Unexplained — Nobody Believes Me

Right, I'll be upfront, I've got no clue what actually happened, but maybe someone out there's had something similar. This was about a year ago. I was home alone, just a regular Saturday, nothing weird going on, sitting at my laptop in my room. I hadn't shut the door, I never bother shutting it when I'm home on my own, and anyway it only locks from the inside. After a while I figured I'd head downstairs, looked over at the door and was a bit thrown to see it was shut. Tried to walk out, but the door wouldn't budge. First I figured the handle was just jammed. Gave it a proper yank, nothing. The door was just... not letting me out. And there's no way anyone could've been holding it from the other side, I was definitely the only one home. Started getting a bit panicky by then. Checked my phone, had signal. Looked out the window, noticed it was getting dark, glanced at the clock, it was around 4. Thought maybe a storm was rolling in. The next three hours, I genuinely don't know how to describe what was going on. The whole time I never saw anyone outside the window, but our street's not exactly busy. But it kept flipping between day and night out there. One minute it'd be pitch black, the next it'd be bright as midday. Night fell three or four times in those three hours, and a whole rainstorm came and went. Rang a mate just to make sure I could actually reach someone, and to check if he was seeing the same weird shit. Got through, but he said everything was fine at his end. When I asked him about it he goes, "What night? Mate, did you teleport? It's broad daylight here." So I worked out he wasn't seeing anything weird, it was just me. I kept panicking, the door still wouldn't open. I also noticed the room kept swinging between hot and cold. Although, dunno, that could've just been me, panic does that to you. I was seriously thinking about ringing someone and asking them to come over. Probably would've spent ages working out who to call and what to say so they wouldn't have me committed, but then around 6 or 7 the door just opened on its own. I bolted out of the room, then straight out of the house. Just walked around town till late in the evening, didn't want to go back. For a few days after I tried to stay out of that room, only went in to grab stuff. Slept on the couch downstairs. But the panic faded eventually and I started questioning whether I'd lost the plot. Couple of months later I was back to sleeping and hanging out in my room. Nothing weird's happened since. I reckon I'm over it, but when I'm home alone I still wedge a chair in front of the door so it can't shut, otherwise I just can't relax. Most people'll think I imagined the whole thing, but nah. I took photos of all those views out the window on my phone. Doesn't prove anything, I just did it for myself so I wouldn't sit there later wondering if I was going mad. There's day, night and rain in those photos. And yeah, when I bolted out of the house, the ground outside was bone dry. I'd really love to know what the hell that was.

This story happened to my aunt. My aunt never really hid the incident — our whole large extended family knew about it, and over time what had happened turned into a kind of family legend. Back then she was still a young woman of thirty and a mother of two small children, and she went through a terrible tragedy: her husband, with whom she had been married for ten years, died of leukemia at the age of thirty-one. After the funeral, the family was preparing to hold the memorial meal for the deceased. In the largest room they set up a big table for the guests. Once everything was ready, my aunt and her sister lay down to sleep in another room. The memorial itself was scheduled for the following day. In the middle of the night, my aunt suddenly woke up to the sound of water running from a tap. According to her, she could clearly hear someone turn the water on in the bathroom, wash up, come out, and head for the living room. She could distinctly hear the footsteps of someone walking. The door of the room where she was sleeping was slightly ajar, but the apartment was dark and it was impossible to make anything out. Besides, the entrances to the bathroom and the living room weren't visible from where she lay. Instinctively, my aunt glanced sideways at her sister — she was sleeping right beside her. There was no one else in the apartment. She couldn't move from the wave of terror that had swept over her and, barely breathing, she lay there listening to what was happening in the living room. And in the living room someone was making their way along the memorial table — she could hear the chairs that had been pushed up against the wall being moved. My aunt mentally followed the movements of the mysterious guest, and suddenly she went cold with a horrifying realization. She remembered that there in the living room, by the window, they had left the towel that had been used to wipe the body of the deceased. According to folk belief, the towel used to wipe a deceased person must either be placed in the coffin or burned immediately after the funeral — otherwise the spirit of the departed may return. But both at the funeral and afterwards, everyone had forgotten about that towel. The sounds in the living room died down, but my aunt didn't close her eyes until morning, ready at any moment to hear or even see absolutely anything. In the morning it turned out that the chairs in the living room really had been shifted slightly. Her sister confirmed it, too — she remembered exactly how she had arranged them the evening before. With the towel things were a bit trickier: neither my aunt nor her sister could recall exactly how or where they had left it the night before, so they couldn't say with certainty that anyone had touched it. Later on, my aunt — who had grown up in a non-religious working-class family — kept trying to convince herself that the whole thing had been a hallucination or a dream. But then how to explain the sounds she heard that night and the chairs that had been moved? To that, my aunt has no answer.

