It is well-known that the Victorians were keen on science, engineering, and mad inventions. They had a morbid fascination with death, but they had a spiritual side, too. So it was only a matter of time before they became obsessed with spiritualism and the paranormal.

In doing so, they approached the unknown like any other scientific conundrum. They wrote up experiments, tried to attach philosophical treatises to their findings, and considered the illogical, the otherworldly, and the downright bizarre with inquiring and open minds.

Although, occasionally, they were also a bit nuts.

10 Maria Hayden

Maria Hayden was an American medium. In the mid-1800s, she became famous in England as the first medium to demonstrate the new art of rapping, shortly after the more famous Fox sisters had made such an “impression” (also known as a killing) back home.

It is probably fair to say that the media did not treat Hayden kindly. Several Victorian publications set out to ridicule her and her skills. This increased when it was revealed that her rapped-out messages only made sense when she was able to see the letters in front of her.^[1]

When she was asked to turn her back, the messages were largely gibberish. This suggested the possibility that they were coming from Hayden herself and not from her spirit guide.

Hayden’s career as a medium seemed to end quite suddenly. She dropped out of the public eye completely and returned to America. There, she trained as a doctor and practiced for 15 years. It was said that she had “remarkable healing powers.” So good, in fact, that she was later offered a medical professorship at a US university.

9 Annie Horniman

Annie Horniman’s background was rather ordinary. Her family had come up with the idea of selling tea prepackaged rather than loose, which was less messy and much more lucrative.

Like all wealthy Victorian ladies, Horniman had a social project. She was instrumental in creating the arts scene in Manchester, working to bring the theater to the masses. She promoted the work of local dramatists, the benefits of which are still felt today as Manchester has the most thriving theater district outside of London.

But a lady has to have a hobby, too. Horniman was a believer in tarot cards and mysticism in general. She used card readings in all her business affairs, though not always successfully.

Along with Aleister Crowley and Bram Stoker, Horniman became a member of The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn for the better understanding of the paranormal. She also believed that she could astrally project to other planets, which she visited as frequently as some people pop to the shops.

While on a tour of the universe in 1898, she encountered a “tall, dignified, and winged” man on Saturn. He was dressed in armor and told Horniman all about his “dying world.” However, the man was fearful of strangers. As a result, Horniman and her companion made themselves invisible so as not to alarm him.^[2]

8 Annie Besant

Annie Besant was a singular woman. She boldly left her clergyman husband and two children because of her anti-religious views and became involved with a former clergyman, Charles Leadbeater, who was a member of Madame Blavatsky’s Theosophical Society. Besant was much interested in spiritualism of all kinds, believing as she did that “matter exists in states other than those at present known to science.”

Besant wrote a book called Thought-Forms, which was not so much about the paranormal as it was about color. Today, Besant would have been diagnosed with synesthesia as her book explained emotion in a table of colors and shapes. The work gave a fascinating insight into the synesthete’s mind. Apparently, passion is purple.

Later, Besant became an advocate for Indian Home Rule. She eventually settled there and adopted a son whom she believed to be the new Messiah and a reincarnation of Buddha.^[3]

7 Helena Petrovna Blavatsky

In 1873, Helena Blavatsky arrived in New York from Russia. She was a philosopher, a student of the occult, and one of the founding members of the Theosophical Society. The aim of the society was to explore the divine powers she believed that humans possessed and thus save the world.

Blavatsky’s particular divine powers included visions, clairvoyance, and conversing with the dead. She claimed that she had disguised herself as a man to fight in the Battle of Mentana, where she was left for dead. But she supposedly used her powers to fight her way back to life. After that, she made a miraculous escape at sea after her ship was blown up.

However, her account lacked proof or credibility. She could not adequately explain why she, a Russian living in America, would want to involve herself in an Italian-French conflict in Rome. Soon, she let this story go.

Blavatsky’s biggest claim to fame was her book, The Secret Doctrine, which explained the birth of mankind from the four Root Races. The first (best) race was as white as the Moon, the second was gold, the third was red, and the fourth was brown which became “black with sin.”^[4]

6 Alexis-Vincent-Charles Berbiguier De Terre-Neuve Du Thym

Alexis-Vincent-Charles Berbiguier de Terre-Neuve du Thym, whom we will call Berbiguier, was born in France in 1765. It is probably fair to say that he was “troubled.”

In 1821, he published his autobiography in three volumes. It detailed his struggles with dark forces, which had earned him the title “The Scourge of Hobgoblins.” According to Berbiguier, he had destroyed as many of these creatures as possible but had discovered that killing them makes them angry.

Berbiguier refused to be examined for possible mental health disorders, believing all doctors to be ambassadors of the hobgoblin world. He increased his efforts to wipe out the plague of hobgoblins, filling his room with plants supposedly lethal to them as well as some empty bottles in which to trap them.^[5]

Berbiguier published his volumes, all 274 chapters of them, which included pictures of the hobgoblins as drawn by him.

5 William Stead

William Stead’s main claim to fame was that he had been aboard the Titanic when it sank. Still, he was an interesting man in other ways. He had been a pioneer of what is now called investigative journalism, writing an expose on child prostitution that ultimately led to the age of consent for girls being raised from 13 to 16.

In 1892, Stead began to report on a different kind of story. He had been getting messages from “the other side.” In fact, he believed that he was receiving messages from a departed fellow journalist. He even employed a team of office staff to record the messages and pass them on to relevant loved ones.

Whether Stead was really getting messages from the dead, we will never know. However, it seems that Stead may have had something of a seer in him because he wrote a short story in 1886 about a ship that sank in the Atlantic.

In the story, the loss of life was so great because the lifeboats could only carry a third of the souls on the ship, leaving many to perish. He also included a warning: Although the story was fictional, it was entirely plausible.

William Stead was not one of the lucky ones who made it onto the boats when the Titanic sank.^[6]

4 William Wynn Westcott

William Wynn Westcott was a doctor, Freemason, and occultist. He also worked as a coroner. He was even briefly considered a suspect in the Jack the Ripper case.

In 1887, Westcott claimed that he was given some mysterious documents by a man who promptly died. It was written in a secret code to which Westcott just happened to hold the key.

When decoded, the documents contained the instructions for an initiation ceremony, following which Westcott was “given permission” to found the Isis-Urania Temple of the Golden Dawn.

Westcott’s society took off, and several more temples were built. He was promoted to Praemonstrator of the Kabbalah. However, it seems that Westcott had upset some higher power. He left some of his papers in the back of a taxi one day, and his spare time activities came to the notice of his employers, who took a dim view of coroners being praemonstrators.^[7]

Forced to choose between the secular and the divine, Westcott chose the one that allowed him to pay his bills and resigned from the society.

3 Dr. Hippolyte Leon Denizard Rivail

Dr. Rivail was a teacher, doctor, translator, and lawyer. Then he became Allan Kardec, “teacher of souls.” Kardec developed his own brand of spiritualism, which he called “Spiritism.”

After seeing a display of “table turning” in which the “spirit” causes a table to spin, he became convinced that the spirit was trying to communicate. However, three years earlier, Michael Faraday had explained the phenomenon of ideomotor response, in which muscles can move independently of deliberate thought and thus move tables.

Even so, Kardac wrote The Spirits Book, a guide to communicating with the other side. He believed that our bodies are just temporary containers for the spirit. In addition, the spirits of the departed are always with us, being reborn at different points along the ladder of spiritual rank.^[8]

2 Daniel Dunglas Home

Daniel Dunglas Home believed himself to be exceptional. On developing an interest in spiritualism as a teenager, he decided not to follow the crowd. He held his seances in brightly lit rooms. Rather than the audience holding each other’s hands, he asked them to hold his hands to prove that he was not manipulating objects himself.

At first, his seances were fairly pedestrian—with messages from the dead and ghostly music emanating from nowhere. Then, around 1857, they began to get more interesting. He made spectral hands appear from the ether. Napoleon III’s wife was even said to have recognized the distinctive hand of her dead father because of a deformed finger.

