55 Haunting True Stories That Make You Lose Faith In Humanity

I was racing my dad on a bike at a golf course at night in Florida, and our usual finish line is this tunnel that’s like 50 ft long. I saw big log at the end and decided to bunny hop it because I was pretty good at freestyle biking back then. I realized it was a gator at last second cuz it like hissed kind of. No time for me to brake or turn so I yelled Gator! And bunny hopped it. I was terrified, but my dad thought I knew it was a gator all along, and was happily yelling “Gator!” As I hopped it. so even to his d***h bed, he thought he had a b****s son.

Something that I never talk about out of embarrassment; when someone is in a horror/thriller movie and they pee, that isn’t for theatricals; it actually makes the film incredibly realistic.

When you are truly in fear, your brain will forget about your bladder- literally. The muscles completely relax and you will pee yourself.

I never mention the stories I have behind this, and when I do, I skip that part. But, it's anonymous so I’ll share it here I guess. My stepdad is a narcissist, he’s put hands on my mother before so knowing this didn’t help my outreaching fear of him. He’s since grabbed my throat, but we won’t talk about that.

I had a very hard senior year for reasons I won’t list, but it had me taking a nap when I’d get home out of pure exhaustion from mental and emotional stress. Typically my nap would be 1-2 hours long, then I’d get up and do chores.

One day after I got home, I accidentally slept for 3 hours instead of two, and when he got home the dishes weren’t done- the only thing I needed to do that day. I woke up to him grabbing my feet trying to drag me off my bed- something he’d done to my mother before as well.

He stopped when he realized I had peed myself, and I wasn’t crying over him scaring me, or him being mad or me oversleeping, I was crying over that.

Please don’t traumatize your children. That’s all.

A few years ago, I was up around 3 AM debugging some code for a project. I had my noise-canceling headphones on, completely in the zone, but I kept feeling this faint, rhythmic thumping through the floorboards of my apartment.

I finally took off my headphones, and the silence of the room hit me. Then I heard it—someone was aggressively, violently jiggling my front door handle. Not like they had the wrong apartment, but like they were trying to snap the lock mechanism.

I froze. I slowly got out of my chair, trying not to make the floor creak, and crept over to the peephole.

Through the lens, I saw a guy in a heavy dark hoodie. He was holding what looked like a long, flathead screwdriver, trying to wedge it into the doorframe. My heart was pounding so hard I was terrified he could hear it through the door. I grabbed my phone and dialed 911, whispering to the dispatcher.

Here is the terrifying part: While I was on the phone, the guy suddenly stopped. He pulled the screwdriver out, stood perfectly still, and then leaned in to look directly into the peephole. Logically, I know it's a one-way mirror and he couldn't see me, but it felt like he was staring right into my eyes. He smiled, tapped the door twice with his knuckles, and calmly walked away down the hall.

The cops arrived a few minutes later, but he was gone. They found deep scratch marks all around the deadbolt. I broke my lease and moved out a week later. To this day, I can't wear noise-canceling headphones when I'm home alone.

I was forced into Mormonism as a child, then forced to go on a Mormon mission. Two years in South America. When I came home I immediately officially left the Mormon church. What I’m about to tell you, none of my Mormon friends or family believed me.

I was starving to d***h, I’d go 96 hours in between meals because the mission president was withholding money that was alloyed to me.

I saw d**d bodies and d**d baby’s, I was almost st**bed over my daily planner, I had members of the church put glass in my food, I had companions that had been s****************d by other companions.

I had people threaten to k**l me openly, I got heat exhaustion, borderline heat stroke. I almost froze to d***h in the south during winter. And here’s the icing on the cake.

I was fed human by an old Bolivian woman who got tired of her husband so she m******d him and tried to hide the evidence by making empanadas out of him. She got caught when the neighbors got suspicious and followed her one night when she tried to toss a duffle bag into the river and short stroked it and it landed on the bank.

Same time same place I went to get my over half off empanadas and the police were tearing down her food stand. I asked the cops and they told me everything and froze when they found out that I had been eating there since day one. Three weeks of eating this guy.

Not only that, I was in such a state of utter survival that it did not bother me at the time or my brain refused to process the information but my comp had a total meltdown about it and I did not and the other missionaries found out they all started to call me Elder Dahmer before I even knew who Jeffery was.

