22 Of The Absolute Creepiest Things People Have Experienced (And Likely Won't Ever Forget)

"I woke up and immediately knew that my uncle would die that day."

Every month, I ask BuzzFeed readers like you to share the creepiest experiences they've ever had. From run-ins with serial killers to ghostly encounters, I've read it all! So, without further ado, here are 22 of the creepiest stories people shared this month:

1. "My dad passed away in 2021 and was cremated. He wanted to be spread in the mountains of Montana. It took us a couple of years to coordinate this, but in 2023, we planned a trip. My brother had been holding on to Dad's ashes, but he was going to be traveling a lot before meeting me in Montana, so he dropped the ashes off at my house and asked me to bring them. The morning after the ashes were dropped off, I got up to go for a bike ride, as usual. I was dressed and ready to go, so I put my headphones on. Suddenly, my dad's favorite song by his favorite singer started to play over them. There were no apps open on my phone at all. The song played through and then stopped. No other songs played after it. I like to think it was my dad."

—Anonymous

2. "My mother was very ill and, in the last few months of her life, her paid companion told my husband and me that she was quitting and going to work at hospice. Within a few weeks, my mother went into hospice care at a local facility. They put her in room 129, where she later passed. A few weeks later, I had just installed caller ID on our phone. One Sunday afternoon, my husband and I were home and heard the phone ring. The caller ID said it was the hospice. I thought maybe my mother’s former companion was calling, but when I answered, no one was there. I called back, and the phone rang and rang. Finally, a nurse picked up the phone, said she heard it ringing from hallway, and that it was in an empty room. The room...was room 129!"

—Anonymous

3. "Around 2002, I met the woman who would one day become my wife. She was a member of a Spiritualist Church in Swampscott, Massachusetts. The church had a fair to raise funds for the church, and, as part of the fair, you could get a personal reading from a psychic. I signed up and got a reading five minutes later. This was before the days of Google, smartphones, etc. I had only met the medium very briefly once or twice. She told me that she had an older female spirit who wanted to give me a message. She said it was a grandmother or aunt or great aunt. I asked who it was. The medium said that she was a great aunt, one of my grandmother's six sisters. I only knew a few of my grandma's sisters, as some never came to America, so I asked which one she was. The medium said, 'Of all of the sisters, I was the least rude.'"

"My grandmother and her sisters came over from Sicily in their early 20s in the 1920s and took no crap from anyone, ever. They could come across as being rude, so I knew what the spirit meant by that. But I still had no idea which sister it was. Then the spirit said, 'Of all the sisters, I was the sickliest.' Still, I had no idea. The medium then said she was getting a name. She said that the spirit was named Pita or Pina or something like that.

She gave me the message, which was basically to keep doing what I was doing, that sort of thing. That night, I called up my father and said that I was going to ask him a couple of questions and I would explain why after. I asked him, 'Of all of grandma's sisters, who was the least rude?' He thought for a moment and said, 'Well, probably Aunt Phyllis.' I then asked him, 'Of all of grandma's sisters, who was the sickliest?' Without a pause, he said, 'Aunt Pina!' I didn't even know I had an Aunt Pina, so how could this medium know that? Besides, her full name was Josephina, and only the family called her Pina!"

—Randall L

Universal Pictures

4. "I took a photography class in high school and was taking some pictures in our basement for it. We lived in my (deceased) great-grandparents' house. While in the basement, I remembered that I needed to ask my stepdad about something when he got home, so I made sure to keep my ears open for him walking in. A little while later, I was still doing my project downstairs while my mom was up in the kitchen puttering around cooking. I heard the back door (where we all enter the house) open and heard some distant whistling. OK, I thought, he's home, so I'll wrap up and head upstairs to go chat. A couple minutes later, I came up the basement stairs to find only my mom. I noticed his car wasn't in the driveway, either."

"I asked her where he'd gone so quickly, and she said he hadn't been home yet. I told her I heard the back door open and someone whistling. 'Oh, your great-grandfather used to whistle while he worked in his workshop downstairs,' she replied. The basement...where had I been taking photos for my project? I'm pretty sure it was him I heard that day."

