My creepy story and yours.

In My Humble Opinion
41

Our house that we still own in another state (damn economy) may be haunted. I always felt like something was in the room with me when I was nursing my son in his room. It was never threatening, it was more of a comforting feeling.

Our former renters (they moved out two years ago, and we’ve had the same renters since then) saw an apparition, heard voices, and found things written on the mirror. Again, nothing threatening (in fact, the apparition smiled at my renter, tipped his hat, and disappeared from the dining room), and they brought the activity to our attention - we hadn’t mentioned anything to them. None of us felt like it was anything to worry about - the house was built by the gentleman who owned the gas station around the corner in 1928 (and we all knew him - he was just a lovely man), and he passed away shortly before we started having activity. I think he was just making sure that his beloved home was being watched over.

I’ve had several other ‘moments’ that weren’t creepy (my grandmother visited me the night she died - as her teenage self, who I’d never seen a picture of, but when my mom showed me one, I knew immediately it was her; I’ve felt my recently-passed cats rub against my legs, or sleep on my feet - this stopped when we brought their ashes home).

However, the one “Holy shit, what the f*ck just happened in there?” moment that I’ve had scared the ever-living snot out of me - it happened less than 2 years ago. A friend of mine worked for a museum dedicated to a quite famous 19th century author and her office was on the second floor of the house he built for his mother, next to the original home. My son was playing the author as a child for a birthday celebration, so we’d gone up to her office to put some makeup on him. Her office was adjacent to the library, which contained numerous primary sources and artifacts from the author. She let me go in (my husband came with me, my son stayed in her office), and almost immediately, I felt an enormous pressure on my chest. I could not breathe at all. I’ve had asthma attacks and this wasn’t asthma, this was a weight on my chest that was trying to push me down. I turned to my husband in a panic, thinking maybe it was from dust (and I outgrew my asthma at 12, he still suffers from it), and he wasn’t having any sort of breathing reaction. I told him I needed to get out of there (and just breathing enough to speak was a struggle), went back out of the library, and the weight was still there. I ended up flying down the rickety staircase to the museum part of the house, still not breathing well, and had to get outside. It took a good 10 minutes before I was breathing normally again, and I have never been so freaked out in my life.

When I told my friend what had happened (when we were outside), THEN she decided to mention that a paranormal investigation group had been there three days earlier, in the library, and had caught an unusual amount of negative activity, so she wasn’t surprised that I’d felt something. :rolleyes: Now I ask her all the time before we go somewhere if she’s heard of any paranormal activity :D. It may have been the dust in the room, but I have never felt anything like what I felt that day and never want to again.

42

I now know exactly what I will do the day after we sell the house we live in… cause to do it the day before invites trouble!

43

I’m pretty sure my previous house was haunted. OK, it wasn’t haunted, but there were a lot of weird things that happened that defied logical explanation, so it’s easier to say it was haunted than to believe that each unrelated thing was caused by something that we’ve never been able to figure out. Here’s the freakiest one:

We used to keep our desktop computer on a table downstairs from the main level, with a high-backed leather desk chair in front of it. Sitting at the desk, your back was to the steps that entered the room from the main level. Sometimes when I couldn’t sleep, I’d go down there and do, um, internet research, keeping a sharp ear tuned to anyone getting out of bed and coming downstairs. One night I was sitting there in the dark, looking at something really interesting when I heard someone’s hand slide across the top of the chair right behind my head, from right to left, and my chair spun a bit. My heart stopped, thinking my wife must have snuck down and stood behind my chair, watching what I was doing. Of course, when I whipped my head around to see her, there was no one there. I flipped on the light and no, I was the only one awake and out of bed. We don’t have any pets, so that’s not it. I didn’t just think I heard a hand on the back of the chair; something was moving across the back of the chair and spun it, and it wasn’t me. Once my heart started beating again, I thought it was going to pound out of my chest.

I decided I was done researching for the night, had a glass of wine to calm myself back down, and went back to bed.

44

When I was house hunting, my realtor and I had a routine. We’d walk in, take a quick look around, and then go down into the basement to check for signs of water or dry rot, etc. Basements, even dank cellars, all okay. Until this one house…it was a clean, dry basement, no bad smells, open space. But within a minute or two of going down there, I started to get a terrible, uneasy feeling. Really, really bad. Then I “heard” a mental “voice” saying “Get out, get out, GET OUT!!!”
The feeling was so intense that, even though I could see there was nothing wrong and no danger, I had to leave. I told the realtor I had a headache, and we left.

45

Are we talking a deadbolt that opens with a key, or a knob (like the indoors side of a front-door deadbolt)? Because option 1, not creepy (could have used the closet to store guns or something else valuable), but option 2, SUPER creepy.