After dinner my date took me to a park with a lake late at night and tried to get me to take off my shoes and go into the park. He said it would be romantic. I told him it was probably closed and we should leave right away. Luckily it was locked up and he couldn’t get in. I discovered he had rope in the back seat of his car when he got out of the car to check the gate (he had locked me in). When he was back I told him I got a call from my mom, there was an emergency at home and she was expecting me home in the next 30 minutes. He drove me home and blocked me on the dating app. Always share your date’s name, license plate (car pic, face pic) and location with family or friend. I didn’t do any of those things and have no proof it happened. No one believes me, but if the park gate was open I know I would have been m******d that night.

Was driving home on a quiet rural road back in high school when I came across this guy walking in the dark, on the side of the road, away from me, in a black business suit with a briefcase. For context, it was about 2 AM, heavily forested, and about 40 miles from the nearest town, so there was absolutely no reason for this guy to be out here.

I was wondering if the guy had broken down somewhere and started wandering, because people from the city did that sometimes and would end up walking for hours. I wanted to try and help somehow. I wasn’t stupid enough to get out of my car, but apparently I was stupid enough to stop, and the guy didn’t even react. Like, he just kept hobble-walking away even though it would have been obvious a car was stopped behind him by the high-beams on his back. Was like I wasn’t even there. My dumb a*s, of course, decided the next best course of action was to roll my window down and yell out to ask if he was okay.

He reacted to the sound of my voice though, and he reacted STRONGLY. Dude whipped around with a bug eyed, d**d expression and *immediately* sprinted towards my car, then started beating the s**t out of my hood with his briefcase. The briefcase must have been made of metal because it left full-blown *gashes* in my car. I was completely frozen in fear, and in that time he climbed onto my hood, pounding cracks into my windshield with his briefcase hand and trying to reach in my window with the other, all the while STILL staring at me with this unblinking, deadpan expression. After a few seconds I came to my senses and slammed that s**t in reverse, and he slid off my hood on to the ground about fifteen feet in front of me. My car was a manual transmission and I still wasn’t confident with it, so while I was panicking with the gear shift he got up, now covered in dirt and drag marks, and started limping towards me again. I finally got it in gear just in time, lurching forwards and swerving inches around his outstretched arm. Stayed in high gear and didn’t slow down, and it took me hours to fully calm down again. At no point did I pass any abandoned vehicles before or after the encounter, and the nearest other road was miles away, so how that guy got there is a mystery to me.

Told my parents the *instant* I got home, but to this day they’re convinced it’s just some elaborate lie I told to hide the fact I “hit a deer”… Y’know, the deer that apparently leave deep, angular gash marks all over the front of your car I guess. Everyone else I’ve told otherwise says it sounds more like a campfire story than something that actually happened. In hindsight I consider myself lucky that it wasn’t a setup for an ambush and was “just” an amped-up m**derous salaryman, because I left myself utterly vulnerable to it either way.

I’ve had a few theories over the years of what he was doing, ranging from some kind of d**g trip to an overblown prank, but none of it feels like a good answer. When I drove through that area a few days later there wasn’t a single sign of him having been there so I don’t think I’ll ever get one.

My appendix burst and I was misdiagnosed for 3 weeks. I should be d**d. My intestines just walled that gunk out until I was finally “dude you’ve dropped from 155-115 pounds in like 3 weeks maybe we should check you out more”

Someone here asked “did you ever have a malpractice case that you didn’t pursue” and I was, yeah. This was one doctor she said I was a dumb guy I wanted her to apologize in court. Wasn’t about the money. I got massively downvoted on that “nuh uh you’re lying” what do I get out of lying?

I was biking. I fell and my helmet literally cracked in half. That could have been my head. I truly believe the helmet saved me.

My first time skiing I was talked into a Black Diamond course. Ended up going down alone and almost skied right off the cliff as I was headed toward the only sign I saw. I fell down just in time.

I smoked w*ed in October of 2014 and had a really bad panic attack. I have been h**h ever since. Every single day. No one believes me and I can’t prove that I'm h**h. I’ve been under this spell for so long and it is mentally exhausting.

Reasonable_Zebra_174:
If what you're saying is that you smoked w*ed once and have experienced prolonged effects, it's possible you have Aspergillus poisoning. (When I first looked this up years ago it said it was ergot mold that caused it, but Google is telling me now that ergot mold doesn't grow on marijuana).