My daughter is 6 months old. She's a normal baby, never had any real meltdowns or anything. I mean sure, she cries when she's hungry or when her tummy hurts. But overall I never had issues with tantrums. Then about a month ago she just started screaming bloody murder outside, like red in the face screaming. I spent 15 minutes trying to calm her down, we ended up going home. Back at home it took a bit but she eventually settled. The next day the same thing happened. Then we didn't go out for a couple of days. When we finally went out again, about an hour into the walk the meltdown started up again. And this time I definitely noticed that while we were alone, everything was fine. But as soon as another woman with a child came outside — it started. I don't remember if it was exactly those same people on the first two days. But after that I started noticing that my daughter has this huge meltdown every single time those people come out. Looks like a regular mom with her son, the boy looks about a year old. They seem totally normal. What it is about them that my daughter doesn't like, I have no clue. She reacts fine to other people, I've been watching for a whole month now. Why specifically with them, I don't know. Now if I see them out walking or just coming out of their place, I just leave right away. My husband keeps saying it's a coincidence. But this many times?? I don't buy it. Has anyone dealt with something like this with their own kids?

Something dead strange happened to me once in my life. But ever since, I've believed in spirits and all that stuff you just can't explain. It happened in 2004. I was on holiday in Thailand with my kid. December 2004 — everyone knows that one now. We were in Phuket, loving the swimming, going on day trips. Everything was great, until we went on an excursion to Khao Sok. I've always been a bit of a thrill-seeker — I especially love swimming way out, feeling at one with the ocean. My family are always having a go at me about it. But splashing around on the beach with a mob of people — that's just not my thing. So on this trip, we rocked up to Cheow Lan Lake. As usual, I wanted to get in the water. Nobody else from the group was keen — they reckoned it might be dodgy. But the guide said it was a man-made lake and it was fine. So I figured there couldn't possibly be any underwater monsters or crocs in there. Off I went. At first I was just enjoying myself. ThenI started getting a bit anxious — what if thre were snakes? But turning back felt embarassing at that point, so I kept going until I was halfway across the lake. And that's when things got strange. This absolute terror just washed over me. I felt like I was still on the lake, but like waves were crashing over me. I had this overwhelming fear for my kid, who was back on the shore. At one point I actually went under. Then everything went still. I came back up and saw the calm water again, our group on the bank. I was so shaken and frozen with fear that I couldn't even swim back straight away. That sick feeling of dread stayed with me the entire day. After we got back to the hotel, I thought I'd sleep it off and be right by morning. But that night I saw the exact same thing, only in a dream. Woke up absolutely wrecked — the anxiety was even worse after the nightmare. I went down to the hotel lobby to use their computer to check if there were any earlier flights home. Turned out there were seats on a flight back to Melbourne through Bangkok the very next day. I decided to get us home as quick as I could so I could see a doctor and get on some antidepressants. We flew out the next day. Six days later, I saw the tsunami on the news — including Phuket. I couldn't believe my eyes. We were supposed to still be there. What scared me like that? Was it trying to warn me? I'd have thought it was some local spirit, but it's a man-made lake. Still can't figure it out.

Since childhood, I’ve been very afraid of mirrors, especially at night. If I needed to go to the bathroom at night, I often couldn’t make myself go because I had to pass by a mirror in the hallway. Whenever I walked past it, I tried to look away. I wasn’t afraid of seeing monsters there, but of seeing myself — with evil eyes. I don’t really know how to explain it, it’s just a very childlike memory, but it felt real to me. Later, my parents even covered that mirror. Over time, I managed to overcome my fear. But about a month ago, I had a very strange dream. In the dream, I wasn’t myself — I looked like a completely different girl, from the 18th–19th century. I was standing in front of a bathroom mirror, washing my hands… and they were covered in blood. But I wasn’t looking at my hands — I was staring into the mirror with these disgusting, evil eyes, and even smirking. I woke up and felt a strong shiver run through me… And now I’m afraid to walk past mirrors at night again, with this feeling that I might see myself with those evil eyes from my dream. I know it sounds like complete nonsense, but has anyone experienced something similar?