Welcome, Weirdos. I'm Darren Marlar, and this is Weird Darkness. Here you'll find stories of the paranormal, supernatural, legends, lore, crime, conspiracy, mysterious, macabre, unsolved and unexplained. If you're new here, welcome to the podcast, and be sure to subscribe so you don't miss future episodes. If you're already a weirdo, please share the podcast with others. Doing so helps make it possible for me to keep doing the podcast. While listening, be sure to check out the Weird Darkness website so you can find me on social media and drop me an email. We all enjoy hearing a haunting ghost story or two, while many assume that they are nothing more than works of fiction woven together from dark imagination. They're are tales that are based on the truth. Horror movies and books appeal to us because they're finite. Eventually, the story ends, and we can move on with our lives. Maybe we have a harder time sleeping than we did before we watched It Follows or Read the Shining, but we can have relative peace of mind knowing that those monsters are confined to fiction. True ghost stories and strange encounters with the unknown are a different matter entirely. And when these supposedly true tales are told by a friend or a family member that you trust while huddled around a campfire, the uneasy feeling you get doesn't go away so quickly when you zip up the tent flaps and curl up in your sleeping bag for the night. Tonight we step into the woods and away from the fancy equipment, scary sound effects, and creepy music beds. It's just you, me, this campfire, any creatures who might want to be listening to us, and the couple dozen ghost stories and creepy encounters I've found on Reddit that I'll be sharing with you. All true stories, of course.  A year and a half after Christy Noelle's father passed away, her family decided to go on a trip to Maui. Not only was her father someone who loved to travel, despite the family not getting to do it much when the father was alive, but this specific Hawaiian island was a favorite of her father. After landing at the airport, the family turned their phones on to check texts, emails, and voicemails. When Christine opened up her email, she found a forwarded message from her parents' joint email account, still labeled under her father's name. In it are pictures that she had sent back and forth with her father shortly before he died. Her sister also had an email from their father's account, which contained pictures from her wedding, taken just a few months before their father died. Finally, their mother checked her email. She had a different set of family pictures from the email. All of the emails were sent the day they landed. From Redditor, No More Pumpkins. One night I was doing my usual stuff and watching some TV before bed. I had this overwhelming feeling all night that I should avoid the hallway and not look directly down it. It was creepy.  I left the hallway lights on and went to bed. Just as I turned off the side table light, I heard a drawer being pulled out and hitting the stopper. I turned on the light and nothing was out of place. This went on about six times before I decided I was sleeping with the light on. I curled up under the covers and waited for my boyfriend to get home. He comes rolling in about 3 a.m.   All the doors down the hallway slammed shut one by one. Then our closet doors started rattling. The sound coming from inside could only be described as total destruction. It sounded like the shelves, the pole, and everything in there was being tossed around. The boyfriend joined me under the covers and we were both terrified. After it stopped, it took five or ten minutes to convince him to go check around the house. Nothing was out of place. And our roommate had driven three hours back home that night to be with his family so we knew it wasn't him. We slept with the light on the rest of the night and moved out soon after. I still can't drive by that house without being creeped out. Reddit user Stone Huntsman works as a cave guide leading tours for spelunking or caving. After taking a group down one day, everybody stopped to take a break near a section where you can hear the underground streams flowing through the cave system. While there, they had everyone turn off their headlight so that they could experience the total darkness. This group had a slightly different experience.   They were no people. Everyone eventually put their headlights back on and they finished the tour. As the guides recorded what happened about an hour later, they encountered the tour guide for the group behind them. The other guide looked shocked to see them and asked how they had gotten out so quickly. His tour had the same experience of unexplained noises. Eventually law enforcement is called to look for trespassers, but they never found any signs of people sneaking in. Something strange happened to Redditor Zombe and their grandma. One night they stayed up late watching The Walking Dead. Their grandma had never seen the show before so they had spent the past few nights binging late into the night. It was about 4am when the two turned off the television and the lights and called it a night. Their grandma went into her room and our Reddit user went to the bathroom to brush their teeth. That was when they heard three light knocks right behind them. Since the bathroom was connected to their grandmother's room, they assumed it was her checking to see if they were in the bathroom. They answered but didn't get a response. When they left the bathroom and met their grandma in the hallway, she asked what the user wanted. Confused, the writer said they thought she was the one knocking on the bathroom door. But grandma had also heard three knocks on her door and thought it was the Reddit user. As it turns out they both heard the quiet, distinct knocks. They searched the house to make sure no one had broken in, double checked the locks and finally went to bed. Their grandma has one deceased son and one son that's been missing for almost a year now. The user believes that the knocks had something to do with the missing men. Perhaps they were trying to reach out to their beloved family. Redditor Nina Lapirit said, when I was a kid I woke up in the middle of the night to my bed shaking.  I rolled over and muttered stop it. The shaking stopped immediately. Then a male voice speaks right beside me saying sorry. That's when I freaked out. I'm pretty sure my childhood house was haunted. One of the things about doing this live I can't edit so you won't hear any bleepers at the end of this one. Let me take a sip of my drink here hang on. Yeah you can hear the bleepers as I do them. This one comes from Redditor PM me your poem. This Redditor and his or her mother had recently moved into a new home when the pair had a ghostly encounter. Since they had just moved the mother and writer slept in the same room on the floor. In the middle of the night they woke up to see the door opening at an old woman creeping by. They hid under the covers and turned away thinking it was a nightmare. But then their mother whispered did you just see someone peer around the door? A few years ago Redditor Tonton Tom had just been through a rough divorce from his high school sweetheart. Their best friend had taken to distracting them by taking long road trips. One morning they were on their way to Carl's Bad New Mexico when they paused alongside a river dam. They were drinking cider and snacking when the pair decided to explore the dried river bed. It was obvious that they were not the first ones to go trekking through the river bed. The pair could see human canine and feline footprints in the mud. They then recall starting to feel an odd sensation like they were being watched. Their friend caught the writer's attention and called them over. There was a bone in the ground but they now believe was a spinal cord. At first they thought it was a bee for a pork bone of some kind. They continued looking around the river bed when they found a strange rust-colored rock sticking out from the sand. When they got closer they realized it was a half-buried little girl's shoe. The Redditor used the Reddit user that is stepped back and ran forward preparing to kick the shoe. Suddenly they heard a little girl's voice shout no don't please. They looked around but didn't see anyone besides themselves and well themselves and their friend. And the friend asked why they stopped and they replied didn't you hear that little girl? Both confused they decided to shrug it off and continued on their way. Meanwhile the feeling that someone was watching them grew stronger. A few minutes later they spotted another bone. Now they began to get scared. The bone was clearly human. The friend called the non-emergency police number for Carlsbad and they reported what they saw. A week later they received a call from their friend that the Carlsbad police had called to report the bones they found were indeed human. During the investigation the two were questioned and eventually informed that the rust-colored rock actually wasn't a rock at all but the shell of a pickup truck that had disappeared along with the family of three it had been carrying.  It made the Reddit user think back to the girl's shoe sticking out of the mud and the voice that they had heard. Could the little girl have spoken directly to them? While serving as a caretaker of a small uninhabited island off the main coast Reddit user RobotTrossie and his girlfriend began having what he describes as synchronized nightmares. While they had never previously discussed the things they were dreaming before dreaming them they discovered they were sharing these rather involved highly specific dreams for a month. Later they were gifted a book with a history of the island and one of the final chapters recounted a history of the hauntings that they'd been sharing night after night despite being written years before they came to the island. Spooky. Redditor Vintage Misery wrote this way my son is 10 now but when he was three he said he saw a man with a big hat standing in his bedroom doorway staring at him while he tried to sleep. The man disappeared after a while but my son could feel him sit down on his bed. He still randomly brings it up so I don't think it was just a three-year-old's overactive imagination. While serving as a nanny for a wealthy family, Redditor DT Morp had an intense experience with spirits. Around the time the young woman started working for the family the matriarch had several close relatives die in close succession. Understandably she began counseling sessions to help her deal with her emotions and grief. One day after the mother left to see her therapist the nanny got so creeped out she couldn't even stay in the house. While alone with the child the nanny saw toys lined up on a counter that no one had been near in hours. She also at one point saw a piano chair moving on its own. The young woman called her sister to have someone talk her down only to discover things were worse than she thought. Her sister claimed to hear other people talking in the background even though no one but the baby was there. Not long after hanging up the baby began crying. The nanny rushed to get her from the crib only to find the bedroom door slammed in her face. After eventually prying the door open she found the baby in the middle of the room of the floor reaching out to a corner of the ceiling as if wanting to be picked up by someone who wasn't there. Finally after 45 minutes of equally strange events the young woman took the baby outside and when the