Some words may leave a mark on you and change your outlook on life for the better. On the flip side, you’ve likely heard some of the most unsettling statements from another person, and the creepy vibes took a while to dissipate.
We’re highlighting the latter through collected responses from this Reddit question: “What’s the most unsettling thing someone has said to you that you can’t forget?” Some of these replies were an individual’s last words before passing on. Others were threats of graphic violence, while a few were chilling one-liners uttered while half asleep.
This list should keep you company if you want to keep the spooky vibes from Halloween. Enjoy scrolling through!
#1
Was on FaceTime with my wife because I was on the road. I was sitting alone in my hotel room and she said “who’s that behind you?” And then the screen went out, the lights went off, and then quickly came back on.
I couldn’t sleep after that so just got back on the road and as far away from there as I could.
Image credits: HippoPebo
#2
My wife once woke me up from a sleep and said “can you go feed the clown in the closet before he gets angry?” And turned back over and went to sleep. My side of the bed faces the closet and it’s dark enough and big/deep enough to hide a clown for sure. She has zero recollection of it.
Image credits: brodo87
#3
“Little girls like you go missing out here all the time”
Excuse me… WHAT?!
Image credits: StrawbraryLiberry
#4
An ex boyfriend. We’d been together a while but things weren’t going too well, particularly in the bedroom. He snapped at me one day, “At least my brother will f*** me!” I asked him what he meant but he said it was just nonsense.
For context, I’m a woman and we were both mid 20s and his brother late 20s at the time. I already thought his family were a bit strange but that really got me worried.
Image credits: never_ending_circles
#5
Someone I knew had just passed the Bar exam to become a lawyer.
He got home from the exam and checked his voicemails. There was only one. It started with the sound of distant howling wind, then the sound of screaming men and women started, followed by what sounded like the cracking of whips. Continued for about 30 seconds and ended.
He kind of chucked and said that Satan had called to congratulate him on passing the Bar.
Image credits: eaglesong3
#6
My mom opened a closet we hadn’t in like 10 years & a Furby opened his eyes and say something about 'that was a good sleep!' ?.
Image credits: EarthsMoon927
#7
"You're the woman every man wants to f**k, not the one they want to marry" ( his explanation when I was distraught upon finding out he had been using me to cheat on his fiancée, who I didn't know existed).
Image credits: OppositeTwo8350
#8
Ran into a friend that I had not seen for quite a while. He said “*hey, so wild to see you! The other night [X] and I were hanging out and we played with a Ouija board and the thing spelled out, “[****my wife’s full name****] is going home”*. We kind of chuckled and I said that’s odd, and parted ways.
My wife died in an accident a few days later. He and I talked about it once and never mentioned it again.
Image credits: WinchelltheMagician
#9
When I was giving birth to our son, immediately after he was born I had a severe hemorrhage and lost 3.6L, over half my blood volume. I was rushed to surgery and clinically died on the operating table, but was resuscitated. My baby and I were kept in hospital for a week after the birth, he was fine but the doctors thought I’d possibly had a stroke as well as needing to recover from the birth.
When we were finally allowed to go home, my fiance (now very much ex) came and picked us up. Then on the drive home he said to me very matter of factly,
“I don’t love you anymore, you mean nothing to me. I accepted that you’d died, and honestly it would have been easier if you’d stayed dead. I look at him (our son) and he means everything to me. I look at you, and you mean nothing.”.
Image credits: plantwitch_gem
#10
I have a special needs daughter. Her condition means she likely won’t live much past 40. She requires full assistance for everything. We have to dress her, bathe her, etc.
I said to my wife once “It’s sucks to know that we will probably outlive one of our kids.” And my wife just looks at me and says “Yeah, but what happens to her if we don’t?” And the realization that not only will we outlive her, but it’s probably good that we will set in. It’s f****d either way.
Image credits: OldBrokeGrouch
#11
The worst thing ever said to me was said by my employer. I had just laid my mother in the grave on Sunday after a 6 month battle with cancer, and on that next morning he said, “You need to get over that mother sh*t and get your mind back on the job.” I never forgave him for that and quit after being a key employee for over 25 years.
