to an old mental hospital that was in the process of being shut down.
My call sheet didn’t say which of the several buildings I should go to so I was trying doors on all of them until I got one that opened. The building that did open was the crappiest looking so far; it was missing bricks, and looked somehow just darker than the others. Like it suddenly wasn’t such a sunny summer day anymore.
I was ready to get suddenly shanked by modern day Sarah Connor as I walked down this empty hallway trying to find...anyone who worked there. Finally found someone and got their liquid diabetes order into their break room. By this time I’d been there an hour and really had to pee. I asked the lady if I could use theirs and she pointed me down the hall.
There was one of those sudden wall and floor style changes right before the bathroom like you get in old buildings where an addition is made way later. The bathroom is on the old side, darker and colder than the side where the break room was. I really have to go though, and as a woman in a male dominated industry I’d peed in more awkward circumstances, so I walked in. It’s a one toilet deal and I locked the door behind me after finding the light switch, because there was no window.
I sat and started the stream before realizing that it was a combo toilet shower room, with the shower recessed into the wall right in front of where I was sitting. All dirty institutional tile with an old, old school set of f*****g chains and manacles for uncooperative patients bolted into the wall.
It was the creepiest thing I’d ever seen. And as I peed and stared those f*****g chains started SWAYING BACK AND FORTH ON THE G*****N WALL.
Y’all, do your kegels because I cut off that stream while I was standing and pulling my pants up so fast I broke the sound barrier. The chains were still clanging around while I was struggling with the rusty old deadbolt on the door of that godforsaken, haunted-a*s ancient lunatics’ bathroom. I ran down that hallway out to the truck fit to start crying, and I was not any kind of stranger to weird haunted things like that. It somehow scared me worse than growing up in a ghost-ridden house ever did.
Mental hospitals being decommissioned, never again.
My call sheet didn’t say which of the several buildings I should go to so I was trying doors on all of them until I got one that opened. The building that did open was the crappiest looking so far; it was missing bricks, and looked somehow just darker than the others. Like it suddenly wasn’t such a sunny summer day anymore.
I was ready to get suddenly shanked by modern day Sarah Connor as I walked down this empty hallway trying to find...anyone who worked there. Finally found someone and got their liquid diabetes order into their break room. By this time I’d been there an hour and really had to pee. I asked the lady if I could use theirs and she pointed me down the hall.
There was one of those sudden wall and floor style changes right before the bathroom like you get in old buildings where an addition is made way later. The bathroom is on the old side, darker and colder than the side where the break room was. I really have to go though, and as a woman in a male dominated industry I’d peed in more awkward circumstances, so I walked in. It’s a one toilet deal and I locked the door behind me after finding the light switch, because there was no window.
I sat and started the stream before realizing that it was a combo toilet shower room, with the shower recessed into the wall right in front of where I was sitting. All dirty institutional tile with an old, old school set of f*****g chains and manacles for uncooperative patients bolted into the wall.
It was the creepiest thing I’d ever seen. And as I peed and stared those f*****g chains started SWAYING BACK AND FORTH ON THE G*****N WALL.
Y’all, do your kegels because I cut off that stream while I was standing and pulling my pants up so fast I broke the sound barrier. The chains were still clanging around while I was struggling with the rusty old deadbolt on the door of that godforsaken, haunted-a*s ancient lunatics’ bathroom. I ran down that hallway out to the truck fit to start crying, and I was not any kind of stranger to weird haunted things like that. It somehow scared me worse than growing up in a ghost-ridden house ever did.
Mental hospitals being decommissioned, never again.
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10points
#24
Ghost story time.
I was living with a few of my friends a year and a half ago and we’re all pretty religious— at least two of us work in religion. We were talking about how we didn’t believe in ghosts or demons, at least in the sense that we couldn’t see them if they were real. We started talking about how if we saw one it would change our perspective entirely. I said out loud, “If something is here I wish it would just show us”.
