Amanda Ashley

There is so much we don’t know when it comes to the paranormal. Are the fleeting shadows we see out of the corner of our eye or whispers we hear in the dark just our imagination or an otherworldy visitor? On Reddit, people are sharing their unexplainable experiences that just may be a real life ghostly encounter.

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• 1
Siblings Saw A Boy With Piercing Dark Eyes In The Kitchen

From Reddit u/PrinceChastamy:

When I was around seven years old, I woke up in the middle of the night because I thought I heard a loud noise in the house. I walked out of my room and glanced down the long hallway where I could see the streetlight shining through the window onto the kitchen floor. I rubbed my eyes, and I saw what appeared to be my younger brother standing just beyond the beam of light in the shadow.

I walked towards him to see what was going on, and as I got closer and closer, it became more and more clear that this small boy was not my brother at all. It was standing there super still, head-tilted, and just staring at me with these piercing, dark eyes that I’ll never ever forget. I ran straight into my parents’ room as fast as I could and slept in their bed that night. I never brought it up to them, and I did my best to try and forget it. I think I almost convinced myself that I made it up in my head.

Fast forward several years later, and I’m a senior in high school hanging with my then-girlfriend, my brother, and a few of his friends at our house. It was dark and storming outside, and our power had just gone out – I decided to light a candle, put it in the middle of us, and we were all just laying there talking on the floor. Someone randomly suggested we tell ghost stories, and I immediately thought about my encounter 10 years prior.

I said, “Hey, guys. I’m going to tell you all something that I’ve never told a single soul – I saw something many years ago right here in this very house, and I don’t give a f*ck if you believe me or not. I 100% saw something paranormal, right over there actually.” I then pointed over to the kitchen.

Before I could even start my story, my brother goes, “Wait a second. Are you serious?” I glanced over at him, confused as to why he interrupted me. He then looked me dead in the eyes, his face distressed and turning a little bit white, and said, “Did… Did you happen to see a little boy?” My jaw dropped, and I was at a complete loss for words. Everyone around us immediately started freaking out, too, because they instantly grasped that we had both seen the same “thing.” I still get goosebumps thinking about it.

What do you think?

Eerie encounter?

• • 2
The Ghostly Figure Showed Up In A Polaroid Picture

From Reddit u/wilit:

My sister’s best friend lost her father on Christmas Day to a drunk driver. I want to say it was in 1994. Her dad was a great guy and a creature of habit. He’d get home from work, sit in his recliner to watch TV, and their little terrier Kayla would sit between his leg and the arm rest of the chair. Left side, every time. Any time you came over and he was home, he was in that chair, Kayla right next to him. A few days after his passing, they had the funeral service and a reception at the house.

My sister’s friend took a Polaroid picture of the living room during the reception with the recliner almost perfectly centered in the frame and Kayla sitting in her usual spot, sans dad. After waiting a few moments for the photo to develop, everyone was a bit shocked to see her dad sitting in the chair. You could see a translucent image of him in the chair, almost like when film would have a superimposed image. The right side of him was pretty well-defined. You could see his glasses, shirt, hand, leg, and foot. The left side of him was not well-defined and mostly not visible. The weird thing is, his left side of his body was severely injured in the accident.

They thought it must have been an issue with the film or camera, so they sent it off to Polaroid to check it out. They sent everything back with an evaluation stating there was no issue with the camera or the remaining film in the cartridge.

Eerie encounter?

• • 3
They Had To Swerve Around Mysterious Figure In The Road

From Reddit u/SalamiMommie:

My girlfriend and I were driving back to her parents house when I was probably 17 or 18. We went down this one road, and she screamed for me to swerve. I figured she saw a deer.

When I turned my head, I saw a woman dressed in white pushing a white bassinet. She was also holding a boy’s hand, and he was wearing white. They weren’t in my rearview.

Eerie encounter?

• • 4
They Bumped Into Something While Cleaning Up The House

From Reddit u/White_Wolf_Dreamer:

Last summer, I was helping my boyfriend clean up his house a bit. At least two or three times, I swear I felt him standing right next to me, but he’d be across the room. I just brushed it off. Then he was running some garbage outside to his dumpster, and I was sweeping. I took a step backwards, and I felt something brush against my back, so I said, “Oh, sorry, didn’t hear you come back in,” as I turn around, thinking I’d bumped into him. And then my boyfriend walked in the front door in the other room.

After that, he told me that his whole family has sh*t like that happen all the time, and they’re pretty sure their house (which is a massive three-story place, about 100 years old) has at least three different spirits in it, and he thinks one got curious.

Eerie encounter?

