26 People On The Creepiest Event They Just Can’t Erase From Their Memory

These creepy stories from Ask Reddit are unexplainable. There’s no rational explanation for them. Something paranormal MUST have been at play.

Pexels / Donald Tong
Pexels /
Donald Tong

1. I suffered from a severe burn in my sleep

“When I was about 8 I had one of those loft beds… One night I woke up around 3am and the top of my hand was super itchy … Scratched it and a bunch of slimy stuff scratched off and it hurt worse than anything I had ever experienced. I started screaming and crying and my mom ran into the room and flicked the lights on…

The skin on top of my hand had a serious burn and my skin had basically melted off… It was disgusting. My bed was nowhere near an outlet, and my bedroom light was in the middle of the room away from my bed (and off)…

My mom searched everything in the house but nothing was even remotely warm… Oven/stove/baseboard heaters, etc… There’s no evidence I even left my room.

I had a nice scar for a few years but it’s faded to pretty much nothing unless I get really tanned.

No idea.” — Halibeam

2. Help was written in my closet in my own handwriting

“There’s the words ‘Help me’ written on the inside of my closet door in blue marker. I assumed it was one of my friends because it was written literally as ‘Help me!’ with the exclamation point and lower case letters and it looked like something they would have done. Thing was, it was in a house I had just moved into where none of my friends had visited yet and the door it was written on had just been painted so it wasn’t from the previous owner. The worst part is it looks like it might be in my handwriting, but I have no memory of putting it there which kind of messed up my mind for a while. Not all that weird but I guess its worth sharing” — Koalaie

3. A woman aged in a matter of minutes

“I used to go for nighttime runs around my apartment in the Museum District in Houston. One night, I saw a young girl (~17years old) walking towards me on an otherwise empty street. She was wearing a purple t shirt, ripped jeans and smoking a cigarette in a very unusual way. As I passed by her, she maintained her downward, blank gaze and carried on without acknowledging me.

As I went to conclude my run, I took a path down another street (parallel to the above-mentioned) towards my apartment. I noticed a cigarette glare in the dark from a figure that was walking in my direction. As the figure approached, I noticed it was a 70 year-old woman smoking her cigarette in the same, unusual way as the 17 year-old girl. She had the same purple t shirt, the same ripped jeans and the same blank, downward gaze.” — [deleted]

4. A phantom left lipstick marks across my face

“I once went to Disney World when I was about 10 or 11. When I came out of the Haunted Mansion ride there were lipstick kiss marks all over my face. I did not feel anything during it and I was riding with my little brother (who was not wearing lipstick…). Still freaks me out to this day.” — cremefraiche9

5. A creature mimicked the voice of my cousin

“When I was about 8 I woke up at my grandparents house to my cousin saying, ‘Wake up lets play hide and go seek!’

I looked around couldn’t find her. ‘She said don’t quit come and find me.’

I searched high and low. She spoke to me in all different parts of the house. Finally I burst into my parents room and said, ‘Is Ellen hiding in here.’

And they said, ‘She isn’t coming until tomorrow.'” — Stink_Snake

6. I saw a faces outside my childhood bedroom

“From when I was five until I was about seven, I used to see faces outside my second floor bedroom window all the time. We were living in a tiny farmhouse in a heavily wooded/secluded area, and obviously nobody was out there. But every night, I’d see them. Some were just normal faces, others had weird expressions, and others were horribly distorted and disfigured. I still distinctly remember seeing those faces, but up until recently, I’d chalked it up as a false memory and insanely overactive imagination.

About seven years ago, we moved out of that house and a family friend, Jake, purchased it. Jake had a daughter, Lily, who was (at the time this took place) five years old. About two years ago, I went over there for a visit and Jake asked my boyfriend for some advice, since he was studying to be a doctor.

‘Every night Lily claims she sees faces in her window, and she won’t go to sleep. Anything you can recommend to me?’

Turns out Lily’s room is my old room, and she is the same age as I was when I started seeing them. I just about died.

