r/TrueScaryStories

Hi everyone! I’ve been going down the rabbit hole of New Orleans history, folklore, and all the eerie stories tied to the city—and I’m honestly fascinated.

I’m a storyteller/content creator, and I’ve been sharing spooky, mysterious stories (always with respect to the culture and history behind them). I’d really love to hear from people who actually *know* New Orleans—whether that’s personal experiences, local legends, family stories, or things you’ve heard growing up.

I want to be very clear:
If I ever share a story outside of Reddit, I will keep it respectful, avoid sensationalizing anything serious, and give credit to the community (or keep it anonymous if you prefer).

If you’re open to it, I’d love for this to be a story exchange:
I’ll share one of mine, you share one of yours 👀

Have you ever experienced something unexplainable in New Orleans?
A place that just *feels* off?
A story everyone local seems to know?

I’m here to listen 🖤

So, the first incident happened about 2 years ago. At the time, I was living, with my family, on a five acre piece of property, literally right off the freeway. Like the back of our yard ended and the free way was about ten feet away from the back fence. Anyway, we lived there for about eight years, and for a while, nothing happened. So for context to this story, the house was at the front of the property, maybe forty feet from the road, not the freeway, but a back road. We had a small corral\shelter we had built right after moving there for my brother's two horses, however, at the time of this story, my brother had moved out and taken his horses with him. My mini per cow, Dexter, lived in the corral at this time. The corral was maybe 100 or 150 feet from the house (if this makes no sense, I'm sorry, I'm not good with distances). It was closer to the freeway than the house.

Anyway, one night, I had gotten my 3 month old Border Collie, and taken her with me up the field to the corral to feed my cow. Now I have pretty bad eye sight, and I wear glasses, but at the time, I had just started wearing them, and couldn't wear them long without getting a migraine, so I had left them in the house. Things far away from me were blurry.

We had five acre properties on both side of our property. To the south, a very nice family lived. To the north was an empty lot that switched owners a few times, but nothing was ever built there. While I was feeding the cow, I noticed something or someone standing on the property to the north, which no one owned at that time. I brushed it off at first, because there was a tree on that property not far from our fence, and I couldn't see well because I wasn't wearing my glasses. Anyway, I turned back to Dexter to throw another pitch fork of hay to him, and when I turned back around to get another pitch fork full, the object, which was black and blurry, had moved closer to the fence, to the point where it was maybe ten feet away from me, about three feet away from the fence, though still in the neighbors yard, and I could see the tree I had originally thought it was behind them, quite a ways.

I freaked out, because my eye sight was so bad, everything that far away was so blurry, I have no idea what it was, but I'm positive it was a human. I grabbed my dog and, because I didn't want whatever it was to know I had noticed it, pretended I was talking to my dog. I said, "Come on girl." And ran back down the field to the house. Once I reached the house, I looked back to see whatever it was had disappeared. This also happened right after sunset, so it was pretty dark.

I thought about this for HOURS, and eventually brushed it off as my imagination, and because I hadn't been wearing my glasses, I was able to eventually convince myself it was nothing. That only lasted for a couple days. This time it was during the day. I was out front this time, in our rose garden, playing with my cats. I heard a buzzing, which I immediately recognized as a drone. I knew this because a few of my cousins and friends had drones, and would fly them at our house to get cool views of the freeway.

I looked up and found the thing hovering right above me. When I noticed it, it flew away. However a few hours later when I was on the back lawn playing with my dog, it reappeared. Both of these times I was wearing my glasses, and can say for sure it was a small gray drone. Again, when I looked at it, it flew away.

Over the next few days, most of the time I was outside, I would hear the drone, see it, or just feel like I was being watched. I don't know how to explain that feeling, but it's like you can just feel eyes on you. I got so uncomfortable I would only go outside when I had too. I would also like to point out where ever I went away from home, nothing like this happened, no matter where I went. This continued the rest of the time we lived there. Also, my dog, who lived in the back yard, would randomly bark at things at night, though it could've been deer or coyotes. Another strange thing, was sometimes at night, I would hear taps or knocks on my bedroom window, but I never dared open them.

One of my brothers often saw the sillouette of a person wearing a ball cap walking past his room in the middle of the night. We had an 8 foot fence surrounding our yard to keep the deer and coyotes out, and an eight foot tall gate. This gate could only be opened by a fob, and it was hard to climb over. We didn't have a man gate, so it wasn't like just anyone could walk into our yard. We also lived in pretty much the middle of nowhere, with only a few neighbors.

Anyway, about a year later after the first strange occurance, we decided to move, as the house was a seven bedroom, and there were only my parents, me and my brother living there. At the time we moved in, our other siblings had lived with us, but had moved out over the eight years. We needed to downsize not only the home, but five acres was getting hard for us to take care of. So we moved to a small house in a pretty neighbor hood, with neighbors on every side, but behind us. We have a huge field behind us. Since we moved here, I have never felt watched or seen a drone. I mostly forgot about the weird things that had happened, until about a month ago. After we moved here we got a small inside dog, who sleeps with me, I still have my Border Collie and a husky mix, but the house is too small for them, and they are more guard dogs, and live outside.

Anyway, one night I opened my window, since I have no fan in my bedroom, and I was roasting. I opened the window a couple inches, then closed the blinds. While, I was scrolling on my phone, when suddenly my dog, who was curled up sleeping on the end of my bed, sits up, and looks at the window. My window is on the front of the house, facing the street. He stared at the closed blinds for a second, then growled. I was terrified. This dog was only 8 months old, and he had only growled playfully when I was playing tug of war with him. He continued to growl at the window, even after I'd told him to stop. He is a VERY obedient puppy.

I finally opened the blinds. There is a street light between ours and the neighbors yard, so I could see pretty good, and I couldn't see a thing. I closed the blinds, and laid back down. Not ten seconds later, he started growling again. I was so scared, I got up and checked again, but still couldn't see anything. I finally shut the window and locked it. When I laid back down, he curled up next to me and went to sleep as though nothing had happened. This happened AGAIN about a week later. Since then, I haven't opened my window at night.