I had to put a hasp and padlock on my son’s closet door when he was little because he had a habit of pulling out something to play with, getting bored, leaving it everywhere and pulling out another thing, lather rinse repeat until there was an impenetrable mess all over his floor. I put the lock on so he had to come get me to get out a game/toy/whatever, and with me right there he had to put the last amusement away before he could get out the next one. Totally logical, but if we ever move you can be damn sure I’ll be removing that hasp (not that it’s been used in years and years, I’ve just been lazy about removing it).

46

Named Smith?:smiley:

47

I had that nightmare again the other night - the one where I’m asleep in bed and wake up to find a large, hooded black figure looming over my bed and I start screaming and kicking and flailing my arms and hyperventilating…and then I *wake up for real *, sitting up in bed still screaming and flailing while the creepy figure quickly fades away and my brain slowly focuses and I realize I’m actually quite safe in my bedroom, even though I’m still shaking and hyperventilating and my heart is pounding. I actually had to turn on the light and check my husband’s location on “Friend Finder” to see how soon he’d be home.

Lots of creepy things have happened to me, but one I remember right now is when my Dad and I were on a road trip to Gettysburg, PA and we made a trip over to Harper’s Ferry, WV. We came across a little town called “Burkittsville” (of Blair Witch fame) and checked it out. There was nobody in sight. We drove along the main street and back and did not see even one person. There was a car parked on the side of the road with it’s door hanging open. We both had the most creeped-out feeling and got the hell out of there.

48

One day many years ago my then-boyfriend picked me up to go on his boat for the day. As I got into his car he said “See that car right there? He’s been following me ever since I picked up my boat.” We drove around town (picking up his friend, snacks, beer, etc.) and this guy was always behind us. If we lost him by purposely driving around side-streets he’d pick us up again. He parked in the lot beside the boat launch while we launched the boat. Six hours later we came back and I ran to the bathroom. I looked all over but didn’t see the guy. As we pulled away from the boat launch I shit you not the guy ran out from behind a building, jumped in his car and continued following us! He waited there for SIX HOURS! He didn’t follow us into the cop shop parking lot, but picked us up again near my then-BF’s house. By this time we were totally freaked out. My then-BF pulled over, grabbed a baseball bat and as the guy passed us he lunged at his car as if he was going to hit it. The guy sped off and we never saw him again. We told a cop friend of ours and he ran the license plate - it was registered to a name we didn’t recognize in a city about 4 hours away. Still have no idea WTF his issue was.

49

All of the closets in my house have some sort of locking mechanism on the outside and up high. The previous owners had a grandchild who was substantially mentally handicapped and they had to lock things away when he came over. The kid grew to be 6’5" so the locks were only really useful until he was about 10, but ended up gaining much of his normal abilities as I’ve met him several times. It was very strange until the neighbor told us why the locks were there. Also, all of the cabinets and closets had alarms (ADT) but not all of the windows which was also explained by the information about the grandson too.

50

The first story only involves me peripherally…

My grandfather’s first name was Clarence, although he always went by a nickname. He died in the early '90s. So several years later, my mom, my older brother “Jim”, and I are sitting around the house when the phone rings. Jim answers it, pauses, and says “Wrong number.” He hangs up and says, “Huh, someone asking for Clarence.” My mom becomes agitated and asks, “Why didn’t you ask who it was?! I’ve been getting calls lately asking for Clarence and I want to know what’s going on!” I imagine it was just a strange coincidence and a series of wrong numbers. Or maybe, my mom had put her phone number down on some forms when she was taking care of my grandfather in the last years of his life, and that somehow wormed its way into the Land of Telemarketers. It was just odd and unsettling, though.

The second story doesn’t invovle me at all, but it’s the best I can do…

When I was too young to remember, my family lived in a little subdivision next door to a family of not particularly pleasant people. The youngest son in the family was about 10, and my mom always felt sorry for him, because he seemed like a sad, sweet, lonely kid in this family of jerks. He would look out of the window of his basement bedroom and wave at my mom when she was working in the yard. He rarely came out of the house.

One day, the neighbor’s house caught fire. As it was buring, smoke filled up the basement and rolled against the window of the youngest son’s bedroom. Swirling smoke does weird things, and my mom was convinced, completely convinced, that she was seeing not smoke but the son pressing his face and hands against the window. She screamed for my dad and only calmed down when she saw all the family out of the house on the street. It was just an optical illusion, but to this day it’s disturbing to her to talk about it.

51

This may be better suited to a “very vaguely creepy” style thread, but this seems like the best place for it now.

A few weeks ago, we watched part of a video in my Sociology class. The video talks about a forest in Japan where an unusually high number of people go to commit suicide. It upset me at the time, especially with all of the shots of actual dead bodies that were found, but I managed to get over it reasonably quickly. I found it odd the next day, though, when I was watching a completely unrelated video on Youtube, and saw it in the “related videos” sidebar. I’m usually really squeamish about these sorts of things, so I don’t think the site was doing this based on my viewing habits. But what’s really odd is something I just noticed today. In this thread, someone has linked to the same video.

