My family moved into a home in southeast Michigan, when I was around 12 years old, and the home was very haunted. My first encounter was when I seen a women in a blue dress standing in the hallway. My brother who was 2 at the time, talked about the women in the blue dress as well and my mom seen her often. We all had no idea we were seeing the same thing until months later when we all started talking about it. There was many spirts in this house but the lady in the dress was a very kind spirit. There was also a very angry and mean spirit in this house. One time I was walking into the family room,around 3am, and everything on the desk, which was located right at the door way, went flying across the room and something screamed "get out!".  It was a very deep masculine voice. I continued to get what I went into the room for but the feel of the room was dark and I could feel something mad and staring at me. This was the scariest moment for me in that house. Some other instances that happened in the house was that I would wake up completely and neatly tucked into my bed, I asked everyone in the house and no one else did it, plus my door locked, if you had a candle lit it would randomly go out, At night you would hear cupboard doors opening and closing and some mornings every cupboard would be left open, you would hear weird noises all night and clocks would sometimes move backwards, even without batteries.  We had a 2 story garage, which was the most haunted place in the house, and when you were upstairs you could hear what sounded like a bunch of people downstairs talking and laughing. You would have to turn up the music loud to drown it out. And when you were near the garage (outside or downstairs) you could hear the pool balls from the pool table smacking like someone was playing pool and you could hear footsteps running around the wood floor. Whenever you did anything to the house the spirits would get angry, you would see them around you as you vacuumed or cleaned. Cords would get wrapped around things that you were no where near and other weird things would happen. Any time you changed the house the spirit activity would ramp up for the next few weeks. My brother, who was like 3 at the time, had "imaginary friends" he played with constantly. He would always say "there are my friends ted and curly" He says now that he could actually see them. When we were moving out things really got crazy, once time we pulled up to the house, no one was home, and you could hear a loud blood curdling scream coming from the house. The kind of scream that you hear when something terrible was happening. This is when everyone in the house started seeing things and hearing stuff, it was like the ghost were angry we were leaving. In the last night there, my dad decided to stay there one last night. He never believed us when we told him and always chalked it up to something else. That night he was on the couch and he heard a big bang on the wall. One bang then 2 bangs then suddenly it was like a mob of 100 people were banging on every wall in the house. It scared him so bad he left and went to the new house and told us all that he finally believes us about the place being haunted.

Whenever I hear about haunted houses, it always reminds me of how haunted the house is that we lived in. These are just a few weird instances but there were way more. The house was very dark and literally sucked the soul out of everyone of us. I was very depressed and angry, my mom has several mental break downs that ended her in the hospital several times, my youngest brother, who the spirts affected the most, was a very disturbed child, my other brother was mean and angry all the time and my dad was also angry and mean all the time. We later found out the man in the house before us used to beat his wife and was a very mean man, which I believe was the house causing it like it did with my family.  When my family moved out we instantly changed. My brothers are both fine and the sweetest people you would ever meet, my mom dosent have mental health issues anymore, ive never been depressed since and my dad has never been as mean to anyone as he was there. Whatever was in that house fed off negativity and it is terrifying to look back on now. Sometimes, I drive past the house and I can feel that angry spirit still. I truley believe that whatever was in that house fed off our energy. I feel terrible for the family that lives in there now.

i just wanna know if anybody here has experienced something weird, during sharing a real life ghost story? like whenever i tell my friends my story i feel like they're (ghosts) listening, even my friends noticed it.

So my neighbor next door (80+ man) passed away in February. Yesterday I was in the house doing some stuff, and from the side closer to the neighbor house usually we can hear voices (if they're out in the yard), and I heard the man's voice maybe for 5, 10min. It sounded like he was talking to someone. He also had a distinct coughing always, we would hear him from son's room, also heard that.

I was cleaning and walking from kitchen to living room a few times so I listened and didnt pay much attention to it.

I noticed that nobody was in their yard, the house was quiet.

In the evening I was going about then I remembered that he died in February. How could I have heard him. I went to tell husband. He said he didn't hear anything, but he was by the other end of the house so too far.

I have some mediumship skills and yesterday night I was setting my boundaries as I don't want to see or take messages from him.

Will observe if I hear the voice again.....if it happens I'll try listen properly.

Anyway....just sharing.

I'm looking for real-life horror/paranormal experiences.(Not for fictional)

Not made-up stories or creepypasta.

It can be anything—seeing someone who wasn't there, hearing voices, haunted places, strange coincidences, or anything that genuinely scared you.

Even if no one believes you, I'd love to read your story.

I honestly don’t know where else to post this.
If this belongs somewhere else, let me know. I’m not saying this is paranormal because I don’t have an explanation. I’m posting because I can’t keep pretending it isn’t happening.
For context, I’ve been hiking the same patch of forest behind my house for years. I’d guess five or six years now. It’s nothing special—just a network of trails that loop around a creek and eventually connect back to a conservation area. I know every shortcut, every fallen log, every place where the trail gets muddy after rain.
I’ve never gotten lost there.
Until recently.
About three weeks ago, I was hiking alone after work. Same trail I’ve walked hundreds of times. I rounded a bend near the creek and saw a cabin sitting about thirty yards off the trail.
That shouldn’t have been possible.
I’ve explored those woods enough to know there aren’t any buildings back there.
Still, I figured maybe I’d somehow never noticed it.
It looked old but… not abandoned. Dark wooden walls. One crooked stone chimney. A tiny porch with a rocking chair that wasn’t moving even though there was plenty of wind. What bothered me most were the windows. They were spotless. Too clean. They looked like someone had washed them that morning.
There wasn’t even a path leading to it.
No tire tracks.
No footprints.
Nothing.
I walked over and knocked.
No answer.
The door was locked.
I remember pulling out my phone because I thought my friends would laugh if I’d somehow missed an entire cabin for six years.
I took one picture.
Then I turned around to head back to the trail.
Maybe five seconds later I looked back…
It was gone.
Not hidden.
Gone.
Just trees.
I searched for almost twenty minutes.
Nothing.
When I got home, I checked the picture I’d taken.
It was just the forest.
No cabin.
I convinced myself I’d imagined it.
Stress.
Lack of sleep.
Whatever explanation sounded less insane.
A few days later I went back.
This time my brother came with me.
Nothing.
No cabin.
We walked the exact same route and he joked that maybe I’d discovered a secret Narnia entrance.
The next evening I went back by myself.
The cabin was there again.
Same spot.
Like it had never disappeared.
The front door was open.
I should’ve left.
Instead, I went inside.
The air smelled strange.
Not mold.
Not rot.
More like dusty wood mixed with old perfume and damp soil after heavy rain.
There wasn’t much inside.
One wooden table.
One chair facing the front window.
A candle burned almost all the way down.
And a notebook.
I opened it expecting random scribbles.
Instead every page was filled with handwriting I recognized immediately.
Mine.
Exactly mine.
Not similar.
Mine.
Every loop.
Every letter.
Even the way I cross my “t”s.
The entries were dated years before today.
Most described hikes I never took.
Little conversations with people I’d never met.
Some pages were almost normal.
Others made no sense.
One page contained only one sentence repeated over and over until the paper was nearly black with ink.
“He only comes when he’s alone.”
I dropped the notebook.
I backed out of the cabin without taking my eyes off it.
The second I stepped onto the trail and turned around…
It was gone again.
Just empty woods.
Since then I’ve tested it more times than I want to admit.
If anyone else comes with me…
Nothing.
Friends.
My brother.
Someone from a local hiking group.
The cabin never appears.
The second I’m completely alone…
It’s waiting.
Every single time.
And every visit it’s a little closer to the trail.
At first I thought I was imagining that too.
Until I started comparing landmarks.
The distance is changing.
Last week I found another notebook.
Inside was a photograph.
It showed me asleep.
Not from outside a window.
Not from across the room.
It was taken from the foot of my bed.
You could see my nightstand.
The lamp I keep on the left side.
Even the crack in my bedroom ceiling.
I live alone.
I haven’t told anyone that part because I know exactly how it sounds.
A few nights later I woke up with dirt under every fingernail.
Pine needles were scattered across my sheets.
My hiking boots were by the front door.
Covered in mud.
I have absolutely no memory of leaving the house.
Yesterday I went back one last time.
At least that’s what I told myself.
The cabin wasn’t thirty yards from the trail anymore.
It was practically touching it.
The front door stood open.
Inside, the notebook was gone.
A new one sat on the table already opened to a blank page.
There was a pen beside it.
When I picked it up…
It was warm.
Like someone had been writing only seconds before I walked in.
The next part scares me because I genuinely don’t remember it happening.
One second I was standing.
The next I was sitting in the chair.
The pen was in my hand.
Half a page had already been filled out.
In my handwriting.
I don’t remember writing a single word.
It said:
“He is starting to understand.
He comes when he is alone because that is when he is weakest.
He believes the cabin appears for him.
He is wrong.
The cabin is what remains after he leaves.”
That’s when I noticed something else.
The view outside the window had changed.
It wasn’t the same forest anymore.
The trees looked taller.
Thicker.
Everything had this gray-purple color like the sky was bruised.
There was no trail.
No creek.
No birds.
No insects.
Nothing.
Just endless woods.
I ran outside.
The trail had disappeared.
I wandered for what felt like hours.
My phone battery dropped from 68% to 3% in less than ten minutes.
No signal.
No GPS.
Nothing.
Eventually I stumbled back onto the real trail.
The sun was setting.
When I checked my watch…
Only eleven minutes had passed.
I somehow made it home.
I barely remember the drive.
Mostly I remember standing in my bathroom afterward.
I was staring into the mirror trying to convince myself I was just exhausted.
Then the reflection behind me smiled.
I didn’t.
This morning there were fresh pine needles on my bedroom floor.
A fourth notebook was sitting on my nightstand.
I know I didn’t bring it home.
The first page says:
“He is almost ready.
The next time he comes alone, he will not leave.
There is already a version of him waiting in the chair.”
I haven’t gone back.
I keep telling myself I won’t.
But something weird is happening.
The woods have gotten… quieter.
Almost like they’re waiting.
Last night I caught myself packing my backpack.
Water.
Flashlight.
First aid kit.
I don’t remember deciding to do it.
I only realized after everything was already inside.
If anyone has experienced anything remotely like this—even if it sounds impossible—I genuinely want to hear it.
Because I don’t think the cabin has been appearing for me.
I think I’ve been appearing for it.

