Ghost stories / Hauntings

[fcgamer | 4,719]

Anyone here experience any sightings of ghosts? Paranormal activities? As I was cycling home today, I rode past a site where I had spotted something back in 2016, I'll share that later if we get any good stories here.

[LeatherRebel5150 | 1,055]

I don’t really know if I’d call it ghosts more paranormal-y I guess. But I had two things weird happen that I could never explain. They both happened years ago in my house.

To give the setup, I have a deck outside my bedroom with a door to it. One night I was having a dream of a family member looking for me and pounding on that door calling for me. On the final “knock” just as the bottom of the fist made contact with the door I woke up swearing I had hears the last thud in real life and not just the dream. I went back to sleep after the initial confusion. The next morning I saw that a heavy halloween decoration had fallen over at some point, that explained the thud I heard, I thought. The weird thing is how it fell. The decoration is a plastic skeleton inside a cage shaped like a coffin thats meant to hang from a hook or something. But I had it leaning against a shelf. The cage was that stereotypical coffin shape so it was top heavy. But the way ai had it leaning was basically on its one bottom edge lets say to the right with a fairly extreme slant. The way it way laying when I found it was on its left side. It didnt fall forward, it didnt twist and land. It somehow fought gravity against its pivot point and landed on the opposite side. It never did that before or after and I could never figure out how it could do that without an external force.

 

The other incident also happened while I was in bed but not sleeping. I think I was just on my phone at the time. I have one of those bead curtains that separate the two upstairs rooms. All of a sudden I hear the beads and when I look up they’re swinging as if someone had parted the middle of them. I was the only person upstairs and someone would have had to pass me to get to the beads anyway and it was years before we had a dog. Still cant figure that one out either

[Hammerfestus | 3,820]

No.  Not since my Amazon tinfoil hat arrived.  Now it’s just dragons and Bigfoot I have to worry about.

[Murray | 2,447]

24 minutes ago, Hammerfestus said:

No.  Not since my Amazon tinfoil hat arrived.  Now it’s just dragons and Bigfoot I have to worry about.

 

[gandalf1 | 26]

So, like many teens I delved into the occult in high school. However, I think my friends and I playing around with stuff we had no business messing with, unleashed something that followed me until senior year of college. My first year of college I didn't stay in the dorm, but in a run down house off campus with a friend I knew. The owner told us the house was a little iffy with spirits. My friend and I stayed there, and he never noticed anything, but I felt the wrath of a spirit that didn't want me there at all. Also, I felt a friendship with one spirit, and also the motherly affection of another. I think it was a family that died in that house many years ago. I never researched the land, but it bugged me out for a long time.

My friend dropped out of school before my sophomore, so I had to stay on campus after that. I had nightly nightmares after that. They had kinda started already, but when I lived in the house they went away. On campus, though, I guess away from the spirits I was attacked nightly in my dreams. I don't remember most of them, but I do remember one in particular that showed me stabbing and torturing the family of my girlfriend at the time. It was hellish.

It was then that I started seeing things on campus. Shadows and whatnot. Around that time the girls in another hall in my same building said they started seeing it too. I heard of a night where all of the girls in that hall refused to go back to their rooms because there was something there. My RA friend told me an older woman, an Irish Catholic staff member, had to go into the hall and bless it before the girls would return.

I never knew if I was the one causing all this. When senior year started I stopped having nightmares and I stopped seeing things. This was 2002/2003. It has not come back since. Although my current girlfriend is sensitive to spirits herself, and has even shown me some pretty jarring pictures, and often wakes up with unexplained scratches and even bites. One time she recorded what she said was a demon in her room. She showed me the video and I saw glowing eyes, but I don't know for sure.

I have more stories if anyone is interested.

[Reed Rothchild | 9,509]

Not really, but I have definitely hallucinated some loud noises/shouts right next to me at night and woken up scared shitless.

[fcgamer | 4,719]

I've had a few experiences, I'll share the one tonight that made me start this thread, I'll post another one tomorrow or sometime later.

