25 People Share The Scary True Ghost Encounters That Turned Them From Skeptics To Believers

Ghosts can’t possibly be real, right? That’s what these people thought. They were skeptics through and through. But one creepy event changed them into believers. Check out the true ghosts stories that finally made people accept that ghosts were real.

Everyone saw it.

I’ve written about this before but once while falling asleep after a movie with the family I was awoken by what seemed like a small boy running towards the couch we were in. I immediately sat up and braced for impact. Now, i would normally chalk it up to falling asleep by my mom and dad also bolted awake at the same time. Before I could explain my dad told me he saw a boy running towards us. His description of the boy matched mine while my mother confirmed as well.

u/Cubic_Ant

Gifts from the dead.

I grew up in a very scientific family, I never knew my dads stance on ghosts, but they were never talked about so it really didn’t matter. One day when I was in high school we were eating dinner, and I decided to ask my dad about our old house, and moving into it when I was just a baby. So he told me a story.

Apparently when we moved into this house we lived there about a week before we started to receive “gifts” once a week. Every Friday morning, my dad told me that there would be some sort of hand-crafted gift sitting on the mantle of our fireplace. My dad was reasonably freaked out by this because we were the only ones with keys to the house, and the last owner moved well out of state. So, he informed the local police, and they decided to patrol the property every Friday night looking for intruders. They found nothing, and as you could imagine the gifts kept coming. So my dad told me they eventually gave up and feeling helpless he went to our local church. Eventually he had a priest come and bless the house, and we stopped receiving the gifts.

What really freaked me out about this was the fact that my dad never believed in ghosts, and didn’t mention once that a “ghost” was causing these gifts to appear. He’s an engineer so he always tries to debunk peoples “paranormal stories” with a realistic explanation, but he was 100% serious with this story. One of the gifts we received we actually still have; it’s a wooden sled with a small painting of a man (presumably my dad), pulling me and my sister on the sled. We received this gift about 8 months- a year before my mother passed away from cancer, so that made the painting on the sled very freaky in hindsight. My dad only told me this story once and he denied he ever told me it when I asked him about it recently.

u/Bangkok_dAngeroUs98

A child’s laughter.

Worked at a public pool, I would work alone after hours cleaning the building and the pool. One night around 2 a.m. I’m cleaning the change rooms. The pool has been closed for 4 hours at this time.

I hear the sound of a child’s laughter and bare feet running across the pool deck. I go out and scan the area; there’s nobody in sight. The doors are all closed and locked, there is nowhere a kid could be hiding. No wet foot prints on the pool deck. I re-check the doors and the security monitors. I am the only person in the building.

It was unsettling.

u/Oldmanenok

Whispers from the beyond.

When I was in my late 20’s I was dating my girlfriend ( soon-to-be wife.) We had been together for a while. One summer, July 3rd, her sister was abducted and killed by a group of six men. All the men were eventually caught and tried. The trials and the aftermath for the family were devastating and debilitating for them for many, many years.

Fast forward three months, after the funeral. I arrived at my girlfriend’s house to wait for her to get off from her job as a nurse at a local hospital. Neither of her parents were home. Just me, alone in the house. So I went into the family room, turned on the TV, sat down in the couch, got comfortable and began to watch.

Clear as a bell I heard my girlfriend’s sister’s voice in my right ear, just off my shoulder, call my name. I turned to look at the seat next to me and of course there was nobody there. I stared at the spot in the couch next to me for a long while. Feeling a bit uneasy, I turned off the TV and went outside to wait on the porch.

u/gaberax

Sleeping like the restless dead.

When I was about 10-14 I had terrible insomnia. I would imagine things & felt incredibly unsafe as though I was being watched although I never admitted this to anyone. I began only sleeping on the couch, with my back against the wall, and had to have the TV or some sort of light on.

I missed an immense amount of school because of this so my mom had me see a neurologist. The neurologist diagnosed me with some things but the crazy part was during my sleep study I slept amazingly well, no issues at all AND slept in the “real bed”.

