Dark and Grisly Stories Told By Law Enforcement Officers Who Worked On Some Seemingly Paranormal Cases
Working in law enforcement has to be really tough, it's one of those jobs where you don't really know what might happen each day, the routine gets disrupted each time by some unexpected event that just changes how your day was going.
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Most people have a hard time believing anything related to the paranormal because they simply haven't experienced anything of that sort.
And they tend to exclusively believe the things they personally went through and seen with their own eyes, otherwise, anything that another person claims to have seen could be a plain lie or at least an over exaggeration.
1. Dynamite86
Former EMT/ Firefighter here. One night we got a call to do a wellness check on someone who dialed 911 but didn't respond to the operator.
We pull up to the address and the house looks perfectly quaint and a little old lady greets us at the door. We asked her if she knew who placed the call but she told us that she lived alone since her husband died.
We barely got back to the station before a call comes in again, same address as before. So we drive back out, talk to the old lady again, then leave again.
And just as we get back to the station, same call, same address, no response. We drive out there again, believing that the old lady must have been confused. But this time when we pulled into the driveway the old lady wasn't at the door to greet us.
There was no reply at the door, but it was unlocked. We take a peek inside to find the old lady was on the floor and wasn't breathing. We rushed in to help and got her to a hospital in stable condition.
When she woke up in the ambulance she still claimed that she never called us, and that we arrived almost immediately after she had fallen (it was a 15 minute drive to her house from the station).
Before she was admitted to the hospital she asked me and another EMT if we could bring her knitting needles and bag of clothes, to her in the hospital. I offered to pick up her stuff because I had a friend who lived in that area and we were gonna hang out anyways.
![](https://static.pupperish.com/images/xrFwKmuOgiEW_3915.gif)
I pick up my friend and drive to the lady's house. I ran inside to grab the bag and knitting stuff while my buddy sat in the car. But just as I was leaving I swear I felt a hand on my back and heard a voice say "thank you."
When I get back in the car my friend asked me "why couldn't the lady's husband being her stuff to the hospital?" I explained that her husband was dead, but when I said that my friend said "but I saw an old guy in the window, he smiled and waved at me."
At first I refused to believe in anything supernatural, so I called the police and asked them to do a sweep of the house (I thought it was a squatter). Nothing was out of the ordinary, and no one was inside.
I later brought my friend to visit the lady. He started describing the old dude who was in the window, but the old lady almost immediately started tearing up and said "that's my Harold."
2. cannonedcat
Obligatory not my story, but when I read this I thought it was pretty fucked.
An elderly lady phoned 911 and requested that they send some policemen down to her house because she saw a shadowy figure lurking in her backyard. She was living by herself at night and didn't feel safe watching someone through her window.
![](https://static.pupperish.com/images/AzDHkThaiYGb_3915.gif)
When the policemen arrived, the door was unlocked. They walked in and found the lady seated facing the window and they went to go check the backyard. There were no signs of anyone attempting to break and enter and nothing was missing. She had very tall fences surrounding her property, making it nearly impossibly for anyone to get into it. They did however, find footprints on the inside of her home. It was quite possible that she had left the door unlocked and wasn't looking outside, but rather at a reflection of someone inside of her home, behind her.
3. sorryforbeingright
Cop here.
Burglary alarm reported to dispatch from a private company. A motion sensor went off in a local business. Usually the alarms don't send an alert requiring police response unless three sensors pick up movement. Usually we don't respond to these kinds of calls unless a person calls us, sometimes we don't even respond to 911 hang ups. So, we go, since now two other alarms for motion get tripped. Another unit and I set up a canvas on the building. Nothing strange from the outside. Doesn't appear to have any forced entry. Other unit and I get permission to enter from building owner. We go in through a side door on this thrift shop. We announce ourselves, no response. We clear the entire two stories of a standard thrift shop size, not too big. We don't find anything. Store owner meets us outside with an iPad to show us camera footage. The three alarms that get tripped show a faint gust of like wind that moves clothes on racks. We just assume it was a draft because it happened to three consecutive clothing racks. So the owner resets the alarms and we leave. Fifteen minutes later the store owner calls us and wants to meet again to show us something.
