Some stories are so eerie that they linger in your mind long after you’ve heard them. Some real-life accounts below are enough to send chills down anyone’s spine.

Each story captures a moment so unsettling, even the master of suspense himself would break a sweat. From unexplainable events to strange encounters, these experiences will leave you questioning reality.

Story 1
We had a mentally unhinged woman in her 60s who had a tendency to walk around the neighborhood and sit on random porches, muttering to herself. Adults kept their distance from her, and kids were told to never go near her.

She broke into my grandma’s house while I was visiting. I was only six, sleeping in the living room, when she broke through the kitchen door, walked through the kitchen into the living room, and saw me. She just stood in front of me and smiled.

My mom and grandma took her outside and waited for her relatives to pick her up.

Story 2
We had a neighbor who moved out and came back a year later for a visit. He brought with him his two kids and an Asian woman he claimed was his wife. He insisted she was the same wife he used to have and that she had just lost weight and gotten a makeover.
But we remembered his wife as a really tiny woman, about 5’1″, with wavy bobbed hair. This new one was about 5’6″ with long, straight black hair—and she looked younger too. Even when she took off her sandals, she was still about 5’6″.

While on vacation, he told a neighbor near his vacation home that his wife had died of a brain tumor. I began to wonder where his wife really was. I think he just sent her back to her home country. But it was creepy to see him trying to pass off the new woman as his wife.

Story 3
A few nights ago during my night shift at work, I was typing up an email to a customer when I saw something out of the corner of my eye. I ignored it for a moment and kept working. Then it sunk in—it was a person just staring at me through the window.

As I turned my head, they slowly walked out of my view toward the parking lot. So I rushed outside to confront them, but they were gone. Not a soul in sight for miles.

I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being watched for the rest of the night.

Story 4
I was about 11, watching my little sisters and brother while my parents were out at the store. We lived in the country, but had a neighbor we shared a driveway with. The neighbor was a fisherman and had been away for work—he had been gone for months.

Our bedroom was on the second floor of the house. I happened to glance out the window, and there was a guy dressed as a clown on our neighbor’s patio—tight black clothes, a horrible clown face, and red hair.

I thought I was dreaming, so I called my sister over to look. She saw him too. He slowly turned his head and looked right up at us. Then he gave this nasty, slow smile, waved, and beckoned to us.

Nope. We ran and hid under the bed until our parents got home.

Story 5
This happened last year, as of yesterday. I was living with my sister, and she went away on vacation for a week, so I had the house to myself. I was heading to bed and turned out all the lights. I was lying in bed when I heard what I thought was a guitar being played, so I headed downstairs to see what the noise was.

I found my guitar lying on the ground, picked it up, and put it back on its stand. I went to head back to bed, and again, I heard the guitar being played. I headed back downstairs to find, once again, the guitar lying on the ground.

Why was this spooky? It was the 11th anniversary of my dad’s passing—he loved playing the acoustic as much as I do. Could. Not. Sleep.
We also do not own any animals, so I have no idea how the guitar ended up on the ground twice. The stand wasn’t the problem, either.

Story 7
I work in an old hospital late at night and noticed the elevator doors open behind me. I then heard the clip-clop of hard-soled shoes taking a few steps in my direction. When I turned around, no one was there.

A linen cart sat across the hallway, so I thought someone was hiding behind it. I knelt down and looked underneath it, only to see two shiny, old-fashioned, pointy nurse’s shoes facing my way.

I eased my way around the cart to scare the person who was trying to scare me—but no one was there. I looked down and could no longer see what I thought were shoes.

Story 8
My husband of 12 years kissed me goodbye and left on a work trip. 3 days passed, and I heard nothing. I was a mess.

On the fourth day, the doorbell rang. I saw a man who looked exactly like my husband—same haircut, same muscular silhouette, same style of clean-cut suit. He introduced himself as the chief of the division my husband works at in the Intelligence Agency.

Then he said, “Your husband is well. But it’s time for you to know that he is not who you think he is. He has been living under a fake identity for years as part of a mission, and now it’s time for him to leave the country.”

I almost fainted—it felt like a nightmare. The man continued, explaining that I would never see my husband again and that everything I knew about him was a lie. For my own safety, I was told not to ask questions. Before leaving, he placed an envelope with $10K on the table, saying it would help me adjust to life without him.

My whole world fell apart. I could barely get out of bed for weeks. Slowly, things started to make sense—his constant traveling, his secrecy about his job (which he had claimed was in a bank), and, most of all, his refusal to have children despite my years of begging. My entire life had been built on a lie.

But my story ends well… I was able to move on. Years later, I found love again, and the man I trusted became the father of my two children.

Story 10
One random night in middle school, I woke up with the odd feeling that something or someone was in the house and coming toward my room. I was scared, so I closed my eyes to pretend to be asleep.

I could faintly hear something enter my room, and it felt like someone was standing over me, checking to see if I was asleep. I lay on my back, eyes shut, until the feeling passed, and I eventually fell asleep.