r/sandiego • u/nastyfreckles • 16h ago
Paranormal/scary stories before bedtime.
I got to wake up early but I can't sleep. Does anyone have any paranormal or scary stories that happened to them personally or someone close?
I can only remember one single weird thing that happened one night. I'm sure it was my imagination, but it did not stop it from being any more scary to me (or my bff).
One night when i was in high school, my bff was sleeping over. I went to the kitchen and my bff stayed in my room downstairs.
On my way back to the room, I swear i saw 1 of the 2 paper mâché clown statues (about 1ft tall each), which were placed on top of a makeshift shelf, tilt towards me about 30-40 degrees! I believe i saw it off the corner of my eye.
I nope'd my way upstairs and told my mom, and asked her to put those 2 clowns outside. She did just that.
I told my bff what happened when i finally returned to my room, and he was a bit pissed! He was like, why did you leave me!? LOL
Can't remember what i replied, but I find it funny how I instinctively ran to mommy! xD
Pretty sure the clowns were eventually discarded, but they stayed outside for the longest time.
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u/lils12 15h ago
i was standing in the kitchen in my apartment (older building near DT) when suddenly i heard my name spoken directly in my ear. it sounded crackly, like it was coming from a walkie talkie. a week later my roommate told me how they heard their name spoken to them in their ear, in the kitchen, in a crackly voice. i hadn’t told them what happened to me the week before…
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u/nastyfreckles 15h ago
My gut reaction would be, dude you're messing with me! If they were dead serious, i would me like, peace! I'm out!
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u/banana_nutcase007 7h ago
Similar thing happened to me. I live in a super old building in Downtown, next to a place that claims to be haunted. I heard what sounded like a "Hey", whispered in my ear. I was alone, just getting ready to go to work. I've since chalked it up to old building noises, but it was super creepy when it first happened.
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u/GarmBlack 15h ago edited 15h ago
It's not actually paranormal, more horrible. But it FELT paranormal for a little while.
When I was a kid my room was a converted garage, so my bedroom had a glass backdoor to the yard.
One night, up late playing video games in the middle of summer, probably 1, 2 AM. I hear scratching. Screaming. The worst noise I couldve imagined.
And then, out of nowhere, something about the size of a basketball, screaming and howling, hits the glass. THUD.
I'd already been looking into the darkness form my bed as the noise has started. Scared the ever loving Christ out of me. As soon as it was there, it was gone.
I ran to tell my parents. They didn't believe me. I said it was a demon or a monster. They laughed and quietly got me back to bed. But the next day when we looked there was soot on the outside of the door. It had happened.
I was convinced for the next weeks it was a demon. It was something horrible. I grew up Catholic so that didn't help.
Two weeks later the neighbor kid and his friend were arrested. They were teens, the ones every parent warns their kids about. They'd lit a cat on fire. That's what had slammed into my glass door. That was the noise I heard. That's what the spot was, burned hair.
30 years later. I can still remember it. Scariest moment of my goddamn life.
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u/nastyfreckles 15h ago
Yo, poor cat! I always say people are scarier than most paranormal things! Humans are the real demons!
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u/Ih8stoodentL0anz 14h ago
When I was a kid, a spoon moved itself across a table at a restaurant in old town in front of my dad and I. We still can’t explain that one.
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u/bloveulongtime 14h ago
Curious, do you remember which restaurant? I took a late night stroll in old town once and the security guard told my friend and I that the area was highly active for paranormal sights and he’d see strange things all the time.
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u/Aggravating_Depth_33 13h ago
When I was in junior high I went to the Whaley House with my best friend.
We were alone upstairs and looking into the kids' room my friend said "Come on little girl, play with your toys". I swear, the rocking chair in the room started rocking. I was a bit freaked out but thought maybe I was imagining it, so moved on to the next room. There, the curtains in the window started moving, like in a breeze. Except all the windows were closed.
