25 People On The Scariest Experience Of Their Life — That Can Only Be Attributed To The Paranormal

1. Smoke suddenly filled the entire room

“Me and my buddy were playing SNES in my room (yeah, I’m that old!) when suddenly, the room filled with thick and hazy cigarette smoke. The smell of nicotine was overpowering and we were both really confused as nobody in my family ever smoked and we lived in a detached house, so it couldn’t have been the neighbors either. The smoke hung around for about a minute, then it cleared and vanished as suddenly as it had arrived.

Later that afternoon. We found out that my friends mom had used a ouija board to contact her father (my friend’s grandfather) who had died a year previously from lung cancer. Apparently he smoked 60 a day and always smelled like cigarettes. She was unable to contact him that day, but that’s the only explanation I have for the weirdness.” — caddy1984

2. I had a reoccurring dream about a family being tortured and killed 

“I don’t know if I would say the only possibility is paranormal, but it was damn weird. I have had several dreams similar to what I am posting.

I’ve been a caver in Florida for about 13 years, since I was about 6; and have been to a lot of caves. Never been afraid before this to go in one.

When I was about 7 or 8 years old, I started having this reoccurring dream. I would have it at least twice a year, always the same even though I would realize I was dreaming after the first few iterations.

I would fall asleep and dream of being in a cave and going into this little hole in the bottom. Inside I would see a 10-15 foot long corridor about 2-4 feet high. At the end it would always turn left, and I always saw a bent red stop sign at the end, like someone ripped off the top 2 feet and tossed it in. But I would always follow the corridor.

I would turn and walk past the sign despite being scared, despite many times knowing what was there, and the corridor would start descending, quickly opening up into a large vertical chamber with the path leading down in a corkscrew. Everything became blurry at this point, but it was always the same.

I saw trash scattered on the walls.

I saw the pit leading down to a curved floor.

I saw things, undefined…animals or people or something else at the bottom.

And I saw my family, each with one of the things, being tortured and killed. Every time. And I could never do anything.

After I saw that, I would be stuck for a few seconds until I felt more than saw everything turn and look at me. And I would wake up. Not like a normal dream where you just drift to consciousness or a nightmare where you bolt up in fear, but like something pushed me out. Like I wasn’t supposed to be there.

So I have this dream multiple times a year until I turned fifteen. My father decided to take us to some caves we never had been before. One of which was Dog Drop. It was likely named so because someone either threw there pet in there or a coyote fell in and the body was later discovered.

Dogdrop had a roughly 30 foot rappel straight down to enter. I went down with my brother while my father waited up at the top. There was a hole in the ground. I started to feel uneasy though I didn’t know why. So I followed my brother into the hole. I felt worse as I moved down.

And when I looked up I saw the same corridor, the same turn, the same wall, the same bottles at the corner. And I instantly was hit with this overwhelming sense of nausea and fear and being watched and everything was screaming at me to leave.

I froze and must have made some noise because my brother turned around and asked what was wrong. I managed to say I wanted to leave now and climbed out as quickly as I could, followed immediately by my brother.

We packed up and left, never have gone back and never will. Haven’t told anyone what actually happened, just said I wasn’t feeling well, and they forgot pretty quickly.

The thing that really makes it creepy for me is I have never had the dream again. Year after year I would have it consistently, but it just stopped after that. But I still remember it all.

And I still feel afraid, almost an external fear, when I think of it.” — Just_another_gamer_

3. I heard sobbing from inside of our empty house

“I woke up from a nap to the sound of my girlfriend sobbing somewhere else in the house. I got up to see what was wrong and determined the sound was coming from downstairs.

I followed the sound down the spiral staircase all the way to the finished basement. The sound was definitely coming from the little half-bath at the bottom of the stairs that we rarely used. The door was closed (which it never was) and I couldn’t see any light under the door but the sound was very loud from the bottom of the stairs.

