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Most of us have some story from our childhood that totally freaked us out at the time.
We were young, our imaginations were running wild, and honestly, we didn’t really understand most of what was going on in the world around us.
Sometimes, though, the things we remember are real – and these 15 people have some seriously creepy tales that even their parents claim happened for real.
15. Who was he, though?
When I was growing up I lived in a small bungalow with my parents. My room was directly beside my parents room. I had a fish tank with a light and used this as a sleep aide, the dim light of the tank and the bubbling sound of the filter put me at ease.
One night I woke up and I saw the outline of a man wearing a trench coat and a top hat standing beside my bed looking at me. Naturally, I screamed as loud as I could and my parents came running into the room and turned the light on and the man was gone. They comforted me back to sleep and that’s all I remember about that.
Fast forward 3-4 years, I move my room to the basement and my parents knock down the wall to make their room bigger, but they keep their bed in the exact same place. Over the next year, I would wake up to screams from upstairs and hear my mom crying. She would always see outlines of a man standing IN THE EXACT place where I witnessed it before. They even moved their bed to attempt put it where the figure would appear to stop it from appearing.
It still scares me to this day thinking about that house and I’m glad I’m no where near there anymore.
14. That is super odd.
I was in 7th grade when my parents bought their first computer, so not super young. We had a small ranch, so my dad built a corner desk in the basement in one of the finished off rooms since there was no room anywhere else. House was built by my dad in the mid 80s; no one had lived there before us.
When my mom would get home from work, we’d hear her set down her keys on the counter and walk across the kitchen floor in her heels. It was a frequent occurrence for my brother or I to be on the computer (happened to each of us quite a bit), and hear sounds of my mom putting her keys on the counter and walking across the kitchen floor, same as when she gets home from work. In going upstairs to check to see if my mom was home, she wouldn’t be home.
We would tell my mom when it happened, and it happened enough where we tried to figure it out by checking the time we’d hear it. A few times, she said she’d been thinking about work at that time and happened to look at the clock.
We tried to figure it out and have no idea to this day why it would continuously happen. A few times my mom mentioned she’d be on the computer and hear someone upstairs, and no one would be home. My dad didn’t allow pets in the house either, so it wasn’t just a cat being a jerk.
13. Technology in the afterlife.
My Granny died when I was little. I don’t even remember her. My Aunt and Mom always told me this story. I was at my house when I was little, I think about 4. The phone rang and I answered it. They got on to me for answering the phone.
I told them it was my Granny calling to see if I was ok. I told her yes and hung up. She had recently passed away. They said they were a little creeped out by it, but insisted it really happened.
12. Aliens. Definitely.
Not necessarily creepy, but when I was around 11 or so, my mom and I were going about 40 miles outside of town for a typical orthodontist appointment.The trip typically took about 35 mins give or take a few for traffic, however this one time I kinda zoned out while being driven and upon arriving we remarked “Wow that was fast”.
We were earlier for my appointment than usual despite leaving at a consistent time for each appointment. Upon looking at our vehicle’s clock (and confirming with a watch my mom had on) it had mysteriously taken us only 10 mins to drive to drive the usual 35 minute distance.
We have no recollection of anything happening during those 10 mins, and it never happened again, but it left us with a very weird feeling. We still wonder what we drove through to this day.
11. Horribly sad for a kiddo.
My mom said that I used to have “premonitions” when I was little, under the age of 10.
My great-aunt and great-uncle were like grandparents to me and used to come visit in the summer from Mexico (to the US).
I would miss them terribly then they would go. One year when they were leaving, I cried and cried.
My mom said “Don’t worry! They’ll be back next year.”
I remember sobbing and throwing a small child fit.
Apparently I said to my mom “No you don’t understand! Tío (great-uncle) is NEVER coming back!”
And she kept trying to reassure me they’d be back next year.
I kept repeating “He’s never coming back!” (I didn’t say anything about my great-aunt)
Sure enough, he passed away and never came back within a few weeks or months.
My mom said it was really creepy and I also predicted my great-aunt passing as well.
10. I love these types of creepy stories.
So I don’t actually remember this but my mom told me about it. My grandfather died when I was a year old. Prior to his death, he loved to play with me and would make me laugh in this very specific way. The night he died, my mom heard me making noise.
