40 Hilarious Moments When People Mistook Something For Being Paranormal, As Shared By The Bored Panda Community

When I was little, I heard these really realistic door slams around the house and got paranoid that there was a ghost. But then, I noticed in the summer, the second the door “slammed", it began to get humid. So now, I’ve realized how stupid I was and that 'slam' was the AC turning off. 🤦🏻‍♀️

Do aliens count as paranormal? Was asleep in my basement bedroom and woke to find a glowing red light about 3 feet off the ground slowly approaching me. I had plenty of time to wonder what the hell it was and finally came to the conclusion that it was an alien. Nothing else made sense. Eventually discovered that it was a partially-deflated mylar balloon reflecting my alarm clock light and being blown toward me by the heat vent.

London, 2008. Came home from a gig, went to bed, and genuinely thought I got haunted by a poltergeist as my bed started shaking with me in it. The timing of the whole predicament was so precise that as I sat up trying not to sh*t myself and compute what the hell was happening, the only thing I could think of was to recite a prayer that my grandmother taught me and hit the light, only for the bed to stop shaking right at that precise moment.

Panic, tears, parents who were peacefully asleep now wondering if their teenager was high as a kite…only to find out in the morning that the UK was hit by the biggest earthquake in nearly 25 years (5.2 magnitude) and the tremor reached London.

I didn’t even realize that earthquakes were a possibility in the UK and was fortunate enough to never experience one before, but damn, just the precise timing of the whole predicament made me think there was a portal to hell in my room 😅

I was driving in a remote location to visit my parents. It was dark and I was alone so I was already a little creeped out. There were no streetlights and it was quite literally in the middle of nowhere. No one else around me.
I kept hearing this weird screeching sound from the back so I turned the music down and listened. The noise came again. I didn't want to look in the rearview mirror (I was afraid of seeing a ghost or something like in the movies).
Eventually, I turned the inside lights of the car on and looked back, and waited.
Turned out, I had accidentally turned on my rear window's wiper at some point and it was screeching on the dusty window.

The house we rented the owner had just installed a mottled earth-toned linoleum floor in the kitchen. I was walking into the kitchen and saw a portion of the floor MOVE. I froze in place and screamed loud enough to wake the dead, my boyfriend (now my husband) comes tearing in thinking something horrible has or is about to happen, screeches to a stop, and upon not seeing anything, asks me what is wrong. I stutter out that the floor moved and point to where I'd seen it. He looks down and starts howling with laughter then asks if I want to jump up on a chair too. Turns out the "moving floor" was a little field mouse that had gotten into the house which was nearly perfectly camouflaged against the earth-tone mottled flooring. Poor field mouse was as frozen in place as I was - he caught it up in a box and we relocated it to a nearby field. Twenty plus years later and he still brings it up anytime I'm startled...I can't live down that I screamed bloody murder about a little field mouse.

At the Girl Scout Camp I went to as a kid, you could stay in an old barn, creatively called "The Barn." One night, one of the other girls told us she was psychic and described all the ghosts she'd seen. All of a sudden she said, "There's something outside. Everyone quiet." There was a knock at the door and a couple girls screamed. Then we heard voices saying, "Let us in, the door is locked." It turned out that two girls had gone out to the bathroom without the rest of us noticing. They were locked out and just wanted in.

My (now ex) fiance and I were asleep after our son's first birthday. We awoke to these awful loud popping and banging noise. I looked at him and his face was full of terror... He said, "What the f**k?!" in the most scared way... It was pitch black. After fumbling for the light switch we saw what made the loud noises: A couple of the balloons from my son's party were caught up in our ceiling fan that was on. I haven't laughed as hard as I did that night since then.

As a kid, my neighbors loved to have flashing lights on at Christmas, and for the first few nights after they went on, I would freak out every time I woke up as the different strands threw shadows in weird places. I HATE flashing Christmas lights to this day!

Scared the h*ll out of myself in the shower, was rinsing my hair and felt something grab my butt. It was my long hair sticking to a cheek and it felt like a grab when I turned my head.

Another time, woke up out of a dead sleep because someone grabbed my stomach. It was my own hand that had just squeezed myself in my sleep.

When I was about 12/13, I read The Lawnmower Man (a short Stephen King story). Shortly after, I kept hearing a muffled but still quite loud sound of a motor during the night and early hours. I was absolutely terrified, imagining The LM was after me and didn’t tell my parents for about a week as I didn’t want them to think I was going crazy. Turned out there was a massive wasps’ nest in the loft/roof, right over my bed. Dad had ‘fun’ dealing with that!

My boyfriend has this rack that hangs on the top of the bathroom door with towels on it. I had a friend over and he moved it to the bedroom door, so if my friend wanted to use the bathroom, he could fully close the door.

Fast forward to bedtime. I wake up in the middle of the night in darkness, completely forgetting the rack is on the door, as it's normally on the bathroom one. The door is half closed and I see this dark shape "peering" around the corner by the door, high up. I f*****g screamed, scaring both my boyfriend and the dog. He thought I was an idiot when I figured it out.

When I was a kid - let's say around 12 - just started to watch horror and paranormal-type movies, read Stephen King books, etc.

There was a sound - barely audible voices - that I could hear in a room of the house - but I couldn't work out where from.

Given my age and the movies and books I was watching/reading - I, of course, jumped to a bunch of completely insane conclusions.

Eventually, I found out it was a small-ish (it was the '80s, so nothing was actually small) portable radio that had been left on and fallen down under something.

There is a beautiful, empty, old small church and cemetery near where I live. Coming home late one night, I rounded the corner to see the entire building filled with a dazzling light from the inside, rays pouring out of the windows in all directions. I slowed in front of it, quite certain the rapture was upon us. As I crept past the other side came into view…along with the large vehicle parked with it’s brights on shining into the church windows.

I once saw a plastic bag in the dark and thought it was a ghost because it was shaped weirdly!

A few months ago I was fast asleep in bed and was woken up by what sounded like knocking on a little ‘door’ in my wardrobe that connects to the attic. “Knock knock knock… knock knock… knock knock” Scared the crap out of me and I couldn’t get to sleep for a while after that. I was terrified that it was ghosts or maybe someone was living in the attic and we didn’t know. Turns out it was just the wind shuffling the door panel in its frame

Ah, whenever I was home alone when I was 11, I would hear footsteps and the floor creaking on the upper floor.

I didn’t live in an apartment, just a huge house, which had only me in it amongst the furniture.

I would always arm myself with hangers, and try to find the source of the sound.

It took me about 3 months of this before I asked my mom about it, it turned out to be the AC shaking the wooden tiles, and the water from the pipes would go occasionally.

Now, imagine my shock when during those 3 months I was getting a snack from the fridge, and something fell over in the pantry 😅