r/TrueScaryStories

For context, I did use AI to rewrite my story, I think it helps me flesh out some details and just makes it more interesting. I can post my original writings about it if you want, but everything in this story is true to the best of my memories. I do plan on drawing what I saw, its pretty much stuck in my memory and i remember my parents house like the back of my hand. I will sketch it out soon and update this. Also just some more details i forgot, this happened in Nash County NC. I had several other encounters which I will document soon as well. Ask any questions you like, thanks all.

Above the Tree Line

I was twenty-one or twenty-two when it happened. Even now, at fifty-one, I cannot remember the exact year, or why I had moved back into my parents’ house for a while. Certain parts of that time have faded into the general haze of early adulthood. Jobs, relationships, the restless uncertainty of being young—they have all blurred together.

But I remember that night.

I was sitting in my bedroom with my friend Jeremy, whom we called Germ. We were waiting for our friend Adam to arrive. The plan was nothing unusual. Adam was bringing some forty-ounce beers, and we were going to spend the night drinking and hanging out, as we often did back then. We were young Gen Xers with nowhere particular to be the next morning.

It was already after midnight. I remember that because my parents had gone to bed. Friends arriving at that hour was not unusual at our house, however, and I was not concerned about waking anyone.

My parents lived in a double-wide in the country. A long wooden porch ran across the front of the house, something my mother had built herself. She was good at that sort of thing. The driveway was gravel and curved around the house in a horseshoe. At night, you could always hear a car coming. The tires grinding over the stones would announce someone well before they reached the door.

That night, Adam’s car sounded louder than usual.

I noticed it, but only vaguely. There was nothing alarming about it at first. Germ and I heard the car pull in and continued waiting for Adam to come inside.

A moment later, he burst into my bedroom.

He looked shaken.

“Dude,” he said, “a UFO almost landed on my car.”

I laughed.

I thought he was messing with me. My friends knew I had seen strange things in the sky before, things I considered UFOs, and I assumed Adam was using that knowledge to give me a hard time.

But he did not laugh.

He was completely serious. Something had passed very close over his car as he drove toward the house, and he wanted us to come outside with him.

The three of us stepped onto the porch.

When I say it was dark, I do not mean suburban darkness. I mean country darkness. There were no streetlights. There were no nearby businesses or glowing parking lots. The few houses along the road were separated by wide stretches of land. Once the lights inside the house were behind you, the night seemed to become a physical thing.

The woods began perhaps three hundred feet behind the house. I cannot swear to the distance. Memory rearranges measurements over time. I only know that I could have walked from the porch to the tree line in less than a minute.

The woods stretched in both directions, forming a black wall against the sky.

Adam began describing what he had seen, but I was barely listening. I was searching the darkness above the trees.

Then I saw it.

It was off to the left, roughly three houses down. That was a considerable distance where we lived, because the houses were spread far apart.

At first, I thought it was a helicopter.

That was the only familiar object my mind could attach to it. It appeared to be hovering near the tree line, and from that distance its shape was difficult to understand.

“It’s just a helicopter,” I said.

Then it turned.

The moment it changed direction, the explanation fell apart.

It was not a helicopter.

I could see it clearly now. The main body was long and cigar-shaped. Around it were four glowing orbs, positioned as though they marked four sides of the object. I do not remember any windows, seams, markings or mechanical details. I do not remember a metallic surface. What remains in my memory is the shape and those four lights surrounding it.

It moved above the tree line.

There was no sound.

That silence is one of the things I remember most clearly. A helicopter close enough to see would have beaten the air apart. We would have heard engines, rotors or some mechanical vibration traveling across the fields.

There was nothing.

The object floated toward my parents’ house without making even the faintest noise. It did not move the way an airplane moves, and it did not seem to struggle against gravity. It simply advanced, slowly and deliberately, as though the air offered no resistance.

The three of us stood on the porch and watched it approach.

None of us spoke.

What had begun as curiosity became something else when it drew close. The distance between observing a strange light and realizing that the light is coming toward you is enormous. One moment, you are a spectator. The next, you feel as though you have been noticed.

It passed near the house and came to a stop behind us, hovering just above the trees.

It was very close.

I was terrified.

There is no dignified way to describe it. I was scared shitless. The object remained there for several seconds, silent and motionless, while we stood exposed on the porch beneath it.

I do not know whether it was watching us. I do not know whether the pause meant anything at all. But in that moment, it felt intentional.

Then it began to move again.

It floated directly away from us, continuing above the trees until the darkness swallowed it. There was no sudden burst of speed. No dramatic flash. No roar of engines. It simply traveled beyond our sight as quietly as it had arrived.

We stayed outside for a while, staring into the place where it had disappeared.

Nothing returned.

The night became ordinary again, but it did not feel ordinary.

Adam, Germ and I had not started drinking yet. None of us had taken drugs. We were sober when Adam arrived, sober when we walked onto the porch and sober when we watched that object move silently above the tree line.

Thirty years have passed.

Memory is not perfect. I know this. Some distances may have shifted. Certain details may have become sharper or less distinct with time. That is why I still ask Adam and Jeremy about it. Every so often, I bring up that night and compare what I remember with what they remember.

I want to make sure it really happened the way I think it did.

Their memories remain close enough to mine.

I still do not know what we saw.

