People Are Sharing Creepy Stories Of Things That Happened To Them, And They'll Send A Chill Up Your Spine
I think it's safe to say that all of us enjoy hearing, watching, or reading the occasional creepy story — but especially if that creepy story is something that happened to someone in real life.
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And a few months back, Reddit User u/alienwhispers wanted to get some true life stories when they asked: "What's your personal ghost/creepy story?"
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The thread had lots of replies with people sharing spooky things that happened to them. Here are some of the top-voted and best stories:
1."Our previous house was haunted. There was a little girl named Annie and also a man. When we first moved in, there would be a flowery perfume smell on and off in our downstairs hallway (think saltbox-style house). That went away after the first few months. Toys would be moved around regularly, chairs would shake occasionally, things would disappear from where you laid them but would be returned later, footsteps, sound of change falling but no change found on the floor. Once we came home to find our dining room door closed and our chairs piled in front of it. I saw the man maybe a half dozen times very clearly. Annie would sometimes run really fast through the house leaving a 'wind trail' behind her, but she'd just look like a white blur.
"We brought in a medium who gave us a bunch of information that we were able to verify by old letters we found in the house and through elderly neighbors. There was never any fear or anything, just two extra beings that we didn't have to feed."
2."My parents lived in a haunted house for maybe two years, and it became very obvious very quickly. She used a Ouija board to find out that it was occupied by a little boy named 'Kevin' (hopefully, at least), and Kevin could be cute, or he could throw some serious tantrums.
"My mom was pregnant with me and doing some dishes in the kitchen while my siblings hung out in the living room. They were maybe 3 and 5 at the time, and my dad was outside doing some lawn work. Either way, what happened definitely wasn’t any of them, because I don’t think they wanted to kill my mom. She bent down to put something in a lower cupboard, and right when she did, something hit the wall and clattered onto the counter with some serious force. When she looked to see what it was, she found a full on knife spinning on the counter that was originally on the table behind her, waiting its turn to be put away. Not a butter knife, but one of those big ones from a knife block. She swears if she hadn’t bent down, it would have stabbed her in the back.
"My parents had a friend we’ll call Jim, who was a plumber by trade. I actually knew Jim when I was a kid, and he was a very nice, goofy kind of guy who wouldn’t hurt a fly. Kevin did not like Jim. Kevin attempted to push Jim down the basement stairs, but to my parents, it just looked like he lost balance. When they asked what happened, Jim said he felt something just slam into his back. The only reason he didn’t go flying and smack his head on the concrete floor, which would have been a concussion at best, is because my dad managed to grab the back of his shirt JUST in time. Jim did not fix what was wrong in the basement, and never stepped foot near a ledge while in or around that house again."
3."I work at Walmart. One day, we had to move a whole bunch of pallets of freight out of the way to set up for the truck. We lined a few pallets of TVs that were wrapped in plastic up against a wall. I went about 10 feet away from them and started to pick some stuff that had fallen from another pallet off the floor.
"I looked up and saw one of my coworkers looking toward me with a stunned/scared look on her face. I turned around, and one of those pallets of TVs had fallen all the way down until they almost touched the floor, and then set right back up the way we had left it. As if somebody had leaned the TVs on their side and pulled them back up. Nobody was around it.
"I turned back to my coworker, and she said, 'I’m glad you saw that, too.' We never spoke of it again."
4."I was in the kitchen at 5 a.m. making breakfast; when I finished, I noticed from the corner of my eye that the drawer was slightly opening by itself. I didn’t really think much about it, so I continued minding my business until the drawer slammed shut so hard it hurt my ears. I was so frightened yet couldn’t move a muscle, so I just stood there staring at it. That’s when it hit me, and I quickly took my stuff and went upstairs."
5."All of this happened when I was somewhere around 6-8. One day, I was going into my room to change my clothing when a random pen flew at me out of nowhere. Keep in mind there was NO PEN in my room at the time. I obviously call my mum because I was scared, and she was concerned because she does believe in ghosts. Fast-forward a month or two later: I’m going into my room when I see a little girl the same age and the same height as me standing in my room next to a rocking horse. I was supposed to be a twin; however, my twin died before she/he was born. My mother reckoned that the ghost was my twin."
6."I'm a paranormal investigator as a hobby, been doing it for years and am in love with the science behind it. However, I'm also a hardened skeptic, and will do everything in my power to explain what may be happening in a logical way. I've seen a lot I can't explain, but mostly little things that don't bother me. However, there have been a couple that have legitimately frightened me.
