"And things that go bump in the night..."
An old saying featured in just about every ghost story ever told, be it around a campfire or under a blanket-tent.
But every now and then, all of us do hear an unsettling noise which might wake us up in the middle of the night.
Something that might be an ongoing problem for night owls, who likely hear scary or unsettling sounds on a regular basis.
Redditor PatkaLopikju was curious to learn the creepiest and scariest sounds heard by people who are frequently awake in the early hours of the morning, leading them to take to Reddit to ask:
"Night Owls, what's the creepiest thing you heard at night?"
An unexpected passenger.
"I had herd a loud noise come from the bed of my truck while driving 5 hours north."
" I thought I may have broken something in the rear end so I pulled over, to find out a drunk guy had crawled in the back of my truck and fallen asleep."
"He woke up 5 hours and 450km away from where he fell asleep."- EWood454.
An unwanted visitor.
"Someone tried to open up my front door of my house"- alwaysnar.
youtube door GIF by Impulse SeriesGiphyA cute and loyal disrupter.
"Not a Night Owl, but in my early twenties I would hear a dragging sound just below my bedroom window between 2 am and 4 am."
"Only on Sunday nights, but for weeks."
"It would wake me up, and at first I thought I was dreaming as no sound would be heard, but as soon I doze off the sound would be heard again."
"If I got out of bed, turn the lights and looked outside I would see nothing."
"After a few weeks I resisted sleep and nothing happened, but as soon I would turn the light and sleep, the sound would wake me up."
"Eventually I would let myself go to sleep but be more alert, keep the window not completely shut so that I can turn the backyard lights and peak through it faster."
"That was the plan for Sunday nights."
"I was prepared to try to catch the origin of the sound, It happens, I get up, as I turn the lights to look, I heard steps, running away, but small and fast steps."
"This happened for a few weeks, only on Sunday nights."
"I talked with friends, girlfriend, everyone thought I was joking. I was starting to believe something was wrong with my head."
"Every week I would start with a bad night sleep."
"Until one Monday morning I realized that my faithful and loving dog, a rottweiler, had his kennel door wide open."
"My mom started letting him roam the backyard at night but only on Sundays."
"And without my knowledge he would come sleep under my bedroom window."
"The dragging sound was him snoring and the small feet sound, was him checking out why did the backyard lights did go off."
"I never had a problem sleeping with him there."
"I still miss him to this day."- anunofreitas.
You can't make this stuff up.
"Used to live on the ground floor."
"At 2 am some random person knocked on my window and asked if I had 50 cents for a lighter."
"It should have been creepy, but I found the situation so absurd that I just laughed, gave him the 50 cents and he was on his way." - User Deleted
Mysterious laughter
"Children laughing."
"Was in the jungles of Brunei during an army training exercise."- PitcherTrap.
stephen king film GIFGiphyFrom outside my window.
"I was lying in my bed, reading."
"Suddenly I hear loud footsteps right outside the window."
"Sounded like someone was wearing heavy boots and basically thumping their feet and passed my windows."
"Here's the thing. I live on the ninth floor(top floor of my building)."
"The terrace can't be accessed in the night and on the rare occasion that people do walk there at night, it sounds quite different."
"There's no place to walk outside my window cuz it's a nine floor drop."
"And that sound definitely came from beside me."
"Not above."- HighQueenOfFae.
Terrifying decor.
"Just the other day, I heard a strange scraping noise on the wall from the hallway."
"It sounded like someone scraping their hand across it."
"I know for a fact that I locked up, so I casually walk out the room to see what it is."
T"hen there’s a loud as f*ck scrape and something swings out from the corner at my arm."
"After I finish climbing back into my skin, I see that it was just one of the decorative garlands we’d hung up: it had come loose and scraped across the wall, then came loose some more and swung out to greet me at the perfect/not-perfect time."- PeeJayx.
Creepy, crawly critters!
"I am hearing impaired and so was unaware that raccoons had gotten into the crawlspace."
"Then I heard them screeching."
"That's a sound I never needed to hear coming from my walls."- FreedTMG.
racoon GIFGiphyA harmless, terrifying, prank!
"After a night out at the bars some friends came back to my place to hang out."
"I got home first and went into the dark house where I had to walk into the living room to switch on a light."
"While I was struggling to turn the little knob on the lamp in the pitch dark from the corner of the room came this low, slow, wet mixture between a hack and an evil EVIL laugh."
"Like every evil character I’ve ever seen doing the evil laugh COMBINED didn’t compare to the bone chilling slow, guttural laugh that came from the absolutely dark corner of the room."
"B*tch I broke the screen door off my front door running RUNNING out of that house and just screaming like a banshee to my friends walking up to the house."
"I screamed 'there’s someone in the house!' over and over and didn’t understand why we ALL weren’t running at that point but I have a couple buddies who for some BIZARRE reason like to run to danger rather than from it."
"Well, long story in Reddit terms short, if I thought the monster in the corner was laughing hard when I ran out you can imagine how hard he was laughing when my buddies run in with us behind them and click on the light., in one try —and I live there, and find our friend Steve rolling on the floor holding his belly from the pain he’d somehow got ahead of us all then shimmied the sliding glass door open, and then hid in the corner."
