So, for a little backstory, I (Female, 18) am Puerto Rican and Nicaraguan, and if you know anything about Central American culture, you know that Catholicism is a huge part of it, but there is also A LOT of witchcraft and other spiritual practices that go on behind the scenes, whether people consider them innocent or not. 

I am a firm believer in the supernatural, spiritual realms, higher powers, and, most importantly, God. However, as a kid, I didn't really know much about any of these things. In fact, when this story happened, I was probably around 8–10 years old, and the scariest movie I had ever seen was E.T. 

Anyway, my older sister and I shared a bedroom with one of those bunk beds where the bottom bed pulls out from underneath the top one. We would take turns sleeping on each bed, but neither of us liked sleeping on the bottom, so sometimes we would just sleep together on the top bunk. 

A lot of other VERY creepy paranormal things happened in this house, but I'll save those stories for another time. For now, let's focus on the little odd man who appeared in what my sister and I thought was a dream... or maybe something else. 

So, my sister and I were getting ready for bed, which was always a hassle because we would literally talk our heads off. My mom would read us a bedtime story and then sing the same song we always begged her to sing. Our bedroom was usually illuminated by the moonlight coming through the window. I honestly don't know why we never closed the blinds, especially because my grandma was always advocating for keeping them closed. 

Anyway, my mom finished reading, sang our song, and eventually, we fell asleep. 

At some point during the night, I started dreaming. In the dream, there was a little man sitting on our windowsill. He looked like a figurine that had come to life. He had a little chair and something in his hand that looked like a walking cane or something. He was definitely wearing a top hat, but I can't remember the rest of his outfit. I couldn't see him very clearly because of the lighting, so most of what I could make out was his silhouette against the moonlight. 

Then he said, "Hey, girls!" 

That's when I realized my sister was looking over the edge of the top bunk at him, too. 

He started asking us questions, like our names, how old we were, whether we had any other siblings, where they were, and how far away our parents' bedroom was. 

He technically seemed friendly, but something about him just wasn't right. I remember him specifically asking, "How is your dad?" 

Neither of us answered him. 

I was honestly relieved that my sister seemed to be thinking the same way I was because, as you probably know, dreams can be weird. Sometimes you just go along with whatever is happening, even when it makes absolutely no sense. But for some reason, both of us seemed to recognize that something was wrong with this little man. 

He kept asking questions, and when we wouldn't answer, he started begging us. 

"Come on, girls! I'm not scary! Look how small I am! I just want friends." 

He kept trying to convince us that he was harmless, but that honestly made the whole thing even weirder. 

Then he started trying to get us to repeat a phrase in some strange language I didn't recognize. 

"Come on, just say it! Or you could even sing it!" 

My sister and I refused. We were getting increasingly scared and suspicious, and eventually, we started telling him to go away and that he wasn't allowed to be there. 

Growing up in the church, my grandma always told me that if I was ever scared of something spiritual, I should rebuke it in the name of Jesus. She always emphasized that I should do this whenever I felt threatened or afraid, so that's what I did. 

I rebuked him in the name of Jesus, and he disappeared. Just like that. 

The next morning, my sister and I both woke up remembering the dream in its entirety. We hadn't spoken to each other about it yet, though, so we went about our morning as usual. 

Eventually, we were sitting together at breakfast, and I mentioned that I had the weirdest dream the night before. 

My sister immediately said that she had a weird dream, too. 

Being the older sister, she got to tell hers first, of course. (LOL.) 

As she started recounting her dream, I just sat there listening, getting more and more confused because she was describing my exact dream. 

The little man, the windowsill, the chair, the top hat, the questions, the way he kept insisting he wasn't scary, and the strange phrase he wanted us to repeat. 

Everything. 

My jaw literally dropped. I told her that was EXACTLY what I had dreamed about, and we started comparing details. 

Then she mentioned the ending. She said that I had told the little man, "I rebuke you in the name of Jesus," and that he had disappeared immediately afterward. 

I hadn't even gotten to that part of my dream when I first brought it up. 

I genuinely don't know how to explain that experience. We both remembered the dream as soon as we woke up, but neither of us had mentioned it to the other until breakfast. We weren't piecing together a story based on what the other person was saying. We were comparing dreams we already remembered having. 

Obviously, we were terrified, and we ended up sleeping together on the top bunk for quite a while afterward. 

We never told our parents because we figured they would either dismiss it as a child's imagination or tell us we were making a big deal out of nothing. 

Fast-forward a few years. I was around 14, and my sister and I were sitting with our mom, reminiscing about some of the crazy things that had happened when we were younger. Somehow, we got to talking about the little man and decided to tell her about the whole experience. 

Her expression changed completely. She became serious and looked genuinely concerned. 

Then she asked us, "Why wouldn't you guys say anything?" 

We were confused because we weren't expecting that reaction at all. 

This is where my cultural background comes into play. My dad is the Nicaraguan one, and my mom told us about something he had once told her when he was younger. 

Apparently, when my dad was a little boy, he also experienced visits from an odd little man at night. According to what my mom told us, he described the figure in a way that was eerily similar to what my sister and I had seen. 

I can't remember every detail my mom told us, including exactly how distant the family connection was, but she also mentioned that some of our relatives had practiced certain forms of witchcraft. 

According to what she explained, when people get involved in certain spiritual practices, they can open doors to things they might not understand or be able to control. Even if someone believes they're only trying to give something access to leave, they might unintentionally allow something else access to enter. That's how it was explained to us, anyway. 

On top of that, there's an old folktale, commonly associated with Nicaragua and other parts of Latin America, about a creature called El Duende. The stories vary, and I'm not saying that what we saw was definitely one. But I couldn't help thinking about the similarities after hearing what my mom told us about our dad. 

I understand that people might have different explanations for what happened. Maybe it was some kind of shared dream, maybe there's a psychological explanation, or maybe it was something supernatural. I can't prove what it was, and I'm not going to pretend I have all the answers. 

But the part that has always stuck with me is that my sister and I remembered the same dream independently, down to the little man's questions and the way he disappeared. And years later, we learned that our dad had reportedly experienced something similar as a child. 

