Being a truck driver means long hours, endless miles, and plenty of routine challenges on the road. It’s tiring work that demands both physical stamina and mental focus.
But not everything drivers run into can be explained by traffic or weather.
When one Redditor asked long haul truckers to share the creepiest things they’ve experienced at night, the answers revealed just how strange the open road can get. Read on for some of the most memorable stories and upvote the ones that gave you chills.
#1
I’m a truck driver in the UK.
Was driving through rural Scotland one night going down a country lane, all off a sudden I start to see flashing lights come through the trees. Lights of all colours flashing through the trees and causing some really freaky looking shadows on the road.
I’m not a believer of aliens or anything but my first thought was ufos. Safe to say I put my foot down and got out of there.
Found out the next day it was rave happening in a field. But at the time it didn’t half scare me.
Image source: YorkshireTeapot, EyeEm / freepik
#2
I was coming back home from a trip from Michigan and I saw these people wearing cult-like robes. One in town, one on a highway, and one in a park, all staring at me.
Image source: Nevok_The_Hollowed, peus_purchases / freepik
#3
My dad has told me this story a couple times and each time it always kind of weirds me out. He is not a trucker but when he was in the military one night him and a buddy went out to get food. About halfway into their drive down a dark road my dad and his buddy noticed a woman in a red dress with black hair walking.
My dad and his buddy found it odd because it didn’t seem safe and it wasn’t that warm. My dad said deep down he knew stopping was a bad idea and so the drove by a little more slowly to get a glimpse to see if she needed help. As the drove by my dad and his friend both swear she has no face. Instead there was just a black hole as if she had been in a wreck and her face was taken off. It freaked them both out so badly my dad floored it and when they stopped to eat both of them agreed they saw the same thing. Come to find out a woman had been k****d earlier that year in an accident. They were talking about it when a stranger told them the sightings of the woman were actually common.
I am not one to believe in the paranormal but the story is still kind of weird.
EDIT: Guys I will reiterate that I never said I believed in the paranormal. I never said “this story is true and there is no scientific explanation.” I just told a story and whether you find some value in it or not is ultimately dependent upon who you are and what you value.
Regardless of how cliché or silly something like this might sound I always like to state the fact that we are all human. When we see or hear something we don’t understand our minds get to us and it makes us more paranoid or begs us to continue questioning what we experienced. That is something humans just do. If you are out in the woods and you hear a noise and you are alone and it’s dark you instinctively question your safety and become paranoid. We want answers and we want to know we are okay.
I don’t need scientific explanation because I am aware that the brain does things we don’t understand. But what we do understand is that when cant find an explanation it drives us nuts and scares us the black my dad saw was probably just bad or poor lighting or the heat of the moment and the brain didn’t get the ladies features. Perhaps the woman had hair in front her eyes. There all sorts of explanations that make way more sense, but when faced with the same circumstance we would probably all react the same way and question our sanity.
#4
**Creepiest**
Driving ~~I-40~~ I-30 through Texas and Arkansas, I would see what looked like animals/faces popping out of the bushes but longer than a glance proved nothing there. They had just paved the highway, and there was hardly any traffic. I was dead tired, it was super dark. Highway hypnosis I suppose.
**”Paranormal”**
When I went to local driving, my route ran near an Air Reserve Base in Indiana, so you’d see planes and helicopters pretty often. One night, about 2 AM, I was headed to pick up another load when I saw a bright green light in the corner of my windshield. It was too low to be an aircraft. It moved pretty slowly, then darted and I lost sight of it behind some trees I drove by. Typical “I saw a UFO” s**t, but I still think it was just a helicopter or a jet that I saw at the prefect angle that turned after a takeoff. The jet pilots have broken the sound barrier over town a couple times in the past (sonic boom) so a jet flying abnormally isn’t necessarily out of the realm of possibility.
**Just bat***t crazy**
Driving South on I-75 in the winter in Ohio, I witnessed a compact car like a Cobalt or similar get on the on-ramp to merge in to I-75 North and lost control. They went sideways, fell at least 6 feet off the ramp and onto the shoulder of the interstate landing on all 4 wheels, spun 360 degrees, and then proceeded to merge into traffic like it was f*****g nothing. Blew. My. F*****g. Mind. The CB radio was going f*****g nuts for about 5 minutes. “HOLY S**T WHO ELSE JUST F*****G SAW THAT?”, etc.
Image source: Aceofspades161, EyeEm / freepik
#5
A few years ago some animal rights activists managed to release thousands of mink from a farm next to a large road, at night. The road was more blood than tarmac for miles. Remains everywhere and don’t even get me started on the smell.
Image source: elgen88, EyeEm / freepik
#6
This is my Father’s story and he wasn’t a long haul trucker but rather a 18 year old gas station attendant in the late 70’s and without a certain Long Haul Trucker I probably wouldn’t be here:
The gas station was 24 hours and my Dad was the only one working the night shift (11-7 I think). A guy comes in and just gives him the creeps. Seems sketchy. He was wearing tight jacket/pants and you could tell he had something in his pants under the jacket. It was during the summer and was warm so why is he wearing a jacket to begin with? **It was later confirmed he was on d***s.**
A lot of truck drivers used this station as it was the only one open 24 hours for a long stretch of the highway. They also had a big lot where they let truckers park and sleep or take a break.
On this night at this time it was just my dad, sketchy dude, and one trucker in there he kinda knew (as in, came in frequent enough to be conversational) and asked if he’d stay in the station and hang out until sketchy dude left. Well, after “looking” at the stocked shelves for several minutes while sneaking peaks at my dad behind the counter the sketchy guy eventually looked fed up and got into his blue car and sped off. Cool trucker guy hung out with my dad a little longer until another couple of guys came in to use the booths they had to eat a sandwich. .
I should also point out this was pretty middle-of-nowhere rural Southeast United States and the 1970’s. CB and landline was it. My dad only had a landline in the store. **Dad did not have any protection or weapon of any kind.**
So the hours pass and my dad had shaken off the paranoia when all of a sudden this ~~truck driver~~ **guy in a car** comes hauling a*s into the lot, jumps out, and sprints into the store hollering he needs a phone. **He didn’t have a CB nor did he see a phone at the other station. He also wasn’t familiar with the area and my Dad’s station was the first place he found.**
Calls 911 to report that he had walked in on a gas station 40 miles back (next closest station) to find the attendant shot and dead. No one else around. And the only other piece of information is that a blue car was speeding out of the lot when the trucker pulled in.
Apparently they eventually apprehend the guy in the blue car, my dad confirms it was sketchy dude from earlier in the night, and they charge him with m****r and armed robbery.
To the long haul trucker who waited around with my dad that night, thanks and hope you’re keeping it real.
**Also worth adding that apparently sketchy guy in blue car was already a bad apple who was either being looked for or on probation or something. He was in the system.**
Image source: TuchmanMarsh, freepik
#7
Myself and 2 friends had to drive from Laredo, TX to Baton Rouge, LA one night in my Ford van. It was about 2am. There is a particularly long and dark section of highway just outside Laredo…no buildings, towns or lights for about 50 miles. I was in the right lane coming up on a truck and pulled out into the left passing lane. As I was slowly overtaking this long truck, my peripheral vision caught a sudden movement of this big truck towards the right shoulder. I saw the truck was swerving to avoid hitting a person dressed in all white, white face…who’s arms were folded across the chest and eyes were closed as they walked across the highway. I swerved to the left and barely missed this ghostly looking person with my passenger mirror….can still remember seeing that the eyes were closed….that’s how close we came to hitting this person…
Image source: flashdman, standret / freepik
#8
I was 23, my newly married husband and I decided driving team would be a fun adventure after college – rather than jumping into the 9-5.
I was down in Arizona, on a long stretch of nothing about 4am when a guy pulled up next to me waving his CB (I never left mine on, listening to those guys BS was irritating.)
I turned on my CB and he told me I had a blown tire. I thanked him, figuring I would stop at the next truck stop.
He kept harassing me to pull over and check my tire for a good 40 miles.
I finally got to a next town and pilot truck stop, got out and checked my truck. No blown tires anywhere.
No clue what that guy would’ve done to me – but so glad I trusted my gut and didn’t stop.
(Not paranormal – but I have plenty of stories as a young woman on the road.).
Image source: GozyNYR, aleksandarlittlewolf / freepik
#9
I drove by a marsh every night when I was going home from work. One night I saw a car pulled over with hazards on. Dude was head to toe covered in blood. No crash, no injury, just covered in blood.