mother returned home explained what had happened. The mother admitted having similar experiences which she claimed and made it hard for her to move on from her recent losses. Last year Redditor Smolbean Dean went to a friend's house for a party. Around one in the morning the group decided to use a Ouija board. The Reddit user was the only one who believed in accounts of the paranormal so she was hesitant when her friends brought out the board. But instead of giving her friends more reasons to tease her when it came to the paranormal she acted as if she didn't believe in such activity. They began asking the board questions. They started with a few normal questions and nothing really exciting happened. Then someone asked if the spirit wanted to hurt them and it responded with only one. The group started to get creeped out at this point and rightfully so. When one friend asked the natural follow-up question who the board spelled out Natasha the Reddit user's full name. It should be noted that she doesn't care for their full name and as everybody call her Tasha instead not Natasha. Tasha then left the room while her friends continued playing but found out later that night that the group forgot to say goodbye to the board. Anyone familiar with Ouija board knows that closing the interaction with the spirit is crucial before stopping use of the board. Needless to say she was nervous. After this Tasha has no memory of the night. She only remembers getting a migraine and nosebleeds. Her friends took videos of her acting strangely speaking with a changed voice and a few instances of her talking in other languages. However that night wasn't the only time this happened. In the days following Tasha's parents reported the same things happening. Once again she remembered nothing but migraines and nosebleeds. About two weeks later she was back to normal or so she thought. Tasha was suddenly hospitalized for an excruciating pain in her kidney. So bad that it almost shut down. The doctors tried everything but couldn't figure out what was wrong. Then on the day she was scheduled for surgery the pain suddenly stopped. One day later Tasha was released. Since that incident she has never felt like she was truly alone. Sometimes she feels somebody is grabbing her hands or neck making it difficult to breathe. Tasha has always believed in the paranormal but this experience made it far more real for her. Man oh the air is dry let me get another sip hang on. Winter air. Okay moving on. In a story told by Redditor Epic Taco Trucks uncle that was the that's the Redditor's name Epic Taco Truck. One fight between a police officer and his wife led to a terrifying demon dog encounter. One evening after a canine unit officer took home his dog the couple began to argue. The fighting eventually boiled over into the wife demanding her husband take his dog out of the house. The officer relented chaining his dog outside and locking up before going to bed. About 10 minutes after the officer cut off the bedroom lights the couple was disturbed by their dog who had entered the room. The wife already angry from their argument earlier barked about putting the dog outside. The officer claimed he had already but nonetheless took the dog by the collar and led him back downstairs once more. As the man reached his home's sliding glass door he noticed his actual dog outside running around and growling. He immediately let go of the dog in his grasp and stood back just as it stood on two legs and walked through the glass door vanishing into the night. While the officer and his wife ultimately got divorced they occasionally talk over the phone and she has reported seeing the same dog again from Reddit user chicken bone. A long time ago back when I was in high school maybe a freshman or sophomore my mom was out of town for some reason. My younger brother and two sisters were staying with my grandparents. I was home alone. Monday morning I'm up waiting for my grandpa to pick me up and give me a ride to school. We lived in an old historic two-story house. I'm sitting downstairs in the living room watching TV. All of a sudden I hear a man and a woman talking upstairs. Sounds like they're in my mom's room. I turned off the TV to hear better. I could distinctly hear a man and woman talking to each other. I could not hear individual words just mumbling. I got up off the couch and started walking toward the stairs as I'm walking across the room I hear a small child speak. Again no individual words but the sound of muffled voices talking. Pretty freaked out the voices are definitely happening. As I approach the bottom stair something upstairs in my mom's room hits the floor like a semi-loud thud. To me it seemed like someone pulled a dresser drawer too far out and it came out and hit the floor. The voices stopped immediately and I ran outside and waited for my grandpa. Middle of the winter no coat did not care. Reddit user patentspatented has an eerie story about sharing their home with a dead former tenant. While they and their family were in the process of purchasing the house the renter at the time passed away suddenly in the house from natural causes in his mid-40s. Well soon after the new family moved in patents two-year-old daughter began to talk about a ghost in the house. Given that she was two years old patent assumed that she was just impressionable. Halloween had recently passed and she had had a Halloween book that she enjoyed looking through. The daughter's reports of seeing a ghost continued although she never appeared to be scared of the man she claimed to see. Patents didn't know how to feel about the so-called ghost but just in case they told the ghost several times that he was welcome to stay in the house or to leave whichever would make him happier. One morning while patents and their daughter were leaving for her school she said that it was the man's birthday and they needed to sing him happy birthday. As a two-year-old she was generally obsessed with birthdays. Patent didn't thank too much of it but joined their daughter in singing happy birthday to their four... no excuse me... she didn't think much of it but joined the daughter in singing happy birthday to their home's former tenant. That evening Patent looked up the obituary of the man who might be haunting their home and yes of course it was his birthday. Swagman 434 is the redditor for this one and he's a dietary... he or she is a dietary aid at a nursing home for people with Alzheimer's and they've had some seriously scary encounters while working there. Their job mainly consists of washing dishes and they're normally standing right next to the dishwasher which makes it difficult to hear what people are saying. On numerous occasions they had been by the dishwasher and heard someone talking to them even though they knew no one was nearby. One night the writer went to collect food carts in one of their units alone. The whole time they were in the unit they felt like they were being followed. Fearing what they might see they never turned around. Eventually they pulled off pretending to use the bathroom. They waited there for about five minutes before peering into the hallway where they had just been. There they saw a patient they recognized. At first this made them feel better but soon they realized that it was a patient who had died three days prior in a unit near the kitchen. The user also relayed a second experience they had while washing the dishes on a different day. They asked the person they were washing with if he could go into unit A and get the food carts. The third person who normally washed with them had already left for the day leaving the writer alone. Suddenly they heard a voice in their ear. They turned around but no one was there. They even went into the hallway but still saw nothing. As they turned to washing the dishes it happened again. The second time they realized it was the voice of their great grandma who passed away seven years ago. Reddit user peachskylines was the occasional babysitter of a two-year-old boy. They had been warned that the boy would sometimes seem to hold conversations with his grandpa who had passed away before the boy was born. Given that they were prepared to expect a few creepy things during the evening. But this went above and beyond. That night the boy pointed to an empty wall and simply said grandpa. He then gripped the chair he was sitting in and began to chatter his teeth uncontrollably. Understandably freaked out, Peach Skylines decided to put the boy to bed. On the way to his upstairs bedroom they realized that the front door was for some reason unlocked. They locked it, jiggled the door to confirm that it had locked, then went upstairs to tuck the boy in. Twenty minutes later once the kid was asleep they went back downstairs and saw the front door was inexplicably unlocked again. They checked the house for an intruder but found no one and spent the rest of the night waiting on the edge of terror for the parents to arrive home. Needless to say they thought twice before agreeing to sit for that family again. From Redditor and Grace too. I was driving home from work one night when I see a little girl on a tricycle riding across the street and into some woods that drop off into a creek. I break and skid to avoid her and walk to where I thought she fell. I see no one in the woods and a cop pulls up to ask me what I'm doing.  He then tells me right away that I saw what some other drivers there have seen.  Others have seen her multiple times, sometimes walking other times on her tricycle. After some construction brought change to that section of road with expansion and barriers, the sightings all ceased. Reddit user xdaniex has an unsettling tale, albeit one with a happy ending. Their family was in the car together when they hit a patch of ice, and Danny was ejected through the window of the car and out onto the road. They tried to stand but were brought to the ground by a shattering pain in their shoulder. They don't remember if they passed out or fell asleep, but they have a vivid memory of a force with strong hands lifting them to their feet and pushing them toward the car and their family. At the time they assumed it was their father, but after the dust settled they learned that their father wasn't able to search for them. So what or who lifted them to their feet and brought them to their loved ones so their family would know they were still alive. In 2013, Redditor Xbabe and her friends decided to make a Ouija board. Her best friend lives about a 45 minute drive from the closest store and nearest town so there wasn't much to do. They spent the day watching movies but eventually got bored so the user, her friend, the friend's boyfriend and his friend decided to make the board. About a week before they made the board, the two friends had been staying alone at the house when the Redditor, a Reddit writer that is woke up at 6am to the sound of heavy footsteps in the hallway nearing the bedroom. She tried to wake her friend, but it was no use. She was a heavy sleeper. The footsteps stopped right outside the door. The Redditor waited, holding her breath for the door to open, but it never did. The next few hours she spent awake waiting for something to happen. When both girls were finally awake by 11am that morning but before either left the room, she told her friend what had happened the night before and what her friend said in response, chilled her to the bone. She said that for years she'd been hearing the same footsteps and that they had always stopped right outside her bedroom. No one else had heard the footsteps until the Redditor had. That night they made their Ouija board. The group were messing around with it, not getting any real responses when they suddenly heard a loud bang in the back of the house. They decided to stop for the night. The friend left to drive the other two home, leaving the Reddit user alone at the house. Being alone after hearing the loud noise and the footsteps made her nervous, so she turned on the television for a distraction while she waited for her friend to return. In the middle of the opening credits, the television froze and started making loud buzzing noises. She tried to turn off the TV, but the remote wouldn't work. Then she tried unplugging it, but it kept going. Thoroughly freaked out, she went outside to wait for her friend to get back. At this point she had started shaking and crying and texted her friend explaining what had happened. Then the dogs started barking at the living room door, viciously growling and snarling like they saw something no human could. 