I’m a science fanatic. I do not believe in this kind of thing. But for the life of me, I can’t explain my way out of this one.” — NewsiesOnAMission

7. I stepped into an elevator in a haunted building

“They filmed parts of the Exorcist at the college I went to. There are all sorts of spooky urban legend type stories told about the “cursed” filming of that movie, feel free to look them up.

I love ghost stories and urban legends, but our Exorcist campus stories didn’t do much for me. The idea that the filming of a Hollywood movie would bring ghosts or demons or whatever to haunt college kids in their dorms was not particularly creepy or interesting. Certainly less so than other campus legends we had like the dorm that used to be an old morgue or the secret tunnels that ran under campus that were used to wheel bodies to the said morgue. I liked those ones, but The Exorcist stuff just seemed hokey.

Several weeks after classes had ended my junior year, I was scheduled to leave on one of those overseas volunteer trips that college kids do. Our group was scheduled to leave from campus and head to the airport together early one June morning. We decided it would be fun to all spend the night before on campus together.

All the dorms had been emptied out for the summer, with the exception of the one or two they kept open for summer students. One of the people coming on our trip, however, was a school employee who lived on campus in a nice air-conditioned apartment in one of the closed-up dorms. As you’re probably guessing by now, yes, it was a dorm in which they filmed an Exorcist scene, supposedly in the basement.

Out of the whole group of us, there were only two guys, me and my friend Brian. The girls all decided to have a big sleepover on the floor in the staff member’s 4th floor apartment. Brian and I decided to go off and find an empty room with beds (but not an air conditioner unit) to stay in down the hall. Partly because we wanted both wanted to sleep in a bed, partly because hours of late night girl talk didn’t interest us, and partly because we knew about the haunted reputation of the building and thought it would be fun.

There was a lot going on in my mind that night. I was super excited about the trip; I had never been overseas before. I really wanted to get a good night’s sleep so I started off the trip feeling good and not crabby. The room Brian and I chose was incredibly hot and stuffy though, even with the windows opened as much as they would go, and my mind was racing the whole night, thinking about the long flight in the morning. The hours just dripped away.

At some point after hours of lying awake, I started feeling like I had to pee. The only open bathroom in the building was down on the first floor. I knew that getting up and going to the bathroom was just going to make me feel even more awake, so I tried to fight it. Also, as much as I didn’t put much stock in the silly Exorcist ghosts or whatever, the idea of going down to the first floor in the dark didn’t seem particularly appealing.

Eventually though, the need to pee was just too strong. I got up and, using my cell phone as a light, found my way to the elevator, went down to the first floor, relieved myself, and started back up. I got back into the elevator and pressed the button for the 4th floor. Instead, the elevator decided to go down, taking me to the basement. Being that there was nobody else staying in the building that night besides us, my heart started pounding. I had been in sort of a sleepy daze, and suddenly I was wide awake and thinking what the fuck is going on.

When the doors to the basement opened, I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to look out. I felt my way over to the panel and peeked out just enough to find the button for the 4th floor. I pressed it. The doors started to close, but then jolted, as if someone had stuck their arm between them to stop them.

So, I’m just standing there in the elevator, it’s deathly quiet, I’m breaking into a cold sweat despite the fact that the building was like a furnace, and I keep pressing 4, and the door keeps trying to shut but can’t. Eventually I open my eyes and look out, just to make sure there’s not actually something stuck between the doors, and all I see is the pitch dark of the basement beyond. I’m starting to think I’m going to have to go out into that darkness and find the stairs if I want to get back to the room.

That’s when I hear it, and I swear to god this actually happened, I hear a person muttering something off in that darkness. I close my eyes again and just keep pounding on that button and eventually, the doors are able to close and they take me back up to the 4th floor.

