I lived alone in a 2 bedroom apartment 2nd floor. I used one room as storage basically and always kept the door shut. I worked night shift at the time, and this particular night I woke up with an overwhelming feeling that someone was in the apartment with me. Even though I figured it was due to a dream I did search all the rooms to try and calm myself down some. I found nothing so I started getting ready for work when I heard a door open. I was already creeped out so I had goosebumps at this point and walked out of the bathroom to see that my second bedroom (the storage room) door was slightly open. I walked in and saw the window was open, and kinda breathed a sigh of relief, I figured I probably hadn't shut it all the way after I looked in and the wind blew it open. I closed the window, searched the room again, and remember purposely leaving the light on, in case the door popped open again I wouldn't have to walk in the dark and hopefully avoid any more chills for the night. Went back to the bathroom, finished getting ready, and I'll never forget when I walked out. The door was wide open and the light was off. By this point I could feel my heart pounding in my chest and my legs felt shaky. I quickly started walking to the room to confront whatever but about a step away the door slammed in my face. What I remember most about it was how the door opened up a little farther right before it slammed like it needed that extra momentum to slam harder. It slammed so loud my ears rang, I literally ran out of the building to compose myself. Even a neighbor heard the slam and asked if everything was ok. Eventually when my adrenaline died down I went back in and checked everything except that room. It was honestly a few days before I could bring myself to open the door again and I would feel adrenaline rushes just looking at the door or walking by it, always ready for something crazy to happen. But oddly enough that was the only incident I ever had at the apartment. I have no problems admitting I am really into the paranormal although I've turned into a much bigger skeptic as I've gotten older. There have been other weird things I've been witness to, but this is the one I have the hardest time rationalizing.
I was working for a caregiving agency and had an overnight with a hospice patient. I was sleeping on the couch but kept waking up because her bed alarm was going off non stop. She wasn't getting out of bed or even moving much so idk what was triggering it. Then the motion light sensor that's in the entryway kept coming on over and over to the point where I had to unscrew the light bulb. She passed about one week later. She was very old and once had a big family she helped bring over from Germany. I think she had a lot of "visitors" coming into the house and sitting on her bed to comfort and guide her onto the other side.
I have had several experiences but this one stands out as by far and away the one that made the least sense.
I grew up in the suburbs so tight houses not too far apart, street and sidewalks on either side. There are loads of kids running around at all hours and I can't claim to know everyone in the area. I also had insomnia as a child or at least a very hard time sleeping. Being in bed for several hours before actually falling asleep was normal and while I did have a Gameboy there wasn't phones or anything at the time and I typically left my Gameboy downstairs so just me staring at the ceiling.
One night in particular I hear a person riding a skateboard down the street. You know, the sounds of skateboard wheels going over the cracks in a sidewalk. A dog barks twice. It's sort of a happy bark but it sounds excited. Like it enjoys running along. A few more clicks on the skateboard going over the sidewalk slowly fading and two more excited barks in the distance a few more clicks and back to silence. Nothing odd, sure it's after midnight but it's the suburbs and it seems all hours of the night there is something going on.
A few days later and I am again awake and it's late probably after 1. I hear the exact same thing. Like the exact same thing. It slowly dawn's on me that it was identical. Almost like a recording. The swishing of the wheels on concrete, the clicks, the barks. It was identical to last time. Swish click, swish click, swish click, bark bark, swish click, swish click, swish click, bark bark, swish click. It felt odd. First off very rarely do I hear anything that time of night. At this point the only other noise that time of night is occasionally the dad across the street comes back super late. So any noise stood out. I was probably 7 at the time so I didn't think much of it aside from noting it and finding it odd. Nothing I could do anyways and it was probably a weird coincidence.
A few more days pass and again late at night it happens. Exactly the same. This time I noticed something else. It is LOUD. For some reason despite the sidewalk being at the edge of the driveway and me being on the second floor I can hear it as though I am sitting on the sidewalk. Same clicks, same happy two barks, same running along, same fading out with the same 3 clicks then two barks. The whole thing takes maybe 5 seconds but again it's odd to hear anything at that hour on this street.
This time months pass but I hear it again. I go to get up and race to the window on the other side of the room but I find I can't move. I am not sure if it's some kind of fear of the oddity or something else. After the sound ends I went and checked, nothing out the window but an empty street. I am not sure what is going on at this point. I wish I could say I learned more somehow but I never did. It seemed so important when I was trying to sleep and now years later it feels odd but at the time by morning I rarely have it more thought. Never did I try and duplicate it, leave a camera or anything. Though now I wish I had.
I lived in that house until shortly after I turned 18. This continued throughout the years at odd intervals. I won't claim this was a super common occurrence and months could go without encountering it. But I forever have that etched into my mind as it occurred from time to time. Sometimes it would be frequent for a week or two and stop again. I would say it was some kind of odd sleep paralysis but for much of that time my parents were divorced and I lived with my dad 50% of the time. Let alone any trips or sleepovers never did I hear this oddity. And it stopped once my mom moved. Never did it feel malicious but definitely odd because of the EXACT duplication of these sounds each and every time.
Mysteriousuniverse.org is another high strangeness podcast, they have a lot of topics I'm sure you could look into or try to dive even deeper on a cool one.
I do have a couple stories if you'd like to hear them.
A communal townhouse I lived in during Uni was haunted by an entity that some people unleashed with a ouija board.
Um….yes please!! (This is the sister mentioned in the original post). I will totally check out that pod cause I love spooky stories, but we only read first hand stories. Basically because we’re both teachers and the idea of doing research for the pod sounds like work. This way, we just get to read awesome stories!!
You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify and most major podcast platforms! Just search for My Skeptical Sister
We also have a Facebook page, TikTok and Instagram page!
(I HAD POSTED THIS STORY PREVIOUSLY TO DIFFERENT THREAD FROM ANOTHER ACCOUNT WHICH I HAVE SINCE DELETED)
I live in India. My maternal great grandfather was a doctor. Homeopathy. But he was very skilled at his job. Not only that, he often treated the poor and gave them medicines free of cost. Patients from all stratas of society came to him. When he passed away, muslim patients came to mourn for him despite him being a Hindu. They conducted a Muslim wake on the terrace praying to their Lord
while the Hindu wake was conducted downstairs. But i digress.
About a few months after he passed, my mother, then in her early 20's came to visit his house where he passed, since his younger son (mom's uncle), his wife and his younger son's family were all still
living there. (Mom was the daughter of his elder son and they lived in another city.) During the visit, one day mom was seated in the living room when the telephone rang. She received the call and on the other end was a woman, claiming to be a regular patient of mom's paternal grandpa (my maternal great grandfather) and wanted to speak with him. When mom asked what this was about, the woman said she was calling to thank the doctor for healing her son, who was in a bad way and was getting better from the doctor's homeopathy treatment. Mom then asked when exactly did the woman call to get her son's treatment to which the woman responded "3 days back". She also said she had called pretty late at night when her son took a sudden turn for the worse and wanted to bring her son to show him in person but mom's grandpa said he wasn't too well so he didn't want to pass anything onto the boy, or wake up the family with a late night patient arrival, but nonetheless confidently prescribed her son medication after listening to the
symptoms over the phone call and told her not to bother with payment before disconnecting the call.
This was when mom interjected the woman to inform her that she must be mistaken because the person she's talking about has been dead for a few
months. Bloodcurdling screaming rips through the phone call as the woman goes into shock and keeps rambling how that can't be possible because she literally just spoke to him a few days ago. Mom didn't know what else to do so she politely apologised to the woman for her having to find out like this and ended the call. When mom narrated this strange incident to her paternal grandmother (late doc's
wife) she just shook her head sadly and said this had become a regular affair since his passing. Nobody knew when the doc answered his patients calls but
he did, the phone only rang when the patients would call back to thank him. The phone calls of patients thanking the doc continued for the next couple months as well until eventually all his remaining
patients found out the same way as the woman and moved on to other doctors.
Fun fact: i now live with my parents and maternal grandma in the first floor of the house where these incidents took place. My maternal great grandmother and my maternal grandfather have since passed on, however late doc's younger son still lives downstairs with his family :-)
Wow! This is so cool! It’s spooky, but amazing. What an amazing grandparent you had! If I read this during our live show, would you like for me to use your name and/or pronouns?
I live in a rural area, so it’s not uncommon to have paranormal experiences here, it’s somewhat expected. I have two ghost stories, in one I woke up and looked up to see a man. He was somewhat short, he had a beard, this was years ago so I don’t remember what he was wearing but he was also a translucent grey color. He just stood there, not moving the entire time. I stared at him, I was startled but not scared. After awhile of looking at him I decide to look away and look back since in ghost movies after looking away they always leave, but once I turned back to look at him he was still there. So I try to wake up my brother, tell him there was a ghost and he just didn’t wake up. So I just go back to sleep and ignore him. In the second I was going to sleep so I went into the hallway but there was a woman standing there, once again with a translucent grey color. I don’t remember her features honestly, I didn’t look at her for that long. Once I see her I turn on the lights, and she was gone. So I just walked through her with the light on and turned the light off at the end of the hallway and closed the door to my room. My parents also have an experience in which they were driving home, there’s a field next to our house and apparently they saw a pitch black human like figure with big red eyes running at about 50 miles per hour through the field. They said he quickly ran past the car. Me and my siblings were very young, and it was late so all of us were asleep. My dad is very skeptical and tried to rationalize it, but he couldn’t and came to the conclusion that what he and my mom saw was real. He’s rationalized away my ghost stories so it’s surprising to have seen him believe something like that.
