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 
41submissions
1week left
Disappearances, Coincidences, And Mysteries Shared By People Who Experienced Them
Life has a way of leaving us with more questions than answers. As much as we try to make sense of things, there's always a moment that slips through the cracks. Memories that don’t line up, people who disappeared without a trace, or surprise coincidences with odds greater than winning the lottery. Curious about these experiences, Reddit user Sunburn95 made a post on r/AskReddit: "What’s one of the greatest unsolved mysteries of your personal life?" The answers didn’t disappoint.
Click here & follow us for more lists, facts, and stories.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
There's a fuzzy rope or snake that follows me everywhere. I try and try to catch it but I never can. One time I did catch it and I think it bit me because it hurt and I yelped and mom and dad laughed at me for it.
Also, in the bedroom, there's a window with another dog in it and he copies me and it's so frustrating. The a*****e won't even come into the room, even if I bark at him.
RELATED:
#3
Who the lady that birthed me was. I was found in a dumpster, premature, and had been left to die. I really don't have any deep urge to find her or anything. A while back I got 23andme, and ended up finding first cousins! The lady who birthed me would have been their aunt.
I reached out to them, and they're both very nice. However we left it at pleasant hellos and small exchanges about ourselves. See, they have 7 aunts. One of them is her. From what I've been told they're all a happy family, and I may even have half siblings.
But I'll never know why I couldn't have been left somewhere safer. To me it's not worth dragging that skeleton out of the closet or potentially getting someone in legal trouble. I'm glad she's doing ok.
I grew up in a happy loving family that has my back, so I made out well enough. :).
#4
Where did my cat go when it disappeared for a month, then just reappeared like nothing happened?
#5
I was about 10 years old and had a photo of myself with a horse in my wallet. I kept my wallet next to my bed. One day I went into my room and the photo of me was tore into pieces laying on my pillow. I was a sweet and shy girl and that broke my heart.
I never found out who did it or why. I still sometimes think about that moment.
#6
Who my "pen pal" was as a kid.
When I was about eight years old I started getting little notes in the mail every week or two. They were all stamped and addressed to me, and they all contained little doodles and said very random things such as "I like birthday cake, do you?" or "my favorite flowers are daisies, what are yours?" They were never signed and there was no return address. The handwriting didn't look like anyone in my family or any of my friends, and every person I asked denied it.
Eventually my parents got visibly uncomfortable with it and would start insisting on examining the letters before I opened them. Pretty soon after that they stopped coming. Been nearly 20 years and still no idea what was up with that.
#7
When my dad passed away, I was dating a girl who I thought would be my endgame. She was, is, beautiful, intelligent, and compatible with me on every level.
Unfortunately, I ended up slowly mentally breaking down over the course of the next six months, developing a rather nasty drinking problem that culminated in me breaking up with her late one night when I was pretty certain I was going to k**l my self.
That was three years ago, and I think I’ve moved on, but there’s a part of me that will always wonder if we could have made it. I loved her like none other, and I just wish that she is happy now, and will continue to be for the rest of her life.
Edit: For those who suggested I reach back out to her, I have on multiple occasions. We haven't talked for over 2 and a half years, and in my heart of hearts, I know she's done with all this. I don't blame her, I was an absolute nightmare to deal with. I appreciate the comments, but sometimes when something is done, it's best left to be done. Me being in love with her (for god knows how long in my soul) is not sufficient.
#8
My great grandfather's father went out in the woods with some people near Pittsburgh one day. The others came back. He did not. I wish there were more details, but that's all that was ever said about it and my greats are long passed.
#9
I met my current partner of 10 years when she texted me because she didn't know who's number she had. We had never met before and to this day we have no idea how she got my number. maybe it was a typo?
#10
When I was in middle school someone doorbell ditched me a gift bag of gift cards. We saw the car drive away and it was didnt look like anyone we knew. There were about $200 in gift cards for me. Coming from a family of 7 that was in a cult (meaning 10% of our income went to the church) $200 was a huge gift. I remember going to Mervyns and buying brand new clothes and shoes when I usually had to buy from the thrift store. I still wonder to this day about who it was that gave me that gift.
#11
Had a family friend whom i'd known forever. She had been a friend of my parents since over a decade before I was born.