—Anonymous

5. "My family purchased a house in 1966 from a couple moving to assisted living. The woman's late brother, a retired priest, had lived with them until he passed away. He had survived the Death March of Bataan during WWII but never recovered enough to give mass in church again. He received special dispensation from the Vatican to have a chapel in the basement. In the basement, there was a small chapel with stained glass windows, a deacon's bench, and two kneelers. He would give the couple mass every morning, up until he was too ill to do it anymore. Then, the blessed marble slab from the Vatican was returned to the church. My bedroom was in the back of the house, which I found out had been his office. Occasionally, I would be in bed and hear the hinges on the chapel door creak, followed by what sounded like someone in deep prayer. It was like a mumbling run of words, very low."

"This happened many times, and I told my parents. My dad just made a face, but my mom admitted she would get gooseflesh when she was alone in the former chapel, which she had turned into her sewing room. Very creepy."

—JojoB, Central FL, USA

6. "When I was 10 or 11 years old, I had frequent dreams of flying. In the dreams, I wore my favorite baseball cap. I never went anywhere without it. In the dream, I'd cut rectangular ‘wings’ from cardboard boxes, and attach inner tube arm ‘sleeves’ to hold the ‘wings’ to my arms. I would flap my arms furiously and with great effort, and then I was flying. I flew over my small town and nearby bay, amazed at how everything looked from above. In the last flying dream I had, I started to get tired from flapping my wings so much and struggled to stay aloft just above our home. Unfortunately, I crashed through the heavily leafed branches of a very old olive tree in our backyard."

"That morning, I woke up from my dream and found myself in bed. As usual, I got up, got dressed, and after breakfast, went out into our backyard to play. I looked up into the branches of that olive tree...and saw my favorite baseball cap stuck on the top of the olive tree. right where I'd crashed in my dream. To this day, I don’t know how it got there!"

—Anonymous

First We Feast

7. "When I was 21, I was living in a house next to my grandparents' home (which was where my mother had grown up). Back in the day, there was a phone on the wall, and the number was the same one from when they first got a phone. My mother had been ill and passed away before I could get to the hospital to say goodbye. About a week later, I was going to the store. I asked my uncle if he wanted anything and got him some groceries. He was at work, so I went into my grandparents' house (where he lived) and put the groceries away for him. While I was there, the phone rang. I answered it...and it was my mother. She sounded far away and full of static, but I heard her say, 'Hi honey, I love you. Goodbye.' I was left standing alone in the house, phone in hand, having just heard my mother's final goodbye. I have NO explanation."

—Penny Odom, Santa Barbara

8. "My husband was in the hospital in a city about two hours from home. I drove there on a daily basis. One day, I accidentally took a wrong turn and was headed into the city instead of out. I thought if I crossed a bridge, I could turn around on the other side and head out of the city. Well, the bridge I took was one way, so I couldn’t just turn around and go back over. All the streets were one way. I stopped at a gas station because I was lost. I sat in the car and cried, not knowing what to do. I was overwhelmed, tired, and stressed as it would be getting dark soon. All of a sudden, a man came over to my car window and asked if I needed help. He gave me directions, but I didn’t understand them because all the streets seemed to be one way. He walked away as I thanked him and continued to sit there and cry."

"Well, he came back over and said to follow him, and when he put his arm out the window and turned his turn signal on, I was to take that exit and I'd be on the road to home. So, I followed him in a maze of streets, and we got on another bridge. After a couple of minutes, his turn signal went on and he put out his arm and waved for me to take the exit. Relieved, I turned on to the exit.

I went to wave to him in thanks...and he was gone. There was no car there. He couldn't have just disappeared because he still had a ways to go on the bridge. The car just vanished. This happened to me almost 30 years ago. To this day, I call him my guardian angel. I have told this story many times over the years, and I am still astonished."

—Paula, Pennsylvania, USA

9. "This happened in 2022. My girlfriend and I had just left a casino, and we were driving home with me at the wheel. It was dark out as it was rather late. I was breaking to stop at a red light when, in my peripheral vision, I saw movement just outside the vehicle on the passenger side. Something was heading toward us. As I looked, I saw what appeared to be a large shadow 'thing' fly downward in a diagonal directly in front of our vehicle and between the car in front of me. It looked like it was made of translucent black smoke. If you've seen the movie Ghost and remember those shadow figures that came out of the ground to get the bad guys, that was exactly the way it looked, but it sort of reminded me of a big stingray in its shape. It was fast and flew with intention. I immediately asked my girlfriend if she saw it, and she replied, 'What the hell was THAT?'"