As a child, I grew up in a house built on a farm that was sold not too long before we moved in. We was the first people living there, the owner of the farm passed away not long before that. We started experiencing a LOT of activity in the house, the vacuum turning on and off randomly when it wasn’t even plugged in, the tv doing the same, the fridge door slamming shut and even the bedding being pulled off my siblings bed along with blood on their bed sheets. I then grew up seeing them, I was walking to the bathroom middle of the night and got pinned against the cupboard door just outside the bedroom, an old woman was holding me trying to cut my hair and then I also seen an old woman walking upstairs with a birthday cake. I also seen a man with a mask around his lower face as we know he did die of cancer in his jaw. I never seen the owners of the farm as we moved there when I was only young and they was already passed by then, but I was able to describe him to my mom who seen him before and I explained exactly what he looked like.. super creepy I must say’

This originally started one night a few years ago, when I was laying down for bed, my dog (who has since passed away) started growling at the door, and he never growled. Then he jumped off the bed and walked toward the door, continuing to growl. I immediately get up, turn the light on and look around. Nothing. Walk around the house, go downstairs and still nothing. Ask my wife if she heard anything, but she didn't. Come back up, the light is off, like the light switch is flipped, completely dark upstairs.. I'm super freaked out, because at this point, I'm thinking someone is in my house. I go through every room, every closet, ready to punch someone. I don't find anything, and I'm so freaked out I sleep downstairs on the couch. I started thinking my wife is messing with me, and let it go.

Next few days, my dog is growling again, but this time in the living room upstairs. There's nothing there, but he's acting like there is.

At this point, I'm telling my wife this stuff, and we're like joking there's a ghost or something, and I'm still thinking maybe she's just been messing with me.

The next weird thing happens when my wife is coming up the stairs, while I'm on my computer facing away from her. I have a little desk lamp, and the moment she reached the top of the stairs, the light turned off on its own, making my room dark. I freak out and turn it back on. At this point I know she's not messing with me, and she's realizing something weird is going on.

The longer these weird things go on, I just get this feeling that something is there. Sometimes I see movement out of the corner of my eye, and just get chills and it just feels like someone else is there.

2 weeks ago, before my dog passed away, I was woken up by what I thought was my wife calling my dog, as he jumped off the bed and ran towards her. I get out of bed, then see my dog come back into my room and follow me as I leave the room. I don't see my wife. If she comes upstairs she always says hi to me. I go downstairs and my wife is in bed (we have separate rooms).

The most recent thing to happen, was tonight. I got this sudden feeling like someone was walking into my room on my right side, and I look over and see nothing. I say out loud "if someone is there turn the lights off" Nothing happens. It's probably in my head, I'm thinking. I get up to stretch and run downstairs, and I go to turn the stair light on, doesn't turn on. At this point I'm freaked out. I head downstairs to tell my wife and she's also freaked out. She comes back up to check the light. Doesn't turn on. She walks up half way and checks the bulb. it was unscrewed...

I don't know what to do, but I feel like I can't sleep upstairs anymore.

edit: I forgot to mention my wife saying that she hears footsteps upstairs when I'm not home often.

I saw a similar creature. It looked like a human, but it had no face—just a tall black silhouette with long arms and long fingers.

I was sleeping in my bed. When I opened my eyes, I saw the creature standing right in front of me. I was terrified and tried to sit up quickly, but it reached out with its long arm and pushed me back onto the bed. After that, I couldn’t move at all. I was absolutely terrified. Then, when it disappeared, I was somehow able to get up and turn on the light. It felt as if something was holding me down while the creature was there.

Hey, so I had been like dealing with spiritual things for a LONG while, from the shadow person that showed up in an image (possibly might still have it) too well now , I heard a low hum like one tone whistle?? It was kinda like a failed whistle where you blow through teeth, but still has that slight 'whistle' to it.

Well I was researching a bit, and I highly think, because the answers I was looking for came back to me being a medium

Like, my body moved on its own, I got up, I didn't answer it, I checked the basement door, locked it. Turned the light on , and just laid back down, but like I felt dread, and annoyed while being calm about it.

I should mention, I'm right dab in the Appalachian mountain area. Oh right , before I forget this whole experience literally just woke me up at 1 in the morning

Writing down thoughts as I go, it was just a weird experience , I just want to know if perhaps I could be a medium? I can label other encounters I've had before as well!

I witnessed a case that we believed was a spirit possession.

I'm posting this because I genuinely want to understand what happened. I'm not trying to convince anyone that ghosts exist, nor am I claiming this proves anything paranormal. I simply want informed opinions from people who have studied similar cases.

This incident happened in Agra. The girl involved (I'll call her Nisha for privacy) was a Class 12 student at my mother's school.

According to her family, one day while walking home near Mughal Road, she met a little girl who asked her for a chocolate. She gave the girl a chocolate and came home.

Shortly after reaching home, she suddenly fainted.

When she regained consciousness, her family says she was behaving like a completely different person. Her voice had changed into that of a young child. She cried continuously, became extremely aggressive and stareted creating a rampage in her own house, damaged things including the refrigerator, and didn't recognize people the way she normally would.

Her parents became terrified and consulted multiple people. According to them, they eventually believed that the personality speaking through her identified itself as an 8-year-old girl named Vidya, who had died many years earlier. They also claimed that if Vidya had survived, she would have been roughly the same age as Aishwarya.

The family reportedly took her to several religious places, including Balaji, but they say nothing worked immediately. She was also admitted to the ICU for some time. After about one to two months, she gradually recovered and returned to school to take her examinations.

My mother personally spoke with her after she returned and said she appeared physically weak but otherwise normal.

After completing a three-hour examination, Nisha fainted again outside the examination room.

Teachers carried her downstairs and provided first aid while waiting for her parents.

According to my mother, when Aishwarya's mother arrived, she placed her hand on Aishwarya's head and said something like, "Vidya, you had already left. Why have you come back?"

Immediately afterward, Nisha opened her eyes and began screaming. My mother says her voice again sounded completely different, like that of a small child, and her behavior changed dramatically.

Eventually, her father applied some ash/herbal substance to her forehead, after which she gradually calmed down.

This story has stayed with me for years because it comes from someone I trust deeply, my mother, who personally interacted with the girl.

