Have you watched the most fear-inducing and gut-wrenching movie only for it to end with the words ‘based on a true story’? From demonic possessions to deeply thought-out and unsettling murders, our real world provides plenty of fuel for filmmakers to come up with films that keep us up at night.
Tragically, not all of the scary real-life stories make it into the movies—there are more of them than we probably can count. But we’re making sure they’re not getting overlooked. Our Bored Panda team curated some of the terrifying ones for the people who can't wait for Halloween to get here soon enough. To find them, all you have to do is scroll down.
#1
This wasn't scary but it is unexplained. My first husband and I were separated at the time. I dreamed one night he arrived at our home and knocked on the door. When I opened the door he looked extremely tired and a sunken version of himself. Even though he didn't say it, he was asking forgiveness with his eyes. Of course I forgave him and welcomed him inside. Our favorite thing to do was to lay in bed and talk for hours so we laid in the bed and began our conversation about nonsense stuff. As we were talking, the window at the foot of our bed was glowing a bright, warm light (not blinding but comforting) as we continued to talk the light became brighter and brighter until it engulfed us both in it's warmth. I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep. About an hour later, my husband's mother called me hysterical and told me that my husband had been m******d an hour before. I realized then, that he had come to see me to ask for forgiveness before he passed over. He was a d**g a****t and hid it from me for years, which caused our separation. He was in a bad location and a person there took his life. But I take comfort knowing I was with him when he passed.
43points
#2
In 1989 I was driving on a familiar rural highway in broad daylight. I was rounding an easy bend and shocked to see a small town on the right side of the road. There’s a sign: St. Vincent. A few of the things immediately noticeable were a shop called Webster Welding, an old fashioned horse drawn water pump for fire fighting, several large poplars with dead tops, and black and white painted rocks along the street that faced the highway. I kept watching in the rear view mirror and it stayed visible. I drive a few miles and there is a gentleman waving at me from beside his car. He’s obviously broken down and I pulled over. A quick chat and I learn he’s blown a tire and wrecked his rim. He asks if I’ll drive him back to the town. No problem. In he gets and off we go. The town is not there. It’s a dusty Alberta crossroad. This fellow and I just sat in my truck in silence. I raised an arm and my hair was standing on end. His too. He said “All the trees were dead. Are we dead?” Eventually I drove him to a nearby town. He simply got out of the truck and walked away.
I remember it like it was yesterday. I could tell you what that town looked like in perfect detail.
I remember it like it was yesterday. I could tell you what that town looked like in perfect detail.
31points
#3
I moved to a different city for university at the peak of the pandemic. I lived off campus in a suite with a couple of my friends from my hometown. Life happened, and they both ended up moving out by the end of the first semester. So I was now living alone in a very quiet neighbourhood.
I got off of work late one night, and crawled into bed around 12am. I woke up about an hour later to the sound of footsteps shuffling around in my bedroom. I opened my eyes to see a very tall man in my doorway, backlit by the streetlights, with his cellphone upright in his hand as if he was recording. When the person registered I was awake, they backed their way out of the room and started running. I followed them outside, and watched them hop into the drivers seat of an empty car that had been left running before speeding down the street.
I had no information to give to the police when they arrived. To this day I have no idea who that person could have been, or what they were doing in my bedroom at 1am.
I got off of work late one night, and crawled into bed around 12am. I woke up about an hour later to the sound of footsteps shuffling around in my bedroom. I opened my eyes to see a very tall man in my doorway, backlit by the streetlights, with his cellphone upright in his hand as if he was recording. When the person registered I was awake, they backed their way out of the room and started running. I followed them outside, and watched them hop into the drivers seat of an empty car that had been left running before speeding down the street.
I had no information to give to the police when they arrived. To this day I have no idea who that person could have been, or what they were doing in my bedroom at 1am.
27points
#4
The house I live in is pretty old (one of the old mill owners houses in the uk) and we have heard a lot of strange things here.
Bangs, crashes and things moving/falling are fairly normal but one night I awoke to find myself in the middle of a bad case of sleep-paralysis, I was laid flat on my back and there was a huge shadow person leaning over me and pushing down on my chest. I tried to scream but no sound would come out and I couldn’t move anything except my eyes to wake my husband. It was terrifying but once I broke the spell and “woke up” I realised it was simply a nightmare and felt better.
In the morning when my husband woke up, he said to me while wide-eyed
“I know how this is gonna sound but last night I woke up to a huge shadow person looming over your side of the bed, I could see it’s hands gripping the bottom of the frame on your side, it took me a couple of seconds to realise what I was looking at and when I shot up in bed it just disappeared”.
I had not at that moment told him about my experience.
We still talk about that 10 years later from time to time it was so profoundly strange.
Bangs, crashes and things moving/falling are fairly normal but one night I awoke to find myself in the middle of a bad case of sleep-paralysis, I was laid flat on my back and there was a huge shadow person leaning over me and pushing down on my chest. I tried to scream but no sound would come out and I couldn’t move anything except my eyes to wake my husband. It was terrifying but once I broke the spell and “woke up” I realised it was simply a nightmare and felt better.
