We all have those moments sometimes – the ones where you do an actual double-take, or blink your eyes really slowly to make sure you’re really seeing what you think you’re seeing.
What’s worse is when you’re all alone, doubting yourself, and then are left knowing no one else will ever believe you.
These 15 people are recalling moments just like those, and man, the tales are wild.
15. An orb?
Ball lightning. There was a glowing white ball in the sky, like nothing I’ve ever seen. It flew around, maneuvered a bit. I turned my head to reach for my camera. When I looked back, it immediately went behind a cloud and disappeared.
There was no lightning that day. The weather was rather fair and nice. It lasted for about a minute. Was really interesting.
14. Were you in the Emerald City?
A purple horse. Middle of day, no drinking or drugs involved. In retrospect it was probably (?) wearing those pajama things some horses have, but that horse was purple.
13. He knows what he saw.
One night walking home from a friends place, my phone was dead and it started raining. Across the walkway in front of me what looked like thousands of snails were crossing along the concrete. I have never seen so many snails in my life. It was impossible to dodge all of them as they went from one very specific part of the path to another. Since my phone was dead I couldn’t take a picture, and when I told my friend he brushed it off as me being too stoned.
Granted, I was a little stoned. But I know what I saw. A thousand snails making a great migration.
12. An alien neighbor.
When I was little, maybe 7, the son of a lady who babysat my brother and I, cut his leg on our swing set. Green goo came out of his leg. I remember it like it was yesterday. I remember the type of bolt it was, the cover is was missing to prevent cuts.
I’m a dentist now (taken gross anatomy, dissected a human body, routinely in the OR for resections of crazy head and neck tumors).
With the exception of gross infections, I’ve never seen green goo come out of someone. Let alone a healthy leg.
It will never make sense to me. Ever.
11. He must have drifted further than he thought.
Not me, but one of my Dad’s friends passed out drunk in a Kayak while fishing in Tennessee. He woke up at some point later having drifted pretty far down the river.
When he woke up, he saw a giraffe eating from a tree above him and was rightfully really fucking confused. Of course everyone thought he must’ve been on a little more than alcohol when he was telling us what he saw the next day.
It turns out there’s a wildlife rehabilitation center along the river he was fishing and had apparently taken in some giraffes from a zoo somewhere.
Hearing this giant 60 year old tell the story with a country accent made it much, much funnier.
10. Are you sure, though?
My Betta fish disappeared out of a covered tank. And then reappeared in front of my eyes.
If you can imagine: This tank is clear plastic on all sides, including the bottom. There’s nowhere to hide when it’s empty. The only thing not transparent is the metal lid. Betta fish are known to hide, so I didn’t worry about not seeing him for a couple days, but on day 3 I got worried, so I took the heater and filter out. Checked the inside of the filter. Took the plants out. Took the hides out. No fish.
Nothing in the tank but water and glass rocks now, so I started scooping the rocks out, thinking he may have gotten trapped under there and died. Pretty soon I’m staring at a tank with nothing but water in it. No fish.
I figure there’s no way he’s still alive so I start scooping the water out. It’s about 3/4 full when suddenly my fish does one of those fishy slow-turns in the dead center of the tank. There he was. It wasn’t, like, I turned away and then back and my fish was there. No, I was staring at the tank, and I quite literally saw him swim back into existence. One second he wasn’t there, the next he was.
I moved him to a smaller bowl for a few days to keep an eye on him. Covered the top with perforated plastic wrap to ensure no jumping. He disappeared from the bowl a couple days later and never came back. Have owned several Betta fish, and I can honestly say no other fish has ever dimension hopped out of a tank since.
9. Shadow people are a thing.
A few months ago, I was at work. I worked opening shift (4:30 am) that morning and one of my co-workers was late. I heard the door open and I saw a shadow walk towards the door to the back. It stays locked to keep customers out so I opened it, but noone was there. I figured he just went to the bathroom.
Like 20 minutes later, I go to my manager.
Me: Hey, I think employee took off. I saw them earlier but they never came in.
Manager: Employee is in North Carolina taking care of his family.
Me: …
Edit: Did NOT expect this to blow up like this. Apparently shadow people are a thing and I didn’t realize it? I mean I’ve heard other similar stories but I didn’t realize so many people could relate. Anyways, thanks for the karma!
8. Probably a nightmare.
I saw my uncle fall from the roof as he was escaping a house fire. He was able to get inside the car and take off but not before the house toppled over on top of the car. After a few minutes he appeared out of the smoke, limping away. I distinctly remember running back to my house (right next door) to tell my mom about what had just happened.
We go outside and nothing. No fire, no smashed car, no house falling over.
