The Hereditary Nightmare, My Best Friend Is A Serial Killer, And 21 Other Real Life, Creepy Experiences People Said They'll Never Forget
WARNING: This post contains mentions of violence, death, and suicide. Please proceed with caution.
Happy spooky season, everyone! If you're a fan of all things horror like me, boy do I have a treat for you.
Every month, I ask BuzzFeed readers like you to share the creepiest, most unbelievable things they've ever experienced. True crime, paranormal, glitches in the matrix...everything is fair game. As always, I'm here with another batch of creepy tales that range from moderately unsettling to downright horrifying. Here are 23 of the very best, most horrifying stories:
1."My parents bought a house in the middle of nowhere. The original owner of the house died by suicide in the garage. The next man who owned the house rented the house to a friend. The friend died while living in the house. The man then sold the house to my parents. He died two weeks after my parents closed on the house. Before moving in, my dad befriended a couple in town and, after hearing about the house, the wife insisted on coming by and [smudging] the place. My dad didn't believe in any of the nonsense about the house being haunted or having 'bad juju,' but he let her sage anyway. That didn't do any good, though, because my dad died very unexpectedly a few months later in a freak accident at the house."
"My mom sold the house to a young couple who I'm hoping don't have horrible luck with the place. If I had the extra money laying around, I would have bought the damn thing from my mom just so I could light it on fire."
—eb17
2."When I was 17 and a foster kid living in Oakland, the family I stayed with had this old, typical San Francisco-style two-story house with wood floors. One night, I went to the bathroom that was right in front of the stairs on the first floor. As I was about to walk back upstairs, I saw the bottom of a lady’s long, white gown at the top of the stairs. I thought it was the foster mom or sister and asked if they wanted me to leave the light on in the bathroom for them. No response. The gown just turned and went down the hallway."
"I thought it must have been my foster sister sleepwalking, because she was still little, like 10 or 11, and did that sometimes. I went upstairs and peeked in the parents' room. They were both snoring. I went back to our room, where my sister was dead asleep in her bed, wearing a Raiders T-shirt. I was freaked out and quickly closed our door to the hallway as I suddenly realized that there was no sound of footsteps walking on the wood floor. I hopped in bed and hid under my blanket for the rest of the night."
—Anonymous
3."My dad was good friends with the Green River Killer. They ate lunch together every day for 10 years, while he (unbeknownst to my dad) had dead women in the back of his pickup in the Kenworth parking lot. Nobody at his church knew, either. He could be one of the most prolific serial killers in American history, if he actually killed as many women as he claimed."
Gary Ridgway, the Green River Killer, was convicted of 49 murders, but claims the number is actually closer to 80. You can read more about him here.
4."As a kid, I grew up on a street that was newly developed. There was a vacant lot across the road that led down a hill to a river. I had a recurring nightmare that me and my brothers were in the lot picking up rubbish. I’d get to the river bank, look in the water, and a red demon (traditional devil-looking character) would drag me into the water to drown. I’d wake up terrified. This happened a lot when I was a kid, but as I got older, the dreams stopped, and I didn’t really mention it to anyone."
"Fast-forward many years later, and my 5-year-old daughter wakes up crying from a bad dream. I comfort her and ask her if she wants to tell me what the dream was about. She tells me, ‘I was in a field picking flowers, and I got too close to the river, and a red devil dragged me in.’ I didn't know what to say, it sounded just like my dream from when I was a kid. She has had the same dream a few times since as well."
—Anonymous
5."I have been a nurse for over 20 years. I’ve had plenty of weird, creepy experiences, but this one still chills me. I had two older patients that I was taking care of, one in room 304 and one in room 305. If there wasn't a wall between their rooms, their head boards would have been butted up to each other. The gentleman in 305 was completely non-verbal — he didn't talk, he didn't respond to ANY stimuli, his pupils were fixed and staring. He was physically still alive, but mentally not there. At ALL. My patient in 304 was basically there to die, but she was completely alert and oriented."
