From the Beyond: 13 People's True Ghost Stories and Otherworldly Tales

We all enjoy hearing a haunting ghost story or two. While many assume that they are nothing more than works of fiction, woven together from dark imagination, there are tales that are based on the truth.

We’ve unearthed the scariest of those ghostly tales, from unexplainable footsteps in the night to shadows that lurk in the darkness and nightmarish dreams that hint of dangers to come. Get yourself settled in for 13 of the creepiest and most unexplainable true ghost stories ever told.

Be warned: After reading about these chilling encounters, you might find yourself sleeping with the lights on and your bed covers drawn tight.

ghost stories — Photo Credit: evan courtney / Flickr (CC)

"One night, I was doing my usual stuff and watching some TV before bed. I had this overwhelming feeling all night that I should avoid the hallway and not look directly down it, it was creepy. The feeling of being watched and terrified lasted about 2 hours before I decided to suck it up and make my way to my room. I left the hallway lights on and went to bed.

"Just as I turned off the side-table light, I heard a drawer being pulled out and hitting the stopper. I turned on the light and nothing was out of place. This went on about six times before I decided I was sleeping with the light on. I curled up under the covers and waited for the BF to get home.

"He comes rolling in about 3:00 A.M. He’s laughing at me for being such a wimp, gets into bed and turned the light off and that’s when all hell broke loose. All the doors down the hallway slammed shut 1 by 1, then, our closet doors started rattling. The sound coming from inside could only be described at total destruction.

"It sounded like the shelves, the pole, and everything in there was being tossed around. The BF joined me under the covers and we were both terrified. After it stopped, it took 5-10 minutes to convince him to go check around the house. Nothing was out of place and our roommate had driven three hours back home that night to be with his family, so we knew it wasn’t him.

"We slept with the light on the rest of the night and moved out soon after. I still can’t drive by that house without being creeped out.” – nomorepumpkins

"When I was a kid, I woke up in the middle of the night to my bed shaking. Normally, that would scare the crap out of me, but instead, I was just kind of annoyed. I rolled over and muttered, ‘Stop it.’ The shaking stopped immediately. Then, a male voice speaks right beside me, saying, ‘Sorry.’ That’s when I freaked out.

"I’m pretty sure my childhood house was haunted." – NinaLaPirat

"My son is 10 now, but when he was three, he said he saw a man with a big hat standing in his bedroom doorway staring at him while he tried to sleep. The man disappeared after a while, but my son could feel him sit down on his bed. He still randomly brings it up, so I don’t think it was just a three-year-old’s overactive imagination." – v1ntage_m1sery

"A long time ago, back when I was in high school, maybe a freshman or sophomore, my mom was out of town for some reason. My younger brother and two sisters were staying with my grandparents. I was home alone. Monday morning, I’m up waiting for my grandpa to pick me up and give me a ride to school.

"We lived in an old, historic two-story house. I’m sitting downstairs in the living room watching tv. All of a sudden I hear a man and a woman talking upstairs. Sounds like they are in my mom’s room.

"I turned off the TV to hear better. I could distinctly hear a man and woman talking to each other. I could not hear individual words, just mumbling.

"I got up off the couch and started walking toward the stairs, as I am walking across the room, I hear a small child speak. Again, no individual words, but the sound of muffled voices talking.

"Pretty freaked out, the voices are definitely happening. As I approach the bottom stair, something upstairs in my mom’s room hits the floor. Like a semi loud THUD. To me, it seemed like someone pulled a dresser drawer too far out and it came out and hit the floor.

"The voices stopped immediately and I ran outside and waited for my grandpa. Middle of winter, no coat … did not care." — Chknbone

"I was driving home from work one night when I see a little girl on a tricycle riding across the street and into some woods that drop off into a creek. I brake and skid to avoid her and walk to where I thought she fell.

"I see no one in the woods, and a cop pulls up to ask me what I am doing. I tell him he was the person I needed and that I saw a little girl riding her tricycle across the street heading into that area where it dropped off.

"He then tells me right away that I saw what some other drivers here have seen. More than 40 years ago, a child was killed riding her tricycle across that section of road. Others have seen her multiple times. Sometimes walking, other times on her tricycle.

"After some construction brought change to that section of road with expansions and barriers, the sightings all ceased." – AndGraceToo

"I woke up to get a glass of water at night and passed my dad on the way to the kitchen. I asked him something about where was he going. He walked right past me like he didn’t see or even hear me, just was in a type of trance, and he walked out the front door. I looked out the front window, and he was sitting on our sidewalk under a tree, hands on his knees staring into the dark.

"I went to my mom’s room to ask her what dad was doing, she said, ‘What do you mean? He’s right here?’ she scooted over, and there was my dad, laying in bed asleep." – frankenboo

"When I was a kid, I once woke up in the middle of the night. Complete silence. I looked around the room and behind a wardrobe, I saw a small hand waving at me. It was like a kid's hand, it was dark but I remember seeing it so clearly, I could see each finger.