By 1868, he was able to levitate—not just a few feet off the ground but through an open window three stories up. (Or rather, he went into another room by himself and was later seen outside the window, presumably due to levitation. Then he floated back in.)

Though all of this may seem inexplicable and impressive, Harry Houdini maintained that Home was merely a magician and that Houdini could replicate all of Home’s tricks. Nevertheless, Home was a celebrity of his time and had many wealthy admirers.

There was a certain amount of unpleasantness when a rich widow claimed that Home had swindled her. He responded that she had given him money for his “spiritualistic services” and only demanded a refund when she realized that he would not be performing services of a different kind. A trial ensued, and he was forced to reimburse her.^[9]

1 Philippe Nizier-Anthelme Vachod

Philippe Nizier-Anthelme Vachod (or his less formal name, Master Philippe de Lyon) was born in France in 1849. Apparently, he was marked for greatness from the moment of his birth. His mother was said to have experienced no labor pains and delivered him singing with joy. As if that weren’t enough, a raging storm was quieted and a shooting star appeared at the exact moment of his birth.

So, how did this greatness manifest itself?

Well, in 1874, while living in Lyon, Philippe worked in a pharmacy and was able to cure the sick without the aid of drugs. Then he studied medicine. But his fellow students were unimpressed by his healing powers, which they felt made a mockery of their profession, and his license was revoked.^[10]

He became the personal clairvoyant to Tsar Nicholas II and was said to have predicted the birth of the tsarevitch as well as the forthcoming revolution. Philippe even managed to raise a child from the dead.

However, he was unable to repeat the trick when his own child died. When asked to explain this, Philippe said that he had allowed her to die to save the world from an unspecified and unprovable cosmic calamity.

Ward Hazell is a writer who travels and an occasional travel writer.

Humans have always been fascinated with (and terrified by) the paranormal. This doesn’t prevent some of them from going out of their way to try and force an encounter with the unseen. However, sometimes spooks are the furthest thing from their mind when they are suddenly confronted with something they can’t explain.

It is no wonder that there are a variety of paranormal reality TV shows all dealing with real-life ‘encounters’ with ghosts, demons and other apparitions. Obviously, most of these shows have eye-roll inducing episodes because of the bad acting or weird re-enactments, but occasionally they produce a gem, regardless, that causes real goosebumps.

Potential spoilers ahead!

10 Paranormal Events Linked To Mass Tragedies

10 Terror in the Woods

Woods can be scary places. You can’t always see the dangerous creatures hiding between the trees or thick undergrowth, and that is just the real-life ones. Many people have had unsettling experiences hiking or camping in the woods, while others have purchased homes in remote woods only to find that there is something sinister lurking inside.

Bill and Charisse Stark experienced their own horror story that was eventually aired on Destination America’s Terror in the Woods. They couldn’t believe their luck when a cabin owner sold them his property at the edge of a geological reserve in Red River Gorge, Kentucky. The cabin was to be their dream ‘retirement retreat.’ The dream soon turned nightmarish when unexplained incidents started happening in and around the cabin.^[1]

At one point, Bill installed a security camera outside which captured a green mist that seemed to fade in and out. The camera also caught what looked like a bright light coming up from the ground and floating off. Bill found a weird footprint in the snow outside the cabin, and the couple’s TV and PlayStation would on occasion turn on by itself. When they inspected the game console, they found a slimy substance covering it.

Later, in their Terror in the Woods episode, it was revealed that a woman suffering from a terminal illness had died in the cabin. It was also reported that strange things kept happening in the cabin after the episode aired.

9 Ghost Hunters

Ghost Hunters ran from 2004 to 2016 and was revived in 2019. During its original 11-season run, Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson investigated haunted locations in the US as well as the UK. They are the founders of TAPS (The Atlantic Paranormal Society) and work alongside a team of ‘ghost hunters.’

During the multitude of episodes, many strange things happened including faces materializing in darkness, multiple EMF meters triggered at the same time, disembodied figures wandering around and voices calling out from basements. During “The Armory” episode the team was investigating the New Bedford Armory in Massachusetts when their sound man, Frank DeAngelis, inexplicably fell backwards. He couldn’t get back on his feet and had to receive medical attention.

Afterwards, DeAngelis claimed that he felt something pass through him. He also quit the crew the next day because he was too traumatized to carry on with the investigations.^[2]

8 True Terror with Robert Englund

Who better to host a scary show than Freddy Krueger himself? True Terror with Robert Englund premiered in March 2020 (as a continuation of True Terror with George Takei) and has received great reviews. The show takes historical news stories of the paranormal kind and brings them to life using Englund’s celebrity and general creepiness.

One of the stories of the pilot episode included a man from North Carolina who dreamt of his own death and the countdown to it. There is also the tale of a New Orleans teenager unable to escape a waking nightmare and his eventual grisly fate. (Sounds like something Freddy Krueger could be involved in, right?)

One of the creepiest episodes, however, is the one that relates the true story of the Axeman of New Orleans, who was one of America’s most infamous serial killers. The Axeman initiated a dark chain of events in which he challenged the public and the police with an open letter. The media printed several responses from citizens in which they challenged the killer right back. Italian American immigrant, George Columbo intended to meet up with the Axeman and what followed is the stuff of nightmares.^[3]

7 Paranormal Lockdown

Imagine spending 100 hours in an infamously haunted house, with an unpredictable demonic entity. This is exactly what paranormal researchers, Nick Groff, and Katrina Weidman, did for Paranormal Lockdown in 2016. The Black Monk House episode was slated as a two-hour special that filled the ‘gap’ between the show’s first and second seasons.

Black Monk House in Pontefract, England, has been visited by several paranormal investigators, some of whom have experienced objects levitating and people being attacked by an unseen entity. A girl was dragged upstairs in what could only be described as a scene from a modern horror movie, while some ghost hunters who have encountered the ‘poltergeist’ that resides in the house, refused to stay at the property. The caretakers of the house also refuse to stay inside by themselves.

Nick and Katrina spent four days trying to capture the poltergeist, The Black Monk, on camera. The result makes for one of the best (if not most terrifying) episodes of the series.^[4]

6 Unsolved Mysteries

Before Unsolved Mysteries 2020, there was Unsolved Mysteries 1987 presented by Robert Stack, among others. As the name states, each episode revolved around mysterious incidents including murders, hauntings, disappearances, and accidents. Robert Stack’s inimitably deep voice and the iconic intro music gave many a viewer a goosebump or two. Alongside this, some of the episodes were truly creepy and are still being discussed on internet forums such as Reddit years after airing.

One of the most memorable, and truly terrifying, episodes aired during Season 7 and related the story of Pam and Eric Ellender. In 1991, Pam and Eric were found dead in their bed in Sulphur, Louisiana. Their infant daughter was unharmed and crying from her bedroom when police made the discovery. It was revealed afterwards that the killers threw a party in the couple’s home soon after killing them and while their bodies were in the bedroom. While the murders were technically solved, there were many chilling details included in the episode that kept viewers at the edge of their seats. It is truly an episode that must be watched.^[5]

10 Gruesome Deaths That Have Been Attributed To Ghosts

5 The Dead Files

Cheerfully named The Dead Files sees medium Amy Allan and former homicide detective Steve DiSchiavi investigate haunted locations at people’s request. The core of each episode revolves around Steve and Amy doing independent investigations at a specific location and then revealing their findings to one another at the end of the show.

Even though the show has attracted a lot of criticism over the years, it remains a firm fan favorite and has aired its 12th season earlier in 2020. One of the spookiest episodes, according to fans, details the story of Annie who has lived in her home for more than ten years and believes that the hooded figures she keeps seeing on her property has made her existing health problems worse. Annie also claimed to have seen the ghosts of long-dead Native Americans surrounding her house in Cedar Park, Texas. Annie’s friend, Joel, claimed to have seen what looked like paper cut-outs in the shape of people hanging in the trees around the house, jumping between the branches.^[6]

4 Celebrity Ghost Stories

Celebrities are not exempt from brushes with the paranormal. There have been so many stories of celebrities experiencing something unexplained that there is even a TV show or two dedicated to those celebs who want to share their scary stories.

