life

<p>When it comes to paranormal activity, we all know there&#39;s no scientific proof that spooky apparitions or sounds are real.</p><p>And yet, unexplainable things happen &mdash; even to people who swear they don&#39;t believe in supernatural activity. A <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/lpewfw/serious_former_paranormal_skeptics_what_changed/">recent Reddit thread</a> asked, &quot;Former paranormal skeptics: what changed your mind?&quot; The answers prove that we can never, ever be sure about this stuff.</p><h2>1. Hearing voices will definitely make you believe in <em>something</em>.</h2><blockquote> <p>I was home alone one day when I was like, 12. I was playing some Fallout in my room, where all of a sudden, I just heard &quot;Close&quot; whispered in my ear, and the door just shuts slowly. I&#39;ve been spooked about it ever since, and, now that I think about it, was probably just a dream. - Commander_Chezmafia</p> </blockquote><h2>2. What the...</h2><blockquote> <p>I sorta believed in the paranormal but never really had any experiences to justify that any of that was real until this happened. The day my brother died, my best friend came over and we just sat on his bed in our basement and cried. Our basement was half finished, and the other half was storage which was separated by these two heavy doors that were held in place with this like friction spring ball thing and a wall. They were basically hard as hell to open.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><p> </p><blockquote> <p>As we were sitting there crying holding on to each other, I grabbed a picture of my brother and just said I can&#39;t believe you&#39;re gone. The MOMENT that sentence left my mouth those two doors slammed open and I saw a shadow figure standing in the darkness. My friend started crying harder when that happened and he just grabbed onto me for dear life. He and I rarely talk about it but we both saw and experienced it. I am a true believer now. - lolspHD</p> </blockquote><h2>3. This guy clearly has ESP with his grandparents.</h2><blockquote> <p>This just happened two days ago. I live up the street from my Grandma and Grandpa and my grandpa and i have an extremely strong connection. We get made fun of constantly for being so close. I was taking a mid day nap and all I remember was waking up screaming with my mom trying to calm me down. I don&#39;t remember what i was dreaming about but my mom said she had never heard me scream like that in my life and was crying.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><p> </p><blockquote> <p>10 seconds after I gained consciousness, my phone rang. It was my grandma telling me that my grandpa fell down, hit his head, and she couldn&#39;t get him up. He&#39;s fine now and just has a bit of a goose egg on the back of his head. I can only believe that something yanked me out of sleep so that I would be able to react to that moment. - lolspHD</p> </blockquote><h2>4. Sometimes the paranormal just hits you right in the head.</h2><blockquote> <p>Used to be skeptical about anything paranormal, until a couple of months ago.</p> <p>I was at my friend&#39;s place, we were drinking and talking about life and stuff, I stayed past the night curfew (this happened after the mandatory lockdowns all around the world, and most countries had night time curfews in place) so I had to spend the night there.</p> </blockquote><p> </p><div className="ad-splitter"></div><blockquote> <p>I stayed in the guest room, suddenly I heard a loud bang on the wall behind me, I look through the window and saw nothing (I was on the 3 floor), after that I laid on the bed and tried to get some sleep, but every time that I was about to fall asleep something or someone touched me waking me up, I didn&#39;t mind it and tried to sleep again.</p> </blockquote><p> </p><blockquote> <p>But suddenly I felt it again, and again, and again, at the 6th or 7th time something hit me so hard that I freaked out, right there grabbed my cellphone and texted my friend, he didn&#39;t answer, he was asleep, I just grabbed my stuff and went home.</p> <p>Next morning my friend told me that sometimes weird stuff happens in his house, that I was rather &quot;lucky&quot; since whatever is in the house likes to make his presence known.</p> <p>Since then I avoided to go to this place, or if I go I just stay outside in the yard... - Mammoth-Ocassion</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><h2>5. AHHHHH!</h2><blockquote> <p>I was a freshman in Highschool and my mom and I had just moved into a house. On days that I would be at home all day during the weekends, summer or just when I was out sick, every single day at about 1:00, always the exact same time there would be loud footsteps a if someone was running across the roof over my room.</p> </blockquote><p> </p><blockquote> <p>It was only over my room that they could be heard and it was distinctly a human running across the roof in 2 feet. The footsteps would start from the corner of my room facing the rest of the house and end at the edge of the roof in front of the front yard. I told my mom about this after a few months and she told me that the people who owned the house (we were renting) told her that the previous owner was a postal worker who jumped off the roof and killed himself.