I only know that it was there.

I’ve had sleep paralysis before, but this was different.
Usually, when it happens, I know exactly what’s going on. I can’t move, I can’t speak, and after a few seconds I wake up completely. This time, I wasn’t dreaming.
At least, I don’t think I was.

It happened around 3:40 in the morning. I remember checking my phone before putting it on my nightstand because I had work the next morning. I fell asleep on my back. Then I woke up. I could see my bedroom.
My ceiling fan was spinning. The streetlight outside was shining through the blinds. My phone was still sitting on the nightstand. Everything looked completely normal.
Except I couldn’t move. I tried lifting my arm. Nothing.

I tried opening my mouth. Nothing. Then I heard someone walking in the hallway. Slow footsteps. My bedroom door was open about six inches. I live alone. I immediately started telling myself it was just sleep paralysis. My brain was probably creating sounds that weren’t actually there.
Then the footsteps stopped. Right outside my door.
I stared at the opening. Nothing moved.

A few seconds passed. Then I heard a quiet whisper. “Are you awake?” I nearly lost it. The voice sounded like my sister. But my sister lives nine states away. I tried screaming her name, but nothing came out. Then the door slowly opened another inch. I couldn’t see anyone.
Just darkness in the hallway. And then something happened that still makes my stomach turn.

My phone lit up. I could see the screen from my bed.
Someone was calling me. The caller ID said ME. My own phone number. I watched it vibrate against the nightstand. Once. Twice. Three times. I couldn’t move. Then the call stopped. The bedroom went completely silent. I thought it was over. Then my phone screen lit up again. This time, it wasn’t a call. It was my camera.

The front-facing camera had opened by itself. And I could see my own face on the screen. My eyes were open.
But behind me… There was someone standing beside my bed. I couldn’t turn my head. I could only see them on my phone. They were extremely tall. Too tall. Their head was almost touching the ceiling. I couldn’t make out a face. It was just this dark shape standing completely still.

I started crying. And then the figure leaned closer to me.
Except it didn’t move on the phone screen. It moved in the actual room. I felt the mattress sink beside my leg.
Something had sat down. I could feel the weight. I could feel the mattress pressing against my body. And then I felt breathing against my ear. Slow. Wet. Almost like someone had just run a mile. I was waiting for it to say something.

Instead, it whispered: “You always wake up before I get here.” I don’t know why, but that sentence scared me more than anything else. Because it sounded like this had happened before. Like whatever was beside me had been waiting for me to notice it. Then I heard my bedroom door slam shut. The mattress suddenly lifted. I could move. I shot out of bed and grabbed my phone. The room was empty. The door was closed. I turned on every light in the apartment and checked every room. Nobody was there.

I barely slept for the rest of the night. The next morning, I told myself it was just an extremely vivid episode of sleep paralysis. Until I looked at my phone. There was a photo in my camera roll that I didn’t remember taking. It was a picture of my bedroom. Taken from the doorway. The timestamp was 3:47 AM. I was asleep in the bed. And standing beside me was a tall, dark figure.

The worst part? I live alone. And the photo had been taken from inside my apartment. I deleted it. I changed my locks. I even bought a camera for my bedroom. I haven’t had sleep paralysis since. But three nights ago, I checked the camera footage before bed. There was one video recorded at 3:47 AM. The room was empty.

For the first few minutes, nothing happened. Then the bedroom door slowly opened. Nobody walked in. But the mattress on my bed suddenly sank. Like someone had just sat down. And then, from somewhere directly beside the camera, I heard my own voice whisper: “You always wake up before I get here.” I haven’t slept in that room since. And honestly… I’m starting to wonder if the thing I saw wasn’t visiting me during sleep paralysis. Maybe sleep paralysis was the only time I was actually able to see it.

​

My mom was in her early twenties when this happened.

She rarely talks about it, and when she does, she changes the subject almost immediately.

That time was a winter night in the mid-1970s, she was driving home after visiting a friend. The highway was nearly empty, and the closest town was still miles away.

As she rounded a bend, she noticed a man standing beside a small car parked on the shoulder. One of his arms was in a sling, and he waved politely, asking for help.

She slowed down.

He smiled, stepped closer to the window, and explained that he was having trouble loading something into his car. He spoke calmly, looked well-dressed, and didn't seem threatening.

Then my mom noticed something that made her uneasy.

The passenger door of his car was missing its inside handle.

She couldn't explain why, but every instinct told her to leave.

She apologized, said her father was expecting her, and drove away.

When she glanced into the rearview mirror a few seconds later, the man was still standing there, watching her car disappear into the darkness.

A few months later, newspapers across the region were filled with stories about several young women who had vanished under mysterious circumstances. Investigators believed the same unknown man was responsible.

And a few years later in 1976 my mother read in the newspaper that my mom saw the photo of that unknown man in that newspaper. who was asking for help A few years ago

She still remembers the man's face.

Whenever someone asks why she always locks her car doors the moment she gets inside, she simply says, "Some people look harmless until they aren't."