30 minutes later her friend finally arrived back home. Both girls could hear the television from the porch, but when they went inside it had completely shut off and was still unplugged. Neither are sure exactly what had happened, but they are certain it was some kind of malevolent spirit. Redditor Tucker48 was helping his three-year-old son take a bath one evening, when his son asked him, why does grandma call mommy Blank? Blank, I say, because it's a private nickname that Tucker48's deceased mother-in-law had called her daughter. Well, the grandma had passed away when the son was only four months old, making it highly unlikely that the son would be able to remember that private nickname. When they asked where their son had heard the name, he replied, the farmer told me and explained that the farmer was his friend. At the time they lived in a 1930s house in Pasadena. The next week Tucker48 witnessed his son engaging in a long conversation with this invisible farmer. At that point, he and his wife became unsettled by their son's new friend, especially when the son revealed that the farmer would often walk out of the room when his parents entered. Eventually, in the middle of the night, they heard the son say, grandma says you and I can't be friends anymore. When questioned, he revealed that his grandma had said not to play with the farmer ever again. Since then, the farmer hasn't made another appearance. From Redditor Frankenbu, I woke up to get a glass of water at night and passed my dad on the way to the kitchen. I asked him something about where he was going. He walked right past me like he didn't see or even hear me, just was at a type of trance. And he walked out the front door. I looked out the front window and he was sitting on our sidewalk under a tree, hands on his knees, staring into the dark. I went to my mom's room to ask her what dad was doing. She said, what do you mean? He's right here. She scooted over and there was my dad laying in bed asleep. Getting a glass of water is actually a good idea. Hang on a second. Canada dry, good stuff. Hashtag not sponsored. Okay, moving on. When Redditor Swallows84 and their brother were young, they lived in an old house and witnessed something unexplainable. An unfamiliar man in a top hat walking into the living room. Decades later, Swallows84 shared the story with their daughter when asked if they believed in ghosts. Minutes later, their phone dinged. It was their brother who wrote, I was just talking to partner about paranormal stuff. Do you remember the guy in the top hat? Redditor MysticGypsy1976 has always been into the paranormal and has experienced a fair number of encounters throughout their life. Recently married, they and their spouse, Charlie, moved into a beautiful little house in a quiet neighborhood. They'd only been there by a short time when they started noticing strange occurrences. The first happened while Charlie was upstairs in bed and they were downstairs watching television. Suddenly, he ran into the living room and asked if they had just been in the bedroom. They answered no and Charlie panicked. He said that as he'd been lying in bed, someone had pushed the blanket up so his feet were exposed and a cold hand had caressed his foot. To avoid the spirit, they moved their room to a different bedroom in the house, but the activity continued. They heard heavy footsteps going up and down the stairs. Bowls and pans would spin clockwise on the counter. Dark, full-bodied figures would walk past their bedroom door and vanish. A knife was once lifted and thrown across the kitchen by an unseen force and the dogs would bark into the corners of the house. Once they even looked up into the window at the master bedroom and saw an elderly woman staring down at them. Eventually, the young couple had enough and talked with their neighbors to learn about the history of the house. They learned that the house had been built in the 1970s and the elderly lady who had owned the house before them died at the age of 101. The two had no doubt this woman was the spirit tormenting the home, so the writer decided to go upstairs and try and make peace. They informed the spirit that they intended to remain in the house and they promised to keep it nice. They offered to help her cross over but also said that she was welcome to stay if her presence became more peaceful. Since then, the couple has been living peacefully in their home and the old woman occasionally makes herself known. Redditor Cool Man Express has a story that is sure to keep you awake nights. When they were 10 or 11, they stayed up late and were struggling to fall asleep when they heard a sobbing noise. They turned around to see a 7 or 8 foot tall woman with matted hair and ragged clothes sobbing in the far side of the room. Eventually, the terrifying woman made eye contact before turning around and walking through the wall. Andesaurus Rex wrote, When I was a kid, I once woke up in the middle of the night. Complete silence. I looked around the room and behind a wardrobe. I saw a small hand waving at me. It was like a kid's hand. It was dark, but I remember seeing it so clearly. I could see each finger. I started crying and screaming and my parents had to check my room a few times before I'd fall asleep. When Redditor Tucker33 was 6 or 7, they were attempting to sleep on their grandparents' couch when they suddenly heard whispering. They turned around to see that a picture of their aunt was talking to them. The aunt's picture asked Tucker33 to get their grandpa, so they went upstairs and brought them down. The grandpa was annoyed to not actually see the aunt in the living room, but was suddenly distracted by a noise outside. Three people were attempting to steal the grandparents' car, and they would have gotten away with it, but it had not been for the mysterious whispering picture of the aunt. Redditor JD Barnes123 has always been afraid of anything paranormal. For five years when he was young, JD suffered from severe anxiety and depression. While this was going on, some strange things began happening. One night he was having trouble sleeping when he heard a man's voice say his name. He blew it off as something in his head and eventually fell asleep. A few nights later, he heard it again, but this time it was louder, clear as day, and a woman's voice. He tried to respond, but the room was silent. At this point he was starting to get nervous. Once again, the night's following were quiet, so he slowly forgot about the incident. That was until one night when he was laying in bed and started hearing someone breathing. He hid under their covers until it stopped, but the incident made it hard to sleep during the week following. Now that this Reddit user has moved and learned to better manage his depression and anxiety, the paranormal occurrences have stopped. Redditor Jan Kyle Life shared the tale of his four younger cousins, born after their grandpa passed away. One morning as they came down for breakfast, they pointed to a picture of their grandpa and announced, that's him. It said the man pictured in the photo was the same who comes and talks to us at night until we fall asleep sometimes. From ASDS 10 The only one I have is when I was in 4th grade. When I was little, I had always slept with my door open. I went through a phase where I would wake up between 3 and 4am every night, and every single night I would hear footsteps, walking up my stairs, around my living room, through my dining room, across my kitchen and down my hallway. They had always stopped right before my doorway, then turn around and go back into the basement. But one night they didn't stop.  And I slept with the door closed the next night. This anonymous redditor said, 20 years ago, I lived in Switzerland and I visited an abandoned World War II bunker with some friends. The door to get into the bunker was locked, but there was a small peephole that we were able to use to look in. From that vantage point, we saw a strange light at the end of a corridor, behind which there was a silhouette of a person, as if someone in the hallway was holding a flashlight and shining it on us. Just then we felt a huge slam on the door that we were peeping through, as if somebody was banging against it from the inside. We ran. When we saw each other the next day at school, we convinced each other that some kids must have broken into the bunker somehow and played a prank on us. But when we went back later to investigate, our fears were confirmed. The door was indeed locked. There was no way anyone could have been able to get in. 20 years later, when this redditor returned to the same spot, they still got chills. Redditor 900 Pop TR loves their grandparents, but hates their grandparents' house. The house has been in their family for over a century, and something has always felt off about it. The rooms would always feel cold, despite the air being off, and visitors often reported feeling like they were being watched. For about a month, this user and their parents were living in the house. It was during this time that an event happened that terrified them. One night, they woke for no particular reason and went to the bathroom. Suddenly, the door shut and locked behind them. The lock on the door was broken, so it shouldn't have been able to lock but alone close on its own. Then the light in the bathroom went out. They'd always been interested in ghost hunting and had a ghost hunting app on their phone. They'd used it in the past, but assumed it didn't work. The app was supposed to tell its user whatever the ghost was saying. As they opened the app, they felt something, or someone, breathing down their neck. A few seconds later, the door unlocked, and the radar read one word, run. They ran back to hide and hid under the covers until they fell asleep. The next night, they woke again and went into the kitchen for a snack. It was there, but they saw a dark figure pick something up from the pantry, turn to them, and then disappear. They tried to return to their room, but the living room door slammed shut as they walked toward it. Again, they felt someone breathing down their neck. They kept pulling at their door until it finally opened. Back in their room, hiding under the covers, they couldn't sleep because they kept hearing footsteps on the porch. The next night, they decided to try sleeping in the den. Their phone was left open to the ghost hunting app when it picked up a signal. It read, Quinton, their great-grandfather's name. That was the last activity the user experienced before they moved