It was about this time that I started to fully wake up and remembered my girlfriend had been leaving for the grocery store when I was starting my nap. I could see her parking spot from one of the basement windows – she wasn’t back yet. I called her name and the sobbing instantly stopped. The bathroom was empty when I finally got the courage to check.” — xenmaster4 

4. A driver mowed down a group of people (and I could have been one of them)

“This is in my mom’s life, not mine. Once when she was a kid, she was waiting with her younger sister at the bus stop when she felt a strong craving for a candy bar. She is normally extremely cautious and responsible, but this one time she felt such as strong urge for candy that she decided to run to the nearest convenience store with her sister and get some. By the time they got back to the stop, a driver had lost control of the bus and mowed down a bunch of people there.” — ConstantCorona

5. Something impossible happened with the jewelry on my neck

“I was walking into my bedroom, just having closed the door. I felt a chill down my neck, and was frozen in fear. At that moment, my necklace that I had been wearing fell to the floor. I don’t know why, but I knew something strange and terrifying had just happened. I picked up my necklace from the floor, and it was still clasped.” — Dykesaurus_Wreks

6. We saw the ghost of an old woman during a visit to a graveyard

“I went to a graveyard at about midnight with a group of friends to visit an old friend who died in a car accident. While we were standing around his grave, telling good stories about him, I hear a faint voice of an elderly woman. One of my friends says out loud ‘Oh shit, wtf?’ I stand up and look toward the source. I saw a very old woman, literally dressed in a white tattered night gown about 100ft away. She started talking to us.

‘Sir?? Get over here now, I need help!’

We stood still. No one said a thing. The part that weirded me out was that she used the singular word “Sir” when clearly there was five of us. She started walking closer and started speaking again but even louder.

‘Boys, I need your help NOW.’

Note the plurality. Then, she literally started RUNNING toward us, screaming nonsense. We were all scared out of our minds so we ran back to the car, with this old woman close behind.

We reached the car, which was a 2-door, and everyone got in before me. Including the driver, so the driver’s seat was blocking my entrance to the back seat. I yelled as I approached the car and he got out and let me in. Doors slammed and we flew down the small graveyard roads to the opposite side, where the exit was.

This is where shit got WEIRD.

We get to the other side of the graveyard in like 10 seconds. We’re speeding toward the exit, and we approach a curved road that was well lit. AND THE OLD LADY RAN ONTO THE ROAD! No way she RAN over there that fast. I see her trying to chase us down and finally she lets out the most terrifying scream I’ve ever heard. Sounded like she was being murdered slowly and painfully. We fled the scene just seconds after and never returned.

Four other friends of mine can testify as witnesses to that night. By far the most terrifying experience in my life.” — jhenrickson

7. A strange voice appeared on our voice recorder

“In high school, me and my friends started and ran a ‘paranormal investigators’ club. We were lame and it was mostly just an excuse to hang out. We did have a mild interest in ghosts, and our town/school had plenty of urban legends to go off of.

We didn’t get permission from the school to have activities outside of campus, and we couldn’t go in any buildings that had urban legends surrounding them. So we were stuck outside of buildings, on campus – at night.

So we had a bunch of outings were we took photos of random things – looked for ‘orbs’ (there were a lot but I was never like ‘OMG DASSA GHOST’)

So one day we got our hands on a tape recorder. We had ourselves a little seance.

We formed a circle, did a generic greeting to any spiritual things that might be present, and included some instructions – we were going to leave the tape on for 2 minutes and the group was going to be silent.

This was a Friday night. After the tape we packed it up and went home.

Our next club meeting was the following Tuesday. So our teacher chaperone/endorsement was a nice guy. But not anything special as far as teachers go. You know the type.

So we sit down and start talking and the teacher tells us that we should probably listen to the tape.

So, we fire it up. Everything is going exactly like we remembered.

Silence begins. About 45 seconds in the tape screeches, makes a sound like it’s speeding up…

And then in a low gravelly voice we hear:

‘GET OUT.’