• • 5
They Saw A Figure Wearing A Cowboy Hat In The Window

From Reddit u/tryst_91:

When I was 15, my dad was driving to a friend’s house to practice some roller hockey. My buddy lived in a two-story log cabin with a long, winding driveway. It was the first time I had been to his house and had been told his parents wouldn’t be home until later in the evening. As we drove up, my dad says he thought my friend’s parents weren’t home, I told him they weren’t, and he then points to a second-story window and says, “Well, someone is here.” I look up and see an older male dressed in western clothing and wearing a big cowboy hat. (This is Texas, so that isn’t unusual.) I said, “I guess they got home early,” and shrugged it off.

A while later, I mention something about asking his parents something, and he says they won’t be home till later. I point out both my dad and I saw someone in his house, and he freaks out because no one was supposed to be there. We then go in the house to check it out and don’t find anyone…

After his parents got home, we were in a back room of the house, and I see a picture of the guy who had been upstairs. I point it out to my buddy, and he turns white and says that was his grandad who died six years earlier.

Turns out, my buddy’s parents believed the house to be haunted by multiple spirits.

Eerie encounter?

• • 6
They Woke Up To A Pile Of Clothes Stacked On Top Of Them

From Reddit u/WhyFi:

One night, I woke to something settling over my face. Initially, I thought it was my bed covers, but then I realized it all felt wrong. I reached up, grabbed the cloth, and threw it. I reached over to turn on my bedside light and froze because of what I saw. All of my clothes, which previously had been folded neatly in a basket, were now stacked atop of me, neck to toe. The piece of cloth that was settling over my face was a pair of my son’s shorts.

So, of course, I froze and listened for whoever was in my home. I stayed that way for about 10 minutes and heard nothing. I got up and started to search my house. The only other person that lived with me was my eight-year-old son, and I found him fast asleep in his top bunk.

I know he didn’t stack those clothes because the bunk he was in was metal and very squeaky and he would have definitely made noise getting in or out. He is a pretty serious kid, and I’ve never known him to play tricks. In any case, I felt that last piece go over my face so he wasn’t there for that. I searched the entire house, and no one was there but us.

I believe it was poltergeist activity. Apparently, stacking is typically what poltergeists do. I also found a random puddle of water once in the middle of the living room when no one had been home. There was no place that could have come from, either. Strange stuff.

Eerie encounter?

• • 7
They Both Heard The Same Noise Come From Right Behind Them

From Reddit u/White_Wolf_Dreamer:

My best one happened when my (at the time) best friend and I volunteered to help clean up a cemetery after a big storm my senior year. We were walking along, talking, picking up branches and sh*t from the storm, tidying up stuff left on graves, just making an afternoon of it. And suddenly, at the exact same time, we both froze and turned to look at the same spot behind us.

After asking what each other heard, we confirmed that we both heard a woman’s voice go, “SHHH!!” right behind us. It wasn’t like the wind in the trees, it was like when the b*tchy librarian catches you talking louder than five decibels. And we both looked at the exact same spot where it came from. There was no one there. The closest person to us was a good 50 feet away. They’d have had to yell just for us to hear them. Curious, my friend took a look at the headstone right there, then looked at the one next to it.

Y’all, it was a mother buried next to her infant. We were disturbing the baby.

Eerie encounter?

• • 8
The Door Slammed On An Unwanted Male Guest

From Reddit u/Sir_twitch:

Was visiting a friend in Chicago. She told me under no uncertain terms, the ghost of a woman who lived there wasn’t really fond of men staying there.

I was told that I needed to make sure I closed any door behind me, lest she slam the door behind me.

Sure as sh*t, first night I’m there, I get up to go pee in the middle of the night, and I didn’t close the bedroom door when I came back from the bathroom. Door slammed so hard it knocked a piece of art off the wall.

Eerie encounter?

• • 9
Little Girl Was Seen Wandering Around Old Farmhouse

From Reddit u/BubbleWrapGuy:

My biological dad lives in a creepy, old farmhouse he renovated. I was helping him build out the office late one night. He went to the bathroom, and I kept plunking away. I was on the floor and set my hammer down. I felt something – a presence – and looked to where I thought someone would be. Nothing. I reach back down for my hammer, and it’s out of arm’s reach – maybe five feet further than where I had set it down. I hadn’t moved at all.

He comes back after he’s finished, and I tell him what had just happened. He laughed and said, “The little girl must be playing with you.” Um, little girl, what? He then tells me that every now and then, he hears a little girl laughing and has even seen her. She’s always wearing the same pair of overalls, and she just kind of wanders around upstairs. I’m not one to believe in paranormal experiences, but I have no explanation other than a little girl ghost just wanted to play.

Eerie encounter?

• • 10
Their Dog Came Back For One Last Goodbye

From Reddit u/Fidget171:

My Chow Chow passed in December 1999; she was almost 14 years old.

