People Are Confessing The Spookiest "Unexplained" Events That Have Happened To Them, And I'm Locking My Doors

Whether you believe in ghosts or not, you've probably encountered a spooky experience or two in your life that you just couldn't explain. You know what I'm talking about — a strange rattling at the door, a figure that appeared to vanish right before your eyes, an eerie coincidence that was just too weird.

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This week, Reddit user u/Generic_Garak asked, "What's the spookiest or most unexplainable event that has ever happened to you?" There were a LOT of bone-chilling responses. So, in honor of spooky season, we gathered some of the creepiest stories from the thread. Here are 18 of the best:

Note: #10 mentions suicide.

1."I used to work at a bowling alley/arcade/laser tag place. Apparently, someone died in the laser tag arena a year before I started working there. One night, we closed the arena for a few hours while I cleaned the arena with some other employees. While we were cleaning, both the main lights and the decorative black lights went out. The whole room was pitch dark. I was on the upper level of the arena when one of the guys behind me screamed at the top of his lungs. I saw that he was somehow barely dangling above the safety rail, and yanked his arm back before he fell. He was really freaked out, and he said that something cold had touched his back and pushed him. We all thought it was the ghost of the guy who had died. The employee later quit because he was almost seriously injured inside that cursed arena."

2."One summer night, I heard phantom whistling that followed a tune that my brother, sister, and I were singing while doing dishes in the kitchen. The whistle continued the tune for about five seconds after we finished singing, and then it just dissipated. My sister and I can’t whistle, and we were all staring at each other while the whistling occurred. My brother and sister immediately checked outside for a passerby (we lived in the country with no neighbors) while I covered my ears. We couldn’t explain it, and still talk about it to this day. My parents still live there and continue to have odd experiences, but nothing to that level."

3."When I was 7, my family made a quick road trip to visit my grandma, who was in hospice. We got back home late at night, and my sister and I saw our grandma sitting in the rocking chair in our room. The rocking chair had belonged to her husband. Then, our mom walked in and told us that our grandma had died. My sister and I didn’t mention it for years, but we both are absolutely certain that our grandma stopped by to say goodbye."

4."I work in a retirement home. One day I was filling in at the healthcare center, which is basically hospice. I was in the day room reading stories to one of the patients. She suddenly asked me who 'that woman' was. I thought she was talking about one of the CNAs who was sitting across the room, but then she said, 'No, the woman right next to you. On your left.' There was no one sitting next to me. She continued, 'She looks just like you, but her hair is longer. She says she doesn’t have a name. But she’s very nice.' I could feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I made a quick excuse to leave, and practically ran back to my memory care unit. Now, here’s the part that really shook me up..."

5."I used to live in an apartment opposite a park in Japan. On the other side of the park was a convenience store, and the quickest way to the store was directly through the park. The park was pretty bare — it had a baseball field, a playground, and a path leading through it with some mounds, small plants, and thin trees. One summer evening, I was heading to the store to get some cigarettes, and I noticed a woman standing to the side of the path just staring at some houses. I said, 'Good evening,' to her in Japanese, but she didn't say anything back. I didn't think anything of it at first. She was about 5 meters off the path, just standing there still. I glanced at her as I passed, and she had this distressed look on her face, still intently staring at the houses across the street. I came to a halt. Something wasn't right."

6."When I was 18, I worked at a Coney Island-style restaurant. The restaurant was open 24/6 — we closed at 3 a.m. Sunday morning, re-opened at 6 a.m. Monday morning, but stayed open all the time the rest of the week. This particular event happened at about 2:30 a.m. on a Friday. I was the only waitress on shift, and the owner was in the kitchen cooking. We were the only two people there. At the time we had a regular who I’ll call Jerry. Jerry was a barfly and a senior citizen. He would come in every night after the bar closed and order coffee, two eggs over easy, and wheat toast. He ordered the same thing every time, and his total always came out to $4.37. He’d always give me $6 and tell me to keep the change. So, that night, I saw a few emergency vehicles go down the main street toward the bar with their lights and sirens blaring. About a minute later, Jerry came in."

7."I had visitors over, and their kids liked my room because it had a massive bed that they could play on. We assumed they were in my room because we heard a bunch of noise. One of the mothers was about to tell them to be quiet, when suddenly, all kids came inside from the backyard asking for snacks. The noise from my bedroom was gone. We asked the kids if they had been in my room. They said no, because someone had told them not to. They didn't elaborate on who that 'someone' was."

8."This happened about 12 years ago. I lived on the first floor of a two-story building with my boyfriend. We had no pets and no kids. We shared a king bed, but had separate covers. I had recurring nightmares about a boy, maybe 2 years old with blonde, bowl-cut hair, wearing denim overalls but no shirt under, and no shoes. He would stand on my side of the bed and stare at me, watching me sleep. I'd wake up in a panic, and he would vanish. One night, I fell asleep with my feet out of the covers. Boyfriend was sleeping next to me. I feel a very gentle pressure on my left big toe, right where it joins the rest of my foot. I was awake, but absolutely freaked out. It lasted a few minutes and stopped. Eventually I fell back asleep. Over the next month, this happened a few more times. On different feet here and there. I didn't tell my boyfriend, worried he might laugh at me or not believe me. The next time it happened, it went on for a good 15 minutes."

