31 People Talk About Scary Moments They’ve Experienced (And They’re Pretty Freaking Ridiculous)

Fear is a terribly fascinating thing. These men and women have experienced all kinds — deaths to ghosts to UFOs to the unexplainable. Read more on this Reddit thread.
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1. Near death experience

When I was about 13, my parents and I took a trip to Yellowstone National Park.

While hiking a trail we heard a huge crash and a loud scream. “Watch out” were the words yelled out from someone not in sight on the trail ahead.

Hundreds of Buffalo appeared crashing through the trees coming towards us. Executing our natural flight response to this dismal turn of events we ran as fast as we could through the woods. I tripped at one point and will remember screaming out to my mother who was already there to help me out.

My father yelled to us to follow him as he started running up the hill on the other side of the path. Five seconds later we saw the herd of Buffalo passing us.
Turns out if you are ever being chased by a herd of Buffalo you should run uphill because the herd will naturally go downhill.

We went to a diner right after that for lunch and I ordered a Buffalo burger. Gave me a sense of victory.

2. Something was hugging her

In the very early hours of the morning, I awoke with arms wrapped around me from behind. Nothing unusual, I’m married so I’m often cuddled in bed. Except… when I opened my eyes I saw that my husband was on the other side of the bed.

So, don’t panic, maybe it’s my son… no, he’s also in front of me, between me and my husband. My daughter was a baby at the time and sleeping in her cot by the bed. It couldn’t be her. There should have been no one else in the house.

Still half asleep, in a rather dark room, I roll over, thinking that maybe a friend of mine had come over late, climbed in a window and crashed out. I have a couple of friends who would do that sort of thing, no big deal.

The person behind me is a complete stranger. A large Samoan man stares down at me while I stare up at him, still trying to get my sleeping mind and eyes to focus and figure out what’s going on. Very slowly, the man raises his finger to his lips.

“Shhhhhh.”

Oddly, I did ‘shhh’. I think I didn’t want to wake the children. Instead I started frantically elbowing the man in his chest until he took his arms off of me and awkwardly climbed off the bed (he was between me and the wall so he had to scoot down to the end). When he stood up I saw how huge this guy was. Easily six foot and a very solid build.

The fear was indescribably intense. It felt like my heart had stopped and my mind was racing. I kept thinking I must be dreaming, that this couldn’t actually be happening. I was completely frozen in terror.

As the man was at the end of the bed (looking for his hat, we later found as he left it on the bed), my husband woke up. He took one look at the man and threw the blankets off, immediately giving chase screaming, “Who the fuck are you?! Who the fuck are you?!” over an over. This part is actually kind of amusing to think back to because my husband sleeps naked. He’s also much smaller than the stranger and I guess you could say he looks kind of like a hobbit. So my naked husband chases the man out of the house and loses him when he vaults over our fence, deciding to come check on me and the kids rather than following. At this point, I was standing in the doorway of our bedroom making these these really strange, half-screaming, half-sobbing noises.

After that we (obviously) called the police and went through making statements etc and we moved to a new house within a week. The same man, on the same night, had walked into a different house in the neighbourhood where the occupants were still awake. He said he was looking for someone and left. He then accosted a woman on the street before entering our house, either through a window in the kitchen that we had accidentally left open, or through our backdoor that was falling off of it’s hinges and occasionally didn’t close properly or swung open. Two weeks after that, he entered the house of two women who were able to talk to him in Samoan and got the best description of him out of any of us.

The case was on Police Ten 7 (our national crime show) and he was arrested within two days of it airing, if I remember correctly. He was given 10 months of home detention and was deported back to Samoa.

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3. Home alone

Home alone about a year ago, no big deal. I’m often home alone for a night or two every other week or so. But as I was turning lights off and getting ready to go to bed I hear this ticking. Exactly like my keyboard typing, and it’s coming right from the computer room. Instinctively I grab a cricket bat and slowly check out the computer room. Nothing. Then make sure windows are closed and doors and head back upstairs.