"I was out investigating an abandoned motel in the middle of the night out in the middle of the desert. It's just a random place that we found, no claims, no story behind it, just a random building about a two-hour drive from any civilization. There were five of us there, and we spent a good bit of time inside.
"When you walked in, it was very obvious that people had been living there at one point, with food containers and trash nearly covering the floors. When exploring abandoned places like this, I am always armed. Ghosts can't hurt you; however, people and animals can — and often, people are far more frightening.
"After making sure the location was clear and safe, I felt comfortable enough to go into the basement of the structure alone. It was a very old and crumbling basement with shelves lining it, and I had to be careful on the stairs because they were all but falling apart. I sat myself down on the floor, turned off my light, fired up my recorder and began asking some basic questions.
"I was there for a good half hour before I gave up; nothing was happening, and I wanted to go back to the others. When I stood up, I suddenly began hearing rustling from the opposite corner of the basement, behind the shelves. I turned around and pointed my flashlight over there, but couldn't see anything as it continued. I reached down and grabbed a stone, throwing it into the corner to see if it was an animal; however, it didn't stop. At that point, I drew my firearm from my side and called out, letting whatever it was know that I was armed and that they needed to come out. Still, nothing changed.
"I got a call on my radio from my buddy asking where I was. I told him I was in the basement and told him what was happening, so he knew to head over to me. At that point, I backed up to the stairs, and once I reached them, the noise stopped completely. It was dead silent.
"I looked at the corner for a bit longer, seeing if anything would move before I turned and went to walk up the stairs. And that's when it happened. Large, heavy footsteps came from behind me, moving quickly, and were on top of me within an instant. I jumped and bolted up the stairs, racing to the top before turning around and pointing my gun back down with my flashlight. I knew that was a person, had to be, but there was absolutely nothing at the bottom of the stairs, and everything was silent again.
"I ended up going back to the car and needing a moment after that. I was shaken up pretty good, and to this day, I have no idea what in the hell tried to jump me down in that basement, because my friend went down there right after, and told me it was completely empty."
7."Years ago, when I was living with my father, we had a large CRT TV, and we had a little gnome statue on top of it. While watching TV, we both saw it float off the TV and land on the middle of the living room floor. I picked it up and put it back saying, 'Well, that happened,' and walked away."
8."I have a really vivid memory from when I was around 2 1/2 years old where I was standing up in the crib and crying while looking at a pale, glowing, wavering, humanoid figure that was standing across the room from me. I think I told it repeatedly to go away."
9."I went to bed, and the whole time, I felt like someone was standing beside me. It was also way too dark next to me, like a shadow or something, I don’t know, just deep, deep darkness. I just closed my eyes and told myself I was just imagining things. And then, I felt my blanket being pulled down ever so slowly. So naturally, I jumped up and ran downstairs to my husband, totally freaking out. We went back upstairs together, put on the lights, and there was nothing, nobody. Just a really weird vibe. Even my husband (who is the most rational person when it comes to these kinds of things) felt it. It was in my daughter’s room. My kids were with their grandma at the time. My daughter has never complained about anything weird in her room. Never slept there again."
10."My childhood home was built around an old farmhouse in the mountains. You always felt like you were being watched, even during the day. There were several weird incidents, but most of the time, you could just excuse it as being animal related, wilderness related, or just parts of the old house related, LOL.
"There is one incident that to this day I cannot find any reasonable explanation for. For context, I have three siblings, and all of our rooms were on the main floor on one side of the house, while my parents' bedroom was upstairs on the opposite side. We were rowdy kids, so they planned this when building the house, haha. You had to go through our kitchen to get to the area where the stairs were to their room.
"Anyway, one night, I was in my room, and I was probably in the third or fourth grade. I had a mean but cute chihuahua that slept with me every night. On this night, I couldn’t sleep. She suddenly kept looking at the corner of my ceiling and growling, which she had never done before. She did this for probably 10 minutes or so before I got so scared I jumped out of bed, took a blanket off my bed, and then scooped up my little chihuahua and headed straight for my parents comfy floor by their bed. As I was literally running, I stopped dead in my tracks as I saw a little/teenage(?) ghost girl in a white night gown run from one side of the kitchen and disappear into our dark living room. Now, as an adult, I could say it was my imagination, but my dog that I was holding in my arms saw it. I know it sounds crazy, but our heads literally slowly turned at the same time as we both watched this girl who wasn’t really a human run about 10 feet in front of us. How do you explain us both seeing this at the same time because I honestly would love to know, LOL.
"I was frozen for a few seconds, and my dog was looking into the living room, but it was so dark I couldn’t see anything. I sprinted so fast up those stairs and woke my mom up, and of course, she said it was a nightmare."
