"His Spirit Has Been Looking Out For Us" — Here Are 25 Paranormal Experiences That People Say Actually Happened, And I'm Low-Key Freaking Out

(Spooky Narrator voice) Hello and happy October, little BuzzFeeders. Since it's spooky season, I recently asked members of the BuzzFeed Community to share their wildest experiences with the paranormal. I got some seriously scary stories in response — as well as a few heartwarming ones. Here are a few of the best; read on if you dare.

1."Back in October 2005, when I was 15, my family and I were living in an apartment above an Esso gas station in Bostrak, Norway. One night I had a very lucid dream of a little blonde boy, probably aged eight or nine, crying in our living room. He was wearing a striped t-shirt with a silver star printed in the middle of his chest. When he saw me, he spoke in Swedish."

Scene of a small house and a boat in a snowy arctic landscape in Tromsø, Norway

2."My dad passed away when I was 15. On several occasions, it has seemed like his spirit has been looking out for us since."

Empty picture frames hang on a wall

3."Not me, but my cousin. We were very close to our grandmother, and things got a little spooky for my cousin the year after our grandmother's passing. Our grandmother was allergic to kiwis. A couple of weeks after the funeral, my cousin was feeling really sad and having a general mopey day. She went to the fridge where she had a four pack of kiwis, and took two and ate them. The next day, she went back to her fridge for breakfast and saw that the package (still opened) had four kiwis."

sliced kiwi

4."I've worked in historic houses for years. The number one question I'm always asked is if the house is haunted. I was always able to say 'no' — until one weird day. Keep in mind, I've always been respectful and remembered that this was once someone's home; people lived, loved, and died here."

old victorian home

5."I lived in a spooky dorm my freshman year of college. It was built on the site of the Confederate cannon line from the major Civil War battle that took place in our town, so it was bound to have some bad omens around. We had several things happen to us. For instance, my friends lived in the room next door. Nightly, their door would fly open. It did not matter if it was deadbolted; the door would fly open anyway. [My friends] would run into the hallway, but there was never anyone there."

door opening at night to a person wearing a sheet like a ghost

6."When I was 13, my family stayed at a friend's old farmhouse while traveling through the area. When I was going to bed, my mother told me that someone had once passed away in the room I was sleeping in. Then she wished me goodnight. (She has a fucked up sense of humor.) After I finally fell asleep, I was awoken to the feeling of a hand pressing onto my forehead, as if my temperature was being taken."

Abandoned white farmhouse with stone walls in the Scottish countryside

7."One night shortly after my good friend passed away, I was sitting on the edge of my bed, and suddenly, he was sitting right next to me."

two men embracing

8."Little did my parents know when they purchased their 1911 dream home, their second born would be best friends with the little girl in the attic. Ever since I can remember, [I've known] things I shouldn't be able to and [have seen] things that weren't technically there. As a young child, my parents played [these things] off as 'my imaginary friends.' Time went on, I grew up, but my imaginary friends never went away. One 'friend' in particular stayed close to me for a long time. She began peering in my doorway at age 3, and she aged alongside me. Years after the little girl first appeared, my family and I were cleaning out our basement. Above the exposed rafters, my brother uncovered a stack of old photographs."

Young girl having tea party with dolls, while a ghost watches on from behind her

9."Hauntings were part of my childhood experience. My siblings and I all had our own individual encounters. My very first memory was when I was around six, and my bed started to shake, really bad. It happened regularly. I usually hid, very still and very quiet, under the heavy wool blankets of my bed. This time was too much, and instead of hiding I just started to scream as I laid there."

girl seeing a ghost by her bed

10."I swear my mum is still present in my dad's house. She died in 2007, and we played her favorite song, Three Times a Lady by Lionel Richie, at her funeral. Late on the night after her funeral, I was watching the music channels and that song came on. I changed channels quickly as I was obviously still emotional, and as I did all the sympathy cards on the shelves moved, as though someone had run their hand across them. I put the song back on!"

lionel richie on stage

11."We used to live in an old house in Virginia, and weird but easily explained or dismissed things often happened. Things like cupboards being left open, things placed in the fridge that didn’t go there, etc. Nothing convincing. But one day I was home alone and I 100% heard a child’s voice very clearly say 'Mom?'"

Old engraved illustration of  a little girl standing on a hill: "Collina (Lady Gertrude Fitzpatrick)" by Joshua Reynolds

"I looked everywhere and there was no one home, no one outside, no TVs on or anything. From then on, that became a regular occurrence. Especially if I was in the bathroom or the kitchen. It still gives me the chills. I was glad when we moved."