Still, there is one more thing that happened, that may not be related, but is unexplainable. Me and mom have been renovating the front yard, since my brother and dad work, and before we moved into this house, it was untouched for eight months. Anyway, one day we pulled up some dead bushes, and they had been planted inside tomato cages. I have no Idea why. Most of the cages were twisted and unusable, all except one. Mom put it between the two giant pine trees in the front yard, since we were going to use it the next morning, and it was getting dark. The next morning, the tomato cage was on the front lawn, destroyed. I mean DESTROYED. Twisted in all manner of ways, and it was metal, meaning no animal could've done it.

I still have no explanation for any of these events. I have no idea if I have a stalker or not, but it's freaky asf. Any follow up questions and explanations are welcome.

EDIT: When we moved we told no one except the movers and close family where we were moving to this was because we had a few people that had a habit of showing up uninvited to our house.

So every now and then, because we cannot leave the property during our shift, a food truck will be parked in the lot where I work. So on the way in I stop and buy a steak burrito.

I had them put everything on it, and then hit the sales bar, and load up the pico and hot sauce

I sat my backpack next to me and started on this big bastard. The first bite was mostly tortilla but still good, a nice preview of what was to come.

The second bite, almost to my mouth, when I notice something scurrying up my arm! A fucking mouse ! headed right for my throat. I swing my other arm, a knee jerk reaction.

As my other hand makes contact with the little beast, I realized I was still holding my burrito. The burrito does it's work and both burrito and mouse go crashing to the floor.

The cilantro covered mouse, stunned, pauses for just a moment then headed toward some heavy cabinets in the far side of the room. Running under the cabinet, he makes good his escape, leaving nothing but a guacamole trail.

Now all is quiet, and the realization that my lunch was now scattered across a dirty shop floor. My mind races , and obscured by a quick flash of anger, I think:;they must have rolled the bastard up with the burrito and would have had to know it was in there.

A little more time passed, and as I swept up the scene of all that drama, a thought comes to me, a memory really of my silly ass cat, and it's odd sudden interest in my backpack earlier in the evening before I left home.

Long story short, 90,% positive I brought the mouse with me in my bag. Oh well it's a work problem now. But damn it that was a $13 burrito.

Hi, I’m 16 female, and I just wanted to share this story and let other people know. I live in a chill area, and all people around me are nice. I do horseback riding, and I do art. Recently, I can’t shake the feeling that I’m being watched by someone or something. I have bad grammar at times since my typing isn’t all well, and I’m doing this on a computer, so I’m sorry.

It was 2 years ago. As I said, I’m 16 now, so I was 14 at the time. It was a day like any other. I had just finished up with my summer training for the day and was heading inside. Something black caught the corner of my eye, startling me as I turned around, but there was nothing there. I brushed it off as a summer heat hallucination, but it still gave me the creeps, and my gut feeling told me something was off.

I had headed back in for the night, got my pills taken, and drank a bit of water, then headed off to bed. There was supposed to be a bad storm rolling in that night and possibly a tornado, so I couldn’t sleep, and I got up to go outside for a bit. I was walking around for a bit, and something caught my eye once more, darting past—a black figure about the size of my father, standing at around 6’5, but it was hunched over. That’s all I got from it, and I don’t have a phone, so I wasn’t able to snap a picture of it, but yet again it would’ve probably been too late.

I ran inside out of fear and jumped into my bed. My house had just burned down the year before, and we were living in a camper, so we had living and money rough, but my parents still pulled through. I didn’t tell them about it, maybe thinking the night was playing tricks on me, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong with my head.

It was two days later, and my dad was asleep because he works late night shifts, and my mom was out for a trip to nationals. My brothers were at school, and I was sitting at my PC doing homework. Then I heard it—a loud, deliberate knocking noise on the window. I turned, and there was nothing. It was a bit dark due to the rainstorm that was crashing down outside, and I thought it must have just been a coincidence.

But again—slow, deliberate knocking. No one was there. My dog stared at the window, not moving, not barking, just sitting and staring, which of course freaked me the hell out, and I moved inside the camper to finish up my work on the computer. I heard the wind pick up and a bang, then stuff fell over. Lightning flashed hard, making me nearly jump out of my seat because I was afraid of lightning at the time. Then I heard creaking. I just sat there as it raged on.

By the time I was wrapping up with the work, it was pitch black outside. The lightning and storm had started again, and then I heard it all over again—slow, deliberate knocking. At that point, I just said f*ck it, closed my computer, and ran back inside. I saw a shadow through the window, which scared me half to death because it was at least 7 feet tall with its spine sticking straight out, and I hid under my covers.

At this point, I was going to therapy to help my ADHD, and I started telling the therapist what was happening. She thought I was insane, but she understood. I went home that night feeling worse than ever because I was scared.

I was outside with my brother and saw something dart by. This is another few days later (sorry for all of the time period skips; I don’t remember much since this was 2 years ago). It’s small like a cat but disappears as soon as I turn around. Now, my black cat had died a few months ago, and that couldn’t be her. It sent a chill down my spine just thinking about how she had been killed by the dog that offed her, and I ran inside, making the excuse that I had seen a copperhead, and took my brother in.

Finally, I took the time to explain to my parents what was happening. They thought I was completely crazy and said I don’t have schizophrenia, I’m just seeing things, my mind is playing tricks on me.

That night, I sat in the living room again. It’s a larger add-on to my camper because we didn’t have too much space, and I saw something in the window. It looked like a face, but it disappeared when I looked.

I started hearing voices a few days later saying my name and they won't stop, i got a concusion the next day when i fell off my horse and i stopped hearing the voices, this is all i remember from there but I’m getting better. I feel better sharing my experience with those who have had anything similar happen to them. Thank you for reading if you do.

My girlfriend dog sits often so i join her and meet the dogs all the time. She was house sitting for a few days during the week. I was working so i got to the house around 6:30 pm ish and she wanted to take him to the dog park around the corner.