![](https://static.pupperish.com/images/abZowMUsFSer_3915.gif)
Clear as fricking day, as my partner and I were leaving the side door after clearing the building, is a shadow like figure appearing to wave at us, saying goodbye. Chills hit me. I didn't want to accept or deny it. We occasionally get tripped alarms and any time we don't respond to the place, more alarms get tripped until we at least show up. If we show up, we will have like a 6-8 week streak without any activity. We think there's something just wanting police friends. We did research and we can't find anything regarding death or dying in the building. So who knows. As long as it's friendly it can trip whatever alarms it wants. I still won't go in without a partner.
4. lexi_lawson
EMT here, once had a call at our local mall. Show up and an eight year old was having breathing problems. Her mother, aunt and cousin had just been caught stealing and it was late at night. We assumed the breathing problem was stress induced. Once we got into the back of our unit she looked my partner and myself in the eyes and said that she lived at a bad place. She said she lived with demons and I shit you not as she described the demons her heart rate plummeted to 90bpm to 45bpm in a matter of seconds. My partner and I looked at each other and immediately started trying to lighten the mood and preparing for a code. She ended up being ok, I will never forget that experience.
Edit: Yes once we had her stable, police were definitely involved. My medic contacted CPS as well.
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5. HighbornCrab
My grandpa was a RIO in Vietnam. Basically the guy who told the pilot where to go and what was ahead.
One day him and his team is finishing up a mission, and one of his buddies in another jet barrel rolls over them. He then descends into the clouds.
They never saw them again.
![](https://static.pupperish.com/images/VjwStBZvoFUK_3915.gif)
He just vanished. They searched for weeks but no crash site, no communications, nothing. Just poof, gone.
Edit: Holy crap this blew up. For clarification, it was an aerial roll, not a barrel roll. Sorry I was tired.
And they were coming home from a mission, they were over friendly territory when he vanished.
They were over the cloud line, so my grandpa is unsure of where exactly they were when he vanished.
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6. Michamus
When I was in Afghanistan on guard duty, I turned to see this huge panther in the middle of a farm field. The thing must have been 30 feet long. My heart started pounding like crazy and I just about radioed it in. Then I realized my NODS removed depth perception and I was seeing a normal cat about 5 or so feet in front of me on the guard shack ledge.
![](https://static.pupperish.com/images/YsIiVSnTXUwl_3915.gif)
7. Narren_C
This is unexplained, and probably just coincidence, but I still never mention it to my co-workers.
I spent some time as a homicide investigator. We would respond to all apparent suicides and investigate them just to make sure it wasn't a homicide. Usually we determined a motive for suicide and found a note or other indicator that the person killed themselves (one guy just taped a note to his chest that said "Happy now bitch?" and made sure his wife found him after he hanged himself).
But occasionally you get a case where all forensic evidence indicates that the person killed themselves, but there's no note and no discernable reason why this person would be suicidal. These are people in good health with decent careers and a seemingly happy family life. But who knows what's really going on with someone?
Here's the part that freaks me out. I've worked maybe ten suicides like this. The last three before I left homicide all had the same thing at the scene. These was a little decorative wicker lighthouse at each location. It was the same lighthouse, same design and painted white and blue. It stuck out to me the first time because it was by the bed where the body was, but two weeks later I saw the same damn lighthouse on another suicide and even pointed out the coincidence to a patrol officer.
![](https://static.pupperish.com/images/FrGMJgcQRCPH_3915.gif)
A few months later I go on another suicide and I see that same wicker lighthouse. That's when it clicks that it's always been unexplained suicides. I go back and look at crime scene photos from every suicide I've worked. In two of them I see what could be the wicker lighthouse, but the angle is off and there's too much junk around to say for sure.
I dunno. I thought it was creepy as hell but I transferred a couple of months later and I let it go.
Edit: Well that got more of a response than I was anticipating. To answer the question of "was it a serial killer" I very much doubt it. These were clearly suicides, most of which had no feasible alternative explanation. We work every suicide as if it were a homicide. An apparent suicide is almost always a suicide, but we err on the side of caution.
Also, while serial killers are actually more common than most people think, they rarely leave calling cards or anything like you see in movies. It's usually some fucked up dude that has a particular taste.
I really do think it was an odd coincidence, but it was still pretty fuckin creepy.
