How did a teenage boy who appeared from thin air know exactly what two women had been discussing privately in their car just moments earlier?
That’s the question Reddit user ilenak has been trying to answer for nearly 15 years. Her account, shared recently on r/Glitch_in_the_Matrix, describes an encounter so unsettling that it continues to baffle her and her best friend to this day.
The story begins innocently enough. The two friends were out running errands when something peculiar started happening. At the first store, a cashier remarked that they looked like sisters. They laughed it off, noting they used to get that comment all the time when they were younger but hadn’t heard it in years.
Then it happened again at the next store.
“We responded with ‘wow we haven’t got that in years and we got it twice today,'” ilenak recalled. The coincidence seemed amusing, nothing more. But the universe, it seems, wasn’t finished with them.
A Conversation That Would Come Back to Haunt Them
During the drive home, the friends chatted aimlessly. As ilenak described it, “when we are together, conversations can get stupid and silly and we just talk about anything.”
Somehow, the topic drifted to dentistry. They asked each other random questions: Do you still have your wisdom teeth? What about your tonsils?
Just casual, forgettable conversation between close friends.
When they arrived at ilenak’s house, she parked on the street. To reach her home, you have to drive down the entire street and turn around, giving them a clear view of everything. “At this time, we have not seen anyone but ourselves on the street,” she explained. “It was cold outside, not really a common time for people to be walking.”
They exited the car and walked up the long driveway. They were about three-quarters of the way to the house when they heard someone call out.
“Hey girls.”
An Impossible Appearance
They turned around to find a boy, approximately 15 or 16 years old, standing just a few feet away from them. Not at the end of the driveway. Not in the street. Right there beside them.
“I was immediately sketched out because I knew there was no one on the street and now there’s someone standing right next to me in my driveway,” ilenak wrote.
Her protective instincts kicked in immediately. The boy’s first questions seemed odd but harmless: “Can we be friends? How old are you?”
Then came the comment that made her blood run cold.
“You girls look alike, are you sisters?”
This was now the third time they’d heard this question that day, but in circumstances that made absolutely no sense. Still, nothing could have prepared them for what came next.
“Do you know what I want to be when I grow up?” the boy asked, then answered his own question before they could respond. “I want to be a dentist.”
The friends stood frozen.
“Do you girls have your wisdom teeth? How about your tonsils?”
These were the exact questions they had asked each other in the privacy of their car just minutes earlier.
“For some odd reason we both answered these questions,” ilenak admitted, “and then he says ‘can I see? Open your mouths.'”
Her friend, inexplicably, began to comply. Ilenak grabbed her, told the boy they had to go, and they ran inside.
A Witness and a Return Visit
The women sat on the couch in shock, unable to speak. But they weren’t the only ones who’d witnessed the encounter. Ilenak’s boyfriend had watched the entire exchange through the window.
“He asked who he was and we told him we have no idea. We don’t even know where he came from.”
The story takes an even stranger turn. A few days later, ilenak came home from work to disturbing news. Her boyfriend told her the boy had returned, asking for them, and said he would come back another day.
She never saw him again.
“To this day we don’t know where he came from and why he asked us those questions and how he knew everything we spoke about that day.”
What Was He?
The Reddit community offered several theories, each more unsettling than the last.
One popular explanation pointed to mimics, paranormal entities known for their ability to replicate voices and sometimes take human form. As commenter Caldaris__ explained, “these are actual entities that exist but could be responsible for what we think are ghosts of deceased loved ones or evil spirits like poltergeists.”
Others noted similarities to black-eyed children encounters, a documented phenomenon where strange children with entirely black eyes approach people, often asking to be let into their homes. As user ProduceEmbarrassed97 described, “The requests to open the door don’t stop and the homeowners report feelings of fear, dread, an activation of ‘fight or flight,’ coupled with a paradoxical urge to let these children in.”
The boy in ilenak’s story shares some characteristics: the odd questions, the sudden appearance, the return visit. However, she doesn’t mention noticing anything unusual about his eyes.
Perhaps the most intriguing theory came from user Divers_Alarums, who suggested the boy might have been autistic and somehow “tuned into the universe.” This prompted discussion about “The Telepathy Tapes,” a podcast featuring accounts of profoundly autistic children who appear to demonstrate telepathic abilities.
User firejotch, who identifies as autistic, added weight to this theory: “Things like this for real happen. It’s like my subconscious syncs up with other peoples subconscious.”
Rational Explanations Fall Short
Some commenters proposed the boy had somehow hidden in their car, eavesdropping on the conversation. But ilenak ruled this out: “I parked on the street and had to get things out of the backseat. He definitely would have been spotted before being up the driveway.”
The 40-minute drive after running errands also makes the stowaway theory problematic. Where would he have gone afterward, in an era before ride-sharing apps?
Ilenak herself reflected on how the boy behaved: “The boy seemed to act and speak younger than he looked. We’re estimating about 16 years old. He wasn’t threatening in anyway. We were just so confused and shaken from his topics of conversation.”
Looking back, she wishes she’d had the presence of mind to document the encounter. “If it was 2025 I’m sure I would have tried to document everything. This was probably almost 15 years ago and peoples initial reactions weren’t to pull out their phones and record everything.”
The Mystery Endures
What makes this case particularly compelling is the layered nature of the strangeness. First, the repeated “sisters” comments throughout the day. Then, the private conversation about dentistry and teeth. Finally, a mysterious boy who appeared from nowhere and somehow knew it all.
Was it a trickster spirit having fun at their expense? A being from another dimension briefly intersecting with our reality? An autistic teenager with abilities science can’t yet explain? Or simply an extremely elaborate and inexplicable coincidence?
The witness corroboration from her boyfriend adds credibility. This wasn’t a shared hallucination between the two friends. Someone else saw the boy too, watched the uncomfortable exchange, and confirmed the stranger returned looking for them.
Some experiences resist explanation. They sit in that uncomfortable space between the mundane and the impossible, leaving us to wonder what forces might be at work in our world that we don’t yet understand.
Ilenak has moved out of state since the encounter. As she joked to one commenter who warned against interacting with the entity again: “If I see him again we have big problems.”
Have you experienced a glitch in the matrix or encountered a stranger who knew things they shouldn’t? We’d love to hear your story. Send your report to Reports@ParaRational.com
