Science fiction author H.P. Lovecraft wrote in one of his most famous stories: "The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents." What he meant by this is that the world is so much more vast and mysterious than we can possibly imagine. And if by some fluke one of us did somehow manage to piece together all the disparate bits of information, we would realize truths to mysteries that would almost certainly drive us mad.
We do live in a mysterious world. Things happen around us all the time that we are at a loss to explain fully. Experts in scientific fields may be able to explain some of these things concretely, but not all of them. Here are some mysterious occurrences that happened to internet users that they were, and are, at a loss to explain.
Don't forget to check the comment section below the article for more interesting stories!
#1 Magic Baker's Dozen
I came home from work with a 12-pack of drinks. I was walking up to my door when I dropped the 12-pack. A bunch of cans rolled out of one end, so I stopped to pick them up and put them back in the box. For some reason, there were now 13 cans. No matter what, one of the cans wouldn't fit. When I got inside, I counted 13 cans in the box. No idea how that happened.
#2 Mother?
About two years ago, my sister was home alone while my mom was at work and I was at school. I finished early that day and was home at around 1 p.m. I was talking to my sister, and she casually mentioned that my mom came home for a bit. Right away, I thought that was odd because my mom works a few towns over and even if she came home on her lunch break she’d have to leave to go back by the time she got here. I thought maybe she had an appointment or something, so I asked my sister if she had said anything. Here is what my sister says happened:
She was upstairs in her room when she heard the front door unlock, so she walked over to the stairs to see who it was (the stairs were facing the front door, so you could see it from the top of the stairs). She saw my mom taking her coat off to hang it up. She looked over at my sister without saying anything, after which my sister was just like, "Oh, okay, it’s just Mom," and went back to her room. She also didn’t hear her leave. When she told me this, I was pretty spooked because my mom wouldn’t have NOT SAID A WORD; she’d say hi at the very least.
I proceeded to call my mom to ask her if she’d been home recently just to make sure. Just like I thought, she hadn’t been home since she left that morning. We still don’t know who or what my sister saw but I was afraid of being home alone for the next two weeks.
#3 Selling Gas To A Ghost
Over 20 years ago, I had a very brief job selling gas services door-to-door. Anyway, as dusk just started to arrive, near 5 p.m., I knocked on a door, and an old woman answered. I gave her my standard, “We can save you money by switching to our gas, may we look over your latest bills and our offerings to compare?” She tells me, “I’m sorry, honey, I don’t live here; this is my son’s house, let me get him for you.” I politely accept.
After maybe ten minutes of waiting, I think maybe they’d forgotten me or were trying to blow me off, so I have one last knock and this time a younger man, mid-40s, answers and asks if he can help me. I give him the same sales speech, and he stops me midway to say, “Now is not a good time, we just buried my mother today.” I apologized and quickly backed away.
#4 Neatly Stacked Letters
When I graduated from university, I stayed with my family for a while. Due to being home alone often during this time, I tended to be the one who collected the mail. One day, we had a particularly large amount of letters and a parcel (for my brother's birthday). Because two trips to the mailbox are for weak people, I struggled and carried them all into the house. I managed to throw the letters onto the table but about half-slipped onto the floor, dropping some of the mail.
I carried the box upstairs to the office and came back down to pick the letters up. When I came back into the kitchen, there were no letters anywhere. Confused, I check every downstairs table and eventually the mailbox. Nothing at all. Finally, I go back into the kitchen and notice one of the kitchen chairs is slightly pulled out from under the table. I pull it out and under the cushion on the seat is a neat pile of the letters. There was no one but me at home for a few hours before this.
#5 Shuttle Premonition
Two days before the space shuttle Challenger blew up, I dreamt I was at the launch. The shuttle took off and caught the gantry. It started to veer off, and I could hear the occupants screaming. Two days later, I had a home haircut, and my daughter came in to tell me the news on the TV. It sent shivers down my spine. Of course, it was a coincidence, but very creepy.
The strangest thing was that I wouldn't have attended the launch— I live in the UK, and such a visit was unthinkable.
