There's usually less people around, and the situation is ideal for night owls.
It's also ideal for things that go bump in the night.
Ever work as a security guard in, say, a natural history museum? Surely your mind can play tricks on your imagination in a location filled with rich history.
Or what about at a convenience store when there's less foot traffic? That automatic door just slid open, but alas, no customer is in sight. Got the creeps yet?
Redditor Psychological_Bet179 asked, "Night shifters, ever witnessed a paranormal activity? If so, what was it?"
People were more than up to the task of sharing their anecdotes that defied explanation and gave them goosebumps.
The Inconvenience Store.
"I worked at a 7/11. One night I kept hearing what sounded like a little girl crying, but the store was completely empty. Whenever I'd go the the area where I thought it was coming from, I'd hear it from somewhere else."
"Welcome to Subway"
"I used to work at a 24hr Subway. (I know, great start to a paranormal experience story, huh?). Well one day I was doing the dishes, and my coworker was cleaning the toaster oven and bread oven. Out of nowhere, around 3:30am, I heard our door chime go off. Out of habit I say 'welcome to Subway' as I turn the corner. Nobody there. Coworker gone."
"I thought 'Okay, maybe he hopped the counter and went for a cigarette outside' as he did from time to time. Heading back to the sink to finish the dishes, I hear the door chime again. Nobody. Checked the bathrooms. Nobody. 'What...the...hell.' I ignore the dishes, and stand at the front counter, eyeing the doors. Couple minutes later, my coworker comes through the back door where we get our deliveries."
"'Where'd you go?', I asked him, turning towards the back door area."
"'To take out the trash,' he replies."
"Door chime. He does the same thing as me-- 'Welcome to Subway,' turns corner to see nobody there but this time the door was wide open. Our doors are weighted to where they'll close on their own if you let go of them. Door stayed open for a couple minutes as we stared... Then suddenly slammed."
"Not a windy night, and our doors wouldn't even stay open like that on the windiest of days. Have no idea what caused this, or why it happened on that particular night, but after I got a different job I was told it never happened again."
"Told my boss about the incident and we all looked at the cameras. Nobody could explain it."
The Haunted Lab Building
"A lab building where I once worked was the site of a murder-suicide (which happened while I was there! Awful and sad). We didn't have 'shifts' per se, but I had to work late one night autoclaving equipment for the next day's experiment. The autoclave room is right next to the lab where the event took place. I hadn't seen anyone else in the building."
"After I started the load, I was about to leave the room when I heard a crash outside. I immediately opened the door and saw that all the contents of a table in the hallway had been pushed to the floor. Water bottles, a packet of papers, pens, etc. Since I was right by the door at the time, I would have seen and/or heard someone running away. It was against protocol to leave things in the autoclave overnight, so I had to stay an hour and a half to get them out, but nothing else happened. I left the stuff on the floor, though. Didn't want a repeat of that!"
Casper
"I worked at a movie store in college. I was closing one night and just kind of doing a final walk through. I kept hearing what sounded like movie cases shuffling. I looked around thinking maybe someone had came in last minute although I didn't hear the bell ring for when someone enters the store. Didn't see anyone. Then I hear what sounds like a movie fall off a shelf in the kids section. I go over and there's a movie laying on the ground and I sh*t you not it was Casper."
The Scarymobile
"I work the front gate at a military installation. The night shift is super dull and quiet where I am at. For awhile I noticed this dark green old ford bronco that would roll up. When I would stand out the gate shack, the car would do a 180 and leave. This happened about 2-3 times until I finally caught the license plate before it turned. I ran the numbers to my supervisor. He asked me if I was sure. I said I'm 100% certain."
"He tells me it couldn't be because the numbers led to a vehicle crash report that involved THE EXACT SAME VEHICLE and plate number to which the driver had died and the vehicle and the vehicle was totaled. That sh*t made me want to switch to days."
A Face in the Movie Theater
"Worked at a movie theater running the booths upstairs. The projectors are upstairs (obviously) in a long corridor."
"At night, after the last showing in each theater, you shut off the lights to that theater and the small one over the projector itself. Then you cover the platters to protect from dust."
"It's not so bad the first few, because at least the lights of nearby projectors are still on for the theaters that are still running."
"But...as you shut each one off one by one, the corridor gets darker and darker and that little viewing window into each individual theater is pitch black. That dull, steady whirring noise you've toned out all night is gone and is now replaced by absolute silence and there's hardly any light left anymore. Just the lights at the end of each corridor where you sit inbetween each start time."
"It's spooky enough is what I'm saying."
"But one particular night, I'm throwing the covers over one of the platters and I casually glance up into the viewing theater window across the way."
"And there's a face. It's a little boys face and it's sheet white."
"I know what I saw. I'm sure there's an explanation for it and there's nothing supernatural about it, but there WAS a face there and it scared the absolute sh*t out of me. It made an already unsettling environment that much more terrifying the rest of the time I worked there."