8. daringdonkey
Not LE but am paramedic/fire. Late summer night responding to a call in a rural area. My partner and I were driving down a winding two lane highway in the middle of nowhere. No light of any kind other then the headlights and moon. We’re coming up on a sharp right turn when I see a man traveling across the grass from an area of brush. He’s moving very quickly and smoothly as if hauling ass on a bicycle. No up and down motion like running. Obviously, I’m pretty confused about a hillbilly on a bike in the middle of the night but not surprised. He comes to a tree and stops. It’s about this time we’re driving by him. Look out window and see a man standing next to this tree with no bike or anything in sight. Just standing there staring at the truck passing by. My hair is standing up. We continue towards the call and I ask my partner if he had seen that guy. His response is, “man I thought I was crazy.”
![](https://static.pupperish.com/images/mgSjYWUhxbcl_3915.gif)
Edit for clarity(am I doing this right?): He could’ve been freakishly fast running, ol school ghost rode/hid the bike, or I could be a plain dumb ass (perhaps sleep deprived is a better description)😁. what made it so freaky was the speed he “floated” across grass/gravel, the abrupt stop, and then the stare. Been doing this for years and it’s the only thing that could come close to “paranormal”. Adding to the creepy factor was that we were miles from any house, store, or bar.
Edit also for some grammar.
9. compsci2000
I was an EMT for a while. We got a call about someone who was riding their bike at a "break-neck speed" when they hit a car head first without a helmet. We went over immediately. Despite the fact that it was broad daylight and we were in the middle of Suburbia on a Saturday, nobody even came to check on this poor guy. Seriously, the streets were empty. Usually a massive crowd gathers around violent accidents like this.
So his skull was pretty much smashed in and he was unresponsive. It was the worst head injury I'd ever seen. We assessed that he had a major skull fracture, a concussion, and he was bleeding profusely. He was also missing teeth and had a minor road rash, but fortunately he wasn't missing much skin. To give you an idea of how bad it was, this was the kind of injury that most people don't survive. If you did survive, you'd basically be a crippled vegetable. Normally we would've moved him off the road, but when someone has a head/neck injury that isn't very safe.
My partner, who was also training me as I was still kinda new, went to check his pulse while I began to unload our gear. He crouched down, felt for a pulse for a while, and then stood up and opened his mouth to say something. Suddenly, the guy fucking jumped up. He didn't use his arms to pick himself up, he just fucking jumped to his feet. It startled the two of us. He looked at us, smiled, and attempted to grab his bike. We tried to stop him, but we didn't exactly want to wrestle him to the ground given his condition. He gets away from us and bolts into the woods without his bike. My partner was in even more disbelief than I was. He just stared at where the man had run off, mouth agape. Then he turned to me and muttered "He had no fucking pulse, man." I asked him if he was sure and he swore up and down that the biker was clinically dead.
We contacted the authorities for assistance and they sent a search and rescue team into the forest. I don't know if he was found or not, because we normally don't get much information about patients after they go to the professionals. Keep in mind that this was the Pine Barrens, so they had a lot of ground to cover. My best guess is that he went to a loved one's house out of confusion. What I found odd about that is, head injuries bleed like fucking hell, so you'd think the guy would leave a long red trail of blood for the cops to follow.
EDIT: Grammar. I originally typed on mobile. Sorry.
EDIT 2: It seems I left out some details;
![](https://static.pupperish.com/images/QzUXMgfWyiCB_3915.gif)
I'm not an EMT anymore. I was only an EMT for about a year. I decided the medical field wasn't for me and I switched out to pursue computer science.
Don't get EMT and Paramedic mixed up. We are only taught the basics of first aid, and then we just take a test. It's basically the lowest level job you can get in the medical field. So we can't legally pronounce someone dead. In fact, we almost always leave fatal accidents to the more qualified people. Had this person actually been dead, we wouldn't of done much.
I didn't mean this was a fatal accident. The shock wasn't that he just sprung back to life, but rather that he was alive despite lacking a pulse.
The guy was riding his bike very quickly through a suburban area when he struck a parked car. The car was a hatchback, parallel-parked on the street. The house the car was parked outside of was (presumably) who called us in, but for whatever reason people seem to think that you can just call us and be done with it. It was a bit out of the ordinary that nobody seemed to notice that an accident happened, though.
