A scary movie or book can certainly get your pulse flowing at the moment, but for the most part, you can go to bed and close your eyes calmly, knowing full well that the ghost will not drag you into the barn because, well, he is imaginary.
However, the real world can be more scary than anything Stephen King could imagine, and even the bravest can become afraid of the dark. Even if only for a little while.
Nothing better exemplifies this than a recent Reddit thread asking users, “What’s the creepiest things people have ever witnessed?” To stay in touch with Halloween, StationReporter invites you to go through its most memorable answers.
1. laureltreesinbloom
Something that happened to me: Around 9 a.m., I answered the landline phone in our house; the man recognized me by name, said he knew my mother, and attempted to communicate with me. I didn’t know him (and didn’t like talking to adults), so I said, “Let me get my mom” and dashed off. She answered the phone, but the man hung up.
A few weeks later, a girl from the grade above me went missing. She had supposedly told her pals that a man had contacted her, saying he was a “friend of her mother’s,” and was going to pick her up after school to surprise her mother with a present. She was kidnapped and murdered (her body was discovered months later), but the man who did it was never arrested. This was in the early nineties.
It turns out that other young girls received the same phone call I did; he seemed to have chosen his victim. The FBI arrived at my residence and questioned me about that phone call. It still haunts me thirty years later. Still praying they catch him. Heartbreaking.
2. Picklepotty121
I grew up as a Jehovah’s Witness and was baptized at the age of 12 (for JWs, baptism implies dedicating the rest of your life to following JW laws). By the time I was 15, I realized I would not be happy as a JW and began to rebel. I got a boyfriend at school, and when my parents found out, they promptly took me to the elders. In my case, the group of seniors had four males over the age of 45. My father had to accompany me to the room because I was a minor.
At one of perhaps five meetings, they tried to persuade me to admit to premarital sexual conduct, which would be grounds for punishment. I lied, telling them that I had simply made out and been touched outside of my clothes. The elders then asked me questions like, “Was there tongue?” Who was it that touched whom? How long? How long did you touch each other? Have either of you orgasmed?
The most disturbing aspect of this for me is that it took me three years to grasp how strange and filthy this interaction was.
3. gracefulklutz67
Mitchell Johnson, iStock
My husband and I were taking the bus home from an event we did not want to drive to. There was a man on the bus with a 6- or 7-year-old son sitting in his lap. The child appeared to be drugged and extremely exhausted.
My spouse made a note on his phone that read, “I’m not sure that man is linked to that child. I suspect something is really wrong” and walked to the bus driver, pretending to ask for directions. The driver came to a halt and requested “maintenance” owing to a malfunction.
The guy stood up and attempted to get off the bus with the child, but my husband and the bus driver stopped him. Metro cops responded shortly. They questioned the little boy if this man was his father. He said, “He’s my new friend. “We are going to play at his house.” The child sneaked out of his house without anyone knowing and met Mister frightening pedo on the pavement.
I was engrossed in my phone for all of this. If my husband hadn’t been aware of his surroundings, I would not have noticed. I’m really guilty about that. I’m very grateful he was there.
4. IntroductionBrief124
We moved into a new house. The house smelled like paint, so I left the bedroom window open one night before falling asleep. The next morning, I woke up after experiencing a strange dream about a lady saying “Help me”. I go downstairs, make a cup of coffee, and then smoke on the back porch. Then I hear it again: “Help me”. I look into the woods in the direction of the speaker and see an automobile hanging upside down from a tree’s lower limbs. I lived near a highway with a tight bend, and a lady had driven off the road and flipped into my backyard. She was left dangling by her seat belt. She came out of it with minor injuries.
5. GoMyKnicks
Driving on the freeway late at night. The road was very foggy, so visibility was slightly hampered. In the distance, there was a light waving back and forth through the fog in the middle of the road, gradually becoming more visible as I approached. I got close enough to see that it was a man waving his phone flashlight to warn approaching drivers. Two cars had recently wrecked nearby, and bodies were all over the road. There are currently no first responders on the scene. It’s just destruction and a man flashing a light.
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6. Hozziekaratmhan7
When I was approximately 13, I went to a shop after school. I am from England, therefore I was wearing a shirt that was see-through because it had rained. Some guy, maybe around 50, was simply being a jerk, telling me I looked fantastic and asking if I wanted to go to his house for tea; he must have thought I was stupid or something. Some man about 30 noticed I was uncomfortable and approached me and said, “Hey Jess (not my name), I’ve been looking for you everywhere you said you were looking at Lego, come with me.” I gave him the thank you look, and once we were out of earshot, he asked if I had a parent nearby, which I said no to, so he asked if I knew their phone numbers so they could come get me and he’d wait with me. He must have been careful not to come across as creepy (he was probably a father), and the sad fact is that I just lived a block away, so if he had been a woman, he would have volunteered to drive me home. My parents thanked him anyhow, and I said my goodbyes. I never saw him again, and I hope he knows how grateful I am even to this day.
7. Normal Adult Male
A disturbance broke up at the other end of a vast playground. A strange man attempted to flee with a small 5/6-year-old child. Her mother had caught on and raised the alarm, and several fathers on the playground tackled and pinned him. The cops arrived, detained the man, and took interviews with everyone.
8. mkmrod
I have seen a lot of s**t. I’ve seen folks die. I witnessed a guy who had just blasted half his face off with a shotgun and survived (he was making a horrific wet sucking sound as he breathed while waiting for an ambulance). Bad, bad stuff.
But what freaked me out was that it was around 2-3 a.m. I was uneasy and didn’t understand why. I got up to get a glass of water and was passing through the kitchen when I saw the door wasn’t fully closed, so it was quietly banging in the breeze. It clicked, which was why I was restless; I could hear the door tapping. Then it dawned on me: my wife and I would never sleep with the door open or unlocked. So now I’m in the kitchen in near-total darkness, confident that someone has entered the house. I was headed toward the light switch when I heard “I can see you” from across the room. I nearly s**t myself and dove for the light switch to see what I was dealing with.
The light turned on, and it was a f***ing doll. My nieces had come over, and one of them had left behind a motion-activated doll that shouted 5-6 different phrases when it sensed movement, one of which was “I can see you”. I never figured out why the door didn’t close.
9. alz3je
As a SA survivor. I was too shocked by what had transpired. So I did nothing about it. After almost four months, I was finally able to phone the police and tell them what had transpired.
The guy who was meant to help me said something like, “We have no proof it happened.” No proof. And no way is the person going to acknowledge he did it. So obviously, he was an a*****e. He departed. Left me a $50 fine for “false alarm situations.” Following that, the man who saved me murdered three women. In two weeks.
I’m reporting that I know who this guy is. The officer responded, “If he did that to you. Why didn’t he murder you? You think you’re really lucky, don’t you?” He was dismissed. It happened around ten years ago. It was the most cold-blooded, creepy thing anyone had ever told me. And believe me, I’ve heard lots of messed up stuff.
10. Trailerparkqueen
I had my first baby 17 years ago and was lying in the hospital room with the baby in her crib next to me that night. A nurse came in and offered to take the baby to the nursery for a few hours so I could get some sleep. I said no thanks; I want my baby close to me so I can stare at her. The following night, I was exhausted and asked the nurse if she could take the baby to the nursery for a few hours. That nurse was like, “We don’t have a nursery.” All newborns remain with their mothers in the room. Nobody would ever come and take your baby from you!
