True Scary Stories

It's that time of year again. Nights are getting cold. Days are getting shorter. And it's the perfect time to hear some true paranormal/scary stories.

So ATS, what are some true scary stories/experiences that have happened to you? I figured that most of us have probably had a few weird experiences or else we wouldn't be here. I'll start off with one of my own, the time I had an encounter with some sort of skinwalker thing outside of Holbrook, AZ:

It was 2009, first week of January, and I was driving back to Los Angeles from spending time with my family in Tennessee/Kentucky over the Christmas and New Year's holidays. It's an easy drive, no map needed, I-40 all the way from Memphis to L.A. I made it to north Texas the first night and slept, got up the next morning and continued on. The drive the next day was uneventful and around 9 pm or so I started to get tired so I took the next exit to find a hotel for the night. The place I stopped at was Holbrook, AZ, maybe about 40 minutes east of Flagstaff. I drive down to the last hotel on the road off the exit, which was a Motel 6, pull up, go inside, pay for my room and get a room key. I drive around the motel and park on the north side of the building, which backs up to an unpaved dirt lot.

So I'm standing there with the drivers side doors open on my SUV, going through my bags getting everything I need for the night out and I hear this scream. Scream is maybe the wrong word, it was more like a roar, mixed with a high-pitched wailing, kind of like a baby wailing and a bear roaring at the same time. I glance to my left, and there's this HUGE shadow in the shape of a really tall man (or something) standing on the embankment about 10 feet away from me. I freeze up and I stare at it for maybe 10-15 seconds, then it roars again, jumps over the ENTIRE dirt lot it was standing on (I could see the shape of it landing on the other side of the lot from the streetlights) and vanishes into the night. I freak out completely, bolt for my motel door, leaving my SUV wide open in the middle of the night, lock the door, and barricade myself in the bathroom. That night I took the sheets off the bed and slept in the bathtub with the door locked (just so I had an extra locked door between me and the outside) I was so freaked out. I woke up early the next morning and got the hell out of there.

I will never forget the sound that whatever this was made, it was so loud that I felt it through me, if that makes any sense. After I locked myself in the bathroom that night I started searching on my phone for any sightings resembling anything like that around that area, and that's when I learned about all the sightings of skinwalkers around the 4 corners area (which isn't that far away). It's probably also worth mentioning that there are Navajo reservations all around the area. What amazes me (almost) as much as seeing that thing was that it scared me so badly I bolted to my room and left the two drivers side doors and the back cargo door on my SUV wide open all night, filled with Christmas presents and expensive music equipment, and no one touched any of it. All night I couldn't help but to think how I was sure to be robbed, but there was NO way I was going back out there. Surprisingly, no one touched a thing in my car, my laptop was sitting right on the seat where I left it, even though the doors had been open all night. I lucked out.

So what crazy things have happened to you? Paranormal, UFOs, serial killer hiding in your back seat, duendes, mean cats, anything freaky or scary. Let's hear about it..

a reply to: underwerks

Spooky time.

I'll keep it simple and short.

I was in my mid teens around 15 - 16. I was home alone and working on a geography project, it involved the typical 'display' for a presentation, with some research and graphics, photos, etc. on some cardboard or what ever.

This obviously required the use of scissors, or some sort of blade to cut out sections of paper.

My family house at the time consisted of a basement, mainfloor, an 'upper' floor, and an upstairs. The main floor had the computer desk, family TV, entrances, and what not.
I started my project in the basement, where I hung out most of the time. I had all my research and graphics printed out and was in need of some scissors.

I searched and searched all over the basement and quickly realized, the computer desk upstairs.
I went upstairs rifled through the drawers, ruffled some papers, nothing.
went to the kitchen same thing, nothing.
went upstairs to maybe take a look in my room, nothing.

Finally I went back into the basement and searched everywhere, couldn't find a damn pair of scissors.

Frustrated and out of luck I went back to the main floor to look in the computer desk drawers again, nothing.

I turned my back, hands on my hips, and said to myself "where could they be".

It was then I heard a noise, a scrapping sound like a heavy metal object being dragged across some wood. And then ...
A loud THUD.
The ground trembled a bit, I turned around quickly, and behind me, a pair of scissors lay on the floor, and a piece of paper floating to the ground.

The scissors were under a pile of papers on the computer desk. Something was out to help me that day.

a reply to: strongfp

Something was watching.

I have a bunch of old threads that I created a while back discussing my time at Ohio University. They mostly describe all of the supposed hauntings and my personal experiences while on campus. It's a lot to retype so I'll post the links instead. I would love to revive those threads and discussions.

Haunted OU 1
Haunted OU 2
Haunted OU 3
Haunted OU 4
My "haunted" fraternity house:
More stories
Here's my experience with a "ghost car" in Northern California:
Ghost Car?

I hope you take the time to read. Interesting stuff. I wish members would post more paranormal threads this time of year.

Me and Mrs were driving home through a Dorset village. Stopped at traffic lights. It was getting dark and there was not a breath of wind and it was starting to get a bit foggy.
A still autumn evening.
Looked to my right for some reason. There was a terraced house with no lights on. Windows were closed.
The curtains - thick heavy ones- were flying about almost horizontally as if it was blowing a gale inside and I could see stuff whirling around inside. This was both upstairs and downstairs. All in complete silence.
Hairs stood up and i got an intense feeling of wrongness. And the presence of something evil. It was like something invisible was raging.
Nudged Mrs and we just stared in disbelief.
Lights changed and i put my foot down and got out of there.
Been past since and people living there and all seemed fine.
I have no explanation.
I have had some weird experiences but this was just "wrong" and i felt terrified.
All true.
Spooky or what?

