9 Real Life Accounts Of Ghosts That Will Keep You Up At Night

There's nothing like a good ghost story to keep you up at night...but what if the "story" is real? These accounts of ghosts were found on sites like Reddit and sound pretty dang real if you ask us! Check out these creepy tales and try not to lose any sleep.

Kate Thomas
Created by Kate Thomas
On May 1, 2019
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1

A Real Life Vampire in Kisiljevo, Serbia

Way back in 1725, a local man named Petar Plogojowitz passed away, and in the next eight days, nine more deaths occurred. The nine who died had said on their deathbeds that they had been possessed—by Plogojowitz’s corpse. Priests and officials flocked to Kisiljevo to investigate, and roughly 40 days after Plogojowitz had been buried, they exhumed his grave. Strangely, his beard and nails still seemed to be growing, and there were signs of new skin. When a stake was plunged into his body, it was reported that fresh blood spurted from his ears and mouth, then...a horrible scream arose, and his skin turned black. I guess he wasn't totally dead yet? At that point, the murders stopped. Some call Plogojowitz “the first vampire,” which is just too creepy for words.

2

Spooky Chinese servant ghosts in Forbidden City, China

From the 15th century through the early 20th century, the Chinese emperor lived in Forbidden City, and is rumored to be haunted by the ghosts of concubines and servants. In 1421, Emperor Yongle ordered 3,000 ladies-in-waiting to be slaughtered, because he thought that a treasured concubine had been poisoned by a servant. He saved some of his favorites in the harem, but on the day of his funeral, 16 courtesans were hung with nooses of white silk. Today, in the Forbidden City, a lady with black hair has been seen running from a ghostly soldier; sounds of screaming, weeping, and sword-fighting have been heard; and specters of dead bodies, pools of blood, and pieces of white silk have been glimpsed. Scary!

3

Haunted baby monitor

My step-mom and my dad used to work opposite shifts for awhile. They had a set of baby monitors from when my sister and I were babies. My dad said they could record short messages with them, and they would leave them out on the coffee table for the other to hear when they got home from their shift.

My mom died of cancer at a really young age, and my dad had just gotten back from the funeral and was home alone. He spent that night going through their things, packing some of her stuff away. He said he had one of the baby monitors sitting out on the coffee table and it woke him up in the middle of the night with an old message going off on repeat that she had recorded. It said "I love you Mike, I love you Mike," over and over.

4

Ghost girl in the military barracks

We were in the barracks. It was one night after lights out and my friend was on his phone texting his girlfriend. Suddenly, he heard the shuffling of feet from the corridor, so thinking that it was our sergeant, he quickly hid his phone under his pillow, rolled over on his side and pretended to sleep. While he pretended to sleep, he heard someone right behind him, at the other side of his bed going "Don't worry, you can continue to pretend to sleep." 

I would dismiss this as a figment of his imagination, except about five other people around him heard it as well, including me. Creepier still, there was no one there, and it was the voice of a little girl that said it. 

5

A dark figure at the foot of the bed

When I was in elementary school, I shared a queen size bed with my older sister and our family dog would sleep at the foot of our bed every night. When I was about 6 years old, I woke up one night around midnight and saw a dark figure standing at the foot of the bed. The figure was entirely in black without a face. I tried to wake my sister up, but she rolled over to go back to sleep. My sister must have accidentally kicked the dog, because the dog woke up and started growling at the figure. The growling then woke my sister up who then started screaming. When my parents came into the room and turned the light on, nothing was there.

6

Ghost man in an old French country cottage

My family travelled to the south of France to stay in a cottage owned by someone my Dad worked with.

We went into the house and chose rooms. We settled in and turned all of the heating on, yet the house remained cold and felt damp. The first night we listened to a couple of audiobooks before my sister and I went to sleep. My parents stayed up a little longer then went to bed. 

Around midnight they both woke up at exactly the same time, and the door to their bedroom was opening slowly. At first they thought it was my sister until they saw a large dark silhouette of a man framed in the doorway, standing stock still, just looking in their direction as if appraising them. After a short period, the shape turned and started to move, as if satisfied, and disappeared.

7

Phantom of the piano room

One night, our neighbor's daughter went to bed with a bad headache. The next day, she was dead—she’d passed away from an aneurysm.

After the funeral, the family went away to get their minds off the tragedy, and the father asked my uncle—my mom’s brother—to check on their pets. So my mom and dad went with my uncle.

After entering the house, my mother went to the piano on the ground floor. She felt hands clasp her legs and grab them tightly.

She told my uncle and dad what had happened, and they turned white. He told her the daughter who died used to play a game with her father. When he’d play the piano, she’d crawl underneath and grab his ankles.

8

A poltergeist trickster

My neighbor Diane and I had a playful poltergeist for years, and we called it Billy. I’d come home and find something put in a weird place: milk in a cupboard, toilet paper in the fridge, laundry detergent in the bathtub. Diane once called to ask if Billy had been around, because she couldn’t find a gallon of milk. We finally found it outside on her back steps.

When I had enough, I’d point to Diane’s home and yell, “Go see Diane!” Within five minutes, I’d get a call from her, and she’d say “Thanks a lot,” because he’d gone and pulled shenanigans at her place. This occurred for the entire two years we lived there. No one believed us—not even our husbands. My sister believed something was going on but didn’t know what. I still can’t explain any of it.

9

Haunted ambulance

The ambulance company that I used to work for had a “haunted” ambulance: rig 12.

My partner and I were working in a rural community at 3 a.m., and it was pitch-dark and completely quiet. We were both dozing; I was in the driver’s seat, and she was in the passenger seat. I woke up to a muffled voice. I distinctly heard a male voice say, “Oh my God, am I dying?”. My partner and I sat up straight and looked back into the patient compartment.

Things were quiet for a couple seconds; then we heard the click of an oxygen-bottle regulator and a hiss. I turned on the lights, and we ran out of the rig. I thought a transient might have climbed in while we were asleep, so we opened the rear doors. No one was there. We didn’t sleep much after that.

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