Has anyone had any weird experiences that just cannot be rationally explained? One time, when I was about 11-12, I was spending the night at my best friends' house. Her parents were out late and her brother was at his friend's house, so it was just her and I in the house. Her room was off of the basement/rec room, and had a walk-in closet. It was late at night, maybe 1 in the morning or something, and we were in her bed talking like little girls do. It was totally dark, no lights on in the house. At one point, we hear a "scratch, scratch, scraaaape" noise coming from the closet. Kind of like the sound that a large dog digging around with its nails would make. Except her dog was out in the backyard. It was definitely too loud and powerful to be from something small. I froze mid-convo and was like "WTF is that," to which my friend explained it was probably her cat. Okay, cool, I shove down the creepiness and we keep talking. Then I move a little closer to the wall, and bump into her cat, who had been in bed with us the whole time. Me: "You know your cat is right here, right?" Friend: "Huh. I guess she got on the bed quietly." [Creepy sound comes again] Friend: "Okay, you're making this up." Me: Picks up the cat and puts her next to my friend. "No, she's right here." [sound comes again] Both of us: wtf
I remember visiting a local church building, called Boston Stump, an old medieval building. We decided to go up the tower, which has a spiral staircase up a square tower, and at one point none of the windows let light in due to the curve. I was scared to walk into the pitch black section and said so to my friend behind me. A voice came down from above saying not to worry, after a few more steps it got light again. We carried on and, sure enough, we came back into the light quite soon. When we got to the top, there was a path all around the top of the tower, but only one way in and out and yes, there was no-one else up there. So, who had called down to us that it was ok to continue going up the tower? We came down a lot quicker than we went up.
It was just a blokes voice, nothing out of the ordinary, otherwise we wouldn't have carried on. Stranger still, there is 'supposedly' a ghost on the tower, but it's a lady.
Perhaps it was some kind of mouse or rat that had gotten inside the wall from the outside. I think that even mice can sound quite noisy if they get inside the wall. Otherwise, it was probably just a back from the dead zombie or something.
It was the early 1980s and I was six or seven years old. My stepbrother, my brother and my sister were between 12 and 14 years old. My stepbrother was heavily into the band KISS and back then, religious groups were having fits over heavy metal music. One of the allegations against heavy metal was the supposed use of "back masking", or subliminally recording backward messages to "brainwash" kids, causing them to engage in sinful activities. We were in my stepbrother's room on a Saturday afternoon and my siblings were bound and determined to find some backwards devil messages while I, being the bratty little brother, was just happy to be let into my stepbrother's room (he was spoiled rotten and had shelves of cool toys on display that he never even played with, and he was always chasing me out for trying to play with all his cool shit). The siblings had gone through six or seven records and sadly, there hadn't been any hidden messages. Having short attention spans, they had grown bored so they got up off the shag carpet and migrated over by me to sit on the edge of our stepbrother's bed to talk. After a few minutes of chitchat, the abandoned record player in the middle of the floor came to life! The needle jumped onto the KISS record and a loud, warbling backward- record voice very clearly said "SAAATAN!" And then it stopped. Holy shit. Satan. We were all stunned stupid, but it was me that broke the silence with a high scream that summoned Mom from across the house through several rooms and closed doors. She burst through the door, causing us to further soil ourselves as she tried to get out of us exactly what the hell was going on. She finally got us calm enough to explain what happened and then Mom (being typical Mom) proceeded to bust record after record over her knee before finishing up by tearing the posters off my stepbrother's wall. Two things happened that day: first, my world became much larger, allowing me to accept the unexplainable and throw away the word "impossible ". Second, I was perma-banned from my stepbrother's room full of perfectly-posed toys. I've thought about that day a lot, and I've come to the conclusion that it wasn't Lucifer himself that spoke to us, but one of his customer service representatives instead. All I know for certain is that we had questions that caused us to poke around where we shouldn't have and something answered us.