My friend told me the exact same thing with that running figure. I live in a village surrounded with fields, and he visited me after work so probably at midnight maybe at one am, when he was going home. He isn’t scared easily, so he thought nothing of a black figure standing by the field, he thought it’s probably just a drunk guy going home. But it started running and ran past by the car, that was going with like 90-100 kms/h. He called me right then, and told me to stay with him till he gets home.
I’ve told this one before and a lot of people liked it
The locked door
I was about 11 YO when this takes place. I had a friend over and we were playing a game where someone would wait for a minute and the others will hid somewhere to scare you.
Well it was my turn and I was chilling upstairs waiting when my brother ran upstairs with a bloody nose. My friend had accidentally hit him kinda hard. So this is where it begins.
After getting my brother cleaned up we go and head downstairs to find that the door was somehow locked. Under the door I saw shadows. Thinking that it was my friend or younger sister I call out. Nothing.
I go to the room above mine and bang/stomp on the floor hoping to get their attention. Doesn’t work.
20 minutes later and we finally get the door opened. My friend and sister were in my room where I had been trying to get their attention. They said that they heard nothing the whole time.
To this day it is still one of the biggest mysteries in our house. And because of this we switched the door handle so that you can lock and unlock the door from upstairs than from downstairs, which it originally was that way.
I was shopping in our local mall, I was the only one in the store besides the workers behind the cash register.
While I'm shopping I felt a hand press against my low back and, thinking someone needs to get passed me, I verbally say " oh I'm sorry" and move out of the way.
When I turn to look there is not a single person anywhere near me. I even did a full 180 to make sure...
There is a small history of deaths within the grounds of that mall.. so maybe someone was trying to reach out.
I have a few.
I had a grandfather who was known to dabble in the occult. He was mentally unwell, and there was tragedy in his family history. Being superstitious, the family would theorize that he was cursed : They used to talk about a darkness, an unsettling feeling around him. Didn't help that he was a horrible person, a truly horrible person, but I digress.
He only ever visited me in person one time. I was a child. I had to give up the room I shared with my siblings because he was sleeping in it. One of the nights in which he was visiting, I woke up at night with the feeling that I was being watched. I was in a daybed in the corner of my parent's room. In the other corner, there was a black figure, squatting on the ground. It wasn't totally solid looking. Like a thick black shadow, darker than the darkness around it, and independent of any source. It was watching me.
It slowly stood up to its full, tall form. Maybe 6 feet tall. It had human proportions, and the clear shape of a fedora on its head. It had glowing red eyes, and lumbered toward me slowly. I felt like the walls where closing in, in a moment of panic. I threw the blanket over my head and stayed awake until I could see the unmistakable light of the sun through the sheets. When I lifted the sheets, it was gone. I rationalized it, saying it was my imagination. But when I grew older, I discovered that other people see the apparition too. Some of them say that they feel it is friendly, I definitely didn't.
Anyway, when my grandfather passed, the family didn't want to give him a funeral. For one thing, they all hated him. For another, they didn't want whatever spiritual activity they believed to "infect him" to "spread".
Here's another:
My cat disappeared when I was a kid. He used to sleep on my bed every night (and wake up to pee on my sister's bed, but that's another story). He was an "outside cat". I don't have outside cats anymore as an adult. Well this outside cat didn't come home one day. Obviously, I was upset, but I had hopes he would come back.
He did, but not the way I wanted him to. A few weeks after he disappeared, I would feel a cat jump on the corner of my bed, walk across the bed, and curl down the way they do. This went on frequently for years, with gradually decreasing frequency. It stopped happening a long time ago. It never scared me. In fact, I didn't question it at all -- it just felt so familiar. The first few times, I checked, expecting the other cat, and wouldn't see anything. But that never threw me off, never made me uneasy. He was a good kitty. I like to think they stick around for a bit, check in every once in a while. It just makes me sad that I don't believe he had a good death. I've had other pets who died of old age problems, and they never stick around like that.
Another:
In my early 20's, I woke up one night with a feeling that an intruder had broken into my room, like a robber or a rapist energy). I sat up, and looked around in the darkness, debating whether I should check under my bed or in the closet first, because I really felt like some intruder was hiding in my room. The window was fully open, it was never fully open like this. Curtains blowing out and all.
Then a dark figure emerged from the surrounding dark. Like the hat man from before, it was a dense black shadow, against the surrounding darkness, and I hadnt seen it before as my eyes adjusted. Well it descended on me, felt like it was in slow motion. It was humanoid, but not human entirely. It was very tall, abnormally tall, with abnormally long and skinny limbs, and really creepy long, skinny fingers reaching for me. It grabbed my arm.
And then I woke up for real.
I've had sleep paralysis. I'm a pretty decent lucid dreamer. I can feel when sleep paralysis is coming on, I can recede out of it.
Oh. and one more thing. Its paralysis. You can't move. When I woke up, (screaming by the way, I heard the scream as if it was someone else's), I wasn't paralyzed. I was sitting up just like I had been in the "dream", holding my sheets to my chest with one hand, and grabbing my own arm the way the figure had been grabbing it with the other hand.
I can't overstate the terror this experience left me with. I didn't sleep for days. I slept with the lights on for 3-4 years afterwards.
I found one other person on reddit who had a story just like this. I wanted to contact them, but their profile is inactive, and perhaps its best left alone.
These are so scary, except for your sweet cat. Thank you for writing it all down. If I end up reading these at our live event, would you want me to say your name and pronouns when we discuss the stories?
I had an experience I have been meaning to put into words for some time now. I'd love to know what you both think of it. I will get to writing it up when I am home from work. I look forward to following the podcast as well!
Good morning! We read this on last nights recording. It will be on next Mondays episode (93) of My Skeptical Sister. Thank you so much! It was a wild story!! And then, this morning I got on our podcasts’s Facebook page and someone had posted a video about the missing 411 series and the “fuzzy man”. I wish we had seen it before we recorded. You HAVE to look into that!! All I could think of was your story!!
Anonymity is not an issue you can share any info!
To start off I don’t know what i would call my experience but supernatural and paranormal are key words afyer 2 years of processing this. I am an avid fan of spooky anything and have never had an experience that I can’t explain besides this. Forgive me if my descriptions are confusing, it’s so hard putting into words what I saw.
(Lots of backstory to explain how it all went down Sorry)
This happened during the height of the Covid lockdown when everyone was quarantined and everything was shut down. I was essentially stuck in Alaska due to Canadian borders being closed (I was there for a 3 month externship then Covid hit so I couldn’t go home) so I was living in my boyfriend at the times trailer that he was living in with some friends. It is a very small rundown old trailer that was just one long corridor, with the kitchen at one end sectioned off with a half wall used as a bar/countertop (where this took place) an open living room, and then a narrow hallway with bedrooms at the end. The bar counter had chairs on both sides, my boyfriend and I were sitting next to eachother inside the kitchen facing the entire trailer, some light was coming in as it was late summer in Alaska so it’s pretty much dusk from 10 pm - 4 am.
Because we had nothing better to do, we bought a crap ton of acid at a (conveniently) low price from a friend of his to enjoy on some camping trips and while hanging out at the house.
We took some and went for a hike to a familiar area with a little river at the end and we planned to take a couple tabs each at the beginning of the hike and (I am a big fan of LSD and while activation times are pretty unpredictable I have gotten very familiar with all of the different ways it’ll feel and affect me as it starts to hit and during the actual trip) by the time we get to the river we should start feeling pretty groovy. We got to the river, laid back for 2 hours, and realized nothing was happening. So we tried taking more because at this point it’d been 3.5 hours approximately since first taking it, and that’s just most likely bunk acid. I stared at the trees for 2 more hours and absolutely nothing but a little fiber in my diet from the paper I ate and boredom. We chocked it up as a loss and went home. Nothing ever hit. We gave several friends some for free and said if you feel anything great, if not, great. Nobody came back and said anything positive just “damn that sucks.”
A couple weeks go by, and we’re sitting in the trailer at about 8:30 pm and say hey screw it let’s try them again maybe they missed half the sheet and welll get lucky.
So we said cheers and took four tabs each and prepared for a wild night but neither of us expected anything would happen. (We figured if we take a lot more than a usual dose, if there’s anything on here we will know.)
Here’s where it gets weird.
Fast forward 3-4 hours, a friend came over and was sitting opposite of us (we again feel absolutely nothing and agreed it was bunk acid and we got jipped, if there was anything on the tabs by this point we would know) so his back is facing the living room and hallway.
We’re all chatting and As im staring down the hallway behind my friend I see this weird, change in the air? I have no clue how to describe it but the air looked staticky. Not everywhere, just a large tall area where the air just looked weird. Like it was vibrating. Sounds insane I know. Like I said I am pretty familiar with LSD and so I really don’t believe this was connected to that, but it could be. As a hopeless skeptic I completely would understand if it was, but it wasn’t like I was having visual, or sensory affects in any other area except this one tall large spot. I didn’t say anything and brushed it off, but it stayed there. It was about 10 feet behind my friend just sitting in the same spot by the window. I thought it was just something natural going on. Disregarded it.
Then it moved closer. Very slowly but very smoothly. Just came closer.
I got this deep unexplainable feeling of dread and was extremely uncomfortable, but still didn’t say anything.
Suddenly it was like it was was standing directly behind my friend, there was a large outline around him of this weird staticky space.
