could it have been some sort of alligator or crocodile? I dont think those are native to Ireland either, but I have heard similar kids of stories about escaped (or released) exotic pets in the wild.

I grew up in Florida and I remember them being quite common pests getting into backyards and such, although there they aren't quite that exotic.

I kinda prefer the stories about odd/crazy people and the like to the supernatural stuff. I'll post a few once I get on a laptop.

I feel completely the opposite. By now, it's pretty obvious what people are capable of, and so there's really no reason to ever be scared of a person. Surprised or weirded out, maybe, but never scared.

Supernatural stuff, however, is by its very nature mysterious and indiscernible. And when you don't know how, when, where, or even what is harassing you, then that's the true stuff of terror.

I suppose, I just find the psyche of a twisted person to be scarier than "Well...I heard some really weird noises!"

Not too many of us get the chance to be put in a hole by a strange man telling to put the lotion on our skin while threatening us with a hose. I have seen two homeless guys give each other oral sex by the railroad tracks once. That was pretty messed up.

I remember one time, exploring some shitty pseudo-woods in my city, deeper into it there was a part that was sealed with a barbed wire fence. Circling around I found a hole in it, and got in through it. Thick vegetation, very hard to walk around. I don't know why it was sealed and it was clear it was not meant for people getting in, but the hole indicates that someone might have going there.

While wandering through it I came across some sort of stash, hidden in a bush. Various bottles of industrial chemicals and two large barrels with some unindentified liquid. Some strange tools too. Not too far from it, I saw some a bunch of bones from small animals, probably dogs, cats and some birds too. Some of these bones were arranged in a rather curious fashion...Skulls were nailed into trees, or tied into the fence nearby, while the smaller bones were put in a line, forming kind like a little trail of skeletons.

I realized it was getting dark, and I promptly fucked off there

sounds like you might have stumbled across a meth lab, or at least, some place where those types hung out. Yeah, that can be pretty sketchy.

I used to live in high-rise commission flats in a dodgy area of Melbourne here in Aus, and the place was ridden with bogans and all sorts of shady characters involved in drugs and having spent some time in prison. It was a regular occurrence for people to throw their washing machines and cats out their windows/off the top level of the flats, myself many times nearly being killed by heavy things being tossed and landing close bye.

One particular day I was getting out of the back of a cab which was parked in the driveway of the flats, and I was standing ass-out still leaning in the car with my upper body retrieving my bag, when all of a sudden I see something fly past the corner of my eye and feel some serious wind hit me in the face. I turn around to see a guy whose legs have ripped through his upper body and brains splattered all over the floor, landed from his jump under a meter away from me. I had his blood all over me, and it was the first (but not last) time I saw someone jump from that building.
I was glad to move the fuck out of there when I had a more stable income.

A had a weirdish/surreal experience walking home one day. When in high school (and then Uni) I used to be able to walk home through the bush (internationally called a forest?). It is a pretty amazing, epic area and sometimes I'd spend ages just walking through, often trying to find new routes home. One day I went off a bit and ended up on a paved footpath that winded up a fair way. I followed it, passing one dude who had his head down, followed awhile later by an old lady who was wheeling a stroller with a container of something in it. I kept going and got to the top, where it turned into a very strange looking tunnel, kinda looked like something cars would go through, but this wasn't a road. Next to it was a wire fence and gate (most of the fence covered by trees and shrubs). Beyond it was just flat, desert-like (obviously not the desert, but it looked like it) land, with a big fuck off tower in the middle.

Anyway, it isn't actually that out there, but it all just felt weird - kinda like a dream the way it was all set up. Got home and spoke to my parents about it - my Dad has lived in the area his entire life and didn't know what it was. I'm sure it was something boring, but it creeped me out a fair bit at the time (I was about 14).

DUDE...that is seriously fucked up.

It sure is, but isn't exactly something out of the ordinary in that particular area

Why you think that is?

