Last month, we shared some stories from Reddit about people experiencing what they considered a "glitch in the Matrix," where something so inexplicable happened that it must have been paranormal. That got members of the BuzzFeed Community sharing their stories as well, so here are some of their experiences, as well as more from Reddit!
1. The disappearing phone:
"One time I was standing at the top of the stairs talking to my mom down below. I dropped my phone and as it was going down the stairs, it completely disappeared. There are no cracks or spaces it could’ve slipped into, there’s a flush wall all the way down on both sides. My mom and I were mindblown, we couldn’t find this phone ANYWHERE. Two days later I was cleaning the upstairs hall and there my phone was, underneath my sister's dollhouse. There’s no way this could’ve happened. Absolutely impossible. My mom and I both saw the phone bounce down the stairs and poof, gone."
2. The time traveler:
"I think we saw a time traveler. So, this happened about a week ago but my memory is still pretty fresh. My boyfriend and I were in the car on the way to get dinner and chatting casually, everything was normal. As we pulled up to a red light, somebody caught my attention. There was a guy, I'd say between 15 and 18 years old, walking on the sidewalk across the street. I noticed him because he looked like he was straight out of 2004. Baggy jeans, grey beanie, and a black t-shirt over a long-sleeve white shirt. I thought it was funny, figured he was some kind of skater, and pointed it out to my BF and made some joke about the guy being from the 2000s. We both agreed he looked out of place and that's when we started joking that he must be a time traveler. I said something like, 'He's probably thinking, Woah, dude, where am I?' and as soon as I said it, the guy started to look around like he was confused. (We were in a car and across a busy street from him, no way he heard us.) We remarked that it was weird as we watched the guy look around confused for a few moments. Then, we both looked away for no more than half a second, I don't remember why, and when we turned back the guy was GONE.
At first, we laughed and thought it was funny but the more we looked the more we realized he had nowhere to go and he really just completely disappeared. I can't stress this enough, we BARELY looked away and had NOWHERE to go that we wouldn't be able to see him. We both freaked out and drove most of the rest of the way in silence while we thought about time travel. We haven't really talked about it since, but we agree that it was obviously really weird."
3. The temporary mind link:
"For about a week I would wake up, look at the clock, see that it was 2 a.m., and go back to sleep. One of these nights, I woke up as usual, and then noticed a green glow next to my ear. I turned my head to see what I can only describe as a giant Lite Brite peg plugged into my pillow. Instead of being disturbed by it, I thought to myself, 'Craig (my brother) would think this is really cool!' I then fell instantly asleep.
Next day I went to my brother’s apartment, and remarked how tired he looked. He said, 'Yeah, every night this week I woke up at 2 a.m. And then last night I swear I heard you calling my name.' Shocked, I told him what I had experienced, and we wondered if for some reason we were having a psychic connection. He got out a pack of index cards, and we each took 10. One by one we wrote numbers and held them up to discover 9 out of 10 matched. The last one I left blank, and he drew a zero — both indicate 'nothing.' Then the spell was broken and it hasn’t happened since."
4. The duplicate dad:
"I had lots of insane glitch in the matrix moments when I was younger. One morning when I was getting ready for school, I went to go downstairs to get breakfast and passed by my parents’ bedroom. The door was slightly ajar and I peeked in to see my dad putting his tie on and getting ready for work. When I got downstairs to the kitchen my dad was already in there making toast. I was SO confused. Our house was small and only had one staircase and there’s no way he could’ve got to the kitchen without me seeing him. Really weird."
5. The shirts from another dimension:
"So this happened earlier this morning, but it's still on everyone's mind here.
I was doing the laundry and moving clothes from the washing machine to dryer. While I was moving things over, I picked up my Optimus Prime shirt and put it in the dryer, then one of my kids needed me in the kitchen so I walked away. When I went back to the washing machine I picked up the next item and it was again my Optimus Prime shirt, I figured I just mistook the first shirt or something and threw the shirt in there. A few items later, again one of my kids needed something so I walk away and when I get back I again pull out the same Optimus Prime shirt from the washing machine and I say out loud 'What the hell, this is weird' and I throw it in the dryer. My oldest daughter walked and asked what was going on and I tell her and she looks in the dryer and she says there were three of the shirts in there. It's impossible as I only own one, so I go look in the dryer and yes indeed there's three identical shirts, all wet as well.
My daughter gets excited and calls my wife to take a look to confirm we're not crazy. My wife takes a look and also sees the three identical shirts, and she knows I only own one as she bought it for me. My wife says we should take a picture and she walks out of the laundry room to get her phone, while she was getting her phone, there's a loud bang coming from the laundry room and we all quickly go back in there, nothing seemed out of place or fallen but when my daughter looked in the dryer, there's only one Optimus Prime shirt. We emptied the dryer but in the end, there was only a single shirt. Still no idea what happened there, but all three of us saw the multiple shirts."