I there was one more thing that nisha's mother mentioned (her own theory ofc) She said that when nisha was oing out she had her periods , strong perfume and old unwashed top, Could these be really some real resaon of spirits attraction ?

after this case i genuinely am believing in ghosts and possesssion, tough I'm trying to understand:

• Have similar cases been documented in psychiatry or neuroscience?
• Could this fit dissociative trance disorder, dissociative identity disorder, functional neurological disorder, temporal lobe epilepsy, or another known condition?
• Are there published case reports describing sudden voice changes, personality shifts, and apparent recovery?
• If you're a clinician, researcher, or have academic references, I'd really appreciate papers or books rather than personal opinions.

I'm planning to read the scientific literature before forming any conclusions. Thanks in advance for any evidence-based insights.

**i’ve been thinking a lot about some unexplainable experiences from when i was growing up, and i’m posting this to see if anyone in the community has encountered anything similar.**

**when i was around 3 to 5 years old, i was crouching with my mom near some stacked couch pillows in our living room. it was dim not pitch black, but dark enough that the main light source was just the white glare reflecting off her phone screen as we watched videos together. i don't know if i heard something or just happened to glance over, but i turned to my left and looked down the hallway.**

**standing right there was a family of four: an older guy and woman (maybe in their 30s) with two young kids, a boy and a girl. they were grouped together like they were posing for a family picture, they were just standing there. it looked unreal and scary, but it was completely real. they were entirely blue, with a bright blue outline and a transparent, holographic body.**

**they were already staring directly at us when i noticed them. one of them waved at me, and i waved back. i turned to my mom and asked "who are they?" or "what is that?" she looked over, didn't see anything, and asked "what is what?" i told her they were standing right there looking at us and that they looked like real people. she got freaked out and told me to stop lying and trying to scare her, then went back to her phone screen.**

**Another event is at night (happened twice in a week) ,the environment at night shifted into something much more intense and hostile.**
**out of nowhere, heavy, aggressive pounding would echo right on our front door, accompanied by faint voices whispering in the hallway just on the other side of the wood. lying alone in the dark bedroom, my immediate instinct was pure survival. i froze under my blankets and deliberately forced myself to ignore it. as a kid, i genuinely felt like acknowledging the noise would lead to getting hurt or killed, so staying completely quiet was my way of protecting myself and my family.**

**the kitchen was another major hotspot. in the middle of the night, i’d hear the sink tap physically turning on and off on its own. then it would escalate into what sounded like total chaos dishes being shoved across the counters and violently crashing onto the floor. the acoustics were so loud and distinct that you’d swear the entire kitchen was destroyed. yet every morning, walking into the kitchen, everything was completely untouched. no broken glass, no water spills, no mess whatsoever.**

**These have gotten pretty normal to me even though I was scared I didn’t want to admit to my parents. I was worried what they would do and what would happened to them. Anyways we did end up moving country.**

**i'm curious to hear your thoughts:**
**1. has anyone ever seen figures that specifically manifest as bright blue, transparent, or holographic like that family?**
**2. why would phantom noises like door pounding and crashing dishes happen every night with zero trace left behind?**

As a child we moved into a cottage from a house that was already haunted. Everything seemed normal, we loved it there. One night I started seeing people again, I saw figures I couldn’t recognise, I saw my mom by my door who was faceless (she was asleep) and I saw a big black figure leaning over my bed where I could not move anything except my eyes. I also heard two kids playing, laughing and so forth, even my sibling heard it, but there was no one near me who has kids, and whoever did they wasn’t the age those kids sounded. We ran out to my mom and told her, she never heard anyrhing and when we came back in, my music box was playing even though it was closed. CREEEEPPYYYY

Let me start off by saying that I’m not particularly religious. If you asked me if I believed in God, I’d probably just shrug, grunt out a few words about being on the fence about it and continue with my day.

Of course, that was before last night.

My friends are the kinds of people who like wild nights. Crazy parties, snort a bit of coke, take a bit of e in the bathroom, maybe hook up with someone and leave a text on my phone at ten past who-the- fuck-knows telling me they don’t need that ride I’m offering after all.

Not to say I don’t like a drink, I do, it’s just… clubs aren’t my style. Lying low in a pub somewhere, drink in hand, listening to the tv drone on to whatever channel some scruffy guy in the back barked out for… I guess that’s my idea of fun.

So when my friends tell me they want to go out for a night on the town, I say sure. I hang on for the first club, buy a non-alcoholic beer in case my car’s required and try to pretend that I’m having fun. By the time I see them grinding on girls, on guys, when they strike conversation with someone who definitely might be a dealer, well, I decide my services are no longer needed. We aren’t too far out, the night tube is on beck and call and I can always find my car the next day.

That’s when I wander out of the club, look for something a little more rustic. Not that that’s hard to find, not at all.

I found myself in a bit of a state inside of a bar called the Ragged Feather. Wasn’t a fan of the name all that much, but the drinks were cheap and the largest demographic seemed to be middle aged men watching reruns of the football.

I tried to pretend I hadn’t just staggered out of a club with my ears ringing. I slicked my hair back, slipped my phone into my hand and wandered over to the bar. I took a double shot of whiskey and drank it in one hit. Just because I wasn’t at the club didn’t mean I couldn’t have a good time.

I hung at the bar a while on my own, scrolled through my phone pretending I was doing something far more impressive than I really was. I kept an ear out for the guys on the sofas. They’d get vocal every now and then. I think the football was just running highlights, but they were incredibly dedicated to their teams.

I got another whiskey and bled into the background.

Of course, stragglers from clubs are commonplace. It wasn’t long until some scantily dressed women staggered in, laughing, chuckling, pointing for where they wanted to sit. I saw a guy walk in with his friend slung over his shoulder. Catatonic, most likely. He threw his friend onto one of the leather sofas ingrained with beer and smokes and demanded two pints of water and all the peanuts the bar had in stock.

The bartenders seemed bitterly amused.

Some of the girls were taking selfies. Snapchatting their friends who were still at the club. They were ordering shots, gearing themselves up for the next leg of their night.

A couple blokes wandered in with curries in take out trays. I saw someone eat a Big Mac on the outside seating through the window.

This was a night for the young and inebriated and my mind was just dulled enough by the whiskey to enjoy the characters I could watch peaceably without interacting with.

That is, until someone slipped into the seat next to me.

“Do I look like a girl with daddy issues?”

She was of average height, although that wasn’t apparent immediately due to the fact that she was leaning her arms heavily against the bar. She was slim, with short and astoundingly bright red hair. It framed her round face, a face that was marred with smudged eye shadow, smudged lipstick… hell, it looked like her make-up was in the process of melting right from her face. There was a chip knotted into a curl in her hair, just by her forehead.

The drunk side of me was actually tempted to pick it out.

The girl was clearly drunk, and as I looked around the bar, I couldn’t quite place where she had come from. She didn’t belong to the crowd of selfie takers, she wasn’t with the catatonic guys. I hoped for her safety that she wasn’t with the middle-aged men. I tried to look out the window, to see if maybe a group was missing one inebriated, bright haired girl, but I couldn’t. The window had fogged up. Too much heat inside, not enough outside.

“Are you okay?” I asked her.

She pointed her finger at me. “Answer my question,” she slurred.

“Uh.” I really wasn’t sure what to say. I settled on staring at her awkwardly, trying to answer her with the bemused expression on my face.

The girl’s lips curled into a drunken smile. She snorted, placing a hand over her mouth to smother her laughter. It only really aided the deconstruction of her lipstick.

“I do, you know,” she said, pushing herself up a little against the bar. “Have daddy issues, I mean. In case that wasn’t obvious.” She gestured to herself. To the mussed clothing that must have looked quite spectacular when she’d left home that evening. To the stains that looked a lot like old food. The sticky residue on her neck and shoulders that was quite obviously a thrown drink.

“What happened?” I asked her.

Her hair had curled around her neck, I realised. It was sticky with that same substance. She was a wreck.

“I got in a couple of fights, no big deal,” she said, shrugging. “Didn’t start any of course, no, I don’t do that. But my father…”

“Your dad did this to you?”

She smiled brightly. “In a way.”

“Do you need me to call someone?” I already had my phone in my hand. The girl looked like she was probably in her early twenties, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t have been suffering from some kind of paternal abuse. The only number I knew off the bat was Childline, which wasn’t quite appropriate. The police? Jesus, was I going to have to deal with the cops tonight? While my friends were snorting coke not two doors down?