In the morning when my husband woke up, he said to me while wide-eyed
“I know how this is gonna sound but last night I woke up to a huge shadow person looming over your side of the bed, I could see it’s hands gripping the bottom of the frame on your side, it took me a couple of seconds to realise what I was looking at and when I shot up in bed it just disappeared”.
I had not at that moment told him about my experience.
We still talk about that 10 years later from time to time it was so profoundly strange.
26points
#5
Okay, so, this one still gives me chills just thinking about it. I will say that, to a point, I believe in paranormal stuff, I have had too many creepy and unexplained things that I can confirm with others happen, however, I try to be very skeptical and always try to find the most reasonable explanations. This happened about 25 years ago.
I was 7 or 8 years old. I was laying in the top bunk of the bunkbed I shared with my twin brother. We had an attached bathroom, and the only light coming in the room was the light emanating from under the bathroom door. I was laying in bed, listening to my brother cry as my dad tried to remove a splinter from my brother's finger. I looked at the foot of my bed, and I saw a man about 5'10 tall, long hair about shoulder length, short beard, and what looked like a flannel shirt and possibly overalls or suspenders standing there, and his pupils where glowing, kind of green like if you see an animals eyes in the dark. I started screaming "Daddy, daddy, there is a man in here, standing at the foot of my bed!". I looked back and he was gone, and I just kept screaming, I was terrified. This apartment had a front and back door, but they were absolutely locked as we lived in a bad neighborhood in a very old part of the city.
10 years later, I recounted the story to my dad, and he had honestly forgotten about it. He did say, and he did not tell me when I was younger, that he did from time to time swear he saw a man who matched that description, minus the glowing eyes, in the apartment late at night. My dad had searched the apartment a few times after seeing him, but there was no trace of a way he came in, and often, he would follow the man to a closet and he just sort of disappeared.
I was 7 or 8 years old. I was laying in the top bunk of the bunkbed I shared with my twin brother. We had an attached bathroom, and the only light coming in the room was the light emanating from under the bathroom door. I was laying in bed, listening to my brother cry as my dad tried to remove a splinter from my brother's finger. I looked at the foot of my bed, and I saw a man about 5'10 tall, long hair about shoulder length, short beard, and what looked like a flannel shirt and possibly overalls or suspenders standing there, and his pupils where glowing, kind of green like if you see an animals eyes in the dark. I started screaming "Daddy, daddy, there is a man in here, standing at the foot of my bed!". I looked back and he was gone, and I just kept screaming, I was terrified. This apartment had a front and back door, but they were absolutely locked as we lived in a bad neighborhood in a very old part of the city.
10 years later, I recounted the story to my dad, and he had honestly forgotten about it. He did say, and he did not tell me when I was younger, that he did from time to time swear he saw a man who matched that description, minus the glowing eyes, in the apartment late at night. My dad had searched the apartment a few times after seeing him, but there was no trace of a way he came in, and often, he would follow the man to a closet and he just sort of disappeared.
24points
#6
This happened to me when I was about 14. No one believes me, and I obviously can’t prove it, but I know.
I was babysitting 2 girls, one 5 and the a baby in a crib. They were in the same room. This was a small town, and the house had been abandoned but kept up,for about 30 years. This couple bought it and renovated it. It was a Victorian style house with a third floor for the mains’s room.
I was watching TV and heard the baby crying. I waited and didn’t hear her again, so I figured she went baby to sleep. A bit later I heard her again, and I went up stairs to check on her. She was sound asleep and I remember being surprised cause I figured she would be restless. I was standing over the crib, and i heard the baby crying again, from the third floor. I was terrified, ran downstairs and sat really really close to the TV so I couldn’t hear anything but the TV. It was summer, no wind, they had no pets, which is what everyone told me that was what I heard. Nope. I heard a baby crying. From an empty floor.
I was babysitting 2 girls, one 5 and the a baby in a crib. They were in the same room. This was a small town, and the house had been abandoned but kept up,for about 30 years. This couple bought it and renovated it. It was a Victorian style house with a third floor for the mains’s room.
I was watching TV and heard the baby crying. I waited and didn’t hear her again, so I figured she went baby to sleep. A bit later I heard her again, and I went up stairs to check on her. She was sound asleep and I remember being surprised cause I figured she would be restless. I was standing over the crib, and i heard the baby crying again, from the third floor. I was terrified, ran downstairs and sat really really close to the TV so I couldn’t hear anything but the TV. It was summer, no wind, they had no pets, which is what everyone told me that was what I heard. Nope. I heard a baby crying. From an empty floor.
22points
#7
My father is very religious. He does not believe in ghosts, aliens, anything supernatural, or out of the ordinary. To this day, if this story is brought up, he will quickly find something else to talk about..