And that unknown man is not unknown but he is the infamous serial killer Ted Bundy who committed 30+ murders and he was accused of committing more than 100

uh hi i am new to reddit so i apologize if i do something wrong lmao also im severly dyslexic and have a hard time with words so im sorry if i fuck it up....heres a lil background i am a 17 year old still living at home with my younger siblings all under 14 and with my single mother all of us are female... we had some new neighbors move in recently, an elderly father with his looks to be around 40-60 yr old son (yes i know a pretty big age gap but im honestly just guessing) a few weeks after they moved in my mom went over to welcome them to the neighborhood with 2 of my younger sisters and she was talking to the older man and he had told my mother that he liked younger girls and then smiled after while looking over at my sisters my mom very quickly finished the conversation and went back home. it has been about 2 months since they moved in and recently we noticed the father and son both sitting on their front porch with chair facing our driveway which obviosly was very creepy yesterday my mom brought it to my attention that they have a camera facing right into our living room window idk if this is how it is everywhere but in my state it is technicly illigal to have a camera facing someone else yard/property we are going to be calling our non emergince number to report it i will give updates ig if anything happens

thank you for reading this if you did once again i am sorry if i did this wrong this is my first post.

So my friends homie once went on this date with this guy she met on tinder. for the sake of the story and for the safety of her, lets call him A and we will call her S. S lived in new York city and A was just visiting.

The date started ehhh and it was pretty awkward but he seemed like a nice guy so she continued entertaining his dumb icebreakers and questions. Towards the end of the date during a Extremely awkward moment, the silence was finally broken by A saying "Soooo I have a flight at JFK super early in the morning and do you think it would be okay if I slept at your house for a little?" She reluctantly said yes because she didn't really know him but he seemed trustworthy enough as long as he minded his own business and didn't do anything weird. THIS WOULD BE THE WORST MISTAKE SHE HAS EVER MADE.

At about 11 they get to S's house and they walk in the creaky small New York apartment (if your from New York you know what i'm talking about lol). it was a one bedroom one bathroom apartment with a small kitchen, hallway and living room with a couch big enough for someone to stay the night on. The smell of weed and sounds of your neighbors (not so healthy relationship) filled the air as well as the bustling traffic outside. she lived a few story's up.

After setting up his makeshift couch bed S said "Soooooo... Im gonna go to bed, help yourself to food or coffee or whatever you need, Goodnight." He replied "no worries thank you so much for letting me stay." She walked towards her bedroom and shut the door and instinctively locked her bedroom door which would be the best decision she has ever made.

At about 1 am she wakes up to the sounds of rustling which she dismisses as him "probably just packing or making food or something" and her eyes drift back to sleep. Then, about 30 minutes later she's woken up to 3 soft knocks on her bedroom door. "Hey can you open the door, I need water." Her being half asleep half suspicious and probably annoyed she ignores him and just pretends to be asleep. 10 seconds pass and he knocks again. "hey, I need water" 10 seconds pass. he knocks again, with every 10 seconds the knocking gets more and more aggressive. S starts to feel that somethings wrong but keeps faking asleep. Then at one point he's slamming her door saying "LET ME IN LET ME IN LET ME THE FUCK IN". S yells at him to "Get the fuck out weirdo i'm calling the police!" She quickly hears him run away and slam the front door shut while proceeding to run down the stairs of the New York apartment building. S still hasn't called the police but after 30 minutes she finally musters up the courage to slowly walk to her bedroom door and unlock it. As she opens the bedroom door her heart drops at what she sees.

THE WHOLE FUCKING HOUSE IS COVERED IN PLASTIC.

UPDATE: there was a hoax that is going around about the hinge date story and it became an urban legend but I TRULY TRULY believe this is where it came from because this story is %100 COMPLETELY TRUE! I WISH it was fake bro i really do.

Also just wanted to include she lived in deep new york near jfk which is also why she was less suspicious about.

This is very short and simple although it’s kinda scary. I grew up in Ethiopia until I was 18 before I moved to USA. I lived in the capital “Addis Ababa” with my grandma. Three houses down we had a
neighbor with family of 4 sons and husband. They were super private. Years passed and when I was 14 her oldest son committed suicide by hanging himself on Good Friday. And the next consecutive years the rest 3 sons died of suicide by hanging themselves all on GOOD FRIDAY. And weirdly she and her husband were not as sad as you would expect them to be. Anyway the community and the family thought it’s a demon or negative spirit type shit. I’ve always thought it’s a murder but who knows. This story might not be that scary but the way they died and all in 4 consecutive Good Friday makes it unsettling for me what do yall think ?

Apologies if there is a grammar and spelling error.

Edit: all of us were poor including them so there is no materialistic motive behind it and all the kids were aged 18-25 or 26 so they’re capable of defending themselves. Everybody thought they were possessed

So this is my first real Reddit post so bear with me, I’m sorry if this is too long.

I was around 25 at the time when this started (I am now 31F)
My father has always lived in the country, but he eventually decided to live entirely off of the grid on an actual GPS coordinate.
He took a small old run down home that had been vacant for years, and turned it into a massive house. I’m talking 5 upstairs bedrooms, 6 downstairs. It was so he and my mom could start adopting older kids in need.
Well I ended up having to move to my dad’s due to a horrible breakup, and things started off small.
The house immediately felt creepy. It was so large and even though it had so many rooms it felt so vacant. It echoed throughout.
I don’t know why I felt this sense of dread but I just couldn’t shake it.
It started off feeling like I was being watched. I would walk down long halls to use the restroom and sense someone standing at the end to the point I’d turn around and use a different bathroom.
I generally slept downstairs near the living room but one day my father told me a new child would be taking that room, so I would move upstairs to the room that overlooked the entire property through the window.

