From the Friday the 13th series to the iconic Blair Witch Project, the woods have been a pretty common location for horror stories for good reason. It’s isolated, unlit and, importantly, cheap to shoot a film in. But the truth is, spend enough time outdoors overnight and you will encounter something you might not be able to explain.
We’ve gathered stories from people who saw something creepy or unnerving when spending the night in the woods. Be warned, some are pretty frightening. So get comfortable as you scroll through, upvote your favorites and be sure to share your thoughts in the comments section down below.
#1
A number of years ago I was up in the northern end of BC in the islands out by Port Hardy. I set up camp right by the beach close to shore did the normal catch a fish cook it for dinner on the campfire thing. Perfect really.
A few hours pass and its getting dark I climb into the tent and fall asleep quickly. I get woken up by extremely heavy breathing on the beach from something BIG. In the area of my fire but the tide was in now so the waves would have covered it. My first thought is bear but on the islands where I was bear were not common at all to the point that there hasnt been one documented ever. This is blasting though my mind but than the urban talk of Bigfoot runs through my mind, at this point I am like there is no such thing as bigfoot so what the hell is it?!
I gain my courage and open my tent. I shine my flashlight around but I dont see anything so I get out of my tent. I am shining my light around when I hear it again. This huge breath but followed by a small splash. I focus my light on the beach when I see a massive Orca rolling around on the kelp right about where my fire was. This behemoth of a marine mammal scared the living s**t out of it but it turned into being one of the most amazing events I ever witnessed. As I sat watching this massive animal rolling and playing yards from me I noticed more of them just off shore just bobbing there prob half asleep. Needless to say I did not sleep after that until they left.
Image source: Subliminal_Image, Tomáš Malík
#2
Hiking alone in Washington. Late fall so it’s cold and few people on the trail.
I’m halfway up a steep, switchbacked climb and laying down to take a break when two guys come along descending the trail. I wave and they wave back. As they get close one of them suddenly says “oh, you’re alone” and then smiles at his friend. I get a little freaked out and I guess my dog sensed it because she stood up and stared sternly at them. She’s an 80lb black lab and full of love, but can look very intimidating.
The guys saw her and completely changed and quickly hurried on their way. I’m not sure if they were gonna do something creepy, but I picked a much less obvious campsite that night.
Image source: mobius5150, Blue Bird
#3
I was solo camping the chatooga River. It was maybe midnight when I felt my hammock start to shake violently. I poke my head out and it’s a g*****n raccoon trying to steal my boots, This was my first time solo camping and I nearly s**t a hole through my pants. And it didn’t end there. Those little gremlins tormented me all night long. Constantly trying to steal my s**t. Moral to the story, Don’t feed the animals people.
Image source: -Extendochicken-, Saleh Bakhshiyev
#4
The screech of an owl can be haunting. But the thing that freaked me out the most was a snake on top of the ocean surface. I’d never seen a snake around the beach before and I had no idea they could sit on top of the water like that. It was sort of mesmerising, but I saw three of them that day on the beach and have never encountered snakes like that again. One was diving in a shallow pool hunting crabs and it just sat down on the bottom for longer than I thought would be possible. All in all, learned a lot about snakes that day.
Image source: anon, Erik Karits
#5
Not exactly hiker/hunter/etc but… I was walking back to my parents country house a bunch of years ago. It was this time of the year so it got dark pretty soon.
I was around 16 years old and coming back from meeting friends.1 km remaining of walk, on the other side of the road I saw a lantern, couldn’t see any details of the person however. Seconds later, he/she aims at me with the light for what I felt so long, then it gets turned off and disappears in the darkness. I don’t think I have ran faster in my life.
Image source: Kagalera, KoolShooters
#6
Apparently when a beehive falls to the ground bees still stay in it. Never have I accidentally stepped on something and had more instant regret.
#7
1) I’m sleeping in my hammock in the woods off the Appalachian Trail somewhere and am woken up by something walking very quietly under me. It was tall enough to lift my feet up as it went under me, which is terrifying to wake up to in the middle of the night. Probably a deer, but scared the c**p out of me.
2) Hiking in Africa with a group of about 8 friends: I felt something behind me so I turn around and find myself eye to eye with a giant alpha male baboon. I handed over my backpack, which is what he was reaching for, and he proceeded to carry it a few meters away, sit down, and stare at me while he unzipped the zippers and inspected every item. He ate what was food and left the rest. He then proceeded to stalk/chase us all the way out of the gorge, coming back twice for more stuff. We tried scaring him off and even pepper sprayed him in the face but he just shook it off. It was one of the most awesome and terrifying experiences of my life that I hope to never repeat.
Image source: puppyduckydoo, Max Andrey
#8
I was out camping one night by myself and started hearing voices, I was playing music and it was around 2 in the morning my grandmas house was about 2 miles down the river and o thought it might have been my grandpa, so I turned off my music so I could tell back but I heard a dog and my grandma or Grandpa don’t have dogs, then I heard someone say ” the noise was this way” this genuinely freaked me out so I climbed one of the pine trees and sat up there about 5-7 minutes later I saw a flashlight in the distance and saw two people walking up, they were both men and there was a I believe a husky German hybrid with them they ransacked my camp and I swear they should’ve noticed me cuz they shined the lights around and pasted right over me, after they left I started to walk home cuz you know f**k that s**t, I heard 2 loud bangs (sounded like a rifle) and I booked it when I got home I stood in the porch for a second and saw their lights at the edge of the woods, I can assure you I will never camp alone again, it wasn’t even hunting season so they shouldnt have even been out with a g*n and if they were it should have been at least a handg*n not a rifle, but I’m still not sure what kind of g*n it was, I hate dark forests now though and I got hella bad paranoia from this.
Image source: deaths_merchant, Maël BALLAND
#9
I was elk hunting in Washington State a few years ago. As I was side-hilling a small canyon I experienced the old cliche of an “odd feeling” and being really uncomfortable. I headed up to the ridge-line and eventually met up with another hunter coming down the ridge very quickly. He waved me down and informed me that he had been watching me through binoculars and that I had walked directly under a tree with a mountain lion in it. Apparently I walked right under it and it simply watched me…guess he wasn’t hungry. Not so creepy, but an unnerving feeling!
Image source: alexandersuper666, Charles Chen
#10
…Was riding my horse down a trail. Heard a noise, tink tink, like glass. Looked down and saw a mouse in a glass bottle; it couldn’t get out. Stopped, tipped the bottle and let the little one go…
..was riding my horse down a trail and heard a dog whine… real quiet… i whistled it started barking. Rode that way and found the dog; it was a german shorthair hunting dog who had tried to get out of a creek and had gotten his collar hung up in a root. Goodness knows how long he was there, he was skinny. On his last legs if you know what i mean. Had a collar with owner info engraved; called them and they were speechless. That dog had been missing for three weeks. He surely was in the water that long….
Edit: yes the dog survived. Life is tough. It was a hot summer, the dog was very physically fit and well taken care of (active competitive hunting dog).
Image source: Nothivemindedatall, Cemrecan Yurtman
#11
I was out camping in the white mountains during winter time, when all of a sudden I start hearing branches cracking and snow crunching. I peer out of my tent to see a moose, maybe ten feet away, it’s head down to the ground staring at me.
I slowly crawled back into my tent and it kept eating twigs. I was more worried it was going to accidentally step on me.
Image source: Dekkars, Chris F
#12
My boyfriend and I were camping in Peter Lougheed Provincial Park (AB) this past summer. On the last night of our stay, as I’m falling asleep my bf tells me I’ve been pushing him off his side of the air mattress (I was trying to steal heat from him, as he’s a human furnace) and asks me to give him room. Sounds good, we go to sleep.
I wake up to him shoving me and think I’m crowding him by accident, so I move over a little. He shoves me harder and I’m annoyed now because I already moved and I’m tired so I somewhat loudly say “I’m moving!” And he grabs be and shushes me. I know something is wrong and am awake right away.
He whispers very softly, “do you hear something?” And right away I hear the unmistakable exhaling huff of a bear right by my head. My heart is pounding because at this point I can hear it sniffing us and huffing (which is not good if you know grizzlies). My bf says we need to get to our truck and I agree, but from what I can hear, the bear is between our tent and truck. Luckily we have command start and our truck has a very aggressive start, so when my bf started the truck, I heard some crashing through the trees and we both ran to the truck.
We drove a lap around our campground to make sure the bear hadnt gone into anyone else’s site, but didn’t see it. We slept in the truck until it was light out and let the wildlife hotline in the area know before we left. We started second guessing ourselves because this all happened at about 1:30am, but when we were packing up the tent that next day we found coarse, brown hair all over the side of the tent where our heads were and on the grill of the truck. I’ve never been so terrified and full of adrenaline in my life.
Image source: transparentfortress, MART PRODUCTION
#13
Was hiking along the north shore of Lake Superior in Minnesota, if you’ve never been, it’s really thick old growth forest. There’s a ~360 mile hiking trail from Duluth to the Canadian border, really well developed campsites and enough traffic that I wouldn’t feel unsafe on it anywhere.
For this particular trip, we(my hiking buddy and I), wanted to turn it into a loop instead of an out and back on the same trail. Scoped out a section that’s connected with some back roads and a snowmobile trail that would work as our loop.
As we’re hiking on one of the dirt back roads, see a random dirt biker approach us, stop maybe a hundred yards back, and stare for a while. Kinda unnerving with him just staring at us for a while, but he eventually turned and left.