My dad, younger brother, and I were at my family's hunting camp sleeping in the small trailer together on bunk beds. It was the day after Christmas, and it was chilly outside, so we got to bed early to wake up for hunting. In the middle of the night, my Dad wakes up and starts screaming like he's being attacked. He then immediately began sobbing. This is the only time I've seen or heard my father cry. When he calmed down, his terrified sons asked what happened. He said he'd had a terrible nightmare about an endless surge of water that was sweeping families away and drowning children. I recall he said those words specifically. To have my Dad tell me about a dream was strange in and of itself. You must understand all of this was completely out of character. Finally, I asked if we drowned in his dream because, at this point, I was sure there was some meaning to this vision. He said no and that all of the people looked Chinese. Now let me preface by saying we did not have internet access on our cell phones at this time, and we did not have any access to TV or news at our hunting property. Well, this was the morning of December 26th, 2004. The very day, a massive earthquake struck Asia, which caused a tsunami, which in turn took the lives of nearly 228.000 people. I still believe in some kind of collective consciencness because of this event. How could I not?
My dad, younger brother, and I were at my family's hunting camp sleeping in the small trailer together on bunk beds. It was the day after Christmas, and it was chilly outside, so we got to bed early to wake up for hunting. In the middle of the night, my Dad wakes up and starts screaming like he's being attacked. He then immediately began sobbing. This is the only time I've seen or heard my father cry. When he calmed down, his terrified sons asked what happened. He said he'd had a terrible nightmare about an endless surge of water that was sweeping families away and drowning children. I recall he said those words specifically. To have my Dad tell me about a dream was strange in and of itself. You must understand all of this was completely out of character. Finally, I asked if we drowned in his dream because, at this point, I was sure there was some meaning to this vision. He said no and that all of the people looked Chinese. Now let me preface by saying we did not have internet access on our cell phones at this time, and we did not have any access to TV or news at our hunting property. Well, this was the morning of December 26th, 2004. The very day, a massive earthquake struck Asia, which caused a tsunami, which in turn took the lives of nearly 228.000 people. I still believe in some kind of collective consciencness because of this event. How could I not?
19points
#8
I was out with my ex roommate on a night drive. We liked to go driving and get lost in the country sometimes and just jam out to music and talk. We lived in central IL at the time, so it was pretty much just open land and cornfields. It was super dark, though, so we couldn't see too much beyond the sides of the road and what was in front of us.
My roomie was driving, and at this point we had the music off. She suddenly stopped mid sentence. I had been looking at my phone so I Iooked up at her when she got quiet. Her eyes were wide and her brow furrowed. I looked up at the road.
On the left side, there was a man just ominously staring into the darkness. Not even half a block later there was another, doing the same thing. And another. About 10 seconds pass and we see another man, facing the road but still on the left side, staring into our headlights with this blank, almost psychotic expression.
My blood ran cold and I couldn't explain why. It was so unsettling even though they were just people standing out there.
After passing all of them, my roommate suddenly says, "What the F**K was *that??*" I said I had no idea but I wanted to go home.
I'm sure there's some plausible explanation, but that night still makes me shudder for some unforseen reason. My roomie was creeped out too. There weren't any houses out there, just fields with a few patches of trees. No farm equipment, no mail boxes, cars, or driveways. Just empty darkness and fields.
Twilight zone s**t I swear.
My roomie was driving, and at this point we had the music off. She suddenly stopped mid sentence. I had been looking at my phone so I Iooked up at her when she got quiet. Her eyes were wide and her brow furrowed. I looked up at the road.
On the left side, there was a man just ominously staring into the darkness. Not even half a block later there was another, doing the same thing. And another. About 10 seconds pass and we see another man, facing the road but still on the left side, staring into our headlights with this blank, almost psychotic expression.
My blood ran cold and I couldn't explain why. It was so unsettling even though they were just people standing out there.
After passing all of them, my roommate suddenly says, "What the F**K was *that??*" I said I had no idea but I wanted to go home.
I'm sure there's some plausible explanation, but that night still makes me shudder for some unforseen reason. My roomie was creeped out too. There weren't any houses out there, just fields with a few patches of trees. No farm equipment, no mail boxes, cars, or driveways. Just empty darkness and fields.
Twilight zone s**t I swear.
18points
#9
I think I was in college (about 20 years ago) and I was staying at my parents for the weekend. They live in an apartment building.
It was in the middle of the night, around 1-2 AM, when suddenly we heard loud scratches and bangs on the entrance door. They were so loud that we all got up and gathered on the hallway to see what's happening. My father looked through door sight and there was nothing there. He then started to beat loudly on the door to make it stop. After a few seconds more everything went silent. No footsteps, no sound and when looking through the door sight there was nothing there. Of course we didn't opened the door because we all where very shocked by everything that happened.
In the morning, when we got up, we almost believed it was all a dream until we opened the door and saw some deep, big scratches on the outside part of the door (the door was made of wood).
To this day I still don't know what that was. There are no dogs in the building and even if it was, it should've been a very large dog to leave those marks on the door. Also, such a big dog would bark or at least you would here its paws when walking outside your door.
It was in the middle of the night, around 1-2 AM, when suddenly we heard loud scratches and bangs on the entrance door. They were so loud that we all got up and gathered on the hallway to see what's happening. My father looked through door sight and there was nothing there. He then started to beat loudly on the door to make it stop. After a few seconds more everything went silent. No footsteps, no sound and when looking through the door sight there was nothing there. Of course we didn't opened the door because we all where very shocked by everything that happened.