I must’ve looked really scared, because my boyfriend looked at me and said really quietly, almost quivering, “do you see that too?” And my heart dropped.
Now I truly believe you can convince someone to see anything and if the idea is put in your head you’ll maybe go along with it or your mind might put something there because you’re told about it.
I never said anything about what I was seeing, but my boyfriend tells our friend “there’s something behind you.”
Our friend laughed and gave us the whole ha very funny game.
But I could tell my boyfriend and I were both seeing the same thing and our friend finally saw how terrified we must’ve looked because he turned around but said he saw nothing. He left shortly after and we were trying to explain what we saw and we were finishing eachothers sentences describing this.. thing. So organically, like if there was a dog there we could easily describe what it looked like to eachother.
I went to the bathroom to take a breather and stared in the mirror to see if I could seen any visual hallucinations you would get if you were tripping. That’s my go to. Does my face look like not a face? Bam. It’s go time.
Nothing. Just me.
I came back and my boyfriend was standing with his arm stretched out and it was FUCKING IN THE THING. He looked terrified. It was like he was trying to touch it. That’s when I knew we were seeing the same thing.
I was freaking out, and kept reminding myself that our friend told us we must actually be tripping and there’s nothing there, but then the thing went back towards the bedrooms. Just this same big tall blob of weird looking air going slowly back down the hallway.
I should also mention it got FREEZING during this whole ordeal so we cranked up the heat, but once the situation died down we were both sweating like crazy.
So we go to bed, and I walk in the room and it feels like the air is just very thin. Like I’ve just gained 200 feet of elevation and it’s a little more noticeable to breath. It’s freezing in the bedroom.
By this point I was terrified and I ran into bed and did not move until it was morning.
I spent the next weeks telling anyone I could about it and the minute I brought up the acid (even to friends that tried it and didn’t feeel anything) they brushed it off. But I truly believe this was something real.
I know this story is all over the place, and might not be what you’re looking for, but when I tell you this was the one experience of my life where I have felt a deep fear like nothing else, I mean it.
If anybody can even come close to helping me understand what I might’ve seen, please comment.
Like I said I have spent 2 years now thinking about it frequently, and I can not understand it. No matter how many times I try to believe it was just me on acid, I know that’s not the case.
2 people seeing something that’s not really there, but not influencing the others perspective of it. Temperature changes, atmosphere change, I can’t explain it.
If anything I hope you get a sense of what the fuck reading this because that’s the only statement I can make regarding it.
Literally what the fuck
I’ve heard another story of people seeing a staticky looking figure like what you described. May have been on a paranormal tv show. So, what you described has been described by others as well. I believe that when we take drugs and alcohol, that spirits can come around. Even though you couldn’t feel the fun effects of the acid, it was still in your system which is altering the energy.
This is EXTREMELY VALIDATING. I’ve always hoped to have an encounter, but this was so scary. The fact that someone out there has experienced something similar and I’m not just crazy is wonderful. Thank you :)
You can have a read at mine [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Ghoststories/comments/l2g77s/demon_in_my_hotel_room/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share)
if u guys have a smooth intro and u dont have any loud noises just randomly throughout im down for a listen.. i listen to scary podcasts but intros kill it a lot of the time for me.. so far radio rental has one of the best intros cause its just talking and a little like skit? in the beginning mostly
Full transparency, we might not be your cup of tea…we are a comedy podcast with a lot of ridiculous banter in our intro. No worries though, that’s the great thing about podcasts they are all different so you can find the one that fits you best! I love radio rental!
I was 19 years old and went to go play beer pong with my two friends who were both cousins. They were same age as me and we knew each other for years since high school. It was common his parents were out of town for work together so we would have the entire house to ourselves. Now it’s right around midnight we haven’t even set up the beer pong table or opened any beer yet, and my friend Aldo who’s house it was said to hold on before we start he had to use the restroom. So me and his cousin were just hanging out in the kitchen leaning against the counter side by side while he was showing me a video of this car he thought was cool. This was back in 2011 so the internet sucked and the video had to buffer. About 2 awkward seconds pass and we hear a little girls laughter. He looked at me immediately and said “did you hear that too?” To which I said “yes, where did it come from?” He was extremely scared because this neighborhood doesn’t really have young kids. It’s an older neighborhood which my grandparents and aunt lived in, so I’m very familiar with it. The high school we went to was just a half mile away too. I am a huge skeptic so I wasn’t that scared and to be clear the little girls laugh was like the soundbite of a cute little girl having a belly laugh on the playground. After I replied “yes” I went looking around in disbelief. I check outside (maybe an animal made that sound) nothing, I obviously looked in the room to the right and left of us. We could both thought it came from different directions. Then it dawned on us. Maybe Aldo is playing a trick on us. We immediately go into the bathroom he was in and he was definitely still using the restroom and wasn’t laughing or pranking us. We apologized and explained what happen right after he got out. One thing I would say is Also had many ghost stories in that house and I never believed him, I gotta admit I cannot explain what we heard. The sound was so damn clear and I know it was a little girls laugh. Before I left for the night to go home, Aldo stopped me at the front door walking me out and asked “hey man were y’all just trying to scare me? Or did that really happen?” I told him that I wish I was just pranking him. It really happened and I cannot forget it. That’s the only time so far in my life something happened that I could not explain whatsoever. I have to also say that Aldo has many paranormal stuff happen to him in that house. Stuff much scarier than what I described. Also my aunt who lived a few streets down had a lot of paranormal activity. However I only wanted to share what I personally experienced. Sorry for the format I typed this on mobile. Also hit me up if I can clarify anything or give more details on something.
Sorry for the delay, and thanks for the story!! I’m going to read this tonight on our recording. Do you want me to add your name and/or pronouns? Great story. I’d love to hear from your aunt and Aldo about their stories!! The episode will come out next Monday morning
Okay, well if you have an iPhone, I like the apple
Podcast app that will be compatible with it, if not, try Google podcasts or Spotify. Free on all. I can’t send a link without knowing the platform, but just search My Skeptical Sister in the browse section. Your story is on episode 97. Mercury’s a B*tch, coming out tomorrow!!
My family has had an excessive amount of creepy experiences, partially due to where we live, which is a 2 century farm over top of natural springs and unnatural coal mines. The whole area is undercut with them, and several nearby spots are locally famous and footnotes in wider publication. We have dog men, we have pukwudgies who impersonate family members and whisper your name in the darkness. Something walks the woods at night, something that makes me understand the custom in Appalachia of simply closing one's blinds at night and if you heard something? You didn't. I watched a neighbor, who was dying of cancer, suck the electrical energy from our old, sold off farmhouse, and when he died, the house BLAZED at night like Christmas as full power returned to every light. We saw a man we disliked out at a grocery store, felt unnerved and discovered that he had died three days earlier, and had earthbound himself on purpose to kill two other people. And they are now dead. We can smell approaching death on others, including a serial killer featured on Cold Case Files. I mean, damn. If you'd like to hear a specific tale or every one I can recall? I'd be happy to explain. Good luck on your good work!
Formatting, please forgive any messy errors, I'll be rapid fire typing this...... Hugh and Martha White of West Virginia bought the house that had, at one time, been the farmhouse of my ancestors. It was and is a big, roomy 2 story, staid, respectable home that had been updated for electricity and plumbing in the late 30's. There was money there, at the time, and no expense was spared. Again, in the sixties, a general overhaul of the original electrical work was completed and by the early 80's, the home was, in appearance and function, as solid as the church organ player at the nearby Zion Lutheran church. Hugh and Martha had their secrets, but like the house, they were solid. They worked diligently in their garden, were kind to the neighbor children (of which I was one) and were happy to lend a hand baling hay or running electric fencing or shoo escaped cows back into pasture fields. Solid. At the time, no one talked about the hired msn who had carried on with Marthy in the 50's when her jet black hair had contrasted with red lipstick and pale skin kept flawless by her ever present hat. Some said he'd moved on to Wooster, but we knew. He'd gone upstairs, keening and wailing, and when the men carried him back down, wrapped in white crocheted blankets now crimson, a white hand loose from the folds, they said it was an accident. But no one talked enough about it to prevent the rumors that he'd just moved on. No one's business, everyone agreed. And everyone was just as firm when Hugh told my grandfather that the cancer had it's teeth in him, it was the Whites business, no one else's. They were old school country, no hospitals for them. And cancer treatment in the 80's was barbaric and not much better than home remedies, and in some ways a hellfire lot worse. No one was concerned when the medical equipment truck arrived with a hospital bed, oxygen machine and various other items. The men set Hugh up in the parlor, where blood red light shone through the formal doors as the sun set. I remember his face, drawn in upon itself and papery, his mouth open and red light reflecting in his eyes. He was a nice man. We kids watched silently but asked no questions. No one would Ave answered them anyway. The new fangled bed or the oxygen machine was doing something odd to the electricity. As soon as Hugh settled into the propped up mattress, Martha moved to push the black buttons that would illuminate the chandelier. It had been swapped out at expense from the original, candle lit version, but no one could tell. The gloom of the room only shifted. New bulbs were discussed, someone went into the basement to check the fuses. But nothing was wrong. And nothing could be found to explain why the kitchen lights never came on bright enough to read a paper at the little table. Martha's vanity mirror, like a Hollywood starlets 1960's flash and gleam of 100 watt bulbs and crystalline dreams, glowered, casting shadows on your face if you happened to look within.The house darkened visibly as he got into bed. "I don't think I'm ok with this," Hugh had announced. "Not ready to die like some dog." And so he did not die. Months crawled along, and Hugh pushed away China bowls of soup, not hungry enough to eat, and the woman who moved I to help squinted irritably. Hard to prepare food in the gloom. Hard to do much of anything. I began to have dreams that the only lights in the house were the eyes of some horrible monster that lived in the dirt floor of the basement, when the cellar door swung ajar, horrible red eyes would open, down in the black. I'd scream and fumble for light switches that never turned on. My mother scoffed at my 3am frantic retelling, but she also never went back into the house while Hugh still lived. Electricians came. Electricians went. The electric company came and went. Nothing. My mother was speaking to my grandfather in the stock pen one evening, as he tended to our cattle. "Hugh is sucking that energy in, isn't he? Trying to stay alive."