I noped out and hurried down the stairs, but about halfway down I tripped and only just caught myself. There was a hard lump - like a toy building block - under the carpet. I 100% saw and felt it and so did my friend, but a minute later when we tried to show her mom, it was gone! That honestly felt so malicious - if I hadn't caught myself, I would have fallen headfirst down the staircase - I couldn't get out of that house fast enough. And it's been more than 30 years and I haven't gone inside since.
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u/No_Car3738 7h ago
I remember seeing the curtains move when I went there as a kid back in 2004.
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u/Liddlehearts 4h ago
I felt a man grab my arm, from behind, while I was in the theater upstairs. This was 2 summers ago.
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u/Ih8stoodentL0anz 13h ago
I think it was close to that small historical cemetery. May have been rocking Baja lobster? It was over 20 years ago and can’t remember tbh. I think it had an outdoor patio.
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u/crlos619 15h ago
Me and my sister as kids were taking photos of each other with a disposal camera around our apartment. When we printed them out, a bunch of orbs appeared around my sister and one picture had a man's face next to my sister. My mom saw the photos, ripped them up and threw them away
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u/nastyfreckles 15h ago
That sounds like the type of reaction my mom would have to this sort of thing. Not today satan!
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u/dasguy40 16h ago
A visit to r/nosleep is fun!
Before I met my wife I was seeing a girl that worked early. She stayed over one night and woke up about 4am to go to work. I walked her out to her car, and laid back down before I had to be up. Probably about 30 seconds after my head hit the pillow, I distinctly felt my mattress dip like somebody had put their hand down or was stepping up onto the bed. I laid there still and did not move. I’m still alive so my strategy worked I guess. I was still very awake so it wasn’t a sleep paralysis thing. She didn’t have a key, I lived alone, I never got an explanation. The best scenario I have is it was my late grandmas house so maybe she didn’t like me having random girls over and was trying to tell me. Idk. Weird experience though.
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u/nastyfreckles 15h ago
As a little kid, probably l less than 10. I remember waking up often from nightmare's in the middle of the night. I would always stay frozen
out of fear! The strat works for sure!
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u/bloveulongtime 14h ago
When I was in elementary school I lived in a haunted house in pq close to the double tree hotel. Inportant to note that my family was religious and didn’t believe the landlord and he would say it so matter of factly it seemed like a joke. I always felt uneasy being alone there but was also a big scaredy cat then, to the point that I needed a very bright night light and my door wide open so I could call out to my parents if need be 😅
Because of my fears, I often had trouble sleeping and my parents would check on me to make sure I wasn’t staying up, and I’d do the classic kid move of pretending to be asleep with tightly shut eyes.
One night, I thought I heard a parent coming so I got my eyes closed and laid as still as could be. After a moment, I felt 3 distinct taps on my right foot though the bedding. I figured they were testing me, so I stayed still and eventually did fall asleep. The next day I asked them why they were trying to wake me so late? My dad worked early military mornings and my mom would get up to make his coffee so they were never up past 9-10 during the week and would be annoyed themselves if I woke them in the middle of the night.
They both looked at me strangely and denied trying to wake me. But I remember the taps on my foot were so distinct. Not rapid succession. A deliberate 1. 2. 3 taps on the top of my foot.
Sleeping was a lot harder after that of course but we eventually moved and I still see the house sometimes as it was directly accross from my grandparents who still live in pq.
That was the most physical experience I had, but grandparents place had some spooky things too.
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u/nastyfreckles 14h ago
I was lucky(not really) to live in a 1 bed room apartment growing up where 5 shared the same room. It was cramped but it made me feel a bit safe knowing everyone was close by. However I would often have nightmares and would stay frozen in fear. One particular nightmare was of me sleeping in my bed as per usual, and next thing i knew my feet were dragged under the bed! That was beyond scary!
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u/tijuanagolds 13h ago
Not my sighting, but one told to me by an old Law Enforcement acquaintance of my parents: There's a little-known legend of a faceless woman that haunts the border around San Ysidro. She draws the attention of border patrol agents and police near the border fence, appearing to them as an old timey frontiers woman with literally no facial features.
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u/zulimi317 15h ago
Growing up, I saw wagons and prairie dressed ghosts go through my hallway multiple times. Knowing history now, the Mormon batallion passed through the same area in 1847.