In the morning, when we got up, we almost believed it was all a dream until we opened the door and saw some deep, big scratches on the outside part of the door (the door was made of wood).
To this day I still don't know what that was. There are no dogs in the building and even if it was, it should've been a very large dog to leave those marks on the door. Also, such a big dog would bark or at least you would here its paws when walking outside your door.
17points
#10
I’ve told other unexplained stories on Reddit but I’m not sure I’ve told the one about the thing my friend and I saw on the side of the road. I’ll try and remember it to the best of my ability, it was about 12 ish years ago. If anyone else saw something similar let me know.
It’s around 3 in the morning in rural North-Central Alberta. My friend and I are driving home from a high school party in which neither of us drank or took any d***s. It’s the middle of winter. In Alberta, this means it’s *cold* outside. This night it was below -30 degrees Celsius (below -22 degrees Fahrenheit; edited to fix temperature).
The whole way home, my friend and I are chatting about the usual things: what happened at the party, the boys we liked, etc. While most teenage girls are chatty, this friend in particular was a chatter box. Mostly I would listen and just react to whatever she said (love friends like that). So, because she would do most of the talking and didn’t require much input, I’d zone out sometimes looking out the window.
We are about 5-7 minutes outside of town at this point taking the highway, probably going 75-90 km/hour. Using an online calculator that puts us around 6-7ish km outside of town in a sparsely wooded area with no services open in town.
As we round a corner, I’m zoning out listening to my friend talk, when through the windshield, I notice glowing eyes off the side of the road, the headlights not fully hitting whatever it was. The eyes were green/yellowish. This would be normal but these eyes are about 7-8 feet above the ground. At first, I think it’s a hiker or someone walking back to town, but their eyes wouldn’t glow and no one is going to be walking that far from town or any houses when it’s *that* cold and late outside (this was a town of less than 1000 ppl).
As we drive closer, this thing appears to have goat-like legs, is very heavy set, and stands on two feet. Its arms drop down by its side like a person’s and it appears to even have some kind of dark clothing on the top half. It had something like goat-like horns that curved but went upwards. At this point, my blood runs completely cold and I have a full-fledged instinctual freeze response, hairs standing up on the back of my neck. I remember hearing my own disembodied voice think “I shouldn’t be seeing this. This is wrong.” I even teared up. We pass by it relatively quickly and I can’t stop thinking about what that was.
My perception of time was kind of weird after that due to panic. But now the lights of town are in front of us, and I realize my friend isn’t talking anymore. I turn to my friend and sheepishly said with tears still in my eyes, “sorry, what were you saying? I must be going crazy but I thought I saw something back there.”
She said “no, no it’s fine. I saw it too. Did it kind of look like a goat?” So, she saw it too. We had no idea what it was. We both come from hunting families and I know the easiest critique is that it was an elk or moose standing on hind legs. But the arms of an elk or deer don’t just fall beside the body, they buckle outwards a bit. Regardless, it seemed human-like in its stance and it was very heavy set. Then, you’d think, oh it was a bear. But it had horns and curved back legs. I assume moose would be the same as an elk or deer but I’ve never really seen a moose standing ambiently, typically just when they fight.
Even our responses were odd. You’d think, given scary movies, you’d immediately flip out and react. Both of us kind of just got entranced and terrified for awhile, blood running cold. While the friend and I don’t talk anymore, we talked about it a few times in the next years we were still in contact. She continued to refer to it as the goat thing.
It’s around 3 in the morning in rural North-Central Alberta. My friend and I are driving home from a high school party in which neither of us drank or took any d***s. It’s the middle of winter. In Alberta, this means it’s *cold* outside. This night it was below -30 degrees Celsius (below -22 degrees Fahrenheit; edited to fix temperature).
The whole way home, my friend and I are chatting about the usual things: what happened at the party, the boys we liked, etc. While most teenage girls are chatty, this friend in particular was a chatter box. Mostly I would listen and just react to whatever she said (love friends like that). So, because she would do most of the talking and didn’t require much input, I’d zone out sometimes looking out the window.
We are about 5-7 minutes outside of town at this point taking the highway, probably going 75-90 km/hour. Using an online calculator that puts us around 6-7ish km outside of town in a sparsely wooded area with no services open in town.
As we round a corner, I’m zoning out listening to my friend talk, when through the windshield, I notice glowing eyes off the side of the road, the headlights not fully hitting whatever it was. The eyes were green/yellowish. This would be normal but these eyes are about 7-8 feet above the ground. At first, I think it’s a hiker or someone walking back to town, but their eyes wouldn’t glow and no one is going to be walking that far from town or any houses when it’s *that* cold and late outside (this was a town of less than 1000 ppl).