Celebrity Ghost Stories (American version) debuted in 2009 featuring Belinda Carlisle and Gina Gershon, among others. Other stars throughout the series included Joan Collins, Alice Cooper, Kelly Osbourne, Nene Leakes, who heard the voices of ghost children, and Paula Abdul.

One of the episodes feature shock rocker, Marilyn Manson, who related the story of his encounter as a teen with a copy of the Necronomicon. His friend implored him to read the incantations in the book, and Manson believed that doing so caused a disturbance in the energy around them. Manson also claimed that a scary disembodied voiced asked them ‘do you believe in satan?”

Manson stated during his segment that he had read enough of the Bible to know that what was happening was ‘not good’ and that people’s energy stays with the things they were attached to in life after they die.

3 Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction

Much like Unsolved Mysteries, Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction also gained a cult following its premiere in 1997. Presenting 5 stories in each episode, of which some are fact and some fiction, was the premise of the show.

The show’s opening episode, The Apparition, was one of the most unsettling in the series. It tells the tale of a woman who suffered a nervous breakdown and after her recovery starts seeing the ghost of a dead woman in a mirror on the second floor of her home. The ghost tries to say something, but never succeeds.

One night a man breaks into the woman’s home and follows her when she runs upstairs trying to escape him. The man then sees the ghost in the mirror and freaks out.

Even though the episode aired years ago, it still packs a chilling punch and is worth a watch. It was revealed at the end that the story was based on true events.

2 Paranormal Witness

Paranormal Witness is one of the most popular spooky TV shows and ran for five seasons between 2011 and 2016. The stories covered during the show included the weird abilities of Don Decker, the Capitol Theatre Haunting, werewolves, creepy dolls and, of course, demons.

One of the most horrifying episodes details the incident in which 23-year-old Christene Skubish died after she fell asleep at the wheel while driving along Highway 50 in California and crashed down a steep incline in 1994. In the car with Christene was her 3-year-old son, Nick. When she didn’t arrive at her intended destination, her stepfather reported her missing. Five days later, a woman named Deborah Hoyt and her husband were travelling along Route 50 when Deborah spotted a woman lying on the side of the road. The woman was naked, and her arms covered her head. The couple immediately notified the police, but when the authorities arrived, the woman was gone.

This incident led police to the discovery of Christene’s body inside her wrecked car and Nick laying in a fetal position in the passenger seat, weak and dehydrated but alive. Doctors agreed that if Nick had been inside the car for another hour or two, he would have died.^[7]

The details of this story are both chilling and heartbreaking and one of the best episodes of Paranormal Witness.

1 Haunted

Haunted premiered in 2018 on Netflix and recounts terrifying true stories of people who have found themselves face-to-face with evil. One of the episodes in Season 2 of the series details a nurse’s encounter with a possessed patient at a nursing home which caused many viewers to freak out.
However, Season 1’s Slaughterhouse episode, in which two sisters reveal that their father was a serial killer, is about as terrifying as they come.

Their childhood was spent listening to the terrible sounds of people being murdered in their house, after their father picked up ‘strays’ from the streets and bars. They lived on a couple of acres of forest land and their father disposed of his victims’ bodies in the woods. The sisters believed that the murders led to their house becoming haunted, and their father also engaged in dark rituals in the woods which led them to believe that he was possessed.^[8]

The episode unleashed controversy with many viewers taking to Twitter to voice their scepticism about the validity of the claims made by the sisters.

10 Terrifying Haunted And Creepy Mask Stories

Right from the start, tales of things that are just so weird they can only be described as ‘Paranormal’ — “beyond normal” — have been popular. They give a ‘what if’ back to a world that so often claims to be perfectly explainable. These encounters can be spooky, thrilling, and fun, which should be a warning, because often real life isn’t any of those things. Yes, there are paranormal mysteries that might actually lead to new discoveries about science, the world, and ourselves, but many really are just entertainment, created by people who are were interested in attention and money than actual paranormal stuff.

See Also: 10 Paranormal Events Linked To Mass Tragedies

10. Magic Bullets

Charles Fort is famous for four books he wrote in the early 1900s that collected what he called “damned data”… stuff that is now usually labeled as ‘paranormal.’ Fort’s books were instrumental in creating continuing interest in such matters, but, of course, that doesn’t necessarily mean everything he printed was truthful. In Fort’s 1932 book Wild Talents, he presents examples of people being found shot to death with no bullet holes in their clothing, a somewhat perplexing problem. Fort’s primary example of such a situation is the 1872 death of Captain Colvocoresses in Bridgeport, Connecticut, USA, which Fort covers very simply, “shot through the heart — clothes not perforated.”

In reality, most of Colvocoresses’ clothes were very much perforated, but one newspaper article — the one that Fort gives as his source for the story — mentioned that the front of Colvocoresses’ jacket was not penetrated by the bullet, as if the gun was inside the jacket when fired. While Fort used this detail to claim that none of the clothing was perforated, the insurance companies involved at the time took it to mean Colvocoresses had shot himself, holding his jacket open. It seems that Colvocoresses — who had a large family and no job prospects — had only recently taken out some ridiculously large insurance policies on his own life, and may have arranged for a suicide to look like a murder!^[1]

9. One for the Explorer’s Club

In the 1950s and 1960s, Ivan T. Sanderson was THE expert on the so-called “Abominable Snowman” or “Yeti,” the hairy wild man of the Himalayas, a subject that had become extremely popular in magazines and newspapers at the time. So when Sanderson reported that, in 1902, a group of soldiers investigating the disappearance of workmen stringing a telegraph line instead discovered and shot a Yeti in the Jelep-La pass on the border of Tibet and India, people were astounded. The beast had been 10 feet tall, covered with hair everywhere but on its face, and had “long yellow fangs,” and sadly, appears to have been lost when it was shipped to England.

Unfortunately for Yeti fans, in this case official accounts of the stringing of the telegraph line, written independently by men who were there, make no mention at all of these events occurring. The story appears to have been invented in 1957 and Sanderson picked it up and added claims of having seen “government reports” to make the tale sound more authentic.^[2]

8. A Real Scorcher

According to many paranormal researchers, April 7, 1938 was a particularly strange day. In Upton-by-Chester, England, George Turner was driving along a quiet road. Out at sea, helmsman John Greeley piloted the SS Ulrich. In Denmark, 18-year-old Willem Ten Bruik was driving through the countryside. And then all of three of them burst into flames for no apparent reason. Turner’s car was discovered overturned in a ditch; seamen rushed to the pilot house when the SS Ulrich began to lurch, only to find Greeley aflame and Ten Bruik was discovered in his car burned beyond recognition. Strangely in all cases, the damage from the flames was limited to just the human victims, leaving the vehicles unburned. Experts all agreed: each was an example of Spontaneous Human Combustion, but no one could guess why all three died the same day, and apparently at the same time!

Luckily for those of you worried about Spontaneous Human Combustion, there never was a George Turner, Willem Ten Bruik, nor John Greeley; and a ship by the name of ‘SS Ulrich’ never existed. The whole story seems to have been cobbled together from various mis-reported details and then presented as a truly mystifying example of supernatural spontaneous combustion deaths, but each story has fallen apart when investigated.^[3]

7. Deja Vu… in Green

In 1965, author John Macklin reported a truly weird event; one for which, he assured readers, he had seen documents, reports, and witness testimony that proved the event occurred. In August, 1887, Macklin stated, two children — a boy and a girl — were discovered in a shallow cave near the village of Banjos in Spain. The children didn’t speak Spanish, wore clothes that appeared to be made from a metallic cloth, and had green skin.

