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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To start the spooky stories thread?

515 replies

SurpriseItsMeHorseyNeighNeigh · 02/10/2023 21:57

Of course I'm not, it's Halloween, let's get scared.

So what is the spookiest/most unexplainable experience you had? We're talking paranormal here.

OP posts:
Thread gallery
12
LuluBlakey1 · 07/10/2023 22:17

I have posted this before. Me and DH on holiday in a cottage in Ireland a few years ago-pre DC. We were staying in a cottage on a private country estate of a bigger Georgian house in Donegal.

Our last night and we sat outside eating, having a couple of drinks (just a couple because we were getting up early to drive to the ferry the next morning), watching the sunset over the lake, chatting over the holiday, looking at the photos we had taken.

About 9.30pm we went into the kitchen/ living room (one huge room) which was straight inside the front door. We left the door wide open, it was still dusky light and warm. We were washing up and talking and we saw a woman walk behind us- in the reflection of the window above the sink.
She crossed right behind us as if she was walking from the front door into the bedroom.
We both turned but there was no one there. DH went into the bedroom and bathroom, they were empty. There was no back door, no way out.
She looked normal, dressed in a blouse/ dress, with shortish hair, sort of 70s looking. She didn't look at us or anything, just walked through the room. We could only see her down to the waist in the window so can not describe her. bottom half. She wasn't 'see-through' or anything ghostly- just totally out of place and 'transient'.

We were quite shaken. We hardly slept and were at the ferry- 2 hrs drive away by 7.30am, hours early. We went over and over what happened, and have done many times since, trying to explain it but have never been able to. The kitchen window faced onto a locked walled garden belonging to the cottage and she could not have been in there unless she scaled walls about 8ft high. Anyway, we saw her walk behind us, not in front of us.
It was a lovely cottage and a fantastic holiday but we wouldn't go back.

Alex Drake · 08/10/2023 00:14

I've told this one before, but here goes..

I got a promotion at work that necessitated a move to another city. One of my current colleagues had a flat in the new city that she could rent out to me. It was where my colleague ( let's call her Mo) had raised her family and one of her sons had continued to live in it for years but had been empty now for around a year. I readily accepted!

I met Mo a few weeks later in the new city to get the keys and get shown around. Her husband was also there that day. The flat was in a high rise / multi story block in a not brilliant area but hey beggars can't be choosers! I was looking out the living room window and Mo's husband sidled up to me and said "don't jump" I laughed it off, but he unnerved me. Mo could see something had been said between us and shushed her husband and moved me away from him.

The next few months were busy, getting used to my new job, making new friends etc. My new workplace was very sociable and I never had any reason to feel lonely, except when I went back to the flat.

I hated the flat. I felt like a ton of weight had been put on my shoulders whenever I entered. It was cold, it was depressing, I struggled to get to sleep and when I did, I would wake frequently through the night. I started to travel back to my home city most weekends to escape it. Back home I would instantly feel back to my normal self. After an extended break at home over Christmas my impending move back to the flat had me in tears and I knew I couldn't stay there.

It was crazy, I loved my new job and workplace but here I was willing to give it all up rather than live in that flat. My logic was telling me that maybe I was just lonely living alone but my senses were telling me to run for the hills.

I never did spend another night in that flat but I had to pack up my belongings so I got the train back on a Saturday morning and my dad was coming over later with a small van to get my stuff. I spent the morning packing (the flat was furnished so I didn't have a lot, clothes, bedding, kitchen ware etc), I moved all my stuff into the communal hall to wait for my dad.

I did a final clean and hoover around and sat down, still inside the flat, with my back against the front door. From the front door there was a long corridor with two bedrooms to the right hand side, the bathroom to the left and the living room door directly ahead. I left all the doors open to air the place but had made sure all windows were shut. As I was sat against the front door, the living room door suddenly SLAMMED shut with an almighty BANG! I was frozen in fear for what seemed like minutes but was likely only seconds. I hot footed it out of there and ran the 15 flights down the stairs to wait for my dad. I couldn't even step a foot in the block again and my dad, when he arrived had to move my things single handed.

