In this episode, we're diving into five scary true stories submitted by listeners and pulled straight from Reddit — covering a haunted restaurant, a chilling mimic encounter, a bone-chilling Disneyland night shift, an Ouija board session gone wrong, and a disturbing AOL Instant Messenger story that serves as a serious cautionary tale.
Story 1 (0:00) – A restaurant "haunted" joke turns real when a closing shift employee hears footsteps upstairs, finds every door locked, and watches a heavy patio door slam shut on its own — with no one else in the building.
Story 2 (5:30) – A family experiences years of eerie mimicry from something copying voices, cat sounds, and family members, until one night in the shower, a figure that looks exactly like her husband appears in the doorway... except he's asleep in bed.
Story 3 (11:47) – A Disneyland California Adventure custodian working the Hyperion Theater after hours watches a figure sprint across the upper balcony toward an elevator — only for the doors to open completely empty, with no other way down.
Story 4 (16:13) – A group of South Jersey ghost hunters uses a glow-in-the-dark Ouija board in a cemetery, and things escalate fast: a spelled-out warning, dropping temperatures in July, a spinning board with no hands on it, and a crushing weight that convinces one member he needs to leave immediately.
Story 5 (26:10) – A true and important cautionary tale from 2002: a girl's AOL Instant Messenger connection with a total stranger nearly leads to an in-person meeting, until a friend's mother steps in just in time.
Sources:
Story 1 – Reddit u/motherofxmen, r/Ghoststories - LINK
Story 2 – Reddit u/ghostgirl324, r/Paranormal - LINK
Story 3 – Instagram submission by u/beejayfourtwenty
Story 4 – Reddit u/sorryistoleyourbike, r/Paranormal - LINK
Story 5 – Reddit r/LetsNotMeet, "AOL was popular when I was 13" (deleted user) - LINK
Disclosure: The narration is 100% voiced by me, a human. I have also repurposed the stories I have gathered from Reddit (to avoid reading verbatim) to be narrated in third person and have assigned the protagonist’s fictional names (unless their real names are provided in the posted story). Please refer to the writer’s pages if you want to read the story as posted originally.
Have a paranormal or true crime story to share? Submit it to be featured on The Scarecast — DM us on Instagram, email mike@thescarecast.com or drop your story in the comments below.
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