25 People Reveal Their Personal Mysteries That Are Still Unsolved

Some experiences are unexplainable. At least, that’s what these Ask Reddit users believe.

Unsplash / Marcus Rahm

1. An unlit candle appeared inside of my house

“Currently living with my brother. Last night I think I hear the back door open. After a couple seconds of no one coming in, I say hello? Then hear movement and hear the door close. I go outside via the backdoor and don’t see anyone and my brother’s car isn’t there. I do a quick walk around the house and see nothing. I go back inside, lock everything, and walk into the bathroom where I find an old unlit white candle sitting upright in the hole of the sink.” — dudeistpriest2014

2. My cat existed in two places at once

“I once let my cat outside to go do cat stuff or whatever, then I walked up the stairs and saw my cat sitting on the stairs. I was confused and gave her a pet to make sure she was real, she was. I then walked around to the back door, let my cat in again and never saw the doppelganger ever again. No clue what crazy shit happened there, so I just go about my days and pretend it never happened.” — Donteventrytomakeme

3. I felt someone touch me where a student committed suicide

“During my postgrad studies, I was in a lab at uni around 1am in the morning, busy with some experiment. It was a 24hr thing where you had to do sampling at certain time periods in order to be able to draw a curve over time. I was in the lab alone. [Short back story: 10 odd years before another postgrad student had committed suicide in one of the labs about 30 meters down the hall from my lab. Of course some of the older postgrad students told us stories to spook us, but I was never really bothered about coming in at night alone. In fact, the scariest thing to me was the flask shaking machine, which looked like a fucking thing possessed. There was an Asian girl in my year though, who was a med student before. She quit in her second year, when they started doing dissection, because ‘the dead people would follow her home.’ She refused to come into lab at night. The medical department also happened to be just a 100m away across a huge parking lot.]

Okay, so I’m in lab alone, I’d been in there for half an hour at least. The lab was locked when I came in. I’m mid-way through my experiment, when the tap on the bench opposite mine, starts running full blast. This bench is like 5m away from me, and in clear view of me. No one could open the tap without me seeing them. I’m really tired, and I feel kind of confused / frozen, so I just stand there looking at it. It runs for maybe a minute and then stops. I continue my experiment. After a few minutes, the tap starts running again, full blast. So, I put my pipet down, pack my bag, and calmly walk out of the lab with the tap still running. Because, fuck that shit.” — ayethen

4. We’re both missing a large chunk of time

“My wife and I drove out into the countryside to starwatch. We were parked laying in the back of my truck with Led Zeppelin playing in the cab. Stairway to Heaven came on and I checked the time, it was 9pm. Near the guitar solo the wind picked up and it got really cold so when the song finished we hopped back in the truck to go. The song finished and as we started driving again we check the time and it is 3am. Somehow we lost 6 hours listening to a seven minute song.” — Lunar0ct0pi

5. The drivers somehow switched positions

“About a few months ago I was a bit drunk coming home with a taxi. I tell him to wait outside so I can pay him because I didn’t have money in me and I run to my house and when I come back, there is another driver in the taxi. I was not tripping or anything the first guy was a dude with a beard and the second driver was a muscular bald guy.” — sasepro

6. I saw a vision of my next door neighbor

“One night I was walking my dog and noticed my neighbor sitting in his truck in the backyard. This truck was his absolute prized possession and would wash and detail it about weekly. Knowing that he was sick for a long time I thought it was nice he was out in his beloved truck and doing something he enjoyed. A few days later my mom tells me that he recently died due to complications of cancer. When I told her about seeing him in his truck she told me it was not possible due to the fact he never left the hospital that last 2 weeks being attached to life support.

I am not a superstitious man by nature preferring science to mysticism but I remember speaking to his widow about this. She told me she was going downstairs to switch the laundry over and looked at his workbench where he was sitting on his stool. She said he looked incredibly happy and at peace.

I felt better knowing that he was doing thing he enjoyed and was watching over everything.” — godbullseye

7. Bats flew out from my empty church

“On several occasions, I’ve seen bats come flying out of the organ pipes when I’ve practiced at night in an empty church – many of them. They swoop back and forth between the loft and altar while I’m trying to concentrate.

