10 Stories From People Who Saw Something Scarier Than Horror Movies

Some people can’t stand horror movies because the fear they evoke is too real. However, others happen to experience similar things in real life. These 10 people encountered something way more chilling than anything Hollywood come up with.

I was staying in a hotel with my mom. I was in bed and noticed a silhouette maybe 2 meters away from me. I figured it was just a shadow, so I tried to ignore it, but I couldn’t. I turned the light on and it disappeared. When I shut off the lights again, it came back.

I told my mom about it the next morning, and she said I was imagining things. A few days after we’d gotten back home, my mom was doing something in the kitchen. Without turning around, my mom said, “Do you remember that shadow of a person you saw at the hotel?” I said yeah. Mom just said, “I saw it too.” She didn’t wanna admit that she also saw it because she didn’t wanna freak me out.

***ironically / Reddit

I nearly got run off the road on my way home one night. A windowless van pulled up behind me, a man got out, and approached my car. He asked if I was okay, and I told him I was fine, just gathering myself after a scare. He offered for me to wait in the van with his ’wife and kids’. He insisted multiple times that I get in his van.

Luckily, my door was already locked, and I’d only cracked the window to speak with him. Since he parked his van right behind me and I could see in my rearview there were no visible passengers in his van.

Sithasaurus / Reddit

When I was a kid, we lived in a two-story house. I heard my dad calling me from the room upstairs. I called back and received no answer. As I walked to the stairway, I just so happened to look out into our drive-way to find that the truck was gone, and my dad wasn’t home. I still don’t know what called for me that day, but it definitely wasn’t my father.

destrycampbell / Reddit

One night I was passing by a playground park at around 3 am and spotted an adult man and what appeared to be a kid 5–6 years of ages both swinging in total silence on the swings. It was cold/rainy and both of them were poorly clothed for this type of year and especially weather.

As soon as I got close enough for them to see me, they just stare at me for a brief second and start running as fast they can, again without a single word spoken or voice/sound being made. Not sure where they ran because I had to scratch my eyes for a second time to check if I was asleep or not.

DavidKr98 / Reddit

A student just finished training in the 9th floor of our Sports Center building. She rode the elevator alone, and pressed the Ground floor button. The elevator went down as expected, but stopped at the 8th floor and opened. She checked the floor, but no one was there. It also opened at the 7th, 6th and eventually all succeeding floors. She checked after every floor, but no one was there.

The elevator opened again at the 2nd floor. She peeked outside, still empty. She then pressed the close button. It won’t close. Instead, flashing at the top of the floor number was a word. It said, “overload”. She got out of the elevator as fast as she can.

LeoTheFifth / Reddit

When I was 15 I had a dream that I was looking up through the inside of a car and a woman walked past, stopped to look down at me and gave me a smile. I moved countries to go to college and studied mechanical engineering, which required some hands on work. In my second year I saw exactly the same woman — who happened to be in my class — from my dream smiling at me.

Later that month we were having lunch when she mentioned that when she looked down she had the weirdest feeling. I told her about my dream, and it turned out she’d had the same dream from the other angle.

TheProfessionalEjit / Reddit

I was alone in the house once. I was sitting on the bed on my phone. I needed the loo, so I put my phone down on the bed and used the bathroom.

When I came back, my phone was nowhere to be seen. I looked everywhere. I was freaking out. Eventually I found it. Inside the duvet cover which was fastened. We got a cat and the activity immediately stopped.

Keshet279 / Reddit

When I was 19, my girlfriend and I were in my bedroom when she suddenly let out a shriek and ran for the door. When I caught her in the hallway and calmed her down, she told me that she saw a lizard crawl out of my mouth and run down my body, jump to the floor and ran in her direction. She was serious about it and still shaking.

20 years later and I’m in the house of a different girlfriend in a different town in her bedroom. The identical scenario happens. A lizard running out of my mouth, her running out scared, etc.

Unknown author / Reddit

I heard a woman screaming for help. I looked out my window and saw her right next to the street. The street was busy and there didn’t seem to be anything immediately attacking or endangering her. I was about to go down when a car pulled up and 3 guys got out. I could overhear the convo since it was right out of my bedroom.

She said no one was paying attention, and they should “try” some other apartment. They all jumped in and drove off. A month later, an apartment got broken into and four people were caught, 1 woman and 3 men. Apparently, she was in the house and left the door unlocked, and the men then came in and robbed the place.

ZeusAlmighty1 / Reddit

10.

I was about 11, watching my little sisters and brother while my parents were out at the store. We lived in the country, but had a neighbor we shared a driveway with. The neighbor was a fisherman, and was away for months. Our bedroom was on the 2nd floor of the house. I glanced out the window and there was a guy dressed as a clown on our neighbors’ patio.

Tight black clothes, horrible clown face, red fluffy hair. I thought I was dreaming, so I called my sister over to look. She saw him too. He slowly turned his head and looked right at up at us. He gave this nasty slow smile and waved and beckoned to us. We ran and hid under the bed until our parents got home.

cutencreepy / Reddit

Building a bond with stepchildren can be tough, but when it finally feels like you’re getting there, it’s a significant moment. In this story, one of our readers believed he’d reached that milestone with his 11-year-old stepdaughter. Yet, just when he thought they were connecting, she played a cruel trick on him out of the blue.