There must be something in the water lately, because there have been a whole lot of creepy baby monitor stories sweeping the internet in the last few months. First was the mom who saw the face of a "ghost baby" on her video monitor, which turned out to be a photo on her mattress cover visible through the bottom sheet. Then came the mom who shared a snapshot of her "devil baby" in the crib, which sparked hilariously creepy video monitor pics from across Twitter. But now, mom Leila Livingston is sharing one more weird baby monitor story — one that she called "the scariest thing I have ever experienced in my life."
Livingston is a busy mom of five, which can sure make things tricky when she's trying to get out the door.
In fact, she was recently home with her three littlest ones — who are 4, 2, and 4 months — when she had to quickly occupy them so she should get dressed.
"Since their new obsession is The Lion King, I decided to put the movie on so they’d sit and watch it so I could get ready," she explained in her November 17 Facebook post.
And at first, all was well.
"They were sitting quietly on the couch," Livingston recalled of the eldest two, while her baby Jayce was beside them in a bouncy seat on the floor. Then, the mom turned the baby camera on them and walked upstairs, continuing to check in on them as she got ready.
"Every so often I would glance down and every time they were sitting in the same spot watching the movie," she continued.
That is, until she took note of something else in the video camera footage. Or should I say, someone else.
The next time she glanced down, she counted four people in the room — not three.
There was an adult woman sitting on her couch, staring at her children as they watched their movie "like it was no big deal."
WTF?
Needless to say, Livingston was instantly TERRIFIED.
"My heart dropped," she shared.
But she was in for even more of a shock when she ran downstairs and raced into the living room — only to find there was no one sitting on the couch beside her kids.
WHAT IN THE ... ?!?!
"I JUST saw them ten seconds before," said Livingston, who by this point was THOROUGHLY creeped out, and could only draw the logical conclusion: A ghost lady had appeared in her living room.
"The babies were still sitting there in the same exact spots watching their movie," she explained. "This person was on my camera, but not actually there?"
Livingston ran back upstairs to see if she could get another look, and lo and behold ... there was the lady -- STILL SITTING ON THE COUCH!
Terrified, Livingston said she called her mom to show her the ghost lady (and likely verify whether or not she was going crazy).
But as she was getting ready to show her, Livingston said she looked down and "lost it." she said.
It was then that the mom realized what had REALLY happened ...
"Somehow, my iPad went from the camera’s live view to a clip that was recorded earlier," she explained.
"It was me. I was the ghost on the couch," she admitted.
OH. MY. GOD.
The weird glitch was definitely creepy, but ultimately pretty hilarious. (And maybe even a wee bit embarrassing too.)
Since she posted the story last week, more than 29K people have shared it, and thousands more either tagged their friends, spouses, and family members in the comments, or chimed in themselves.
"That is the funniest thing ever but I would have DIED," one woman wrote.
"My heart was really pumping reading this," wrote another. "So glad it was only you and soooooooo something I would do!"
Livingston later spoke with Kidspot, where she opened up about just how crazy the whole thing was.
"I just knew that no one was supposed to be in my house and there was clearly someone there,” she told the outlet. “I didn’t even think about what I was going to do, I just ran as fast as I could downstairs to my living room.”
Once she realized what had happened, she said she "was laughing so hard that I was crying." And on the other end of the phone line, her mom was crying too.
As for how she didn't immediately recognize it was her on screen, she said her mind simply didn't go there, because she knew she wasn't actually sitting on the couch and her hair is platinum blonde but looked brown on the video.
“I’m sure if I actually took time to really look, I would have realized it was me," she explained. “But my first instinct was to get my babies, not stare at my screen trying to figure out who it was.”
Even after she discovered the truth, the shock of it all was still sinking in.
“My heart was still pounding," she later said. "It was hilarious. I have no idea how it went from the live stream to a clip from earlier in the day."
Neither do we — but one thing's for sure: Thank GOD it wasn't actually a ghost lady!