TV turns on downstairs. I’m thinking “fuck this” right now. Grab the bat, and slowly downstairs. TV turned on because the remote fell and must have pressed on. As I turn it off the fucking keyboard goes again. Check the room and like before, nothing in there. Go upstairs, then the TV. Again. Turned it off, ran upstairs and needless to say but I “slept” (I barely slept) with the lights on and a cricket bat by my bed that night.

4. Time travelers?

This was back in 2006 when I worked at a pretzel store that rhymes with Canty Cans in the local mall. This is during the dead afternoon days of the summer, usually there would just be one person. At this time, I am that one person.

The day was going by pretty slowly, and with no windows, time would often stand still. Cameras made it hard for us to text people and slack off.

Regardless, at some unknown time, a family of three: mother, daughter, and young son stop some distance from the counter and stare at me and the pretzels. I would not have thought it to be odd except for how they were dressed. They looked like they came straight out of the 1950s.

The son was much younger and was in 1950s style clothing as well. I’m thinking how weird this could possibly be, but then realized that right upstairs there was a professional photography place, so they were probably dressed up for some old-timey photos. It was not until the little boy came up to the counter and asked for a pretzel.

I told him the price, $2.66, and he handed me a one dollar bill. I motion to the mother that the pretzel cost $2.66 and he was $1.66 short. she looked at me like I told her the pretzel cost $10. I mean I understand that $2.66 was high for a pretzel, but she looked at me as if I wanted her to fork over her life savings.

The little boy, not talking, hands me the dollar. I take a hard stare at it and realize it’s a Silver Certificate, series 1957. And this dollar bill did not look like it was almost half a century old. It had normal wear and tear like a series 2003 bill had the time. It wasn’t crisp, but it was still very much usable and a bank would probably use it for further transactions.

At this point I realized that nobody else really crossed their paths the entire time, and the entertainment/music store next door was pretty dead, even for a midsummer afternoon, while pedestrian traffic just seemed to be nonexistent.

I hand the dollar back to the young boy, and he walks away with his mother and sister. About 10 seconds later, pedestrian traffic walked through the area of the store.

5. His hair turned grey in the meantime

I had two women tell me they were pregnant on the same day.

Longest six weeks of my life.

Only one was lying.

6. Coincidence?

Watched the Exorcist as a kid and thought it wasn’t all that scary. I made myself some cheesy mac and said out loud (Like some kind of fucking dumb ass) “That could NEVER happen.” Just then all the lights turned off. Shat out my heart I was so scared. The cheesy mac was good though.

7. It’s actually more common than you think

Sleep Paralysis.

It started happening before I was even 10, and a few times a week i’d wake up completely paralysed hearing loud noises / seeing ghosts / having trouble breathing.

It happened for years, becoming less frequent over time.

8. Almost died at 9

I’m from Northern Virginia, so the snowstorms don’t typically get too crazy and we’re not particularly well versed in playing in it. Flashback to when I was around 9 and delighting in my first igloo experience in the front yard. I had my hot chocolate, my gloves, hat, and shovel and was all set to say F school and live out the rest of my days as a Virginia eskimo. Being an amateur snowstruction worker, I built up a huge mound and just kind of start digging into the side of it. The end result was underwhelming and just looked like an ice cave rather than the five-star perfectly crafted luxury ice mansion I had envisioned. I was pouting about my craftsmanship and sipping hot chocolate while looking up at the mound roof when disaster struck.

There was no movie-like crack that spread throughout the ceiling and foreshadowed a collapse, the entire thing just dropped on top of me. I definitely underestimated the weight of all the snow I accumulated, because I literally couldn’t move my arms or legs. I started to panic. I was suffocating in a shitty igloo and my brief 9 year old life flashed before my closed eyes. I gave in to the helplessness and just sat there motionless, waiting for the icy grave to finish the job when I start to feel the weight of the snow gradually decreasing! My 11 year old bully of a brother hadn’t watched the scene unfold, but walked into the cul de sac after of day of sledding to see a pair of booted-feet sticking out of a snow pile. He freed my legs so I could thrust myself up and thirstily suck in gasps of life-saving oxygen. Almost 14 years later, and my older brother still reminds me of the debt, and how he will always have a life-saving favor to cash in.