#6 An Accident Missed
I was late for an appointment one day and was speeding up a hill with a big curve to the right. Almost as soon as I got around the curve, I saw there was an accident in front of me, blocking both lanes on my side. Since there were only one or two other cars stuck behind it, it must’ve just happened because there were no emergency vehicles there yet. To the right of me was a sidewalk where people were standing by, and to my left was oncoming traffic in the other two lanes so that I couldn’t go around it, and I was going too fast to be able to stop in time. I knew if I relaxed I was less likely to be as severely injured, so I quickly shut my eyes and relaxed as much as I could.
And absolutely nothing happened.
When I opened my eyes, I could see the crash behind me in my rear view mirror, and I was continuing along an empty road.
#7 Glitchy Tater Tots
We lived in a split-level house with a chest freezer in the basement and the kitchen on the second floor.
When I was a teenager, I was asked to bring tater tots upstairs so my mom could make a casserole. I went and grabbed them, then came upstairs.
When I got upstairs, the tater tots were no longer in my hands, and my mom asked where they were. I thought I had just spaced out and forgot them. So I went back downstairs, and they weren’t in the freezer anymore. I searched every square inch between the chest freezer and the kitchen and they were not anywhere.
They never turned up. To this day, my mom thinks I was playing a dumb prank on her. My most plausible explanation is that we live in a computer simulation and they got accidentally glitched out of it.
#8 Passed On, Passed Down
I bought my husband a watch for his 30th birthday with his name engraved on it. Not long after, he lost it somewhere in the house. We searched everywhere for it, but it couldn’t be found. Fast forward 13 years and my husband has a heart attack that ends him instantly. Two weeks later, our two-year-old son walks out of the bathroom holding his watch. There are no cupboards in there—just a shower and bath. He’s very excited to have it, and to this day, I have no idea where he got it from.
#9 No Crying Over Nonexistent Milk
In college, I was eating breakfast with three friends. All of us were having cereal with milk. One friend, K, also had a glass of milk. He was seated directly across from me. I watched him pick up the glass and drop it onto his lap. It disappeared from my view as it struck the table. No reaction from him. We asked K if he was good. K has no recollection of the glass of milk. We searched the immediate area, and there was no milk anywhere, no glass anywhere. Three of us remember the glass of milk. K has no recollection to this day.
#10 Shirt-tosis
When I was in high school, my aunt gave me a t-shirt for my birthday. It was kind of sparkly and not something I ever would buy for myself, but I sometimes wore it. One day, I realized I had two of this shirt in my closet. No idea how that happened. I could never think of a good explanation, although there must be one. Still seems strange.
#11 Vanished Without Leaving
When I was seven or eight, we had this neighbor who was a super nice old lady. She would give us snacks and talk to us through her window. She was agoraphobic and never, ever, left the house. Her kids would come by every other day or so to check up on her, and everyone in the neighborhood knew them. One day, my friends and I were outside playing like always, when her son came by to bring her groceries like always. He comes out sometime later and asks if we've talked to his mom and we say we haven't seen her in a day or two. That sweet little old lady vanished from her house. No trace of her. The family was around a lot after that; they were was freaking out. I moved away a few years later, but they never found out what happened. It wasn't until I was an adult that I realized how messed up that whole situation was.
#12 Glass Unshattered
This story still makes me sleep with the lights on whenever I think of it. My sister and I were upstairs at my grandparents' house where we lived. We were playing some Disney princess game on our TV. All of a sudden, we heard a loud piece of glass shatter. It seriously sounded like someone dropped a chandelier. My uncle, who was visiting at the time, came sprinting up the stairs because he thought we were being assaulted. He checked in the next room that the sound came from and nothing had fallen. There were no glass shards anywhere. Kind of creeped him out as well.
#13 Early Condolences
I'm a soccer coach (great way to earn money when you're a student, by the way) and each year we have a couple of open practices where parents bring their kids to see if they like soccer, etc. After one of these practices, a kid walks up to me and says: "I'm sorry that you lost your grandma." I was a bit confused, and I said, "Oh no, you must be thinking of someone else," and I just shrugged it off.
The next day I woke up for school and my parents told me my grandma died in her sleep and that her nurse found her in bed that morning.
The kid might have mistaken me for someone else, but it still bugs me. Also, he never showed up at practice again.