I later discovered that one of Mo's adult sons (not the one who had been living there prior to me, this was going back 10 or so years) had thrown himself out of the window. Mo had moved out prior to her son's suicide when she met her now husband (the one who gad told me not to jump). I also learned that at the time I met him he was in the early stages of dementia, which would explain why he said something so inappropriate to me (especially given the circumstances!).

Apart from that door slam I honestly never saw or experienced anything else in that flat but never will I forget the air of depression and sorrow that permeated the walls. Still makes me shudder now.

SurpriseItsMeHorseyNeighNeigh · 08/10/2023 13:02

Prescottdanni123 · 03/10/2023 20:12

And a one that isn't creepy but strange all the same. My grandparents were truly in love. My grandfather would bring her a bunch of her favourite flowers, red roses, once a week 60 years. She was heartbroken when he died. When she herself was dying, receiving end of life care at home, she kept saying "He is coming for me soon".

An important detail in this story is my grandparents had a boring back garden. A small square of grass surrounded by privet fences. They didn't have any flowers. My grandmother died during the morning. In the afternoon, when we went outside, there was a single red rose in bloom. I absolutely couldn't have failed to notice this on an earlier day. There were no flowers growing the day before and never had been. I genuinely believe they both wanted me to know that they were back together again.

That's so beautiful!

OP posts:
Schadenfreudunsure · 08/10/2023 13:36

One day he was sitting in the living room when this story came into his head for some reason, but he didn't say anything. My daughter (ages 14, not the happiest youngster and totally anti-reading where fiction is concerned) suddenly looked at him and said 'Winterwood!'. My husband was stunned and really unsettled. He asked her why she'd said that, and she couldn't give an answer - she just said 'I don't know - it just came into my head'.

We read this story when the kids were little and had never even mentioned it to them but just forgotten about it. It was inaccessible in the loft where the old magazines had been stored for years.

@CoffeeCantata The most logical explanation for this is that your husband actually said Winterwood aloud softly when he thought of it - muttered it in the way you do when you talk to yourself - but didn't realise he'd said it. His subconscious muttering means that he would insist and truly believe he hadn't said anything.

and that your daughter heard it but because it was so softly spoken/muttered and maybe she was doing something else/concentrating on something other than her father, she didn't realise he'd spoke. Her subconscious registering a softly spoken/muttered word when she wasn't focussed on her fathermeans that she would insist and truly believe that he hadn't said anything.

SurpriseItsMeHorseyNeighNeigh · 08/10/2023 13:48

creditdraper · 03/10/2023 21:35

Years and years ago after my DH and I had been trying for a baby for 17 years, one afternoon, I was looking in the bathroom mirror and saw my face but it looked male and I heard a voice say, “You will have a son!” I thought that was weird and hardly likely and forgot all about it. A few months later I was pregnant to our delight and shock. I only thought about boy’s names and when asked why I hadn’t thought about girl’s names I said, “I know I’m having a son”
…..and I did.
About 10 years later, my DH, son and I drove home and up the driveway and when I looked round at my DH I had a strong thought, almost my own voice speaking to me saying, “I am your first wife.” I never ever told him and freaked out thinking the worst. Indeed I was his first wife and we both remarried some years later.

Weird thing to say, but I'm glad you are divorced and he has a second wife lol. The other option would be too scary lol (but it would be spooky if a ghost wrote to us 😉)

OP posts:
HarryGrotter · 08/10/2023 18:24

We moved into our house when ds1 was 7 months old (now 25) when he was about 2 he used to talk to the lady in the hall, no idea who he was talking about, nobody died here. Anyway fast forward to his 3rd birthday and all the family round so had a bit of music on in the background when bohemian rhapsody comes on and he sings it word for word including my mum’s misheard lyrics. Spooked the shit out of me for ages!
on another spooky thread on MN, along the lines of the more you think of them, the closer they come. Someone said that if you’re asleep and wake suddenly for no reason (I.e. a noise or nightmare) it’s because someone/something is watching you!