And when I did that, everything bad started.
It began with subtle nightmares. I dreamt of arrowheads one night.
The next evening I was going to my room to find out Brenan (17M) kid had walked through the property and found them everywhere.
I asked my dad and the house was built on an old Native American reservation.

The next night I had a horrible night terror. I was being murdered over and over again in the same field by different men in an abandoned hut. I was brought there by betrayal in the beginning of each one by the person I loved most-my twin. I could feel the pain of them pouring gasoline on my face and the burn of it in my nostrils and throat. I felt my skin light on fire for a split second which woke me up. The pain of a nightmare. It was physical agony. But when I awoke it was gone.
I knew each time I’d fall back asleep the nightmare would continue. And the torture was awful. No matter what I tried I could not escape. Again and again I was betrayed and murdered and somehow the betrayal hurt worse.

I went in to the living room one night and across the room from the kitchen, I saw a Native man in his war bonnet sitting in the rocking chair. He was so very CLEARLY there. I saw the colors of his feathers, his tan complexion. The wrinkles of his face. He looked so angry but he just sat there…still. Just staring. I couldn’t move-and I don’t remember anything except I ended up back in my bedroom, and woke up???
I knew I had been awake but somehow I woke up as if I hadn’t just walked across the entire house and downstairs to the kitchen.

I told Brenan to get rid of the arrowheads, and to leave their land alone. But he did not. He took pleasure in rummaging through things. He wasn’t a bad kid he was fascinated.
One night my newish partner stayed with me and we had an almost identical night terror. We woke up at the same exact moment.
My daughter’s face was underneath a truck and I watched as it spun to rip the skin off of her face as she screamed, begging for me to save her. It was so real and horrifying. It tore me apart. I will never forget it.
His nightmare? He was crying but betraying his closest friend, while possessed and ripping the skin off of his face.
We both stared at one another out of breath and just entirely freaked out. He really couldn’t believe it and it shook him for about a week.

Finally one night I had my first ever sleep paralysis.
In this nightmare I was drug by my left arm by an invisible entity across a shag rug. I could feel the carpet burn.
I stopped immediately and was dropped next to “my bed” and underneath the darkness of the bed there was a humanoid creature. Translucent light skin. Its purple and red veins were protruded and pulsing. Its arms were sewn into its sides, as well as its legs. Its mouth was too but it was also not there somehow still.
Black beads for eyes very far apart, no nose. Covered lightly in blood.
Slowly it wiggled closer and closer to me while it spoke “give me give me give me”
I was NOT on my back when I woke up. I was on my side and the creature was on my bed face to face inches from me. My bed was PHYSICALLY shaking from it wiggling so hard as it pushed into me over and over again. Just loudly this demonic raspy higher pitch masculine tone repeated “give me, give me, give me”
I couldn’t scream. I tried to but I couldn’t.
I shook out of it and jumped out of my bed. My eyes were wide and I was terrified to move. I tried to call anyone at 3am but there was no signal upstairs.
I began sobbing and shaking. I quietly went towards the upstairs living room and an upstairs room window was open.
My hair stood up and again I was frozen. Stuck to the wall for like 30 minutes. Eventually I was able to make my way to the window and look out over the back of the property. And far out across the field I saw a light on above a little hut.
Then it hit me, that was the hut in my dream.
I tried to tell my dad time and time again, but he wouldn’t listen. I don’t know why I was targeted, as I tried to be the most respectful of the land-but I was.
I have many other stories following this of what happened to me, but for now I thought I would share the story of this house.
The beginning of a horrible spirit that attached itself to me for three years.

​

This incident happened on a cold winter night. I was alone in my room on the first floor, completely engrossed in a phone call with a Facebook friend. Even today, I vividly remember that whatever I saw was massive—though to this day, I have no idea what it actually was.

Here is exactly what happened that night.

I was casually talking to my friend, and we were so lost in our conversation that I didn't even realize when the clock ticked past midnight. I was sitting on a chair, and exactly to my right was the open door of my room. As I talked, my eyes would naturally drift back and forth between the space in front of me and the open doorway.

To understand what happened next, you need to know a bit about the layout of our house. We didn't have a direct staircase leading up to my floor. Instead, we had built a makeshift bridge out of wooden planks connecting our roof to our neighbor’s roof, and we used their stairs to get up and down. Whenever someone walked across those wooden planks, it produced a loud, distinct creaking noise. It was a sound so clear that anyone sitting inside my room could easily hear it.

The night crept on, and the time neared 2:00 AM. My friend and I were still on the phone. As I casually glanced toward the open door again, my blood ran cold. I saw something pass right in front of the doorway and move toward the makeshift bridge. A second later, I heard it—the unmistakable, heavy sound of footsteps crossing the wooden planks.

My immediate reaction was rational. I assumed it was just my dad wrapped in a heavy winter shawl, or perhaps my sister trying to pull a late-night prank to scare me. Without wasting a second, I bolted out of the room to catch them in the act.

I stepped out into the freezing night and looked around. I even crossed the wooden planks myself, scouring every corner and every shadow where my sister could possibly be hiding.

But there was no one. The roof was completely dead and empty.