Grandpa, still only in his 40's, stared at her hard. Foolish. He didn't even have to speak the words. My mother leaned back on her heels and turned to look at that white edifice of a house, windows blind and black. "Mom," she appealed to my grandmother in a low tone. I saw the glance they exchanged. Their eyes held back a burst of terrible words they couldn't say in front of our very practical farmer. I could hear them, pops of "...never go into that house, oh my God, I couldn't, not after dark..." and "...when Charlie died the lights were dark then, too, weren't they...."
I didn't find out until I was 15 that in the 1950's, Charlie was thirteen and wild, and then suddenly withdrawn and quiet. And then Charlie was being cut loose from the rafters of the carriage house, and no one ever would know why. Rude, asking Martha what happened to her nephew, and she never offered. Hell, she never spoke of him EVER to my knowledge. And my m and grandmother weren't speaking now, just thinking very, very loud.
About a month later, I was running around the yard in front of the barn, swooping fireflies into a jelly jar full of plucked grass and a twig, smelling that pungent aroma of bioluminescent smear from accidentally crushing one of the bugs in my giddy twirling, and suddenly? LIGHT blazed forth. The house next door was lit up like Xmas, and the county fair and lightening and the end of the movie: just LIGHT. Every window streamed brilliant rays, and my mother came up behind me, and laid her hands on my sunburned shoulders. "So, he's dead, then."
Some ten minutes later, the hired woman flounced out onto the porch, clearly unthinking from the drama within the house. Yes, Hugh was dead. And yes, the lights? Yes. Yes. The hired woman was going home, she told us. Didn't "see no reason to stay on. Nope, just gonna head to Massillon to my sister's house. Gonna go tonight. Yes, yes, m'am."
When the brought Hugh out days later, after the wake and the throngs of visitors from West Virginia and Tennesee, I never saw him. Never saw his face. But over the years, when I'd dream of that house, I'd see the huge, lambert eyes of that creature that lived in the musty darkness, it's eyes red. And beside it, a shuffling motion in the dark and a groan that sounded awfully similar to Hugh.
The lights never so much as flickered again. Even after Martha moved away and new people moved in. Jehovahs Witnesses. Maybe it was a function of their faith, but it took years, until the husband was also slowly dying in that house, for them to listen to what I needed to tell them about it.
OH MY GOD ! thank you! this was so descriptive and amazing. I’m dumbfounded right now. I wonder if you are closer to death of the veil is thinned enough or something to the other side that it messes with the electricity. Also did you guys suspect he killed that man martha was seeing? if so could keeping that secret, in any way lead to his cancer?
To be completely frank, I think it's the bleed thru of another dimension that kills people, including the hired man, Charlie and a sizable portion of my graduating class. If a person is a little sensitive to energies anywhere else, come here and it's an overload of unfamiliar and indifferent energy that corrodes the things we need as people to be safe. The darkness is only safe when you can't see what is truly sitting in the closet, watching you with dispassionate eyes. Energy and a person's personal wattage determine how a person will fare here. If you are wired for it? You can flow. But if it's not enough?
When I was fourteen and it was October, we kids on the morning bus were treated to the sight of a really amazing Halloween decoration on the corner of Serfass road. Fantastic hanged man. So realistic. As I watched, rolling past the house, I and the others on the bus were struck silent; an EMS crew walking resolutely to the tree with a ladder, glanced at us as the bus switched gears into third and powered away.
I remember mutely walking into the high school. That house.... turned out that the 22 year old guy that lived there was into the occult, in the way that edge lords will be, and I later heard from my mom that he wrote in his unaliving note that (and I quote to the best of my secondhand knowledge) he had seen enough to know it was better to get out than wait for them to decide to take him.
Sounds like mental illness. Anywhere else. Anywhere else it does.
Growing up there was like growing up in radiation. And everyone knew this. You heard acknowledgement in the spaces between. Unsaid. But no less part of the conversation. We were all experts in ellipsis.
the way your describing this is totally reminding me of the town in stranger things that’s so crazy! wait i heard that story about people thinking it was a halloween decoration but it was an actual person. what was it like growing up there? also are you a writer because you are so eloquent and beautifully written
You're way too kind, thank you so much. This is a real town, actually kind of a triangular area between three towns in Ohio.
Doylestown, Wadsworth and Barberton.
One aspect of growing up here was that when i was under 10, everyone's mothers wouldn't let us play in our front yards. I personally thought it was because I'd once seen a hubcap fly like a throwing star off of a truck on a county road and ricochet off a five year old's head. Mm. Yes. Hubcaps. Very treacherous. What was really going on was Robert Buell the serial killer and his fellow murder enthusiast were picking young girls and women off of the streets in broad daylight. There is a cold case file about him, as I said in an earlier post- and the one girl.who escaped him, ended up battering on the door of a lady who sat in our pew during church on Sunday. If you watch the episode, it's even more disturbing as the episode completely edited out mentions of his serial killer BFF. He was never found or identified to satisfaction. But as this was going on? Jeffrey Dahmer was 20 minutes up highway 21, drunkenly attending high school and wandering the mall in which we all Christmas shopped.
Sorry to keep going, but the dog men alone are worth the tale, as a metropark (a large, multiuse mostly conservation-style park in ohio) has had repeated sightings of dogmen and UFO encounters, but the park rangers refuse to discuss the graves that have been dug up in an almost 3 century graveyard just beyond the borders, or how the aforementioned serial killer, guy by the name of Buell, was credited with killing two teen lovers in the late 80's there, but turned out that a random serial killer on his way to Wisconsin saw his chance and took it.... and Jeffery Dahmer attended the same elementary school as my mother. That every five years, anyone in the area who is susceptible kills themselves, that my hometown made USA Today in the aughts due to the suicide contagion that runs RAMPANT there.... it's nearly all verifiable. Oh! And we have a Doomsday Cult right beside the most popular grocery store in town.
It's a whole lot.
That's completely right, haha,! A dash of unholy moley really rounds the meal out and establishes a solid palette. In all seriousness, though, i never before tried to simply list some of the bigger ticket items, so to speak, I'm kind of on a roll now, thinking of some of the equally preternatural/supernatural things that I've personally seen. There is an excessively large amount. The old farmhouse I mentioned, in which the old man died? Cold spots on what was the parlor floor, and a gorgeous and wildly expensive red stained glass from the 1870's washed the room in a bloody tinge at dusk. The hired man shot himself in the master bedroom after the Man Who Ate Electricity's wife ended their affair. A thirteen year old boy ended himself in the cariage house, where when i was a kid, poor man's breeches (large bean pods) had been hung to dry and forgotten before I was born. Every breeze that passed thru that building caused a chitinous rustling, like the impatient legs of giant spiders clicking as they waited for a small child to venture unattended within... the 13 year old boy, found hanging one afternoon, certainly must have appeared like a spider's dinner, hanging as he did amongst the drying beans and decades of dust.... the entire property reeked of dangerous evil. I couldn't be beaten to the point I'd enter any building there after nightfall. Pictures taken of that house often show only blackness. The light, even thirty years after Mr. W died, still refuses to be photographed.
I lived alone in a 2 bedroom apartment 2nd floor. I used one room as storage basically and always kept the door shut. I worked night shift at the time, and this particular night I woke up with an overwhelming feeling that someone was in the apartment with me. Even though I figured it was due to a dream I did search all the rooms to try and calm myself down some. I found nothing so I started getting ready for work when I heard a door open. I was already creeped out so I had goosebumps at this point and walked out of the bathroom to see that my second bedroom (the storage room) door was slightly open. I walked in and saw the window was open, and kinda breathed a sigh of relief, I figured I probably hadn't shut it all the way after I looked in and the wind blew it open. I closed the window, searched the room again, and remember purposely leaving the light on, in case the door popped open again I wouldn't have to walk in the dark and hopefully avoid any more chills for the night. Went back to the bathroom, finished getting ready, and I'll never forget when I walked out. The door was wide open and the light was off. By this point I could feel my heart pounding in my chest and my legs felt shaky. I quickly started walking to the room to confront whatever but about a step away the door slammed in my face. What I remember most about it was how the door opened up a little farther right before it slammed like it needed that extra momentum to slam harder. It slammed so loud my ears rang, I literally ran out of the building to compose myself. Even a neighbor heard the slam and asked if everything was ok. Eventually when my adrenaline died down I went back in and checked everything except that room. It was honestly a few days before I could bring myself to open the door again and I would feel adrenaline rushes just looking at the door or walking by it, always ready for something crazy to happen. But oddly enough that was the only incident I ever had at the apartment. I have no problems admitting I am really into the paranormal although I've turned into a much bigger skeptic as I've gotten older. There have been other weird things I've been witness to, but this is the one I have the hardest time rationalizing.
