30 Utterly Terrifying and Supremely Creepy Experiences People Can't Explain

1.

I was reading a library book before bed one night when I was a teenager. It was something really boring I had checked out for a history project for school and I couldn't keep my eyes open. I fell asleep with it on my bed. I had like a sleep paralysis event happen and I watched this shadowy figure of a man walk into my room, look around, pick up a few knick-knacks and put them back down. It was so terrifying, my entire body was screaming to move but I couldn't - not even my fingers. I just wanted to scream for help- but nothing happened, no matter how desperately I tried. I finally got enough courage to look at the man but he wouldn't come into focus for some reason... he was just a shadow, like he wasn't fully there. He came up to the side of my bed and stood over me, looking down at me for what felt like forever. I was so terrified but I couldn't move a muscle. Then he reached down, grabbed my library book, and turned, walking out of my room. I never found that library book, ever, after tearing apart my room and my house. My mom said it was a coping dream for losing the book but I distinctly remember falling asleep reading it that night and I even had sent a text to my boyfriend that night saying that I wished I had chosen a different book because this ome was putting me to sleep. I had to pay a fine and everything!

2.

It happened a few months ago. My 1 year old cat Salem, passed suddenly and I was so sad that I couldn't save his life. On that day I called my workplace and told them my grandpa passed away (he passed 20y ago) so I could cry at home I cried days because of him. One day I went to work and there was a guy who is doing witchcraft and he can see the energy / aura, etc. So I passed him with my ppt (powered pallet truck) and he looked at me and said 'Oh my god, who passed away my darling? ' I told him my grandpa as I didn't want to blow my cover. And the guy said 'Are you sure it was your grandpa? Because a black cat is sitting on your truck and meowing very loud..' I was in shock. I didn't tell no one that I had a cat, didn't post anything on Facebook. Then he described me how that cat looks like with a white spot on the chest. He described my cat. My black cat.

3.

When i was a child, my niece who my parents adopted after her parents passed, would tell us about nightmares she had about a clown living in our Airing cupboard (from UK, you could call it a boiler room). We always just thought it was bad dreams obviously. My partner on one of the times she slept at my mothers house ahe told me she was having dreams of a clown living in the airing cupboard. No idea how to explain that one.

4.

I've told this story before but while my husband and I were driving through the middle of nowhere Nevada in the middle of the night, we swore we saw a gargoyle or something fly across the highway. It had a huge wingspan, 2 arms, and 2 legs. We only saw it for a second as it crossed in front of our car but we both saw the same thing. It could have been some sort of massive bat I guess but gargoyle was definitely what came to mind.

5.

When my youngest son was about 3 years old we were eating out in town and he got a bit restless. I decided to take him for a walk and as I held a door open he got away from me and made a break for it(pedestrian area so safe) He bolted into an adjacent site which had a ruined chapel/almshouses with info boards for tourists. I found him staring up at the Chapel ruins. ‘What are you doing,mate?’ His reply?…..’A long time ago I got married here’ ‘What!?’ ‘A long time ago……’ Then a switch flicked,he was a 3 year old with energy to burn and was off running again. Shook me to my core

6.

I was working at a summer camp in the PNW one year. On the second or third night there, I was jogging alone back from the staff campfire to the cabin, where the campers and my co-counselor slept. I'm walking in this big grassy throughway that has some taller reeds separating it from a shore of the Puget Sound. It's probably... 2am? Full moon. As I'm jogging I see this... person. In the reeds. It's wearing a white gown, and it has no face, just hair. I only notice it because, as I approached it, it stood up from a crouched position, backed up joltily a few steps, then crouched down again, but I could still see it crouching there, like it was waiting. Its movements told me that it was not human. My knees gave out, and I felt flooded with fear as I collapsed. I tried to run back to my cabin but my legs would. not. work. I crawled and scrambled there on all fours. I tried to scream but no sound came out. Just gasping. I finally got to my cabin and fumbled with the doorknob for what felt like a minute before I could open it. I closed the door and stood there waiting for a while inside. I didn't hear anything, but I barely slept. At some point later that night I remember laughing, thinking "Oh, it was just one of the campers peeing!" I was hysterically laughing at myself for like twenty minutes, then fell asleep. Next morning though, I realize that no campers returned to the cabin that could have potentially been out there peeing that night. I asked all of them, and all of them said they hadn't gone out to pee the previous night. I'll add that this was a camp that was *overtly* for nonreligious, skeptically minded staff and campers, of which I was and still largely am, but I have no explanation for what I saw that night. Still scares the s**t out of me just typing this.