We eventually get to a log shelter on the snowmobile trail that we planned as campsite 1. Nice relaxing campsite, go to bed. Woke up in the middle of the night (full moon), and I swore there were two moonlit silhouettes standing on either side of my tent. Not sure if I dreamed it or it was real, but freaky as fuuuuuuuck, remember just staying as still/silent as possible for as long as possible.
Image source: dagofin, Никита Шелайкин
#14
Was deep in a state park in North Carolina at a primitive campsite with my mom. We were setting up camp after hiking 15 miles in and it started getting dark. We had a fire going but needed more wood to keep it burning through the night so we were poking around the perimeter of the firelight picking up sticks. My mom started reaching for a long branch behind a log but something about it gave her pause. She pulled another stick from the bundle she’d already gathered and hit the one on the ground. It started writhing, coiled up and started rattling at her. We both jumped back and watched as a 7 ft rattlesnake slithered away into the woods. We decided we had enough wood.
Image source: Stentata, Jensine Odom
#15
We were camping at Long Beach, Washington for the kite festival, and decided to take a late night drive.
We found ourselves on some back roads in the woods, cruising along slowly with no music on and the windows down. No other cars but us, and suddenly everything just felt *wrong*. It was dark, but the light seemed different somehow. I remember the hair on the back of my neck standing up and just having the thought, “this isn’t right, we shouldn’t be here”. I look over and my wife is wide eyed and clearly feeling the same way. I decided to pull over so I could turn around and head back the way we came.
Then we noticed deer were coming out of the woods and standing on the sides of the road, and they were just…staring at us. Realize the woods are oddly quiet, which just made things seem more strange. Look up and the branches were *full* of birds on both sides of the road. There must have been hundreds of them, all perched and alert.
My wife said, “we need to go”. So we left. Eventually, once we had gone far enough, everything seemed normal again.
I’m a pretty big fan of the idea of multiple worlds/dimensions, and honestly wonder if we accidentally drove through a “thin spot” and briefly wound up somewhere we shouldn’t have been.
Image source: SuperBattleBros, DSD
#16
I was whitetail hunting in northern Michigan, it was getting dark and I saw a large black mass move into my bait pile, first I thought it was a black bear which isn’t uncommon. I soon realized it was dog/wolf like but way bigger than any d**n dog or wolf I have ever seen. It was pure black and it’s fur seemed whispy. I sat there closing my eyes hard and opening them again trying to disprove what my eyes were telling me but I simply couldn’t. It walked in and out of sight in the matter of two minutes. I was scared shitless and hung my stuff up for the year after that.
Image source: ChiefVandec, Leon Aschemann
#17
Years back… I was out solo backpacking in the Pecos Wilderness of Northern NM… camping about 6 hour’s hike from the nearest pavement way up past Puerto Nambe.
I typically used an enclosed camping hammock… lightweight, bug proof, packs up small with a rain fly. No need to carry a pad or mat. Just need two trees. EZ and perfect for solo.
When you’re in it, with the full fly on… you dont have any real visibility around you. The top was totally enclosed by bug screen… to get inside, you sort of climbed into a slit in the bottom, and then your weight pulled and held it closed. It worked well, but it was a convoluted process to get in and out of.
I picked a spot just at the edge of the treeline, so I could cook on the edge of the meadow with a view of Santa Fe Baldy. Ate dinner, cleaned up, bags in trees, looked at probably a billion stars, and then processed myself into the hammock for the night.
At some point, in the pitch black, I bolted awake… to crunching footsteps in the pine needles around me. It was the the kind of awake where you go from fast asleep to instantly hyper aware, but totally frozen.
I make absolutely no sound. I can’t look outside, lighting a light would only illuminate the hammock like a lamp and leave me totally blind to the surroundings. The crunching continues, as if its circling the hammock. I’m not sure how long I held my breath.
The crunching is right along side me… I have zero clue what it is. Suddenly… something PUSHES against the side of my hammock… and in the hammock, that means it pushed against me. I could feel it’s body heat. This isnt a tent wall, where you can cower away from it… if you lean, the hammock moves with you.
Whatever it was seemed to use its snout to nuzzle or root against the side of the hammock, like it was sniffing something out. I was still holding d**thly still, trying to come up with a plan to get away… which would involve trying to slash the opposite side with my knife.
The thing pushes again, and slides up the side of the hammock. I could feel the texture of its fur/hide/hair/whatever scraping against the nylon side.
I hear a sharp snort, and it crunches away. I’m not sure how long I stayed absolutely still, but at some point, the sun came up… and I ventured into the daylight.
I looked around the campsite, and could find no evidence of a visitor. The treeline edge was floored with pine needles, so there were no prints or tracks. None of my other gear was disturbed, the guy lines for the fly were all still tight, and I didn’t see any marks on the side of the hammock. Couldn’t even find a broken twig.
I’m not sure it even happened.
I’ve never slept in a hammock since.
Image source: dasvaldez, Heather Mount
#18
In northern Minnesota getting a deer stand ready before the opener: “hey check out those three dogs across that ravine… they’re big… that’s 200 yards away, they must be HUGE… those are f*****g timberwolves!!!”
And that’s the last time I went out in those woods without a double stack pistol.
Image source: coolborder, Getty Images
#19
Not entirely outdoorsy, but as a kid (probably around 11 years old) I was “camping out” with a friend and her sister, in a tent set up beside their carport, right beside their house.
We were awakened in the middle of the night by a vehicle coming up their private drive. Sleepy, confused, and a bit frightened, we all layed there staring at each other as the vehicle stopped right beside us and at least two people, men from their voices, got out. They walked right past out tent and argued in low voices in the carport for a minute before getting back in their vehicle and driving away.
We then ran inside and woke my friend’s parents, after also discovering the flashlight we left on the nearby picnic table was gone.
It turned out some teenagers further up the main road were having a “country kegger” (a party involving a keg of beer in a field) and someone took a wrong turn trying to find it.
Now, if you want some really creepy hiking/camping stories, find some Appalachian Trail hikers. I’ve heard some crazy stuff goes on in some of the more remote stretches.
Image source: TheWritingNeverEnds
#20
My friend and I were searching for the perfect camping spot for about a year. After trying out quite a few we found one that seemed perfect. It was about a half hour walk from any trail or road and on top of a large cliff over a river. We got camp set up and decided to scout out around the area. It was getting dark so we started heading back, following the sound of the river to guide us when we spotted something… A shack.
We stop and look at each other, and decide we better investigate because it is pretty close to where we are going to be sleeping and this is weird. We get closer and realize it is basically a teepee made from scraps of aluminum and other sheet metal and a tarp. There is a inflated air mattress inside, and wine and whisky bottles EVERYWHERE. There was also p**n and a lot of extremely weird objects that someone normally would not have out camping. This place is a couple hours from any town and like I said, at least a half hour from any road or trail. There were no vehicles parked anywhere even remotely close because we would have seen them in our travels. We came to the conclusion that whoever had been here must have left, and they obviously did not want to be found.
Then, on our way out, I noticed the campfire was still smouldering.
We got the f**k out of there. Immediately packed up camp and blindly made our way back to the road. F**k that, ive watched enough horror movies to know that us teenage white boys would not be waking up that morning.
Image source: DarkoEnterprises, Robert So
#21
I was spending three days kayaking on the Coorong. I was having a great time and really enjoying the serenity and listening to the native birds and just appreciating nature. On the first day I heard what I could have sworn was a human not screaming, screeching I guess?
I didn’t think much of it and kept paddling. I saw what looked like a body close to the shore and found a seal that had just been eviscerated. Honestly this thing was spread all over the beach. No footprints of any kind, just a seal in a hundred pieces. After the screeching and the seal I was a little creeped out but just continued my trip. Nothing of event really happened that night except that I kept hearing splashes from the water in front of me, yet when I checked there was nothing there.
The next day I went out again with the same plan. Just paddle until I got tired and then set up camp and go to bed. Unfortunately for me I got stuck on mud bog and had to spend a solid hour dragging my kayak across this thing to get to the other side of the water where I saw a deeper channel and a bunch of sand dunes.
After what feels like maybe 40 minutes of struggling with my kayak and this bog I saw a figure atop one of the sand dunes. Logically it was probably a random tourist like me or maybe a kangaroo, I stared at it for a second before getting back to trying to cross this bog. When I looked back it was gone. Weird…
Anyway, i set up camp for my last night, I was a bit creeped out by the seal and the noises and now this figure so I made sure I had my knife with me. I set up my tent a bit away from the water in an open area so I could see everything around me. As I was eating dinner I couldn’t help but feel I was being watched, as it was a total fire ban in the area I didn’t have a fire so I couldn’t see much. I chalked it up to nerves and went for a short walk to explore the area I was in and wander down to the beach.
Now for some context the beach nearby is LOUD, you can’t hear much other than crashing waves which makes what happened next especially eerie. I heard that f*****g screeching again and looked back to where I came from. Again a figure was standing in right by the path where I walked to the beach. F**k that I thought, I pulled by knife out and approached where I thought I saw this thing, there was just a week old fish that looked like it had been hung on the fence and forgotten.
As I walked back down the path I heard what sounded like a kangaroo or wallaby just lightly hopping behind me, but when I looked back there was nothing there. Honestly I just climbed into my tent and prayed to god there was nothing around. It’s kind of anti climactic but nothing else really happened, I think I heard that screeching once more and then I didn’t hear it again.
Apparently there are a few indigenous graveyards in the area, I’m not one for superstition but if I’m being honest this experience really spooked me.