#14 The Best Of Both Worlds
I had a haunted TV when I was growing up. I don't remember where we got the TV, but I do remember it was second-hand. It would turn on every day for Hannah Montana. No big deal, it probably had a built-in timer or something, but then they changed the time that Hannah Montana aired on TV. For a couple of days, it would turn on at its normal time and then it just switched by itself to turn on an hour later.
#15 Fool The Magician
I once did a magic trick in front of 20 people as a teenager. We had orchestrated it, so there were two of us.
I asked someone from the audience to pick a card and hold it above their head in front of the crowd with the card back facing me, so the entire crowd sees the card. Now someone on the other side of the window behind the crowd also sees the card, and with the crowd facing forward, they don't see him. So he plasters the card from another deck, on the window, and when he's done doing that, I throw the entire deck at the window, and lo and behold, their card is now stuck on the other side of the window.
What happened surprised not only the crowd but myself and my co-magician as well.
I throw the deck, and the EXACT card is not only plastered on the other side of the window, but it is also stuck on OUR side of the window, right next to it. My mind was blown, and I still can't explain it to this day. We played it as a part of the trick, so nobody in that crowd knows what sort of black wizardry went down that day.
#16 I Am Igor
I was in NYC near Grand Central Station, and a pair of Hasidic Jews came up to my wife and me. They pointedly asked me whether my last name was "Igor." I said, "Uh, yeah?" and they said, "We thought so," and walked away. I still have no idea what the context was or how they knew my last name among a busy commuting crowd.
#17 A Traveling Ring
I lost my class ring when I was 20. About eight months later, I moved 1,000 miles away. Only brought a few clothes and my car. Someone hit me and totaled my car while I was there... twice. I bought a new car, lived there for a year, then moved again about 200 miles away. A month after moving to the new town, I got a call from a church. They received a donation of clothes. While sorting them out, they found a class ring with my name etched inside the band. My new home number came up when they searched my name. The church was about two miles from where we just moved. My wife didn’t donate any clothes. I thought it must be a mistake, but I decided to take a look. Sure enough, it was mine. I looked through the clothes they found it in, and they weren’t mine or my wife’s. I still no idea how it could have ended up 1,100 miles from where I lost it.
#18 Magic Spud
I was given a potato in school, and I was having a weirdly good time playing with it. I went into my room, started throwing it up in the air and catching it, but one time I threw it up, and it just seemed to inexplicably curve backward over my head. I heard it thump on the ground, but when I turned around to pick it up it was gone. I spent ten minutes looking everywhere for it and it just wasn't there. When we moved house a year later and I was emptying my room, I fully expected to find a gross, rotting potato somewhere, but still, it was nowhere to be found. I asked my parents and even my sister if they'd found a potato in my room, but nobody had any idea about it. I'm going to spend the rest of my life wondering where that potato went.
#19 Bang, Bang Into The Room
At my old house, I was in the bathroom. Across the hall, about two feet to the left is a closet. I'm all alone by myself when I hear three long, HARD scratches against the door. Our cat was outside. I was terrified to open the door. When I finally did, I threw open the closet door, and there was nothing in there that fell that would've caused such a noise. I took that opportunity to go outside for a few hours.
#20 The Floor Ate My Homework
I lost one of those mini SanDisk flash drives about five to seven years ago. I saw it fall off the kitchen table and it just disappeared. I searched within a 20-foot radius and even took apart the baseboard heater. Even after a full upstairs remodel three years ago, I still haven't found it.
It had my homework on it at the time... My teacher didn't believe me.
#21 Feeding The Hungry
My husband and I were once on a MAX train in Portland when some guys got on and sat across from us. They were all bored and hungry, and one of them was scrounging around under the seats.
As we watched, he pulled a McDonald’s bag out from under the seat a few sections behind him. That bag was full of food. He began distributing burgers to his buddies until the last guy said, “No thanks. I don’t like burgers.” Then the guy reaches into the bag and says, “That’s okay. Here’s a chicken sandwich.” He hands his buddy the last item.
The bag had exactly enough for them to each have a sandwich, and it still adequately fed the guy who doesn’t eat burgers. I still think about it.
#22 Houdini Dog
I went to visit my mom's house to say goodbye before he was going to be put to sleep since he was really sick. I didn't want that to happen yet, so I was arguing with her about it for a while. At one point, my dog wandered off, and I didn't see him for a while. I couldn't find him, figured he was out chilling in the horse pasture. It was dark, and he wasn't coming when I called, so I just thought he was doing his thing. I was sad I couldn't say one last goodbye, but I had to get going.