Image source: Biffmcgee, EyeEm / freepik
#10
My great uncle was a long haul trucker and he swears that one time he was driving down the road to see two guys pull a rolled up carpet out of the trunk of their car and throw it in the river. Whether that’s true or not I don’t know, but it’s still creepy none the less.
Image source: JasonVoorheesthe13th, EyeEm / freepik
#11
I’m not a long haul trucker, but I drove a moving truck across Nebraska. Theres a point where you’re going freeway speed, but the scenery doesnt change. It’s a very strange sensation and it seemed to last far too long. I started to freak out at one point because I had the thought that I’ve ALWAYS been driving through Nebaska and I always will be. Everything else that has happened in my life must have been a hallucination, as theres nothing but Nebraska in the horizon. Nebraska is the truth. Nebraska is life.
Image source: Armadildo3, EyeEm / freepik
#12
I’m not a long haul trucker, but I was on a kind of long road trip one night. Was about 1-2am. Saw a huge flash out towards the right rear passenger side. Almost like stadium lights turned on then off real quick. So bright and white, it was crazy.
Thing is, I was on a major interstate, in the middle of a forest, no cars around me. My first thought was an angel or something.
To this day I’m still stumped.
#13
I was driving near Las Vegas at around 3am. I had been following a few black SUV’s along the highway for a good hour or so. They had Nevada plates that were single digit numbers in order, 1,2,3. Suddenly they all pulled off the highway down a dirt path. There was no mile marker or cactus that would indicate a path there. It was just dirt. After pulling off the road they all turned their lights off. I didn’t stick around. It was creepy.
Image source: valor592, standret / freepik
#14
I was listening to a radio station when this trucker called in. He said he saw a lot lizard get out of one truck, d****e with a bottle of grape soda, and get into the next truck.
Edit: Clarification: A “lot lizard” is a pr*stitute that works in a truck stop or rest stop.
Image source: saltyhumor, hryshchyshen / freepik
#15
My stepdad is a truck driver and I asked him this question and he gave me 3 answers.
In winston salem NC a guy was mas*****ting while driving by his truck and my stepdad threw his water bottle at him.
Another time he said he was up near Oregon and he was the only one on the freeway at the time since it was around 2 am and something large and pale swooped down a few yards in front of his truck and swooped back up into the tree line.
While driving at 70mph a tire rolled ahead of him and went across the median nearly hitting another car.
Image source: InternalMovie, alexkich / freepik
#16
Saw a clown staggering down an alley in the city, back facing us, while we were coming to a stoplight at like 1am. Looked like he was still blowing balloons (or mas*****ting). Not seeing his face made it more ominous. I’m not sure if its either really creepy or sad. Maybe he was on his way to abduct children, or maybe he was blind drunk after a long day.
Image source: toxicwaste331, freepik
#17
My dad has several stories from hauling logs in Idaho and driving trucks through Utah and Nevada. My favorite is from actually just in his pickup going through Utah. He said there was a light keeping pace with him out in the desert on a moonless night. It kept pace for a minute before it disappeared and his truck turned off. He stopped and turned it on and pulled off at the next diner. The folks in the diner called it a common occurrence.
The creepiest is when he was hauling logs in Idaho and was coming down from near Coeur d’alene area during a snowy winter night. He was putting on chains before heading down steep grade and said all of the hair stood up on his body. It felt like there was something watching him. Halfway down the switchbacks he saw a large figure standing on a 20 foot tall embankment. As he got closer it jumped down and the shoulders were as tall as the cab. In a single bound it leaped down and then leaped over to the other side of the embankment. At the time he thought it was a Sasquatch, now he says it was probably a “demon” trying to make him crash. He didn’t stop to remove the chains until he was well away from the mountain.
Image source: IshvalanWarrior, alexgolovinphotography / freepik
#18
Okay, so here is a spook for you, and to this day I still have no idea WTF.
So I was in the VA/MD area, and had a lot of work related sites ranging from downtown Baltimore to Virginia Beach and all around.
Friday wrapped up, and I hit the road to some social arrangements I had made for the weekend. Spent the weekend with friends out in various parts of VA, got dragged off to other places even further out, the usual weekend fun times.
It’s late Sunday night when I **have** to leave, Or I’m not going to be able to get home in time to start my (thankfully late afternoon) Monday. I’m fully rested, I didn’t do any drinking, I’m not into d***s.
On the highway at about 3 AM, in the middle of nowhere between Roanoke and DC, absolutely nobody around. I’m cruising along in the left lane simply because nobody else is around. No headlights for the past hour, no tail lights either. No road lamps either. It’s dark, its mildly damp, its foggy. I have the music up, I’m feeling good, all is fine.
And then I just happen to look to the left and there is a f*****g dog barking at me. A German Shepard, in a car passenger seat, somewhat blue-glow from the instruments inside the car, and its got its face to its window and its barking its head off at me. I get a good hard look at it, too, because at first my brain is not registering ‘cop car, dummy!’
I’m doing 90+ in a 75, I promptly have the ‘oh s**t!’ moment when the dog, the instruments, the white crown vic/light bar all click in my brain after a second hard look. I put my foot on the brakes and start slowing down hard but safe, to pull over. I even put my blinker on to start shifting lanes over to the right to pull over because-
*WAIT.* **There is no shoulder on the left side of this road!**
I look back to my left (where there is still no shoulder/room for another car!), and it’s just gone. No trace. I slammed my brakes and stopped in the middle of the f*****g highway,flipped on all my light bars and even looked around with my handheld spot.. there was NOTHING. No tail lights, no headlights, no engine sounds, nothing. There are no other tire marks in the damp but mine, and I can see for a nice long distance both ways, too. Nothing.
My vehicle had great visibility, and a lot of extra lighting (offroad SUV with the trimmings.), there is no possible way somebody pulled a sneaky, let alone drove that fast on wet sloped grass and rocks on my left side.
So.. Yep, there you have it. Ghost cop and his dog didn’t like me speeding, apparently. :P.
Image source: The-Gargoyle, EyeEm / freepik
#19
My dad told me and my brothers this story when we were growing up and it’s always stuck with me, particularly on long drives when I’m feeling a bit sleepy. The first time I remember hearing it was after I asked him if angels were real, I was probably 7 or 8 yo.
He drove trucks decades ago, before I was born and before labor laws around limits and breaks were more standard (I’m assuming it’s different now?). He’d fairly regularly accept calls that would extend his shift to where he was driving 24, 36hrs, or more without a break longer than a quick bathroom or fast food stop.
My dad has a pretty mathematical brain, he’s the type to make up logic puzzles out of something totally mundane just for fun. Whenever we were driving around town, he’d regularly ask me things like how long would it take us to get from home to the store if we were going 30 mph but had to stop for 5 minutes in the middle because a family of kittens were crossing the road, etc. He’d come up with similar equations for himself while he was driving solo that involved things he was seeing like the odometer, mileage markers, the time, and then he could test his speed based on the equation, etc.
One night after having already driven a particularly long day, he noticed his eyes getting droopier and the whole roll-down-the-window-and-blast-the-music-up thing didn’t seem to be helping much. It was a rainy night on a pretty windy mountain road without a shoulder to pull over safely, so he started doing those logic games out loud to keep alert and awake. He was saying something to the effect of “I just passed mile marker 146 so what time will it be when I reach 200 if I’m going 55mph…” then he closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and felt his head do the nod-jerk thing which woke him up with a gasp. He opened his eyes to see he was driving straight towards mile marker 158, which would have sent his whole truck tumbling down a random a*s mountain ravine. He was able to correct the course safely back, but it was a matter of seconds between that reality and certain death.
He insists to this day that he slept through 12 miles of windy mountain road going 60+ mph, only to wake up right at the last moment between life and death.
The story usually ends with him tearing up saying “I don’t know if there’s angels, but I know there’s something bigger going on in this universe than our human brains have been able to understand yet. If I wouldn’t have woken up right when I did, you kids wouldn’t be here today and that’s something that feels pretty close to spiritual.”
Image source: pepitawu, hryshchyshen / freepik
#20
Obligatory not a long haul trucker but once in the middle of nowhere (no buildings/cars for miles) in rural Canada at 3am a person jumped out on the road in front of my truck and started waving a flashlight at me and flailing his arms. I swerved hard and kept driving and ended up calling the police about 5 minutes later. I hope he was alright but that’s not how you get yourself picked up…
Same road different trip I almost ran over an owl at about the same time of night.