#22
Breathing… just heavy breathing right outside my tent loud enough to wake me up. Not like fat guy going up the stairs breathing. Very large intense clear breathing. Middle of the night, no animal sounds no grunting no foot steps, just breathing from something large. I loaded my sh*tg*n and pointed it in the direction it was coming from and waited for what seemed like a lifetime (probably 2-3 min) until it just stopped. I did not sleep the rest of the night and I didn’t go out until the morning. No signs of any animals or people in my camp, no footprints, nothing disturbed. Still to this day I don’t know what it was. As an experienced hunter who has chased away bears from my camp I have never been so scared.
Image source: Jimmy6shoes, Ron Lach
#23
This memory is over 20 years old, and super foggy because I was super little, but here goes. We used to camp at this same spot every year, until we moved. Anyway, this one summer I remember when we were first pitching our tent, the nearest campers came over to say hello and pass on some advice that had been spreading across the campground. Something about bears, and how everyone should haul their food up in the trees or something. I remember the guy offering my Dad some spare rope, if he needed any. All seemed fine and dandy. Mom was antsy, but Dad assured her a bear wouldn’t come into a campground this busy.
On Night Two or Three, everyone was woken to a crash, and the sounds of a car alarm. I remember pressing my hand over my sister’s mouth because I was afraid that if she cried the bear would come over. Or something silly like that. There was some distant shouting, and my Dad decided to investigate. So he grabbed the tiny little skillet and his equally dis-sized (but in the opposite proportions) flashlight, and exited the tent. I remember rolling over, because there was this little tear I’d discovered the last time it rained. There were a lot of flashlights and people over by the bathroom, where a car’s lights were flashing.
It wasn’t a bear that had been breaking into people’s cars and stealing s**t all summer. It was a crazy homeless guy who’d been hiding out in the woods. They were actually pretty sure he was the same guy who’d tried to attack two teenage girls at one of the nearby hiking trails a few weeks prior, leading to it being closed for the time being.
Image source: insert-bacon-emoji, Mac DeStroir
#24
I was hunting coyotes in Utah near dugway and my flashlight died. I was in an open field and wild horses got spooked while I was walking back to my truck. They were running all around and I was sure I was going to get trampled.
Image source: anon, Boys in Bristol Photography
#25
Not creepy per-se, but woke in the middle of night thinking somehow got rain or water of sorts in my ear. When I tilt my head to get it out, something fucken MOVES in my ear canal.
Turns out the “water” was blood. 20 painful minutes later a d**n mini cockroach crawls Out of my ear.
For the next few years has to sleep with earplugs every time we went camping.
Image source: PineappleGrandMaster, Ketut Subiyanto
#26
Back in mid or late October, I was camping on the San Juan Islands off the Washington coast, in the little inlet that separates the Olympic peninsula from the rest of Washington. My last night before returning to the mainland, I stayed in the campground in a state park on one of the islands. That campgrounds happened to be just to miles or so away from the highest point in the rather hilly archipelago. Hiking to the top of Mt. Constitution was the main reason I went back to that island before finishing my time on the islands, but I was initially just planning to do it whenever I happened to wake up the next morning. But that evening as I lay in my tent, I realized it would be really cool to watch the sunrise from the top. So I set an alarm for 4:00 am. I figured that would give me plenty of time to be on the trail by 4:45. Figure it’s roughly two hours to the top, that would get me to the summit right around first light at 6:45 before the 7:15 or 7:30 sunrise.
I forgot that the batteries in my headlamp were nearing the end of their life. My headlamp was pretty much useless in actually seeing where I was going, although it did cast just enough light to reflect off the eyes of all the animals watching me through the woods. Presumably just deer, but it still freaked me out. The entire two hours, I was constantly noticing them. It was never just a single pair of eyes, either, but always two or three animals together. They never made a noise, never even moved. Just stood there watching me.
My other really freaky experience happened a few years ago. My dad and I loaded some camping gear onto the back of our bicycles and left out home in Wisconsin to ride around a part of the state for a few days. I don’t like paying to sleep on the ground, so about an hour before dark, we’d start looking for somewhere we could disappear into the woods to pitch our tent for the night.
On I think the second night, we found a small grass path through the woods that went to a farm field quite a ways off. We pitched our tent to one side of the path, and quickly fell asleep. Until around 2:00 that night, when we were wondering up by a sort of snorting sound outside the tent. Every, I don’t know, 30 seconds? A minute? we’d hear the noise come out of the woods behind us. Figuring it was likely just a deer who’s path from the woods to the farm field we were blocking, Dad and I just started talking loudly to each other about it, hoping our voices would scare it away. When that didn’t work, I tried shining my light through the wall of the tent. Eventually I ended up getting out of the tent, waving the light in the direction of the noise, and yelling at it to go away. And then we never heard it again. I never saw so much as a pair of eyes reflecting the light, nor did I hear any plants moving around as it ran away, but the snorting sound stopped.
Even though it most likely was just a deer, I had never heard a noise quite like that before. Once we fully woke up, we will regained our wits, but in that brief period where we were only half awake, it was a terrifying noise.
Image source: MasteringTheFlames, Jonathan
#27
This was when I was about 17. I camping in the Australian outback with 3 other guys from high school. We each had our own tents.
Some time late at night I get woken up by a clinking sound. Something or someone has just plinked a tin can at our camping site (We took them with us when we left, but they were stacked next to the fire)
I sit up and listen…and whatever it is there’s more than one of them. In fact, we appear to be surrounded….I can hear small noises coming from all over the campsite.
I’m a bit worried, but finally work up the nerve to stick my head out of the tent flap…
And discover it’s a herd of miniature deer. None of them are taller than my hip, they look like a herd of Bambi. About twelve of them.
One of them sees me and stops for a moment and just looks at me…then they turn tail and run.
In the morning there were little hoof prints imprinted all over the camp. I guess they were after the “fruits in syrup” cans I brought with me.
Image source: TheDevilsAdvokaat, Diana Parkhouse
#28
I was hunting in Wyoming staying in a box trailer near the edge of a big open field. I woke up around one or two A.M and had to use the bathroom. So I went outside behind the trailer and started to relieve my self, as I’m doing my business I looked to my left and saw three sets of eyes staring back at me from the edge of the field I noped back to the trailer so fast.
Image source: m47playon, Linnea Hansen
#29
I was out camping with my family down at the gulf of Mexico, and I assume it was 1 am, and I heard a deep rumbling noise kind of like cans moving but soft. quite at first but building up. So I get up quietly and unzip the tents door to see what it was and before the whole door is open I stop. There was a man, very old skinny and dirty looking going through our bags, the noise I heard was him shifting our supply’s around. he was shoving our food into an old plastic bag. I assume he was homeless and just trying to get a meal, but it was terrifying none the less…
Image source: FreeShoesKiddos
#30
Went deep sea kayaking off the Carolina coast. We would camp on the various islands.
It was so ungodly hot even under our tarp was unbearable. I’m from Georgia and am used to our summers but this was something else. I spent about 6 hours just standing in the water one day, attempting to stay cool. The next morning there were literally dozens of sharks feeding on fish. They would ride the waves onto shore and flop around until the next wave or two would carry them back out.
I know sharks are overhyped and will most likely leave you alone but it still felt bizarre that I literally spent hours just marinating in the ocean and they were probably all around me.
Quick side note there were wild horses on the island as well which was neat.
Image source: Atlas88-
#31
Camping in the bush in Africa years ago. It was a big, semi permanent campsite with big, rectangular tents you could stand up in, and we were only there for the weekend. My sister and I were in a tent set a little away from the others, down a short pathway. It was a stunning night, full moon, clear sky and my sister wanted to leave the tent flaps open. No way. Nope. I insisted on closing them.
I was woken up several times during the night by lions roaring – it’s a sound you only want to hear with something sturdy between you and it.
Next morning, a couple of the other campers walked up our little path. They were following lion footprints. It had wandered through the main site, up our path, right up to our firmly closed closed tent ‘door’, walked all around the tent, then walked off into the bush.
No arguments about closing up the tent that night!
Image source: Fandanglethecompost
#32
Once I was working in a restaurant and got done at around 12ish. I always rode my bicycle to and from work, it was about 15min along a bike trail next to the train tracks. This trail was constantly straight but had quite a few exits here and there. It also only had a few small parts of it lit up by street lights so without my front bicycle light I would be totally blind for the most part.
So this one night I leave omw home after the shift and I notice a guy is biking behind me which isn’t too weird at that time of night in a busy (but very safe) city. It was weird that he had no lights and was still there after the first main exits which after that led to a small town but I thought it might just be a coincidence.
I felt a bit creeped out and thought I might just be tired and the dark of the night is getting to me. So I decided to bike a bit slower and let this person pass there was definitely enough room on this trail. The person started drifting along at the same speed as me and made no attempt to pass or even come closer.
This is about when I’m a few min away from home and decide to take some random lefts and rights instead of going straight home just incase this person was following me and wouldn’t find out where I live. I bike around going in random twists and turns in a suburban neighbourhood and HE’S STILL BEHIND ME.
What I then did as I noticed I was heading straight for a long small dark path only for bicycles I decided to turn into one of the houses and hide in the dark shadows from their garage. I heard this person pass the house and brake quickly in that small path. At this moment my blood is boiling. Now I hop on my bike and when I passed the edge of that street I stopped and stared that person in the eyes. (Well thats what I hope he thought cause I actually couldn’t see anything of his face)
I biked so fast then did another few extra loops here and there until I felt safe and alone again to go home. Never had anything like it afterwards and still don’t know who or why it could have been. I’m happy not knowing.
