11 Parents On The Terrifying Incident That Made Them Realize Their Kid’s Boogeyman Wasn’t ‘Imaginary’

Man in a fishing hat

“When I was a kid one night I heard my window across from my bed open. Some guy in a fishing hat stuck his face in through the curtains, we made eye contact for a moment and he jumped back, closed the window, and ran off.

I went to my mom’s room and told her about it, she told me I was dreaming. But I was freaking out, so she came to my room with me and saw that the window wasn’t ALL the way closed, so she closed it and locked it, and then got in her car and drove around. Sure enough, maybe 15 minutes later she came across the guy walking down the street and called the police.” — CDC_

Bad man

“2-year-old used to have what I thought were nightmares. He’d wake up and say “bad man. bad man” while crying and really shaking. Heard him whimpering one night and saw a freakishly tall figure in the baby monitor. Nearly shat myself, grabbed my pistol, and ran to his room to find my son locked in the closet and the figure nowhere to be found. The door can only be locked from the outside. There was a grey wool scarf on the floor of his room that I had never seen before. Cops came and filed a B&E report, but there was no signs of forced entry or anything. We’re planning on moving in a few months.” — DeathStarJedi

Home invasion

“Our whole family was skeptic of my brother’s ‘ghost’.. He said he went to bed one night and he felt the blankets pull towards the underneath of the bed. He tries to ignore it, then it pulled so hard the blankets came off of him so he stood on the edge of the bed and jumped towards the door, then ran for my moms room.

She made him go back to bed, of course. (After checking underneath the bed and finding nothing)

My brother didn’t want to sleep in his room after that, and he basically was living in constant fear, but everyone just thought he had a bad dream.

A few weeks later we came home to find the house in disarray. Further inspection brought to light that my mom was missing several pieces of jewelry. We suspected someone had robbed us. Investigation led to our cousin, who confessed to everything. In the midst of the break in, we totally forgot about my brothers ghost.

Until… my das was talking to our thief cousin and he told.my dad he meant to rob us a few weeks earlier. He was in the house when we came home, and he hid under my brothers bed. He figured the only way to get the kid out of the room was to scare him, hence pulling on the blanket.” — tsim12345

Panic attack

“When I was really young, before kindergarten, I would hear the boom-boom monster when I was falling asleep. I started having nightmares about this gigantic creature stepping over houses on his way to come and get me. The closer it got, the faster it walked until it was racing in to get me.

Eventually, I started screaming before I even fell asleep and my parents were getting sick of my shit. So, one night, my dad stayed in my room while I fell asleep and it happened anyway. That’s when he figured out that it was me hearing my own heartbeat when my head was against the pillow and that the steps getting faster was my increasing heart pace as I scared the shit out of myself.” — CassandraVindicated

Scary man

“I’m still on the fence about this, but it sure did creep me the hell out. I was changing my son’s diaper, and he said something about the scary man. I asked him who he was talking about, and he pointed over my shoulder. I turned around, no one there. Gave me fucking chills. He will occasionally make comments like that, referring to someone, and I don’t know if it’s his imagination or if he actually sees things I don’t. My husband says that children are more easily able to see paranormal things, and while most of my brain is skeptical, there is a small part of me that thinks maybe he’s right. I should add, I saw weird shit myself as a kid, which doesn’t help.” — aviary83

Murder hornets

“My 4 y/o doesn’t like bed time. Sometimes he’ll make stuff up to avoid going to bed. Him and his brother (2.5 y/o) share a room. One night the 4 y/o walked down right after we put him to bed and said there was a big bug in the room. I told him to march back to bed and not to come out again. 10 minues later he walked out with his brother in tow, and both looked kinda frightened. I decided to come up and look around just so they shut up and go to bed. I wasn’t expecting to find anything.

Long story short, there was a masive 2 inch hornet in the room that I killed. No idea how it got inside, since all the windows were closed and the AC was on. If I didn’t get it and it stung one of the kids, an ER trip was the best case scenario. I was pretty mad at myself for sending him back to his room in the first place.” — Fandorin

Gut instinct

“When I was a kid I hated our handyman and my parents assumed I was just being a dick. He killed his wife.” — [deleted]

A big hairy thing

“My son calls me to his room and says that there’s something hiding in the closet and he’s scared. He’s 8 and I’m low on patience. I tell him there’s nothing to go back to sleep. He asks me to be sure. I figure it’ll get him to sleep faster so I open the closet, turn on the light, and I see this big hairy thing that makes me scream like a little girl.

It was a mirror.

My son was laughing his little troll ass off. I was contemplating if he was too big to leave on a doorstep. I gotta give him credit where it’s due, I pulled that on my dad, and it was just as funny.” — [deleted]

Then who was mom?

“When I was a child my family moved to a big old two-floor house, with big empty rooms and creaking floorboards. Both my parents worked so I was often alone when I came home from school. One early evening when I came home the house was still dark.

I called out, “Mum?” and heard her sing song voice say “Yeeeeees?” from upstairs. I called her again as I climbed the stairs to see which room she was in, and again got the same “Yeeeeees?” reply. We were decorating at the time, and I didn’t know my way around the maze of rooms but she was in one of the far ones, right down the hall. I felt uneasy, but I figured that was only natural so I rushed forward to see my mum, knowing that her presence would calm my fears, as a mother’s presence always does.

Just as I reached for the handle of the door to let myself in to the room I heard the front door downstairs open and my mother call “Sweetie, are you home?” in a cheery voice. I jumped back, startled and ran down the stairs to her, but as I glanced back from the top of the stairs, the door to the room slowly opened a crack. For a brief moment, I saw something strange in there, and I don’t know what it was, but it was staring at me.” — GrouchNoodles

Bumps in the night

“When I first moved in with my fiancee, her son (6) had a problem sleeping in his room, he always came into our room crying in the middle of the night. He insisted there was a ghost in his room. She decided to spend the night in his room to prove that there was nothing there.

Well, morning comes around and my fiancee was already up. She looked like she didn’t sleep well. I asked her jokingly if the ghost scared her and she said she didn’t want to talk about it. She told my step-son that he didn’t have to sleep in that room anymore. We moved his stuff to the living room and left the door to his old room shut. He slept in the living room till we moved to a new apartment six months later.

I never found out what happened that night.” — [deleted]

Yikes

“When I was a child I used to have the most horrifyingly vivid night terrors. They were really sporadic and eventually stopped. Looking back, I always thought it was because I’d had a fever or some other illness where I was hallucinating. It wasn’t until I was much older that I talked to my mom about it and she told me the terrors coincided with mandated visits with my biological parents. The visits stopped and then so did the terrors. She didn’t put 2 and 2 together until after.” — angryclouds