18 Paranormal Events From People Who Experienced Something Extremely Creepy With Their Own Eyes, And This Is A Big NOPE From Me

Something about the unknown can be super intriguing yet super scary at the same time.

So, when we asked the BuzzFeed Community to share an unexplained experience that still gives them the creeps to this very day, people delivered with some of their eeriest tales! Here are some of the most spine-chilling responses below:

1."As a small child, our house caught fire. My mom was downstairs, and my older sister and I were asleep upstairs. Upon waking up, my sister and I headed to the top of the stairs. My mom was at the bottom screaming for us. A man came up and grabbed us, threw us over his shoulders, and carried us down to my mom. We got out of the house. My baby sister perished. Many years later, when my older sister and I were snooping through an old family album, we came across a photo. We each recognized the photo of the man who had carried us down those stairs that night. We brought the photo into the living room, showed our mom, and asked who it was. She told us it was her father...who had died a year before they were married. My sister and I were saved by the ghost of our grandfather."

2."I worked at an art museum right after I graduated college. The building the museum is housed in used to be the city's old jail. It was built in 1906, so it's old. I was closing down after an event one night and was upstairs going through the galleries turning the lights off. I went to shut down the kitchen, and my back was turned to the gallery. After I shut the doors, I turned around, and a woman in all black came racing through the gallery to the back hallway. I said something like 'Oh my God! You scared me,' but she didn't acknowledge me. I just assumed she was part of the catering staff and had forgotten something upstairs. I went back downstairs and asked the volunteers if the lady upstairs had come down yet?"

"They looked at me very confused and said, 'No one was upstairs but you.' I then went to the loading dock to let the catering company know they had a staff member upstairs still. They kindly informed me that everyone was loaded up in the van. There's no possible way whoever was upstairs could have come downstairs without the volunteers seeing them. I still kind of brushed it off until I was able to get everything locked up, get in my car, and call my boyfriend where I then proceeded to scream at the top of my lungs because I was so freaked out.

Other staff members had plenty of creepy stories to share, and right before I quit, a paranormal investigation team emailed me to see if they could spend a night in the museum."

—maha23

3."[I] was sleeping one night and got woken up by my covers being pulled down to my feet. It was the middle of winter and cold in the house. I screamed, and it stopped. I sleep with a nightlight now."

4."After my mother passed away years ago and we returned from where she lived out of state, I had the strangest thing happen. That evening when I was in bed, I was very sad and depressed over her loss. I was on my side facing one direction, and suddenly, a bright light appeared behind me. [It] only illuminated behind me and never showed light anywhere else in the dark room. I was afraid to turn around, but for years, I wished I had. What was it? Who was it? Good or bad? I watch many ghost-hunting programs and never heard about my experience. The light stayed for perhaps a minute, and whatever it was, it was directly behind my back since I was on the edge of the bed."

—Margaret

5."I was around 13. It was a beautiful summer afternoon. My dad came home from work, and my three siblings ran to greet him in the kitchen because he often brought home treats. I remained in the living room watching TV, but after noticing that my siblings hadn't returned, I walked toward the back door. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my little brother standing still in the middle of the basement steps, which were across from the back door. I started down the stairs, and he suddenly rushed down the stairs. The second he reached the bottom, he made a tight turn to his right and disappeared."

6."I was up late watching TV one night. The TV was hooked up through a stereo system. All of a sudden, the sound cut out, and slowly, the sound of a heartbeat came through the speakers building up louder and louder and then suddenly stopped. The normal TV sound came back after a few seconds. This was pre-Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, so there wasn't any way something outside could have tapped into the system."

—notagoodusername

7."I went to Eastern State Penitentiary for their terror behind the walls. I never ran into anything that day, but I woke up the next morning with a massive bruise from my hip to my knee."

8."I was at my ex-boyfriend's house, and I was there all alone. When I was walking back to his room, I heard someone sitting on the bed in his brother's room as CLEAR AS DAY. It was to the point where I said the brother's name and walked in there to see if he was messing with me. It was one of the creepiest things ever I have experienced."

—Anonymous, California

9."My best friend in middle school invited me to a sleepover one night. Her entire immediate and extended family lived with her, so the house was always busy and fun. It was a great gathering place, and I always felt welcome. After a really great evening with her family, we went up to the loft upstairs to sleep. In the middle of the night, I woke up really thirsty, so I went downstairs to the kitchen to get myself a drink of water. I was half asleep, but while walking through the living room, I noticed her grandmother was sitting in the rocking chair, eyes wide open, and staring right at me. She had a blank expression on her face, and I was freaked out."

10."I was up late one night in the house, while everyone else was asleep. I was watching some show about the paranormal when suddenly the wall by my bed was being banged on like someone was hitting it with a hammer. It was pitch black, and the banging lasted a few seconds, but it freaked me out for over a decade. The sound was coming from outside as if someone was out there. After looking out the window, no one was there."

