2. Lighting Up The Sky
We had lightning hit our (completely unused) doghouse less than 5 meters from the house. The resounding boom which literally shook the cabin I live in was terrifying. I didn't even want to go outside, but I was too scared to stay alone in the cabin, so while the thunder was rumbling, I made a dash for the main house where everyone was on alert because it had rattled all the windows.
The next day seeing the scorch marks on the doghouse, we realized why it had been so loud and spooked us all. We felt that boom on a primal level I swear.
3. Growling Dogs May Bite
I had an experience with wild dogs in Afghanistan when taking out the trash from the chow trailer to the burn pit. I had a couple trash bags on my back, filled with food scraps, when a pack of them started growling at me from the dark. I couldn’t see them in the shadows of the pit, but sure as anything could hear them.
I dropped the bags at the top of the pit and backed away only to hear another group between me and the gate to the camp. I stood there in the middle of a mountain valley, coming to the reality that my first firefight may be with a group of wild dogs. I prepared to retaliate, turning to where the sound was coming from, and listened.
I heard the sound of their feet kicking up sand as they ran away. I believe the metallic noise of me preparing to retaliate spooked them. I never questioned the policy of being prepared with gear to take out the trash again.
4. Siren Song
I had just arrived in Cyprus, having landed at like midnight. I was staying with friends in their guest bedroom, and after close to 24 hours of travel, I was dead to the world. But, then the air raid sirens started. It was 5 am and I thought that war had broken out. I hid under the bed, and it felt like it went on forever.
But, then I slowly realized no one else seemed to be reacting to the sirens. No one outside screaming, no jets were actually flying overhead. There was nothing. It turns out it was the annual commemoration of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, and my friends forgot to tell me. This certainly wasn’t an ideal way to find out.
Wikimedia Commons, Ben Franske
5. Empty Vessels Do Make A Lot Of Noise
I was driving home from work one day. It was nighttime and dark out. I was super zoned out driving, listening to some podcast, just trying to unwind from work. From my backseat, I heard what I thought was a jacket moving so I thought there was someone in the backseat. As a girl living in a big city, I immediately thought that someone was there ready to kill me.
The feeling that sound gave me was a feeling that I had never felt before. I felt my heart drop to my stomach and my hands froze to the steering wheel. My whole body froze as though just waiting for something to happen. My foot froze too, and I took my foot off of the accelerator. It was kind of like waiting for an impact.
After only hearing silence, I turned around and turned on the light. It turns out it was just an empty grocery bag that I had in the backseat that fell to the floor. It was one of the reusable ones so it sounded like someone who was wearing a windbreaker was moving. That was why it felt like someone was there ready to kill me.
It took me a few minutes to gather my composure. I rolled down the windows to get some air and everything. It’s crazy what your body does when it thinks you’re in danger.
6. Cool It
I used to have a window air conditioner about a foot from my bed right by my head. One night, it had ice built up inside and some fell off into the fan that blows the cold air out. I woke up to an extremely loud BANG, and my face got sprayed with mist from the ice. For a moment I thought someone had broken in and had shot my wife and that was gore spraying on me. It scared me out of my wits of me until I realized what had happened.
7. Who’s There?
The scariest sound that I have ever heard is my bedroom door slowly opening. It wasn't just creaking from the hinges that got me. I heard the latch from the doorknob snap free from the door frame. I swear it sounded like somebody opened the door to rob me, kill me, or both. It turns out my bedroom door didn't shut all the way. The window unit in the living room was turned on and the change in the air pressure forced my bedroom door open.
8. Hike No More
I am hiking in the woods behind my brother’s house, about a quarter of a mile away from anyone. It's starting to get dark so I know it's time to turn around and go home. It's then that I hear the sound of a mountain lion scream. It sounds like a woman being ripped in half and I can't even begin to guess the distance from me.
It may be 100 ft or it could be even right behind. I just know that the sound is still ringing in my ears and I suddenly want to lose bowel control. I've never run back home so fast. I'll never forget that sound.
