On the day before my grandfather's funeral, I got a call from an unknown number. They left a message, so I went to listen. There was a bit of static, then a distinct and familiar voice said, "Try to have a good day tomorrow." I hurled my phone across the room and called my dad into the room. I went to grab my phone and show him the message, but it was gone. I had been the last person to talk to my grandfather on the phone before he passed. I have to wonder if this was his way of finishing our last conversation.
Why am I telling a bunch of internet strangers one of my most personal and unusual stories? Well, to show the countless others out there in the BuzzFeed Community who have lived through eerie experiences that they're not alone. Thanks for sharing your wild stories with me! Here are the stories that I just couldn't get out of my mind:
1. "When I was 6, I spent a long weekend at my friend's house in Montana. I slept on the floor of his room in a sleeping bag. One night, I sat up covered in sweat and shaking. I was 100% awake. Then, I watched as a Grim Reaper-like figure floated from the shadows to the other side of the room where there was a wall."
"He peeled back the wall like it was a curtain, then I saw my home city at dusk covered in flames with people screaming. He pointed at the city, and said, 'This is how it ends.' I ran to the bathroom and stayed there the rest of the night. No one believes it happened."
2. "I went to a funeral and saw the deceased standing next to her own casket at the front of the church."
3. "My aunt used to live in this old house that everyone in the family joked was haunted. On Christmas, she woke up and went down to the living room to find all the sofa cushions arranged into a cross on the floor. Only she and her husband lived there and they both swore neither of them did it."
4. "One night when I was around 15, my best friend and I stayed home alone at her house while her parents were away. The house had a long driveway off of the road and was surrounded by woods. It snowed that night, and in the morning when we were leaving, we found footprints that went all the way down the driveway and stopped by the back of the house. There were none leading away."
"We left immediately and she refused to go back until her parents were home. Nothing was messed with, no windows appeared broken, and nothing was stolen. It was just weird."
5. "My younger sister lost the only key to her lockbox. It just vanished. A few months later, we were sitting in my bedroom and we heard what sounded like a piece of metal hitting the floor. We looked around but couldn't see anything. We looked back to where we were sitting, and there was the lost key. We told our family about it, but we can't explain it."
6. "At almost the exact moment my grandfather died, the large mirror over the staircase at our family cabin cracked down the middle. Since then, several times when my mom and her siblings have discussed their dad, they've found or heard broken/breaking glass."
"Once, every glass on a shelf spontaneously cracked. Another time, all the glasses in the dishwasher broke. They always say my granddad loved living so much and couldn't stand dying so soon, so this was his way of coming back."
7. "About 15 years ago, my younger sister and I were having a movie night in the living room. My parents were asleep and our older sister was out with friends. As we were getting ready to sleep in the living room, we heard a deep and raspy voice whisper my name from the room around the corner."
"We both looked at each other, freaked out, and turned off the TV without telling each other what we had just heard. The next morning, I asked her to tell me what she had heard, and she confirmed she heard my name. To this day, we don’t know what it was or why it said my name."
8. "I had a dream where I was engaged to a man named Bool. When I woke up, I thought it was weird, but I went about my day. I had a little weed that evening and I had the worst panic attack of my life. I went to the hospital and my doctor was named Dr. Bool."
9. "One time, my mom called me to let me know it was time for us to head somewhere. I walked out of my room and saw her out of the corner of my eye walking into her room. I followed her, calling her name, and once again caught a glimpse of her, this time walking into her bathroom. I walked into the bathroom, and no one was there. My blood ran cold. I called out to my mom, and she had been downstairs the whole time."
10. "I had a ring my mom gave me many years ago. I lost it a few years after she died. I looked everywhere. I was so upset, I finally said, 'Please help me, Mom. I can't bear to lose this.' I had dumped out my jewelry box four times already, but I decided to open it one more time. The ring was sitting on top."
