To start a new creepiest/scariest/unexplainable stories thread?

[RightYesButNo]

I love these threads, and have my own past favorites (Savernake Forest, etc). I’ve gone through all the old ones, here and on the Unexplained board, and I’ve run out.

Excuses for a new thread: I have a shite-my-pants-terrifying doctor’s appointment tomorrow and could really use the distraction, it felt like autumn outside this morning, and we might have new people on the site to share since the last thread.

So... share your most bizarre and creepy story with us, if you have a moment?

Placemarking to read later!

I used to work in a book/misc random bits and bobs shop (from age 18-23) and no one ever wanted to go into the overflow stockroom because they got the feeling they weren't welcome.

I had a failed suicide attempt the year before I started working there, (relevant). I don't know why, but I would always chat to myself when I went to the room. I got a distant feeling that something was watching me, but it was lonely. I just said, (and I have no idea why) "I know how you feel. I felt the same once."

For some reason, after that, the only time that the room felt 'welcoming' was when I was in it. To the point that I was the only person who would go inside or would have to accompany the managers.

I was well-known for climbing up the stacks like a monkey and would regularly be 10 feet off the ground without a ladder.

One day, when my manager and I were pulling books out for an upcoming sale, I was at the very top of the stacks when I felt the shelf began to give. My manager yelled out as I fell, and she swears that a basket of dog beds that we'd had in the week before skidded four feet across the concrete floor (I heard it) and I landed without injury. I probably would have slammed my head into the concrete otherwise.

It wasn't until years later that I met someone that had worked at the same bookshop but five years before me. I asked about the stockroom, but they didn't have a clue what I was talking about.
They did mention that a young male member of staff had killed himself (via his diabetes, when his fiancee left him) when they had worked there years before.

I'm not normally woo, and I didn't believe her until she showed me his Facebook memorial page, which showed a picture of them all at the staff Christmas party.

My bedroom in the last house I lived in often smelt of cigar smoke, to the extent I once went rushing down stairs to moan at my flatmate for smoking. He wasn't, and wasn’t a smoker anyway, but the smell was so strong that’s it seemed the only explanation. It was a rural house, and rarely had visitors, so there was no other way of explaining it. A friend, hen visiting, said she'd seen the ghost of an elderly man so maybe that was it.

The experience that freaked me out the most concerned a friend of mine. We met when I did work experience. He lived on the estate we worked at. He was quite a few years older than me and treated me like one of his daughters. But I was wary of the age-gap, not for any dodgy reason but I just couldn’t believe he’d want to be in touch with me once I'd left for university so dropped contact to the occasional phone call. And about once a year, when I was at home in the holidays, I'd pop over, but never tell him I was coming so he didn’t feel he had to be there. If I saw him, I saw him.

The last time I went I didn’t see any staff members. This wasn't really unusual, though. I walked round the estate the same direction as I always did, which meant passing his house on the way out of the place. As I did so I stopped and looked at it for signs he was at home. In that instant I knew he was dead, despite the house looking no different to any other time I'd seen it. I then ‘knew’ that he'd killed himself, but tried to dismiss the idea as fantasy.

A year later I bumped into a mutual acquaintance, who was horrified nobody had told me about his suicide. I was upset at the news but not shocked, as I'd known for the past year.

I still think of him, and have been tempted to try and get in touch with his daughters, (one of whom I tracked down on FB a while ago) but I doubt they'd remember me or welcome the intrusion.

Bookmark

A couple of years ago we stayed in a cottage in the Yorkshire Dales. It was very remote in a beautiful part of the country.

As soon as I walked in, it felt freezing cold and the hairs went up on the back of my neck. My DH and DD didn’t feel anything.

We got the heating on, thinking that was why it was cold.

We went upstairs and I had the feeling someone was there. I didn’t feel comfortable letting DD sleep on her own (she was 6 at the time) so she slept in the double bed with me and DH went in the twin room at the end of the corridor.

That night, I was upstairs putting DD to bed when I heard a huge bang and my DH cry out downstairs. I went down and he said the back door had flung open with the same force as if someone had kicked it open! We went outside and there wasn’t a breath of wind and all was still. From then on, we kept the back door locked.

That night I went up to bed and felt a horrible uneasy feeling. I got in bed with DD and finally went to sleep. A couple of hours later, I was awoken to a huge bang on the bedroom window like someone was hammering on it! DD is a heavy sleeper and stayed asleep. After that I turned the landing light on and left the door open so it was very light in the room.