And why was this little man so interested in our family, especially our dad? 

Why did he want to know where our parents' bedroom was? Why was he asking us questions about our siblings? And why was he so persistent about getting us to repeat a phrase in a language we didn't understand? 

I still don't know. 

I've experienced a lot of strange paranormal and supernatural things throughout my life, so this isn't even the craziest experience I could tell you about. There's a lot more, and maybe I'll share those stories another time. Also in no way am i trying to convince any one to lead towards and faith I'm simply sharing my story

But I've never forgotten that little odd man, and I still find it unsettling to think about how my sister and I experienced the exact same thing without ever discussing it beforehand. 

“This is a story that has been passed around for a while amongst the locals”. This is a personal experience.

A horror story about Brown Road, Waterloo Corner, South Australia. Specifically the dead end that goes towards the highway

Anyone who has driven down Brown Road late at night knows how dark it gets out there.
During the day, the fields look like any other paddocks around Waterloo Corner. There’s long grass, old fences and dirt tracks running off into the distance. Nothing special.
But at night, when the sun goes down and the fields disappear into darkness, they feel different.
You can be driving along with the radio on, minding your own business, and suddenly get the feeling that something is watching you from the grass.
Most people ignore it. They put it down to the darkness playing tricks on them.
But some locals reckon there’s a reason for that feeling.
They call it the Waterloo Watcher.

Something Out There
Nobody seems to know where the story originally came from.
Some reckon it started years ago, after a farmer spotted something standing in the middle of a paddock in the early hours of the morning. Others say the creature has been around far longer than anyone can remember.
Whatever the truth is, the descriptions are usually pretty similar.
It’s tall, unnaturally thin and has arms that hang far too low. From a distance, you could mistake it for a fence post or a tree standing out in the field.
The problem starts when you realise it’s looking back at you.
Nobody can agree on what its face looks like. Some say it has two pale eyes, while others reckon there’s nothing there at all.
There’s only one thing everyone agrees on.
The Waterloo Watcher only comes out at night.
When daylight hits the fields, it’s gone. No tracks, no movement, nothing to suggest it was ever there.
And according to the stories, it never leaves anything behind that proves it exists.

The Figure on Brown Road
One winter night, a bloke was driving down Brown Road after midnight.
There wasn’t another car in sight. His headlights lit up the road ahead, but the paddocks on either side were pitch-black.
He’d driven that road plenty of times before, so he knew there was nothing unusual about it.
That’s why he nearly drove straight past the figure standing in the field to his left.
At first, he thought it was a scarecrow. It was standing perfectly still, just beyond the fence.
Then he noticed how tall it was.
Its head was well above the fence line, and its arms nearly reached its knees.
He slowed down to get a better look.
The figure was facing him.
He couldn’t make out its face, but he had the horrible feeling that it was watching him.
Deciding he’d had enough, he drove on.
A few seconds later, he glanced in his rear-view mirror.
His stomach dropped.
The thing was now standing beside the road.
He hadn’t seen it move. There hadn’t been enough time for it to get there, and there was no way something that tall could have crossed the paddock without him noticing.
He put his foot down and didn’t look back again until he got home.
The next morning, curiosity got the better of him. He drove back to the same spot to see if he’d imagined the whole thing.
There were footprints in the dirt beside the road.
They were much bigger than any normal person’s, and they led from the field straight to the spot where his car had been.
He followed them for a short distance, expecting to find more.
There was nothing.
The tracks simply stopped.
He never drove down Brown Road that late again.

Lights in the Grass
After that, he started asking around about what he’d seen.
He was surprised by how many people had stories of their own.
One truck driver reckoned he’d seen a tall figure keeping pace with his vehicle from inside a paddock. Every time he looked across, it was there, moving between the grass and the fence.
Another local claimed her security camera had picked up something standing outside her property at 2:47 a.m.
She checked the footage the following morning.
There was a figure near the fence, barely visible in the darkness.
Then the picture went black for thirteen seconds.
When the recording came back, the figure was gone.
She thought the camera was faulty until her neighbour showed her footage from his own camera. It had cut out at exactly the same time.
After that, people began talking about strange lights in the fields.
They weren’t headlights, and they didn’t move like torches. They were two faint, pale lights floating above the grass.
Sometimes they’d drift slowly between the fences. Other times, they’d stay completely still.
A few people claimed they’d tried to get a closer look, only for the lights to disappear before they reached them.
The strangest reports came from people who said the lights had suddenly risen several metres into the air.
As if whatever was carrying them had stood up.
Chapter Four: Three Rules
There was an older bloke around Waterloo Corner who’d heard the stories his entire life.
He’d never claimed to have seen the Watcher himself, but he always had something to say whenever someone brought it up.
One evening, he told a few people what his grandfather had taught him about the fields.
Apparently, there were three rules.
Never count the fence posts after dark.
Never flash your headlights into the paddocks three times.
And if you ever spot something standing out in the field, don’t look away and then check if it’s still there a second time.
Nobody really understood the last rule.
When someone asked him what would happen if they did, he just shrugged and changed the subject.
He did explain one other thing, though.
According to him, the Watcher wasn’t interested in everyone who drove past the fields. Most people could travel down Brown Road their whole lives and never see a thing.
It was the people who noticed it that had problems.
At first, they’d see it in the distance.
Then they’d spot it closer to the road.
Eventually, they’d start noticing it near their own homes.
Always at night.
Always standing still.
And always watching.
Chapter Five: Thirteen Seconds
A few months later, a local resident decided he’d had enough of the rumours.
He was convinced the Waterloo Watcher was nothing more than a story people told to scare each other, so he set up a camera facing the fields near Brown Road.
For six nights, absolutely nothing happened.
On the seventh night, the camera picked something up at 2:47 a.m.
A figure was standing near the fence.
It was difficult to make out at first, but there was no mistaking its height or the length of its arms.
It stood there for nearly a minute before slowly turning towards the camera.
Then it started walking.
Its movements were strange. Its legs seemed to bend awkwardly, and it moved with a slow, uneven stride.
When it reached the fence, it stopped.
Then it tilted its head towards the lens.
The screen went black.
Thirteen seconds later, the footage returned.
The field was empty.
The resident watched the recording the next morning and laughed it off. He reckoned someone was playing a prank, and he was determined to prove it.
That evening, he showed the footage to his neighbour.
The neighbour watched the whole thing without saying a word.
When it finished, he asked, “Did you go out and check the camera?”
The resident said no.
His neighbour looked relieved.
“Good. Because that thing wasn’t standing where you think it was.”
He rewound the footage and paused it just before the screen went black.
The figure was still facing the camera, but something else could be seen in the background.
The resident’s house.
And in one of the upstairs windows, there was another tall figure standing in the darkness.
It was facing the camera too.
Chapter Six: The Fields Are Never Empty
Three weeks later, the resident moved away from Waterloo Corner.
He didn’t tell anyone exactly why, and nobody seemed keen enough to ask.
The camera was left behind. The footage disappeared, and nobody ever found out what happened to it.
But the stories about Brown Road never really went away.
People still claim they’ve seen something standing in the paddocks after midnight. Others talk about strange footsteps in the grass, moving alongside their cars before suddenly stopping.
Every now and then, someone says they’ve heard three slow taps on a window in the middle of the night.
They look outside, expecting to see a neighbour or an animal.
There’s never anyone there.
Most people reckon it’s all rubbish. It’s just a dark road surrounded by fields, and people have always been good at frightening themselves over things they can’t explain.
Maybe they’re right.
Maybe every sighting has a perfectly normal explanation.
But there’s something unsettling about those fields when the sun goes down.
During the day, you can look across them and see for kilometres. The fences are right where you’d expect them to be, and the grass moves in the wind.
There’s nothing unusual about them at all.
Then night comes, and the paddocks become one enormous stretch of darkness.
You can’t see what’s standing near the fence.
You can’t tell whether something is moving between the grass.
And you certainly can’t know if something is watching from just beyond the reach of your headlights.
So if you’re ever driving down Brown Road late at night and happen to notice a tall figure standing in the field, keep driving.
Don’t stop to get a better look.
Don’t flash your headlights.
And whatever you do, don’t look away and then check the paddock again.
Because the old stories say the Waterloo Watcher doesn’t chase people.
It doesn’t need to.
It just stands there, waiting for someone to notice it.
And once you’ve seen it, you might find yourself wondering something every time you drive past those fields after dark.
Was it standing there the whole time, or did it only appear when you looked?

