X People Share Their Creepiest, Most Unnerving Moments You Never Want To Experience Yourself

30 People Share Their Creepiest, Most Unnerving Moments You Never Want To Experience Yourself

These creepy stories from Ask Reddit will have you tossing and turning tonight.

1. When I was around 6, one of my friend’s brother died and when we visited the wake, I smelt something odd when I went closer to his coffin. It was like the smell of a dead person.

Probably two weeks after, that friend and some of our other friends played in my house and all of a sudden I smelt that same smell. Then she (the friend) said, “I can smell my brother’s coffin.” I got shocked. Next thing I know, she and her other sister went to the corner of my house for like two minutes because according to them, their brother was there.

They talked in the corner like he was really there. 19 years later, I still get creeped out when I pass by that corner in the house.

2. Long story short, we were driving a 25-year-old old car down a mountain road in a thunderstorm when WE PASSED OURSELVES going in the opposite direction.

The chances of someone having that exact model car with the same mismatched door are as close to zero as you can get. We couldn’t immediately turn around because it was a winding mountain road in horrible weather conditions, but we did so as quickly as possible, then sped back up the mountain looking for the other car.

We never found it, so I can only assume it was actually us from another timeline.

3. In March of this year, I came out to my car to go to work, and when I walked around to the driver’s side, I found a dead body. I jumped back and yelped in surprise, thinking at first that this was a living person who was looking at something underneath my car, but then I looked closer, and the person wasn’t moving, he looked pale, and his fingertips were blue. I yelled something like, “Are you okay?” just in case he was just unconscious, and I told him I was going to touch his neck to check his pulse. No pulse, and his neck was cold to the touch. I called 911 and just babbled at the 911 operator, and asked if I should try chest compressions or something, and I did, but when the paramedics got there, they said he was dead, and had been for some time.

The police questioned me for a while. They asked me if I knew the guy, and I told them I thought it was my upstairs neighbor, but I wasn’t sure because I’d only met him twice, both times at night, and for less than a minute. Also, people look different when they’re dead than when they’re alive. The body was positioned as though he was looking at something under my car, and it was obvious that I hadn’t hit him with the car (no bruises or bleeding), so they asked me what time I got home the night before, probably to get a starting point for figuring time of death. I answered their questions as best I could, but I was just in shock from the experience. It’s a hell of a thing in a situation like that to remember if you stopped at the grocery store on your way home or not.

Someone from the medical examiner showed up, examined the body, and loaded it into her vehicle. After that, the police let me drive to work. It was later confirmed that this guy was my upstairs neighbor, and my landlady later told me that the guy had some serious heart problems, and that was more than likely what killed him. He also had some mental health issues that might account for why he was outside and (apparently) looking under my car when his heart gave out on him.

4. My dad once kicked a ball high up in the air and it never came down. We were in a parking lot of a high school and he said, “Hey boys! Watch this!” And drop-kicked a ball up in the air. It sailed straight up, and up, and up, getting smaller and smaller, and it literally never came down. It disappeared. We never played with it again.

5. My dad still tells this story: When I was about 4 years old, I came inside and ask my dad if I could go play with the 2 little pig-faced, red eyed boys just outside our fence. He asked if I knew them and I said no, they just came to the fence. The creepiest part was when he asked me how long they wanted me to play for. I replied, “Forever.” Dad made me play in the house for the rest of the day.

These kinds of things happen frequently in my family though. This was one of the creepier ones.

6. I grew up in a large family on top of that my parents regularly took in kids from their brothers and sisters. We had a large house with 3 master bedrooms but it was still cramped at times. As such I was never alone. When I was 13 I was home alone overnight for the first time in my life. I think I had summer school and the rest of my family went to SeaWorld or something like that.

