u/Infitima

The shadow figure in a rural North Carolina cabin

I’m trying to write out all the paranormal things that have happened throughout my life so that I don’t forget them as I get older. This happened when I was around 11 years old and is the single worst paranormal experience I’ve ever had.

My grandma was renting a log cabin in a very rural and isolated part of central North Carolina. The house was surrounded by trees and fields in every direction. Our closest neighbor was 2 miles and the nearest gas station or grocery store was about a 20 minute drive. I think the isolated nature really added to the creepiness of the house as a whole. My grandma had only been living there for about 2 months when she got into a serious motorcycle accident. My mom, my young sister, and I moved in with her to help take care of her while she recovered. We ended up staying there for almost a year. Not long after we moved in, something strange started happening in the kitchen.

Every night at exactly 9:00 PM, the lights in the kitchen would start flickering. Not dimming or buzzing like bad bulbs sometimes do, but would rapidly turn off and on over and over again. At first my grandmother thought one of us kids was messing with the switches, but it kept happening even when nobody was in the kitchen. Sometimes we would all be sitting in the living room and we could see the lights flashing from down the hallway, or on a school night when everyone was in bed we could see the lights going on and off from under the closed bedroom doors.

Eventually we just assumed it was something wrong with the wiring. My grandma mentioned it to the landlord and he sent an electrician out to look at it. The electrician checked everything and said the wiring was completely fine. But the lights kept flickering every night exactly at 9 PM like clockwork. After a while we stopped reacting to it. It just became this weird nightly thing the house did.

Then one night during the summer my grandma, my mom, and I were all in the kitchen eating dinner and talking and laughing. Around 9 PM the lights started again. However, instead of the fast flickering we were used to, the lights started turning off and on slowly, almost like someone was standing there flipping the switch up and down on purpose. The room got quiet because we all noticed it. My grandma was standing in the kitchen putting butter on a piece of bread and standing directly behind her was a tall shadow figure. It looked like the silhouette of a person wearing a tall hat. If you google “Hat Man”, it looks exactly like the results but no eyes or anything. It was just standing there, hovering above my grandmother. I could clearly see the figure when the lights were on, and when the lights went off, the figure was somehow darker than the darkness in the kitchen so I could still see its outline.

I completely froze and just stared at it. My chest felt so tight. The only way I can describe it is pure dread. The lights kept turning off and on while I stared at it. I know wasn’t imagining it because this went on for about 15 seconds, then the lights stopped and the figure was gone. I immediately started crying and went hysterical. My family kept asking what was wrong and I finally told them what I saw behind my grandma. My family has had paranormal experiences before, and my grandma and mom immediately believed me.

I never saw the figure again after that night but the kitchen lights continued flickering at 9 PM every single night for the rest of the time we lived there and even after we moved out and my grandmother lived alone. To this day, any time I’m around flickering lights, I get anxious.

There were other paranormal happenings at the cabin, including cabinets slamming in the middle of the night, furniture being moved while everyone was asleep, hearing things in the walls, etc., but nothing compared to this. Curious if anyone else has had any similar encounters?

I’ve never really told many people this story because it still creeps me out when I think about it, but I’m curious if anyone has experienced something similar.

When I was about 7, my family had one of those baby monitors that constantly broadcasts sound from the room instead of activating only when there’s noise. The monitor was in my newborn sister’s room and the monitor receiver usually stayed in my parents’ bedroom overnight or the living room during the day/evening so they could hear if she woke up.

One night I was sitting in the living room watching TV with the volume low with my parents and the baby monitor was sitting on the coffee table. Out of nowhere, we started hearing a woman singing distinct lullabies. At first my dad thought it was coming from the TV program we were watching, but he muted the TV and we realized it was coming from the monitor. It wasn’t static or random noise, but it was actual, clearly legible singing. The weird part was that there was nothing in my sister’s room that could’ve made that noise. She didn’t have a TV, a radio, etc. I mean, she was a newborn baby lol. It gave me this really eerie feeling because it sounded so clear, like someone was actually in the room and the monitor was picking it up. I remember staying in the living room while they went to check on her and the singing continuing faintly through the monitor, but the closer they got to her room, the fainter it would get until it stopped completely when they entered the room. They couldn’t hear anything from the room itself the closer they got or when they opened the door. My sister was sound asleep.

If this had happened just once, I think we all could’ve chalked it up to monitor interference, faulty electronics, etc., but this went on for almost a year. It was a common occurrence that randomly we would hear a woman singing lullabies over the baby monitor and the same thing would happen each time where, when we got to the room, nothing. On one occasion, my mom was outside working on the garden and could even hear it from outside the windows. Our house was one story and the windows were eye-level so there was obviously no one in the room and no faulty electronics, and when she went to check the room, as usual, nothing.

We had other paranormal experiences in that house but this is the most clear because I was old enough to experience it and now, years later, it’s one of those memories that sticks with me because it felt so unexplainable at the time, and still does. I truly believe that our house was haunted in some way and I struggle to explain this experience.

Has anyone else had a baby monitor pick up voices or music when no one was there?

This has been happening for years. After I drink a cup of coffee, I’ve noticed that I smell like coffee. At first, I thought it was just coffee breath but even if I brush my teeth, floss, and use mouth wash, I will smell like coffee. Like, I can literally sniff my armpit and it smells like coffee beans. The first person who pointed it out was my ex-girlfriend about 2 years ago because she actually enjoyed it and thought I smelled nice lol. It’s not a bad smell, but I literally have to shower after I drink a cup of coffee just to smell like myself again. Does anyone have an explanation for this?

I have a good diet of mostly whole foods, I drink plenty of water, and I typically have 1-2 coffees a day (mostly lattes).