Image credits: visibiltyzero
#12
My daughter, at about 4 years old, sat bolt upright in bed as I was passing her room one night and said “Dark forces are coming, mummy” in a completely conversational tone. She then went right back to sleep, leaving me and her father slightly antsy for tthe next few days.
About a month later I realised it was from a trailer for Ben-10 ?
However, at the age of 19 she does still maintain that there are shadow people in our house who watch us. Which is nice.
Edit: a random w that crept in there.
Image credits: originallovecat
#13
Mine started with a recurring dream.
My parents had died a decade ago, and their estate was being worked by the executor (our brother) until all debts had been paid off, so we could get our inheritances free and clear. My sister had inherited the main family home, which had been built in the 1850s, and I’d inherited a smaller cottage, which had been built in the 1890s. The cottage was in terrible condition, but the main home was habitable. I was excited about having the land, so I could build a more modern home, and my sister was very happy with being heir to an old but comfortable place.
I hadn’t been out to the home place in years because the executor was supposed to be taking care of all that, but for some odd reason, I had a dream about the main family home. In the dream, I walked up to the door and knocked, and my dad met me. He was dripping with sweat, like he’d been doing heavy manual labor, and his face was distressed. He told me, “You need to come home, Thorny, I need help over here, we’re flooding real bad.” When I walked in, the outside walls were the only thing remaining intact. The house had been gutted, and all that remained were the floor, wall studs, ceiling joists, and roof. No furniture, no personal effects, nothing else. Just…nothing, and the smell of mold. And my dad said again , pleading, “We need help. Call your brother and tell him that I said he agreed to take care of this place until you girls got it, and he’s not doing what he promised. This place is falling apart and I can’t do anything to fix it.”
I had that dream for several times over the span of two years. And each time, it was the same. Come home. Call your brother and tell him I’m pissed at him. Fix this place, it’s falling apart. I’d wake up with a feeling of sadness.
We finally settled the estate, and my sister called me to come over to help her clean up the main home. And when I walked in, I was hit by the rank smell of mold. Turns out, the roof had been damaged in some long-ago storm, the executor had done nothing about it (probably because he wasn’t the one inheriting it, the git), and the place had quickly deteriorated. In several rooms, the walls were buckling with water damage, and almost all the walls were stained with mold. In my old bedroom and in the adjoining sitting room, the floor had rotted away.
In order to renovate the place, we’d literally have to strip the home down to the exterior walls and studs. My sister was furious, and I don’t blame her. She was supposed to “move back home”, and instead, she has to tear down a century-old place and start over.
The hairs on the back of my neck still prickle when I think about those dreams. I knew before I knew. And I can’t help but wonder if my brother had dreams where our father was fussing at him, because the only reason (in life) that my dad would call me and ask me to talk to a sibling, was because my dad had already talked to that sibling and had not gotten results.
#14
“Get the hell away from me. You’re crazy.”
My father said that to me when he became delirious a few days before he died from cancer. I had to carry him to the couch after he had locked himself in the bathroom. It was the last thing he ever said to me.
I suffer from mental health problems due to a brain injury. When he said that, I didn’t know if it was just the delirium or his true, uncensored opinion of me. I hope the former, but I will never know. I still think of it many years later.
Image credits: LucidMarshmellow
#15
‘You're lucky I didn't [do harm to] you last night’ – ex roommate
Image credits: Poorchick91
#16
"You're lucky this is a bunk bed room or I'd f**k you on the spot".
Drunk Italian guy stormed into the hostel dorm after being weird to me all day and basically threatened to r*pe me.
Told reception, cops came, he never came back. Kept his sick a*s Polaroid camera as a token of my gratitude.
Image credits: karlmarkz321
#17
After swim class at a YMCA, I was 10 years old in a locker room with only one other person in there, a middle age man, he was tying his shoes as I went into a stall to change. As I got out of the stall, he said, “Hey kid, do you hear that?” Obviously my stranger danger senses kicked in, but I did tried to remain quiet and then I actually did hear what he was talking about, it was like someone’s heavy breathing and then footsteps on walls, the concrete walls, like wet footsteps traveling up the back wall. I don’t believe in ghost or anything, so there probably was an explanation, but it was still freaky and I was young. I looked at him, and he was staring up the wall following the foot steps, I remember how terrified and concerned his face was, I don’t know why, but he suddenly hurried me out of the locker room, and he ran over to his friends to tell them what we had heard, and I ran to my grandpa. I saw him a couple more times throughout the year. Everytime I drive by the now closed YMCA I think about that.