So whatever type it is it causes side effects that can mimic the feeling of being h**h. Especially if you are allergic to that mold.

I've enjoyed a little of the devil's lettuce on a couple of occasions, and each time I would feel h**h for like a month. Which to some people sounds like a great time, but not to me.

I felt like I was on a boat in a storm, it seemed like the room was moving every which way, to the point I was experiencing motion sickness, it was not a good time. Turns out it was an allergic reaction to the mold.

This got longer, than I expected, I’m so sorry.

After a year of recurring, severe abdominal pain (I never had that much pain in my entire life) with throwing up, sometimes shivering attacks and being both hot and cold at once, always and ONLY on the same day of the month (weird enough), the hospital sent me home when it escalated on the last weekend of June and diagnosed me with all sorts of things like period pain, gastritis, and so on. My inflammation marker was 31. Normal is up to 5.

Secretly, I think they thought I'd drank or eaten too much because it was the weekend and my father had a small barbecue and unfortunately also a few beers already, so not even the emergency service he HAD to call, because I couldn‘t move and he didn‘t want to drive because of the alcohol, took us seriously and kinda treated me like I was dumb. I hate alcohol with a huge passion and have never had anything to do with it.

I had to go to the hospital twice in a row that night. The first time, they sent me home with painkillers, but when they wore off, I suddenly got a HUGE cramp in my right side and fell to the floor. I think this is what the pain level of giving birth feels like. The second time, the doctor said, "What are YOU doing here again? I told you I couldn‘t find anything the first time." It was the middle of the night and he was completely exhausted and tired. I spent the night there and screamed because of the pain and it took so long until a nurse felt like getting here from her cigarette pause to give me an infusion. I was completely left alone, my father wasn‘t allowed to get to me and they didn‘t give him information. He sat in the ER for the whole night. He‘a not really a great father unfortunately, but this was genuinely a huge gesture of him.

I couldn't walk or sit in any position at all. I was sent home again, after the painkillers kicked in, and I was weak but very much okay the rest of the weekend. Probably only because of the h**h dose of painkillers. But I still felt something. I thought it was just muscle soreness from vomiting so much, like it had been the months before. But this time something was different. On sunday, I felt okay, going to the pool with my boyfriend and my sister, but then it worsened again and I couldn‘t walk properly and kinda started to be in a trance. The fact that it was super hot outside, made it worse. I didn‘t even make it to the entrance, when both said that I should go home. My boyfriend drove me to his house and luckyly he had air conditioning and with another pain k****r, I was kinda okay again. I even ate some tomatoes and cucumber pieces.

Well, when my condition worsened again on Monday, my sister and mother, a registered nurse, had a bad feeling and took me to a different hospital. There, a very dedicated doctor noticed fluid in my intestines during an ultrasound that absolutely should NOT have been there and immediately ordered a CT scan. The inflammation marker was at 400 now. But it had been that h**h before and doctors never questioned it and even said that it wasn’t a problem. I thought it was just my skin condition (raising awareness for acne inversa/hidradenitis suppurativa, because it‘s not talked about enough), which constantly causes small inflammations in my body. But THAT doctor was totally alarmed and I didn’t understand why.
Apparently it is REALLY REALLY bad to have your inflammatory markers at 400. I didn't realize it was almost heart attack level.

Outcome: My appendix was so inflamed that an abscess had already formed, which burst and leaked into my abdominal cavity, almost causing a sepsis. My whole abdomen was full of pus and had to be flushed with 8 liters of fluid in an urgent surgery. I had to learn how to walk again, even tho I was only laying in bed for one day. My recovery lasted more than two months. I was perfectly healthy before that and also I‘m very young. Maybe that’s why doctors don’t take you serious. If I hadn't gone to the hospital at the warning of my mother and sister, I probably wouldn't have survived the week.

Nine days in the hospital, including one day in ICU. All because of a harmless case of appendicitis that should have been discovered much MUCH earlier. Now, at 27, I have a 20cm scar that runs across my entire belly. My boyfriend at least thinks that scars look super cool. My sister, mother, and that doctor saved my life.

Soo, the most horrifying thing that ever happened to me is getting surgery you weren‘t prepared for and when you have to wait 3 hours more than you were told, it‘s even more terrible. Laying on a surgery table and being put to sleep is something straight out of a horror movie. When I woke up totally nauseous, it was even worse. They told me that surgery wasn’t some little routine appendix thing, but that they like I said, had to clean my whole stomach. They apparently didn‘t knew themselves how bad it was and only noticed it during surgery. That‘s at least what I was told.