Though the locals tried to care for the children, the boy sickened and died soon after the discovery. The girl lived five years past her discovery, and her skin gradually became a normal tone. After she learned enough Spanish, she said she and her brother had come from a land with no sun; that everyone there had green skin; and they lived in perpetual twilight. She never was able to explain how she and her brother had somehow traveled to where they had been discovered from their own land.

But Macklin’s tale was just a re-telling of a truly mysterious event that occurred in Woolpit, England, in the 13th Century. All Macklin did was change the time and place of the events to create a “new” paranormal account. Ironically, some later ‘researchers’ claimed that Macklin’s story proved the Woolpit story must have happened, since there were so many similarities! The Woolpit event, however, was one of a kind; and it remains a mystery to this day.^[4]

6. The Final Getaway

In November, 1856, John Wilhelm Gebhard was hanged for a murder he insisted he had not committed. Gebhard claimed innocence to the end, finally declaring that though he would die, no grave should ever hold his body. He was buried near the prison in an eight-foot-deep grave, and a cairn of rocks was built up over the spot. In addition, the governor was worried about attempts being made to exhume Gebhard’s body to re-bury it in consecrated grounds, so he placed his official seal on the coffin and ordered armed guards to watch the grave day and night for three months after the execution.

But only six weeks later, the real murderer was discovered; and this person had also been the chief witness against Gebhard in the trial. Clearly, a grave miscarriage of justice had occurred, and the governor and the prison were quick to try and make amends. Gebhard’s name was cleared and his mother was given a lifelong pension, and Gebhard’s corpse was ordered to be exhumed and given a proper burial in a graveyard. The grave was opened, and the seals checked and confirmed to be intact, but the coffin was empty. The body of John Gebhard was never found.

The story of John Gebhard’s paranormal escape from the grave is actually based in fact; there really was a man named John Wilhelm Louis Gebhard who was hanged for a murder he didn’t commit, but this Gebhard died in 1822, and his body most definitely didn’t vanish. The story of his death, however, served as the starting point for the inventive — and false — legend of the vanishing corpse.^[5]

See Also: Top 10 Creepiest Episodes Of Paranormal Television

5. Dufferin’s Warning

A story is often told about Lord Dufferin [1826-1902], a very successful English diplomat, who was publicly well-known and liked. On holiday, Dufferin and his wife stayed at a friend’s home in Ireland. One night while there, Dufferin saw a strange man carrying a coffin across the garden of the house. The man lifted his head and looked directly at Dufferin, in his upper story window and the man’s face was so indescribably ugly that Dufferin was struck incapable of looking away or reacting. The strange man soon disappeared into the depths of the night, but Dufferin was left with a horrifying memory of the man’s visage.

Years later Lord Dufferin, now England’s ambassador to France, was at the Grand Hotel in Paris for a diplomatic reception, waiting for the elevator. When the elevator opened, however, he immediately stepped back as the elevator operator was unmistakably the same man who had terrified him so long before. Dufferin, instead of entering the elevator, headed for the front desk to ask what they knew of the strange man as the doors to the lift shut. But before Dufferin could ask, the elevator came plummeting back down the shaft; a catastrophic failure in the lift crushed and mutilated all aboard it in an instant. The strange, ugly man, whom the hotel could not identify or explain, had saved Dufferin’s life by scaring him away from the fatal lift.

It’s a spooky tale, and a satisfying one because it presents a great story, but there’s a big problem. In Lord Dufferin’s lifetime, there was only one known elevator failure in Paris that resulted in people dying, and it took place at the Grand Hotel on February 24, 1878. There were only three people involved, the elevator operator and two passengers all died, but none were mutilated, as it was the shock of the impact that killed them. And no contemporary accounts of the matter mention any sort of official functions in the hotel at the same time, nor mention Lord Dufferin.^[6]

4. Heaven Help Us

In 2001, an inspiring story spreading through email eventually found it’s way to Facebook and other social media. Apparently Diane, a young Christian university student home for the summer, was walking home after dark. As she was taking an alleyway shortcut, she saw a man standing at the other end as if he was waiting for her to get close. Worried, she prayed to God to protect her from harm. Suddenly, a comforting, warm feeling enveloped her, and she no longer felt as if she was walking alone. When she reached the end of the alleyway, she walked right past the man, who didn’t bother her.

The newspapers the next day told that a young girl had been raped in the very same alleyway, just 20 minutes after Diane passed though it safely. Diane, concerned, contacted the police, and was asked to look at a lineup of suspects; and, sure enough, one of them was the man who she had seen at the end of the alley. When pointed out, he fully confessed and when asked why he had let Diane go, he responded: “Because she wasn’t alone. She had two tall men walking on either side of her.”

The story has since been reprinted often as proof of heavenly protection — ignoring, of course, that it was presented anonymously in email to begin with, and that the town it happened in is never identified. Under the circumstances, someone could argue that, while there isn’t any proof it happened, there also isn’t any proof that it didn’t — except there is proof the story came from somewhere else, and didn’t have to do with angels the first time around.

In 1938, in an article in the journal Folklore, a woman identified only as Mrs. D explained that her mother often walked between the neighboring villages of Scunthorpe and Crosby in Lincolnshire, England. One night, while Mrs. D’s mother was making this walk, she became aware that she was being escorted by a very large black dog that she’d never seen before; the friendly animal was just pacing along next to her. As it turned out this proved to be very helpful, for as Mrs. D’s mother passed some idle laborers on the road, she heard them discussing what they would have done to her if “that [insert bad word here] dog hadn’t been with her.” As soon as she got home she called her husband to meet the wonderful dog that had saved her; only the animal had vanished. Jump forward 63 years, make the dog a pair of angels, and you have the story of Diane.^[7]

3. Diderici’s Disappearance

In 1815, a criminal named Diderici was doing time at Weichselmunde Prison in Poland for assuming the identity of his former employer; a very early identity thief. One day, Diderici was walking in the yard of the prison, chained as part of a line of prisoners all getting their day’s exercise. But something very strange happened. Diderici appeared to slowly fade, becoming transparent, much to the alarm of both fellow prisoners and the guards watching. As the effect continued, Diderici soon became completely invisible and then the shackles that had held and attached him to the other prisoners flopped down to the ground, empty. The prisoner was never seen again and, needless to say, no one knows what happened!

This particular legend is interesting in that most of it is actually true! There was a prisoner named Diderici serving a sentence in Weichselmunde Prison in Poland, and he was in fact there because he had assumed his master’s identity. He even actually disappeared, but not in quite the same interesting manner as described above.

Diderici disappeared from the prison sometime between 1812 and 1813. The prison itself had previously belonged to the Prussians, but had been captured by the French, as this was during the time that Napoleon was attempting to take over Europe. Diderici had been sent as a French prisoner for passing himself off as a higher ranked officer. Due to a previous escape attempt, he’d been forced to wear heavy iron shackles constantly to discourage another attempt.

In 1813, the prison was turned back over to the Prussians, and during a standard roll check of the prisoners afterwards Diderici was found to have the word ‘missing’ written next to his name. When questioned, the former commandant in charge of the prison offered a guess that maybe Diderici had leaped or fallen from the wall facing the ocean, which sounds suspiciously like the commandant wasn’t guessing. In any case, Diderici was gone; but he didn’t vanish in front of witnesses.^[8]

2. A Smoking Problem

Peter Lyman Jones developed a smoking problem one day in October, 1980… and only for that one day.

Jones was sitting on the edge of his bed with his wife, Barbara, next to him when smoke started to billow from his arms. Both panicked and searched his body for fire, but there wasn’t any, just smoke. There was no odor to the smoke, nor was Jones’ skin hotter than it normally would be; but smoke was most definitely rising from the skin of his arms, for no apparent reason. And then it stopped just as suddenly.