It was night time but there were lights so not a worry in the world right? This is a huge dog park about a football field length. Heaps of obstacles and interactive dog playground stuff.

We got there and i immediately was scared because some of the lights were off so we waited in the car and decided to just be quick.

It was about 5 minutes in of letting the dog run around and there he went into the literal darkest spot of the entire dog park lol. We kept calling him as we walked towards where he went but no response (lowkey bad recall…).

We didn’t want to walk any closer so we just kept calling him. AND I SWEAR IT WENT SO SILENT AND THE FUCKIN LIGHT WE WERE UNDER SHUT OFF! Then siamotainously the dog started going crazy! So we ran to the gate knowing the dog would catch up and got the fuck outta there.

Coincidence? Most likely but the feeling and the exact moment scared the shit out of us.

It was 2015, and I was interning in New York City for a small, independent fashion designer. Because she didn’t have much money, her office was tucked inside one of those converted warehouse buildings shared by dozens of other creatives… Painters, designers, sculptors, photographers. It always smelled faintly of paint thinner and old fabric.

It was late at night and the place was nearly empty. It was fashion week and my boss’s fashion show was the next day. I’d been hunched over a table in the shared space for hours, finishing last-minute alterations. My boss and her stylist were still in her private office, somewhere down the dimly lit hallway. The fluorescent lights buzzed softly overhead, the kind of sound that soaks into your nerves when everything else is silent.

I was deep in concentration when I heard a voice behind me.

“Wow. You’ve been bending over that table all day, huh?”

My hand froze mid-stitch. I turned to see a man standing a few feet away. Late 50s, maybe. I didn’t recognize him. He had a coy smile across his lips and eyes that lingered too long.

I laughed, out of reflex more than anything. “Yeah, it’s fashion week. A lot to finish before tomorrow.”

He smiled, slow and deliberate. “Oh, wow. So you’re a fashion designer?”

“Trying to be,” I said, instantly shifting into my polite, eager intern mode. “Still in school. This is my first real internship.”

He stepped closer, closing the space between us with every word. “That’s impressive. Do you have a portfolio?”

The building was full of really talented artists, some famous, even. Once, I’d met an Emmy-winning costume designer there. So, when this man asked about my work, I figured he was just another artist trying to network. I wanted to look open, confident, professional.

I pulled out my phone and started scrolling through my senior thesis: a collection inspired by entanglement and confinement… ideas drawn from the way fabric wraps, restrains, clings. It had touches of BDSM aesthetic, but mostly it was conceptual, about the feeling of being caught, trapped, bound.

“I was thinking about how sheets twist around you when you can’t sleep,” I explained, the enthusiasm spilling out of me before I could stop myself.

He leaned closer. Close enough that I could smell him. “Mm,” he murmured. “You’re so cute. Do you know that?”

I froze. My mind took half a second to catch up before I looked up, his face was right next to mine, only a breath away. My stomach dropped.

Before I could move, he leaned in and pressed a slow, wet, open-mouthed kiss on my cheek. My body went rigid. Then I felt his breath against my ear as he whispered, too calmly, “I have some duct tape in my office. We could have a little fun... if you want.”

Every sound in the room, the hum of the light, the ticking clock, even my heartbeat seemed to vanish for one long, awful second.

“No,” I managed to stammer, coming up with the first excuse I could think of, “I really have way too much work to do. Thank you, though” barely above a whisper. Leave it to a woman who grew up in the early 2000s to thank a man for sexually harassing her.

He chuckled, standing too close for too long. “If you change your mind,” he said softly, “I’m down the hall.” I could tell that he was reveling in the way I squirmed… in how unsafe and uncomfortable he made me feel. Then he turned and walked away, just like that, his footsteps echoing on the concrete until they faded completely.

The silence he left behind was deafening. My hands started shaking. Tears blurred my vision before I knew they were coming. I bolted to my boss’s office, half expecting him to appear again in the doorway.

When I told her and the stylist what happened, they exchanged that typical look… half judgment, half irritation. “Well,” my boss said, like she was explaining something obvious, “you shouldn’t be showing that kind of work to strange men. Especially that BDSM stuff.”

I couldn’t believe it. Somehow, I was the one being blamed. As if it wasn’t obviously his plan all along to prey on me in that way… As if it was my fault a man in his fifties couldn’t stop himself from being a creep around an early 20-something intern.

It’s been over a decade, but sometimes I still see his face… that coy, lingering smile plastered on in perverted delight. I wonder how long he had been watching me before he decided the warehouse was empty enough to approach me… to touch me… hours? Days? Weeks? I guess I will never know.

Hi everyone! I’ve never made a Reddit post before but this experience has me so freaked out I need to share. I’m not even sure if anyone will see this but it’s worth a shot:) it’ll be a lengthy post so i don’t know if that ruins or helps my chances

Back in June 2025 my husband and I took our son to story land on Glen, NH. They had a box there (with very little information) stating if you enter your name into the box on a piece of paper you could win a vacation. We said screw it why not. About a month later (July 2025) I got a call from Path Vacations saying my name was picked. We were stoked! A 3 day 2 night stay in any room of our choice for $450 at Steele hill resort in Sanbornton, NH. We decided to do it.

Fast forward to September 2025. We check in and get to our room (a two floor townhouse suite on the west side of the resort). As we are driving to the room I think to myself that there seems like a lot of cars in the parking lot and they’re all newer cars (Audis, BMWs, mini vans etc.) nothing extremely out of the ordinary happened during this stay except the only other person we interacted with was an elderly gentleman who told us it was a timeshare program and he bought it and really enjoyed it. I found it odd that out of more than 100 cars in the lot we didn’t see a single housekeeper, maintanence man, or guest throughout the entire stay. All restaurants and attractions were closed, there weren’t even any guests at the indoor water park when we went besides another family doing the same promotional stay on the same west side of the hotel. As well as Just the elderly man telling us we should buy the program. Still thinking nothing weird, we check out thinking we’d never hear from these people again.