out. User Casade Paradise still doesn't know exactly what happened when they and a friend went for a mysterious hike while they were in high school. The explanation they kept coming back to, though, is time travel. The two arrived home from school at 2.45. Casade Paradise's mom would usually get home at 3. Casade Paradise left a note, saying they were going for a hike, and the pair set off exploring in the woods behind their home. On the return trip, they passed around an area that they hadn't seen before, where they found tepees put up around a lake. Assuming someone was living there, they switched paths and continued on their way home. But when they arrived home, it was still a few moments before 3, despite how long they'd been out. The two have barely talked about it since, but they both believe they may have time traveled. Redditor Dunsilrong68 was sitting up in bed one evening watching TV, facing the door of their room with the door open. They were shocked to see a white figure hovering outside the open door, moving slowly back and forth. When Dunsilrong looked directly at it, it looked back. Dunsilrong ran to get help from their brother and they went through the house with a bat, but were unable to find anything that could explain what they'd seen. They never watched TV with the door open again. About two weeks ago, Redditor Twinfish93's little sister began hearing voices. She said it's a deep and masculine voice that calls to her at night in her room, telling her to come outside. It comes from outside in the middle of their yard. One day, their parents went out and the Reddit user, their two little sisters and their friend, stayed home alone. That night, they saw something moving in the small patch trees in their backyard. Telling the younger girls to stay inside, they went to investigate, but found nothing. On their way back inside, something threw them over five feet into the air. They scrambled to their feet and ran inside, losing a shoe in the process. After cowering inside for a few minutes, they realized they needed that shoe for work the next day, so they ventured back outdoors.  As quickly as they could, they grabbed their shoe and ran back inside. Finally back indoors, they asked the elder of their sisters to look at their back because it felt like it was burning. She pulled up their shirt and screamed. There were several long scratches running down the user's back. The four then went out to the front porch while the youngest went back inside to retrieve something but came back a few seconds later saying something was looking into their back window. The only problem was that in order for her to have seen someone in the window, that person would have had to have been over seven feet tall. Now, all thoroughly freaked out, they decided to remain on the porch until one of their parents came home. After a few minutes passed, they heard heavy footsteps running toward the front yard from the side of the house where the driveway extends. Gravel flew as though it was being kicked up, but nothing was there. They went back inside until their mother got home. She blessed the area where the Reddit user was attacked and their sister's body and spirit. Whatever the thing was, it didn't appear to be able to get inside the house. The user and their sisters still believe it's hanging around the house to this day. Arby Noodle Army, the Reddit user, has a harrowing tale of a historical haunting. While on a guided tour of an old Australian jail, they felt a slight mysterious pressure on their neck as if someone was constricting their windpipe. They didn't think anything of it, that is until the tour guide revealed that a man had once hung himself in that stairwell and that people often report feeling strangled there. Redditor Sizzler26 said, At my previous job, our building was still under construction. The only floors that were occupied were the first, second, fifth, sixth, and seventh. One night I was alone inside the elevator going from the first to the sixth floor when, suddenly, it stopped and opened on the third floor. Normally, I would just disregard it, but rumors were all over that a ghost child was playing around on the vacant floors, so I pressed the close button as fast as I could. When it closed, I heard noises like someone was tapping their fingers on the walls of the elevator. While at a friend's house, Redditor RedditJunkbot fell asleep on the couch. When they woke up, they decided to leave and went to their friend's closed bedroom door to say goodbye. Their response, although a casual yup, sounded somewhat strange. The voice was so odd that RedditJunkbot opened the door to the room and discovered no one was there. When their friend arrived back at the home, he revealed he was accustomed to hearing inexplicable voices there. Apparently, a boy hung himself in the home and everyone who lived there since heard the voice. The story about the suicide was corroborated by the next door neighbor, the deceased boy's brother. From another Redditor, I grew up in an older home in Florida. I have two brothers and, since I was the only girl, I got to have my own room on the second floor, a room that I would end up fearing at night. We lived in this house until we moved when I was 17. I don't remember anything strange happening until I was around 15 or 16. Just the normal mom asking us kids where we put a glass or a book, small things that none of us touched. In hindsight, that was probably either the man or the boy. I came home late one night from a football game in my high school. It was around 10 or 11. My younger brother had a friend over and they liked to play pranks on me. When I poked my head in to say hello, I made sure I asked if they wouldn't mess with me that night since I had to get up early for a soccer game. They both agreed and wished me a good night. The way my room was set up at the time was there was the actual main part of the room. It had my TV, dresser, a couch, and coffee table that I would use for my friends staying over or when I was reading. My bed was in a little alcove that used to be a small porch, so that my bed was flush with the windows that looked to the backyard. I put my bag on the couch and walked over to the bed to go to sleep. It was the middle of the night when someone knocking on the wooden, excuse me, it was the middle of the night when someone knocking on the wooden bed frame woke me up. I thought it was my brother and his friend who were just going to be annoying and run out of the room giggling. I flipped over to yell at them but didn't see my brother. There was a boy about the age of 12 with sandy brown hair that hung to his chin, wearing a purple hoodie just smiling at me, like a kid who got caught doing something he shouldn't have been. And I could see right through him to the rest of the room. I watched as he slowly faded away, completely terrified until he was gone. I slept on the couch that night with the TV going in the background and I moved my bed to the center of the room after that. The next morning I had almost talked myself out of it, thinking it was a dream or had really been the boys. I asked them the next morning if they had knocked on my bed, but both were sound asleep. My mom had overheard me and said that she had seen the boy too. Since that night we started to notice more strange things, but I'm positive it wasn't the boy. There was a man, a mean man that I could feel at night in my room. We would hear footsteps walking around upstairs when all of us were in the kitchen. Books would fly from the shelves and glasses would be pulled down and break. Our dogs would stand at the bottom of the stairs that led to the second floor and just growl. One of the most eerie things was the smell of cigarette smoke in the downstairs hallway. No one in our family smoked inside, ever. One of the last things that happened before we moved was my brother waking up to see a tall, dark figure standing over me while I was sleeping. The entire family at that point had seen or experienced something. The boy was just a kid who wanted to be known. The man was something else. None of us were sad to drive away from that house for the last time. When Reddit user LanaGlugLug's husband was a teen, he camped out at his friend's aunt and uncle's place by the lake in the country. At some point during the night he went down by the lake to take a leak and saw a man across the lake. It struck him as strange to see another person out there walking around late at night, so he said hello. But the man didn't respond and suddenly disappeared. LanaGlugLug's husband went to tell the family that he was staying with him. When she found out, the aunt began crying. She said she had been seeing that man for some time, sometimes standing at the front of her bed during the night. The tension over her seeing things was so intense that she and her husband were heading for a divorce. She was incredibly relieved to hear that someone else had experienced the same phenomenon. Redditor Fuzzy Bandits wrote this one. When I was a teenager, I used to babysit my cousin, Alyssa. She was little, maybe almost two, maybe a little older, old enough to say sentences. I'm giving her a bath before bed when she looks out into the hallway and gets a terrified look on her face and starts crying. At this moment my aunt's Pomeranian starts going nuts as well, barking and growling into the hallway. The atmosphere in the room became uncomfortable and I started getting scared. I took her downstairs from the third floor in the townhouse to try and calm her down. I asked her what was wrong and she said something along the lines of, the man with the black eyes was there. When I continued to pry, she looked up at the second floor stairs, her eyes getting big and looks at me, bringing her finger up to her mouth and said, shh, while shaking her head, no. Reddit user Trudenter was working night shifts as a security guard. One evening he saw on the cameras that someone else was entering the building. He assumed it was just another security guard arriving early for their shift but, when they didn't enter the office with him, he began to worry. He searched all over the building but didn't find anyone there. When they got home they called their manager to see what the cameras captured from around the time the man entered the building. She said the camera froze for an hour around that time. Redditor Marco is Love, their best friend Bella and her little sister and brother went to Bella's grandparents house to spend the night when they were younger. Although the house was next to a cemetery, no one was too worried. The Redditor was rather fascinated but not yet wary. Bella's grandpa helped them set up a tent in the backyard. That night they were up late watching a movie. When it was over, the Redditor and Bella left the tent and went to sit on the swings in the backyard. Bella began telling stories about the haunted house she used to live in. After a while, something in the cemetery caught the writer's attention. Sorry. After a while, something in the cemetery caught the Redditor's attention. When their eyes adjusted to the dark, they made out a faceless, horned figure looking at them through the darkness. Bella didn't see the figure at first, but when the user directed her attention to it, she freaked out. The pair bolted for the tent, zipping themselves inside. They turned on music to try and help them fall asleep. But it didn't muffle the sounds of a fence rattling like something wanted to climb over in a repeating, terrifying, bull-like huff. The next morning they tried to tell