It happened again, later in the day while Jones was driving alone. He had both hands on the wheel, and his sleeves were rolled up. He was able to see the smoke coming from his arms was a pale blue-gray in color which had a metallic taste to it, as it filled the car’s interior. Perhaps understandably, Jones didn’t mention this second occurrence to his wife until months later; and the smoke never appeared again.

It’s a strange story which first appeared in print in Larry Arnold’s 1995 book about spontaneous human combustion, Ablaze!. And I do mean first appeared; there is no known mention of the matter in any newspaper or magazine previous to Arnold’s book. Arnold also neglects to mention what town the Joneses lived in, only narrowing the area down to “central California.”

What Arnold does tell us about the couple is that Mr. Jones “harbored ‘total hatred’” towards his wife’s teenage daughter at the time of the occurrence, and that he has totally mellowed out since, which is strangely specific, and also super convenient as an example to prove Arnold’s theory of a tie between strong emotions and spontaneous human combustion. The lack of previous documentation about the event, and lack of even proof that Peter Lyman Jones existed, means it’s extremely likely that Arnold created the story just to match his theory.^[9]

1. Out of Time

In June 1950, a New York City morgue received the body of a man who had been struck and killed by a car; he was quickly identified as Rudolph Fentz based on the contents of his pockets, but that didn’t prove very helpful. Fentz was dressed head-to-toe in clothing that was about 70 years out of date, with a starched-up collar, buttoned shoes, and a stove-pipe hat. His pockets contained about $70, but in bank notes rather than in bills, and none of the coins in his pocket had a date newer than 1876.

His business cards gave the authorities his name, and an address on Fifth Avenue; he also had a letter that was marked for delivery to the same address. But that address was a business, and no one there had ever heard of Rudolph Fentz. No one came to the morgue or the police looking for Fentz either. According to drivers, Fentz was first seen standing with a stunned look in the middle of a busy street; he was hit when he suddenly tried to run for the curb ahead of the cars.

The police eventually discovered something they didn’t like. There had, in fact, been a man named Rudolph Fentz in New York City and according to very old police reports, he had gone missing mysteriously one night in 1876. Had Rudolph Fentz somehow traveled through time, only to die on a modern city street?

Though the tale of Rudolph Fentz has been told with fantastic detail by many authors, many claiming to have photos of Fentz, the story just isn’t true. The events and details all originally came from a short story written by Sci-fi author Jack Finney [1911-1995], and was published in a 1951 edition of Collier’s Weekly magazine. Someone must have liked the story, because soon after publication the tale of Fentz’s time trip was taken from it and became an often repeated ‘true’ tale in British paranormal literature, eventually appearing in multiple webpages with faked photos.^[10]

Let’s get the cards on the table at the outset here—this list comes from a sceptical position. A heavily sceptical position. That is not to say an A priori, entrenched, denialist position. Rather, it is that one should always seek proof, not merely evidence, in order to move away from the doubt that is held when encountering extraordinary claims. With that said, evidence is still evidence, and may indeed lead to proof. So an open mind and a willingness to consider counter-narrative positions (when presented clearly and rationally) is key when faced with such debates and conjectures. We good? Right then.

The entries in this list are comprised of stories, footage and other such circumstantial evidence that rise above the usual ‘friend-of-a-friend’ type gossip, phoney mediums on hokey ghost hunter TV shows or the clearly digitally manipulated videos that pollute the interwebs. Scared? You probably shouldn’t be. Maybe just a little bit.

10 Famous Photos Of The Paranormal That Aren’t Paranormal

10 Hell Of A Video

It may be surprising that any case related to famed charlatans the Warrens (of ‘The Conjuring’ fame) would be on a list such as this. But the case of Maurice ‘Frenchy’ Theriault is difficult to easily dismiss as a hoax. Why would this be?

Psychological reasons for odd behaviour, overblown and exaggerated accounts and a general willingness to believe in the supernatural above any rational explanation would usually suffice to sow the seeds of doubt in a story like this.

Then there’s the troubling footage from his exorcism.

As with many supposed victims of demonic possession, Frenchy had a very troubled upbringing. It seems his father was a brutish, violent man, subjecting his son to terrible beatings and, although Frenchy was vague on this, it is assumed some sexual abuse happened also. It was after this terrible event that Frenchy began to notice he had gained preternatural powers—increased strength, hidden knowledge revealed to him and the ability to be in multiple places at once. So far, so Hollywood.

But during an exorcism conducted by Bishop Robert McKenna (with the Warrens close by for, um, moral support?), things get pretty weird, and not in the usual growling and body contorting sort of way. The slow morph of Maurice’s face seen in the video of his exorcism is really freaky. Given that this case occurred in the mid 80s, years before the sophisticated CGI tech we have today, it is hard to believe that anyone involved would have had access to the Hollywood editing required to stage the footage without jump cuts.

There is more than this to the story, however. Frenchy had previously spent time on probation for the rape of a child in 1976, dodged another rape charge in 1985 (charges were dropped when he claimed to be possessed by demons) and his father had killed his mother before killing himself in 1982. So, there’s plenty of precedent beyond the supernatural for what happened next—in 1992, Frenchy succumbed to his violent urges, attempting to murder his estranged wife, shooting her in the arm outside her Massachusetts home with a shotgun. He then turned the gun on himself.

9 Exchanging Tinfoil Hats For Tinfoil Crowns

‘Finally!’ cried all the UFO true believers when this footage was leaked. Hold your horses, though, all this stuff is not proof of the existence of aliens, gang. It is simply proof that US authorities know and study the phenomenon of UFOs (and seem to have no idea what is going on). In and of itself, this is as close to proof that UFO fans and fanatics have ever gotten. You must admit, sceptics, it’s all quite intriguing.

The leaked footage is pretty amazing stuff. This one feels more real. But as compelling as the video is, it’s not proof of the supernatural. Rather, it’s proof that there are phenomena that even the most heavily funded and expert institutions on earth cannot yet explain.

Keep watching the skis… I mean skies (obligatory Simpsons reference complete).

8 The Body In The Billings Reservoir

A body was found near a reservoir outside of the city of Sao Paolo, Brazil in 1988. The man was seemingly tortured to death; facial skin peeled back, eyes pulled out, eyelids cut off, entire muscles had been removed, symmetrically-aligned puncture wounds all over the body with accompanying cauterisation, multiple organs removed (without an obvious incision save a small hole—suggesting the organs had been sucked out). The victim also been castrated and drained of his blood. Furthermore, the man had been probably been conscious during the whole ordeal, given that there was no sign of anaesthetic in his system. There was also a cerebral oedema, suggesting extreme pain. Cause of death—cardiac arrest during extreme agony. Official verdict—Death from natural causes.

It seems that authorities may have (rather poorly) covered up this case. Perhaps it was due to the awful, gruesome details being too alarming for the public. Perhaps there is some darker conspiracy afoot here. Given the similarity between this case and the cattle mutilations often touted as evidence of alien experimentation, it’s hard not to allow the possibility that we humans may be viewed as guinea pigs by some advanced alien species.

7 A Better Way To Look At The ‘Missing 411’ Phenomenon

Author and former police detective David Paulides’ work on collating and examining the many thousands of unexplained missing person cases that occur in the USA’s National Parks is entertaining stuff. Is it convincing? Not really, no. But it is the reason it lacks credibility as a working theory that is interesting here—Paulides and his supporters seem to instinctively try and join up some invisible dots, fashioning a joined-up, all-encompassing conspiracy that will explain each and every case of missing people in the National Parks of the US. We don’t need to do that—scrap the grand narrative approach and take each case on an individual basis and you’ll see that they are far more fascinating, and better evidence of possible explanations beyond our current understanding than Paulides’ loftier claims.

Paulides’ work has brought new life and fresh eyes to some truly baffling cases, cases that may point to something we cannot explain with conventional science. Avoid the web-weaving, and we may find something truly extraordinary.

