A near-death experience…but make it paranormal.
These last few months, my Roman Empire has been “third man syndrome.”
Some people say it’s like a disembodied voice or a gut feeling they can’t shake.
Others…well…they are literally visited by a “third person” in the flesh.
However, the term itself comes from the T.S.
Here are 21 stories they shared:
1.
My mom said she saw a hand and arm from the corner of her eye shut the door."
stephaniejog
2.
“At midnight on Christmas Eve in 2009, I was driving in a blizzard in Lincoln, Nebraska.
Three or four inches had fallen in an hour, and the snow wasn’t stopping.
My car slid backward and stopped in the street.
I got out of the car to assess the situation and got back in, frustrated.
At midnight on a holiday, help could take hours to arrive.
This wasn’t life-threatening, but it would ruin my Christmas!
Wondering whether to give it another spin, I suddenly saw a dark figure at my window.”
“He gestured that he was going to push and then got behind the car.
I gave it gas, and we got the car up the driveway!
He had disappeared in the 30 seconds I had taken to park and walk back to him.
There was no sight of anyone up or down the street he just vanished.”
quirkyogre46
3.
“I was about 12 years old.
My mom left me in the car while she ran into the corner store.
This store was connected to a few other businesses, one of them being a bar.
They started complimenting me and asking me to join them for ‘some fun.’
I was very embarrassed and scared and said no thank you.
I was a naive girl who went through puberty at a young age.
I was frozen and couldnt say anything.
I just sat there.
“Suddenly, my mom came running out of the store.
She started yelling at the men and caused a big scene.
She got into the car with me, and I was so relieved.
I was confused because I did not honk the horn at all.
She said in the store she heard a car horn honking and then someone just holding it down.
She thought it was me and ran to help.
It wasnt me, and I didnt hear any honking.”
Shannon, Ohio, USA
4.
The camp kept us pretty busy.
The only free time counselors had was at night after the campers were in their bunks.
One night, I was returning alone from the main lodge.
The guys have something planned for you.'
Wordlessly, he accompanied me to my cabin by a different route, then walked off into the darkness.
Anonymous
5.
“I was taking a shortcut across a frozen reservoir on the way to a friend’s house.
Suddenly, the ice cracked, and I started to fall through.
I felt two hands slam into my back, and I skidded across the ice.
I was soaking wet when I arrived at my friend’s house, cold and shivering.
My friend turned white, and his eyes were bugging out of his head.
There were two hand-shaped bruises forming on my back.
Forty-plus years later, I still get chills thinking about it.”
Mike,New Jersey, USA
6.
We got to talking about gold panning, and he asked if I’d like to try that afternoon.
With nothing else to do, I agreed.
We drove out to the woods, miles from anywhere or anyone, somewhere along the American River.
The farther we got, the quieter he became.
How could I be so stupid?
As we got out of the car, he’d gone completely silent.
I knew then that I was going to die.”
“Suddenly, a family in a Jeep pulled up behind our car and just looked at us.
No one said anything.
They looked, and then turned around and left.
The guy I was with then quickly said that we had to leave.
All I could think at the time was, ‘Thank you.
We got in the car, and he took me all the way home, right to my door.
I never saw him again.”
Cy, Foster, USA
7.
This resulted in me spending much of my elementary education in isolated suspension.
Well, turns out he never existed."
“More than 20 years later, I still remember him better than most of my classmates.
When I asked about him, no one knew a thing about who he was.
This was a school where graduating classes were rarely ever over 100.
He wasn’t in any yearbooks, even in the ‘absent for photographs’ section.”
t492e49f12
8.
“I was in high school at the time and was spending the evening at home.
I had watched ascary movie, which usually never bothered me.
Usually, I can sleep through anything.
I live in California, so sleeping through earthquakes was normal for me.
When I opened my eyes, I saw a hand opening my bedroom window.”
I ran downstairs to wake my parents, and we called the police.
He had planned out everything to get to me.
He hid a ladder to reach my second-floor window and made sure it was unlocked.
I am so thankful for whoever woke me up that night.
It truly saved me.
I will always listen to my feelings of unease."
“I’m a healthcare provider and was traveling to a satellite site in another state.
I got a call back from the state police and apologized for the error.
I laughed it off as a weird glitch and went on with my day.
“I got up and walked for a bit but had a sharp pain in my left calf.
Im a major klutz, so I figured I pulled a muscle.
I was appalled and apologized profusely to the call taker.
She laughed and graciously asked if I was okay, which I confirmed.
My husband laughed it off, too.
The next day, the pain in my leg was excruciating, but I blew it off.
Other than the pain, I had had no outward symptoms.
The hospital staff were as blown away as was I.”
TL Reign, Wilmington, DE
10.
The foam was super deep under the machine and the floor was super slippery because of the soapy bubbles.
My friend slipped into the foam and I fell down to the floor, under the bubbles with her.
When I tried to breathe, it was like I was drowning the foam filled my lungs like water.
I was slipping all over on the floor holding on to my friend’s shirt.
Just as I thought we were going to drown in the bubbles, someone pulled us up.
I was way too slippery my friend and I couldnt even hold hands, our skin was so slick.
I was lucky just to hang on to her shirt.”
When I wiped my eyes clear, there was no one there except the other people dancing around us.
Needless to say, I never went to a foam party again."
My husband and I had only one car, and I was using it.
Well, my car ran out of gas on the way home.
I pulled over and used my flashing lights, hoping the police would stop to help me.
In those days, there were no cellphones, so I had no way to contact my husband.
“He wasn’t the police, but I rolled down my window a little.