9. Hear Me Roar
I was backpacking with a friend out in Colorado at Golden Gate Canyon National Park. We were deep in the backcountry portion (near the top of the mountain in Forgotten Valley if you've been there). I was yelling random things at a cliffside, listening to my echo, when my buddy suddenly grabbed my shoulder and whispered at me to be quiet.
Before I could ask him what was wrong, we heard a bear roar right behind the treeline where we were. I’ve never felt my blood "run cold" so to say, but it definitely did then.
10. Airing Out The Dirty Laundry
It's 3 am and me and hubby are asleep. The dog is on his pillow in the corner of the bedroom, snoring, while the cat is God knows where, when there is a massive BANG and the whole house shakes. It felt like someone had just used a battering ram with a massive force and determination on the front door. Hubby flies out of bed and races to the front door while I start dialing 9-1-1.
I can hear him checking the entire house, including the basement and the garage. Then I hear him say, "Good job, bud...Are you kidding me!?!" and he comes back into the bedroom. It turns out that cheap landlords and living near a set of train tracks is a horribly bad combination. This combination caused this terrible scare.
The landlord had hung a cabinet over the washer and dryer hookups using basic screws and a bunch of washers. The result was that only about a quarter of an inch at the tip of the screws actually made it into the studs. The trains going by every night over the years wiggled it loose until it finally decided to come crashing down.
A 45 kgs (100 lbs) cabinet came right down onto our washer and dryer. It, then, bounced off and hit the wall, firmly embedding itself in it. This is what caused the bang. The washer and dryer survived but we are definitely battle-scarred. It also sucks even more because the washer and dryer were ours, not the aforementioned landlord's.
Oh, and the, "Good job, bud...Are you kidding me!?!"Apparently, hubby heard nails on the floor behind him as he checked the house. When he turned around to praise the dog, he found out that it was actually our 7 lb tabby cat behind him. She was fully puffed, walking sideways with her claws out, ready to mess up whoever woke her up.
We found our 45 lb. marshmallow of a dog on my side of the bed hiding under the overhanging blanket.
11. Showdown
I was in a motel in Australia, in a top-floor room that has some trees above it, sleeping lightly just after midnight. Suddenly, Boom came the sound of someone jumping down onto the roof, followed by a second boom a moment later. There was nothing then for a few seconds...until there was the sound of two demons screeching, their hooves scrabbling for purchase on the tiles above, trying to tear at the roof.
It turns out that possums will fight for territory on rooftops, and it was two of these guys having a fight.
12. Get The Door, Please
The noise of a metal door creaking and slamming closed is one of the scariest sounds that I have ever heard. Once I was staying at my grandparents' place. My room there is right above the entrance hallway (they live in an old tower block built from 1968 to 1972). At the entrance of the hallway, there's a heavy metal door that often slams shut or open pretty loudly.
One night, as I was trying to fall asleep, I heard a creaking noise, followed by the telltale "WHAM!" of the door. This jostled me awake. This was followed by the creaking noise again. I promptly opened up the blinds to see who it was outside. No one was here, yet the door was wide open, and the hallway lights were off.
It stood open like this for about 2 minutes before slamming shut, but this time it slammed with more force than usual, making a loud, resonating "wham" that even woke up some tenants. We still have no idea what caused the door to open by itself that night. It's a fairly heavy and thick steel door, and it's held shut by a few electromagnets, so unless someone turned off the power to these magnets the door can't just magically open itself.
On a recent Christmas Eve, it did that again with the same creaking and slamming. No one was there in the hallway.
13. Open Season
We live in the country and occasionally get big packs of coyotes coming through. I remember one summer you'd hear them running and yelping almost every night. One night my friends are out and we're sitting on the road and we start to hear the coyotes in the field off across the road. Our dog is kind of paying attention but he hears it so often he doesn't really do much more than bark once or twice and stare.
Then it all goes quiet. It didn't fade away like they were traveling away from us. They just stopped dead, no noise. Then one coyote trots out under the yard light and it's just staring at my dog. My dog starts growling. The coyote walks away out of the light for maybe a minute or so and then trots back into the light and yelps a bit and stares at my dog. Now my dog starts barking and the coyote leaves the light again.