6 Co-twin-cidence

Here we have a pair of twins separated at birth—some degree of similarity is to be expected, I mean, they are genetically identical. But these coincidences are incredible.

Both were named James by their respective adoptive parents, and went by Jim. One named his first son James Alan, the other James Allan. Both men married a woman named Linda. After both men divorced their respective Lindas, they both married women named Betty. They both named their dogs ‘Toy’. They both worked as deputy sheriffs. They both liked to vacation on the same beach in Florida. They both developed tension headaches when they were 18. They both smoked. They smoked the same brand of cigarettes.

It could simply be the interplay between nature, nurture and environment. But both marrying a Linda then a Betty? There has to be some degree of ESP going on here, surely?

Probably not, but it’s all very strange.

5 Unexplained Sounds And Mysterious Lights

Mysterious loud hums, ringing sounds, low rumbles and trumpet-like blares are heard the world over, causing wonder and confusion by all who hear them. Strange lights in the sky or floating up from bodies of water or dancing on the horizon also seem to have been an unexplained phenomenon for centuries. What the hell is going on? Well, we don’t really know.

The strange noises have been suggested as coming from heavy industrial machinery, fast-moving air currents shearing against slower currents, bio gasses from decaying vegetation or God heralding the end of days.

Strange lights are suggested as being marsh gasses (again), optical illusions cased by mist and car headlights, missile tests, ball lightning, radon decay from rocks causing plasma bursts or God signalling the end of days via Morse code.

4 LiveDieLiveDieRepeat

Reports of paranormal activity are often met with derision. It doesn’t help when the individual or family that are being pestered by a poltergeist/demon/vampires/haunted doll/gremlin immediately call the wrong person to help them. They never call the police. They never try to get clear, irrefutable photo or video evidence. Do they ever get in touch with a decent investigative journo to experience the phenomenon for themselves? No. They call a ‘paranormal expert’—a medium, a ghost hunter, a bloody TV crew. One guy who rose above the colossal dung heap that is the ‘paranormal expert’ community, was Canadian academic Ian Stevenson.

Stevenson’s research into re-incarnation in children is thorough- maybe the only peer-reviewed body of work on the paranormal which is taken remotely seriously. Even ardent sceptics like astronomer Carl Sagan respected his work, writing in his seminal work, ‘The Demon Haunted World—”At the time of writing there are…. claims in the ESP field which…. deserve serious study:… that young children sometimes report the details of a previous life, which upon checking turn out to be accurate and which they could not have known about in any other way than reincarnation.”

Wow!

However, as compelling as Stevenson’s collected anecdotes are, they’re just that—anecdotes. Not proof. That would require rigorous experimentation. So far, we have nothing else to indicate that reincarnation occurs. We cannot rely on Stevenson’s work as more than just a tasty academic snack, not a fully satiating meal of proven theory.

To illustrate this, Carl Sagan’s next line reads—”I pick [this] claim not because I think it’s likely to be valid (I don’t), but as an example of a contention that might be true”.

3 Strange Objects Out Of Place And Out Of Time

1) The Anitkythera Mechanism. 2) The Baghdad Batteries. 3) The Coso Artefact.

1) An uncommon, but not unheard of invention in Ancient Greece. 2) Two storage jars with some acidic residue that was probably a rotted papyrus scroll. 3) A rusty spark plug.

No mysteries here.

Except that damned hammer. Discovered in 1936 in London, Texas, this modern-looking tool was found encased in a 400 million year old limestone concretion.

Clearly it must’ve been made an ancient race of giants. From Jupiter.

Well, maybe not. The hammer seems to be a miner’s hammer from the era it was discovered. There is also a theory posited as to how the hammer could have become encased in the limestone in a relatively short period—the soluble material found in the limestone could have formed around a dropped hammer in a petrifying well—a natural occurrence that is due to water containing an extremely high mineral content. Ok, plausible. Likely, even.

If so, then where are the thousands of other examples that would have doubtlessly occurred?

2 Terminal Spinal-Tap-Drummer Syndrome

All sorts of animals explode—whether it is a rotting whale on a beach, Vietnamese termites that will rupture themselves to defend their pals from attackers or when bored teenagers strap dynamite onto gerbils, animals can blow up naturally. But what about people? There have been many cases of spontaneous human combustion throughout history, baffling relatives, medical examiners and scientists alike. Why and how does this happen?

Many theories have been floated over the years:

Heart attack + cigarette = slow-burning wick effect and very concentrated burn area.

Ketosis in victims caused by alcoholism or low-carb diets leading to a build-up of highly flammable acetone.

Mistaken ‘spontaneity’: intentional self-immolation in order to commit suicide, unidentified external accelerant, inability to move (e.g. stroke, morbid obesity, demonic possession) during immolation.

Maybe every case is one of the above. Maybe it’s some of the above and there remains some paranormal force that causes these weird cases. Either way, what an awful way to go!

1 Angel Hair And Star Jelly

Wouldn’t it be nice if these odd phenomena were actually the hair of angels and jelly thrown down to earth by the stars? For all we know, they may well be!

Scientists haven’t yet solved these twin mysteries from the natural world conclusively. Theories on ‘Angel Hair’ (thin metallic-looking strands that look like spider’s webs that turn up on tree branches and bushes) range from of accidental littering or industrial by-products finding their way into nature, polarized atmospheric electricity forming filaments out of dust particles or biological matter produced by some insect. Or it’s caused by UFOs taking off.

Star Jelly seems to be a bit easier to explain, just not conclusively. It’s frog puke. Probably. Or caused by UFOs taking off. Different UFOs from the ones that make Angel Hair, of course.

10 Paranormal Events Linked To Mass Tragedies

About The Author: C.J. Phillips is a storyteller, actor and writer living in rural West Wales. He is a little obsessed with lists.

There are three types of people in this world. Some invite spirits and go out of their way searching for them. Some believe the stories of others. And then some want nothing to do with it and find themselves starring in their very own nightmarish episode. Here are 10 of the craziest tales of paranormal encounters.

Related: 10 Demons You Should Probably Try To Avoid

10 Talking Toys

A young boy received a Furby as a present but soon outgrew the electronic toy, setting it on a shelf in the basement closet to collect dust. Sometime later, the boy’s older brother and his friend were hanging out one evening and ended up falling asleep in that same basement.

But they were woken up by a kid’s voice saying, “Come play with me!” After not finding anything odd about the toy—not knowing it doesn’t speak English—he and his friend thought nothing of it and went back to sleep. The next morning, the boys learned that Furbies only speak when moved and Furbies only talk in gibberish. Plus, the toy didn’t have any batteries in it.

9 Energy Conduits

When a paranormal investigator’s father told him about a spirit haunting his childhood home, he had to check it out. He and a few friends identified the spirit as a threatening witch draining them of energy. Besides capturing audio, he also saw an apparition loom behind his friend. As he explained this to him, they heard the spirit’s voice again and caught an orb leaving the scene simultaneously on film. Meanwhile, their other friend sat on the stairs, completely drained of energy despite being well-rested.

It takes a lot for a spirit to manifest itself across the veil. Most paranormal investigation equipment is designed to withstand a spirit’s attacks and even help filter through frequencies to boost their signal.

8 The Edinburgh Vaults

All the way across the pond in rainy Scotland, the Edinburgh Vaults are a series of rooms in the South Bridge used as taverns, workshops, and storage spaces. Over time, businesses left, and the homeless took residence, followed by illegal gambling dens and body dumping grounds for killers. It’s unclear when the vaults were sealed in the 1800s, but they were rediscovered in the 1980s. Since then, various witnesses have experienced attacks and scratches from a demonic spirit who they claim to be Mr. Boots, the murderer of a young woman. When the Vaults were reopened, archaeologists found her body in one of the chambers.