I walked to the front of the house where I was parked, and my little dog was in my car, sitting in the driver seat, looking at me with that stupid look he always got on his face when it was time for a car ride. I started crying right then.
My windows were up; my doors were locked, I had the only key. To this day, I have no earthly idea how he got in there.
#23 The Perfect Waitress
I was fly-fishing around King Salmon, Alaska. There’s one dinner restaurant in the town, and when I sat down, the waitress called me by my name and asked if I wanted something to drink. I’ve never met her. I’ve never even been within 500 miles of that town before that week. Weird!
#24 Pennies From Beyond The (Shower) Veil
I was showering home alone one day when, out of nowhere, a penny flew over the curtain into the shower with me.
Then it happened again like, two years later.
I checked the dates on them, and they didn't seem to be anything significant to me. And now I’m just waiting for it to happen again.
#25 Time Traveler
On a snowy night out at the bar, a friend decides he had enough and left to walk home. It was a short trip home, through a small residential neighborhood. His girlfriend called an hour later as he hadn't come back home yet. Afraid that something had happened, we drove around looking for him, and we found him wandering in the middle of the street, without his jacket. It was cold, so it was lucky that we found him quickly because he was also incredibly tipsy. We didn't find his jacket and wallet.
The next week, someone called him saying that he had forgotten his jacket and wallet at a party the night before, a week after his stuff had been lost. He didn't know the people who had held the party and had no recollection of going there, but it was close to where we found him.
The thing is, they hadn't had a party the night he lost his stuff, only the following weekend. So, did he time travel a week into the future, got tipsy, lose his stuff, and then return?
We never found an explanation.
#26 My Possessed Watch
I had a wristwatch that my dad bought me back in the '90s. It was one of those kinetic watches that would wind itself when you walk. Anyway, for some reason it kept stopping at around 1:30 a.m., but never at 1:30 in the afternoon. Sometimes it would keep going but, three times out of five, it would stop at the exact time. We sent it to the Swatch company to get repaired, and a month or two later we got a catalog of watches with a handwritten note saying, "We don't know what the heck is wrong with your watch. We're stumped, pick a watch out of this catalog and have it as a replacement." So that's my possessed watch story.
#27 Thunderbirds Are Still Around
I grew up in an extremely rural place, so this maybe has something to do with it. One morning when I was going to high school, I was driving out of the driveway on the embankment between the road and the driveway (it was the side of a mountain, so imagine a sort of a small cliff). There was a GIANT bird of prey just sitting there. I mean this thing was maybe six feet tall, kind of had the general shape of an owl, and when I went past it, it flew off, and its wingspan was bigger than the length of my truck. It was super cool to see but freaked me out a little. I have never been able to figure out what this thing was and it’s a little freaky thinking there’s a dinosaur that lived somewhere near my mom's backyard. I never saw it again. My family is Native American, and when I told grandma, she said I saw a Thunderbird. To my best knowledge of both biology and stories, she’s right.
#28 But I Don't Speak Korean
I was in high school waiting for my bus to pull up and I was kind of just zoned out. There were kids talking, and I was just absorbing the noise from it all. There was a group of kids talking close to me, and I heard one of them say that they didn't understand something about a game that I was familiar with. So I butted in and answered the question.
He and his buddy were Asian, and they were just staring at me in disbelief. I apologized because I felt like I had been kind of rude to listen in on their conversation. The one who had been talking said that it was fine but he didn't expect me to understand Korean. He and his friend were foreign exchange students from South Korea, and at that moment he had been speaking in his native language. I heard him as if he had spoken plain English and when he did speak in English, it wasn't as plain as what I had heard.
I still have no idea how I understood him in that brief moment.
#29 Somewhere, Barbie Is Missing A Shoe
Two days ago, I found a pink Barbie shoe laying on the floor of my backseat. I do not have children, nor have I ever had a child in my car. It wasn’t there a week ago when I cleaned it out. I don’t leave the windows open. I am perplexed.