When I was 13-14, I was in my house, playing a game on our computer in the living room. The only ones home were me and my brother. So, I'm in the left hand corner of this rectangular room, and it's dark. Not pitch black, but dark enough to lose a black phone if you dropped it. I'm sitting there playing my game when suddenly I hear- breathing. Very loud, very ragged out-of-frigging-nowhere breathing. I freeze in my chair and very slowly turn it around. And I see- Nothing, the sound is coming from what seems like the couch, less than seven feet away. It sounds like a man with lung cancer is dying in my living room and I can't see whats making this sound. I want to hit the lights, both for added perception and a feeling of safety, but the switch is on the other side of the room. I slowly get up, and start moving to the exit to the hallway thats on my side of the room. My plan is to circle around, going to the other entrance on the other side of the room where the light switch is. I'm nearly out of the room, behind a recliner, when I accidentally kick a paper bag. The breathing stops. You know that feeling when someone suddenly starts staring at you? Yeah, I felt like someone was glaring at me. I gave the couch another look, and an inch off the floor I see a shadowed face, directed towards me. I panicked, bolting into the hallway, on my way around I rous my beloved Golden Retriever, and pick up a bat leaning against the wall. I reach for the switch, flicking it upwards, my dog trails as I look towards the couch and- Nothing. There's nothing on the floor in front of the couch. My dog sniffs around, and then goes back to sleep. At this point I'm very frightened. I hustle upstairs to my brothers room, because at this point in my life, I don't believe in ghosts, and in trying to find a rational explanation I quickly conclude my brother had somehow played a trick on me. He's sitting on a chair, a controller in his hand. I ask him if he had been breathing loud or something, knowing he would reveal any trick he had pulled. He looks at me, brow furrowed in confusion, and with the straightest face I've ever seen him give, he says "No, I thought that was you?" I didn't go back downstairs until my parents got home.
Spooky Event #1: A few years ago, on a hot summer afternoon, I was swimming out in the backyard. The sky is crystal clear with the sun baking down overhead. No one else is outside but me. I'm doing breast strokes and at one point I lift my head up out of the water. For a split second, for a very, very quick split second, I think I see what looks to be a little girl, aged 8 or 9 in a pink swimming suit with matching colored arm floats. She has long brown hair down to her shoulders and dark eyes. She is looking at me with a mildly dull expression. She looked very solid, very real. Like there was an actual girl in my backyard. I nearly inhale water as I frantically move my legs to the floor of the shallow end. I look again and she's not there. There's nothing there. No one. ------ Spooky Event #2: I'm in a hotel in Savannah, Georgia. I'm by myself on the couch watching a cartoon show because I'm bored as hell. Then, out of nowhere, on the other end of the couch, I feel something heavy sitting down. My feet are on the floor, I'm nowhere near that end of the couch, and I'm alone. Yet I felt a depression on the couch as if someone else was sitting down. I did have other two spooky events, but they were on ghost tours and thus I'm not sure they're as valid...
About a month ago, there was a week when all of my electronics were going haywire. My PS4 controller would randomly push buttons while I was watching Netflix. My TV would change channels. My remote controlled ceiling light would turn on randomly. For the most part, my husband and I could rationalize that. Maybe someone in the apartment next to us got a new remote control or something that was messing with our systems. But then my phone would turn off for no reason. Our Keurig would brew a double dose of coffee and flood our kitchen. Even my computer was acting up. I had a split second thought that we had a ghost messing up the electromagnetic energy in our apartment. But then it stopped suddenly, so I quickly dismissed the idea.