#18
Whispered in my ear from by a person silently standing behind me, the last time I ever saw them.
"If I could cut off your head and keep it in a bag, I'd carry it around with me forever.."
She was the niece of a famous m**derer in my country.
I made sure after that event to never attend anything they were present at again, and also made sure to remove them from all social media.
Image credits: FractalTsunami
#19
My dad resuscitated a patient who’d “died” when he was a young intern and when the guy came to, he looked at my dad with a confused expression on his face and asked,
*Doc? What was that cold hand on my shoulder?*
My dad never forgot it.
Image credits: MaryTriciaS
#20
A friend of mine got wasted one night at a bar I used to own, before he left he gave me a hug and said he wanted to say goodbye to me for being a good friend, he then tells me that he was leaving town next day because he was working with a government agency and was going to k*ll somebody in the morning that was stopping the progress of the town we live in, I laughed and took it as a drunk joke, he left with a bunch of friends.
Next morning another friend called me to say that our friend jumped off a boat and died.
Image credits: arodygg
#21
Dude who ran the local pizza shop had a few drinks one night and mentioned that the reason they immigrated to the US was that his dad, an older dude who was always sitting in the corner of the restaurant reading, had strangled a dude to death in a bar fight and they had to GTFO of their home country to avoid prosecution/retribution.
Image credits: AncientAccesses
#22
“no, you cannot spend the night— you’ll get r*ped by their parents”
i was 7 and my dad told me that. guess it was an irrational fear.
Image credits: berrybiscotti-girl
#23
Unsettling in a different sense than most, but unsettling nonetheless:
I was at work one night in the hospital. Pretty unremarkable night. Woke up…in the ER…confused AF. My first words, to a coworker I know works the ER, who was standing there: “what’re you doin up here?”
She lets out a howling cackle, and says “I’m not up there. You’re down here. You had a seizure. Now you won’t be able to drive for a whole year!!” And is literally bent over snorting-laughing. I had no seizure history. In that moment it felt like my entire life was a snow globe that got shook up and smashed on the ground. I still think about it sometimes. A reminder that your words (and your affect in general) matter.
#24
That she'd k*lled both her parents and shot herself in the head but lived…the second group therapy session.
#25
This elderly woman with dementia looked me in the eyes very seriously and told me I’d k*ll myself before the year was over. I thought that was an awful thing to say but pushed it to the back of my mind and forgot. Several months go by and I was going through depression and one night got drunk and tried to k*ll myself. I recently remembered what the old lady said…. so that was unsettling.
P.S. this was *years* ago. I’m in a better mental state now.
#26
My father callled me just about a week before he passed at home. He and I were having a normal conversation and suddenly he tells me that my Aunt Joyce and Uncle Norm had been by to visit him. Then he told me that my mother’s parents had dropped by too. Now this, in and of itself, doesn’t sound odd except this was 2015. My Aunt Joyce had died in 2012. Uncle Norm? Well he died in 1988. Mama & Carlton? Both in 1996. Then he asked me if I had heard from Mom lately. I hadn’t…because she died in 1999.
After getting off the phone with him and his partner, Jan, I looked at my partner and told him that we needed to make plans to visit Dad. Soon.
Unfortunately, Dad died about a week later. I received a phone call in the middle of the night from his partner’s daughter. My phone was on silent so I never heard it ring. She left me a vm at 1am to call her as soon as I got the message. Apparently I didn’t call fast enough because at 3am (I was still sleeping) she called and left a vm that Dad was dead.
#27
I had a tall muscular man in the locker room when I worked at Firestone point his finger in my face and say: "you don't f**k with me Bailey, I'll be your worst nightmare." He ended up being m**dered several months later, his body was found in a parking lot on University Ave. in Des Moines.
