Balcony Smoker Reports Second Cigarette Appeared, Lit, Beside Her Lighter

THE BALCONY — A Reddit user posting to r/Glitch_in_the_Matrix has described what the author calls a "haunted cigarette," an episode said to have occurred about three years ago and one the author has recounted many times since.

Before telling the tale, the author sets out her habits. She says she smokes only one cigarette at a time, always finishes it, never leaves half-smoked ones in her ashtray, and does not set a cigarette down while smoking. She adds that she smokes every two to four hours, so nothing from an earlier cigarette could have been still burning.

According to the post, she was on her balcony one night when, halfway through, she tasted the stale draw of an unlit cigarette. Reaching for her lighter, she found a half-smoked, lit cigarette lying on the table beside it, not in the ashtray. The one in her hand, she says, was extinguished and also half-smoked.

The author anticipates the obvious explanations and rejects each. She says a forgotten butt relit by flicking does not fit her habits, that she did not set a cigarette down, and that she could not have started a new one unnoticed because she keeps the pack indoors.

Rattled, she says, she left both cigarettes outside and hurried into her apartment. While recording a video for friends on Instagram in her kitchen, she writes, the balcony door opened behind her mid-retelling. She concedes it could have been the wind, but chooses to blame the ghost, speculating with humor that he may be craving nicotine in the afterlife. She says she will upload the video if she can find it.