their story to Bella's family. Bella's grandparents were skeptical, but her sister and mother, who had lived with Bella in the haunted house, believed every word. One night, Redditor Danish One's mother, who suffered from epilepsy, had a seizure and started to suffocate herself at her blankets. Paramedics arrived and got her breathing again, and they took her to the hospital around 4.30am. Before Danish One had a chance to call their grandmother, their mother's mother, the grandmother called them. She said that she had a dream in which Danish One's mother visited her. The mother was bathed in golden light and said that she was dead. At that point, even the doctors didn't know that Danish One's mother was brain dead. The grandmother had seen it in a dream long before anyone else knew. I have been sucking down Canada dries so fast, and I think I've gone through like a 24-pack today. I'm just going through them. Okay, so let's see. Left off on that one, so okay. This one comes from Redditor Sneakos One. When I was around 12, me, my cousin, and my brother were building a snow igloo in my grandma's backyard. We had the whole dome complete, and we were working on the inside, making the walls smooth when I accidentally smoothed it a little too much and a little hole to the outside for him. Instantly, a little hand shot through that hole and started reaching around, trying to grab something. At first, none of us in the igloo really freaked out, since we thought it was my little sister trying to break our fort. After grasping around for about 10 seconds, the hand pulled back out of the hole. However, when we went out to school with my sister, there was no one there, and there were no footsteps out there, apart from our own. When Reddit user AnnWeow9069 and their friends were in high school, they decided to spend some time ghost hunting in their small Illinois town. They went to a local bridge where people sometimes claimed that they saw the ghost of a young girl who had drowned there. They got to the bridge around 3 a.m., and at first, nothing happened. Then, they heard a blood-curdling, horrifying scream. They began running back to their car, but they all paused for a moment to witness something chilling. A girl running on all fours in the woods. Ever since Redditor DJRocks56 was at school with friends talking about Chucky, they've been afraid of dolls. Luckily, the only one they had at home was a basic Barbie doll. But then, for Christmas, their sister got two porcelain dolls and a big rag doll. These dolls really freaked this Redditor user out. Every red Reddit user. Did I say Redditor?  Let me try that again. Those dolls really freaked the Reddit user out. So you get me with all the with all the blunders when you're doing it this way. Every time they went into their sister's room, they would turn the dolls toward the wall so they weren't looking at them or into their room. Soon, creepy things started happening. Cuts and scratches would appear on the writer's hands and knees with no explanation of how they got there. One morning when they woke up, there were red scratches on their back, although they didn't remember any pain or feeling of being scratched. The scariest thing happened while they were home alone. They went into the sister's room to play with her Dreamcast. As they made their way in, turning all the dolls toward the wall, they heard a little girl's laugh. The rag doll that had been lying on the sister's bed facing the wall slowly began turning toward them. They ran, locking themselves in their room until their mother and sister got home. Neither believed the story and their sister was mad because the rag doll had fallen to the floor. The next day, the Redditor took the doll to the dumpster and never saw it again. In college, Reddit user Lily Yo-Yo I Need Gogurt was walking home with their sorority sisters around two in the morning when they saw an old man using crutches walking a black dog. A few blocks along, they heard the sound of crutches coming up behind them and saw that it was the same man, although this time he was walking a brown dog. They made eye contact with the man, commenting to him about how funny it was to keep running into each other, but he didn't answer. They kept walking and then again they heard the sound of crutches behind them. It was the same man again, but this time with a yellow dog. To this day, they don't know how the man was catching up to them so quickly or why the color of the dog kept changing. Redditor Scarlett Beeswax wrote this one. I lived in this house with a basement and every time I walked up the stairs, I'd get this weird creepy goose bumps feeling on the back of my neck. It didn't make me uneasy to go down the stairs or to be in the basement. My craft room was down there and I spent a lot of time there. After a while, I'd have items I was using disappear when I looked away from them. I would search and search and one day I got frustrated and to no one in particular, I said, can I please have my scissors back? I just looked under the pile of new mail and when I turned my head, there were my scissors on top of the pile of mail. I talked to my neighbor and she told me that the original owner of the house was a jolly old man who loved to prank people and that he'd fallen coming up the stairs one day and died. I think the goose bumps were him trying to tell me to be careful and every time after that when something would disappear, I would politely ask for it back and it would appear in a place that I could not have missed it before. One night, Reddit user gndcd402 had an intense dream that a baby told them, please protect my sister, then showed them the image of a car crash between a silver Corolla, a car driven by gndcd402's friend and a black Ford Explorer. Well, 402 called their friend and asked her if she had a sister to which the friend replied, well my mom had a stillborn girl. 402 gave their friend a drive when she needed it that night and when they watched the news that night, they saw a report on a black Ford Explorer that was involved in an accident. When Reddit user zza-raging-clue-zz, we'll just call it Clue, was 16 or 17, he moved just into the new house when, let me try it again. When Raging Clue was 16 or 17, he just moved into a new house with his mother and sister. He had the bedroom in the basement about a month after moving in and he started noticing bizarre things. Hangers would sway as though there was a wind and he often heard light, unexplainable knocks in the middle of the night. It was creepy enough to make him move all of his belongings to the spare upstairs bedroom.   Over the next few months, he started hearing knocks and seeing objects move again. Slowly, it started getting stronger. Then whispers started. Then painful screams. Soon, it was happening every night without bail. One night, he was left alone while his mother was away for business and his sister slept at a friend's. It was 1 a.m. and very little was happening. Paranormally speaking, he was about to fall asleep when he heard a loud shriek of his name. He slept the rest of the night with the lights on. The next few months passed with only minor incidents, but then things got really crazy. Late one night, he was watching television in his room when his bed started shaking. At first, it was only a small tremor, so he ignored it. Then he began feeling something pulling at the covers from his, from the foot of his bed. A cold hand grabbed his ankle and tried dragging him. He screamed and his mom and sister came running. At that point, it was clear something very weird was going on. His mother called the people who sold them the house and told them what had happened. The former owners, although offering no reason for the intrusions, had their priest come to bless the house. The occurrences never fully stopped, but they did become much less frequent and intrusive after the blessing. Redditor S.J. Moore 86 was visiting a graveyard with some friends on Halloween. Right by the graveyard was a building which frequently housed restaurants, although restaurants in there often went out of business and at the time the building was abandoned. Surprisingly, the lights were on in the former restaurant, and a woman wearing a pink dress was watching them from the window. She appeared to be following where they walked from window to window, moving so fast that she was gliding. Finally, they started running, but she still appeared at each set of windows before them, watching closely. As Redditor BBQ Liggerish recounts, on the way to a church function in Iowa one late afternoon, a van driven by a youth pastor pulled over to aid a man walking alongside the road in the rain. When the pastor asked the gentleman where he was heading, the man stated his destination was just past the town that the group was heading towards, and so he joined them on their journey. As they drove, the storm picked up. The sky darkened and rain came down harder, so the group began to sing church songs together to keep the mood light. As the group drove past their destination and toward the stranger's destination, it was nearly impossible to see anything, but they kept going. Shortly after they were just outside the town, the stranger declared they'd arrived at his destination and that he wanted to get out, despite the fact that the rain was still coming down hard. Before exiting the vehicle, he asked the pastor for some money. The pastor gave the man four $100 bills, all the money he had on him. Just as the man exited the van, a crack of thunder drew everyone's attention away. When they turned back, both the man and the rain were gone. The group was understandably shocked, saying a prayer before heading back to town. As they drove closer, they realized that the community had been ravaged by a tornado that hit as they drove past it with the man in the car. Everyone in the van spent the day assisting those in need. Later that night, when the pastor pulled out his wallet, he found eight $100 bills. After Reddit user Mustanggold's grandmother passed away, their extended family participated in their typical ritual. The family creates a shrine for the dead, and at 7 p.m. for the first week after the death, they observe silence in order to allow the deceased to say goodbye. On the final day, a glass vase that had been safely sitting in its position for years fell and shattered during the hour of silence. The family was understandably a little shaken up, but things only got stranger when their aunt called. They'd been performing the ritual at her house when a door had suddenly slammed shut. The aunt's family had looked around all over but couldn't figure out what made the door suddenly close. Mustanggold says they're not sure something supernatural happened that day, but it sure was an alarming coincidence. Pirate Girl 79 sent this one. When I was 16 years old, babysitting was an additional source of income. And I was lucky enough to have many families in my area that needed a babysitter. A lady that babysat for quite often, a lady that I babysat for quite often, that is, asked me one day if I would mind caring for her sister's baby. She mentioned that her sister had a hard time keeping a babysitter. Well, of course, I thought it was due to the child. I didn't mind at all. I quickly accepted the job, meaning more income for myself and she was a super nice lady.  