22 True Paranormal Stories That Will Get You Excited For Halloween

1. I was visiting family and staying in a hotel with my boyfriend (husband now). The first night there we went to bed and I woke up in the middle of the night facing the window. I noticed there was a dark shadow in the corner of the room that looked human-shaped. After staring a while I realized it must have been a floor lamp since that corner was kind of bare and that’s the logical choice. I rolled over and went back to bed.

The following morning I remembered this and turned to look into the corner where the lamp was and… There isn’t a floor lamp there. The corner is bare.

I mentioned it to my boyfriend and he went white. He told me that he woke up in the middle of the night because he felt like he was being watched and had to get up out of bed to go to the bathroom (I vaguely remember him getting up) to try and shake the feeling.

It still sticks with me in dark rooms.

2. My husband and I stayed at a super old hotel in Santa Fe, NM. At the time I did not really believe in paranormal things/ghosts, mainly because nothing had ever happened to me.

The old room we were staying in had this decorative wooden chair that had a slanted seat. I took note of the slant, because I wound up putting my computer bag on this chair and felt comfortable doing so–I’m super careful with my electronics, and the slanted seat made it so my bag slid all the way back into the back of the chair so it couldn’t fall. I also hung a nice new dress on the back of the chair.

We went out sightseeing and when we came back, my dress was on the floor near the chair. I wondered if housekeeping had touched it, even though we had “DO NOT DISTURB” on our door all day and the room had not been serviced. Oh well, we ordered some dinner and went to bed.

My husband and I were laying in bed in the dark talking, almost falling asleep, when suddenly we hear a super loud SLAM! It was so loud, we shot awake and turned on the light. There on the OTHER SIDE of the room, a good 10 or 15 feet from the chair, was my computer bag. It was like someone had lifted it and threw it down, there’s no way it just “fell” off the chair that far away (and the chair seat was slanted backward toward the wall, it would be hard for anything to just fall off it, especially forward and 15 feet away!). And it was a SLAM to the ground. I was so terrified, but my husband just shrugged like, “Huh guess this place is haunted like a lot of places in Santa Fe, guess the ghost doesn’t like stuff on its chair.” I demanded we sleep with a light on. I didn’t even have the courage to check if my computer was ok until the next day.

The next morning my husband asked the front desk if the hotel was known to be haunted, and the guy just laughed and said, “Oh what, did you see the little girl?”

3. Let me tell you about my dad’s old farm house, aka The Spooky House.

Now for context, my dad grew up on dairy farms with his parents, who worked for a guy who owned multiple farms. So they would hop around to different farms and manage them so to speak. Also, we live in Australia.

Anyway, while my dad was in his late teens to early 20s, they lived in this house that eventually became known as The Spooky House to him and his parents and this what they experienced while living there.

The House was known to have a very foreboding feeling to it. Like something was always ‘off’ and you couldn’t put your finger on it. Floor was made out of old wood that had little notches in it and nan (dad’s Mum) put little stoppers in them to fill the holes. A lot of the time they would wake up in the morning and find that all of the stoppers were pushed up, from underneath the house. Dad said they had these giant ass hippie beads hanging in the doorways. So big and heavy that it would have to be a big gust of wind to move them. He lost count how many times he would get up early for work or such and find them swaying. Like someone walked through them but when he checked the bedrooms, everyone was asleep.

I remember dad telling me that it slowly got worse over time. Like the house didn’t want them there or something.

At one point nan contacted a psychic to see if they could make it better or calm it down. Well, the psychic wouldn’t even get out of her car and come up the driveway. Absolutely refused to come inside the house. Nan was left flabbergasted and asked what she could do. The psychic told her to move house and drove off.