The place is full of criminals and people whose lives evolve around drugs, it's not uncommon for people to jump to their deaths from those flats or get stabbed/shot in disputes

In May of 2010 I purchased a small amount (only two bowls) of marijuana from a girl at my college. It was the first time I had smoked in almost two years and I haven't since then. Anyway, it was about 11:00 PM on a Friday night so I smoked it in my garage, enhanced it with a ritual cigarette and then retired to my house to enjoy my buzz. It soon became apparent that this stuff was laced with a hallucinogen of some sort. I grew extremely paranoid (the first time such had ever happened while stoned) to the point where all I could do was curl myself into the fetal position and lay completely silent. I kept hearing loud, abstract beeping and droning sounds, like a warped synthesizer recording on an extended loop. I kept hearing footsteps outside my house, emerging, approaching and then disappearing before restarting. The same sequence of events kept replaying in my head, of an overweight "redneck" cop pulling up to my driveway, getting out of the car and knocking on my door. Every car that passed by my house (my street is surprisingly busy at night for being in a residential neighborhood) I just knew was either him or some sinister would be intruder. Eventually I picked up a copy of Chuck Klosterman's Fargo Rock City and attempted to read it, but all the letters dispersed and then melted together and I had no idea what I was trying to read. I don't remember how long this continued for or when I finally fell asleep but when I woke up the next morning clear headed and in one piece it was the best relief I'd felt up until that point.

Reading this thread, listening to Goat at 5 AM... then the heating pipe next to me goes "bang". Creepy enough in itself.

I've seen ghosts several times. It was only terrifying when you could feel them single you out. Watched it open my bedroom door and glide right in. Purple grey mist, upper part of a human figure. Couldn't tell the sex. Immediately prior I felt the surge of electricity go up my back. The whole sense of the room changed. Easily the most horrifying thing I've ever witnessed.

Soooooo.... were you on any medication at the time?

No. Strangely enough I had attended a wake for a friends father that day. July 2004. My mothers house. Still have not slept in that room since.

Ok.... So I live in a very rural part of New Hampshire. It's an incredibly small town, way out in the woods. My closest friend lived about 5 miles away from me, even deeper and more remote into the woods than I am. In high school a bunch of us would hang out at his house. We would regularly do typical high school things, stay up late get fucked up and cause trouble. One night there was only three of us, and we decided somewhere around 2 in the morning to see how far down the ATV trail behind his house led. So we headed out just talking and having a good time. The moon was bright and it illuminated our surroundings very well considering the time of night. Eventually we came up to what looked like an abandoned barn all ram-shackled and forgotten. Now it's worth it to explain that on the trail between us and the barn there was a ditch about 7 feet deep overgrown with bush. So what did we decide to do? Start throwing rocks at it, of course. We lobbed the biggest stones we could find in competition of who could break a window first. This went on for a good while, until after many tries I scored a direct hit and the window I was aiming for shattered. Immediately as this happened, we all heard a lady's voice yell from the ditch something like "HEY YOU FUCKERS!" Without hesitation, we booked it running down the trail like mad men. Behind us we heard more yelling from multiple people. We finally cut through to some powerlines on a hill over looking the path we walked. As we hid we could hear and see the lights of a couple 4-wheelers going up and down the path as if they were searching for us.

Now what makes all this creepy, and still gives me chills to this day is A) It was a barn WAY out in the woods, and I mean WAY out. Basically the last place you'd expect anyone to be. B) The woman's voice clearly came from the ditch, which was about three feet from us. She absolutely 100% had to have been there the whole time watching us throw rocks just a couple feet away.

I still don't know what it was. We haven't been back there since as it was miles out in the woods. I suspect it may have been a grow-op or some meth lab which wouldn't be too far of a stretch. I know of some similar operations in the backwoods of New England.

I had an odd job as a school custodian years ago. One of the schools I cleaned at night was very old. Not a lot was done either to modernize it at the time. I had one end of the school upstairs and downstairs to clean, and another person had the other end of the school. I had heard different things about the upstairs of my section from teachers, and other custodians but hadn't have anything happen until late one night. I was locking up my last classroom at the end of the hallway, and turned off the hallway lights. I grabbed my trash and walked down the stairs to outside. I went outside and threw my trash in the dumpster, and proceeded to go back inside. I happened to notice a light upstairs in the end classroom was on. I figured I must have missed it. I went back upstairs and noticed the light was off and the door was still locked. It really freaked me out, and I immediately went down the stairs and took my downstairs section to the other persons section. I told him and he seemed unphased. He told me its the little boys ghost, he is a prankster. He proceeded to tell me all the other "pranks" the boy plays. I really don't believe it ghosts but it was still pretty freaky. Looking back I figured it must be old wiring, but still pretty freaky.