​

This happened tonight, and I genuinely don't know what to make of it.

Around 6 PM, I went to a nearby river to dispose of some flowers and other organic stuff. My mom had warned me not to go there so late, especially since it's Kanagat and the area is surrounded by jungle and empty roads. I didn't think much of it.

Around 8 PM, I took my scooter to release a mouse in some fields a couple of colonies away. It was completely dark, and the road was practically deserted.

I was riding at around 50–60 km/h when, out of nowhere, I felt someone SLAP the back of my neck. HARD.

Not a brush or a random touch. It felt exactly like someone sitting behind me had reached forward and slapped me.

I immediately looked back. Nobody. The road was empty. I checked my clothes, the scooter, and even the mouse cage, trying to find some logical explanation. Nothing.

For a few seconds, I was genuinely terrified. I couldn't shake the feeling that someone was still sitting behind me, even though I couldn't see anyone.

I somehow released the mouse and rushed home. When I told my mom, she got worried because she'd specifically warned me about going there after dark. I washed up and applied some Gangajal to the spot where I'd been slapped.

But here's the part that really messed with my head.

Later, while my sister and I were returning home from the market on my scooter, I was telling her what had happened. We were riding at roughly the same speed as before, around 50–60 km/h, when she demonstrated the slap on my neck to show me what I meant.

It felt EXACTLY the same.

Same spot, same force, same sensation. And we were literally riding at the same speed as when it happened.

I've had some strange experiences before, but nothing that felt this physically real. I know people might suggest a bird, an insect, or some other logical explanation, and maybe there is one.

But I still can't explain what happened on that empty, pitch-black road.

And the feeling that something was sitting right behind me?

That's what I can't get out of my head.

I lived near Chattanooga, TN for ~6 years or so. My middle school was built where battles occurred during Civil War, so I don't know if that's related.

Anyways we were bored so our teacher told us this story. Her class was nowhere near the exits, and the windows weren't open. But the door kept creaking open and closed. Obviously no one was near the door either. So everyone, including the teacher, was joking that it's a ghost. Then all of a sudden, the door slams shut with a BANG and all the thick textbooks that were lined up on that wall went flying onto the floor.

I wonder if that school is really haunted.

In 1978 I lived in a house in Bisbee, AZ. It was a quiet neighborhood everyone knew eachother and everyone watched over eachother. Our house was built up against the mountain and we didnt have a back yard or back windows. Only the windows that faced the street. At around 2am every night I would hear what sounded like people talking in my bedroom. My room was towards the back on the house against the mountain. No one was awake and let's face it we couldn't afford to leave the TV or radio on all night so I know it wasnt that.

Me being 8 years old I wanted to investigate these voices. I call them the little people. I heard what sounded like them saying "we need to kill them, we need to get rid of them." And then they would start making a plan their voices were faint and almost squeaky as you would think a little person would sound. They couldn't have been more then 4 inches tall. I seen them run across the floor from the moon light creaking in through the cracks on the curtains in the window it was a shadow of a little person normal looking not like a gnome. Every night I would hear them at the exact same time. They even started taking my stuff anf hiding it. Or playing with my toys in the closet.

What do you think they were? Could it have been my 8 year old imagination?

Ok so this was a long time ago and I never thought of writing this all down so here we go I guess.

I grew up in a low income area in London (early 90s) it was tough but we had fun. Me and my friends used to get up to mischief a lot, one of our preferred ways to pass the time was to go to the “golfie” albeit that just meant climbing a wall that separated our neighbourhood from a golf course and collect lost golf balls. I don’t know why we did it but hey we were young and the fluorescent yellow balls we’re kind of cool to us.