Dad said not long after that these ‘things’ would start stalking the house. To this day he has no idea what they were, and he doesn’t really want to know. Nan would come out in the morning, find that the grass was pressed down or trampled around the house. Especially where the windows are. Her peg basket on the clothesline would be ripped to shreds and bits of it spread around. Dad said she would get the shits because she had to keep buying new ones haha. It started to get more serious when Dad would be woken up by scratching at his window, on the outside. He was always too scared to look back at it, cause he KNEW whatever it was was staring right back at him while scratching the window. They would check in the morning to find that the paint had been scratched off the house at around human height and grass flattened. At one point while his dad was out working a few paddocks over, nan came in and woke dad up and together they huddled in his bedroom, waiting for daylight as the thing stalked around the outside of the house. Speaking of, it stalked dad once too. He was walking from the house to his dad, a few paddocks over to help with the cows. About 4am-ish. It was cold and there was frost on the grass. As Dad was walking he could hear a ‘crunch’ ‘crunch’ coming behind him. So he stopped and it stopped too. Dad was like ‘huh’ and started walking again, and so did it. Again dad stopped and it stopped. Now starting to get freaked out, Dad starting to pick up the pace and he stopped again. Only this time it didn’t stop, but started to come right at Dad. Dad fucking bolted. Ran over 2 paddocks and cleared the fences. Didn’t stop till he reached his dad’s side.

Whenever Dad’s parents left for a couple of days and he had the place to himself, Dad would host massive parties with his friends. They had the run of the house and could sleep wherever they wanted. But all of them always end up huddling up in one room when they went to sleep. One time it was just Dad and his cousin over, they played a game of pool and drank. At one point around midnight, both of them were sitting around and heavily drunk. A dark figure appeared and said, “Go to bed.” Dad said he was pissed drunk and thought ‘eh, why the hell not’ and they went to bed. The next morning they woke up to find the game of pool that was left unfinished put away and his cousin asked who that person was that was standing over their beds watching them sleeping. But Dad didn’t remember that part.

Anyway, there’s more to that house that I can tell but this is getting to be a very long post, sorry about that. I will say though that Dad and his parents moved out and someone else eventually moved in. Not long after that, the house burned down. Dad didn’t know what caused the fire, but he was sure as fuck happy about it!

4. Back when I lived in my very first apartment I would hear what sounded like a little child calling for their parent. Now at first, I thought it was genuinely some kid who was lost because the complex was big enough for a kid to wander off from their parents. But the voice seemed to always be right next to me. It wasn’t until I moved out that I found out a little girl was killed by her abusive father in the 80s.

5. I am a real estate broker and flip houses. We buy old beat-up houses, some of them are the worst of the worst as you could imagine.

Anyway, we bought one and went to see it today. It had been vacant for 10 years and when we went inside there was a bloodstain on the floor. Come to find out that somebody killed themselves in that house 10 years ago. Pretty creepy.

My partner and I were taking walkthrough videos to share with our contractors and get rehab estimates. Both of us independently took videos, and both of our phones shut off when we panned over the area with the bloodstain where the man died. This is going to be a weird rehab.

6. Felt really uneasy one night so I went downstairs to sleep instead of in my room.

The next day everyone in my family said they saw an ominous orb of light floating around.

7. I don’t know if this qualifies as paranormal per se, but I was home alone one weekend and decided to make myself scrambled eggs for breakfast.

Took a full carton out of the fridge. Grabbed an egg, cracked it. Went to a grab a second egg, only to notice the carton was…full. Again. I just stood there and stared at the full carton for a few seconds (expecting one to disappear maybe? I don’t know), then I just threw them all out. Wasn’t gonna fuck around with phantom eggs. There is probably a rational explanation but I know what I saw.

8. My sister had a horse doll that moved around on its own. Needless to say, we were both freaked out. No way someone was moving it because nobody was around to move it at 4 am when I decided to fact check her theory.

9. I’m a pilot, one time I was flying and I saw this bright orange glowing thing hovering over the trees. It was kind of bouncing around like if you had a ball on an elastic string and you just bounced it around and whatnot. Anyways, since my course would have brought me near it I asked Air Traffic Control if they saw anything on their radar which they said no. They asked me what I saw so I described it and they said they weren’t showing anything and were not aware of any military activity. The thing shot straight up and disappeared, so I told them it was gone. They asked me if I wanted to file a UFO report, which I said heck no it’s probably a weather balloon then I continued on my way.

