30 Unsettling Stories About Supernatural Shit That Have No Reasonable Explanation

Right at the moment my grandma died at a hospice, both the candles next to her bed went out at the exact same time.

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These paranormal stories from Ask Reddit are bound to freak you out.

1. Once when I was a little kid (hadn’t started school yet), my siblings and I were playing hide and seek. I hid in one of the bedrooms between a bunk bed and the wall. It was a corner hiding spot. I just sat in the corner waiting to be found, back to the wall, bed to my left, and wall with a window to my right. I didn’t have anything covering me, so if you looked in the corner, you’d see me, right? Apparently, not. I remember that multiple people (siblings and parents) had looked into the corner but never said they found me, so I just kept sitting there. Eventually, my parents called the police. They could not find me. I came out after a while confused as to why no one had found me and wondering why the police were here. To this day my family (myself included) joke that I can turn invisible.

2. I have an old tv my parents bought way back in 1986, when they were living in Germany. When I was little, that tv was retired from the main family tv to the basement tv, and my bedroom was in the basement. I very clearly remember waking up in the middle of the night, frequently and randomly, for years and laying down on the couch in front of that tv. It would turn itself on and play music for me so I could fall asleep on the couch. As I’ve grown older, moved from place to place with it, it’s done other things… turning on to full screeching static when my toaster caught fire while I was in another room, or dramatically turning off and not coming back on when I’ve been awake for too long… weird shit, really.

I don’t know what’s up with it, or inside it, but there’s something in there, and it’s my oldest and most loyal friend.

3. My randomly assigned college roommate and I felt deeply connected the moment we met for the first time. We were inseparable right away as if we had never really been strangers.

Months later, we randomly find out that our mothers were pregnant at the exact same time in the same city in a country that neither of us are originally from. They were in that country for two completely separate and oddly specific reasons (so we’re not talking your ordinary beach vacay). She is from the US and I’m from a European country. Up until that point there had been no overlap in our lives except for the 9 months our pregnant mothers unknowingly lived on the same street in a foreign country. A couple of weeks prior to giving birth, they both moved back to their respective countries.

It’s been 10 years and she is still one of my best friends.

4. This happened about six years ago. I was working customer service for Sprint and was living with my girlfriend at the time. I woke up one morning and checked my phone. I got a message from our mutual friend RJ. It said, “Dude wtf did Jaime (my girlfriend at the time) text me?”

I was confused at that text so I shook Jaime awake and told her about the text. It took her a few seconds to find her phone, it was on the bed, she was sleeping on it. We looked at her message history and it was a bunch of gibberish, random letters and numbers, it looked like the keys were pressed because she was lying on her phone. In the middle of the jumbled mass, however it said, “We have company,” perfectly typed, perfectly spaced.

Freaked us the fuck out.

5. My step father shot himself in the hand with me in the room. The bullet glanced off a wall, two mirrors, and came to a rest in our kitchen, where the police found it. I was talking to him while he was cleaning his gun. Next thing I know, there’s a deafening bang, glass shards are flying, and I am staring at a bullet coming toward me, at eye level. After that, I’m on the other side of the door, it’s closed, and I’m sitting (I had been standing). I get up and walk to where my Mom was sleeping. At that time, my step father charges in with a towel rapidly soaking in blood screaming bloody murder. He had knocked all the bones out of the last two digits of his hand. To my knowledge, there were no holes in the door, but there were chips in both mirrors and the wall from where the bullet had hit.

6. When I was a kid I was putting on gel in front of the mirror. My bedroom door was locked. When I finished I tried placing the lid back on the jar with my sticky gel hands. I dropped it and hit my foot and it slid under the bed. I was like fuck and dried my hands with the little towel. Then, as I was bending over to pick the lid from under the bed, it slid back out. On its own.

I didn’t panic or anything but I did look under the bed and there was absolutely nothing where it could’ve bounced off of. Also; by the time I reached for it, it wouldn’t make sense either way.

It’s not a scary or interesting story with poltergeist activity and humanoid characters but I always think about it. What was it? What pushed the lid back out? I’ll never have an answer.

7. When we were kids, my sister and I saw what we are convinced was the fucking Easter bunny. Admittedly, it was late at night and through a glass window, but it was a very clear, very defined silhouette. In addition, that window was probably between 6′-7′ tall. One of those windows that lined the top of the wall before hitting the ceiling. Here is the thing weirdest fucking thing. The way it moved. It was kind of half hopping, but we could only see its head and ears. It was so disturbing to see the head and ears bobbing and flopping. I get that time distorts reality at times, especially being a kid, but my sister and I, more that 15 years later still agree on the exact moment we saw it and it still gives us the fucking creeps.

8. Must of been around 8 years old, I was at school and had left my lunch box in the lunch hall. This is in London UK and the building has been there since the 1800s, my mum worked at the school so the rest of the kids had left and I’d been waiting in the empty playground for a short while before going to retrieve the lunch box.