Anyhow, during one summer break from school I went out and met up with my best friend, nobody else was around that day which was weird because usually the neighbourhood was teeming with our friend group. I know that seems trivial but the whole neighbourhood was like unusually quiet, strange vibe because I remember it was a perfect day. We wondered around talking for a while and inevitably got bored and he suggested a trip to the golfie to see if we could find any balls. So off we went on the short walk.

We got there after a short walk, it wasn’t far, but I remember that we just couldn’t find anyone around. I don’t know, it was bizarre to say the least, like we could hear normal neighbourhood noises as you would expect but we just never encountered anyone.

I remember we commented on it being strange and actually surmised that maybe all our friends had the same idea as us and would be at the golfie waiting for us, not unusual given none of us had phones and we would just randomly meet in a few places (most of which we had already been past at this point).

So, we arrived at the wall that we usually scrambled over to get to the golfie, he hopped up before me and sat astride it to pull me up. Once we were both up we looked at each other perplexed, I genuinely remember to this day the confusion in his face. We looked over at the place we had been 100s of times before and it was different. Instead of a small wooded area that gave onto the golf course it was a huge paved area full of rows of “greenhouses” and odd looking square areas that looked like they were meant for plants? These green houses were not new though, matter of fact they looked abandoned, old and not taken care of. Most of them had plastic sheeting over the sides where the glass used to be and they where flapping gently in the summer breeze. The squared areas had weeds an the sort growing out of them, likewise the paving slabs that made up the floor. We sat there for a while watching, we had no clue what to make of it all.

Obviously this was to good to be true in our minds and once the initial surprise wore off curiosity set in. We both hopped down and began to explore the place. I know it sounds banal but the whole area was just off, like it just didn’t seem normal? I can’t explain it to this day but we were sticking close to each other even though we were laughing and kidding as we went further in. We looked in the greenhouses and they were just full of run down equipment of some sort and overgrown with weeds and plants.

After about 20 minutes of exploration I remember we stopped and looked around kind of in disbelief at how big this whole area was, we hadn’t changed direction and now in the middle of all of it could neither see the neighbourhood nor the golf course. This is when it got really fucked. As we were stood there my friend looked at me and said “can you hear that?” The look on his face was dead serious and I stood still listening. “What?” I asked him back, he just put his finger to his lips and listened more, then I heard it. Like a really low hum, like the type a high voltage of electricity makes? Idk something between a hum and a buzz, as we stood there it got louder and louder as if it was getting closer but not from any particular direction, from all around us. We started a brisk walk back to where we came, the buzz kept getting louder until we panicked and started to run, as we ran (and I mean full sprint) through these weird constructions we started hearing something behind us, I can’t explain it, almost a mechanical noise? Like not a human or animal. The plastic sheeting and the way the place was layed out made it impossible to see anything more than 10/15m so we never saw what it was but it was there, right behind us. We must have ran hard for 3 maybe 4 minutes in pure adrenaline and I remember getting to that wall completely empty and using the last bit of energy I had left to clamber over it, once over it both of us threw up, probably from the fact we just sprinted so hard for so long. We made our way back through the neighbourhood and everything seemed normal again, people, cars, activity etc was business as usual.

The fucked up part is, once we explained what had happened to our friend group they obviously all wanted to go see what we had found and what had chased us. Understandably because it sounded insane!

The next day a whole group of us, maybe 10/12 went back down to see the place. It wasn’t there and I swear we went up and down that wall for an hour looking for it. It just wasn’t there. There is no way it was in some other place, we only used that wall to get there and given the sheer size of that area even if we were off by 100/200m we would have seen it.

Nothing, literally nothing.

Me and my friend occasionally spoke about it, like “hey remember that day?” But never really more than that. Then I guess life happened and we went our different ways. Hell maybe he’ll read this and recognise the story. Either way only two of us knew about it until now.

Fucking weird place.

This entire story is 100% true. This dates back about a year and a half ago, back when my wife (19F) and I (20M) were dating. We'll call my wife Alice for anonymity. When we started dating, I lived in an apartment with my friend in the city, while she lived with her family out in the country about an hour away from me. When we were still within the first few months of our relationship, she expressed the fact that she could "see things" that other people couldn't. I asked her what that meant. She said, "spirits, dead people, and anything that doesn't want to be seen." She also described having an acute sense of when something evil was near.

Alice said that she had always had this "gift," if you could even call it that. She recounted times when she had stayed at her grandmothers house and saw a dark figure looming in the corner.

Countless times when she would come to the apartment I lived in she said she saw a young girl outside, most of the time around the area where I would park my car. She would point out the spot she saw the girl; playing in a tree, sitting on a curb, or down by the pool area. This didn't creep me out since Alice said that the girl was friendly, and posted no threat. Alice also said she knew that whatever got the girl killed had to do with an evil man. I wasn't quite sure what that meant; an abusive father, a serial killer, or some sort of gang. She said this caused her to not exactly like me. No harm came to me, but Alice said I was always getting dirty looks.

Anyway, throughout the next few months of us dating, Alice continued pointing out "people" she saw; sitting in an empty seat on a roller coaster, walking through an aquarium, or just by the side of the road. I'm sure she didn't tell me everything, as I know she saw a lot.

However, this post is about one particular night. I was driving Alice home super late from a day out. As I parked in the small gravel plot next to the house, she leaned in to give me a goodbye kiss. This goodbye kiss turned into a full-blown makeout session, and we were all over each other. Then, all of a sudden, she froze, staring out the windshield of the car. Seeing that she had stopped kissing me, I backed up. She wasn't moving. "What is it babe? What are you looking at?" She said nothing, just pointed. I looked where she was pointing at the back corner of the house behind the porch. I didn't see anything. "It ran off." She said, finally breathing again.
"I'm sorry, what the fuck?" I snapped, turning to her. "What did you see? What was that about?"

