People Reveal Bone-Chilling Unexplained Footsteps

Redditor /u/TheRedArmyStandard:

My family faced some haunting or creature. We moved to Alabama, and it finally stopped. A friend told me moving to a place with iron in the hills keeps things out. Alabama has rich iron in its mountains.

Every night, between 2 and 4 am, something came from the basement. It usually wasn't a physical thing I could see, but I heard its footsteps near the water heater in the back corner. The heater made an L-shaped crevice. The whole family and guests felt uneasy near that spot.

Every night, or sometimes a few nights a week, footsteps started in the basement.

The footsteps went up the stairs, opened the door, then shut it. It walked through the living room, sometimes making the rocking chairs move or turn with it. I heard this many nights. I watched it happen once and never slept on the first floor again. Then, it went up the stairs to the second floor where everyone slept. It paced the second floor and moved up and down the stairs all night.

One night, I had an idea to prove if it was real. I bought a motion detector. It was a simple toy that opened and closed like a clam with a sensor at the front. It made a beeping alarm when something passed it—very simple. I placed it on the half-wall overlooking the stairs. You have to cross this wall to reach the top of the stairs. I turned it on and went to bed.

A little after two, I woke up and heard the basement door close. The steps started moving toward the stairs. I wanted to prove it was real, so I could not wait. The steps came up the stairs, getting closer and closer. Then they stopped. Suddenly, this felt like a bad idea.

The alarm went off: beep beep beep beep, pause, beep beep beep beep. Beep beep beep beep beep beep; it would not stop. My body got cold. I knew it was standing there, waiting for me to get the alarm. I panicked. I threw off my covers, started yelling and cursing openly. I threw the door open, stomped into the hall, and grabbed the thing.

In my hands, it stopped. I went to my room, and it was silent. I waved my hand in front of it: beep beep beep beep; it worked. I took out the batteries, closed it, and threw it in my closet. I never wanted to document that thing again. I never took videos or set up a camera because I wanted nothing else that proved it was there.

Redditor /u/BeercornPonghole

Last year, I moved into an old apartment. My girlfriend and my two sons, ages seven and one, share a room. One night, I tucked the oldest in, and he wanted to use the bathroom. I hid under his covers to tease him. I heard him walk into the room.

He sat at the foot of his bed, and I felt the mattress pressure. He said nothing, asked nothing about my covering. Strange. I yelled, "Boo!" and he wasn't there. He returned from the bathroom two minutes later, but I was too weirded out to yell at him.

Days later, I told my wife about this story. She shared her weird bedroom experience. The baby slept, and she negotiated sleep with the older son. Suddenly, she heard footsteps and saw the baby's shadow run to the living room. She got up to follow, then saw the baby still in his bed, sound asleep.

About two months later, Baby stayed in our room. Around 4 am, the seven-year-old entered. We asked him what was wrong. He said the baby had cried all night, and he couldn't sleep.

We let him sleep in our room. We said nothing about the baby not being in their room.

Redditor /u/Siprox:

A few months ago, my girlfriend and I were at my place around 1 am getting ready for bed. We live alone; no one else enters the house. That night, we sat on my bed, chatting casually (top floor). Then I heard footsteps on the wooden steps downstairs.

I have lived in that house my whole life. I know exactly where someone is based on the footsteps. I also know how heavy the person is and who it is if I know them.

Adrenaline rushed through me, but I stayed still and listened. After a short pause (normal moving from the first to the second staircase), I heard the footsteps again, louder, moving toward us. No animals were in the house; those were human steps.

My girlfriend kept talking, so I signaled her to stop. The steps then moved from the second staircase to the final one, leading to our room. We were both shocked by that sound. We went silent and just listened.

The footsteps stopped halfway up the stairs, as if the person noticed we went quiet and froze. Everything was silent for a few seconds. Then, the person slowly started backing down the third staircase as quietly as possible. The issue is, on those wooden stairs, walking slowly makes you sound louder than normal (this happens with wooden doors too).

After a few minutes, we searched the whole house. I checked every room from top to bottom, every closet, and every hiding spot. I checked all windows and doors. Everything was locked. No one was in the house. Nothing was taken.

I still do not know what happened that night. But I know those footsteps were human. They were not family.