#30 A Ghostly Parent-Teacher Conference
It was a parent-teacher conference at my brother's high school (literally the largest high school in the US with about 6,000 students), and after waiting forever to finally meet with the teacher, they walked in and sat down. The teacher then said that our father was just in there right before them.
My mom was shocked and told him that there was no way. The teacher insisted that he just walked out and even gave his name and a perfect description of my father (a very tall man with a lot of freckles, brown hair, and a thick mustache).
My mom then informed him that my father has been dead for over ten years.
#31 You Cannot Capture Me On Camera
When I was a little child, we went on a holiday trip to Barbados along with another couple. In the resort, there was an old black gardener who'd always wear a yellow rain jacket. He had an interesting face, so my father asked if he could take a picture. The man said: "Yes, but let me warn you, I can't be captured in a photo."
My dad didn't believe him but got his friend to take a picture with his camera as well. He pretty much forgot about this incident, even when some of the holiday pictures turned out just grey (this happened in the late '70s, so they still had to be developed). The friends of my parents lived in another city; different lab and all. They also had some grey pictures, but there was none of the old black man.
#32 Porch Encounter
I was on the porch with my dad looking at the forest at night. We were talking when all of a sudden we see a ball of light in the forest, pure white. It stayed like that just long enough for us to point. It started expanding towards us quickly but slowly enough that we had a second before the whole area was in almost daylight. Picture Harry Potter's [atronus from the third movie—it was a whole lot like that. Then, after a split second, all returned to darkness.
This was a very rural place, so it couldn't have been a plane or anything, or other people as we would have seen them. Some people think it could have been ball lightning, but if it was, then it took up an area at least a couple hundred meters in diameter.
#33 Uncle's Best Disappearing Friend
My uncle's best friend just disappeared one day. My uncle came to his job site one day (Los Angeles Department of Water and Power), and his coworker never showed up. The coworker lived in a neighborhood of houses that belonged to DWP. When my uncle went to his house to check on him, he found his truck parked outside with the door and tailgate open. The keys were still in the ignition, and there were uncashed checks on the dashboard. There was also a gun in the passenger seat.
He found the garage door open and the front door unlocked. My uncle went inside and found his place was filled with junk along with more guns, more uncashed checks, and a full uneaten meal! My uncle searched all around the house (which was up against a hill) and searched the surrounding area and worksite. He then locked everything and went to his boss who couldn't have cared less about the matter. My uncle ended up having to call the police himself, but since the coworker didn't have any immediate family who cared about him, the police didn't bother doing an extensive search.
#34 Ghost Didn't Like The Music
When I was a kid, I was coloring in the doorway of my room while listening to music. I could see anyone coming from the hallway or the stairs. The whole family was downstairs when suddenly a gust of wind blows by me. My music turned off, and the music player got pushed back. I freaked out and screamed. My parents came running and found nothing that could have pushed the music player or caused the wind. Still weirds me out.
#35 The Case Of The Missing Colander
I was cooking in my small studio apartment last year and went to grab my colander from the only place in my kitchen that I ever kept it. It was not there, but no big deal. While I ate the meal I had just cooked, I started thinking about it. Where the heck could it be? My house is not big, and there is only one place it should ever be! Then, I tried to justify that perhaps it was at my mom's house... At last, I can relax.
The next day, I asked mom about it, as she has the bigger, identical colander (it came in a set). She confirmed that she has hers, so where is mine? That afternoon, I tore my place apart searching for this thing... but to no avail. I have moved on now, but still, I wonder about the case of the missing colander.
#36 Woke Up To A Slaughterhouse Scene
Years ago, I went to bed just like any other day only to wake up with blood everywhere... On the sheets, on my clothes, my body. It was like a scene from a horror movie. I extensively checked my body for cuts or anything, but there were none. Also no sign of nose bleeding. My mother also checked for an explanation, but she couldn't find any.
#37 Grandmother Brought It Back
My mom inherited a watch from her grandmother. It was the old fashioned kind that needed to be wound all the time.
Anyway, one day it went missing, and despite turning the house upside down, she couldn’t find it anywhere. In the end, she just accepted it had gone.
Cut to a few years later. We had moved to a brand new house. We’d been in the new place for about six months, and one night she woke up, turned the light on, and the watch was sitting on her bedside table, wound and showing the correct time.
She believes in ghosts and is confident her grandmother found it and brought it back to her.