"I still have no idea what it could've been, but, no, it was definitely not a bird and, no, we weren't drinking."

—Anonymous

Paramount+

10. "One time my friend was taken to the emergency room, so I went to see him. It was just a huge open room with beds partitioned off by curtains, so I found his bed and pulled back the curtain. As I walked in, my friend was tapping away at his phone, and this old guy in a blue hospital gown with an IV drip was just standing against the back wall, staring at him. This guy looked VERY sick. I looked at my friend and was like, 'So, who's your friend?' When I looked back, the guy was gone, and my friend didn't know what I was talking about. There was no way the guy could've gotten out without going through me or making a hell of a noise with the drip and the curtains. What freaked me out the most was that he didn't 'look like a ghost.' I thought [he] was a flesh-and-blood person standing there taking up space, but he'd completely vanished a second later."

—mutagenic

11. "One night in January of 1990, I had a weird dream. I dreamt that a red and white plane crashed in a wooded area with houses around it. Some people survived, so I was trying to help them off the plane, but I was having a hard time because most of them only spoke Spanish. I woke up in a cold sweat. The next morning, I was in the quad at school, waiting for a friend to go to breakfast. He walked up to me and said I looked as white as a sheet. My mouth was hanging open, and my eyes were wide. I was in shock! On the TV in the quad, they were reporting that Avianca (a red and white plane) Flight 052 had crashed into a wooded neighborhood on Long Island. Some people had survived, but the rescue workers were having difficulty communicating with them because they only spoke Spanish! That wasn’t the first time or the last time that I’ve had dreams come true like that!"

—molly1722

12. "About five years ago, we built a house on a large lot. Over half of the lot was in the forest. One afternoon while exploring the property, we came upon five very weathered unmarked limestone headstones. We didn’t think much of them, just that they were cool. We looked into the history of the area, and it appears we'd built very close to what had been a farm in the 1850s. For fun, we decided to record ourselves asking questions and listening for a response, asking whoever answered to click twice for 'yes' and once for 'no.' After listening to the recording, we received two clicking sounds in direct response to several questions when asking if they were the family that first settled in the area. After that, things got a little weirder."

"One night, my wife’s foot was pulled while we were asleep. The door was closed to the room, and she woke me up immediately, finding nothing in the house after a basement-to-top-floor search. My experience happened while sleeping in a basement room. It was early in the morning, and I had just woken up but didn’t want to get out of bed yet. After laying with my eyes closed for a few minutes, I felt someone’s cheek brush against mine and heard someone whisper, 'Wake,' quietly into my ear. The door to the room was closed, and nobody was around or awake in the house. We have come to live with the activity and will see what the future holds for us here."

—Anonymous

Orion Pictures

13. "I was newly divorced at 28 years old and had two kids: a 5-year-old girl and a 7-year-old boy. I bought my first house on my own. Within the first week, I heard my daughter talking and laughing in her bedroom alone. I left it alone, because she was very imaginative and didn’t require a lot of attention. Anyway, one night I was in her room tucking her in for bed. We said goodnight, kiss kiss, and then she said, 'Aren’t you going to say goodnight to Peggy?' I asked who Peggy was, and she replied, 'The pink triangle that floats around her room.' Well, okay."

"Where we were living at the time, a common nickname for the name Margaret was Peggy. The woman I bought the house from was named Margaret, but my daughter would have absolutely no way of knowing this. Shortly after telling me this, she went on to tell me about the dark man with the hat that kept screaming 'Come with me Peggy, now!' over and over. A couple of months went by, and my son started telling me about the guy with the hat ripping his sheets and blankets off of him every night. He did not know about the Peggy pink triangle conversation. 

One night, I was physically held down in my bed. It felt like a person was lying on top of me, I was scared to death! After about 10 minutes, it let up. Other things happened, too — we heard inexplicable voices and noises and sometimes saw people that definitely weren’t there. 

Anyway, the next day I spoke to some older neighbors who had lived there for over 30 years. I asked about the people who lived there before us. They told me about the husband and wife (Margaret’s mom, also named Margaret) and how the husband physically abused them both severely for many, many years, and he was finally put in jail for it. They divorced during this time, but when he got out, he would stand out in the street at all hours of the night screaming, 'Come with me Peggy, now!'