That night I went room to room checking all the windows and doors and turning out the lights as I went. When I completed my check I went across the house back towards my room. As I passed one of the bedrooms I had already checked earlier I heard the faint sound of a woman’s voice saying my name. I was so freaked out that I went to the kitchen grabbed every… single… knife and then turned every light in the house on. I spent the night in the family room with all the lights on and every knife in the house under my cushion.

7. I fell asleep on the sofa and my other half headed upstairs. I woke up to an eerie feeling, and I saw blurs of people (no shadows, nothing solid) around my head and felt really claustrophobic/struggled to breathe properly (I don’t have a fear of small spaces). Asked my other half in the morning if he’d been down to check on me/go to the toilet in the night. Nope.

He later admitted to having felt the house have an odd feel at times. Neither of us believe in that sort of thing but there are times where we can’t shake it.

8. I was hiking in the PNW.

Got water from a stream when someone starts throwing rocks. Not really at me but over my head. A shot across the bow. I thought it was someone being a dick and yelled for them to stop.

Next thing I know a huge rock comes flying out at me, almost hitting me. Must’ve been at least 200 lbs. I tried to pick it up (I was going to throw it back) and couldn’t even budge it. I had spent that summer hauling 75 lb bags of cement so I wasn’t no weakling.

People always tell me it was an avalanche but no way. Came from flat ground and the trajectory was all wrong.

I hauled ass out of there.

9. The playground shooting.

I grew up in a shitty inner city apartment complex, filled with your typical gang members and drug users. I was at the playground near the outskirts of the complex with my little brother and some of the neighborhood kids. I was the oldest, around 9 or so. My brother was about 5, and our two neighbors were about his age.

I remember there was this loud shouting and I didn’t know where it was coming from. Then I saw a man hauling ass toward the playground, cops right behind him. I grabbed the kids and shoved them inside the play area under the slide, a closed-in wooden space that was barely big enough to hold all of us. I pushed them all down and got on top of them, and that’s when the shooting happened. The man was on one side of the playground, shooting at the officers, who were returning fire from the opposite side. I was screaming that there were kids inside, but no one could hear. It seemed like it lasted forever. The guy must have jumped the fence behind him, because the shots stopped and when we came out, no one was there. All us kids went home immediately and told our parents.

My mom was fucking furious. I don’t know what happened, because I was obviously young, but I know she went down to the police department and raised hell. She moved us halfway across the country soon after that, and I don’t blame her one bit.

10. A few years ago I woke up in the middle of the night because of an explosion. It was so loud that you could feel the vibrations of it on the ground /on the walls in my room. My dad heard it as well and we both (still in pj’s) went outside to check what’s going on. One of our neighbors did the same and she didn’t know what happened as well… The next day I told my mom and she said she hasn’t heard anything the night…

We have a neighborhood group chat and no one, absolutely no one else, had heard the explosion and there was also no news about something like that.

To this day my dad our neighbor and me are the only one who heard it and we still don’t know what it was.

11. I live in an area that was once a Civil War battlefield. There was an old house used as a hospital across the street. We have had numerous ghostly occurrences. My son swears the rod to open his blinds would start and stop swinging instantly. One night I was in bed and felt a tug on my hand I thought it was one of my kids, when I tried to sit up I was held down by something. I tried to sit up for about 10 or 15 seconds before I could do it. Weirdest experience I ever had.

12. When I was little I woke up early with someone breathing down my neck. I could feel and hear the breath and was paralyzed with fear. I sat there for what felt like an eternity until I passed out again. I’m 19 and I’ve never slept without my back clear against the wall. I’ve never told anyone because they’d never believe me.

13. I woke up to the sound of my apartment window opening. I looked over to see a small black humanoid stepping through the window onto my window sill… It was shaped kind of like your stereotypical gray alien but it was only about eighteen inches tall and shiny like it was covered in black latex. It stood there for a second or two, then turned quickly to face me. Next thing I knew I was waking up and it was morning.

14. Seeing something walk down my hallway on all fours and when I went to check down the hallway it wasn’t there. (I didn’t sleep for the next 2 days.)