Fast forward to January 2026. I just had our second child and was still in the hospital when I got a call from the same people at path vacations. I won another stay but this time it was 3 days 2 nights for $80 but we didn’t get to choose our room. We said screw it again and decided to go for it. on this call they told us we were mandated to join a 120 minute long meeting for the timeshare or they’d charge us full price for the stay. We thought why not 2 hours of our time for a nice small family vacation. It’s also important to remember that during this call they told me our children could be left in a playroom with a trained nanny who’s CPR certified. And they kept mentioning a she, leading us to believe that it was a woman who’d be sitting with my very young children.

Fast forward to April 2026. We’re on our way to the hotel. It’s a dirt road with no houses closer to the hotel. The road is so rough it tore a piece of plastic off of the bottom of my husbands car. But we made it to the hotel. We check in for our stay and I immediately notice all the nice cars again filling the lots. However, still no people. Every attraction is still closed. This time checking in we met a couple doing the same promotional stay. We parted ways and didn’t seem them on till later in the story. We got to our room, 28A. Not knowing at the time what I do now after some research, the room seemed okay. It was clean enough, and spacious. We ate dinner and my husband and children fell asleep on the pull out couch in the living room. I stayed up to clean and tidy the room up for the following morning. As I’m cleaning, I keep seeing a tall dark black figure standing on the landing of the stairs. I brush it off the first few time, but after a while and it still being there I started to feel the hairs stand up on my body. Then as I’m washing the baby’s bottles… two distinct knocks. I freeze. Do I wake up my husband? Of course. He goes to the door at the top of the stairs. Nothing. (I did research before writing this post. Room 28a has been called the worst haunted room on the property by previous workers and guests with a tall dark figure being seen, knocks being heard, doors being slammed, etc.) I go to bed thinking nothing of it because my husband assured me we were all okay.

Fast forward to the meeting at 10:30AM the next day. We stop at the play room and I freeze. There’s a young man who couldn’t have been more than 18 sitting with 2-3 young children. Not interacting with them. No playing, nothing. I look at my husband who’s holding our newborn and said absolutely not. I’m not leaving my baby in here. My toddler was excited about the other children so against my better judgement I let him stay. 2 of the children were siblings, an older sister and younger brother about the same age as my toddler. The strange thing was, the moment we walked in she looked at us as if she was trying to remember what she was supposed to do. She then suddenly picked up the smaller child and placed him in front of my son almost to entice my son to stay. The room was right next to where our meeting was so I was able to keep an ear out. I told the man that if my son started to cry to come and get my husband or I. Five minutes into the meeting I realized something fell out of my pocket while upstairs. I ran to get it. As I was running back I hear my son, bloody murder screaming. And no one coming to get my husband or I. I run in and asked what happened, all the man said was his friends left so he was sad. That was NOT my sons sad cry. That was his scared cry. I immediately take him with me to my husband. We finish the taking part of the meeting. They take us on a tour. The building we walked into for this meeting was an average size house. But when we walked down a staircase, we entered what must’ve been a 500 foot long hallway. It seemed impossible. How was I looking at our car in the parking lot from the lobby but still looking at our car from the same point of view after walking down 15-20 stairs? I couldn’t make any sense of it. And the hallways just kept going deep under ground until we were in a pool room. Now, this house was on the south side of the resort. How did it have the same view in the pool room as our hotel room did on the WEST side of the resort? It wasn’t adding up. Then they take us to a room. At first, I just thought it was a staged room and whoever did it was damn good at their job. But the more we toured this room, the more creeped out I got. Opened cereal boxes folded back closed, a half brewed pot of coffee with a half drank cup. A bowl of soggy cereal. Plates on the table. Cartoons on the TV. The bedrooms set up for a perfect 4 person family. Swimming gear drying in the closet. Like whatever family lived here, just up and disappeared. We finished the tour, said no, and got the hell out of there.

Fast forward to that afternoon. We took our kids to the indoor water park. Once again no employees, no housekeepers, no other guests besides one other family do the same promotional stay. I start talking to the mother and everything starts clicking. This is weird, things aren’t adding up and now this woman is telling me they took her on an entirely different tour in which she had to drive to. (I’ll go into more details if people want them) I’m officially scared but not realizing how serious it could be. We start walking back to the room after we finish at the pool and we see the little girl. The one who was coaxing my son. No parents. No sibling. Just a 5 year old girl running the halls of a resort by herself. She was the only other person we ever saw besides the two couples.

Now am I crazy or was this some weird cult or ghost situation? Please let me know what you think as I am extremely freaked out.

Those of us drawn to the paranormal often find ourselves in the kind of deep, unusual conversations that rarely happen in everyday life. As someone who seems to attract these interactions more than most, I’m well used to the standard fare: unexplained bumps in the night, sudden cold spots, or the classic shadowy silhouette moving just out of sight. But occasionally, something is shared with me that really creeps me out. This time, it found me in the form of some very old family folklore. The report that follows comprises a chilling prediction, a catastrophic event, and a family secret passed down through the decades, serving as a harsh warning against messing around with things that should best be left well alone.

A very talented musician and good friend of mine, Josh English, recently shared this account with me. It’s a massive piece of lore in his family, and a story his Nan used to tell with absolute seriousness. While most of our Nans warned us about the everyday dangers of playing too close to deep water or crossing busy roads, Josh’s Nan had a very different, far darker danger she wanted him to be cautious of.

The exact dates of what followed have been lost to time. While deep archival research might uncover the hard facts, for this report, we are going to focus purely on the chilling folklore itself. Josh’s Nan sadly passed away a couple of years ago, taking the finer details with her to the next place. But to set the scene: this sequence of events unfolded sometime in the 1940s.

Family Feuds

To set the scene: we are looking at Josh’s great-granddad, Joseph, and his great-nan, Jane. They had a young daughter together named Elizabeth, who would later become Josh’s beloved Nan.