But when the exterminator comes, he can’t find them – only their droppings on the organ blower or wind reservoirs.

He says they normally return to their place of origin (inside the gilded Diapason facade pipes). Yet there’s no explanation as to their whereabouts. Perhaps the bats hide in the crypt, but I’m not going there to explore.” — Back2Bach

8. We heard a stranger’s voice inside of our car

“When I was a kid, my parents loaded my brothers and I up for a drive to North Carolina. It was about a five hour drive and it was getting late. My brothers and I are all about asleep and my folks are in the front talking about some wedding they went to in the 80’s. They’re talking about this wedding and my mom just couldn’t seem to remember the name of some guy that was there. She was like, ‘What was his name again? Was it John?’ Out of nowhere a man’s voice responded clear as day: ‘His name was Bill.’ I remember shooting up from my seat, as did my brothers. Haha. Dad swerved our Toyota Previa to the side of the road so quick. He flung open the trunk trying to make sense of it all. You could even see into the back from the middle seats, but that voice was just so clear. He still had to check. Scared the shit out of my brothers and I. Someone was in on that conversation. Believe it or not, still one of the weirdest things my family encountered and can’t explain.” — Earthbonesandblood

9. My grandmother owned an unsettling painting

“My grandmother had this old painting in the back bedroom that used to freak all us grandkids out. It was like this greyscale ocean scene filled with these rowboats and in the boats where these weird animal-shaped shadows that were terrifying. It was so bad that she had to take it down because none of us would sleep in there without an adult.

Anyway, we’re at some family gathering years later and I’m talking with my cousins and the painting comes up. So we ask the parents and my grandma if they remember the creepy painting. They do, and we all exclaim about how creepy the shadow figures in the boats were and why would you ever buy a painting like that?!

Parents and grandma all look at each other, confused. And my grandma slowly says, ‘The boats were empty…’

Ugh. Still creeps me out!” — city-licker

10. A complete stranger read my mind

“When I was 5 or 6, I was at day care and this old man was waiting for his kid. I had been spacing out staring at this guy looking at a cut on his hand, and I remember thinking that a dog bit him, and I was just staring and picturing a dog biting him. And the old guy looked at me and said, ‘It wasn’t a dog.’ And I was just speechless and confused, and never figured out what happened.” — beatsworkin

11. I saw a demon outside of my window

“One night, in 5th grade I was having a horrible night of not being able to sleep. At around 3:20 am I saw something that can only be explained as being demonic. My bedroom was on the 2nd floor of the house at the back. From my window down to the ground was about 25 feet, with no way of climbing up to my window. I looked out at the previously mentioned time, and saw a demon. It was holding onto the wall, and looking in at me. It had huge, red glowing eyes, and huge fangs and teeth. I screamed, and dove under the covers. Next thing I know, it clawed at the window with its claws, leaving three long tears down the mesh screen. The next morning, I woke up, and those 3 tears were still there.” — KillerAceUSAF 

12. A ghost scattered coins across the floor

“My wife’s brother died in a car accident when he was only 17 years old. He had a strange habit of always finding money on the floor. That was his thing and everyone knew he was really lucky with it. One time we were walking through a parking lot and he was walking behind everybody and he just said, ‘Oh look, $50.’ How did no one else see it if we all walked over it and no one noticed but him.

Anyways the day after he died my wife and I along with his father and cousin went to the car lot where they took his car so that we could take his personal belongings out. We looked over the car for a bit trying to wrap our heads around what happened to such a young man when all of a sudden my wife looked down and saw a $5 bill just sitting there on the snow next to the car. No one else saw it despite all of us having circled the car several times. We all felt like like it was just his way of telling her I’m still with you.