15. I was walking with my grandfather and little sister and we were going through the cemetery. My sister saw a toy car on the monument and took it, and I didn’t see her take it. That night I dreamed of a man asking me to return his car. When I told her that she admitted to me that she took the car from the cemetery and I immediately threw it away, but the next day something creepy happened. When we passed the cemetery again, the car was on the monument and I still tremble when I think about it.

16. Just the other day I was in my bedroom and I heard my front door open. All things pointed to the front door being opened. Both of my dogs reacted to it, my son came running to see who was here, I walked out to the living room expecting to see someone standing by the front door but there was no one. Absolutely no one was at my door, it was shut and locked. Freaked me out for days.

17. I was ten and trick or treating. My mom had cancelled Halloween because my brother got sick. I pretended to go to bed and snuck out in my costume.

I got to this house and a guy answered. He said all the candy was in the basement.

I got to the basement stairs and had started down them when I realized this was a terrible idea, he was behind me blocking me so I tripped him and ran.

Later I learned there was a serial child murder, killed eight girls a similar age to me, who lived in the area at the time, looked similar to the picture I saw too but no idea if it was really him.

18. When I was around 8 I saw a shadow person watching me but they were wearing a top hat which doesn’t seem to be a thing. I thought it could’ve been the Hat Man but this shadow person (or at least I think) was around 5’6 and was wearing a top hat not a fedora like the hat man does.

19. My boyfriend at the time and I just got off a flight and made it back to the apartment we shared. Shortly after, we got a call from our front concierge lady saying that a taxi driver was downstairs with our keys. I was confused since I had my keys (we were inside our apartment), but since a driver did just drop us off, I thought maybe a key fell off the ring or something. Suddenly, I knew something was off. I asked our concierge to ask the taxi driver where he picked us up from – he mentioned a bar I haven’t been to in months, not the airport.

I asked my boyfriend to come down with me to the lobby to see what was going on. Once we appeared, the driver saw both of us and ran out the door. I recognized him as a creepy driver who drove me home alone months prior (from said bar). He had remembered where I lived and was asking the concierge to tell him which apartment I lived in. The “missing keys” was just a ploy.

20. I once had what I believe was sleep paralysis.

Woke up in the middle of the night, lying on my front with my head to one side, and I saw in the corner of my eye a figure stood in the middle of my room looking straight at me which resembled an alien.

I distinctly remember SCREAMING for my dad but nothing was coming out of my mouth. I was petrified. I know I was awake. I just turned my head to the other side and somehow went back to sleep.

21. I dreamed “this man” before I heard of him or saw him anywhere, and I found out about him scrolling through YouTube the next day. Creepy as hell.

22. When I was a kid, I could hear WW2-style air raid sirens coming from somewhere near my house at random times on random days. I eventually got used to them, figured they were testing them or something. This was in the late 90’s and I lived in London, UK. Have no idea why they would even still have those old sirens.

23. When I was about 14 I was walking on the sidewalk when I passed an old man dressed in what looked like monk robes, although they didn’t seem to belong to any religion that I knew (e.g Buddhist/Taoist monks). As I passed him he suddenly tapped me and said, “Tell you the future?” I instinctively dismissed him and said “no thanks” but right as I took a step to walk off he grabbed my forearm really hard and yanked me back and started getting agitated shouting, “Big disaster coming for you!”

24. Waking up in the middle of the night to tornado sirens, then having the power go out before you can turn on the TV or computer to check the weather and see where it is. It was around 5AM and a tornado had ripped through my town and did tons of damage. Luckily nobody died.

25. I’m schizophrenic and the thing that was most creepy and unnerving was when I was smoking a cigarette outside at night and the neighbors’ house started moving like it was breathing. Then I was suddenly enveloped with fear and couldn’t find what was causing it but it seemed as if something was there.