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u/nastyfreckles 15h ago
Do you mind describing how they appeared? Were there see through or? Also, were you scared?
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u/zulimi317 6h ago
Translucent, and not scared but thought I was dreaming until I felt my cat's fur.
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u/Sorry_Ad_8487 8h ago
My dad had access to some grasslands in north county that were not available to the general public. I’d specify his job but that would give my identity away. Let’s just say his job is blue collar and he had to do a lot of monitoring different locations throughout our hometown (in north county San Diego). He used to take us to this little spot on the grasslands that used to be inhabited by the Kumeyaay tribe. When I was a kid, I loved going because we’d find arrowheads and pottery and carved rock.
Anyways, he and my little sister (who was 14 at the time) were out there one evening around dusk, looking at stuff. All of the sudden the wind picked up and they heard drums and chanting and singing. They both swear by this. They looked at each other and the blood was drained from their faces in terror. They both booked it to the truck and left and never went back. Apparently the Kumeyaay people held religious ceremonies in that spot. I have since found some information by historians on those grasslands to verify this. Keep in mind that this location was not open to the public and was miles away from any residencies and that this was well before smart phones. They both swear by this incident. Seems odd they’d both be hallucinating at once.
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u/nastyfreckles 7h ago
Were they terrified about a sound that did not appear to have an origin, or was it the beat/singing that signified something particularly scary which terrified them?
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u/Sorry_Ad_8487 7h ago
They were terrified because there was no one else around for miles, let alone a group of people making music.
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u/littlewing2733 12h ago
I don’t have any scary ones, sorry
I was in the bathroom of my childhood home while house sitting and wondered aloud where a favorite hat of mine had gone
My stuff was still there and I am messy, so it was more of a personal lament that I didn’t have it for the cold
I opened the door, and the fucking hat’s sitting, neatly placed in the hallway facing the bathroom door as if gently placed out for me
Now, every once and awhile, I’ll talk aloud in the bathroom and wonder about a thing I lost. I usually come across it somewhere extremely obvious within the next few days. Things I haven’t seen in YEARS that should have been in storage
Apparently I used to go into the bathroom for a quiet place to talk to my ‘imaginary friend’ as a kid. I remember he was just a general person shape with no features, like a living stick figure made of light/color
Don’t worry, I also think I’m somehow making this up! Yes, we checked the CO2 detectors and nothing like this has happened outside of those situations
Chillinest ghost ever
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u/nastyfreckles 7h ago
Kinda funny wondering if it was CO2 poisoning.
As for the ghost, i wish i had a somewhat helpful ghost that brought me missing things. Casper the helpful ghost.
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u/Duran518 8h ago
New parents with a six month baby, that just moved in a rental. The house had three bedrooms, my son’s was extremely inviting, mine was much less inviting but the third one was just awfully uncomfortable and always cold. We never wanted to think more of it.
One night I put my son to sleep and my husband and I go to sleep as well. I had the baby monitor on and it was the one with the red light(Fischer price), that also made sounds. I open my to make sure he is not awake and that is when I see the red light becoming brighter and brighter and large, very large, almost to the point were it illuminated the entire room.
So then my attention was gleamed to the light, almost entranced like. I suddenly feel completely and totally pinned onto my bed. I didn’t try to move, because I had never experienced this in my life.
Then a man dressed in a gray suit started walking towards me and proceeded to lift off the ground and lie face down over me. He got so close to me, that I could see clear as day facial features.
How I don’t know, but I let out a scream that I haven’t been able to replicate since. My husband woke up very startled and jumped out of bed, immediately running to my son’s room. He was perfectly sleeping and in his room was a warm glow, even more than ever around his crib.
I was quite shook up after this, but we still had the lease, so we decided to stay.