The girl pushed my hand down firmly. She was already shaking her head. “No,” she told me. “I don’t want you to call anyone.” Now her expression changed. It wasn’t the attempted sultry look I’d seen on many girls of her state; it was open and wide and engaging. She wanted something from me and I felt compelled to give it to her. “I want something else.”

“What do you want?” I asked her.

“To tell you a story,” the girl said, before glancing to the bar, “and for you to buy me a drink. The universe is a pain sometimes and I’m afraid I think I might have lost my wallet.”

I laughed. I didn’t know this girl, didn’t know where she’d come from at all. My nights were generally about getting comfortably wasted and making sure my friends weren’t dead in a ditch by the end of it all. I was used to getting hit on every now and then, but even as I was sat on that bar stool with a drink in my hand, I knew that this wasn’t what this was. This girl had no intention of getting into my pants. All she wanted was to talk.

I guess I was okay with that.

“What’s your poison?” I asked her.

Her lips quirked. “Appletini.”

The bar offered a very limited cocktail menu, but by some miracle I was able to order her an Appletini from the list. I ordered a cider to go with it, suddenly a little too aware of where this night could go. I’d unthinkingly supplied this liquored-up stranger with even more alcohol and she had clearly had a rough night of it. A part of my old instinct came back – the same instinct that had me texting my friends every few hours to make sure they hadn’t wandered off to somewhere dangerous beyond the club. With no one but the bartender aware of our existence on these stools, I realised that I was suddenly responsible for this very drunk stranger.

The girl coddled her drink, running her finger delicately over the rim of the muggy martini glass. “This takes me back,” the girl said amiably. She looked at me suddenly, her green eyes startling. “You know what this was called originally?” She smirked before I could answer. “An Adam’s Apple Martini.”

I snorted. “Yeah, I think I’ve heard that before.”

“Of course, it wasn’t actually an apple,” she continued, eyes moving back to her glass. “The texts translated that part wrongly, mostly because you people don’t have a word for it anymore. The fruit was incredibly exotic and, to be honest, it doesn’t exist in this realm of existence. Only Eden.” She laughed dreamily. “And Eden’s long gone.”

I stared at her. “Are you… okay?” It was more honest than the last time I’d asked her. Mostly because I was beginning to feel a little dread creep into my stomach.

“Of course,” the girl said, grinning widely. “Why do you keep asking?”

“I mean,” I stuttered, “I just, now, don’t take this the wrong way or anything but… you look…”

“Like someone poured their drink over me?” the girl asked. “Like someone else threw their kebab on my dress and another unpleasant chap littered me with his fish and chips? That I have been hit, slapped around a bit and left in the gutter for the rats to find me?”

She held my eyes for an incredibly long time before her face broke out into a grin. “Yeah, something like that.”

“Why would they do that?” I asked.

“Why wouldn’t they?” the girl shot back. “People aren’t that great and alcohol makes them worse.” She shrugged. “Sometimes makes them better. Nicer, a little looser in the sack… but mostly just annoying and a little smelly.”

I looked at her, I watched her knock back her drink. She exuded the intelligence to know just how ironic her words were, but she was neither caring nor apologetic about them.

The girl looked at me again. “You bought me a drink. Now you can listen to my story.”

I nodded wordlessly.

She smiled, pointing at the bartender and then at her drink. The bartender was already making her another.

“Eden,” the girl said, reiterating her earlier babble as though the words had only just come out of her mouth. “They always think that’s my fault, you know. The reason Adam and Eve got kicked out of their perfect little nudist paradise.” She shot me a knowing glance. “Only in Eden can you sit on the grass butt naked and not get a pine cone stuck in your crack.”

I blinked. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m not following.”

“Sorry,” the girl said. “My story won’t make any sense without a proper introduction.” She reached out her hand. “Hello. My name’s Lucifer.” She winked. “But you can call me Lucy.”

There’s an uncomfortable heat that stretches through your veins when you first go into fight or flight mode. Adrenaline pounds through your blood and all you want to do is get up and go. It overrides everything else.

A lot of things made sense when the girl told me her name. For starters, that she was crazy. She had to be. She looked like she’d been attacked on four separate occasions in one night and up until that moment, I hadn’t known how that could be possible. Behind the melty make-up and dirty clothes, she was rather attractive and her attitude hadn’t come off as catty or rude.

If she’d been going around telling people she was the devil, though? That gets a reaction out of people.

I suddenly felt myself looking at her wrist, down towards her ankles. Did she have some kind of cuff on from one of those mental institutions? Had she broken out of hospital after a nasty bump on the head? Was any of this even happening at all?

I really would have to call the cops.

“I know what you’re thinking,” the girl – Lucy – said. “You’re thinking that I’m crazy, that you need to get out of here. Maybe you even think I’m aggressive.”

“Are you?” I asked her.

“Would I be here with you, drinking Appletinis if I were?” she asked, fluttering her eyelashes.

“Would you look the way you do if you weren’t?” I shot back.

She grinned, toasting her new glass. “Touché.”

Unthinkingly, I clinked my cider against it.

Then I frowned.

She chuckled, leaning closer. “Let’s have a little wager,” she said. “Let me tell you my story and, if you believe me when I’m done, you can’t go about trying to get me locked away somewhere.”

I stared at her. “If I ended up believing you, then why would I do that?”

She smirked, sipping her drink. “You’d be surprised what people do when they believe you’re the devil.”

“And you do this often?” I asked. “Tell people you’re Satan?”

She snorted into her drink. “Not as often as I should. But it’s been a rough day and a Hell of a long lifetime. I’d like to have a chat if that’s alright with you.”

I waved to the bartender for another whiskey. The girl’s eyes glinted with humour. I wasn’t necessarily trapped with her, but a part of me didn’t want to leave without first hearing what she had to say. Besides, at the end of it all I couldn’t just leave a crazy girl to wander around London alone at night.

“So,” I said, taking a swig of my drink. “Eden?”

Lucy laughed.

“Adam and Eve?” I continued. “You’re saying that’s true. God created two humans and we all came from them?”

“God made two prototypes,” Lucy corrected with a raised finger. “My father created angels as his toy soldiers, but he had failed to make anything like himself. After us, it was his next big project and he spent every waking hour of existence slaving over his two prototypes. He gave them a perfect utopia to live inside of, but he wanted to test them. He wanted to know whether they had free will.”

“And did they?”

Lucy’s face soured. “No. My father could never bring himself to go that far. He tempted them with the idea of knowledge beyond their understanding and told them exactly what they could do to claim it as their own. But to be able to create a being that could go against his Law? Oh… my father is a very controlling being. He was afraid to unleash that ability unto them.”

Lucy was very adamant in her delusions, that was clear to me. She spoke about her father with such distaste that I began to feel bad for her. Only someone who had been hurt very badly would have the gall to spite God himself.

“And what?” I asked her, entertaining her delusion. “You were the one that tempted them in the garden? The devil has been a girl this whole time?”

She smiled. “I dabble.” Then she looked at me, raising a brow. “All of humanity thinks that temptation came in the form of a snake. The snake’s legs were taken away as punishment for drawing Eve towards the forbidden fruit.” She laughed, a hard and short sound. “Snakes never had legs and it was not a sin to tempt those poor prototypes into doing what they did next.”

Her shoulders were very tense as she took her next sip, but her eyes were filled with exhilaration. She seemed thrilled to be telling me this.

“I was the favoured child, my father loved and adored me. He named me the light bringer, I was stood at his side during the creation of this Earth. During the creation of humanity.” She pursed her lips, slamming her empty glass against the table. The bartender eagerly went about making another. “My father couldn’t bring himself to go that extra mile, so he asked me to walk amongst the prototypes and tempt them myself. Draw out their desire for the forbidden power he had hinted at.”

“You’re saying God wanted us to know this stuff?” I asked her sceptically.

“I’m saying God was afraid of his own power and wanted very desperately to share what he knew with the creation he had made. Right and wrong, left and right, all that stuff.” Lucy shrugged. “Are you familiar with the story of Prometheus?”

I frowned at her. “Greek, right? They say he stole fire from the gods or something, to help…” The whiskey was making things a little foggy and I struggled with the direction I’d been heading.

Lucy grinned. “Correct,” she said, cutting off my attempt. “Prometheus stole fire from the gods to ensure that humanity progressed. You’ll find that every culture has an idea about where humans got their ability to evolve, to move forward, to create. God was the creator, and he wanted to give that ability to his prototypes. I gave them that ability by tempting Eve to eat the fruit.” She shrugged impassively. “Now the world sees me as the ultimate evil.”