Tape screeches again resumes. Entire 2 minutes of silence accounted for.

I don’t know what to make of the event, all I know is I don’t believe the tape was doctored. A – I don’t think the teacher had the skills to do so B – it was physical tape, not digital. And the recorder was probably older than I was/am.

It might not have been a big deal to just go over and tape over the silence, but I don’t think that accounts for the strange sounds the tape made.” — DystryR

8. We saw an unexplainable, bright light flash in the sky 

“About 3 years ago I was out stargazing with a friend on top of a hill in my hometown at about 2am on a really hot night. Like it was scorching. We were in the middle of a heatwave and you’d be lucky if the temperature was 30 degrees Celsius.

As we were watching the stars and talking, there was this massive bright light, and we initially thought it was just a shooting star, but we soon realised that it must have been in our atmosphere because it kept getting closer and closer. Eventually it was literally right over the top of us. It was silent and didn’t disturb the environment whatsoever.

Then it just flashes and disappears. Believe it or not that isn’t the strange part.

The strange part is that after the flash of light happened, we woke up on the ground almost exactly 5 metres away from where we were laying and it was 7am in the morning.

Naturally I just assumed it was a dream. I told my friend about the dream, and she says, with very distant eyes, “that wasn’t a dream.” I thought he was joking, but she was adamant about it. She was absolutely sure that that what we saw wasn’t a dream. I think she’s pulling some kind of elaborate prank, so I don’t take the bait. We walk home, and she’s shaken to her core. Barely talking. Staring off into nothing. Her hands literally shaking.

It went on for weeks. Whatever she saw that night, whatever happened, it fucking really scared her.

One day a few weeks later I bring it up and she aggressively yells at me and tells me to never ever talk to her about that night ever again. She was an otherwise very chill person who rarely ever raised her voice at anything.

She basically refused to go out at night time after that, and she never talked about the incident for the rest of her life.

She died last year, and ever since then, I can’t help but feel as though maybe something did happen that night on the hill.” — SillyGourd 

9. I felt the hand of a ghost grab my arm

“When I was younger my parents got me a bunk bed so I could have friends come over and spend the night. You know try to be the cool kid in elementary school who invited all his friends over. Well it was a trick eventually soon after my uncle moved in with us and he crashed on the bottom bunk while I slept on the top. My uncle also happened to be bartending at the time so he often came home really late like 2am for example. Sometimes a bit intoxicated sometimes not. Well one night after he comes home and wakes me up from all the noise he makes I tell him goodnight then roll over and try to fall back asleep. After falling back asleep maybe 30 minutes later I feel the most unbelievable strong grasp on my arm. Imagine a full grown man taking his hand and wrapping it around your entire forearm. That’s what it felt like for maybe a good 2 seconds then gone. Of course it woke me up freaking out. I look down thinking it was my uncle fucking with me. He was passed out on his stomach. To this day I don’t know what caused it. I know for a fact it woke me up so could of been some weird dream were the feelings transferred over into the real world a little bit.” — Snake_Eyes224 

10. A heavy statue fell over for no reason at all

“I was either 13 or 14, home alone one evening before my parents got home from work. In my room watching tv when I hear the blinds from our patio door in the kitchen slightly move. I freak out and go take a look and notice them just stopping as I arrive. I am weirded out but in my head I explain it as a current that passed in the house since our heating is on.

As I’m heading back to the room I hear a sharp thump sound as if something has fallen. I’m freaking out as I now think there is someone in the house but i know there is no way they could have been in the kitchen and then my room without me noticing. I peak inside and see my baseball player statue that has a flat base laying sideways on my dresser. Somehow it got knocked over.

I freakin run downstairs put the tv on full blast as I didn’t want to hear anything else and wait terrified for my parents to get home.