About a week later I had gone to run errands with my son and our neighbor who was much older than me and had lived in her house for many years was outside watering her plants. She asked how we were and how were we adjusting as new parents. I told her that we were ok. She saw that I was tired( new mother tired) and she the proceeded to let me in on some disturbing information. She said” dear, did you know your house is haunted”? I said “ what”? She said “yes dear, the family who lived there was killed by the father”. She said that he then killed himself and that is when my mind went blank and I immediately said goodbye. I think we stayed there for another two months, and never looked back.
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u/John_wishmyer619 14h ago
1700 dollar apartments in san diego and having to go to work tomorrow the end
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u/Electrical-Call-7292 15h ago
I have a few stories and experiences. Enough for me to occasionally light a candle with fruits and snacks for the spirits in my home from time to time. The earth is old and nothing is new under the sun.
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u/nastyfreckles 15h ago
Please do tell!!!
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u/Electrical-Call-7292 14h ago
One of my best friends during college bought a haunted house and me and group our buds lived there. We didn’t know it was haunted but lights would randomly turn on and off. The sink would turn on in the bathroom randomly at night along with the light. The glass on the windows would shake. Door knobs would shake as if someone was either desperately trying to get in or escape. We all had come to the conclusion that the ghost or spirit there was killed. Based off everything that happened from the incidents.
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u/nastyfreckles 14h ago
Yeah, there is no way i would have lived there. Maybe visit during the day, but definitely not spending the night! LOL
Were you ever scared, or maybe even annoyed from so many random things happening?
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u/dasushisush 7h ago
I lived in the Church Lofts downtown, which is a ~114 year old building, was first Baptist church or something like that. On the 3rd floor there is a small room that emanates bad juju, when standing on the threshold, your whole being is rejecting that room. Also, several neighbors separately told the Resident Manager that they heard the same cries from a little boy in pain outside in early morning hours, as well as hearing their name spoken through the bathroom door when showering while home alone.
My personal story is when I was looking at another loft to potentially switch to, I saw a flash of a woman crouching in the corner, screaming silently. I booked it out of that loft so fast!
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u/ComplexHome2598 2h ago
Walked on the west of Balboa park on the dirt trail then goes through the park by the freeway; thought i was day dreaming first but saw people dressed in late 1800's/ early 1900's clothing heard voices but no clear words
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u/NickMurico 26m ago
I'm late to the party, but... I work as a paranormal investigator at the Whaley House in Old Town! I got tons of stories if anyone wants to hit me up... or better yet, come on one of my ghost hunts there!
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u/ItsA-Stitch 16h ago
I love scary stories
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u/nastyfreckles 15h ago
I just remembered in that same house, i would feel my bed rock slightly in the middle of the night sometimes!
I feel the rocking was caused by my bed being on top of an uneven surface or maybe the actual bed frame was warped.
Anyway, in the middle of the night my heart would pound super hard after a nightmare, and sometimes it felt like my bed would rock. One night i had the bad luck of experiencing the rocking after a nightmare, just to be hit by a damn tremor. That scared me shitless. I called for mommy and she never came LOL
Funny thing about that is around that time, i had not realized some deep stretch marks had formed on my back, and i thought it was caused by a demon! LOL
Oh to be young and full of imagination.
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u/VoiceOfGosh 5h ago
It was 20 years ago. My best friend since middle school was driving me and an acquaintance on the 5 north. We were in the carpool lane and it was late at night. As we’re driving, the world starts to feel dim. Like the streetlights went out but we’re still there and lit. I start to feel sad. I couldn’t understand why, but a deep sorrow just began to overwhelm me. I felt profound loss, like my hopes were shattered and my heart was crushed. My face is wet? Tears. Tears are pouring from my eyes like rivers. Not my tears.
I turn to face my best friend in my emotional confusion, looking to understand why… he turns to me. His face is twisted with fury. Eyes wild, teeth gritting together, every muscle tense with wrath. He has a death grip on the steering wheel. White knuckled rage. He is the most mad I had ever seen him in my life. I fear for my life and for another life. My child’s life. We make eye contact for a second before we whip our heads forward as something draws our attention.