Two nights later I’m sound asleep and have the most vivid, brutal nightmare I’ve ever had. Long story short I was in my childhood house, we were getting robbed, and the robber shot my father only it was me (I was the robber). My father and I had a very strained relationship and the detail of the shooting woke me up in tears. I mean I was SOBBING.
I looked at the foot of my bed and saw a man sitting on his heels staring at me. It looked like he was 80 years old but never hit puberty— that’s as best I can describe it. His face looked kind but his eyes looked so wicked it struck terror into my soul. He almost looked curious, but morbidly so. He was wearing clothes that looked like he was a newspaper salesman from 1890’s New York. I only saw him for a split second and he was gone. The wild thing is I got ALL OF THAT DETAIL in just a split second, like he wanted me to remember him.
HERES THE CRAZY PART. So I was spooked to s**t right? I went into our living room and watched YouTube and some twitch streams for a bit until I convinced myself I was just half asleep and still spooked. I lay back in bed and the moment my head hits the pillow my room mate sits straight up in bed (still asleep), points at the foot of my bed and says, “_______ (my name), who is that”? I LOST MY GOD D**N MIND. I literally drove home at 3am and told my parents through tears I wanted to stay home until summer.
I stayed at home for a week or so and then went back. My room mate started having night terrors after that but we moved soon after. I’ve never been so scared in all of my life.
EDIT: I’ve had question about my room mates night terrors. The one I saw happened the first night I was back.
Basically we’re both sound asleep and he wakes up screaming. I don’t mean yelling, I mean SCREAMING. It sounded like an animal in pain, for those of you who have been hunting before— he sounded like a dear screaming after being shot. I got down on the floor (he just slept on a mattress) and tried to calm him down but we locked eyes and he started to try to climb over me— still screaming. He looked afraid, absolutely terrified. After two or three minutes he stopped all of the sudden, started mumbling and went back to sleep. I was holding his hands and our fingers were locked like when you wrestle and I had bruises the next day because of how hard he squeezed.
The next morning I asked him if he remembers waking up screaming and he said, “No but I had a CRAZY dream. You got down from your bed and started attacking me but you were covered in this black sludge. Like your face was melting off but it was this tar-like goo that smelled like decay”. After that two of my other room mates and I got together and prayed in our room. Nothing quite as bad happened after that.
Some other less entertaining stuff happened like couches being stripped of their cushions and things spilling in the middle of the night. One time a bottle of wine just f*****g exploded out of nowhere and scared us to death. Thanks for the silver, was my first!
EDIT #2: To be clear, I’m a seminary student and I work in ministry for h**h school students. Not exactly a “youth pastor”, but sort of. I don’t believe in spiritual healings or anything like that, I’m much more naturalistic about my beliefs but these things really happened, whether it was a hallucination or genuine spiritual thing I have no idea, I don’t like to think about it.
I was living with a few of my friends a year and a half ago and we’re all pretty religious— at least two of us work in religion. We were talking about how we didn’t believe in ghosts or demons, at least in the sense that we couldn’t see them if they were real. We started talking about how if we saw one it would change our perspective entirely. I said out loud, “If something is here I wish it would just show us”.
Two nights later I’m sound asleep and have the most vivid, brutal nightmare I’ve ever had. Long story short I was in my childhood house, we were getting robbed, and the robber shot my father only it was me (I was the robber). My father and I had a very strained relationship and the detail of the shooting woke me up in tears. I mean I was SOBBING.
I looked at the foot of my bed and saw a man sitting on his heels staring at me. It looked like he was 80 years old but never hit puberty— that’s as best I can describe it. His face looked kind but his eyes looked so wicked it struck terror into my soul. He almost looked curious, but morbidly so. He was wearing clothes that looked like he was a newspaper salesman from 1890’s New York. I only saw him for a split second and he was gone. The wild thing is I got ALL OF THAT DETAIL in just a split second, like he wanted me to remember him.