Redditor /u/fheytee:

It was near payday. I worked overtime to finish payroll. It was late. I was alone in the office, typing on my computer. Suddenly, I heard footsteps. I did not move because I was too busy. Through my side vision, I saw the man's shoes on the floor and his body facing my desk. I waited for him to speak. He said nothing. He just stood there in front of me.

I felt awkward and rude. I decided to look at him while asking, "What can I do for you...?" Coldness flooded my body. I could not move.

No one was there. I was scared. I called the guard and asked if someone entered the office. He said no one. I asked him to come upstairs. I lied about the air conditioning being broken. I did not finish payroll.

Redditor /u/Lishayy:

I was about 12. One day, around 2 am, I was playing [Counter-Strike] with friends. I heard a door slam. It was loud, loud enough for me to hear through my headphones.

I froze in my chair and took off my headphones. Footsteps followed. I thought someone broke in. I was too afraid to leave my room. Everything went silent after a few seconds. No one was in our house. The door remained locked. Everything seemed normal, so I told my friends I was logging off and tried to sleep.

The next morning, I told my mom what happened. Her face turned white. She said she dreamed about my dad. She told me the dream.

He came to our house. He slammed the door and woke her up with the noise. She was excited to see him. She hugged him and kissed him. They went into my room where they saw me playing video games. My dad told her I grew up a lot. He was happy to see me. He taught me how to play [Counter-Strike] when I was five years old.

My dad passed away when I was six. It still scares me today.

Redditor /u/MeteDuro1910

My brother and I were foster children. We lived in a Christian/religious foster home when I was nine (he was eight). I woke up every morning with my blanket on the floor. I did not think much about it. After a couple of months there, I could hear walking upstairs.

I asked the foster parents if anyone else lived in the house. With a sad look, they said, "No, our daughter passed two years ago." This creeped me out. Now, after my blanket isn't on every morning, I hear unknown footsteps upstairs.

One night, I lay on my bed. I did not feel tired. I listened to my brother and the foster parents having fun downstairs on the SNES [Super Nintendo Entertainment System]. Suddenly, fear filled me. My door was half open. The guardians' room sat across from our room. Hallway light shone on. Their door slowly creaked open.

I thought I saw something. The door closed shut. I thought maybe it was the wind; what I saw was my imagination. Then, their door swung open fully.

A shadowy figure moved from their room to the bathroom on the right. It moved lightning fast. I could barely see what it looked like. After a few seconds, it popped its head from the door. It played peekaboo, doing this several times.

I started crying. I froze, unable to speak a word. Suddenly, the figure walked casually to my door and slowly entered my room. I let out a wheeze trying to scream. My body moved, finally gripping my blanket and pulling it over my head. I saw this figure walking back and forth.

The floor creaked; anything would make noise. But this shadow made no sound. It stopped at my feet. I started crying harder. I tried to stay quiet, but how could I not whimper with this thing right at the foot of the bed? Out of nowhere, I felt a tug on the blanket. I tried to scream for help, but words still failed. At the same time, I held the blanket tight. It felt like a tug of war.

Then it stopped. I did not dare open my eyes or let go of the blanket. I heard my brother and the foster parents coming up the stairs. I felt relief for the first time in my nine years. I let my tears out and started sobbing. The fosters did not notice; they thought I had fallen asleep. But my brother heard me and asked if I was okay. I just said, "Yeah." I did not know what to say or how to explain.

From Redditor /u/Sweet_N_Vicious:

During college, I had four roommates who went home over the weekend. I was usually alone from Thursday night to Sunday evening. One morning, I woke up with full human bite marks on my lower back. I showered before bed and used lotion, so it was not there the night before. It was hot, so I sweated in my sleep and decided to shower again. Then I saw it.

I went to work and showed my colleagues. No swelling appeared; it didn't hurt. It just looked like someone bit me. By day's end, it vanished. After that, I kept hearing knocking on my bedroom wall. I thought the neighbor's kids were playing, so I tried to run and catch them. I heard and saw footsteps on the carpet.

One weekend, my little sisters stayed over. In the middle of the night, they heard a woman scream and something drop in the kitchen. I ran to check. They were terrified. Early that morning, my bedroom door shook from knocking. I thought it was my sisters. I got up; they were still asleep. This only happened to me, not my roommates.

Eventually, my roommate hired a shaman to bless the apartment. Suddenly, everything stopped.