Highly confused, I walked back into my room and sat down. It was only then, as I thought deeply about what had just happened, that my brain processed what my eyes had actually seen. Whatever had passed by my door wasn't human-sized. It was impossibly huge—so tall that, from my chair, I had only been able to see its torso. Worse still, it wasn't a solid physical body. It was blurry, shifting, and formless, looking more like a thick, dark fog than a person.

I tried to stay in the room, but a heavy, unsettling feeling washed over me. The atmosphere felt incredibly wrong. Panic completely took over, and in my fear, I immediately called my older brother, who was away doing a night shift at his company.

At first, he scolded me for calling him so late. But after hearing what had happened, he quickly gave me strict advice: "Don't stay up there. Go downstairs and sleep immediately."

I didn't hesitate. Keeping my brother on the phone so I wouldn't feel alone, I quickly locked the door, left the first floor behind, and hurried downstairs to safety.

This happened to me 18 years ago, approximately, and obvisouly swear it's true. That being said, I am sure there is an explanation out there, but I have yet to fully confirm what it is, and still have a much creepier and scared impression of this event than anything else to this day.

To preface and give some slight context, I was living alone at the time at my dad's house, which he basically never came to for weeks at the time since he was living at his girlfriends place back then. He would quickly swing by maybe once a month to get his mail, but otherwise, I had the whole place for myself.

As a 16 year old back then, it was really great to have a whole house to myself, but also creepy at times, since the house itself had a really weird vibe to it. Although that might just have been me imagining things at night time, some weird occurrences happened in this place during the period I lived there alone, and even when the house was full with the rest of the family. Feeling watched, hearing unexplainable noises, misplaced objects. Just random things that eventually added up. But these are stories for another time.

So back then, I sadly lost a great friend to a car accident. He was one of my best buddies, and just started to reconnect after he changed schools and we haven't seen each other for a few years. He was an absolute blast to hang out with, and would come over to my place almost daily during this period.

The accident happened so unexpectedly, as most accident I guess, but it was one of my first confrontation with the death of someone close whose not an elderly family member. He was also 18 at the time just like me and our friend circle, so it was hard to deal with in general.

Few weeks later, I started to have extremely vivid dreams, not necessarily scary ones, but pretty weird and upsetting. The dreams would often have me struggling with I don't know what, being extremely cautious, in different sections of the house, and I could never get out. They were increasingly becoming more intense, and somewhat repetitive. These dreams would always stand out to me as they felt much more real, in a setting that was too familiar.

Now to get back to my late friend, as I mentioned, before his passing, we would see each other almost daily. So much so that he would pretty much just come and go as he pleased, and wouldn't even knock when swinging by, especially since I lived there alone basically at this stage.

So it wouldn't be weird or unexpected to randomly hear the door swing open with him hollering at me that he ''was home'' as he would jokingly yell from time to time.

That being said, one night, I started to have the same kind of dream I've had for a few weeks at this point, where I'd have some sort of POV of me slowly walking through the house, in a basically pitch black setting, but still able to maneuver my way through different rooms, seemingly looking or waiting for something to happen. At least, that's about how it ''felt''. And at some point in the dream, while I was at the very end of the basement in my room where my bed was, I heard the front door of the house slam open extremely loud, like unbearingly so, and it woke me up in absolute terror.

I had never woken up from a dream or nightmare like that, always thought it was more of a movie cliche than real life. But here I was, basically waking up exactly where I was in the dream at this point, heart pumping so loud I could hear it.

The noise was so loud, and the dream so realistic that I was not even sure if I dreamt the door opening part or not. It was 3;16 am. I got out of bed and slowly walked back upstairs to confirm the door was well closed and locked, which I would always make sure of before going to bed alone in the house.

On the last step up looking right, even in the dark, I could spot the golden door handle and locket in the closed/locked position, everything was seemingly fine, besides the eerie atmosphere. Still felt unbelievably queasy and upset about the dream for some reason, and decided to flick open the main lights of the living room which was the room you would get into from the entrance, and then I saw it ;

There were dozens and dozens of footsteps marks on the ground, going in circles and just all around the place on this level of the house. They were the kind of footsteps you'd leave in the winter after walking in snow and calcium, messy ones, all dried up, and just generally going in chaotic directions all over. They were in the living room kitchen, both bedrooms of the upstairs area and the bathroom. Some of the tracks would go straight into walls, going in circles, etc.

It was completely surreal, I stood there frozen in shock trying to register what I was looking at and feeling like something happened that I simply completely lost my memory of. My brain felt like I must have made this mess myself without knowing, although I knew deep down it wasn't the case. Nothing else in the house seemed to have moved, everything was in order besides the hundreds of footsteps staining the floor. I kept retracing their paths from the rooms all the way to the front door, and for some reason was thinking about my friend who was the only one opening this door randomly in the last few weeks besides me. I had never felt this kind of stuff before nor after, but it was like I could feel his presence somehow but not in a good way ? It's really hard to explain, and I was also trying to ignore this feeling as much as possible, trying to remain level headed and not giving into the weird creepy vibe.

