12 Real Stories That Prove Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction

Reflecting on the strange moments in our lives, some remain truly puzzling. Nowadays, online communities have become hubs where people can share their eerie and unsettling experiences with just a quick search. These tales, often resembling scenes from a horror movie, are said to be true and told by everyday individuals who experienced them firsthand.

• My phone alarm was acting up, going off at random hours. One night, it woke me at 3:33 a.m. with the message: “Come outside.” Thinking it was some glitch, I ignored it. The next morning, there was a note slipped under my door: “You missed us. Try again tonight.”
  
  Curious, I decided to play along. At 3:33 a.m., when the alarm buzzed again. Terrified but curious, I stepped outside. My phone lit up with one final message: “Turn around.” When I did, there was nothing there. “Who’s there?” I called out. A voice, distant but clear, replied, “You answered. That’s all we needed.” Since that night, my phone’s been silent. I still don’t know who they were—or what would’ve happened if I hadn’t answered.

• I was getting used to a new laptop I had gotten around two months ago. The little green light next to the camera turned on shortly after I signed into it. And it was ALWAYS on, even after I closed my camera apps and before I turned them on.
  
  One night, my dad came into my room to talk to me before I went to sleep while I was listening to music. Just as he was leaving, he said, “Do you know your camera is on?” I said, “No... how do you know?” He replied, “The light is on.” I looked directly at the light, then at the camera, and for the first time, it turned off. © DragonFrewt / Reddit

• A friend was sleeping at home during the summer while his housemates were away. He slept with the bedroom door open (which is horrifying enough) but woke up when he heard burglars walking up the stairs.
  
  He didn’t do anything and just lay there, terrified, and one of them closed the bedroom door. When they left, he found a knife in the kitchen that didn’t belong to anyone in the house.
  © 12pillows / Reddit

• My grandma died during the late 90s. My cousin, who was her favorite, was asked to find her favorite dress so she could wear it while people visited her at the funeral. The thing is, my grandma’s closet was as huge as a fitting room (think 6 cubicles, 2 rows, 3 columns).
  
  After about an hour of searching because he couldn’t find it, he muttered something like, “If only someone would help me.” The next closet door he opened, the dress just fell in front of him.
  © gaxkang / Reddit

• This happened to my parents when I was about a year old. They had just bought a house, and after about a week, they would be woken up to Highway to Hell playing in the house. No radio was on, no TV. They told me it happened almost every morning. We only lived in the home for about three months before leaving. © Unknown author / Reddit

• My brother had his appendix out when he was about 13. Five or six years later, he confessed to me that he had made it all up to get out of doing some homework. He made all the right noises at the doctor’s surgery, who sent him to the hospital, where he fooled them again.
  
  After the operation, he says the surgeon spoke to him and mentioned it was odd because there wasn’t any inflammation. I am amazed that in the days before the internet, he knew where his appendix should be.
  
  He is 50 next year, and my parents still don’t know. © hudson2_3 / Reddit

• Somebody mailed my friend a bunch of pictures of his wife just going about her day. Some of them were taken through the windows of their home.
  The police were called and everything, but nothing ever came of it. They moved because of it. © iMakeItSeemWeird / Reddit

• This just happened to us last week. Someone came into our house at 5:51 AM and left at 6:01. My husband was up at the time and said something felt off—like someone was watching him. He heard a click (the door shutting as the person left) and got up to investigate. There was mud all over the back Florida room and in the back hall. We had fallen asleep the night before and forgotten to arm the security system. I could see that someone came in at 5:51 and left at 6:01. Cops were called, but we still had no idea who it was. © s***atusernames / Reddit

• I was at my dad’s visit over the holidays. The day after I got there, I was standing in the bathroom pulling my hair up into a bun. My phone was sitting on the counter with the screen off. Suddenly, the phone screen flicks on, unlocks, the front camera opens, and it snaps a picture of the ceiling. © LandShark93 / Reddit

• My aunt had an intruder in her home a few years ago. She woke up suddenly in the middle of the night and found someone standing in her room watching them sleep. She started throwing things at him, and he started saying, “I’m with the home tour committee!!!” (Her house was on a holiday home tour, and there was a sign for it in the yard).
  
  My uncle woke up, and he’s a huge guy, so the intruder ran away and out the door, he came in.
  
  He didn’t steal anything, and they found his hat in their office, which had an expensive computer and camera on the desk. They also have three kids, so they are extremely lucky nothing happened to them. © coachmuschamp / Reddit

• When I was in kindergarten, my mother received a survey call (popular in the 90s), and when the questions became strangely personal and she said she wasn’t comfortable, the man called my mother by name and said that he had me (also used my name).
  
  My father, who was a cop, picked me up from school immediately in uniform and the cruiser. I’ll never forget my principal blocking my huge father from the doorway and asking me, “Do you know this man?” I was just excited to leave school early and take a ride in the cop car.
  © Styx_siren / Reddit

• I got a package on my doorstep one evening with no return address. Curious, I opened it to find a single envelope inside. Written on the front: “Do not open until 11:00 PM.” I laughed it off, thinking it was some prank, but when 11:00 came, curiosity got the better of me. I opened it to find a single note: “Go to the window.” Looking outside, I saw a car parked across the street. Its headlights flashed once before it sped away. Inside the envelope was a second note: “We’ll be back tomorrow.” I didn’t sleep that night, and when the sun rose, I was already on a plane to another city.

Have you ever experienced something that’s hard to explain logically?

Here’s another collection of stories that will send shivers down your spine.