"Suddenly, in the middle of the night, she took a turn for the worse. She was struggling to breathe, panicking. Begging for help but adamant that we don't do anything to ‘save her’ from dying. I turned up her oxygen, called the doctor to get orders, then started doing what the doctor ordered to try to get her comfortable again. While I was administering meds, my nurse tech came to the bedside next to me. In an incredulous voice, she said, ‘You have GOT to go see room 305…’
I had another nurse stay with my patient in 304 and headed to 305. I heard him before I even walked in. He was SINGING in a loud, shaky but beautiful tenor. Singing about meeting God at the pearly gates and ‘going home.’ I slowly walked into the room and said his name. No response, he kept singing. I grabbed his leg, no response, STILL singing. I gently shook his arm, but he still did not respond to me at all. He was just laying in bed, staring out at nothing and singing hymns about going home to heaven.
I stood and listened for a few seconds, but I eventually went back to my dying patient. After about 25 or 30 minutes, she took her last breath. I set about doing all the things I needed to do after a death, but remembered my patient in 305. I went to his doorway, and all I heard was silence. I peeked my head in and looked at him. He was laying there, as usual, staring out at nothing, completely silent. Once my other patient passed, he stopped singing, and I never heard him make another sound the rest of the time I cared for him. I found the whole situation kind of beautiful, but it still freaks me out."
—Anonymous
6."I was coming home from work one night in college, and I remembered it was Valentine’s Day. I was tired after work, so I got home and went right to sleep. I woke up in the middle of the night to my roommate knocking on my bedroom door, telling me that someone was trying to open our back door. I woke up and let her into my room, and we peeked outside together from my bedroom window, where we could see police lined up with their lights on in the front of the house."
"We called 911 to see if the dispatcher would tell us what was going on. She let me know that a man had attacked a woman with a machete. He was running from the cops through backyards, and he was probably in ours now. We then saw a bunch of cops with their guns drawn and a K9 officer walk down our driveway, kick down our fence, and release the dog, catching this man and arresting him in our backyard.
The creepiest part happened the next morning. We went to look at the damage to the fence and saw a bloody handprint on our white back door. I’ll never forget that."
—Anonymous
7."This took place during the time of the war in Vietnam. Our house didn’t have air conditioning, so we kept our windows open. One night, I heard the dog bark and then what sounded like a bottle hitting the ground. After that, she stopped barking. I went to get ready for bed, and I felt like someone was trying to look at me through the blinds that I had closed. I went to bed anyways and drifted off to sleep. Suddenly, I was being overtaken by mosquitoes."
"I yelled out to my father, confused as to why there were so many mosquitoes in my room. I sat up in bed and turned on the light to find that the window at the foot of my bed had been opened as wide as it could. The blinds were pulled completely up and the screen had been removed. That had been done to several windows in the house. Soon after, my dad fenced in the backyard and installed central air conditioning."
—Anonymous
8."My mom used to call my grandma every single night. However, during a family camping trip when I was 15, she was unable to call her because the cellphone reception was horrible. So, my dad promised we could go to the nearest town for breakfast in the morning so that she could get service and call grandma. But when we got to town, mom had over a dozen missed calls and voicemails. Most of them were from my cousin who lived across the country. She would always talk about having visions, but my parents and I thought she was full of it."
"My mom listened to the messages, and my cousin was crying and saying someone was hurting my grandma at that exact moment. She kept asking for my mom to call or go to her because she was being stabbed. My cousin described fire and being suspended in the air. The remaining voicemails from other family members trying to tell mom that grandma had been murdered. Someone had broken in, stabbed her, tied her up, and then lit the house on fire. It was bad enough that my mom blamed herself because it happened during their usual phone call time, but the intense mix of visions and voicemails is why we don't really talk about my grandmother's death."
—Anonymous
9."I used to waitress at a restaurant in a small town. We had regulars that were average people — not big tippers and sometimes a pain — but for the most part, they were nice. Well, one day, one of them popped up on the news because he had been arrested in connection with his fiancée's murder. They hadn't even found her body, and he'd already been convicted of first degree murder. I fed a murderer on a weekly basis, and never knew anything was awry."
