To start the spooky stories thread?

[SurpriseItsMeHorseyNeighNeigh]

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.

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 ooh can I see your ghost photo please?

@Pebblesflintstoneandbambamrubble
I'm pretty far from being woo but I've seen/felt things I've struggled to logically explain in York centre/in broad daylight.

Seconding that @Verv please 🙏!

About 20 years ago I worked nightshift where you would spend the night on your own in a staff flat. It's hard to describe, and sounds ridiculous, but even during the day there was a part of the building where you could just feel this presence. It just felt as though someone was watching you but felt scary and dangerous and just induced a real fear and anxiety. It's really hard to describe and it wasnt sleep paralysis. Months went by and I never mentioned it to anyone because it sounded so silly. I just avoided having to be in that area where possible on my own at night.
A new member of staff asked me one day, and asked me not to laugh, if I had ever felt there was anything strange about the building. Long story short and without me giving her any details she described the exact same feelings and presence as me and in exactly the same place!
There were other things that always happened in that same area too. She had her own stories that I sadly can't remember the details of but I do remember being there one night and the room I was in looked out across to the area where we felt this presence. I noticed the lights were still on, I could see right into the window and I was really annoyed I'd forgotten to turn them off because it meant having to go back over there which I didn't want to do. But when I got there, the lights weren't on. I went back to the room and looked out and the lights were still on. I just left them! It happened another couple of nights I was on but I never went back again to check. I've never been able to explain that. I was the only person in the building, no one else could have accessed it without coming through a door I had locked and it definitely was not a trick of the light. I could clearly see in the windows of that area just as if the lights were turned on. Still gives me the creeps thinking about it. I've never felt anything like that before or since.

The Romans marching through an old house was mentioned in the book Behind the Scenes at the Museum set in York. The author grew up there. I wish I'd grown up in York or brought my kids up there. I love it

@Verv Can I see your photo as well please? 🙏🙏🙏

@Whatafustercluck
Re Alexa singing "Daisy, Daisy" Could it have been playing the bit from 2001: A Space Odyssey where Hal the computer goes mad?

My Alexas do do random things, especially the older one. One started listing vegetables yesterday out of nowhere. Think it's partly planned obsolescence so you'll buy a new one and partly spies tapping the wrong button at the wrong time!

TW-PARENT DEATH/END OF LIFE CARE

My dad passed away 3 years ago, before Covid. He had COPD and had been in and out of the hospital for over a year. We got a call one morning to say he was in ICU and had been given the last rights. He was in an induced coma and we needed to come and say goodbye. Whole family came in and said goodbyes, but me, mum and brother stayed in the family room when others left.

Incredibly, he woke up. Doctors were baffled, but he seemed ok and we were obvs delighted. First thing he said was the the tall, white figures with no faces had said they werent ready for him yet and he had to go back. But they were standing at the foot of the bed of the young man across from him, could we not see them? We comforted him and marked it down to the drugs. The young man in the bed opposite where my dad had seen the figures standing, passed away that night. The doctors hadnt expected it, I heard them discuss it the next day.

This happened with another 3 people while my dad was in ICU. Now you could mark down that you are not in ICU unless you are very unwell, but my dad was in for 5 days and of the many patients that came and went, the only ones who died were the ones where the white figures stood.

He lasted another 6 months. He got to walk my sister down the aisle at her wedding and at the evening party told me the white figures were back and he needed to go this time. I hoped he had just had one to many whiskies, but he passed away 2 days later.

Funnily enough, last year my DH had a horrible gallbladder infection, caught sepsis and fully crashed. The doctors had quite a fight to save him. When he woke up he saw tall, white figures at the end of his bed, but they had their back to him. After a few moments they drifted away. He said it wasnt scary- just odd.

Worked in a pub and I had a number of things happen but one that stood out. Was nearing closing and I had put all the drip trays in the washer. These come in 2 parts incase anyone didn't know. I must have opened the washer took the trays out but not put them back on the pumps. When I went to do it 1 had 1 part missing. I checked everywhere wondering if I had done something weird, even in the toilets. Had to apologise to my boss for losing it, she even had a quick look. The next morning she found it..... right in the middle of the bar floor.

The pub was on 2 parts and quite often I would hear the door go. Or hear someone whistle. I also had a bottle fall off a shelf, I dont think it was the shelf as only one bottle moved. The landlady had cctv of chairs moving.

Elderly relatives of mine lived in a house that had a cold and oppressive feel to it. It was the only house I’ve ever been in where I was scared to go upstairs. Lots of unexplained things happened in the house.
I remember one incident where I spent the afternoon at my relatives house. As the afternoon progressed I became desperate for the loo and put off going up because I felt so scared in the upstairs of their house. Eventually I couldn’t put it off any longer. I went up and decided to leave the bathroom door open (because both relatives were downstairs) so I could make a sharp exit when I was done. I sat down, laughed internally to myself at how stupid I was being, then watched in horror as the handle of the bedroom door opposite me slowly went down and the bedroom door swung wide open. There was nobody else in the house other than the relatives downstairs. I looked in and there was nobody there, the window was shut and I tried the handle to check it wasn’t loose and it wasn’t. I ran down the stairs so fast I nearly fell down them.