A few years back when I was about fifteen, myself and my Mother were visiting her sister in the North of the country, a few hundred miles from where we lived. My mum had decided to drive rather than take the train and after staying the weekend we started our return trip. We left on a Monday morning but as the distance to our town was so great we called in with my Mother's friend with the intention of spending the night. It was a really nice house but is literally in the middle of nowhere; at least a mile from the next nearest house and miles again from the nearest town or shop. As we got close to the house a huge summer storm hit; torrential rain, thunder and lightning. It turned out to be quite lucky we had planned to stay overnight as driving conditions had quickly become dangerous. The house was undergoing massive interior renovation at the time which meant my Mum and me would be spending the night crashing in the living room as all the spare bedrooms were out of commission. Once the workmen had left for the day we spent most of the evening on the back porch watching the storm before we turned in for the night. I crashed on the couch while Mum took a leather divan-type sofa that was placed directly under the window that faced the driveway. Late into the night I woke up feeling very uneasy,as if I was being watched. I opened my eyes but didn't move anything other than my head toward where Mum was sleeping. There, was a hooded black figure standing at the window over my Mum, with his hands up to the window as if he was trying to see if anyone or anything was in the living room. The driveway had a very powerful light fixed on a pole at the edge of the front yard. My Mum, exhausted from the driving was completely out for the count despite the window being no more than 18 inches from her face. The figure continued to slowly scan the room then stopped suddenly as if he had just seen me. (The yard light was positioned so that no light was cast into the house so the room was completely pitch black) By now the severity of the storm had increased and thunder and lightning was striking frequently. As if on cue, a lightning strike hit and seemed to illuminate the inside of the living room. The figure leaves his vantage point and started walking towards the right hand side of the house where there is another window offering a better view of the living room. Without saying anything I waited until the figure was out of sight and slid off the couch scuttling into the doorway just off the living room and out of the second windows line of sight. I peek from behind the wall and can see the figure at the second window. By this stage I was freaked and unsure what to do. Lightning hit again and the figure snapped his head right to where I was hiding. I remember being almost frozen, feeling his eyes were locked onto me. He left the second window and headed back toward the first. I somehow managed to move, running to the stairway in the corner of the room that led up to the bedroom of Mum's friends. I burst in and shouted that there was a man outside looking in. Once over the initial surprise of me waking them in such a panic, the husband, a large man in his own right jumped up, summoned his eldest son who was a couple years older than me, found two cricket bats and marched down the stairs. The rest of the family and myself followed warily. My mother, having been woken by the commotion met us at the bottom of the stairs having just been passed in the hallway by her best friends half-naked husband, toting a cricket bat and marching out into the storm. I explained what happened but could tell my Mother was in equal parts sceptical as she was shocked. We waited for what seemed like an eternity in the darkness as no one thought or perhaps dared to, turn on a light. Mum's friend tried to reassure us it was just a late night traveller who had broken down or got lost. Her husband and son returned after a minute or two. The husband went as far to get changed and check the grounds before he hopped in his car and drove the road a couple miles in both directions. There was nothing. There had been no sound of a car leaving the driveway or any physical evidence of anyone being outside. This did little to reassure me and I was unable to shake the feeling of being watched that had originally woke me. We managed a fitful night sleep before we gathered our things to set out the next morning. My mother was convinced I had imagined the whole thing and told her friends so by way of apology. This annoyed me at first although I knew it was the most logical explanation for them as no one else had saw the figure. Looking to forget the whole experience I did not argue the matter. As Mum said her goodbyes I went and snapped a picture of the house before returning to find her waiting by the car and ready to go. I quickly popped my head in the house to say my own goodbyes and apologised for waking them last night. Our car horn sounded and the husband remarked Mum was getting impatient which is not like her. I shrugged it off at first but the car horn kept sounding with two long continuous beeps and a third and final one which was a good bit shorter. I went to the side of the house to where our car was parked, it hadn't moved and sat with all the doors closed apart from the passenger door on the drivers side which was wide open. It was as I got close to the car that I saw Mum, slumped over the steering wheel. Frantically I pulled open the door and tried to shake her awake. I found the pulse on her neck which seemed strong but she seemed to be completely unconscious. I pulled her out of the car and shouted for help as we carried her into the house. I set her on the same couch I slept on the night before and with the help of her friend tried to bring her around from what we assumed was a random fainting spell. Thankfully she revived quite quickly and within the hour was ready to hit the road. Weirdly, her watch; a steel Breitling Chronograph had somehow became unclasped and had frozen at what must have been close to the time I found her out cold. Her friends were more than happy to let us stay for the day and were quite against her driving anywhere after what had happened and I was keen not to spend another night there. I still feel a bit of guilt I wasn't brave enough to talk her out of driving but she compromised and we stayed until the afternoon to make sure she was fine before getting behind the wheel again. She didn't remember passing out or even getting in the car. Here's the picture I snapped in the morning: And mum at the house the day before:
So ShannonH I really liked reading your post. Seems sometimes when an old house is rennovated it creates a type of strange paranormal disturbance but that probably does not expain the small shadowy object in the sky above the house - what is that?