I slowly cleared each room one after one out of fear someone was actually inside somewhere. Obviously found no one, and after 15-20 minutes of searching and recouping, I started to clean up the floors and tried to get rid of the footsteps as fast as I could. Before doing so however, I compared the shoe prints with my shoes and the shoes that were by the entrance, thinking at first that I either was sleepwalking, or .... just walked all over the house for some reason without remembering. The shoe prints were extremely weirdly shaped, as in they basically didn't keep the same sizes, and we're not clear enough to identify any kind of sole pattern either. I only had one pair, and they were all clean and dry at this point. Even checked outside by the front door only to see the same fresh snow blanket that fell that evening, and was left undisturbed when I went to bed. I also never sleep walked in my life, although I guess there could be a first time for everything. But the atmosphere felt oddly charged and out of place. It was the first time I could actually feel that kind of energy. The air was heavy, and I felt it more than ever before.

I have never believed in the paranormal in its whole, and personally think there are explanation for everything, even this story. But for the first time in my life, I was left with no clear explanation, and a heavy creepy feeling about it all. A feeling I simply could not shake no matter what.

The dreams quickly stopped after this, returning to normal or just none of them. The place still felt really weird, for some reasons.

As an interesting side note, I eventually got a place of my own in college, and my father sold the house few years after this happened, never fully returning there and moving in completely with his then girlfriend.

When helping him moving out and slowly going through the house, I decided to share what happened that night. I went about it in the most pragmatic way I could, knowing how serious and no bullshit my father was, and especially how much he tought these type of stories were complete bullshit.

And I was shocked to see him looking at me with complete stupor while describing the event, not really commenting, and remaining stern and focused. Without speaking too much, he basically told me this place was ''not good'', and that he himself, for the first time of his life, felt so uncomfortable in there he tried to visit as less as possible, one of the reason he was mainly staying elsewhere. It is the only time and last time I have seen my father kind of expressing fear about something like that.

So there it is, sorry for the long write up, tried to described things as well as possible to put you in my shoes.

EDIT ; Fixed typos.

I grew up with a typical middle class household upbringing. You didn't leave the fan on if you weren't using it, the radio playing if you planned on leaving the house, and you especially didn't leave the tv on while you went about your day unless you wanted your parents to complain about the electric bill.

Well, here I am 30 years old, my own house, no kids, no spouse, working my own job with my own money to do whatever I want. And while occasionally that just means doing things like eating ice cream for breakfast or staying in my pjs all weekend without someone nagging me, or playing the radio as loud as I can without worrying about people living upstairs, I'm still mindful of leaving my electronics running all day if I am out of the house. Call me frugal all you want, but I find it tacky and wasteful.

And maybe I take it a step further than most people but my tv has a sleep timer on it. All of my tech does, in the case that if I ever forget to turn them off, they'll turn off on their own.

Well, it was a night like any other, I was laying on the couch downstairs, texting my friends, while reruns of Regular Show played in the background. I wasn't watching it really, I was more distracted in the group chat. Ryan was cracking us up, and Amy was sharing photos of her vacation to Cancun.

At some point I got up to use the bathroom, and when I returned I realized the tv was off. No big deal, I figured I must have lost track of time and the sleep timer must have gone off. Nothing I wasn't used to and since I wasn't interested in watching more tv anyway, I didn't bother to turn it back on.

My mistake.

My lids were getting heavy so I said goodbye to the gc and reclined back on the couch, ready to crash here for the night, since another perk of living alone means I can sleep wherever I want to.

The whole house was in darkness save for the small lamp in my living room.

Now, I don't mean to brag, but I have a nice tv, one of those 70" babies that make my house the place everyone wants to come to to watch the game. I swear, this girl's a thing of beauty. Always crystal clear 4k with her. Naturally, my eyes drifted off to the black screen, kind of unfocused as sleep called to me beyond the horizon.

In the dark screen I could make out the outline of mundane objects in my house, like shadows. My lamp, the bookcase, the dining room behind me, the couch and my almost sleeping form, just murky black figures.

I was drifting off, no longer paying much attention when I sensed movement. My eyes flicked to the screen, and there it was, my shadowy counterpart lay on the couch, its head turned the way mine was, my reflection looking right at me, until it got up off the couch and walked away. I sat there frozen in shock, turning my head this way and that, certain there was someone else in my house. But then I felt a little ridiculous! Maybe I was the one who got up without realizing.

I stared at the screen again, certain all that would be staring back at me would be my own figure lying on the couch, but from what I could see, everything was there except me?

Something flickered on the screen again, a person, me, walking back to the couch while I lay there, immobile.

I got up immediately and turned on all the lights, grabbing a baseball bat from my glory days and brandishing it as a weapon I searched the house, calling for the intruder to show himself, but I found no one. I checked doors, windows, closets, but still nothing.

Finally, utterly and completely stumped I returned back to the couch, defeated. I looked at the tv again and all I saw of course, was my same living room, completely identical, and my silhouette staring back from the couch.

Again, I felt ridiculous. Ha, too many long nights playing Call of Duty boozed up or staying too late at work with very little sleep, I guess. I laughed and put my feet up, prepared to resume my almost slumber again when I noticed something...there was my reflection but it wasn't reclining, matching my movements the way reflections do, and should. Instead my silhouette was sitting up and waving?

I looked behind me. Nothing.

Immediately I found the remote, turned the tv on and the scary imposter figure vanished. Cartoon antics returned and pretty lights replaced its shadowy face.

