Experiences that simply defy all explanation happen around us more than you think. Have you ever had any true creepy encounters that linger in memory to haunt you till this very day? Citizens of the world have pooled their haunting inexplicable experiences on threads of Reddit and Quora. Hand picked from the countless entries are the following blood-curdling tales that will have you looking over your shoulder every time you are alone from here on.

Do you Believe in Creepy Encounters?

Did you friend or cousin ever came to sleep over and give you a scary tingly feeling by telling you an allegedly true creepy encounter they experienced? All friends and cousins do that! You might have done the same just to give your little brother a fright so that he can’t sleep at night. But sometimes, people are desperate to have their creepy story believed; not just for attention but because it transpired to them in real. And that’s when you know that the story they are trying to tell is indeed a true creepy encounter. Next time you hear one, think what you just read!

1. Creepy Caller

When I was about eighteen, I got a telephone call from a strange man. The phone in my room rang (for you kids reading now, telephones used to actually be attached to walls; you didn’t carry them around with you. I was one of the privileged few kids my age who not only had hidden own phone but also his own number – listed in the phone book and everything!) and I went in and answered it. He asked, “Is this Courtney Ballard?” and I acknowledged that it was. Then, he told me his name in a tone that implied that he expected me to know who he was. I was clueless.

He asked me again if I was me, and I had no choice but to again say that yes, I was in fact me. He then said, “I’m calling to make sure you’re OK. You looked pretty shook up yesterday.”

At this point, I had to tell him that I had no idea what he was talking about. I had been fine the day before.

He pressed on: “Yesterday? When you wrecked your car?”

“Sir… I… think you might have the wrong number.”

“This is Courtney Ballard, right?”

“Yes sir, my name is Courtney Ballard”

“And you live in (the name of the tiny town I lived in)?

“Yes sir, that’s me, but I didn’t wreck my car yesterday…”

Over the course of a very confusing and uncomfortable fifteen minutes, he proceeded to tell me about ‘our meeting’ the day before: I had come around the corner in front of his house too fast, lost control, and hit a large oak tree in his front yard. I had been shaken up, but the car was driveable and I’d refused all offers of help. He’d managed to get me to reveal my name before I left, and I’d told him that I was on my way to that small town, but nothing else.

He described me – my size, my shape, my hair length, and color. He described my car – not the make and model, but the size, shape, and color.

At first, I thought it was a put-on, that a friend was pranking me, but as the conversation progressed, the man’s concern was convincing. He had been so worried about me that he’d looked me up and called to make sure I was Ok.

By the end of the conversation I managed to convince him that I was Ok, that I really didn’t know anything about it. He had given me his name and address over the course of the call, and he invited me to stop by sometime.

When I hung up the phone, I was actually curious; I went outside and looked at my car. No damage – everything was just as I remembered it. I shook my head and walked back inside.

A few days later I was driving home and this phone call was echoing around the back of my mind. I remembered the man’s name, and what part of town he lived in. It wasn’t far off of my route home, so I looked him up in the phone book, got his address, and headed that way. As I came around a sweeping bend in the road I saw a house like the one he had described. In the front yard was a large oak, and there were marks in the grass where a car has recently left the road, leading straight for the tree.

And on the tree, paint that perfectly matched my car.

I was so shaken that I almost ran off the road and into the tree.

2. Military Stalker

So my husband, Ted, is in the military. We have generally lived on base every station we have been to because the surrounding towns can be very crime ridden and sketchy and with my husband gone most the time the extra security is appreciated.

I work from home due to us moving so often. So one afternoon I was taking a break. Had made a bite to eat and was snuggling up on the couch with my dog. That’s when I heard the sliding glass door open. It was so nonchalant I thought it was Ted. I saw my cat run from the kitchen and a shadow standing near the door entering it.

I thought maybe he had come back for something so I called out to him and was like “What are you doing home? Did you forget something?” No answer.

