We all know that kids can say the darnedest things, but sometimes there are downright creepy things kids say, too.
Gary Robusto, co-founder of the Tri-City NY Paranormal Society, has been working as a paranormal investigator for 24 years and has seen and heard it all — from stories of past lives to encounters with apparitions. He says, “Children are open and accepting in a way that most adults aren’t.” In fact, it’s not unusual, according to Robusto, for children to describe paranormal phenomena that defies a rational explanation.
“Children are open and accepting in a way that most adults aren’t.”
—Gary Robusto, paranormal investigator
In the spirit of Halloween, we asked parents to share the spookiest things their children have said. Their responses will have you sleeping with the lights on! But have no fear, says Robusto: “Most spirits are harmless. They’re just trying to communicate.”
Gone… but not forgotten
- “Even though they’d never met, my youngest talks about my deceased father as if they spend time together. One day, she told me all about how Grandpa taught her how to bait a hook for fishing (he was an avid sport fisherman). She’s never in her life even held a fishing pole, but described in great detail the right way to do it.”
— Jayme Kennedy, Upland, California - “When my daughter was around 1, she was babbling and playing in her room. I peeked in, and asked her who she was talking to. ‘Pop pop,’ she said. ‘No, pop pop is in the living room,’ I said, thinking she was talking about my dad. She got up, walked to our dining room and pointed to a photo of my grandfather, who had passed away years before my daughter was born.”
— Harmony Fletcher, Harpursville, New York - “When Ella was 3 years old, my husband and I heard her giggling and talking to someone. ‘What’s so funny?’ I asked. ‘No! HE is so funny,’ she said. ‘Who?’ I asked. She answered, ‘James!’ I froze. We all referred to my best friend, who had taken his own life, by his last name. My daughter, like most people, wouldn’t have known that his first name was James.”
— Jeanetta Muncrief Linville, Yulee, Florida - “My son was 7 when his grandmother died. For about a week after her burial, he would go to the kitchen or his room by himself and say, ‘Hi, Grandma!’ The visits stopped after about a week.”
— Ariana Concepción, Yonkers, New York
Nice to meet you
- “When my oldest daughter was 3, she was climbing on the kitchen stool and kept saying, very annoyed, ‘Stop it! Don’t push me!’ ‘I’m nowhere near you,’ I said. ‘Not you,’ She said, ‘Mano. Cowboy and Mano used to live here, but now they’re gone.’ We lived in a 1930s bungalow — very Old Hollywood. I told her to tell Cowboy and Mano that they are welcome here, but in our house we don’t push or hit people.”
— Halina Newberry Grant, Culver City, California - “When my son was 2, we were playing together in our basement. He was running, then he stopped suddenly and was staring down the dark hallway with our laundry room at the end. He waves to the hallway, then says to me, ‘Mommy, who’s that little boy looking at me?’ Dude, I nearly had a heart attack.”
— Marie Villani York, Yonkers, New York - “My little sister once told my mom she was having a tea party with my deceased grandmother (who she never got a chance to meet). After my sister told my grandma that her dress was beautiful, my mom asked her what the dress looked like, and my sister described a gray dress exactly like the one she was buried in.”
— Krystina Proctor, Yorktown Heights, New York - “While playing with his toys in the bath, my 2-year-old son suddenly stops, looks over my shoulder behind me, points and says ‘Lolo!’ which means grandpa in Tagalog (we’re Filipino). My dad died 7 years before my son was born.”
— Joy Arzaga Gosh, Chappaqua, New York
Strange and scary sightings
- “When my daughter was about 4 years old, we were driving through the cemetery to visit my grandmother’s grave. I made a comment about no one being there. ‘What about that little boy standing right there?’ she said, pointing at the graves … and, uh, yeah, there was no little boy there.”
— Lisa Devito, Somers, New York - “When I was 7, while in bed one night, I saw the devil in the ceiling of my bedroom. My mother insisted I must’ve been sleeping, but I know I was awake. Years later, when I told my wife and daughter the story, my daughter told us that when she was 8 years old, she saw the same thing. ‘I never told you because you wouldn’t have believed me’.”
— Keith Larkin, Maywood, Illinois - “My 1-year-old son used to have night terrors. He’d just stare out the back patio door and scream. He clearly looked like he was ‘seeing’ something. Once he became verbal, he would often talk about a ‘mean lady’ that visited him at night.”
— Rachel G., Minneapolis - “When my daughter was 2, she would often ask me who the man in our house was. Then he became the ‘bad man,’ which made the mama bear in me come out. I smudged our home and it stopped.”
— Viviana Llaurado-Marino, Cortlandt Manor, New York - “My daughter, who will be 3 in October, just started with this [scary behavior] back in May. We were at a BBQ, and all of a sudden she was terrified. I asked what was scaring her. She pointed and said, ‘the boy.’ From then on, she started talking about the boy in her room and wouldn’t sleep in her bed without me lying on the floor. I asked what the boy looks like she said, ‘blue with red eyes’.”
— Amy Vitolo, Peekskill, New York
Past lives and spooky premonitions
- “When I was 3 or 4, my mom says she showed me a picture of my aunt who had passed away two months before I was born. Without hesitation, I said, ‘I know who that is. That’s Aunt Diane. She took care of me before I got here!’”
— Jacqui Lampo, Valhalla, New York - “My son was about 2 when we were watching a PBS show about World War II. My son turned to me and said, ‘I died there. Don’t you remember?’ Yikes!”
— Marcy Klein, New Rochelle, New York - “When I was 3, I fell down a flight of stairs backwards in my footie PJs and just missed a glass table. I ran to my mother after it happened and she told me I kept saying that I saw ‘the man from church with the long beard’ and that he kept telling me to go somewhere with him, but the little girl that was with him told him I was too young and had to stay for much longer with my mommy.”
— Jennifer Louros, Yonkers, New York - “When my son was 5 years old, it was raining early in the morning as I was leaving for work. I went to say goodbye and he says, ‘Be careful with the tree.’ I was like weird but OK. On my way to work that day, a tree fell right in front of my car!”
— Natalia Leiva Pizarro, Patterson, New York - “A few days before I had my miscarriage when my daughter was 2, she was sitting on my lap and looking into the middle distance, she said, ‘Bye bye, baby. Bye bye, baby’.”
— Anonymous, Culver City, California
