To ask what’s the creepiest thing that’s ever happened to you?

Name changed as I have told both of these to people in real life.

As a teenage I was out for a drive in the countryside with my Mum. We drove into a village we'd never been to before and on the edge was Georgian vicarage. We both had a really strong mental image of a Victorian vicar and his family and described the same family to each other but I "saw" then a different time of year to Mum.

DH is notoriously forgetful and often sets off to work only to turn around at the end of the road and come back for his wallet/phone/ID card etc etc.

When DS was born DH was working in a job that meant he had to leave his mobile in his locker and wasn't allowed personal calls so once he had headed off to work I couldn't get a hold of him and had to wait for him to call me in his lunch break.

One morning I was vaguely aware of DH getting up and heading out but the baby was still asleep so I decided to stay in bed and grab a bit more sleep.
A few minutes later I heard the sound of DH's car pulling on the drive, the sound of the key in the door, the front door opening and closing, him running up the stairs and our bedroom door opening. I said "what have you forgotten now?" And he replied in a strange voice "I'm so sorry love but I died". I looked across the room and could see a figure the right size for DH but when I tried to look directly at him it disappeared.
I was utterly freaked out but didn't dare call DH as I thought he would probably still be driving and worried that I might actually cause him to have an accident and know that once he was at work I couldn't reach him. I was in a state of total panic and fear until he finally called at about 12.30 for the usual lunch time check in. I still go cold whenever I remember the visit from DH's "ghost". Rationally I know it must have been a dream but I would have sworn I was woken up by the sound of the car pulling up outside.

Also, FIL was on holiday in France when he had a dream that his mother had died. He woke up and said he was going home as his mother had died. Called the care home. She had died in the night.

My grandmother heard my grandfather calling her name when he was away in the war. He had a burst ulcer and was in Norway at the time in the mountains. He nearly died. He was screaming her name . She heard him.
My daughter had an injury whilst skiing on a school trip. At the time it happened, I got a sudden unexplained pain in the area that she had been hurt.

Mine is not creepy it related to previous posters who ‘knew’ something was going to happen/Covid.

I work for a Christian charity that leads creative arts events for primary schools in the local area. Dec 2019 I had rewritten the Christmas event and it went really well. I wanted to re-write the Easter one (to be presented March/April 2020). But every time I thought about re-writing it I got a dragging feeling/lack of peace in my lower stomach which I took to mean God was saying ‘don’t rewrite it’. Every time. I even told people Jan 2020 about my feeling.

To rewrite it was huge- new session plan, PowerPoint, music, props, craft, drama etc

But it didn’t make sense. It needed to be rewritten. I just ‘knew’ I wouldn’t be presenting it. But because I couldn’t think of a reason that wasn’t directly related to me eg falling ill or worse, I was too scared to surrender to my ‘feeling’ and preferred to go forward full steam ahead- I spent hours/days rewriting, re-resourcing and retraining for the new Easter event.

Which of course - never happened!!

A few months after my sister died, I was going through the contacts on my phone and came across her cell number.
I don’t know what came over me — maybe I wanted to hear her voice — but I called. Sadly, it picked up after a couple of rings and was only the mechanical voice. I hung up.

A couple of days later, my phone rang and the alert said, KAREN CELL: “Hello, this is Karen’s cellular telephone returning your call…”

I freaked out and hung up. I’ve NEVER EVER heard of that happening. I think it was her way of telling me she was okay and I would be too.

It's not really creepy, but...last year, wet Sunday afternoon, I had curled up on the sofa for a reading session. I was sort of reading, sort of dozing, when I heard my dad say my name, very clearly, right into my ear. Woke me up properly but I thought I'd dreamed it, so I went to make a hot drink, then nipped out to the corner shop for some bits. When I got back, I checked my phone and found a message from my brother saying that my dad had fallen down some steps and bashed his head, but that he was home now and seemed to be okay. He'd fallen at the exact time I heard him say my name.

Same house again also has a bit of a human presence. Not long after we moved in, I noticed that dh and the kids would often say “what?” when no one was in the room with them. Dh in particular would just start full conversations thinking I was right behind him, when I was actually in a different room. He said he never really heard a voice, but would just feel a “presence” behind him and assume I’d come in the room. I’ve had the same thing a few times, like washing up and thinking dh had come into the room and was standing behind me, but actually he was upstairs/outside. It never felt intimidating or scary though.