I didn’t mention anything about what had been going on in my house. They just told me this out of the blue. We had more instances throughout the years, but nothing as strange as those first few months."

—Anonymous

14. "One Saturday afternoon, I drove an hour to a state park trail I heard was a beautiful hike. When I got out of my car, I observed a man with a baseball cap standing on a slight hillside next to the parking lot. I immediately got terrible shivers down my back and over my body. I felt like I was experiencing evil in the flesh — it overwhelmed my senses. I tried to logically tell myself this was silly and made no sense, but my bodily feelings continued to overwhelm me. I was so shaken that I got back in my car and drove the hour back home. Later, I read that a hillside strangler, who was wearing a baseball cap, had started to murder people on this same trail. He was later caught and convicted. I still get shivers when I think of him."

—Anonymous

15. "Back in the late '80s, I was a young Marine stationed at MCAS El Toro in Santa Ana, California. Me and a few of my Marine buddies would go on beach runs after our 3 p.m. to midnight shifts. It was fun — we would have Laguna Beach all to ourselves on these late, dark, moonlit nights, and there was always an ocean breeze to cool us off. This one night, it was just me and Jim. We ran past a cave. The cave was glowing with some kind of light. We approached the cave and noticed hieroglyphics everywhere in the sand. We both stepped into the cave and saw an almost eight-foot figure standing there in this glowing light. It looked to have some type of feathers, and it was dancing in place. The cave was silent — no music or words. It happened so fast. Jim and I didn’t interact with this being. We left the cave and the beach and never spoke of it to anyone or to each other. This was in the '80s. To this day, I still often think about what we saw."

—Anonymous

Fox

16. "I'm a Christian, so I read daily devotionals each morning. Devotionals are kind of like short stories that offer encouragement in your faith journey. During Christmas break at college, I walked to the train station to take a train home. I was the only person there. I stood by the train tracks, pulled up the devotional of the day on my phone, and started reading it to kill time. The title of the devotional was 'Be Specific.' After I finished reading it, I immediately put my phone back in my purse. I then saw a woman in the distance walking toward me, on the phone. As she approached, she told the person on the phone, 'I don't know...you just gotta be specific.' She then looked me in the eye and winked at me. I was stunned! There was no way she could have known or seen the devotional I was reading. That day, I'm convinced I encountered an angel. I will never forget that experience."

—Anonymous

17. "About 15 years ago, my husband and I lived in an apartment. It was our first place together. He worked the night shift, and I worked the day shift, so a lot of times we were on opposite sleep schedules, and there were lots of nights where I was home by myself. For about a week leading up to this incident, my cellphone would randomly light up by itself when I was in the apartment, like someone was turning it on. It would just be sitting on the table or on a counter and would light up for no reason. I brushed it off, thinking my phone was just acting up. One night, after this had been going on for a little while, I was home alone. Our laundry room was in the basement of the apartment building, and I had to physically leave my apartment to go do laundry. I often would lock the door behind me so no one could enter the apartment when I was down there, and I would take my keys with me."

"This particular night, I did just that. I came back to my apartment, unlocked the door, and walked inside to see the chandelier above my kitchen table heavily swaying back and forth. I just stood there for a moment trying to figure out what was happening. There were no windows open and nothing else out of place. It was swaying so hard that I had to actually physically go over and grab it with my hand to stop it from doing so. I still didn’t tell my husband about this even though it was strange because I didn’t want him to think I was hallucinating or something!

A few nights later, I was sleeping, and my husband was home and awake. I had the bedroom door shut, and he came barging in, yelling, 'ARE YOU OKAY?!' I had been in a deep sleep, so I had no idea what he was talking about. He said he heard a huge bang and thought I had fallen out of bed. In my confused, half-awake state, I said no, so we looked around to investigate and realized the door to our spare bedroom had slammed shut. The strange thing about this, though, is we had carpet that the door dragged on, and it was physically impossible to slam the door. We even tried to recreate it by kicking the door shut and still could not get it to slam that way. I then proceeded to tell my husband the other strange things that had happened to me, feeling justified in doing so at this point. After being a bit shaken up, we brushed it off, feeling like we were losing our marbles.