AceofPentacles · 08/10/2023 20:19

I stayed with DP in an old (1700s) hotel in Clarkemwell which had four poster beds and was quite romantic. I'd come down with a bad cold so we'd gone to bed early, a few hours later I'd woken up as someone had put their hand on my face. I just lay there with my eyes closed as they caressed my face... it stopped after a while and I woke my partner immediately who said I must have been dreaming as I was unwell - later discovered hotel is a well known haunted location with several resident ghosts!

Also the scariest thread on here was Birdy Friend, the youth hostel badge who predicted 'the big messy - when all the nurseries will shut' just before Covid Confused

Deliveryboy · 08/10/2023 20:43

Ok….
In about 1977, my friend and I were exploring the old railway station near where we lived. The track was all gone, but the ballast was still there. The station house was lived in but the old waiting rooms were empty and gutted. My friend and I (age about 10) often used to poke about in the ballast to look for relics like old rail bolts etc that our mums really loved having in the house. I still have one of the bolts. Mum keeps the door open with it.
Anyway, this day, we were poking about, and something made us look up. Standing on the platform was a man wearing 1950’s type clothes- suit, overcoat, umbrella, briefcase, hat. He was stood still, looking up the old line like he was seeing if a train was coming. We looked at each other in a double take, looked up again and he was gone. We looked along the platform but it was empty. The entrance was on the opposite platform and there hadn’t been enough time for him to have crossed. We didn’t hear the ballast crunching underfoot so he hasn’t walked over the old line. He’d just vanished. There wasn’t any reason for him to have been stood there, and even though the line closed in 1969, the last passenger train was in 1953. I’ve walked past there many times since; it’s all fenced off now, the waiting rooms are gone and it’s all very overgrown.
I’ve never read any other accounts of it, searching online hasn’t revealed anything either.
On that note, I wonder if anyone here has seen a man endlessly waiting for a train at Fort Brockhurst station in Gosport?

Alleycat1 · 08/10/2023 22:19

@AceofPentacles Yes, Birdy Friend was really spooky! Didn't it also say that lots of people would die? I always hoped that the little boy's mother would come back with an update.

RainbowZebraWarrior · 09/10/2023 00:19

Alleycat1 · 08/10/2023 22:19

@AceofPentacles Yes, Birdy Friend was really spooky! Didn't it also say that lots of people would die? I always hoped that the little boy's mother would come back with an update.

Didn't that turn out to be a troll?

HernesEgg · 09/10/2023 06:58

RainbowZebraWarrior · 09/10/2023 00:19

Didn't that turn out to be a troll?

Of course it was a troll! Did you think someone actually owned a demonically-possessed RSPB badge that predicted Covid?

Graciebobcat · 09/10/2023 09:32

Love that @Deliveryboy

I'm fascinated by disused stations.

Tambatamba · 09/10/2023 10:21

https://youtube.com/@ARIESonYT?si=Ty1FTPbnvFjDt3IN

I'd really recommend this channel for anyone who likes scary stories.

Tambatamba · 09/10/2023 10:22

What is this story about an RSPB badge??

Laiste · 09/10/2023 11:09

A poster a long way up-thread pointed out that you are less likely to even realise you're seeing a ghost if it's a normal animal or someone in modern dress just doing what they did when alive. Fascinating stuff when you think about it like that.

Me and DH had a weird thing with 2 people in blue waterproof outfits.

So we pulled off the lane and into/across a big wide field entrance way (no gate or posts) to attend to baby DD who's blanket was slipping off or something. I was driving, DH in front passenger seat.

Field was massive and flat. Ankle height straw stubble and mud. There were a few leafless sticks either side of the big entrance gap but no proper hedge. Cold, grey, see your breath sort of morning.

I got out to see to DD (behind me on back seat) and glanced up to see a couple in the field walking straight towards us. Not far away at all (10 meters?) both in navy blue waterproofs and i think they were holding hands. They had that cheerful pre hello look - looking straight at us - if they'd a bit nearer i'd have said ''morning'' straight away.

