20 People Describe The Scariest Thing They Ever Saw With Their Own Eyes
"I freak out, turn around, and SHE IS STANDING RIGHT BEHIND MY BROTHER AND I."
1. The boy on the milk carton
“When I was about 10 they started putting missing children on milk cartons. Every morning for a while I was looking at this boy’s face on the side of the milk while I would eat my cereal. Then one day a car went down my street while I was playing outside, and there was a boy in the back seat with his face up close to the window looking out. I’m 99% sure it was the boy from the milk carton. I told my parents but they didn’t believe me.”
2. The squirrels who made eye contact
“I was out for a walk late one night. This was in rural Illinois, so there was nobody else out. I noticed from a distance that there where these squirrels just standing in the middle of the road. Thought to myself that this is strange. When I got closer I noticed there where three squirrels standing around a cat that was lying down. I thought for a minute the cat was dead, but when I got closer and walked passed them, the squirrels and cat followed me with their eyes, none of them moving a muscle. It was a look like, ‘Move it along nothing to see here.’ Still to this day I think of how bizarre that was.”
3. The giant with feet the size of pillows
“A giant. This guy’s feet were as long as a pillow, and his hands made a newspaper look small. My friends think I exaggerated how large he was. I don’t.”
4. The girl who mouthed my name on TV
“I was watching a football game a couple of years ago, and in one of the shots where they panned over the crowd I saw a girl look straight at the camera and mouth my name. Scared the shit out of me, but when I rewinded it the seat was actually fucking empty. Maybe I just need to find someone to fill that seat.”
5. The girl with duct tape over her mouth
“In 1997, I was 17. I was driving my gf at the time home late at night and we are sitting at a stoplight on an overpass above a freeway. An 80’s dodge Omni comes flying up to the light across from us and barely comes to a stop while the light is still red. I look across at the driver and he looks panicked and frazzled, and I look over at the passenger and that’s when shit got real. There was a girl with duct tape wrapped around her face and shoulders. Her hair was all fucked up and she was crying.
It took me a few seconds to even process what I was seeing. I looked at my gf and she looked at me and she burst out crying and said ‘WTF is going on in that car?’
No sooner do I look back, the guy has already turned the wrong way onto a one-way street of the service drive of the freeway (in Michigan, it’s common for north-bound freeway traffic to have a north-bound local road along the side of the freeway, for which he’d turned south).
I freaked the fuck out. I threw my car in reverse. I tried backtracking and flying down city streets to catch up with him. We did see him at one point in time hit a turnaround onto 8 Mile, he didn’t have a plate on his car. I hurried up and went home (I was only about a half mile from where we were when we saw him hit the turn around). I rushed in and called the cops while my gf frantically tried telling my mom what we saw. The cops came. They took our story. There was never a missing persons story that matched what we said. My mom never quite believed us. It was written off as two teens with overactive imaginations.
I know wtf I saw. I’m a man in my 30’s and I’ll never forget the look on that girl’s face. The crazy in that guy’s eyes. My gf (who later became my wife, now ex) remembers it vividly, too. That was one of the most fucked up nights of both of our lives.”
6. The Two-Foot-Tall Daddy Long Legs
“When I was younger, maybe 6-8 years old, I swear I saw a group of daddy long-legs that was 1 to 2ft tall each. I was at my babysitter’s house, outside near their above-ground pool, under its deck.”
7. The pair of legs running in the woods
“Me and my friend were walking in the woods pretending that we were hunting mythical creatures. Of course, we both knew that this was completely made up. As we were walking, the trail curved to the right. The second we got through the curve, I saw a pair of long brown legs running. No body, no explanation, just legs. I didn’t say anything. A few minutes later, my friend and I started taking about how creepy these woods were and my friend went, “Yeah, this place is creepy. I saw a pair of legs running away from us. Weird, right?” I went, “Wait, were those legs brown? I swear I saw them too.” We ran so fast to safety.”
8. Jesus the resurrection lizard
“A chameleon escaped from a bag when my friend was giving it to me and it leapt into a big pile of snow. I looked around for it for a while but couldn’t find it so I gave up. Several weeks later the snow all melted and I was out there and found the lizard partially frozen to the ground. I peeled him off and put it in one of those little plastic tanks and sat it by the radiator in my house. Within an hour or two the lizard was hopping around the cage like nothing ever happened. It lived for several years after that, and was known to my friend and I as Jesus the resurrection lizard.”