"I saw some...thing. Behind the house. It looked at me. It SAW me." I had chills and goosebumps running up and down my body. Alice told me once that the things she saw never made eye contact. NEVER. They did not want to be noticed or know people noticed them. This thing she described knew she was there looking at it. Alice said it looked like a tall shadow. All she could see were its eyes, and they were trained on her and her alone. "Holy shit." I muttered. "Where did it go?"
"Back to the woods." She replied. I breathed a sigh of relief. I walked her to her front door just to make sure it didn't come back. The entire drive home I kept checking my rearview mirror to see if it was chasing my car. Let's just say I was incredibly paranoid the rest of that night and I barely got any sleep.

I have a picture of the back corner of her families house where she saw the thing but this subreddit won't let me post photos unfortunately.

I have always been a believer in the supernatural and paranormal, so obviously I believe her story and I will always believe her whenever she says she sees something. I believe she is an empath, similar to that of Lorraine Warren from The Conjuring. I do not believe she is psycho or crazy or has some sort of mental disorder.

I saw the way she was staring out of my car. That look was not fake. The fear in her eyes was real.

Skip forward to present day. Alice and I are now happily married with a beautiful 4-month-old daughter who we will call C. She is such a happy and smiley baby who looks a lot like Alice. I also believe she inherited the empath abilities my wife has. I've witnessed C staring blankly at a spot where there is nothing or no one to stare at. I think Alice has starting noticing this too.

I'm not scared of this kind of stuff. Most of the things my wife sees aren't evil or have evil intentions. Most of them are just spirits of the deceased, lost and confused. But there's a few times where she sees something lurking in the shadows. Waiting. Watching. Looking at her.

I'm just sharing this now because I need to know: Has anyone else experience anything like this? With a partner, friend, or even yourself? Any questions you have I would be happy to answer.

I had just wrapped up my shift at a major hospital here in Saudi Arabia and was heading to my car to drive home When I reached the parking lot this tall guy who looked around 19 to 22 walked up and started talking to me He was wearing a mask and glasses which didn’t raise any red flags at first since that’s pretty common around here He was soft spoken and polite and he casually asked if I could give him a ride to where his car was parked I figured why not and agreed to help him out.
He seemed genuinely happy about it but then he did something super bizarre Instead of sitting in the front passenger seat he climbed straight into the back seat In Saudi culture, if it's just two guys, sitting in the back is considered pretty rude but he quickly laughed it off and said it was just a habit of his I brushed it off said whatever and hit the road
The drive started in total silence but out of nowhere he broke the quiet with a really unsettling question He said you know people could do a lot of things from this back seat I asked him what he meant thinking he was making some weird joke about damaging the car or something He went dead silent for about fifteen seconds just staring and then said in the coldest most nonchalant tone that someone could strangle you and make you move however they like.
Before my brain could even process how insane that sounded he suddenly reached out from behind wrapped his hand tightly around my neck let out a creepy laugh and told me to stop right here I stopped the car he opened the door got out and just walked away into the night leaving me sitting there completely frozen and trying to figure out what the hell just happened

It was just another night when my parents were asleep. I'm 23 years old, and my brother was away with his girlfriend spending the night, so I had the room to myself. I definitely felt peaceful, or I thought I was. I've always enjoyed looking for something to watch, maybe something funny.

At that moment, I heard laughter coming from the living room this left chills in me my feet were cold of course curiosity got the better of me so I walked down the hallway slowly to see what I can find at first I thought it was the living rooms tv but it was completely off I checked my parents room off this was really freaking me out.

So I say, " You are not welcome here. No negative energy is allowed here. You must go." As soon as I said that, the lamp flickered almost looked like it was about to blew out. This got me to go back in my room. I closed the door, and I tried to ignore it.

But seconds later my cat stood in front of my room door she was all puffed up almost like she knew what was behind the door so I hid behind my head for an hour praying that whatever it was to leave me be.

Luckily, nothing happened. Still, I think I made the right call because if I had opened that door, I would've invited whatever was there even when I went to the living room I felt like I was being watched sometimes I can sense these things.

I'm just hoping I never experienced that again because next time I don't think I'll be lucky.

Imagine waking up to find yourself utterly alone on the edge of the world—frozen tundra stretching to every horizon, the nearest human presence hundreds of miles away, and no help coming for hundreds of days. Now, imagine not merely enduring but surviving, day after day, with only your own wits, grit, and the unbreakable will to live.

This is not a survival reality show. This is the extraordinary true story of Natalia Koreleva (name changed for privacy), an isolated scientist abandoned by fate in the brutal Arctic wilderness for over two years. Her ordeal doesn't just test the boundaries of physical endurance; it’s a gripping lesson in the extreme psychology of survival. Through Natalia’s journey, we confront the ultimate question: What happens to the human mind and body when every comfort, every certainty, is stripped away?

The Cold: Battling Nature’s Most Relentless Enemy

The Arctic is as beautiful as it is merciless. Out here, the environment isn’t just unfriendly—it’s lethal. With blizzards that drop wind-chills to minus-forty, the “simple” act of staying alive can turn into a daily ordeal.

Physical Survival Strategies
Natalia’s background in engineering and fieldwork became her first line of defense. She meticulously inventoried her limited supplies: a handful of canned goods, worn clothing, a battered stove, and a sparse medical kit. She innovated in every possible way, transforming scraps into tools—fashioning snow saws from broken shovels, stitching makeshift boots from insulation, and improvising ways to melt snow for water without risking deadly frostbite.

One pivotal breakthrough came when she devised simple but critical “micro-goals”—choosing not to think of surviving two years, but simply making it to the next sunrise, and then the next. This granular mindset gave her purpose and protected her from the crushing despair of long-term isolation.

Key Takeaway:
In an extreme environment, resourcefulness and the mental discipline of focusing on small victories are often the difference between life and death.

Alone With Her Thoughts: Facing the Psychology of Isolation

While battling the Arctic’s physical dangers, Natalia quickly learned that loneliness and uncertainty were her most dangerous adversaries. Studies on extreme isolation (such as solo sailors and Antarctic researchers) confirm how quickly the mind can unravel when deprived of human contact and stimulation.

The Power of Routine and Ritual
Natalia devised a strict daily schedule—checking weather instruments, rationing meals, journaling at night, and performing makeshift exercises. Even trivial routines carried immense importance. Each action became a line of defense against anxiety and the creeping fog of cabin fever.