Before Joseph met Jane, he had been married previously and had a daughter from that relationship called Caroline. From what Josh’s family remembers, Caroline usually lived with her biological mother. However, for a period of a few weeks during the 1940s, she came to stay with Joseph, Jane, and little Elizabeth.

If you’ve ever navigated the complexities of a blended family, you know how high tensions can run. Jane and her stepdaughter, Caroline, were no exception, and simply did not get along, clashing constantly under the same roof. The atmosphere in the house grew thick with resentment, and Jane was rapidly reaching her breaking point. She desperately wanted Caroline to return to her mother’s, but time seemed to drag. As each day slowly rolled past, the energy within her home grew suffocatingly heavy.

An Unexpected Message

Jane needed to vent; she was rapidly reaching her wits’ end. She decided to invite some friends over one evening to clear the air and restore a little normality to her everyday life. They had the house to themselves and were complaining, gossiping, and sharing a much-needed laugh. Things were finally beginning to feel normal again. Then, whether out of boredom, morbid curiosity, or just the spiritualism of the era, someone suggested indulging in something a little more taboo: “Let’s turn down the lights, close the curtains, and get out a Ouija board.”

At first, it went exactly as you’d expect. Nothing profound happened. It was entirely lighthearted – just a bit of a parlour game while they sat around chatting about random things. Someone asked a silly question, and the board spelt out an equally silly answer. Eyes narrowed and smiles widened around the table as they playfully tried to guess who was pushing the planchette.

But then, Jane asked a specific question. Frustrated by her living situation and feeling a sudden spike of anger, she spoke out loud: “When will the daughter be gone?” She meant it purely in a physical sense – when would Caroline finally pack her bags and go back home?

Nothing happened.

She asked a second time. The same stillness followed. The atmosphere in the room started to tighten; her friends noticing the shifting energy. A few snidey remarks were thrown around the table at whoever was supposedly pushing the planchette “Not so brave now, are we? Has Jane scared you?” followed by some giggling, everyone assuming the group’s prankster had just lost their nerve. But Jane wasn’t laughing. She had become focused on the board.

She asked for a third time, this time with conviction in her voice. That was the moment the energy in the room turned ice-cold. Josh said his Nan described it as an instant, full-body chill hitting everyone at the exact same time. The planchette, which had just been lazily sliding around spelling out jokes, violently darted across the board with everyone’s fingers still glued to it.

It spelt out:
S – H – E
W – I – L – L
B – E
G – O – N – E
S – O – O – N

The lighthearted vibe completely vanished. Everyone was instantly unnerved. It felt wrong. It felt dark. They immediately packed the board away, mutually agreeing that they’d had more than enough of that game for one night, and it was probably best to just leave the evening there.

Aftershocks

By the next morning, Jane had convinced herself to dismiss the entire ordeal as a prank in terrible taste. She rationalised that someone at the table must have been harbouring a grudge against her, and she’d have to do some digging later to find out who it was and why. However, just a few days later, the message on the board started to bleed into the physical world.

An emergency situation arose back at Caroline’s mother’s house. Details on what the emergency was are lost to history, but it was urgent enough that Caroline had to get home immediately. Given the urgency and the distances involved back then, she was booked onto a flight.

The family travelled down to the airport to see her off. Joseph and Jane stood watching as Caroline boarded the plane. I try to imagine what was going through Jane’s mind at that moment. Relief that her step-daughter was finally leaving? Or a lingering, uneasy memory of the board’s rapid spelling just days prior? The plane began to lift off the runway.

A Cruel Coincidence

It was at this point, right before their eyes, that disaster decided to strike. The plane suffered a catastrophic engine failure. It completely lost power, dropped out of the sky, and crashed right near the airport.

Caroline was tragically killed in the wreckage.

Just days after the Ouija board emphatically promised Jane that the girl would be “gone soon,” she was dead.

The Investigation

When Josh finished telling me this story, I was genuinely creeped out. Naturally, my first instinct was to put on my researcher hat and start digging into the few facts I had to go on. But here is where the story gets frustrating – and a tad more mysterious. Without exact marriage certificates, death records, deep genealogy files, and unrestricted access to historical aviation crash databases, unearthing the hard truth of that day is almost impossible. We also need to factor in the age of the story and how perception can change over time.

During the 1940s, civilian air travel was heavily restricted due to the war. If Caroline was placed on a small, privately chartered flight, an emergency military ferry, or if she was travelling under her mother’s maiden name instead of her father’s surname, the official records would be incredibly difficult – if not impossible – to track down today.

Furthermore, as stories are passed down through 80 years of family history, the exact decade or the mode of transport can sometimes shift. Details are lost as the memory begins to fade, but the core trauma remains.

My Thoughts

The lack of definitive proof makes this story ten times scarier in my opinion. It elevates it from a tragic historical fact to a deeply personal, chilling piece of folklore. It’s a tragedy that slipped through the cracks of the official archives, living purely in the memory of the family who experienced it. One thing, though, is certain: to those who witnessed the tragedy unfold before their own eyes, it was absolutely real. My friend Josh believes this story to be absolutely authentic.

To this day, Josh’s family has one golden, unbreakable rule: Do not mess around with Ouija boards. The trauma of that prediction was drilled into his Nan, who drilled it into her children, who passed it down to Josh. That warning is still spoken today, nearly a century on from its author.

Reflecting on it all, I can’t help but wonder – did the board simply predict an unavoidable tragedy? Or, in a moment of anger and frustration, did Jane unknowingly invite something much darker to intervene and grant her wish in the most horrific way possible?

I’d love to hear what you all think. Have you or your family ever experienced a prediction that came true in the worst possible way? Let me know in the comments below!

This happened many times to me but I geniunely dont know the reason I dont know if I'm just hallucinating but whenever I'm asleep my hand lift up on its own like someone is lifting me up, my legs, whatever, and I'll only know it not because of the feeling of being lifted up but whenever I open my eyes and see myself doing something i didnt even try to do.