Suffice to say, I never got back to sleep that night and I started off the trip being really crabby and feeling out of sorts.” — CarthVonMonk

8. My neighbors could see my grandfather’s ghost

“When I was little our house had an upstairs apartment that my grandfather lived in. My grandfather would sit in the front window smoking, drinking coffee and just watching the neighborhood. He was very sick from Cancer and died in our house. A few months later, a new family moved into the house across the street from us. The wife and my mom became friends. One day the lady across the street asked my mom who the old guy was that lived upstairs and would sit in the window smoking and drinking coffee. No one had moved in upstairs.” — chartito

9. We all saw a floating black shadow

“A few years ago, I was at home with my parents and sister. My sister and I were sitting on the couch in the living room (facing the kitchen) and my parents were in the tv room (to the left of the kitchen). My sister and I heard a noise in the kitchen, but shrugged it off. My mom approached us and asked if we’d heard that noise. We instantly felt a sense of dread and said yes. In that instant, all 3 of us saw a black shadow float at the top of the entryway of the kitchen, then disappear. I walked over to the kitchen, peeked in, and saw that every cabinet was wide open. I hated that house after that.” — ihatemandymoore

10. My dog barked at the creepiest time

“My husband and I had a cool portrait painted of a friend who passed away. One night we were talking about him and our dog who was sound asleep, got up, went over to the painting and started barking at it.” — Cat_Bird_Baby

11. The house had evil hidden inside of it

“When I was about 12, my mother’s friend asked her and her other church friends to visit his house a pray over it. Ever since he had moved in he had seen dark shapes, smelled bad things, experienced cold spots, heard voices, and his wife had been acting weird.

My mother took me with her because, I presume, I had nowhere else to go. Whoever had lived in the house before had drawn weird symbols in the garage such as the “all-seeing eye” and the whole place just had a very uncomfortable presence. This man had never stepped foot in his storm cellar (this is oklahoma so it’s separate from the house) and the shelter just had an evil feeling emanating from it. They all decided to open it, not thinking there would be anything there. When they opened it, there were dozens of dried-up dead cats and chickens that apparently had been sacrificed. This is in the city so no real reason to have chickens down there. It was just a terrible, evil feeling.” — jlanger23

12. A stuffed animal from my cousin’s coffin appeared in my bedroom

“My cousin committed suicide by jumping off the renaissance building in Dallas, Texas. We buried her in the spring around Easter. She loved stuffed animals and cute things so I wanted to send her off with one. I had found a stuffed rabbit to leave with her at her grave site the day we were burying her. I put the rabbit and a rose on the coffin as they were lowering it into the ground and left once the ceremony was done. When I got home the rabbit was on my dresser, I was so confused and still have no idea how it got there.” — Lady_Azure

13. I woke up with a bleeding bite mark

“When I was about 8 years old, I fell asleep and had what I can only relate as a 90 toys commercial on an bad acid trip. It was a close up of a snarling doberman that was covered in neon colors, and in a second it had bit me on my arm. I jerked awake and my arm was in extreme pain. I looked at my arm and I was bleeding and what appeared to be bite mark in my arm that could’ve only happened if I was holding my arm in a defensive position defending myself from something. The bite mark had elongated canines and was bleeding. We never did or ever would own a dog.

My dad also told me a story that always creeped him out. Shortly after I just started to walk, my dad woke up one morning, and he came to get me out of my crib. When he got there, I was nowhere to be seen. He went downstairs to see if maybe, somehow I was down there. Nope. He looked around until he finally noticed the front door and screen door where both unlocked and wide open, deadbolts and all. He feared the worst, so he ran outside and found me, in the bed of his Ford F-250 truck bawling my eyes out.” — JDubya9397

14. I had a strong feeling I was being watched

“One time when I was on a 15hr drive I had to pull over at a rest stop to get some sleep. I quickly passed out and had the strangest dream of people trying to kill me at a rest stop. When I woke up from the dream there was a smiley face on the INSIDE of my windshield. Needless to say I hauled it the second I woke up.” — UndeadGoat18

15. I dropped a screwdriver but it never hit the floor

“I was in a brand new apartment that had white carpet. This was before I moved anything in, so the apartment was completely empty.