The next morning, I told DH and he said it was probably a tree branch banging on the window. So we went outside but there were no trees nearby.

The next evening DD was in bed and DH and I were in the lounge and we both heard “Help me” screamed outside. We went out and looked around but couldn’t see or hear anything. So we assumed it was someone messing about.

The next day we went out and about half a mile from the cottage (a quiet single track road) there was HELP ME! written in red paint on the road!

We were totally freaked out thinking we’d stumbled into Wicker Man territory and I wanted to go home. But we were only on day 3 of a 7 day holiday. We would’ve booked into a hotel but couldn’t find one at short notice that would take dogs (our dog was with us) so we talked ourselves into staying.

From then on, I kept getting a horrible feeling we were being watched. The hairs would go up on the back of my neck and I felt very uneasy. I stuck it out one more day then told DH I couldn’t take it any more and that I wanted to go home. I thought he would moan but he looked so relieved and we’ve never packed up and left a place quicker than we left there!

I was always a non believer about these things and thought it was people’s imagination but I felt something in that house that I’ve never experienced before or since.

This isn't scary - I still find it comforting many years later. My mum died 8 years ago after a serious illness. Myself, my partner and our then nearly 3yo DS had been staying in her flat while she was in a hospice, knowing that she didn't have long. One night, I was having trouble settling and was drifting in and out of sleep. At one point I had a vivid dream of my mum - she looked to be about mid-thirties (she was 69 when she died) and was dressed in a sort of short white shift or long shirt with bare legs and feet. She looked young, healthy and strong. She was standing by a big window which had a lot of bright but hazy light coming through it and she turned to me looking happy and excited and it was clear to me that she was preparing to leave, to head off into the light. I was woken up, feeling disorientated, by the sound of the phone ringing at around 4am and I already knew what the caller was going to tell me - my mum had just passed away. It was a traumatic time but I will always hold on to that image of her - so happy to be taking her final journey into the light. I'm not religious but that felt very spiritual to me.

I used to work in a pub and one day I went in to clean up and there was one of the big vases smashed on the floor, me and the landlord decided to watch the cctv as there was no way it could of fell off it was too far away.... the cctv literally showed the vase flying off the shelf with such a force as if it had been swiped.... ... obvious paranormal activity

@teabytheseaside - did you call the police?! See anything in he papers afterwards? Sounds scary!

I've got a few but this one is quite weird.
My mam actually told me this story because I was really little when it happened. I'd been bathed and ready to be put to bed one night and my mam was looking through my book shelf for a bedtime story, she had chosen a book and said we'll read this one tonight. I stopped and said ''no I don't want that story as the lady has already read it to me'' and she said she asked me ''the lady, what lady?'' And i apparently described her, I said she had 'long black hair and a yellow face' well my mam said she thought about it all night. The next time she visited my grandparents (her mam and dad) she had told them what I'd said, and my grandad said ''you know who that was don't you?'' And my mam asked ''who?'' And he said ''your grandma!'' He continued ''she had long black hair down her back but nobody apart from close family knew, as she always wore it pinned up with a hat on. She also had an open casket at her funeral and she had her hair let down, with a yellow face.''
She had died before I got the chance to meet her so I think that was her way of saying hello to me!

Saw an old lady upstairs walking from the bathroom to dd's room. She looked cold and eager to get back to the room. She had a dressing gown on, and white hair. I saw her because I was waiting for the bathroom
and it sounded like the door Opened!!! I didn't feel scared seeing her I actually felt sad for her. It helped me seeing her. I've been disturbed a lot in the night hearing footsteps on the landing and thought I was going mad!

•I also sense something looking out our window at night. Our curtains are usually shut but when I wake up I notice that there is a figure and they are open slightly.

•when I was out walking. I saw a man approaching and I held the dog back because I didn't get a good feeling. I waited and waited and the man didn't come past but I saw him and he saw me. Compared to the most recent experience with the lady, I felt sick and quite shocked with this one, for a while after.

I did some cat sitting for my DH's auntie who is schizophrenic, and she told me her previous cat who was killed on the road outside still visited her. I thought she was becoming sick again, starting to have her visions and delusions. So off she goes on holiday. I get into her bed that night with her living cat on my right side by my head. I get woken up at 2am by a slight thud, I look down and see deep paw depressions walking up towards me, only about 5 steps, then it stopped. I wasn't frightened as it was a cat, just amazing to see the duvet move like a cat was walking up it! I shouldn't doubt auntie's mental health so quickly next time!

Not really scary or creepy, but I met my spirit guide when I was having hypnosis to help me pass my driving test.