When I was in my late teens she dropped all contact with us for absolutely no reason I can discern. Parents don't know either. Her brother confirmed that she's still alive and in the country, she just doesn't want to talk to us anymore.
#12
When we were kids my sister and I had a big box of toy animals. We played with them every day and so knew every single toy in that box. One day my sister stood up from playing and underneath where she'd been sitting was a teeny tiny plastic elephant that we'd never seen before.
The only explanation we could come up with at the time was that she had given birth to it there and then. I still can't think of a better one.
#13
I'm crossing the street to go home, and everything turns blue, like a blue lens over a camera, and time basically stops. All I hear is a female voice saying "Stop! Don't move!" And everything returns to normal, while I'm still standing there in shock. A box truck flies past me at 60 miles per hour. Had that not happened, I would have been hit and killed on the spot. I don't know what f*****g happened, nor do I know how.
#14
I was at a baseball game and went in the washroom. A guy was leaving one of the stalls and said, “don’t go in that one, people are such animals!”
I went in the next one over, and while I was doing my thing, somebody went in the other one and screamed, “Jesus Christ what the f***?!?”
I wrestled with the idea of looking but decided against it, and now I’ll never know.
#15
What happened to Sherry. Sherry was a friend of mine twenty odd years ago. She moved to another state to live with a man she met online (back when this was a complete oddity). We stayed in touch for a few years, then she dropped off the face of the earth. From what I can tell no one has heard from her in about fifteen years.
#16
The amount of wormholes I seem to open on a regular basis. Every pencil I've ever dropped is in some alternate universe now.
#17
This will probably get lost now.. but I started dating my best friend in university. He was my best friend for years, and we finally got together. He was infatuated for a long time before we got together, I think.
A few months into our relationship I was in a serious road traffic accident: I had brain injury and suffered retrograde and anterograde amnesia (forgot the last 6 months and the following three). Somewhere in there he dumped me. I never knew why, and my other friend had to remind me everyday that he left me because I kept forgetting. But because I kept forgetting, I went stalker-ex on him because I thought we were still together.
To this day, even though I’m blissfully married, I miss my best friend. I wish he knew that I wasn’t a stalking him, I just had no idea he dumped me.
If you’re here Stef.. I miss you bud.
#18
When I was six I was on a family holiday in Gran Canaria. It being the early 90's I of course got a hair braid, of many colours! Glitter string, bright greens and reds, very tacky but I loved it!
Went to sleep that night, gone next morning.
Didn't unravel, there was not a single thread in my bed, nor in the bins, hair wasn't shorter in that part, it wasn't cut off as a joke by my brothers.
If it was taken out I like to think I'd have woken up to someone pulling at my hair?
Asked my parents twenty years later " if you took it out just say it, it's been bothering me for years!"
Both absolutely deny it.
Same with my brothers.
In my head it was magic string and the lady who put it in was a witch who called her string back but yeah, that's my child imagination travelled into my late twenties.
#19
When i was a kid I could sleep through anything I was a rock hard sleeper. Then at 14 I woke up to a family member trying to m****t me. Since then I sleep restlessly. With one eye open. What bugs me is idk how many times or what else he did to me while I was sleeping, because I was such a hard sleeper I could of slept through it.. . It's a horrid feeling not knowing and has bothered me ever since.
#20
My parents hosted two small church potlucks at our house twice, a few years apart in two different places, hundreds of miles apart with two entirely different groups of people.
The first time, everyone left and the next day my mom discovered someone cut a perfect 1.5” by 1.5” square out of the middle of one of her shirts in her room.
Few years later at the next event, someone cut a perfect square of similar size out of a sentimental baby bib that was kept at the bottom of a drawer in the kitchen with other special linens.
No one knows who it could’ve possibly
been. Both groups of people were fairly small, and were close family friends.
Edit: We eventually narrowed it down to two suspects, one for each event, but my parents never asked them or tried to find out. We just stopped inviting them and if they did come, we locked the bedroom doors and kept an eye out.
#21
When 9/11 happened my Dad got a call. He talked on the phone for about 30 minutes, and then had to go. He was gone for three day, if my memory serves me right. He can’t say anything about it until 2026.
#22
My roommate was gone for the weekend, and I was sleeping in, when his family somehow broke in to our apartment.
