Reader Submission: The Doorbell at 3 A.M.

Submitted by a ScaryWorld reader, published after light editorial formatting only — the original voice has been kept exactly as written.

It started about two weeks ago. The doorbell rings once, at exactly 3 a.m. Not roughly, exactly. The first time I thought I'd dreamed it, but I checked the doorbell camera and the sound was real, recorded with a timestamp and everything.

The problem is the camera doesn't show anyone at the door at that exact moment. Not a second before, not a second after. The bell still works completely fine at every other time of day — I've tested it more than once.

In the second week I started logging every time it happened, using the camera's own timestamp, just to prove to myself I wasn't losing it. Reviewing the log after two weeks, I noticed something strange: the date next to the very first entry I wrote myself was one day before the first time I actually heard the bell at all.

I don't know how that mistake happened. I checked the file several times. The date doesn't change.

I asked the neighbors, nobody's heard anything on their end. I called the company that installed the doorbell, they told me the device is working fine, no fault reported since install.

A few days ago something happened that's made me a bit more scared. The bell rang like usual, but this time the video had a tiny delay, a fraction of a second, before the audio synced up with the footage, like the recorded sound was coming from somewhere not exactly in front of the door, not even close to it.

Honestly I don't know who's ringing my doorbell every night at that exact time. But I've stopped sleeping near the front door, and I leave the porch light on all night now, never turn it off.

Last thing, and this is what actually made me send this in: last night it rang twice. Never happened before, always exactly once, every night, like clockwork. Two rings. I checked the footage both times.

Nobody there. Same as always.

I don't know why two scares me more than one, but it does, and I really don't want to find out what three sounds like tonight.