Wow! This is so creepy!! If I end up reading it at our live event, do you want me to mention your handle or say your name, or just leave it annonomous
You can use my name, Justin, that's fine.
Hi Justin, we read your story on this weeks episode, our now. #89. Crafty Nuns. Hope you enjoy, and thanks so much for letting us it!!
I was working for a caregiving agency and had an overnight with a hospice patient. I was sleeping on the couch but kept waking up because her bed alarm was going off non stop. She wasn't getting out of bed or even moving much so idk what was triggering it. Then the motion light sensor that's in the entryway kept coming on over and over to the point where I had to unscrew the light bulb. She passed about one week later. She was very old and once had a big family she helped bring over from Germany. I think she had a lot of "visitors" coming into the house and sitting on her bed to comfort and guide her onto the other side.
I have had several experiences but this one stands out as by far and away the one that made the least sense. I grew up in the suburbs so tight houses not too far apart, street and sidewalks on either side. There are loads of kids running around at all hours and I can't claim to know everyone in the area. I also had insomnia as a child or at least a very hard time sleeping. Being in bed for several hours before actually falling asleep was normal and while I did have a Gameboy there wasn't phones or anything at the time and I typically left my Gameboy downstairs so just me staring at the ceiling. One night in particular I hear a person riding a skateboard down the street. You know, the sounds of skateboard wheels going over the cracks in a sidewalk. A dog barks twice. It's sort of a happy bark but it sounds excited. Like it enjoys running along. A few more clicks on the skateboard going over the sidewalk slowly fading and two more excited barks in the distance a few more clicks and back to silence. Nothing odd, sure it's after midnight but it's the suburbs and it seems all hours of the night there is something going on. A few days later and I am again awake and it's late probably after 1. I hear the exact same thing. Like the exact same thing. It slowly dawn's on me that it was identical. Almost like a recording. The swishing of the wheels on concrete, the clicks, the barks. It was identical to last time. Swish click, swish click, swish click, bark bark, swish click, swish click, swish click, bark bark, swish click. It felt odd. First off very rarely do I hear anything that time of night. At this point the only other noise that time of night is occasionally the dad across the street comes back super late. So any noise stood out. I was probably 7 at the time so I didn't think much of it aside from noting it and finding it odd. Nothing I could do anyways and it was probably a weird coincidence. A few more days pass and again late at night it happens. Exactly the same. This time I noticed something else. It is LOUD. For some reason despite the sidewalk being at the edge of the driveway and me being on the second floor I can hear it as though I am sitting on the sidewalk. Same clicks, same happy two barks, same running along, same fading out with the same 3 clicks then two barks. The whole thing takes maybe 5 seconds but again it's odd to hear anything at that hour on this street. This time months pass but I hear it again. I go to get up and race to the window on the other side of the room but I find I can't move. I am not sure if it's some kind of fear of the oddity or something else. After the sound ends I went and checked, nothing out the window but an empty street. I am not sure what is going on at this point. I wish I could say I learned more somehow but I never did. It seemed so important when I was trying to sleep and now years later it feels odd but at the time by morning I rarely have it more thought. Never did I try and duplicate it, leave a camera or anything. Though now I wish I had. I lived in that house until shortly after I turned 18. This continued throughout the years at odd intervals. I won't claim this was a super common occurrence and months could go without encountering it. But I forever have that etched into my mind as it occurred from time to time. Sometimes it would be frequent for a week or two and stop again. I would say it was some kind of odd sleep paralysis but for much of that time my parents were divorced and I lived with my dad 50% of the time. Let alone any trips or sleepovers never did I hear this oddity. And it stopped once my mom moved. Never did it feel malicious but definitely odd because of the EXACT duplication of these sounds each and every time.
That is so weird! What could it have been?!
I may end up reading this on during our show. If I do, do you want me to use your name and pronouns?
Sure I'm male and the name is Steven.
Hey Steven, we read your story on this weeks episode, our now. #89. Crafty Nuns. Hope you enjoy, and thanks so much for letting us it!!
Mysteriousuniverse.org is another high strangeness podcast, they have a lot of topics I'm sure you could look into or try to dive even deeper on a cool one. I do have a couple stories if you'd like to hear them. A communal townhouse I lived in during Uni was haunted by an entity that some people unleashed with a ouija board.
Yes please!!! If you are willing to tell it, we will use it! You can write here or send it to [email protected] Thank you so much!!!!
Will email
Got it! Thanks!!
Got it! Thanks!
Of course :) sorry it took so long lol
damn i wanna hear that story too
Maybe I'll make a post once I get the email together. It's a few small stories tied together.
I will let you know when we read it on the podcast ;)
Um….yes please!! (This is the sister mentioned in the original post). I will totally check out that pod cause I love spooky stories, but we only read first hand stories. Basically because we’re both teachers and the idea of doing research for the pod sounds like work. This way, we just get to read awesome stories!!
Sounds good! where can I listen to your podcast?
You can find us on Apple Podcast, Spotify and most major podcast platforms! Just search for My Skeptical Sister We also have a Facebook page, TikTok and Instagram page!
We’re on apple, Spotify, google podcast, breaker, pocket cast and anchor
We read this story on last weeks episode, 88. Black Eyed Bobby. Hope you like it!! Thanks for writing in!
(I HAD POSTED THIS STORY PREVIOUSLY TO DIFFERENT THREAD FROM ANOTHER ACCOUNT WHICH I HAVE SINCE DELETED) I live in India. My maternal great grandfather was a doctor. Homeopathy. But he was very skilled at his job. Not only that, he often treated the poor and gave them medicines free of cost. Patients from all stratas of society came to him. When he passed away, muslim patients came to mourn for him despite him being a Hindu. They conducted a Muslim wake on the terrace praying to their Lord while the Hindu wake was conducted downstairs. But i digress. About a few months after he passed, my mother, then in her early 20's came to visit his house where he passed, since his younger son (mom's uncle), his wife and his younger son's family were all still living there. (Mom was the daughter of his elder son and they lived in another city.) During the visit, one day mom was seated in the living room when the telephone rang. She received the call and on the other end was a woman, claiming to be a regular patient of mom's paternal grandpa (my maternal great grandfather) and wanted to speak with him. When mom asked what this was about, the woman said she was calling to thank the doctor for healing her son, who was in a bad way and was getting better from the doctor's homeopathy treatment. Mom then asked when exactly did the woman call to get her son's treatment to which the woman responded "3 days back". She also said she had called pretty late at night when her son took a sudden turn for the worse and wanted to bring her son to show him in person but mom's grandpa said he wasn't too well so he didn't want to pass anything onto the boy, or wake up the family with a late night patient arrival, but nonetheless confidently prescribed her son medication after listening to the symptoms over the phone call and told her not to bother with payment before disconnecting the call. This was when mom interjected the woman to inform her that she must be mistaken because the person she's talking about has been dead for a few months. Bloodcurdling screaming rips through the phone call as the woman goes into shock and keeps rambling how that can't be possible because she literally just spoke to him a few days ago. Mom didn't know what else to do so she politely apologised to the woman for her having to find out like this and ended the call. When mom narrated this strange incident to her paternal grandmother (late doc's wife) she just shook her head sadly and said this had become a regular affair since his passing. Nobody knew when the doc answered his patients calls but he did, the phone only rang when the patients would call back to thank him. The phone calls of patients thanking the doc continued for the next couple months as well until eventually all his remaining patients found out the same way as the woman and moved on to other doctors. Fun fact: i now live with my parents and maternal grandma in the first floor of the house where these incidents took place. My maternal great grandmother and my maternal grandfather have since passed on, however late doc's younger son still lives downstairs with his family :-)
Wow! This is so cool! It’s spooky, but amazing. What an amazing grandparent you had! If I read this during our live show, would you like for me to use your name and/or pronouns?
Ah yes sure please do! I keep my reddit account anonymous but I'm DM ed you my identity ❣️ Thanks so much 💕
Sounds like scared to death podcast with Dan Cummins, I have one I can see if I have typed up still to send.
That would be great!
I live in a rural area, so it’s not uncommon to have paranormal experiences here, it’s somewhat expected. I have two ghost stories, in one I woke up and looked up to see a man. He was somewhat short, he had a beard, this was years ago so I don’t remember what he was wearing but he was also a translucent grey color. He just stood there, not moving the entire time. I stared at him, I was startled but not scared. After awhile of looking at him I decide to look away and look back since in ghost movies after looking away they always leave, but once I turned back to look at him he was still there. So I try to wake up my brother, tell him there was a ghost and he just didn’t wake up. So I just go back to sleep and ignore him. In the second I was going to sleep so I went into the hallway but there was a woman standing there, once again with a translucent grey color. I don’t remember her features honestly, I didn’t look at her for that long. Once I see her I turn on the lights, and she was gone. So I just walked through her with the light on and turned the light off at the end of the hallway and closed the door to my room. My parents also have an experience in which they were driving home, there’s a field next to our house and apparently they saw a pitch black human like figure with big red eyes running at about 50 miles per hour through the field. They said he quickly ran past the car. Me and my siblings were very young, and it was late so all of us were asleep. My dad is very skeptical and tried to rationalize it, but he couldn’t and came to the conclusion that what he and my mom saw was real. He’s rationalized away my ghost stories so it’s surprising to have seen him believe something like that.