9."Once when I was about 17, I was walking my dog and saw a large humanoid figure walking into the woods. It was sunset, so at first I thought maybe it was just shadows in the tree line. But then the hairs stood up on my dog's back like I'd never seen before. She growled at it, but didn't bark. I was kind of frozen in fear, but also just confused as to what I was looking at. The neighborhood speed sign was near it for reference, so I would say this thing was at least 10 feet tall. It had long and lanky legs and arms with thick black fur. It didn't look in my direction, but just made a gentle stride right into the woods. I went back inside immediately and told my parents. I still have no idea what that the f*ck that was."

10."Last year, I had a very intense dream where my ex-boyfriend from 10 years ago came to visit me. It was so vivid: I could see all of his gray hairs and the pores on his face. He said, 'I want you to know that you are very special to me. I mean it.' We had a complicated relationship, and he was not very good at expressing emotional stuff. In the dream, he had this sort of urgency to tell me this, and it seemed like he was really struggling to make sure I understood. I woke up right after he finished talking, and even though it was the middle of the night, I was wide awake. I was kind of shaken, but I had recently had a baby, so I wrote it off as weird postpartum hormones and went back to sleep. About two weeks later, I found out that he had died by suicide. I’m an atheist, and so was he. I don’t believe in ghosts, telepathy, or anything of the sort. But as much as I try to tell myself that, logically, this was just coincidence, it still kinda messes me up."

11."Sometime back in the early '90s, my then-girlfriend and I lived in a Victorian, terraced house. One night, my girlfriend and I were lying in bed with the lights out. I was on my back with my eyes open. Slowly, a luminescent, hollow ball faded into view, seemingly made up of lots of very small, dim fluorescent rods. The ball was about a meter across and maybe a meter and a half above the middle of the bed. After a few seconds, it faded. I turned to my girlfriend and said, 'I just saw—', and she said, '...a ball of small lights floating over the bed?' She had seen it too!"

12."When I was about 12 or 13 years old, I was walking home from a friend's house after school and passed by a girl who appeared to be slightly younger than I was. She was soaking wet and looked seriously upset, so I asked her what was wrong, but she ignored me. I didn’t think anything of it. When I got home, my father warned me about going near the lakes I had walked by — a 10-year-old girl had drowned in one of them the day before."

13."So, my parents are currently remodeling their kitchen and had to tear down the walls. The workers found about 10 balled-up newspapers in between the walls. My dad straightened out the newspapers one by one, curious what year they were from. The papers were all dated 1980, which would make sense because my parents didn’t buy the house until 1983. But one newspaper was dated 2006. My parents have never taken down the walls before, and the walls were sealed. There is zero reason for one of the papers to be dated 2006."

14."A few years ago, three friends and I went on vacation to a resort. On the third or fourth night, we all decided to crash early. I shared a room with one friend, and our two other friends shared another room on a different floor. As I was laying in bed about to fall to sleep, I turned over in my bed and saw my friend walking around the room. I thought maybe he was texting his girlfriend or was just restless. He moved out of my sight, and I felt my bed sink. I thought to myself, 'Is he putting on shoes? Whatever, I'm tired — I'm gonna go to sleep.' The next morning, I asked him where he went last night. He said, 'What do you mean? I didn't go anywhere.' I asked him why he was walking around the room then. He said he thought that was me walking around. No one else had a key card to our room. Yet we both saw someone walking around our room."

15."When I was a senior in high school, my dad drove me across the state (New Mexico) to check out a college. We were in the middle of nowhere in the desert, and we needed gas. We saw a small station and pulled into it. There was a note taped to the pump that said, 'See cashier for payment.' There was one car parked on the side of the building, and it didn't look like it had been there long at all, but we didn't see a single person. We walked up the building, and the door was locked. You could see all the merchandise was still boxed up and the shelves were empty. There was a door in the back that had a deep freeze pushed in front of it as if someone was trying to keep something (or someone) from being able to open it. It was so quiet and eerie. I looked at my dad, and he looked at me, and we quickly got back into the car and got the hell out of there."

16."I used to be a ghost tour guide in Colonial Williamsburg. One night shortly after the holidays, I was leading an extended 10 p.m. tour. We got to one of the stops, and I talked about the history of the location while a few people took pictures. After I was done talking, one of my guests came up to me with her phone and said, 'I think you should see this.' It was a picture of me, and standing by my right shoulder was a large, dark figure with a smile that I can only describe as demonic. I cried, 'Oh sh*t!' We moved on with the tour pretty quickly after that."

17."This didn’t happen to me, but it happened to my mom’s friend. One day, the friend and her sister were driving on the freeway. I don’t remember how it happened, but the car crashed and flipped/rolled over five lanes. My mom’s friend was the only one conscious. She was trapped under the steering wheel, and her sister’s head was bleeding really bad. She said a normal-looking man wearing white appeared out of nowhere, came up to them, and took off his shirt to wrap the sister’s head, and then left. When the paramedics arrived, they asked who wrapped the sister’s head, and she told them. The paramedics asked where the man went, and she pointed to the direction he walked. The paramedics said they had just come from that direction and no one was on the road for miles. They also said that if her head hadn't been wrapped, she would have bled out and died."

18.And finally: "I lived in a house that was a party house before I moved in. My roommate's best friend, who also lived there, had died in the front yard saving someone else from the highway. Several years later, I was bouncing [the friend's] basketball on the front porch as my roommate was loading some stuff in his car to move for the semester. At some point, the ball ended up in the bushes by the door. I said bye to my roommate, he left, and I went inside. A few hours later, I walked into the kitchen, and the basketball was on the island. I froze in the doorway for several seconds. This basketball had never been inside the house once in the four years that I lived there. It still gives me chills any time I think about it."

Fox

—u/XxRefuse2Lose

What's YOUR spookiest story that you can't explain? Tell us in the comments.

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