I had to replace a light bulb, so I was standing on a stepladder, unscrewing the glass dome with a large black and yellow screwdriver when the screw driver slipped out of my hands. I felt / saw it hit my elbow, then I turned my head away so it wouldn’t hit me in the eyes…. Didn’t feel anything, so I figured it must have bounced away from my body after hitting my elbow. But I never heard it hit the floor.

So. Again, this is in a completely empty apartment, with white carpet floors, and I just dropped a black screwdriver. Except I never once heard the screwdriver hit the floor, and it just went missing.

I never did find that screwdriver.” — dongholio

16. We found skinned woodchucks covering the trees

“This happened in the mid 90s in Western NY but I remember it clearly. My friend and I often went hiking with his dog’s in the woods by his house. The area was a mix of woods with fields in between. One day we decided to go explore in a different direction than the usual path we took. It was just before winter so it was cool (about 50 F) and overcast. All the leaves were off the trees already.We cross a few fields and wooded areas and come to a field with a lone tree in the center. From a distance we notice the tree looks strange. There is something on almost all the branches that doesn’t look right. We decide to have a closer look. What we found was that the things on the branches were dead woodchucks. But they weren’t just dead, they were completely skinned. No fur, no signs of fur, just lidless, muscle exposed woodchucks facing out in every direction, teeth exposed looking like some creatures out of a horror movie. Dozens of them. They all seemed fresh(there was no stink or signs of decay) but it was cool enough to slow decomposition. With visions of some weird Texas chainsaw massacre family living nearby we decided to call it a day. As we are making our way back we are leaving the last field and entering the last stretch of woods before his house, I looked back across the field and in the center of it is an animal, slightly bigger than either of the adult German shepherds we had with us, that I could not identify. I grew up in the area and spent a LOT of time hiking, biking and camping. I consider myself to be pretty familiar with the wildlife in the area. This thing was bigger than a coyote and its hind legs were shorter than the front and its hips were low to the ground. It had a large square head. The closest thing I can think of is a hyena which really doesn’t make much sense. I asked my friend WTF is that? He said “I don’t know but keep walking so the dogs don’t see it or we will a bloodbath on our hands.” or something to that effect. So we did, the dogs never saw it and we never could figure out what it was. The tree and the animal were probably unrelated but the two events occurring as the same time made it a very creepy experience. Dead, skinless woodchuck tree and hyena like animal in Western NY on the same day. Here are the google earth coords of the general vicinity. 42.950711, -77.202959 The tree does not appear to be there anymore.” — Glennfiddich

17. The clothes hangers flew around the room

“Laying in bed with my girlfriend bickering about something. We weren’t arguing but just kinda disagreeing about something. I can’t remember what. The lights are off and its pretty dark. Suddenly I hear all the hangers in the closet across the room violently move. I go to get up and turn the light one but girlfriend has a death grip on me. I’m like “babe I have to check this out.” She won’t let go so I pick her up and carry her to the light switch and flip it on.

The hangers are all over the ground thrown all about the room like someone came up and slapped the shit out of them. The rack is still intact. I have no idea what happened.” — [deleted]

18. A phantom pounded on the hood of my car

“I grew up in a small town, and lived out in the country. My mom and I were coming home from Walmart really late one night and decided to take the back way home. I still had my learners permit, so I wanted to take a road with less traffic. Anyone who has ever lived or been to the country knows how creepy these roads can be at night. I was going around a curve, right before a one lane bridge, so I slowed down in case I had to stop. Out of no where this woman jumps in front of me to the drivers side of my car and starts pounding on the hood of my car. Her mouth was moving but I couldn’t make out what she was saying. My mom started freaking out and told me not to stop, and just keep driving. I kept going and we both looked back to see where she was and no one was there. To this day my mom and I still remember it clearly. Turns out there’s apparently a legend about a woman who died around the bridge and supposedly can be seen sometimes late at night. I get goosebumps to this day just thinking about it.” — ohherroeeyore