He seemed nice and offered to drive me home, which was just about three miles away.
He waited at my house until I got in, and I waved goodbye.
The operator said there was no such person with his name who worked there.
I believe God had sent me a guardian, and I’ll always be sincerely thankful!”
Dottie, Kirkland, WA
12.
“I was driving back to college my freshman year and got totally lost in a heavily wooded area.
This was before GPS and cellphones, so I was just stuck on these roads alone.
The rain was so heavy I could barely see the road.
Suddenly, a house with all the lights on appeared.
“A woman opened the door and invited me inside.
The house was empty except for a big bean bag chair in the kitchen.
Johanna, Georgia, USA
13.
She’s a young woman I know well.
She used to clean my house for me, sometimes when I was not at home.
After one of those times, she asked me if I had a ghost in the house.
I told her not to my knowledge.
Instead of falling, she felt a hand push her back upright.
I have known her since she was in preschool.
She is intelligent and sensible, not given to wild imaginings or to making up stories.
If she said it happened, I believe it did.”
“I asked if she had been scared.
She said no, she had felt very safe.
She believed it was my husband, who had died in a plane crash many years earlier.
She had never known him, but she was sure it was him.
“I was in my 20s and living in San Jose.
My parents had moved to Mariposa, and I was driving to see them and their new place.
As I drove, I noticed my gas gauge losing gas quickly.
I had to stop a few times to add gas.
So, I stopped on a big shoulder of the road to check it.
I was surprised to see a big semi-truck pull over, too.”
Still, no one got out of the semi-truck.
I felt as if I was being watched, but I wasnt afraid.
I felt comforted, actually.
I got in my car and drove off, watching the truck in my rearview mirror.
It started up and began to follow me.
It hadn’t passed me it was just gone.
I was a bit shocked that it had seemingly disappeared, but the comforting feeling continued.
My guardian angel.”
Lynne C, California, USA
15.
She was very young and looked like a teenager.
She wore all-white scrubs and would braid my hair when I was lonely and couldn’t sleep.
She’d sit with me for hours on end without having to go anywhere else.”
“One night, she stayed with me when my parents couldn’t.
I felt a pain in my side and told her about it.
It was the most intense pain I had ever felt at that point in my life.
My call button wasn’t working, and there were no other nurses but her to help.
She told me she was going to get help.
About a minute later, a group of doctors and nurses burst into my room, asking who screamed.
Everyone had heard it except for me.
That really confused me.
The nurse in white had braided them, as I was and am still hopeless at braiding.
To this day, I know that was a guardian angel.
I haven’t seen her since, but I know she’s still with me.”
“In 2009, my husband and I both lost our jobs, then lost our home.
The state insurance for our daughter had not started yet, so she was uninsured at this time.
I had to go get a prescription for her that she really needed.
I didnt think it would cost too much, but it was over $300.
I sat down on a chair around the corner of the pharmacy, still in the store.
I just started sobbing.
I had been through too much, and this was it.
I didnt know what to do.
Suddenly, someone came up to me and handed me $350 in cash rolled up.”
“I dont remember what they looked like.
I dont think I even looked at them; I was crying so hard.
I was so surprised.
I said, ‘Thank you, are you sure?’
And they confirmed, saying it was for my daughter.
I finally looked up…and no one was there.
I went to the counter and paid for the RX.
I looked around for that person, but I never found them.
I still thank them when I think about it.”
My little Ford Festiva was stuck.
A bus driver stopped and called police for help, as well as a tow truck.
It was then that a tall, thin, older man came out of nowhere.
I cannot remember his face for the life of me."
“He took my hand in a calm, reassuring voice and said, ‘Don’t worry, honey.
The train barreled by, and my friend and I were full-out crying, thinking he had been killed.
I looked around to say thank you to the very nice man, but he was nowhere.
There was literally nothing around there, nowhere to go.
Michelle, Dallas, TX
18.
“I once fell about 10 feet from a ledge overlooking a lake.
Suddenly, I felt a large hand on my back that caught me and pushed me against the wall.
Surprised, I turned around to thank my savior…and no one was there.
“I was taking my mother to a doctor’s appointment at a hospital.
It was a campus-style hospital, so there was not an obvious place to go.
We were walking down the sidewalk, which was along a busy street.
The voice said, ‘Turn around.’
The voice was louder and accompanied by this urge to follow its direction.
I still did my best to shrug it off.
‘TURN AROUND!'”
“I’m nearly 75 years of age, and haven’t thought of this incident for years.
I was raised in North Alabama, the youngest of three brothers.
Our family would often vacation on the panhandle of the Florida Gulf Coast near Destin and Panama City.
I was wading and stepped off into water deeper than I realized.
I didn’t say anything to anyone at the time, not knowing what to say.
To this day, I can’t quite grasp what really happened.”
“I was 34 years old and new to California.
I did my laundry at a laundromat about three blocks from my residence.
This particular Sunday, the laundromat was open but empty.
I had finished two washing loads and started to load a dryer.
Two large guys got out.
One walked up to the only door of the laundromat, blocking my only exit.
The other guy stayed by the car, standing by the driver’s side door.
Then, a large woman got out of the back seat.
“All the hairs on my neck stood up, and I started hyperventilating.
I knew I was in trouble.
I started grabbing my soaking wet clothes out of the washer and stuffed them into a pillow case.
He was carrying a toddler.
I just knew I was meant to follow him.
Sure enough, he got his change and stood by the man until he stepped aside.
I looked for the man and his little girl as I left, but there was no one there.
Note: Submissions are edited for length and/or clarity.