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><p> </p><blockquote> <p>Another time in that same house I heard clear as day the sound of a man clearing his throat coming from another room. This was after midnight and it was only my mom and I - MagicLittleSausage</p> </blockquote><h2>6. This seems like a message from the beyond.</h2><blockquote> <p>The day that coincidence wasn&#39;t cutting it anymore. It&#39;s one thing to have random music play on your phone one day. It&#39;s a whole different story when the music was your grandfather favorite singer, and he just died.</p> <p>Also, no one else listened to that guy. So it was completely random, and we couldn&#39;t chalk it up as mere coincidence. - Goldemn_bone</p> </blockquote><h2>7. Whaaaat.</h2><blockquote> <p>My friend and I saw a translucent pair of white, misty, ghost legs run pass the front of my car to which it disappeared as soon as it hit the curb of the sidewalk. We both looked at each other with me quickly saying &ldquo;describe what you just saw&rdquo; to which he confirmed what I/we both saw. We still talk about it every now and then</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><p> </p><blockquote> <p>There were other instances in my life that were questionable but not as undeniable as the aforementioned story above. That said, another friend and I felt a very ominous and heavy/cold presence around us (especially at around our feet) when ghost hunting at a supposedly haunted cemetery by my town. We both looked at each other and exclaimed &ldquo;do you feel that!?&rdquo; We never felt anything like that before and we drove away.</p> </blockquote><p> </p><blockquote> <p>I was on the [toilet] at a friends house and the door flung wide open with no one at the other side. What makes this questionable was that the door was quite a heavy one. Needed some pushin to get it open. That and my friend and I were the only ones at the house at the time and it&rsquo;s impossible to move around the house without the floor boards squeaking even just a bit. This friend of mine was pretty heavy set at the time, no way he&rsquo;d be in his room in a split second without making a noise. - Ezekiel_Kallistos</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><h2>8. These were some strong ghosts.</h2><blockquote> <p>[My grandmother&#39;s house] was one of the first houses in the area, but apparently it was normal until a neighbour started f****** around. I was living there with some mates (cheap rent). All of us had the normal kind of stuff. Small lights and shadows moving down the hall and phantom knocks. The constant feeling someone was watching you. The feeling was bad enough that noone wanted to be alone in that place. Though to be honest I always thought it liked me!</p> </blockquote><p> </p><blockquote> <p>This was all well and good until we watched the 3rd Exorcist movie. The movie, well, changed. The possessed priest turned and talked to us. For over 20 years I believed I had some kind of psychotic break. However about a year ago my best mate was telling my daughter about that accursed place. Lights, shadows etc. Then he talked about the time the television talked to us. Thing was we never talked about it! Both of us were afraid we were losing our s***. - Gonzocookie74</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><h2>9. This is too creepy.</h2><blockquote> <p>the first place I lived in with my future wife and mother of my children. Normal house with an abandoned car out the front. No heeby-jeebies during the inspection, not setting off my weird s***-o-meter, though the garage was cold. It got progressively weirder. My girlfriend saw a shadow in the mirror whilst she was showering. My friend who lived with us started hearing crying late at night. Oh and our dog refused to enter the garage, she would follow my girlfriend everywhere except there.</p> </blockquote><p> </p><blockquote> <p>The weirdness peaked when the c.d player played by itself. The worst part was the song &quot;Like Suicide&quot; by Soundgarden. Over and over again. Inspected the cd and no scratches. We eventually spoke to the neighbours and found out what happened. A young bloke had gassed himself in a car. What car, well the one parked in front of the house of course! We got the cops to remove the car and the problems dissipated. - Gonzocookie74</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><h2>10. Why do monsters love closets?</h2><blockquote> <p>My mom likes to tell the story that when my older brother was a toddler he would wake up in the middle of the night crying &#39;monster monster&#39; and pointing at the closet. She would open the closet and there was nothing in there and he would go to sleep. One night my brother kept waking up crying &#39;monster monster&#39; over and over.</p> </blockquote><p> </p><blockquote> <p>She says she was going to open the closet again then she heard someone breathing inside the closet then a loud bang on the door! She screamed at the door &quot;Get the f*** out of my house&quot; and opened it ready to throw hands but, again, it was empty. My mom says it never happened again after that. - idrunkenlysignedup</p> </blockquote><h2>11. At least they were outside...</h2><blockquote> <p>When I was young (maybe like 8 or 9) I was sitting in front of the fireplace while watching TV with my family. It was pouring outside accompanied with thunder and lightning. As one of the lightning strikes went off, it lit up the back yard enough that I saw the silhouette of someone standing at the glass door that was next to the fireplace.