9. Something found him

Something found me after a car accident and I don’t know what it was.

During our drive home from a family trip our car hit black ice on a curve that sent us rolling. That day I didn’t wear my seatbelt I was ejected out the car by breaking through my window using my face as a ram. From my perspective: One second I’m in a car next thing I know I’m laying in some bushes. I try getting up but I’m stopped by an intense pain in my shoulder (broke my collar bone). Honestly I don’t know if I passed out or just went to sleep but at this point I lost consciousness. After an unknown amount of time to me, through my closed eyes I can see a flash light shine over me(it was 3 am). My dad found me, lifted me to my feet with ease and pushed me towards where the totaled car and my family was. A distinct detail I remember about this moment is how firm the hands were.

The unexplainable part. After talking to my brother I realized something. My dad never actually went looking for me. My mom was badly damaged and no one had no idea what happened to me. They actually assumed the worst and thought I was dead, under the car. We didn’t even have a flash light. I don’t know who/what found me lying there, but something did. I distinctly remember the light shining over me before firm strong hands lifted me up like I was paper. Before talking about it I always just assumed it had been my dad. I post this every now and then just kinda hoping an answer finds it. My collar bone healed so it’s protruding a bit, it’s stuck as a permanent reminder of that day.

10. Angry father

A three and a half years ago my dad suddenly died of a heart attack in his sleep. When I got to the hospital he was already gone and he was cold and pale, his eyes were open, and he still had an intubation tube down his throat from when they tried to save him. It scared me so much to see him so completely devoid of life, I had nightmares for weeks after that. I dreamt that he came back and I was overjoyed to see him…then he started falling apart. His bones kept breaking and he softly spoke to me about how badly everything hurt and how he just wanted to go to sleep. Also, I dreamt that I heard a knock on the door and I opened it to find my dad angry, yelling that we left him behind at the cemetery. Just thinking about it still fills me with anxiety and fear.

11. Aliens?

When I was 12, I was in bed one night with my bedroom door open. I was watching TV, sitting somewhat upright with a pillow behind my head and shoulders. The TV was in one corner of the room and the door was in the other corner. The room was differently shaped and basically where the door was cut off the corner of what would normally be a perfectly square floor plan. So with my bed lying between the two, when I watched TV I could see out the door. (I was scared of aliens don’t judge.) So I was watching TV and out the door is completely black. Next thing you know, something catches my eye and I look over out the door and this all white human shaped object is moving past the door, from left to right, and when i stared directly at it it turned and looked at me. A split second later it was passed the right threshold of the door and I was left petrified. Shaking in my covers nearly shitting myself. I then hear the door to the garage open and shit myself even more. I run down stairs and am greeted by my drunk 19-year-old brother getting home. I spill out what just happened to me and he grabs a bat and we check every room, under the beds, in closets. Everyone was dead asleep. We found nothing. Needless to say I never slept with my door open AGAIN, still to this day 11 years later.

12. Cut his hand open

I used to sell drugs and stuff back in the day, and I used to hang out at a biker bar.

It was a fun place, we used to get loaded/baked and do shit like build model cars and whatnot while talking shit. Nice guys, actually.

There was this one dude that hung out there, he wasn’t involved with them or anything, just friendly to the cause. I talked with him a few times, he seemed okay, a cool middle aged hippy type. Even met his wife once, they lived two streets away from the bar.

One night he invited me to a party, but when we get there it was just a hotel room and we were alone. He immediately turns and slams me into a wall then grabs me by the throat. I thought he wanted to rob me, but nope, he had other intentions. He outweighed me by a good 50lbs, and was actually doing an acceptable job of choking me out while he tried to grab at my belt as he dragged me towards the jacuzzi in the corner of the room.

I kicked him in the nuts and got a shot in to his throat, he just shook his head and coughed then charged at me again, this time with a pocket knife. I grabbed the lamp on the stand by the door and smashed him in the face with it, it didn’t break but it definitely stunned him for a second, I chose to get the fuck out of there, the guy was fucking insane.