Redditor /u/Trevor-On-Reddit:

This happened to me when I was nine in 2010. A friend in the neighborhood found a Ouija board in his brother's things while he was at college. He told me about it and asked if I wanted to play. To impress him, I said yes. We went into his room and tried it. Nothing happened; we felt let down. Later that week, he called. He said he looked up how to use the board right and wanted to try again. I agreed, sure that nothing would occur.

We grabbed scented candles and placed them around the board. We did the whole séance. We asked the board if anyone was there, and it said “Yes.” We thought someone else was joking, but we took it seriously. I did not care if it was a silly joke.

We asked the ghost its name. It spelled out “Owen.” My friend asked if it was a person; it replied “No.” We asked what it was. It spelled out “Demon.” I then asked it to prove it. You know that call in the intro toFinding Bigfoot? That’s the closest thing to what we heard from the garage. Only we were in the house. It scared us badly, so we ran out. We checked the garage—nothing.

Weeks passed. He told me about his paranormal experiences. He felt watched whenever he was downstairs in the kitchen and living room. He felt someone sitting on his bed every night. Each time he walked past the garage, he felt someone grab his wrist and pull him toward the garage.

Whenever I went over, I always felt someone looking at me from the ceiling. It felt... unnatural.

The scariest part happened next. We played in his room; no one else was home. Then, heavy footsteps sounded downstairs. Whatever made them had hooves. It sounded like a full-grown horse walked downstairs. Then, someone laughed and coughed at the same time. My friend ran over, slammed the door shut, and we hid.

He hid under his bed. I hid in his closet. Then, someone scratched his door with a big claw, like raptors' big toe claws. He started crying. I almost cried. My friend yelled, “Leave us alone, Owen! You’re scaring us!” The noise stopped. Then, they heard it run down the stairs.

My friend got up. He threw me out of the closet and grabbed the Ouija board from there. He ran down the stairs. He ripped the screen door off his gas fireplace. He threw the board in. He put the screen back on. He turned the fireplace on. As he turned it on, a loud moan came from the basement, right behind my friend. He flicked the fireplace on, and the board started to burn. That ended it. We played outside until his parents returned because he was too scared to go back inside.

His parents came home. They saw he burned his brother's Ouija board. They grounded him and threw the burnt board away. That ended the paranormal events in my friend's house. I will never play one of those games again.

From Redditor /u/hangingonby3threads:

About 10 years ago, I lived in a 100-year-old house. The dog and I were the only ones home. I went to the basement for laundry. The dog, a lab/shepherd mix, followed. She sniffed near the old part of the basement while I bent down and pulled clothes from the dryer.

Suddenly, she ran full speed out and up the stairs. I heard no noise. But she followed quickly upstairs.

For the years after, we could not get her to come down to the basement. The dog always needed to be by my side. But she refused to go down to the basement again. Animals sense things better than humans.

Another time, maybe a couple of months after that, my teenage son and I watched TV in the living room with the dog. We heard footsteps, like adult-booted steps, coming up the wooden basement stairs. I waited for the basement door to open.

Even with the TV on, we both heard it at once. The dog lifted her head and listened. Nothing happened. But it scared us a bit.

Residual haunting is what I think it was. It was creepy.

From Redditor /u/Roachperson:

Around age 11, I felt the house was haunted; I heard footsteps constantly, but no doors opened. One day, under my blanket, I heard the footsteps again. I checked and saw a little kid with black eyes and short hair. He was about as short as the bed, staring at me.

I could not sleep in the dark. I developed nyctophobia from it.Fear of night or darkness resulted from this.fear of night or darkness.

Redditor /u/Felixfelicis42:

From age 12 to 17, I lived in what I thought was a haunted house. I have never had experiences like those in that house since moving out. Some memories come to mind. Once, I was putting laundry away in my closet. I heard someone whisper my name in my ear, clear as day. I never sprinted out of a room that fast.

My sister and I had friends over. We used a tape recorder to ask the ghosts questions, like on paranormal shows. We played the tape, not expecting sound, but we heard a soft voice say, "I'm in the closet." We were sitting near a small closet in the basement.

My parents sold the house eventually. We moved to a new place before selling this one. My sister visited the house after a few showings, and she turned off the lights.

She went to turn off the basement lights, which had several switches. One switch was at the far end, away from the stairs. She turned the light off and claims she heard heavy footsteps running toward her.