There's a day where my one sibling also saw me floating not like floating very high but floating in my bed...also I always hear someone trying to imitate my friends or my parents voice even whenever they're not here, it happened many times i hear my family voices talking to each other but they're not even in the house.

I also wake up with scratches sometimes, I have a cat but my cat dont sleep in my bed my door is always close too, like a long thin scratches that sometimes appear on my arms, neck, and legs.

It definetly happened very often to the point I just live with it, but still i get scared every night especially with mirrors...

It was supposed to take us to a rental cabin for the weekend.

Instead, it led us deep into the woods. No signal. No other cars. No houses for miles.

Then we saw it.

An old house, barely visible through the trees.

The GPS said: "You have arrived."

We should have turned around.

But we didn’t.

The door wasn’t locked.

Inside, it felt… wrong.

Not abandoned. Not empty.

The table in the kitchen was already set.

Three plates.

Three glasses.

Three chairs pulled out.

There are three of us.

For a second, we laughed.

Like maybe it was just coincidence.

Then Daniel frowned.

His bag was still in the car.

But his phone…

was already on the table.

Screen on.

Battery full.

Like it had been waiting.

That’s when we noticed the fridge.

There was a printed map pinned to it.

Our route.

From the moment we left home… to this house.

And at the bottom, written by hand:

“You’re right on time.”

took the city bus as far as i could go out of town, then hiked on the paved road to a dirt road which led to a relatively isolated reservoir outside of eugene, oregon. i had a map of the area and spotted a trail on the map that turned out to be quite overgrown.

followed it until it disappeared and i continued up the ridge line through the trees to a spot i thought looked cozy. it straddled the ridge line and on both sides was steep downhill, one side being a creek running through a valley, which i couldnt see due to the steepness and trees.

it was starting to get dark so i gathered some wood and lit a small fire beneath a big tree after clearing the area (looking back, not the smartest idea given that it was summer and that area was dry and the ground covered in tinder). there was a lot of dry sticks around that i would break in half to tend the fire.

the snap of the sticks was loud and echoed through the trees. this was right as it got dark.

suddenly, i got this visceral fear for a split second that something was behind my tree watching me.

right about that time i heard a grunt down in the canyon on my right side near the creek. the pitch was deep and i thought it was a bear. i told myself the fire would keep it away, as the night started to set in, and darkness enveloped my world outside the fire light.

then, i heard it again, and again, separated by 5 or 10 minutes, breaking the silence of the night and getting closer, then not so close, as it moved up and down the creek.

"UUUUUGH"

it was almost as if it was pissed and/or annoyed that i started the fire. every once and a while i would snap another stick for the fire, which echoed into the night.

eventually i got spooked and climbed the big tree i was leaning on, where i stayed until morning.

i got about as high as i comfortably could (probably 40 ft), and just listened. i would hear the grunting throughout the night below me, not much closer from where i had heard it before, but still there every once in a while, and changing positions up and down the creek and on the ridge line where i came from.

i managed to sleep on and off until the sun rose.

about an hour after first light, i heard something walk right below me where i had the campfire. i had left my bag down there with all my stuff and some food.

eventually i climbed down, noticed my bag was untouched, and proceeded to retrace my steps out of there. i figured if i just followed the ridge line back down, i would locate the spot on the trail that disappeared, but this somehow didnt happen and i realized i was somewhat lost.

if it hadnt been for the compass i brought, i would have been a lot more scared. i knew the direction i came from, so i followed it and eventually stumbled onto the dirt road out of the bushes.

at the time i didnt realize how risky that was to be out there by myself in unknown territory, isolated from civilization, and not having told anyone about it. it couldve gone bad, but i guess that is what i was looking for, a little vulnerability.

There's an old urban legend in my town, whispered for decades, about a little girl who never grew up. They say she died in the summer of 1963, during the county fair. She had collapsed suddenly on the carousel. Doctors claimed it was some strange illness, but no one really knew. Her family, stricken with grief, buried her quickly in her favorite frilly pink dress. Some say she wasn't dead yet.

The story goes that if you walk alone near the abandoned fairgrounds at night, you'll hear footsteps behind you soft, uneven, like a child in patent shoes. When you turn, nothing's there. But if you keep going, she gets closer. And if she speaks to you, you must never answer.

I used to laugh it off. A ghost in a pink dress? Sounded like small town nonsense. But curiosity gnaws at you. And one summer night, I decided to test it for myself. The fairgrounds were nothing more than rotting wood and weeds now, the skeletons of rides rusting against the moonlight. The Ferris wheel loomed like a broken crown, and the carousel poles were bent and splintered, horses frozen mid gallop with paint peeling from their faces. The air smelled like damp earth and mildew, thick with the buzzing of cicadas.

I walked down the cracked pavement, my flashlight trembling in my hand. At first, nothing. Just the crunch of gravel beneath my shoes. Then faintly, behind me Tap... tap... tap. I froze. The night seemed to hold its breath. Slowly, I turned. Nothing. Just empty shadows stretching across the rusted gates. I told myself it was an animal. Or my imagination.

But when I started walking again, the sound returned closer this time. Tap... tap... tap. My stomach dropped. My throat went dry. And then I saw her. She couldn't have been older than ten, standing a few yards away. Her skin was pale, grayish, with shadows under her eyes. Dirt clung to the folds of her faded pink dress, once frilly, now frayed. Her head tilted unnaturally to the side, studying me with hollow curiosity.

"Have you seen my mommy?" she whispered, voice thin and dry, like leaves scraping the ground. Every instinct screamed at me to run, but my legs locked in place. Her shoes scraped the pavement as she moved closer. Soil and worms trailed from her dress. "I can't find her... will you help me?"

Something deep in my gut howled *don't answer*. But my lips betrayed me. The word slipped out before I could stop it: "No."

Her expression twisted, her jaw unhinging far wider than human. Her eyes rolled white, and her voice became a chorus of echoes, rising from beneath the ground itself: "Then stay with me instead." Her hand shot out, cold and rough with dirt, seizing mine. I remember her grip pulling, dragging, burying. Darkness closed in.

