- You've probably at some point heard
at least one story about the Boogeyman,
a frightening creature which hides in dark places
and comes for us when we are most vulnerable.
Now most of these stories have been
disregarded as superstition,
tales conjured up to terrify misbehaving children.
However, what's striking about the Boogeyman
is that it exists in almost every culture around the world
in one form or another.
It may be then that these stories represent something
unthinkable which science has not yet encountered.
(growling)
(woman screams)
Here are 10 terrifying real encounters with the Boogeyman.
(tense music)
Number 10 is the imp in the closet.
A frightening aspect about Boogeyman lore
is that this malevolent entity can take different forms.
In 1952, for example, a boy named Dan Bortco
encountered one such horrid incarnation.
Dan and his family had moved recently to an old farm house,
complete with a barn nearby.
It didn't take long for him to start
experiencing the paranormal.
He pleaded with his parents, telling them that
there was something else in the house.
It appeared to be humanoid in shape,
about three feet tall, and had the twisted appearance
of a troll or imp from German folklore.
This menacing figure would wait until the family was in bed
and then step out from a closet in Dan's room,
leering at him as if enjoying frightening the child.
One night Dan looked out of his window
and saw the creature meeting several others outside
of the barn as if they were planning something terrible.
(tense music)
Number nine is dangerous friendship.
One of the most frightening incarnations of the Boogeyman
is when it takes the form of another child.
The familiar sight of a withered hand reaching out
of a closet or from underneath a bed
is replaced here by something markedly more sinister.
In one account, a young girl who was about seven years old
spoke about her friend Emily.
Emily lived in her closet, had long dark hair,
and was also a seven-year-old girl.
At first, this seemed like a normal imaginary friend,
but its true dark purpose soon became apparent.
Emily hated the family who lived there.
She slowly but surely gained influence
over the people in the house,
and wanted them to turn on each other,
causing them to sleepwalk and put their lives in danger.
When the family moved, Emily did not follow,
and whatever she really was
is still and the closet in that old house.
Number eight is the creeper man.
(tense music)
We often think that children don't have
a good grasp on reality.
However many believe that they are actually
more attuned to what is around us than adults are.
This may explain why many Boogeyman encounters
happen to young people.
In one instance, a child spoke about the strange entity
which lived in his grandparents' house,
which only he could see.
After each visit to the house, the child would talk
about the creature in one of the the rooms.
He referred to it as the creeper man.
At first, the boy's parents thought it was nothing
to worry about, but the child was adamant
that something unnatural was in his grandparents' home,
and that it only showed itself to him.
When his mother asked him what the man looked like,
he answered ominously with "he doesn't have a face."
(tense music)
Number seven are sharp fingers.
If you were to look at European folklore and fairy tales,
you'd see that some descriptions of frightening creatures
are eerily similar to each other.
It's been suggested that the reason for this
is that these descriptions come from very real
encounters with the Boogeyman.
One such recurring feature is fingers
with long scratching nails.
What's most unsettling about this is that
people are still encountering something in their homes
which matches this description.
In one recent post online, an internet user
by the name Charmaine described how a troll-like creature
with sharp yellow teeth and red eyes
would come out from the shadows in her room at night.
At first, it merely stared and grinned at her,
but one night the creature jumped onto her bed
and scratched her with his sharpened fingers.
(tense music)
Number six is it watches me.
Sally was just seven years old when she woke up one night.
As many children do, she got out of bed
and wandered towards her parents' room for comfort.
As she walked across the living room, Sally froze.
Her eyes adjusted to the darkness, and she finally took in
what her mind was trying to tell her.
Someone was sitting in a nearby chair looking at her.
It was so dark Sally said "Mom?"
The figure in the chair shook its head.
That's when in desperation, she said her stepdad's name,
but the thing in the chair shook its head again.
Sally ran back to her bed, terrified,
and when she looked up, the figure was standing
in her doorway, grinning and convulsing.
When Sally screamed, her parents ran into her room,
but there was no one there.
However, Sally's mom had left some folded clothes
on the chair of the living room
where the figure had been sitting,
and they had been thrown on the ground.
(tense music)
Number five is ghost theory.
Some have suggested that the stories we hear
about haunted houses can be attributed to
the Boogeyman phenomenon.
This would explain why most encounters with the Boogeyman
are restricted to a localized area
such as a house or living room.
In one encounter, a family moved to just one such house.
While there, one of the children began to see
strange things, shadow people moving around the house,
strange reflections in a mirror,
even noises you would normally associate
with a classic haunting.
However, the entity in the house seemed to have
betrayed its true nature one night when one of the children
heard something coming from their closet.
When the family investigated, they saw two glowing eyes
staring back at them from inside.
This was no haunting,
it was something entirely more malevolent.
Number four is it began with fear.
(tense music)
One reported encounter with the Boogeyman
occurred in South Africa several years ago.
While living at home, a 13-year-old girl
began to wake during the night.
She was unsure why.
At first the nightly waking was accompanied
with an unsettling feeling.
Soon, that grew into a thick sense of dread and fear.
The strange thing was the girl had no idea
why she was so frightened,
but over time she came to understand
that the fear was anticipation,
that something truly evil was going to visit her.
Then one night she woke up,
the terror had reached its peak.
Opening her eyes, she saw a grotesque smiling face
staring directly at her.
When the light was switched on, it disappeared,
but each night the face would return.
Over the years, the creature would taunt the girl
night after night until she finally learned the truth.
The Boogeyman was feeding on her fear.
(tense music)
Number three is caught in the act.
As you can see, most Boogeyman encounters involve children.
However, adults sometimes come face to face
with these dangerous creatures as well.
In one such encounter, a father and his two-year-old son
had the same nightly routine.
During the night, the son would start to scream.
When the father rushed to the room,
the son would keep repeating the same phrase
over and over again, bad man, bad man.
The father assumed that this was a recurring nightmare
until one night when his son cried out.
He looked at the baby monitor screen first.
What he saw chilled him to the bone.
Standing over the boy's bed was a tall, gaunt figure.
The father grabbed a weapon and ran to the room,
but no one was in the room other than his frightened son.
The father had no idea what he saw that night,
but it scared him enough to put up the house for sale.
(tense music)
Number two is no words.
In a small number of these cases,
people witnessed something so frightening and unusual
that their minds could not fathom what happened
in front of their eyes.
When faced with a scared child talking about the Boogeyman
at night, most parents don't expect to see anything.
They calmly reassure the child
and hope that it's just a stage
which the child will soon grow out of.
But not every parent is that lucky.
In one anonymous post online,
a user described how his fiance's son
had problems sleeping in his own room.
He always ran out of the room crying during the night,
so frustrated, the mother eventually told the child
that she would sleep in the room for one night
to show that there was nothing going on there.
The next day, the mother was visibly shaken.
She couldn't describe what she saw,
but after that night, she did not want her son
sleeping in that room any more.
And number one is are you alone?
(tense music)
Perhaps the most chilling encounter with the Boogeyman
happened to a Redditor some years ago.
As a child, the Redditor had moved into a new
two-story house with his family.
They were decorating the old home together.
One day the child heard his mother upstairs singing.
When he called out "Mom?" the mother naturally replied
from a room on the second floor.
The child ran upstairs to find his mother,
but just as he was about to open a creaking door
to an old room, the mother asked loudly
"Sweetie, are you home?"
The problem was, this voice came from downstairs.
The child ran away from the room on the second floor,
hearing something shuffling around inside the room.
The door opened slightly and something hideous
was watching through the gap.
Whatever it was, it had pretended to be the mother
to lure the child inside.
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