In my own house I’ve had a black shadow figure encounter.
It was dusk outside so I went into our front room to shut the curtains. My DH was in the kitchen doing the washing up, my baby was asleep. No one else home. As I reached for the curtain something with an evil sounding voice said ‘boo!’ into my ear. I felt the ice cold breath on my neck. There was then an unhinged strange laugh that didn’t sound human and I watched as this waist height black transparent almost human shape run from me and out of the room. I went into the kitchen where my DH was still washing up and he said I looked white. I couldn’t stop shaking.

Ooh ok here goes…

About 10 years ago I was in my early twenties still lived in my family home with parents and brother. Our house had been an old fever hospital before being renovated decades before by my grandparents. My mum had lived there since she was a child and remembers the old ward layout of the house (incidentally my room was part of an old ward). Several people had spooky encounters in the house over the years, including me when I was in my teens, my brother, stepdad, family friends and even my Dad before I was born. My mum swore blind it was nonsense.

Anyway, this one night I was woken abruptly by my mum. She demanded to know if I’d been up walking around. I said no and she grabbed me, quickly telling me to get out my bedroom. She’d woken up hearing footsteps in the hall and had seen someone walk past her open bedroom door into my room, and walk around my room. We had old creaky parquet flooring so you could always hear when people walked on it. My mum was that adamant she started looking in wardrobes and under the bed, thinking we had an intruder and she’d disturbed them and they’d hid. At this point I had 999 ready to call on my phone.

I suggested we search the rest of the house and wake my brother up. Mum said no, they were definitely in my room if they were here. Eventually, she just decided there was no one there and told me to go back to bed! Yeah right, as if I’d sleep again!

It may be easily dismissed but, spookily, a lot of the ghostly going’s on in the house over the years had been people seeing shadows of “people” or hearing footsteps that weren’t there. I always hated being alone in that house, even as an adult it gave me an awful, unsettling feeling and I’d often refuse to stay there overnight by myself.

Same here..
I'm from the North East and used to visit York regularly - castle museum, Jorvik etc. Every time I go I feel depressed and the whole place feels oppressive. Despite actually being a lovely place with amazing museums.

My granddad was a funeral director in our small Northern town, as his dad, granddad etc were before him. He always wore lots of Brylcreme in his hair and so always smelled of it. He also, ALWAYS, during the day wore a black suit with grey pin stripe, in case he was ever called out to collect someone who had passed away. His pet name for me, my sister and cousin was 'cockbird'.

He died on the 13th of October.

After my son was born a few years later (on the 13th of october!) we would be playing at home and an overwhelming smell of Brylcreme and cigarettes would come into the room and my little boy would yabba away! When he was about 5 we were walking to my mums about a mile away. We walked down a street, let's call it Copper Road, and about half way down my son waved at nothing, giggled and said 'hiya cockbird'! Feeling a little bit freaked out, I asked him who he was talking to and he said 'that man, he's taking the lady to heaven'. Feeling very freaked out we carried on to my mums and told her all about it. She asked my son what the man was wearing and he said 'a black suit'.

1 week later, our free community paper was delivered! As always I read the hatched, matched and dispatched pages and low and behold, an old lady on Copper Road had died the week before.

I am convinced that my Granddad is one of heavens undertakers and the nosy old bugger couldn't resist 'meeting' his great grandson!

My XMIL lives just outside the walls and says she woke on the sofa to see Romans marching through with their knees at ground level to reflect the change in pavement height. This is a really common type of citing but does that means it happens a lot or inspires a lot of dreams/hallucinations? And why do they respect the pavement heights but no other laws of physics?!

'They' have no agency.

Death took them nearly 2,000 years ago. 'They' do not perform for you now. The laws of physics and biology tell us after 70 years you are dead, probably you may have lived to only 50 years in the first century. When all animals die their lifeforces or energy dies too.

What we do know through discovered science is that a combination of chemicals and solids if assembled in the right order can reproduce past events. Just reflect on that for a moment. Camera film. Radio crystals. Lasers and DVDs. Digital cameras. The internet. All made by humans. A photograph of Abraham Lincoln is him, but it has no agency. Ghandi has no agency in the films we see of him. But it is him. Yet it is not - just pigments, acids, alkalis and electric pulses and other stiff produced that moving image.

But what made humans? We are natural beings, produced from stardust. Nature has produced us and nature can randomly yet rarely assemble the same compounds so they relive and replay events. Nature makes everything. Nature produces ghosts. With our advanced minds we are seeing nature working in the random ways it sometimes can. Many of us are not yet ready to accept this. Most never see anything. Probably because there are more practical things for humans to work at. It is easier to just say that's 'Woo'.