This is where I got just an eerie feeling. After I asked what he was doing I saw the shadow move and heard the click of the sliding door lock. From there he walked to the laundry room and shut the door. I still had not received a response. So I’m sitting on the couch scared out of my mind and I call my husband hoping to hear his phone in the laundry room.

I don’t hear a ring but he answers. I asked him why he came home and didn’t answer me and all he says is “That wasn’t me. Grab the dog and get in your car.” I freak.

After getting off the phone with Ted I grab the dog and run to my car. From there I call the Military Police. Waiting for them was probably the longest 20 minutes of my life.

When they got there they cleared the house and found no one. They asked me to make a statement and even they were baffled that someone would try this on a base.

We still live here. I am so scared he will come back.

3. Murderer In The House

A guy I work with told me a similar freaky story once. He was a kid visiting in his grandma in Atlanta on a hot summer night. He slept on the floor right by the front door, which was left open (screen door) as it was hot. From what he told me he woke up in the middle of the night to a man crouching down on the other side of the screen door looking at him. When he woke, the man winked at him and left. The next day it was discovered his neighbors had been murdered.

4. Real Life “The Grudge”

This might not be as creepy as the other stories I’ve read in the answers, but it actually happened and it was really odd, at least to me and my mom.

I usually go to sleep with the TV on and no sound, and that night was not an exception.

I had gone to bed early and woke up in the middle of the night, agitated, uneasy. There was SO MUCH noise, almost unbearable. When I looked up, there was the TV on as I had left it, but there was this pale girl, with red eyes, and she was screaming, and it seemed as she was trying to get out of my TV set.

Before I even had the chance to turn the TV off (I couldn’t even move anyway), my mom had already come quickly to see what was up with that horrible noise. She immediately tried to turn the TV off from the remote, with no success! I had been able to recover my body in that short period so I stood up and tried to turn it off directly, but it was useless too.

Somehow I got so desperate that I just disconnected the whole thing.

Needless to say, I slept with my mom that night.

5. Ghostly Encounter

Speaking of true creepy encounters, this incident occurred while I was in college. I was writing letters for my closest high school friends one night. Email and texts weren’t “in” back then. While writing a letter for one of those friends, I felt a creepy chill that brought shivers down my spine as if the wind blew but it wasn’t a windy nor rainy day back then. It was followed by the smell of candle burning and some sort of floral perfume.

The next day, I found out that that classmate in mind died the night before. I don’t believe in ghosts but many people say it was her and she dropped by our house the night she died to say goodbye.

6. Death by Apple

In October of 2013,  my husband and I were going to a local concert to see two friends perform. On our way back, I called home to check on the kids, and was talking to my one son, when I suddenly felt this incredible burning pain sensations throughout my body. I screamed and dropped the phone. The pain continued for about 10 minutes. It was horrible. Turns out that I was electrocuted by the current running through my cell phone. I was freaked out and called a doctor.   She basically told me that if I called her, there was nothing else she could do.  However, that kind of shock can stimulate a heart attack.   I was LUCKY.

So I am thinking that APPLE has a problem with the car charger and I am mad as hell.  I am a good letter writer and wrote a note to Tim Cook at Apple,  scanned it to him on October 22. (Full disclosure, my last documentary-APPLE engineers were GREAT to me). I basically wrote what happened, and how I wanted to share my experience with him on the product asap, as I believed the product to be dangerous. At that time, I didn’t know if it was an Apple manufactured product or a third party product, my goal was to alert Apple to the situation in case they needed to remove these products from the shelves.

I didn’t get much of a response from the CEO’s office and called the APPLE hotline, which was worse – they sent me to Alabama, where they offered me a Genius Bar appointment. I went back and forth trying to get someone to pay attention to what I was saying.  This all happened over a three day period.