As we drive closer, this thing appears to have goat-like legs, is very heavy set, and stands on two feet. Its arms drop down by its side like a person’s and it appears to even have some kind of dark clothing on the top half. It had something like goat-like horns that curved but went upwards. At this point, my blood runs completely cold and I have a full-fledged instinctual freeze response, hairs standing up on the back of my neck. I remember hearing my own disembodied voice think “I shouldn’t be seeing this. This is wrong.” I even teared up. We pass by it relatively quickly and I can’t stop thinking about what that was.
My perception of time was kind of weird after that due to panic. But now the lights of town are in front of us, and I realize my friend isn’t talking anymore. I turn to my friend and sheepishly said with tears still in my eyes, “sorry, what were you saying? I must be going crazy but I thought I saw something back there.”
She said “no, no it’s fine. I saw it too. Did it kind of look like a goat?” So, she saw it too. We had no idea what it was. We both come from hunting families and I know the easiest critique is that it was an elk or moose standing on hind legs. But the arms of an elk or deer don’t just fall beside the body, they buckle outwards a bit. Regardless, it seemed human-like in its stance and it was very heavy set. Then, you’d think, oh it was a bear. But it had horns and curved back legs. I assume moose would be the same as an elk or deer but I’ve never really seen a moose standing ambiently, typically just when they fight.
Even our responses were odd. You’d think, given scary movies, you’d immediately flip out and react. Both of us kind of just got entranced and terrified for awhile, blood running cold. While the friend and I don’t talk anymore, we talked about it a few times in the next years we were still in contact. She continued to refer to it as the goat thing.
16points
#11
It was around 1am and I was still up watching TV. I couldn't sleep. I got really into watching some sort of history documentary about the shroud of Turin. When they zoomed up closely to the shroud my TV started to glitch and the picture was stuck on the shroud. The audio froze and then I heard a man's voice saying "Don't look" in a really unnatural deep voice. It felt like it was right behind me. I whipped my head around and there was nobody there.
I live alone since my wife passed. My daughter and Grandchild comes over on occasion but this night I was alone. I live in rural Ireland and whilst not my first rodeo with ghosts etc this experience felt unnatural. I don't know why. The TV went back to normal a couple of seconds after I heard "Don't Look". I managed to hunt down the documentary and combed it for these words.
Still don't know where it came from. For some reason it really frightened me. I went to bed a little shaken up if I'm honest. If I see anything about the shroud of Turin advertised or in news articles I get a shiver. The voice sounded extremely deep. I've never heard a voice like it. Big baritone voice. I don't know. I'm getting the shivers typing this and I've seen some stuff in my lifetime on this earth. I've been here on this earth seven decades. I know it doesn't sound scary but it was the deepness of the voice that I didn't like. Especially the TV sticking and jumping on the analysis of the Turin. Yikes.
I live alone since my wife passed. My daughter and Grandchild comes over on occasion but this night I was alone. I live in rural Ireland and whilst not my first rodeo with ghosts etc this experience felt unnatural. I don't know why. The TV went back to normal a couple of seconds after I heard "Don't Look". I managed to hunt down the documentary and combed it for these words.
Still don't know where it came from. For some reason it really frightened me. I went to bed a little shaken up if I'm honest. If I see anything about the shroud of Turin advertised or in news articles I get a shiver. The voice sounded extremely deep. I've never heard a voice like it. Big baritone voice. I don't know. I'm getting the shivers typing this and I've seen some stuff in my lifetime on this earth. I've been here on this earth seven decades. I know it doesn't sound scary but it was the deepness of the voice that I didn't like. Especially the TV sticking and jumping on the analysis of the Turin. Yikes.
16points
#12
The flight accident that didn't happen to me and several others in the Army.
I was flying Hueys for the Army supporting the Ranger School in the N Georgia mountains in Fall of 1978. At the end of a morning mission, I was on the controls flying down from the mountains to Camp Frank D Merrill LZ northwest of Dahlonega GA. I was relaxed and looking forward to re-fueling and returning to Ft. Benning (now Ft Moore) that afternoon.
Something started bothering me, and I couldn't put my finger on it. After about a minute, I knew something was badly wrong with the aircraft and that we needed to land. The instruments were all normal. There was no unusual sound or vibration. The controls all handled normally, with no binding or sticking or play.
As I had only about 450 hours of flight time, I alerted the other pilot (~3000 hours, Warrant Officer) and asked him to take the controls to check things out. I thought that I might be imagining things, especially as a trained engineer I couldn't identify anything that would lead to my feeling.
He didn't believe me when I said something was wrong with the helicopter. He played around with it for a minutes or so, said "the bird is good', and handed the controls back to me. As soon as I got back on the controls, the feeling that the aircraft was bad came back, that something was really wrong.
I declared an emergency landing and told the other pilot to call Ft. Benning Flight Ops on our UHF radio and give them the coordinates of this little two helicopter clearing I could see on a gentle slope ("We're putting down right there..."), and to contact the Camp Merrill aviation liaison on the local VHF in case something went bad during the landing.
We landed, and after the rotors stopped turning, I immediately climbed up top and looked at the rotor hub. The longitudinal bearing that transmitted pitch information to the blades had failed, instead of having less than few thousands of an inch of play, it had over 1/4 inch. The other pilot blanched when I asked him to take a look.