I went to the settings and turned the sleep timer off, relieved, until click the tv shut off on its own. I figured maybe my finger must have slipped while I held the remote. A logical explanation really, it had to be the reason.

I closed my eyes, fumbling for the power button. I did not want to see my silhouette anymore. I kept trying but the tv still wouldn't turn on. I had no choice, I would have to turn it back on manually.

I crouched down on my knees trying to find the button on the side of the tv with one hand covering my eyes. It wasn't easy, in fact, it was near impossible, but luckily I found it and the tv switched back on, noise and color filling the space once again. I felt victorious.

I removed my hands from my eyes and breathed a sigh of relief.

Click!

It went off and my living room was once again submerged in darkness. But greeting me this time not on the couch, was my silhouette waving at me. Where I stood between the couch and the television, with some reasonable distance between us, my silhouette sat on the floor pressed against the glass. Somehow it had gotten even closer, we were face to face now, but it had no eyes and no mouth, in the black glass of the tv I could only make out its shape.

Experimentally, I turned my head, left. It followed and did the same as I did. I turned my head, slowly, right, and again it repeated the action as I did, just as slowly. I put my head down, making sure to keep my gaze locked on the screen before me and staying vigilant, but to my horror, my silhouette did not move along. It did not budge.

It sat there watching me.

Waiting.

Then, it waved at me again, but instead of hello, it waved slowly like it was saying a mocking goodbye.

I didn't waste any time, I bolted straight out of my house, my heart in my throat. I didn't even have shoes on.

I'm at my friend Ryan's house right now in his guest room where there's no tv. I've drawn down all the curtains, and I'm typing on my phone right now because even the lock screen going black is making me nervous. What the hell is happening, guys?

I was bow hunting a couple of years ago on some public land. Anyway, I got to the woods a couple of hours before daylight and started quietly sneaking to my deer stand.
It was pitch black in the woods, and before I knew it I found myself turned around. As I went further into the woods I got an uneasy feeling, like I
was being watched. I had some rough GPS coordinates on my phone that marked my deer stand, so I wasn’t too worried about getting a little lost.
Anyway, I kept going and then my boot stepped on something that made a loud cracking noise. Took another step, and then there was another crack. There was glass all around me. Turns out I had stumbled into an old dump and meth lab. It got worse though, because I heard voices around me. There were at least two people there. I took off running and so did they. Not sure what direction they went, but I ran back to some thick stuff and then hid waiting for the sun to come up. I was armed with my bow (and a .45 just in case for an encounter like this).
Eventually the sun came up and I snuck back to my car. Got my deer stand the next day and let the DNR know what happened. Never went back after that. Nothing haunted or anything, but tweakers in a pitch black woods is scary enough.

my dad never lied when I was a kid, he was the most honest man I ever knew and still is. to this day this story scares me. and to this day he still tells it in incredible detail. to descriptive to be fake.

when I was about 10 years old me, my family, and my aunt, uncle and cousin went up camping. It was during hunting season, and my dad and uncle went up to hunt. Me, my siblings, and cousins would play at the campsite till they got back. on the second night my dad and uncle came back early. I’ll never forget the look on there faces. they left around 6:30 in the morning, and came back at 8:00 meaning they had only hiked for at least 15 minutes before driving back. they looked horrifed.

and when a 10 year old sees their dad scared it does a great deal. I asked what happened and they wouldn’t respond until the campfire.

they told the story

They said they found a nice open field where they saw something that looked like elk. the field had an abandoned house, like a ghost town. they didn’t think much of it. then the wind died down..in a way that wasn’t natural. like the breeze cut off. They began to hear children laughing all around them the closer they got to the house. my uncle told me he had heard it all around him, like they were running around. there voices weren’t muffled one bit. my dad said he slowed down trying to listen till he heard all the laughing stop and he felt like someone or something talked into his ear saying “what are you doing here?” The voice was to calm to be human, and his tone was all off like at random points his voice get high pitched then really low, and the volume of the voice would changed. both of them sprinted out of there driving as fast as they could back to the camp site. Not a single word on the drive.

i continue to ask if it was a real story and every time my dad says it was it was it was.

Not looking for horror stories or made-up stuff.

I’m talking about something that actually happened to you — an encounter, a place, a moment, anything that still bothers you when you think about it.

What happened?

Hello! New to the sub-reddit, came to this community to do some reading on some ghost stories that you may post, please put them in the comments below!

The other day, my husband and kids were walking to a baseball game in the middle of the afternoon. Walking ahead of us was a transient talking to himself and kind of walking in circles and zig zags. We were like 6 feet behind him on a walking bridge. To get where we needed to go, we could either slow our pace and stay behind him or speed past.

I grabbed the kids a little tighter as we decided to walk past, but just as we caught up, maybe 2 feet behind him, he pulled out of a gun.

He turned and swung it at us then turned around and swung it in another direction.

We turned around and quickly walked off the bridge (we were close to the start of the bridge). We called the cops. They showed up immediately. They arrested him on the other side of the bridge.

It was unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. As I walked away, I thought, he could shoot me as I’m walking away right now. My husband could be shot. We had our kids in front of us to try to protect them.

I just needed to vent. When did walking to a baseball game in the middle of the day become unsafe? I feel so blessed to be alive. I feel blessed that no one was hurt.