This story happened in 2016, that was a hellish year for me, basically the typical "leave the job / area you like to move closer to your long-term girlfriend, then she cheats on you soon after, leaving you virtually friendless with a new job and new area to cope with" situation. That incident happened on Halloween, and I was devastated, so my mother decided to visit for a month, around Christmas time, to spend the holidays with me - the only time my parents spent the holidays apart from each other, since they had gotten married. 

My mom loves shopping, so anytime she comes to visit, we'll often go to home supply stores such as the one in the picture. She loves looking at all the different knick-knacks that the shops have here, since there's such a difference between these and the shops back home in the States.

On this particular day, we had walked down to near the city's local art museum - I had heard that there were some art studios set up down in the area, and I was in the market for some original paintings. We never did find what I wanted, but we then decided to dip into the nearby home supply shop to have a goo.

Things started out fairly normal. We were looking around on the shop, yet we noticed that a little girl dressed in red had been running down the aisles. We didn't pay it much attention, though it did strike us as odd, since we didn't see any other people in the shop, aside from the shopkeeper. 

At that point we just thought that it must be the shopkeeper's granddaughter, and eventually we stopped hearing her shuffling around the shop, and she then just disappeared into thin air.

My mother and I finished up our shopping and then went to pay. As we were talking with the shopkeeper, it became apparent that the girl wasn't a relative of his, and he didn't even know she was in the shop - we had been the only ones there, all day!

The whole thing was really freaky as my mother and I had both seen the girl, plain as day.

 

[Gloves | 11,759]

No, I've not experienced anything, and I tend to attribute these stories from people who have to simple ignorance.

[Tabonga | 2,313]

 In July of 1976 I had just started a new job at a small college in Denver.  I had always helped in theater departments in high school and college doing sound for stage productions.  So I offered to help with a show that was being put on.  When I got off work at 4:30 I would go to the theater and work for an hour or two and then go home.

It was a really large theater - 999 seats.  One day after work I went over there and it just so happened that I was the only person in the building.  I went to the stage and was working behind the flats laying down zip cord. 

I heard someone walking across these stage from the front and I yelled out "Hello" and got no response.   I was right by one of the three flat entrances and could see the other two from where I was.  No one answered and I went to the entrance near me and there was no one there.  SInce I could see all 3 stage entrances and I didn't hear anyone walking away (plus they would have to go back to the entrances for the auditorium and I would have seen them even if they ran (which I would have heard) I had (and have) no explanation.

Was it a ghost?  I don't know - but it was certainly something I can't explain. The theater building (like just about any theater) had a lot of ghost stories attached to it - since I had just started I had heard none of those yet.  

[ZeldaFreak | 3,600]

I have one, and my father has multiple. I'll start with his.

Gotta get some good ambience going, haha.

So, first of all I'd like to preface this by saying both me and my dad are what I'd describe as skeptics when it comes to the paranormal. He's a bit more open to the possibility, in part due to his experiences I'm about to get in to, but I'm pretty firmly in the "Yeah, ghosts don't exist" category. I also know that my dad is not at all the type of person to lie about or exaggerate any of this, and I've known him for my whole life so hopefully my opinion on that will hold some weight. With that said, neither me nor him have any viable rational explanations for some of these.

So, well before I was born, my father and his ex-wife used to live in a fairly small, but fairly nice two-story home together, along with a few cats. Something to note is that all of these stories take place in this particular location, so make of that what you will. On multiple separate occasions, his ex-wife would be alone in the house, preoccupied with something else, and she would hear clear, defined footsteps coming up the stairs. I know I just said they lived with cats, but... these are cats, they're not the biggest of animals, they're not exactly capable of making sounds of a similar volume to full on footsteps. So, she would think nothing of it, just thinking my dad came back home from whatever he was out doing, at work or what have you. Then, not long after, he would come through the front door since he had actually been out the whole time. Of course afterwards, she explains what had just transpired, they investigate, nothing is out of the ordinary, so there's no way it could've been a burglar or anything who just decided to walk up the stairs for no particular reason. There was one occasion in particular in which she had just gotten out of the shower, and heard footsteps coming up the stairs. She calls out my dad's name, assuming it's him, gets no response. Not even 30 fuckin' seconds later he comes through the front door. Again, they investigate and find nothing out of place or unusual.