My relatives own a place deep in the countryside which dates back to the 1700s. It was bought as a weekend escape from the city and, for the first few years, was unaltered and without electricity. Come nightfall gas lamps and candles were the only illumination.

At this time there was a staircase at either end, because it consisted of two conjoined cottages. The narrower staircase led to two rooms, in one of which I used to sleep when staying. For some reason, this staircase and the other unoccupied room, which was used for storing apples, always gave me a sense of unease. I confided this to my relatives years later, when the room and stairs had been lost to extensive renovations, and it became clear that a number of disturbing encounters in that area lay behind the alterations.

Perhaps this also prompted the installation of electricity, which was their first concession to modernity. I spent a weekend there alone, just after this work had begun. Wires were laid, but sockets and lights were unconnected. It was late August and the nights were drawing in. On the Saturday I worked in the garden until the light faded and came in to cook on the wood-fired stove. As soon as I sat down to eat there was a bump, seemingly from indoors. My first thought was a late visitor at the door. There wasn't, so I visited each room and peered at the windows for marks of bird strike. I was doing this when I heard a louder thumping, apparently from the aforementioned unoccupied room.

Bravely venturing in with a torch, I found nothing. About an hour went by without further disturbance, so I settled into an armchair in the front room beside the large unlit stone fireplace. I lit a couple of candles and read a book. Gradually I became aware of a faint cacophony that had been building up while I was absorbed in the book. Suddenly it got louder and I dropped the book. There was a kind of frantic scraping noise and for the first time I thought, 'what the hell!' There shouldn't be any sound in this house if I'm not making it.

Over the next couple of hours I became increasingly frustrated and unnerved as the strange sounds got louder and more persistent. I wandered from room to room trying to find a cause. Suddenly a thunder of footsteps traversed the whole length of the building. It seemed to be coming from upstairs, so l pursued it, and as it grew louder I shouted, 'Quiet!' and was rewarded with a period of complete silence. Then it started again, louder and more frenetic.

Defeated and quite shaken, I retreated to the front room intending to light a fire for comfort. The candles were out and, as I approached the fire, I saw it was already alight. The coals were faintly afire with an eerie glow. I became paralyzed with fear and a kind of fascination, unable to move or think. The fire gradually grew brighter until its blazing light filled the room and the noise became relentless. Another loud thump and I just launched myself out of the place, almost coming to grief as l stumbled over a stone trough on the front lawn.

As I climbed the hill above the cottage, I looked back to see a full moon shining directly down the chimney! Later in the week my relatives discovered terrible carnage to their new wiring caused by a family of squirrels in the attic.

I've had paranormal experiences my whole life. I found a lot of answers during my active time here hearing about others experiences, which are all included in my very long thread here: www.abovetopsecret.com...

Out of all my experiences though, the one I never found an answer to was the time the unique black stone from my ring was lost at a club one night. Three months later at a totally different place (a drive-in movie theater), I had gone to the restroom during intermission. As I stood up, this black object was hanging there in mid-air right in front of my face. It was like it materialized there waiting for me to see it, then when I did, it fell to the cement floor.

At first I thought it was a spider hanging down from the ceiling, but when it landed, it made a noise, which a spider wouldn't do. I saw that it wasn't moving, so I reached down to pick it up.

It was the black stone that had fallen out of my ring three months earlier. Just appeared from thin air and fell at my feet! This was a one of a kind ring that a man made special for me, so I knew it was it when I picked it up.

You can read that story in more detail, and many more in my thread I posted above.

If anyone can tell me how that happened, please... I'm still waiting!

Happy Halloween!

I've have experienced some scary things but one stands out as soul chilling.

I was about 11 years old.

It must of been around 10 pm or so.

I heard this weird noise outside so I opened a window and immediately started hearing someone calling my name, (female voice)
Over and over...and then it changed to screeching and wailing. I got my mom to come listen because it was scaring me and it was loud and sounded "bad" like something was really wrong. She was listening when the voice started screaming DANNY!! HELP ME!!!!! Over and over.

She turned and looked at me with a total blank stare and said she didn't want to know anymore, and she just walked back into the kitchen and just stood there.

The voice kept screaming my name so I shut the window and then it stopped completely.

It scared the living bejuzus out of me.
Any time I brought it up, my mom wouldn't talk about it.
It was weird.....

I've posted about this in detail before, but I our new home is pretty active. It was built just about two and a half years ago, but we get spurts of activity. We will go for a few weeks with odd things happening, and then nothing for a few months.

It started when i came home from a baseball game. My wife told me she had been reading and she looked up because she felt like she was being watched, and there was a man a boy, both wearing flannel shirts, standing in the living room. She jumped from surprise and when she looked again, there was nothing there. I didn't believe her.

Since then, over the course of about two years, we've experienced objects moving, disembodied voices, and all manner of noises such as dresser drawer handles clanking and one night when it sounded like things were being slammed hard on the granite counters in the kitchen for a good 45 seconds.

Things have been quiet lately, but here's the thread link if anyone is interested in the specifics: www.abovetopsecret.com...