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There are certain milestone moments that are forever vivid in a parent’s memory: A child’s first steps. Their first words. The first time they glance up from their dinner and casually mention, Did you know there’s an angry little boy named John who lives in the basement and he’s standing right behind you?

Kids can be (mostly) delightful little weirdos who say bizarre and baffling things from time to time. But what about those times when your kid says something that totally creeps you out? That makes it hard to fall asleep in the dark? Or leaves you wondering if maybe you should move to another house, perhaps immediately?

As parents, we understand that we should know better. We’re grown-ups! Parents are unflappable, the reassuring authorities who promise of course there’s no monster under the bed. Unfortunately, parents are also people who have spent decades being conditioned by Hollywood to believe that when kids say something freaky out of nowhere, it might mean that there are ghost twins lurking in the hotel hallway, or your TV is possessed by demons, or you haven’t yet realized that you’re actually dead.

We invited readers to share stories of things kids said that left their caregivers totally spooked. Here are some of our favorite submissions, lightly edited for length and clarity.

One day I was standing in my then-6-year-old daughter’s bedroom doorway and talking with her, and she kept looking past me into the hallway. There was nothing there. “What is it?” I asked.

“It’s the lady in the blue dress,” she said. “She walks around the house and comes into my room sometimes.”

— Kristina Rose, Chicago

When my now-9-year-old was 2 or 3, he nonchalantly reported a shadowy figure called “The Big Thief” who lived in his closet and who came out at night to watch him sleep. The Big Thief had arms and legs but vaporous smoke as a face; my son was very, very clear about what The Big Thief looked like, where he lived in the closet (hung up on hangers like the clothes), how he behaved, and he has absolutely no memory of any this today.

— Rebecca Summerlot, Windermere, Fla.

From the time our daughter was 2½ to age 5, she talked about “Offogans” visiting her at night. According to her, Offogans are creatures that live in the woods, hang out on roofs and visit children at night. She told us that Offogans were not very scary, though, because “they only eat adults and carrots.”

— Alissa Olson, Park City, Utah

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When my son was 3 or 4 years old, he used to tell us about his “other Mom and Dad” and his “other family.” He had one sibling, like he does now. The comments would come up at random times — walking through a local fair, or while we were eating dinner. But once we were driving through a new town, and as we passed a building, he pointed at it and said: “We all died in a fire, in a building that looks like that one.”

— Barbara B., East Hampton, Conn.

Sitting at the top of a slide on a windy day, my 5-year-old son Gregory paused and declared, in a particularly dramatic tone: “When the wind blows, and the trees dance — that’s when the wolves come.”

— Elizabeth Villemez, D.C.

After my husband died of a heart attack, I moved in with my daughter and her family. They had just moved into an older home on a beautiful lake. The previous owners were Mona and Irvin, who had built the home, raised their children there and passed away after long lives. One day, my 3-year-old grandson, Hayden, was sitting in my lap and he touched my necklace and said, “You know, Mona used to wear a necklace just like this.” A few days later, we found a large wedding photo of Mona and Irvin in a closet. Hayden looked at it and said, “I know that guy! He swings from that tree outside into the lake.”

— Charmaine Sforza-Flick, Miami

Before having children, my husband and I had a dog, a boxer named Oscar Bean who was the best dog/fur baby anyone could hope to have. We always joked that we hoped our human children would be as well-behaved as our dog. When I was pregnant with my daughter, Oscar was 10 years old, and he died eight days before our daughter was born.

Three years later, my toddler was sitting at a table in my office, coloring and playing with toys while I worked. She looked up at my bookshelf and saw a framed picture of a dog and asked, “Is that a picture of Oscar?” I replied, “Yes, it is.” She stared at the picture for a moment and then looked at me and said in a very serious tone, “You know I was Oscar last time?” and then she went back to coloring. (Perhaps she is the reincarnation of our beloved dog. But the dog was a hell of a lot easier to train.)

— Carla Emerson, Flemingsburg, Ky.

While babysitting my 15-month-old grandson, I was feeding him his breakfast in the dining room. Suddenly, he stopped eating and looked over my shoulder into the living room. He said “hi,” smiled and waved. He excitedly chatted in his baby speech for a few moments, then waved his hand and said “goodbye.” There was no one that I could see in the living room.

— Barbara Mayers, D.C.

On a trip home from visiting grandparents when my son was about 3 years old, he started quietly and slowly counting down backwards, unprompted. It was just he and I in the car and the sun was low as we drove through winding, rural roads. “Eight, seven, six, five …” he said, looking out the window, and then trailed off into a minute-long silence. We made eye contact in the rearview mirror and he said to me: “Mom, you will die.”

Thoroughly shocked, I replied, “I’m sorry, what did you say?” My son quietly responded, matter-of-fact: “Mom, you will die. Dad will die, too.” Now thoroughly creeped out as we continued to drive through the middle of nowhere, I asked him again: “What are you talking about?”

My son, with a dead-seriousness no 3-year-old should have: “... When the numbers run out, you will die.” Before I had a chance to respond, he changed the subject to something benign and never spoke of it again. He’s 9 now and has no memory of this exchange; I, on the other hand, will never forget it!

— Keiko Zoll, Swampscott, Mass.

Our 6-year-old daughter, Eve, once made a lovely drawing with pop-up gravestones. She showed it to us and proudly explained: “Look, there’s one for each of us.”