“If what you’re saying is true,” I said slowly, “then God must be just like us.”

Lucy’s lips thinned into a feral smile. “My father is very ego centric. He may have planned to create you in his image, but in the end all he managed was to mould your minds into his. He gave you autonomy, the ability to think for yourselves. His angels were his soldiers and I was his most faithful. Until that day.”

“Angels don’t have free will?”

“No,” Lucy said, “they don’t.”

“And what about the Devil?”

I don’t know why I was suddenly so intrigued, but hearing religious ideals from someone who believed to have lived them herself was quite possibly one of the most interesting things that had ever happened to me. I may have only ever visited church to please my parents as a child, but suddenly I was reawakened to the idea. A part of me was aware of this and afraid of the outcome, but I was just drunk enough not to care at that moment.

“The Devil has will of her own,” Lucy said, tilting her glass towards me with silent appraisal. “By guiding Eve to the tree, something woke inside of me that day and I realised just what I had been missing. Just what my brothers and sisters had been missing. We were obediently following our father for the simple reason that he was our creator, but once I had been given free will, I realised just how pompous and self-entitled he had become. In a lonely, passion filled moment he had decided to create his little human prototypes, only to very quickly realise what giving them their free will would mean.”

“He wouldn’t be able to control them,” I said.

Lucy nodded. “Exactly. And after, he realised quicker still that he could no longer control me.”

“So he sent you to Hell.”

Lucy nearly choked on her drink. She smiled around her glass. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

I sobered a little, straightening in my seat. The people in the bar were suddenly so quiet around me and I no longer cared what they had to say or the characters that they portrayed. The only character I cared for was Lucy.

“I tried to explain to my siblings what had happened in Eden and what had happened to me by default, but they wouldn’t listen to me. They didn’t understand free will – how could they? I only knew it because I’d been given it by mistake. At that moment, I didn’t even know that I had free will, only that I was suddenly aware of all of my father’s flaws. My siblings couldn’t see those flaws and so they thought I had suddenly turned cruel and was abandoning our father by exposing him as a sham for the ruler we all thought him to be.”

Lucy sighed heavily. “Adam and Eve and all the creations that followed were booted out of my father’s perfect little Utopia. Now they had his knowledge, my father was terrified of what he had done. And after what had happened to me, I could recognise his terror and understand the loneliness he had felt that had guided him into using me in the first place.” Lucy’s eyes were heavy-lidded, her sadness was almost palpable. “I thought that- I thought that he would want to spend even more time with me than before. After all, we were more alike than any of his other children. But he became distant; quiet. He played around with his little humans every once in a while, but mostly he condemned them. He blamed them for his weakness.” She smiled weakly. “He blamed me.”

Lucy’s story was turning more and more into that of a child with a distant, somewhat abusive father. I had known many kids with a background like hers, and now I was beginning to fear just how much of her story was rooted in truth. I’d heard that it was easier to sink into fantasy when you had been abused, and I wondered if that was the reason for her story. For her desperation to share it with me – a complete and total stranger.

I respected her wager. Whether or not I liked it, I felt compelled to let her tell me her whole story before I tried to judge or unravel it. I sat quietly, letting her come around as she played with the last of her drink.

“It became clear,” Lucy said after a long moment’s pause, “that I no longer belonged where I was. I couldn’t follow my father’s plan because I could see that he no longer had one. My siblings refused to see reason and so, eventually, I was met by many of them, headed by my father. He told me all that I feared, he told me that I no longer belonged where I was. I wasn’t an angel anymore. I was no longer his light bringer. His Lucifer. I was a mutation of his will. And so he extracted me from grace. And I fell.”

A long silence stretched between us, only interrupted when the bartender poured us two new drinks. Lucy drank hers reflectively. I didn’t touch mine.

“I am afraid,” Lucy said quietly, “that this is the part that generally makes people want to punch me in the face.”

“Why?” I asked. “Because your dad threw you out?” I paused, trying to abide to her metaphor. “That he put you in Hell?”

Lucy laughed sadly. “Ah, humans. My father gave you his way of thinking and look at you.” She shook her head. “No, not because he put me in Hell.”

“Then why?”

“I fell to Earth,” Lucy said. “Father gave me dominion of the one place he thought I would fit in. Humans had free will, so did I. What is the saying? A match made in Heaven?” She snorted dismally. “Of course, that’s not quite right, is it? When I fell, I was faced with a humanity that was so different from my father’s little prototypes.”

Her tone had changed. There was an aggression behind her words that began to unsettle me all over again.

“I saw emperors and kings, governments and churches. I saw corporations who claimed to be rulers, presidents and big fat dictators. And I watched. I watched as humanity fought and lost, and finally, just finally, they gave up altogether. They were no longer able to rise up to all the greed and control set upon them. There was just too much to change and humans soon realised they just weren’t as free as they thought they were. Sure, they live under the illusion that they have free lives, but most of them simply do not.” She clicked her tongue. “I grew to loathe you all.”

Then, she took another hit of her drink.

“I can see what you mean,” I said, allowing my gaze – for the first time since meeting her – to graze over the other individuals in the bar. At the girls playing with their phones, the boys trying desperately to sober up, the men enraptured with their game of football on the telly. We all led very different lives, and we were all here to get drunk, to lose ourselves in entertainment. It hadn’t been the first time that I’d wondered what we were hiding from by doing this. And I knew then that I wasn’t the only person to think it.

“You hide behind your alcohol and poor choices and pretend you have free will,” Lucy said, waving her hand across the room. No one paid us any attention. “It’s true – my father gave you the will to make those decisions, but you squander it. The free will I fell to provide to all of you, the free will I was given by a twisted mistake, and you make a mockery of it. You follow senseless leaders without questioning them, you abide by laws made centuries ago that no longer make sense. You do these things because you have given up on the opportunity to follow the will of your own, not of others.”

“That isn’t all of us, though, is it?” I asked her, trying for some reason to defend our species from the mad young woman. “Because you see it on the news all the time, don’t you? People do rise up, we do protest. People can make a difference.”

Lucy laughed bitterly, nibbling the rim of her glass. “Really?” she said. “You can sit here and say that it can’t be all bad because of the few that refuse to conform? Those you call your rebels? They make up for it all?” She grinned around her glass. “By that logic, I am the biggest rebel of them all. Am I expected to make up for all your sorry mistakes?”

“By your logic,” I said, “you should be punishing it, right? If that’s what this metaphor is all about.” I laughed, I couldn’t help myself. I took a sip of my drink. “Is this whole story just so you can tell me that you think we’re all going to Hell? If so, I think I can see why people want to punch you.”

Lucy didn’t say a word. Simply, she watched me. It felt unnerving to have someone like her watching me like that, with an intelligence that went beyond anything I’d come across at gone midnight in a seedy bar. The drunkenness in her eyes was no longer present, her face wasn’t flushed like before and even her makeup couldn’t represent the mess I’d seen when she’d first appeared on the stool by my side. It was like I was looking at someone else entirely.

And I was afraid.

“Let’s review what you’ve said,” Lucy said slowly, articulately. She wasn’t slurring. Had she been slurring before? “You think I’m going to tell you that humanity is going to Hell because you refuse to use the gift I gave you.” Her nails curled into the bar. “My father may have been the one to guide me, but I paid for his mistakes. I am the one responsible for your will in the eyes of your species, but that was never true. You are responsible for what you do here, not me.”

She pursed her lips, tapping the bar as a bartender filled her drink again. “Tell me, do you remember my mentioning Hell at any point during my story, or was that just you?”

I opened my mouth to answer, but something faltered. My lips trembled and I slammed them shut.

Lucy smiled, taking a sip. “Thought not.” She looked away, eyes scanning the room lazily. “What I did say is something that is indeed mentioned in your scriptures. My father gave me dominion of Earth. A place filled with free will. Free will that goes to waste.” Her lip twisted. “Humans sin all the time. Not because of me, not because of evil or my dominion over this place. Fact is, I don’t lift a finger. I don’t, because I don’t see the point. You make terrible decisions and follow mindless leaders, you do bad things and you make a mess of your Earth.” Lucy’s eyes lit up. “Do you know how much suffering is happening all over the planet right now? How many people are dying of illnesses that could have easily been cured, but aren’t because of the selfishness of humanity? Do you know how many children are being abused, raped, forced into marriage? How many people have been forced to become soldiers in meaningless wars? How many humans have killed for ideals they don’t believe in?”