Enjoy the Woo before someone comes along and proves it. Because then it is no more extraordinary.

@OTM1982 Thats a really heartwarming story. Something really reassuringly lovely about it.

A few years ago I had a medium reading after a break up and was in a pretty bad place. Most of what she said could be explained away/was pretty vague but she did say she had my Grandma and Aunty there with her (names and causes of death were loosely correct). At the end she asked if I had any questions and I asked if I was going to have any more children. She replied that she doesn't answer this question because people with fertility issues can put too much into the answer. The conversation was about to end and she said your relatives are asking me to say to you 'Lucy' (name changed as outing as it's a pretty unusual name). Anyway the name didn't mean anything to me and I carried on with my life. Met my partner and fell pregnant, when we found out we were having a girl he said 'I've always wanted to call my daughter Lucy', she's now 8 months old 🥹 they were right xx

Cutting a very long story short. Yeah, my best mate, about 15 years ago, went to University in Manchester. We are from the Southwest, so it was quite a way away and a bit of a trip to get there and me being me and a big clubber at the time I wanted to go to cream in liverpool,then the nightclub was called nation. Obviously, Manchester to Liverpool is a train trip away. So we got the train had our amazing night out. Got to the train station, and the the next train wasn't until something like 7 AM in the morning, so we started to look at taxis. Being young, we had no money. We got a quote from a taxi. Liverpool to Manchester and he said it be 40 pounds, we didn't have 40 pounds, so we decided to just sit on the steps of Liverpool train station until the next train. My friend suddenly pulled out 2x20 Pound Irish notes from underneath her feet. She said she just sat down and they were there. We took that as an omen and we got the taxi home. I hate typing on my phone, so i'm sorry if there are lots of typos or mistakes, i've done this on audio. 🤣

It was never 'scary'! Weird yes, but it never, ever felt threatening!

Yes! Have been waiting for this!

Will add mine in a little while...

It's such a heartwarming story @violetcuriosity xxX and many thanks to @Verv again xx

You're wrong, but if it makes you feel better, you carry on believing that. 🙂

My family home is a big Victorian house which my parents did a lot of work to when they first moved in. I was 6 at the time. They ripped out everything as it was completely dated and as the previous owner had it 70 years earlier. During the time this work was being done, my mum used to come home from dropping me and my brothers off at school and she would notice strange things like the radio would be playing or the kettle would boil on its own. I remember smelling smoke and strong perfume in areas of the house. Things seemed to settle down a bit once the disruption had ended and the building work was complete.

When I was a few years older, I was going to sleep with my door open and the landing light on as I always did, and I remember seeing a shadow clear as day walking past my doorway into the bathroom. I told my parents who decided to tell me that they'd had a few strange things happen to them as well. Their bedroom had only the 'big light' at the time, and my mum would have to turn it off at the switch before getting into bed at night. She did this one night and felt someone's hand brushing her head with pressure. She ran back to turn the light on and nothing was there.

I have also had an incident at my parents house when I was having a shower there. I took all of my rings and jewellery off before I got in and put them on top of the chest of drawers, nowhere near the en suite bathroom. When I got out of the shower, all of the jewellery was neatly lined up in the doorway of the en suite. I was absolutely gob-smacked but by this point we were getting quite used to ghostly events!

Fast-forward to when I got my first proper boyfriend (now husband). My parents used to make him sleep on our sofa downstairs rather than share with me. I hadn't said anything to him about our house being haunted as I wanted him to not think I was a weirdo, but one morning he told me that he had a horrific night. There was a mirror above our mantelpiece facing the foot of the sofa where he was sleeping, and he said he looked up in the darkness and saw an elderly woman's face staring back at him. He blinked and it vanished but he couldn't sleep for the rest of the night. My husband is a scientist and doesn't believe in anything paranormal, but to this day he talks about that old woman in the mirror!

My parents still live in the house to this day and we are all completely used to the idea that it is probably haunted. Nothing really happens that much now but it's exciting when something happens because I LOVE this sort of thing.

A few years ago I was lying in bed and DH was at work on a Saturday morning. About an hour after he left, I heard the front door open and someone run up the stairs and into the bathroom, which was at the top of the stairs. I heard the door close.

I called out for DH, thinking he must have driven past on a job and dropped in for a pee. No answer. I called again. No answer. I slowly got up to check he was okay. Went to bathroom and knocked. No answer. Went in and... no one was there. Panic suddenly set in and I snuck down to the kitchen to grab a knife, thinking someone was in the house somewhere. I snuck around, looking for the intruder.

There was no one. I called DH who hadn't left work to go out on jobs yet.

To this day I still can't understand it. Neighbours house layout wouldn't explain it as a sound through the wall. Plus our neighbour was 90 so no way she was running up stairs.

It was a 150 year old house and I think someone from long ago must have forgotten they don't live there any more.