Completely frustrated, I finally just sent the original copy of the letter to Tim Cook and kept a copy on my desk.  I figured if they wanted to do something, they knew how to reach me.  A few days later, when I walked into my office, there was a note on the copy of the letter.   It was on a little yellow “stickie” and it said, “CAREFUL” in uneven caps.  The word careful was underlined four times.  I immediately went to my husband and said: “Why would you write a note on the top of my note to Apple?”   He looked at my strangely and said: “I have no idea what you are talking about.”   I showed him the note, (Which I still have).  Nope, not him.  The only other occupants of our house were kids, and they weren’t the least interested in a letter to the CEO of Apple.

So here was a note from someone who came into my house and actually searched my desk to find the letter.  Think about it, how would they know I wrote a letter unless they were listening to my calls. (Very easy to do in my office space). They took one of my stickies to write the warning.  Pretty brazen.

At that point, my husband and I realized that something was terribly wrong.  Someone was obviously listening to my calls and had been in our house.  Perhaps more than once.  We didn’t lock our doors, we kept our keys in our cars, it has been pretty safe where we lived.  No more. I went to the local Sheriff. He explained to me when someone wants you to have an “accident” they can rewire your car phone charger so you can be electrocuted.  As we sorted through what we knew, other things that didn’t make sense.   (My passport disappeared) we realized that someone had actually tried to kill me.   After their failed attempt, they came into my office and left me a note to ensure that I knew this was not an accident.  How CREEPY is that?

At that time, I was working on a few story ideas for a new documentary. One was a situation happening in East Palo Alto and another on Locust’s destroying the food supply in Madagascar. I also thought about the last documentary that I did which was airing on SHOWTIME. All three of them had elements where I was challenging a powerful government or major corporation.

I thought long and hard about what my options were.  I was clear that I could never forgive myself if anything happened to my kids or my spouse. We immediately put camera’s in and around our property to record any and all movement. The sheriff’s office had our house in their daily route to make sure everyone was safe.

I also closed my non-profit and decided despite loving my work on human rights issues, I didn’t ever want my work to endanger anyone that I loved. Things have calmed down since I stopped working on any projects. I consider myself very lucky.

7. Mystery Premonitions

This happened to a friend of my ex-coworker. The story goes like this: Her aunt has a guest room in her house, and one day she let one of her friends take a nap there. People say her friend was a quiet, mellow type of guy. So everyone was taken aback when he suddenly sat up and started yelling very angrily “I’M HUNGRY!” and he started throwing things at the wall. Reportedly, he went back to sleep after this and didn’t mention anything about the incident after. However, a few days after this incident, he committed suicide.

Years later, another friend of the aunt took a nap in the same bedroom. Strangely enough, the same exact thing happened. She woke up suddenly, very angry, and yelled “I’M HUNGRY!” and started throwing things. I’m not sure what happened after this, but I think she is still alive, but nobody knows what caused the sudden outbreaks of hunger and anger.

8. African American Heritage

This happened to a relative of a classmate in high school. I can’t remember all the details since I heard this story years ago, but I remember the gist of it. Somewhere in the US, my classmate’s aunt and uncle moved in a house. They had a young son. Occasionally, random household objects would disappear for long periods of time and then show up later in odd places. Other than that, everything was fine. One day, their son started talking to an imaginary friend. But instead of giving him a normal name, like Peter or Henry, he simply called him “Man.” He would say things like “Man is over there” or “I’m talking to Man.”

His parents just humored him, knowing kids did stuff like this. One day, the family was watching TV and an African American man came on. Where they lived, their son hadn’t been exposed to many African Americans before. However, when he saw him, the son suddenly said “Look! There’s Man!” Later on the parents came to find out that their house had a background of African American slavery back in the 1700s, and some remains had been found under the house. Coincidence? Maybe. But I still think the story is very interesting

9. Meet Me On The Other Side

When I was in kindergarten and elementary school, I was friends with a girl, let’s call her Jennie because I feel uncomfortable writing her real name in public. She came over to my house all the time and up until now, my Mom would still recall memories of her with fondness. She said that she never knew anyone as honest as Jennie. When my parents asked her what I had been doing in class, Jennie would tell them everything. EVERYTHING. Whether I got a bad grade, fell asleep in class and upset a teacher or crushed on a boy.