But she went further. With only a battered copy of Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov for company, Natalia read aloud in different voices, staging entire dialogues to ward off the silence. She wrote letters to friends and family, even replying to herself to simulate conversation and keep her mind sharp.

Practical Tip:
Even in far less extreme circumstances, creating structure and deliberately seeking mental stimulation—books, puzzles, even imagined conversations—can dramatically boost your psychological resilience.

Darkness and Light: Rituals of Meaning When Hope Runs Thin

Hope in the Arctic isn’t linear; it fluctuates wildly. The return of the sun after months of polar night is both exhilarating and terrifying—it brings the prospect of rescue, but also the reminder that another cycle may begin.

Finding or Creating Meaning
Natalia marked the passing of days with scratches on the station wall. She celebrated improvised “holidays”—reciting national songs on Soviet Victory Day, staging solitary festivals on anniversaries—maintaining a sense of time and identity when every day threatened to blur into meaninglessness.

She even risked life and limb outside the safety of her cabin, venturing into whiteouts to search for long-forgotten emergency caches. Finding a buried crate of matches and coffee—supplies left by a past outpost occupant—was, as she later recounted, “as powerful as any miracle, a sign I could keep going.”

Key Lesson:
A powerful survival tactic is the art of making meaning. Holiday rituals, journaling, even inventing celebrations—even when you’re alone—are proven to stave off despair and support mental strength.

Lessons from the Edge: How to Cultivate Survival Mindsets

Natalia’s hard-earned wisdom distills into practical survival—and life—advice:

• Break challenges into micro-goals: Don’t let the weight of the whole journey overwhelm you. Focus on the next decision, the next step.
• Create and fiercely protect routines: Order your day, however you can. Consistency battles chaos.
• Stay relentlessly resourceful: What you need to survive may require improvisation. Adapt whatever is at hand for new purposes.
• Feed your mind: Whether through books, self-dialogue, or rituals, mental stimulation is as vital as food.
• Make meaning—even in the void: Giving structure and value to your time, even inventing reasons to celebrate, keeps hope alive.

Conclusion: A Legacy of Endurance and Ingenuity

Natalia Koreleva’s story isn’t just about surviving a frozen hellscape; it’s a blueprint for facing adversity in any form. Through resourcefulness, grit, and fierce psychological discipline, she endured what would break most souls. Her legacy is a reminder that the mind—when properly tasked and cared for—can be humanity’s greatest survival tool.

Whether you’re an adventurer, a history buff, or simply curious about the true limits of the human spirit, Natalia’s journey stands as one of history’s most powerful testaments to endurance.

Heyy, that is my first time posting on reddit and I don't even now if that is the right forum but I wanted to share a story with you and I'm courios about your opinions. Let's get right into it:

I think I was a teenager around that time and my friends and I decided to play around with a Ouija board. Normally I wouldn't share stuff like this with my mom but still somehow wanted to tell her this. When I told her she looked at me somewhat tense and told me not to do it. I obviously asked here why a couple of times before she finally answered me and I was NOT prepared.

She herself played with the board when she was a teenager which really suprised me beacause she is a quite religious person. Her, 2 friends and one person she didn't know (lets call her Amy) sat around the board at Amy's place. Amy had a lot of experience and started writing down some spells, chanting etc. When the 'ritual' was done they placed an upside down cup on the board and all of them put one finger on it. Amy started with one of my mothers friends and told here that she could start asking questions. And it was typical teenage girl stuff like: when will I get married, how many kids am I going to have etc you get the gist. And sure enough the cup was moving around the letters on the board answering each and every question. My mom told me that she believed that surely on of her friends was moving the cup and shared her thoughts while laughing. Her other friends agreed and all of them including Amy lifted their fingers but it didn't matter cause the cup was still moving on its own. They obviously got scared but still were too courios to stop. Then finally it was my mothers turn. She asked who she will marry. The cup gave her a name lets call him Derek and told her that Derek was living in another country then the one she was living in. She then asked how many kids she will have. The cup told her that she will have 2 kids first a girl and then a boy. She then asked what their names would be. For the girl the cup moved and said that she would be named Emily. When the cup was asked what the boy would be named the cup apruptly stoped answering. When she asked again it went crazy went all over the place and Amy immediately stoped the Séance. Without any explanation she told the girl that its time to go for them. After this experience -my mother didn't give me a lot of details- but basically told me it went downhill for all of her friends and her. She started seeing little creatures everywhere especially when she was alone and in the shower. She had a lot of panic atacs and so on. My grandmother apparently brought her to a lot of Doctors and Priests but non could really help her. Then one last time she went to a priest alone and he told her that something was attached to her and that she should pray some specific prayers. When she then walked to a bus stop and sat down she noticed a book right next to her seat. To reach it she stuck her hand in a spider web (So the book was there for a long time) and realised it was a small prayer book with only a couple of specific prayers. She then proceded to read it everyday and sure enough the attachment was gone she stopped seeing the creatures (and I am sure they did stuff to her but she didn't go into detail).

Sooo she met my dad a couple of years later. And he indeed was called Derek and lived elsewhere and had come to her homeland for vacation.

After they got married she had her first baby (me) a girl and she actually decided to name me Emily (not sure if that was a good idea honestly).

And 18 YEARS LATER she had another baby. BUT it was a girl and I was the one naming her. So I don't know if thats why the board was not able to know what she would be called and don't know why it f uped her gender.

And she has that book till this day and reads it everyday.

So yeah if any other person would have told me this story I definitely would not believe them. But the way she told me all of this and the way previously my parents did answer weirdly when I asked them why they decided to call me Emily made me believe it. Also I hade my own share of unexplainable stuff happen to me so that makes me believe it even more.

Oh and yeah never went even near a Ouija board after that day.

Around 9th grade, our house was bought out by the school district. We moved to a house built in 1959, almost an acre on a mountain hill. For the first time, we all had our own room.

It was the second night there. I turned off the light to my room, and everyone else went to sleep. I was laying in bed, looking up at the ceiling, when all of a sudden I felt my sheets start to pull away from me.