11."I'm a medium, so I can see and talk to spirits. I met this one spirit who said his name was Sam and that he died in the 1920s. He looked young that I thought he must have died at the age of, like, 20 or 22, but he told me had been killed by his fiancée. I felt bad for him, so I would try to spend as much time with him as possible, well, until he started acting strange — like scaring my family, knocking over things, and getting violent with me.
"I would be sitting there, and he would be standing there squeezing my wrist. One time, I was sleeping on the couch, and just as I was waking up, I could feel someone choking me — I was scared; I thought I was going to pass out, then it stopped. A few more violent things happened, and that's when I had enough, and I told my family.
"They took me to go see my uncle, who worked at a church, and the priest at that church had a relative who was a medium that was more experienced than me. So, they did an investigation of what this spirit or thing wanted. The medium found out that this spirit was so attached to me that he wanted me dead so we could be together as spirits. The priest and the medium did something, and Sam was put to rest."
12."I was about 7 or 8 years old, and my brother and I shared a room, with me on the higher bunk. Just for fun, I had all of my plushies piled into a barrier of sorts. At around somewhere between 2 and 4 in the morning, I slowly began to wake up. But it wasn’t dark; it was almost like faded light, with a hint of green. I was confused, but my head turned, and I looked at the door and saw a figure standing there. The silhouette looked like that of my mom, but blank and empty. I turned my head away and then back; it was still there. I did it once more and looked back, and it was gone. Just an empty doorway. I didn’t know what was going on and didn’t say anything about it."
13."I was alone at home and decided to take a shower and go to bed. I turned on the music on my phone and went into the shower. Through the sound of water, I could hear distinct footsteps in the kitchen. I turned off the music and lowered the water pressure. I was standing and listening and not understanding anything. Who was walking around when I was home alone? The door to the bathroom was open; opposite the door, there is a mirror with a sink, and I see a shadow passing into the room from the kitchen. I froze.
"The shadow left the room and went to another. A minute later, the shadow just goes into another room, and this time, I hear footsteps — heavy and slow. And at some point, I realize that the shadow is approaching me. I didn't have anything for self-defense, so I grabbed deodorant, preparing to either spray someone in the face or hit someone with it. I look out of the bathroom into the corridor, but I don’t see or hear anyone. I'm paranoid, so I quickly ran to the kitchen, grabbed the biggest knife I had and went to check all the rooms. I didn't find anyone. The windows are all closed, the door is locked. You can only get into my apartment through the door. I live on the fifth floor, so I doubt that you can somehow climb into the window. I didn't sleep that evening. Sat with a knife and my rat in an embrace all night."
14."My parents' house has an unbuilt room on the second floor which we use for storage. It's basically just the roof, no lights, 2x4 flooring, and wires. The room's door is very tight, so we have to give it a good shoulder shove to fully close it. There's a loud 'phoom' sound that comes with it closing.
"I was home alone one afternoon and decided to do some cleaning. I took the vacuum from the room and didn't shove the door fully closed since I'd have to put the vacuum away later. After an hour, I took a break. As I was watching TV in the nearby living room, I heard the loud "phoom" sound, which jolted me out of my seat. I checked on the door and found that it was fully closed. It's been six years, and I still have no clue what happened, but I try to stay out of that room since, LOL."
And lastly...
15."I don't remember this because I was so young. But my mother told me a story about a house we used to live in. We'd been there maybe a week, and for that whole week, I'd been talking to an 'imaginary friend.' Mom didn't think much of it at first, because imaginary friends are common for kids to have, but for that week, we'd been hearing what sounded like mice or raccoons in the attic. The attic was locked from the inside, so whoever locked it never came out.
"My dad busted the hinges and went up there to kill the mice or raccoons. But there was nothing up there except five candles with flames hovering over the wick instead of on the wick. There was no other ways in or out, and nothing up there except the candles. As soon as dad saw the candles, the house went from 'eh creepy' to full on poltergeist. It sounded like someone was beating the walls in my room only, and my lights went off.
"Dad convinced my mom it was just the animals leaving the house now that their hiding spot is no longer hidden. All I know about the imaginary friend is that he was the 'little boy in the wall.' Mom, still to this day, refuses to tell me about the conversations I held with him other than they got really creepy after the venturing into the attic.
"We moved out after being there one month, and I never talked to the boy in the wall again. Any time I try to bring it up to mom, she gets nervous and a little scared and absolutely refuses to give more details than what I have written here."
You can read the full thread of responses on Reddit.
Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.