"It was just my good luck to be the first person inside to get to experience the sheer terror of a menacing laugh coming from a dark corner 5 feet away."
"THATs The creepiest sound I’ve heard in the dark."- Drnstvns.
Your friends and neighbors
"I was reading a book on my couch, the edge of my couch is right by my front door."
"So about a foot away from my head I hear nails scratching along the door outside."
"And then there came this weird knocking and I said hello and the person on the other side in a really high-pitched voice that was kind of quavery said hello hello hello."
"It ended up being a drunk neighbor who had got fall down drunk peed his pants and couldn't find his way home and, I didn't know that though really scared me those first few minutes."- jenniferandjustlyso.
Bom Dia Hello GIFGiphyHigh alert!
"This is happening rn btw."
" I'm hearing things outside, I'm laid on my couch, I have the feeling of being watched like heavy machinery noises too, and it's not windy here."
"I'm terrified, I have a video up on another app of the noises."- scoobymcpoopers
Music from another room...
"Okay, so for context I had just moved to a new house in almost the middle of nowhere."
"Our neighbors were pretty spaced out from our house and most of the property was surrounded by trees. so, it was my first night sleeping in that house, and I couldn’t fall asleep since it was a new place."
"You know the feeling."
"Anyway, around 3 am, I heard what sounded like opera singing."
"Now i wasn’t too worried about it at first, since I know my mom sometimes can’t sleep and watches opera singers in the middle of the night."
"But no, it wasn’t my mom watching stuff."
"It sounded further away than her room, and it sounded like a woman singing opera and crying at the same time."
"it went on for another hour until it was almost sunrise."
"I never found out what it was but it was super creepy for 12 year old me."
"So glad i moved away."- badgradeskid
West End Walking GIF by Official London TheatreGiphyA figment of my imagination... I hope?
"So it was summer break, and me and my family were staying at a friend's apartment."
"Ok, long story short, one night I randomly woke up in a middle of the night and I saw a black figure just crawling around."
"It looked like a human but wearing fool black with no face."
"BTW, I am an only child and I didn't have a pet back then."
"I was terrified."
"So I started sleeping again hoping that thing wouldn't do anything to me."- COOLMORTALEHYEA1
Might be time to move...
"I have 2 stories."
"One night I was in my living room, just sitting on the couch, watching some show I don't remember, and I hear growling like right on my front door."
"I live in a neighborhood not near any forests so no like wolves, bears, etc."
"So i hear growling and stuff and i just ignore it."
"I go to the store the next morning and see blood on my driveway, and I see a cat across the street and it was messed up, like blood and stuff."
"So I'm guessing a cat fight, cuz I have a couple of cats in my neighborhood."
"My second story, I was in my room and my neighbors are having a party blasting music and stuff."
"A couple minutes later and I hear like a whole f-bomb outside of my house and following that a loud bang."
"I go look outside of my little peeky hole on my door and its my neighbors oldest son walking back to the house with the party."
"I ignore it thinking he kicked the trash bin or something."
"But the next morning, my neighbors have their cameras covered with rags and my car's windshield is shattered and it was their oldest son that hit my windshield."
"I brought it up to them and they said it wasn't, but my friend across the street let me look at their camera footage."- ur_mother6
Baseball Bat Smashing GIF by 070 ShakeGiphyAccidental evesdropping?
"About a year ago, I was awoken from men talking outside of my window."
"I was confused and thought I was just dreaming."
"The talking was almost inaudible, I couldn’t understand a thing."
"It happened again a couple days after that too."
"I moved my bed away from my window shortly after that."- stayedanonymous
Knock Knock...
"Ah, so it was around 3 am."
"i woke up in sweats ,so got up had a glass of cold water and was about to sleep."
"Some freak knocked our door so hard and yelled something."
"I was in complete fear."
"My father got up and checked, it turned out it was a drunk guy."- Revolutionary-Car342
"About a year or two ago, I was awake at around 3am and went downstairs because I needed to use the bathroom, but didn’t want to wake up my family by using the one down the hall."
"As a bit of imagery, my house is quite large with a very open entryway so you can basically see right through my house through the front door and I needed to walk through the entryway to get the the bathroom."
"My front doors have windows."
"I got to the bathroom, went and was about to walk back upstairs."
"I wasn’t in the view of the front door at this point, and I suddenly heard this extremely loud knocking/banging on the door."
"I live in quite a quiet area and this has never happened before and I was scared frozen."
"I needed to go back upstairs, but the stairs are in the view of the front door, so I just sat in the bathroom for like 30 minutes before I built up the courage to go upstairs."
"Unfortunately this was before I had security cameras and my parents didn’t Believe me when I told them."
"I know I wasn’t imagining things though and I’ve never forgotten."
"Safe to say I have not used the downstairs bathroom when I’m the only one awake since."
Angry Excuse Me GIFGiphyThere are certainly benefits to being a night owl.
But one imagines heavy sleepers and those who go early-to-bed are not feeling envious when reading stories like these.