He didn't want to be bothered with the baby at all, and he was always in a mood. For the most part, he was away a lot. My first day, she made a point to tell me that the house was quirky, making a lot of strange noises and whatnot. She told me to call her if I had any problems. I thought it was strange, but dismissed it as just being because she was nervous to leave her baby with a new sitter. My first week was really uneventful. A few weird noises, but I just dismissed them. One distinctive thing that I remember about the house was that it was always dark. Even on the brightest day, it was always really dark. During the day, you still had to have the lights on, even with the curtains open. The baby who was only six months old had an acute rainbow nightlight. It was an older one that you manually had to use some force to click on and off. Once it lighted up some in the morning, I go and turn off the nightlight.  I went out to the living room to catch up on some homework, and as soon as I got settled, the baby started screaming. I rushed into his room. He was hysterical and the nightlight was on.  It wasn't a mistake or something I thought I did. I played it in my mind over and over and over again. I know that I turned that light off. I took the baby and comforted him. I was so disoriented and scared I didn't even try to turn it off again. I thought if something wants it on, it can be on. I didn't tell the mother about the nightlight. Every day she would come and ask me if everything was okay, and I knew she wasn't just talking about her son. Over the next few weeks, the experiences came more and more often. Lights turning on and off and doors closing by themselves. All of the events finally came to a peak. I was in the kitchen mixing oatmeal for the baby when, from behind, something tugged the bottom hem of my shirt and hard. It was so hard that my shirt tightened around my neck. I turned around and no one was there. I screamed and ran into the living room where the baby stared at me from his high chair like I was crazy. I didn't tell his mother about this either. I don't know why I didn't tell her. Maybe I was scared that she would think I was crazy, or maybe I just didn't want to bother her with it, or maybe I was just scared since I never told anyone. Finally, she and her husband moved out of the house that fall, making their stay only 10 months. I was the only babysitter who managed to be permanent during their time. I never discussed the events that happened there. Later, I did some research on the area. It's incredibly rural, and as a Souther, as you can get, and as Souther? As Southern, that's probably what she means. It's incredibly rural and as Southern as you can get. It also has a rich history in Indian tribes. While looking at the house, I discovered that during its construction, evidence of a full Indian burial site had been discovered. Sorry about the mistakes. They're probably destroying some of the stories. That's what you get for doing a live show. Okay, this one comes from a redditor. What you know about that? Saying, grew up in a house in an area that used to be prairie land. Over the years, they and their mother discovered a number of arrowheads on the land. Over time, they came to the realization that the house was haunted. Often, they'd hear inexplicable footsteps echoing throughout the home. One day, what you know about that's mom was out of town, so they invited a friend over. They hid it down to hang out in the basement, but noticed on their way down that every poster in the home was skewed slightly to the left. Each poster and picture on the wall, 10 or 15 and all, were slightly skewed. The door to the small storage room was also open with the light turned on. What you know about that crawled into the storage closet and called their mom to ask her if there was any explanation. Their mom didn't know what to say, she hadn't been in the basement for weeks before leaving on her trip. Just then, what you know about that looked into the storage bin and saw something they hadn't seen before, a mangled, distorted footprint in the dirt. After a Redditor J.W.A.L.S.C.'s older brother committed suicide, he was ravaged with guilt for failing to recognize the signs. About a week after his brother's service, he was back at work as a cop when he and his partner witnessed a crime in progress, a pimp pistol whipping a sex worker. The cop jumped out of the patrol car and began a foot chase, both guns in hand, with the pimp eventually cutting through a narrow building corridor that led to a courtyard. Right as the cop approached the courtyard, he heard a voice that sounded just like his brother saying, it's okay. He turned the corner to discover the pimp, holding a gun against his head. The cop froze as the criminal pulled the trigger twice. Then, the cop began to hit the criminal, then subdued him, handcuffed him, and brought him back to the partner. He told his partner about how the criminal's trigger had been pulled twice, but no shots fired. They opened the gun only to see that the bullets had strike marks on them, meaning they should have fired. He believes to this day, his brother's spirit stopped the bullets from firing. At about 3 a.m., Reddit user in a nutshell 210 woke from a dream in a room of complete darkness. But it was not this that made the moment unsettling. Rather, it was the shadow figure standing in the doorway, watching them. They sat up, glipped on the lights, and it was gone. Just like that. Could they have been caught in a sleepy haze and imagined the figure? Or had there really been something standing in the doorway? Well, that sounds like a sleep paralysis shadow person thing to me, don't you think? Gotta drink something, Katelyn. If you're hearing a squeak, it's the chair that I brought out here. My butt can't do the cold cement, so I had to bring out a chair. I don't think it likes it. I don't think it likes the cold either, because it's squeaking a lot. So I got bad knees, and it's got bad joints. All right, moving on here. We just did that one. So, okay, here we go. A couple of years ago, Redditor JB Harrow. JB Harrow, that's the way we'll pronounce that. JB Harrow, JB, was working the night shift and was on their way to work when they were stopped at a street light. Since there were no other cars or people around, they quickly got impatient with waiting around, and that was when they heard a knock on the passenger window. Outside stood an older man, seemingly around 60. They rolled down their window and asked if the man was okay. When he didn't answer, the Redditor, JB, asked again, but still got no response. Finally, he asked for a ride, saying that he only needed to go a few blocks. JD said yes, and turned up the heat after the man got in, noticing the man was shivering. After they'd been driving for a while, the man said that his name was Henry. JD asked once more if he was okay. Henry seemed drunk or ill. Henry sat still, saying nothing. After about 10 minutes of driving, Henry suddenly shouted, asking the driver to stop. Eerily, they were in the middle of nowhere with fields on either side. Sorry. Eerily, they were in the middle of nowhere with fields on either side. Henry climbed from the car and started walking down the street. He then suddenly stopped in the middle of the road and stood there, unmoving. Slowly, they started to drive away and, looking in the rear view mirror, they saw Henry following the car. Their attention briefly shifted down because of a notification on their phone. When they looked up again, Henry was gone. They sped to work and told a co-worker about the incident as soon as possible. Apparently, Henry is a regular and does this often, freaking out newcomers to the area. When Reddit user J227iffy woke up after an average night of sleep, there was nothing particularly unusual happening.  Then, they heard scratching and was overcome by an uncontainable sense of dread, panic, anxiety, and fear. A tingling sensation covered their body and goosebumps arose. They tried to turn in bed, but were frozen. Something in their gut said, this was not a kind spirit. Even after the presence left, the strange tingling sensation continued. At one nursing home, several new residents complained to staff and volunteers about other residents coming into their room at night. The problem? The new residents described former residents. Despite the fact that they never met these now deceased residents, new residents described small details like the color of their nightgowns and the shape of their glasses correctly. Staff has also experienced instances of flickering lights and TVs turning on and off by themselves. Redditor NerdGirl2 even had her own encounter walking down a hallway. On a rather hot day, she passed through an indoor corridor and got chills and goosebumps, which she couldn't shake for the rest of the day. Thanks to how often people were complaining about these strange occurrences, the management brought in somebody into a candlelight ceremony and sage cleansing, which seemed to cause the strangeness to cease. When Reddit user anons55 was about nine years old, they were driving with their aunt and sitting in the passenger seat. They looked out the window and saw a ghost. It was entirely white, with no outline, shape, or color, just a dim, see-through blob that floated behind the car, speeding up and slowing down to match the car's pace. It lingered for about five minutes before vanishing. They report being calm and uninterested. After a few minutes of staring, they looked away. This was the only time this user had experienced anything remotely paranormal and believes this is what ghosts look like in their natural form. Strange things have been happening in Redditor RedCody27's house for as long as they can remember. One night, they woke to the sound of someone standing just outside their room, the floor creaking under their weight. They closed their eyes and pretended to be asleep, hoping it would leave them alone. Whatever it was, entered the room and stopped right beside the bed. They could feel the presence there. They cracked open their eyes, hoping to still appear asleep while stealing a glimpse at the presence. A white figure stood in front of them. At first, they wanted to call to their brother, but they were too afraid to antagonize this ghost. Eventually, their eyes closed and when they opened them again a few minutes later, the figure was gone. Thinking their father's bedroom would be a safer place to sleep, they wrapped themselves in a blanket and made their way across the house. But when they entered the dining room, they felt as though several pairs of eyes were staring at them. They kept going until they reached the doors of the bedroom, but it was locked. Instead of going back to their room, they went into the living room and fell asleep. Around four in the morning, they woke again, and sitting on top of the television in the corner was the white figure. This time, it was clear the figure was an elderly woman. She was somewhat blurry, and her eyes were darker than her pale body. She said their name and tried coaxing them outside. They screamed, and the figure vanished. They hid under the blanket until morning. When daylight had come, they told the story to their family. Their brother believed every word, saying he had seen the exact same figure watching him sleep. When user 12D Richardson was 14, they found themselves home alone as their parents were out to dinner and their sister was away. They just had some tea and needed to use the restroom. As they were in the bathroom, the door creaked open. This was strange because they had closed it tight. They closed the door again, taking extra care to make sure that it was firmly locked in place. Then it opened again. They decided to open it completely, since they were the only one home, after all. And that was when they saw a ghostly, pale figure standing just outside their parents' room in the dark, across the hall from the bathroom. The figure stared for a few seconds, then vanished into thin air. In another story from JWALSC, a friend was doing his rounds, say, young medical intern, and looked in on a dying patient to ensure she was comfortable. After he left the room, the intern took a seat on a nearby chair to complete a patient report. When he looked up, he saw his patient walking out of her room and down the hall. The young doctor called out to her, but she didn't respond. When the intern stood up to follow his patient, she disappeared. Confused, the intern went back to the patient's room, which appeared to still have a light on. He opened the door to a pitch black room. He turned on a bedside table lamp and saw the patient back in her bed, quiet. When he checked her vitals, there was no sign of life. One day, Redditor T. Penning wasn't feeling very well, so they stayed home from work. They were in bed asleep on their back with a pillow over their face when they heard their door open. They were still half asleep, so they didn't fully register the door being open.  