In 5th grade, on the last day of school, a group of students in our class, including Jennie, decided to skip school to go to the beach. I was being grounded so I couldn’t join. During that trip, two of the kids drowned and several of them were admitted into psychiatrist ward. Jennie was one of those who died. I don’t really know what happened, no adult ever gave me any detail. My parents even forbid me to go by Jennie’s house after that because whenever Jennie’s mom saw me, she would call me in and say: “If Jennie was still alive nowadays, she would be going to school like you.” Then she would try to hug me and call me Jennie.

About a year later, when I had just finished 6th grade, I had a dream in which Jennie and I were playing. Jennie was braiding my hair the way she always did and told me that she was happy because I would be visiting her soon. I woke up feeling a bit spooked but didn’t think much of it. Then at breakfast, my parents told me that they had a surprise for me: they were taking me to the beach. On our way, my Mom made us stop at an unpopular beach which now had the sign “Danger” and told me: “That’s where your friend Jennie died.” I thought of the dream and started crying. I had never dreamt about Jennie before, or maybe I had but I never remembered it until that night. After that, I never dreamt about her again.

From that point on, I can never think of that dream without getting goosebumps all over.

9. Abraham Lincoln

I was a teenager in the 70’s and was hanging out one night with a group from our neighborhood.  We decided that we were going to do a ‘seance’.  There were about 6 of us and we held hands and I began the seance by speaking to the spirit of Abraham Lincoln.  I was, of course, being silly and asked him to call the phone but hang up when we answered.  The phone rang instantly, and we all got chills… It rang until the girl who lived in the house answered it, and whoever called quickly hung up.  I was accused of years of setting up a prank — I didn’t.

10. Cancer & Dementia

My father was in the last stages of his life following a battle with cancer.  My mother had been caring for  him, but then she became ill and had to be hospitalized.  We therefore moved my father into our home so we could care for him.  After two weeks of caring for my father and traveling to the hospital to check on my mother, my cousin called me one day to say she had just been to the hospital and my mother had passed somewhat unexpectedly.

I had to let my father know that my mother had died.  At the time he was in and out  due to all the medication, but I told him and his only comment was “I guess we need to tell Lamar, oh no wait he already knows”.  He then laid his head down and went to sleep.  The only Lamar I knew as a good friend of my parents from our hometown 7 hours away and I knew no reason why there would be any special need to let him know of my mother’s passing, so I just chalked it up to the drugs and carried on.

Several days later we traveled back to my old hometown where my mother was to be buried.  I was discussing the arrangements with the funeral director, when just in passing he said “what a coincidence that your mother and her good friend Lamar, died on the same day within minutes of each other”.

I can’t decide if it was creepy, supernatural or what, but I know there is no way that my father could have possibly known about his friend who had just died 7 hours away and somehow connecting that to his wife’s (my mother’s) death.  He in fact did not even remember saying anything to me about Lamar or my mother’s death.

11. New York City

I grew up in NYC, so not many things scare me. I’ve seen the craziest of people in the subways alone, like the religious woman that speaks in tongues conveniently from DeKalb to Canal, the weirdest 10 minutes of your life, or one special nutjob twirling a 4ft sword on a subway platform while laughing maniacally. I can write a novel on these experiences, but this particular incident happened above ground.

It was early September and I got out of Penn Station after a long day of traveling for work. My goal was to walk to Koreatown to pick up some food. Koreatown is on 32nd Street, about two blocks away and two avenues, and I intended to make my way onto 32nd. I ended up walking past it and turned on 31st instead. No big deal, I figured I was almost halfway down a long avenue and would head back to 32nd at the end of the avenue.

This avenue looked like any normal block in NYC. I saw people around and there was some lighting in the middle of the block. As I kept walking, I saw a church with about 15 people outside. Most were well-dressed, and a handful sat on the steps. All of them were wearing black and it looked like a funeral. Nobody spoke to each other and the church doors were closed. They looked like they had just left.