Only windows in the hall were high up and the sun was setting on one side, so my shadow was cast long across the huge room, it took a few seconds for the heavy wooden door to swing shut. I scanned around the hall to see if I could spot the lunch box, and suddenly it felt as if a cold gust of wind moved right through me, then the shadow of another small boy appeared next to mine.

Safe to say at that point I didn’t stick around and ran back out into the sun.

9. For over two years after his death my partner continued to receive texts from her dead son.

The texts arrived on average at least once a week, and usually at moments she felt at her lowest. The texts were mostly the same: ‘Love you, see you soon’

This phenomena occurred with three different phones my partner had over this time. Her son’s phone was kept in a draw at his sister’s, it was chip-less and no longer working,

10. When I was in middle school I lived on a hill that had a graveyard on it. I had a friend who pulled all nighters with me, in summer it’s light here pretty much all night so it was never creepy.

As we were heading down the hill I don’t know why but I glanced back and saw a little girl in a white dress. This was around 2 or 3 am I stopped and she walked into the woods, which the graveyard was like 100 yards away from. I asked my friend if he saw her and he did, we both thought it was weird so we went up to see where she went but saw no sign of her.

3 years later I have a class in high school with a teacher who loved local ghost stories, so every Friday he tells us one or two new ones. Then he talks about the girl at the hill cemetery and it snaps back to me, I got chills from the thought.

My friends and I decide to visit the graveyard at night because we were dumb and young. 5 minutes later someone walks up looking pale asking to leave, points to the woods saying a little girl just tried talking to him and I felt like we were being watched from the trees.

11. When I was maybe 11 I was in the living room and could see directly down the short hallway to my right, I could see all 4 doors leading to the rooms and bathrooms.

My door was at the end of the hallway on the right-hand side.

All of the sudden my door handle started shaking violently. Like someone reeeeaaalllyyy wanted to get out but it didn’t have the strength to fully jostle the handle up or down enough to open it.

Air conditioner was off, only pet was with me, and the only other person at home was my mother who had JUST gone the opposite direction into the garage.

12. I have always been a skeptical person but I lived in a house that made me question myself. The dark figure at the end of the bed I COULD chalk up to some sort of suggestion fueled dream.

The vase that came flying at my head however? Not so much. Just this small vase that sat on the mantle for years and one day while I was on the couch chilling it violently threw itself my way and landed behind the couch. I wasn’t leased to the place and moved out a month later. Haven’t had any spooky bullshit since.

13. Now, I do not consider myself overly superstitious. However, I am Irish and this is by Irish standards. My boyfriend’s mom (who is American) thinks I’m really superstitious.

Visiting the Old Jail museum in Jim Thorpe, PA with my boyfriend and his family.

(Very quick back story for those of you who don’t know the history. Sorry if I get anything wrong and please feel free to correct any mistakes!). Irish people were not well liked in the area in the late 1800s and many of them worked in the coal mine. A group called the Molly Maguires (secret society) were hanged in the jail and it’s said that their ghosts still haunt it.

We were brought down to the basement/dungeon where prisoners were sent to solitary confinement. I was standing close to a wall with no one close to me and felt a very firm squeeze on my left shoulder.

My boyfriend’s grandma is convinced it was because I’m Irish and the ghosts knew it and were reaching out.

14. Sometimes, if I’m in the perfect mood of relaxed, open, and intentional, I can bend back the tines of forks as though they’re putty. The metal just kind of goes soft for a second and I just gently bend the tines with a finger, and then in the next second or so, the metal goes hard again and unbendable. I keep the forks in my handbags, some on my bookshelf. If I’m not in that precise mind space, I can’t do it at all. But when I am and I can, it’s the most amazing thing.

15. When I was little I would always predict things. For example my brother and cousin were pillow fighting in my aunt’s bedroom. I said they should stop and they asked why and I said they are going to break the glass shelf. The only glass shelf was in the living room so they just carried on. Later they started pillow fighting in the living room and broke the glass shelf. I laughed and threw tape at them and said this will last for 4 years. My aunt taped the shelf together somehow and 4 years later I opened the door and came in and the shelf fell over.

16. A friend of mine’s face shape shifted into a reptilian like monster for a few seconds… I wasn’t out of it, nor drunk. It was dark, scary, and our relationship was never the same.

17. I lost my very tiny nose ring somewhere two days ago and then I found it today sitting out in an obvious place it and no one knows how it got there.

18. The Morse code like tapping that occasionally comes from inside my closet. Seems friendly enough for now.

19. Right at the moment my grandma died at a hospice, both the candles next to her bed went out at the exact same time. Mind you, no windows or doors were open. Seemed too crazy to be a coincidence.