I dunno wtf 5 year old me was smoking but I had the hardest time processing what had just happened or not happened. My mom was so angry with me for coming up with such a awful lie about her little brother.
Til this day, 27 years old now, I can’t explain what, why, or how I saw what I saw but I very much remember terrifying feeling I felt during and afterwards.
Mom thinks I must’ve fallen asleep playing outside and woke up from a nightmare and panicked but whatever it was it feel too real.
7. I don’t think I would like this.
I have clear and distinct memories from when I was still in diapers and a crib. No one in my family believed me until I described the EXACT layout of my room at the time, bed and dressers included.
We don’t have any photos of this room, so this isn’t a false memory situation like my brother said. I even described a time my mom gave me cough medicine in a Mickey mouse spoon from before I could even talk.
It’s weird because my short term memory is trash, but my long term memory is absolutely unreal.
6. A swarm!
Once while in a drained pool, I heard a droning sound.
It kept getting louder and louder, when a massive cloud of bees slowly flew overhead and into the distance.
5. Seems unlikely.
I grew up three blocks from the Delaware River, Jersey side, a little north of Philly.
Shortly after 9/11 I saw what looked basically like a black bullet – only gigantic, like submarine sized – go into the river from above going north. Like a plane landing on water, but going under. I don’t believe it had wings?
I had been out for a walk and ran home to tell my parents. I was worried because 9/11 had just happened and my fifth grade brain thought this could be related. My parents had me draw out what I saw, step by step. Eventually they said I was probably mistaken.
I went to school the next day and told my teacher and she said “how weird, Joey said he saw the same thing.” Joey lived two blocks from the river. Either we’re both mistaken, or we watched some weird torpedo-vessel go into the Delaware.
4. An inside joke.
Shortly after my wife and I were first married, we were making the Easter Sunday both-families-want-you-for-dinner drive circuit. I was driving from my parents’ house to her parents’ house and she had her eyes closed.
Suddenly a peacock ran out of the woods and across the road in front of the car. I slammed on the brakes and veered into the next lane. My wife yelled “What the hell??!!” And I said I almost hit a freakin’ peacock! (I had never seen a peacock in the wild before.) She didn’t believe me. Lol
36 years later and I still haven’t lived that down, and she occasionally reminds me to watch out for peacocks when we are out in the car.
3. At least it was just his ashes.
When I was 12, I stayed with my great aunt while my mother and brother ran to the grocery to get lunch stuff. She took me into her basement and “introduced” me to her husband. Her long dead husband. Who’s remains were in a ziploc in a file drawer, neatly filed.
She made a big deal about how she bought a brand new box of ziplocs for him instead of reusing one. She was all about the frugality, my great aunt.
No one believed me until after she died. When my mother and aunt found the cremains in the ziploc in the file drawer.
2. Definitely a ghost.
I was walking home behind my high school at night, and in the teachers break room I saw a cleaning lady pushing a cart and she went into the floor like she and the cart got onto an escalator and went down, this is in the teachers break room there are no escalators or ramps in there, I could understand her slowly descending for some weird reason but not the cart those things are solid.
1. Lucky he didn’t see him.
Was playing with my Cousin and a friend of ours outside. We were riding our bikes and had a bunch of fun, but couldn’t explore that far from where I live l, since we were like 7 or 8 y/o.
As we were cheerfully cycling down a long road behind a parking garage near my apartment, I started to slow down as I was getting tired of it. Both of them were continuing to cycle down the road as they haven’t noticed me being left behind yet.
You have to understand that the location of the road was right in between the parking garage (with 2 floors) and a fence which has only rails on the other side and was usually deserted. So once I stopped cycling, I could only turn tail or follow the road ahead.
After reaching my limit, I simply stopped my bike mid way after a while and tried to catch some breath. While doing so something caught my eye on the backstairs of the parking garage, I tried to get closer to check out what it was out of curiosity. But boy was that a mistake. I spotted a man who seemed kneel down behind a wall of the backstairs. Didn’t seem suspicious at first, however after a closer look I saw what seemed like knife covered in blood. My body froze and all I could feel was fear that went through my body, which felt like it lasted for minutes. The man just started to catch on with me standing on road and began to slowly stand-up and face my direction. I was somehow able to get my brain back to process and bolted down the street with any power I had left in me.
After passing both my cousin and friend, as well as leaving a big distance to where I spotted him. I started to break down in tears and explaining what happened. No one would believe me, since they went back to check and found nothing strange. Got so traumatized from it, that I avoided the road until my mid teens.
Tldr; saw a man with a knife covered in blood behind a parking garage while cycling as kid and no one would believe.
These are some amazing stories, y’all. I really hope they’re true, honestly.
If you’ve got one like them, we’d love to hear about it in the comments!
