This story was shared on Reddit four years ago and remains one of the most famous and popular entries in the “Glitch in the Matrix” category. The photos in the article belong to the story’s author and were posted in the same thread.
The author, a young woman named Sydney Daniel, recounted an experience she had in 2001 when she was 8 years old. She and her family—her mom, brother, aunt, and grandmother—traveled to Chicago to see a dinosaur skeleton named Sue.
“We stayed at a hotel for five days. It was very upscale, new, and generally a pleasant experience. During those five days, my mom let me use the hotel’s elevator independently whenever I needed to return to our room after swimming, getting ice for drinks, and so on. I was allowed to ride the elevator alone because our room was right next to it, just to the left of the elevator doors. Whenever I went somewhere, we left the door unlocked.
One day, after swimming in the pool, I headed back to our room. My hair was wet, and I was carrying my clothes and towel. I did everything as usual, got into the elevator, and pressed the button for the 7th floor.
When I reached the 7th floor, which I recognized by the number near the elevator, I walked to our room—the second door on the left, as I had done many times before. I knocked and knocked, but no one answered. At that moment, I felt an odd sense of anxiety. That’s the best word to describe it.
I decided to go back to the lobby to wait for my mom since my grandma, who should have been in the room, wasn’t answering. But as I stood by the elevator, waiting for it to return, I noticed something strange. The display showed the elevator was coming to my floor. When it arrived, the light and sound indicated its arrival.
The doors opened, and the elevator was empty. At that moment, I just KNEW something was wrong and went back to our room’s door. I stood there, knocking and crying because I was cold, still wet from the pool.
Finally, after about a minute, the door opened. An elderly woman stood there and said, ‘Sweetie, I told you yesterday, this isn’t your room!’ I had never seen her before. She added, ‘Everything will be okay. I’m so sorry, but I’m on the phone with my son. Wait a few more minutes; your mom is coming.’ And she shut the door in my face!
I was stunned. I couldn’t understand how someone could close the door on a crying child who had lost their mom, especially someone who looked like a kind grandmother!
Almost immediately after the door shut, the elevator opened, and my mom ran out crying, grabbing me and saying, ‘Oh my God, where were you?!?! I’ve never been so worried!’
She opened what was supposed to be our room’s door but found it wasn’t our room. She was shocked. As she hugged me, I explained I had only been gone for about five minutes. She kept holding me, as if on autopilot, and took me back into the elevator. She pressed the button for the 7th floor again. The doors closed briefly, and when they opened, my grandma was standing at the second door on the left, crying.
It turned out I had been gone for 45 minutes. During that time, my mom had called the police, and they searched every floor, knocking on all doors—even locked and vacant ones.
They found nothing. My mom finally decided to check the pool again and then went up to the 7th floor once more, where she found me standing by the elevator. Not only had my mom been searching, but the police and hotel staff had been riding the elevator multiple times looking for me.
To this day, we still talk about this strange incident and can’t explain it. My hair was still wet from the pool when they found me. The police were furious until the hotel staff showed them security footage. The video showed me entering the elevator but never exiting.
In the footage, my mom entered the elevator on the 7th floor. Ten minutes later, the doors opened, and she exited with me in her arms. They reviewed every camera on every floor, which had clear views of the elevators, and found nothing.
The hotel staff and police were shocked. They almost believed someone had kidnapped me and later abandoned me, but they couldn’t explain why my hair was still wet.
To this day, I don’t know who that elderly woman was and have never been able to identify her. Oddly, no one in my family can remember the hotel’s name, not even my grandmother, who traveled extensively and remembered every place she had ever stayed.”