When I was about two cars away from the group, 5 well-dressed people turned suddenly, looked at me with empty expressions, started mumbling something in unison, and walked towards me with their arms flinging and reaching about, like something straight out of Michael Jackson’s Thriller video. Of course, the light then flickered and a few went out. It was dark but not pitch black, and I could see some really pale faces.

Beyond terrified, I clutched my keys and raced across the street, almost getting run over in the process. I now glanced back and saw the same 5 weirdos were following me! I walked so fast and made sure they were considerably behind me. This side of the street, however, had a handful homeless druggies. One particularly thin woman ran up and started asking me for money.

I’m thinking “lady, this is not a good time” but she insisted on following me and kept tapping my shoulder. Although I swatted her away, she clung onto my arm. I almost instinctively punched her but I gave her a forceful push, handed her two bucks, and told her to leave me alone. I glanced back to keep an eye on “the situation” and she runs towards the 5 weirdos and they start wigging out at each other.

This was the creepiest and weirdest experience of my life. It was like I ended up on a steroidal Skid Row in NYC. I was so sure I was going to die, like 3 separate times over the course of 1 minute. To this day, I still wonder what the heck happened. Were they all just druggies? Religious druggies? Well-dressed druggies chilling out with homeless druggies? Were they in a trance? Did I get punk’d? It’s all very puzzling.

12. Directions

My (female) friend’s dad once answered the door late one night, like 11:00 P.M. or so and there was a weird man asking for directions to the main road. Her dad usually works nights, but on this rare occasion he’d taken the night off. So, he told him the route, and the weird man thanked him and went off, but in the opposite direction. He’d seemed quite nervous and jittery, which is odd, but what’s even weirder is he was known in the area, he’d lived there years, he wouldn’t need to ask directions to the main road.

Anyway, it was revealed in the news that on the same night, he’d broken into a house and violently raped a woman and her daughter, and later tried to sexually assault another woman in the street but a passerby managed to help her get away. This was after he called at my friend’s house, so he’d gone there then went off in that wrong direction and tried to r*** someone.

Now, my friend’s family was having a lot of drama at the time, her mom is a nutcase alcoholic and the whole street knew that she’d been sent to rehab. With her dad working nights, it’s likely that the weird man knew my friend would be home alone. We think she had a very close call with that one.

13. Dead Cold Eyes

When I was younger, I used to kick around all the nightspots in my town.  I made friends with the bouncer, Michael, at a specific sports bar.

One night, my friend and I were in the bar and I had a persistent feeling of being watched/uneasy.  I had a couple of drinks, and it didn’t go away.  At some point, I scanned the bar and noted an older man sitting way off in a corner who made eye contact with I looked his way.  He sat alone and didn’t look away from me, and it made me feel even more disquieted.  I finally decided I’d had enough and asked my friend if we could go somewhere else since she drove.  She told me to meet her at her car, that she would be a minute in the bathroom and saying goodbye to a friend.

I left the bar, waving to my bouncer friend Michael at the door, and made my way through the dark parking lot towards Marie’s car.  The feeling of unease got worse and I eventually thought I heard something behind me and turned to find…the guy I had noticed in the bar.

He backed me all the way up against the passenger side of the car and was trying to get me to turn my head away from him.  He kept saying “I feel so bad for that dog over there…” like he was trying to make me look that way.

I’ve been through some stuff in my life, and I have never been so terrified as I was when I was looking in that man’s eyes.  They were just…empty.  I knew, without a trace of doubt, that he intended to do terrible things to me.  If I turned my head, that would probably start the struggle that would lead to the end of my life.

So in the midst of him trying to make me turn my head or let my guard down, I’m mentally freaking out.  Like wow, I can’t believe this is legitimately happening to me.  Nearly in shock, I managed to make a plan.  Planning on counting to three, I braced myself against the car to knee him in the crotch as hard as I could. I decided I wasn’t going down without a fight.

