Paranormal Phenomena — Nobody Believes Me

My grandmother used to tell us this story. She always said it was about the time they met an alien. It happened many years ago, back in the early 1930s. They lived near a forest — just an ordinary forest. They'd go there to pick mushrooms and berries, hunt game, the usual. Then, out of nowhere, people started disappearing. Four people vanished in just one month. You might chalk it up to wild animals, but the only wildlife around there were foxes, hares, and wild boar. So naturally, people became afraid to go into the forest. And then, not long after, a man wandered into their village. They saw him come right out of that very forest. My grandmother described him as oddly dressed, carrying strange gadgets, speaking in a peculiar way. He seemed completely lost, like he had no idea where he was. About those gadgets — she said he had a metal bracelet on his wrist, and after they'd given him a good steam in the bathhouse, he pressed some buttons on it, and within five minutes all his scratches were gone. He also kept staring at some little box that had glowing pictures and numbers on it. He kept shoving it in front of the men's faces, showing them strange maps, asking where he was. So they figured a UFO had landed nearby. They called it in to someone higher up, but nobody believed them and no special services ever showed up. And then the man just vanished. My grandmother said the alien must have sensed something was off and fled. Anyway, when I was a kid listening to this story wide-eyed, I truly believed he was an alien. But now, years later, I think — come on, no alien would blow his cover like that. And that little box of his sure sounds a lot like a modern smartphone. So now I believe that man somehow ended up in the wrong time. And judging by the fact that we still don't have anything like that bracelet he wore, he wasn't even from our time — he was from even further in the future. And what about the people who disappeared? Maybe they were displaced in time too? By the way, after a while, people gradually started going back into the forest, and there were no more disappearances. So the anomaly was short-lived — it lasted maybe a month or two. If it was a time portal, as I suspect, it may have closed or moved somewhere else. As for that man, they never heard anything about him again. Maybe he found his way back, or maybe he quietly lived out the rest of his life there, in that time.

