My brother saw a ghost as a kid. Two decades later, I realized what he actually

When my brother was about 6 years old, he started talking about "the man in the window." He said a man with a pale face would stand outside his bedroom window at night and just watch him. My parents dismissed it as an overactive imagination or a dream, especially since our house was on a steep hill and the window was ten feet off the ground.

Two decades later, we were reminiscing about our childhood home. My brother mentioned the man again, describing him in vivid detail: a long, thin face, wearing a dark hoodie, and holding a small black box. My father's face went pale. He finally admitted that around that same time, he had found a ladder leaning against the side of the house under my brother's window several times. He had assumed it was just the neighbors doing work or kids playing a prank, so he always just put it back in the garage.

The "ghost" my brother saw wasn't a spirit; it was a real person who had been using a ladder to climb up and watch a 6-year-old sleep for weeks, possibly recording him with the "black box." We never found out who it was.