Eventually I got transferred to a children’s hospital and speaking to the doctor I explained I would “see” things and felt uncomfortable, they had thought I was experiencing sleep paralysis.

When they told my mom she went ghost white. She pulled me aside and explained she was experiencing things, too. She described in detail what I was seeing. That evening she approached my brother & asked broad questions (“Do you have anything weird happen in home?” Etc..). He also described what we experienced.

It was then I realized we must have paranormal activity & I’ve believed it ever since. When we moved out of that house all my sleep issues abruptly stopped and I haven’t experienced it since.

u/ThatThreesome

An overprotective grandpa.

My girlfriends grandfathers ashes were on a little shelf in the living room, right next to a very solid/heavy angel statue. Well one weekend she and I are fooling around on the living room couch and out of the corner of my eye, I see the angel statue fly off the wall, accompanied with a deep grunt.

Now when I say this thing FLEW off the wall, I’m talking 7-8 feet of air before landing on the hard wood and leaving a dent where the wing hit. Even if this thing had fell off the wall, it would’ve dropped straight down, not soared with force.

Well we both stood there in shock, and I whispered if she had heard the grunt as well, to which she agreed. So we both booked it for the day.

Well that night at dinner we told her parents what happened (leaving out the naughty bit) and Megan’s younger sister burst into tears saying she had seen a dark figure at the foot of her bed the last couples nights but didn’t want anyone to think she was crazy (Grandfather that died had mental health issues that caused a lot of pain.)

Welp after that day I was a believer.

u/longfacepug

A spooky gender reveal.

My wife and I swear that our daughter used to talk to ghosts when she was a toddler. She was an only child at the time. First instance I remember, was her telling me that she was talking to Nana. That’s what I called my grandmother, who passed about 15 years before my daughter was born. My daughter was young and so I hadn’t even talked about Nana to her, so I showed her a picture and asked who she spoke to. There were four women (three of which I didn’t even know), but without hesitation she pointed to my Nana. Ok, no biggie.

Some months later, my wife and I are trying for baby #2. After my wife gets pregnant, my daughter is sitting next to her on the couch and puts her head on her belly and says, “mommy, there’s a baby in there”. Ok, maybe that’s coincidence. She overheard us saying something. A few weeks later, my wife miscarries. Maybe my daughter picked up on our sadness, who knows, but she again puts her head on her stomach and says, “mommy, there’s no baby in there anymore.”

Then, several months and one more (very early) miscarriage later, my daughter tells us, “I was talking to my brother last night and he said that my sister is coming to live with me soon.” Again, she’s an only child and had no (living?) brother. We were still trying at this point, but had not taken any tests. We picked one up that night, and sure enough, pregnant. When time came to reveal the gender, I wasn’t even interested. My daughter had already said it was a girl. Sure enough, I have two daughters.

u/scrodytheroadie

The empty footsteps.

I was always on the fence about ghosts because there was no scientific evidence of them being real.

But my family moved into an old farm house when I was 12.. this was a very old farm house with a build date around the civil war. The original owners name was still on the old barn out back and we found numerous old antiques built into the walls when we completely renovated the place.

A few odd and end things happened after we first moved in, but distinct things started happening to myself after I turned 16.. but never to my sister until after SHE turned 16 too. The most prominent memory I have:

The upstairs consisted of 2 bedrooms. 1 bedroom was the room at the top of the stairs, the 2nd bedroom was in a separate room just to the left of the top of the stairs. I had the “private room” and my sister’s room was the landing. When someone walked up the stairs it was VERY distinct, you could hear each individual step and the creaks got louder as the person approaching got closer.

So one night I am sitting on my bed watching TV or something and I hear my sister come up the steps and go lay on her bed- so I start talking to her.. when she doesn’t answer me I get annoyed and go into her room to figure out what her problem is- only she is not in there. My mind was blown because I KNOW I heard her. I call for her and she had been downstairs the entire time.