Image source: Saint613, freepik
#21
I saw a guy with a red turban with nothing but only an american flag thong dancing menacingly; h*****g the air with his junk flailing back and forth.
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#22
I’m a stand-up comic. I often refer to my profession as being a trucker with jokes.
Near the north end of mainland Michigan, I saw a car stopped on the side of the highway. We hadn’t seen a car for a while, it was 2AM. I commented to my buddy, “poor b*****d”.
But as we passed the car, the lights came on and it got back on the road. Odd timing. And then, it was gaining on us.
I told my friend to speed, he did. He sped more and the car kept closing in. We were doing 120 and this guy was catching up to us.
We saw an exit with a hotel so we took it and drove right in front of the building, where it was well lit and we could see the front desk clerk.
The car got off that exit too. It drove into the hotel parking lot. Then turned around, and got back on the highway.
I’ll never know what that guy wanted from us. I’m fine with that remaining a mystery.
Image source: thehofstetter, EyeEm / freepik
#23
My dad is a truck driver and about 13-15 years ago while resting at the side of the road he woke up in the morning seeing that his entire trailer was robbed empty.
My dads a heavy sleeper but his cargo could not have been stolen without at least a forklift and everyone would have woken up by a forklift unloading a trailer.
my dad suspects the robbers used a pump to get some kind of chloroform into his cabin to make sure he couldn’t wake up.
Image source: BULLET_BALL_BJOERN
#24
Obligatory not a trucker *BUT:*
The Black Dog is a popular ‘Omen’ seen by many truckers while spending late nights out on the road. The dog appears late at night when the driver starts to drift off to sleep and often is a precursor/warning to a fatal crash. While there are many stories of truckers seeing the dog and snapping back to reality with the sudden rush of adrenaline, there are also a handful of stories where a trucker swerved to avoid the dog resulting in a crash.
I had a late night on the road a few months ago after a concert and had to drive back across the state. About an hour in I could feel my eyes getting heavy (regardless of the coffee I was drinking). As I drove through and underpass I was able to see a flash of black just out of the corner of my eye. I brushed it off as nothing until later the same thing happened on the left side of the road just within the view of my headlights. I had read stories about The Black Dog before and knew I should soon pull off the highway and wait for my caffeine really start working.
Image source: w1ld_c4rd, smeilov / freepik
#25
Not a long haul trucker but thought this would fit here. Also on mobile so sorry for format.
My mom, sister and I were on my our way to a baseball game of mine during my junior year of high school. This was in northern New York so spring got a little chilly at times. The main road we took stretched about 35 miles and was nothing but corn fields and tree lines. We hit a stretch of the road that was super foggy for no reason so my mom slowed down to a proper speed. We finally reached the end of the fog and we all looked to the left to see where we were. About 50 yards from the road was a man and woman in what appeared to be wedding clothing from at least 100 years ago (man wearing a big top hat and the woman wearing a very old looking white dress) holding hands with their backs to us walking towards the wood-line.
We drove past and I just remember the silence in the car until my mom said “what the f**k was that?” Till this day whenever we are together and one of us tells the story we all get goosebumps.
Image source: LuckyLuciano19, liligraphie / freepik
#26
Not a trucker, but I ran on to something creepy on a road and I have a picture of it too.
My friend and I were coming back from a concert one night and were taking a shortcut through this area that was being worked on, so there wasn’t really anyone around because it was late and the streets were closed.
As we’re crossing this small bridge, I looked up and saw what appeared to be a zombie rat jumping at my face. Scared the f**k out of me. Turns out that someone had taken a mummified rat or squirrel and used wire to position it midair on that bridge.
The picture I snapped of it on the s****y flip phone I had. The combination of that and the abandoned atomosphere of the construction area was so f*****g creepy that we ran until we hit a busy street.
Image source: -eDgAR-, -eDgAR-
#27
A good friend of mine told me this story years ago. He is a the stereotypical old big bad trucker. I’ve seen some weird stuff with him while driving in south Texas along the border. He never batted an eye, but while telling me this story he had goose bumps and a concerned expression. Which from this guy is about the equivalent of a trembling lip and s**t stained pants.
I’ll tell this story in the first person as he told it to me.
Years ago in the late 90’s I was on my way from the house (central Texas) heading to Loredo to pick up a load. It was early morning, around 4 or 5. I had just come off a string of days at home, so I know I wasn’t tired.
I am on one of those two lane winding roads in the absolute middle of b*m f**k nowhere, when i see something on the side of the road at the edge of my high beams. At first i just thought it was roadkill, as is usually the case. As I get closer, I see that it is roadkill AND there’s someone crouching over the deer carcass. I remember thinking either this guys taking the antlers as a trophy, or he’s f*****g sick. As I got closer still I can now see that’s this guys eating the f*****g deer. He’s pulling chunks of meat from the stomach and bringing them up to his face. At this point he stops mid motion and looks up at me. Not at my truck, but at me. He/it stands up and that’s when I see that its f*****g huge, brown, and covered in hair. I remember thinking at this point, oh f**k. This thing is standing on the tiny shoulder looking at me. By this point, maybe 3 seconds have passed and I’m about to the point in the road he’s standing at. I didn’t even think of stopping, in fact I’m starting to lay on it and get the hell out of there. As I’m passing it, its looking at me, again not at the truck, its looking through the driver’s side windshield at me. He obviously has the intelligence to know that there’s a driver in here and knows where I’m sitting. As I start to pass him I can still see its head above the hood of an old needle nose Pete. (Old truck design where the hood goes straight out from the windshield, known for being tall and difficult to see around.) This thing is f*****g giant. I remember seeing what looked like human intelligence in its eyes. It scares the s**t out of me.
Sorry for the wall of text. It’s a story worth sharing though.
TLDR ¿Bigfoot? eating a deer on the side of road.
Image source: JimBobPaul, EyeEm / freepik
#28
Was driving on this back road at maybe 2-3 AM after hanging out with friends.
Nobody on the roads. Certainly nobody walking. It was incredibly foggy, the area here is a small protected wetland and visibility was maybe 30-40 feet at best.
There is a 90 degree turn, as I’m turning there is a man standing there, arms at his sides, wearing ragged clothes. Just standing perfectly still, about two feet into the road. I nearly hit him, but was certainly closer to s******g my pants than anything else.
Edit: I should mention I am not a long haul trucker. I was in a car. My high school beater.
Image source: Ptizzl, EyeEm / freepik
#29
Maybe a bit off the mark but it still scared the c**p out of me. I was headed west on I-76 here in Denver just cruising along at about 70mph. Out of nowhere, I saw a massive, almost solid cloud of what looked to be dirt coming at me. I’d say it was at least 20 feet wide and 10 feet tall. I scanned ahead of me but couldn’t see any vehicle it could have came from. With nowhere to go I slowed down and took the hit, hoping there wasn’t anything big enough in there to come through the windshield or jack up my truck(owner/operator). It was pretty loud as I smashed through it, the instant it hit I knew it wasn’t dirt though. I immediately hit the washers because I couldn’t see a d**n thing through all of the carnage, my windshield was painted with guts. Turns out it was bees, freaking huge bees that sounded like rocks when they hit. I can’t even imagine seeing that swarm if I was walking, they would k**l the c**p out of anything in their path.
Image source: Pirate_Freder, waterpic6 / freepik
#30
A friend of my cousin was a long haul trucker. He was making a delivery across the country and was in a hardly used dirt stretch of a rural route. Since the road wasn’t exactly peachy he had to drive slowly. He sees another truck slowly approaching from the opposite direction, and he sees the truck is the same as his.
Since this isn’t fairly uncommon, he didn’t think much of it but as the other one grew closer he decided to honk in recognition of having the same kind of truck. The other one replies and all is good.
That is, until they narrowly and very slowly had to pass one another. He turned to look at the driver and he saw himself. Not a reflection, not a similar person but his exact same copy, same clothes, same hat, same red beard, staring at him. They passed each other and that was that.
He told me he’d seen very weird things, but that was the moment he decided to stop being a trucker.
Image source: aquatermain, alexandrumusuc / freepik
#31
I was in rural Maine looking for a lumber mill just before sunset. It took hours to get out there because maine is riddled with these narrow windy roads that try and get as close as possible to every building in every village from US 1 to Canada. So I pull in just as the last guy is leaving, I ask him were to park and say I’ll see him in the morning. I park my truck in this fairly large gravel parking lot with thick forest right on all sides. There are no visible artificial lights except for my truck and my flashlight. After I get parked I go and sitout in a lawn chair and just enjoy the warm night air and look at the absolutely beautiful night sky. It was a rare treat to enjoy basically no light pollution.