I crawl into the house and go down and out the door. By the time that I get out there, the coyote is right there, sitting under the light. It’s staring at my dog and my dog’s going absolute bonkers. I get a hold of her collar and I'm trying to calm her down. Finally, I just drag her back into the house and shut the door firmly.
I go back up and sit with my friends on the roof and the coyotes start howling again. They were there just off in the darkness and had sent one to try to bait my dog into coming out away from the house. Coyotes can be incredibly smart.
14. A Hair-Raising Tale
I was lying on my bed, watching telly and I could hear a weird scraping sound. I turned the telly’s sound off and listened. There was nothing so I shrugged it off and went back to watching the telly. Five minutes or so passed by and I could hear this scraping again. So, I turned the sound off, got up, turned my bedroom light on to look, and what do I see?
The biggest spider I've ever seen in my life. It turns out that this spider was big enough that I could hear its leg scraping the coving between my wall and my ceiling. It was loud enough to be heard even over my telly. I was, thankfully, able to trap it in a jug and then took it and threw it out into a neighbor’s yard.
15. The Silence Before The Storm
I knew exactly what it was when I heard it. I have been to a couple of NASCAR races, and the restarts are pretty quiet from a fan perspective. The whole crowd hushes so they can focus on the action. What you end up hearing is what sounds like a combination of a freight train and tornado. The sound isn't the engines, but the sound their air makes as the pack is pushing the air out of the way.
I heard the same noise when I was at a cider mill with my family, and a kid was running away from the cops at over 100mph down a country road. We weren't but 40 feet away from the road. I grabbed my kids and threw them down to the ground near to where our car was. I had to put something between them and the car. I heard the freight train, then the briefest of burps on the gas, then silence.
The kid caught the soft shoulder, clipped the ditch, and went airborne. It went from straight freight train to dead silence till the car flew a football field and landed on its roof. Suddenly, I was on the phone calling for help, and other people were rushing to the car. The story did not have a happy conclusion.
16. Popping In
One time, during a run through the woods, I slipped on the mud and heard my knee pop out of place in a set of pops and snaps. That sound still haunts my nightmares. I regained my footing and got a few extra steps to lean against a tree and keep my weight off of it, where I proceeded to eject my lunch upon the ground because of the nauseating sound of having a kneecap pop out of place and then back in place. After I finished emptying my stomach, I started walking back home.
17. My Kingdom For A Drop Of Water
The other night my wife and I woke up to this terrible screaming sound coming from the basement. It was about as loud as a vacuum cleaner, and had this weird pulse to it. I grabbed a frying pan from the kitchen and went downstairs, just to find that the cats had knocked over their fancy water-circulating bowl, and the pump had burnt itself out running dry. The motor was making the noise.
18. Washing Away My Worries
I was home alone and about to go upstairs when I suddenly heard this pushing/scraping sound at the front door. It was like someone was rubbing gloved hands all over it or something. Our porch door is glass and the main front door has a window. Even though that window is heavily frosted, I was so scared that I couldn't walk past the front door to get to the stairs.
This would have allowed me to look at the source from an upstairs window. Instead, I sunk down to the floor against a wall and called my grandpa (who lives two streets away) and he walked over. It turns out it was just the window cleaner, who has a silent agreement with my mum that he cleans the windows whenever he's making the rounds and my mum pays him whenever he next catches her at home.
19. Who’s There?
I was sitting in our dining room one night in high school. It was hot so we had the windows open but the blinds closed. I was sitting less than a foot from the window at the table with my back to it. I was concentrated on reading when, all of a sudden, I heard this light scraping sound and what sounded like the creaking of someone leaning on the windowsill.
My whole body froze up because I was going through an issue of some boy from school following me around and I was terrified that he had found my house since he lived somewhere nearby. I sat there for a long time, listening, and almost convinced myself that I hadn’t heard anything. And then, I heard the most godawful bang ever.
