Some of the unusual encounters we’ve had throughout our lives continue to perplex us.

Online communities, which are now freely available via a simple search, have evolved into gathering places for people to share their terrifying and unsettling recollections. These stories may sound like something out of a horror film, yet they are alleged to be factual and told by everyday individuals who experienced them personally.

Story 1:

My wife and I were staying in an old motel with our baby. Around 3 a.m., I heard a cold whisper in the room. It said, “Now, we’re finally even! You’ll suffer as I have!”

Panicked, I got up and turned on the light. My wife was still sleeping, but when I ran to my baby’s crib, I found it covered in white feathers, hundreds of them! We’d arrived late at the hotel, and I wondered if the feathers had already been there, but my wife later assured me they hadn’t.

I got distracted by those feathers for a moment, but then I froze when I saw his sleeping position had changed—his head was now facing the door, though I was sure that wasn’t how we’d put him down.

When I woke my wife, we discovered a note placed between us on the bed that read, “Your baby should sleep between you.”

My wife started shaking, and we got in the car and left the hotel immediately, never looking back.

Story 2:

My brother had his appendix out when he was about 13. Five or six years later, he confessed to me that he had made it all up to get out of doing some homework. He made all the right noises at the doctor’s surgery, who sent him to the hospital, where he fooled them again.

After the operation, he says the surgeon spoke to him and mentioned it was odd because there wasn’t any inflammation. I am amazed that in the days before the internet, he knew where his appendix should be.

He is 50 next year, and my parents still don’t know. © hudson2_3 / Reddit

Story 3: 

Story 4: 

Somebody mailed my friend a bunch of pictures of his wife just going about her day. Some of them were taken through the windows of their home.
The police were called and everything, but nothing ever came of it. They moved because of it. © iMakeItSeemWeird / Reddit

Story 5:

A friend was sleeping at home during the summer while his housemates were away. He slept with the bedroom door open (which is horrifying enough) but woke up when he heard burglars walking up the stairs.

He didn’t do anything and just lay there, terrified, and one of them closed the bedroom door. When they left, he found a knife in the kitchen that didn’t belong to anyone in the house.
© 12pillows / Reddit

Story 6: 

Story 7: 

I was at my dad’s visit over the holidays. The day after I got there, I was standing in the bathroom pulling my hair up into a bun. My phone was sitting on the counter with the screen off. Suddenly, the phone screen flicks on, unlocks, the front camera opens, and it snaps a picture of the ceiling. © LandShark93 / Reddit

Story 8: 

My grandma di:ed during the late 90s. My cousin, who was her favorite, was asked to find her favorite dress so she could wear it while people visited her at the funeral. The thing is, my grandma’s closet was as huge as a fitting room (think 6 cubicles, 2 rows, 3 columns).

After about an hour of searching because he couldn’t find it, he muttered something like, “If only someone would help me.” The next closet door he opened, the dress just fell in front of him.
© gaxkang / Reddit

Story 9: 

My aunt had an intruder in her home a few years ago. She woke up suddenly in the middle of the night and found someone standing in her room watching them sleep. She started throwing things at him, and he started saying, “I’m with the home tour committee!!!” (Her house was on a holiday home tour, and there was a sign for it in the yard).

My uncle woke up, and he’s a huge guy, so the intruder ran away and out the door, he came in.

He didn’t steal anything, and they found his hat in their office, which had an expensive computer and camera on the desk. They also have three kids, so they are extremely lucky nothing happened to them. © coachmuschamp / Reddit

Story 10:

Story 11: 

When I was in kindergarten, my mother received a survey call (popular in the 90s), and when the questions became strangely personal and she said she wasn’t comfortable, the man called my mother by name and said that he had me (also used my name).

My father, who was a cop, picked me up from school immediately in uniform and the cruiser. I’ll never forget my principal blocking my huge father from the doorway and asking me, “Do you know this man?” I was just excited to leave school early and take a ride in the cop car.
© Styx_siren / Reddit

Story 12: 

A close coworker of mine has two daughters. She was telling me a story about how her younger daughter used to sleep in bed with her because she was afraid to sleep by herself (she was about 4 or 5 years old at the time).

One night, the little girl was lying in bed with her mom and started staring at a dark corner of the room. My coworker asked, “Lilly, what’s wrong?” The little girl replied, “Mommy, who is that old lady in the corner?”

Obviously, this creeped my coworker out, but she wanted to get to the bottom of it. Over the following weeks, she showed her daughter pictures of her older ancestors, both alive and deceased. It turns out the little girl ended up identifying the woman in the room as my coworker’s great-grandmother, who had passed away many years before.
© aj0220 / Reddit