As I’m looking at the stars, like a switch was flipped, what sound like fifty coyotes, sixty feet away, start howling like mad. It is at this point I nope right back into the truck and don’t open the door until sunrise.
The town of West Salem, Wisconsin as always kind of given me the shivers. It’s like it’s both empty and full of people at the sametime. Nothing Concrete just feels like things aren’t quite right in that town.
Image source: KnightFox, vladimircech / freepik
#32
This actually happened the other day in a random country road in Tennessee. Pitch black darkness and the only thing around was fields, hills and me, didn’t see any houses.
Anyway I was getting real tired since the day before this I just flew from Washington to Atlanta. Was driving from Atlanta to northern Indiana and out of nowhere I see a dog in the grass and normally this is fine but it’s eyes weren’t glowing from my headlights which for some reason really made me feel unsettled. Next thing I know it charged for the tire of my trailer snarling and barking(thank god I didn’t hit it) and i looked back and it was gone.
As bad as it sounds even if I did hit it I probably wouldn’t have stopped because I was in the middle of nowhere with no cell service.
I’ve heard stories of people finding some way to get people to stop in their commute in the middle of nowhere just to rob and/or k**l/hurt the driver. It was midnight and I wasn’t taking the chance.
Image source: MythicalPumpkin
#33
Not a trucker but I’ve driven cross country a few times. Have two freaky things that have happened.
First, middle of the night with a buddy and we pulled off to the side of the highway to take a p**s and switch drivers. Nobody else around on the road. I walk to the side, pitch black, whip it out and start to pee. My buddy is just stretching his back or whatever. I heard something in the woods shake a tree. No other way to describe it, a tree about 30 feet away shook. Then I hear something BIG crashing through the woods coming straight for us and the car. My buddy and I don’t even say anything, he dives in the driver side and I jump through the passenger window, pants still down. He floors it out of there, legs and pants dangling outside. Never did see anything in the rear view mirror but there was something out there coming at us. My buddy likes to say he heard me stop peeing when that tree shook.
Second, I was solo somewhere in West Virginia, again middle of the night. I got off an exit, one of those long curvy ones. I saw lights before I got off and assumed it was exit stuff, or maybe even construction. Get to the exit and it’s not construction, it’s a ton of army or national guard guys. The exit was lit up brighter than day time, so many lights set up pointing everywhere. The army guys were completely decked out, gas masks on and a*****t rifles. They were sprinting around. One guy at the corner was frantically waving me through to get back on the highway. I gunned it out of there. Looked in the news later and didn’t see anything, no idea what was going on that night.
Image source: Thomas_XX
#34
Not a trucker, but I was driving through Nevada on a long ride trip. About 3 am, sun barely starting to peek out. My sister was asleep in the passenger seat and my parents asleep in the back seat, so it was just me, on a straight stretch of highway in the middle of the desert. I was exhausted and extremely bored from the lack of scenery when suddenly, directly in front of me, up in the pale sky, there was a flash of green and a green meteor carved towards the horizon before flashing green again and disappeared. At first I thought it was a UFO or something, but I later read meteors can burn green if they have copper in them. Now I think fondly back on that meteor, my family was asleep for it, no one around for miles. I like to think that it was just for me.
Image source: nachorykaart
#35
I was at a truck stop in Arizona. I was pulling through the fuel island and right as I was about to leave roughly 15 cop cars came flying into the parking lot with a swat van. They surrounded a truck that was already parked for the night. I heard later that the driver had lost a tire or something off his trailer and it had killed a guy on the side of the road. Don’t know how true that story was, but it sounded possible.
At the old Flying J in El Paso I had pulled through the fuel island and was filling out logs and what not after filling up when someone started screaming help on the CB.
It’s not unusual to hear kids f*****g around or whatever but this sounded like a full grown man and didn’t sound fake. It only happens for about 15-20 seconds and then silence. Some people started asking the guy where he was but never got a response.
Suddenly another big rig in the parking lot starts to take off right as a couple of cop cars pull into the truck parking area. The big rig takes out a smaller sign and then jumps a curb out into the service road for I-10. Turns out a student got pissed at his instructor and stabbed him before leading the cops on a short high speed chase.
Image source: Start_button
#36
Not a trucker, but news that happened in my city a few years ago—a woman who had been depressed saw a semi parked on an off-ramp and decided to lay underneath one of his tires and wait for him to drive off. I can’t remember how long she laid there dead until someone found her, but the thought that the truck driver might never know that he aided in someone’s s*****e… what a horrible thought.
Image source: Bottled_Lightning
#37
I saw a baboon in san Saba Texas crouched down next to the road. He lifted something to his mouth and I saw nothing but fangs. So out of place that it gave me goosebumps. One of the locals explained that a lot of fake ranchers will keep exotic animals and when they grow aggressive or go in heat they will cut them loose.
Image source: hui213
#38
My grandfather was in the Air Force and one night he was driving (back to his base maybe??? I can’t quite remember) and he saw a woman standing on the side of the road in a long white dress at about two AM. He circled back to ask if she needed help and she was nowhere to be seen. He searched for her for about an before giving up, and deciding to leave it alone. When he decided to go on his way he had a strong feeling that he needed to switch lanes (he was on the road alone in the middle of the night so he had no idea why) and just ahead on the road there was a broken down truck with no hazards on that he would have hit, and probably been killed by, if he stayed in the lane he had been in. To this day he’s convinced the woman was trying to warn him, like an omen or something.
Image source: s_craig
#39
Guy I knew was down in Texas at a truck stop, catching some zzzs. All of a sudden he heard a loud BANG, so he got up to see what it was. Well, when he got into the front of the cab, there was blood and guts all over his windshield and the mirror.
Turns out, the guy beside him had shot a guy that was trying to break into his truck.
“Sorry bout the mess, some d**n Nword was tryina break into y’all’s truck.” He said.
Apparently that’s allowed there?
Image source: Bullfist
#40
I’m not a trucker but my cousin was for a short stint. A lion ran out in front of him when he had gotten out to pee. He called his mom and she asked if he was high. He denied it and said “a f*****g lion ran out in front of me, I’m telling you!”
A few days later, the news revealed animals had escaped from a local zoo he was near, including…….a lion! We love to tell that story to everyone!
Image source: UnknownNaiad
#41
I saw an Arby’s marquee sign that said “BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND: ARBY’s LOADED ITALIAN”
There is no mass popular uprising demanding the return of Arby’s loaded Italian. The sign was lying.
Image source: ColHaberdasher
#42
I’m a trucker. Got a good pic of a cadaver on the side of the road. Posted it on r/truckers a week ago, you can find it on my posts.
I interact with motorists everyday when I’m out trucking, whether it’s sort of in traffic, or just in general in the truck stop as people standing in line for their food and coffee, going to the bathroom.
I’m aware I’m like king of the road in my massive truck, but when people’s cars go past, I like to think of those cars being occupied by “loved one’s”. So even if they’re a road raging piece of s**t, they’re still somebody’s loved one’s and it’s part of my duty of operating the heaviest vehicles that they make it home safe just as much as it is my duty that I also make it home safe.
But thinking you know, when I woke up, me and that person, both alive, got plans ahead of us, things we want to do today…tomorrow…this summer…and by midday he/she’s rendered into non-existence…his/her body an inanimate object. Weird way to think about it. I have a morbid curiosity.
I saw two sheeted dead bodies on last tour of duty. We knew the accident I’m talking about was fatal when we saw the coroner’s van go by, following the forensics truck. Both me and my codriver immediately said “Op, this accident is DEFINITELY fatal”.
Be careful out there. Unless your hobby in life is shooting up fentanyl laced h****n, I’d argue that driving is probably the most dangerous thing you do on a daily basis, where out of nowhere you can just randomly die.
For that matter, the accident, my codriver said it was an SUV that rolled over, the driver’s compartment compacted and inflicted a fatal injury on the driver, if I had to guess, probably blunt force trauma to the head area.
Image source: SuperJew113
#43
Not a trucker but i saw some guys wearing buddhist orange monk robe while ropelifting something like a sign to a pole on the side of highway. the next day i didn’t see any sign, pole or anything. i’m sure i’m not wrong because the location is near the highway exit i usually take every day. besides why they’re wearing monk robe rather than construction apparel confuses me
edit: saw them in the middle of the night.