They jumped and heard the sound of retreating footsteps, but the pillow was still over their head, so they couldn't see who or what it was. The footsteps sounded more like a light pitter patter than actual human footsteps. Assuming it was their mother home from lunch break, they at first thought nothing of it. Checking their phone, they saw it was only 10 a.m., much too early for their mom to be home. As they were sitting in bed, exactly what had happened began to settle in and they started getting really nervous. Suddenly, the door opened. They ran from their room through a different door that led outside and called their mother. She came home and they looked through the house together. While they were looking, the door handle to a closet started to jiggle violently, freaking both of them out. That night, the two told the writer's stepfather, who at first didn't believe them. He only started to after weird things started happening all over the house, pans flying across the kitchen, stuff randomly falling from the walls, and the new cat freaking out for no apparent reason. Redditor Charlie Baumhauser recounted living in a battered women's shelter after his parents split in an ugly divorce. His father was granted custody despite the fact that he had abused the children, so mom and kids ran to Washington. While they were staying in a shelter in Washington, a man began appearing at the edge of Charlie's bed. He looked kind and watched over Charlie all night but never spoke, until one night when the man woke Charlie up, shocking him. The man said, he's coming, get out now. Charlie told his mother and they immediately packed up and went to a hotel for the night. When they checked back the next day, someone had broken in and clearly gone room to room looking for the family. After that, the man never appeared again. The house that Redditor KRH-21 grew up in was ancient. When they were about eight, they started seeing strange shadows and hearing noises. Their parents would dismiss the accounts as part of their imagination. Most were unsettling, but nothing was ever too scary. One night, three years ago, they were laying on their couch with the door open when they got the feeling that they were being watched. No matter how hard they tried, they couldn't shake the feeling. Then the hairs on the back of their neck stood up and they knew something wasn't. Oh, sorry. Then the hairs on the back of their neck stood up and they knew something was right behind them.  They screamed and jumped up and ran out of the room. On the morning 20 years ago, Redditor BIG GREEN YAMMO woke up and discovered a pentagram scraped in the frost of their second floor bedroom window. When they found outside their window, what they found that is outside their window made it even weirder. On the second floor roof, there were three footprints between the edge of the window and the window, a 10-foot space. However, there were no footprints on the snow around the ground leading up to the second floor. Sorry, I'm struggling again here. Let me get another sip of water. And that can is empty. Okay, let me, hang on a second. I'm probably not doing myself any favors by drinking carbonated water. Sure enough, you're going to hear a giant burp from me soon. But I only got a couple more stories left, so maybe I can survive. We'll see. All right. Okay. One night, Redditor H. H. Erd, or H. Herd, I guess we'll say. One night, Redditor Herd was at a friend's house. She was downstairs watching a movie and the friend was upstairs playing video games. Feeling neglected, she fell asleep despite feeling deeply uncomfortable like she was being watched. She went back to sleep after asking her friend if he'd be coming to bed soon. When she woke again, it was to someone touching her face saying, don't worry, love. I'll be down soon. She disregarded it as a dream and went back to sleep. Then she woke again by the same voice was awoken again by the same voice saying, I know, I know, I keep using this excuse. I'm coming soon. I really do miss you. This time she knew something wasn't right. She got out of bed and searched the entire downstairs area, but found nothing. She heard snoring upstairs and knew her friend was sound asleep. Since it was now seven in the morning, she got ready and left for work. The next time they were together, she asked her friend if he had been messing with her that night. He said no, but at that moment a song came on the car radio that sounded exactly like the voice. She asked who the singer was and he said that it was his best friend's band. His best friend had been the lead singer but had committed suicide a year before. They'd lived together for a while and most of his stuff was still in the house. It appears that at least his dead ghost's friend hadn't wanted her to be alone. Redditor excited for nothing was babysitting for her sister when she experienced something odd. After leaving her young niece and her bouncer while she went to the kitchen for a glass of water, the woman heard her niece giggling and laughing. She assumed it was her sister's chocolate labs playing with the young girl, but soon the room she was in grew cold.  It made the woman jump and she rushed into the room where her niece was. What she found freaked her out. The room was also cold and smelled of Stetson Cologne. Meanwhile, the dogs were huddled in a corner of the room, whimpering as the young girl stared at a corner of the ceiling wide-eyed. Quickly scooping up her niece, the young woman took them both to a different room. When her sister returned home, she explained what had happened, to which her sister rolled her eyes and calmly replied, That's Hugh. Apparently Hugh was the former owner of the house who had died in the home ten years before his wife had sold it. Hugh had a habit of following the baby around the house, making his presence known by freaking out the dogs and smelling of cheap cologne. And that's the last story. Thanks for listening. Feel free to drop me a note anytime with your questions or comments. You can email me at darren at weirddarkness.com, darren is spelled D-A-R-R-E-N, so that's darren at weirddarkness.com. You can also find all of my social media on the Contact page of the website. If you want to help the podcast, be sure to subscribe if you haven't already done so, and leave a review of the show in the podcast app you listen from. But more important than anything, please share the podcast.  You can also vote for Weird Darkness in the hot 50 countdown in Podcast Magazine every day I upload an episode. To vote, follow the link in the show notes, or click on Vote at WeirdDarkness.com. Do you have a dark tale to tell of your own? Fact or fiction, click on Tell Your Story on the website, and I might use it in a future episode. All stories in Weird Darkness are purported to be true unless stated otherwise, and you can find source links or links to the authors in the show notes. Weird Darkness is a production of Marlar House Productions. Copyright Weird Darkness 2021. And now that we're coming out of the dark, I'll leave you with a little light. First John 4 verse 18. There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. And a final thought. It's great to be happy, but it's even better to bring happiness to others. I'm Darren Marlar. Thanks for joining me in the forest and in the Weird Darkness.


What is the relationship between community and identity? We're honored to have Melvin Layman with us today. Melvin is a pastor, a farmer, a teacher, a husband, a father, and a grandfather. We are here to talk about community and identity. So to begin, Melvin, what is community as it pertains to church? Define community. Very good question, Jerron. This is a question that has fascinated me and I've tried to define, and this will just be another shot at trying to define an idea that really is not all that easy to define. I'll just read a kind of a written definition I've given to that. The Christian community is a people group with shared values, underscore some of these important words, shared values, shared space, think geography, think where we live, shared goals, and shared commitments, all rooted in a first loyalty to Jesus, the head of the church individually and corporately. And I just want to, throughout this interview, I want those terms to be understood as community terms. They help to define a community, shared values, space, goals, commitments, but anchored in Christ. If it's a Christian community, it must be anchored there. But those four are the ones I would propose as helping to identify for at least my definition of community and a few comments I'd like to make as we go along. Good. Thank you. That is a good concise starting point. I think that many Mennonites and other Anabaptists feel a strong sense of identity with either their local community or the broader Anabaptist community. So talk about the relationship between community and identity. What helps foster the sense of identity in conjunction with their community? I can't help but comment on a book that is not an Anabaptist book, but a number of my friends said we read at school, FB occasionally dips into this book. It's Wendell Berry's stuff. I'm particularly going to reference his book, Hannah Coulter. I think it's one of the better commentaries on the connection between community and identity. Wendell's a Christian, I think, but when I read him, I kind of wonder sometimes where he's actually at, but an excellent analysis of the intersection between community and identity. I don't sell the book, so I don't make any money off of it, but if you want to read a good book that gives you kind of a, it's a novel, it's a story that gives you a good feel of the connection between community and identity. I'd recommend that one. But beyond that, in answer to the question, and according to the psychologist, and I suppose they're right on this when they say a fundamental question that every person has to answer for themselves is, who am I? I have found it interesting just to observe how people answer that question in various places. So, Sheila and I have been in Poland a number of times due to the mission we have over there. And when so, somebody asked me over there, total stranger. So, who are you? It's fascinating how I answer that question there, to who I am. I answer it differently, when I say