HERES THE CRAZY PART. So I was spooked to s**t right? I went into our living room and watched YouTube and some twitch streams for a bit until I convinced myself I was just half asleep and still spooked. I lay back in bed and the moment my head hits the pillow my room mate sits straight up in bed (still asleep), points at the foot of my bed and says, “_______ (my name), who is that”? I LOST MY GOD D**N MIND. I literally drove home at 3am and told my parents through tears I wanted to stay home until summer.
I stayed at home for a week or so and then went back. My room mate started having night terrors after that but we moved soon after. I’ve never been so scared in all of my life.
EDIT: I’ve had question about my room mates night terrors. The one I saw happened the first night I was back.
Basically we’re both sound asleep and he wakes up screaming. I don’t mean yelling, I mean SCREAMING. It sounded like an animal in pain, for those of you who have been hunting before— he sounded like a dear screaming after being shot. I got down on the floor (he just slept on a mattress) and tried to calm him down but we locked eyes and he started to try to climb over me— still screaming. He looked afraid, absolutely terrified. After two or three minutes he stopped all of the sudden, started mumbling and went back to sleep. I was holding his hands and our fingers were locked like when you wrestle and I had bruises the next day because of how hard he squeezed.
The next morning I asked him if he remembers waking up screaming and he said, “No but I had a CRAZY dream. You got down from your bed and started attacking me but you were covered in this black sludge. Like your face was melting off but it was this tar-like goo that smelled like decay”. After that two of my other room mates and I got together and prayed in our room. Nothing quite as bad happened after that.
Some other less entertaining stuff happened like couches being stripped of their cushions and things spilling in the middle of the night. One time a bottle of wine just f*****g exploded out of nowhere and scared us to death. Thanks for the silver, was my first!
EDIT #2: To be clear, I’m a seminary student and I work in ministry for h**h school students. Not exactly a “youth pastor”, but sort of. I don’t believe in spiritual healings or anything like that, I’m much more naturalistic about my beliefs but these things really happened, whether it was a hallucination or genuine spiritual thing I have no idea, I don’t like to think about it.
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9points
#25
This may be long and it isn't a "no one believes me/us" scenario due to the amount of us involved, more of "a lot of skepticism" thing.
Back Story: (You'll Need It)
I grew up in a small California desert tourist town called Joshua Tree. Home of the Joshua Tree National Park (those of us that are older call it "The Monument" as it was that before National Parkdom). I was in my early 20's at the time of this, which was approximately 14 years ago, and was the only one with a car and a license.
Growing up in a small desert town leaves you will limited options for fun and we would make use of the park. Occasionally, maybe once a week or so, a group of us would pile in to the station wagon with beer, smokes and a mix tape and drive through the park late at night. An empty road, so dark and quite other than the loud group of guys in a red Mercury driving fast from one enterance to another. Hours would go by each time as we drove the long desolate road and stopped at various rocks we liked to climb.
And I can't understate how desolate it was. How alone. No other cars, no lights... except the occasional road work sign when warranted. Hell, that was exactly what we thought it was....
This trip started like every other, except maybe more of us than usual. Crammed in that car, windows down as I chain smoked and drove a good 20mph over the speed limit, gravel spitting up as we had a good time. Shortly in to the trip I saw a light. A blue light. Possibly (and it was) miles and miles ahead. That is the thing about dark, light is free to shine. I remember saying something about having to slow down at some point ahead, must be some road construction left by itself up ahead. Had to be a sign, the light hadn't moved.
We continued for a few miles to one of our favorite stops and got out. We climbed for a while, maybe 45 minutes or so. Drank a little. Joked. The norm. Then we piled back in and continued.
Let me be clear, this light never moved and we had already been about an hour in to our adventure.
Why would the sign have a BLUE light??
As we approached the light I started to slow.... and slowed more and more as we approached the source.
It wasn't a sign, it wasn't a car, it wasn't a UFO.
