20 People Who Work The Night Shift Reveal Their Experience With The Paranormal

1. Not me but a friend used to work as a night custodian for an elementary school, which the building itself was rather old (built in the 40s maybe?). He was the 3rd shift guy so he took over from the 2nd shift guy at like 9 pm. He was basically there to mop the floors and make sure no one broke in. If he got all of his stuff done, he was pretty much free to do whatever he wanted. Often after he finished doing his work, he’d go hang out in an office because there was a small TV to watch.

He said things started off innocently enough. Lights turning on in classrooms where he knew they had been off previously, cabinets and doors opening and closing on their own. He didn’t pay much attention to it at first. He was sort of on the fence as to whether he believed in paranormal activities so he just shrugged it off as coincidences. At first, he would go and check the noises out. Sometimes he’d creep around and try to catch someone in the act, in case there was a way in that he didn’t know about. After a month or so, he gave up looking and just learned to ignore it. He’d ask his boss about it and just get blown off.

Over the coming months, things progressively got worse. Doors no longer closed on their own, they slammed shut. He heard noises like children playing, sometimes screaming. He’d find trash cans turned upside down. He’d have things thrown at him but he would be clearly alone with nowhere for someone to hide and throw things at him.

He’d contemplated quitting but he was making good money for being nearly fresh out of high school and he needed the money for family stuff so he stuck with it. He’d come in, rush through his duties for the night as quickly as he could and then go and sit in the office where he’d turn the TV to where he could sit facing the door and that’s where he’d sit until the morning crew came in at 6 am. He didn’t want to admit that he was scared shitless of being in that school by himself at night so he tried to tough it out and made a lot of excuses to try and explain what was going on.

The last straw for him was the night he was sitting in the office watching TV and felt someone grab the chair from behind and flip him over backward. There was clearly no one in the room and no way for anyone to get into the room without him seeing them. He picked up the office phone and called his boss at home in the middle of the night, said he quit and he’d come back in the morning to turn his keys in.

He was definitely a believer in the paranormal after that experience. He said that it wasn’t until years later that he found out from someone who’d researched the history of the school before it was torn down that there used to be a pool inside the school. A number of kids had drowned in over the early years of the school until the administration decided to finally expand the building so they filled the pool in with concrete and expand over top of it.

2. I worked at a movie store in college. I was closing one night and just kind of doing a final walk through. I kept hearing what sounded like movie cases shuffling. I looked around thinking maybe someone had came in last minute although I didn’t hear the bell ring for when someone enters the store. Didn’t see anyone. Then I hear what sounds like a movie fall off a shelf in the kid’s section. I go over and there’s a movie laying on the ground and I shit you not it was Casper.

3. Worked at a movie theater running the booths upstairs. The projectors are upstairs (obviously) in a long corridor.

At night, after the last showing in each theater, you shut off the lights to that theater and the small one over the projector itself. Then you cover the platters to protect from dust.

It’s not so bad the first few, because at least the lights of nearby projectors are still on for the theaters that are still running.

But…as you shut each one off one by one, the corridor gets darker and darker and that little viewing window into each individual theater is pitch black. That dull, steady whirring noise you’ve toned out all night is gone and is now replaced by absolute silence and there’s hardly any light left anymore. Just the lights at the end of each corridor where you sit in between each start time.

It’s spooky enough is what I’m saying.

But one particular night, I’m throwing the covers over one of the platters and I casually glance up into the viewing theater window across the way.

And there’s a face. It’s a little boy’s face and it’s sheet white.

I know what I saw. I’m sure there’s an explanation for it and there’s nothing supernatural about it, but there WAS a face there and it scared the absolute shit out of me. It made an already unsettling environment that much more terrifying the rest of the time I worked there.

Also for the record, inside the actual theater, these windows are a solid 8-10 feet above the seatbacks in the highest row. So, if someone was playing a prank, they’d need a ladder and even then they’d have nowhere to set it.

4. I worked in a mine in northern Ontario. There was a death on the 4200 level a couple years previous to the incident. It was a normal day underground like any other. 4200 level was big, the drifts were 6×6 feet, but go on for kilometers in every direction. It was about midnight when we saw the mine rescue team with security rushing down the drift. Naturally we dropped what we were doing and followed to see if we could help. We arrived to a guy who was as pale as a ghost, he didn’t look hurt, but he was shaking uncontrollably. Mine Rescue approached him and he wouldn’t have it. He would scream, and not just any scream, it was terrifying hearing the screams, like a person so consumed with fear, it had a tone to it that you wouldn’t imagine could come from a person. Eventually he just stopped screaming and just sat there, awake but non responsive.

