When I was still in elementary school, me and my family used to spend all summer at my great uncle’s house. Me and my family slept in the same room, except for my sister who’d sleep on a bed in the living room, and my great uncle who’d sleep in his own room.

That one was a pretty normal day: we went to the beach, we ate some pizza, and then, at around 10 PM we all went to sleep.

At around 4 AM I suddenly woke up, because someone was throwing things around in the kitchen: plastic cups, containers, food etc.
The door was open so I was able to see the light coming from the kitchen, so when I had enough of all that noise I got up from the bed.
At first something seemed off.
I thought I was having some sort of strange dream, and as any rational kid would do, I tried to see if I could bend fire like in A:TLA(who wouldn’t want to firebend, right?).
I couldn’t. I wasn’t dreaming.
My father wasn’t in his bed, but I didn’t care much since maybe he was just in the bathroom.
My great uncle was fairly old, and had trouble sleeping at night, so I thought he just went in to the kitchen to get some water.

“Uncle… uncle? Are you all right? All this noise woke me up. ” I said while making my way to the kitchen.
To my surprised the room was empty. But the light was on, and the fridge was open, with a can of coke laying in front of it.
“What..?” I thought.
I looked up to the shelf that was to my right, and I saw what was making that noise.
Some sort of short creature, around 30 cm tall, a gnome you’d say, was looking at me, terrified.
He was terrified because I saw him.
I thought to myself “He’s going to hurt me, better if I fake to faint”. And so I did.
After a couple of seconds I open my eyes, and I saw that I wasn’t on the kitchen floor anymore. I was in a strange colorful tunnel. I got scared again and closed my eyes one more time.

After a minute that felt like eternity, i reopened them, and I was laying in my bed.
There were still sounds coming from the kitchen, but I was scared and just waited for them to stop.
And before sunrise, they did.

That wasn’t the only encounter I had with that dude. But I never saw it again, I’d only hear him, because I was, and am, too scared to see him again.
I don’t know what he was doing exactly, but I’m sure I wasn’t supposed to see him.
I know it sounds crazy, but feel free to ask me anything about this.

This is so weird. My dad grew up in mexico and always tells this story about his "little buddies". He describes them as gnome like creatures that he'd see around the school. Theyd help clean up and put things away. Him and his brother both saw them, repeatedly, but no one ever believed them. I believe in him so much, it's where I got my love for supernatural things. But my dad was so impacted by his "little buddies" that we now collect gnomes. We have them all in front of our house and in the backyard. And I swear to you every time I see them they're in a different place.

UPDATE I asked my dad to tell me the story of "little buddies" again, because I love it and for a refresher. He gladly told me about how they helped, how everyone thought he was crazy, and how his brother is his witness. He video called my uncle and asked him "do you remember my little buddies from school. The time you thought I was lying so you asked me to ask them to do something to prove they were there. And they moved the broom from the corner to the center of the room." The look my uncle had on his face was one mixed with fear and embarrassment. He nodded and said how he was still scared of those things. Which made me question, where they really as friendly as my dad says? Come to find out about-- the vortex. I live in arizona and everyone knows Sedona is a vortex. There are vortexes all over the world and they're all connected somehow. We found a map of vortexes and zoomed in on this tiny little town in Mexico. Where my father was born, and where he saw his "little buddies ". Its no coincidence to me that his buddies are from a town with a vortex. I want to visit one day, and see what we can find...