I was just a few seconds seeing to DD and it was cold so i jumped back in the car and looked past DH to see if the couple had got near enough to smile and raise a hand as a hello (middle of nowhere here, so you sort of do) but there was no one there! Empty field. Nothing. Even something as small as a rabbit would have been easy to see.

DH saw me frown and looked that way too and said ''...... where did they go?!''

So he'd seen them too.

We both stared at the empty field. I said ''Couple in blue waterproofs ...'' and DH said ''Yes! Looking straight at us!''. It was so odd. There was no where they could have gone. No trees, no hedges near enough to run to even if they were both as quick as Usain Bolt! Nothing there but the stubble in the field.

I mean ???

Laiste · 09/10/2023 11:12

Seeing we're talking Northamptonshire/Warwickshire locations - the above was up near Barby.

spiderlight · 09/10/2023 16:44

@GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER - I'm not sure whether it was telepathy or what, but I had a weird incident about 25 years ago. I had flu - proper, full-blown flu, with a really high temperature. I was very deeply but fitfully asleep, and my extremely level-headed then-boyfriend was seriously considering whether to call an ambulance. I suddenly woke up, looked him dead in the eye, said 'Tell Mike I'm not dead' and went back to sleep again. Mike was my previous boyfriend; we had split up amicably a couple of years prior when he moved overseas to do his PhD and only kept in very sporadic email contact. About five minutes after I'd said that, the phone rang - it was Mike, frantic, having dumped his shopping in the middle of town and run home to call me (this was before everyone had mobiles) because he'd looked in a shop window and seen a transparent reflection of me standing behind him and was convinced it was my ghost. We never rang each other (I hate talking on the phone) and hadn't even emailed each other for months, so he had no idea I was ill, but he was massively shaken up. None of us could explain it.

spiderlight · 09/10/2023 16:54

@UndertheCedartree - look up false awakenings. I get them quite a lot, usually tied in with sleep paralysis. Really unpleasant!

eandz13 · 09/10/2023 17:51

@spiderlight Wow that's mental!

UndertheCedartree · 09/10/2023 17:53

spiderlight · 09/10/2023 16:54

@UndertheCedartree - look up false awakenings. I get them quite a lot, usually tied in with sleep paralysis. Really unpleasant!

Ah, thank you, I'll have a look. It was honestly the scariest thing I have ever experienced!

Hellodarknessmyoldpal · 09/10/2023 19:07

What i now realise is sleep paralysis but didn't at the time. Felt someone lying next to me but couldn't move. I was digging my hands into something which i was sure was someone's arm. Then saw the light from the hall way flood into the room and a dark figure walk in. Tried to call out my flatmates name but no sound came out. Terrified me at the time. Only happened once but other times id wake and not be able to move my head. Like my neck had gone totally stiff which i always found scary.

My friend's DS used to be scared to be in his bedroom alone becuse 'the man was in there'. Had an ex years ago with a little sister (dad's 2nd marriage so much much younger) who used to stroke a cat that wasn't there and talk to a man in a uniform.

AceofPentacles · 09/10/2023 19:21

@Tambatamba search 'my child has a badge that sees ghosts' it's in classics but I can't link from the app

Jazzydrops · 09/10/2023 21:11

When my daughter was nursery age I was in the kitchen and watched as she walked towards the living room with a what looked like a veil over her head. My DH was at the sink and turned around and saw her and said he didn’t recognise what she was wearing on her head either. She didn’t speak, just walked into the living room. I went into the room just after her and there was nobody there. There was no time for her to leave the room. I went looking for her and found her fast asleep on her bed. That freaked us out for a long time after.

BloodyHellKen · 09/10/2023 21:31

Verv · 03/10/2023 17:55

I think ive posted these before as ive had a few odd experiences.