But things are always creepier at night, and quite a few times I’ve being lying in bed reading when I’ve felt like someone’s walked in the room. I tend to ignore it and go to sleep, but occasionally I’ll be lying on my side, and my exposed ear will start to “tickle” like someone’s talking into it but I can’t hear them, I can just feel the vibrations. Last night I was reading a book in bed, and saw a shadow by the door like someone had peeked round the door then pulled out of sight. I was just thinking “what was that?” when my ear started tickling. I just rolled over and said I was really sorry I couldn’t hear him but I hoped he was ok and could he let me sleep. It sounds a bit creepy but it’s less demonic soul stealer, and more “aye up duck, have you seen my old Motorcycle Weekly from 1989?” kind of feeling.

Realistically it’s probably just tiredness/optical illusions and spiders exploring my ears, but that’s not as interesting

We moved into our house about 10 years ago, and straight away it had a really lovely atmosphere. A while after we moved in, I kept seeing little white legs moving fast past the bannisters at the top of the stairs. If I came out of the kitchen (opposite the stairs) I’d see something dart out of sight at the top of the stairs, like tiny legs running past the bannisters. It looked like small toddler legs or tall cat legs. I didn’t say anything to dh, then one day when we were building some furniture at the bottom of the stairs, we both looked up at the same time as something moved at the top of the stairs. He asked me if I saw the cat all the time too. We’d both been seeing the same thing

I came home from work once and saw the rear end of a white cat dart through the door at the end of the hall, away from me. I thought from the movement that it was our cat, then realised it was the wrong colour. I called up to dh to ask if our cat was with him, and he said our cat was asleep under his foot and hadn’t moved when I got home. We couldn’t find another cat anywhere in the house , so just put it down to being our ghost cat. It’s entirely possible though that our cat has a secret, very well hidden girlfriend

I love this thread! It is weird and some of it scary but mostly I find it very relatable and comforting!
I will share the weird things I have personally experienced....

My dad left his home at 18 and never again saw or talked to his father. He was never spoken about at home and I never thought anything of it as it was just how it was...anyway I was 6 years old and had a really strange dream, in it my paternal grandad came to me and told me he was dying and I would soon wake up and he would be dead. I woke up and was freaked out, so told my dad about the dream and asked if grandad was dead. Dad said no, reassured me it was just a dream and we went for breakfast downstairs. As we were eating, phone rang, it was my dad's sister ringing to tell him their dad had died!

I accidently set the kitchen on fire as a child one evening whilst my parents were out and my granny was babysitting. Years later my mum told me she knew that was going to happen as she dreamt it the night before. She didnt want to go on the date with dad but he managed to persuade her.... and lo and behold her dream came true.

My grandmother was dying and in hospital, the staff asked us to come say our goodbyes so my family all went. I decided I didn't want to go as I was pregnant and had worked a nightshift and just wanted to sleep. My grandma had severe dementia and didn't know who I was anyway....so that was my decision ..went to bed and woke up suddenly.....felt a gust of cold wind go over me, and my whole body got goosebumps. (It was a spring day and I had the windows closed as I didn't want to be disturbed by outside noises as I was sleeping during the day ready for another night shift so it wasn't a breeze from an open window is what I'm trying to get at!!) It was a really strange thing but I rolled over looked at my phone and it was 4.02pm... OK another three hours before my alarm to get up...rolled back over and went straight to sleep. When I woke up again to my alarm, I found missed calls and texts....my grandma had died! When I spoke to my dad I asked what time grandma had died....and yes you guessed it - 4.02pm!!! I honestly believe that 'gust of wind' was my grandmother coming to me as she passed.

I had an orange canary who i loved dearly. We had a strong bond anyway one night as i was putting the blanket over his cage as i did every night, i looked at him and just knew that it would be the last time. I woke in the night suddenly to a gust of wind my whole body went cold and I knew that it was in that moment my beloved canary had passed. Went to sleep and once I woke again in the morning, pulled the blanket back to find him dead!!! Sad times!

Lastly, there was a time in my life that I was seriously depressed. I had been violently raped and it left me feeling suicidal. I was sat in the upstairs ensuite and i was in such a state, I had made the decision to kill myself. I looked up to the ceiling and when I looked back down there was an orange feather. Exactly the same type of orange feather as that of my deceased canary. I took that as a sign that I must not go downstairs and commit suicide as planned.

There were no windows in the ensuite.
My canary had died years before and I owned no other birds.
The canary i had lived with me in a different address to the one I was in at that time.
There was no way it could be a native bird to the UK. It was distinctly an orange canary feather. I dunno as soon as I saw it I picked it up and the need to die was gone. I just know it was sent as a sign not to do it from my canary or family in heaven.