#28
Thanksgiving day 2007, my 15yo son, in hospice care, wakes up. Says tzeide Pinchas, my great grandfather wanted me to know he was proud of me and that he, my son, wanted to go home. He died 2 hours later. My great grandfather died in KZ Treblinka following the liquidation of Łodz ghetto.
#29
My friend to me after I was taken advantage of sexually – “At least you now know that there are people who want to f**k you”.
#30
When I was 15, my mom had me sit on the couch when I got home from school because she had something ‘difficult’ to tell me. My father had been arrested for solicitation of a minor. I knew what that meant, but I think my brain was trying to protect me. I had to ask her what she meant, and when she did, I vomited all over the living room. Then, I broke down in tears.
I was such a daddy’s girl growing up, and it was just inconceivable to me that he could have done something so awful. Thankfully, he was caught in an Internet sting, and no child was actually harmed. Regardless, that moment set off a 3-year period in which I was pretty much living on autopilot while my parents’ divorce and my father’s prosecution were ongoing. He ultimately didn’t serve any time. The closest thing to justice he got was dying young.
#31
One of my friends became obsessed with my pregnancy and later my child, but never in a positive/good way.
When I was pregnant, and she was too, she never stopped telling me I could still have a miscarriage, the child could still have birth defects, my belly was too small and therefor, according to her, there was no way the baby could be healthy.
She is still really obsessed with making my child and me look bad.
I always get compliments on how sweet and well behaved my child is, and how she is friends with everyone. Ofcourse she is no angel and sometimes she misbehaves or needs to be told off, but in general, I have a really easy and sweet kid.
Well, according to this person, my 3 y/o is a danger to her children and she cannot visit her aunt anymore, who lives next door, because my child will play in that street as well and she doesn’t want to put her children in danger because, according to her, I am a terrible parent who puts no effort at all into raising her child.
The obsession is really creepy.
I would absolutely not cross the road if she’s driving there because at this point it is clear that she does not want my child to exist in the same world as hers.
#32
Things my parents said to me after I was r*ped. My dad said I was stupid and it was my own fault and my mum told me I had ruined his life by pressing charges and taking him to court. My mum also recently told me that she doesn’t like spending time with me, and that my sister is a nicer and better person than me. Other things she has said about my weight. Sore.
#33
It wouldn’t be unsettling to me now because I’ve gotten used to it but at the time it was unsettling because I’d never experienced it before. Probably the first time a schizophrenic client disclosed their delusions/hallucinations to me. The reason why I found it unsettling was because she casually dropped it into conversation as if it was completely real and I was privy to that “knowledge” too. I was completely floored because one minute we were making small talk and the next she was saying something completely terrifying. It just goes to show how real it is for them. It’s heartbreaking.
#34
First thing my ex texted me after I gave him my phone number was, “I know more about you than you think.” For some reason that wasn’t enough to deter me….
#35
“Why are you here?”
I was a university student living in the capital in a poor country that was going through a major economic crisis. I decided to volunteer with a group that was working with street kids. Mostly they just had me hang out with the kids and play soccer/football with them as we were trying to slowly gain the kids’ trust to encourage them to later get other kinds of help from programs we had. A lot of the kids had suffered all kinds of exploitation and abuse and most of them were secretly huffing glue from plastic bags they kept hidden up their sleeves.
One time I was just chatting with one of the kids and he was asking about me and I told him I was from the US. He was just dumbfounded. Then he asked me that question and I was equally dumbfounded. I realized in that moment that anything I said to him would just sound stupid and absurd to him, that I was a student trying to learn about his country, that I would go back to the US after a year. That I didn’t have an idea of what I was going to do to earn money when I got back. That I was volunteering with this group because it bothered me to see kids on the street and I wanted to help, but I wasn’t really prepared to do anything beyond coming by once a week and playing soccer.
I don’t remember what I ended up telling him, or maybe he got distracted by something more interesting before I thought of something. But I’ve never forgotten that encounter and have tried to live my life in a way that answers that question. Not that I always succeed. I often wonder what became of him.
#36
The boy down the street wanted to take me four wheeling in whatever town his mom lived in. He told me not to tell anyone where we were going. I didn't. And once we were in some woods he asked again "Did you tell anywhere where you are?" At that moment I realized that I'm a dumb**s. He didn't m*rder me or hurt me. It was just a creepy joke to him but was a real eye opener for me.