Hey everyone. I've been reading through your stories for a while now, and I finally worked up the nerve to share what happened to me. I'll try to keep it straightforward, but sorry in advance if I ramble — once I start thinking about this stuff, it's hard to stop. It was November 2019. My wife and I went to Cairo. Not one of those all-inclusive Red Sea resort deals — she's got a degree in History and had always wanted to see the pyramids in person. I'll be honest, I was more in it for the trip itself. I was never someone who believed in anything supernatural. I was always the guy who'd say "there's a rational explanation for everything." Was. On day three we headed to Giza. We'd hired a local guide, Ahmed, solid guy, spoke great English. It was about 30 degrees out — November and still that hot, go figure. There were tourists around, but it wasn't packed. Off-season, I guess. The Great Pyramid up close is something else entirely. Photos don't do it justice. You stand there looking at those stone blocks — each one comes up to your chest — and there are millions of them. Your brain just can't process it. Ahmed asked if we wanted to go inside. My wife didn't even hesitate, and I tagged along. We paid the entrance fee and in we went. The passage is narrow, low, stuffy. I'm not claustrophobic, but I won't pretend it was pleasant. We started climbing up the Grand Gallery — this long, sloping corridor with a high ceiling. And that's where the first thing I can't explain happened. I'd fallen a few metres behind my wife and Ahmed. They'd gone round a corner, and for just a moment — I'm talking two or three seconds — I felt completely alone. Not in the "they walked ahead" sense. Alone in the world. Every sound vanished. All of them. No footsteps, no tourist chatter, no echo off the walls. Dead silence, thick and almost physical. And the smell changed — instead of that stale, damp air, there was something sweet, like incense but not quite. I can't describe it any better than that. It lasted two, maybe three seconds. Then my wife called out to me and everything snapped back — the sounds, the smells, the feeling of reality. At the time I told myself it was the heat, the thin air, and I didn't mention it to my wife. We made it to the King's Chamber. It's a room with a granite sarcophagus, bare, with a massive echo. Ahmed was explaining things, my wife was taking photos. And I was standing by the far wall feeling strange. Not sick — strange. Like there was someone else in that room besides us and the three or four other tourists. It wasn't threatening, more like... being watched. You know that feeling when you walk into someone's house and the owner is just standing there in the doorway, silently looking at you? That. I wanted to get a photo of the sarcophagus on my phone. Pulled it out, aimed the camera — and it switched off. Just died. Battery was around 70 percent. I pressed the power button — nothing. Held it down — nothing. My wife was right next to me photographing away on hers, no issues whatsoever. I shoved mine back in my pocket and figured I'd deal with it later. It turned itself back on about fifteen minutes later, as we were leaving the pyramid. Screen lit up like nothing had happened. Battery — 70%. But in the photo gallery there was one picture I definitely didn't take. Black, almost entirely black. But when I cranked the brightness all the way up, you could make out the wall, the corner of the chamber, and something like a shadow near the sarcophagus. It wasn't my shadow, it wasn't any tourist's — it was different. Elongated, the shape didn't match anything. My wife said it was probably a camera glitch. Maybe it was. Right, so up to this point you can still come up with a rational explanation for all of it. What came next — I'm not so sure. That evening we got back to the hotel. I had a shower, lay down, absolutely shattered. Fell asleep instantly. And I had a dream that I remember in vivid detail to this day — and I'm someone who normally forgets dreams before I've finished breakfast. I was inside the pyramid, but it was different. Not crumbling — new. The walls were smooth, covered in drawings and symbols. Oil lamps were burning. And I was walking down a corridor, and I knew where I was going — as if I'd walked that route hundreds of times. I could feel the clothes on my body — some kind of rough linen. And I could feel that I wasn't me. The body was different, the hands were different — dark skin, calluses, and bracelets on both wrists. I reached a room. Not the King's Chamber — a different one, smaller, lower ceiling. There was a stone vessel, and I knew I had to place something inside it. I can't remember what. But I knew it was important and that it wasn't the first time I'd done it. Then I heard a sound. Low, vibrating, as if the pyramid itself was humming. Not unpleasant, but powerful — I felt it through my whole body. And at that moment I looked up and the ceiling was gone. Instead of stone, there was sky. But not a normal sky — the stars were closer, brighter, and they were moving. Rotating slowly. I woke up at 3:47 a.m. I remember the exact time because I checked my phone straight away. Heart hammering, t-shirt soaked. And here's the part that genuinely scared me: on my left wrist there were two red marks. Parallel, like something tight had been pressing against the skin — a cord, a bracelet. They weren't scratches — they were pressure marks. They stayed visible for about two hours and then faded. My wife was asleep. I didn't wake her. The next day we went to the Egyptian Museum. I was looking at the exhibits when I stopped dead in one of the halls. There were items from tombs — vessels, figurines, jewellery. And I saw bracelets. Bronze, wide, with etched markings. I recognised them. Not "they looked like the ones in the dream" — I recognised them the way you recognise something that belongs to you. My hands started shaking. I could feel the weight of them on my wrists. Ahmed was with us. I asked him what those bracelets were, who wore them. He told me they were worn by the "hemu netjer" — temple servants, a kind of junior priest who worked at temples and tombs. Not the high priests, but the ones who carried out the daily rituals. I asked what rituals. He said: offerings, preparations, looking after sacred objects. Basically, what I'd been doing in the dream. I hadn't told Ahmed anything about the dream. It's been over six years now. The dream never came back, the marks on my wrists never reappeared. The phone works fine. That black photo is still sitting in my cloud storage — every now and then I open it, stare at that shadow, and just sit there not knowing what to think. I only told my wife the whole story about six months later. She took it the way you'd expect — "well, maybe it was genetic memory, maybe it was all the impressions from the day getting jumbled together." She's like that, rational, practical, feet firmly on the ground. I used to be too. I don't know what it was. I'm not claiming anything — not past lives, not spirits, not pyramid energy. I've told you what happened, that's it. If anyone's been through something similar, write it up — I'd love to compare notes.