What was also terrifying that I missed a once in a lifetime chance to go to a VIP concert for once. I got Green Day VIP Tickets for Christmas and the incident happened exactly on the day of the show.

Sleepwalking is no joke.

1. Sleep paralysis paired with sleepwalking is pretty gnarly. I was on Ambian briefly in college and I woke up to a person in my dorm (dorm was the original building-about 100 years old), it was a little boy playing. I realized he was hiding and he became scared and hid in my closet. I could not move to help him. He started screaming. I found myself then in the hallway chatting with a girl in a long nightgown with red marks around her neck. I woke up in the bathroom. Next day I go check out the archives/ history. Picture of boy is the founders kid (d**d since Ww1) and the girl allegedly fell pregnant and hung herself.

2. Little me woke up at a retreat center and walked down the hall (pink walls)to the bathroom. It was hot so I went to the fire escape and then went up to the third floor and walked through the hall with purple walls. The place we were staying had wide porches on the front on each floor. A lady was sitting on a swing smoking and she invited me to sit with her. I told her about school and how I struggled to sleep. She eventually shooed me back to me room down to the 2nd floor after putting her b**t in the coffee can next to the swing. Next morning I looked for her- nowhere. No butts in any of the coffee cans because they banned smoking in the forms three years ago. My pj shirt faintly smelled like old timey cigarettes-weird. There was no 3rd floor, it burned down in the 30’s.

I got r***d by a girl at a friend’s wedding and no one believed me after when I told them.

I was d*****d and as***lted and it freaked me out so badly that my brain repressed it for over 10 years. I didn't know what had happened that night and it was a blank spot in my memory.

When I was finally more mature and in a better place physically and emotionally, I remembered it and went for a LOT of therapy. It still f****d me up for several years.

I have a ghost. She's pretty tame. She opens doors that are locked and deadbolted, opens the curtains, occasionally knocks stuff over. I have a shed door with a bent frame, so the door gets really stuck. I have to throw my weight against it a few times to open it. She flings it open like it's nothing. I have s**t on video, but my friends just write me off. My cats respond to her though.

That I was kidnapped at 5 years old in a small city. Really nothing happens here and I just happen to have a d**g d****r uncle (who was my babysitter) He owed money to his d****r so he took me as collateral until he can pay. I remember it all and it forever changed my view on hard d***s and I guess the good thing is it made me fearless as an adult.

My mother almost k****d both of us when I was 3, when she decided to leave my father while he was on a fishing trip. She drove halfway across the country, high on something and probably low on sleep, and flipped the car several times after trying to get off the road too fast.

I thankfully don't remember anything after being told to "hold on." I wasn't buckled in and was supposedly ejected from the back seat out the hatch back. Hit my head hard enough to crack it. She made up a story about it being the car's fault. I spent 6 weeks in the hospital and have a plate in my head.

Thankfully I can still walk and talk just fine. I didn't know the truth until a few decades later. She also lied about my dad, claiming he didn't come to see me, when he did. I don't remember much from the hospital aside from just a lot of waiting and staring up at the ceiling.

Got completely lost hiking alone in the middle of nowhere, no signal, sun going down. Found my way out but there was a solid 45 minutes where I genuinely wasn't sure I would. Nobody believes it was as serious as it was because I made it out fine.

One night I was driving home, it was late and dark. I was on long single lane interchange. I saw a pair of headlights in my rear view mirror flying up to my car. Must have been over 100 miles an hour. They weren’t stopping and my stomach dropped and I scrunched my eyes closed. Then I heard a loud rumbling noise and looked up and saw two motorcycles in front of me. These two jokers were riding in sync and flying by cars, one on either side. Scared the s**t out of me.


Another time was I was on my own motorcycle on the highway and there must have been an accident because debris was all over the highway. There were these uneven planks of wood and I had no way around them so I just accepted my fate. I don’t know how but I must have just hit them at the right angle because I felt a tiny bump and was fine. It was terrifying though.

More frustrating: Got up early after a heavy snow and saw a bobcat in the roof of the detached garage at the family vacation home. House-full of people no one believes me. They even denied the prints. It felt like a prank at first and slowly over the years I’ve started to doubt it myself.