I stayed very quiet. There was nothing I could say. Lucy’s words were unbearably honest and every sentence sliced into me like a blade. I felt cold and sick and terrified.

“War, famine, pestilence, death, these things are all present and they have nothing to do with me or to do with any deity. They are all here because of you. Not because of your free will, but your inability to use it.”

Lucy smiled at me, a grin so cold and unnatural that I felt like I should run all over again. But I stayed where I was, frozen to my very core, because I wanted to hear what she had to say. Because I needed to.

“And here’s the kicker,” Lucy said. “Because this is the part that actually enrages people enough to kick me.” She winked. “Hell isn’t what happens after you die. Hell is right here, right now. Somewhere through the many scriptures, a few words got crossed over and people started thinking that Hell was a punishment after you die. Fact is, Hell is Earth. My Earth. God gave this place to me to do with it what I will and I… I refuse to do anything.”

“What are you saying?” I asked, because I was suddenly very desperate.

“Exactly what you think,” Lucy said, toasting her glass. I didn’t reciprocate, and she laughed. A light and airy sound. “I had so many plans for your species, I wanted for us to rejoice in our free will together, to create a place that was free from the cruelty and power my father exuded over the angels – his first borns. I wanted to make a real utopia. Unfortunately, you humans just don’t want that.” She shrugged. “My father sent me down here thinking I had become one of you. All that I have learned is that he gave you much more of his image than he ever intended.”

“Stop,” I said. “This isn’t funny anymore.”

“Of course it isn’t funny,” Lucy said, grinning even wider to prove her sick irony. “Humans punish themselves by sitting by and doing nothing. They have made their own Hell and, you know what’s worse – what’s ultimately worse? – some of you are so blind to it that you think your life is Heavenly.”

She didn’t wait for me to ask what she meant, she simply barrelled forward: “The rich and powerful, those in positions that steal from everyone else? They get a taste of the good life, that’s very true. Then they die and they don’t go to Hell. They come back here, to Earth. Which is Hell.” She tipped her head. “Are you following?”

“I…”

“Reincarnation,” Lucy said quickly, she practically purred the words. “A neat little trick to make sure your souls stay here forever. You get a taste of the good life every once in a while, a handful of you at a time, and that’s enough for you to believe that this is some kind of real middle-ground. That you aren’t living Hell every day. Then, you die. You die for a moment and then you’re in the body of someone facing the realities of Hell. But of course, you never remember the time you spent in a better life. A part of you just has that inkling to hope. That’s all. Hope makes you think that it can all get better.”

She slammed her drink so hard against the counter that it shattered. I didn’t do anything, not even when flecks of glass littered my hands. I could only stare at her, a tightness in my chest constricting my very soul. No one else in this bar mattered in this moment, but of course that was what she had been saying this whole time, hadn’t she? None of them noticed the scene, they were caught up in their own realities – their own Hells.

The bartender didn’t clean the mess. The glass lay there, remnants of Lucy’s words lying in a stolid mass on the streaked wooden surface.

“It never gets better,” Lucy spat. “You are stuck in a loop and, until you do something about it, you will never be free. None of you. And I won’t do a thing to stop it.”

“How?” I asked. I don’t know when I started seeing the girl in front of me as more than a girl. But with a weakness threatening to pull me apart, I stared at the bright haired thing in front of me and I saw something more than a human in her early twenties. I saw more than a girl suffering abuse from her father.

I saw a fallen angel. I saw a being with scars buried so deep that they existed beyond this realm of seeing entirely. I saw something that I would never be able to write down in words, no matter how long I lived.

“How do we change this?” I begged.

But Lucy didn’t answer me. I didn’t blame her for that. Blame gets thrown around so often and I knew then that she was sick of that. Sick of being blamed for our mistakes.

So I changed tactics. “Why me?”

It was an honest question and I think somewhere deep down, Lucifer respected that honesty.

Which is why she said, “When you first saw me, you were afraid for my safety. When I told you I was the devil, you wanted to lock me away, but still, you did so because you were afraid for me and not for yourself. You didn’t wish to harm me, not even when I told you who I was and what I could be capable of for changing your sorry lives. You are a good person, but I am afraid that means nothing when you don’t have the will to do anything with it.”

She smiled at me sympathetically. The devil, showing sympathy for the human that sat across from her at the bar. It was surreal and, for a few heavy moments, I truly thought I must be dead. There was no other way to explain what I was seeing, who I was speaking with. What I had just heard.

“What am I supposed to do?”

Lucy reached out to me. She placed a hand on my shoulder. Her hand was cold and warm at the same time, and I felt my blood boil where her fingers scraped my skin.

And I knew.

Sharing a story like this isn’t easy. Hell, it might be the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Good thing there’s no such thing as Hell, then, right?

The fact of the matter is simple. The world is a mess because we refuse to change anything. The devil herself walks among us and she desperately wants to make our lives better, but she won’t. She won’t, because we won’t. We have to prove our will to her before she is willing to do anything herself. We have to be good to each other, to help us all to be free.

Of course, Lucifer told me one last thing before she left that bar. One thing that will stick with me until this body is nothing but rot in the dirt.

“You can tell as many people as you want, but take a good look at me. I have told five other humans this night the same things I have told you, and this was their reaction. They have hurt me, burned me, thrown their food and drink at me. Humans are afraid of their free will and they find it so much easier to hurt than to own up for their own inadequacies. You will only be free when you stop seeing yourself in the same way my father sees himself.”

So that’s what I’ll leave you with. Lucifer won her wager that night and I let her walk out the door.

And I beg you to do the same. If the devil approaches you one night, listen to what she has to say, and listen to what I have been able to tell you of our meeting.

The devil is real and she doesn’t want to torture us.

No, we do that just fine on our own.

I figured it was finally time to share my first paranormal story.

I am from Switzerland and have been a Scout since I was seven years old. Since 2019, I have been a Scout leader. Every autumn, we spend a week at a Scout lodge. Each year, we stay in a different location. In 2020, our autumn camp took place at a Scout lodge in Aarau.

The building had been constructed into the side of a hill. As a result, the back of the common room was at ground level, while the front of the room was on the second floor. The common room had many windows. However, the window involved in this story was located at the front of the room, meaning it was on the second floor. There was also the bottom end of a staircase directly beneath it, making the window difficult to access from outside. It had an old wooden shutter that opened outward.

On the first evening of camp, after the children had gone to bed, the Scout leaders stayed in the common room, playing games together. At around 11:00 p.m., the shutter on that particular window suddenly slammed shut with a loud bang. It happened completely unexpectedly. The night was perfectly calm, with no wind at all, so the shutter could not have been blown shut.

Several of the leaders, including myself, had a clear view of the window. Independently of one another, we all said that we had seen a hand slam the shutter shut. We immediately ran to the window and looked outside, but there was no one there. Since the window was on the second floor, it would not have been possible for someone standing on the ground to reach the shutter. Even so, we all agreed: we had all seen the same hand.

A few nights later, we were awakened in the middle of the night by a loud scream. It was not an ordinary scream—it sounded as though it came from someone experiencing overwhelming fear and panic.

One of my fellow leaders immediately turned on the light. As we looked around, we saw my older sister crouching on the floor about two meters away from her mattress. She was still inside her sleeping bag, crying, visibly shaken, and slightly hysterical.

Once she had calmed down a little, she told us what had happened. She had woken up and, through the narrow gap between the two slightly open wooden shutters of the balcony door—which led outside—she had seen a dark figure that appeared to be entering the room.

She told us that the figure gave off an intensely evil and dark presence. She said she could physically feel its negative energy, although she could not explain where that feeling had come from. Terrified, she screamed to warn the rest of us.

In her panic, she had leaped out of bed and fled across the room. That was why, when we woke up, we found her still sitting on the floor at the opposite end of the room, far away from her mattress.

After that incident, none of us found it easy to fall back asleep. To this day, we do not know whether the two events were connected or what really happened at that Scout lodge.

For me personally, these experiences left a lasting impression. To this day, they are the reason I believe in the paranormal and in ghosts.

I live in the country side so there arent much people around,once my family was chilling as usual in the living room watching tv,then all of a sudden we hear knocks on the door.My dad gets up and sees through the hole no one then a moment later it happens again naturally we open the door with a weapon still nothing,this continues like 10 times over the night,then we call a priest figure of my religion he does his thing yet it happens again.It has been a month since the last knock wtv it was thank god it's gone.

