After Reading These 10 True Creepy Stories You Will Want to Sleep With Light Turned On

Life can be full of surprises, and sometimes we face things that are so chilling or unsettling that they stick with us forever. These moments leave a lasting mark, and no matter how much time passes, they remain hard to forget.

1.

My family used to rent a house in town along with my aunt and uncle when I was very young that we eventually moved out of because of very strange things that happened while we lived there, but the most memorable and final straw was the night my aunt was using the toilet and just happened to look down at this small hole in the floor that had been there since we moved in and saw a man standing in the basement looking right back up at her smiling.

My aunt ran out of the bathroom and screamed for my uncle. After explaining to him that there was a man in the basement, my uncle went and got my Dad and they both went down the stairs (the only entrance into the basement) where they found nothing but footprints in the dirty floor where someone had been standing and moving around under the hole. © dusktildawn / Reddit

2.

My sister and I were having a prank feud. I had just turned 11, and later that night, I heard my closet door open. I thought she wanted to prank me on my special day and had snuck in, forgetting that my door squeaks. I got up and pushed her! She stepped out of the closet, but it wasn’t her.

My sister didn’t have long black hair, scars on her face, and wasn’t as tall as a grown woman. I wanted to scream, but I just froze and started whimpering and crying. She put her finger up to her lips and let out a “Shhh,” opened my window, crawled out, then slowly closed my window, never to be seen again. © PM_ME_FOR_SMALLTALK / Reddit

3.

On my way home from like 2nd grade, some high school kid sitting on his driveway told me that my mom had gotten into a car accident, and he needed to take me to the hospital to see her.

My mom worked from home, so I was immediately aware it was a lie. I ran home, and we called the cops, they sent a car out to talk to him, but he was gone. © 23skidoobbq / Reddit

4.

When I was young, my grandma came over to babysit me one night. Nothing unusual happened the whole night. But when my mom got home, she checked the answering machine, and there was a message a few minutes long.

The message was just my grandmother’s and my voice, laughing hysterically for the whole message. Like I said, the night was normal, and there wasn’t a moment when the phone rang, or I laughed hysterically for minutes on end. © TUNGSTEN_MAN / Reddit

5.

Every time I have my one son on their changing table, he stares at the same spot about 5 inches over/beside my shoulder, roughly in the direction of their bedroom door. There isn’t really anything there to look at, though I know that doesn’t mean much for a 5-month-old. It really raises the hair on the back of my neck, though, I have to glance over my shoulder all the time to make sure. © BubbleDragon / Reddit

6.

I went to use the bathroom at work and when I entered, there was no one in there. The bathroom has 4 urinals and 4 stalls (one handicap), and I didn’t see any feet in any of the stalls. I took up my normal spot inside one stall and was doing my business, when I heard the sound of someone peeing into one of the urinals, but no one had entered the bathroom. The door is heavy and loud when it closes, so I would’ve heard someone entering.

After a normal amount of time, the peeing stop, and I heard a few footsteps. But the door never opened. When I finished up, I did a cursory look and there was no one in the bathroom. © DualJ / Reddit

7.

At the time, I was around 14, I’d asked my dad to wake me up early that morning at about 5am because I had some work to get done. That morning, I was woken up, and I flung my legs over the side of my bed.

I felt a tug on both of them, what I thought at the time was just my dad trying to get me to hurry up, I reached over to pick up my phone and turned it on, 3:30 am, and I looked over at the black figure I assumed was my dad, and it was gone. © tom-evvans / Reddit

8.

My wife and I stayed at a nice hotel in downtown Pittsburgh. It was where I asked her to marry me after a lavish meal. The first night we stayed there, we were sleeping in the single king bed. I believe the alarm clock said it was 2 or 3am. To my left, and just a few feet from me, I heard the sound of a what seemed like a pencil slowly rolling down a sloped surface. It was so deliberate and loud that it woke us both up. The next morning, to my surprise, I found that a.) there were no pencils in the room and b.) there was no desk. The whole thing was weird enough for us to talk about it that morning.

The next night, from the other room, we heard the buzzing of an old microphone hooked up to a PA system. Basically, that sound of feedback that precedes an announcement. The whole room filled with the buzzing sound of microphone feedback. Our hearts thumped in our chests yet again. And then we both practically jumped out of our own skins. A week later, I had the thought to email the hotel. I asked them about their building. They got back to me and explained, as my jaw dropped, that they used to be an old telephone factory. © Unknown author / Reddit

9.

We lived in a very creepy, very old house when I was little. My mom was cleaning my little brother’s room while we were at school, and every single one of his electronic toys turned on all at once. Two of them didn’t have batteries in them.

She was so freaked out, she had us “camp out” in the living room for three days because she didn’t want my brother alone in his room. Up until we moved, that would occasionally happen. Either one or two toys at a time. © LameGhost / Reddit

10.

I was staying at my grandparents for the summer when I was 14. It was 11pm, and I was thirsty. I go out to the kitchen and see who I thought was my granddad sitting at the table eating a sandwich.

I say hello, grab a glass of water and head back to my room. My grandfather comes out of his room and asks who I was talking to. I turn around and no one was there. It freaked me out, still does to this day. © Lucanthethird / Reddit

We often hear chilling bones stories from friends or read unsettling tales online, but sometimes the most chilling stories come from our own kids. It’s bewildering when they share something so eerie that we can’t even trace where they might have heard it from.