I always lock the door with the chain is the thing, so even if they had a key they shouldn't have been able to get in, but they did. His Mom popped into my room, apologized, and then disappeared. When I got up later they were gone, but the door still had the chain locked on it.
I have absolutely no clue how they got in. I know they were there and I didn't hallucinate the whole thing because they left some groceries for him.
My only theory is they crawled in through the balcony, but it just seems so farfetched.
#23
When we did b***d typing back in high school biology, mine was not an option given my parents’ b***d types. Mine has since been confirmed by red cross when donating, and my parents types were from reliable sources. I’m either a freak of nature, got swapped at birth, or that wasn’t my dad.
#24
Why don't I have any memories before the age of 8? What happened to me that my brain evidently tried so hard to block out? If someone did something bad to me, is it someone who is still in my life?
#25
Once my flatmates and I bought a jumbo pack of like six rolls of kitchen paper, popped it on top of the fridge, and the next day the entire thing had vanished. Even when we totally emptied and cleaned the whole house to move out (including moving the fridge out to clean underneath and behind it), it never showed up. I find it deeply disturbing that the two most likely possibilities we came up with were:
1. A six-pack of kitchen roll somehow fluttered halfway across the room to land in the bin, where all four of us failed to notice it all week
2. The estate agent crept in in the middle of the night, stole it without touching anything else, and left congratulating himself on a successful heist
Like, I get that one of my flatmates probably just brought it all up to their room and lived in luxury for the rest of the year, but honestly, not knowing which of those [jerks] has failed to own up to it for the last three years is like a constant shadow over our relationship.
#26
I was out camping one time in southern France with my family. We're from the Netherlands. After setting up the tent, checking out the area and everything my parents start cooking and I got some time off for myself. I was 15 or something, and just bought a new phone from my first job.
I was sitting in my own secluded little area playing some animal crossing, when suddenly my phone rang. I pick up and hear nothing, just some breathing. So I'm like "Hello, who's this?". And then I hear a small girl slightly sobbing, asking me "Do you know where my mommy is?". The kid couldn't have been older than 10. I got caught by surprise by that question so I just answered back with "what??".
Then the phone hung up and nothing else followed after that.
#27
I once saw a cashier at my local supermarket, that looked oddly like me. I had a strong, nagging feeling that I somehow knew him fairly well, but I ignored it.
That was until I went to pay and he looked at me, squinted his eyes and asked me if we knew each other. I told him that I felt the same and we just sorta stood there, staring at each other, trying to figure out what the f*** was happening. Same build, hair, glasses, age... We ended up agreeing that we had no clue, I paid and went on with my life...
Never saw him again, even though I visited that specific supermarket multiple times afterwards...
Spooky, weird, wholesome. It still baffles me to this day.
#28
Serious answer...I’m adopted. I’ve always wanted to know who my dad is. Moms name on birth certificate. No father listed.
#29
The last homicide I worked as an investigator is still unsolved. 2, 20 something girls m******d in their car in the driveway of an abandoned house. No suspects. No arrests. It’s been 3 years.
Edit: also, I lost my first anniversary gift from my wife at the scene (Benchmade pocketknife). I drive by there often and still wonder if my knife is sealed up in evidence somewhere....
#30
TL:DR. One night while moon gazing I was approached by an unidentified creature, had a 15 minute stand off with it while pointing my gun at it and yelling (couldn’t tell what it was, didn’t want to shoot someone’s dog or cow or anything), eventually it elected to charge me and I fired 9 shots at about 8 feet. Called the game warden and him along with a few sheriffs showed up, looked around to find the animal and make sure it wasn’t suffering. Found one bullet in a fence post, didn’t find the other 8, found tracks leading up to where I said the thing was, but they weren’t clear (game warden suspected a dog, or coyote but the tracks were larger than typical dog/coyote tracks). There was no b***d, and no sign of where the animal went. So what the h**l did I shoot? And what kind of animal survives 8 .40cal shots to the face/chest?!
#31
Growing up, my bedroom was on the second floor of a two-story farmhouse.
I was big into Matchbox cars and Hot Wheels. I had a huge bucket of them, and loved playing with them.
At least once or twice, I inadvertently dropped a car down the heat vent. In an attempt to retrieve it, I traced the heat vent to the basement, where the duct turned 90 degrees and ran about 30 feet to the furnace.