So she goes in assuming I’m crying but I’m not. I’m staring at the ceiling, laughing hysterically just like my grandfather used to make me laugh. She’s still convinced he came to say goodbye to me.
9. What would a ghost want with a shoelace?
The shoelace.
I woke up one morning and the shoelace from one of my sneakers had completely vanished.
Just on one shoe. The lace on the other shoe was still there. I do not ever remove the laces of my shoes. The shoes were right beside me by my bed all night. I have always, always been a ridiculously light sleeper. The slightest sound wakes me up – nothing woke me that night. Moreover, the door was closed to my room, the floorboards creaked whenever anyone stepped on them, and the room was small. I 100% would have noticed someone coming in.
Nothing else was disturbed in the entire house. Nothing had been moved or taken, no signs of forced entry. My mum noticed nothing all night. She also has no sense of humour. There was nobody in the house aside from me and her, and nobody but us had the keys. We didn’t have mice, and there were no traces of the missing lace anyway.
There is absolutely NO way that shoelace could have gone missing.
My mum remembers it well, but as soon as I mention it she immediately doesn’t want to talk about it because it freaks her out.
Either somebody broke into the house and did NOTHING except take a single shoelace, or the house was haunted and a ghost took it.
8. But maybe in a comforting way?
I have a similar story, don’t remember, but my mom who i trust tells me about it.
Close to my grandma until she died when I was two. We used to play this game where she’d go “Shh, listen!” and we’d shut our eyes and get quiet and just listen to the world.
Well when she died I didn’t go to the funeral since I was 2 y’know, and after wards mom takes me the cemetery to take me to her tombstone to explain some stuff yknow, and when we get there as mom’s parking I suddenly go, “Shh! Listen!” and cover my eyes and go quiet.
Mom doesn’t think much of it, but then she gets me out of the car, and I just book it into the cemetery and some how end up finding some family tombstones, not my grandma’s but she’s close by.
And like I had never been here before, I couldn’t even read the tombstone names.
Mom says it freaked her out.
7. This kid is going places.
This is sort of embarrassing. My mom got an IUD after my sister and I were born. 4 years after my sister, a random priest stopped her in the streets and told her “why are you stopping goddess Durga’s will? She wants to gift you a son” My mom was understandably freaked out. It’s not like my family didn’t want a son (because trust me asian obsession with sons is real) it’s just that they didn’t want another daughter so they weren’t trying.
Anyways, a few days later we had a kirtan (sort of like a musical prayer meeting) and one of the ladies there got possessed by goddess (mata aana as Indians call it. Sort of like a trance possession and the person possessed starts spewing all sorts of things that make sense but don’t. Super creepy, scary shit) So, that woman- a stranger- straight up looked at mom and handed her an apple. Said “Eat it and get that foreign thing out. I want to give you a son. How dare you deny me of my wish.”
Word spread like fire about this incident.
Suddenly half the town was interested in my parent’s marital life (small town) Mom didn’t budge then though. My parents met another priest who they considered their teacher. He said that they should try and let what’s meant to be happen.
Well I had a brother within an year. Most exciting 9 months for our town since we didn’t know the gender (gender testing is illegal in India to prevent female foeticide)
6. I’m sure that she was.
When I was little (probably about 5) my great grandmother passed away from cancer. We were very close. She watched me nearly everyday and would sing to me before my naps. You are my Sunshine in particular.
It was a few days after she died and I can instinctively remember waking up to someone stroking my hair and singing You are my Sunshine. At first, I thought it was my mom, but it was unlike her to do something like that. I turned and found no one there. I even remember getting up and checking my parents room to find they were both asleep.
Both my parents kind of just nonchalantly dismiss it, but I swear it was her saying goodbye to me.
5. He continued to walk by the house??
When I was 10 years old I often visited a friend who lived around 4 miles away from me. To get there I had to walk next to a huge cornfield with only a couple of houses on the side of it. After spending some time at his house I had to walk back home. The street I walked on was mostly empty and there was rarely anyone walking their dog or jogging there so I was alone on it with no one around most of the time. The houses were always empty and looked like people simply left them behind and nobody new moved in, with windows barricaded and doors always shut.