7.

I was on a beach called Butterfly beach in Montecito California. It was late at night and I was walking with a gf at the time. We looked at the beach from an elevated walkway and noticed a small black humanoid creature about 4 feet tall with a massive spherical head maybe 2-3 ft in diameter. The moon caught it just right and it reflected on its spherical head. My gf at the time screamed and the thing jumped into the ocean and swam away. It was just hanging out in the beach watching the moonlight I guess. Nothing I have googled has explained this thing we saw.

8.

I saw a UFO when I was 11 years old. I will swear on this until the day I die. It was around 9:00-9:30 at night, and it was the spring time. I was wide awake, completely sober, not on any meds. I looked out the window, and in between my house and my neighbors house were a bunch of trees. It was a wooded area. Well, on the ground in this wooded area was a UFO. Except, the physical surroundings were unaffected. None of the trees were crushed. This UFO sat there for about 5-10 minutes, then slowly took off in the air. In just went around in circles as it got higher, and as it got higher, the circles got wider. This lasted another 5 minutes or so until it vanished

9.

So i was taking a shower when i suddenly heard a faint voice, like a woman sobbing, i got out almost immediately. Apparently my step dad had experienced the same thing, and had also seen what he thought was a girl sitting on his side of the bed, but me and my mom were both out of state at the time. Our things will randomly go missing and reappear as well

10.

30+ years ago, my mom’s stepdad passed away (my step-grandpa? he was basically her father; real dad walked out when she was nine). There was a gathering at the house following the funeral. Phone rings, my mom picks up, and hears a male caller say her name in an interrogative fashion(like “Susan?!?”). She was sure it was his voice, panicked, and hung up. Caller didn’t call back, and the reverse dial pulled up a previous number to someone she knew who had called much earlier. So essentially the Call from Beyond didn’t happen as far as the phone company was concerned. To this day, she believes it was him and regrets panicking and hanging up. FWIW my mother is not religious/spiritual/etc. Bonus story: When my other grandfather passed away (2004, from complications following colon surgery. He was in his late 90s so it was a good run) he was in the hospital following his surgery. My dad and aunt had a feeling it might be a 50/50 chance he pulled through, given his age, so they were present. He wakes up and asks when he got back. They ask him to explain. He said he had a dream he was on a road trip in an airstream trailer with a buddy of his with whom he had a falling out 50+ years ago. He was driving and they were blinded by a bright light in the windshield. Then he woke up. A few minutes later, he went to sleep and passed. Come to find out he and his buddy had always wanted to do a cross country road trip, but has some kind of falling out and never spoke again. My grandma remembered it happening shortly after WWII. Must have weighed heavily on him.

11.

This is pretty mild, but I took my dog for a walk, got home, went to the corner store 5 minutes away. When I came back opened the door and my whole house smelled like perfume. Locked gate, locked house, security cameras and a dog that barks at everything. I live alone, nobody stopped by and my house smelled like someone ran around spraying Chanel number 5. It doesn't sound believable, I'll never be able to explain it, but it happened.

12.

I’m convinced I’ve had something following me for years; possibly my entire life. I’ve always had weird things happening to me. Weird experiences like as a kid (I don’t remember it but my mom told me about it) I would wake her up asking about the “person” in my doorway. Then later when my parents first started leaving me home alone I remember having to call them multiple times and have them rush home or someone come get me because I could swear I wasn’t alone in the house. Living with my parents I would hear footsteps upstairs when no one else is home, once had my wife (while we were just dating) there and she heard it too. I would shut a door, and then later that door would be wide open At Me and my wife’s first townhome things would fly of the shelf’s (like once a box of spaghetti noodles tucked away in the back of the pantry behind other things found it’s way to the ground without disturbing anything in front of it), pictures would fly off and away from walls but none of the others would even be rocking. Same footsteps upstairs. Weird things like my ukulele strumming itself in another room. I have very specific and detailed stories but it’s a lot to type out, I don’t really care if anyone believes me but I know what I’ve seen and felt.

13.