Image source: lazy_tenno
#44
Weeeellll, I’m not a trucker, but a motorcyclist which kinda makes it even more spooky. Drove home Frome my gfs house, just a 20min ride but it was 3am and the road goes through a forest without any street lights. So I ride through the forest, already giving everything my little 50ccm dirt bike had in it back then and suddenly on the side of the road, a f*****g naked mannequin is standing. I saw it appear in my headlights and drove by it only doing like 60kmh, it was scary as hell. A f****n’ mannequin standing there naked on the side of a dark road in a forest at 3am in the morning. D**n, I still get the shivers…
Image source: anon
#45
I’m not a trucker and it wasn’t at night, but…
Riding my motorcycle out in the countryside I came across a small tricycle parked right alongside of the road. It was just so far from any houses that I was really kind of freaked out by it. I stopped and looked around, even checking down in the creek that ran alongside the road worried that some little kid could have gone exploring and fallen in. Not finding anything I rode on.
Well, another full mile down the road I came on a lady out walking with two of her kids. The one riding the trike just got tired and she had to start carrying him.
I know this doesn’t sound that strange but just seeing that little trike in the middle of no where kind of freaked me out.
Image source: barto5
#46
When I was a kid I grew up in the cab of my father’s truck. He was a single father and I was on the road with him quite a bit. Occasionally if he was going to pass near my grandmother’s house he would drop me off there for a week or so, I’m sure to give himself a break from a very young son in a very tight space. One time when he was nearing my grandmother’s house I remember crying because I didn’t want him to drop me off. I loved my grandmother very much but I was attached to my father for some reason. Separation anxiety I’m sure (thanks mom). As I was sobbing I started recognizing my surroundings and knew we were close. I decided the next song on the radio was going to be “dad’s song” so every time I heard it I would think of him. “I Guess That’s Why They Call It the Blues” by Elton John came on the radio so that chipper tune became the song I used to remember him. That was in the early 80s and I can’t remember hearing that song over the last 20+ years. Three years ago I was driving to see my dad in the hospital and I stopped at a truck stop for gas and snacks. What song should start playing over the truck stop’s speakers but “I Guess That’s Why They Call It the Blues”. I got a sick nervous feeling. Was this a good omen or bad one? I’m not superstitious so I tried to dismiss it and chalked it up to chance. April 11 will be 3 years since I lost him. Surely it was just a random occurrence that I would hear that song going to see him for the last time right? I’m not superstitious or religious but I sure would like to see the old man again some day.
Image source: GhostFour
#47
Not exactly at a road, but in the sky. I’m a pilot and usually fly around Florida. This specific night I was out at around 11:30pm with a friend, flying down the eastern shoreline, when I suddenly see a medium-sized white light slowly start coming towards us, stop, and then go vertically into the ocean and disappear. Both my friend and I saw it and we were completely speechless. Asked the air traffic control if there were any kind of aircraft around us and he told us we were the only aircraft in a 40 mile radius.
Image source: iamverysuccessful
#48
Not a truck driver, but I’ve crossed the States many, many times in my career – I used to tour manage a band that consisted of four musicians and two crew, so it was a total of seven of us. We would often drive a white Sprinter van with a Uhaul trailer on the back, and if you’re familiar with Uhaul you know they have different pictures on the sides of them, often a state and something significant from that state painted on the side.
We were about an hour outside of Roswell, New Mexico at 2AM. It was in the summer – we were coming from having just played the New Mexico State Fair. In every direction around us it was pitch black; no lights from cities or even rest stops, no other cars, nothing. We have absolutely no phone signal. All of our phones say “No Signal” at the same time. It’s a two-lane highway, the only illumination coming from our headlights. We haven’t seen another car for a very long time.
Suddenly on the horizon we see a light appear directly ahead of us. We keep driving normally, and the light is approaching us quickly. We (rightly) just assume it’s another car coming our way on the other side of the highway, but then as the vehicle goes to pass us…
It’s a white sprinter van towing a Uhaul trailer with the exact same state artwork as ours on the side. Same tires. Same model van. Same trailer. Same everything. And as soon as we pass it, it’s gone.
All of us very uncomfortably said the same thing at the same time. “Was that—did that van have the same—what are the chances—“
I’ll never forget it. We couldn’t do anything but just uncomfortably acknowledge we all saw the same thing and none of us were losing our minds.
Image source: KidCadaver
#49
Not a long-haul trucker but I grew up on a farm. We grew peas and would run the combines 24/7. I ran a tri-axle dump truck back and forth from the various fields to the canning factory. I always preferred the night shift. Temps way cooler, less traffic, etc.
One night we had some thunderstorms roll through. I was driving down a backroad at like 2am. All of a sudden a patio chair crosses the road at just about the max range of my headlights. Followed by another and then a large patio table went cartwheeling by. I immediately stopped hard. S**t got real. Truck started to move quite a bit and I’ll be honest… I screamed like a little kid. I’m certain I would have rolled had I not been loaded down with 20+ tons of peas.
Confirmed tornado the next morning. My how I wish I’d had a dashcam back then. So, not exactly creepy or paranormal but scared the s**t out of me for sure.
Image source: GumbyRocks89
#50
My grandfather told me the story about how he was driving west to east along an empty stretch of road in southern South Dakota. He stopped at a stop sign at an intersection with nothing in sight: no buildings and no other vehicles. Then there was a bright light that hit him. He looked up and saw a bunch of blinking lights.
Next thing he knew, he was at the counter of a diner about an hour down the road. It was about 6 hours later and he had no idea what had happened. He asked the person at the diner when he came in and the guy told him he came in about 10 min ago and just started drinking coffee without talking much. My grandpa told him what had happened and the guy said something like, “Yep, that’s happens around here sometimes.”
Nothing weird ever happened to him again. He avoided that area for the rest of his life. He said he doesn’t believe in aliens and doesn’t know what happened, but I had a suspicion he thought he had been abducted and just never accepted it. He told me never to tell this story to other people, but he died years ago and most of the people who knew him are dead, so I figured it was OK.
Image source: hdorsettcase
#51
Former driver here. You’d see all kinds of crazy s**t at night on the road. I’ve always been a night owl so I can’t chalk it up to exhaustion, but I’m sure that none of it was what it seemed.
A giant, shaggy black dog running along and eventually across the road
A man with yellow eyes and a long black duster standing in the road smiling
More than one light in the sky moving and changing directions at speeds that make my head spin to think about
Phantom deer. Probably real deer but it sure didn’t seem like it at the time
Injured people walking on the side of the road. Saw a few, only one ever turned out to be real. Glad I kept stopping to check
Lights in the trees like fairies
And my personal favorite: am enormous black creature with extremely long appendages and a hunched torso that tried to swipe at vehicles
I’ve read a lot about most of these phenomena and understand their explanations but darned if they didn’t seem completely real and scary when I witnessed them. Some of them so much so that it seemed like a good idea to stop instead of risking it. I don’t believe in ghosts and monsters but some of those gave me pause.
Image source: Timetravelingnoodles
#52
I picked up a hitchhiker in my small Nissan Versa sedan, and we were driving down the freeway. There was a big vehicle in front of me so I couldn’t see what was in front of that when all of a sudden the other guy start yelling “Tire, tire!” and pointing ahead of us.
I slammed on my brakes just in time to see the SUV in front of us swerve too late as the car in front of it swerved as this massive tire that was rolling down the freeway demolished the front end of the vehicle in front of me and bounded high into the air coming down in front of my car where the steel band broke and it stopped rolling. If I hadn’t slammed on the brakes, it probably would have come down on top of me.
He got out at the next gas station. I don’t remember his name but I think he saved my life that day.
Image source: KJ6BWB
#53
I have an uncle that was a truck driver in his youth, and he told all sort of stories about the things he encountered while on the roads of Brazil’s countryside.
He said that, there was a road, in the north (maybe northwestern) part of the country that the truckers allways said to avoid.
Once, he had a scheduled delivery and he was late, so, he said to himself “f**k that” and took the aforementioned road, because It looked like it would be a good shortcut
At some point of the night, while driving, his truck simply stopped working. Dead. Like the battery died or something. After five minutes in the complete darkness, he saw lights at the sky, slowly passing over his truck. He tried the ignition again. Nothing.
So he just sat there, scared shitless, watching the lights go by. The lights eventually went away and after something like 20 or 30 minutes, his truck started working again and he followed his way.