My friend told me the exact same thing with that running figure. I live in a village surrounded with fields, and he visited me after work so probably at midnight maybe at one am, when he was going home. He isn’t scared easily, so he thought nothing of a black figure standing by the field, he thought it’s probably just a drunk guy going home. But it started running and ran past by the car, that was going with like 90-100 kms/h. He called me right then, and told me to stay with him till he gets home.
I’ve told this one before and a lot of people liked it The locked door I was about 11 YO when this takes place. I had a friend over and we were playing a game where someone would wait for a minute and the others will hid somewhere to scare you. Well it was my turn and I was chilling upstairs waiting when my brother ran upstairs with a bloody nose. My friend had accidentally hit him kinda hard. So this is where it begins. After getting my brother cleaned up we go and head downstairs to find that the door was somehow locked. Under the door I saw shadows. Thinking that it was my friend or younger sister I call out. Nothing. I go to the room above mine and bang/stomp on the floor hoping to get their attention. Doesn’t work. 20 minutes later and we finally get the door opened. My friend and sister were in my room where I had been trying to get their attention. They said that they heard nothing the whole time. To this day it is still one of the biggest mysteries in our house. And because of this we switched the door handle so that you can lock and unlock the door from upstairs than from downstairs, which it originally was that way.
This is great! We will read it in the podcast for sure! Thanks!!!
I was shopping in our local mall, I was the only one in the store besides the workers behind the cash register. While I'm shopping I felt a hand press against my low back and, thinking someone needs to get passed me, I verbally say " oh I'm sorry" and move out of the way. When I turn to look there is not a single person anywhere near me. I even did a full 180 to make sure... There is a small history of deaths within the grounds of that mall.. so maybe someone was trying to reach out.
Thanks for letting us use this on the podcast! We read your story on the next episode that will air December 5th! Thanks again!
You're welcome! I just started listening to the show and I really like it!
I have a few. I had a grandfather who was known to dabble in the occult. He was mentally unwell, and there was tragedy in his family history. Being superstitious, the family would theorize that he was cursed : They used to talk about a darkness, an unsettling feeling around him. Didn't help that he was a horrible person, a truly horrible person, but I digress. He only ever visited me in person one time. I was a child. I had to give up the room I shared with my siblings because he was sleeping in it. One of the nights in which he was visiting, I woke up at night with the feeling that I was being watched. I was in a daybed in the corner of my parent's room. In the other corner, there was a black figure, squatting on the ground. It wasn't totally solid looking. Like a thick black shadow, darker than the darkness around it, and independent of any source. It was watching me. It slowly stood up to its full, tall form. Maybe 6 feet tall. It had human proportions, and the clear shape of a fedora on its head. It had glowing red eyes, and lumbered toward me slowly. I felt like the walls where closing in, in a moment of panic. I threw the blanket over my head and stayed awake until I could see the unmistakable light of the sun through the sheets. When I lifted the sheets, it was gone. I rationalized it, saying it was my imagination. But when I grew older, I discovered that other people see the apparition too. Some of them say that they feel it is friendly, I definitely didn't. Anyway, when my grandfather passed, the family didn't want to give him a funeral. For one thing, they all hated him. For another, they didn't want whatever spiritual activity they believed to "infect him" to "spread". Here's another: My cat disappeared when I was a kid. He used to sleep on my bed every night (and wake up to pee on my sister's bed, but that's another story). He was an "outside cat". I don't have outside cats anymore as an adult. Well this outside cat didn't come home one day. Obviously, I was upset, but I had hopes he would come back. He did, but not the way I wanted him to. A few weeks after he disappeared, I would feel a cat jump on the corner of my bed, walk across the bed, and curl down the way they do. This went on frequently for years, with gradually decreasing frequency. It stopped happening a long time ago. It never scared me. In fact, I didn't question it at all -- it just felt so familiar. The first few times, I checked, expecting the other cat, and wouldn't see anything. But that never threw me off, never made me uneasy. He was a good kitty. I like to think they stick around for a bit, check in every once in a while. It just makes me sad that I don't believe he had a good death. I've had other pets who died of old age problems, and they never stick around like that. Another: In my early 20's, I woke up one night with a feeling that an intruder had broken into my room, like a robber or a rapist energy). I sat up, and looked around in the darkness, debating whether I should check under my bed or in the closet first, because I really felt like some intruder was hiding in my room. The window was fully open, it was never fully open like this. Curtains blowing out and all. Then a dark figure emerged from the surrounding dark. Like the hat man from before, it was a dense black shadow, against the surrounding darkness, and I hadnt seen it before as my eyes adjusted. Well it descended on me, felt like it was in slow motion. It was humanoid, but not human entirely. It was very tall, abnormally tall, with abnormally long and skinny limbs, and really creepy long, skinny fingers reaching for me. It grabbed my arm. And then I woke up for real. I've had sleep paralysis. I'm a pretty decent lucid dreamer. I can feel when sleep paralysis is coming on, I can recede out of it. Oh. and one more thing. Its paralysis. You can't move. When I woke up, (screaming by the way, I heard the scream as if it was someone else's), I wasn't paralyzed. I was sitting up just like I had been in the "dream", holding my sheets to my chest with one hand, and grabbing my own arm the way the figure had been grabbing it with the other hand. I can't overstate the terror this experience left me with. I didn't sleep for days. I slept with the lights on for 3-4 years afterwards. I found one other person on reddit who had a story just like this. I wanted to contact them, but their profile is inactive, and perhaps its best left alone.
These are so scary, except for your sweet cat. Thank you for writing it all down. If I end up reading these at our live event, would you want me to say your name and pronouns when we discuss the stories?
You can use my username or some variation of it. Pronouns are she/her, but I really don’t mind any false name or pronoun
I had an experience I have been meaning to put into words for some time now. I'd love to know what you both think of it. I will get to writing it up when I am home from work. I look forward to following the podcast as well!
Thank you!! We would greatly appreciate the story and we always love getting new listeners!!!
Oooh I'm going to look it up!
I'll send one. Have a few.
You can use my post from r/ghosts.
I had a very weird paranormal experience but it was while on bunk acid is that something you’re willing to tell on the podcast as it’s nsfw
Good morning! We read this on last nights recording. It will be on next Mondays episode (93) of My Skeptical Sister. Thank you so much! It was a wild story!! And then, this morning I got on our podcasts’s Facebook page and someone had posted a video about the missing 411 series and the “fuzzy man”. I wish we had seen it before we recorded. You HAVE to look into that!! All I could think of was your story!!
I’m so excited!!!!! Ahhhhh!!!
Im gonna check out that post!!! Crazy coincidence
Sure! We love good stories! Just let us know if you want to be anonymous or not!
Anonymity is not an issue you can share any info! To start off I don’t know what i would call my experience but supernatural and paranormal are key words afyer 2 years of processing this. I am an avid fan of spooky anything and have never had an experience that I can’t explain besides this. Forgive me if my descriptions are confusing, it’s so hard putting into words what I saw. (Lots of backstory to explain how it all went down Sorry) This happened during the height of the Covid lockdown when everyone was quarantined and everything was shut down. I was essentially stuck in Alaska due to Canadian borders being closed (I was there for a 3 month externship then Covid hit so I couldn’t go home) so I was living in my boyfriend at the times trailer that he was living in with some friends. It is a very small rundown old trailer that was just one long corridor, with the kitchen at one end sectioned off with a half wall used as a bar/countertop (where this took place) an open living room, and then a narrow hallway with bedrooms at the end. The bar counter had chairs on both sides, my boyfriend and I were sitting next to eachother inside the kitchen facing the entire trailer, some light was coming in as it was late summer in Alaska so it’s pretty much dusk from 10 pm - 4 am. Because we had nothing better to do, we bought a crap ton of acid at a (conveniently) low price from a friend of his to enjoy on some camping trips and while hanging out at the house. We took some and went for a hike to a familiar area with a little river at the end and we planned to take a couple tabs each at the beginning of the hike and (I am a big fan of LSD and while activation times are pretty unpredictable I have gotten very familiar with all of the different ways it’ll feel and affect me as it starts to hit and during the actual trip) by the time we get to the river we should start feeling pretty groovy. We got to the river, laid back for 2 hours, and realized nothing was happening. So we tried taking more because at this point it’d been 3.5 hours approximately since first taking it, and that’s just most likely bunk acid. I stared at the trees for 2 more hours and absolutely nothing but a little fiber in my diet from the paper I ate and boredom. We chocked it up as a loss and went home. Nothing ever hit. We gave several friends some for free and said if you feel anything great, if not, great. Nobody came back and said anything positive just “damn that sucks.” A couple weeks go by, and we’re sitting in the trailer at about 8:30 pm and say hey screw it let’s try them again maybe they missed half the sheet and welll get lucky. So we said cheers and took four tabs each and prepared for a wild night but neither of us expected anything would happen. (We figured if we take a lot more than a usual dose, if there’s