Edit: I’m an average sized girl and in my early 20’s when this happened.
TL;DR: Bicycled home after a late shift in the dark and someone was clearly following me, was able to hide and get away.
Image source: Piefje
#33
Backpacking in the woods with a group. I’m a bit of an insomniac, so I was up far after everyone else. We wanted to pack as light as possible and it was summer so we just had a tarp on the ground and put our sleeping bags on top of it. So we are completely out in the open.
It was after midnight and I was still tossing and turning. Then I hear footsteps. I had heard a deer/coyote or something else with four legs running through the brush earlier, but this was definitely bipedal.
What/whoever it was came right to the edge of the clearing, about 15ft from us. I could just barely make out a shadow of the figure, but it was pitched black out and hard to tell what it looked like. It looked like it was swaying side to side, or looking around the clearing.
Then it turned and rushed into the woods, and I heard the running footsteps. Once they faded into the distance I finally felt like I could breath, I was considering waking someone up.
Then I heard the most blood curtling scream from the direction the thing went. I shook my friend awake(who was more experienced and familiar with the area) . All he said was,”dude its just a fox, go back to sleep.”
I told him I heard the footsteps and saw it and it was not a fox, but he just dismissed it completely and insisted I go back to sleep.
I sat there for what felt like forever feeling paranoid and scared, until I just gave up and took and extra dose of my sleep meds because I figured the anticipation was worse than being k**led in my sleep.
Image source: anawfuldisgrace, Caleb Falkenhagen
#34
Mind you this was not in a forest but surrounded by tall dead grass by cliffs over the ocean.
I went backpacking on my home island in Hawaii; there’s this trail that goes all the way around the island called the Kings Trail that has been known to have a particular bloody past with many m**ders happening near it in one particular area(now covered by lava, in the 1970s). The legend goes that if you sleep or are awake and you see men walking along with clubs/torches you are near d**th.
I was off the beaten path about 12 miles from a highway and another 15 to any hospital. It was 2 am, I got up to take a leak about 10 feet from my tent; it was a nearly moonless night with a few clouds. I finish up, go back to my tent and just as I am getting inside I hear rustling, then grunts.. which sounded almost human. I quickly grabbed a knife and a flashlight leaving the tent I quietly slinked into the tall grass opposite to where I heard the sound. I stand still, trying to pinpoint the location…10 minutes go by, the sound picks up again, at this point I’m on my hands and knee’s circling around behind to where they were coming from; could have been no more than 20 feet. I throw a large rock 5 feet from where I could perceive the sound coming from. As soon as the rock hit the ground the largest Boar I had ever seen bolts out of the long grass. I watched it run for a bit until it disappears from my view 200m away; in the moment I felt nothing, I felt ready. But as soon as the boar had left panic set in, heavy breathing, sweating…the full 9 yards. I immediately packed all my stuff and moved right onto a beach where there was no grass or trees for 100 feet.
Image source: hisurfing
#35
Not in the night, but when I was a teenager my friends and I liked to explore uninhabited islands. They’re called The Thousand Islands in the Indian River Lagoon. We camped, played paintball, pretty innocent fun.
One day we decided to explore a new island for a fresh spot. We found a big one, so to save time, I was inserted on the southern end to explore while the others canoed around the island to see what there was to see. The plan was for me to meet them on the north side. That did not happen.
The island was hell. Brambles, bush so thick I had to belly crawl through muck. The perimeter was a swamp with dead trees and god knows what lurking under the film of green algae. And then there were the skeletons…
As I crawled my way up the island, I came upon skeleton after skeleton. Turtles, raccoons, deer. That’s when it hit me: this is an alligator haven. I freaked out and made a break for the open water, not wanting to die. I yelled out as loud as I could, and fortunately my friends heard me and paddled furiously out to me. I had made it only 1/3 of the way up the island and was thankfully extracted.
We named that one Hell Island, and never returned.
Image source: Jinzot
#36
I live near the Canadian border in central Washington State. More bears than people in my little valley. One afternoon, I was walking up the hill near my house, and saw, after passing a large tree, about 20 feet away, a very large cougar. My estimates for size, probably very accurate, are-weight- 175 to 190 pounds. Length from nose to tip of tail-very close to 9 feet. Thick. Bulky. Male, Muscles on the back of his neck like a large pit bull, or breeding bull. Not a scar on him that I could see, no chunks out of his ears from previous fights. Hair was long and perfect. You could see the muscles rippling through hair that was 1 1/2 to 2 inches. He was coming down the hill, and had just stepped from behind a tree of his own. We both froze in our tracks. He was staring at me like I had never been stared at in my life. Intense, xray vision, never blinking kind of stare. It knocked the wind out of me. We stood there, frozen, staring at each other intensely, for about …..seemed like 15 or 20 minutes. Neither one of us moved. He was slightly higher on the hill, looking down at me. Maybe 1 or 2 feet taller than I was-he seemed to like that. Neither one of us moved. I had a 9mm pistol in a shoulder holster, but I didn’t pull it out. I could have very quickly, but probably not quickly enough considering they can jump really far. It was a very intense sharpening of the senses, and perceptions. Probably the effects of adrenaline. It was like time stood still, and I could count every hair on his face. After 15 minutes or so, to my great relief, he slowly blinked once. Still staring, however. I felt like the “spell” had been broken though. He took a deep breath, and slowly and very smooothly, turned uphill and walked away at a pretty good clip, never looking back. It’s been 3 years now, and I have seen his tracks twice. One of my neighbors got a picture of him from his trail cam. So he’s still here. Sometimes I think he’s around, but it’s impossible to tell. I dont know how anybody else would react to that, but for me it was a VERY creepy encounter, but at the same time I realized how lucky I was to have had that encounter. I love this place BECAUSE he’s here. The bears too. Had some encounters with them too. But whatever you think, and whatever you have heard, the male cougars in the wilderness are the apex predator in the northern woods. I have seen a whole lot of cougars in zoos. NOTHING in a zoo can even come close to this guy. He was the most perfect, and terrifying thing I have ever seen. Supremely confident.
Image source: anon
#37
I was the navigation officer for a research ship in the south pacific. We had recently come to Papua New Guinea for some work along the coast. We had arrived in a small bay at around 10pm in the dark and dropped the anchor. I went over to mark our position on the chart and noticed an annotation that said “native village reported in the area”. There were no fires or lights on the coast so I didn’t think anything much more of it. I turned on all the deck and underwater lights and went back in to the bridge to stand my night watch as everyone else went to bed. With all the lights on I couldn’t see further than about 25 yards because of a light mist in the pitch black night. I sat in the bridge with the door open because I like the sound of the night and the feeling of the air in the tropics. I kept hearing light splashing in the water and went out to see because often we get hundreds of fish in our underwater lights. There was nothing there. I went back inside but kept hearing faint splashing and couldn’t figure out where it was coming from. Since I couldn’t see in to the distance I went in to the chart room and flicked on our infrared camera system and there they all were. About 50 native outrigger canoes just sitting outside our pool of light. About 3 people to a canoe and all just sitting and watching us. Occasionally paddling one way or the other to keep their station. I have never felt so suddenly and violently alone and small as I did on that ship in the dark. I got a deck hand up and we both just walked around the decks to show that people were awake and moving. They sat there and watched us all night. Completely invisible except for on the infrared cameras. In the morning they came in and traded with us and were very friendly and just hadn’t had a ship in their bay for decades.
Image source: Squarerigjack
#38
**First of all, sorry for some grammar mistakes, english isn’t my first language, hope you understand.**
Salvadoran guy here! About a year ago, I moved to the capital city alone to study and I met some friends in the first months here.
I went to the beach about 3 or 4 times before this incident. I’ll give you context: I have a 2011 Corolla (which isn’t a fast car and sometimes I get stranded in the street), the beach is like 20 miles away, the highway isn’t in the best condition but even with this country being as dangerous as it is, this road is really safe.
Well we packed our things and get in on the road. It was about the half of the way (10:30 pm) and I saw a car next to the road, may have had a flat tire. I think twice before helping, because vehicle theft is known in this way, but I help them.
I stopped and saw this bearded fat guy, about 30 or 35 years old. He is obviously drunk, and he tells me that he has a flat tire that he cannot change it by himself. He tells me his friends do not know that he left the beach, he needs to go home, and that his spare tire is in the back of the car. He accompanies me to open it and before I know it, he hits me very hard on the head; the blow pushes me towards the street and another man appears out of the bushes with a naked torso and a machete.
I move around the car and quickly analyze the situation: none of my friends know that I stopped on the street, my phone is in the car, I am completely incommunicado. Both men are very drunk, but I am afraid that they could still attack me as I am completely helpless. I start walking around the car, with them watching me and trying to surround me. When I have a clear view of my car and the bearded man is on that side, I run like a cheetah towards my and start it as fast as I can to shoot off down the road.
I hear a shot but I have no intention of looking back. I call the police and as expected, they just tell me not to walk through the area at that time because there were similar calls that week. I didn’t travel alone in that area again but unfortunately I can’t stop helping good travellers.
**TL;DR: I tried to help a man with a flat tire and I was attacked by two drunks, one armed with a machete.**
Image source: Vicerveza
#39
I’ve posted about this before in another thread but i feel it fits here.
So this happened on my shift (graveyard) I was helping another short-staffed store across town.