9. The girl in the empty chair
“Once when I was a teenager I was watching a movie by myself. The TV room then had two chairs separated by a couch. I was on the chair to the right, and at one point I laughed really hard at the movie. I heard someone else laugh and saw what seemed to be a girl my age double over in laughter in the other chair. The weird thing is it didn’t startle me; it just felt nice to share laughter. Then I realized that I was alone in the whole house and the chair was empty.”
10. The Mandrill at the door
“When I was about 7 or 8, I was at my grandmother’s house in WV to spend the night, along with my brother and sister. It was Friday night and we were watching old school TGIF. There was a knock on the door and I jumped up to answer it (my grandma was in her bedroom and didn’t hear it. I wasn’t supposed to answer the door by myself, but I really liked to do it).
I opened the door and no one was there. I stepped out and looked to the left and right. To the right, beside the door, my grandma kept a small table. Sitting on that table was a mandrill. One of those primates like Rafiki from The Lion King. I don’t remember it moving, I just saw it sitting there staring at me.
I freaked out and slammed the door. My grandma came running out and I told her there was a monkey outside. She ran out my brother and sister ran to the door to see the monkey. I’ll never forget when I ran out and that table was empty. My grandma told me I shouldn’t tell tall tales and not to open the door when she wasn’t around.
That’s been over 20 years ago and my brother and sister still make fun of me for ‘seeing a monkey.’ I’ve done google searches about Mandrills escaped from the zoo in rural West Virginia, but no such luck. It is still so clear in my mind I am sure it was there, though.”
11. The white light in the mountains
“Watched a white light hover in the distance between two mountains, then it moved up, then down.
At that point, I called my buddies outside to watch it. We witnessed it move side to side, then in a perfect clockwise circle, then anti clockwise. Next it started doing tight figure eights one way, then back the other way. We watched it then move diagonally to the left then back to center, diagonally right and then back to center.
During this we discussed the possibilities of what it could be, a helicopter, a skilled pilot, a series of spotlights? The speed at which it moved and the fact it didn’t waver slightly and the fact the motion was so fluid left us without an explanation.
As we discussed and watched the movements, the light moved even faster up, down and diagonally. It the sped off to the right at a speed we could barely focus on. It was now about three kilometers on the other side of the mountain and then suddenly it took off straight up and out towards the stars till it was gone.”
12. The Mothman
“It was like a moth or something that looked like it, was a good couple of feet long. It was darkish, on a main road, saw a few normal moths fly past me and as I turned my head watching them fly past I swear I saw this giant goddamn moth sat in the road; it was in the darkness between some street lights and looks like it sort of flew off further into the dark.
Was a pretty bizarre experience tbh, not even like I was drunk or high or anything.
I’m wondering if I saw the Mothership…it was either Mothman, a rare/unusual ‘giant moth’ type that got suuuper lost, an owl or bat, or an actual honest to god borderline cryptid Giant Moth.
Good to know that others have had similar experiences though! I’m not totally crazy after all.”
13. The Little Woman In The Flower Garden
“I went outside early one morning and saw this woman kneeled in my mother’s flower garden. I was a little sketched out. I was like, 10 and a person I didn’t know was just sitting in the middle of our garden. Not knowing what to do, I just said hello to her. She turned around and immediately apologized for being in our yard, and said that we had such nice flowers she couldn’t help it. Then she walked away. I thought it was cute, didn’t think any more of it, and went about my day.
My mom and dad left to do errands and my brother and I were home alone. We were both watching TV. Without any warning, someone taps my shoulder behind me. I freak out, turn around, and SHE IS STANDING RIGHT BEHIND MY BROTHER AND I.
She apologized immensely and then asks where my mom and dad were, and I told her they would be back anytime, but that she really shouldn’t be coming into people’s houses. She agreed, and asked for a pen and a piece of paper, saying she wanted to write them a note. I complied and told her to do it out in the dining room. I peered from behind a corner in my hallway and never let her out of my sight. I was beyond afraid. She calmly sets the pen down, shouts thank you from the dining room, and then walks out the front door. I bolt to the window and make sure she’s gone, then I bolt to the door and lock it. Then I nervously and very slowly approached the note she left on the table.