After that evening I never experienced anything freaky at all in that house.” — Swiss_Rollin 

11. A marble rolled across the floors on its own

“Once when I was younger, I was at my Grandma’s house probably back in like ’93. I was drawing at the kitchen table when a marble rolled along the floor, I didn’t think much of it because it could’ve been the old floors. But then, it rolled twice around all 4 legs of the chair in perfect fucking circles, and rolled off. I was just in shock for a few moments, then went back to drawing.” — PerXshA

12. I saw a nun standing in front of my window — but she disappeared as quickly as she came

“When I was a kid I was sitting on my bed, looking out the window watching the cars go by. I saw the reflection of what looked like a nun standing by my door, when I turned around there was nothing, and when I looked back in the window it was gone. A lot of weird stuff happened in that house, toilets flushing, tops spinning on their own, toilets cleaning themselves. And once a balloon went through my entire house to stay above my baby sister’s crib.

Though, the scariest would have to be that time I was walking on a path at summer camp and felt something grab my ankle and drag me down the hill. Despite there being nothing there.” — SaturnOrchidDragon

13. A presence repeatedly visited me when I was a young child

“As a wee lad, back when I was still being put down for naps everyday, as soon as my mom left the room this shadow thing would pop up. It was as if he was crouching at the end of the bed waiting. He had no face, yet he stared at me. He never did much more than stand there, and it would only be during nap time. At first I was terrified, but as time went on I got used to his presence. I was always uncomfortable with him there, though, and never got any sleep. I haven’t seen him since I stopped taking naps, but I still sometimes feel him, if that makes any sense (I still live in the same house).” — I_like_forks

14. My mom was followed around by spirits

“My dad’s side of my family has a lot of these stories. They’re not bullshitters so it’s weird to hear the stories come from them.

My aunt did a lot with ouija boards as a kid and now she has spirits who follow her. She doesn’t talk about it a lot but she has told me some days she will leave the kitchen, come back and pots and pans are stacked on the table. Or she will have a light on at night and when she turns the TV off before bed she can see people walking around behind her in the reflection of her TV.

As for myself, the only thing that’s really happened to me was when I lived in an old house in downtown Kalamazoo in the student ghetto.

I was home alone and one night I turned my hallway light on and decided to take a shower.

I thought I heard foot steps in my hallway. I figured I was being paranoid. I got out of the shower and while I was lotioning and whatever before I left my bathroom I texted my roommate and she said she hadn’t been home. Texted my downstairs neighbor (duplex) he said he has been in bed for a couple hours.

Look into the hallway and the light is off. I was freaked out but my house was super old and the electric was old af as well, but when I went over… BITCH the light switch was DOWN! Something turned it off. I shat.” — lilpastababy

15. A mysterious voice saved us from dying on the road

“Got lost with girlfriend at night in Waco, Texas. Roads were deserted. No people. No cars. Then saw one lone person standing on the corner as I made a turn. I heard a friendly male voice in the vehicle, as if sitting in the back seat, say to me, ‘You’re going the wrong way.’ I noticed I was, indeed, going the wrong way on a one way street so I did a U-turn. The road took me directly to the main highway. Asked my girlfriend a bit later if she heard the voice too and she burst into tears because she had been so freaked out by it she thought she was going insane or something.” — fried_eggs_and_ham

16. I grew up inside of a haunted house

“I grew up in a haunted house, so spooky things happened all the time, and the absolute scariest thing that ever happened unfortunately happened about once a week. If you were sitting in our living room you could see straight down our hallway to my bedroom door. It was pretty dark at the end of the hall, but you could usually make out my doorway and the doors on either side and the pictures and things hanging on the wall. When ‘the dark’ came, however, it was like someone dropped a black curtain over the end of the hall. You could still see about halfway down the hall, but beyond that you might as well be looking into a black hole.

