The Haunting Incident

When I was little, my dad would ask his friend to babysit me sometimes. My mom wasn't there growing up so my dad had to rely on other people to look after me when he couldn't be at home. One of my dad's friends, I'll call him John, told me a story one night that still sends shivers up my spine. It went like this:

I used to be a truck driver and I was driving a rig out in the middle of Bumfuck Nowhere, Oregon. I had to make a delivery the next morning so I decided to just drive through the night. It was maybe one in the morning, so no one was on the roads. I hadn't seen another car in probably a hundred miles.

After a while of driving in solitude the whole sky lit up like it was daylight. I instantly slammed on the breaks, having no clue what the fuck was going on. I could see everything, from the surrounding pine forest and mountains to the two lane road ahead of me. It stayed like this for a good ten seconds. Whatever was happening definitely wasn't lightning or some kind of weather, the light wasn't flickering at all. I came to the realization that if it wasn't a natural phenomenon, the next option was an atomic bomb. I hunkered down thinking this could be my death, anticipating nuclear devastation that... never came. There was no sound, no blast wave. I sat in the road like this waiting for five minutes before deciding there was nothing to do but keep driving. I figured it was a meteor or some kind of crazy space shit.

About two miles up the road I came across a car with it's flashers on, stopped in the middle of the road. I stopped a good distance away from it, there was no space to go around. The front end of the car was crumpled like they hit something. I figured they probably hit a deer that got spooked whenever the meteor went over and ran into the road. I got out of the truck to check on the people inside to see if they were okay.

As I got closer I saw that the driver was sitting on the ground by the passenger side door. Him being there as opposed to the driver side struck me as odd, but it wasn't really anything worrying. He had his knees up, his head resting on them. Concerned, I called out from about ten feet away, "Hey buddy you alright?"

Something about the whole situation felt weird. Listening to my gut, I didn't get any closer to the man.

"My head is killing me," he groaned. He didn't lift his head up so it came out muffled.

"Did you hit a deer?" I called out. I was getting more and more uneasy. Something just felt wrong but I couldn't figure out what exactly it was.

The guy then pleaded, "Can you help me? I think I hurt my head."

I took a step forward, but my instincts were going apeshit. I looked at everything again, and that's when I noticed it. The fucking car was all wrong. It looked like what someone thinks a car looks like, if that makes sense. It had all the right parts but nothing extra. Like a cheap Hot Wheels knock-off, all wonky and wrong. I directed my eyes to the back of the car where not only was there no license plate, but no trunk. It was just one solid piece of material with tail lights out on it. No manufacturer, no model names. I know cars and I've never seen anything like this. I inspected the car hoping to find at least one normal detail, but there was nothing. No hubcaps, not even a tailpipe. Just the shape of a car, wheels, headlights, and some windows.

The car was my breaking point. Now I thought was the time to leave. I started to back up and the man asked for help again. His voice had started to develop an aggressive tone. Again, I told him that I couldn't help him and that I'd call a tow truck when I get to the text town. In response to this he said, "I have a concussion, please I need your help." With that he lifted his head from his knees to look at me.

Something was very, very wrong with this guy's face. It took me a second to process what it was. Everything on this man's face was where it should have been, in its normal position. Except for the fact that his eyes and mouth were on upside down.

I sprinted faster than I ever had in my life back to my rig. Even so, as soon as I frantically lept into the truck and secured the door the thing slammed into it behind me. How the fuck did he get there so fast? He knocked on the glass and smiled at me. Because his mouth was on upside down it looked like he was screaming when he asked to be let into the truck. I fucking floored the gas, not caring if I hit the guy or not. My truck easily pushed the "car" out of the way. Whatever it was, it was light and made no sound when I hit it.

Unfortunately it's an anticlimactic ending. John got where he was going with no further problems. My dad knows the story but I don't think he believes it. John on the other hand tells it to everyone he meets, so he obviously does. He's absolutely adamant about the guy being an alien. 

Years later I heard about the Thatcher effect and nearly had a heart attack when I saw it. I showed one of the pictures to John and he wouldn't even look at it. He said it was exactly what the guy looked like. Try looking up an example for yourself, it's terrifying given some context. 

Moral of the story: Beware aliens in the middle of no where.

