Kids truly say the darnedest things. But sometimes they say the spookiest and most unexplainable things, too.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Reddit community was full of such horror story fodder.
Once upon a time, Redditor TapiocaTuesday asked:
" Parents, what spooky 'past life' memory did your kid utter?"
And the responses were absolutely chilling.
War Stories
"My daughter (age 2) is absolutely terrified of the sound of planes. She’s never been in one, but she is just really scared of the sound."
"Usually, she will hear one and come running and hide between my legs. One night a few months ago, though, she heard a plane, stopped playing, and just said to herself, 'They’re here.'"
" A couple of weeks later, she told my husband it was 'time to storm the beach.' This kid has never been to a beach."
- okaykoala
"My family and I were driving through the Kent countryside and my brother (about three at the time) announced: 'Mummy, that was the field I died in once. A bayonet went through my tummy.'"
" I was eight and remember wondering what a bayonet was EXACTLY at the same time my parents looked at each other and asked him HOW he knew what bayonet was."
"He said he didn't know and then became almost embarrassed and shy because of our collective reactions."
"There was no way he would have known about war or weapons as this was the early 90s and we didn't watch TV much at all. I'm a complete skeptic but this creeps me out to this day."
- 16psyche88
"When I was about 4, my family and I were moving house. We went to view this house in a rural village that was right by an airfield that had been very important during WW2, and there were still disused Anderson shelters in the garden and fields behind."
"Apparently the minute I saw them, I ran to my mum, clung to her arm, and asked 'Are there going to be more bombs?' and got really agitated."
"Nobody ever spoke about the war, this was in the 90s, and we didn’t even have a TV. My mum was really spooked by the whole thing."
- lamantchenille
Past Lives
"When my daughter was three, she saw a large ship while we were on vacation at the beach and said, 'That's like the one my parents before you died on.'"
"I said, 'You had other parents before us?'"
"She calmly went on to explain that I shouldn't worry, they were her parents a long time before my husband and I were, but the ship they were on broke apart, and they are still at the bottom of the ocean."
"She then said when her 'before' parents died, she and her sister 'Brinella' (not sure of the spelling) had to be separated because no one could take them both. She said her sister went to live in Australia, but she stayed in Ireland."
"We live in the U.S."
- bipedal-in-five
"When my daughter was about three years old, she would say the word 'Specs' all the time... like constantly."
"I was thinking, 'This is so bizarre. Why would a child randomly start saying this?'"
"Then my wife told me that her grandfather used to work for a company called 'Specs.' The grandfather has been deceased for quite a long time and was never even alive since my daughter was born."
"She used to say things to me all the time like, 'When I was an adult, I used to do xyz...'"
- WinstoNilesRumfoord
"My youngest (4-5) would tell about how warm and 'cozy' she was in my belly, how cold and scary it was to be born, and how the hardest part was that she 'used to know everything' but now she 'doesn’t know anything.'"
"I would give her space to talk. Her frustration at almost being able to remember 'everything' was almost palpable."
- break-in-the-clouds
"When my son was three, he told his mom that he was a cosmonaut the last time he was a grown-up."
"Not an __astro__naut, the Russian version. We're 99% certain he hadn't heard the word before."
- Lone-Paladin
Lost Connections
"My daughter, when she was three, used to talk about her imaginary friend all the time. She said he was big and fun, and spent a lot of time playing with her."
"One day I was scanning old photos and had a photo of my father on my desk and she said, 'Hey, how did you get a photo of my friend?'"
"I instantly got shivers down my spine. My father died in the house about 15 years previously, and she played in a room that used to be his office."
"I cautiously asked her to tell me more about her friend, and without hesitating, she told me he talked funny. The chills stopped me dead in my tracks because my dad was an Aussie who never lost his accent."
- ChappieTime
"In 2006, my best friend Nick was KIA in Iraq. We used to wrestle/fight until one of us submitted. These sessions would start randomly and always be initiated by 'showing your fangs.' This involved pointing your pointer and middle finger down in front of your mouth while growling at the other person."
"A couple of weeks after his death, some family from the other side of the country that we only see every five years or so was visiting."
"My cousin's son who was about 5 and who I never met prior to this visit came over to me. He gave me the fangs and smiled."