"Also for the record, inside the actual theater, these windows are a solid 8-10 feet above the seatbacks in the highest row. So, if someone was playing a prank, they'd need a ladder and even then they'd have nowhere to set it."
The Grateful Patient
"I don't inherently believe in ghosts but if I had a paranormal story it will be this one. I work in one of the major ERs in my city as a HCA, one of my many tasks is postmortem care on patients who die in our care. One night at around 0200 I was called to the room of a older patient who was palliative had passed and the family had finished their goodbyes."
"So I went in to start providing care, this usually means removing any tubes, wires, and monitors from the patient, giving them a bed bath, removing any valuables from the body to give to the family, putting them in a gown and shroud. I like to talk to my patients even if they have passed as it puts me at ease, and shows respect to them. I explain my actions and talk them through what I'm doing because even though they have passed they are still my patient."
"While I was proceeding with the bed bath of the patient out of nowhere I felt like I was being watched and then I felt a hand on my shoulder and a mans voice tell me 'Thank you,' the hand remained for a moment while I stood there frozen then all the feelings stopped and the room felt empty. There were no other nurses or staff in the area at the time, just me. I like to believe that the patient I was providing care for was thankful for my explanations and me continuing to talk to them through their care."
– barlsms
The Hungry Spectre
"Used to work at IHOP. A cook before my time got shot and died during robbery. I would always hear someone in the kitchen such as the spatulas clanking but nobody would be in the kitchen. Once I saw black figure in the back figured it was the cook, when I went outside to the front of the restaurant, the cook was sitting outside smoking. There was no current orders either. Other coworkers experienced some stories. One of them said she felt pushed but I can't speak on what I didn't see."
Same Car, Same Pump
"I was working at a gas station at like 3 AM one night. A car pulled in to the pump, guy got out and started pumping, and then the car and dude just...vanished. I was looking right at it, and it just popped out of existence. I told my boss the next day and she turned white as a sheet. She'd seen the same thing, same exact description, same car, same pump, same guy."
Going Down
"I work at a building where after midnight, it's oftentimes just me and my coworker. One night I was scheduled to go home at 3am; as I walk out of the office and up to the elevators, the elevator dings and the door opens. These are elevators that stay either on the top floor or the ground floor (I'm on neither). I have no explanation for why it would just be there waiting for me to walk up to open and I almost didn't even get on but instead I just said "uhh thank you, please don't show yourself to me" just in case. lol"
The Devil on 42
"I worked in a mine in northern ontario. There was a death on the 4200 level a couple years previous to the incident. It was a normal day underground like any other. We were rehabbing a old working that had collapsed. 4200 level was big, the drifts were 6×6 feet, but go on for kilometers in every direction. It was about midnight when we saw the mine rescue team with security rushing down the drift. Naturally we dropped what we were doing and followed to see if we could help."
"We arrived to a guy who was as pale as a ghost, he didn't look hurt, but he was shaking uncontrollably. Mine rescue approached him and he wouldn't have it. He would scream, and not just any scream, It was terrifying hearing the screams, like a person so consumed with fear, it had a tone to it that you wouldn't imagin could come from a person. Eventually he just stopped screaming and just sat there, awake but non responsive."
"By now it was 3:30 am and our shift was over. We couldn't leave him down there. We managed to get him on a stretcher that we could carrie out. On our way out he kept saying 'the devil is on 42.' Over and over again."
"About two years later, another incident report was read to us, the exact same thing, exactly the same spot, but a different person."
"I don't believe they saw the devil, but it is always in the back of my mind when I'm on 42."
The Psych Ward
"While working at a psych ward, every morning at about 2am there would be the sound of someone running down the main service hallway, followed by the same door at the end slamming. One time I kept a close eye on the area but when I was distracted for a few seconds the footsteps began but when I got to the area there was nothing. According to one of the managers that had happened for several years, always at the same time every morning, and most believed it was a ghost of one of the deceased clients."
"Another time, all the battery powered wall clocks in the unit spun around a few times simultaneously. That waa freaky and everyone in the area screamed."
Ghost Chickens
"I used to work the early early shift making bagels (3am) and would sometimes see things in the reflection of my oven that were running around behind me. They looked like chickens. I told a coworker about it and he took me in the back where we stored the flour and pointed at the ceiling. It was completely crusted with some dark-brown fuzzy-looking substance. He told me the building we were in was once a chicken processing plant. Thousands of chickens had died right there. The stuff on the ceiling was blood and feathers."
Winchester Mystery House
"He worked at Winchester mystery house. He told me one night while they were closing down his coworker was locking up and closing all the doors down this long hallway. Well after they both finished they turned around and all the doors were opened up again and he told me his worker straight up started screaming at the top of her lungs and freaking out. His co-worker quit the next door."
– meth0dz