He never chased me and I made it back into the city, though I got stopped by the cops once because I had cut my hand open hopping a fence, but they let me go without any further questions.

I made it back to the bar and told the guys what had happened.

He actually showed up there the next day. I guess he didn’t notice the sudden cold silence in the place. He was served his beer while a phone call was made. A van pulled up and two large dudes came in, hustled him out, and that was it. The place went back to normal as conversation and laughter resumed.

Never saw him again, and this is a small city. A week or so later I saw the “For Rent” sign in the window of his apartment when I walked by.

13. A twist!

I’m the oldest of three kids, and my parents split when I was about 10 (they got back together for a bit, and then broke up for good when I was 13). As the oldest, I figured I was basically the man of the house at 10 years old. One night I woke up to the doorbell ringing over and over again. My mom was already at the door, and at this point had started yelling through the door. “WHO IS IT?! WHAT DO YOU WANT?!? WHY CAN’T YOU LEAVE US ALONE?!?”
All the noise had awoken our very loud blue and gold macaw, whose cage was in the garage, basically right next to the front door. He started screaming along with my mom. My god, the noise… It was deafening.

Now, the split was hard on my family financially. We often ate donated food from the church, and light bulbs would go months – if not longer – without being changed. On this night, it’s the porch light that is out. My mom is staring through the peep hole, continuing to scream at the darkness, struggling to be heard by this mystery tormentor over the constant shrieks of our bird. No one but the bird responds.

I do the only thing I know to do. I grab a blunt object – a hockey stick is a blunt object, right? – and stand at the ready. I can’t stop anyone from breaking that door down, but I sure as hell am going to do some damage with all my 10-year old strength if they do.

My mom finally gives up, turns around and slides down the door, sobbing. The doorbell rings continue for at least another 15 minutes, with me standing there ready to strike in defense of my family. Not on my watch, scumbag.

Finally the doorbell stops. The bird stops. The only sound left is the continuing sobs of my mother. She finally sees me, hockey stick half-cocked, and starts to laugh. “Next time, maybe grab a baseball bat or something?”

I don’t sleep for the rest of the night, and my mom calls the cops in the morning. They explain that sometimes people get really drunk and think they’re at home, but they’re at the neighbor’s house or on a different street entirely. This doesn’t make my mom feel much better, but at least we’re safe now.

After the cops left, my mom went into the garage to do laundry, and she noticed an exposed wire next to the bird’s cage. She thought it was odd, and wanted to make sure it wouldn’t shock the bird. As soon as she touched the wire, the doorbell rang. She touched it again, and the doorbell rang again. The fucking bird was bored out of his mind, chewing on an exposed wire, ringing the doorbell the night before. Any time I want to embarrass my mom I bring this story up – even though I was the one standing there with a hockey stick like I was going to bring down the hammer of thor on the non-existent intruder. It’s a fun family joke, but I can honestly say I don’t think I’ve ever been that scared again in my life.

14. Sort of like The Shining?

Once had someone try to break down my door with a hammer. While doing so he was screaming about how he’d kill me.

Not fun at all. I have nightmares about it still.

15. A swimming accident

I ruptured my eardrum last year because of a swimming accident. I lost all hearing in my right ear for a solid 3 weeks and I came horrifyingly close to being partially deaf.

Fuck. That. Shit. It felt like someone pushing down hard on the inside of my ear for 3 weeks. Could barely eat or sleep. Getting up to take a piss was like pushing through Satan’s asshole.

16. Murder house

Finding out people had been murdered in the house I grew up in. We were 99% sure it was haunted, then noticing the blood spots my mom had missed covering with white paint pretty much confirmed. She admitted a man killed his wife, kids, then himself.

17. Could not save face

The night was young, a girl I had a crush on for the longest time asked if I wanted to see a movie with her. Jumping at the chance like a dumbass I said yes. To my surprise when we get there this bitch takes into no consideration what movie I want to see and asks for tickets to Paranormal Activity.

A little bit about myself I’m a pussy when it comes to scary movies, I could give a duck what anyone calls me I like to sleep at night and seeing these movies doesn’t help.