When the dark came it was always accompanied by this intense, uncomfortable feeling of being watched. Our family’s three dogs would stare down the hallway and growl, and occasionally one of them would get brave enough to walk a little way down the hall, but they always came backing slowly out like they were afraid to turn their back on the dark. After a little while, usually a few minutes to half an hour, the darkness would suddenly disappear and you could see again. Sometimes, however, it would linger all night, and since nobody wanted to walk through the dark to get to the bedrooms my whole family would be stuck in the living room all night.” — spider_party 

17. I was terrified on my drive home — and then a driver went the wrong way down the road

“Back when I just started working in a new town, my best friend was studying at uni one town over. We met once a week in the cinema in her town to the sneak preview.

One night after the film was over, we said our goodbyes and I hurried to my car to drive home. When I rolled off the parking lot, I was hit by the thought: ‘Well, wouldn’t it be nice to take the country road home instead of the highway.’

I shook my head, wondering where that thought came from, because taking that way would at least double the time I needed to go home and I had to go to work early next morning. So I headed towards the highway anyway.

I’d never been scared of driving before or after that night, but I was almost shaking with fright when I rolled onto the highway. The road was quite empty, but eventually I closed up to a truck. On any normal day I’d just overtake it, but I couldn’t bring myself to do so. Somehow that truck meant safety to me. Thoughts crossed my mind about what the last thoughts of people getting hit by wrong way drivers are. Again – no idea where they came from.

Right before I reached my exit a wrong way driver passed us by.

As of today I have not found a logical reason for my fear that night. I didn’t listen to the radio, I had a CD playing. There wasn’t music or radio in the cinema as well and it was well before the time of smartphones. Something or someone warned me.” — redchindi 

18. I spent time at our local library, which was horrifically haunted

“My dad used to work at the local library, often times he would stay until late working when no one was there but him. One day he told me he would hear loud crashes upstairs after close when only he was there but when he would go look to see what had fallen there wasn’t anything out of place. He told me about this and we decided to go take pictures and ask questions while using a digital audio recorder.

The following happened on two separate occasions:

One night, while using the recorder, we asked the standard slew of questions and eventually headed home and listened back to the recording. At some point in the recording a whisper could be heard saying ‘one and one is two’. I never knew what that meant, but it was just the two of us there so I always assumed that’s what the voice was referring to.

On another night we were sitting on the main floor in some chairs using the recorder and asking questions. One of the questions I asked was ‘Do you like books?’. Right after I finished asking the question we heard an unusually large crash behind us. We were pretty unnerved and decided to just leave. This was a Saturday night, the library was closed on Sunday, so we went back to the library the next morning to see what had made the noise. A couple of rows of books behind where we had been sitting there was a book on the floor, laying open and face down. I picked the book up and the first word on the page it was open to was our last name. The book also had the word ‘murder’ in the title. We were sufficiently freaked out.

My dad and I have always been interested in the paranormal. He has some good stories as well. The library he worked at used to be a train station. I had always assumed that the strange things that happened may have been related to that.” — pepsicolacompany

19. My brother spoke to us from beyond the grave

“I ordered a really cool stereo by mail. My older brother said he’d assemble it when it arrived (he was living in his own place at the time). I told him all I wanted to hear on that stereo was Heartbreaker by Led Zeppelin. Came home one day from work one day and heard that song wailing through the streets from two blocks away and I knew my stereo had arrived.

Years later, after my brother passed away, I decided to unbox and use his very expensive stereo system. Realized I couldn’t put it together so I hired a guy to do it for $50. While he was putting it together I was telling him about my Heartbreaker-old-stereo story. He finally said ok, when I put this last wire in it should work. As you can guess… the song that came blasting out of those awesome Bose speakers was… Heartbreaker. That guy freaked out and FLEW out of my house. FLEW. Didn’t take his money. Didn’t say goodbye, just gone. I still miss my brother some 30 years later. I have other stories but that’s my fav.” — Bizypainter

20. My friend’s boyfriend gave her a message after his suicide 

“My friend’s bf committed suicide a few years ago. He played baseball all throughout his youth and high school. His initials were B.R., and he always wore #9. Well her cable box kept resetting itself one day very shortly after his death, and the error code was Br09. I called the cable company to find out what that error code meant. It didn’t exist. The cable box worked fine the next day and from then on.” — stoopid_dummy

21. I dreamt about a house as a child that I ended up visiting as an adult

“I had a dream when I was three years old about being chased through an old house by a man with a chainsaw. The aged green walls and wooden floors are still ingrained in my memory. My only escape was hopping from the second floor down to the first where I was teleported back in bed with my parents.