By now it was 3:30 am and our shift was over. We couldn’t leave him down there. We managed to get him on a stretcher that we could carry out. On our way out he kept saying, “The devil is on 42.” Over and over again.

About two years later, another incident report was read to us, the exact same thing, exactly the same spot, but a different person.

I don’t believe they saw the devil, but it is always in the back of my mind when I’m on 42.

5. A lab building where I once worked was the site of a murder-suicide (which happened while I was there! Awful and sad). We didn’t have “shifts” per se, but I had to work late one night autoclaving equipment for the next day’s experiment. The autoclave room is right next to the lab where the event took place. I hadn’t seen anyone else in the building. After I started the load, I was about to leave the room when I heard a crash outside. I immediately opened the door and saw that all the contents of a table in the hallway had been pushed to the floor. Water bottles, a packet of papers, pens, etc. Since I was right by the door at the time, I would have seen and/or heard someone running away. It was against protocol to leave things in the autoclave overnight, so I had to stay an hour and a half to get them out, but nothing else happened. I left the stuff on the floor, though. Didn’t want a repeat of that!

6. I was working at a gas station at like 3 AM one night. A car pulled in to the pump, guy got out and started pumping, and then the car and dude just…vanished. I was looking right at it, and it just popped out of existence. I told my boss the next day and she turned white as a sheet. She’d seen the same thing, same exact description, same car, same pump, same guy.

7. While working at a psych ward, every morning at about 2am there would be the sound of someone running down the main service hallway, followed by the same door at the end slamming. One time I kept a close eye on the area but when I was distracted for a few seconds the footsteps began but when I got to the area there was nothing. According to one of the managers that had happened for several years, always at the same time every morning, and most believed it was a ghost of one of the deceased clients.

Another time, all the battery powered wall clocks in the unit spun around a few times simultaneously. That was freaky and everyone in the area screamed.

8. I work the night shift in a hotel, it’s a pretty old building so lots of weird stuff happens. What stands out in particular is that there is a very creepy statue, which one night was gone. I asked the morning receptionist why they had removed it, she seemed confused. We checked and it was there again, I swear it was gone during the night.

9. A patient in one of our hospital rooms kept talking about spirits and demons. She was discharged a week later. The next guy who was admitted to that bed told me he sees spirits, and a big black Lab was lying next to the bed (my black Lab died a couple years ago). Then he said he’s very in touch with the spirit world and laughed, “I see dead people.”

10. Repossessing cars. It’s about 2:30am. Me and a buddy in the same car. Corner of route 70 and 571 in Lakewood NJ. A 97-98 Honda CRV Pulls up in the left turn lane. She had no face. Like “No Face” from that bad 90’s Dick Tracy movie.

11. I worked night shift at a hotel. I also had a day job and the manager was cool and said I could sleep as long as I woke up if someone needed something.

One night, I woke up and saw a guy… Well, more of a silhouette of a guy… Staring at me through the windows of the Dutch door to the courtyard. He was really tall (6.5 ft?) And had a black duster/trench coat and hat.

I jumped up from the couch, put down the remote I had fallen asleep with in my hand and rushed to the door to see what he needed.

He was gone. And no sign of him anywhere in the courtyard and there were only two long, straight paths. He couldn’t even have ran that fast.

I forget about it and continue my night.

Fast forward about three weeks and my coworker is telling me about an “evil spirit” that lives in one of the rooms (all the employees knew there were at least 4 haunted rooms there, as well as the elevator. No, seriously). He started describing a tall shadowy guy. I cut him off and say, “Like 6 or 7 feet? Black coat and hat?” He turns white and stares at me. “You’ve seen it too?!”

I tell him what happened. And that innocent incident that night all of a sudden got super creepy.

12. When a patient buzzed and asked me to “ask the person behind the curtain to go away.” Fyi it was dark and everyone was in their beds.

13. I was on CQ (charge of quarters) while stationed in Germany. At about 2am, a dachshund came in the building (summer, so doors were open). I followed him down the hall to get him out and he just vanished when I was about 6 feet away. It’s was unbelievably real.

14. Used to work at IHOP. A cook before my time got shot and died during robbery. I would always hear someone in the kitchen such as the spatulas clanking but nobody would be in the kitchen. Once I saw black figure in the back figured it was the cook, when I went outside to the front of the restaurant, the cook was sitting outside smoking. There was no current orders either. Other coworkers experienced some stories. One of them said she felt pushed but I can’t speak on what I didn’t see.