A maintenance bird that arrived about 5-6 hours later with a test pilot and TI. The test pilot took a look, blanched, and asked the other pilot how he knew there was a problem. He pointed at me and said, "I didn't find it. I thought the bird was good. Lieutenant MyLastName said the bird was bad and we needed to land immediately." The Maintenance Test Pilot asked me how I knew.
I told him the truth: "I have no idea. I just knew that we needed to land right away."
He didn't believe me, insisting I must have heard or seen or felt something. The other pilot said, "No, he's telling the truth - I couldn't feel anything either." The crew chief also said he didn't detect anything.
The Maintenance Test Pilot said "You are the luckiest guys alive - you should have been dead already. That bearing should have flown apart. You should have lost the rotor blades, all control of the aircraft, and been a ball of torn metal on the sides of a mountain."
To this day, I still have no idea why or how I knew. It wasn't a little voice whispering in my ear or anything like that. It was just a feeling of really bad badness (the best I can describe it).
And yeah, we both inspected that same bearing during the mission pre-flight - it was completely normal then.
Myself, the other pilot, the crew-chief and possibly some of the Ranger cadre we'd ferried about should have died on that day. We didn't for no reason that I can put my finger on. Even now.
I was flying Hueys for the Army supporting the Ranger School in the N Georgia mountains in Fall of 1978. At the end of a morning mission, I was on the controls flying down from the mountains to Camp Frank D Merrill LZ northwest of Dahlonega GA. I was relaxed and looking forward to re-fueling and returning to Ft. Benning (now Ft Moore) that afternoon.
Something started bothering me, and I couldn't put my finger on it. After about a minute, I knew something was badly wrong with the aircraft and that we needed to land. The instruments were all normal. There was no unusual sound or vibration. The controls all handled normally, with no binding or sticking or play.
As I had only about 450 hours of flight time, I alerted the other pilot (~3000 hours, Warrant Officer) and asked him to take the controls to check things out. I thought that I might be imagining things, especially as a trained engineer I couldn't identify anything that would lead to my feeling.
He didn't believe me when I said something was wrong with the helicopter. He played around with it for a minutes or so, said "the bird is good', and handed the controls back to me. As soon as I got back on the controls, the feeling that the aircraft was bad came back, that something was really wrong.
I declared an emergency landing and told the other pilot to call Ft. Benning Flight Ops on our UHF radio and give them the coordinates of this little two helicopter clearing I could see on a gentle slope ("We're putting down right there..."), and to contact the Camp Merrill aviation liaison on the local VHF in case something went bad during the landing.
We landed, and after the rotors stopped turning, I immediately climbed up top and looked at the rotor hub. The longitudinal bearing that transmitted pitch information to the blades had failed, instead of having less than few thousands of an inch of play, it had over 1/4 inch. The other pilot blanched when I asked him to take a look.
A maintenance bird that arrived about 5-6 hours later with a test pilot and TI. The test pilot took a look, blanched, and asked the other pilot how he knew there was a problem. He pointed at me and said, "I didn't find it. I thought the bird was good. Lieutenant MyLastName said the bird was bad and we needed to land immediately." The Maintenance Test Pilot asked me how I knew.
I told him the truth: "I have no idea. I just knew that we needed to land right away."
He didn't believe me, insisting I must have heard or seen or felt something. The other pilot said, "No, he's telling the truth - I couldn't feel anything either." The crew chief also said he didn't detect anything.
The Maintenance Test Pilot said "You are the luckiest guys alive - you should have been dead already. That bearing should have flown apart. You should have lost the rotor blades, all control of the aircraft, and been a ball of torn metal on the sides of a mountain."
To this day, I still have no idea why or how I knew. It wasn't a little voice whispering in my ear or anything like that. It was just a feeling of really bad badness (the best I can describe it).
And yeah, we both inspected that same bearing during the mission pre-flight - it was completely normal then.
Myself, the other pilot, the crew-chief and possibly some of the Ranger cadre we'd ferried about should have died on that day. We didn't for no reason that I can put my finger on. Even now.
15points
#13
I lived briefly in a rental home, which was owned by a church in a small Florida town, and which was built in 1908. Every night around 8 o'clock, I heard dragging, shuffling footsteps coming from the kitchen. If I walked into the kitchen, they would stop, and if I turned my head to look into the kitchen from the den, they would pause and continue the very moment I looked away again. This lasted for 5 minutes or so each and every night.
15points
#14
This isn't my story, it's my grandmother's. When my gran was 10 her dad died in a train accident, leaving her and her mother to care for her much younger brother. A few years later her brother had come out of his bedroom in the middle of the night terrified. He said that there was a man at the end of his bed. My gran and her mum checked his room thoroughly and didn't find anything there. They all went back to bed. A few minutes later he complained again, saying that the man was still there. Once more they checked the room and found nothing. My gran's mum asked him what the man was doing. He said he was just smiling. She asked him to describe what the man looked like. Keep in mind that he was very little, around 2 or 3 I think, when his dad died and he would have forgotten what he looked like by this point. As he was describing the man my gran and her mum were beginning to get scared. He was describing his dad. I didn't believe in anything supernatural before I heard her story, now I'm not so sure.