11. "When my beloved dog died a little over a year ago, she was on the East Coast with my boyfriend while I was on a trip to the West Coast. The morning she passed, I learned the news from a terrible phone call before driving to the airport. I was absolutely hysterical and bawling the whole drive. I was 'talking' to my girl, telling her I was sorry and that I loved her. It was awful — the deepest despair I have ever felt."
"Then, I saw the license plate of a car passing by. It said 'ITS HB.' We called our dog H.B., short for Harley Bear. I’d like to think that something was sending me a message that she was still out there somewhere and could hear me."
12. "My mother lost her wedding ring a few years after she and my dad married. They tore the house apart and never found it. Eventually, they moved away and she got a new ring. A year or so afterward, my dad's mother died. A few days after the funeral, my dad was away and mom fell asleep on the couch. She opened her eyes and saw her old wedding ring on the arm of the sofa."
"No one had been in the house except her, and it had definitely not been there when she dozed off. My mom isn't religious, but she's convinced her mother-in-law found it for her."
13. "When I was in school, whenever someone died in one of my dreams, they wouldn't be at school the next day. Sometimes they were sick, or a few times they were just very late to the class I had with them, but it was freaky. One time, I even texted a friend who lived in another state to ask if they'd gone to school that day because they had died in my dream. They had, in fact, not gone to school."
14. "My weird thing is seeing praying mantises. Whenever I see one, something either majorly inconvenient or exciting is about to happen. Usually I see them outside my apartment, but occasionally they show up near where the 'event' is going to take place. One time, I saw one just sitting on my tire as I was leaving work. A day later, I went to my car and found a flat tire."
"They’ve shown up on days when I’ve received great news, and on the day I got laid off a few years ago. Basically, they’re my omen that something’s coming."
15. "My boyfriend and I went shopping at this small boutique in a strip mall. We went in, got our stuff, and left, which took about half an hour. When we checked our watches, four hours had passed. To this day, neither of us can explain it. It was the middle of the day. We weren't drunk or high — just shopping at a very small store in a strip mall."
16. "When my dad was around 9, he had a pet salamander that he found out by the lake. One night, his older sister (my aunt) had a dream that she ate the salamander. When they woke up the next morning, the salamander was gone. They never found it or figured out what happened to it. We still wonder to this day if my aunt actually ate the salamander."
17. "I was driving to work one morning when a school bus suddenly overtook another parked bus and came straight for me with no possibility of stopping in time. I was terrified and closed my eyes expecting it to hit my car, but when I opened them again, I was about half a mile up the road."
"There was no possible way that the bus could have managed to stop in time before hitting me, so to this day I still cannot explain what happened and how I ended up further up the road."
18. "A few years ago, I lost a necklace and tore my house up looking for it. I finally gave up, and about six months later, I found it under my pillow one morning. It was like the Tooth Fairy had left it for me. I had washed the sheets many times since losing the necklace, and it was a heavy pendant, so it was not something that would easily go unnoticed in the wash. I still have no idea how it ended up there."
19. "I have a habit of reading before bed. One night, I finished reading, set my book on the nightstand, and put my glasses on top like I always do. The next morning, the glasses were gone. I knew I'd had them because my vision is too bad to read without them. At the time, I didn't have a backup pair, so the next day my parents came and helped me look all over my apartment, but they were gone."
"So, they took me to get a new pair. Months later, I went through the same nighttime routine, and when I woke up in the morning, both pairs of glasses were sitting on top of the book I'd been reading."
20. "My grandmother was very sick and dying. For a few weeks leading up to her death, she would stare off into space and talk to dead relatives. She'd say things like, 'I'll see you soon, Alice,' or 'I'm coming soon, Mabel.' She would always name previously deceased relatives. Then, one day, she started talking to her brother, Henry. We thought it was weird because Henry was still alive. We got a call the next day that Henry had died the previous day."
21. Finally: "I've had sleep paralysis a few times, but one specific time I was able to open my eyes. I could stare at the ceiling, but I couldn't move my body. I heard a voice say, 'Relax.' I was so freaked out after that. Of course, I lived alone too."
Have you ever experienced something unusual that you just can't explain? Share your story in the comments below!
Note: Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.