"I started crying and screaming and my parents had to check my room few times before I would fall asleep." — Andysaurus_Rexx

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"The only one I have is when I was in fourth grade. When I was little, I would always sleep with my door open. I went through a phase where I would wake up between 3:00/4:00 A.M. every night, and every single night I would hear footsteps walking up my stairs, around my living room, through my dining room, across my kitchen, and down my hallway. They would always stop right before my doorway, then turn around and go back into the basement.

"But one night they didn’t stop.

"That night, I saw a shadow of a little boy walk right in front of my doorway, look at me for a few seconds, then walk away, back down the stairs. I slept with the door closed the next night." – asds10

"My grandparents used to have a really beautiful painting of my aunt hanging in their living room. And yes, she is still alive. Anyways, when I was about five or six I was sleeping in their living room one night when I heard it talking to me.

"It was her voice and it talked to me just like she would have. It was weird because I was really calm and not scared, even talking back, but I knew that paintings don’t talk. Eventually, she told me to go wake up my Grandpa and tell him she wants to talk to him.

"I went and woke him up and when he realized I was talking about the painting, he got really pissed. He was yelling at me when he suddenly stopped and stared out the window. Then his eyes got wide and he told me to hide in his bedroom and tell my Grandma to call the police.

"He then grabbed a pistol he had hidden in his cabinet and ran outside. While she was on the phone, we heard two shots. He came back in after a few minutes and told us he shot one of the guys trying to break into his house in the arm but they all got away.

"It turns out that a prison for minors about 20 miles away had three escapees. They ran through the woods until they came to my Grandpa’s property and planned on looting what they could and use us as hostages, if necessary. That is until my aunt’s painting woke me up and told me to wake him up." – Tucker33

"At my previous job, our building was still under construction. The only floors that were occupied were the 1st, 2nd, 5th, 6th and 7th. One time, I was alone inside the elevator going from 1st to the 6th floor when, suddenly, it stopped and opened on the 3rd floor. Normally, I would just disregard it, but rumors were all over that a ghost child was playing around on the vacant floors. So I pressed the close button as I fast as I could. When it closed, I heard noises like someone was tapping their fingers on the walls of the elevator." – sizzlorr26

"When I was a teenager, I used to babysit my cousin Alyssa. She was little, maybe almost two, maybe a little older, old enough to say sentences.

"I’m giving her a bath before bed when she looks out into the hallway and gets a terrified look on her face and starts crying. At this moment, my aunt’s Pomeranian starts going nuts as well, barking and growling into the hallway. The atmosphere in the room became uncomfortable, and I started getting scared.

"I took her downstairs from the third floor in the townhouse to try and calm her down. I asked her what was wrong, and she said something along the lines of ‘The man with the black eyes’ was there. When I continued to pry, she looked up at the second-floor stairs, her eyes getting big and looks at me, bringing her finger up to her mouth and said, ‘shh,’ while shaking her head ‘no.'" – FuzzyBanditz

"When I was around 12, me, my cousin and my brother were building a snow igloo in my grandma’s backyard. We had the whole dome complete, and were working on the inside, making the walls smooth, when I accidentally smoothed it a little too much and a little hole to the outside formed.

"Instantly, a little hand shot through that hole and started reaching around, trying to grab something. At first, none of us in the igloo really freaked out, since we thought it was my little sister trying to break our fort. After grasping around for about 10 seconds, the hand pulled back out of the hole. However, when we went out to scold my sister, there was no one there, and there were no footsteps out there apart from our own." – Sneakos1

"I lived in this house with a basement, and every time I walked up the stairs I would get this weird creepy goosebumps feeling on the back of my neck. It didn’t make me uneasy to go down the stairs or to be in the basement. My craft room was down there and I spent a lot of time there.

"After a while, I would have items I was using disappear when I looked away from them. I would search and search and one day I got frustrated and to no one in particular, I said, “Can I please have my scissors back?” I had just looked under the pile of new mail and when I turned my head, there were my scissors on top of the pile of mail.

"I talked to my neighbor and she told me that the original owner of the house was a jolly old man who loved to prank people … and that he had fallen coming up the stairs one day and died. I think the goosebumps were him trying to tell me to be careful! And every time after that, when something would disappear, I would politely ask for it back and it would appear in a place that I could not have missed it before." – ScarletBeezwax

I would also like to receive newsletters and special offers from Murder & Mayhem (fictional mysteries and thrillers).

This Story Was First Published on Occult Museum.

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Featured photo: Shane Gorski / Flickr (CC); Additional photos: evan courtney / Flickr (CC); Jillian Powers / Flickr (CC); Toa Heftiba / Unsplash; Taber Andrew Bain / Flickr (CC); Seniju / Flickr (CC)