19. A stranger threatened me over the phone

“When I was a dumb young kid, I was on the phone with a friend late at night and some guy called up and said he was with the phone company and they were doing work on my block. He described my block perfectly and said he wanted to verify my address. I probably should have said, ‘You guys should know that already’ but again, dumb young kid. I continued talking to my friend and started to regret giving this stranger any info. He called back maybe 20 minutes later and said, ‘Matt are you scared yet?’ Never found out who that was, how they knew my name, and why they were messing with me.” — m2j

20. A ring mysteriously slid onto his finger

“Two of my best friends, who were also a couple, died last summer in a freak drowning accident. We were living together at the time of their deaths. In the weeks after they’d died I’d frequently wake up to noises in their bedrooms or hear knocking on my bedroom door. One night while the search and recovery was still ongoing for one of their bodies I heard my friend shout my name in distress, my ears were ringing from it and he was finally found the next day in what was meant to be the last day of the search for him.

I moved out of that house two months later and to a new city for a job. Every time I visit one of my friend’s families I always use my friends ensuite and take some time to sit in her room, a few times I’ve heard knocking on the ensuite door, it’s a glass frosted door and there’s never anyone else in her room. It’s a nice feeling though that makes me smile.

Since I’ve moved to the new city I’ve had two stand out things happen. The first time I was under the covers playing candy crush laying on my right side. I felt someone sit down on the bed behind me and then the covers were pulled off of me with quite a force. I instinctively thought it was my boyfriend so I was “wtf are you doing?! ” pulled them back over my head again and then suddenly froze on the spot. My boyfriend was at the gym and I was the only one home. It took me at least 5 mins to come out from under the covers and look. There was no one there.

A few weeks after that me and my boyfriend got in to bed one night after visiting friends. My boyfriend then sat up really quickly and was freaking out a little he said while his hand was laying still under the covers he felt a ring slide on to his pinky finger. It was my missing Claddagh ring that I lost a few months back. I immediately started crying. One of my friends who died wore a Claddagh ring also and I had told him how to wear it properly when he and my other friend got together (the heart faces inwards when your heart is taken).

He was one of the only other people who wore that ring and we both loved what the rings represented. I was devastated when I lost it. We have no idea how it appeared under the covers but I’m so glad to have it back again.” — immajustgooglethat

21. A creature tore down trees along a path

“This was years ago, when I was a much younger lass in my twenties. I lived right by a forest that had a bunch of hiking trails through it, and I loved to take my dog for a walk there at night to look at the stars, listen to the river, get wicked baked, etc. You could expect other people there, it was a park after all, but usually it was pretty empty.

So for reference, I was about 100lbs soaking wet and my dog was a 10lb Mini Pin, so not exactly a threat to anyone. I also didn’t have my cell on me because I was dumb. It was about 11pm on a warm Tuesday night and we were just lazing in one of the little alcoves by the riverbank I like to rest at and enjoy the fireflies and whatnot. Then all of a sudden I hear this horrible scream. My dog starts barking like crazy and I freak out, but then I think ‘that was probably a rabbit’ because they scream like creepily humanlike. My dog calms down and I go back to stargazing and then the scream happens again but louder. And then twice more.

My dog is growling and trying to hide behind me and then I hear this noise like a TRex is running through the forest – big loud stomps and branches breaking and shit. So now I think a girl is being chased and I feel awful because I don’t have my cell on me. It gets closer and my dog and I just hunker down hoping we can’t be seen from the path and I can see one of the trees above us shake. It felt like that scene from LOTR with the hobbits under the tree roots. The noise and stomping go right past me but I don’t see anything on the path. I stay there for a while, don’t hear anything else and eventually go home. There’s a lot of broken branches on the path and it smelled like wood smoke, but no other clues.