I know it wasn’t a balloon, but I don’t want the FAA questioning my sanity. What freaks me out is that we know very little about the ocean, but relative to us, the ocean is finite. What is behind the blue sky we see is infinite, and we know nothing about it.

10. My father died less than 6 months after my daughter was born. She was not a good sleeper for her first year or so. Waking up screaming and crying at all hours of the night. My wife and I would trade times getting up to soothe her. One evening not too long after my father past I was having a dream that my daughter was screaming in her bedroom. In the dream, I got up and went to her room, but before I got there my dad came out of the room and just said, “She’ll be ok,” and kept walking away and the crying stopped.

I shot up and saw the baby monitor screen was on. It was on sound-activated mode, so the screen only comes on when a sound it’s over 60dB and goes off after 3mins of quiet. I get up and check and she’s fine and sleeping. A little shaken it took me a bit to get back to sleep.

I tell my wife about the dream in the morning. She told me she heard her crying, but thought I’d gotten up to calm her. Still a vivid memory in my mind nearly 3 years later seeing my younger looking Dad coming out of her room.

11. So me and my buddy are 14ish, we are sitting in his living room playing pokemon and watching TV.

When out of the blue his sister who was 15 comes running in the room crying like a 3-year-old who dropped her ice cream cone. After a short time, she calms down enough to get us to follow us into her room.

She was in a A.P. flute class and had to record herself playing some music. She had left the record button playing, and in that blank space, she had recorded a clear as day young female screaming. Now, this was not a ghost story’s random bit of sound, this was obviously a young female screaming. He had a big fenced yard and next to her room was the garage. There was no way someone outside of the house could have screamed and been recorded that clear.

His sister did not sleep in that room for 6 months.

12. Was walking on the street and saw an old man walking in my opposite direction, he was looking up at an old house, as I was walking I looked to the ground and when I looked up again he was gone, it impossible for him to disappear so fast by natural means, I got scared but continued walking pretending I didn’t notice anything.

13. I’m not sure if it is really paranormal but I have a weird instinct. For example, when I was a teen I missed my job three times just because I couldn’t force myself to go. Every time, there was a shooting, either at my job or on the route I would’ve taken to get there. Another day, out of the blue I decided at the last minute to spend the night at my aunt’s place for the first time, so I informed the people I use to carpool with every day and get out of the car. Important information, I get car sick so my place is always backseat, passenger side. Well, when I meet my friends the next day, they tell me they were in a pretty bad accident but nobody is hurt. A car hit them while on the highway and the back of the car (passenger side) was wrecked. Have I been there, that would be the end of my story. And the last big incident was when I decided I didn’t want to go on a boating day with my friends. No matter how much they insisted, or how much I usually enjoy those I just didn’t want to go. Well, the girl they invited to fill my spot hurt herself on a loose nail, ripped her leg open and had to go under 4 surgeries to reconstruct the flesh on her leg. Now, if I really don’t want to go somewhere or do something, trust me, I don’t.

14. The only paranormal thing that has happened to me and I really, really don’t know how it was possible happened at my aunt’s place when I was a kid.

Every once in awhile, we went to her house and stayed the night and I always ended up sleeping on the couch/sofa. Well, this was an old house with a room full of creepy dolls and the likes but with those nothing weird happened (although my cousins would say that the dolls moved around). It had two floors with a stair in the middle that ended right where I would usually sleep. So every time, the moment everyone was asleep and no other sound was heard I would invariably hear a marble being dropped from the stairs until it rolled down the floor. And this would repeat 5-6 times every night. No one plays with marbles, everybody was asleep so to this day I can’t think of a reason for that to happen.