Bet you think I'm mad. Lol.

My dads story really. He was in the navy and often on the night watch. You can’t leave your watch. He sailed through the Bermuda Triangle a lot but one night he looked down into the water and it looked like it was made up of faces, he described it as the natural dark shadows that you see in the surface of the water were laid out to make facial features and they seemed to him to be sort of wailing or crying. And also that they were sort of exaggerated like Edvard munch’s scream face. He describes feeling such overwhelming sadness that he left his post and ran to go below deck but then pulled himself together at the thought of disciplinary and resumed his post, not looking into the water but straight ahead, all the night feeling eyes on him.

Another one- we were staying in a French gite and in the early hours one morning he turned all the lights on, packed all our things and drove us away to check into one of those cheap French motels. He refused to explain why, my mum just said he was “spooked.” I remember being annoyed I’d left my brand new baby g watch there!

He’s really a no nonsense, logical, strong military sort of man so it was really odd.

Another of mine (not creepy)

Half asleep I felt the very deliberate , careful, heavy pawsteps of the cat picking its way across me .........only we didn't have a cat .
The cat had died some 10 years before .
There was nothing else that could've made the same footfall (not even a giant rat or a giant spider ! )

When I was a kid, I stormed out of my bedroom one night to rat on my brother to my Dad. He'd been annoying me for ages and I was done with it. We weren't meant to go downstairs because dad and his girlfriend were having a housewarming party. We had just moved in. As I walked past the bathroom, a middle aged woman standing in the doorway made me jump because she was just suddenly there, staring at me but in the most chilling way. I can't even describe it- the closest I can get ever is creepy movie effects where the eyes just look a little wrong and the body proportions are all off and it's unsettling. She wore a red long jacket and had dark hair and dark eyes. I stared back at her for probably a fraction of a second, although it felt like long enough to flip my stomach over in that horrible terrified way and I backed off and legged it back into our room, slammed the door and threw myself under the covers.

My dad insisted and still insists there was no such woman there. At the time he was cross at me for insisting and being too scared to use the bathroom alone but did tell me years later that he thought he saw a person in a long red coat walking up the stairs once and that a neighbour had told him that our landlord was the son of the woman who lived there before. She'd recently died in a nursing home but I have no idea if she wore a red coat or anything. But whoever was there, their stare was absolutely chilling.

One night I had a friend over for a sleep over and we were in the bed in the same room and were laughing really loud and hard and all of a sudden out of nowhere a ball of blue light appeared in the middle of the room followed by an enormous bang that was like a gun going off. We stayed still in terror in the dark for about ten minutes before one of us dared to get up. There was nothing there. Nothing near the ball of light that could have caused it. No explanation but we both witnessed it independently.

After my grandmother died my mum asked her FIL for an item of clothing or keepsake to remember her by. FIL got upset and didn’t want to give her anything (he was grieving). Mum went to bed upset. About 1am the phone rings, I remember hearing the phone go and my mums hushed voice. My dad also remembers the phone going. In the morning my mum goes and gets some of my grandmothers necklaces out of a drawer. She had forgotten about them. She tells us the phone the previous night was my grandmother who told her where the necklaces were and reminded my mum not to work too hard. My mum replied, “but your dead” and went back to sleep as she was in a dream like state. In the morning she remembered the call and sure enough there was the necklaces.

I was having a horrendous nightmare, I remember waking in terror and thinking, thank god.

As my eyes adjusted to the dark, i saw the outline of a human in the corner of the room. Not male/female, just human form. Looked solid, but instead of solid mass, a composition of busyness. The only way to describe it was the bees on the tv, back in the day.

This thing moved towards me. Thats when i dived back under the covers. I was petrified, making myself as small as possible.

It felt extremely real and i remember it all. Even though it was 30 years ago. Of course, it could have been a continuation of the nightmare.

These are great! I love the newspaper story- how creepy!! The palm reading one is a good one too. And the alcove one is so spooky - I love it!

That alcove story is fantastic! So creepy. Would love it to be true!

Lots of different things....
I've heard footsteps in empty buildings, seen figures just out of the corner of my eye, shadows moving around- nothing major, but small things that I can't explain.
My first marriage unfortunately ended after just a year. 6 weeks later, I met my 2nd husband ( who I'm still with, 25 years later). A couple of weeks after I met him, I had a dream
In it, I was sitting in a car and my Grandad got in the passenger side. He'd died several years before and I'd never dreamt about him before. I asked him if it was too soon to be with someone else and he said " We only walk this way once you take happiness when you can. Life is too short for regrets. " He then said " This one will look after you. Go and be happy" and got out of the car. I was begging him to get back in the car, and not to go, and he turned round and said " I'm sorry but you know I can't stay". I woke up absolutely sobbing. But he was right. Not really spooky but its stayed with me all these years.