When I was 15 riding my bicycle, it was the middle of the night, I heard Telstar played from a graveyard. I wrote a poem about it - but could never fix the last line... [deleted the poem, hew]
Hmmm, I have no idea. I'd almost say it was a drone but this was well before drones were a thing. You think the renovations are connected to the figure and what happened to my Mother?
I liked your story @ShannonH , you should write it up. I never read it - before posting my crap, though the pictures don't match 'my' imagery - of Northern Ireland...but irrelevant, probably...
Well this was actually when were living in England. That house is not far from the Scottish border although I'm not sure if that makes a difference.
ShannonH - yes, I think both you and your mom were probably suffering from some type of residual affect caused by the paranormal activity at the old house. However, that image of the thing in the sky still seems without explaination to me.
ShannonH - Do you know what it is? Some people believe that extra-terrestials often accompany an outside paranormal event. So unless you altered the photo in some way, perhaps thats the answer. Who knows?
Looks like a 'New England' house, not that I know really, or clapperboard house of Sussex, very pretty.
I've had quite a few of these myself, but was afraid to say anything about it for fear of being laughed at. But there are only really two events that I can recall that are more or less recent: 1) I was in my early twenties when I was still living with my mother and way younger half-brother. When he was a toddler, he had received a Mike Wazowski talking toy. Fast forward a few years, where we had moved to the town that I'm currently living in. The one-eyed monster was speaking randomly, even when no one had touched him. At first, it was annoying, which prompted me to typically shout: "No one's touching you, Mike!" or "Shut up!" After a while, his batteries were beginning to die. Which prompted me being awakened in the dark of night by a demonic sounding voice saying lines like "I've got my eye on you." And the more his batteries began to die, the worse he'd gradually sound. Finally, after being startled awake by him for the umpteenth time, Mom finally took out his batteries, and he had stopped talking since. 2) This was when I had first moved out on my own, with my sister, and into an apartment. I was having a bit of trouble carrying a queen-sized mattress up these steep stairs, where our apartment was. I was alone, and I had taken no more than about three steps when I heard this disembodied man's voice, all echo, and seemingly shouting at me: "Hey you!" Initially thinking that it was just some asshole, I projected my thoughts at him: "What?!" He seemingly responded then, and ordered me in a louder voice: "MOVE!" Spooked, I lifted up the mattress, did my best to tuck it under my pit, and I booked it on upstairs. When I looked down to see who it may have been... I didn't see any sign that anyone had been there. The front door to the upstairs apartment even had a good view onto the main street... and there was no one on the streets, either. I pretty much decided then and there to just pretend that it didn't happen, and I continued to move my things to the new apartment. I was slightly convinced during our whole stay at the apartment that the place may well have been haunted. The place even had an old elevator that could go from the basement to the second-story apartment, and everyone else, up to and including my skeptic dad, had a bad feeling about the elevator, though I never did. Shortly after our move from the apartment, though, the elevator did fall, and one of the residents was in it when it happened. I won't go into what she did, but I think that it may have more than likely been karma for being as rotten as she was. And yes, she survived, with a broken arm and a limp.