Standing on the side of the road, facing towards us unmoving for over an hour at this point, was a man. A pale white man, white beard, dirty old miner clothing with an old mining helmet and a pickaxe. His light giving off an unnatural blue light. His face blank but he stared at us, directly at all of us. We sped up and as we drove by faster, his head turning to keep pace with us as we left. His light visible, unmoving once again, facing us the entire trip out.
I remember looking at the car clock shortly after passing him, it was d**n near exactly 1:00 AM when we passed him. We never saw a car, hell.. a horse, any way for this old sickly pale miner to get in to the park, nor any reason for him to be there. Worst of all we estimated that this miner had to have been standing there, facing us, for at least an hour and a half never moving. Not once did that light flicker as if he looked down for a moment, or turned his head... He just stood there staring down a road at a car full of dumbasses.
We never saw him again. However, a couple of years ago I decided to check to see if anyone experienced the same. I found one other story of a couple that saw him near where we did. Standing there, staring late at night.
As a man I wish we would have stopped. Even if it would have been the most horrifying thing ever, I wish we would have stopped because I honestly believe there was a ghost of a dead miner out in that park and I would know for sure today.
Back Story: (You'll Need It)
I grew up in a small California desert tourist town called Joshua Tree. Home of the Joshua Tree National Park (those of us that are older call it "The Monument" as it was that before National Parkdom). I was in my early 20's at the time of this, which was approximately 14 years ago, and was the only one with a car and a license.
Growing up in a small desert town leaves you will limited options for fun and we would make use of the park. Occasionally, maybe once a week or so, a group of us would pile in to the station wagon with beer, smokes and a mix tape and drive through the park late at night. An empty road, so dark and quite other than the loud group of guys in a red Mercury driving fast from one enterance to another. Hours would go by each time as we drove the long desolate road and stopped at various rocks we liked to climb.
And I can't understate how desolate it was. How alone. No other cars, no lights... except the occasional road work sign when warranted. Hell, that was exactly what we thought it was....
This trip started like every other, except maybe more of us than usual. Crammed in that car, windows down as I chain smoked and drove a good 20mph over the speed limit, gravel spitting up as we had a good time. Shortly in to the trip I saw a light. A blue light. Possibly (and it was) miles and miles ahead. That is the thing about dark, light is free to shine. I remember saying something about having to slow down at some point ahead, must be some road construction left by itself up ahead. Had to be a sign, the light hadn't moved.
We continued for a few miles to one of our favorite stops and got out. We climbed for a while, maybe 45 minutes or so. Drank a little. Joked. The norm. Then we piled back in and continued.
Let me be clear, this light never moved and we had already been about an hour in to our adventure.
Why would the sign have a BLUE light??
As we approached the light I started to slow.... and slowed more and more as we approached the source.
It wasn't a sign, it wasn't a car, it wasn't a UFO.
Standing on the side of the road, facing towards us unmoving for over an hour at this point, was a man. A pale white man, white beard, dirty old miner clothing with an old mining helmet and a pickaxe. His light giving off an unnatural blue light. His face blank but he stared at us, directly at all of us. We sped up and as we drove by faster, his head turning to keep pace with us as we left. His light visible, unmoving once again, facing us the entire trip out.
I remember looking at the car clock shortly after passing him, it was d**n near exactly 1:00 AM when we passed him. We never saw a car, hell.. a horse, any way for this old sickly pale miner to get in to the park, nor any reason for him to be there. Worst of all we estimated that this miner had to have been standing there, facing us, for at least an hour and a half never moving. Not once did that light flicker as if he looked down for a moment, or turned his head... He just stood there staring down a road at a car full of dumbasses.
We never saw him again. However, a couple of years ago I decided to check to see if anyone experienced the same. I found one other story of a couple that saw him near where we did. Standing there, staring late at night.
As a man I wish we would have stopped. Even if it would have been the most horrifying thing ever, I wish we would have stopped because I honestly believe there was a ghost of a dead miner out in that park and I would know for sure today.
9points