I read it and was dumbfounded. She said that she believed god spoke to her in the garden, and told her to build an alter to her grandmother. The note was her scheduling an appointment with my mother to discuss placing a tombstone and a prayer table or something in the garden.
My parents got home and I freaked out, I told them my mom had to talk to this woman. She left her phone number on the note. My mom took the day off work, sat out on the porch at the time the woman said, and waited for her to arrive. She never showed up. My mom called the number on the note, only to get a disconnected message. The only proof I had of any of these things happening was the note she left. My mom and dad don’t believe most of the story, and it seems even my brother forgot about it, but I know it happened.”
14. My doppelgänger at the carnival
“Once as a kid, my parents took me to a carnival. I was four years old, and at the time an only child. I got in line for one of those rides where you sit inside a plastic dragon and spin the wheel to rotate yourself faster. Climbing into what I assumed was an empty dragon, I was startled to see another girl already waiting for the ride to start. She looked exactly like me. We spun the wheel and stared at each other in silence, without blinking, for the entire duration of the ride. When it ended, we got mixed up in the shuffle and my parents started to walk away with this other little girl. I yelled for them to wait, and they turned back and saw me twenty feet behind them. They both went ghost white, and when I caught up, my doppelgänger was gone. To this day, we never ever speak of that trip to the carnival.
I asked my parents about the whole thing, and had to explain the concept of doppelgängers to both of them. My mom remembered that the little girl was wearing a blue sweater, and apparently there were other family members there who pointed it out as well, probably after my parents brought the girl back after the brief kidnapping. We’ll be looking into old pictures on the off chance she’s in the background somewhere. My dad didn’t remember very well, but apparently Doppelgänger is the name of some craft beer he likes….
If you were wearing a blue sweater at the Woodstock Fair in CT during the mid- to late-90’s, and were 4 to 6 years old, please message me! I’m looking for you!”
15. The alien standing next to me
“This was probably 16 years ago so I was about 10 or 11 when I’d seen this. My parents’ basement was/is unfinished and we had a small TV and a single couch in the middle of it for my siblings and I to go play games, watch VHS tapes, whatever.
One night I decided to hang out down there by myself and watch some movies and I ended up falling asleep on the couch. While asleep I was in a dream where I was in the exact spot I was in in the basement, watching TV on the couch when something asked me ‘What channel are you watching?’ Still in the dream I turn and say ‘channel 13’ to a short alien sitting next to and staring right at me. I of course wake up in the empty and now dark basement (I’m sure my parents came down to turn off the lights and to) and am frozen in place for a moment until I hear something behind the couch.
I sat up to turn around hoping to god it was our old dog and there it was, the alien from the dream rising up about two feet from behind the couch and walking toward me. I’m sure I let out a blood-curdling scream as I bolted upstairs and right to my parents’ bedroom. Everyone including the dog were up there and to this day I believe what I saw as crazy as it sounds. (It doesn’t help that my mom and sister say they’ve heard things constantly in the home for years like people walking around all hours of the night when everyone’s in bed)
TLDR Fell asleep with an alien asking me questions in a dream only to wake to ‘it’ standing behind me.”
16. Grandma in the rocking chair
“After my grandmother died, she left her rocking chair that she had rocked me to sleep in as a little boy. I kept it in my bedroom as a reminder of her.
Not long after she passed, I would wake up and see her quietly sitting in the rocker, smiling. We’d have a conversation, just as we did when she was alive.
This recurred regularly, night after night, with all sorts of discussions—until one night, when she ‘disappeared’ from the rocking chair right before my eyes, never to return.
I can’t prove any of it, of course. But if those nightly visitations were all dreams, they were hands down the most vivid series ever. The sad part is that after she stopped ‘appearing,’ that rocker seemed very empty—and I realized how much I missed her.”
17. The grim reaper
“I saw what many would consider to be the Grim Reaper [serious].
I was playing poker on a late Sunday night, when suddenly I got a very bad feeling. Chills ran through me, but I didn’t feel sick. I wasn’t drunk, tired, or even remotely feeling physically bad. I just had a sudden need to get home and make sure that my mom was safe. So I cashed out my chips and left.