15. I work the front gate at a military installation. The night shift is super dull and quiet where I am at. For awhile I noticed this dark green old Ford Bronco that would roll up. When I would stand out the gate shack, the car would do a 180 and leave. This happened about 2-3 times until I finally caught the license plate before it turned. I ran the numbers to my supervisor. He asked me if I was sure. I said I’m 100% certain.

He tells me it couldn’t be because the numbers led to a vehicle crash report that involved THE EXACT SAME VEHICLE and plate number to which the driver had died and the vehicle and the vehicle was totaled. That shit made me want to switch to days.

16. I worked at a 7/11. One night I kept hearing what sounded like a little girl crying, but the store was completely empty. Whenever I’d go the the area where I thought it was coming from, I’d hear it from somewhere else. I hope somebody was messing with me but I’m not sure.

17. Night watch in the barracks at Ft Gordon. That’s a night shift, right? Anyway, so many things happened in 3 different rooms that I could write a book. It completely changed my believe in paranormal activity. This one took place in the middle of the night so this is the one I’ll tell.

I’m sitting by the stairwell on the 2nd floor and hear someone shouting in a room down a hallway. I’m on duty so I run to the room and swing open the door expecting to see some fighting. There are several people in this room pointing up to the ceiling next to a wall and telling me, “They’re doing it again!” I ask them to explain and they tell me that ever since they moved into that room someone lifts up the ceiling tiles and makes funny faces at them at night. The latrine is on the other side of the wall so I go over to see if anyone is there and there isn’t. So I climb onto a desk in the room to lift up the ceiling tiles to see if they’re still up there. When I lift up the ceiling tiles all I see is a cinder block wall that goes all the way to the floor above. There’s only about an inch between the back of the ceiling tile and the wall. No way a face was there. 2 of the soldiers freaked out and ran out of the room and slept in the hallway. This was only the first of many incidents.

18. I don’t inherently believe in ghosts but if I had a paranormal story it will be this one. I work in one of the major ERs in my city as a HCA, one of my many tasks is postmortem care on patients who die in our care. One night at around 0200 I was called to the room of an older patient who was palliative had passed and the family had finished their goodbyes. So I went in to start providing care, this usually means removing any tubes, wires, and monitors from the patient, giving them a bed bath, removing any valuables from the body to give to the family, putting them in a gown and shroud. I like to talk to my patients even if they have passed as it puts me at ease, and shows respect to them. I explain my actions and talk them through what I’m doing because even though they have passed they are still my patient. While I was proceeding with the bed bath of the patient out of nowhere I felt like I was being watched and then I felt a hand on my shoulder and a mans voice tell me, “Thank you.” The hand remained for a moment while I stood there frozen then all the feelings stopped and the room felt empty. There were no other nurses or staff in the area at the time, just me. I like to believe that the patient I was providing care for was thankful for my explanations and me continuing to talk to them through their care.

19. I used to work at a 24hr Subway. (I know, great start to a paranormal experience story, huh?). Well one day I was doing the dishes, and my coworker was cleaning the toaster oven and bread oven. Out of nowhere, around 3:30am, I heard our door chime go off. Out of habit I say, “Welcome to Subway,” as I turn the corner. Nobody there. Coworker gone.

I thought, “Okay, maybe he hopped the counter and went for a cigarette outside,” as he did from time to time. Heading back to the sink to finish the dishes, I hear the door chime again. Nobody. Checked the bathrooms. Nobody. “What…the…hell.” I ignore the dishes, and stand at the front counter, eyeing the doors. Couple minutes later, my coworker comes through the back door where we get our deliveries.

“Where’d you go?” I asked him, turning towards the back door area.

“To take out the trash,” he replies.

Door chime. He does the same thing as me– “Welcome to Subway,” turns corner to see nobody there but this time the door was wide open. Our doors are weighted to where they’ll close on their own if you let go of them. Door stayed open for a couple minutes as we stared… Then suddenly slammed.

Not a windy night, and our doors wouldn’t even stay open like that on the windiest of days. Have no idea what caused this, or why it happened on that particular night, but after I got a different job I was told it never happened again.

Told my boss about the incident and we all looked at the cameras. Nobody could explain it.

20. I don’t have a story, but here is the one my wife likes to tell:

She is a nurse and for a couple of years she was working nightshift in the Palliative Care Unit. Which is the comfort care/end of life unit. Patients in that unit are expected to die, or to be sent home or to a care home to die.

Anyways, those rooms also had a radio, and according to her it happened a few times that a radio suddenly turned on, and within an hour or so a patient would pass on.

One rather busy night, the radio turned on and my wife went into the room, stared into the darkness and said “Cut that out! I don’t have time for this shit!” and the radio suddenly snapped off.

No patient died during the rest of her shift, but one passed away shortly after she clocked out.