I initially pooh-poohed it as mumbo jumbo and semi-joked I was expected it to be some sort of animal. It turned out to be an old man. No one I had ever met but I had the clearest sensation of knowing who he was. I'm not even sure I was even in hypnosis, but the feeling of being with him and entirely comfortable in his company was absolutely real.

I LOVE these threads.

I think the landing in my house in haunted. Just the landing, not any of the actual rooms. When DD was small before I met now DP and it was just the two of us, I was lying in bed about to go to sleep when I heard her get out of bed, pad across the landing to my bedroom door, and then stop directly outside it. Waited for her to open the door and she didn't, so I went and checked and she wasn't there. She was still tucked up fast asleep in bed. She's got laminate flooring in her room and there's carpet on the landing and I heard her footsteps change on the different materials and everything, creeped me right out.

Another time, DP was in the bathroom getting ready for bed and I was lay on my side in bed on my phone when I saw a shadow go across the door as if he'd walked across the landing, I assumed to check on DD before coming to bed. Thought nothing of it, but 30 seconds later, he came out of the bathroom and went 'did you just hear someone go across the landing?' Safe to say we both jumped in bed with the duvets over our heads for a good ten minutes!

The lights blow on the landing all the time too, for no reason. There's a loft hatch there that I have never been able to get access to as the ceiling is so high, it's a very old property. We rent so I've never thought of it as 'my' space iyswim, but maybe I should investigate it.

I was talking to a friend about this thread and she gave me permission to post this.

She had been living in her new house for a while, never had any strange vibes or anything. One day she was sitting in her living room when she had an odd feeling, like static electricity. She just knew someone was looking at her and turned around to see a woman standing there in jeans and a T-shirt holding a glass. She looked just as freaked out as my friend probably did and turned and ran through the solid wall. My friend ran after her into the kitchen but there was no one there. She still had that static electricity feeling though and noticed that the kitchen window showed a snowy garden. It was summer at the time. Then there was a snapping sound and everything was back to normal. There was no one in the house and all doors and windows were locked.

It happened a few more times while she lived there, but it wasn’t always the woman. Once a man with a beard and another time a child. Always dressed in modern clothes and just as scared as she was. She had never been asleep or drinking on any of the occasions.

She moved out eventually and when driving past a couple of years ago, saw a for sale sign outside. She went on to have a nose, as you do and saw that they had knocked through the kitchen and lounge so there was no longer a wall there.

She now wonders if she was having some sort of weird timeslip and she was actually haunting some poor family from the future. She doesn’t believe in ghosts, but can’t explain it.

I'm currently 13 weeks pregnant. I told my mum as soon as we knew, and soon afterwards she had a dream in which her mum, who died 25 years ago when I was young, said to her 'those 2 little girls will be fine' (among other things). My mum told me about this at the time and joked about it being twins, but they don't run in the family and we had no reason to think it would be. My mum thought maybe she meant me and a baby girl. I hadn't thought about it since, it was just a brief throwaway conversation.

But then I had my scan last week and, lo and behold, I'm having twins. When I told my mum she was incredibly surprised, but then she said that she shouldn't be, that my nana had told her so.

If it turns out to be girls it'll be so weird... (I'll pop back after my 20 week scan and let you know!)

I've also heard by mum's voice calling me a few times, even when we're hundreds of miles apart. The strangest time was when I was asleep and clearly heard her shout my name so loud that it woke me up. A few seconds later a picture fell off the wall and broke a vase - one that my mum had originally given to my nana as a gift when she was quite young, but that I had then adopted. I know it sounds like a sort of muddled dream, but I am certain that I woke up, rolled over, opened my eyes and then saw the picture fall. It wasn't the fall that woke me up. I had just moved into my first flat alone, and so I think my mum was trying to warn me so I wouldn't be woken up scared by the bang.

This is best thread ever!

@BarbedBloom There was a MNetter who said on a previous woo thread that as a teen she was in the garden, and looked up to find a strange woman staring at her from a bedroom window. Many years later she was back in her old room, looked out the window, and saw herself as a teen gazing up at her.

@QueenOfTheAndals I may have read that on a previous thread actually as it rings some bells. I will have to show that to my friend as she might find it interesting.