Anywho not wanting to seem like a pussy to the girl I liked I agreed to see it. Shit my pants, screamed my ass off, yelled more than her, she had to hold me, all in all it was a good date.

Fast forward to when I get home I’m petrified. Can’t go to sleep so I have the TV on. I have the controller to the TV right next to my face and eventually fall asleep. A couple of hours later I wake up and it’s pitch dark in my room. I freak out and start searching for the TV remote to turn on the TV. I search left and right all over the bed and can’t find it. Panic strikes me and I make a dash for the lamp next to my bed. I turn it on and look all over for the remote and it’s nowhere to be found. I look at the TV and I shit you not. Standing, vertically I may add, on top of the TV is my remote. Staring at me as if it were asking grab me I dare you. Did I mention it was standing vertically.

I let out a scream my parents woke up, my brother woke up, the dogs, the whole neighborhood practically heard me. They rushed I’m my room but by the time they got there the controller was laying flat.

All in all I didn’t sleep well for at least a month and never spoke to the girl again.

18. Felt it too

Was on a tour of an old building in Australia that used to function as a prison for convicts sent over from the UK. Was going up a flight of stairs when I felt a pressure around my neck/windpipe. Didn’t think much more of it than, “Hm that’s weird” and just sort of rubbed my neck in hopes of making the sensation pass. When we were heading back down the guide said a man hung himself in that stairwell and people often reported the feeling of being strangled. I completely bugged the fuck out, but didn’t tell anyone in my tour group in fear they’d think I was lying.

19. “Scared the ever-lasting shit out of me”

My 4-year-old has recently started having night terrors. That first night….scared the ever-loving shit out of me. She was sound asleep but her eyes were wide open. She was screaming/crying for Mommy. I was hugging her but she would push me away screaming” No! My REAL mommy!” Then she started shaking and asking why my nightstand was flying and it just got scarier by the minute. I had no clue what was going on. I rushed her to the ER. Apparently it’s pretty normal for most kids to get night terrors. She has had a handful since then and they are still scary but nothing like that first night when I had no clue what was going on.

20. Totally terrifying

It’s about three in the morning one night and I’m laying in bed keeping my eyes closed to just relax. All of a sudden, I lose consciousness for a minute or two and can’t move. When I’m able to open my eyes, I glance to my door. Out of nowhere, there’s a loud BANG on my door, to which I open my eyes wide.

I don’t move and the next thing I hear is crying, with a very faint voice whispering to the person who is crying. I tend to have only lucid first-person dreams, so I immediately shunned it off like it was nothing. Then I closed my eyes, and open them back up. Now I panic a bit and stand up.

I slowly open the door to see nothing there. The light is off in the hallway when I always leave it on. I shit you not, as long as I live, I walk down the hallway after turning the light on and I hear a faint piano playing. I ran back to my room.

21. “Grandpa”

I on and off again babysit this 2-year-old while his parents have a date night. Once before my friend was babysitting him and he started talking to his “grandpa” (who his parents say he never met as he had died before the kid was born). So whenever I babysit him, I prepare for something weird like that to happen again.
Of course this night were in his living room and he points at an empty wall in front of us “Grandpa” is all he says. He’s two and doesn’t talk a whole lot so I didn’t ask for an explanation. Instead I start talking about other things because it’s creeping me out. The kid then widens his eyes and grips the chair he’s sitting in, chattering his teeth and shaking uncontrollably. Here’s me freaking the fuck out so I grab him and tell him that it’s time to watch a movie before bed.

Later that night, I’m about to take him upstairs when I noticed the door was unlocked. I locked it and turned the knob,shaking the door, to reaffirm that it’s locked (I do this without fail to every door I lock, it’s a dumb quirk) and then carry him upstairs to bed since he’s already half asleep.

I’m in his room for about twenty minutes and when he’s finally out I leave him and go back downstairs. The front door is directly in front of the stairs and guess what. THE DOOR IS FUCKING UNLOCKED. Immediately I think that this is going to be a horror movie and think that it’s a smart idea to check around the house.

Nothing out of the ordinary. I even go upstairs to check on the kid again. I didn’t bother looking in the other bedrooms because I had his door open when we were laying in there and would have seen anyone come up.