I have no idea what happened to the guy. Head injuries usually cause people to become violent/uncooperative, but you've got to be very careful with them, because moving their head/neck around to much can cause damage to the spine. When he got up it really took us by surprise, and it didn't help that he moved pretty damn quickly. As he attempted to grab his bike, my partner attempted to grab his arm. He pretty quickly slipped away and ran. We immediately contacted authorities and told them. They arrived, we told them what we knew, and then they sent a small team to find him. I imagine they did find him, because he clearly was never reported missing (if he had, I imagine the news would've jumped on it). The first responders are never really given information about a patient after they do their job, so I can't say for sure what happened to him after he ran.
I can say with complete confidence that he had no pulse when we found him, but somehow he was still alive.
EDIT 3: My inbox is fucked. I really didn't think this was that interesting. Thanks for the karma.
EDIT 4: I owe a friend of mine a favor, and I decided to pay it back by seizing the opportunity to shamelessly promote his music for him. It actually is kinda good though, I wouldn't be helping him out here if I didn't think so. Here's his bandcamp. Please give him a chance, he works really hard on this stuff and I want to see him succeed.
10. strawberrygnome
My dad used to work as a correctional officer at Goulburn jail in Australia, which is probably one of the oldest and hardest prisons there. A story he tells of his time there is one I always remember. He said that the whole place was creepy anyway, not helped by some of the inmates at the time including the notorious Ivan Milat (on which ‘wolf creek’ is based). Anyway first thing he noticed was that dogs would outright refuse to enter the prison. He said they couldn’t get them past the gate no matter how hard they tried. But the creepiest occurrence was one night when they heard the sound of running booted footsteps, everyone was in their cell so they couldn’t figure out what was causing it, next thing all the doors of the open and unoccupied cells on the top floor were banged shut, one after the other with loud clangs. Then they see the source of the running noise. Now dad swears this is what he and his colleague (so he has another witness) saw. Apparently they looked up and saw what looked like disembodied hobnail boots run down the aisle right over their heads, banging as they went. Dad decided to stop working in the prison not long after this. Super creepy.
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11. C109
This was a couple years ago while I still worked a general patrol car.
We got a call for a sudden death - sad call. Foster parent found their foster child hanging in a closet. We arrived on scene, found the foster parent sobbing on the main floor, told us the kid was upstairs. Paramedics had already came and gone, pronouncing the youth deceased likely from the night before. The kid had tied a belt around their neck to the closet rod (for lack of a better term) and hung themselves. Foster parent had cut them down and called 911 and thus the body was slumped on the floor. We conducted an investigation to ensure nothing was suspicious which included a visual inspection of the scene, questioning of anyone in house at the time, contacting the medical examiner, etc. Here’s where it gets screwey for me.
As I’m in the room alone with the deceased looking around the room, all of a sudden I hear a loud clanging coming from the closet. There’s something eerie about being alone in a room with a dead body, it was always in the back of my mind. And when this sound happened I almost shit myself. I turn and look to the closet and see a single hangar spinning round and round the closet rod, almost as if someone manually tried to start a propeller on a plane. No one else in the room but me and the deceased.
I pride myself on being able to stay composed in some pretty intense situations through my career but that one stuck with me. To this day I can’t explain it, and can’t find a reasonable explanation as to how it would have happened.
Maybe it was paranormal. Maybe I was tired. Who’s to know.
Edit: just figured I’d answer a couple reasonable questions. Not trying to spice up my story or anything.
![](https://static.pupperish.com/images/ZTvxkJLhSscC_3915.gif)
clothing falling off the hanger is reasonable, but when we showed up the only thing on the rod was the other half of the belt that they had tied to the rod, and some empty hangers. I remember this because I thought to myself that they had likely thrashed around a bit and pulled the clothing that was on those hangers onto the ground in the process.
the hanger wasn’t spinning a full 360 around the rod, but close to it. I was just using the propeller example as a visual aid
where I’m from we have paramedics as well as fire fighters trained as paramedics. One of these units will stick around to wait for us or secure the room/suite/residence and turn the keys over to us if there’s a long delay in response time. There was a crew on scene outside waiting for us but just weren’t standing in the room. Just in response to chain of custody questions.
12. sccrj888
Cop here.