I'm home alone, my dogs are now freaking out too and I'm thinking that this fool has really come for me. Finally, I got the courage to turn on the patio light and to peek out to see if my fears had come true. What did I see? A baby raccoon had been perched on the windowsill and fell into the recycling bin that we kept under the window.
20. Are You Chicken?
When I was staying in the countryside with my grandmother, I heard in the early morning what sounded like chickens. I never thought anything of it as she lives in a tiny village and people keep chickens. I figured some had just gotten out. However, the sounds got more and more distorted until they had blended into one sound that sounded like distorted screams.
I never found out what made that noise. It stayed directly outside my window for a while before moving on and getting more and more distant. The curtains were closed but the light was on.
21. Marching On
A stampede in the outback of Queensland. That was the scariest sound that I ever heard. We had a large paddock housing a good 500+ head of cattle. There was a light storm but nothing unusual in the distance. However, something spooked the herd. The whole herd. First, you heard some alarmed mewling of the cows in the distance. Then, something broke and they started running.
Over 500 head in a herd ran, coming towards us in the dark. We were outside the house, having a smoke but hearing those hooves beating ground made us stamp the smokes out and get inside. They broke down the paddock fence to just start streaming past the house like a bovine river of destruction. If we’d been caught out where they were running it would have been certain curtains.
The absolute thunder of their hooves was deafening. The initial rumble in the distance came up through the ground, through your feet, and into your chest. It was pure dread.
22. Stealthy Isn’t Always Quiet
Those little raccoons, so fond of rummaging, aren’t always so quiet. They are cunning and determined and not afraid of making noise. How do I know? The raccoons stealing filet mignons out of my cooler sounded like sinister babies being tickled. I had even wedged the cooler under the truck. They pulled out the cooler, opened it, and only stole our steaks.
23. Rumble In The Dark
When my baby was a couple of months old, she was in the crib next to the bed that I was sleeping in. My two dogs were on the bed with me. I woke up to the normally quiet dog sitting straight up next to my head. She was growling this low, long growl. It was so mean and scary. I had never heard anything like it ever before.
I looked to the bedroom door and I saw a round shape coming in the door. It seemed to be at the average human head height. Holy frig! It was a balloon, leftover from having a new baby a couple of months prior. It had started to lose its helium and traveled down the hallway right into the bedroom. Scared me and my dog! My heart still races when I think of it.
24. Mirror, Mirror, On The Wall
The sound of a giant mirror crashing against the floor while I was sleeping scared me out of my wits. It sounded like all the windows in my house had exploded. My sister started screaming as she was using the bathroom downstairs when the mirror fell. It, luckily, avoided her. Waking up to these noises, I started screaming too and was hyperventilating while not even knowing what was happening.
I thought there was an intruder, or an explosion of some sort. I yelled to my sister, ran, and saw the pieces of glass all over the living room. It was the scariest moment of my life, and my sister could’ve easily been hit by the glass. My mom somehow slept through all of it.
25. Tiny Things Pack A Punch
I used to read a lot about things like aliens, UFOs, and ghosts. Once, in the middle of the night, a scratching noise coming from the hallway woke me up. It sounded as though someone was slowly walking through the hallway and scratching the walls as they walked along. I heard it scratching my parent’s door, then the guestroom door and after that the bathroom door.
My door was the next one so I feel a cold sweat down my spine. I couldn't move. I have never been so scared in my whole life. At that moment, I thought that it was the most obvious thing in the world: An alien was going to abduct me. My door was not entirely closed, and it started to move slowly as the scratching sound continued.
What was that sound? My hamster. Somehow this furry critter had managed to escape his cage and was trying to find a place to hide. That's where the scratching came from.
26. Just Twist
I used to live in a renovated little section of a warehouse converted to a three-room apartment. Two large storage sections were still used for storage, but I had my cozy little spot. This was also directly located on a state highway with a large gravel patch in front that I got used to people thinking they could park on whenever they wanted.
This behavior was quite a bit weird at first but after the umpteenth time of telling people to get off private property one simply learns to let it go. This apartment was also outside the city limits by a couple of miles, and so I was somewhat isolated and surrounded only by the highway and trees in all directions.