Working on ships, some are pretty old and you hear some weird stories. 4 years ago during a South American season, I used to hang out with the Brazilians, fun and cool people, one was the gift shop manager. He'd rant and rant about how his team is lazy and how they keep trying to weasel out of working because they claim to see a little girl running around the gift shop, one night, we were having coffee with the head of the Photography department and he's extra salty, talking about how he'll have to do an extra couple of hours because of his team. In the middle of the night, I get a call from the Photo manager, she tells me our friend in her cabin crying and shivering, I run over, thinking he got some bad news from home or something. Turns out he was working in his office, the door faces a long mirror that covers most of the wall (clothes section) and after hearing giggling, he saw the shadow of a child through the reflection, as if she was leaning to look into the door while trying to hide, only in the reflection, he says he jumped up and ran out, the giggling and sounds of tiny feet running around the shop and into the Casino (same deck). I'm not big into the paranormal, but the following day I mentioned this to my boss and she told me that about 20 years back, a little girl came out of the theatre with her parents, she was running ahead of them, around the gift shop, but eventually she went into the Casino, coming out at the Atrium, a drop with Glass lifts that go from Deck 12 to 5, so a good drop, she leaned over the railing to look down, lost her balance and fell, breaking her neck on impact and passing. Apparently it was a common sighting at the Shop and Casino.

14.

My dad used to work at a haunted house and wanted to add a ghost story to the website to get more people to come. He hired a medium to look around the place to see if she sensed anything. My dad didn’t really believe in the stuff though. Half way through the tour she asks if my father was missing a hammer. He said he was missing a lot of his tools. The medium said an old women passed in the floor above and had the hammer. My dad asked the spirit to give it back and the next day it was laying on the table. After that he left flowers for the spirit and it never took anything again

15.

Chupacabra are just coyotes with mange. That's why as soon as Hollywood came up with a name the whole southwest was like "S**t! I've seen that!" They sure look like something paranormal. A healthy coyote doesn't act like one dying of mange, and the abnormal behavior is pretty creepy all on its own. Most of my creepy experiences had pretty straightforward explanations. Like feeding the cat and then my cat walked in through the cat flap. There really was a second cat. He didn't look that much like mine when I was paying attention, but at first glance? Their heads and backs were close enough to make the mistake. Another story isn't mine, but a friend's. A tropical storm hit and she was watching the weather for updates on the tornado watch/warnings when she heard her cat scratching and crying like mad at the front door. Horrified her pet was outside in the storm, she rushed downstairs to let her in. Her mom caught her just before she got to the door and stopped her. She said "that's not our cat!" And pointed to where their cat was cowering in a corner, eyes glued to the door. They crept around to a bedroom window to look at the front porch and discovered it was a pair of bobcats that were scratching and crying at the door. After some frantic discussion, they opened the garage door partway to give them shelter so the bobcats wouldn't damage the door any more than they already had. It took a few minutes, but the bobcats left the shelter of the porch and entered the garage and ate the cat food there. One of the bobcats gave birth in their garage that night. As soon as the storm passed and the water receded (about a day later), the bobcats carried the kittens back to their den. Based on where we sighted the kittens after that, we think the mama cat was in labor when the storm flooded her den. We think the bobcats had watched her cat come and go and figured "any port in a storm.". Still, they were very creeped out for weeks after.

16.

Not sure this counts but I once saw a cat, a hare, a rat, a fox, a seagull and a weasel all standing stock still on a b road near Appleby in late summer a couple of years ago. The weird thing was they were totally still in a perfect circle in the road facing each other, I approached in my car and had to stop, I waited a few seconds then they all seemed to snap out of it and legged it in different directions into the surrounding fields. So odd I've never been able to work out what they were doing.

17.

My best friend and I found a store that didn't exist. It was full of pagan items and things like it, such as zodiac sign necklaces, candles, and books. It was downtown in our small city, and we were both familiar with the area and had never seen this store before. We ended up not buying anything because we were a couple of broke teenagers, but we did agree that we were going to return when we had more money. Except that when we did have more money, maybe two weeks later, that store was gone. It wasn't that the owner had closed up and left an empty space behind. The doorway no longer existed. It hadn't been freshly bricked over or anything, it just wasn't there.

18.

