Creepy Details About The 'Dear David' Ghost Story Of A Child Haunting A Man's NY Apartment
PSA: do not read after dark.
getty If you've been on Twitter lately, you've probably asked yourself two questions: Who is Dear David? And is the Dear David ghost story real?
Either way, buckle up. You're in for a heck of a story about paranormal activity happening right now.
For the past few days, all of Twitter has been engulfed by the seemingly real-life ghost story about a man who's being haunted by a little boy with a very large dent in his head.
Adam Ellis, a.k.a. @moby_dickhead, tweeted on Aug. 7 that his apartment is being haunted by a small child who he's pretty convinced is trying to kill him. No big deal right?
In the Twitter thread that quickly went viral, Ellis said that he first saw the child in a dream. He often experiences sleep paralysis — a feeling of being conscious but unable to move — and said while he was in such a state, he saw a small boy sitting in the green rocking chair at the end of his bed.
Now, this wasn't some cute, innocent looking little kid.
The child Ellis says he saw looked something like this:
The sketch above was drawn by Ellis, who claims the ghost boy he saw had a huge misshapen dent in his head. During the dream, the small boy got out of the chair and started to make his way up Ellis' bed. But like most terrifying nightmares, Ellis woke up screaming right before the boy could reach him.
Freaking out yet?
A few days later, Ellis said he had another dream where he was in a library when a girl approached him. She said, "You've seen David, haven't you?"
She told Ellis that David is dead and he only appears at midnight. You can ask him two questions if you say "Dear David" first, but if you try to ask him a third question, he'll kill you.
Ellis said David came back into a dream in the same situation he was before, sitting in his green rocking chair. So Ellis said the magic words and asked David how he died.
"An accident in a store," David replied.
When Ellis asked what happened in the store, David replied that a shelf was pushed onto his head, which I'm guessing is what caused the massive dent. Frightened, Ellis mistakenly asked who pushed the shelf, which we all know he shouldn't have done.
David didn't answer, and Ellis immediately woke up terrified.
Ellis said he searched Google to find any story about a boy who died in a store but came up empty. A few weeks later, with no more dreams of David, Ellis moved into the larger apartment on the floor above him.
A month went by and there was still no sign of David.
But then, Ellis' two cats started randomly gathering by the front door at midnight. When he first tweeted about their strange behavior, he said it had happened four nights in a row.
For the next few days, Ellis documented his cat's nightly routine on Twitter and even worked up the courage to open the door. The cats still seemed weirded out, but nothing was there.
Then he took a photo through the peephole.
In the days that have passed, Ellis has gained almost national social media attention for living this real-life ghost story, even getting a shout out from actress Rachel Dratch. After being prompted by his very concerned followers, Ellis tested his apartment for carbon monoxide to make sure he wasn't being poisoned and tried to use the Sleep Talk app but was unsuccessful in catching any ghost sounds.
He even made a row of salt in front of the door, which some people believe can protect you against evil spirits.
Though Ellis' life is currently the kind of thing nightmares are made of, people are starting to question the validity of the story and if the whole thing was made up just get more Twitter followers.
Here's what we know.
1. Adam Ellis sort of well-known (or is at least trying to be).
According to his Twitter bio, Adam Ellis is an illustrator, cartoonist, and author who has a comic book coming out in 2018 (which he had no problem tweeting out to his 125,000 followers after his ghost story went viral).
He writes some articles for BuzzFeed and is co-hosts a podcast titled "Better Friendship." He also has his only clothing line called "adamtots" where he sells shirts that read things like "nap kween" and "plant daddy." So needless today, a little publicity wouldn't hurt him (or his wallet). Despite all this, Ellis still says Dear David is 100% real.
2. He's thinking about consulting a medium.
In an interview with Bustle, Ellis said that he's had dozens of people reach out saying they could help him get rid of his ghost — or even communicate with him.
"I've had probably 100 people DM me either claiming to be mediums, or recommending mediums they know," he said. "A few people are also trying to get me in touch with their priests. It's hard to tell who's serious and who's just trying to get in on this 'game' they think I'm playing. But no, I haven't involved a medium yet. In the movies they usually just piss the ghost off, so I'm trying to take my time before making any decisions."
3. He's also been approached about turning his saga into some sort of film.
In that same interview, Ellis said people have asked him if he'd like to turn his encounters with Dear David into a book or a movie, but he said he's not ready for that yet.
"I'm not really pursuing anything yet since I feel like I'm in the middle of something I don't understand yet."
4. The rocking chair at the end of his bed isn't like the one you typically see in scary movies.
Tons of his followers flipped at the idea of someone putting a rocking chair at the end of their bed and NOT expecting a ghost to sit in it at least once.
But, as shown above, Ellis has demonstrated that the chair is cute and modern. Much unlike the ones we're used to seeing in scary movies.
5. He recently recorded some "snapping" sounds that he thinks could be David.
He made 33 recordings, and while most of them were cars and traffic sounds, three of them were, uh, pretty creepy.
There's were two "snapping" sounds which Ellis believes also sound like a single step and one that was just eerie electric noises.
While no one has any real idea what they are or what they could mean, it does seem like Ellis' haunting is pretty legit. Or at least he thinks it is.