Cut to one evening, around 2 am, I am sitting in my living room, lights off, watching a movie on my television. Along the wall to my right-hand side is my front door and three large windows that cover most of the wall. The doorknob starts moving. Slowly at first, like little test twists. Then it starts getting turned far more aggressively. Someone was not being subtle about trying to get in.
I am freaking out, not really sure what to do but still bolt up and grab something to potentially swing at someone, because if they REALLY wanted in, they could easily break one of the multiple huge windows. The knob turning, finally, subsides and I am left to deal with a borderline heart attack and an utterly sleepless night.
Never, ever forget to lock your doors, folks. Every little deterrent counts.
27. Out Of The Pan
My roommate burned his hand once. A pan with some oil in it started smoking and he went to take it outside so as not to set off the smoke alarm. The screen door slammed on it and spilled the oil all over his hand. But, the scream he made. I’ll never forget it. It was like all of the air had escaped from his body all in an instant, and afterward, he was still trying to scream even though there was nothing left to actually push the noise out.
28. They Still Walk
I used to live next to an abandoned asylum, surrounded by trees and stuff. A few times a week there was this terrifying screaming kind of sound from the forests. I was 14 and my bedroom window looked straight into this place, I don’t think I slept well for the first few months that we lived there. It sounded like a woman screaming and I couldn’t get that image out of my head.
It turns out it’s a bird.
29. Movie Night: The Complete Theatre Experience
I was 18, home alone in my parents’ house for a month when everyone else, which meant my parents and my sister, was away on vacation during the summer. I had stayed back to work. I was sitting in the basement, watching a movie with the cat curled up on my lap when, all of a sudden, the cat started absolutely freaking out.
She sat bolt upright and was staring at the back door, which was behind me. I heard some footsteps and spooky creaking behind us and the cat started freaking out more and the fur along her tail and spine started standing up. Then, I heard creaking RIGHT behind me and freaked out and turned around to see....exactly nothing.
It turns out that I forgot the surround sound was on and the cat and I were just hearing the footsteps from the movie being projected behind us.
30. Shhhhhhhh….
Utter and complete silence. Nothing has scared me more and nothing has felt louder. My boyfriend at the time came home from deployment and picked me up in the middle of a horrific thunderstorm. He was beyond exhausted, and if we weren't both 19, we would have never been driving in the first place when there was such a thunderstorm outside.
We were driving along the highway, and suddenly there was an incredibly blinding flash, a weird feeling of all the hair on my body standing on end, sudden absolute silence, and my door window exploded in all over me. My boyfriend checked if I was okay, then we decided to just finish driving to his place, and we went in and fell asleep.
We woke up to realize we still couldn’t hear anything, and went to check the car. There was a weirdly bubbly textured circle right over the passenger seat, with no paint on it. Additionally, the paint for a good 30-45 cms (12-18 inches) was all weirdly bubbled and cracked. We checked out the door, and the rubber seals were rather melted. The car radio and some other electronics were completely toast.
It turned out that we were hit by lightning. That complete silence was a combination of sudden hearing damage, and a noise so loud you can't even really understand it as noise because it was beyond the range of human hearing. That was over 20 years ago, and I still have minor hearing loss and tinnitus from that, and both of my eardrums are scarred. 0/10, absolutely would not recommend.
31. No Laughing Matter
I leapt out of my SKIN one night—literally jumped a foot in the air and nearly started running—when I heard a deep, hellish chortling coming from the bushes on my way home while getting off the bus. I thought that it was some crazy jerk (it’s NYC, so something like that is not that uncommon) trying to scare the mind out of me.
However, the noise was just a bit too strange for me to place as entirely human, and I couldn’t tell where it was in the bushes. Then the bus pulled away from the stoplight and I realized what it was. It turns out that it was something to do with the bus’s breaks as it drove away. It made the same noise when it pulled away from the stoplight.