If my dog hadn’t been there being so visibly freaked out, I would assume it was a dream. She would never go down that specific path again either.” — Batsignal_on_mars

22. My toy disappeared into the sky

“One time I was in my back yard playing with a plastic toy dinosaur. Loved that thing. I tossed it up into the sky, and then it never fell back down. I never saw it again.” — elpantalla

23. The phone wouldn’t stop ringing

“A couple of years back, a friend and I were visiting Myrtle Beach and stayed at a shitty model to save money. After a long night, we made it back to our room and proceeded to pass the fuck out. Or at least, she did. I woke up at around 3am to the sound of the phone ringing, so I picked it up in a tired and not quite sober haze. There was only cracking static and heavy breathing on the other end, so I hung up and went back to sleep. Not even five minutes later, it rang again and I answered again to the same static and breathing. The third, fourth and fifth time, I just let it ring.

My friend is a known heavy sleeper, so she didn’t even stir. The sixth time I picked up and yelled at the phone like an idiot. The seventh time I yelled some more. I decided to just ignore it the next I don’t know how many times, until I thought it’d drive me crazy. I tried to wake my friend up, but it didn’t work. Finally, I decided to go down to the front desk to see if they know what the hell is going on and how to stop it. Since I hated elevators, I headed over to the stairs and found that they were completely unlit and pitch black.

I took the elevator down since I didn’t want to break my head in a pitch black stairwell, and to my absolute horror, the elevator stalled and flickered for a good five seconds between the second and third floor. Still freaked out and feeling like I’m in a horror movie, I made it to the front desk to find a rather spooky looking pale, one-eyed man lightly snoring at his desk.

I woke him up and told him what was going on, so he checked the switchboard and said that he didn’t see record of any call going through to our room, but he’d block all calls from coming in anyway. I got on to him about the elevator and darkened stairs. He chuckled the elevator thing off saying it was old but reliable. He got kinda serious about the stairs though, saying if be wanting to avoid them anyway.

Still spookified, I got back up to the room, saw that there were three missed calls while I was out, and say on the bed waiting for the phone to ring again. After about twenty minutes, I ticked back into bed and went to sleep.

Next morning, I told my friend about the previous night’s happenings and remarked that I can’t count on her when shit gets creepy. She thought I dreamt it all, until I showed her the record of incoming calls. After that we just watched some cartoon network and took turns taking showers. When I got out of my shower, she was looking at the phone and the instruction card, trying to figure out why the light in the corner was now flashing. After we figured out that it was a voicemail and the instructions to hear it, she heard about five seconds of static. She put it on speaker to repeat it, and what we heard had is running out of there. At the end of the recorded static, a deep make voice whispered “I just need to hear your voice again”. To this day, I don’t know what the hell that was all about. That night felt extremely surreal.” — CaffeineAndNicotine

24. The doors keep opening on their own

“My grandpa lived in his own little hallway-suite in our house. Bedroom, tv room, bathroom, and another room unrelated to him. He was never in that room, it was just in that hall too. Ever since he died (in the house) all the doors to his rooms open and close themselves often, especially the bathroom which he used the most. The door to the room he never entered has never done this. I don’t find it scary really, as ghostpa wouldn’t want to hurt us.” — -DisobedientAvocado-

25. I found a message from my father in my food

“Shortly after my Dad died (major bummer, we were best friends) I was eating alphabets the cereal, when a couple letters formed the word ‘dad.’ I thought nothing of it and ate the letters. Then it happened again. It happened 20-30 more times, just over and over again my bowl kept being full of only d’s and a’s and forming the word ‘dad.’ The rest of the box and all the bowls from it were normal, like the box was not full of only those letters, just this one instance. It felt like a scene from a movie. I have never told anyone this because I figured no one would ever believe me.” — 4animel

26. I left the house before I learned where I was going

“One night, during college, I woke at about 2:30am. I can’t explain why, but I immediately jumped out of bed and started getting dressed. I was completely dressed and just starting to wonder what I was doing when the phone rang. It was one of my best friends. She said she had tried acid at a party earlier and was on a bad trip. She was terrified of everything and had been hiding under a table for about half an hour, trying to get to the phone to call me. Somehow, I knew and was getting ready to go get her before she even called for help. I still don’t know how to explain that.” — Saedron Thought Catalog Logo Mark 

Holly is the author of Severe(d): A Creepy Poetry Collection.

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