Then, the scariest part of all happened a few nights later. I had fallen asleep with my husband asleep right beside me. I woke up at some point in the middle of the night but could not move. People describe this as sleep paralysis, but I had never experienced this before and have not again since. I was fully awake in the bedroom, able to see my husband beside me, but couldn’t move or scream. On my side of the bed, a dark, shadowy figure loomed over me. I couldn’t make out anything about this 'thing' other than its large stature and lack of features. It had no face, just a dark presence. I was mortified. I closed my eyes hoping it would go away. Eventually, I woke up like normal and told my husband the whole story. I was terrified. 

I told my brother about what I had seen, and he freaked out and said that was a shadow person! I had no idea what he was talking about, but he said to Google it and I would see. I was mortified to look it up, but sure enough, that is exactly what was standing over me that night. We didn’t stay there much longer. When we moved to our new house, nothing weird happened again. Still scarred for life, though."

—Anonymous

18. "It was a hot summer evening, and I had been sleeping upstairs in my bed for several hours. My brother’s room was directly across a small landing, maybe 15 feet away. Suddenly, I awoke, feeling like I was being watched. I chastised myself for being childish and cajoled myself to open my eyes to prove there was no one staring at me in my doorway. I counted down...1...2...3..., opened my eyes, and turned to the door, to prove to myself that no one was there. Well, there WAS a figure standing there! It was a shadow man as tall as the doorway itself. Its form consisted of a shadow that was darker than the night around it."

"I closed my eyes immediately, trying to figure out what to do. Did I really just see what I thought I did? I turned onto my stomach and pulled my foot back under the covers. I could still feel it staring at me. I hoped it would stay at the doorway or fade away. No such luck. Gradually, I could feel the air start to turn cool. At the same time, I could feel its presence getting closer and closer. I was so frightened.

The next thing I knew, I felt a cold, evil weight ‘lying’ on top of my back. The weight felt like when magnets repel each other, like an invisible force of sorts. It seemed to be trying to push down into me. It was very cold. I was entirely petrified and thought I should call out for help. My parents' room was directly below mine, and my brother was sleeping just across the landing. I built up the courage to scream and counted in my mind again. 1...2...3..., and I screamed like I had never screamed before. But to my horror, no sound came out. To make matters even worse, the shadow figure moved its hand toward my open mouth. Its shadow hand was entering my mouth and attempting to grab my voice or something, I don't know! I was terrified!

I stopped screaming, and its hand faded from inside my mouth and throat. I could still feel the cold. I could still feel the heaviness of its form on my body. I could still feel its evil. I didn’t know what to do next, so I decided to start praying. After what seemed like forever, I could feel the weight lifting and the air warming. Eventually, I didn’t feel its presence anymore. I couldn’t bring myself to run downstairs to get help from my parents or even across the landing to my brother’s room, so I stayed there, horrified. 

Once morning began to dawn, I fell asleep. I have feared this apparition returning my entire life. I think it may have been tied to that farmhouse we lived in since it was quite old. I always felt an evil presence from that side of my room. So scary! Let’s just say it’s not hard for me to believe in heaven and hell now!"

—Anonymous

Cavan Images / Getty Images/Cavan Images RF

19. "My wife, my mother-in-law, and I bought a piece of land together. My mother-in-law bought a repo trailer for us to live in. When she took us to the lot to look at it, I immediately didn't like it. I wasn't a believer in the paranormal or sensitive by any means, but it seemed like there was a dark energy in the place. One night, a while after we and my wife's teenage daughter started living in the trailer, things got strange. We were all in the living room watching TV, and a book flew off of the bookshelf into the middle of the living room floor. I replaced the book, and a couple of minutes later, a chair fell over in the kitchen for no apparent reason. I set the chair back up and went back to watching TV. A couple of minutes later, the hairdryer in her bathroom turned itself on. My wife went in and turned it off. It was bizarre."

"Several months later, my wife and I had separated, and I moved elsewhere. One evening, I got a phone call from her. She was alone, scared to death, and wanted me to come over. When I got there, I asked what had scared her so badly, and she told me to go into the bathroom and take a look. There on the mirror was a pentagram! After all our experiences in that trailer, I no longer doubt that there are things beyond our understanding."