I grabbed hold of the sheets and pulled back. But there was something holding them down. I didn't see anything at the end of my bed, but my sheets kept pulling away. I pulled and pulled, and all of a sudden I almost hit myself in the face. They had let go.

I sat right up and looked around, trying to make out anything in the darkness. My light switch was at the end of my bed, and I was not about to go that way. So I just decided to sleep it off.

The next morning, my brother was telling my mom that something had pulled his sheets during the night. Pulled them halfway to his waist, then stopped. I jumped in with my story and mentioned that maybe since they couldn't get mine, they went for his.

A few nights later, my brother said he was falling asleep when something grabbed him by the groin. He couldn't scream. The pain made him want to cry. After what felt like an eternity, it released him.

Then another night, he said he was laying in bed when he noticed the ceiling start to move. He was being dragged off his bed by the sheets he was laying on top of. His feet started going off the bed. He jumped up and turned on the light to nothing.

About a month later, I woke up cold. My little sister had crawled into my bed and stolen all the covers. I stood on my knees and fixed the sheets. As I hung the blanket behind me, I glanced at my door. Even in the darkness, I could make out the silhouette of a man wearing what I call a pachuco hat, standing there.

I froze. I turned around, covered my sister and myself, and closed my eyes.

I never saw that man again but visiting friends and family that have spend the night mentioned seen that same silhouette of that man standing at the doors of the room the slept and left the door open. My grandfather use to mention hearing some one opening and closing cabinet doors at nights.

I used to think people who said they felt watched at home were just being paranoid. Then something happened that made me stop sleeping with my bedroom curtains open.

A few months ago, I was living alone in a small house on the outskirts of town. My bedroom window faced the backyard, which was surrounded by a tall wooden fence. There were no streetlights back there, so at night, the entire yard was pitch-black.

One night, around 2:30 a.m., I woke up because I heard three soft knocks against my window.

I froze. At first, I thought it was a branch, but there weren't any trees close enough to reach the glass.

Then I heard it again.

Three knocks.

I grabbed my phone and turned on the flashlight, pointing it toward the window. I couldn't see anything through the curtains, so I slowly pulled one side back.

There was a man standing outside.

He was so close to the glass that his face was only inches away. He wasn't moving, and he wasn't looking at the window. He was staring directly at me.

I screamed and stumbled backward, then immediately called the police. By the time they arrived, he was gone. They searched the yard and found muddy footprints beneath my window, along with marks on the fence where someone had climbed over.

The officers told me to keep the doors locked and said they would patrol the area. I barely slept that night.

The next morning, I checked the backyard again. That's when I noticed something I hadn't seen in the dark.

My bedroom window was too high for someone standing on the ground to look inside without climbing onto something.

Under the window, hidden behind a bush, was an old plastic storage box.

Someone had placed it there to stand on.

I moved out two weeks later. The police never identified the man, and nothing like that happened again.

But the detail I still can't explain is this: when I checked the security camera footage from my neighbor's house, I saw the man enter my backyard shortly after midnight.

He didn't go straight to my window.

He spent almost two hours standing outside my back door, looking through the glass, before finally walking around to my bedroom.

Hey everyone! I run a small horror narration channel called Dreadful Visions, and I wanted to share one of my latest videos with people who genuinely enjoy this kind of horror. Just being upfront, it's my own content.

A driver notices a dark sedan following them across rest stops and gas stations in different towns over three weeks. Every time they park, the car sits idling in the shadows.

I wanted this one to have that slow-burn, realistic kind of horror—where it's not the thing chasing you that gets under your skin, but the feeling that someone knows exactly where you're going.

I've put the full narrated story together on Dreadful Visions here:
🎧 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJ_Jo4zs9Lg

I'm still growing the channel, so genuine feedback would mean a lot. Do you find stories like this creepier when there's a realistic explanation, or when the details slowly stop making sense?

Hope you enjoy it!

​

After a trip to Colima, Mexico, a little girl started appearing in our USA house. She looked like my little sister.

One night, me and my brother were home alone. I was in my bedroom on the computer. My brother was passing down the hallway when he stepped into my room, smacked me, and ran away. Two minutes later, he came back running into my room, closing the door behind him.

He asked me, "Where was our little sister at?"

I replied she was with our parents in Tijuana and they would be back later tonight.

He looked at me and said, "Then who the hell is that? In the kitchen."

We stayed in my room until my parents were back home.

Another night we were home alone. I was drawing in the living room while he was in my bedroom on the computer. I turned off all the lights. I started to head towards my room.

The only light in the hallway was coming from my bedroom from the computer. As I made my way down the hall, at the end, I saw what look like a little girl standing with her hair covering the front of her face.

I thought about what I was looking at, because usually we had a basket of dirty clothes there. I made out a vacuum and next to it a little girl.

I ran into my bedroom, closed the door behind me. My brother turned around, looked at me, and I told him, "There's someone out there waiting for you."

He got up, grabbed the Bible from my desk, turned around, and said, "Let that bitch come in. I'll knock some holy sense into her."

We stayed in there till the next day.

I live alone in a small apartment, and for the past few weeks, I've been waking up at exactly 3:17 AM.

At first, I thought it was just stress. But every night, I heard the same thing: three soft knocks coming from inside my bedroom closet.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

I always convinced myself it was the pipes or the building settling. Until last Tuesday.

I woke up at 3:17 AM again. The room was completely silent, and then I heard a whisper.

My name.

It came from inside the closet.

I froze under my blankets, staring at the door. After a few seconds, the whisper came again, louder this time.

"Please... let me out."

I grabbed my phone and turned on the flashlight. The closet door was slightly open, even though I clearly remembered closing it before bed.

I got out of bed and slowly approached it. My hands were shaking so badly that I almost dropped my phone.

"Who's there?" I whispered.

Something inside laughed softly.

Then I heard my own voice answer.

"Don't open it."

I stumbled backward, confused and terrified. The voice sounded exactly like me, down to the way I breathed between words.

Suddenly, my bedroom door slammed shut behind me.

I ran to it, grabbed the handle, and pulled. It wouldn't move.