Anyways, after making sure he’s okay, I go back downstairs and watch TV until his parents get home, jumping at every little noise. Freakiest night of my life and I had to debate for a solid hour when they asked me to watch him again a couple days later.

22. Passed out and woke up to this

A few years back I was visiting a friend at her house right off campus in Philadelphia. Her house was having a party and we all got pretty drunk. Students and locals were all in attendance. I went down to her room in the basement to pass out when I woke up a few hours later to see a complete stranger walking towards me with his pants down and dick in his hand. Screamed for dear life, he ran out.

23. The Rake

In high school on Black Friday we drove to a huge mall maybe an hour away. It was about 3am when we left, and being a bunch of bored kids we decided to try and take a little detour through the woods.

So we duck off the interstate onto a two lane highway, no other cars for at least half an hour at this point. We’re driving through the woods, and come over a hill into a valley with a river at the bottom. I guess the dew point must have just been reached or something, because immediately after we turn over the hill h river just starts billowing out fog. I’ve never seen anything like it, you could see the outlines of the clouds in the darkness and that’s it.

By now were kinda spooked, but still being dumb and bored we dare a few of us to go running out in the fog. So we pull over, and with the fog lights there’s maybe about 30 feet of visibility.

Three of us get out of the car, walk forward a little and suddenly it gets cold. There’s a huge blast of wind, and now the fog is so thick you literally can’t see your hand in front of your face. At this point we start losing our collective shit and try running back to the car, except I trip. That was scary enough. But it gets worse.

At this point all four of us are freaking out, we need to get home or at the least get out of the fog. We drive a little, and we see a sign for “Old Mine Road” and the fog looks a little better so we pull onto it to figure out what’s going on. My friends car has a navigation system, and were on our phones trying to use google map or something.

For some super unfortunate reason all of these systems tell us to take a short cut through Old Mine Road. Us being dumb, went with it.

We’re driving along this unpaved road, and the fog gets a little better. We turn a corner, and the fucking headlights lit up what must have been 20 or so fucking deer. But not the deer, just their eyes. I don’t know if they were deer, since deers eyes don’t normally glow fucking green, but I really need to think their deer for my own sake.
At this point were flipping out, screaming. “What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck.” Screaming.

We try and turn around except now the fog has gotten even worse. GPS says it’s another five minutes to a big highway so we decide to just keep going.

We’re all on edge, understandably, and we’re almost home free. We turn one more corner, and there’s just a pile of trash in the middle of the road. Like an actual pile of trash, as if some hoarder just dumped everything off in the middle of the woods.

The driver slows down to get around it, and all of us are just staring at this trash. Something is up with it, we can tell.

At this point I would recommend you look up what is known as “The Rake” from Northeastern America, specifically the border of Connecticut and New York where we were. The Rake, to my understanding, is a half-man, half-dog hybrid that roams the woods and hunts packs of deer.

And I swear to god the fucking rake just erupted from underneath the trash. I took one look at it before promptly pissing my pants.

It had a pale, ghastly white face not unlike Voldemort, hunched back, wispy body hair, fangs, and was extremely skinny. Black eyes. Completely unnatural.

The driver guns it, all of us are screaming bloody murder, and were fucking flying down this road.

Ever been so afraid you’ve had to puke? Because that is some primal fucking terror. We pulled over at a gas station near our houses, and I just lost it and started puking.

Three of us pissed ourselves.

The rake is very much real, and it is fucking terrifying. Stay on the highways for your own sake.

24. “Not if…”

I (male) had a threesome with my girlfriend and a long standing friend of hers (also male) who she sometimes fools around with. No big thing, totally allowed by the rules of our relationship for them to be doing whatever they want, whenever they want, so long as they’re not using my bed when I want to sleep.

All in all, pretty fun night.