I've only had one, and it's a bit weird. I was sat at home one day just casually watching TV. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something black and fabric-y (I assumed a cardigan) fall, hit the lamp next to the sofa and slide down the shade. I looked around and distinctly saw the lamp shade wobbling but couldn't be bothered to get up and have a look and see what it was that had hit the lamp. When I eventually did, though, there was nothing there. I know it most definitely happened because I looked at that lamp shaking for a good long while, too long for it to have been a figment of my imagination, but for the life of me I have no idea what it might have been or where whatever it was went (it was too big a thing to have gone under the sofa or bookcase, and heaven knows why something would have fallen from the ceiling, there's no attic or anything there). But something made that lamp wobble.
I would like to preface this story by saying that I don't believe in ghosts. I suppose I've always intellectually believed that there were some small fraction of "ghost" stories, likewise with UFO stories, that really did defy any logical explanation, but it's quite another thing to have one of those stories happen to you. I still don't believe in ghosts, but I'd say the following incident really instilled some humility in my sense of understanding the world at a very basic level. A few summers ago--it must've been 2011 or 2012--some friends and I went camping near Antietam National Battlefield in Maryland. For those of you not up on your U.S. history, the Battle of Antietam was fought on September 17, 1862 during the course of the American Civil War. On that one day, 22,717 soldiers were killed, wounded or went missing. Despite the fact that it was the height of tourist season, our campground--a little out-of-the-way patch of grass right on the shores of the Potomac River--was empty, except for us (I think we were 7 or 8, altogether). The day was unremarkable--all I remember of that day is that it was blisteringly hot, and one of the fellows in our group, whom I didn't know very well, kept swinging a can of mace around in a vaguely threatening manner, which I found highly annoying. Night came, and in the manner of campsites it soon got very, very dark. We all got into our tents to sleep. It wasn't very long until I heard the first explosions. I don't remember even feeling sleepy at all, so I know I didn't dream this, or hallucinate it as tired people sometimes do. The explosions were loud, big, dull booms, like cannons. Now, we'd seen a stage set up out on the battlefield, this was near the 4th of July so they were setting up for a celebration, presumably involving fireworks. However, the explosions were loud enough that I would have thought that I'd be able to see the flash of fireworks through the tent, but I didn't. Also, these explosions went on for quite a while--it wasn't actually the 4th so I know it wasn't the real show, and if this was a rehearsal of some sort they were really spending a lot of money on fireworks just for a rehearsal. Despite the fact that the fireworks angle didn't really explain it, if it had just been these explosions I probably would have been able to rationalize it away. But then the smaller explosions started. These came in repeated, rattling waves. I've seen enough period pieces and been to enough re-enactments that I thought it sounded exactly like volleys of musket fire. The bigger explosions were still going on, as well. Finally came the footsteps. Not one person's footsteps, but what sounded like the footsteps of hundreds of people, walking only a few yards from our tents. There were no voices or any other sounds, just footsteps. It sounded like a long column marching by, it too went on for quite a while. The explosions are still going on during this phase, as well. Needless to say, by this point I was so abjectly terrified that I didn't dare look out of my tent. Who knows what I would've seen, or not seen. Alas. All of these sounds continued for what felt like a long, long time--it felt like hours, but who knows, given the mental state I was in. Long enough, though, that there was no doubt that I was really hearing something, not just one or two strange bumps in the night. Eventually the sounds must've stopped, because I drifted off to sleep. In the morning, I asked my fellow campers if they'd heard it. They had, as well. But it was strange--they all seemed very hesitant to talk about it. I think somebody mumbled something about rehearsals for the fireworks show, and then one of those moods fell over our group where everyone just knows that the discussion is over. You know? I really think that they were all scared not so much of ghosts, but of what people would think of them if they suggested it had been ghosts. We are all over-educated, cynical white-collar professional types, you know, it wouldn't do to be caught believing in ghosts. Anyway. That's the story. Hopefully you can find some explanation that I haven't thought of.