52

A few years ago when my wife was pregnant with our first child one of our friends gave us a small music box with a crank-handle you need to turn for it to play, a bit like this one )(Amazon), played a different tune though :).

Anyway Mrs. Pope thought this was just the best thing ever and from time-to-time during the afternoon would wander into the nursery to play with it.

About 8pm that night my wife was sitting on the bed in the spare room reading some course notes and I was out in the kitchen making a pot of tea when the music box plays for about 5 seconds and stops.

I figured she had taken a break and so called out “Still playing with that thing?”
Comes the reply: “I’m still in the spare room. I thought that was you.”

:dubious:
:confused:
:eek:

At that point I could see the doors of both rooms and no way she could have gone from one to the other and back. Of course, no one was in the room when I get there (I may have hit them with my tea-pot) and my wife was still on the bed buried in study notes.

It was a winters night and I suspect a few of the tines were under stress and the cold caused the metal to contract and play some notes, but it went on for a bit longer than I would have thought possible.

53

My auntie got stuck in the mud after going through a gate. A man in a suit carrying a briefcase came up to her (this is somewhat strange, out in the country and apparently with no car, but oh well) and offered to help get the car out of the mud. He pushes, and she gets the car out. She offered him a ride . So he got in the car, and they drove a little way and my auntie massively gets the creeps, suddenly wondering what she was thinking letting a strange man into the car with her. So she tells him the boot of the car is open, and will he hop out and close it if she stops by the side of the road. She stops, he gets out and she quickly drives off, leaving him standing there.

After a little way she starts to feel terrible. Here was this nice man who helped her out of the mud and she leaves him stranded. Then she sees he left his briefcase in the car. So she drives to the police station and guiltily confesses the whole story. They decide to open the briefcase there and then to see if there is card.

The briefcase contained a gun, duct tape, rope, gloves, a plastic sheet and a knife.

We’ve racked our brains trying to think what legitimate reason someone might have to carry such things in a briefcase. We’ve got nothing. Remember, this is the UK, people don’t have guns (well they do have guns, for shooting pheasants, not for shooting people).

It still gives me goosebumps when I think of it :eek:

54

It sounds awfully like this story from snopes. Hairy-Armed Hitchhiker | Snopes.com

55

They do sound similar. It’s sort of the nature of what happened though: it sounds exactly like those stories, maybe that’s what makes it creepy. Obviously, I have no way of proving to you that this happened to my aunt. Oh well.

56

I was thinking that it sounded like an urban legend too, but couldn’t think how to politely ask if you’d heard it directly from her, and not via a friend of a friend of hers!

Maybe the man heard the same legends and thought “huh, sounds worth a try!”?

Creepy as hell anyway. Glad your aunt trusted your instincts and didn’t die of politeness.

57

Well I first heard it from my mum, straight after my aunt told her on the phone. But now it occasionally comes up, when someone goes: “how about…if he was a doctor, who had rope because…he needed to tow his car, and he had a gun because…he was actually an American, and” etc.

58

I was driving along Passaic Ave in late Fall back in the 90s, and I was, cutting from Rt 46 over to Rt 10. I’d passed the Caldwell airport, the commercial buildings, passed Bloomfield Ave and had was going past that stretch that had really nice and expensive homes. On the side of the road, by a bus stop, not far from the driveway entrance to a high school, was this really dirty disheveled looking guy who looked homeless. He stood out like a sore thumb. It was less than 2 miles from Roseland and Essex Fells and Nobody in that area is homeless.

He was caucasian with ratty matted brown hair, a mustache & beard, and this dark brown facial discoloration that covered the hollows of his cheeks from above the beard line up to his cheek bones. I don’t know what that discoloration is called; it looks like dirt, but its not.

Anyway, this guy just looked…wrong. Worse, he Felt wrong. Just looking at him, just driving by him, every alarm was going off… my gut instinct was saying “get the Hell away from him. Now…!” It was freaky; it was stupid. It defied common sense… but I wanted to get past that guy
& put him as far into my rear view mirror as I could. Look, I know that makes me a coward & a freak & someone who judges people irrationally based on their appearance. But you have no idea just how creepy he felt.

Also, several years later I saw an article in the paper and you’ll never believe just how much he looked like this guy… :frowning:

I really thought I imagined some of that; false memory etc. How could it be…etc. This summer, when near Niagara Falls, there was a wax museum we had tix to that had some real “monsters” depicted. Ted’s was there. the brown patch in the hollow of his cheek? Its there…

59

Yeah I didn’t mean to say she was lying, maybe my post was short because I typed it on my phone. Looking forward to reading more stories from Dopers!

60

Maybe the door wouldn’t shut tight so the deadbolt was installed to keep the door from rattling at night.