Had a woman come in, she seemed a little frazzled and is carrying a bible but otherwise she seems fine. She buys some chips then starts talking to me about crazy this corona virus stuff, yada yada then she tells me ate a evil spirit pretending to be a clove of garlic. I of course think shes just messing with me but no she pulls out a piece of garlic lays it on the counter and starts telling me it isn’t garlic and is in fact a demon that wanted to possess her.
She then starts asking me about if i believe in spirits or if I can see it because despite looking like im one of the humans that’s a third demon I’m really a human who’s a third angel who was sent to earth to help her expell the evil spirits and urges she feels and that its okay if I didn’t know it because she can see it and she leaves the garlic on the counter and tells me that she’ll wait for me to deal with it.
Now that’s pretty much where the original incident ended. A few days later about 2 am maybe 2:15ish on a tuesday Im working the graveyard shift at my usual store when this woman pops up again.
She proceeds to just buy some candy and sorta hang out asking me about jade (the jewelry type) and incenses and if we’ve met before. Nothing as weird as before.
Now the weird thing is I didn’t hear or see her come in before she approached the counter we have a loud a*s siren thing that turns on when the doors are opened and only shuts off when they’re closed. Which is normally not a big deal but considering I’d been stocking and cleaning in the front the whole time and had only gotten 2 or 3 customers before hand yeah it was a bit weird.
She hangs out a bit longer than rushes to restroom and and doesn’t walk out of it til about 6. Says have a nice day and just walks out the store like nothing.
Which freaks me the f**k out cuz I cleaned the restrooms a little bit after she went in and she somehow had managed to slip out or hide somewhere when I went to clean them.
Outside of hiding in the stalls there is no where to hide in the restrooms and there’s no windows to slip out of. And like a j*****s I looked up at the top of the stalls and at the ceiling thinking she had a pulled a spiderman but nope she just poof! Disappeared then reappeared and left super casual a couple hours later.
TL:DR Customer told me she ate a demon trapped in garlic and I was half angel. Then a few nights later she shows up again pulls a houdini in the bathroom and randomly exits the restroom and leaves the store a couple hours later.
Image source: anon
#40
I drive about 40 minutes out into to country every Saturday for band practice and am usually headed home about 1-2am. The place we get together is not super remote, but it is all woods and farm land, and the road is basically empty that late at night.
One night, I saw a set of luminous eyes right on the tree line on the opposite side of the road. I figured it was probably a deer because I see a handful of them every time I make the drive.
Anyway, as soon as I saw the eyes, I started slowing down because deer are absolute idiots and will jump right into the path of your car with no warning, even if they see you coming from a long way off.
As I was getting ready to pass by, I swear it looked like whatever it was stood up on its hind legs and ran into the woods. It moved quick too, like a horizontal sprint; not like big vertical hops like deer do.
It took me a really long time to reconcile what I’d seen. I kept telling myself, “Nahh dude. You were just tired. It was just a deer.” But I’ve seen hundreds of deer and this thing was too tall. And it was too skinny to be a bear. And it moved too fast to be a person, not to mention the eyes.
I still have trouble wrapping my head around what that might have been.
Edit: I wanted to respond to some of the theories in the comments.
Moose – This would be almost more disconcerting than seeing some monster or ghoul because I live about 800 miles away from the natural habitat of the moose.
Bigfoot – I live on the opposite coast from where Bigfoot is usually spotted, but we did have a lady report a Bigfoot sighting in that area a few years earlier. She said she saw a Bigfoot and a Bigfoot baby. It made the news and everything (it was probably a black bear and a cub, but I wasn’t there so who knows.)
Skinwalker/ Wendigo – This is the one that, terrifyingly, makes the most sense. I know that most Wendigo lore is from Native American legends and the tribes who talk about them are usually located in the Midwest. I’m on the East Coast, so geographically it doesn’t track, but the fact that I thought it was a deer before it stood up and ran off does track to how Wendigo are described.
SCP – I didn’t know what this was, but I looked it up and now I’m scared to drive at night. Thanks.
Image source: King_Of_Ravenholdt
#41
From an old post:
I was camping in my car while on a drive up to see my family in Salt Lake. I was taking my time on what should’ve been about an 11-hour car drive with minimal stops. But this time I was on my own so I was stopping to take in views and all that. Think I was about 18 and not much money to my name so instead of getting a pricey room for the night I decided I’d just find a secluded place off the freeway in the desert. (for anyone that’s ever driven the route, it was about an hour past the race track just outside of Las Vagas) It was one of those exits where there were just farm roads coming off it. So I assume I wasn’t gonna be on anyone’s land that would mind too much or ever check on me.
I pulled off and parked up, was sat on my tailgate enjoying my dinner of beef jerky and Arizona tea while listening to music. Just normal stuff. Out of nowhere, a f*****g motorcycle flies past me. No lights no nothing, it was going fast enough that I took me a solid 20 seconds to put it all together. Laughed and shook my head just thinking how dumb it was but it’s their life do what they want. Not a minute later two low flying Jets fly overhead. Top g*n style, curving mountains, and battling valleys. It was a great show. Then 10 minutes later or so a convoy comes rolling down the road. I could hear it before I saw the lights.
Now I grew up in the military so I’m use to seeing this s**t. But this felt different, maybe it was just the series of events. Normally you see a convoy you wave at em and let them go by. But it was nearly midnight and something told me to just turn around and pretend I didn’t see anything. A humvee pulls up and basically blocks me from moving my vehicle could hear doors open but no one gets out to come to me (I was leaning on my hood at this point, the car was off all that) Didn’t even turn to look at them. Keep my hands away from me and on the hood. I could feel them just looking at me. Convoy passes, humvee pulls out and goes on their way.
I really think it was just the series of events. The jets were probably doing practice since the AFB is right next to LV. The motorcycle was just some dude taking advantage of empty roads and the convoy was just out for some training like the jets.
Image source: Nomadic_Photography
#42
I had freshly turned 18 and was working a closing shift at a small cafe in a grocery store. One of my regular customers comes in, Tom. Tom was a hugger, he’d come in and call out “where’s my girls?” and we’d all have to awkwardly hug this 80 year old man while he whispered “God bless you” in your ear. I hated Tom. He always held on a little too long and whispered a little too close.
On this shift, I was closing alone and Tom came in at about 4 pm. Not unusual, I dealt with the creepy and got him his coffee and bagel. He was with his wife this time, she was sweet but tired looking. He started asking me questions as i worked. What do I have to do at night? Is it hard closing alone? What time am I off? Do i ever get scared walking to my car in the dark? The questions got progressively more uncomfortable and his wife just sat there silently. I answered as friendly as I could, despite the hair on the back of my neck standing up. I would catch him staring at me often. It was okay though, I was off work at 7 so it wasn’t a big deal.
Until he didn’t leave. His wife went home without him, and he just stayed, staring, for hours. I asked if there was anything else he needed, he said no, I’m just waiting for you to get off of work. He wanted to walk me to my car, he said, because young girls shouldn’t be in a dark parking lot alone. I told him it wasn’t necessary and continued about my work, ignoring him now even as he stared.
He left about 15 minutes before my shift ended, into the dark Michigan winter, and I breathed a sigh of relief. I didn’t think twice when I punched out and headed to my car. I grabbed my snow brush and began clearing my car, enjoying the quiet that’s unique to a snowy night. I began to hear the crunching of footsteps behind me, I brush it off, I am in a parking lot, after all. But they get closer, past any other car and directly towards my car, parked away from the others in employee parking. I look, and it’s Tom, maybe 50 ft away and smiling. He tells me that I should have looked for him, he had been sitting outside waiting for me and I should know it’s dangerous for young girls to be alone in a parking lot at night.
I began shaking. I tried to open my car door but it was frozen shut due to the earlier storm. Tom came closer, calling me a stupid girl and asking God to forgive him. I debated running back into the store, he was so old he surely couldn’t keep up, right? I didn’t want to chance it, though. He could have been younger as I’m a terrible judge of age, and I’m not exactly fast myself considering my weight. So I stand my ground. I fumble in my purse for my pepper spray, thankfully attached to my keys. I tell him to stay back, I have pepper spray, and to go home to his wife. He glowers at me. I show him the teal canister. We’re about 15 feet apart now, he’s well within range. He calls me a b***h, spits at me, and heads back into the store. I get in my half uncovered car and drive home, terrified.
I called the store when I got home (only a mile and a half away, so about 2 minutes) and told them what had happened. They kicked Tom out and told him not to come back. He began cursing up a storm and his wife had to come pick him up. He ended up getting arrested for ch*ld p*********y a couple years later, but I don’t know the details as I had moved away at that point. Can’t say I’m sad to see him go, though.
Image source: PaintyPaint98
#43
Last year I started working the graveyard shift at a newer hotel. It was built basically over the spare pasture for the farmer that still lives next door. One night I’m doing my late shift thing (which was absolutely nothing) and I was standing at the front desk browsing the internet. The front door is perfectly visible from where i was standing, and I thought I saw a flash of white out of the corner of my eye that came from that direction. There’s a lot of stray cats around here so I didn’t think anything of it at first, on top of the fact that I was half asleep and there was a good chance it wasn’t anything anyway, until I noticed it a second time, but much slower.
I look up and out of the sliding glass doors I saw a giant white mass. If that was a cat it was an absolute monstrosity. Nervously, I walk towards the door to investigate, not knowing what kind of sumo wrestling feline I was about to encounter. I finally am able to see out towards the street, and lo and behold, there were 4 horses loitering in front of our hotel. I failed to put two and two together at first and had no idea where they came from, and if you can believe it the hotel didn’t provide me with any horse handling training, so I had no idea what I could do.