November last year (about a week after Halloween), I drove a couple of my younger, high school age buddies out to a haunted attraction which was an hour or so drive away. When we got back to my friend's house, it was about 11-12 at night, and we spent so long in the driveway, talking in the car and listening to Jethro Tull and Incantation, that the battery in my van died, leaving me with no option other than staying the night. There was nothing to do at the house, so we decided to "take a walk" down to a nearby Wal-Mart and purchase a few insignificant items. On the walk back, it was probably about 3 in the morning, and the three of us turn down a rather long road, on which one can take a right turn onto a short little connecting road, and take another right turn and be on my friend's road. I heard a woman yelling from one of the houses, which I didn't really process as anything "out of the ordinary". As we walked down the sidewalk however, I heard one of my friends say "They're watching us...". I turned around to see three or four grown men running to the other side of the road and begin to walk down the sidewalk behind us. My friends were both terrified, and proceeded to cut through a neighbor's driveway, and through a small wooded area, behind which my friend's house lies. I followed them, and once in the wooded area, turned my head to see the three or four men standing in a row under a streetlight from where we crossed, staring down the adjacent driveway and, I would assume, at us. Then, the men began to walk across the street and into the neighbor's driveway after us, at which point I ran as fast as humanly possible back to my friend's house. The three of us hid in the house, wondering what the hell those men were up to. My "logical side" tells me that it was nothing to be afraid of, but nontheless it was a very odd and eerie experience at the time.

When I was younger I pushed a relation of mine way too fair during a dispute. Definitely something I'm not proud of, but I resorted to angry, mean attacks at one point. I'm not even sure what it was about anymore. I slammed their door shut and went into my own room. Not long after I heard noises over my television and went out in my hallway to investigate and I could hear her in her room alternating between crazed, hateful spitting and really eerie, sort of chanting. "You- you piece of shit Jodi, you fucking - fucking useless bitch, shut up! Shut up!" Things like that that I didn't even say myself (I don't even call her Jodi). I remember opening the door and trying to apologize, but she kept growling out insults at herself and when she looked at me, she didn't even remotely resemble herself (grey, eyes wide and unfocused, somehow otherwise very different). I'm not even sure she could tell I was there. I remember seeing the words "shame i am" written on the wall in marker before I fled for the entire day. I had never mentioned or acknowledged the situation since but it still creeps me the hell out. It was inhuman. I think it was a combination of my own remarks triggering flashbacks to an abusive past and wrong medications. I don't think anything could ever make my hair stand up like hearing that inside someone's door.

^^That reminds me of something that happened to a fraternity brother of mine recently. He was out at the bars with a few of my other brothers, and at one point he left the bar. Well anyways when one of the guys got back to the house he found the dude who left the bar shirtless on the kitchen floor just sort of lurching and screaming really inhumane sounds. After trying to talk to him, with no response, the guy who just got back started to record the situation. I wasn't there, I only saw the footage but it was about 10 minutes of intense strangeness. He was speaking in tongues, cutting himself, violently tearing at the cabinets in the kitchen and saying some really deep and hurtful personal stuff to the guy filming. My buddy with the camera (who was also drunk) called 911 and was alone in the house with him trying keep him contained. When demon-possessed guy started yelling the insults, which had to do with the camera guys military service in Iraq, he just couldn't help it and smacked demon-man in the face. And I mean hard too. It didnt phase him him and he continued tearing the place up. Eventually the police got there and took him to the hospital. He doesnt remember that night, and says the last thing he remembers was leaving the bar to get some molly. So we suspect that he may have unknowingly gotten bath salts instead. The footage is really creepy though. Looks like a scene straight out of an exorcist movie. Strange body movements, weird languages, and blood everywhere.