—Anonymous

20. "My uncle passed away after a brief illness he'd been expected to recover from. For several nights before he died, I dreamed about my grandmother who had passed away more than 20 years before. In each dream, she looked anxious, as if she was waiting for someone who was late. Each night I had the dream, there were more and more people standing behind her; I recognized some as other deceased family members. On the final night of the dream, my grandmother's expression changed to happiness, and her arms were stretched out as if to welcome someone. I woke up and immediately knew that my uncle would die that day. That afternoon, my cousin called with the sad news. When I called my mother to tell her, she said that she briefly saw my grandmother standing in her apartment, right before I called."

"About a week later, I was asleep in my bedroom at my vacation house when I was awakened by the distinct shuffling sound my grandmother used to make when wearing her slippers. The sound grew louder and came closer until a luminous figure walked into my room and stood near the foot of my bed. It was my grandmother, wearing her nightgown and robe like she always wore at night. She looked at me, smiled, and then vanished. Both my house and my mother's apartment were purchased after my grandmother died, but she still managed to find us. I like to think that she was checking up on us to make sure that we were alright."

—Anonymous

21. "My son’s lifelong childhood friend (A) passed away from an illness he had. At the time, I didn’t know A was ill. One morning, during that time between being awake and being asleep, I had a dream. I dreamed that I was sitting in a big wooden rocking chair in a cone of light. I couldn’t see anything outside that light. A walked into the light and said, 'Well, I’m going now.' I stood up, and we hugged. Then he walked into the dark, and I woke up. I looked at the clock — it was 5:15 a.m. Later that morning, my ex-husband called me. I told him I had the weirdest dream about A. After I told him about it, he said, 'Well that’s really weird, because A died this morning.'"

"He asked me if he could tell A’s parents about my dream, and I said no. Of course, he immediately called them and told them about my dream anyway. Later, A’s dad called me to ask me about it, so I told him. He asked if I knew what time I'd had that dream, and I said I woke up at 5:15. Shocked, he revealed that his son had died in his arms at 5:15 that morning. I loved that boy like he was my own, and he even called me his 'other mom.' I'm glad he came to say goodbye."

—Anonymous

22. And finally, "My wife and I rescued a white husky/shepherd mix from an animal shelter. My wife instantly fell in love with her just from the pictures. When we got to the shelter, my wife was the first one to meet her, and there was an instant bond between the two. A couple of years later, our daughter was born. Our female husky felt like a second mom — she treated our daughter as her own, always very protective of her and my wife. A handful of years later, our son was born, and the female husky was the same way with him."

"About three years later, we had to put her down because of a ruptured spleen. Unfortunately, nothing could be done to save her. The whole family was devastated at the sudden loss of our dog. Soon after, I started having dreams of a white husky coming to see me and the family. Our other male husky was severely depressed about the loss of his companion, so we went through a dog adoption agency and got another white female husky (she looked very similar to our previous white husky, it would be easy to mistake them). Our male husky was happy for companionship, and the family was happy to have another dog. This is where things get interesting.

The new dog would act kind of strange from time to time. She'd stop what she was doing and just stare at the landing on the steps (which was where our old husky would sit and watch over the kids or wait for my wife when it was bedtime). I would start seeing flashes of white on the landing of the steps and constant movement out of the corner of my eyes on the landing.

One afternoon, as I was lying in bed to take a nap, our white husky walked into the bedroom (she's like my shadow), and I figured she wanted to find me and jump up on the bed. She just turned around and walked right back out. I called for her to come back into the room a couple of times, and after about 10 seconds, I got up to see what she was up to. I went out in the hallway, and she wasn't there. I looked down the stairs to the main floor, and she wasn't on them, so I went down and peeked over the railing to see her laying on her dog bed, all curled up and fast asleep. I asked my wife, who was sitting on the couch right next to it, if our dog had just been upstairs looking for me. My wife said no, she'd been fast asleep for the past 30 minutes.

After that, I knew it was the spirit of our old dog looking for my wife or kids. One day, I spoke out loud when I was home alone, thanking our old dog for looking out for us and for always being there for us, but that we were safe and she could rest. Ever since then, I haven't seen her in my dreams and our new white husky hasn't been staring at the landing on the steps."

—Aaron, MN, USA

If you enjoyed these stories, you can read a ton more like them here.

Now, dear reader, it's your turn. Do you have a creepy real-life experience like these? If so, tell us about them in the comments below or via this completely anonymous form.

Note: Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.