After all this happened we also started to notice that we would constantly find pennies on the floor in our daughters room. She was just a baby at the time so we knew she wasn’t putting them there, and nowhere else in the apartment but her room. Like he was still there watching over his niece.” — LuisC2

13. A woman transported from place to place

“There’s a lady that my mom has often seen doing… questionable things in our street. I was walking to the shops with my mom and she pointed out said lady standing outside the shopping centre to show me who she is. I was just like ‘oh okay’ and we kept walking inside and left this lady still chatting to another person OUTSIDE.

We walk into the store and pick up a trolley, only to see this exact same lady now at the front of the queue with groceries, waiting to pay. Same person, same clothing, same everything.

To this day we still cannot begin to fathom how she got past us and did her shopping in nearly less than two minutes flat when we left her standing outside and we’re both sure as hell she didn’t pass us in that space of time.” — Gena79

14. An invisible presence knocked on our door

“Was staying at the Driskell hotel in Austin, TX. We got hungry late at night called in to room service to order a fruit tray and some nachos. Nothing that would take too long, but we were a couple of floors up. About 15 seconds after we placed the order, someone knocked on our door. We were about half way down the hall and we didn’t see any traces of anyone running away when we looked. And usually joke knockers are kids, and it was like 3am. Hotel is supposedly haunted, so we were pretty freaked out. Our food showed up about 5 minutes later.” — HIM_Darling

15. A bird signaled the death of my family member

“Where I’m from birds flying In the house is considered a bad omen. One morning during the end of the summer, I woke up and walked upstairs and two birds were jumping around the living room, apparently the back sliding door had been left open. I grabbed the broom and chased the bird around the living room and into the kitchen, they jumped behind one of the tables and I could never locate where they went. I’m not sure if they snuck around and maybe I didn’t see them go out the window. Anyway, I didn’t think much of it. But it wasn’t until I told my sister about it that she told me about how birds flying into the house means that we would lose a member of the family. A month later before halloween my niece’s son passed away. And around the same time a year later my mother passed away. I’m not sure if it’s just a coincidence but it’s something I couldn’t explain. It’s what people around here believe.” — Justbecauseweiner

16. My old apartment was haunted

“Back in 1993 I had just finished cleaning my apartment. It was small with only one bedroom. There was only a small bathroom and a kitchen and a parlor. After I was done cleaning I went into the bathroom to wipe the mirror, literally 30 seconds, and when I came back out to the kitchen there was a playing card on the table and one on each seat. A total of 4 ace of spades. I shit you not. I left that day. Went back to my mothers house to live and since then I have never even walked by that house again. WTF! I was out of the kitchen for a total of 30 seconds, the only 2 doors that led out were bolt locked from the inside. Talk about being freaked out.” — ledzepwholelottalove

17. There was a bright blue flash

“I was walking to class, and while I crossed the beautiful grass field to get to the building my class was in there was this sudden change in everything. It was a blue flash, accompanied by a deafening scratch and static sound. Everything I could see suddenly changed to all black and blue. It lasted what could only have been a fraction of a second, but when things flashed back to normal everything looked like it had moved forward a few seconds in time while I stayed behind. People were way to far from their original spots, cars were suddenly gone…

I thought I had a seizure or something, but haven’t ever heard of symptoms like that. It hasn’t ever happened again.” — Hayseus

18. I heard a piano that never actually existed

“When I was growing up still living at home attending high school, I used to do school work in my 2nd-floor bedroom on my desk facing a window. Outside the window, diagonally across the street one of my neighbor’s sons played the piano very well and practiced every day after school. So every time I did homework I would open my window and listen while I worked. Well, one week for at least 3 days straight the music sounded different like slower darker more errors compared to his upbeat perfect tunes. The next day my mom told me they found the son dead in a river in Japan. I argued that was impossible since I heard him playing piano the last few days but she said his whole family went there the whole week. All the sudden I realized my mom told me before they were going this week and that no one was playing the piano that week because he was dead. My mom said she didn’t hear the piano but I heard that fuckin piano.” — JL224758

19. I heard someone in the woods by my house

“When I was about 7 or 8, I was playing on the swing set with my dog, Oscar, running around me. It was early spring and I was facing the wood line, where the blackberry bushes were thickest.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, a voice says, ‘Hi, Oscar.’ Distinctly male, kind of high pitched and tinny, and coming from the woods. It wasn’t delivered in the usual ‘saying hi to a dog’ voice — more like the tone you’d use if you were reading ingredients off a soup can label. It also bears mentioning that my parents live in the middle of nowhere.