We never felt threatened.. but it did seem that this entity liked picking ONLY on women.. even my mother who absolutely doesn’t believe in ghosts had to admit some odd things had happened. I think the funniest thing was having my pony tail pulled while I was doing the dishes. I don’t know why it was so funny… it just cracked me up that whatever it was felt like playing with my hair.

u/younggreezyy

A floating spirit.

In 2011 I was studying abroad in Morocco. We were staying in a riad in the medina of Marrakech with tall, ornate windows. I had one roommate who was already asleep this night. I thought I saw her sitting up in the bed next to me wearing all white. Suddenly I saw a white, hazy thing vaguely shaped like a person floating above me next to the big windows. I was so scared I went in the bathroom, turned the light on and stayed in the bathtub all night. My roommate didn’t see anything.

u/stickytuna

Follow the nightlight.

So my grandma use to live with me. She was in the room next to mine and would get up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom (which is in my room). There is drop from her room to mine so we put a night light outside the bathroom so she could see the way.

It was like this for about 12 years. Only a few days after she had passed away I was in my bed with my cat and dog reading a book or something. I remember my cat and dog both waking up and looking to the night light. My cat got up and went to the light, pawing at it and making noises. My dog just stayed still, not barking. I would grab him so he would calm down or go to sleep but he never took his eyes off that spot. That’s when I saw what I can only say looked like light bend around the night light. I was positive it was my grandma coming back to use the bathroom and or check on me and the house.

To this day (she died about five years ago), I still have that night light there and turn it on every night for her. I haven’t seen her or experienced anything like it again but I’m sure she’s still around.

u/rperez746

The doppelganger.

I saw a reflection of myself at the end of a hallway in a friends apartment building, only he told me the day after there was never any mirror in the hallways. Still confuses me to this day.

u/lucozade6

The boy in the ceiling.

So in high school, I worked kids birthday parties. The place was basically a giant gym, and gymnastics/dance classes were also held there.

One day, I came in, and one of the girls I worked with (who was very spiritual and very religious) was totally freaked out. During the gymnastics class she taught that morning, one of the kids was staring up at the ceiling. When she asked the kid what he was doing, he said “There’s a little boy up there” and pointed at the ceiling.

Strange enough, but whatever. Kids are weird.

Later, two girls who were working a birthday party before mine came out of the gym and were visibly shaken. A pair of 5-year-old twins went down a slide and then stared at the ceiling. They both said that there was a little boy “up there”, in the same spot on the ceiling that the kid from the morning gymnastics class.

We all went in and inspected the ceiling. Of course, it was just a regular, gray, warehouse-y ceiling. But we were all super freaked out at that point.

During my party, I was pushing a little boy on the giant swing we had in the gym. He, too, began to stare at the ceiling. He said DIRECTLY TO MY FACE, “Hey, there’s a little boy up there!” We told all of our coworkers and managers about the three separate experiences we had today with children from different parties and classes seeing a little boy on the ceiling.

The next day, we had downtime between parties, and nobody was in the gym. There are cameras in the gym that allow parents to see their children playing from the lobby.

My manager called us out of the break room – “Guys, check this out.”

We come out and see the screen (which is streaming from the gym) showing that giant swing going back and forth. Nobody’s in there. It’s just the swing going.

I like to think that the ghost was truly a little boy who just wanted to play, and he finally got to go on the swing. Could be worse.

u/mushroom_gorge

Close the door.

My aunt used to live above a convenience store. It was a duplex and had a mud-room that connected the front doors to each apartment. The other apartment was empty and unlocked so my cousins and I would hang out in there. One night we are playing hide and seek in the empty apartment. My cousin and I are running from the seeker and the hallway door slams shut in front of us. We freak out and end the game because we are too scared.