differently, I don't mean one of them was a true representation, the other one untrue, but I answer differently. If I'm traveling in the United States and my wife and I stop at a Walmart somewhere and here there's a Mennonite couple in there and we bump into them and they ask, well, who are you? Then I identify myself differently. So, this question of who am I is a big question. You might call it the question of identity. In my other life, that is when I was young, my community was much smaller. My exposure was much less than what it is today. And it was much easier to answer who I am and the community identity. I'm from Chambersburg, I attend Strasburg Mennonite Church, I grew up on a dairy farm. I start into that kind of lingo in identifying who I am. We tend to have this strong sense of identity, probably stronger than many. I think it's deeply embedded in our culture, in our practices, which I know you're going to get to that question. I value that community identity. This is where I belong. The people who have the strongest sense of who they are are people who have been rooted in communities deeply and they know something about how they've been formed, shaped, and made and they're not reacting to it, they're not fighting that, they're living out of it. My conclusion is, or my general thought is that people who have a strong identity tend to be strong people and they have something to give. And that identity is almost always rooted deeply in a community that has nurtured them and they have not rejected that nurture. They maybe didn't adopt the entire piece, but they didn't reject it, they received it and lived out of it. That's the connection I see. Fruitfulness is adented, is connected to my identity as it has been lived out in community. You did not hear me say that's the only way one may be fruitful, but it's a powerful way for fruitfulness to emerge in a person's life. Just think of the term roots rooted, gives you capacity to bear fruit. So I'm supposing that community has something to do with shared practices too. So I'm curious if you could talk about the concrete practices that make Anabaptist churches full-orbed communities and not just religious gatherings. I think I'll approach it by just simply talking about those terms I used to begin with. So shared values, shared space, shared goals, shared commitments rooted in loyalty. So if you just took those one by one and thought about practices that are associated with them, I'm a history teacher, so I know I'm biased here. Are people have an interest in their roots historically? Not everybody, I know, but that's something pretty distinct about us. We have a distinct history. We have distinct stories and our values grow out of those. An example I would use here that most of us can easily relate to.  Every generation tells the next generation that. I don't think it's news to you that the Anabaptist community is probably quite unique in their non-resistant position, some may call it that or unconditional love or refusal to take up arms at least. That's a unique value we hold. Well, what's the connection? Why? How come? I say it's a really concrete practice to say I'm not going off to the military. I'm going to try very hard to love my neighbor and my enemy. That's a concrete practice that grows out of a very strong value. That value is rooted in how we feel, like our commitment to Jesus Christ, and we carry that value forward in stories. So it's a concrete value based in scripture, and I'm willing to defend that. In addition to that, we've created stories around it so that it gets carried forward from one generation to the next. Hence, I reference the Dirk Willem's story, which perhaps not everybody who's listening to us will know that story, but I'd invite them to at least take a look at it. We'll link to it. There's a very concrete practice related to values. There are many like that that I could reference. It relates to the next term I've used in that space. This is unique, I think, to Mennonites. I'm not sure, and I smile here because I know, again, I have a penchant for this type of thing, and our people are moving away from it. I understand. It's space, geography, so that goes right directly to our interest in community. Your first question, so what is community? Well, part of it is geography. Those who know our history know that we almost all were farmers, not all that far back, and lived farm to farm. My best friend, to this day, is likely my best friend because he grew up in the same church, and he grew up on the farm next door, and we went swimming together, and we fished together, and we got into a little trouble off and on together as well. Why did all of that happen? Well, we lived right next door to each other. I could easily go off on a rant here, and I have to be careful about this, because I'd be misunderstood, but I might as well just sort of put it out there. I know there are two sides to this coin of geographical space and community, and I'm arguing to say that, well, you've got to live in some kind of close proximity to each other, and if you really want to experience what I think is a fullness of the fellowship of the believers. You did not hear me say it can't be experienced otherwise, but there's a richness that is associated with that. Jesus taught us to go and preach to all nations, and we picked up on that, I think, in good ways. We've gone to other areas of the world, spread out, you might say, and we've been confronted with this difficulty of, well, what happens when you're loosened out of your community and you're dumped into another culture entirely, and then what? I don't think we should abandon that by any means, and I want to be very clear on that. Part of the reason for strong community is to give you a capacity then to spread your wings that go elsewhere, but I'm arguing that as we have gotten so interested in this and that and the other thing, if we neglect this core community that actually needs the space, the church house. Interestingly, my grandfather refused to call the building we gathered in the church. He called it the meeting house. He said, Melvin, that place up there where we gather is not the church. The church is the people. The meeting house is where we meet, but you know how important meeting houses have been to us? It's like, well, we need a place that we can actually gather together physically and pray together and worship together. I can't help but touch on the COVID issue. We immediately felt that the impact of not meeting on a regular basis of talking space and uniqueness and what we care about and the values associated with it. While there it was, we pastors immediately began to feel uneasy. It's like, what? We're not going to meet together for whatever's worth. Zoom doesn't cut it. It's not geographic community. Geographic community is different than the community of social media. Here again, we could get off onto a rant, but we'll just let it lay there for whatever's worth. That's not going to do. The social media will not produce what I'm talking about. So concrete practice of living in close community, of providing the meeting places where we actually gather, we make it a point to fellowship with each other in the flesh is, I think, very important. A concrete practice among us is that if we confront some difficulty or problem or even opportunity, we're committed to each other in such a fashion that we will bring whatever issues we have, whether they be positive issues or negative issues, we will bring them to the brothers, to the congregation, the brothers and the sisters to gather body, and at the end of the day, we will submit to the gathered body. In my mind, this has been a unique way for us to solve our differences, to try to figure out what direction we're going, to just whatever we confront. That's kind of at the bottom of it. It's saying, look, we believe that God can, through the congregation, through the gathered body of believers, actually give us concrete direction about what we ought to be doing. Hence, we put a fair amount of confidence in the Holy Spirit moving in the group to help me solve my issues, to help the group solve their issues. The most important point is that at the end of the day, when we have agreed that this is the direction we're going or this is what the plan is, then we are all committed to that and we will all submit to it. I know that word is not well-liked, but that's the general idea. The reason I raise that issue specifically is we forever are wanting to get off onto the specifics, whether it be some form of conservative dress, what kind of building are we going to build, or how much money are we allowed to spend on cars, or how do we define modesty? We can get off on those pieces and hammer them to death, and I don't know, just get into endless disputes. But they would not be endless disputes if we stuck with that original concept that I'm in this community, I'm in this brotherhood, I've committed to this brotherhood, unless they just derail from what God has said in his word, and so on. I'm committed, I will submit myself to the decisions the brothers make. Now, you're going to hear me return to that point here a couple of times in some of these questions because it is unique, I think, and the concrete practice of trying to live that out under the worship of Christ is not an easy thing to do, but I'm committed to it personally and hope to be a part of a congregation that is committed to that. And I just want to underscore yet that the last point I had made on the community was that never forgetting that our first loyalty is to Jesus Christ and to his headship over us. And so just setting that in there to we're not talking about an unconditional submission to a brotherhood that whatever they say I'll do, but as the brotherhood is operating under the worship of Christ, coming together and making specific decisions, my heart goes with him. Well, that's very good. Thank you so much for engaging with these questions that we've presented. Like you've alluded to, we will be recording several episodes around this theme, this topic of community and culture. We'll end this episode here, but come back in the coming weeks and months and there will be several more episodes with Melvin to develop these ideas further. Thank you for joining us for this episode, and thanks to our donors and partners for making this possible. For more episodes, please subscribe or visit our website at anabaptistperspectives.org. You can also leave a comment or review to help more people find our content.


I really don't understand why Jesus died, like if he was God then why didn't he just strike down the Romans and just walk away? Here's the thing, in the Old Testament it was prophesied that there would be a Messiah that would come to earth to sacrifice himself for the sake of his people. But when Jesus came to earth, the Jews thought he was going to be a political Messiah that would deliver them from the hands of the Romans. But his plan was so much grander than that. Okay, but what could be greater than defeating the Romans? Jesus' enemy wasn't merely physical, but rather spiritual. He wanted to save us from spiritual death. Spiritual death? You see, because of our rebellion, we are dead in our sins and guilty before God. But Jesus came to this earth to bear the weight, the punishment that we deserve for our sins against God. So that we could be forgiven, have a restored relationship with God, and be made into new creations in Christ. Through his death, all who believe in him will be given eternal life that we don't deserve.