my daughter was two and a half. she'd just started putting sentences together. one evening im sitting in the kitchen, shes playing in the other room. I hear her talking to someone. kids talk to themselves, to their toys, whatever. but then I listened more closely — she was clearly responding to someone. pausing. laughing. like a real back-and-forth. I went in — nobody there. shes sitting in the corner by the window, looking toward the armchair. the armchair is empty. I ask, who were you talking to? she says, grandpa. I say, which grandpa? both her grandfathers are alive, she knows them by name. she just shrugged and goes, the one sitting over there. points at the armchair. I say, theres nobody there. she looked at me like I was stupid and went back to playing. I would have forgotten about it. kids say all kinds of things. but then it kept happening. several times a week. always the same spot, always that armchair. one time I asked, what does he look like, your grandpa? she goes, old. wearing stripes. and then she pointed to her wrist and said, he has something drawn here. I nearly fell over. my grandfather died eight years before she was born. I barely remember him — I was about six. but I clearly remember he had a tattoo on his wrist. an anchor or something, I didnt really understand it as a kid. and he wore striped shirts — I remember that well, he had a few of them. there are no photos of him in our house. my husband and I moved to another city, all the family photos are back at my parents house. there is no way she could have seen any of this. I called my mom. told her what my daughter had said. she went quiet and said, yeah. dad had an anchor on his wrist. gave it to himself when he was young. then it just stopped. at some point she quit talking to the armchair. I asked, wheres your grandpa? she said, he left. and that was it. never again. shes seven now. doesnt remember any of it. says she doesnt remember any grandpa by the armchair.

i know how this sounds. i know. i dont drink, i dont smoke, i work as an engineer, and i have a good memory. just for context. a few years ago i was driving at night — long highway, middle of nowhere, no streetlights. around two in the morning. completely straight road, almost no other cars. i put on a podcast and drove. then i see it — three lights ahead of me on the horizon. not blinking, not moving. just hanging there in a triangle shape. at first i thought — a tower maybe, or a plane. but they werent moving at all. i drove toward them for about five minutes — they didn't get any closer or farther. then i blinked — i dont know how else to describe it, like a frame just got cut — and they were gone. thats it. darkness. highway. podcast still playing. i pulled over. got out. silence, stars, nothing. okay, i thought. fatigue hallucination, happens. got back in, kept driving. then i looked at the clock — 4:18. i left at one in the morning. to that point on the highway — i know it well, drive it all the time — its exactly one hour. an hour and a half at most. three hours had passed. the podcast — id been listening from the very beginning — was halfway through the second episode. each episode is 40 minutes. so roughly 60-70 minutes of audio had played. but three-plus hours of actual time. im sitting on the shoulder at four in the morning just staring at the clock. phone battery was normal. car was fine. i felt fine, nothing hurt, head was clear. just the time. i didnt tell anyone for two years. then i told a friend — he laughed and said "you obviously fell asleep at the wheel and dont remember it." maybe. but i have never once fallen asleep driving. and if i had — i wouldnt have stayed on a straight highway for another 60-70 minutes of podcast. one detail i cant explain at all and try not to think about — the seat. i always have it pushed all the way back, im tall. when i pulled over and got out — when i got back in — it was moved forward. not by much. but noticeably. i had to adjust it. i was alone in the car.

i dont even know where to start because every time i try to tell this out loud i hear how it sounds myself anyway. three years ago i was traveling to a funeral for a distant relative in another city. bus ride, five hours, i slept the whole way. woke up at some stop — twenty minute break, everyone got off to stretch. i got off too, bought coffee from a kiosk, sat down on a bench. there was a woman sitting next to me. elderly, ordinary looking. we started talking, just to pass the time. she asked where i was headed, i said to a funeral. she said she was sorry for my loss. then she asked, do you think about it much? about death? i said well, lately yeah, stressful job, anxiety. she went quiet for a moment and said "you know, everything is going to be okay for you. you in particular. i can just see it." i didnt think much of it. people say all kinds of things. the bus started moving. i went back to my seat. after a while i looked around — the woman hadnt come back. she wasnt on the bus. i figured she must have gotten off at that stop. okay, fine. arrived, funeral, the usual. two days later heading back. and heres the thing. im waiting for the bus, talking to a distant aunt i hadnt seen in years. i tell her about the stop, the woman. i describe her — grey coat, hair pulled back, thin-framed glasses. my aunt gives me this strange look and goes, wait. takes out her phone. scrolls through photos. shows me. it was her. the same woman. my aunt says thats my neighbors mother. she passed away. in april. i was going to the funeral in october. i still think about it — maybe it was just someone who looked similar? maybe i remembered wrong? but i have a very strong visual memory, its actually something people notice about me. and the coat. and the glasses. and the way she was sitting. and thats not even the strangest part. the strangest part is that things genuinely did get better for me after that. and i dont know what to do with that.