10."I used to have precognitive dreams all the time. They were little moments that would end up happening like I experienced them in the dream. One time, I had the most vivid dream about a car accident. So vivid I thought I must have seen it on TV while I was falling asleep, but I realized that wasn't possible because I had gone from seeing the accident from the outside of the truck to suddenly being inside, viewing from what would have been the backseat if the car had one. I saw the truck flip over and both passengers hit their heads on the windshield, killing them."
"It really bothered me, because it seemed more real than other dreams. I couldn't shake it, I talked about it to a few people, and carried on wondering what prompted it in the first place. Several weeks later, I arrived at the scene of an identical accident — same little white truck flipped over in the exact same spot as my dream: half in the left lane of the highway and half on the grassy median. Every detail was the exact same, and it horrified me."
11."When my great-uncle was still alive, I saw him once a year and did not have a really warm relationship with him. Ten-year-old me thought of him being old, a bit peculiar, but kind. The day he passed away, my parents went to his house to clean up before they sold the place. I inherited his piano."
"I always wanted to have a piano in my bedroom, so I was filled with joy when I got it. One day, I was alone in my room practicing ‘Für Elise’ when suddenly, the piano took over. I had mastered only the intro and chorus, but the piano went on with the parts I did not know. You couldn’t see the keys being pressed, but you could hear it. I called my sister and a friend, and they turned pale. After a while, it stopped by itself like nothing had ever happened. So weird."
—Anonymous
12."My husband and I were newly married and were searching for an apartment in Long Beach, California. One we came upon was on a very nice street in a converted older home. There were established trees around the yard, and the landscaping was neatly trimmed. The landlord greeted us at the driveway and told us she would show us around. All was well with me so far — I really liked the location and appearance of the outside area. The apartment was on the second floor, so we went up the stairs behind our guide. The minute I started up the stairs, I felt very strange and uneasy."
"I momentarily closed my eyes, and when I opened them, I distinctly saw blood smeared all along the wall to my left. I closed my eyes again, and when I opened them, there was no blood visible. I didn’t say anything about what happened to me, and we continued to view the apartment. At the end of the tour, my husband took me aside and said he didn’t like the apartment and we should keep looking.
After a long day of looking for our apartment, we decided to stop for coffee and discuss the places we looked at. During the discussion, my husband said he thought the second floor apartment in the old house looked good on the outside, but he didn’t like the inside. I asked what he particularly didn’t like, and he said that if he told me, I would think he was losing it. I laughed and told him I would not, so he proceeded to tell me that the staircase gave him a creepy feeling and that he thought something bad had happened there. I was flabbergasted and told him what had happened to me while we were there. We stared at each other for a few seconds and decided then and there that we made the right decision."
—Anonymous
13."I had a dream that my parents were being held hostage in my bedroom, which was in the basement. In the dream, I came home and thought it was weird that the only lights on were in my room, knowing I turned them off when I left. So I walked over to the little basement window and peeked in to see my parents bound in back-to-back chairs and a man waving a knife at them. The man heard me and turned around. I saw his face and ran back to my car. Then, I woke up from the dream. Not that weird, right? Well, fast-forward two years, and I meet my mom’s new boyfriend, who went on to become my stepdad. It was, in fact, the man I dreamt of holding my parents hostage."
14."I was on a plane flying from NYC to LA in February of 2020. I had fallen asleep and had the wildest dream: I was on the same exact plane with the same exact people, but this time the Grim Reaper — in black cloaks, with a scythe and all creepiness — was slowly walking down the aisle. It stopped at me and asked in the most terrifying, otherworldly voice, ‘Do you want to die?’ to which I responded, ‘No!’ So, it kept on moving down the aisle."
"I woke up when the plane landed, chalking up my dream to a weekend of partying with friends in NYC with little to no sleep. But as soon as we got to the gate, we were told to stay in our seats with no further instruction. A few minutes later, they informed us that someone on the plane had been feeling sick and had traveled from China to NYC and now NYC to LA, and as a precaution with ‘this new virus happening around the world,’ the CDC was coming on board, etc. We were finally released and when I got off the plane, I saw a young girl and her mother both looking not well basically in plastic bubbles surrounded by members of the CDC and airport staff. Scary."