15. I once was laying in my bed with my dog at the foot of it. I was on the cusp of sleep when suddenly my dogs pop her head up and locks onto something in the middle of my room. Her head then slowly turns and follows something I cant see. Her head stops again and my backpack gets knocked over, after having been in the same spot for hours. Then all of the sudden a loud BANG on my bedroom window (I was on the second floor of the house). I ran out of that room so quick without daring to look out that window.

16. So apparently my house is haunted according to other people. I’ve lived in my house for almost 20 years now. Growing up, we’ve had dozens of different guests stay over and all say the exact same thing: “I don’t want to sleep in the room next to the bathroom [this is our guest room]. There were two little girls in the closet.” I mean like so many different people who don’t even know each other (family members, family friends, my parent’s coworkers, my friends, my siblings’ friends, etc.) say the exact same thing. I’ve personally never seen them, but I guess that’s why stuff moves around in my house.

17. Pretty sure it was just coincidence, but there was one time when me and my buddy were walking home from school. We decided to get some snacks at the convenience store nearby and then took the shortcut we’d take after getting snacks.

There was a kid we saw from the nearby elementary school. He had a red t-shirt with black sleeves, black shorts, and a ninja turtles backpack. One of us mentioned that it was way too early for the elementary school to have released the students for the day and that’s why I remember that well.

So after another 5-10 minutes go by, we see the same kid. There’s no way this was possible, as the way he was walking would’ve lead the kid back to the way we came from. There were no other streets that would’ve lead him to be ahead of us again. We were kind of weirded out by that.

Not much else really happened until we looked at the time and realized only 20 minutes or so had passed in what felt like almost 2 hours. We really didn’t understand why that felt so long because we had taken the shortcut a couple of times before.

18. I used to live in Cambodia.

While I was there, I saw a silhouette of a man, but made of smoke; I got scared, and bought a machete; brought the machete home with me (to the U.S.); moved (to somewhere else in the U.S.), and put almost everything I owned into a barn during the move.

The barn, and all of its contents burned. I recovered the blade of the machete from the burned barn, and put it in a toolbox which I kept in my room.

I am 100% sure I shut and latched the lid on the toolbox.

I woke up that night, to the sound of the toolbox’s lid slamming shut.

19. I’ll preface this by saying, I still don’t believe in ghosts. So my house is kind of old. It’s about 50 years old this year. Growing up LOTS of things would be moved. Like LOTS of things. I once woke up to a gallon of water and napkins by my bed. Appliances laying in the middle of the living room. Clothes and items on the ground that weren’t there before. Stuff like that. We’ve had the TV turned on at full volume in the middle of the night. Relatively new blenders or stereo systems turn on by themselves. And man there’s always some monthly occurrence going on. At first, I figured it was my siblings being irresponsible or my parents lying. But then I saw the blender turn on by itself and the TV turn on and the volume just go from 12 to 99. Like it was weird.

20. I can see the future sometimes. It’s fucking weird as shit. Not like deja vu, but also exactly like deja vu at the same time. I’ll have a dream and not think much about it except “oh that was pretty realistic” then what happened in the dream will actually happen. It’s usually like 10 seconds. I don’t really talk about it though because people will think I’m insane or exaggerating. It’s fucking weird. Happens like once or twice a month.

21. Well, the light in my room went out when I literally started reading this thread.

I went back over and turned it back on. I didn’t lose power and the lightbulb didn’t burn out.

It just turned off.

22. I was staying in The Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado. Being a massive fan of The Shining, I was so excited to stay a night in the hotel that scared Stephen King so shitless, he wrote one of my favorite books.

I was going to have my picture taken next to Room 217. The room is at the end of a verrrrry long hallway, and it was kept as it was while the rest of the doors had been obviously renovated. I was stood opposite side of the door handle, posing next to it with my hand on the door.

The knob started to jiggle, ever so slightly. It didn’t feel like it was touched on the other side. When I jerked my hand away, the knob started shaking harder, and the door started to slightly thump.

I didn’t fuck around. Took off in the other direction. I 100% plan on going back.