14points
#15
It's not quite unexplained.
I slept with a radio on low as a kid because I was afraid of train whistles in the nearby rail yard. As I aged, it turned into reading books with the light and radio on until I fell asleep( I am autistic and have a f****d up sleep schedule, my parents were fine as long as I did something quiet if I couldn't sleep.)
One day, I spilled water on the radio.
The radio broke in an odd way. It got all kinds of odd traffic, including radio stations that were definitely not from my home country. I was too young to quite understand it all. Then, a very strange sound started. It was a slow sound like someone grooving on a keyboard, but the notes were very random. It was super loud, and the longer it went on, the more I realized it wasn't a song.
It wasn't a song, and it wasn't anything I was supposed to hear. It sounded very forbidden, and being a child with too much of an imagination, I wondered if it was aliens. I got my mum to wake up and look at it. She was baffled and said I should either try to tune to a different station or turn the radio off.
I did, and I got a lot of strange interference the next night and so on, but not that specific sound. I got a new radio for Christmas that year. The incident stayed in my mind.
In 2012ish, I read a C*****d article about unexplained sounds. I read something that seemed similar to what I heard.
It wasn't aliens. It was a Russian number station for communicating with spies. Specifically, a type called a slow Polytone. Each note I heard was part of a coded message. Edit: this station, exactly https://youtu.be/FS-wdL0eDxc?si=bBD8Ldy6R47KjEtl
Now I listen for these regularly as a major hobby, and have a lot of journals and knowledge gathered on it over the years.
I slept with a radio on low as a kid because I was afraid of train whistles in the nearby rail yard. As I aged, it turned into reading books with the light and radio on until I fell asleep( I am autistic and have a f****d up sleep schedule, my parents were fine as long as I did something quiet if I couldn't sleep.)
One day, I spilled water on the radio.
The radio broke in an odd way. It got all kinds of odd traffic, including radio stations that were definitely not from my home country. I was too young to quite understand it all. Then, a very strange sound started. It was a slow sound like someone grooving on a keyboard, but the notes were very random. It was super loud, and the longer it went on, the more I realized it wasn't a song.
It wasn't a song, and it wasn't anything I was supposed to hear. It sounded very forbidden, and being a child with too much of an imagination, I wondered if it was aliens. I got my mum to wake up and look at it. She was baffled and said I should either try to tune to a different station or turn the radio off.
I did, and I got a lot of strange interference the next night and so on, but not that specific sound. I got a new radio for Christmas that year. The incident stayed in my mind.
In 2012ish, I read a C*****d article about unexplained sounds. I read something that seemed similar to what I heard.
It wasn't aliens. It was a Russian number station for communicating with spies. Specifically, a type called a slow Polytone. Each note I heard was part of a coded message. Edit: this station, exactly https://youtu.be/FS-wdL0eDxc?si=bBD8Ldy6R47KjEtl
Now I listen for these regularly as a major hobby, and have a lot of journals and knowledge gathered on it over the years.
13points
#16
The night before my birthday in 1996, I dreamed that I was walking around near the peak of Everest. It was snowing hard, but I was quite comfortable. There was a tent. To announce my presence, I sang Goober Peas. The two men inside were frightened, and I tried to calm and cheer them. I stayed with them a while and comforted them.
A few years later, I read about the Everest disaster in which mountaineers had to pitch a tent too high on Everest and died there, the night before my birthday in 1996. I can’t explain it, but I hope I comforted them.
A few years later, I read about the Everest disaster in which mountaineers had to pitch a tent too high on Everest and died there, the night before my birthday in 1996. I can’t explain it, but I hope I comforted them.
13points
#17
When I was a kid maybe 9 or 10 so around 1992
I saw a giant walking along the top of some fells in the Lake District near the town of Keswick.
At first I thought it was some machinery moving behind the hill like maybe a crane, but then it stepped up and looked like Roal Dahls BFG walking along the top of the fell.
It was a bright clear day absolute blazing sunshine and blue skies. So I don’t think it was some sort of reverse Brocken spectre, it looked nothing like that anyway it was fully in perspective although too far to see details.
I told everyone else in the car and we actually got out and stared at this thing.
The only half reasonable explanation would be that someone was manipulating an absolutely giant puppet. It dissapeared down the other side of the fell
To this day I have absolutely no explanation for that.
I saw a giant walking along the top of some fells in the Lake District near the town of Keswick.
At first I thought it was some machinery moving behind the hill like maybe a crane, but then it stepped up and looked like Roal Dahls BFG walking along the top of the fell.
It was a bright clear day absolute blazing sunshine and blue skies. So I don’t think it was some sort of reverse Brocken spectre, it looked nothing like that anyway it was fully in perspective although too far to see details.
I told everyone else in the car and we actually got out and stared at this thing.
The only half reasonable explanation would be that someone was manipulating an absolutely giant puppet. It dissapeared down the other side of the fell
To this day I have absolutely no explanation for that.