—Anonymous
15."This happened a few years ago, a couple days before Christmas. It was the weekend, and my mother and I were doing our usual weekend thing: ordering food and watching crappy (holiday) TV movies. We had just ordered the food, and not too long after that, we heard a knock at the door. We both looked at each other knowing there was no way that the delivery was here already. It was way too quick."
"My mother answered the door, and there was a woman standing there who we’d never seen before. She asked if someone in particular was there, my mom said no, and shut the door. I couldn’t hear what the woman said because of the TV, but my mother said the woman asked for Gloria.
If you’ve come this far, you’re probably wondering how this is a creepy story. Well, I’ll tell you. My grandmother’s name was Gloria. She never lived at our house, and we’d been the only people living in this house for decades. So, it’s not like we’d just moved in and someone was looking for a recent occupant. Now for the weird part: My grandmother had been dead for about 15 years at that point. I picked up my phone to text my cousin about it, and it suddenly dawned on me that my grandma passed away around Christmas time. My cousin then reminded me that she actually died THAT DAY. The same day this random woman came to my house and asked for Gloria. I like to think that was my grandmother stopping by to say hello. I miss you, Mimi. Drop by any time."
—Anonymous
16."I worked in a small town public library about 15 years ago. One woman, Tina, paid for a lost book with a check, which bounced. A couple of my coworkers knew her personally and were surprised — it wasn't like her. They were all like, 'I can’t believe Tina would write a bad check!' Later that week, Tina strangled her mother and staged it to look like a suicide. We never did get paid for the book."
17."My uncle used to have a typewriter in his house, but not any ink for it. I would sometimes tap on the keys and pretend I was writing a story, but get told off by my uncle. One day, while my grandmother was sick in the hospital, there was something strange written on the typewriter. It said, 'Fifteen months,' in dark red ink. I checked to see if the typewriter had any ink left, but it didn’t. I took the paper out and threw it away, since I was 10 at the time and thought it was a joke. That’s how long my grandmother was alive for. Fifteen months. Sometimes when I visit, I see my name written on it. My uncle, aunt, and cousins don’t remember and think it was from when I used to play with it."
—Onyx
18."I was on a roadtrip and heard a voice in my head very clearly say, 'Accident in Oakville.' I don't know what it was, but I was on edge and drove extra carefully. I pulled up to a red light, and left extra space in front of me due to this 'warning.' Suddenly, there was a loud sound, things in the car went flying, followed by another loud sound. A vehicle traveling at full speed had hit me from behind and pushed my car underneath the cube van in front of me. The extra space I left in front of me as a caution saved my life. My car was repaired, and I survived the crash. I had a friend who died less than a year prior to this accident, and there is no one in the world who can convince that it wasn't them who protected me that day."
19."My fiancé and I were in Nashville touring wedding venues. Afterwards, we visited Broadway and checked out the bars and live music and were both a little tipsy. We called it an early night as we had to drive home to DC the next afternoon and went back to our hotel room around 7 p.m. We took a nap, then around 9, we ordered takeout and ate in the room, talking about the day. Our hotel room was set up a bit oddly: The front door opened into the sleeping space, and past the bed was the living room, separated by protrusions coming from the wall."
"My fiancé went to sleep, and I stayed up for a bit scrolling on my phone. I don’t know what time I eventually went to bed. At some point in the night, I woke up on my side, facing the living room. I felt like I was being watched. I opened my eyes, and there was a shadow person tucked into the protrusion separating the rooms. I felt like they were staring at me. I’ve had paranormal experiences before, so I wasn’t immediately terrified. They were about 5’7” with shoulder length curly or poofy hair (think a silhouette of Sirius Black). I acknowledged them and told them they could stay if they were respectful and minded their own, and that we would be out of their space in the morning. I rolled over, hugged my fiancé, and went back to sleep without incident.