The particularly spooky part didn’t come until years later. My family went on vacation for spring break to some town along the coast. We stayed in a home that was part of an older settlement in Washington state. Upon entering the house, I was freaking out. It was the exact home I had dreamed of years ago, right down to the walls and the staircase. I felt exceedingly uncomfortable for our entire stay.
I read in a book a long while later that, unbeknownst to my parents, the neighborhood we were staying in is notably haunted due to some murders that took place there in the 1800’s.” — BigBadBeluga 

22. The radio started playing the second my brother blew out his candles 

“A few years ago, on my brother’s birthday, as soon as he blew out the candles on his cake, our old radio turned on and started playing classical music. For our radio to turn on, we have to click a button, then manually twist two other ones. We were all at the table and the lights weren’t on because we turn them off for the candles to stand out.” — xoovanessaoox

23. Our family clock stopped at the exact time my father died

“When my father died in the hospital, my mom and I got home and looked at the family clock (one of those old French mechanical ones with weights). The clock had stopped exactly at the time of my father’s passing.

Now, nothing was wrong with the clock. The weights were up and everything should have been working. It just stopped ticking at exactly 8:35.

I’m not generally a religious person, but that was definitely odd and got me thinking.

Exactly one year later, on the first anniversary of my father’s death, the clock stopped again at five past half nine. Same story this year.

I feel as if the clock has some connection with my father.” — slhn

24. I swear I saw my great-grandfather after he passed away

“When I was 10 my great grandfather passed away. My great grandmother wasn’t used to being in the house alone so my dad and I put an extra light fixture in the hallway for her. After we finished I took an extension cord back down to the basement. I tossed it onto the table and began walking up the stairs. As I was climbing the steps I glanced to my right, beneath the wall I saw a pair of legs dressed in slacks walking by the table I just left. I bolted, ran past my grandma and dad on my way out of the house. It was only the 3 of us there.” — Safetravels09 

25. Someone on reddit knew about my private family history

“Before my dad died a couple years ago, one of his mantras was ‘you are loved.’ He’d say it to us all the time. At his funeral, I ended my eulogy having the audience say ‘you are loved,’ in his honor. So…it’s an important phrase for me and my father’s memory.

Now for the freaky part.

I saw a thread on reddit where OP was grieving and I shared a story about my dad and a gift he’d given me–a bag of silver stones with cheesy compliments engraved on them. He’d written a note about how when he was younger and just striking out on his own, he and his buddies had talked about how nice it would be to have a ‘compliment vending machine,’ that would give you words of encouragement whenever you needed it. He concluded by saying ‘anytime you need a pick-me-up pull out a stone and imagine me saying it.’

So I leave the comment and I immediately got a reply that said only ‘You are loved.’ I was shocked. Once my brain restarted itself, my first thought was, ‘maybe they know me???’ So I checked out their comment history to see if I could figure out who they were. Turns out, it was a bot. It had been programmed to randomly selected one comment reddit-wide every few seconds and left that comment a random compliment. So out of millions of possible comments, this bot randomly selected not just my comment, but the one comment where I shared a personally meaningful story about my dad and random compliments and then it randomly selected a compliment that was super meaningful to my dad and our family. It honestly felt like my dad’s spirit commandeered a reddit bot to tell me ‘hey.’

It still gives me chills. The sheer astronomical odds of that happening the way it did astound me.” — hochizo