—Anonymous

mikroman6 / Joshua Reynolds / Getty Images

12."I’ve had several paranormal experiences, but one really stands out. In 2012, I was finishing my senior year of high school. My bedroom was in the basement of our house. I woke up one night because a voice in my head was telling me I was being watched. Standing at the foot of my bed was a man. He had smoke coming off him, looked kind of like he was charred, and was wearing a long coat and cowboy hat with no clearly defined features except for the most electric blue eyes. He stared at me for what felt like hours, but was more like a few moments. That’s all I remember."

ghost cowboy made up of smoke

13."My house had a lot going on for awhile, and it started with the kids. My youngest son was the main target: he said his bed was being shaken. Once, we were in the kitchen together and he was pouring milk for cereal when his arm went up like it had been bumped and he spilled milk all over the counter."

door to a hotel room left open

14."I was working an opening shift at a food place in the mall. My friend worked at another food place, and I saw him walk by my store that morning to go out for a smoke break. We looked at each other and said hey. He was quiet and shy, as am I, and he went on and I continued working on opening the store."

a narrow, empty tiled hallway

15."This isn't a ghost story, but I'll give it a shot. I was visiting a friend who had been going through a rough patch and he said he really appreciated me coming to visit him. I randomly thought of that Bible verse about showing hospitality to strangers because you may be entertaining angels unaware (it's Hebrews 13:2)."

two guys sitting and talking on a stoop

16."When I was about 9 years old, I was staying with my maternal grandmother. She lived in the country in a old farm house my grandfather had built in 1920s. My grandmother and I shared a room with 2 twin beds. It was the middle of the night and I woke up to a man standing at the foot of my bed, just nodding his head."

person looking back and saying that was weird

17."At the end of my hometown, there’s a big, dark forest, and unsurprisingly, there are a ton of stories about it. I believe this one from firsthand experience. The story goes that decades ago, to celebrate the first day of June, a school was having a picnic in the woods when a little girl wandered off to pick flowers and was never seen again. If you go into the woods in the first of June, they say you might meet her, and that she’s not scared or sad or anything, just picking flowers peacefully."

A forest with one blooming daisy

18."I want to preface this by saying I was very skeptical prior to this experience. In 2011 my mom and I visited the Queen Mary, a reportedly haunted ship. We were in the pool area and I went off by myself because I figured that my best chance to experience something was to be alone. As I stood on the opposite side of the pool as everyone else, I felt this hard tug on my shirt."

black and white photo of a docked ship

19."I work in an old courthouse that is, no question about it, haunted. Historically, the building hasn't been just the courthouse, but the building where all county offices (and the jail) were housed. My office used to be upstairs in what used to be the county clerk’s office, and when I worked up there, odd things would happen."

<div><p>"In my first encounter, I was there alone, and I heard what sounded like papers being shuffled through near my coworker’s desk. But he hadn’t left any papers there, and anyway, there wasn’t a fan or vent. I left quickly after that. </p><p>The next time, my coworker and I were up there together and something started knocking on the walls while we were talking — and then it would stop [as soon as] we stopped. It happened a few times in a row, then we told it to stop, and it <i>did</i>.</p><p>My boss once said when he was up there once he stepped out to do something and when he came back one of the phones was off the receiver. We have affectionately taken to calling the ghost Judge Haunty."</p><p>—<a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/samanthae4ef54d0a6" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank" data-ylk="slk:samanthae4ef54d0a6;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas" class="link ">samanthae4ef54d0a6</a></p></div><span> Catherine Mcqueen / Getty Images</span>

20."Does lucid dreaming count? I took a nap one day, and woke up within my dream to my room exactly as it was when I had fallen asleep. The only reason I knew I was still dreaming was because my deceased pets were trying to get into the bed for snuggles."

photo of a young boy in a sailor's outfit holding a toy boat, circa 1910

21."While watching TV one night, I fell asleep in the recliner in the living room of my 1835 home. I woke up once, but was too tired to go upstairs so I turned off the TV and went back to sleep. I awoke later to see a young woman leaning over me, watching me sleep."

The ghost of a young woman in Victorian dress floats down a hall

22."Once when I was a teenager and nearly finished with high school, I was alone one night at home. My mother was a single parent as my father had died a couple of years before, and she was working nights as a nurse. We had a set-up where I'd wake her up when I came home from school in the afternoons and make dinner for the both of us, and then she'd head into work as I started on my homework."

A bright white silhouette of a woman against a landscape of hills and sky

23."We created a Ouija board from scratch, because we read it made them safer. My best friend and I put my rocking chair under my bedroom door knob to keep my mom out and tried for hours to get the board to work, but nothing happened. We went to sleep. I was awoken by my dog, digging at the bed and yowling."

A planchette moves around a ouija board by itself

24."At my elementary school, there were rumors that a child who went there had once murdered another child, on school grounds. I have gone out of my way to not learn details about it, because I’m a pretty sensitive person and I think it would really upset me, but at that school weird things happened."

an empty classroom with desks and a map on the back wall

25.And finally, "When I was in middle school, a ton of weird stuff happened on the second floor girls’ bathroom. Doors slammed. Lights flickered a ton. Sometimes the mirror would somehow get fogged up and weird messages like “HELP” would get written in the glass. Every girl at the school knew it was haunted and we all tried our best to avoid it at all costs. But it makes me think, did someone die in a middle school bathroom? Because I literally cannot think of a worse way to go."

two middle school girls texting in the movie "Eighth Grade"

—Anonymous

A24 / Via media.giphy.com

...I wanted to end on a little bit of a funny note. Some of these would literally traumatize me for life! But some of them are very sweet. I loved all of these, so if you have any spooky stories you'd like to share, seriously, leave them down below!