Disquiet followed me all the way home, but I never considered anything out of the ordinary. I figured I was just thrown off by being out so late on a Sunday. The night was cold and quiet, but no stranger than usual.
When I got home, my mother was in the shower (she’s an obsessive late night cleaner, a habit beaten into her by her abusive stepmother). I called out to her that I was home, and she was very relieved. I went to hang up my winter gear by my window – and then I saw it.
We lived across from a park and floating down the sloping hill towards my apartment building was a massive hooded figured composed of tattered shadows. It was blacker than the surrounding night and seemed to warp the space around it. It moved fluidly and with clear agency, floating like a squid through water.
I’ve never felt terror like that. I knew I was seeing something I had no business seeing. It wasn’t thrilling, or exciting; it was just awful. This was before smartphones, but the thought of trying to snap a photo with a digital camera never crossed my mind. The truth is, I wouldn’t want it. I felt…awareness from this thing, and it wasn’t friendly. I felt that if it knew I saw it, something horrible would follow.
So, I closed my shades and hid under my blanket like a little kid.
I had the day off the next day (hence the late night), and a friend of mine came to visit. He told me cops were all over the place downstairs. He saw the look on my face, and I told him what happened. He laughed it off. We went to grab some food, I asked a cop what was going on, but they wouldn’t answer.
We came back and found a young guy wandering my hallway. He was a reporter and asked us if we knew where a woman in the building lived. We asked if he knew what was going on…
There had been a murder-suicide. A man shot his girlfriend and then killed himself. The murderer’s mother lived on the other side of the building. My friend gaped.
No, I didn’t hear the shots and then filled in the blanks with an imaginary specter. I’ve fired guns since I was a kid, and I know what they sound like. No, I didn’t watch a horror movie, or have anything supernatural on the brain. I’ve never seen anything remotely similar since. I’m open to the idea of things we do not understand, but understand the importance of healthy skepticism.
But I know what I saw. More, even, I know what I felt. It was like peering behind a door that was never meant to be opened. People think they want to see supernatural occurrences, and perhaps there’s a good aspect to them. But I think the truth is most of us would absolutely freak if faced with something that’s not supposed to exist in nature. Things like what I saw go against everything we consider to be right, in a very profound way.”
18. The dwarves in the termite mound
“When I was a wee lass, about 8 years old, I was playing around this termite mound which was weirdly right in the middle of our yard. There was a hole on the side of that mound and for some reason, I decided to peek into it (to see the termites?). Inside, I saw these tiny people(?)/dwarves/humanoid things wtf. They were pacing around a table as if they we’re preparing dinner or something. I ran to my mom to tell her what I saw and she was like wtf. So I grabbed her hand and brought her to where the hole was but it wasn’t there anymore. There was no hole D: So my mom told me that I must have been imagining it. Later, I told my dad about it and he was shocked. This is the weird part. He saw the same thing when he was a kid and his mom didn’t believe him either.”
19. THREE WISPY WHITE GHOSTS
“Let me just start by saying I don’t believe in ghosts or spirits or anything but I have no idea what I saw or it was all a dream.
When I was a kid my family would all sleep downstairs on blankets in the summer so we could share the air conditioner. During one of these nights when I was about 6 or 7 years old I woke up on my living room floor to look into my kitchen and could have sworn I saw three wispy white figures moving around slowly. They had long thin heads flowing behind them and long arms that slowly moved about as they moved. I remember ducking my head under a blanket for a couple of minutes and looking back expecting them to be gone but there they were, clearly moving about my kitchen and interacting with each other. I remember looking around and accounting for my parents and sibling to make sure it wasn’t any of them and they were all with me sleeping on the floor. I put my head back under the blanket and decided I would just stay there until they came to interrupt me or I fell back asleep. Of the very few things I remember from that age, these images I can see in my head still as if it were yesterday.”
20. THE SHADOW PEOPLE
“When I was a little kid I saw 3 roughly 4-foot-tall shadow people milling around the foot of my parents’ bed when they were asleep. Somehow I snuck into the room and they didn’t notice me till I screamed and freaked out. They turned to look at me and then darted over into the darkest part of the room and disappeared. It was not a dream, it was not a little kids’ imagination…I swear I saw this and it’s stuck with me my whole life.”
