17 Real-Life Ghost Stories That’ll Freak You

1. The impostor:

I woke up one night having to pee, and I brought my phone to the bathroom. While walking down the hall and texting, I bumped into a girl in a white dress. I didn’t look up, said “sorry,” and kept going. It occurred to me moments later that I was home alone and not in my bustling high school. The next day, when my boyfriend came to pick me up for the movies, he asked why I’d been staring at him through the upstairs window, and why I’d changed out of my white dress. But I don’t even own a white dress.

—rcarrillo

2. The intruder:

I was home alone watching TV when I saw something moving in the master bedroom. I strained my eyes to see a man walking out of the closet to the other side of the room. He stopped, looked at me, put his finger to his lips, then turned around. There was blood on his face, and the back of his head was missing. He vanished back into the closet. We moved when we found out that the mysterious small hole in the ceiling of our bedroom is from a previous tenant who shot himself in that exact spot.

—jlmcmorrough

Universal Pictures

3. The friendliest client:

I’m a mortician. My most disturbing experience was when I was preparing a child for a viewing, and I felt someone pull my hair. A couple minutes later, I heard a giggle, and the door slammed shut. All of my machines stopped, and it was dead quiet. After I was done and the body was dressed, I felt a tap on my shoulder and warmth around my middle, approximately where a child would stand if they were hugging you.

—briw45

4. The night crawlers:

When I was a kid, my family moved into an apartment where a murder had been committed prior to us living there. Every night, my big sister would make me shut our bedroom window, and when I’d look outside, I’d see three faces staring back at me. They had no hair, noses, or mouths. They’d just stare, but never did anything. Well, a few months back, my family was talking about that apartment, and I mentioned the faces. My sister turned to me, shocked — she said that she saw them, too, and that’s why she always asked me to close the window.

—angelicac4

The CW / Via yourreactiongifs.tumblr.com

5. The mysterious mom moment:

A few years ago, I was upstairs at my mom’s house playing on the computer when I heard the front door open and my mom come in. She yelled, “Amber! I’m home,” and seemed to be struggling with some groceries. I ran downstairs to help her… but she wasn’t there. Her car wasn’t in the driveway, either.

—Amber Rodriguez, Facebook

6. The devil’s deed:

Two years ago, I was half asleep when I felt like I was being pulled off my bed by my legs. Suddenly, I shot straight up and started violently choking! It took me a few minutes to catch my breath, and it was so bad my mom woke up to check on me. HERE’S THE SCARIEST PART: The next morning, my mom said she didn’t remember my coughing fit, but she told me she had a dream that the DEVIL WAS TRYING TO PULL ME AWAY FROM HER. WTF.

—mawio

The Geffen Film Company

7. The whisper war:

When I was a kid, I lived with just my mom. Every few nights after she went to bed and turned off all of the TVs, I’d hear a man and woman casually having a quiet conversation in our kitchen area. I always had to concentrate really hard to make sure I was actually hearing something, because it was so faint I couldn’t make out words. This continued for years, and I thought my mom wouldn’t believe me if I told her. After we moved out, I finally told her — she said she’d always experienced the same thing.

—laurab4

8. The static scenario:

A few years ago I was visiting my brother and his family, who lived in a very old Victorian house. I was snuggling with my niece on a futon in the playroom when suddenly, in the middle of the night, the TV turned on, full-blast, with a static screen. My three-year-old niece jumped out of bed and ran to the TV, shutting it off. When I asked her how she knew the TV would turn on, she shrugged, saying, “They turn it on every night at this time,” and fell right back asleep.

—christinaelstong

MGM

9. The phone fright:

My mom and I were working one day in the store we own when her cell phone rang. The caller ID said “HOME,” with our number below it. She looked at me calmly and asked, “Who’s at home?” My dad was at work. My sister was at college. My grandma, who used to live with my parents, had passed away about six months prior. But then I remembered — we didn’t have a home phone, because after my grandma passed, my mom shut off the landline since we all had cell phones. When we called the number back, it’d been disconnected.

—kellyh

10. Siri the medium:

My mom bought me my first iPhone right before she passed away. After we lost her, I’d sometimes randomly find Siri open with a small conversation on the screen. This happened a handful of times. One day, I was scared because I was starting my new job, and left my phone on the desk next to me. Siri was open, and the screen said, “What you doing?” I burst into tears — “What you doing?” was the phrase my mom and I used to greet each other on the phone.

—hawright43

NBC

11. The pleasant phantasm:

I had a neighbor who was a lovely old man. He would always work in his garden, and I’d walk past his house daily, so we spoke often. One day I saw him and said “hello,” but got no response. Not wanting to bother him, I carried on home. A few days later, I saw a removal van and people outside of his home. I was told that the man had gone hiking a week ago, had a heart attack, and died. They’d just recovered his body. He had been dead for a week, but I had seen him just days earlier.

—mblackburn877

12. The scorching savior:

In college, I lived in a notoriously haunted dorm. One night while my roommates were away, I was followed home from a party by a guy I’d rejected. He was drunk and aggressive after I told him to leave, grabbed my wrists, and threw me against my bed. But before anything happened, he was ripped off of me. There were two large blisters on his shoulders in the shape of handprints, as though someone had grabbed him and scalded him. He scrambled out quickly, and, as I lay in bed crying, I sensed a very maternal presence rubbing my back. I was too distraught to care what it might have been.

—morgank4

Universal Pictures

13. The super-spooky snuggle:

A few years ago, my boyfriend and I inexplicably awoke in a panic in the middle of the night. We looked at each other, and at that moment, the large framed photo hanging on the wall crashed to the ground. I told him I’d been having a horrible nightmare where he was being stabbed to death. He freaked out, saying he was having the exact same dream, except I was being stabbed. Later on, we both heard my mom yelling downstairs. She sounded scared and kept calling my name. This was particularly scary because we lived in California, and my mom lived in England. Nobody was inside the house but us. He refused to sleep at my house ever again.

—penelopet4

14. The numbers nightmare:

When my son was a few months old, I was trying to record his laugh on my phone. I used to bounce him on my knee and say numbers before each bounce. When I played the recording back you hear my son laughing as I count, “One, two, three…” and after I said, “three,” you could hear a mans voice clearly say, “four.” There was no one else in the house and the TV wasn’t on. When I played it for my friend, she got goosebumps.

—staceyjw

FOX

15. The fast-food fright:

I was sleeping alone in a room I shared with my six-year-old sister, but she wasn’t home. She had a toy McDonald’s cash register with a drive-thru radio that’d play a recording if you pressed a button. I was dozing off when I heard, “Welcome to McDonald’s, can I take your order?” from inside our closet. I investigated, took it out of the toy box, and turned it off before setting it on a shelf where it wouldn’t be disturbed. About 20 minutes later, I’m falling asleep and heard a voice whisper, “I would like Chicken McNuggets, please.” You bet I bolted out of there.

—cameronr4

16. And Margie, the friendly ghost:

I used to share a paper route with my brothers, and we’d deliver to a lady named Margie. Since she was old and lived alone, one of us would take the paper inside and check on her. One day I went in and she was asleep on the bed, so I put the paper on the table and left. The next day, she was asleep again, hadn’t opened the paper from the day before. The following day, I went in and Margie was awake. She said she was very happy and gave me a hug. But the next morning there were cars outside her house. Apparently Margie had died in her bed, three or four days before — I had spoken to and hugged her about 24 earlier, when she was already dead.

—Sejl Ó Longáin, Facebook

Universal Studios