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><p> </p><blockquote> <p>I immediately jumped up and ran to the couch where my mom and brother were sitting. As soon as I got to the couch the ceiling above the fireplace caved in.</p> <p>There was a leak in the roof that had been accumulating in the ceiling until the drywall couldn&#39;t hold it up anymore.</p> <p>There was no one in the back yard. - idrunkenlysignedup</p> </blockquote><h2>12. This person&#39;s cat paid them a visit.</h2><blockquote> <p>I&#39;ve held the mentality for ghosts and aliens of &quot;I&#39;ll believe it when I see it&quot;. I&#39;ve heard some really good evidence for years, but there could be a way of fake evidence and claims for all of them. But months ago to now, I am a believer. Not only that, but I have a witness who experienced the same thing.</p> </blockquote><p> </p><div className="ad-splitter"></div><blockquote> <p>I&#39;ve had a cat for 17 years in my life since I was a baby (I&#39;m 22 now). She was my best friend and guardian cat. After she passed, me and my mother took some time to ourselves for a few months, until we got a new kitten. Last year, though, things got odd.</p> </blockquote><p> </p><blockquote> <p>I&#39;d gotten used to having our cat around the house. Sometimes she&#39;d even jump up on the bed with me for a few hours. I&#39;d gotten used to heightening my senses, and could tell where she was and what she wanted when she was on my bed. Having the left side of the bed facing a window made it easier to know if she wanted up there. It&#39;s a bit of a leap up there, but she tries to climb up because the curtain gets in the way.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><p> </p><blockquote> <p>As usual, I felt what seemed like four paws on the left side, near my calves. &quot;Strange,&quot; I thought to myself. &quot;She usually jumps up to my bed, which makes a very distinct sound.&quot; I thought nothing of it, and looked over to see her probably wanting up to the window.</p> <p>But nothing was there.</p> </blockquote><p> </p><blockquote> <p>I didn&#39;t think much of it, at the time, but I watched a video of someone playing (Don&#39;t) Open Your Eyes recently. If didn&#39;t fill my mind with creepy imagery, but it made me think of the mechanics of that game. If you don&#39;t see it, it stays there.</p> </blockquote><p> </p><div className="ad-splitter"></div><blockquote> <p>The next night, or maybe the night after, the same thing happened. Four distinct pressure points near my calves just showed up. No warning or anything. So I waited...I knew there was something. Four distinct pressure points that indented my bed and blankets. I could feel it. No doubt, there was something there.</p> </blockquote><p> </p><blockquote> <p>Then, they disappeared...</p> <p>I jumped up, and looked over to where it was. Nothing. And I slowly went to sleep.</p> </blockquote><p> </p><blockquote> <p>A while later, I said nothing to anyone. But my mom spoke up and described the exact same thing happening to her, saying it was my old guardian cat checking up on her. Of course, I spoke up and told my tale, but I had no explanation for it.</p> <p>Only a month ago now, I realized--that&#39;s it. I had a ghost encounter. I have my story. And, I have a witness. - Kogra98</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div>

12 former paranormal skeptics share the inexplicable events that changed their minds.

When it comes to paranormal activity, we all know there&#39;s no scientific proof that spooky apparitions or sounds are real.And yet, unexplainable things happen &mdash; even to people who swear they don&#39;t believe in supernatural activity. A recent Reddit thread asked, &quot;Former paranormal skeptics: what changed your mind?&quot; The answers prove that we can never, ever be sure about this stuff.1. Hearing voices will definitely make you believe in something. I was home alone one day when I was like, 12. I was playing some Fallout in my room, where all of a sudden, I just heard &quot;Close&quot; whispered in my ear, and the door just shuts slowly. I&#39;ve been spooked about it ever since, and, now that I think about it, was probably just a dream. - Commander_Chezmafia 2. What the... I sorta believed in the paranormal but never really had any experiences to justify that any of that was real until this happened. The day my brother died, my best friend came over and we just sat on his bed in our basement and cried. Our basement was half finished, and the other half was storage which was separated by these two heavy doors that were held in place with this like friction spring ball thing and a wall. They were basically hard as hell to open.   As we were sitting there crying holding on to each other, I grabbed a picture of my brother and just said I can&#39;t believe you&#39;re gone. The MOMENT that sentence left my mouth those two doors slammed open and I saw a shadow figure standing in the darkness. My friend started crying harder when that happened and he just grabbed onto me for dear life. He and I rarely talk about it but we both saw and experienced it. I am a true believer now. - lolspHD 3. This guy clearly has ESP with his grandparents. This just happened two days ago. I live up the street from my Grandma and Grandpa and my grandpa and i have an extremely strong connection. We get made fun of constantly for being so close. I was taking a mid day nap and all I remember was waking up screaming with my mom trying to calm me down. I don&#39;t remember what i was dreaming about but my mom said she had never heard me scream like that in my life and was crying.   