She ran out of the house without turning off other lights and locked the door. That was the last time we returned until neighbors offered to show us their renovations. Nothing happened then, but they asked if we wanted to babysit their kids. We politely refused.

Redditor /u/Pinkstar918:

I went to camp one summer around age 12 or 13. I shared a cabin with two other girls. One fell asleep right after lying down, but the other girl and I stayed up talking until we heard someone walk up and knock on our cabin door. We only had screen windows, so I could see no one from my bed. We thought it was a prank, so we laughed and continued.

Then we heard loud stomping and footsteps on the wooden porch outside our cabin. It sounded like someone wore boots, walking across the porch, then knocking loudly and repeatedly on the door. The door shook! I looked out, but no one was there. The other girl and I were totally shaken, crying, and panicked. We begged them to leave and hoped it was a weird prank by the counselors, but it was not.

No one was there, no matter how hard I looked. I got my flashlight and searched for someone messing with us from a distance. Nobody was there. We moved our mattresses to the floor, held hands, and cried until the knocking and footsteps stopped.

We woke up the next morning shaken. We asked everyone if anyone played a sick joke on us. No one knew what we meant. Keep this.

Redditor /u/criuggn:

We found our residence hall is haunted. When you google haunted places in my city, our dorm pops up first. It is the fourth floor. I live on the fourth floor. Other dorms/buildings on campus are not haunted.

I always get creeped out by bathrooms. No real reason exists. Going in, you never feel alone. There is always someone in the first stall. Sometimes I catch a glance in the mirror and think a girl is peering from behind the stall door, but nobody is there.

I told my roommates. They thought the same thing but did not want to scare anyone else. Sometimes I hear footsteps in the bathroom when no one is inside. I see shadows pass outside the stall door while I pee, but nothing real happened yet.

We can tell the boys down the hall our stories if necessary. That is all.

Redditor /u/Ak_Lonewolf:

In the mid-'90s, friends and I were at a rock pit. Snow had just fallen. We reached the top to view the edge. We stood about 30 feet from the edge and saw footprints from nowhere. The fresh snow was unbroken, so it was impossible to have jumped up.

We followed the footprints to the edge. The drop was about 20 feet. We saw the footprints stop at the bottom and continue about 10 feet later.

Redditor /u/kindlynoodle5

This story happened 10 years ago in Moscow. My family moved into an old apartment that sat empty for about 25 years, including old Soviet furniture. I was about ten. My dad sometimes snored, so my mom slept in the other room with me. I almost fell asleep, but I heard a strange noise, like water dripping, drop by drop. My mom had done laundry that day, so I thought it was water from the clothes.

My mom moved the clothes. We tried to fall asleep again. I almost dreamed when I heard the noise again. It came from an old Soviet desk in the corner. It sounded like someone tapped the desk with a fingernail.

I asked my mom what it was. She said she had no clue. The noise stopped as soon as we spoke. Then, the sound started again. This noise woke me up many times at night. Every time I moved or paid attention, it ceased.

One night, I read alone in this room. I heard footsteps coming toward me. I definitely felt someone near. The sound stopped right after I looked up.

Our old neighbor next door died in a fire. He fell asleep with a cigarette in bed. Little markings of the Christian cross appeared on his apartment door, above the peephole. That always scared me a bit. Perhaps this was his ghost messing with us, though I remain skeptical.

Redditor /u/Soulsurfer6969:

I am 29. This event happened in high school, during summer break before senior year.

My family lived near woods with old train tracks. People removed the tracks years later, replacing them with a trail for joggers and walkers.

Walking the trails, you sometimes see houses on one side and a huge cornfield on the other. A friend of mine lived near the trail. His mother sought a psychic for religious reasons. The psychic asked the family about a trail behind their house. They said yes. Then, the psychic asked the mother if her daughter had chronic hiccups. She does. The psychic told the mother that a demon or extraterrestrial thing was showing itself through the girl with hiccups. That is why she had hiccups. He also said this creature would appear at 3:14 AM if they wanted to see it.

I wanted to check this out with friends. I took my girlfriend and her friend to try and scare them. We arrived around three in the morning. I sat on the ground; my girlfriend stood beside me. Her friend talked on her flip phone. I faced the side with the tall trees and corn, throwing pebbles into the field. I yelled things like, “Come on out, corn demon!”