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Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/8oo22q/my_dads_friend_babysat_me_sometimes_and_he_told_a/

Sleepless Nights

Due to the personal nature of this post, I am changing the names of the people in the story to respect their privacy.

That being said, I don't know where to turn for help and I am concerned deeply for my friend. I am all too familiar with night terrors and sleep paralysis. I had them when I was a child and experienced others second hand while I was in military basic training. Several men in the barracks could not handle the stress of military training coupled with regular berating from the drill instructors. My friend, Ryan, was a military man as well. He went Marine and I went Air Force after graduating high school. He did well in boot camp and enjoyed gaining the discipline we had lacked as teenagers. We both had finished are service terms and have been civilians for quite some time.

About two months ago, my friends and I (including Ryan) went bar hopping to celebrate one of our close friends from high school moving back east from California. Normally, Ryan was the life of the party, and a heavy drinker. At 6' 5" he was usually drinking my 5' 6" ass under the table. He was even once a bouncer and bartender at one of the bars we visited.

That night, however, was different. Ryan didn't drink any alcohol. He even prefaced the outing with, "Hey guys, I know we are celebrating Jeremy's homecoming, but I've been trying to get healthy so I've quit drinking. If it helps, I'll DD anyone around and only charge 80% of what Uber charges! Ha!"

This struck me as odd. Far be it from me to stop a guy getting healthier, but this was just so out of the ordinary for Ryan. We had always been close, so I approached him and asked if everything was alright. He looked at me and shook his head in a bedraggling way. "I'm just really tired. Been going through a lot of shit lately. Haven't been getting a lot of sleep, you know? I think my house is haunted."

This last sentence he said with a bit of humor in his voice, but a serious look in his eyes. I had not been to his newest house so, naturally, I asked him to elaborate. He went on to explain that he keeps waking up in the middle of the night and seeing things in his room. First he said he felt like someone was watching him from the foot of his bed for several nights. Then he said he saw the outline of a figure in his room at the foot of his bed and that he woke up screaming and shaking. He said it was so bad, that it woke his girlfriend up. I told him that It sounds like he may be having night terrors or sleep paralysis. He laughed and told me I was probably right.

A few weeks later he messaged me saying that his long time, live in girlfriend had left him for another guy and that she had been sleeping with someone on the side for over a year. The worst part was they were still living together, but sleeping in different rooms (financially neither one of them could move out immediately). He told me the figure was back in his room all that week standing at the foot of his bed. When I asked him to describe what he saw, he told me that he couldn't make out any real features in the dark, but he could swear it was smiling at him (possibly even laughing). I told him I would work things out with my wife to sleep over at his place sometime soon.

Earlier last week he called me up and said the visions were getting worse and he was afraid to close his eyes. His voice sounded strained like he hadn't slept in days. He told me the figure was back and even closer to his bed this time. I asked him if anything else had changed and he said the figure was giving a low chuckle and was holding something that looked like a head. He said once he was able to force himself awake, he grabbed his blanket and went out into the living room.

I went by his house last night. He was sitting on the couch wrapped in a blanket, staring at the TV (which was off). His eyes looked heavy. He smelled awful and his face was covered in a thick scruff. I asked how he was doing and he only shrugged, eyes still fixed on the TV. I sat next to him and patted his shoulder. I told him he shouldn't be embarrassed about this, and that stress can bring on all sorts of ailments and abnormalities. I asked if his ex was there. Again, only a shrug.

Finally, I looked toward what I assumed was his room and asked if he was going to try and sleep. He slowly turned his head to me and said, "No. I don't go in there anymore." I told him no worries and hung out with him until sleep got the better of him and he fell out on the couch. After he was asleep, I walked over to his room and opened the door.

What I saw haunts me even as I type these words: The floor, parts of the walls, and sheets were stained with dry blood. The body of his ex and the body of who I assumed was her lover were propped into sitting positions in opposite corners facing the bed (her head placed in his lap and vice versa).

As horrible as the scene was, the one detail that made my stomach twist into a knot that has yet to come undone is that at the foot of Ryan's bed was a wide, full length mirror.

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Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/4o56l0/trying_to_help_a_friend_with_his_sleep_paralysis/