—vexed_easily

11."I was driving home after dropping my husband off at work, and I was behind a truck with ladders strapped down to it. Suddenly, like watching a movie, I saw a ladder come undone and fly off the back of the truck toward my windshield. I came to realize I had some kind of weird vision as all the ladders were still on the truck. Still, out of caution, I switched lanes. As soon as I did, the ladder came off the truck just as I'd seen. Had I not changed lanes, it would have hit my windshield possibly killing me. I can't explain what happened, but it gave me serious Final Destination vibes."

12."I recently had a dream about a classmate from elementary school that I hadn't seen in over 20 years. The next day, I saw that he had been arrested. I hadn't thought about this guy in years. The timing of it was just so odd."

—emlenz5

13."I woke up in the middle of the night and saw a woman crawling on my wall. Think Toni Collette in Hereditary. She stopped crawling when I sat up, and we both froze. She was twisted, contorted, and possessed-looking. I was FULLY awake and didn't take my eyes off her as I reached up and fumbled for the chain to the ceiling fan light above my bed. As soon as I turned the light on, she vanished. This was a studio apartment in a major city, so there was enough light from the street that I could fully make her out. I was in shock and just sat there, clenching the light switch chain for several minutes trying to rationalize what had just happened."

14."When I was a kid, I would see or hear things like apparitions, meows from my beloved dead cat, etc. I was also always scared of what was under my bed to the point that when I would turn off the lights, I would do a running jump into my bed to avoid coming close to the bottom gap. When I was around 7 or 8, I was dead asleep and lying on my stomach with my feet under the blanket. One of my feet was in the gap between the bed and the wall. I woke up out of dreamless heavy sleep to the feeling of a hand wrapping around my ankle and pulling me down the bed at an angle."

"I found my face off the pillow and down the bed by about a foot. It was a quick yank. I immediately got up, bolted out of my room, and into the hall. My parents didn't believe me and didn't find anything under the bed, but considering I rarely cried even as a baby, they were concerned at my uncontrollable wailing. More than 20 years later, I still refuse to put my foot between the bed and wall."

—Molly, Nevada

15."When I was a kid, my mom would put me to bed in a room I shared with my older sister. I had the bottom bunk. I was so upset that everyone else got to stay up and watch movies while I had to go to sleep, so I laid in bed awake for a bit. While I was lying on my back, I saw these two big red glowing eyes appear and stare at me for a while right above me, even blinking at times. I was so scared of how close it was to me (maybe a foot from my face). It continued to stare at me and follow my movements for a solid 10 minutes before the eyes closed and never reappeared. My mom tells me I must have been dreaming, but I know what I saw! It was real, and it was terrifying."

16."I was sleeping in my room, and I had a friend sleeping over on the sofa bed in the living room. Around 3 a.m., I felt someone sit on the corner of my bed. I opened my eyes thinking it was my friend, but no one was there. The bed felt like it had weight on it. Suddenly, this invisible weight started to move toward me, and I was freaking out. I could see it moving. It took a lot for me to run into the living room, but when I got there, my friend was wide awake sitting up on the sofa bed. I was startled at seeing them awake, and they said, 'Hey, um, there's something in here. It woke me up,' and they just looked at me with terror in their eyes. The next day, we got some sage and cleaned that apartment. To this day, we can't believe it."

—Anonymous, California

17."When I was in high school, I was sitting in my bedroom. My dad and siblings weren't home, so my mother and I were the only ones home. I called my mom's name from the bedroom. The first time, I didn't hear anything, but when I called her name again, I heard, as clear as day, 'I'm in the kitchen!' So, as I was going to find her, I opened my bedroom door to find darkness. All the lights upstairs except for my bedroom lights were off. I flipped on the hall light and made my way downstairs only to find more darkness. All the lights were off because no one else was home. My mom had run to the grocery store and didn't tell me she was leaving. To this day, I still don't know who or what I heard answer me when I called her name."

18."After my dad retired from the military in Texas, we moved back to the family house. I was in the third grade, and it was the first time I would have my own room. I was excited until the first night. My family still doesn't believe me, but every night, a 'nurse/nun' would walk out from the closed closet doors and move about the room. If she ever saw I was awake and had seen her, she would come inches from my face to terrorize me. I'd run out of the room screaming, but no one ever listened. Finally, after four years, I got to move rooms, and this room became an office. Even now, that room terrifies me, and my mom now tells me things in that room move or go missing. Yep, not my problem anymore, and NO, I do not want to inherit the house. Sell it."

—Nicole, Georgia

Have you ever had something unexplainable, strange, or seriously creepy happen to you IRL? Share your story in the comments!

Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.