There was also... at least 1 time, though this might've happened multiple times, in which his ex-wife was doing laundry, stacked up a few folded towels on the washing machine or dryer, exits the room for maybe 5 minutes to grab some more stuff to wash, comes back in the room, and the towels are still stacked up... in the dead center of the room. On the floor. Not tipped over, still perfectly stacked up, but in the dead center of the room rather than where she had initially placed them.

Good luck explaining away that one, haha.

Now, my dad has always enjoyed animals, he works as a zookeeper now, but he's always been interested in reptiles specifically. As such, in the basement of the house (In which not a ton happened, surprisingly) he kept multiple snakes that he took care of, back when it was more of a hobby for him and not his actual career. There were multiple times in which a snake had gotten out, but the container in which it was kept was still closed and locked. Alright, snakes are clever little bastards and they can squeeze through tight spaces, so it just escaped, nothing particularly out of the ordinary there. Except, every time this happened, he would double check where the snake was kept, and... yeah, there's literally no way it could've escaped on it's own. No holes, no tiny little spaces it could squeeze through, no faulty lock or whatever, nothing. It's also worth nothing that this is the only time in my dad's entire life he's ever experienced this despite working with snakes all his life, with snakes escaping with no clear explanation for how in the hell it got out.

Now for the last of the various occurrences that happened there, and arguably the creepiest. So, to rattle off a few possible explanations for this before I even tell the story: They never let the cats in the bedroom. Once they were getting ready to head to bed, they would shoo any cats in the room out, and close and lock the door to the bedroom. Also, while there was a window inside of said bedroom, it was also kept closed. For context, within their bedroom, they had a small TV, along with a little entertainment center on the floor, with various VCRs and DVD players and whatnot, things that emitted tiny little lights since they were usually kept on. I believe this one happened exactly two times. So, my dad is in bed next to his ex-wife, half-asleep but awake in the middle of the night, looking in the direction of the entertainment center. He notices the left-most light being emitted from the devices in the entertainment center goes out. Then he notices the next one from the left goes out. Then he notices the right-most one go out... but the left-most one comes back on. As if something is physically blocking the lights, passing over them one by one. Then, the right-most light comes back on, the center and left lights are off, the center one comes back on, and finally the left-most one comes back on. Keep in mind, on both occasions this all happened within the span of maybe 10 seconds, if that, and also keep in mind that it would've been pitch black in the room other than these tiny lights, so he wasn't really able to see anything.

So, the first time this happens, my dad just gets up, thinking they must've accidentally let one of the cats in or something. They didn't. The room is empty, just them, the cats are all in other parts of the house, door is closed and locked, window is closed, and they would've heard it being opened and shut if someone or something did come in through that way regardless. The second time this happens a few months later, my dad shoots right the fuck out of bed since he remembered this had happened before. Once again quickly confirms that there's no cats in the room, door is closed and locked, window is closed... what the fuck.

Now for my story, which frankly has a lot more potential explanations (hence why I'm not a full-blown believer) but is still quite creepy in it's own right I think.

So, for those that don't know me well (which would be most of you probably) I had a step-brother, who I always thought of as my proper brother, who unfortunately passed away at a very young age, and when I was no older than maybe 3 or 4. Absolutely tore apart the entire family and extended family, everyone wracked with grief, all the usual things that come with an untimely death. So, fast forward a few years, I don't remember exactly how old I was honestly, but if I had to take a shot in the dark, I'd say maybe around 7 or 8. I was staying at my grandparents' house, as I did every once in awhile. Frankly I never did like that house, it always kind of gave me the creeps, but that's a different story, haha.