32. Floating In The Air
This happened a couple of weeks ago. For my birthday my best friend gave me a helium happy birthday balloon. I didn’t want to throw it away as it was still floating and in a good shape so I just put it in my closet. Fast forward, I’m putting away my laundry in the closet and the string got stuck to my sweater or something.
I remember I put the balloon back in the closet when I was done and, most importantly, closed the door completely. Later that night, my boyfriend and I get ready for bed. I turned on my fan, as I always do and went to sleep. We woke up scared out of our minds at like 3 or 4 am to banging sounds. It sounded like someone was trying to break in.
My boyfriend was scared and confused and I was screaming. My room is pitch black at night so, at first, we were just trying to process what in the world was going on and if we were in significant danger. I’m not sure how it happened but it was actually the balloon getting stuck in my fan and banging against it as it rotated.
But, I swear to God, I remember putting it in the closet. I never leave any doors open and I think if it was out in my room the balloon would have caught on the fan a lot sooner.
33. Musical Scares
One time, after I came home from school and no one else was at home, when I started walking upstairs, I suddenly heard my brother's guitar play a couple of notes. I yelled his name and there was no response. I immediately ran downstairs and went up to my door and twisted the doorknob just in case I needed to make a run for it.
When I told my mum, she said it could have been the builders next door. However, they weren't there that day. I still don't know what happened.
34. Icy Fear
This happened a month or two back when I was walking to the local pub. As I was walking, an icy chunk of snow fell down from the back of a car, making a sound that was eerily similar to someone suddenly darting towards me with a knife. It nearly gave me a heart attack, and a hearty chuckle once I realized it was just snow.
35. Spaced Out
I was a kid living in Southern California and once I heard two loud bangs coming from my bedroom window. I thought that someone was trying to break into my house. It turns out the space shuttle was landing nearby and had made two sonic booms. Apparently, there is one for the nose and one for the tail. So you hear boom-boom, like someone is banging on a window.
36. Flashing By
I was once walking on a sunny, clear, bright summer's day. I walked along, when suddenly it sounded like lightning had struck nearby. The BOOM hit me in the chest, made me jump, then duck, before I stood up and immediately scanned the horizon for an explosion and/or smoke. There were a few white, puffy clouds, but it definitely wasn't thunder, so I was convinced something had exploded nearby.
I was in full adrenaline mode, scanning the horizon for a full 10 seconds before a nearby jogger pointed up at the sky and exclaimed, "That was it!" A fighter jet, from a nearby base, had gone supersonic right above me. I could even see the exhaust trail where a "cone" had formed when the pilot had punched it.
37. Greetings From Outer Space
When I was little, I woke up during the night because I had heard these bizarre noises which permeated my sleep and woke me up. I figured that aliens were invading our place, because that's what it sounded like. After a long, long time, I worked up the courage to creep downstairs to check if the aliens had, indeed, arrived.
My dad was playing that pinball game that used to come with a Microsoft operating system back in the day. I told him that I thought it was aliens come to invade us, which had woken me up and scared me. He let me play the computer pinball game until I got sleepy again. Good times.
38. Slinking Around
When I was a kid, someone's huge pet python escaped from their house in my neighborhood. Maybe it was some other type of snake but I remember it being a python. I live in Poland so large snakes are not a common occurrence. Anyways, one night I couldn't sleep, so I was just lying in my bed, trying to fall into the arms of Morpheus so to speak.
And, suddenly, I heard a loud hissing from behind the window. Very loud. I was about six or seven at the time, so I was too scared to even try to look out the window. However, I was sure that it was the escaped snake. I was terrified, thinking that it would climb into the house and get me while I was asleep and unaware.
39. Crunching Away
I used to hear human-sounding footsteps stepping on the leaves every night. It turns out that those, apparently, human-sounding footsteps I heard crunching on the leaves every night were actually only a porcupine or something. Really eerie just how much a small animal stepping on leaves can resemble a human being's footsteps, though.
40. A Foxy Story
I was awake late at night, and I heard this horrible humanlike scream from outside. I live in a very remote area, and it came from the woods beyond my garden—it was so dark, the trees just melded together into a black mass. I thought someone was being attacked. It turns out it was a fox—they don't howl or snarl, they just drop their jaws and let out this horrific scream.