Not a scary one. When I was 23, my best friend persuaded me to go to a 'fair' in a local hotel - tarot / palm readers etc. I am a huge sceptic, but she had just lost her Grandad and really wanted to go. Being supportive, I agreed.

I eventually agreed to a palm reading (cheapest 'reading' at the fair) She said I was in a very happy relationship. I wasn't, I was single. She wouldn't have it, told me I was already with my future husband. Nope. Told me he was creative. Nope. Insisted he was foreign. Nope. Told me he was blonde. Nope - always go for dark. Said we would have a very happy family. I found it really funny, which she clearley found very annoying. At the end of the reading she gave me the tape of the reading. She told me I had a very positive aura, but should be more open. I found the whole thing really funny, and didn't think about it.

At 28, I was getting married and moving back to my home area. Whilst packing up my house, I found the tape and decided to listen to it. My future husband was one of my best friends from University. We met at 20. Moved to a new city together, as friends. Lived together a couple of times, as friends. At 27, he told me how he felt and I realised I felt the same way. He is from a European country. He works as a designer. He is blond. I felt like the world stopped when I listened to the tape. Everything she had said was right. And I had pretty much laughed at her. 20 years later, we have a lovely family are indeed very happy.

All these ghost stories are just that, stories. Overactive imaginations at work

You're entitled to your opinion of course just as I am entitled to say I know what I saw and for me it is real .
Just because you cannot explain it and cannot understand it does not make it "a story"

70isalimitnotatarget I think the creepiest thing I’ve read in this thread is you having motion sensors in your house that messages your phone when your daughter goes to the loo or to make herself a coffee

No no no Spoon it just pings when there's movement but when it did on the stairwell there was DD going into the bathroom or going up/down stairs with food etc.. Just footage of her head drifting by (attached to her obvs not free floating , that would be creepy)

But when it pinged with the orb there was nothing else on the screen.

It does sound very Big Brother though..............

70isalimitnotatarget I think the creepiest thing I’ve read in this thread is you having motion sensors in your house that messages your phone when your daughter goes to the loo or to make herself a coffee 😱

I worked overnight in a clerical/IT role, sharing an open plan office with the Switchboard in a hospital with an A&E.

We were both 'lone working', but as we were in the same office, we weren't paid the extra premium for lone working.

Part of the job was to use the computer to discharge patients from the system, transfer them to other wards and clarify death details with ward staff and confirm birth and death notices on the hospital's computer system.

Ward staff, theoretically, should have been able to do this themselves, but didn't want to, so muggins here had to call them, get an answer and clarify details with them before doing it myself.

One Friday night, there had been a fatal car crash with a resulting fire and one of the burnt survivors had been brought to our hospital and sent straight to high dependency and then ICU.

Wherever the patient had been (A&E, HDU and ICU) there were fire alarms; so frequently, that it was disturbing the hospital.

As the Comms hub, the Switchboard had alarm panels for the entire hospital - low temperature alerts, high temperature alerts for fridges and freezers, intruder alerts, lifts, fire - you name it.

It was possible to see which alarm had been triggered and how - smoke, flame or manual.

It was always a manual alarm that was triggered during this period.

Every time the fire alarm sounded, the Switchboard team rang the ward and checked, there were no fires and no one had pressed any alarms.

In their turn, the A&E, HDU and ICU staff were mystified. There were no fires and no one had pressed any alarm button. At all.

At some point, the Fire Service would call the Switchboard and confirm that there was an alarm going off. It was up to the Switchboard to confirm there was a fire and to request an appliance.

All this happened while red lights flashed, sirens wailed and other calls came through.

The on site Fire Marshal would be called, he'd/she'd would go down to the ward and he/she would confirm there was no fire and no alarm buttons had been pressed.

Only then could the Switchboard call the Fire Service and tell them to stand down.

The alarms would be reset and all would be quiet until the next time. This happened almost every hour over the weekend.

Unfortunately, the patient died in the early hours of Monday morning. After confirming the details with the staff, I recorded the patient's death on the computer.

The alarms continued until I received confirmation that the patient had been taken down to the Mortuary.

It's like the patient realised his time was up.

All these ghost stories are just that, stories. Overactive imaginations at work