Get Premium
Dark mode theme is available exclusively for premium users. Learn more about the benefits of subscribing.
No fees, cancel anytime.
Dark Mode 
No fees, cancel anytime 
then open in external browser
and click "Open in External Browser" 
28submissions
Finished
“What’s The Creepiest Thing You’ve Ever Seen That Still Haunts You To This Day?” (28 Answers)
Article created by: Rugilė Baltrunaitė
Experts say we enjoy horror films to feel a controlled adrenaline rush and satisfy our morbid curiosities without the actual danger. And once that threat on-screen is neutralized, we tend to feel a sense of relaxation, even accomplishment.
But what if these creepy scenarios happened in real life? How do you handle the rush that comes with the fight or flight response? These people got to answer these questions firsthand after their very own hair-raising encounters, which they candidly shared in detail online.
If you’ve had any paranormal experiences yourself, we’d love to hear about them in the comments below.
- Read More: “What’s The Creepiest Thing You’ve Ever Seen That Still Haunts You To This Day?” (44 Answers)
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
Not creepy but still freak out material. My mom passed several months prior. I woke up around 3am with the lights on in the living room and the tv was on at full volume. I walk out of my room into the living room and my moy mom is sitting in my rocker/swivel chair knitting with her back to me, tv at full blast and all the lights on. I turn to look at the clock it was 3:44am and I looked back and it was dark, tv off and nobody in the chair but an afghan my mom knitted for me. I lost it.
RELATED:
#2
When my sister and I were really small, we used to wave to a construction worker through the kitchen window while my mom fed us. He always smiled and waved back. My mom would always ask who we were waving to because there was nobody there. I remember getting frustrated with her always because she thought we were lying. This happened often enough that I can still remember him now even though it was like over 30 years ago. It wasn't creepy to us back then, but now I think we were probably waving to a ghost....
#3
When I was around 4 years old, I remember looking out of my bedroom window and seeing cars driving through our side yard. Instead of looking like our yard, it looked like an actual road and the cars were old fashioned looking like from the 1940s (this was in the 1970s). Our house was in a plan of homes with pretty large lots and the through street ran in a completely different area. Naturally, I was frightened by what I saw and ran to tell my mother and older sister. They dismissed it, and said I was either dreaming or making things up. I guess I can't really blame them for that. My sister occasionally would tease me about it over the years, and for some reason every time I was in that part of the yard I would get a creepy feeling that I shouldn't be there. I must have been about 12 or 13 and my grandmother was visiting. She told my sister and me that when she was a young girl our neighborhood was part of a farm and the main road used to run right through our side yard. The road was moved when the farm was broken up into housing lots. My sister and I looked at each other. All I could say was, "Yes, I know..." Years later I found aerials and maps online that proved the road was there until the 1940s.
#4
So I never got to say goodbye to my childhood dog who passed away 2 years ago, and it was something that always really made me upset.
About a month or two ago I woke up in the middle of the night to see him at the foot of my bed. I looked at him for a second before he jumped up on my bed and layed down, I was able to feel him there until I feel back asleep. I know it was most likely a dream but I remember waking up with hives the next morning which would always happen when id cuddle with him because I was allergic, I just like to think he came to say goodbye.
#5
It wasn't creepy while it was happening because I was so young, but in hindsight it's pretty weird and a bit disturbing. When I was very young and shared a bedroom with my little sister, I woke up one night to the sound of puppies whimpering. I looked under my bed and there were two puppies, one black, one brown and white. I woke my little sister and we crawled under the bed to interact with the puppies, never questioning where they came from. (We were VERY young.) Eventually our dad heard us and yelled through the door to go to bed, so we did. Never saw those puppies again. I asked my sister about this recently and she still remembers it, too.
#6
I had a friend growing up who came over one day depressed. She told me she had a dream that a huge white bird told her that her mother was going to die. She was completely convinced of this and couldn't be persuaded otherwise. That weekend she was supposed to come over and didn't so my mom and I headed to her house- she wasn't there but her grandmother was. The night before, her mom was driving home from work and got t-boned by a drunk driver. I never saw my friend again so I never got to ask her about this.
#7
Not creepy, more unexplainable. Weirdest thing is I wasn’t the only one who saw what I did.
My parents, younger brother and I were on our way out of a busy restaurant and happened to pass right by a table with two people seated across from each other in the middle of a conversation. After a brief moment, my parents turned toward each other and commented very quietly something like: “did you see that lady talking to the empty space across from her like that?”