1 -
I used to be very into urban exploration and particularly asylums and hospitals.
A few years ago before it was demolished, I went to Blackburn infirmary with my friend to go photograph it. We were climbing in through one of the windows and as I looked up and into the room, there was a man walking across it from right to left, I said "oh hi sorry" and assumed it was another photographer having a wander. Got through and turned round to give my friend a hand/pull up, she plops through the window, looks up and says "hello" then dusts herself off, looks around and says "where'd he go"?
The end of the room that he was walking towards was just a wall, and more to the point, as soon as we moved glass was crunching under our feet from the debris, and this guy had walked across the room completely and impossibly silently. He had just disappeared when there was nowhere to go. It was a big room and we said hello when he was in the middle of it, he couldn't have got back to the doorway in the second or so that we took our eyes off him.

2 - Went on holiday with gf and rented a cottage in near Glenprosen.
I have a habit which I never deviate from of removing ring, necklace and wallet whenever I get home. When not on holiday, they go into a tray, and when away I put them wherever. The wherever on this particular holiday was on the dining room table to the left of the door. Id got in the night before, emptied pockets, took jewellery off, left in usual place before settling in for the evening. Id taken my bra off upstairs and hung it from the bannister pole.
Following day, got ready to go out, went to get wallet and jewellery, and the necklace had vanished. I clearly remembered taking it off and putting it on the table. Started to hunt high and low with gf helping. Took downstairs apart, seat cushions, washing machine, sink areas, drawers EVERYWHERE. Left gf downstairs as I went upstairs to hunt through the bed and bedroom. Took the bra off the bannister pole, gave it a shake, turned it around, nothing.
Spent about an hour in the bedroom area, went through laundry, upturned the pillows, emptied case, took duvet out, took mattress off, checked en suite inc down toilet, checked bags, checked pockets even down to things I hadn't taken out of suitcase. The necklace was a 21st bday gift from my mother and one of my most treasured possessions so I was never going to just write off the loss.
Gf came upstairs having done a second sweep and said she couldn't find it and as she came upstairs she said my name really strangely. I looked up and she was totally white and subdued and just pointing at the bra on the bannister. She said, the necklace is in your bra. And it was, tucked in almost gently and visibly in the cup like it had been put in a hammock.
I said, it cant be I CHECKED THE BRA. She says "I know, it was the first place I looked in case it had fallen off when you were getting undressed, I took it off the bannister and checked it. I dont like this"
It was the weirdest thing. We had both taken the bra off the bannister and shaken it out. The necklace is a big chunky heavy one so nothing delicate or easy to miss and it WAS. NOT. THERE. Twice.
Huge relief although didnt understand what had happened, and the holiday continued without further incident.
On the last day we went to leave a note and sign the guest book, and we were flicking though previous entries and there were two in there that spoke of things going missing inside the cottage and jokingly asked if it had a resident ghost.
On the drive back home gf said "I dont want to go there again, dont mind going to glenprosen, but not that cottage. I didnt want to say but I didnt like being downstairs on my own" I asked why she didnt tell me, and she said I would've just taken the piss. (probably true as she's totally not woo and I would've been all "no such thing as ghosts tho right?!" because I can be a knob.)
I 100% know gf wouldn't have touched or moved the necklace to wind me up as she's ND and just doesnt do that, also the way her face had just drained of colour and the way she said my name will stick with me. Cant be faked. She wont talk about it to this day. I say "you remember the necklace?" and she tells me to shut up because she's still freaked out.

3 - Im 100% sure ive taken a photo of a ghost. Happy to DM but not happy to put on a site that gets scraped over by rags for stories.

TLDR -
Ghost in an infirmary.
Kleptoghost.
Ghost on an elderly iPhone.

@Verv I've just read your post re: Blackburn Royal.

I knew it well, my mum used to work there. I do seem to remember that there was a story about a Dr hanging himself in one of the theatres years ago and it was supposed to be haunted. I always imagined it was one of the large bay window theatres on the front overlooking the main road into Blackburn because that's where my mum worked in theatre.

Paul2023 · 09/10/2023 23:21

I’ve read some good stories on this thread. Ones that I remember well are the Savernake forest one and the tall straw man looking through a bedroom window one ?
There was also the story about the family that stayed in a holiday home somewhere and left halfway through because they could feel a presence there. Wish I could find it again.

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