One day I walked back home and my shoelace came lose. I bend over to tie it. All of a sudden I see a shadow reaching over me. I quickly looked behind me and see an old lady with short black hair with the scariest smile behind me reaching for my shoulder, only a few inches away from me.
I immediately started to run for my life, only turning around one more time to see her still standing there and still staring at me with her evil smile. I ran all the way to my house and broke down crying when I got home. My parents told me that nobody lives in those houses.
I walked by the house a few more times over the last 11 years but have never seen anyone near that house ever again and it is still empty.
I get shivers writing this story
4. Equally bizarre and hilarious.
Not so much creepy as unexplainable. I have a memory of standing in my grandmother’s suburban backyard with my cousin (we were maybe 3-4 yrs old) watching a line of penguins in a neighboring yard climb up a pool slide and slide down into a pool, one by one. They would swim to the stairs, waddle out of the pool and around the pool back to the slide stairs and wait in line to go down the slide again. I never mentioned the memory and assumed, because it was so implausible, that I dreamt it up or remembered wrong.
A couple decades later, I visited my grandmother and this same cousin was also visiting. We were sitting at my grandma’s kitchen table which looked out at her backyard. There was a lull in the conversation, and we were all looking out the window. It made me think of the whole penguin memory, so I brought it up. My cousin’s eyes widened and she said she had the same memory, but, like me, thought it was a dream. My grandma chuckled and said, “Well, the neighbor that used to live there did work for the zoo…”
Not exactly a confirmation, but…did that really happen?! Even if he did work for the zoo…you can’t just bring a dozen penguins home, can you?!?
3. It’s ALIENS.
Might be too late to the party, but sometimes I think about this.. My mom and I were driving back from my grandmothers house in Chicago around dusk. While we were on one of the side streets in a neighborhood on the outskirts of the city, suddenly the lights in the car turned on and harmoniously got incredibly loud. I didn’t know lights could make sound like this. They reached a boiling point and the whole car turned off. We looked outside and all the streetlights surrounding the car had blown out as well. The stop light in front of us and a little ways a way were blinking as if the power had gone out. We were the only car in the area at the time.
My mom turned the car back on and we drove away with no explanation. About 15 min on the highway and the whole car just turns off. We were able to pull over to the side of the road safely and it turned back on with no issues after that.
I googled events similar to this around the time but never came up with any answers or any other reports of this type of thing. Still don’t know what caused it to this day.
2. A very sensible woman.
When I was a kid my mom used to work at a small grocery store and she went there before breakfast to get fresh bakery goods when she had the afternoon shift. Then she used to wake me up for school, and ask how I slept, and I used to tell her what dream I had that night (if any).
One morning I told her I dreamed, that two guys broke in to the store and they left a red screwdriver on the floor. My mom was shocked, because there really was a break in that night, that is why she couldn’t buy stuff for breakfast that morning, but couldn’t talk with police or colleagues at the time to get more details.
I then went to school, my mom did the afternoon shift and on the evening, when she came home, she told me that the police really did found a screwdriver on the scene, which belonged to the burglar(s).
This all happened in Europe, a small town around the early 90s, no CCTV and the burglar(s) never got caught, but this was still a very strange experience. My mom made me fill out a lottery ticket the next day, lol, but never won with it and never had such dreams since then.
1. I don’t like this at all.
Alright man here we go, this one really freaked me out and it is just crazy. So I grew up in Burton upon Trent. Now as a kid I always had a fascination with medieval era things whether that be castles or knights.
Now when I went to one castle, Tutbury Castle, I was having a good time up until we got to the gate when I felt a hand grip my shoulder with a harsh grip, then I screamed. My parents asked me what’s wrong but I noticed a weird expression on their face so I thought they felt it too. We left very shortly after and I never went again.
Soon after I felt like I was always being watched. I would look into the garden and see a figure twitching and I would always break down in my room. It got so bad that we had to move rooms. After a year of this thing chasing me we moved to Basingstoke. After that I never felt chased or watched. My life as an adolescent was normal.
About a decade ago I came back to my parents from the U.S. and I told them what I remembered. They said that everything I saw they saw and just wouldn’t tell me as they thought it would freak me out. We shared a good laugh about it but it still makes my blood chill every time I think of it.
I have chills, y’all!
If you’ve got a story that would fit on this list, please share it with us in the comments!