Im an Unsolved Mystery gal I should've known better than to do that, my safety guards were down because I was with a friend. Friends do bad things to friends all the time.
#37
Maybe it’s the most unsettling due to recency bias but…
My grandmother died two months ago. I saw her best friend at church last weekend, and we were making small talk, and then she said, “I miss her. My phone never rings anymore.”
This lady is 94. She would talk to my grandmother on the phone every single day. They had been friends since the 40s. Eighty years of friendship is gone, and she is the only one left of her peer group. Anyone who knew her when she was young is gone. And while she has children and grandchildren who call on occasion, it’s not the same.
It struck me as so incredibly sad and lonely. Every time I think about it, I tear up. I wanted to give her my number, but honestly I don’t know her well—she knows my face but can never remember my name. And I work full time while I raise three kids so I don’t have much spare time. I’m heartbroken for her.
#38
The last conversation I had with my father 20 years ago. “If that’s the worst you saw, then you’re doing pretty good.” We were speaking about the abuse I saw as a child.
#39
Whilst playing Clair De Lune, a woman once said “ I guess this is as close as I’ll ever get to making love to you.”.
#40
Not something that was said to me but something i said to my mother when i was 3 years old.
apparently, i was playing with my toys while my mom was sitting just watching me when i just suddenly stopped and turned to her
“Mummy, when I was in your tummy, I had a brother but he had to go…”
and then i just continued playing
i’m an only child and my mom never had an indication that she was pregnant with twins. freaked the hell out of her and still does.
#41
"Ewww. You're still a virgin? I lost my virginity last year!"
Said to me, 4th grader at the time by another 4th grader at the time. I was confused. Now, I am unsettled, she bragged about this, especially in middle school. Like, it was a trophy or a badge of honor. Her cousin was chill af, same age but had a great dislike towards her "s***ty" cousin. I look back at that and always wonder, "what the f**k was up with that family?".
#42
One time, when I was Djing, a drunk guy came up on stage just to tell me he thinks I look like Lena Dunam. He meant this as a compliment.
I do not look like Lena Dunam.
#43
Went on a night out, saw an old friend acting very erratically, assumed it was just too much alcohol.
Asked him if everything was ok, he turned and looked me dead in the eye and said “No” and walked off.
Didn’t see him for the remainder of the evening, see on social media the next day that he’s dead.
#44
About 20 years ago I worked in a pub, after closing we had a lock in with a few regulars, I'm sorting out the drinks when a guy comes up to me and casually asks "Have you ever been r*ped?", not sure if I stood there in shocked silence or responded in some way but he then said "Because you're going to be…."
Two of my friends/colleagues quite rightly went off on him, he skulked off sheepishly.
Next time I saw him he apologised and offered to buy me a drink insisting it was a joke.
In all honestly I didn't take it seriously, never worried anything would happen…. Just still find it so weird a guy would say that to a girl….
#45
When my husband told me – first thing he said on my birthday in this ugly rushed voice – that my birthday present was the Comcast visit they’d apparently charged for – after asking me prior what I’d like for my bday. Ok fine whatever -grey rock- but it hurt.
That day I finally realized he’s actually intending to be cruel and it actually made my blood run cold.
#46
That I have “rotten blood” because of my family history.
#47
I was chatting with a lady I just met while waiting in a lounge. We got into the topic of having kids, she has two and I said my husband and I are still enjoying each other’s company since we just got married, we don’t want it yet. And she said, “I know someone whose husband said he didn’t want kids, and he ended up having an affair AND having kids with the mistress.”
I have no idea what her intention was. I still get confused when I remember it.
#48
Years ago, while horribly depressed, my eldest younger brother seriously suggested that having a child might make me feel better.
I love the guy, but what the actual f**k.
#49
A girl told me her parents literally told her they hated her, that she was a mistake and they wanted her to die. Whenever she would hurt her knees, they would make her walk on her knees over rice or beans so she would bleed as punishment.
#50
My ex employer told me that if she had known I was autistic she wouldn’t have hired me.