Image source: anon
#54
When I was doing the long haul thing, I was driving through Oklahoma, don’t remember exactly where, but it was late at night, and I was already tired. Well I was driving along and saw what I thought was a grim reaper, looked in my mirrors and didn’t see it. At that point I decided that, regardless of how many hours I have left on my log, I’m stopping the next chance I get to rest. Later that night after getting parked, I turned on my cb and heard someone talking about a bad accident just a few miles beyond where I had stopped. After asking how long ago it happened, it turned out that if I had kept going, I would have been caught up in it.
Edit: I do recall that I was heading north from Dallas TX. Looking at my old book that I kept of tracks I took I think it was US 75 N since Plano was on the list of cities I would go through on that run. Where exactly I couldn’t tell you.
Image source: deeluna
#55
Story time! This isn’t something we saw but experienced.
My dad was a trucker and in the summers I tagged along with him. One evening we were driving from Houston to Jacksonville and somehow we got turned around on the back roads of Louisana. The last major place I remembered us being in was Troy* at about 1am. Well it was almost 3 and we had no idea where we were. We eventually came to this little bitty town. It had one broken stoplight, a diner, an abandoned factory, and some empty shopping centers. In total it was maybe four blocks from one end to the other.
We were both hungry and because we didn’t want to wait to go to a truckstop, we pulled in behind the diner. Now that I think about it the fact that a small town diner was open at 3am should’ve been a sign that something was amiss.
We get in and this diner is pretty nice actually. A bit old school, reminiscencent of the 60’s. There’s a single waitress on duty and a cop eating in a booth. We naturally all got to chatting. I remember that meal so clearly because it was the first time I had grits. They were loaded with cheese and bacon. The cop gave us directions back to the highway and bought me a chocolate milk for the road. I even remember the tables. They were composite wood covered in polka dot contact paper.
Well we eventually made it to civilization and later that morning at a stop my dad asks about the town. Cue a lot of confused local truckers. He was sure he was getting the name right but no one had heard of it.
A few months later he was driving me back home to Texas and he drove through Louisiana attempting to find the town. We never could. We’re still not sure what happened, if we drove through a ghost town no one remembered or something weirder. But I remember that night clearly.
Edit: I’m trying to find the name of the town. I don’t remember it but I’ve been talking to my dad because he thinks her wrote it down somewhere.
Edit 2: Sparta, not Troy. Got my Greek names mixed up. Still looking for the town. I think it was somewhere off 507 and 9.
Edit 3: FOUND THE NAME. It is Gramercy. I spelled it wrong at first. A search won’t provide any diners nearby but it is possible that it’s closed down. The abandoned factory was not abandoned but is apparently a sugar mill. My dad has a garbage memory so it’s likely he was saying “Grand Merci” or something wrong to the other truckers, hence why no one knew what he was talking about. Mystery solved.
Image source: Adhara27
#56
Driving my flatbed from St. Helena (California) to Wylie, TX. This happened somewhere near the Texahoma border.
I picked up a hitchhiker.
He was standing by the side of the road with a trembling thumb out. Trembling from the cold maybe?
Soon I would learn that this was the trembling of fear.
The trembling of a man, who looked as though he has seen a ghost.
“Where to?” I asked.
“Please, I know this is weird. Just take me to a bar, for I need a drink. I will buy you a drink or a hot sandwich.”
I thought this was odd. I have picked up many hitchhikers in my day, and such a request was never asked.
As I was about to say “get lost buddy, whatever you’re selling, I’m not buying.”
But I looked into the man’s eyes and I saw terror. Something compelled me to open my passenger door for this man. He entered.
At the bar, the hitchhiker began his tale.
Earlier on this night of torrential rain, the hitchhiker was seeking a ride.
Next to the road he sat with his thumb out. For hours he waited in the rain. A few cars passed, but none slowed.
Frustrated ,the hitchhiker was about to rest his thumb and find shelter for the night.
And then he saw headlights. Headlights of a very slow approaching car.
The hitchhiker eagerly approached the car waiting for it to stop.
Oddly, the slow moving car continued drifting forward. Maybe the pace was slowing, or maybe this car was always moving at such a slow speed. But this car never came to a complete stop. The headlights pierced the rain, as the hitchhiker stood confused.
“Will this car stop? Perhaps I should get in. I have never seen a car drive so slowly like this.“
The hitchhiker decided to just jump in this car. He stumbled to the rain as he pulled the passenger door and had a seat.
To his horror, there was no one in the driver’s seat.
There was no one in the back seat.
The car was bare. But it kept moving forward. The headlights still on, but now in front of him as he looked out of the windshield… as the car continued to creep forward.
The hitchhiker quickly exited this ghost car, ran for miles. He rested. He ran some more. Rested, ran some more. Finally, after catching his breath, he stuck out his thumb and stood by a road.
The hitchhiker than saw headlights. But this time the car was driving at a reasonable pace. It wasn’t a car at all, it was a flatbed truck.
That is where the hitchhiker and I met.
The bartender brings the hitchhiker and me our beer (the service at this bar sucked!).
And then – two men, drenched in rain came running into the bar. They pointed at the hitchhiker.
“Hey, there’s the idiot that tried jumping into our car as we were pushing it through the rain!”.
Image source: MrEdTalkingHorse
#57
I remember being at a barbershop with my grandpa way back when and one trucker told a story about traveling through Florida at night. He said that he hadn’t seen anywhere to stop and finally hand to pull to the side of the road to take a p**s. A state trooper pulled up and told him it was dangerous to be stopping in the area, then turned on his floodlight and flashed it out into the dark. The trucker said that dozens of eyes from alligators flashed back in the light and he quickly jumped back in his truck. Didn’t stop anywhere like that down there again.
Image source: Marodder
#58
Not a trucker but my Dad was. When I was young he’d take me on hauls sometimes. On one such trip, we were heading across I80? In Nebraska and there was a snow storm. We got to a part of the highway where a cop had blocked it off saying it was closed and we had to pull off for the night. We ended up pulling into an old motel 8 that was closed/abandoned and went to sleep in the cab. The next morning there were 3 sets of footprints in the snow around the truck. The foot prints came out of the woods and circled the truck several times and looked like they had paused at windows and whatnot and then led back into the woods. Not sure what was up but I remember my Dad acting weird and he didn’t take me out on the road after that.
Image source: anon
#59
Not a trucker, but my parents go camping in Wisconsin every weekend (we live in Minnesota) and when I was younger, we were driving home late one night. Back country road, no one else around, pitch black, trees almost connecting with each other above the road; very surreal.
Anyways, my younger brother starts getting antsy, and pointed out a dark shape that he said was following us. I thought he was trying to scare me, but sure as s**t, something WAS there, running through the trees and keeping pace with the car. We told the parents who of course, didn’t believe us.
Suddenly, it shot forward, and seemed to disappear. But as we took a turn, and the headlights swept over the trees, we all saw a flash of red eyes in the bushes. My dad slowed the car to a crawl, and when the eyes blinked, and moved closer, he took off.
My brother and I are still convinced that a hellhound/grim was following us home.
Image source: FusedAura
#60
2 stories my dad has told me
While driving Pacheco Pass in California he had an empty trailer and it was really windy so it was swaying back and forth. He saw some girl walking through and he tried to merge lanes to avoid her and heard a loud bang. He thought he’d k**l someone with the side of the trailer. When he could stop he was looking for signs everywhere and there was nothing anywhere not even a dent in the trailer.
Second one was also in Pacheco Pass he saw some woman wandering on the side and stopped and let her in the truck said she was dripping wet. It wasn’t raining but there’s this lake next to the freeway so he thought she was swimming late night. She’s silent while he’s driving After a little bit he said he turned over to her and there’s no one there his seat is dry.
I told him to tell the story of the girl that got in his car when we were at dinner with one of his trucker buddies and when he starts off the story and his friend says wait that happened to me and explains the same story. Apparently back in the day truck drivers would k**l and throw people in the lake or just on the side of the road.
Image source: thepacs69
#61
Not a trucker, but many many years ago.. my buddy and I had spent the night repo’ing cars. It was about 3am. We were in one of the cars we picked up, driving back to get another vehicle. Stopped at the light heading south on New Hampshire Av, at the intersection of route 70 in Toms River N.J., in the turning lane, a 97-98 Honda CR-V pulls up next to us.
I glance over, and the person in that car had no face. This was 2003, before all the weird masks that you can now buy, and I point it out to my buddy. “Holy s**t dude, that person has no face!” He looks over, confirms it, the left turn signal comes on and no face heads east on 70.
I asked my buddy about it years later and he went white as a ghost. He thought he had dreamt it, that’s why he never mentioned it.