I stopped the swing, ran into the house with the dog, and locked the door. Parents didn’t believe me and still don’t to this day, but I’ve never been able to shake off my fear of the woods.” — breadeggsmilkbees

20. One second it was pitch black and the next second was broad daylight

“I used to go camping with my family every year for two weeks in the summer holidays. One year when I was about 13 or 14 years old something strange happened and I have no idea what it was. It was evening and it was dark. Being in an area of low light pollution you could see millions of stars. There was a gang of us hanging around the campsite. One minute it was dark the next minute it was like broad daylight. For about maybe 30 seconds it was like the middle of the day, then it went dark as suddenly as it had gone light. It was weird. I remember people contacting a radio station and the DJ saying it was the light from a lighthouse but we could see the faint light of the lighthouse in the distance and it was no where near bright enough to be confused as daylight.” — AmeliaJ77

21. I predicted my grandfather’s death

“I was in the middle of a 10am lecture at university and I turned to one of my best friends and told her, ‘I just felt something happen. I think my grandad died.’ She looked at me like I was crazy and the lecture continued. When I got back to my student house later that day, I had a message – this was in 1997 before mobile phones – to call home. So I did, my dad answered and the first thing I said was: ‘Grandad died, didn’t he?’ and my dad, was utterly speechless because yes, at 1032am that morning, my grandad had indeed passed away. To this day my friend (and I) still cannot explain that and it freaks her the hell out.” — GhostLinz

22. I felt a phantom hand on my arm

“I was fully awake doing games on my tablet and I suddenly felt a pressure next to my arm, as if something stepped there or rested a hand there. I have 3 cats, so I figured it was one of them but when I looked around all three were fast asleep in various areas of the room, nowhere near me. My fiancee was playing The Division in the other room.

No explanations.” — Fluffyredpandaboy

23. I can predict the future

“Not something I witnessed but sometimes I have dreams about things and they actually happen. Like I dreamt about going to a lake with some friends and a couple of months later the exact thing happened. My mother could do the exact same thing except with pregnancies. She would dream that someone had a baby and when she would meet the person they were pregnant.” — Reaper024

24. We heard a voice speaking to us

“My mother and I were bringing out feed out for the chickens and we live in the middle of nowhere and suddenly I hear a female voice calls out my mother’s name, ‘Jane!’ My mother and I both stopped at the same time and I asked if she just heard a woman’s voice saying her name. She also heard the voice. We weren’t able to figure out what that was and talk about it every once and a while.” — Mankati

25. A ghost contacted us on his birthday

“My mom was a single mom who used to work in a nursing home. She was the head nurse so she worked crazy hours. My sister and I spent a lot of time there growing up, but particularly me. Our grandparents all passed when we were very young so we didn’t have any of our own.

There was the sweetest old man who lived there. He had no family and took a liking to me, was my adopted grandpa of sorts. He and I spent a lot of time together over the years. He fell sick and it became apparent his time was coming. He made it through to his birthday, and I got him a silly pin that would light up when pressed and it said, ‘Kiss me its my birthday.’

He ended up making it longer than the doctors thought and almost made it through to his next birthday as well. He passed just a month or two shy of it. I was about 7 at the time that he passed and was very upset. His birthday rolled around, his first birthday since his passing. Myself, my mom and my sister were all watching a movie on the couch. His pin that I got him was sitting on top of the TV because it was his birthday, and I wanted to feel like he was there with us.

Suddenly, all the lights in the living room turned off (not like the power went out, the lights were literally turned off) our movie ejected, TV shut off and his birthday pin started lighting up.

Im not a religious or spiritual person by any means, but I still cant explain away how that happened.” — politecrank Thought Catalog Logo Mark

Holly is the author of Severe(d): A Creepy Poetry Collection.

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