So, as a kid I always had trouble sleeping in places other than my actual home (and to be honest I still get a bit uncomfortable or creeped out a lot easier than normal when I try to sleep in brand new or unfamiliar places) so, due to a combination of that, and the aforementioned fact that that house in particular always really gave me bad vibes for whatever reason, I would always ask my grandmother if she could lay down on the bed with me in the guest bedroom during the night until I fell asleep, since I didn't want to be alone in the dead of night. She, being the absolutely lovely lady that she is, would always understand and try her darndest to stay up as long as she could so I could get some sleep, since she knew that I really didn't like that house.

So, with all that context out of the way, it's in the middle of the night, and I'm having trouble falling asleep on that particular night, which wasn't an uncommon occurrence there. My grandmother had fallen asleep, since it was probably close to midnight by that point. At one point, I just so happen to glance at the door to the guest bedroom, which was generally kept open. I saw, clear as day, a defined human-shaped shadow being cast on the door. Me, being a child, naturally stared with wide eyes for a few seconds, and then instantly hid under the covers. I remember being awake under the covers for quite awhile, being absolutely terrified, and not wanting to wake up my grandmother due to 1: Not wanting to bother her since she was asleep, and 2: not wanting to risk making any noise and alerting the person casting the shadow to my presence, since whether it's a burglar, a ghost, whatever the hell it is, I don't want it knowing I'm here if it doesn't already.

Somehow, I do eventually manage to fall asleep, and I wake up, still under the covers, with daylight from the window shining through the covers. I still of course remember what had happened the previous night, so I very slowly lift up the covers, staring in the direction of the door... and thank god, the shadow is gone, and so is my grandmother as she was asleep throughout this whole thing, and wouldn't have known what had happened when she woke up in the morning.

And I didn't realize it in the moment, but it wasn't until a bit later on, reflecting on what had happened, that I realized that the shadow had the exact same, distinctive hairstyle that my fairly recently deceased step-brother had.

So, right off the bat, several possibilities for what could have actually transpired on that night. Some of them I've debunked on my own, and some of them, while technically possible, I just don't find them to be very likely.

First of all: Well, what if it was just my granddad, he was in the house too, who's to say he wasn't the one casting the shadow? Well, I was a pretty rational kid, I've been a skeptic my whole life, so naturally this was my first conclusion as to what actually happened. There's already a discrepancy in this, which is that my grandfather is balding and the shadow quite clearly had hair, but I asked both of my grandparents if my granddad ever got up in the middle of the night regardless. My granddad would very rarely get up in the night to maybe get a drink of water or what have you, so it's a possibility. My granddad, however, had confirmed that he never left their bedroom that night, he was asleep the whole time. So, theory #1 debunked.

OK... well, what if it was a burglar? OK, sure, maybe, they did live in a very nice house in a fairly opulent neighborhood... but first of all, why would they have stood near the entrance to the guest bedroom, completely motionless like that instead of... I dunno, sneaking around? Also, why would they have not taken anything, and how did they get in? Nothing was stolen, no broken windows or anything, none of the doors had been broken open or unlocked, nothing was out of place... so, it's theoretically possible, but that seems very unlikely to me.

OK... well then it was a nightmare. Again, theoretically possible... but, while this is something you'd have to take my word on, even as a kid, I never confused reality with dreams. There was always a very fine line between them then, and for the most part that's still the case now. When I had woken up the next morning, I knew that that wasn't any kind of a nightmare, I had actually experienced that. Plus, I had literally woken up the next day under the covers, like I said. So... what, I did that in my nightmare, which caused me to do that in real life? I've never exactly been much of a sleepwalker or anything, so that seems like a bit of a stretch.