41. Where There’s Smoke
It happened quite recently, on a Friday, at the hotel where I work. It was around 6:45 pm at work when suddenly the fire alarm started. I had a rush of adrenaline; it was so loud and nerve-wracking. I had so many thoughts that merged together: "Is there a fire? Are my occupants, okay? Should I call the firemen?" But, there was no time for thoughts. I had to get myself together real quick and I sort of managed to calm down.
I said to my colleague that I'd visit each occupant and check how they were doing. If something had happened and if they didn't answer, I'd just open the door. Meanwhile, she checked if there was any smoke visible from the street and asked our concierge from which floor it was coming from. She told us that it was the second floor.
It felt like such a long time but actually only two minutes had passed when we headed to the second floor and started to check on everybody to make sure that they were ok. I was checking one side and my colleague was checking the other side. She called me to see one door and said there was some smoke coming from under the door.
She called the guy to open his door, he just said, "Wait, wait." Sure, we were going to wait while the fire alarm was blasting in our ears. We opened the door with a master key and entered the room. The alarm had stopped by now, 5 minutes after it had started. That guy opened his bathroom door and it was full of smoke. He had thought it'd be a good idea to smoke inside.
He even had the audacity to tell us that it was not him and that we should check to see if it hadn’t come from another occupant. It was stressful at the time but now it just makes me laugh.
42. I Heard A Fly Buzz
As a kid, I was scared of bees. Then, when I was still a kid, a bee (it was actually a horsefly but I didn’t know that) got into my room. As it buzzed around, I hid under my blankets, screaming for 10 minutes straight until my dad, who was working downstairs, finally heard and came up to see what was wrong. I still hate bees, but now I also hate flies.
43. Bubble, Bubble, Toil, And Trouble
When I was younger, I was home alone and I thought I heard footsteps in my house. I started to freak out and I could barely get up off my bed to go to my bedroom door. I started to ask if anyone was there but I didn’t get a response. But, I couldn’t hear the footsteps anymore either. I closed the door and locked it to prevent anyone from getting inside. Then, I realized it was just our water boiler making weird sounds and I was just being a dunce.
44. Marking The Territory
I live alone now and heard footsteps on the stairs. I looked up, expecting to see a burglar, but I saw nothing as the noise continued. I looked closer to the bottom and...it's my 9-pound cat who absolutely STOMPS down the stairs. She's tiny but seems to have her own gravitational field that makes her ten times as heavy when she wakes up from her nap on my bed. She has faked out multiple people since her footsteps sound human.
45. Dog’s Best Friend
My first semester at university, I got stuck taking all night classes and didn't get out until about 10:00 PM most evenings. I then would walk from the campus to the New Jersey transit station. Not too far a walk, but it starts to feel spooky in that area at night and I wasn't 100% sure where I was going since I was still new to the school.
So here I am, already a little on edge, when all of the sudden I hear a sound that will haunt me until the day I die. There was someone barking at me. That's right, barking. I look up and discover a man sitting up in the tree barking and growling down at me as I walk by. I was freaked out, but afraid that if I ran it might provoke him to follow me. So, I speedwalked to the corner, then ran across the street and didn't stop till I was at the train platform.
46. All The Lonely People
Growing up, I always wanted to go on a bike ride at night. Something about it just seemed really cool to me. It wasn't until I was 13 that my mom finally let me. She told me to wear my helmet, take my phone and flashlight, and follow the parameters she had set for where I was allowed to go. She gave me about four miles, which was a lot to me.
So, right after the sun had set, I was off. I loved it. I rode along this path for 10 minutes before the only thing I could see was some of the lights from the houses on the inside of the limits. After 15 minutes of riding along this dirt path, I suddenly hear singing. It sounded like it was just a few feet in front of me. I stop riding to hear it better. It was a woman's voice.
She was singing “Eleanor Rigby” by The Beatles. But she wasn't singing the words, just the melody. Her voice was strange. You know how when you have phlegm in your throat, your voice gets kind of scratchy? That's what her voice sounded like. I inch forward to try and see her. I get close enough to see the silhouette of her hair bouncing up and down, like she was headbanging.