Ever since I was 10, I’ve always encountered a sleep paralysis episode once a month. This experience I will never forget. I went to sleep really early then I usually do. Probably around 7 or so. I woke up at 2 in the morning and found out I couldn’t move. I tried calling my mom and dad but nothing. Living in a big room was always unsettling for me since there were lots of shadowy corners. I’m saying this because in one corner there was a long dark black figure. It had no facial features from what I remember. But the legs and that huge long body is what terrified me the most. It crept closer and closer. Every movement felt like hours. Then it got to the side of my bed and their long finger was pointed at me. I closed my eyes and I think that’s when I passed out. I woke up a few hours later at 4 and it was still dark. The figure was gone though. I didn’t get out of my bed or anything. I just cried and cried and cried. I stayed up the rest of the night looking at the corners every second. The trauma from that was so bad that I had to go see a therapist and my mom pulled me out of school for a few days so I could relax and be to myself. Every now and then I think about that day. And it makes me cry. The thought of me thinking I would die or being taken still scares me.

19.

My dad had s**t going on in his house, so much s**t that almost every kid who would come in, myself, my sisters, my brother and my dad have all had multiple experiences in there. I remember one time, I was going upstairs to have a shower. The bathroom was the end of the hallway and on the way to it, I had to pass by the room I shared with my sisters when I was over for the weekends. As I passed by, I seen something sit up on the bottom bunk (we had bunk beds in there) out of the corner of my eye. This thing looked like a little girl. She had pale skin, short black hair that was cut in a bob style with straight bangs covering her forehead, and her eyes were these massive circles with large black dots in the center for pupils. She was facing sideways so her right shoulder was facing me when she turned her head, the other half of her body looked like it was under the blankets. I remember getting such an intense feeling of fear that I went back downstairs and refused to go upstairs at all or even sleep in the house. My dad had to set up the camping tent in the backyard for the rest of the weekend If this occurrence had been nothing/me just seeing things that weren't there, I feel like I shouldn't still remember it in perfect detail at the age I am now (seen it when I was maybe 6 or so. I'm 23 now)

20.

I posted this in another thread like this a while back Several years ago, some friends and I were driving through one of the millions of small towns around the North/South Carolina border in the mountains. It was well after midnight. My friend looks behind us, and sees a pair of headlights coming up on us. Quickly. Like, easily 60-70 MPH when the limit is 25 or so. No signs of stopping so my friend pulls over to let the car past. And what passes us is two lights. Just lights. Far too bright to be a firefly or any luminescent creature. As bright as headlights, if not brighter. Not attached to anything. No car, nothing. Just two lights booking it down the road.

21.

One time as a teenager I was making something to eat and randomly heard a bunch of birds chirping super loud. I look up and into the living room and see at least 20 “spirit” birds flying around the room. Think the old style white light effects they used for Tinkerbell. I was a little weirded out (not too much, at that point I was used to hearing/seeing spirits) and was also hearing “say hi to mom!”. So I asked her. I said, “hey mom? Did you ever have birds? Like, lots of birds? Before I was born?” She stopped and looked very confused. She said, “Yeah. I had close to 2 dozen wild parakeets when I was a teenager. Why?” I told her because they were all flying around the living room saying hi right then. She had never mentioned before having had birds.

22.

This is my sister's story and idk if it is paranormal or not, but she thought it was a lil spooky. She lived in a tiny lil studio apartment one summer and came home to quickly get a bite to eat, wash up and go back out with friends. She puts some bread in the toaster and goes into bathroom to wash face/do makeup etc. She hears the toaster 'pop' and comes out to get it, but the toast is nowhere to be found. She checked the floors, counters everywhere and it was just gone. Toaster was still hot. Really weirded her out.

23.

I remember as a kid I would explore old abandoned houses and buildings. One time I heard a rattling noise while in this two story house. Followed the sound upstairs and saw a leather belt on the ground, writhing around and twisting like a serpent. I was too scared to touch it and ran away. There was nothing in that room that could have caused it, no windows for drafts or anything. Sometimes I think I just dreamed it because it was so long ago but it felt so real and I can remember all the details.

24.