The hotel is right next to a busy highway, and even at 3 in the morning I was worried about the horses wandering around unattended. I ended up calling the police and after telling them where I was I told them, verbatim: “I don’t know how to explain this, but there are unattended horses outside.”
I didn’t see anyone show up, but the horses were back in the pasture behind the hotel the next day so everything must have sorted itself out well in the end.
I know that wasn’t very scary but it was when I experienced it. Two of my coworkers are convinced the hotel is haunted though, maybe they’ve got some better stories.
Image source: KamikazePizza
#44
Not what I saw but what I heard.
I was on a solo motorcycle trip across the great USA. From New York, to southern Florida then straight across to Los Angeles.
I crashed at 80mph, ran from a sh***ing in New Orleans, and a guy hyped up on crystal m**h tried to fight me, but none beats the chill I felt deep in the woods of Louisiana.
I camped at national parks 85% of the trip and loved meeting the people there. No real scary animal encounters, all was good.
This particular day was Thanksgiving 2015. I came out of the local market with my dinner for the night and a little camp spot in mind. A father and his son saw me and my motorcycle, so they stopped by to chat.
All was well, until he asked me where I was planning on staying that night. I told him. His face went white. He begged me not to go. I asked why.
He said there’s a group that practices dark arts in the woods around there, particularly during Thanksgiving. He said people have been known to go missing.
Needless to say I was freaked, but the night was coming fast and there weren’t any nearby alternatives. I told him, I would heed his advice but ultimately… I went anyway.
No one was at the camp spot but there were a few RVs. I thought it was odd, but was happy for some peace and quiet.
I made a fire, ate some turkey out of a bag, and tried to relax but something about the place was off. I cannot explain it but it was kind of like the feeling of being watched coupled with the fact that these RVs seemed recently used and had stealable belongings hanging around.
Motorcycling day in and day out takes a huge toll on your body. I was tired as hell, but that uneasy feeling was keeping me up. After a few hours I decided I needed sleep or risk repercussions the next day.
I let the fire die down and crawled into my tent.
Just as I settled in… I heard it.
A terrible guttural sound. It was unlike anything I’ve ever heard. An equal mix of a human scream and an animal dying. One dying scream as it were. Just once. It felt close but also far.
Chills pulsated throughout my body, instantly activating my fight or flight. I jumped out of my tent, and shined my flash light in that direction. Nothing. I picked up a rock and slowly crept around but once again, nothing.
Needless to say I didn’t sleep a wink that night but no one ever showed up.
I can still hear that scream and feel those chills when I think about it.
Image source: msissler
#45
As a rule I don’t believe in ghosts or any other super natural stuff but I do have a ghost story of sorts, it isn’t very dramatic but at the time I was freaked the f**k out and more than a little confused.
—-
A few years ago at Beverly Beach State Park in Newport Oregon I was walking with my dog along this trail that runs along a fairly large creek to the left and a fairly steep hill filled with brush to the right. I was pretty close to the campground, I could still see the RVs and tents through the trees on the other side of the creek. As I was walking along I saw another kid about my age (14ish) and all by myself and feeling a bit lonely I thought I’d approach him.
About 50 feet away from him though my dog starts *panic* barking, I mean freaking the f**k **out**. His hackles are raised, teeth bared, tail tucked, feet against the ground. Usually my dog is as friendly as he can be, I’d never seen him act this way before and so I was stunned! I tug on his leash and with all my strength but my dog doesn’t want to take a step closer to this kid. Finally I drag him past, giving the kid a wide berth and manage to pull my dog around the kid and further along the trail. As I past him by I apologize for my dog’s behavior and the kid says nothing. He just stares at me, head slowly tracking us, almost like it would in a horror movie. As soon as the kid is out of sight doggo immediately relaxes, wagging his tail and happy as a clam at high tide! Baffled something in me forces me to turn around and walk back towards the kid wondering what could have made my dog act like that. Yeah, I’d probably be the first to die in a horror movie.
The kid’s gone.
I mean *gone* and I have no idea where he could have went where I wouldn’t have seen/heard him! Even if he’d taken off at a dead sprint down the long straightaway and towards the next corner in the 30 seconds my back was turned I feel like I would have seen him, and thanks to the creek/hillside surrounding us there really was only one way to go.
I suppose it’s most likely that some shy kid terrified of dogs was equally scared shitless of me and my dog as we where of him, but everyone I tell this story too that’s the type to believe in ghosts are absolutely certain this was dog sensing and evil spirit.
Image source: Roushfan5
#46
A few years back I shared a house in the suburbs with a couple of roommates. It was a planned development, with lots of benefits like a community pool, park, garden, etc. The downside was the local bus stopped running at around 8 PM. I worked graveyards and early shifts nearby, not an issue. But my roommate, Luke, worked a night shift that only clocked off at around 10 PM, then he had to ride the city bus for an hour to get ten miles out from where the house was. I told him if he covered some of my utilities share, I’d pick him up in my car and save him the late-night walk home from the city bus stop. This worked out great, and another roommate, Jen, started to join me for the ride or to go on a late night snack run.
One night I was sleeping and woke up to the sound of Jen calling my name over and over, “Waki, Waki…” I get up in a daze and think, d**n, I fell asleep and missed Luke’s text, now we’re late to pick him up. Jen’s in the driveway under my window and still calling me, “Waki, Waki…” I tell her I’m coming and she stops. I‘m rushing now cause I have two roommates waiting on me, so I put on a jacket, go downstairs, grab the keys, slip on my shoes and open the garage, and see nothing in the driveway except my car.
I’m confused, since there’s no way Jen’s 170 cm self is hiding behind our dying rose bush or my Toyota. I think about going out to look around for her, cause maybe she walked down the street a bit to smoke a cigarette since she knows I hate the smell, but I realize I forgot my phone. I close the garage and go back inside, Jen got outside without it open, she can get back in without it. As I rush upstairs to where all our rooms are, I realize the lights are on under Jen and Luke’s rooms. They’re both home.
I get to my room, check my phone and see that it’s 2 AM on a Sunday. Luke doesn’t work Sundays and Jen was never outside calling my name.
Image source: wakizashis
#47
When I was 18, my family and I took a vacation to Hawaii. My mother wanted to do the touristy thing and do the “road to Hana”. Normally you can take a tour bus up it, but that wasn’t good enough for her. So we rented a car. The rental companies typically forbid driving that road because of the liability issues. That didn’t stop my mother.
We had a normal drive up there, plenty to see. We spent all day exploring. So by the time everyone was exhausted, it was night. Now, we were a good ways away from the road down, think back dirt roads of Maui. So what do we do? Go down some of the closed off local roads. This one road, in particular, was a very narrow winding road over the edge of the island. You couldn’t even stop on the road to get out and pee. If you looked over the edge, it was a straight drop into the ocean.
Anyhow, so we were driving in the dead of the night, slowly, and we approach this weird bend that backs up to a heavily forested area, a small waterfall, and a cliff overhand just above us. My mother wanted to take some pictures of the moon, stars, ocean because it was breathtaking with no city lights. So we pull off to the side of this road, with just enough space to let another car pass you. I, of course, get out too. It was dead silent. Then all of a sudden I hear what sounds like a crying baby. Which was… weird. We were in the middle of no where and hadn’t seen anyone for HOURS. So, I’m just standing there, confused, and it stops. I motion for my mother to come over and ask if she heard anything. She didn’t. So we stand there for a little longer and it starts up again. Neither of us could pinpoint where it was coming from. Both of us were panicked because that’s what baby crying does to most humans. We spent a good hour calling out and trying to figure out what to do. Eventually it stopped.
We returned back to the hotel and never heard anything about it.
Image source: thot-trot
#48
I used to work at a coffee place. We opened at five in the morning, but we were there at four thirty to set up. We closed at eight pm and left by eight thirty or nine, depending on when we finished cleaning up. One night a week was a deep clean session, so we’d leave closer to nine thirty or ten.
I did my fair share of both opening and closing in my almost four years there, and definitely saw some pretty interesting folks in all that time, especially when opening. Lots of homeless people who were sadly mentally disabled or d**g addicted. We were an a part of town that was not as nice as it used to be.
One morning when I was opening, myself and my opening barista (I was the supervisor at the time) were the only ones in the store. I was in the back of the store setting up some tils, she was in the front brewing coffee and tea and so on. Suddenly she started screaming bloody m**der.
I grabbed a box cutter and ran to the front. She had been cleaning a drain on the ground by the sink right next to the drive through window. She had been bent down, but when she stood up again, there was a man in with his face pressed to the window, literally inches away from her just through the glass. He was just staring at her, with this huge, super terrifying grin on his face, just up against the glass. He was super dirty and messy, and for some reason had a pink blanket wrapped around his shoulders. As my barista was screaming and crying, mostly shocked from how quickly he’d randomly appeared and how close he was to her, he started cackling like it was funny.
I don’t really know why, but that pissed me off so bad. I didn’t want to open the window obviously so I just told my barista to go into the back of the store and made eye contact with the guy through the window, scowled as hard as I could, and pointed down the street and yelled “F**K. OFF. NOW.”
He looked totally taken aback at first, but then kinda stumbled away down the street. He lingered on the block for a long time, but eventually left for good. I kept an eye on him for a while and then went and calmed down my barista.