6. The intervention:
"So one time I was sitting at a traffic light at an intersection that is perpendicular to an off-ramp to a major highway (I-95). I was the newer driver and a light watcher so as soon as opposing traffic got the yellow light I would already be about to take my foot off the brake. Well, this time when I took my foot off the brake, something pushed against my chest and kind of pinned me to the seat, but not my seatbelt because it didn't get any tighter or stall like it does when you brake hard. I turned to the right to look at my passenger in shock because I was so confused. But they yelled for me to 'go.' When I turned my head straight to proceed, a car came literally flying, like airborne across the intersection from highway at lightning speed and crashed into an overgrown lot on the other side. I just burst into tears because WTF? I'm an atheist so I don't really know what to think of it."
7. The remote control clone:
"I was about 16 at the time, and I had just gotten a new TV to put in my room, so that I could use the Xbox on it. It came with one remote; I remember specifically because I was very spacey and tended to lose things, so I wanted a second.
Well, cut to about three months later, I lost the remote. I sleep with it on my nightstand and I don’t remember moving it or dropping it or anything but one day I went to grab it and it wasn’t on my nightstand.
I looked EVERYWHERE for that thing. It was driving me crazy. Until a few days later, when I looked in between my bed and the wall. I’d already looked there (at least I thought so) and it was just there. I was absolutely ELATED until when I pulled the bed back to actually grab it, two remotes fell.
Exact same brand, same wear on the input and select button, the number 2 was rubbed off on both of them and what really blew my mind is the batteries were the same mismatch of Duracell, and whatever brand it came with, turned the same amount."
8. The audio premonition:
"Mine happened quite recently actually. I had just clocked out and gotten off of work and had planned that day that my mom and I would hang out. I climb into her car and everything was chill like usual when I begin to hear a loud crashing noise like the car JUST got hit by another car along with scraping and honking/doors being slammed. Of course, I say nothing of it because I didn't want to speak bad energy like that out there so I kept it 🤐. Of course, what happens 30 minutes later? We have a hit-and-run happen and all the same noises I was hearing prior to it happening end up also happening. Needless to say, I was definitely confused/floored. Sometimes I think about it and feel like just because it even popped in my mind that I already put that energy out in the universe so it wouldn't have mattered it I spoke on it or not. I suppose I could have mentioned to stay vigilant or something but I've NEVER had this happen to me before so I didn't really know how to approach it 🤷🏽♀️."
9. The guardian blip:
"I remember I was jumping on the bed as a toddler, like maybe 5 years old at the most. I did this crazy flip and was heading upside down head first into the corner of the dresser next to the bed. Next thing I know, I’m just sitting on the floor, not hurt and don’t remember landing at all?! Apparently, I told my mom 'someone caught me' so I can’t tell if this is a ghost/guardian angel or a blip in the universe but I’m always confused on how that happened."
10. The imposter call:
"I was at work when my dad called my phone — he was worried that something was wrong because a few minutes earlier I had called him and he couldn't make out what I was saying but he knew it was my voice and I sounded agitated. All he could make out were a couple of times where I used some of the nonsense nicknames I use for my parent's pets, so he thought something had happened to the dogs.
I told him I hadn't called him, but he didn't believe me and thought I was pulling a prank. Later on when I saw him in person I showed him that the last outgoing call I had made to him had been about five days before — but he had definitely been called by my phone earlier that day because his phone showed an incoming call from my number and the call had gone on for about three minutes before it cut off."
11. The expanding woods:
"I've been walking the same paths in a wooded area for seven years, and my cousins and their friends wanted to check the woods out at night. I was like, 'Sure, whatever, I'll take them.' So a group of six of us went to check it out. Everything was going fine up until a new path came into view. This wooded area isn't that big and I had never seen this path before, so we decided 'Fuck it, we're here to explore, so let's explore.' As we explore, we noticed that there was a pretty good-sized body of muddy water. It hadn't rained in a few months at this point and it looked like it was a pond. We turn back and head to the connection point. We decided we were done and to head back the exact route we came, which I kept note of. The problem is, it was longer, like the woods were extending the paths intentionally. I went back the next day and the path was gone and it never extended that extra hour it took us to get back."
12. The wrong number:
"Years after my brother passed away, my husband (who was also my brother's best friend) got a text message from his phone number. The text read: 'hey fam' and nothing else. We know that phone numbers get recycled but the thing is... my husband DID NOT HAVE THIS CELL NUMBER when my brother was alive.
When I told my family, my sister (who has a problem with boundaries lol) decided to call the number and talk to the sender. He told her that he did get a new phone and sent out a text to his family with his new number. But the only text that went through to my husband was 'hey fam' and not the rest of the message. The sender also did not have anything to show that he sent a message to my husband's cellphone. He did not have my husband's new number.
The whole thing is bizarre and before people want to tell me theories about why it might have happened — I'm choosing to believe that my brother, the prankster, just decided to blip the timeline to say hello."
13. And finally, twins who share everything:
"I have an identical twin sister, and we are very close. Most people can't tell us apart. We've always done everything together. We both get sick at the same time. We both had our gallbladders removed and then both had myomectomies. Later we both got diagnosed with MS. One particular trip heading home to Florida to visit our parents, we stopped at a rest stop. There were several sections of bathrooms so my sister and I split up and went in opposite directions. When I got into the restroom I had an immediate case of deja vu. I quickly finished and left the bathroom. I spotted my husband and beelined straight for him. Out of the corner of my eye I saw my sister heading there too. We both got to him at the same time and said in unison 'I had a dream about this bathroom!' Needless to say my husband was freaked out!"