When I woke, the sun was rising. I was lying on the fairground path, throat raw, fingernails caked with soil as though I'd been digging. Around my wrist was a pink ribbon tied in a perfect bow. No one believes me when I tell them. They laugh, say it's just a story. But sometimes, late at night, I hear it again outside my window. Tap... tap... tap.

this happened last year

i (20f) was living with two of my friends from uni (both 21f). i’ll call them S and A.

our place had a big gate to get into the yard and then the actual house door. we all had keys for the inside door, but there was only one key for the big gate and we never bothered copying it. so whoever finished uni earliest that day would take it

that day A had it because her classes ended before ours. S and i got home at the same time and assumed A was already inside since she said she’d go straight home after class

you can’t really see through the gate but you can hear pretty clearly. we rang the bell a couple times and then we heard the inside door open, like someone was coming out. right after that we both heard A’s voice say “one second guys i’m coming.” it sounded exactly like her. then we heard shuffling like someone walking around in shoes

so we just stood there waiting. nothing happened

we rang again, waited again, still nothing. at that point i was getting annoyed because it was hot and we’d both had a long day. i kept ringing and knocking but no response at all

so we called A she picked up and immediately it doesn’t sound like she’s home. we told her to open the door she goes “i’m not home, i went out to get food, i’m on my way back”

me and S just looked at each other i literally felt sick. i asked her if she heard it too and she said yes, we both heard the exact same thing

there’s no one else living there. and it didn’t just kinda sound like A, it was her voice, the way she talks and everything

i don’t live there anymore but while we were there my roommates and I would constantly hear noises when we were home alone

Genuinely creepiest place I’ve ever lived in

I’ve been researching cases of unexplained disappearances in the American wilderness. I want to hear about the things that don't make the news—the strange silence, the tracks that lead nowhere, or the figures seen just out of sight. Real accounts only, please.

Last night I was lying in bed. I always see a lot of light reflections on my retina, which is why something is always forming in front of my closed eyes.

Setting: Dark room, 12:30 a.m., lying on my left side, with the door and the alarm clock behind me, the window blacked out.

From the left (coming from the mattress), light keeps flooding into my field of vision and disappearing... then coming back and disappearing again. I think to myself, “Okay, can I control this?” and think further: “Come back.” That works 2–3 times. Then from the right, like a flash of light—my right eye goes pitch black and a small image appears, like on a monitor with a glitch. The blackness over my left eye was normal, dark, not pitch black... after 1–2 seconds, everything was back to normal.

I lay in bed with my heart racing, thinking only, “WTF.”

What the hell was that?

Years ago back when I was young, probably 9 years old. I lived in a very old house with my mom and step dad. Around the area kids never wanted to be friends with me because the old ghost stories of my house were scary. An old cult used to live there and do dark magic, they all mysteriously died or disappeared one week like a decade or so ago. No ones knows why, I was never told any of that when I was little. But one day, I woke up after another nightmare and went outside in the dark hall to get my mom, at the end of the hall stood a person. It was too dark to see their face so I called out, asking if it’s was my mom or step dad, they didn’t answer but when I stepped closer I was pushed down the stairs. I broke my arm, and my mom rushed downstairs, asking what happened. Apparently no one was there, so much more happened in that house, anyone else got similar stories of such?

My mom was born in a rural village in Burma 🇲🇲, she later moved to Thailand when I was born this story takes place when my eldest brother was about to be born in 3 days. When my mom was pregnant with my brother she had to stay in the hospital because she has some complications and because of that she asked her sister my aunt to taker her to the hospital and take care of her for a bit but they didn't have the best relationship and when they had a fight my mom told my aunt to leave. So now she was all alone in the hospital that was not a modern hospital it was a wooden and brick built one with very little to no electricity so it was dark as hell at times. When she was alone the day my aunt left she said she saw a nurse come into her room and the nurse didn't look at her and was asking if she wants the baby to be born today, my mother confused by this question asked her why she is asking to give birth today. The nurse didn't say anything back but then she touched my mom's pregnant belly and she did it with force so my mom screamed, and at the moment a bunch of nurse came in and ask what was wrong. My mom told them about this nurse that came in and touched her belly amd they nurses look pale from a moment before one if them asked for the doctor to show up and he examined her and said she was fine and told the nurse one of them needs to be beside her until morning. Well after the birth of my older brother my mom went home, and when she got home the doctor was there to tell her something. The doctor said there used to be a nurse that died and her ghost would go to patients that are alone mostly pregnant women and asked the mother to give birth early and she would make them be horn dead and she would eat them and then strangle the mothers with her legs and kill them. Now this story you can believe it or not doesn't matter it was real to my mom and she has been sacred so bad she refused to he alone ever at night time

I have mentioned this before in some askreddit posts, and am now going to share it here. As a child, I was surrounded by religion, although not entirely understanding the complexity of it. I knew of ghosts and goblins, and things that go bump in the night. Having two older brothers who loved horror movies and creeping the hell put of their younger siblings pushed me into the macabre and terrifying at a very early age. However, this was different. This was something outside of normalcy or rationality.

We had this painting, a painting of a lighthouse on a small island, with an overlooking cliff on the foreground. There was fog clouds over the top, but not to as to obscure the stereotypical red spiral of the lighthouse itself. The cliffs were an amber color, almost like a grassy field in the late evening. This painting would become the object of my childhood attachememt to something. The thing was, I swear up and down this is true, because deep down it has to be, that if you stared at this painting, the sea would spray ever so slightly, or the clouds would move across the page. Animated for fractions of a moment, before settling back down to it's original orientation.

Eventually, things started to occur in our home. Call it an overactive child's imagine, but I am going to explain it how I remember. I distinctly remember a deep, deep voice. Think of one of those voice changing apps that over bassed your voice. That deep. Sometimes I wouldn't understand it, other times it would tell me mundane things. One time, I could vividly make out instructions on how to tie my shoes. I remember looking down the hallway to my parents room, waiting for whoever said that to reveal themselves. The strangest thing was that I never felt fear. I was maybe 7 or 8 years old at the time so I should have known something was wrong, but it didn't catch up to me until my late teens for reasons I will get to later.