Travel Channel’s Ghost Adventures crew was locked down in the Vaults overnight and challenged the spirit by shining flashlights and antagonizing Mr. Boots to react. When the main investigator antagonized the spirit too far, their electrical meter sparks a surge over 25 ohms of energy, equivalent to a small magnet.

7 The Apartment from Hell

A college student was home for winter break, and her friend said her house was haunted. Being an avid ghost expert, the girl and her friend conducted an EVP session in the master bedroom. An EVP is an electronic voice phenomenon, and during the session, the group began to experience headaches and stomach pains. The friend revealed that her grandparents died in that bedroom, but then they heard noises from the kitchen. They moved their EVP session to the kitchen, which became drastically hot, like the oven had been turned on, except it hadn’t.

Grasping hands, a friend started praying and condemning the spirit, but their hands started separating by themselves. And something was coming upstairs from the basement. A horned shadow stretched along the wall, and the friend yelled at the spirit to leave. She woke up on the floor a full five minutes later. Her friends left the house, and once she did too, they told her she smelled like fire and ash and had a red handprint on her ankle.

6 The Mansfield House

A woman’s son got laid off from work, so he and his fiancee came to stay with her, and the mother was happy not to be alone in the house anymore. The fiancee put their baby down for a nap with the baby monitor next to the crib. She goes downstairs to start making lunch and hears “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” playing from the monitor. They didn’t have toys that made music in the crib. Then the son’s name is said over the monitor, and within seconds, the baby is screaming.

Later, the mother had nightmares of a little girl abused by nuns. The nuns threw the girl against the wall, and the mom woke from the dream, knowing the girl was dead. She researched the house and discovered a concrete chamber added to the foundation. She and her son cracked it open and found cremated human remains of the young girl.

5 The Woman in White

At the Honolulu Police Department’s Training Facility, a security guard was working one night when the outdoor wooden shutters of the facility started wildly opening and closing. When the guard approached, they suddenly stopped. He went on about his shift and saw a woman in a white dress crossing the parking lot toward him. He assumed she needed help but never heard the gate open and wondered how she got inside the perimeter.

The guard asked if she needed help, to which she said nothing, and she continued toward the house while staring blankly ahead. When the guard turned around and saw nothing out of the ordinary, he turned back to face the woman only to discover that she had vanished. He continued his shift and eventually sat down to take a break, but the woman was sitting across from him when he looked up. He ran and never worked another shift at the facility again. Women in white are often victims, and we can assume some act was committed against her to cause her spirit to linger.

4 Third Time’s the Charm

Located in famed San Jose, California, the builders of Winchester Mystery House constructed it using sacred geometry meant to connect it with the astral plane. Whether this was to help or confuse the spirits is unknown.

A paranormal investigator had visited the house before with friends, and when he returned, they were standing in the hallway when they saw a light flicker at the other end like someone had walked past it. They hurried across the labyrinth and asked the spirit if it had walked past. They received a vocal answer and the feeling that they were not welcome to return to the house a third time.

3 Galveston Graveyard

A famous YouTube vlogger known for her dark, gothic style revealed that she was really sick when she was about three years old, and living in a state between life and death opened a channel between her and spirits. In her teenage years, she regularly visited the oldest cemetery in Galveston and found comfort in the presence of spirits as one would when relaxing with friends. She even felt an attraction to certain tombstones.

Midway through the video explaining this, she has to switch her battery because it keeps draining. She continues that she bought a brand new car, but the electrical, radio, and AC have been acting up. She also explains that there are carbon monoxide detectors in every room of her house, but only the one in her bedroom is triggered.

Due to her experiences in the graveyard, she passed a girl at a store and sensed an intense sadness. She stopped and talked to her and learned that the girl’s grandparents had passed away. The vlogger went back and researched names from the Galveston Graveyard. The girl is a great-granddaughter of the tombstones she was visiting.

2 Mount Vernon

A history enthusiast visited George Washington’s estate on the 4th of July. Given that it was the middle of summer in Virginia, the house was very warm since houses back then were not built with any cooling systems. But when this visitor stuck their head into Washington’s room, the room where he died, it was freezing cold.

She peeked around the door frame due to a delineator preventing a guest from stepping inside the room, and as she paused at the washbasin and mirror, she felt someone staring at her. She immediately tried to move but could not even open her mouth and call her help. She then felt the unseen figure walk up to her and stare her down until she was finally released and fell back on her rear. She immediately wanted to leave the house despite being the one who had suggested the trip. Her family still doesn’t believe her to this day.

1 Brothers and Basements

An older brother and his family moved to the suburbs. His little brother refused to go downstairs, and the family chalked it up to typical little kid stuff since he was five or six at the time. A couple of months later, the younger brother has a meltdown at the dinner table, sobbing and pointing at the door to the basement, crying, “It’s staring at me!” The house seemed to calm down once the family got him to calm down, too, until the older brother’s birthday rolled around.

He heard someone singing and, assuming it to be his parents, he went downstairs, but no one was there. So he went back to his room and heard the song again. The voice was coming from the vents. To the basement. A couple of weeks later, his little brother went missing, and the family tore apart the house looking for him, but they couldn’t find him. But they heard him crying in the vents. The family’s mother prevented the older son from going downstairs, where she saw a shadow in the shape of a man. She yelled for it to get out of her house and leave her sons alone, to which the spirit left, and shortly after, she found the younger son in the basement

What are ghosts? Are they creepy figments of an overactive or jittery imagination? Or are they manifestations of souls that cannot pass on to the next phase?

If they do, in fact, exist, why do only certain people see or sense them? Why do some ghosts haunt places for decades only to disappear abruptly, while others appear only on the anniversary of a tragedy?

These questions are likely to remain unanswered as the debate around ghosts, and other paranormal entities continue. However, many people have had eerie real-life experiences that have shaken up and even convinced some skeptics that certain specters may be real. So here are 10 real-life eerie paranormal encounters that are sure to creep you out.

Related: Top 10 Creepiest Episodes Of Paranormal Television

10 Saying Goodbye

Nina De Santo was busy closing up her New Jersey hair salon one cold Saturday evening in 2001 when she spotted one of her customers standing outside the shop’s window. Michael had become a good friend of hers over the years, and she knew that he’d been going through a tough time after his wife left him for his stepbrother and he lost custody of his children to boot.

Nina had tried her best to cheer Michael up whenever he came to the hair salon and had even taken him for drinks a couple of times to give him a chance to talk. So when she opened the door to him that night, Michael seemed transformed and even happy. He smiled at her and said that he couldn’t stay long but just wanted to stop by and thank Nina for everything she’d done for him. They chatted a bit, and then each went their own way for the evening.

Early the next morning, Nina received a distressing call from a salon employee. The woman told her that Michael’s body had been found the previous morning, around nine hours before Nina had spoken to him at the salon. He had committed suicide.

In today’s terms, Nina had an experience with a crisis apparition which many are convinced is the spirit of a recently deceased person who appears to close friends and family to say goodbye. There is very little scientific research to fall back on when it comes to these apparitions, but some believe that it’s merely a trick of the brain.^[1]

9 No Time

Nature can be extremely cruel. When the 2011 Japan earthquake triggered a massive tsunami, people had mere minutes to flee their homes and try to stay alive. But hundreds of those who made it to evacuation sites were swept away anyway, as the waves overwhelmed them. As a result, nearly 20,000 people died, either from drowning or by blunt force after being hit by dislodged trees and other large pieces of debris.

Weeks after the disaster, as those who survived were trying to figure out how to go on with their lives without their loved ones, some people started reporting seeing ghostly queues outside what used to be a supermarket. Others were kept awake at night by disembodied voices crying out in the dark.

Shinichi Yamada and his two children somehow managed to escape the waves. Shinichi later salvaged two Buddhist statues he found in the wide-spread rubble and brought them back to his temporary home. Almost immediately, both his children became ill. An unexplained chill invaded the house and would follow anyone who came inside. Shinichi knew it was time to call in the help of an exorcist after he felt someone walking over him as he lay in bed one night.