@boopsy We can have a creepy campout

@newrubylane that's amazing news on your twins, how wonderful your nana came through to tell your mum. Would love to hear after your 20 week scan.... big congratulations btw xxx

I was 22 and one night during the summer break I dreamt my ex-boyfriend (we had remained friends) came over and hugged me tightly. I was saying "Goodbye, goodbye!" to him for some reason in my dream. The next morning two of my girlfriends drove to my house to tell me ex-BF had died the day before, accidentally drowned hundreds miles away while on an island holiday with his frat brothers. This was before cellphones/email, so it was the first time I heard of his death.

Last year, I was recovering from a major operation with general anaesthesia, and had a hospital room to myself (NHS; it was needed for my type of surgery). I had been feeling dreadful all day, couldn't move much in bed due to large post-op wounds, my blood pressure was extremely low but the nurses were run off their feet so didn't seem to do much except at one point run lots of IV fluid through me.

I felt like I was slowly losing energy and consciousness during the night, but at about 2am I suddenly heard a male (not frightening) voice say to me "HELLO. GET UP. DRINK." It was pitch dark and no one else was in the room. One of the nurses had left a glass of water beside the bed, so I managed to reach out and drink it all, then fell asleep again. I recovered quickly after that and was discharged in 5 days. There were no male nurses while I was in the hospital; perhaps it was a helpful ghost wanting to avoid spectral overcrowding in the ward?

@lovetravel2 It is a lovely thought, isn't it? Although I was kind of thinking I'd like one of each (they're likely non-identical), in a way I sort of feel like she's going to be right...

Right after uni I lived in a houseshare with my then boyfriend and two other couples. A former tenant had hanged himself over the loft hatch, I guess so he'd dangle down far enough to end his life, sadly. But that hatch would be found open time and again when no one had been near it and if you walked under it then the air was ice cold.

We then moved to a terrace, our first home we'd bought together and it needed a fair amount of work. As we started the most serious of it things started to go awry, get misplaced or be broken. We spoke to the neighbours. A former occupant had been a builder and died in a motorbike crash. My h saw him at the top of the stairs one time and told him we were just trying to make it a home and after that we weren't bothered anymore.

This is a weird one and happened about 10 years ago (it’s also long and about a non existent toilet so be aware that it’s a bit )

There was a pub in the large town I lived in that I went into occasionally. It was a big pub, usually not very busy and it wasn’t a favourite place of mine, just somewhere my friends and I would occasionally have a drink in if we happened to be on that side of town. We maybe went in there a few times a year andid lived in the town for over 10 year so knew it fairly well.

We went in for a quick drink one night (just one after work so we weren’t drunk) and I needed the loo so went to the toilets only to find that they were closed off. The barmaid said they were being renovated and would be closed for at least another 2 weeks. She directed me to another toilet that was being used temporarily. It was through a door in the opposite side of the pub, next to a cleaning cupboard and was a tiny dark room with 2 toilet cubicles, a sink and a mirror.

Fuck me, it was terrifying in there. I can’t put my finger on why it was so scary, but I had goosebumps all over and I couldn’t bring myself to look in the mirror for fear of what I might see looking back at me. I have never felt such a feeling of pure evil and I could not get out of there quick enough. I got back to my friends and told them a out the horrible creepy toilet. They decided to check it out and we’re similarly creeped out by it. We finished our drinks and went home.

A couple of weeks later I decided to go back to the pub in daylight on my own and see if the creepy toilet was still being used - I wanted to see if it was as scary during the day. The entrance to it was shut so I assumed the proper toilets must be open again, so, disappointed I used those instead. But they were exactly the same as they always had been - they hadn’t been renovated at all. Confused, I asked the barmaid about it and she said that the toilets hadn’t been renovated and that there were no plans to do that. I asked if they’d been out of order and she said no - she’d worked there for a year and they’d been in use the entire time.

I went over to where the creepy toilet had been and opened the door - there was the cleaning cupboard just as I remembered but beyond that was boarded off - and it looked to have been boarded up for a long time (horrible old wood, cobwebs etc). You couldn’t get through to the toilet at all (presuming that it was behind the boarding).

I was absolutely baffled and checked with my friends that we’d all experienced it. They confirmed it. So what was that about?

A few years ago, a friend died suddenly. We had been friends at university and lost touch, but had only recently been put back in touch by mutual friends. The day after I received the news his best friend sent me a photo of my deceased friend taken the previous weekend. It popped up on my e-mail and I looked at it, sadly. As I looked up, the clock had suddenly stopped. Also, every single green plant in the room - the leaves had suddenly turned yellow and were wilting. I've never been so shocked. Was he there in some way? Was he trying to tell me something? Or a simple explanation of batteries run out on the clock plus all the plants spontaneously dying?