28 Times Folks Encountered Something Unexplainable That Scared The Living Daylight Out Of Them

If you hit up the internet, you'll find tons of threads where folks share their strangest - and sometimes downright creepiest - tales. Where literally nothing hinted at a mystical experience, but somehow, against all odds, something totally inexplicable went down. Strange and funny, creepy and touching - we've probably all experienced this at least once.

About twenty years ago, Gallup asked Americans if they believed in the paranormal - and around 75% said yes. Today, I think the percentage would be even higher. This is at least because, in an era of global turbulence, humanity is more prone to magical thinking than rational thinking.

The cool thing about magical thinking? It gives us simple answers to any question. Take the dragons from Game of Thrones, for example - try to figure out a scientific way they fly or how their flames don’t singe their throats. I bet even physicists and biologists would be stumped. But magical thinking just says, 'It’s magic!' and calls it a day.

If someone’s already into mystical explanations, they’re more likely to chalk up any weird situation to something paranormal. For example, Dr. Chris French, head of the Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit at London’s Goldsmiths University, points out three main reasons people have “visions” in this BBC article.

First, a tendency to see things mystically; second, the setting (like being alone in a creepy abandoned house at night); and third, a knack for hallucinations or dreamlike states. According to the article, these “strange” feelings are very real for lots of people - but they usually come from a mix of psychology and physics.

This article on The Conversation digs into what might cause these weird sensations, like weak electromagnetic fields or low-frequency sounds messing with our brains. In fact, physics knows a lot of very real things that can significantly distort our perception of reality.

There are also “biochemical” causes - things like carbon monoxide, pesticides, formaldehyde, and even fungi can mess with our minds and cause hallucinations. Funny enough, these fungi often hang out in stuffy, abandoned places - which, yep, includes most “haunted” houses.

Lots of experiments where volunteers wore helmets that gave off weak electromagnetic pulses also showed the “feeling like someone’s in the room,” according to this Smithsonian Mag article. Researchers even checked out some famous haunted spots, like Hampton Court Palace in the UK, and found some unusual electromagnetic fields there, too.

But magical thinking always finds a way to use scientific research to its advantage. For example, we can always say that scientists have experimentally proven the existence of ghosts through electromagnetic radiation, and now try to disprove it! The main thing for many people is just to believe in the supernatural, and faith is actually much more stable than knowledge.

Either way, some of these stories are pretty tough to explain with just logic. So, we've done our job - we've provided you with scientific arguments, and whether you believe them or not is up to you.

And now, please feel free to read all these nearly three dozen stories, and maybe add your own about the weirdest, most unexplained experience you've ever had, in the comments below.