The exorcist, Kansho Aizawa, also had her own frightening tales to tell. She had been seeing headless and mutilated ghosts ever since the disaster. She advised Shinichi to build a shrine for the statues, which he did. The ghostly activity in his home subsided a bit, but even though incidents still occur now and then, Shinichi believes the spirits that haunted his family are now at peace.^[2]

8 Ghosts or Demons?

Many people believe that there is no such thing as ghosts and that whenever lights flicker on and off or taps open and close by themselves, there’s a crooked demon finger doing the work instead.

Between 2011 and 2012, Latoya Ammons and her three children moved into a house on Caroline Street in Gary, Indiana. Almost immediately, Latoya sensed something was off. She and her mother Rosa would hear footsteps coming from the basement and doors creaking open when the children were fast asleep, and no one else was in the house. If they thought the house was haunted by ghosts, they soon changed their minds when swarms of flies invaded the house’s porch in the dead of winter, and the children suddenly started behaving strangely.

Rosa once awoke to loud screams only to find her 12-year-old granddaughter levitating over her own bed. Latoya found her youngest son in the closet talking to an unseen presence. Her son was also thrown across the room by an invisible entity.

The Department of Child Services was called by neighbors who thought the children were being abused. Case manager Valerie Washington interviewed the family at a local hospital. During the interview, she witnessed Latoya’s nine-year-old son crawl backward up the wall and ceiling, flip over his grandmother, and land on his feet.

It was then that an exorcist was called. Rev. Michael Maginot performed multiple exorcisms at the house and is quoted as saying that the property was a “portal to demons.” The Ammons family moved out soon after, and the house was demolished in 2016.^[3]

7 Creepy Phone Call

In the late 1960s, Simma Lieberman was in love and happy. Her hippie boyfriend Johnny had proposed to her, and they were to be married soon after getting an apartment together.

Late one night, Simma was at her mother’s house when the phone rang. Simma answered and heard Johnny on the line. He sounded rushed, like he was far away. She struggled to hear what he was saying through the loud static. She made out the words “I love you” and “I’ll never be mean to anybody again” before the line went dead.

Simma tried to call Johnny back, but without any luck. She finally fell asleep and awoke with an ominous feeling inside her chest. A few hours later, she received the news from Johnny’s mother that he’d been murdered the night before, shortly before the call came through to Simma. Throughout her life, Simma continued to believe that Johnny had contacted her after his death to say goodbye.^[4]

6 Mischievous Spirits

Not all supernatural presences are out to possess people. Sometimes, it seems, they just want to have a little fun. In 1937, W.S.J. wrote a letter to Country Life in which he recounted a ghostly experience he’d had in 1885. W.S.J. described being a schoolboy on summer vacation with his family at a holiday home on the Isle of Wight. He recalled the garden at St. Boniface House being one of the most charming he’d ever seen.

However, things soon turned paranormal when ghosts started pacing the floor in his sisters’ bedroom, causing them to flee. W.S.J. also noted that a figure would walk up and down past the housemaids and ring bells in the dark of night.

Eventually, the village priest was called in to help, and after blessing the house, the spirit activity subsided. W.S.J. claimed that the house had been torn down, but he hoped the garden would still shelter those who visited it by night.^[5]

5 Quarantine Ghosts

When lockdowns were put into place around the world in 2020, most people were simply wondering how they would get through the specified number of days without going insane staring at their walls. And spending so much time confined at home, some believed that they weren’t as alone as they thought.

Lockdown for Kurt Schleicher happened in the Tampa, Florida, house where Victor Licata killed his parents, siblings, and dog in 1933. Kurt witnessed his dog sitting and barking at the wall in the bedroom where the mother was murdered and claimed to have felt the temperature drop abruptly in the bathroom.

Adrian Gomez, who lives in Los Angeles, heard and saw a doorknob and window rattling so violently that he thought an earthquake was happening. After realizing that there was no earthquake to speak of, he started believing that something paranormal may be happening. This belief was fortified when a window shade in his bedroom began shaking against the closed window while the adjacent one remained perfectly still.

Those in Indonesia who were lucky enough to live in non-haunted houses but decided to break lockdown rules were locked inside homes believed to be haunted as punishment.^[6]
https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2020/04/21/indonesia-locks-virus-violators-in-haunted-house.html

4 Lola

The story of the wailing woman is well known around the world. However, in a tale that still makes the skin of professional skier Drew Tabke crawl, the wailing woman takes on the form of Lola at La Parva. La Parva is a popular ski spot in the Chilean Andes and the place where many people say they knew Lola before she died.

It is said that Lola and her son were spending the day on the slopes when a thick fog rolled in. Mother and son made their way down the mountain but lost contact with one another. Scared that he would fall, Lola began screaming his name. Then she stumbled and fell down a steep slope. A lift operator found her as he returned to his cabin before the inevitable storm hit. He found that Lola was still alive, and he managed to get her to his cabin. He went for the doctor, but when the men returned to the cabin, Lola was gone. The only thing that remained behind was bloody sheets.

It is believed that Lola went back into the fog and ensuing storm to find her son. Neither she nor her son was ever found again. But whenever skiers, including Tabke, go near that cabin, they hear Lola wailing for her lost child.^[7]

3 Then Who Was in the Closet?

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

Sometimes a Reddit thread produces some of the scariest paranormal encounters ever. And whether the accounts are told as they happened or embellished for dramatic effect, they do send shivers up spines worldwide.

Redditor tooabstract788 was home alone one night, playing games, when his dog started barking at the closet. When he got up to see what was agitating the dog, he heard scratching sounds coming from inside the closet. As he got closer, the scratching got quieter until it abruptly stopped when he stood right in front of the closet. About to go back to his game, tooabstract788 was shocked when he suddenly heard a loud crash followed by several softer ones as items started hitting the inside of the closet door.

He ran outside at once and only went back inside when his friend came over to check on him. They checked the inside of the closet and found clothes and hangers scattered over the floor of the closet. But they never found any secret openings in the walls or ceiling.^[8]

2 Someone’s Watching

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons

When Hilary Prue began her job as an usher at the du Maurier Theatre Centre, now known as the Harbourfront Centre Theatre, in Toronto, the first story she heard from employees was about the two ghosts haunting the venue. The spirits, a man and a woman dressed in period clothing, caused at least one security guard to quit after he saw them while locking up. The building that now holds the theater is said to have originally been an ice warehouse and also a temporary morgue after a boat sank in the harbor.

Hilary initially didn’t experience anything out of the ordinary as she went about her daily tasks. Then one day, while alone in the office, she heard a terrifying scream. She walked around the building, and there was no one else inside. But one of her colleagues later confirmed that they’d had a similar experience.

After this incident, Hilary continuously felt like she was being watched. Once, she thought that a co-worker had brought their children to work and that one of the kids was messing with her, but that turned out not to be the case.

When a ghost hunting group visited the theater, they not only spotted the woman in a Victorian dress and the man wearing a bowler hat, but they also claimed to have seen a little boy who hid in the rafters. Suddenly, Hilary knew who had been watching her all that time.^[9]

1 Danny

Donna Stewart had several best friends when she was six years old. One of them was Danny, who often came over to her house to play. On one particular morning, Donna and Danny had a play date, but it was to be cut short so that Danny could go to the hospital for scheduled surgery to have his tonsils removed.

The following day, Donna was in her bedroom when Danny appeared in the doorway. He asked if they could go outside and play.

Donna went to her mother to ask if she and Danny could spend some time playing outside and was confused at her mother’s reaction. The woman instantly turned pale. Then she broke the news that Danny had died the day before after suffering an allergic reaction during the surgery.

Donna ran back to her room, but Danny was gone.

Years later, Donna joined a paranormal investigative team in Oregon. She believes that the encounter changed how she saw the concept of death. She also believes that those who die are never far away from their loved ones and appear to them during times of trouble and grief.^[10]