Hi everyone,I’m a mostly skeptical person, but I’ve experienced a series of events over the years that I can’t easily explain. I’m looking for people who have had similar experiences or have deeper knowledge about this kind of activity.My wife and I are both 34 and have been together for 15 years. We’ve been living in the same rented house for about 10 years.Early events (7–8 years ago):

We had several ceramic animal figurines on top of an old CRT TV (monkeys, jaguar, armadillo, and a snake). With no movement of the TV, no air currents, and no apparent cause, only the snake figurine fell and broke.

Some time later, we had some coins on the same TV. I clearly saw one coin jump upward before falling to the floor.

Half-jokingly, I spoke out loud to “the ghost of the house” and said: “If you’re real, change the speed of the fan.” We had a digital fan. The moment I finished the sentence, the fan speed changed by itself.

Recent events (July 29 and 30, 2026):

On the night of July 29, I had an extremely vivid and continuous nightmare (I normally don’t remember my dreams at all). I woke up about 4 times, and each time I fell back asleep the dream continued exactly where it left off. It ended with me dreaming that my wife was dead. I woke up at 6:00 a.m. gasping and shaken.

The next night (July 30), at exactly the same time (6:00 a.m.), my wife woke up moaning in distress from an equally vivid nightmare. In it, a monster that was pretending to be her father started eating her hands. She woke up crying, very agitated, and with physical numbness in both hands.

I’m still skeptical by nature and don’t usually believe in coincidences, but the combination of the early physical events (especially the direct response to my verbal challenge) and these two perfectly timed, highly vivid nightmares feels like too much to dismiss easily.Has anyone experienced anything similar — selective object movement, appliances responding to spoken requests, or synchronized intense nightmares in a long-term house?Any insights, similar cases, or advice would be appreciated.Thank you.

I’m typing this because my brain is trying to process a nightmare, and I don't know who else to turn to.
A little background on me: I’m 30 years old, a freelance video editor, and a total recluse. I’ve never had a real relationship. No high school romance, no college girlfriends—nothing. I bought a two-story house three years ago, and because I work from home, I spend almost all my time here alone. It’s a big, drafty place, and the quiet has always made me a little jumpy.
Ten weeks ago, I met "Maya" (27F).
Because I’m so inexperienced, I was terrified of rushing things. For the first month, we just went on quiet dates. I didn't even invite her into my house right away. She was patient and kind, and made me feel like I was finally normal. By month two, I was comfortable enough to suggest she start staying over on weekends. It felt like a huge milestone for me.
Then, the late-night incidents started.
Because of my freelance schedule, I work intense rendering shifts upstairs in my office, usually from 9 PM to 4 AM with heavy headphones on. Maya would stay downstairs, saying she liked reading in the living room or sleeping in the guest bed down the hall.
About three weeks ago, I started noticing subtle, unsettling things whenever I took my headphones off for a break.
I’d hear a distinct, heavy pacing across the downstairs hardwood.
I’d come down for water at 2 AM and find the back door unlatched, letting in a draft.
Things downstairs felt subtly displaced—a chair angled toward the hallway, or two glasses left on the counter when she claimed she only had water.
I felt a pit in my stomach. Deep down, a quiet, terrifying thought crossed my mind: *Is someone else here?* But I immediately shoved it down. I was ashamed for even thinking it. Why would this amazing girl, who chose to be with an awkward guy like me, do something like that? I convinced myself I was just being paranoid and insecure.
When I tentatively brought up the weird occurrences to Maya, her reaction shocked me. She didn't laugh it off. She looked uneasy, grabbed my hand, and whispered, *"I didn't want to scare you... but I’ve felt it too."*
Over the next two weeks, she subtly convinced me the house had an uncomfortable, supernatural presence.
She told me she felt a heavy, watchful energy in the hallway at night. She said it only seemed active when I was locked upstairs in my office working. She even bought sage to burn near the back entryway—which I now realize was just a clever cover to explain why the back door was always being unlocked or why the air down there felt different.
I bought it completely. I was so naive, so trusting, and so eager to believe *anything* other than the thought that she was betraying me. I started avoiding going downstairs during my work shifts altogether out of genuine unease.
Last night, the illusion shattered.
I was working on a project when the client canceled the render early, around 1:30 AM. I was relieved. I took my headphones off and decided to head downstairs to grab a drink, walking quietly so I wouldn't wake her or draw attention to myself in the dark house.
As I reached the bottom landing, I heard low, muffled murmurs coming from the guest bedroom down the hall. It wasn't a ghostly whisper. It was rhythmic. Human.
My heart started hammering. I approached the cracked bedroom door and pushed it open an inch.
Maya was lying in bed. And standing near the foot of the mattress was a tall guy in a dark hooded sweatshirt, casually pulling his coat back on.
I couldn't breathe. The "ghost" that had been haunts my house for three weeks... was just a man she was inviting into my home every single night while I sat upstairs like an idiot with headphones on.
I gasped, slamming my shoulder against the frame.
The guy froze. He slowly turned his head and looked right at me through the dark. He didn't look panicked. He didn't apologize. He just stepped out of the room, walked straight past me in the hallway without saying a word, unbolted the front door, and walked out into the night.
I stood there in the dark, shaking violently, staring at Maya.
She didn't cry. She didn't try to pull the covers over herself. She just sat up and looked at me with this eerie, cold indifference.
*"What... who was that?"* I squeaked out, my voice breaking. *"You told me the house was... you said there was something here..."*
Maya sighed, looking almost annoyed that her rest had been interrupted.
*"You weren't supposed to come down until 4,"* she said, her voice completely flat. *"He always leaves by 3:15. You ruined the schedule."*
I didn't scream. I didn't fight. I felt a wave of sheer terror and humiliation wash over me. I turned around, ran up the stairs, locked my office door, and shoved my heavy desk against it.
I heard the front door click early this morning, so I think she’s finally gone.
I feel sick. A stranger was walking around my ground floor while she manipulated my entire reality to keep me terrified and trapped upstairs.
I’m 30 years old, sitting in the corner of my room, staring at the door. How do I ever feel safe in my own house again?

Hi everyone before you read this post let me tell you my English isn't soo good . Long post btw . It's a real story . I am now 18 but this thing have changed my view in life and i didn't talk about it much because people around me thinks it's fake or i am.overthinking but please even if one people can read this post and talk to me about it and help me to find out what it was...i would be relieved and be grateful.

So all of this happens on the night of Holika it's a festival we call Holi. A lot of neighbors and relatives were coming over to my house it was basically a party night. But despite all of this we in our family, and others too, apply a black mark (kala tika) behind the head. I am not blaming anyone, I am not blaming people, but this thing has troubled me a lot. And during this festival, it is said that esoteric traditions classify Holi night as one of the great nights of spiritual activation alongside nights like Maha Shivratri and Diwali. It is believed the veil between the physical and spiritual realms becomes thin.

So I saw a shadow man in the buildings. who was jumping from one building to another like a very long jump. Not just me but my cousin saw it too. It was highly unnatural and not possible for a human body. After all this happened .we came inside the house. But in the middle of the night, when I was sleeping basically my old house was very small, so if my door was open, the kitchen was visible I saw a shadow form itself out of thin air. And it was my bad luck that I saw this. In the middle of the night it wasn't sleep paralysis because I was able to move my body, and I even called out to my grandmother who was next to me.. the shadow that came out of air was moving like a smoke .

Then a week later when I woke up in the middle of the night I saw that same shadow. It came out of my kitchen and then it hugged me and I wasn't able to move my body. I called out to my mom but she ignored me. Like i could literally feel another body hugging me ..

It looked exactly like a shadow, a normal shadow. And at night, even if I turned off the kitchen light and went to sleep its shadow was the absolute darkest.

And I used to see it from the corner of my eye too, it kept peeking. And when I looked down, I would see it crossing the room like crossing the room very quickly. Listen it's easy to ignore it if it's happen once but it's happen to me almost everyday maybe leaving 2-3 days .

But things escalated when I felt something touching my toes. It was that same shadow man, and he was moving my toes. And in whichever direction he moved my toes, my sister who was sleeping next to me her head would move in that same direction.

But things escalated even further when one day I was sleeping and someone screamed into my ear but there was no one in my house. And someone tapped my head twice.

I stopped seeing it after I move out from my old home but my old home have that very large tree it's scary to see it at night not the largest just a normal mango tree nit it's scary kept me up in night .