Another time, I was opening with a different barista. For reference, I’m an average sized female, early twenties. This barista I was opening with is a late thirties male. When we opened the store, we’d wait in the parking lot for the other person to get there (one barista, one supervisor) and then walk into the store together.
I arrived before him. When he got there, he parked a few spaces away from me. His car is black and small, so it could be hard to notice in the dark and from a ways away. When I realized he was there I got out of my car to meet him.
He left his car too and was walking towards me when he suddenly started yelling “GET THE F**K AWAY FROM HER” and running at me super fast. I heard footsteps run away from behind me and was super shocked. Apparently, someone had been hiding behind my car, waiting for me to get out. They hadn’t noticed my coworker show up and was scared off by him, thank God, cause I didn’t ever notice anyone was there.
A few weeks later though when I was closing with a different barista it happened again. My barista’s partner was picking her up from work that night and was waiting in the parking lot since she got there a little early. Luckily, my baristas partner was also a cop. She noticed someone was crouched hiding behind my car and called her partner to tell her to tell me what was going on, then went to investigate shoo the guy away. As soon as he saw her, he ran away again. My barista and her partner both walked me to my car though just to be safe.
So yeah… two attempted kidnappings within two weeks was pretty creepy. All for 15 bucks an hour. Go figure.
Image source: jemdamos
#49
I don’t really fit to the criteria but this was a late night experience for me
I have posted this before on Reddit somewhere but that was years ago.
During 2009-2011 ( can’t remember the exact year but it was definitely during this time) I was forced by my parents to attend church gatherings and participate in activities. Anyways, they bought me tickets to go to an event called Steubenville that was hosted by SDSU here in California. It was boring and lasted all day! Our church group was then invited to sleep at USD’s dorms because SDSU was too full or something like that. Our group shares the same floor but the wings are divided by gender. So boys are on the left wing and girls are on the right wing.
After some late night horsing around we all go to bed. That’s when I wake up around 3am to use the restroom. I walked into the communal bathroom and hear the shower running. Since we had to be awake at like 6am to leave for Day 2 of the event I figured someone wanted to get a head start and shower early so I disregarded it. I sat on the toilet and browsed my iPod (no headphones) to pass the time. I finished my business but something about the shower was off. It sounded like no one was in the shower because it was on full blast yet you couldn’t hear the water hitting someone’s body. Instead it was a steady and blaring stream. No one came in or out of the bathroom since I entered. I even stick around a few more minutes to see if anyone would walk in (to scold them about being wasteful) or see if they’ll come out of the shower soon and prove me wrong. After about 10 minutes or so I realize someone could be passed out in the shower so I immediately go and announce my presence. I express my concerns and vocalize that I will be entering the shower due to a safety concern! I open the door and see absolutely no one in the shower yet it is turned on to the max.
I remember waking up the next morning and hearing that there was a recent s*****e in the dorms as well as the same thing happening to one of the girls during our communal breakfast. I didn’t say a word of this to anyone until that morning because they were talking about it first!
Image source: SourCreamChip
#50
I was on night shift at the hospital and one of my rooms was on the far end of the unit right before this long hallway made of window that was never lit at night. As I was walking out towards this room I see a figure, hulking with arms and legs spread like they were about to run. Thick black denim jacket and black pants like someone had stuffed it full of something, and just a wide brimmed black hat. I did a double take because something unsettled me, more than just the stillness of it standing in the dark in front if all those black windows.
I swear to god, it didn’t have a face. I legitimately dropped the fluids or tubing I was holding to the ground as I just stood there, completely frozen in horror as I just stared at this empty pale flesh. I’m almost about to scream when it starts to turn around away from my, only to realize that it’s a little old lady bundled up in a jacket she’s put on backwards. Her pale blonde gray hair was just puffy and enough to look like a face.
I don’t know what she was doing but holy c**p, I’ve run codes and traumas before and I’ve never been so scared in my life as being stared down by some puffy faceless night demon old lady.
Image source: MartianCleric
#51
This was technically in the jungle, but I think its worth a mention. I was volunteering in South America a few years ago in a nature park/range. Mosquito nets and hardcore bug k**ler was practically mandatory, so I was pretty keyed in to the fact that I was probably going to be dealing with some biting bugs. The building I was staying in was an old wood and brick, c*****d and warped, dark and warm. I had fallen asleep fairly quickly most nights, but the worst of my curiosity led my to click on my flashlight one night. In almost every crack of brick, almost every warp and slit of wood were spider legs. and not just the same spider legs. furry, skinny, colored, thick, small, large, all were filling the nooks and crannies of my room. And all I had was my mosquito net. which is for mosquitos. Absolutely terrifying.
#52
My boyfriend (an experienced camper) and I (never camped before) decided to go camping at a local lake early October. We did all the typical “glamping” prep, with plans for s’mores, campfire food, and eventually sleeping in a tent on the bank of the lake.
However, timing was not on our side and we only got to the camp site about 30 minutes before dark, so we rushed to set everything up. For context, I am a scaredy cat who is not a nature person and practically had to be convinced to go camping. I had full trust that everything was going to work out and any Ill feelings was just because of me overthinking and generally being inexperienced.
But back to that night. We had eaten dinner and decided to go into the tent to hang out until we went to sleep. It was eerily quiet outside the tent, and the only thing we could hear was the wind against the rain cover of the tent. I realized that my boyfriend was trying to cover how anxious he was, because he kept stopping mid conversation, wide eyed, to listen to any small noise outside. I jokingly made a comment about skinwalkers, and I could tell that really freaked him out. He also is typically a person who blasts music, but asked if he could turn it off, which was out of character.
Around 9:30 we decided to go to sleep, and it being a small tent I could hear his breathing. He is typically the type to fall asleep in 5 minutes, but we both stayed awake for almost an hour attempting to sleep. He eventually broke the silence by telling me we had to leave because he felt like someone was outside our tent. I quickly agreed and boy oh boy, there was nobody we could see but we both felt undeniably not alone.
Another thing, was after we got back to our place, he was telling me about how he was thinking of where the hatchet we had was, and how he could defend us if need be. This is extremely out of character, because he is a 6’5 pacifist who prides himself of being able to use words to avoid conflict. Especially because he has always been extremely comfortable in nature and woods in general.Hearing that from him made it even more clear the headspace that place put us in. It really put us both in the fight or flight mentality.
The entire night felt like the first 5 minutes of a supernatural episode. We grabbed all our stuff and ran back to the car, and we both didn’t relax until we were out of those godforsaken woods. It may not seem like a huge deal because nothing explicitly happened, but the fact that both of us had such an overwhelming sense of anxiety and genuine fear for no explicit reason was one of the most terrifying things I have experienced.
Image source: hodelohhodel, cottonbro studio
#53
Me, my brothers and my dad were camping out on the trampoline when we saw a sh**ting star but as soon as it faded away there was a low rumble and I think I saw a figure approaching but when the rumble suddenly stopped the figure disappeared with it. I was the only one that saw it and no one believed me.
Image source: silent-emu, Tima Miroshnichenko
#54
So when I was at least 5 me and my dad went camping, He told me on our way if i needed to go to the bathroom tell him and he will walk me to the outhouses they had near where we were staying. it was at least 2 in the morning and I woke up having to go to the bathroom so I tried to wake up my dad, He didnt wake up so I went by myself. I walk to the outhouse I look around and see a tall skinny man near the outhouse I didnt say anything I just ran back to out tent I later find out there was an armed criminal in the camping area we were at.
Image source: Uraraka_bakugo
#55
Hiking deep into a National forest and I found a campfire in the middle of nowhere at night. Not weird or uncommon by any means, people tend to pop up where you least expect them outdoors. But upon further examination in the fire was a US army uniform and what seemed to be some of their possessions. Tried to pull out the wallet with their military ID but It was pretty much a glob or plastic. Something just felt unnerving about the situation.
Image source: passw
#56
Camping with my dad in this crazy bush area where you had to hike about 2 hours to this main waterhole. We inflated a boat and went to a small island where the front of the island was sand but the back all bush so we put our ents up and went fishing. Cooked some fish and ate marshmallows when we heard a howl. It sounded far away but it scared us so we got enough fire wood for the fire to burn all night so if you needed to p**s or something you could see. No clue what time but in the middle of the night I had to p**s. Went to a tree and stood there. I returned to my tent and heard that howl but it was very close this time.( Before it sounded a long way away) I was scared but went back to sleep. In the morning we woke up to see a small snake trail and our fire in ruins (Picked apart and way smaller even though we had enough wood because I have been here before and never had problems with running out of wood) and some gear left out chewed or missing. No clue what it was but it was weird as hell. Other than that great spot in Australia. P.S. Currently Australia is in a drought and there is a fire ban so we can’t camp there this summer.
Image source: anon
#57
In my old cub scout troop, there was this train that was about 40-45 minutes away from our campsite that we went to frequently, and we would hear it about every 30 minutes or so during night time. It was a real train, but the scouts liked to say that it was actually a ghost train, and that it doesn’t need any tracks to run along.
One night at the campsite, I kid you not, I hear that train whizzing directly outside my tent. Just loud and clear, this supposed ghost train whizzes right by my tent, and I can hear it’s wheels on the tracks as it rolls along. I don’t know if it was a dream or a hallucination, but that was really creepy.
Image source: anon
#58
About a year ago I was camping along the PCT in Washington. It was late October and getting to around freezing in the middle of the night in the mountains. So there were no other people, which was what I wanted.