"I asked him, 'Where did you learn that?' and he said, 'Your friend says hi' and ran away. I went to my room and cried for a bit."
- Scubapro54
"I am 60 years of age and have never had biological children but am the proud grandfather of several wonderful children (I am the adopted one). My lady and I have been together for 28 years and her children have children now."
"One day my grandaughter, around the age of 4 years old, went to her mother and asked, 'What happened to Pa Pa's babies? There were two of them but they're dead now.'"
"It just so happens that when I was 13 or 14, my girlfriend at the time got pregnant. There was an abortion. My girlfriend always said they were twins... I never really believed her... and never argued the point."
"I think of this a lot now in my old age."
- twoliterdietcoke
"When my daughter was three and starting to talk clearer, she was talking to someone, and concerned, I walked into the bedroom and no one was there. Initially, I thought it was her playing with her toys."
"Days later, the same scenario, but this time, I asked who she was talking to and she replied, 'Your grandma.'"
"I thought she meant my mom who had recently passed, so I showed a picture of her and asked, 'Is this her?'"
"She said, 'No, YOUR grandma.'"
"I found a picture of my grandma and she with a big smile said, 'Yes, her.'"
"I was shocked since I don't have pictures of my grandma displayed and she died in 1991 and my daughter was born in 2015."
- DISDIK
Personal Childhood Memories
"I apparently used to have rather frequent bouts of nightmares back when I was four. And it always began with me screaming the name Sarah, then calling for help loudly (which would wake pretty much everyone in the house up), and ending with me just blubbering out, 'I'm sorry, I'm so sorry,' over and over and over again, all the while crying and sobbing."
"When I would wake up in the morning, I'd have no recollection of any of this."
"My parents had no idea what caused it, given that they knew no one named Sarah that I had interacted with, we had no TV or anything of the sort, I hadn't begun going to preschool yet, and didn't know how to read beyond a few simple words. Nothing they did seemed able to stop it either."
"The whole thing went on for a good long while (almost a year) until one day, it just sort of stopped."
"My mom apparently tried asking me once about it, and kid me said something to the effect of, 'Sarah doesn't want to see me cry anymore. So I won't.'"
"I didn't actually know any of this happened until some years back when I got to talking to my parents about how I always found the name Sarah to be beautiful."
- TinyOrbo
"I’m not a parent but I once told my mother, 'I used to be your dad,' when I was a toddler."
"And if that’s not weird enough, he died about nine months before I was born."
- tyedyeleather
"I only have two vivid memories of my preschool years. I remember thinking of specific people that weren't here at the time but I've no idea who ‘they’ are from my memories. I feel like there's so much more to the memory that's just out of reach."
"The first one, I would have been just learning to talk, so maybe 18-24 months? I was standing in our gravel driveway on a hot day with my mom."
"I asked her for some 'wa-wa,' and she told me to say 'waTer.' I asked for 'wa-wa' again, but she told me, 'If you want a drink, you must say ‘waTer.'"
"I distinctly remember the entire exchange and thinking, 'You know what I want, why are you doing this? They said this one was going to be easy.'"
"The next time would have been a year or two later. My older sister excitedly told me, 'Now you get to learn to read!' and again, I distinctly remember thinking, 'No! They promised this time would be easy, but this isn't easy, what is all this?'"
"I remember the feeling of disappointment from each of these moments. I love learning now, but I'm certain when I die, I'll be having a chat with someone about the meaning of ‘easy.’"
- urkillingme
"I don’t remember any of this, but when I was four, we traveled to Ireland to visit my dad's grandparents. We were walking through a shopping area when I started yelling about wanting to see the train and ran into a shop."
"My parents ran in after me as I was going nuts about some train. There was no train, it was a clothing store. The woman working there asked my parents what I was doing as I was just running around frantically."
"I finally yelled, 'The train!' I had found, in the back of the store, a framed newspaper clipping from the 1940s of the front window of this shop when it was a toy store and there was a big model train scene set up."
- fragnoli
Some of these stories are unexplainably spooky, but at the same time, they're fascinating.
Imagine what might be uncovered if some of these Redditors looked back through their family trees or old newspapers.