Image source: Fromhe
#62
I 2003 when I was a senior in high school, or perhaps the summer after we graduated, a friend and I were coming home from somewhere I don’t recall and traveling down Murfreesboro Rd in between Smyrna and the Boro (TN). It was really dark and really foggy that night. Suddenly a really strong feeling came over me to tell my friend to change lanes. As I opened my mouth to say something she started changing lanes and told me she didn’t know why but, long story short, she had the same feeling. A few seconds later, just about the time we were going to shrug it off, a big boat of an old car came flying down the lane we were in at what had to be well over 100mph without a single light on, front or rear. It was moving so fast that it disappeared into the distance just as quickly as it had appeared. We pulled over, thanked our lucky stars and headed back home with the high beams on for the rest of the drive home.
Image source: EngagementBacon
#63
My grandpa drove a truck for d**n near 60 years and swore up and down that the mountains out west (in Nevada) would move and be in different places every time he came through. Could’ve just been trucker crank, though.
Image source: Tankisfite
#64
My family and I used to travel a lot (usually at nights) to my father’s hometown. I remember that once it was really dark and I was looking through the window when I saw somebody standing on the side of the road just looking at us while we pass the thing is that when I turned around to look back there was nothing just an empty road, it could probably be someone but why somebody just go out to look at cars on the road late at night?
Image source: p27la
#65
I-80 Nebraska just west of North Platte it started snowing pretty heavy. About 1:00 am. Very cold outside and dry snow. This is the kind that doesn’t stick to the windshield or road immediately, just swirls around. The snow flying straight at me, seemingly going 1000 mph, my headlights reflecting of each individual crystal like I’m going light speed and the snow are stars in the sky. It’s easy to get vertigo, or straight up hypnotized by snow like this. Then the crazy s**t happened. The wind kicked up, howling blowing the snow everywhere, every direction, and then lightning. Massive lightening in a blizzard! Flash, boom! Flash, BOOM! The whole inside of the cab lights up like its day time. It was like for a few minutes I was in some other dimension, or the matrix or something. Like being inside a tornado. Anyway, first time seeing a lightning storm while snowing.
Image source: supertrucker
#66
This isn’t my story but an old friend of mine’s. In the 90’s John was an IT guy in parts of Eastern Iowa and far west Illinois. He was used to driving from one account to another either late at night or early in the morning. He’d pick a halfway point to use a rest stop and to grab one of those awful paper cup coffees from the machines while he was there.
One early morning about 4:30 am he was in Iowa and he stopped at a wide spot in the road rest stop. He parked and there weren’t any other people there except for a couple of semis who looked like they had been there for quite a while.
He went into the men’s room and it was deserted. He used the bathroom and went to the sink to wash his hands. He said he caught some movement from the corner of his eye and there was a very tall, very thin man standing right in the middle of the entrance about 15 feet away. He was dressed all in black and he says that the guy’s eyes were pitch black. The man was giggling to himself and John swore he was at least 8 feet tall.
He glanced down to grab a paper towel from the machine and when he looks up this man is so close he can hear him breathing with a loud bubbly sound. There’s no way he could have crossed 15 feet in 1 second.
As he told it, this man (thing) slowly smiled at him and it wasn’t a smile. It was a baring of serrated, sharp teeth and this thing starts chuckling like he’s looking at a 3 piece KFC meal. My friends screams Jesus Help Me! and runs for his car. My friend says the thing is startled – like he wasn’t supposed to be able to move. He felt like he should have been frozen like staring at a snake.
He runs to his car, which wasn’t locked, slams the locks down, starts the car and floors it getting out of there. As he’s leaving he looks in the rear view and this thing is running after the car.
He always swore somehow this thing followed him home. He was paralyzed in an accident not long after and I went to care for him for a little while. I brought my 4 year old son with me and in his typical baby way, he would chatter away while the two of us were talking.
I asked him one day who he was talking to. My son said “He says his name is Biter. He has long teeth and he lives with Mr. John”. I grabbed my son and ran out of there. I never went back to that house.
Image source: EmmelineTx
#67
So my dad and I were driving down 441 in south Florida. It was probably about 4 in the morning and we hadnt seen another car for over an hour when we see this really bright orange light up ahead. As we get closer we see that it’s a fairly old looking truck on the grass on the side of the road and the hood is completely engulfed in flames. My dad pulls over and, as I was quite young at the time, he told me to stay inside and he went to see if he could help the owners. I’m sitting in the passenger seat watching intently as he approaches the car but he cant find anybody. Then, practically at the same time, we notice theres a woman in a torn casual blue dress standing over by the tree line just kind of staring at my dad and breathing really heavily. My dad looks really nervous but approaches her cautiously with his hands out before she turns and just bolts into the forest towards the farmland. He ran to the tree line to look for her but she had completely disappeared. As we were driving away it looked like the fire might have gone out but we weren’t ever sure.
Image source: Crekcut
#68
Not a truck driver but would travel to and from Shaw AFB and Florida many times each weekend to see family. I had a BMW with a carbon fiber front splitter for extra downforce. To get to Shaw, you have to drive about 45 minutes through backroads and unlit areas. After getting off of I95, I was cruising on a dark road doing about 65 and I hear this large thud because I ended up hitting something. I pulled over and ended up decapitating a rabbit that was in the middle of the road with my front splitter. I got out of the car to check and it’s pitch black in the middle of the night and I get this “I’m being watched” feeling. I quick got back in the car and as I was driving off I could see the reflection of eyes in both my rear view as well as the front via the fog lights and high beams. Turns out there was a pack of coyotes watching the rabbit before I hit it. Not paranormal but still creepy as hell.
Image source: LowFatCheeze
#69
One time I was driving home late at night. I was on a pretty major street lined with shops with large parking lots. So I had a pretty good view of things around me. Being late at night there were maybe just a couple cars parked probably belonging to late night cleaners and what not. So I’m driving, and out of nowhere a baseball comes flying out of thin air and slams into my windshield. Like I said I had a pretty good view of the parking lots and there was nobody around except for parked cars. And even those were few and far between.
I panicked and pulled off to the side of the road for a minute before driving off. I continued to look around and I drove but I couldn’t find any sign of life. To this day I have no idea where the rogue baseball came from.
Image source: takemetotheshivabowl
#70
Not a trucker, but on one hell of a long drive.
Driving from Alberta to southern Texas for a bike event, it was about 1:00 AM and I was starting to get pretty tired. I was somewhere in Idaho, taking a scenic route because I’m into small creepy roads.
I saw a McDonald’s (oooohhhhj creeeepy) with the lights on so assuming it was open, stopped. It was a little weird that there would be a McDonald’s that far out in the middle of nowhere on a little back road, but whatever. Door opened and walked in, and no one was there. I called back, no one. Being the curious weirdo I am I I decided to go through the “staff only” door to the kitchen. Hot oil and really badly burned chips (fries) in the deep fryer, fresh food, but no one there.
Took a walk around the place, and no one. Weirdest spooky thing ever.
Image source: anon
#71
Friend of mine was driving an overnight through Arizona on a basically abandoned road and his truck started having electrical issues, lights cutting on and off, no CB etc. after about 5 minutes of that a convoy of law enforcement/federal emergency vehicles passed him. In the middle of the emergency vehicles there was a flat bed semi with a massive saucer shaped item chained to the bed and covered with tarps About 5 minutes after passing the convoy his radio and truck electrics came back up. He still recounts it as the craziest thing he’s ever experienced on the road.
Image source: hicksonjd
#72
I’m not a long haul trucker by trade, but back in the day I had several odd jobs that required I drive across the country. One was shipping horses, I drove the truck from barns to shows or vice versa, and the other was working as road crew for a rock band.
I was very very young. 16-20 years old. For reference, I’m female, short, athletic. Def the odd one our at a lot of rest stops & gas stations along the major routes. I also am / was tattooed & had a red Mohawk which made me stand out more.
Several weird things happened that I remember. But first I wanna say – Navajo nation is indeed really really creepy. Always drove thru at night too, never meant to plan that way but that’s always how it happened. Other creepy place is northern Utah. Totally hills have eyes up there.
Anyways, here story 1:
I was driving from Galveston TX to New Orleans, LA. Galveston had just been hit by the hurricane, and there was a weird serial killer moving thru that city, so the vibe had already begun as weird. Just as I crossed the border from TX to LA, I started to get super tired. Was really late, 3am ish. Tried to find a gas station to pull over, rest, and fill up, but all of them were closed. Gave up, pulled into the next one which was closed, parked in the far corner of the lot, killed my car (a convertible Jeep at the time) and laid my seat back to sleep. Everything seemed quiet. There were a few lights from the station that were on 24/7, but I parked far enough away they couldn’t really bother my eyes.