I decided to get my flashlight out. I'm thinking that maybe this person is in need of help or something. Or maybe this is an insane person and the light will scare them away. So I take the flashlight out of my pocket, point it at her, and turn it on. The moment the light hit her, she stopped moving completely. She was facing away from me.
She had disgusting hair that seemed to be sticking together in clumps. Some of her hair was ripped off, too. She was wearing a very oversized, bright red hoodie. I was almost too scared to move. I think she was, too. I conjured up as much bravery as I could and said "Sorry" in a very, oops-this-is-the-wrong-room kind of way. She didn't respond.
I turned off the flashlight and put it back in my pocket. Just as I was turning my bike around, she screamed. She screamed in an awful, horrifying high-pitched voice. I nearly pooped myself as I threw myself back onto my bike. I heard her voice getting closer to me. I booked it as fast as I could. I didn't once look back behind me, and I didn't stop pedaling.
Her screaming eventually grew quieter and quieter until it dissolved into the howling of the wind.
47. Humming Along
In my childhood room growing up I swear that at night I could hear a low humming noise coming from above. The space above my room was the attic and I ended up telling my parents that it bothered me at night as, when the house was silent, I could hear it humming. It turns out that there was a MASSIVE wasp nest in the attic and they starting coming into the main house through the light fittings eventually.
Now, I am absolutely terrified of wasps and I always have been so because of the experiences when I was younger. I still have the absolute dread of knowing I was sleeping under that huge nest and hate humming noises because I know it was the wasps in that case. We ended up having to move out for a night so the exterminator could get rid of it.
48. Voices From The Past
I was out in the backyard in my parents’ suburban home many years ago. Their yard is nice: lots of leafy ferns, shrubs, and even a few palm trees. The backyard’s not that big though, probably 20 m x 10 m. Anyway, so I’m on the phone and sitting out the back near the back boundary fence. It’s probably about 10 pm.
Then, from one of the shrubby areas, I hear a “little girl’s” voice. Yet, it wasn’t a little girl’s voice either. It’s hard to explain. It sounded like the voice of a little girl but I had a strong sense it wasn’t a small child. It was speaking in a language I couldn’t recognize, a language I don’t think even exists now.
I’ve thought about this quite a bit over the years and I think it was probably an ancient language now extinct. Well, it freaked me out. I got up and ran inside. I told my parents and family members and each had a theory such as "Could have been the neighbor playing a joke," etc. Neighbors all around us are elderly, and the backyards’ dark, and I don’t think it was human.
49. Weather Alert
I was admiring the lightning storm as I was walking home late one night. As I passed under a bridge, I was suddenly blinded by an intense pinkish light. The utterly deafening sound followed almost immediately and was like two hand grenades exploding simultaneously on either side of my head. I then felt the ground pressing against my shoulder and had no memory of falling down.
I tried to get up, but there was an intense pain in my chest and I couldn't breathe. It was the most terrifying moment of my life. In a last-ditch effort, I used the last of my strength to strike myself in the chest. My heart restarted with a flood of beats, and I slowly regained enough strength to get up and examine myself. There was no indication that anything had happened. I continued my walk home and, upon my arrival, discovered that my pager was fried.
50. Home (Almost) Alone
Once, my brother and I were sleeping, and my dad had just left for work. A little while after, someone entered the house and told the dog to be quiet. I didn't recognize the voice. I was 100% sure it was a burglar who thought the house was empty as my dad had just left. I sneaked into my brother's room, shaking with fear, woke him up, and told him that a stranger had just entered the house. He called the authorities on the spot.
Two tiny minutes later (we were impressed!) two official cars and four law officials were at the door of our house. Oh, how uneasy was my dad when they called him and he had to tell them he had come back because he had forgotten something and pretended to have a "funny voice" or something for no reason whatsoever. It was about 15 years ago and my brother and I still (jokingly) blame each other for it.
Sources: Reddit,