We checked out of the hotel, got breakfast, and hit the road the next morning. It was pitch black as we were driving through mountains when my fiancé said, ‘Oh, I forgot to tell you about this dream I had last night.’ He proceeded to tell me that he was dreaming that he opened his eyes and there was a figure standing over him — nose to nose — almost inspecting him. The dream then shifted, and he was now watching himself and the figure from a third person’s perspective. He said that the shadow figure was mirroring him — when he moved to get around it, it mimicked him and blocked him so he couldn’t get to me and he couldn’t get away.
My heart was pounding when I asked him what it looked like. He said it was hard to tell because there weren’t identifiable features. They were a shadow, but they did have distinct poofy hair that reached its shoulders. I was shocked. I told him that I had never planned to tell him what I had seen because I knew he got uncomfortable when I did that kind of thing (and I thought it had left us alone). But I then told him how I had seen the same figure in the corner of our room. We were both shocked, and needless to say, we did not go back to that hotel on our wedding planning trips to Nashville."
—Anonymous
20."A couple of years ago in the winter, I was in my room, sitting by my desk with the window open. We lived in the middle of the woods with no close neighbors. My window faced thick woods with no hiking trails, just old forest with a couple remains of old houses. It's kind of dangerous, actually — there are lots of old, uncovered wells and spiky metal wire around. Plus, it was, like, -25°C at least, with a good 40ish centimeters of snow, and pitch black at night when this occurred. Suddenly, I heard humming and heavy breathing coming from the woods, like very close to my house. Then whatever it was started singing, just loud enough for me to hear. I could not understand the language, but it was 100% a male voice."
"Then, a relative of mine happened to drive by our house with a tractor (to clear the road of snow), and the singing stopped. I heard very fast footsteps going further away from our house. I can't fucking think of any animal that could make those noises, but then again, it could have been something that wasn't human. We went to see if we could find tracks the next day, but there was nothing there. It's possible we just didn't find them — the woods are thick, and walking in deep snow is slow and exhausting. Either way, I'll never know who or what it was."
21."I lived in a very old house close to where the Gettysburg battles were fought. The city is rich in history. When I was sleeping, I would hear someone call my name during the night. One day, I noticed a small boy in the corner of my room, dressed in Civil War-type clothing. My guinea pigs would jump and make noise when he’d go near their crate, confirming what I was seeing. I never said anything to my parents at the time, but years later, I mentioned it, and they described seeing the exact same boy I was seeing, too."
—Anonymous
22."In college, I had a friend who claimed to be a ghost magnet. One night, we made a plan to explore the attic in one of the campus buildings that I had found accidentally unlocked, in an old Victorian mansion. To get to the attic, you had to go up two flights of servant's stairs, then up another smaller set of stairs, to get to a landing with a doorway on either side of it. When we got there and looked up at the landing, I saw a shadow figure standing right above us, leaning over the railing and looking down. We both looked at each other and without a word BOLTED back down to the main floor. Once we caught our breath, I distinctly remember my friend saying, 'I don't think that man was alive.’"
—Anonymous
23."I used to work onsite of an old cotton mill. It had since been knocked down and turned into a retail park. There was 100% a pain in the ass ghost in our store room. I would load up a trolley with stock to go and put out on the shop floor, and when I turned around, the entire trolley would be empty. I don't mean knocked over, I mean every item was back where I picked it up from. It would piss me off more than scare me. The ghost also used to peek around at us. There was a bit in the stock room where TV boxes were packed tight together, with zero room between them apart from one 'corridor' in the middle. I would get a feeling of being watched. I'd turn around to look and would see a shadow dip back behind one of the TV boxes, like it was watching you and hiding when it got caught."
"Oh, it used to turn the lights off, too. That was annoying because it would always be when I was far from the switch. I would talk to it all the time, and if I was having a bad day, just ask it to leave me alone, and it would."
Now, dear reader, it's your turn. Do you have a creepy real life experience like these? If so, tell us about them in the comments below or via this completely anonymous form. If you enjoyed these stories, you can read more like them here.
Note: Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.