There was no access panel anywhere in that length of ductwork, so I was never able to retrieve my car(s).
We moved out of that house when I was around 14 years old, back in the early 1990s. I still wonder whether they are still in that duct, and how I could possibly talk the current homeowners into somehow letting me cut my way into their ductwork to finally retrieve my beloved cars.
#32
Three of my vacuum cleaner's nozzles went missing and I have no clue what happened to them.
Same thing happened with the [darn] lid of my wastebin. Huge, flat, metal thing. Vanished.
One morning, I found all of my [underwear] in the socks drawer. Boyfriend claims it wasn't him and my cats are too stupid for such clever sheananigans.
My house is full of secrets.
#33
I don't know who my grandfather is. The man who I have been calling (or rather, "had been", as he passed away last year) "granddad" all my life isn't a b***d-relative. It's never been an issue, everyone in the family knows, and when he married my grandmother, he adopted her children, they too took on his surname.
Alas, my grandmother also passed away a few years ago, so simply put, I will never know who my real grandfather is. But at the same time, it doesn't matter to me; b***d or not, the man I called "granddad" for all my life is still and will always be my granddad.
#34
These answers make my comment look weird, but I'd really like to know what happened to our sleeping bag in Norway... We were camping on a mountain and while packing up in the morning my gf put our packed sleeping bags outside of the tent together with our other stuff like my camera and gopro. After finishing up we noticed one sleeping bag was missing. We weren't too far from a ledge that went straight down, but for the sleeping bag to have rolled there and fallen it would've had to turn itself around and make enough speed to reach the ledge. We also looked over the edge and didn't see the bright blue and yellow colours of the sleeping bag. We asked a group of campers not too far from us if they saw anyone take a sleeping bag, but they didn't see anyone. Also, my camera and gopro were still there, so I suppose no one tried to steal anything... up until today the mountain guides haven't found a sleeping bag that fits the description yet.
#35
In my 35 years ive never known my dad to [gas]. not even once.
hes also now allergic to dairy, as of the last 10 years. i surmise hes actually backed up with farts and has [gas] b***d poisoning. but im no doctor.
#36
What the h**l did I see briefly peeking out of my neighbor's master bedroom when I was little? Thing had no face and it retracted just as fast as it had popped out. This was back in the 90's, btw.
#37
Back in elementary school someone managed to s**t next to the toilet. That story spread like a wildfire trough the school. Everyone wondered who could possibly do that and even our teachers told us why that's disgusting and so on. After 1 or 2 weeks it happened again, but this time his "work" was lying in front of the toilet cabin, so everyone could see it from the hallway when the door was open. Even more rumors and stories were spread and after a week or so our headmistress came to every class and explained that if the responsible kid wouldn't admit s******g next to the toilet, they would send it to the police to do a DNA test to find out who that was.
But nothing happened after that, i guess he eventually got scared and told our teachers the truth, without anyone else knowing.
#38
During a party I was throwing in 2014 one of my friends was hit in the head by an egg. She was standing in the backyard and an egg seemingly flew out of nowhere and c*****d on her head.
Four years later, and no one has been able to venture a theory that does not require a wild stretch of imagination.
#40
I bought a two pack of those doggy p**p bag holders shaped like a bone for walks. I put one up for future use. Adopted a second dog and dug it out to clip to the leash. I laid it on the table so I wouldn't forget to do it and went to bed. Next morning it's gone. p****** and all. I've torn my house upside down looking for the d**n thing but it's nowhere to be found. I was last to bed and first up, so nobody else could have moved it.
#41
Posted this before.
My parents owned what I consider to be my childhood home from 2001 through 2015.
When helping them move out in 2015, we cleared the finished basement where I found a Loews movie theater ticket stub from our hometown for the 2005 comedy, Hitch, starring Will Smith and Kevin James.
Now, I’ve never seen Hitch, let alone in theaters. My parents never saw Hitch. My older sister and only sibling was away at college (the ticket stub was dated in February 2005). She also denies ever watching Hitch in theaters.
Where did the ticket stub come from? Who saw Hitch? Who brought the ticket stub to the house after seeing Hitch?
Add Your Answer! This post is a community curated
Add Your Answer!
Related on Bored Panda