10 seconds after I gained consciousness, my phone rang. It was my grandma telling me that my grandpa fell down, hit his head, and she couldn&#39;t get him up. He&#39;s fine now and just has a bit of a goose egg on the back of his head. I can only believe that something yanked me out of sleep so that I would be able to react to that moment. - lolspHD 4. Sometimes the paranormal just hits you right in the head. Used to be skeptical about anything paranormal, until a couple of months ago. I was at my friend&#39;s place, we were drinking and talking about life and stuff, I stayed past the night curfew (this happened after the mandatory lockdowns all around the world, and most countries had night time curfews in place) so I had to spend the night there.   I stayed in the guest room, suddenly I heard a loud bang on the wall behind me, I look through the window and saw nothing (I was on the 3 floor), after that I laid on the bed and tried to get some sleep, but every time that I was about to fall asleep something or someone touched me waking me up, I didn&#39;t mind it and tried to sleep again.   But suddenly I felt it again, and again, and again, at the 6th or 7th time something hit me so hard that I freaked out, right there grabbed my cellphone and texted my friend, he didn&#39;t answer, he was asleep, I just grabbed my stuff and went home. Next morning my friend told me that sometimes weird stuff happens in his house, that I was rather &quot;lucky&quot; since whatever is in the house likes to make his presence known. Since then I avoided to go to this place, or if I go I just stay outside in the yard... - Mammoth-Ocassion 5. AHHHHH! I was a freshman in Highschool and my mom and I had just moved into a house. On days that I would be at home all day during the weekends, summer or just when I was out sick, every single day at about 1:00, always the exact same time there would be loud footsteps a if someone was running across the roof over my room.   It was only over my room that they could be heard and it was distinctly a human running across the roof in 2 feet. The footsteps would start from the corner of my room facing the rest of the house and end at the edge of the roof in front of the front yard. I told my mom about this after a few months and she told me that the people who owned the house (we were renting) told her that the previous owner was a postal worker who jumped off the roof and killed himself.   Another time in that same house I heard clear as day the sound of a man clearing his throat coming from another room. This was after midnight and it was only my mom and I - MagicLittleSausage 6. This seems like a message from the beyond. The day that coincidence wasn&#39;t cutting it anymore. It&#39;s one thing to have random music play on your phone one day. It&#39;s a whole different story when the music was your grandfather favorite singer, and he just died. Also, no one else listened to that guy. So it was completely random, and we couldn&#39;t chalk it up as mere coincidence. - Goldemn_bone 7. Whaaaat. My friend and I saw a translucent pair of white, misty, ghost legs run pass the front of my car to which it disappeared as soon as it hit the curb of the sidewalk. We both looked at each other with me quickly saying &ldquo;describe what you just saw&rdquo; to which he confirmed what I/we both saw. We still talk about it every now and then   There were other instances in my life that were questionable but not as undeniable as the aforementioned story above. That said, another friend and I felt a very ominous and heavy/cold presence around us (especially at around our feet) when ghost hunting at a supposedly haunted cemetery by my town. We both looked at each other and exclaimed &ldquo;do you feel that!?&rdquo; We never felt anything like that before and we drove away.   I was on the [toilet] at a friends house and the door flung wide open with no one at the other side. What makes this questionable was that the door was quite a heavy one. Needed some pushin to get it open. That and my friend and I were the only ones at the house at the time and it&rsquo;s impossible to move around the house without the floor boards squeaking even just a bit. This friend of mine was pretty heavy set at the time, no way he&rsquo;d be in his room in a split second without making a noise. - Ezekiel_Kallistos 8. These were some strong ghosts. [My grandmother&#39;s house] was one of the first houses in the area, but apparently it was normal until a neighbour started f****** around. I was living there with some mates (cheap rent). All of us had the normal kind of stuff. Small lights and shadows moving down the hall and phantom knocks. The constant feeling someone was watching you. The feeling was bad enough that noone wanted to be alone in that place. Though to be honest I always thought it liked me!   