I remember sharing a look with my brother that was something like “are they blind?” Lol. We very much insisted there were two people; she was talking to the person across from her. My parents were dumbfounded and both claimed she was alone. We were out of the restaurant at this point and walking to the car, but I was adamant about what I (and my brother) saw.
I still remember the lady - I can’t recall what the “person” she was with looked like anymore, though.
Something I think about every so often! Just weird.
#8
I’ll preface this story by saying i am not religious at all. i was raised christian, but left the faith when i was a teenager. when i was 20 i lived in a house with my boyfriend and another couple. it was a large two story house. one night, i remember the other girl saying she didn’t like the stairs- she always felt things watching her from them. i told her i felt the same sometimes but never mentioned it because i figured it was just me being paranoid. sometimes i would sit down there late at night, cooking or finishing homework or cleaning, and i swear out of the corner of my eye i would see shadows darting up and down the stairs. they never left the stairs though, only went up and down and only when you weren’t looking directly. i pushed it all aside thinking i was being paranoid again. one day, my mother came to the house to help with something, i forget. my mother used to be a wiccan, and had always claimed to see weird things that she could never explain. she came into the house for the first time, paused with her face going white, and says “there’s things on the stairs isn’t there? don’t worry they can’t cross into upstairs.” i had never told her about what we saw and her saying that made my blood run cold. she never wanted to go back to my house after that and we ended up moving shortly after. still can’t explain those stairs or that house.
#9
I was in grad school (my first MFA) and contemplating switching my focus from the conflict in Ireland to women’s issues in the modern world. At the time, I lived on the Falls Road in West Belfast.
So, one night I’m going around checking all the lights are off, and for once the cats aren’t with me. Normally they’re running around my ankles tripping me up. Instead, they’re under the bed. Oh well, cats are weird, especially my cats.
So I get downstairs, go to pull the living room curtain, and freeze. There are literally hundreds of people outside. Some covered in blood. Some with babies. Some with horrific injuries. My mouth just fell open and I whipped the curtains closed, then slowly, after taking several deep calming breaths, peeking through them again.
Nothing. And this was well before the days of Ring doorbells so I couldn’t even check with my neighbours.
No, I did not change my concentration, and my book is now held in Magdalen College Library where it educates a whole new generation on Irish history, so I did the right thing - by me and by all those poor people.
#10
We had a community pool growing up. My sisters were older than me so I always would find other kids my age in the pool to play with. I spotted this girl my age who was with her dad. She was wearing swimmies at a table and started yelling happily something like "apalaycha apalaycha!" while she approached the pool. She then jumped in right next to me. But never came out of the water. She was literally not there and neither was her Dad. I still think about it to this day. Like where did they go?
#11
When my sister and I were very young we had a sandbox in our backyard. One day we were playing in it and a hand came up from the sand and grabbed my sister and pulled her down. My sister was screaming and crying. I grabbed her and pulled her back up. We both ran to get our Mom. She didn’t believe us. To this day we both still talk about that and can’t explain what happened? So creepy!
#12
I don’t think I’ve ever written this down. Way back when I was learning to ride a bike, probably circa 1980, I had a typical little kid 2 wheel bike with training wheels. One night I left it over at the neighbors; no big deal bc I could see it out my window & it was fine when I went to bed. (We lived in a suburban neighborhood where the houses were very close. Just to paint the picture, this was during an era when kids played “Cowboys & Indians”, dressed up as Native Americans for Halloween, watched the Lone Ranger...) That night, I dreamed that a Native American, in full headdress, face paint, moccasins, etc, came into the neighbors yard & broke the training wheels off my bike. When I went down to check the next morning, the training wheels were broken off the bike. Not just removed, but broken in pieces, just like my dream. I kinda feel like no one was properly freaked out about this at the time, but it’s stayed with me as a vivid memory for almost 50 years! The happy ending is I never got new training wheels & learned to ride without them!
#13
More cool than creepy, but when I was younger we would always play hide and seek in the dark, but in the woods. One time I was hiding in a tree, and I saw two kids walking on the path holding arms. A little girl, and a boy about the same age. They were both dressed in early 1920’s styled clothes and just walking super calm as if they had no where to go. When I told my mom and described them, she mentioned seeing the same little boy multiple times as a child in her room, he would come from her antique armoire and just sit at the end of her bed. Not sure about the little girl, but it’s was so fascinating and trippy even as a child. Just writing this gave me chills, but not in a bad way. They seemed to be very relaxed and not worried about me at all. Never seen them again.
#14
I live in a rural area of my state. Think like driving 30 minutes to get to a store type of rural.