20. Shadow person chased me upstairs when I went down to the kitchen for a drink.

21. When I was around five years old I had a recurring experience of waking up because I could feel my blankets draped around my body. When I’d wake up and realize I was floating, I’d fall back into my bed. At the time I believed the monster under my bed was kicking me into the air and I’d wake up falling back down… As an adult, the experience has always stuck with me but I don’t have an explanation…

22. My grandmother used to keep a lot of butterfly decorations around the house, when she was on her deathbed her hospital room was decorated with butterflies, on her first birthday after her death we released a balloon with messages written on them for her at midnight the time she was born, after we released said balloon a bright yellow butterfly flew out from behind them and we have no idea were it came from, it was very shiny. To this day we are baffled.

23. Sometimes I dream about the future but I can’t even hype it up because it’s always little things.

24. When I was little I use to sit and draw at this small table we had in front of a window. From this window we could see into our front yard and the street at the edge of it.

One day I’m doing my usual coloring while my dad is in the front yard talking to my uncles. When I peeked out I saw a very young looking white man wearing a mechanic’s jumpsuit walk from behind my neighbors’ house and into our yard. I remember I stopped coloring to watch him.

He walked behind my uncle and disappeared behind our home. I was scared at that point, thinking he was a robber or something worse. Right when I was about to run for the front door, he reappeared. This time he walked from the other side of our home and up to the road. He looked both ways before continuing down the street.

When my dad came back in I asked him why didn’t he stop that man from walking in our yard, he told me he didn’t see any man and he thought I imagined it. It made no sense. I remember seeing him vividly, I remember feeling genuine fear when he walked behind our home. But my dad and uncles didn’t see him at all.

I don’t have any type of schizophrenia or other disorder. And I wasn’t prone to hallucinate as a child. I always wonder if it was just my imagination after all. But it felt too real to be that…

25. My friend and I were at her cabin in her bedroom with the door closed and we heard what sounded like the stove being pushed across the floor. We know that’s what it was because we tested it the next day. We asked and her dad and brother wouldn’t lie and they both said they were sleeping (it was about 2-3am when this happened).

26. Used to work hospice care. A woman who was dying of a brain tumor had 2 Siamese cats she adored. She had pictures on her wall and while lucid, would tell me about them often.

The night she passed, I called hospice and waited in the living room. It was summer and the front screen door was open. I look over and see 2 identical Siamese cats sitting there. Thinking I’d lost my mind, I took a picture of them. They were real.

Her cats had passed 8 years before.

I’m a rational and logical person and think there’s a rational and logical explanation for most “ghostly” phenomenon. I cannot explain those cats.

27. When a strange force pulled me 12 blocks through my small town one night, I just sort of felt like walking and as I went on the impulse got stronger until I could tell exactly where I was going, the location had 0 significant relevance to me or my life and when I got to one end of the field there was a small black figure sitting in the spot I felt I was supposed to go, I realized how weird the situation was and sprinted all the way home. It was super strange and 6 years later I’ve never had anything at all similar happen. It started by meditating in a dark space on my porch.

28. I grew up in my grandparent’s house, which was an extremely old house that used to operate as a store. It was later converted to a house and then my grandparents bought it. One day my grandma and I are sitting in the kitchen, I’m reading a book and she was perusing a magazine, when we hear a sound loud and clear. The sound of cowboy boots walking around in the room above us. Very distinct footfalls and they couldn’t be confused with another sound, if you know what cowboy boots on hardwood floors sound like. My grandma and I look up at one another and I remember whispering to her, “I thought we were the only ones home.” We were the only ones home at the time and I was never comfortable in that house by myself again, especially since my bedroom was upstairs next to the empty one with the footsteps.

29. In the middle of the 90s we visited some family at their farm in another country… and the place was super rural, like they had some pipe coming out of the side of some mountain for fresh water and one of those dumpster toilets that are actually just a hole in the ground, and if it’s full, they throw earth on it and dig a new one.

So, it was in the middle of summer and super frigging hot, even at night. I had awoken around 3am because I needed to take a leak and went outside to go to that little shithole in the ground. There was nearly no electric light outside, so no light pollution, just a brilliant starlit sky all over and around me. So I looked up and let it sink in and just enjoyed the moment, when suddenly a thick, fat, gleaming light beam raced from left to right over the sky, STOPPED freaking in the middle, hung there for about 0,5-1s and then raced off to the right. The whole thing lasted for less than 2s, but it left me dumbfounded. I was never a big UFO believer, but dayum, what the fuck was that?

30. I heard a little girl laughing in the back room of my house. There’s no one living around me other than my mother on the hill behind me, and it’s in the country so people don’t just walk by my house, and that room is cut off from the rest of my house because it’s currently filled with lumber for the barn rebuild and other stuff. So there’s no one in there. And my daughter doesn’t live with me so it wasn’t her being in there when she shouldn’t be. No explanation. Thought Catalog Logo Mark


About the author

January Nelson

January Nelson

January Nelson is a writer, editor, and dreamer. She writes about astrology, games, love, relationships, and entertainment. January graduated with an English and Literature degree from Columbia University.