On the count of TWO, my bouncer friend Michael came running through the parking lot towards us, yelling for me.  The creepy guy saw him and took off running for the alleyway.  Michael had noted the guy following out too close behind me and had a feeling something was off, so he came to investigate.  That night I am pretty sure he saved my life.

Sometimes, I wonder what happened with that guy.  I wonder if he went on to do those horrible things he was planning to someone else, or multiple other people, and it haunts me.

14. Through The Veil

I’ve had many experiences, but one of the most terrifying was when I was 10 years old, and my mom was driving me and my siblings home from a birthday party. The party was in the rural country, at the end of January, and a snowstorm began just as we entered the country roads with no other cars in sight. We were a good hour from home. The snow increasingly got worse until all I could see was a sheet of white in front of us.

My siblings, fortunately, fell asleep. My mom had no choice but to pull over and wait for the whiteout to pass. By the time she felt confident enough to get back on the road, our van was stuck in the snow; wheels spinning, not moving an inch. I thought we might freeze to death on that country road. Suddenly, headlights appear behind us and a man’s figure gets out of a vehicle, walks up to my mother’s window and knocks. He offers to push the car and get us back on the road; he succeeds!! I turn around in my seat to catch one last glimpse of the stranger who, I felt, saved our lives; but no man was there. No vehicle or headlights were even in sight. To this day I believe it was an angel that saved us that night.

Second, fast forward 20 years, the day I had to take my fiance off life support and watch his heart beat for the last time before he was pronounced dead. I went home not knowing what to do with myself, how to cope. I couldn’t sleep for the life of me; my brain was too busy processing our last days together, our horrible fight, the things I should have done differently, the future we no longer had. Suddenly, I felt an arm wrap around my waist and hold me, the exact same way my fiance used to do as we slept.

It felt so real that I jumped out of bed, looking around, expecting someone to be there. But I was alone. I dreamt of my fiance that night. We were riding in a car and I could see him laughing and smiling, showing his huge dimples, but I couldn’t reach him. I woke up feeling comforted like he was still with me and he was telling me he was OK and I would be OK too.

15. Black Figures

This has to be the most surreal of true creepy encounters that ever happened to me and I swear it was 100% real.

One evening my family was going out for dinner, I was rushing because I was late and I ran out of the house locking up and everything. Once I got to the car only then did I realize my mom had asked to me get a jacket for my younger brother. As it was pretty cold, I rushed back inside the house. Now, you see my younger brothers clothing cupboard is in my room. I walked into my room and lo and behold There is a full black man laying on my bed!!!

Now understand when I say full black I mean the man himself not as in clothing wise!! His entire body face arms fingers LITERALLY everything full f*cking black!

I stopped to see if my mind was playing games with me but it wasn’t. I quietly backed out of the room and walked out of the house. Explaining the incident to my parents, I went with them back into the house. They were taunting me about being scared and delaying them! Conveniently the figure decided that it should disappear in that period, needless to say, my parents weren’t thrilled with me.

Now, guys, you might think I’m kidding but why I say that I’m not is because the exact same thing happened to my sister a few days later.

So, you must have read these quite inquisitively. You might have thought creepy stories are hoaxes but when you listen carefully to one, your skin really would tingle at the climax of the story. Doesn’t matter whether a true creep encounter really is true, or is just a hoax. In the end, it can have you encapsulated in thoughts and make you wonder for days whether the reality you experience is existent or not.

Nonetheless, these fifteen true creepy encounters are indeed something worth pondering upon. You can call it time travel, or time loops in the case of the story Creepy Crawler. Or you can call it a work of a spirit or a demon in the stories Ghostly Encounter or Abraham Lincoln. Needless to say, you can give whatever explanation you can to these stories, but they will always strike you mind as true creepy encounters and you might as well tell them to your pals on a late night camping trip. Good luck with your thoughts at nights!