One evening in the late spring of 2000, I got an unusual urge to go out onto the front porch. The porch and front of the house were brightly lit by a streetlight across the street. While standing outside, I hear a chuff-chuff-chuff noise coming from the left and getting closer. This sounded exactly like the sounds my Chow Chow would make when doing a fast walk. The chuff-chuff-chuff continued approaching from the left. By now, I am looking up and down the street, in the yard, over the railings, trying to ascertain where the noise was coming from; there was no one on the street, no one in my yard, no one else outside. I looked and looked but could find no source. And the noise kept coming.

When the sound was right in front of me, it stopped as I felt the sudden presence of my Chow Chow. I broke into happy tears and enjoyed her presence and thought how much I loved her and missed her.

I thought how it would be to have her with me all the time. Something inside me said having a ghost, albeit a dog-ghost, with me all the time may not be the best thing. So I told her I loved her but she needed to go on with her journey; we’d be together again later. The chuff-chuff-chuff started again, moving to the right, away from the porch. It continued for a short while, getting fainter and fainter.

I never heard the chuff-chuff-chuff again, but I believe we will be reunited one day.

Eerie encounter?

• 11
Their Creepy Home Had Crosses Carved Into The Doorways

From Reddit u/gamepro250:

My grandma, great-grandma, and their dog moved into an old cabin. There were many stories she had about strange things that happened in the house. Sinks turning on in the middle of the night, noises of footsteps in the attic, motion sensor nightlights turning on when my great-grandma was asleep with the dog in another room, etc.

Also, there were crosses carved above many of the doorways. When they moved in, my aunt helped with some painting and covered the crosses in the process. As they covered them, they heard noises coming from another part of the house. The next day, the crossed were all back.

Coincidentally, my mom’s boss’s son just recently moved into the same house (15 years later), and she was telling my mom about her son’s haunted house before ever being told that my grandma and great-grandma lived there.

Eerie encounter?

• • 12
Their Great-Grandma Visited After She Passed Away

From Reddit u/noprods_nobastards:

My great-grandma died in ’92. My auntie got the phone call that night. The next morning, my then-three-year-old cousin came out of her room and sleepily mentioned, “Mama, Gramma Rose (the one who’d just died) visited me last night. She said to tell you that her hip doesn’t hurt anymore.”

Eerie encounter?

• • 13
They Felt Someone Staring At Them While They Slept

From Reddit u/Nonotcraig:

When I was 10, I was in bed with my back to the door and suddenly felt something standing in my bedroom staring at my back. I’d never felt scared in that room before, but in that moment, there was no doubt something was in there with me. I was frozen in sheer terror and couldn’t move. Dead silence, just me and whatever it was.

After a few minutes, I screamed bloody murder for my dad, who came running into the room. As soon as he opened the door, he asked me,

“What WAS that?” Every once in awhile, one of us will bring it up. Never happened again after that.

Eerie encounter?

• • 14
Something Had Thrown All The Clothes Around After The Store Closed

From Reddit u/froilan69:

My mother opened a clothing store downtown, and the building she and her partner rents was at one time a popular brothel. It’s a beautiful building, but very haunted. One night, she had closed up for the night, locked the doors, set the alarms, and went home for the evening.

Around 3 or 4 am, the police department called her and told her someone was in her store and had turned all the lights on and it looked like endcaps and things were turned over and items were all over the floor.

The police told her that they didn’t suspect anyone was in the building, and the doors were still locked. They also said by the looks of things, it was extremely unnerving and that it’d be better if she went to check on things. So, she did. When she got to the store, she went into the basement where handbags and merchandise were kept in storage. She said the door (which was locked by deadbolts) was wide open, the hangbags were thrown around, and clothes were scattered all over the place…

Eerie encounter?

• • 15
They Kept Seeing A Man Dressed In Black Watching Them Work

From Reddit u/_always_sunny_:

I use to work in a bar that wasn’t exactly a jail, but temporarily held people awaiting court and sentencing. Everyone had stories about the residential ghost, who we called Sebastian.

First time I saw Sebastian, I looked down the stairs while I was opening and saw some legs in black pants and smart shoes. (The ceiling obscured his torso upwards.) When I went downstairs to ask how he got in, he ran down the hallway and vanished. A few other staff members mentioned seeing a man in a black suit who would be in the bar after hours while they’d be cleaning, but when they’d approach or speak to him, he’d turn a corner and disappear.

Sometimes after closing, you’d hear someone ringing the bells on staff members’ bikes downstairs, or you’d hear a crash and the bikes would be moved to a different place. Other times, you’d see a man in black duck into the office, and by the time you’d enter he’d be gone. The clincher that convinced us all that it wasn’t just a thing we all believed because we all joked about it so often was the day the new chefs came.

They didn’t speak much English and would leave once dinner service was over, so they never engaged in the Sebastian stories. One day, one of them asked about a man in black who kept leaning on the ordering window while they were cleaning.
Sebastian was pretty chill though. He never scared us or did anything mean. I think he just liked hanging out.

Eerie encounter?

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