This was all well and good until we watched the 3rd Exorcist movie. The movie, well, changed. The possessed priest turned and talked to us. For over 20 years I believed I had some kind of psychotic break. However about a year ago my best mate was telling my daughter about that accursed place. Lights, shadows etc. Then he talked about the time the television talked to us. Thing was we never talked about it! Both of us were afraid we were losing our s***. - Gonzocookie74 9. This is too creepy. the first place I lived in with my future wife and mother of my children. Normal house with an abandoned car out the front. No heeby-jeebies during the inspection, not setting off my weird s***-o-meter, though the garage was cold. It got progressively weirder. My girlfriend saw a shadow in the mirror whilst she was showering. My friend who lived with us started hearing crying late at night. Oh and our dog refused to enter the garage, she would follow my girlfriend everywhere except there.   The weirdness peaked when the c.d player played by itself. The worst part was the song &quot;Like Suicide&quot; by Soundgarden. Over and over again. Inspected the cd and no scratches. We eventually spoke to the neighbours and found out what happened. A young bloke had gassed himself in a car. What car, well the one parked in front of the house of course! We got the cops to remove the car and the problems dissipated. - Gonzocookie74 10. Why do monsters love closets? My mom likes to tell the story that when my older brother was a toddler he would wake up in the middle of the night crying &#39;monster monster&#39; and pointing at the closet. She would open the closet and there was nothing in there and he would go to sleep. One night my brother kept waking up crying &#39;monster monster&#39; over and over.   She says she was going to open the closet again then she heard someone breathing inside the closet then a loud bang on the door! She screamed at the door &quot;Get the f*** out of my house&quot; and opened it ready to throw hands but, again, it was empty. My mom says it never happened again after that. - idrunkenlysignedup 11. At least they were outside... When I was young (maybe like 8 or 9) I was sitting in front of the fireplace while watching TV with my family. It was pouring outside accompanied with thunder and lightning. As one of the lightning strikes went off, it lit up the back yard enough that I saw the silhouette of someone standing at the glass door that was next to the fireplace.   I immediately jumped up and ran to the couch where my mom and brother were sitting. As soon as I got to the couch the ceiling above the fireplace caved in. There was a leak in the roof that had been accumulating in the ceiling until the drywall couldn&#39;t hold it up anymore. There was no one in the back yard. - idrunkenlysignedup 12. This person&#39;s cat paid them a visit. I&#39;ve held the mentality for ghosts and aliens of &quot;I&#39;ll believe it when I see it&quot;. I&#39;ve heard some really good evidence for years, but there could be a way of fake evidence and claims for all of them. But months ago to now, I am a believer. Not only that, but I have a witness who experienced the same thing.   I&#39;ve had a cat for 17 years in my life since I was a baby (I&#39;m 22 now). She was my best friend and guardian cat. After she passed, me and my mother took some time to ourselves for a few months, until we got a new kitten. Last year, though, things got odd.   I&#39;d gotten used to having our cat around the house. Sometimes she&#39;d even jump up on the bed with me for a few hours. I&#39;d gotten used to heightening my senses, and could tell where she was and what she wanted when she was on my bed. Having the left side of the bed facing a window made it easier to know if she wanted up there. It&#39;s a bit of a leap up there, but she tries to climb up because the curtain gets in the way.   As usual, I felt what seemed like four paws on the left side, near my calves. &quot;Strange,&quot; I thought to myself. &quot;She usually jumps up to my bed, which makes a very distinct sound.&quot; I thought nothing of it, and looked over to see her probably wanting up to the window. But nothing was there.   I didn&#39;t think much of it, at the time, but I watched a video of someone playing (Don&#39;t) Open Your Eyes recently. If didn&#39;t fill my mind with creepy imagery, but it made me think of the mechanics of that game. If you don&#39;t see it, it stays there.   The next night, or maybe the night after, the same thing happened. Four distinct pressure points near my calves just showed up. No warning or anything. So I waited...I knew there was something. Four distinct pressure points that indented my bed and blankets. I could feel it. No doubt, there was something there.   Then, they disappeared... I jumped up, and looked over to where it was. Nothing. And I slowly went to sleep.   A while later, I said nothing to anyone. But my mom spoke up and described the exact same thing happening to her, saying it was my old guardian cat checking up on her. Of course, I spoke up and told my tale, but I had no explanation for it. Only a month ago now, I realized--that&#39;s it. I had a ghost encounter. I have my story. And, I have a witness. - Kogra98 

When it comes to paranormal activity, we all know there&#39;s no scientific proof that spooky apparitions or sounds are real.  And yet, unexplainable things happen &mdash; even to people who swear they don&#39;t believe in supernatural...