We seek to understand life through science and knowledge, but some aspects of our existence remain mysterious and intriguing. Today’s stories feature people recounting inexplicable experiences and memories that defy explanation. These moments have become unsettling events that still send shivers down their spines.

• My dad is driving back from visiting his father. We live about 12 hours away, and he plans on driving straight through. When he pulls over at the first rest stop, a guy walks up and asks for a ride. Dad turns him down.
  Two hours later he sees the same guy hitchhiking on the side of the road, he drives past. Dad stops at a rest stop for a coffee, the man is there and asks for a ride “as far as you’re going” but dad still says no.
  He sees the man again hitchhiking on the road later. Dad’s car starts to have trouble, and he pulls off the highway. At the end of the ramp — yup, that guy again. He offers to help with the car, and together they get it running again. Dad offers him a ride this time.
  The man doesn’t talk, and they drive for a few hours. Next thing, dad wakes up in the hospital. The doctor says he passed out at the wheel, and witnesses saw his passenger take over the wheel and pull the car over. When they stopped to help, though, the passenger wasn’t there. © mercurywaxing / Reddit

• When my sister and I were kids, we were out in front of our home, playing near the mailbox. Mom and dad were there by the window watching, and according to them, my mother turned to my father and asked him to bring us inside. He shrugged her off, but she became more urgent.
  He asked what was the problem, and she suddenly panicked and started heading towards the front door, despite being less than a week away from giving birth to our youngest sister. He stopped her and stepped outside to call us in, and we complied.
  Less than a minute later, a car came barreling down the street at high speed and struck our mailbox, destroying it. We would have both been killed instantly. My parents have never felt entirely comfortable talking about it. © StChas77 / Reddit

• I work at a nursing home. The last week of December, there was a lady who was relatively healthy. A few of her family members and I were in her room chatting when she mentioned that she’d known since she was a little girl, she was going to die before turning 94.
  Her family said she’d brought this up many times before. She was 93, and her birthday was January 4th. Sure enough, on January 3rd, she passed away while I was working. © Amazing-Gazelle3685 / Reddit

• In the very early ’90s, I was backpacking through Egypt and spent a good deal of time in Dahab by the sea. Accommodation was very sparse—a double bed in a 10ft x 12ft room. One time, I woke up in the middle of the night to find a guy dressed in a white Navy uniform, complete with medals, standing at the end of my bed. I yelled, “No, go away!” at him, and he disappeared. © Captain65k / Reddit

• When I was a kid, I had this CD player. It didn’t have any special features—no looping or anything like that. I’d lie down in bed at night with a story playing, and if I fell asleep, the CD would end, and everything would be silent in the morning because CDs don’t last 8 hours.
  So I wake up and realize the CD is still playing. Even odder, it hasn’t moved at all—it’s at the exact part where I fell asleep. It’s 8 hours later. To this day, I can’t explain it. © je97 / Reddit

• A few years ago, I was sitting in my living room when the light bulb from my ceiling light suddenly fell out. It dropped until it was halfway to the floor, then it just stayed floating a few feet above the ground for a full minute or more before it popped/exploded.
  Even though I have laminate flooring, there was no glass on the floor. I searched the whole room and never found so much as a splinter of glass, which is odd, but the floating bit was what shocked me the most. It stayed lit the whole time it floated. © subaruheart / Reddit

• My mum worked as a cleaner in a house on the grounds of a 13th-century castle. Sometimes my brother, dad, and I would go help her, especially late at night.
  One evening, the old clock that never worked started ticking. Then, a door that never closed on its own shut itself. When we were driving out of the place, we saw a figure wearing old, wet clothes walking through a brick wall. My whole family saw her.
  Mum just stopped the car, and we all looked at each other. I don’t know if it was a ghost or just a trick of the car headlights and being tired. © weirdemosrus / Reddit

I was taking a walk in the woods by my old house in the summer of 2020, thinking of my grandpa. All of a sudden, I heard his favorite song playing. No one was around. It still gives me chills. © WhereTFAreMyDragons / Reddit

We were helping a neighbor by plowing up her garden with our tiller. My dad hit a coffee can, and, hoping there was money inside, opened it.
Inside was a photo in a plastic bag. It was an enlistment photo of someone he went to high school with. We were 400 miles and several states away, and none of our neighbors recognized him. © Girleatingcheezits / Reddit

A few years back, I woke up in the middle of the night several times, and it felt like something was walking on my bed at the foot of the bed. My wife was sleeping next to me, so it wasn’t her. The odd thing is I mentioned it to my wife a few weeks after it happened, and she turned white as a ghost and said she had experienced the exact same thing a few times but didn’t want to mention it to me because she thought I would think she was crazy.
We still can’t explain it. It hasn’t happened in a really long time, but it was an unnerving experience. © 1980pzx / Reddit

• When I was still living at my parents’ house, there was a small sign with my name on it glued to my bedroom door. It had been hanging there for several years. The night before I was going to move to my own place, the sign fell from the door by itself. It was in the middle of the night, so nobody touched it or the door or anything. © Veezerick / Reddit

• Two weeks after my father died, I was watching TV in the living room. Something made my eyes turn to his chair by the window, and he emerged out of the light. Legs crossed, smiling at me. I don’t know if it was grief or desperation, but he was there, and then he slowly disappeared. © Logical-Hovercraft83 / Reddit

• When I was around 6 (I think), I had about 8-10 metal cars. I was playing with them in our closed balcony. I remember being alone that day. I got thirsty, so I went to drink water (the kitchen was on the other side of the house).
  When I came back, my cars were gone. I never saw them again… © 6415722 / Reddit

• I was about 17 and learning to drive. Mom and I had just been to the grocery and running a few errands. It was almost dark out and we were heading home. I was first in line at a left-turn stoplight in a large intersection. The turn arrow light turned green, and I just sat there.
  It was a very odd sensation. I knew the light was green and needed to pull through, but couldn’t. It was like all motivation to move was gone, almost like when you’re staring off into space. But I was fully conscious that the light had changed and turning was what I was supposed to be doing. Mom didn’t say a word either, just stared at the light.
  About 5 seconds later, a full-size Suburban came barreling through the red light. The speed limit on the road was 45mph, but he had to have been doing 65-75mph. The car shook hard when he passed us. After he ran the light, I turned like normal, and mom and I both kind of “woke up.”
  Afterward, we both described the same feeling coming over us at the light. If we hadn’t both been “tranced-out,” the Suburban would have struck us broadside. Mom and I would have probably been killed. We still talk about it every now and then. Just a weird experience. © lebowskiachiever12 / Reddit

Such situations happen to many people, but few can explain them. Here’s another collection of eerie stories.