My first year of university a girl I lived with had her friend over one night. He’d been shooting footage on London Bridge at 3AM to get some shots of it abandoned at night. He was really riled up about something and insisted we watch it with the audio up all the way and listen closely. Around the 1 minute mark I heard a low, deeply menacing voice whisper slowly “as you walk the devil’s path..” then something unintelligible… then “…death.” It felt so final and evil. He turned to us and said, “did you hear it?” I said I’d heard a voice. “What did it say?” I told him what I’d heard. His face went white. “You heard the exact same thing as me. You’re not the first.” My housemate said she’d heard the same thing as well. He hadn’t heard the voice when he was on the bridge, only when he was working on the audio, but he’d shown it to other people who had heard the same thing. I don’t really have any other paranormal encounters so this one might not stand out, but I’m generally wary of paranormal s**t and this still scared me. There was some sort of presence on that bridge at night. It wanted to make itself known. I don’t ever want to know what it was.

25.

At a cemetery in rural Thailand: blue light orbs that "jumped" from gravestones to the top of the trees. In Malaysia: seeing a crowd of ragged people crossing a busy intersection. The other three people in the car didn't see anything. This happened in board daylight. Etc. I've been seeing and hearing things since a young age. Tried a lot of things to stop it but none worked. So I just live with it because it doesn't seem to have any detrimental effect on me.

26.

ok, so not really a cryptid, but i reckon i've seen something undocumented: my wife and i were driving along the highway in remote northern west australia. we come around a corner from behind a hill and there's this massive bird in the middle of the highway ripping into a kangaroo. we slam on the brakes to avoid hitting it and it spreads it's wings and flies away. this thing's wingspan was easily longer than our corolla and the top of the bonnet was probably 2/3 the height of it standing on the road. it looked like a type of eagle. now, a wedge tail eagle is supposed to be the biggest flighted bird in the world. and i've seen wedgetails, right up close and trained to do tricks. this thing was easily at least 4 times the size as that. it could easily lift off with a dog or small child.

27.

Back in June of 2020 my friend, his wife, my dad and some of my friend's friends all went on a ghost investigation at Benson Grist Mill. It's a 100+ year old mill that was made by one of the leaders of the mormon church at the time. Once I got onto the property I instantly felt like I had an apple lodged in my throat. I thought it was anxiety and I just brushed it off. We entered into a house that was on the property and tried to get an evp recording. I felt like something was trying to shove me to the ground. I then met up with my friend in the basement of the mill and I began to cry for no reason. His wife helped me get out of the mill and calm down. After about 30 minutes I felt the presence of a child telling me to go to the school house. It's as if the child was trying to comfort me. I found out later there was a little girl who passed away near the mill. I woke up the next morning with bruises on my neck. I went back again and something else happened. I can make another post about it if anyone is interested haha.

28.

As an officer on a reservation, we kept getting reports of a “tall man” at different places in a town on our reservation. One night we was able to catch him on a thermal camera. There was about 8-10 officers there. It was on a hill overlooking the town that was right below. Tall, about 8-9 feet tall. Long dark hair. Human face. Really fast and quick We sent officers that was in the town over to where it was walking towards a housing and we could see the officer get out and cross a fence and look with his flashlight but it looked like the figure was in a slight ravine to his side and couldn’t see it. We was giving directions on radio but our portable radios sucked and unless you was right next to your unit, they wouldn’t work. We watched as the tall figure walked right down the middle of the street and we could hear all the dogs in the housing start freaking out. It then walked out of sight.

29.

dont know if this counts but when ever im walking in the middle of the night in the dark towards my bedroom it always looks like theirs a figure in front of me and most of the time i attempt to punch that thing in front of me

30.

This happened to me when I was 6. I was in my bed sound asleep when I felt the mattress beside me slowly shift as if someone was laying beside me. I opened my eyes and there was a full grown adult woman beside me. She wasn't particularly scary, just normal looking but she was a strange person in my bed. Of course I opened my mouth to scream but before I did she put her finger to her lips as if to tell me to be quiet. Her eyes looked very frightened and she seemed to be silently pleading for me to keep quiet. Of course I screamed my guts out and I heard my parents getting up out of their bed. The strange woman just looked very sad, her eyes were full of tears. Dad turned my bedroom light on and as soon as he did she just wasn't there anymore. No sign of her at all. I slept in my parents room that night. I was very scared but even more so I had a deep feeling of sadness. That was decades ago and I still remember it clearly. I've had a few run ins like that, different people though, never that same woman.