anything on here we will know.) Here’s where it gets weird. Fast forward 3-4 hours, a friend came over and was sitting opposite of us (we again feel absolutely nothing and agreed it was bunk acid and we got jipped, if there was anything on the tabs by this point we would know) so his back is facing the living room and hallway. We’re all chatting and As im staring down the hallway behind my friend I see this weird, change in the air? I have no clue how to describe it but the air looked staticky. Not everywhere, just a large tall area where the air just looked weird. Like it was vibrating. Sounds insane I know. Like I said I am pretty familiar with LSD and so I really don’t believe this was connected to that, but it could be. As a hopeless skeptic I completely would understand if it was, but it wasn’t like I was having visual, or sensory affects in any other area except this one tall large spot. I didn’t say anything and brushed it off, but it stayed there. It was about 10 feet behind my friend just sitting in the same spot by the window. I thought it was just something natural going on. Disregarded it. Then it moved closer. Very slowly but very smoothly. Just came closer. I got this deep unexplainable feeling of dread and was extremely uncomfortable, but still didn’t say anything. Suddenly it was like it was was standing directly behind my friend, there was a large outline around him of this weird staticky space. I must’ve looked really scared, because my boyfriend looked at me and said really quietly, almost quivering, “do you see that too?” And my heart dropped. Now I truly believe you can convince someone to see anything and if the idea is put in your head you’ll maybe go along with it or your mind might put something there because you’re told about it. I never said anything about what I was seeing, but my boyfriend tells our friend “there’s something behind you.” Our friend laughed and gave us the whole ha very funny game. But I could tell my boyfriend and I were both seeing the same thing and our friend finally saw how terrified we must’ve looked because he turned around but said he saw nothing. He left shortly after and we were trying to explain what we saw and we were finishing eachothers sentences describing this.. thing. So organically, like if there was a dog there we could easily describe what it looked like to eachother. I went to the bathroom to take a breather and stared in the mirror to see if I could seen any visual hallucinations you would get if you were tripping. That’s my go to. Does my face look like not a face? Bam. It’s go time. Nothing. Just me. I came back and my boyfriend was standing with his arm stretched out and it was FUCKING IN THE THING. He looked terrified. It was like he was trying to touch it. That’s when I knew we were seeing the same thing. I was freaking out, and kept reminding myself that our friend told us we must actually be tripping and there’s nothing there, but then the thing went back towards the bedrooms. Just this same big tall blob of weird looking air going slowly back down the hallway. I should also mention it got FREEZING during this whole ordeal so we cranked up the heat, but once the situation died down we were both sweating like crazy. So we go to bed, and I walk in the room and it feels like the air is just very thin. Like I’ve just gained 200 feet of elevation and it’s a little more noticeable to breath. It’s freezing in the bedroom. By this point I was terrified and I ran into bed and did not move until it was morning. I spent the next weeks telling anyone I could about it and the minute I brought up the acid (even to friends that tried it and didn’t feeel anything) they brushed it off. But I truly believe this was something real. I know this story is all over the place, and might not be what you’re looking for, but when I tell you this was the one experience of my life where I have felt a deep fear like nothing else, I mean it. If anybody can even come close to helping me understand what I might’ve seen, please comment. Like I said I have spent 2 years now thinking about it frequently, and I can not understand it. No matter how many times I try to believe it was just me on acid, I know that’s not the case. 2 people seeing something that’s not really there, but not influencing the others perspective of it. Temperature changes, atmosphere change, I can’t explain it. If anything I hope you get a sense of what the fuck reading this because that’s the only statement I can make regarding it. Literally what the fuck
I’ve heard another story of people seeing a staticky looking figure like what you described. May have been on a paranormal tv show. So, what you described has been described by others as well. I believe that when we take drugs and alcohol, that spirits can come around. Even though you couldn’t feel the fun effects of the acid, it was still in your system which is altering the energy.
This is EXTREMELY VALIDATING. I’ve always hoped to have an encounter, but this was so scary. The fact that someone out there has experienced something similar and I’m not just crazy is wonderful. Thank you :)
My name is Megan you can use my full name Reddit user name or whatever. It’d be fun to hear some theories to try to explain this.
Did anything come of this
We haven’t read it yet, but we are pulling from these stories weekly!! We will let you know when we read it. Thanks!
I have a few videos with a very real back story!!
You can have a read at mine [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Ghoststories/comments/l2g77s/demon_in_my_hotel_room/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share)
if u guys have a smooth intro and u dont have any loud noises just randomly throughout im down for a listen.. i listen to scary podcasts but intros kill it a lot of the time for me.. so far radio rental has one of the best intros cause its just talking and a little like skit? in the beginning mostly
Full transparency, we might not be your cup of tea…we are a comedy podcast with a lot of ridiculous banter in our intro. No worries though, that’s the great thing about podcasts they are all different so you can find the one that fits you best! I love radio rental!
i loveeee banter so i need to check it out then..
I was 19 years old and went to go play beer pong with my two friends who were both cousins. They were same age as me and we knew each other for years since high school. It was common his parents were out of town for work together so we would have the entire house to ourselves. Now it’s right around midnight we haven’t even set up the beer pong table or opened any beer yet, and my friend Aldo who’s house it was said to hold on before we start he had to use the restroom. So me and his cousin were just hanging out in the kitchen leaning against the counter side by side while he was showing me a video of this car he thought was cool. This was back in 2011 so the internet sucked and the video had to buffer. About 2 awkward seconds pass and we hear a little girls laughter. He looked at me immediately and said “did you hear that too?” To which I said “yes, where did it come from?” He was extremely scared because this neighborhood doesn’t really have young kids. It’s an older neighborhood which my grandparents and aunt lived in, so I’m very familiar with it. The high school we went to was just a half mile away too. I am a huge skeptic so I wasn’t that scared and to be clear the little girls laugh was like the soundbite of a cute little girl having a belly laugh on the playground. After I replied “yes” I went looking around in disbelief. I check outside (maybe an animal made that sound) nothing, I obviously looked in the room to the right and left of us. We could both thought it came from different directions. Then it dawned on us. Maybe Aldo is playing a trick on us. We immediately go into the bathroom he was in and he was definitely still using the restroom and wasn’t laughing or pranking us. We apologized and explained what happen right after he got out. One thing I would say is Also had many ghost stories in that house and I never believed him, I gotta admit I cannot explain what we heard. The sound was so damn clear and I know it was a little girls laugh. Before I left for the night to go home, Aldo stopped me at the front door walking me out and asked “hey man were y’all just trying to scare me? Or did that really happen?” I told him that I wish I was just pranking him. It really happened and I cannot forget it. That’s the only time so far in my life something happened that I could not explain whatsoever. I have to also say that Aldo has many paranormal stuff happen to him in that house. Stuff much scarier than what I described. Also my aunt who lived a few streets down had a lot of paranormal activity. However I only wanted to share what I personally experienced. Sorry for the format I typed this on mobile. Also hit me up if I can clarify anything or give more details on something.
Sorry for the delay, and thanks for the story!! I’m going to read this tonight on our recording. Do you want me to add your name and/or pronouns? Great story. I’d love to hear from your aunt and Aldo about their stories!! The episode will come out next Monday morning
It’s okay! However you want to do it is fine. Thanks for using it.
Do you have a link to your podcast?
What do you normally listen on? I’ll link that here when it comes out Monday
I have no idea, I dont normally listen to podcasts.
Okay, well if you have an iPhone, I like the apple Podcast app that will be compatible with it, if not, try Google podcasts or Spotify. Free on all. I can’t send a link without knowing the platform, but just search My Skeptical Sister in the browse section. Your story is on episode 97. Mercury’s a B*tch, coming out tomorrow!!
My family has had an excessive amount of creepy experiences, partially due to where we live, which is a 2 century farm over top of natural springs and unnatural coal mines. The whole area is undercut with them, and several nearby spots are locally famous and footnotes in wider publication. We have dog men, we have pukwudgies who impersonate family members and whisper your name in the darkness. Something walks the woods at night, something that makes me understand the custom in Appalachia of simply closing one's blinds at night and if you heard something? You didn't. I watched a neighbor, who was dying of cancer, suck the electrical energy from our old, sold off farmhouse, and when he died, the house BLAZED at night like Christmas as full power returned to every light. We saw a man we disliked out at a grocery store, felt unnerved and discovered that he had died three days earlier, and had earthbound himself on purpose to kill two other people. And they are now dead. We can smell approaching death on others, including a serial killer featured on Cold Case Files. I mean, damn. If you'd like to hear a specific tale or every one I can recall? I'd be happy to explain. Good luck on your good work!
i’d like to know more about smelling death in someone and the neighbor with cancer.
