Sometimes, it’s best not to know what goes bump in the night.
A group of people affected by the paranormal have come forward to share the experiences they can’t explain.
The community used online forum Reddit to share their terrifying tales of ghosts, ghouls and things that were not quite right.
As one user said: ‘There is no supernatural, there are only things we don’t understand yet.’
Ghosts Just Want To Have Fun
“When I was about 8 I woke up at my grandparents house to my cousin saying, “Wake up lets play hide and go seek!”
I looked around couldn’t find her. “She said don’t quit come and find me.”
I searched high and low. She spoke to me in all different parts of the house. Finally I burst into my parents room and said, “Is Ellen hiding in here?”
And they said, ‘She isn’t coming until tomorrow’.”
Always Keep The Light On
"I lived in a pretty old house when I was a kid (built in the 1880's I believe), and a family friend always liked to go on about how it was haunted. Really the only weird thing I ever saw happen took place one morning at breakfast. I was eating cereal with my sister, doing kid stuff, and she eventually left the table. Not 10 seconds after she left, the fully-functioning light bulb in the ceiling fixture fell directly onto the chair where she was sitting. Not super spooky, but it was still weird."
A Grandmother Knows
"My grandmother also suffers from severe dementia. She was in a different ward than my grandfather, who was in the alzheimers ward. A few months ago my grandfathers blood pressure dropped and he collapsed. He was dead before the sun rose the next morning. Apparently my grandmother, in the middle of the night, woke up and began sobbing uncontrollably. She was not made aware of his sudden turn in health."
The Most Horrifying Horror FIlms.
Gourmet Ghouls
"Walking home with buds after a night on the town. We're walking around when we smell the most delicious smell we have ever smelled. We follow it to a bbq joint where this old black guy is humming a old negro spiritual while attending a homemade grill. We walk up and he greets us in a friendly Tennessee accent and asks us if we were hungry.
He piles bbq on a plate on us and say its free of charge but tells us to come back in the morning to try the sides and desserts. We head out and promise we would return. The next day we go back the gentlemans son is outside of the shop grilling. We explained to him what happened and that we wanted to thank the old man. The son says that his dad, the FORMER owner of the place has been dead for 10 years and the damn restaurant has been closed since his death. That day was their grand reopening..."
Sudden disappearances aren't just for our ghoulish friends...
Dreaming of Old Skin
"Not me, but a friend of mine told me about a dream she had years ago about a decrepit old man who was being chased by wolves. In the dream, he kept referring to himself in the third person as "Old Skin" ("Old Skin's gotta get away from the wolves...")
Eventually, the wolves caught up to him and started ripping him to pieces in front of her, and he kept narrating the events in a monotone voice "(Old Skin's being eaten alive...Old Skin's gonna die...")
She woke up feeling creeped out, but the weirdest part came when she started describing the dream to her brother. He stopped her mid-sentence and asked, "Was his name 'Old Skin'? I had the EXACT SAME DREAM!"
I don't know if that counts as paranormal, but it's fucking creepy."
The Uninvited Visitor
"When I was in elementary school, I shared a queen size bed with my older sister and our family dog (a mutt that looked like a short haired Lassie) would sleep at the foot of our bed every night. When I was about 6 years old, I woke up one night around midnight and saw a dark figure standing at the foot of the bed. The figure was entirely in black without any eyes or a face. I tried to wake my sister up, but she rolled over to go back to sleep. My sister must have accidentally kicked the dog, because the dog woke up and raised her head and started growling at the figure at the foot of the bed. The growling then woke my sister up and she saw the figure and started screaming. When my parents came into the room and turned the light on, nothing was there.
To this day, both my sister and I are adamant that we saw a ghost or other demon in our room. We know we aren't crazy because the dog saw it too."
A Psychic's Warning
"Went to Lincoln City on the Oregon coast for a weekend getaway with my mother and sister when I was about 14. Mum suggested we go into a palm reader's place to see what our futures hold. My mum and sister enter ahead of me and before I can step foot in the place an old woman screams at me not to come in. She comes to the door and says that the dark ones can't come in. She proceeds to ask me, while I'm standing in the cold on her stoop, if I see "them." Mum rushes past her and grabs me, yelling for my sister and I to get back in the car. Mum proceeds to explain to me on the drive back to our hotel that the reason we moved so often when I was little was because I would complain about people watching me sleep at night and hearing voices. Weird considering there's a huge chunk of my childhood (from about four to nine-ten years old) that I don't remember whatsoever."
The Faceless Visitor
"When I was a kid, about seven-eight years old, I was on my way to the park. It was in the middle of day in the middle of summer, but as I open the gate I freeze, as I hear a very creepy voice whisper my name in the distance. I look around. No one within sight, and I live in the middle of town (small town). Then I hear it again, but this time closer. Still frozen on the spot, still scouting for the source of the voice. Then, I hear it again, but this time - RIGHT in front of my face. I immediately unfreeze, sprint back inside, and hide under my desk, shaking like crazy. I never went outside that day."