The most unsettling occurrences are those that resist understanding or catch us entirely off guard. These bizarre incidents carry a haunting essence that lingers in our thoughts long after they unfold. The stories compiled here are authentic experiences shared by people online, and these chilling memories continue to influence them to this day.
- My 5 y.o. son died in 2020. My good friend kept telling me, “You need to move on,” and eventually, I coped. 2 months later, she moved to another state for a new job, it was very sudden. One day, I decided to make a surprise visit. When she saw me, she turned pale. I went in and I almost fainted when I saw my son’s photos covering all her walls. Some of them, I couldn’t even recall sharing with her. Then, to my shock, I found some of his clothes on her sofa, alongside a box containing his shoes and socks. The whole scene felt disturbingly eerie.
When I asked how she had gotten there, she told me that my husband had given them to her. It’s true my husband and I had decided to pack away my son’s belongings as part of moving forward, but I never imagined he had given them to her. I started shaking.
I knew she had loved him deeply—she had always longed for a child of her own—but this felt like an unhealthy obsession. Without another word, I grabbed the box and left. That was the last time I ever saw her.
• On the morning of my mother’s funeral, I didn’t want to get out of bed. I didn’t want to socialize or thank people for coming. As I lay there, I felt the bed compress as if someone had sat on it. I swear she was telling me one last time to get the fuck up before I was late.
•This happened when I was a kid. I used to sleep with my door closed, and I had no idea what time it was, but I heard my door creak open. When I opened my eyes, I could only make out the figure of a strange tall man with a hat and a coat. He just sat on my bed and stared at my door. This went on for a few minutes before he got up and left. I don’t have many memories of my childhood, but this one I can relive very well.
•My dad is one of those completely serious types. I have hardly ever heard him laugh or crack a joke, so you pretty much take what he says seriously. Anyway, we were watching some random TV show, UFO Files or Ancient Aliens, and I asked him if he believed in UFOs or aliens. He proceeded to tell me a story I had never heard him tell before.
Apparently, when he was a teenager, he and my great-grandmother were on their back porch one evening (in very rural southern Mississippi in the ’70s) and noticed a huge object hovering over the woodline a few hundred yards from the house. Then suddenly, it ascended vertically at an impossible speed. He said he couldn’t explain what it was and hasn’t seen anything like that since.
•In grade 9, my best friend and I were having a sleepover at my house. My parents and younger brother were visiting family, so we were home alone. After it got dark outside, we started watching a movie while lying on separate couches, facing a TV situated next to a door frame that led to the kitchen, bedrooms, and basement. In a matter of seconds, I saw a feminine figure standing in the doorway, facing me, and for some reason, I instinctively said, “Don’t leave me!” My friend, lying on the other couch, also saw the figure and said to me, “Don’t worry, he’ll go away in a second,” thinking it was my younger brother.
The figure just faded away, kind of like mist, into the other room. We looked at each other and realized what had just happened, then quickly turned on all the lights and sat on the same couch. We’re 28 now and still have no idea who or what that was or why I said that, but I still think about it often.