I am really happy I haven't encountered sleep paralysis or any paranormal sightings so far. Even after reading stories from this thread and the other (older) one I felt uneasy, but was still able to sleep well.
I only remember one creepy (or rather weird) situation. When I was about 5 or 6 years old, I discovered a huge spider behind our washing mashine in the basement. It was way bigger than any other spiders I have seen so far (and big spiders are very unusual here in Germany). But when I wanted to show it to my mother, it was gone and never to be seen again...
A few times so far I had a strange disaccord of the experienced and the actual time I slept. It felt as if I was sleeping for a few minutes maybe (or not at all), but when I looked at the clock, I had slept for eight hours. The entire day after I felt dizzy and tired as if I hadn't slept at all. Also, I have deja-vus quite often. It just seems as if I experienced or dreamed the situation before, let it be the words someone said, the location, or a sequence of events.
Some years ago I had multiple occourences of depersonalization where it felt as if my mind was disconnected from my body and everything I said wasn't coming from "me". It was nothing dramatic, but it surely felt weird.

I'm sorry I have no amazing stories to contribute, but it would be a shame if the thread gets locked.

I thought I'd found a body bundled into a sleeping bag tonight. I couldn't hear anything or see the rise and fall of the chest, I was flashing my phone's torch around the head end as well, and calling out "Mate... You OK?" but nothing. Never have I been more relieved to hear a homeless guy grunt, when I finally built up the balls to nudge him with my toe.

I swore that I *maybe* saw a UFO when I was driving home two, maybe three months ago. I saw a white sphere and it quickly darted behind trees. To make it even creepier, I was listening to "Alien" by Aria at the time. I'm not sure what it was really, but it really creeped me out.

Anyone from Virginia ever go to Witches Pond?

We were doing operations in the Gulf and I was out on deck talking to a friend in the middle of the night. Something exploded in the distance (about 9 miles) that was so bright it lit up my friends face. It didn't make a sound that I heard, but it was pretty sick. Not necessarily creepy, but it was when I saw it. I reported it, but we were involved in an operation so we didn't check it out. At the time I swore it fell from the sky, but after all of these years I'm not really sure.

My whole family sees ghosts or spirits or whatever you would choose to call them. When I first started seeing them around 8 or so it scared the living shit out of me but now its just another part of life...people think its weird as fuck though.

Oh and last night I was in my houses living room watching that movie "Flight" with my family and we heard a voice come from above us that just said "Fuck you" in a demonic like voice(some shit youd hear in a horror movie) it was strange and I pretty much went to bed immediately.

I guess the spirit of George Carlin finally found a home.

Hahahahaha that made my day.But seriously lately my home has had some bad spirits we usually have one dude who walks in circles and sometimes a girl in our backyard.

Around a month ago I saw the movie "Dark Skies". It's about alien abductions, for those who haven't seen it. I remember at first laughing, you know, how could advanced beings have such trouble turning a damn door handle?

But, on the way home, my sister called me all panicky "was that you trying to get in the house just now? There was something scratching at the door." At first I thought she was screwing with me, making me fear there's aliens at the house, but then I remembered that I never told her where I had been. Then when I got home, I followed a pair of footprints around the side of the house, which impossibly stopped in mid-step out in the middle of the snowbank. I just about crapped myself, and still have no idea what the hell went on.

^ wut....those last two stories are freaky as fuck. Norcal, you're saying you see ghosts?

Yeah my whole family does,like I said,its not really a big deal but sometimes O dont want to see that shit.It can still get scary really fast.

Oh and something that happened this weekdnd: I got home on Saturday night around 1 AM and everyone in the house was asleep besides my older brother who was playing ps3 in the living room,I was sitting there for a few minutes and we heard a loud sort of "clanking" sound(we have a big concrete platform in the backyard and it sounded like steel hitting it) come from the backyard,so naturally,we went to see what it was.We saw nothing but I was having a weird feeling that I couldnt quite describe.We went back inside after a smoke break and we heard it again,so we ran outside hoping to catch whatever/whoever was making the sound and we saw something jump from our roof to our neighbors roof.Didnt hear it again all night but it creeped the fuck out of me. I apologize for any spelling/grammatical errors,Im typing this from my phone.