#38 Grandfather Watches Over Us
When I was 13 or so, my mother and I were driving along a two-lane country road, when she said, "Do you smell that?" I didn't smell anything.
"It's a cigar. It's one of my grandfather's cigars. Keep an eye out, every time I smell it something happens."
Less than ten seconds later, an oncoming car crossed the center line, and she had to swerve onto the shoulder to avoid being hit head-on.
This was in the middle of a curve, so there was no warning at all. If my mother hadn't already been in a hyper-vigilant frame of mind, I'm not sure she could have avoided it.
#39 A Shared Story
When I was 12 or 13, I was in the car with my parents going to my grandparents' driving down some windy backroad in the middle of nowhere. It was raining. I was laying down in the back seat because it was morning and I was sleepy. Suddenly, this woman runs out into the road screaming and chasing after our car, asking for a ride in hysterics. It creeped me out.
Fast forward to me being 16 and starting my first job. I worked with twins who were from the town where this happened. One day, we had to go inside (we were working at a tent sale) because of a massive thunderstorm and everyone started to tell ghost stories. These twins tell me about a ghost story of a girl who runs in the road screaming and crying to have people pick her up. I told my parents... They remembered her too.
#40 The Helicopter Fairy
When I was five years old, I learned about the Tooth Fairy. When I went to nap, I put a toy helicopter under my pillow. I didn't get money, but I never found the helicopter. I still wonder to this day where my red matchbox helicopter went. I want it to know it is still loved.
#41 Russians On The Radio
When I was a child, I got a speaker system for Christmas. Every evening after we set it up, we would hear Russians speaking... even when it was turned off, and the cables were pulled.
I had to take it down. Couldn’t sleep.
#42 Ringtone From Nowhere
There were three of us living in an apartment together: my best friend, myself, and another dude who needed a place (a pretty cool guy at the time). After the winter semester, my best friend had to go back home to take care of his dad since he had recently become disabled and couldn't watch one of the autistic brothers anymore. He would occasionally come back to our apartment, and we would go out to party and stuff.
One day, while hanging out in my roommate's room, (his room is directly next to my best friends old room) we heard my best friends ringtone go off. Mind you, we just woke up from a nap and it was around 1:00 a.m. I look towards the room and then to my roommate and asked, "Is he sleeping in the room?" My roommate had no idea. We both opened the door to see it completely dark and devoid of any life. We were spooked by that.
Of course, I called my best friend immediately afterward and he picked up. It cleared some things up, but we never found out what that was or where it came from.
#43 The Fire Was And Was Not
My grandmother lives on an old farm outside of a small town named Fort Ashby in West Virginia's panhandle. She's 84, but her mind is just as sharp as it was 60 years ago. Being home all the time, she's able to recognize the neighbor's vehicles and is very aware of things happening around her property.
One day, she looked out her window towards her son's house and saw flames and smoke coming off of his house. He happened to be home that day, so she called him immediately and asked, "Do you know your house is on fire?!" Confused, he ran outside and found no trace of the blaze she'd reported.
When this sort of oddity is reported by an elderly person, and it turns out to be false, you start to worry about their mind.
Neither of them had called authorities, so they were baffled when, ten minutes later, first responders arrived along with the local sheriff. They were responding based on the reports of two other 911 calls from passersby and neighbors. They also found no trace of a fire.
#44 Every Child's Wish
When I was in second or third grade, I had a lot of homework to do when I got home. I opened up the notebook, and all my homework was done. A full page filled with exactly the thing I was about to write. I freaked out and asked my mom if she had done it, but she said no because she couldn't have known. To this day, I freak out about it—my homework magically done by itself.
#45 My Wallet Returned
This confuses me to this day and kind of scares me. My ex-girlfriend came home one day with a cool new wallet; I asked her when she got it because I'd never seen it before. She went on to say it was not new, but rather a wallet she lost like, three years ago. Earlier that day, she got a ride home from work from one of her friends. There was a couple of other people riding with them, and it was a truck, so a couple of them sat in the bed of the truck. She sat down and recognized her old wallet, thinking there was no way it was the same one. She opened it and found her old ID in it along with some receipts. She asked the guy driving if he knew anything about it and he had no idea. The wallet had been missing for three years and was in perfect condition.