Then he got psycho on us. Well, on me specifically. All 3 of us are hardcore kinksters, but he has a reputation for not being afraid to push people to the limits of their consent. Fine, fair enough, that shit flies in some sub-circles of the kink community. He certainly didn’t appeal to me for such activities, and I made this clear to him.
I didn’t get anything sent to me directly, but he spent the week after our little adventure sending my girlfriend long, graphic, brutal descriptions of all the things he wants to do to me. My knowledge of physiology isn’t great, but it sounds like at least half of the stuff on the list would disfigure me, if not outright kill me.

It got so bad my girlfriend insisted on staying with me for a week, despite her being based in the next town over, so she could “talk him down when he tried to break in and attack you, or at the very least phone the police”.

Not if, when.

In the end she managed to talk him in off the crazy ledge via email, but, unsurprisingly, they no longer talk. At all. Ever. I am under strict instructions to remind her of the week she felt compelled to keep a knife on the bedside table if she considers giving him a second chance.

25. Astral projection?

I don’t do supernatural stuff, and I don’t really do aliens. Never have. I just don’t really buy any of it. My explanation of the story I’m about to tell you is this: it was a dream. That’s what I think happened. I think I had a very intense, very realistic feeling dream. I think. Some part of me always has a bit of doubt. It was so very real feeling. Also, I’m not sure if this would be categorized as aliens or ghosts. I’m not sure what these things were suppose to be.

One night I went to bed, pulled the covers over me, went to sleep. About (what felt like) 15 minutes later I opened my eyes. Couldn’t sleep. Sat up on the edge of my bed. Stared at the floor a minute. Looked at my dog, asleep at the foot of the bed, then looked behind me. I was behind myself, still sleeping. I found this to be extremely strange. Then I heard an extremely loud buzzing noise, looked out my window and saw a crowd of gray beings just staring at me. No clothes. Black eyes. Mouths were perfect black circles. They noticed that I was seeing them, then simultaneously they all raised their hands and I fell back against my bed, writhed around a bit, and was laying down. I stopped for a moment and realized it wasn’t happening anymore. There was nothing outside my window. Dog was still asleep. I went and got a drink, watched tv for a bit. Convinced myself it was a dream, eventually went back to bed.

That’s the story, that’s what happened. Again, obviously it must have been a dream, but internally, sometimes I have a hard time accepting it, because it felt so insanely real.

26. Shook his head.

Just started a new job and relocated to San Francisco. My girlfriends company put us up in temporary housing until we found a place to live. The place was located in the Tenderloin (really shitty part of town).

The building required a special card to get through the front door. One night we were coming back late and as we opened the door, three very large guys pop out of the bushes and walk in with us. We play it cool like they must live here as well, and we all get into the elevator. As the elevator starts going up, one of the guys looks at the biggest guy and says, “Are these going to be the ones?”

The guy just calmly looks back and hesitates answering for a couple seconds. Then very calmly and slowly shakes his head no. Then the elevator opened up and we walked out, door closed, and we both fell to the floor in a state of shock.

27. No more snowmobile rides

I grew up in the arctic.

In the town I lived in, as long as it was a clear night, it was an extremely normal occurrence to see all sorts of strange lights move across the sky. Keep in mind the winter is long in the arctic, which means longer amounts of time being spent under the stars. It’s quite beautiful, as long as you don’t mind the cold so much. Sometimes I would drive a snowmobile a few kilometers out of town, shut it down, and just lay down on the snow looking up at the majesty of it all, the only thing disturbing the silence being the occasional breeze.

The northern lights are also a common occurrence. Doesn’t happen everyday, but often enough that they start getting ignored after a while, as long as they aren’t too spectacular anyway.

On one particular night, without asking my parents (it was their snowmobile), I decided to go on one of my midnight drives out of town. I drove a few kilometers over the hills to find a spot devoid of light pollution from town, shut off the machine, and settled in to a good spot to look up and be retrospective.

It wasn’t all that interesting a scene. A few satellites passing here and there, some relatively boring activity affecting the magnetic field, etc. And then I started noticing a clicking noise…

At first I thought it was the sound of the snow machine cooling down, as engine expands and contracts a lot in the cold. But the source of the sound definitely wasn’t coming from that direction. My next thought was there must be an animal nearby in which case I need to get out of there fast (you don’t really want to mess with a wild animal). But, the clicking is far too regular for an animal to produce it. It was fairly mechanical sounding. And again, the source of the sound isn’t coming from anywhere around me laterally. It was coming from up. So naturally I look up determined to ascertain the origin of this strange noise.