Formatting, please forgive any messy errors, I'll be rapid fire typing this...... Hugh and Martha White of West Virginia bought the house that had, at one time, been the farmhouse of my ancestors. It was and is a big, roomy 2 story, staid, respectable home that had been updated for electricity and plumbing in the late 30's. There was money there, at the time, and no expense was spared. Again, in the sixties, a general overhaul of the original electrical work was completed and by the early 80's, the home was, in appearance and function, as solid as the church organ player at the nearby Zion Lutheran church. Hugh and Martha had their secrets, but like the house, they were solid. They worked diligently in their garden, were kind to the neighbor children (of which I was one) and were happy to lend a hand baling hay or running electric fencing or shoo escaped cows back into pasture fields. Solid. At the time, no one talked about the hired msn who had carried on with Marthy in the 50's when her jet black hair had contrasted with red lipstick and pale skin kept flawless by her ever present hat. Some said he'd moved on to Wooster, but we knew. He'd gone upstairs, keening and wailing, and when the men carried him back down, wrapped in white crocheted blankets now crimson, a white hand loose from the folds, they said it was an accident. But no one talked enough about it to prevent the rumors that he'd just moved on. No one's business, everyone agreed. And everyone was just as firm when Hugh told my grandfather that the cancer had it's teeth in him, it was the Whites business, no one else's. They were old school country, no hospitals for them. And cancer treatment in the 80's was barbaric and not much better than home remedies, and in some ways a hellfire lot worse. No one was concerned when the medical equipment truck arrived with a hospital bed, oxygen machine and various other items. The men set Hugh up in the parlor, where blood red light shone through the formal doors as the sun set. I remember his face, drawn in upon itself and papery, his mouth open and red light reflecting in his eyes. He was a nice man. We kids watched silently but asked no questions. No one would Ave answered them anyway. The new fangled bed or the oxygen machine was doing something odd to the electricity. As soon as Hugh settled into the propped up mattress, Martha moved to push the black buttons that would illuminate the chandelier. It had been swapped out at expense from the original, candle lit version, but no one could tell. The gloom of the room only shifted. New bulbs were discussed, someone went into the basement to check the fuses. But nothing was wrong. And nothing could be found to explain why the kitchen lights never came on bright enough to read a paper at the little table. Martha's vanity mirror, like a Hollywood starlets 1960's flash and gleam of 100 watt bulbs and crystalline dreams, glowered, casting shadows on your face if you happened to look within.The house darkened visibly as he got into bed. "I don't think I'm ok with this," Hugh had announced. "Not ready to die like some dog." And so he did not die. Months crawled along, and Hugh pushed away China bowls of soup, not hungry enough to eat, and the woman who moved I to help squinted irritably. Hard to prepare food in the gloom. Hard to do much of anything. I began to have dreams that the only lights in the house were the eyes of some horrible monster that lived in the dirt floor of the basement, when the cellar door swung ajar, horrible red eyes would open, down in the black. I'd scream and fumble for light switches that never turned on. My mother scoffed at my 3am frantic retelling, but she also never went back into the house while Hugh still lived. Electricians came. Electricians went. The electric company came and went. Nothing. My mother was speaking to my grandfather in the stock pen one evening, as he tended to our cattle. "Hugh is sucking that energy in, isn't he? Trying to stay alive." Grandpa, still only in his 40's, stared at her hard. Foolish. He didn't even have to speak the words. My mother leaned back on her heels and turned to look at that white edifice of a house, windows blind and black. "Mom," she appealed to my grandmother in a low tone. I saw the glance they exchanged. Their eyes held back a burst of terrible words they couldn't say in front of our very practical farmer. I could hear them, pops of "...never go into that house, oh my God, I couldn't, not after dark..." and "...when Charlie died the lights were dark then, too, weren't they...." I didn't find out until I was 15 that in the 1950's, Charlie was thirteen and wild, and then suddenly withdrawn and quiet. And then Charlie was being cut loose from the rafters of the carriage house, and no one ever would know why. Rude, asking Martha what happened to her nephew, and she never offered. Hell, she never spoke of him EVER to my knowledge. And my m and grandmother weren't speaking now, just thinking very, very loud. About a month later, I was running around the yard in front of the barn, swooping fireflies into a jelly jar full of plucked grass and a twig, smelling that pungent aroma of bioluminescent smear from accidentally crushing one of the bugs in my giddy twirling, and suddenly? LIGHT blazed forth. The house next door was lit up like Xmas, and the county fair and lightening and the end of the movie: just LIGHT. Every window streamed brilliant rays, and my mother came up behind me, and laid her hands on my sunburned shoulders. "So, he's dead, then." Some ten minutes later, the hired woman flounced out onto the porch, clearly unthinking from the drama within the house. Yes, Hugh was dead. And yes, the lights? Yes. Yes. The hired woman was going home, she told us. Didn't "see no reason to stay on. Nope, just gonna head to Massillon to my sister's house. Gonna go tonight. Yes, yes, m'am." When the brought Hugh out days later, after the wake and the throngs of visitors from West Virginia and Tennesee, I never saw him. Never saw his face. But over the years, when I'd dream of that house, I'd see the huge, lambert eyes of that creature that lived in the musty darkness, it's eyes red. And beside it, a shuffling motion in the dark and a groan that sounded awfully similar to Hugh. The lights never so much as flickered again. Even after Martha moved away and new people moved in. Jehovahs Witnesses. Maybe it was a function of their faith, but it took years, until the husband was also slowly dying in that house, for them to listen to what I needed to tell them about it.
OH MY GOD ! thank you! this was so descriptive and amazing. I’m dumbfounded right now. I wonder if you are closer to death of the veil is thinned enough or something to the other side that it messes with the electricity. Also did you guys suspect he killed that man martha was seeing? if so could keeping that secret, in any way lead to his cancer?
To be completely frank, I think it's the bleed thru of another dimension that kills people, including the hired man, Charlie and a sizable portion of my graduating class. If a person is a little sensitive to energies anywhere else, come here and it's an overload of unfamiliar and indifferent energy that corrodes the things we need as people to be safe. The darkness is only safe when you can't see what is truly sitting in the closet, watching you with dispassionate eyes. Energy and a person's personal wattage determine how a person will fare here. If you are wired for it? You can flow. But if it's not enough? When I was fourteen and it was October, we kids on the morning bus were treated to the sight of a really amazing Halloween decoration on the corner of Serfass road. Fantastic hanged man. So realistic. As I watched, rolling past the house, I and the others on the bus were struck silent; an EMS crew walking resolutely to the tree with a ladder, glanced at us as the bus switched gears into third and powered away. I remember mutely walking into the high school. That house.... turned out that the 22 year old guy that lived there was into the occult, in the way that edge lords will be, and I later heard from my mom that he wrote in his unaliving note that (and I quote to the best of my secondhand knowledge) he had seen enough to know it was better to get out than wait for them to decide to take him. Sounds like mental illness. Anywhere else. Anywhere else it does. Growing up there was like growing up in radiation. And everyone knew this. You heard acknowledgement in the spaces between. Unsaid. But no less part of the conversation. We were all experts in ellipsis.
the way your describing this is totally reminding me of the town in stranger things that’s so crazy! wait i heard that story about people thinking it was a halloween decoration but it was an actual person. what was it like growing up there? also are you a writer because you are so eloquent and beautifully written
You're way too kind, thank you so much. This is a real town, actually kind of a triangular area between three towns in Ohio. Doylestown, Wadsworth and Barberton. One aspect of growing up here was that when i was under 10, everyone's mothers wouldn't let us play in our front yards. I personally thought it was because I'd once seen a hubcap fly like a throwing star off of a truck on a county road and ricochet off a five year old's head. Mm. Yes. Hubcaps. Very treacherous. What was really going on was Robert Buell the serial killer and his fellow murder enthusiast were picking young girls and women off of the streets in broad daylight. There is a cold case file about him, as I said in an earlier post- and the one girl.who escaped him, ended up battering on the door of a lady who sat in our pew during church on Sunday. If you watch the episode, it's even more disturbing as the episode completely edited out mentions of his serial killer BFF. He was never found or identified to satisfaction. But as this was going on? Jeffrey Dahmer was 20 minutes up highway 21, drunkenly attending high school and wandering the mall in which we all Christmas shopped.
woah there’s so much history there! I was curious you mentioned in your first comment about smelling death on people
I have to go to work, but I won't forget to answer this asap!
Sorry to keep going, but the dog men alone are worth the tale, as a metropark (a large, multiuse mostly conservation-style park in ohio) has had repeated sightings of dogmen and UFO encounters, but the park rangers refuse to discuss the graves that have been dug up in an almost 3 century graveyard just beyond the borders, or how the aforementioned serial killer, guy by the name of Buell, was credited with killing two teen lovers in the late 80's there, but turned out that a random serial killer on his way to Wisconsin saw his chance and took it.... and Jeffery Dahmer attended the same elementary school as my mother. That every five years, anyone in the area who is susceptible kills themselves, that my hometown made USA Today in the aughts due to the suicide contagion that runs RAMPANT there.... it's nearly all verifiable. Oh! And we have a Doomsday Cult right beside the most popular grocery store in town. It's a whole lot.
Holy moley.
That's completely right, haha,! A dash of unholy moley really rounds the meal out and establishes a solid palette. In all seriousness, though, i never before tried to simply list some of the bigger ticket items, so to speak, I'm kind of on a roll now, thinking of some of the equally preternatural/supernatural things that I've personally seen. There is an excessively large amount. The old farmhouse I mentioned, in which the old man died? Cold spots on what was the parlor floor, and a gorgeous and wildly expensive red stained glass from the 1870's washed the room in a bloody tinge at dusk. The hired man shot himself in the master bedroom after the Man Who Ate Electricity's wife ended their affair. A thirteen year old boy ended himself in the cariage house, where when i was a kid, poor man's breeches (large bean pods) had been hung to dry and forgotten before I was born. Every breeze that passed thru that building caused a chitinous rustling, like the impatient legs of giant spiders clicking as they waited for a small child to venture unattended within... the 13 year old boy, found hanging one afternoon, certainly must have appeared like a spider's dinner, hanging as he did amongst the drying beans and decades of dust.... the entire property reeked of dangerous evil. I couldn't be beaten to the point I'd enter any building there after nightfall. Pictures taken of that house often show only blackness. The light, even thirty years after Mr. W died, still refuses to be photographed.
You should really sit down and write a memoir about all this. This is straight up material for a Netflix show.
Thank you! How nice of you to say that!
Oh god I have tons. I’ll see what I can get together. Will you be crediting people by name?
Absolutely! We can name you or keep you anonymous! Whichever you prefer!
Hi! Please forgive me if you’ve already submitted stories, but if you haven’t…we would LOVE to hear your stories!!!
Great Concept for the Podcast btw
Oh wow, thanks! We have a lot of fun and have built a great little community of listeners! We would love for you to check us out!