Partner and I were dispatched to a welfare check. Elderly guy, nobody had seen him in a few days, mail over flowing in mailbox, missed a doctor's appointment, car hasn't moved, etc. We both know we are about to find a body. We arrive on scene and can't get anyone to the door, look through the window and sure enough, we can see his foot on the floor in the living room. My partner is a corporal and pulls rank and makes me go first. Door is unlocked and as soon as we open it we smell a mostly fresh dead body. Almost relieved, we both enter and he tells me to check vitals on dead dude. He is obviously dead, with lividity, dried feces on him and dried saliva around his mouth. So I go to stand over him and see if I can get a pulse at which point he takes a deep breath, rolls over, and asks why we are in his house. At this point we both start screaming oh shits and what the fucks as we both run out of the house. We called ems and they transported him. Said they couldn't get a blood pressure or pulse on him. I think he died a week later in the hospital. I still get jokes about raising the dead.
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13. canaryblu
I am a CNA in a local hospital. One of my patients just had a quad bypass (open heart surgery) and I went into check her vitals. The room was dim and the hall was quiet. I’m looking at her and in the corner of my eye I see something drop from the ceiling out of nowhere. It makes a big clunk sound and I turn to see what it could be. There’s nothing there. At that moment my patient looks up at me and say “my dads here.” Passes back out... I finish my job and leave. When I would go to that floor again as a floater I would hate to go into that room.
![](https://static.pupperish.com/images/uzPyQtYehjXi_3915.gif)
14. mattnewby04
This is a good supernatural/paranormal story rather than a creepy one.
I’m a detective and spent some time as an expert on sex crimes and crimes against children. It was the best /worst assignment I’ve had. One case I had came in at midnight. A young woman with a toddler comes into one of the precincts to report her ex-boyfriend raped her during a custody argument. Long story short- it was legit, and one of the most violent and sadistic cases I’ve ever had so I’ll spare the gruesome details. I still have no idea how this woman made her own way to a precinct with a toddler.
Part of the investigation requires me to talk to the toddler (victim said the toddler was present for everything). I’m a Child Forensic Interviewer as well. During the interview the toddler recalls their father becoming angry and hitting the mom. Then, the toddler said that the “nice woman” showed up and she couldn’t see past the nice woman. The “nice woman” held her and told her that they were both going to be safe and sang her a song in a different language. The toddler said the Nice Woman went over to the front door and knocked on the door. Then, the nice woman help them and their mom to the car before flying away.
In the victim’s interview, she said that her ex-boyfriend had a knife to her throat and put it to the skin to cut her throat open, but he got distracted for some reason then ran out of the apartment. She had no explanation why.
The suspect was caught about 8 hours later. He confessed to absolutely everything. When I asked him about the knife to the throat he said this:
![](https://static.pupperish.com/images/cuaLgrSsGZyh_3915.gif)
“I swear to god I was gonna cut the bitch’s throat open. But I thought I heard a knock at the door and thought it was the police. Once I saw it was clear, I ran outside.”
He is now serving life in prison, and the mom and toddler are safe and doing well. I’d love to know more about the Nice Woman.
Edit: Wow this blew up. I’m going to answer a few of the questions here and then turn my phone off so I don’t waste a rare day off talking about work!
Yes this is a real account of an interview I did. I feel comfortable sharing because I’m protecting the identity of the victim and the case has been adjudicated. It’s technically public information but a FOIA request could both confirm this account and take away anonymity for the victim. I’ll leave the details where they are.
I’d love to know more and would have loved to ask more questions, but a rule about Child Forensic Interviewing is that the Interviewer cannot introduce any information that the child hasn’t introduced themselves. This is to reduce suggestibility. Open-ended questions did not reveal any further details.
There is a rational explanation that children in crisis develop alternative narratives to cope with trauma. You can decide :)
15. jeep_devil_1775
I work in a pre civil war town that has lots of antebellum homes that survived the war. Ghost hunters have been to the town on several occasions. There is this one antebellum mansion that is more of a museum, that gets alarm calls semi frequently. Every time, the side door to the house is open and the kitchen has all cabinet doors and drawers open. Every. fucking. time. The care taker says its been happening since she started looking after the place about 30 years ago. We don’t clear it without backup.
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