We tell our parents and my aunt happens to have a night vision baby camera. She sets it up in the living room of the empty apartment and we can all see it on the tv in her house. We are watching it for about 10 minutes, dust is flying everywhere and nothing is happening. Out of the darkness, a Pepsi can rolls up and hits the base of the camera. Everybody is like wtf this bitch is haunted. I never went up the stairs alone to get to her house again, I was to freaked out. About 3 years ago, the entire building burned down unfortunately, I don’t know the cause.

u/Gr8B8M8

Dad says hello.

I was visiting my mother after my dad died. She went shopping with her sister and left me alone.

I heard my dad as plain as day up in his room. He got up from his computer chair walked over to the door and opened it. He walked down the stairs and stood on the last step for a few seconds before walking back up to his room and closing the door. I was probably five feet from him in the living room.

I just froze. It scared the hell out of me.

u/Ohsoeasy

A message from grandma.

I was 8 when my grandma died, I was sad. So around 2 months passed and I was going at grandma’s house where my grandpa lives.

So I wake up at 3am and hear footsteps from bedroom door, I froze, I saw my grandma walking up to me and she said “hello little sweetie” and walked away. It was not sleep paralysis because I could move my hands and feet.

At morning i told to my grandpa about it and he said “I’ve seen grandma almost every night, she likes to visit, so don’t be scared next time when you visit.”

u/clipmen666

Spooky children.

I was staying in the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, CO – the hotel that inspired Stephen King to write The Shining. Around 1am I heard what sounded like children running up and down the hallways interspersed with laughter. Opened the door to see what the hell was going on, and didn’t see anything. Quick little buggers, I thought. Then the next morning when my SO and I took a tour of the building, the guide stopped directly in front of our room to tell us the story of young girls whose ghosts can be heard running up and down that same hallway.

u/banwagl

The warrior ghost.

Once when I was in university I went to go see my therapist whom I had been seeing twice a week for about five months. On this day he was uncharacteristically quiet and I asked him if he was all right. He said he was fine, and we continued through what would be one of our most breakthrough sessions. A lot of repressed memories came up through it that have helped me to heal.

At the end of the session I asked him why he was acting differently today than other days. He said when I walked in I was accompanied by a warrior-like person. He said he had the overwhelming feeling to perform as best he professionally could that day, and that he got the sense this “warrior” had fought a lot of battles to protect me.

This would seem coincidental, except for 10 years later I was living on the other side of the world. I had a Puerto Rican neighbor I would see occasionally and eventually got pretty close with him and his family. One day as I was walking by he kind of gets quiet and weird and then says in broken English, “do you know there is a soldier who follows you around?” I knew instantly who he was talking about.

In both instances the warrior/soldier was described the same, just over six feet, blonde curly hair, wearing primitive warrior clothing, and strangely “a white guy”.

Neither of these people could have known that my closest brother who passed away at 14 was over six feet tall with blond curly hair, and always was my protector.

u/leechladyland

One last moment.

When I was 5 years old, I woke up in the night and my grandma was standing at the end of my bed, wearing a teal blue skirt and a matching blouse. I remember that it was summer and the sky was still light but not light enough for me to read, so I guess it was about 9pm. I sat up, she put her finger to her lips and I rubbed my eyes a couple of times, ‘cos sleepy, and when I looked back she had gone. I just snuggled back under my covers thinking how nice it was to see her because I hadn’t seen her for AGES and I hoped she would still be there when I woke up.

Next morning, my house was eerily quiet. My mum was in a worse mood than normal, but she had been crying so I asked her what was wrong. My grandma died the night before. She had been crossing a road after her bingo turned out, at 8.30pm, about 60 miles away from where we lived, she had a massive brain haemorrhage in the middle of the road and didn’t even make it to the other side, let alone to my house 60 miles away.

She was wearing a teal blue skirt and matching blouse.

u/MrsMellowCake

The silly putty incident.

When I was in 5th grade I was playing with silly putty in my room when my mom called me down for dinner. I had molded it into a ball and placed it down directly behind me (I’m talkin as soft as can be here).