This actually happened recently.. I was outside with my dogs at around 3am (a story all on its own). Our house backs up to the woods but there is a clearing a few yards in. So the dogs and I are near the edge of the woods when I start to hear war drums. Me being like “nope. Let’s go Ivar.” and turned to walk away but he was firmly planted looking in the direction of the noise and would not move.
After about a minute the sound of the drums stopped and there was this roar noise. It was like the sound of thousands of people rushing into battle. It wasn’t windy at all that night but we were hit with a heavy gust of wind and all the noise stopped.
Thoroughly freaked out my dog.. and me. I haven’t heard it since then.
#15
My mom had a fatal heart attack at the dental office she and my dad worked at for over 20 years. In the weeks following her passing , I stepped in to help my dad out . When my mom collapsed , she was attempting to grab the phone in their back office (probably to dial 911) . I think that part is relevant because the creepy part of this story involves that very same phone. A few days after she died , a call came into the office and the caller id was none other than my own mother name and number. I answered the phone…. literally shaking , and of course , the voice was not that of my deceased mother , but the voice of a patient that had been going to my parents since my dad started. She was confused bc I was stumbling over my words and I had to explain to her what happened with the caller id. I apologized saying that maybe the phone just glitched ….but it continued to happen for about two weeks after she died then the caller id issue just stopped happening ….around the time I stopped going in. Still freaks me out to think about.
#16
My 2 year old son was sleep in the bed next to me and it was about 2 or 3 in the morning. I awoke to this really loud noise…as if someone took a dump truck of bricks and threw it against the wall outside. My son however was fast sleep as if he didn’t hear it. My wife and newborn daughter were in an adjacent room and they too did not appear to hear it.
Some family member said this happened to a relative shortly before someone died. I think it was right around the time my aunt died.
#17
I saw a pure white, glowing orb about the size of a basketball, appearing from the woods on the outskirts of my friend’s backyard in Connecticut. It floated at approximately eye level from one end of the yard to the other, before apparently and abruptly fading from existence.
#18
Me and my sister were walking in our local shopping centre when we saw this girl. She was ginger with dark blue eyes, but the thing that was creepy was her smile. It was wrong like the smile in that truth or dare film? The energy around her, too, was off. When I looked at her, it was like the rest of the world became muted, and she had this dangerous aura around her that drew and captured your attention. Anyway, everything in me screamed at me to act normal and pretend you didn't see her. I remember her gaze raking over me as I walked past, and I still think she knew I noticed her because I turned around pretending to brush something off my shoulder, and she was turning back to face forward. I asked my sister if she saw her too, and she said yeah and that she noticed something off too.
It was weird. The vibe I got was this was her first time being with people or even acting as a person? Thats how she acted and the weirdest thing? Everyone moved around her. No one noticed her. Noone but me and my sister. I havent seen her since and its been like 10 years.
#19
When my son was 2 years old we lived in a house where all the rooms had interior doors (living room, dining room, kitchen, etc.). The doors also had handles rather than knobs.
My son was napping and I was in the living room with the door closed, sitting at my desk. The desk was directly next to the door. While sitting there, I watched the door handle completely depress, as if someone was about to open it. Then the handle went back up, slowly, and the door never opened. I figured my son was being cheeky, and got up to open the door myself. No one was on the other side.
I checked on my son immediately and he was sound asleep in bed. His room was on the opposite end of the house and on a different floor.
#20
As a teen I worked at a movie rental/tanning salon (yes, I know, odd combination) I usually closed the store because between all the teens that worked there I was the only one who could wrap my head around batch reports, checking in dvds and actually cleaning and putting away everything that needed it plus I didn't steal from register or the store. So I was alone by myself alot late at night. I was counting the register down and went to grab a pen from a container of them and the container of pens slid across the counter top and about 6 feet onto the ground right in front of me. I just stood there in disbelief for a hot second and then called my boyfriend at the time and asked him to come down and sit with me while I finished closing. He thought I was being silly. Teens am I right?
#21
When I was younger (7 or 8?) and still lived in Korea, I remember occasionally waking up in the middle of the night from nightmares and yelling for my mom from my bedroom (their room was across my bedroom door). I’d never walk to my parents’ room nor got out of my bed — I only screamed for my mom till she heard me from across the apartment. My mom was always puzzled on why I didn’t simply come over to their bed, despite her constantly letting me know that I’m allowed to.
What she didn’t know was that my nightmares always occurred in my room. And they weren’t just nightmares. And in my room, beneath my bed, there was ALWAYS darkness. “Darkness” wasn’t just a shadow, but it was there physically. And it never spoke, but communicated to me that the moment I left my bed, I’ll be swallowed.