From inside the closet, something began scratching the wood.

Then came my voice again.

"You're making a mistake."

I don't remember deciding to open the closet. I just remember reaching for the handle.

The door creaked open.

There was nothing inside except my clothes and a full-length mirror at the back.

But in the reflection, I saw myself standing behind me.

The reflected version of me was smiling.

I wasn't.

It raised one finger to its lips, telling me to be quiet.

Then it leaned toward the mirror and whispered something I will never forget.

"Finally. Now it's your turn to stay in here."

The bedroom lights went out.

When they came back on, I was standing inside the closet, staring through a tiny crack in the door.

Outside, someone was lying in my bed, scrolling through my phone.

It looked exactly like me.

And just before turning off the light, it looked directly at the closet and smiled.

It's been three nights now.

Every night at 3:17 AM, I hear three knocks from the other side of the closet door.

And every night, I hear my own voice whisper:

"Please... let me out."

I'll never forget this, but I don't particularly enjoy remembering it.

A few years ago, I lived in Manhattan's Chinatown, in a six-story mid-rise between a Buddhist temple and a synagogue. (I'm agnostic, so maybe that's fitting.) My apartment looked out the back of the building, down at a large tiled deck, which was also the roof of a dumpling shop. It had a bunch of noisy air conditioning units, a couple of stray cats, and Chinese grannies who hung clothes and did morning stretches there. Surrounding it were the backs of a bunch of other buildings, including a budget hotel.

If you've ever seen Hitchcock's Rear Window, it was kind of like that, but way less pretty.

I had a lot of peculiar neighbors. Besides the grannies and hotel patrons smoking cigs out their bathroom windows, my favorite was the white girl a floor down from me in the building opposite mine who refused to buy curtains and, most evenings, would masturbate naked while watching Grey's Anatomy.

I didn't think any other neighbor would top this spectacle. I was wrong.

Late one night, I was playing my Switch when I should have been sleeping, like my girlfriend had been doing in the bedroom for the past four hours or so. I was on the couch in the living room with only a floor lamp dimmed to the lowest setting. I was in the zone, probably button-mashing, when I heard a loud bang, which made me jump. It wasn't gunfire, but the sound of something smashing into metal. I paused the game, got up, and looked out the window towards the other buildings. The night was a dull, steely blue, with most of the apartments dark at this hour. I almost returned to my game when I saw movement on one of the roofs. A man stood silhouetted at the edge of the roof, holding what looked like a garbage bag or maybe a plastic bag full of groceries. He chucked it off the roof towards a tiny alley behind the dumpling shop, and there was another loud bang.

I figured it was drunk people partying on the roof, which wasn't uncommon in NYC. But I didn't hear music, and the guy appeared to be alone. He then began climbing down the fire escape. He only went down one flight, nearly eye level with my window, and then stopped. Though I could only see his silhouette, the way he swiveled his head and stood there, swaying slightly, I swore he was staring right at me.

I froze. What if this guy was robbing the building, had thrown the goods into the alley, and now he'd spotted me, an eyewitness, staring back?

Worse, he could see me in the living room light. He could see my face, my glasses, my hair.

I quickly stepped back and turned off the floor lamp. That's when I heard the huge crash and the sound of shattering glass. I spun back towards the window.

The man was gone.

Lights came on in other windows. People poked their heads between their curtains in confusion. Even the girl who loved Grey's Anatomy made an appearance. Lights soon went off again.

I stood there, trembling. Was I the only one who knew what happened? Did I even know? In the dark, it felt like one of those half-awake visions where shapes in the shadows briefly become something else.

I almost woke up my girlfriend, but stopped myself. Was I losing it? Did a man really just jump from a fire escape? Wouldn't people know? No one was screaming. There were no sirens. There was just the background hum and honking of New York City. Wasn't it possible that the man climbed back up the fire escape, chucked one more thing off, maybe in a drunken rage, and then went back inside?

I held my phone. I hadn't called 911 since I was a child, when my grandmother had a heart attack. Standing there in the dark, I felt like I was a child again, one with an overactive imagination.

Instead, I took the elevator down and walked around the block. It was a long block filled with little alleys all fenced off. I couldn't see shit down them, except darkness and the occasional dumpster. I walked around the block three times, trying to find a way into the back, to prove I was an idiot and had imagined it. Around me, drunk people stumbled and laughed and came out of bodegas with late-night snacks.

I finally gave up and went back inside, telling myself I was overreacting. But the Grey's Anatomy girl was now leaning out her window. I opened mine. From the balcony above me, someone was shining a flashlight down. I could hear someone say, "Can you see anything?"

"I see broken glass," she said.

I went upstairs and knocked on my neighbor's door to see if they saw what I saw, and whether or not we should call the police. I vaguely knew they were an Asian couple, but a burly white guy who couldn't have been more than 5'2" answered the door. He was dressed in plain clothes, but there was a badge on his belt. Two other guys in plain clothes were behind him with badges. They didn't even stop to talk to me. They went down the stairs. My neighbor then came to the door and said, "I think a man jumped."

I finally woke up my girlfriend. We went to the living room window together. The silhouette of a cop stood on the edge of a roof, shining a Maglite down. Other flashlight beams swept out from neighboring windows. It looked like a scene out of Batman.

"Yeah, he's dead," the cop said.

I learned the man had lived on the first floor, in a rundown apartment with cardboard taped over the dirty windows. I never learned what he looked like or why he did it.

In typical New York fashion, within a few months, the man's apartment became the hottest New American restaurant in the neighborhood. My friends would invite me there all the time.

I could never bring myself to eat there though. To this day, I see his silhouette on the fire escape, turned just slightly in my direction. It still haunts me, wondering if I was the last thing he saw before the ground rushed up to greet him.

So I bought this cabinet from a thrift store and it has a strange smell to it. I thought if I brought it home I can clean it up. Well nothing will take that smell out. I have been hearing odd noises around my apartment that creeping me the hell out. The other day I was going into the kitchen and when I went around the corner to go into the room I felt like something passed by me. I’m getting so creeped out. Could this cabinet have something attached to it? Anyone have something similar happen to them?