— Meshelle Armstrong, Alexandria, Va.

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We moved into a rental house when my son was in third grade. Immediately, he told me about the man who lived in his closet and died in the bedroom he was using. I used to hear my son having conversations with this man in the closet when he’d be playing alone in his room. My son said the man was very nice, and was happy a boy was living in his bedroom. I explained to my son that no one had died in this house; the woman who owned it was a widow for many years, and when she got too old to continue living there on her own, she was placed in a nursing home. The woman’s eldest son was acting as my landlord, but both were still very much alive. My son told me I was wrong. He was adamant that the man that lived in his closet died there. Three months later, I was out in my yard and the elderly next-door neighbor struck up a conversation with me for the first time. He said he missed the woman and her younger son that lived together there. He explained that he felt guilty that this younger son had once been kind enough to shovel the snow from both their driveways, then returned to his mom’s house and died of a heart attack in the room my son was staying in. That’s why the woman had to be placed in a nursing home — her younger son was no longer around to help her. My mouth dropped open. My only response: “Please don’t tell my son this.” The neighbor assured me he’d never scare a child with this information. We moved out after a year. I told my son this when he became an adult — he’s 29 years old now. He still remembers the man who lived in his closet.

— Robin Morriss, Lehi, Utah

My daughter, who was about 5 or 6 at the time, came into my bed early in the morning. She was lying next to me and I was only half awake. She whispered in my ear, “I will always love you with all my heart. Even when you’re dead.” That woke me right up!

— Elizabeth Crego, Alexandria, Va.

My husband and his family grew up in the neighborhood where we currently live with our teenage daughter. One day, when she was in kindergarten, we were waiting at the bus stop down the street from our home, and she looked up at me and told me she wanted to go to her “other house.” I asked for an explanation and she replied, “The blue one. The one with the cats.” She then pointed toward a house up the street. (There was no blue house that I could see.) Later, I told my husband about our conversation. He explained that his grandmother, who died about 30 years before, lived in a blue house on that street, but it had burned down many years before. She’d also had many cats. As far as we know, there is no way our daughter could have known any of that information about her “Grammaw Missy.”

— Gail Finney, Staunton, Va.

My father died 10 years before my son was born. My son bears a striking resemblance to my dad, and they have many interests and preferences in common. Starting around age 3, my son has mentioned multiple times, with no prompting, that he “met” my dad before he was born, “when I was a spirit.”

— Carol Katarsky, Philadelphia

Many years ago while driving with my 4-year-old son, I noticed him looking pensively out the window. I asked him what he was thinking about and he replied, “I’m talking to my friend John Henry.” My son did not know anyone named John Henry. I asked him what John Henry was saying, and my son said, “He’s telling me to hurt puppies and kittens and I told him he shouldn’t.” I nearly drove the car off the road and into a ditch. Preschool teachers and therapists were consulted. His father and I watched him carefully for any signs of violence or acting out. We would casually ask about John Henry after that, but he was never mentioned again by our son.

— Alice Allen, Austin

One fall evening, when our son was 2 years old, he was sleeping in bed with me and my husband. Suddenly, around 10 p.m., our toddler sat straight up in the bed and said: “They’re coming.” My husband and I asked, “Who’s coming?!” but our son stayed silent. Then he went back to sleep — but we didn’t.

— Frankie Cevallos, Montclair, N.J.

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I take care of my two grandsons (they’re four months apart, one each from my two sons) during the week, and have done so since they were about a year old. They’re 2 years old now. One day I had my back to them and they both started excitedly and happily saying, “GG Jo! GG Jo!” over and over for several seconds, and then stopped suddenly; they’d never said it before and haven’t said it since. ‘GG Jo’ is the name all of her great-grandchildren called my mother, but as far as I know, no one in the family had told them this. These little boys are her youngest great-grandchildren. One was 4 months old when she passed away, the other was only 3 weeks old. They never knew her. I didn’t turn around when they seemed to be so happy to see her, afraid I either would or wouldn’t see her myself. It made the hair on my arms stand up.

— Colleen Jury, Seattle

My two preschoolers and I lived with my mom and brother in an older duplex with a basement. My brother and I slept in bedrooms in the basement, although I always wound up sleeping upstairs with the kids in their room. One day the power went out, and we were all upstairs in the living room with candles. My mom wanted to tell scary stories because of the ambiance. Everything was all good until my son, who was 4 at the time, interrupted and asked if my mom was talking about the “gods in the basement” while she was telling her scary story. My brother is easy to spook, and the look on his face was priceless.

— Catherine Delos Santos, Seattle

One day, after playing at the park, my 5-year-old son asked me a question about his grandmother out of the blue. I was startled, but answered him, and we talked about her a little bit. We later found out that she had died suddenly at almost the exact same time he asked about her.

— Lydia Wong, Cary, N.C.

When my younger daughter was 4 years old, we were getting ready to head out for the morning and she was taking a long time putting on her shoes. I asked her to hurry, and she nonchalantly responded, “I’m trying, but Creepy Kay is distracting me.” I tried to play it cool in the moment, but I asked her about this later, and she told me that Creepy Kay was always nice to her, but that she “is mean to mean people, and nice to nice people.” We still talk about Creepy Kay to this day.

— Mona Youngblood, Carmel, Ind.

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