#22
When my son was 5 (he is now 20) my now ex-wife, myself, him and my infant daughter were traveling back from my parents house after dark. They live about 2 hours away. May aunt "R" had recently passed away, maybe 2 months earlier? My son randomly says i see aunt R. We asked him where and he said she was up in the hill watching us. There was a hill at this particular location but there weren't really any lights on it for him to even see a person on it.
Recently, a couple of months ago, I was visiting my mom and she mentioned that around this time she was watching my son, at their house, and he was playing in the backyard. She heard him talking to someone, carrying on a conversation, and when she asked whom he was taking to, he said it was aunt R. She was taking to him as well.
#23
When I was 14 I was living with my dad, stepmom, and baby brother in an old stone farmhouse, like older tan American old. One night my stepmom, baby brother and I were up in my parent's bedroom waiting for my dad to come home. The front door was right below us and consisted of a wooden storm door and an inner wooden door that was about 3 inches thick. We heard both doors open and close and were like, cool, dad's home. But we didn't hear him come upstairs, so I went to the front window to see if his car was there. It was not. My stepmom is a pretty unshakable person, but she locked the bedroom door and wouldn't let me leave until my dad finally came home about an hour later. Still scares me 30 years later.
#24
One time I was sitting and watching friends (I’ve watched that show too many times to count, this was at the time it played in the tv (rerun) and suddenly 3 .. girls? Demons? Ghosts? Appear on the screen and I freak out. I can’t explain the icky feeling it gave me, and I panicked and screamed and had the most creepy unexplainable feeling. My mother and sister didn’t really believe me, but my mother could tell I was afraid.
To this day I have no idea what I saw. My husband says it was probably a Halloween prank played in national tv. It wasn’t Halloween. And no.
#25
Creepy in hindsight, but also still a sweet memory… it was Christmas Eve in the 90’s, and I was 6/7 years old. My 2/3 year old sister and I were sprinkling reindeer feed (oats with sparkles) on the front lawn as my mother supervised us. It had snowed so the night felt extra magical. I looked up in the sky and i saw Santa flying in his sleigh with Rudolph at the front. Santa looked down and waved, both my sister and I started waving back while yelling at my mom that we could see Santa.
Of course I believed I saw this and I talked about it for years. My mother waited until I was 12 (way too old lol) to tell me Santa wasn’t real. But… then what did I see? Was it a dream?
Well, I asked my sister and my mom if they remember. My sister says she does remember seeing him but hasn’t been able to explain it to herself either. My mom, she couldn’t see him but remembered us yelling and waving. I mentioned earlier that my sister was 2/3 years old, but she has an uncanny ability to retain early life memories, which we have confirmed with other family lore.
Upon confirming with my mom and sister, the memory has become a bit more eerie. Like, who or what did we really see? Because to this day I can relive this memory in detail, and what I saw was unmistakably Santa.
#26
My oldest when he was maybe 3 used to talk about a friend called "Katinka" and had a red candle that he was very protective of, and called "Linen". At the time he had no knowledge of Eastern European names, and "Linen" is close enough to "Lenin" that it creeped me out.
#27
Was out the front of my parents house at night with a friend. He was having a smoke while I was chatting away. For about five or seven seconds the whole sky went bright blue. It was like blue daylight everything completely visible but blueish. Along with a high pitch ringing for a couple of seconds.
We were just staring and then when it suddenly stopped I said hey um did you happen to see and hear that. He said yeah. And that’s all we said about it.
I messaged him maybe ten years later when I was with friends telling spooky experience stories. Just said hey do you remember that thing we saw can you tell me what you saw and heard.
He responded with all the details. Freaked all my friends out when I let them scroll through our past messages to prove we hadn’t set it up and actually fell out of touch a fair while ago. .
#28
Not creepy per se, but definitely unexplained. Was riding shotgun with my family through a pretty densely populated area in central Florida, during broad daylight, and looked out the window to see a group of 6-7 people in either colonial or what I can only presume to be 'Amish' (? if I'm rationalizing) dress standing around the narrow strip of grass in front of an operating Burger King restaurant, digging a hole in the ground with a shovel. The man was in a black frock coat and pants and a black wide brim hat, and the women were all in long skirts with kerchiefs and bonnets. Nobody else saw it. The fact that it was on the Burger King property is possibly what perturbs me the most.
You May Like 110 One Line Horror Stories To Give You Goosebumps These 2-Sentence Horror Stories Will Send Shivers Down Your Spine 57 Creepy True Ghost Stories To Never Feel Alone Again
Linas Simonaitis
Inga Korolkovaite
Viltė Domkutė
Related on Bored Panda