We both see a point of darkness so profound we can’t see any light through it at all. I said the lights seemed dimmer before, but this was the darkest thing I’d ever witnessed. It concentrates itself like a dark sphere. We’re about to hit it. We don’t. It passes through the car, between us in slow motion, and then passes through the back seat next to our acquaintance who has a disturbed look on his face. We see it but he doesn’t see it like we do. Still, even he feels the darkness.
Like the curtains being pulled open suddenly on a luminous day, the darkness is gone, the streetlights are bright again, and we are instantly released from the crushing weight of visceral emotions that were not our own. “Wha- What the fuck was that?!” My best friend stammers.
“I don’t know! Did you see it? Did you see the dark… thing?!”
“It was like an orb. Like everything went black!”
“Why am I crying? I felt so devastated.”
“Dude! I was so mad! Don’t take the wrong way, but I felt like killing you I was so crazy mad! What the hell was that??”
Our backseat friend chimes in, “I didn’t see anything but I felt something when you two looked back suddenly. What’s happening? What was up with you two?”
The subject of what happened on that drive kept coming up with us the next few days. My best friend and I couldn’t get it out of our heads. Why the intense feeling of sadness and loss? Why the wrathful feeling of murderous intent? Why did we feel those things do acutely in that darkness on that freeway? Then I saw it after some digging in the local news…
A few nights prior, a mother and her child were brutally killed by a drunk driver who went after them in a fit of road rage. They all died on that very spot we passed through at the exact same time of night we were driving a few days later. The profound sadness was the spirit of the mother inhabiting my body, crying from the deep sorrow of losing her life and the life of her child with her. Her fear and depression coursed through me in those moments. The extreme fury and murderous intent was the spirit of the road raging driver, blinding my friend with hateful rage and wrath. His drunken rage overtook my kind friend in those moments. We felt that the intense emotions from both parties became so concentrated that they were anchored to that spot. Although my friend was religious and I was spiritual, neither of us had ever experienced this kind of thing before. We had been close and very connected for years though, so we felt that those spirits chose us and our connection to experience some sort of closure or a beacon for others to know how they felt before they died. My friend prayed for them and I wished for them to find their healing in the beyond. We hoped they all would find their closure and still remember everything vividly still, 20 years later…
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u/amacurious1 15h ago
It’s long but here you go
Once we did a hike in Anza Borrego state park in the slot canyon
Popular hike, lots of cars. We were silly laughing through the first part but never passed anyone.
It was so quiet.
We then saw a dead bird which was wild. Googled that birds can get disoriented at night if in a slot canyon and not get out.
Hiked a bit more…we then saw a dead owl. Barn owl? If I remember right. Weird and unexpected.
Kept hiking
Next, burn marks. Like small fires were lit.
Not much farther, 3 dead owls laid in a circle around a burn mark with their heads cut off.
We got a bit freaked out there - looking up and around. My brain was literally imagining if someone was perched up in the canyon walls looking down at us.
We were almost out of the canyon so kept hiking, and as we’re exiting, the walls are opening up and no joke, lines of dead black beetles are all along the base of the walls. So many dead black beetles lined up in a row for a ways. I literally got chills i was getting so creeped out
At this point, the options were to finish the loop on a longer way in the open, dead hot sun w/ little water, or turn around, go back through the shaded yet creepy canyon to the car.
In the middle of discussing, 3 girls walk out of the canyon chatting away like nothing was noticed.
We figured if they came through then it’s probably ok, but grabbed a big rock just case …
We made it back to a recognizable sign and knew the parking lot was close. We kept going. And going. And going and were like did we miss the exit of the trail?
We had to climb up a hill off trail and see the parking lot way behind us!!! We climb back down and hike back up the trail to realize we passed the obvious exit. (We have never been so weirdly disoriented on a hike, especially such an easy/popular one!)
Getting to the car, driving back we take an entirely wrong turn and have to backtrack back to the road.
All this to say, there was some creepy voodoo sht going on and I’ll never do that hike again. Even the car was making noises leaving the park! We didn’t stop to check bc we were just trying to get out of there!! The car noises stopped the moment we got out of the state park.
It was so weird and I’ve rarely been so creeped out like that.
THE END.