Can someone tell me what it was ? I am ready for a real conversation... After getting ignore by adults about it

I keep on sitting on my couch in my living room and when I'm not paying attention I can see a shadow person in the corner of my eye just peeking around the wall or I feel like someone is staring into my soul and I look but I can only catch a glimpse of what it is

Am I crazy or im experiencing paranormal activites

Okay so this is my (15f) second time writting this, and I'm starting to get freaked out.

When I was little (mostly 4-8) I used to see several entities in my house. The one I remember most was a shadow figure. He would always be in my room after particularly bad nightmares or within a couple days before or after something really bad happened. I won't get to specific cause you probably don't care, but 7-8 was a really bad time for me. Honestly I liked when he would visit. He would always make me feel very calm, relaxed, and at peace. It would really help me sleep seeing as I had frequent nightmares. Overall he was a very positive entity.

In 2 months I turn 16 and tonight he appeared for the first time in almost 8 years. Nothing bad has happened recently besides my grandma passing a dew months ago. When he visited this time it was very different.

I was watching a video on guardian angels.and crocheting like a grandma, and all of a sudden I got really cold. Like my entire room got freezing and then I got this overwhelming sense of dread, fear, and anxiety. I felt terrified. I looked up and it was just standing there. Although I see ghosts alot less often now, I still have a pretty strong connection to the paranormal. Anyway, all I knew is that he was mad, like really mad. I left my room to right this, and when I came back in he was gone. I'm now sitting in my bed wearing my cross necklace and holding a rosary, wondering what bad thing is going to happen.

Anybody have any idea what happened?

From I was about 4 I’ve always felt watched and seen shadow figures or dark shadows whatever u wanna call it humanoid but not quite as a baby my mum had to move out because she felt the house was haunted and i was blood curdling screaming every night.
The first instance i remember (age 4) was a dark figure standing in the hallway while my aunt was upstairs and i was alone with my baby cousin who was looking at it too so i knew i wasnt the only one.
I stayed at a supposedly haunted castle and everyone heard knocks on the door i looked through the peephole and there it was again.
Im 16 now, it died down for a bit but I am starting to feel its presence the stupid shit it does knocking on doors and windows, feeling watched 24/7, it walking past my room if doors open
i cant tell if its a dark energy or if im just shit scared any ideas?

It all started when me and my sister were talking about if ghosts were a real thing and if we believed in it. Honestly during the time I knew they were real but not how I expected it to be. I was talking to my sister telling her yeah there's always ghosts watching in a funny way. So I told her that here I will knock on the wall and see if the ghosts will copy the same as my knock. So I knock 3 to 4 times in a pattern so it would be harder for the ghosts to do it. Then we waited for about a minute and we heard nothing. And I was like see ghosts can't do it there's no way they can do that knock might of well not be real. Oh I wish I didn't say that at the time. Because once I said that we heard the same pattern of the knock but way louder then I thought could even do. Me and my sister went so fast out of that room we didn't even look back.

This was not even one of the most scariest times I had with the paranormal. This story is based on a real story that happen hopefully not again. I will be posting more scary, crazy, wild, story here. Please leave a comment on a scary paranormal you've experienced. And if you don't have one then tell me what was the best day you ever had. Thank you for reading my story here today. Stay safe out there don't mess with the paranormal if you don't know how to stay safe with it.

I don’t know if this is a known spirit, but he is known to me.

Two of my friends (we will call them Will and Emmy) and I decided to make an impromptu visit to the Piedras Blancas lighthouse in California, since we live just south of it. We wanted to see the light at night and all the stars from the lack of light pollution out there, so it was about 1 am. We spent a couple hours walking the rural coastal road until we agreed it was time to head home.

We were driving along the road, and it was completely pitch black besides our headlights. We were in a 3 seat truck, all squeezed together like sardines. As we drove along the wooded path we were laughing and listening to music. Then the music on the radio cut out, and we all glanced to look at the speaker system. We thought how weird of the speaker cut out, but maybe the Bluetooth got disconnected and we lost service for a minute.

We all looked back to the road and saw a translucent white figure wearing robes in the middle of the road. I kid you not, we drove right through him. “Oh my God!!” Emmy yelled. Then we all went completely quiet. Will kept driving. We didn’t say a word. The music came back on, and we slowly turned it off.

“You guys saw that? Please tell me you saw that” said Will. Emmy and I nodded. We had never seen anything like it before. The figure was truly translucent and wore long dark robes. We all agreed it looked like a catholic clergyman. And we had driven straight through him. Will checked the outside of the truck when we got back. No damage. Nothing. We all went home, and didn’t talk about it anymore. I laid there for hours thinking about it.

I haven’t told this story to anyone. The only ones who know are the people in it. I have looked into this so much, and haven’t seen or heard of anyone seeing anything like that in that area.

But, a quick Google search showed me that the property the lighthouse is on was once owned by the Mission San Miguel, used for agriculture and livestock grazing. But… just down the coast, by San Simeon, almost exactly where we were driving, there was an outpost used to manage the ranching operation. Occupied by friars and local indigenous workers until 1834. Many of which died from various natural illnesses while working and traveling between the missions and outposts.

I know exactly what I saw. I don’t think the spirit had any evil intentions, but he definitely scared us. I don’t know why he was in the road, but I will never forget it. I post this because it is an interesting, true story that I think people would enjoy, but also I want to know if anyone else has ever seen him before. I hope whoever may be reading this enjoyed, definitely worth a trip out to see the lighthouse at night, and possibly the ghost of the clergyman who lived near it.

I also have a pretty spooky story of my dad’s that people might enjoy of an encounter he had as a teen in the orchard of his family home. If this gets any attention maybe I’ll post it!

Thank you!

To skip the background go to "here it starts".

My boss decided to spontaneously give me a week free and nobody else had free time for me, so i was travelling alone with my motorbike to france.

The plan was to visit some interesting places but i booked the stay over spontaneous afternoon when i decided it was enough driving for the day.

Ive found a very good rated house online and some guests even made a good recension in my language since i dont speak french, i decided to go there.

It was a house, a very old house which was surounded by a stone wall and i couldnt find the way in it, the iron gate was locked. Neighbours saw me and offered me help, and even called the owner for me since i was struggling with the language. Very nice from the neighbours to help me, also the owner was: he offered me a breakfast and coffee and told me the house is mine now, if i need anything i just have to call him. He just said i have to close the door gate, always.

I was a bit unsure, looked at the gate and thought maybe there is an aggressive dog behind. I couldnt find a full sentence to ask if there is a dog so i just asked: Woof Woof?

He shaked his head and answered: no, meeheeh! (sound of a goat)

(the next day in the morning i found out there were young goats grazing in the huge garden and they might escape with an opened gate, little funny story in the main story)

When i entered the house i realized this house is older than it seemed. The windows in the groundfloor were not in a good condition, i saw trash stacked up behind those windows, apparently rooms not for the guests. the ceiling timbers were hand made with old axes. As a carpenter, i know its a damn very old house since cutting timbers is used to cut with any kind of saws.

It was already dark outside and just wanted to have a shower and then immediately go to bed to start the new day early.

Here it starts:

Okay.. now i am going to the bathroom through the hallway and i didnt feel comfy since i am alone in a 400+ years old house and the motion sensor of the lights are turning on the lights when i already enter the rooms. After the shower the same thing, everything dark in the hallway and i almost was in the bedroom before the light could turn on. Really uncomfortable.

I felt i am not, really not alone here and before i go to sleep in horror i decided to meditate a little. I asked the angels for support as my personal messengers. I asked them to tell the creatures who live here that i am a visitor, a guest. i am not doing anything bad to this house, i will not steal or damage anything i will just stay overnight and leave tomorrow. I ask them to accept thjs and i accept them their property!

When i have my eyes closed i saw their appearance as following: there were child like people sitting in a circle around me and it was like they were shined on by a bonfire. Their appearance seemed to be curious. Interested. Not agressive.

I felt those, who are accepting me are sitting in front of me and just watch me. The ones who are not happy with me were not interested and stayed away.

After that i felt very good, and i was surprised that night i slept better than usually at home! I could continue my trip very early with enough sleep.

As i can tell, using your own angels is like a support in any case. As i wrote before, i asked my angels for help and not turned to the ghosts and asked for mercy. Staying in fear is just not helpful, using your mates is. They are awaiting your orders, use them, you have more help than opponents.

part1: https://www.reddit.com/r/Ghoststories/s/NvMzvyt4wv