The dreams I would have in that house were wild as well. The closet held an enigmatic grip on my mind, seeming to be infinite in the darkness. The hallway door always seemed to be cracked open at night, despite my parents always making sure we closed it. My brother was too young to use the bathroom himself, and my sister would wet the bed (sorry sis, but it's an important point) because she was afraid to get up at night. I also remember never wanting to look in the mirror at night, although that could be attributed to the "Bloody Mary" craze that shook every elementary school at the time. Unfortunately dear viewer, that was my extent of paranormal attachment to that house, and moreover that painting. That is, until one night my sister, buddy and I were staying up late watching scary YouTube videos (shoutout Chills).

I had never disclosed the above to anyone, in any capacity, so what I was about to hear shook me to my core in a way I didn't know you could be afraid. The stereotypical hair standing on end, tears filling your eyes, and going completely catatonic. We were talking about scary things that happened to us, and my buddy Jacob was telling of a time he and a mutual friend of ours went to a graveyard and swore they saw something scurrying around that wasnt a dog or raccoon. I told of the time I was out during an orienteering trip in High School and came to a clearing, alone, to see a large wolf staring right at me, and continued to as I kept facing it as I passed. Then my sister's turn came up.

"So basically, there was this painting we had, with a lighthouse, and I swear it would move of you looked at it." I froze, and listened. She went on about how she would hear a voice, but it was bitter, and angry. At night, she would see someone peer through that cracked door. She would have dreams of large eyes staring from the closet at us in the room. One dream she had was that there was an extra door in the hallway, and she opened it to reveal a deep basement. As she descended down, it became more grimy, with leaves and dirt covering the steps. Then, this 5 year old girl turned to see a couch littered with mutilated women, with "you're next" written in blood. Again, this could be an overactive child's imagination, or something more.

It was after that she noticed I was very upset, to the point of tears. Her brother, who recently got back from basic training not too long ago, reduced to a teary eyed wreck. She asked what was wrong and I explained my half, on how the absurdity of not just one of us, but both of us experiencing the same thing, although in different ways, was mind blowing. I consider myself a religious man to this day, and I don't want to know exactly what it was we experienced, as I would prefer to be ignorant. To this day, recalling these events still causes my hair to stand and eyes to water. It's a type of fear you cant get from a horror movie or game.

That's about it, I do have more stories to tell from my own personal experiences as well as some from my mother when she grew up in rural New Mexico, but good night and sleep tight!

I’ve been looking into places like the "Witch's Hat House" in Ohio. If you’ve stepped into a ruin and felt like you were being hunted, what was the location and what happened?

This story takes place not even 24 hours ago when my girlfriend and i decided to take a short walk in her towns forest preserve as we finally started getting warmer weather. The trail starts off on a baron, hilly field that oversees only a handful of houses a few yards away. When we started walking the sun was beginning to set, the sky was painted in pastel pinks and blues that was slowly fading into a dark, deep blue. Beautiful to see walking in the plaines but as soon as we walked into the forest, the comfort and safety of the child-like colors were covered by a canopy of trees that barely started growing leaves.

The trail immediately went from an open field into the forest, the trees were sharp, standing straight up. No imperfections in the trunks, no overgrown roots reaching to grab up from the ground, no branches threatening to smack us in the face. As we continued on the trail, just walking and talking as girls do best. All of sudden both of our eyes darted to the ground as my girlfriend stopped in her tracks letting out a small noise of disgust and confusion. As we examined the mysterious lump on the ground, we realized how eerie it truly was.

Lying in front of our feet, was a dead squirrel, which wouldn’t seem as abnormal but the squirrel didn’t look just dead, it looked like the life was sucked out of it. The squirrel was in a shriveled up position, sharp, fang like teeth still in its mouth, as well as its sunken in eyes. The squirrel was entirely black, every inch of it. Not a hint of variation or discoloration, no lighter tones tucked into the folds of its limbs. Its body showed no signs of decay, just a uniform, unnatural blackness. The body had no bugs flying around, despite me constantly getting bit by them throughout the walk. It had no odor, no smell of death lingered near it. We couldn’t understand how an animal could lose its life so entirely without another creature coming to claim it as food. In the middle of the woods, in spring, it felt unnatural, no predator stepping in to carry on the cycle of life.

My girlfriend said from the top of her head to the bottom of her toes, she felt a hot vibration flow through every nerve ending in her body. At the same time, i felt a deep pressure that caused every joint in my body to tense up as well as my chest getting so tight i started to believe someone punched me the day before. Without hesitation, we decided to turn around, as we are very into trusting our intuition.

As we made our journey back to the car, barely a mile out into the trail. My girlfriend turns to me and asks me if I heard that. I shut my trap and listen, only hearing the left over echos of what she heard. She said she could barely make it out but sounded like a woman screaming “help me.” We waited a beat before continuing our walk. Trying to beat the now quickly setting sun. We walked in silence, focused on getting the fuck out. Both of our bad feeling increasing with every step we take.

I began to hear the screams myself but, they were sounding further and further away. which i found odd, because from where my girlfriend initially heard the screams to where we were now, the individual screaming would have had to quickly jump in a car and drive another mile or so away from us, that’s how quickly these screams got further and further away. As I thought about it, I had a realization that made my stomach drop.

I told my girlfriend that we just needed to get out and we needed to get out now as the screams continued and got further. We exited the forest just as the green flash of the sun appeared and the screams just came to stop. I explained to my girlfriend about a Filipino urban legend I grew up with about a certain aswang. Manananggal or tiktik, a demon creature that in the daylight will disguise itself as a human, dog, cat, or any normal creature you see in your day to day but when it becomes dusk, it turns into a soul sucking vampire. and what’s its most infamous for is the further it sounds, the closer it is.