At 3:14 AM, nothing happened, as I expected. I stood up and told the girls we should leave. I kept throwing rocks and pebbles at the cornfield. I took a few steps back the way we came. Suddenly, all the crickets and birds stopped making sound. It became eerily quiet very fast.

We all stopped. We thought we heard a footstep. Then, a second later, a giant limb snapped in half about seven feet ahead of us on the other side of the cornfield. A second later, we heard a deep growl with a strange echo. The girls instantly jumped behind me. We paused, watching leaves and brush sway back and forth from the movement. I started throwing rocks in that area of the sound. Nothing came out. The general location was so dark; we could not see what might be hiding there.

We had to walk past that spot to get home. I told the girls to head back toward a street light. We cut through the woods to a road, then walked back to my house without stopping. To this day, we have no idea what it was. I only remember the growl and the massive limb that broke.

I have tried going back out there multiple times to see if it happens again. It never does. This was one of the creepiest things that has happened to me.

Froma former Redditor:

My siblings and I always believed our childhood home (where my parents still live) was haunted. We are all grown up and gone, but we still talk about it constantly.

I will not give details. Over the years, I have heard footsteps upstairs in the middle of the night (none of us were sleepwalkers). I heard footsteps on our deck outside two bedrooms in the middle of the night. I heard what sounded like an open hand hit a bedroom door hard (two times). Things I have been looking for forever showed up in plain sight, and many more events occurred.

On my 13th birthday, my friends and I played with a homemade Ouija board. When we asked for the spirit's name, it spelled out “George,” and the power immediately shut off. So, we have always been sure our house has been haunted.

FLASH FORWARD TO LAST NIGHT. My parents were babysitting my one-and-a-half-year-old nephew. They had a Christmas party last night, so I drove out to watch him. Soon after my parents left for the party, I FaceTimed my boyfriend so he could say hi to my nephew.

Almost as soon as the call started, my nephew ran to the hallway by our back porch and stared for a few seconds. Then, he started repeating, “Ghost. Ghost. Ghost,” over and over.

My parents came home to every light in the house because I wet myself while waiting for them to return.

From Redditor /u/rosscopecopie:

My brother perished in a bike accident over ten years ago. Soon after, I dreamed I stood in a bar. He walked in, dressed in white and bright light, walked to me, said nothing, and gave me a huge hug.

I woke up scared by how real the dream felt. While awake, I heard footsteps and floorboards creaking, like someone walked toward my bedroom door. The footsteps stopped at the door. I lay there for a minute, heart racing, wondering who was there.

I got up and opened the door. Nobody was there.

From Redditor /u/cjsm1800:

I was in a classmate's house (we were nine). Their parents practiced witchcraft. We were alone. We started hearing fast, heavy footsteps. Someone knocked on the window. We were about to panic.

My friend lit a candle for a saint. Everything returned to normal.

From Redditor /u/tahquitz84:

At seventeen or eighteen, I met a girl in an AOL chat room. She lived in another state. We became good friends. I learned she was Wiccan. I had never known a Wiccan before, so I always asked about it. One day, we discussed ghosts. She told me two spirits lived in her house: an old lady who kept to herself, and another, a girl our age who liked playing tricks with my friend.

The girl said the younger ghost wanted to meet me. I agreed, not thinking twice. That night, I lay in bed with my back to the door. I heard footsteps near my door. I looked over my shoulder; no one was there. I lay back down and listened as the footsteps moved across my bed. I tried talking, but I got no answer. The sounds stopped after several minutes.

I rolled over minutes later to check. I saw nothing. After saying thanks for the visit, I closed my eyes to sleep. As I fell asleep, I heard my bed creak. No movement, just sound. I looked right away, but still saw nothing. The creaking sound moved up my bed. I peeked often but never saw anything. I said I appreciated the visit again, but I was tired and wanted to sleep.

The next night, I talked to my friend. She said the ghost was angry. I told her about the previous night. While typing, I saw a moth flying around. It landed on the monitor. I picked it up and threw it outside. After sending my message, my friend said the girl was upset and had thrown a bug at her monitor. I asked her to describe it; she perfectly described the moth I tossed out. I hadn't mentioned the moth then...

When she described it, I told her I tossed out a moth that looked just like that. She agreed it was weird. I apologized to the girl for upsetting her and said I would try to be more aware if she returned.

We stayed friends about another year. Then, we lost contact. I did not use AOL as often. She moved and stopped logging on.