I woke up with a start. Had been dreaming but I had this like gut instinct to wake up. I immediately saw someone covered in mud, wearing rags, holding a knife, advancing slowly towards my car. He was maybe 5 feet away, moving forward. My adrenaline kicked in immediately and I switched the car on. At that point he lets out some guttural growl and launches towards the car, as I’m backing up. I barely miss him as he’s grabbing at the vehicle. With the headlights on, I could see he was covered in sores and the knife was all rusty. I sped out of there, didn’t sleep again all the way to NOLA. Freaked me out so badly. I also never again slept in my car. The idea he could have been watching me sleep for who knows how long freaked me out. My car was also a convertible, he could have easily cut his way in. That image of waking up to some crazy person advancing on me with a knife has also given me nightmares for many years.
Second story: I was hauling horses from Kansas to Tucson, AZ. Driving a big Ford truck, a dually, with a small trailer carrying 3 horses. Near Gallup, around 2am, the back inner tire on the passenger side blows out. I pulled off the road and assessed the situation. There was zero chance I could change the tire myself given the trailer / dually truck situation. And I’m tired and weak from exhaustion. So I call a tow company and try to find a temporary boarding place for the horses. It’s the morning of Easter Sunday. Literally NO ONE is open. I’m going thru the yellow pages calling tow company after tow company (yes I’m old this is pre-smart phones).
Finally I find a Native American tow company who also has a ranch with boarding for the horses & a truck to come grab the trailer. Was a GODSEND. But the guy & his wife, who ran the company, told me to be very very careful not to leave my truck during the 2hr drive it would take for them to arrive. They said this in such an emphatic way I began to get really scared. They told me not to open the door for anyone and to keep the doors locked. No one was really on the road so I was confused as to who could really be a threat out there. But I took them seriously and locked my doors and waited.
I kept hearing this weird scratching sound on the back panel window of the truck. Like someone was trying to open the small window back there. A couple times the truck would sway, which I figured was the horses. It was pitch black out. No wind. I heard a few footsteps but chalked it up to the wind or my imagination. Was getting scared out there alone unable to move.
Eventually the nice couple with the tow truck and other truck to haul the ponies show up. They immediately and first move me from my cabin to the cabin of their tow truck. Tell me not to move or open the door under any circumstances. The couple is super fast, lady deals with the horses, man gets my truck up on the tow bed.
They then drive me to their ranch, after the man drops my truck off at a local shop owned by his cousin who he says will handle the flat on Monday.
Anyways long story short: this wonderful couple takes care of me and the horses, gets my truck tire fixed. As I’m ready to leave on Monday afternoon, there’s a story on the local news of a woman with a flat tire who was m******d alongside the same stretch of highway on Sunday evening. She’d been out changing a tire and looks like someone m******d her. I asked the couple and they didn’t say much other than to never ever get out of the car at night along this highway – ever. Said it was certain death. They also gave me some bags of potpourri stuff to have / burn in my truck cabin “for protection.” I felt very lucky to find these nice ppl tbh. They def looked out for me and never once did I feel unsafe staying at their house. I was 18 at the time and def knew nothing about safety along trucking routes.
But from now on I drive thru that area and I don’t stop if I can avoid it. Load up on gas, check tires in Flagstaff & ride on thru to Albuquerque. There’s weird stuff out there on the reservations and I don’t pretend to know (or want to know) what it is.
Image source: blackwidowla
#73
I’m not a trucker but my uncle is. This also wasn’t quite at night but at dusk.
My uncle drives for a company that hauls beans, and other veggies in Texas. One evening in the summer around 10 years ago he saw a huge tarantula in the road… from the cab of his truck… while driving in semi darkness. He estimated the tarantula to be at least a foot wide and attempted to run this monstrosity over. 😱😱😱.
Image source: Seiri01
#74
This isn’t that interesting of a story, but it spooked me and my friend pretty bad at the time. The lake where I usually hang out had pulled a body out a few years ago. There are crosses off the road and near the lake with his name on it. I googled it and he died under mysterious circumstances. His death was ultimately ruled a s*****e, but there are many many questions that are left unanswered.
One night, a friend and I drove to the lake at midnight and parked the car in the vicinity of the crosses. When it was time to leave, my car went haywire. The doors were unlocking and locking rapidly and my headlights were turning on and off. I panicked and asked my friend “Spencer… that’s not you is it?” And he responded with “I thought it was you.” All this was happening before I had even turned my car on. After a minute, we got the car on and sped off. Never talked about it again.
Image source: applepiggy
#75
My Grandfather was an owner-operator for Vallerie trucking. He drove for many years and was still driving until a year or so before he passed away. When it was time to say goodbye, my Dad, Aunt, Nana and myself were about to go into the wake, standing on the steps of the funeral home, talking. My aunt (whose name is Valerie) saw a Vallerie truck pass along the road and remarked about it. The truck stops at the stop sign, makes the right, pulls into the parking lot of the funeral home, makes a three point turn in this tiny parking lot, and leaves. I wouldn’t have believed it but I was there on the steps.
Image source: iamih
#76
Not a trucker but i did have a surreal experience while I was driving across Australia with some friends in a camper van. After a particularly long day driving we were still on the road around midnight still 20 odd miles away from where we were camping,we pulled into a truckstop for supplies and I stayed outside and had a cigarette.
I was already kinda wound up from driving all day and there pitch black night and silence was building up a sense of unease in me. All of a sudden a large truck pulled up that was filled with live pigs emitting the most terrifying screams – sounded so similar to human screams in that moment .
It was the most terrified I have ever been in my entire life.
Image source: badermeinhoff
#77
My dad drove a truck for 30 years and told me the story of the time he was driving in the middle of nowhere, middle of the night, pitch black, passing under a bridge. He looked up and saw what appeared to be a lone child standing on the bridge, looking down.
Image source: whoputthebomp2
#78
Not a long haul but I’ve seen this a couple times far from human contact:
Not quite folklore, more of an occurrence. In the American Midwest, there are times, occasionally for days and even weeks, when the sky goes gray and reality seems to slip. Rain falls upwards, wind comes from nowhere and everywhere, and the sun fails to shine. This phenomenon only occurs in spaces vast and removed from the human population, and often, but not always, with lone humans.
Once I was driving home from Indiana on a back road I saw a deer stand on two legs and walk across the road. I felt like I needed to vomit afterwards.
Image source: anon
#79
In the Middle of the night. On a street in the Middle of the black forest. A Green light moving extremly fast 5 Meters above the street Like a Roller coaster and then disappeared.
Me and my ex girlfriend didn’t talk for five minutes straight till we asked each other: Did you f*****g See this???
Image source: anon
#80
Not a trucker but I will never forget it. My family and I had just picked up a goat and a couple geese. We’re heading down this stretch of farm land, and guess what we see? Someone dressed as f****n Batman on a bat themed tractor (looked spray painted.). Of course, no one I tell this to believes me. I regret not getting a picture.
Image source: HydreigonFeather
#81
Not my story but:
I was driving in the middle of the night through Kanas when I heard a call for help on my CB radio. A guy was saying ‘I think need help, I am having trouble breathing’. I asked him where he was and he was not too far so I called 911 and headed in that direction. I came up to where the guy was and the ambulance was just leaving but the cops where still there. They said he was going to the hospital for probable heart attack but the officer was confused as to how I knew that he needed help and where he was. I told him about the call on the CB radio….., the officer said there was no such radio in the guys car.
Image source: cryptoanarchy
#82
Not a trucker, but my mom was going out one night to meet friends at a festival. This was years back when we lived in Asia. I was home with the nanny. I remember her leaving and then returning about 20 minutes later. I was “in bed asleep” and overheard the conversation. My nanny asked why she was back so soon and mom said she can’t leave she’s staying home tonight. On her way out around 9ish, a road we take multiple times a day, there were two full grown giant trees in the road. Not felled trees but ones that look like they have been there for ever, in the road. So she said out loud, “I’m going home, I’m not going out any more”. The trees shrank down into a puppy and ran off to the field on the side of the road. So, she turned around and came home. Next day for one of her friends came over and said that it was a good thing she stayed home. There was a fight at the festival, which turned into a shooting and quite a few people were hurt that night.
Image source: nite_wolf
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