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13points
#18
When I was a teen I was in the living room right around 3 a.m. Just chilling on my laptop on the couch. 2 years before, my uncle had passed away in the room above the living room I was currently sitting in.
I swear it was like all of the sudden every window upstairs had been opened from the way the wind suddenly blew around and sounded. And then I remember hearing one loud THUD directly above me in the room upstairs. It sounded like a chair was picked up and then slammed back down or something. I was frozen for a solid minute before I booked it up the stairs and into my room on the opposite end of the house.
My uncle passed away in a not so peaceful way, it felt like he was having one last bout of anger before he finally left the house for ever.
I swear it was like all of the sudden every window upstairs had been opened from the way the wind suddenly blew around and sounded. And then I remember hearing one loud THUD directly above me in the room upstairs. It sounded like a chair was picked up and then slammed back down or something. I was frozen for a solid minute before I booked it up the stairs and into my room on the opposite end of the house.
My uncle passed away in a not so peaceful way, it felt like he was having one last bout of anger before he finally left the house for ever.
12points
#19
When my uncle died suddenly, the family was in so much grief because they weren’t able to say their goodbyes and such. A family friend brought her niece (around 17 or 18 y/o) to the funeral who she claims to be “gifted.” Just to give a disclaimer, this woman was in no way related to the family and has never seen my uncle before.
I was skeptical at first until she asked the family if my uncle was wearing a plain shirt and shorts when he died. He was, and she told all of us who were there that my uncle was there with us.
She said she was looking at the person inside the coffin when she felt someone beside her, looking at the man inside. She tried to play it cool until he said, “You can see me, can’t you?”
She told us that he initially didn’t know he was dead and was lurking around in their house until one of my cousins shouted to nobody in particular as she was locking up the house “Pa, we’re just going to the funeral home” and that’s how he knew he should follow.
She also told each of his children very specific details like “that business venture you were hesitant with that you talked to your father about, he says you should pursue it.” Or, “that bracelet you’ve always been asking him about, he says it’s yours and it’s in the 2nd drawer of his night stand.”
In the end we were all left amazed by this but it was such a relief for the family members because they somehow felt like they were able to say goodbye peacefully.
Towards the end of that day, the woman said, “he said you should put his glasses inside the coffin because he wants to wear them.” They brought out his glasses which were kept in a bag, and put it inside the coffin. The woman told us that when she saw him again, he had his glasses on and a bit later, that he was saying goodbye because he can see the light. It was a sobering moment and even though we could not believe what had just happened we were at least happy the family got some closure.
I was skeptical at first until she asked the family if my uncle was wearing a plain shirt and shorts when he died. He was, and she told all of us who were there that my uncle was there with us.
She said she was looking at the person inside the coffin when she felt someone beside her, looking at the man inside. She tried to play it cool until he said, “You can see me, can’t you?”
She told us that he initially didn’t know he was dead and was lurking around in their house until one of my cousins shouted to nobody in particular as she was locking up the house “Pa, we’re just going to the funeral home” and that’s how he knew he should follow.
She also told each of his children very specific details like “that business venture you were hesitant with that you talked to your father about, he says you should pursue it.” Or, “that bracelet you’ve always been asking him about, he says it’s yours and it’s in the 2nd drawer of his night stand.”
In the end we were all left amazed by this but it was such a relief for the family members because they somehow felt like they were able to say goodbye peacefully.
Towards the end of that day, the woman said, “he said you should put his glasses inside the coffin because he wants to wear them.” They brought out his glasses which were kept in a bag, and put it inside the coffin. The woman told us that when she saw him again, he had his glasses on and a bit later, that he was saying goodbye because he can see the light. It was a sobering moment and even though we could not believe what had just happened we were at least happy the family got some closure.
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12points
#20
This is something that happened to me quite recently and it creeped me out so so much. I live alone in my apartment and I’m a horror gaming fan and thus I was scouring Steam looking for a cool horror game. I put on my headphones and I watched multiple trailers and eventually came to a game called ‘horror in da hood’. Looked at the page and watched the trailer - here is where the creepy part begins.. Near the end of the trailer there’s a very creepy voice saying something like “Can you help me please?”. One second, literally one second after I watched it I could clearly hear (from outside my headphones so it was muffled) an old male voice saying “I can help haha” from my hallway behind me. Especially the laugh was creepy. Needless to say I through off my headphone and immediately looked behind me, only to be greeted by the dark hallway. I stared into it, slowly grabbing my ruler that was on my desk. After moments that felt like an eternity I was able to stand up. Slowly moved towards the hallway while grabbing a tiny flashlight I have on my nightstand. I flashed the hallway from a distance but there was nothing. To give light to the hallway I have to go into it and turn the switch there, which was very creepy to do. Of course, there was nothing there at all, but it creeps me out still. I left the light on everywhere that night and still keep on the light in the hallway when I am on my computer now. Two days after this happened I went back to watch the horror in da hood trailer to make sure that the “I can help haha” was not in the trailer and I just made a mistake… it’s not in the trailer. It gives me the creeps just typing this.
11points