26. When I was home alone one day there was a hack on the local news station (at least I like to think it was) where it froze the news on both a new TV I just got in the living room and the smaller one in the study. The audio was a loud beep and the picture was getting brighter, and suddenly I heard a woman screaming “GET AWAY!” and then it went back.

27. When I was a kid I found a knife in the field where we practiced football. I was looking at it, then a stranger picked it up and wiped it off. He looked me in the eye and told me that, “It’s better to just forget things.”

He was arrested weeks later. Come to find out he killed 7 people with that knife.

28. I witnessed my sweet older neighbors’ daughter have a mental breakdown on their balcony after killing her. She was covered in blood and was stabbing herself in the thighs while screaming “fuck me!!” I was 12 at the time and saw this with my friends after we came home from school. We lived in the same apartment building, and my friend’s apartment was located so we could directly see the balcony of the older sweet neighbor I mentioned. We got so freaked out and since her daughter saw us, we thought she might come down and kill us, so we ran inside and locked all the doors. We stayed in the balcony on the other side and were screaming for help. Luckily our other neighbor came and got us, so nothing happened.

Our neighbor and her cat unfortunately passed away, and her daughter was arrested. We watched from below how the fire department and the police set up things in case she jumped. And then police officers climbed up to her and literally tied her hands with rope to get her down.

29. When I was in my teens, me and some of my annoying friends used to get on underground trains to random destinations in order to take weird routes home. On the London Underground (the name for the underground metro service) you only used your ticket for getting into the network and leaving, so you only paid once, even if you took ten trains to get there.

So one time, my friend at the time tells me there’s a really cool door in one of the underground stations, I was bored so went to have a look. It was weird. From a platform, you could open a door and there was this huge spiral staircase, leading even deeper underground. We went in and the stairs just kept going and going. There was no one else there and I started to get the feeling we were not supposed to be there. Anyway, eventually, we reached the bottom, it felt like we were super deep underground but there was another platform here. The platforms were empty and I noticed the station was painted in the old 30’s colors rather then the 70’s or 80’s design that we came from. Which was pretty weird, I had only ever seen stations looking like that in history documentaries.

So, after waiting a minute or so, a train approaches, as it comes out of the darkness in the tunnel and emerges into the light of the platform, I see that the train isn’t normal either. This also looked like a really old train, not anything like the ones we saw on any of the other lines. From the style, it looked like something from the 30-50’s, it was hard to tell exactly, but it was also empty except for one woman. It was only when we got on the train that the friend casually told me we need to keep our heads down because we’re not supposed to be on that train, which explained the weird look the woman gave us. There are no trains that you are “not supposed to be on” on the London Underground so I noped out at the next station and found our way back out into a normal station through another spiral staircase.

Strange thing was that I never found that door again in either of those same two stations and it’s not marked on any maps I’ve seen.

30. The summer I was 16 I worked at a movie theater. Hated it for many reasons (to this day I can’t eat movie theater popcorn). Anyway it was my turn to take the garbage out and the rule was that two people were supposed to go together especially at night for safety reasons. Well the supervisor on duty was not the nicest of people and had me go alone before I clocked out. The dumpster was in the back of the building and there were never a lot of people around. I went into the dumpster enclosure and this guy pops out and says something about how he wasn’t there. I told him he need to leave and that only employees were allowed in the area and he kept coming towards me saying how he wasn’t there. He had me keep backing up away from the entrance and I kept talking louder almost shouting when another employee came out asking what was taking so long. The guy ran off and I thanked her for coming out. My mom who happened to work at a police station picked me up and I told her what happened. She took me to her work and had me talk to an officer who asked me what he looked like. After I described him the best I could, it was dark and all I really remember to this day is his red hat, he had me look at a drawing and asked if he looked like the drawing. He did and that’s when I was told this person is a rapist they are trying to get. I was even more scared and my mom called my work, evil supervisor got chewed out and the two person rule was strongly endorsed. I was only there another month after this thank goodness. Thought Catalog Logo Mark

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.