To begin with, I wasn’t too sure where to put this “story” as it could probably fit into 5 different Reddit communities but I definitely didn’t sleep after this personal experience and it’s kept me wondering what genuinely occurred ever since. I wanted other opinions on what I went through and what they believe could’ve took place.

Me and my friends, roughly a group of 7-10 people depending on who adventurers out on what day, like to “urban explore”. We live in Derbyshire and if you also live around here you know there’s many abandoned hospitals, care homes, schools etc along with many old factories and just the general derelict buildings. We’ve had experiences with squatters, security, dogs and even small paranormal events but nothing is more scary than a real, living and breathing person who intends to cause harm in these situations.

There’s strict rules we follow: you can climb walls, fences and go through open windows/doors but you can NOT break in (smashing windows, ripping of boards, kicking in doors etc). You can’t break, smash or steal anything from inside the buildings and you DO NOT run, not from security or police, if you’ve been caught you’ve got to own it, unless of course you’re in immediate danger such as hostile squatters and security dogs chasing you. Being calm and sticking together is the safest option.

I’m a 20 year old female. Me, my boyfriend and our friends have been doing this since we were 17-18 so I have many different stories but this one is potentially the most scared I’ve ever been. We were in a group of 6 and had found a building a couple days ago just outside of Sheffield after seeing it all over TikTok. I won’t name it here and if you know the building I am referencing I do not recommend naming it for safety reasons. 4 out of the 6 people, including myself, decided to climb the metal gate blocking the building to where a window had been smashed around the side. It had a board still nailed into the wall but someone previously had pulled it off just enough you could still manage through the window. The original exit and fire escape door had been boarded, no other windows on the bottom floor were accessible and the metal stairs maybe a metre away from our entrance window lead to nowhere (keeping these stairs in mind). One of our friends had been inside this building on a couple occasions so we felt pretty confident.

I was first, then the boys followed after. I immediately made a start on checking our surroundings, I had shouted about us entering and that if anyone was in there and wanted us to leave, let us know and we would do so, there was no reply, nothing, dead silence. The building had been exposed on TikTok and because of that it had been trashed (in good old stupid teenager fashion) there was glass and broken objects everywhere which was why the bloody tissue laying around in different various places on the bottom floor didn’t ring as many alarm bells as it typically would. However, when we made it to the staircase we found a used sanitary pad left on the steps. Female squatter perhaps? After talking ourselves up and down for around five minutes we finally decided to make our way to the top floor. I turned to my left and found stripped wires, pretty typical for buildings like this. Everything seemed to be how it should, quiet, trashed and ransacked.

As we turned to the room down the right, a friend had noticed ventilation pipes in the ceilings, similar to ones we have found in shut down and raided illegal weed grows. We had turned on our flashlights to get a better look and that’s when we noticed the insane amount of blood on the floor. I wish I could describe how that room looked without sounding like I’m lying or over exaggerating but it was truly covered in a dark red and dried liquid. It could’ve been paint, it could’ve been teenagers playing a prank, it could’ve been some other form of red liquid that wasn’t blood but the risk was not worth it. Our friend who had been before as I mentioned said it was never there any of the times he had been and he had never seen it. We quietly and calmly made our way back down stairs without exploring any of the other rooms or even making it close to the attic. We didn’t speak. We didn’t run.

When we got to the window, it started. Loud banging, stomping, running coming from the top floor. Right above our heads. Those rules I told you about staying calm? Out the window. Just like us. We had tried shouting, communicating and doing anything we could to calm down whatever we had angered. It didn’t stop. One by one the boys started jumping their way out and holding back the board. I was last to get out and by time I had turned my back to the stair case I thought someone was going to pull me right back into the building. The noise stopped.

I jumped out and we started sprinting towards the gate, we climbed over it.
I turned back and saw our friend, the one who hadn’t come in with us, following us out. We immediately started shouting at him, telling him off. It wasn’t funny, whatever sick joke he thought he was playing just scared us half to death. We have run into squatters before and they aren’t always the nicest people. With all the blood on the floor it wasn’t nice to think maybe we had came across a scene someone NEVER wanted us to see.
He promised us, he had come around the back to try and find a way in, when he found the stairs next to the window. He walked all the way to top and swore he had heard someone from the other side of the metal door but assumed it was us. That’s when he heard a big bang. None of us made a big bang. He didn’t start running down the stairs until he heard us panicking to get out the window. So what i originally thought might’ve been him running down the stairs, creating all the banging that made us panic and start shouting wasn’t what had happened. SUPPOSEDLY he hadn’t run down those stairs until after. Which means the banging we hear came before he even started making his way down the stairs.

When I think back to the series of events, there was a loud bang, which made us all start shouting and squabbling out the window. That bang must’ve been the same bang our friend heard. The RUNNING we heard must’ve been our friend running down the stairs afterwards which created even MORE panic. With that being said, he could’ve lied. I don’t see why he’d have any reason to run down the stairs with that much force unless he was be honest about hearing us. That first bang we all heard, I don’t know what that was. I don’t think I want to know.
The best possible outcome is it was our friend and he’s lying. Which I SURE hope he is.
That doesn’t explain the blood on the floor and I’ve definitely had some REAL face to face encounters with squatters and security if you wanted to hear about them but the uncertainty with this one, it keeps me awake.