When I stood up to go downstairs, I felt something hit me in the back of my head with some force. So I turn around and see my silly putty ball, not on the ground anymore, but bouncing on my windowsill until it eventually rolled back onto the floor. Needless to say I ran downstairs hysterically trying to tell my mom what had happened.

u/Pyromaniac0398

A ghostly grab.

I was having a conversation with my mom when I was a teenager, mid sentence I felt a hand grab my arm and looked to see who it was. No one was there and my mom didn’t see anyone. Apparently the same thing happened to my sister a few weeks before. Also all the random voices and bags falling off shelves and moving shadows in the periphery. I believe it was just the house that was “haunted,” but they weren’t malicious so it was all good.

u/RunBunns247

Mysterious humming.

When I was around let’s say 8 years old and my brother was 6, we had been playing video games in my room while my dad and mom watched football downstairs. For awhile we had lots of fun, that was until I had a really bad chill down my spine, I shrugged it off before I notice my brother get a chill as well. He continued playing the game so I just thought if he wasn’t worried then neither should I be. Everything went smoothly well, not for long. My brother paused the game, “Do you hear that?” he asked. I then heard a humming sound of what seemed to be a little girl. I nodded, “The humming right?” I asked him, he nodded as well.

The humming was coming from the hallway right outside our room, we began to be very nervous because me and my brother were the only children in the house. The door was shut thankfully so we did not see anything. After a few seconds of the humming, it stopped and we heard footsteps from the attic. The thing about the attic though is that nobody ever really goes up there, at the time neither me nor my brother had been ever up there and my parents only went up there once each. Once the footsteps stopped and nothing else happened, we opened the door to see only the hallway. The next day we told our parents in great detail what had happened and they did the whole parent thing saying, “oh you probably just heard us, it was your imagination.” Needless to say if I didn’t believe in ghosts before that incident, now I did.

u/PebbleRawr

Help from a brother.

One night, I was watching tv, and I watched my older brother walk down the stairs holding my little brother (five months old). He walked over to me, handed me the baby and walked out of the room.

My brother was on a three day field trip to DC.

Let’s just say, I didn’t sleep for a while after that.

u/totallyahomosapien

A bad stay at a hotel.

I was sleeping in a hotel room and something woke me up– I looked next to the bed. There was a woman sitting cross-legged on the floor below me and she locked eyes with me, cocked her head sideways and then floated up toward me before dissipating. I prefer to think it was one of those hallucinations people can have in that pre-awake stage but damn it was terrifying.

u/silveralgea

The shadows of the dead.

We were in the process of moving from an apartment over a business and I told the landlord about an experience I had one night.

I got up to go to the bathroom and in the hallway I saw three dark shadows moving along the wall, man shaped and it looked as if you could reach through them in to an infinite void.

I was terrified and started yelling and my father came out of his bed room to see what was the matter and said I was dreaming it. I know to this day I wasn’t it was very distinct and I was standing in the hallway.

So as I tell the guy I am glad to leave the place no offense he tells me sincerely that years ago the shop was a bakery and there was a fire that burned the place and it was rented by 3 brothers who perished. He had the most bizarre look on his face trying to see if I was pranking him.

Totally weirds me out to this day.

u/[deleted]

The ghost nanny.

When my son was a baby, he started crying in his crib at about 3am. I sat up, dreading having to nurse him back to sleep for the third time that night. All of a sudden, I hear a soft, sweet, woman’s voice over the baby monitor say, “shhh…. don’t cry…go to sleep…” And my son settled right down back to sleep. In my sleep-deprived state, I was like, “cool.. she’s got him” and I went back to sleep myself.

When I woke up that morning, I was like, “Did I just let a ghost nanny take care of my baby?!….can she come back tonight?!” She did not….but I did constantly see orbs fly around over his crib over the video monitor which were clearly not bugs or dust.

u/[deleted]