OK... well, you just imagined it then. This is probably the most likely rational explanation. I was in a location I was creeped out by, I was already a bit jittery and tired... but... let's put it this way, I wasn't the most imaginative kid. I didn't have a very active imagination, and frankly, if this is the case, this is literally the only time in my entire life wherein I've had a hallucination that vivid and real. I wasn't the type of kid to just "see" things like that, imagine things that weren't actually there, y'know? I just don't see why my brain would completely blindside me with a hallucination that real-looking for the first and, as of yet, only time in my life. So, while the rational side of me says that this must be the explanation... it just doesn't seem right to me.

Frankly, while I was obviously scared shitless in the moment, and while I'm not at all the type of person to believe in these sorts of things... I find the thought of my step-brother who had passed away watching over me, making sure I'm OK a very comforting thought. Like a guardian angel of sorts.

Anyway, those are all of the paranormal experiences I've got for you, I hope you all enjoyed, maybe even got a bit creeped out, haha. Most of these do have some sort of possible explanation... but honestly that towel one is the story that got me the most when my dad first started telling me about these, haha. I sincerely cannot think of a single reasonable explanation for that one in particular.

[G-type | 2,476]

I've never experienced anything supernatural... believing in the supernatural seems to be a prerequisite to seeing it.

[LeatherRebel5150 | 1,055]

2 minutes ago, G-type said:

I've never experienced anything supernatural... believing in the supernatural seems to be a prerequisite to seeing it.

I actually agree with that sentiment. Ive never believed in it and don’t really now. But I just havnt been able to figure out what happened on the two occasions I described 

[fcgamer | 4,719]

3 minutes ago, G-type said:

I've never experienced anything supernatural... believing in the supernatural seems to be a prerequisite to seeing it.

Nah, I don't particularly believe in it, but I do know what I've seen and experienced.

[ZeldaFreak | 3,600]

15 minutes ago, fcgamer said:

Nah, I don't particularly believe in it, but I do know what I've seen and experienced.

Same here. I never did and still don't believe in it, but the story I had and my dad's stories are what they are, man.

[Strange | 1,700]

I don’t believe in ghosts, but I do enjoy hearing stories about ghosts and cryptids.

I know the theater building at my old college is on the national registry of haunted places or something. Supposedly there was a promising theater student who died named Margaret. Now there’s weird happenings in the theater and the abandoned third floor. One night my freshman year we snuck in there to try and find Margaret, of course we found nothing. My cousin was a theater grad student there and he believed in Margaret though. He said he used to do all his work there at night and he stopped after experiencing some weird stuff.

My high school agriculture teacher didn’t believe in anything, not ghosts or God etc. He used to give tours at the Bell Witch Cave and he said he would often have people do seances. One night he said some people did a seance and something scary happened but he wouldn’t elaborate on what. He said one of the people ended up leaving with scars on their back. He said he quit the next day. I don’t know if that’s a true story or if he was just messing with us, but it’s fun to tell anyway.

One time when I was in high school I prank called a “ghost hunter” in my area and asked why my chickens were being spooked at night and she told me it was likely the ghost of a coyote lmao

[galacticlint | 42]

I saw a big puff of smoke lookin' thing go down the road in a remote wooded area once when I was a kid. It stayed together real tight, without dissipating, and covered about 60 yards of street before it went out of sight following the road around a bend into woods. It scared the living shizzle out of me.

There were no passing cars or campfires nearby that could have made the smoke, I tried to rationalize it away but couldn't. The way it kind of stuck together in a tight plume as it traveled was very strange. Clouds of smoke from car exhaust and campfires usually blow apart and disappear quite easily.

No idea what it was, can't explain it. Outside of UFOs, that was my first and only paranormal experience.

[Strange | 1,700]

Oh and the lab I work at currently gives me weird vibes. But more Michael Myers vibes than ghost vibes. I was working at the computers there late one night and couldn’t shake the feeling I was being watched which never happens to me. Then I heard something in the main portion of the lab fall over. I finished my work and left. Like I said, I don’t believe in ghosts and it felt more like Michael Myers vibes to me than ghost vibes but yeah. Nothing like a little adrenaline.