I see what I always see: stars, northern lights, a lazy satellite crossing the sky…all normal stuff. But before I dismiss it altogether and begin heading home, I notice something strange in the Aurora Borealis. There were three rather strong points of light. I ignored them at first thinking they were oddly symmetrical stars, but this proved false. They were definitely getting brighter. I kept staring in morbid fascination as they grew stronger and stronger, yet still only remaining single points in the sky. All the while the clicking noise is getting louder and louder and more pronounced, almost like someone started with tapping a pen on a desk to clacking billiard balls together inside my head.

Then it stops. The lights are gone, the clicking is not heard, and aside from being a little stiff, cold, and rather petrified, I’m fine.

So I jump back on the snowmobile thinking maybe I’m going crazy. The machine takes a little longer than usual to start up, and I’m beginning to worry, but soon it’s running and I’m heading back to town. As I’m driving back several plausible scenarios as to what occurred are running through my head. I’m thinking it could’ve been a helicopter from the mine, or some strange northern lights behaviour etc. Probably not that big a deal.

I pull up to my house. Lights are all dark. Strange. It wasn’t that late when I left. Open outer door as quietly as possible, remove winter gear, enter inner door. House is quiet. Really quiet. My parents are teachers and are usually up late marking or watching T.V. All I’m thinking is I have to get to bed without anyone noticing. Proves to be easy as I’m soon under my covers. I go to set my alarm for the next day. All of the sudden everything makes sense.

Engine hard to start, stiff, rather chilly, nobody up when I was gone what felt like relatively short period of time…

It was almost 11:00pm when I left, and now it was creeping up on 6:00am. I stood, staring at clicking lights for almost 7 hours.

I never ended up sleeping that night, and I don’t go on late night snow machine rides anymore.

28. A voice in a dream

During college, I used to travel a lot on weekends between my hometown and my college (90 mile drive). One weekend, an acquaintance of mine from high school also decided to drive home in a separate car. On Saturday night I had a very vivid dream where this infant girl came up to me and said “Please…take care of my sister” and showed me an image of a car crash on the highway consisting of a silver Corolla (my friend’s car) and a black Ford Explorer. The next morning I immediately called her and told her about that dream and asked her if she has a sister because I’ve only ever met her brothers. Her response was that “well…my mom had a stillborn girl” and then I asked how old she would’ve been today and she said 5. It immediately clicked that the infant from my dream was her lost sister! I talked her into driving back with me the next night and watched the news only to see an identical image to what I saw in my dream, only this time it was only a black Ford Explorer and not two cars. Still freaks me out to this day.

29. Hallway leading to a glass door

Well one time I decided to come in to work early at the animal shelter and I was the first one there and I came around the corner and flipped on the light in the hallway. The first thing I see is the big Rotti. It is just standing at the end of the hallway looking almost see thru but not quite. It looked at me for a second or two and then turned to the left. Now at the end it was at to the left is a 10 foot hallway leading to a glass door that only opens in. I ran up there real quick to try to catch it and the dog was no where to be seen. It disappeared. I was on edge til everyone else showed up about two hours later.

30. At a Pennsylvania Sears

In the fall of ’81, I was in kindergarden. My mother and I were at the mall. She turned her back for a second, and I was gone. She started looking for me in the store (Sears I think), while my father bolted to the main mall entrance, at a full out run. He gets there just in time to see some strange woman holding my hand, quickly walking me out of the mall.

My father screams, the woman drops my hand as I cry for my father. She bolts out the doors and into a waiting vehicle that takes off before my dad can see what it was. They called the cops, but I was fine, and there were no mall cameras at that time.

This was in Pennsylvania. Adam Walsh was kidnapped from a Sears later that year.

31. Absolute powerlessness

The scariest thing that ever happened to me was when my sister attempted suicide on my first day at my first job. I got off work at 10pm and got the call. The powerlessness was just overwhelming.

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