I got to the trail late and hiked with my dog for a while in the dark with my headlamp. We found a place that was a few hundred feet from a small river. It wasn’t loud but you could hear it. I get to work starting a fire when my dog suddenly starts barking. I’m pretty paranoid so I keep a 3800 lumen flashlight and a big knife on me. I whirl around and shine the light and grab the knife. Nothing. I sweep the trees, looking for the reflection of eyes. Still nothing. Dogs on alert but not barking.
I get back to work and this happens a few times. Each time I grab the knife and light but can’t see anything. Eventually I search the brush around the clearing but still nothing so I go to bed thinking maybe something small.
1am and I’m woken up by something rustling around outside. By the sound I think it was probably the size of a coyote. I don’t get out of the tent.
About 3am I’m woken up by a loud screech and two large animals bolting through my clearing. It’s cold and dark and most of the way up a mountain so there shouldn’t be anything. I’m a little freaked out so I grab my knife and listen in the tent. There’s a screech in the distance then nothing.
Ultimately I wake up and it’s raining so no prints, and nothing else happened. But sure freaked me out. If I had to guess, I’d say a goat or something with hooves became a midnight snack for whatever was lurking around my site.
Image source: mobius5150
#59
Wasn’t intended to be overnight, but back in boy scouts a decent fire stared near our camp, and while we were hauling a*s away from it, a tree or two just randomly caught fire near us.
With what I know now, I can safely say it was probably caused by a dry thunderstorm, but I most certainly did not know that at the time.
Image source: SaturnsEye
#60
Myself and a few family members were hunting mule deer in the middle of nowhere Idaho. Brother and I were sharing a tent. We woke up first night to some noise, no biggie, been dealing with this s**t our whole lives.
We acknowledge to each other we hear it and I’m watching movement through the wall. All of a sudden, a few cone shaped, wet tipped objects pushed the tent walls in. And I hear sniffing.
Sidearms came out of from under our pillows so g*****n fast and stuck right in front of those snouts. They took off, we dealt with a pack off wolves in camp every night for the next 12 days. Walk from the fire to take a p**s? Wolf. Go to the tent to get a sweatshirt? Wolf. Gotta take a s**t overnight? Better let one of us know, we’ll cover you.
Buncha g*****n scavengers.
Image source: anon
#61
I actually slept through the creepiest thing that happened to me in the woods but it has made me a much more cautious camper.
Me and my friends were packing up camp in Glacier National Park. A park ranger came over and started to chat. After a few minutes he tells us how the night before he watched a mother grizzly and her cub wander around our camp. Luckily no one woke. The ranger stuck around and watched to make sure we were okay.
It disturbed me both that I could sleep through the sound of a bear outside my tent and that someone could stay just outside camp watching while we slept and we would have had no clue of he hadn’t told us.
Image source: jone7007
#62
This one time I was sleeping atop a mountain in the Italian Apennines. Just me, my sleeping bag and the stars. No tent. No cover. In fact, to be fair, there wasn’t even a forest: I was completely exposed to the elements, and that’s why it took me some time to fall asleep.
But it didn’t last long. Just minutes before dawn, I get woken up by what I perceived as a deafening roaring of winds. As soon as I opened my eyes, there it was, mere meters from me: a f*****g ginormous eagle flying in circles above me, flapping its enormous wings in what seemed to be a desperate effort do not loose altitude and hit me.
Scariest s**t I’ve ever experienced.
Image source: vezzavide
#63
My first overnight backpacking trip with a friend (we’re both women) – I parked my car at a trailhead, loaded my gear into friend’s van and we headed to another trailhead to sort our stuff, sleep in the van and get an early start the next morning. This trailhead is very popular, just off a main highway. Plan was to then backpack through a pass back to my car.
It’s starting to get dark and we have everything pulled out and the last people are coming down to their cars. It’s dark now and there were a couple of cars left in the lot. Then I notice two older men hanging around. They did not look like hikers and were not acting like hikers. They would talk to each other, but at an oddly far distance from one another and were facing us, not each other. Every time I looked in their direction, they were standing in a different spot, watching us.
I instantly felt danger – like electricity buzzing on my skin. My friend was oblivious, rationing food or something. Next thing they started talking to her asking strange questions and making comments about a big party and wondering if the trailhead gets chained at a certain time. I don’t know, as I’m writing this, it sounds innocuous but the dudes were creepy and fanned out in a strange way. I felt hunted.
My friend, without saying a word, started throwing our gear back in the van. We hauled a*s, messed up our packing. I held my knife and tried to shine my headlamp on it in their direction as much as possible – truly ready to fight or flight. Dudes stood there and didn’t back away. We drove off before I even had a chance to close my door.
I’ve never been so angry. It sucks to live in a world in which you must fear for one’s safety.
Image source: qiwizzle
#64
When I was 16 years old my (Canadian) Army Cadets corps got an opportunity somehow to do a Barbados Cadet Corps transfer trip (where a corps of theirs spent a few weeks in Canada and vise versa). It was a three week trip and in the itinerary were a few days in the bush after a (fairly leisurely) hike around I think the northern part of the island. When setting up camp in a semi forested area on the edge of a rocky short cliff face , my buddy and I were adamant that it being mid August in Barbados we’d rather sleep in a “hoochie” style tent (reference: [https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjQvbT7783mAhWGaM0KHdd0Cn8QjRx6BAgBEAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.snugpak.com%2Foutdoor%2Fstasha-g2&psig=AOvVaw2KMtCUaOX49PaRSVqs1KCA&ust=1577262790522981](https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjQvbT7783mAhWGaM0KHdd0Cn8QjRx6BAgBEAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.snugpak.com%2Foutdoor%2Fstasha-g2&psig=AOvVaw2KMtCUaOX49PaRSVqs1KCA&ust=1577262790522981)) than the commercial big dome tents provided to our group (that slept five or six to a tent). It was hot and humid as all hell, so crashing sardine style wasn’t in either of our desires. We got the “OK” to set up our own ad hoc tents, and set up our hooches facing each other so we could just chill and chat in a low whisper. Most people except those in charge and the selected “fire picket” had already went to sleep for hours.
By around I think 11:30ish, with a full moon, and my buddy and I had been silently hanging out most of the night just talking with each other in a whisper about our trip and our days among other things when we started hearing unfamiliar voices. We instantly shut up, stared at each other and mouthed the words “who was that?” and listened intensely.
Silence for a few minutes (although I’m sure it felt like hours at the time) and there are more voices in the distance but hurried/confused/alarmingly concerned.
The sound of quick soft footsteps approached us in a hurry, and it was one of my cadet senior NCO’s and (while being a big guy) fell instantly to our eye levels looks both of us in the eyes and says, “something’s f****d. don’t make a sound and stay in your tents.” He leaves to tell other tents the same thing I think.
Some time passes.
We hear quick deliberate footsteps approaching, each step crunching the forest floor. The sound gets closer and closer and a man carrying a machete passes between our faces (our hooches were spaced 2ft apart).
We remain silent.
After some time during the silence him and I fall asleep. We’re awoken at 6:30am to get the day started according to the itinerary, but instead of going about morning routines everyone is gathered for a briefing that we inadvertently camped out at a drop zone for d**g smugglers and they bailed after discovering our camp.
It doesn’t sound like much now but I’ll never forget the dinner plates of my friends eyes staring back at me (as I’m sure mine were to him) as we just listened not knowing what was going on and seeing an unfamiliar set of boots and a machete pass by.
Image source: ilikemyeggsovereasy
#65
I was walking through a field one night and jumped a covey of quail. I s**t a great deal.
Image source: Se7inhand
#66
I was in Yellowstone with my wife.
We biked about 4 miles to this geyser off the main road, so nobody else was around.
While waiting for it to go off, we started hiking down by the river near by.
As I walked past a big tree with low hanging branches I see on the other side of the tree just a few feet away from me, a big brown fur head with a big black eye staring at me.
For a split second I thought it was a grizzly bear and it scared the s**t out of me. It ended up being a bison just sitting there for some reason.
But f*****g A.
Image source: ChewbaccasStylist
#67
Me and my whole family are very avid hunters in Saskatchewan Canada. We were hunting bear (for meat) and my brother managed to shoot one with a rifle but it was not the greatest shot and just nicked the lungs so the bear ran far before dieing. When we all arrived to help drag out this bear it was pitch black out and in very thick forest. We took our flash lights and followed the blood trail until we found it bear. It ran about 1.5 km from where it was shot. My dad took one of the flash lights and went to get a a hand winch to help drag this bear up a steep bank. He left me and my 2 brother’s with a flash light and a rifle because there is a lot of bears in the area and are very active at night. We sat around in the middle of the forest for a while waiting for my dad to come back, around 1 hour and I took my Ipod touch out and started playing Angry Birds when all of a sudden my little brother screams looking at me. I turn my head around and about 1, maybe 2 feet away from my head I see 2 sets of eyes glistening from the light of my Ipod. My older brother shines the light at the eyes and I see a 2 brown snouts and black bodies. It’s was a mother and a cub bear. Next I can hear the mother bear do a chomping sound with her jaw. At this point I am litteraly sh#$ting my pants. I got off the log so fast I could have won the Olympics for the 50 yard dash. My brother thankfully shot one warning shot beside the bears (we aren’t cold blooded) thankfully that was enough to scare them both away . My dad came running to us and was there about 10 minutes after the shot. Turns out his light died on the way back to the truck and he had been been lost for the last 30 minutes. I am just thankful we had a g*n and that my little brother seen the eyes because bears can be very quiet when they want to be. This could have ended up very badly. I no longer am chill when in the forest at night, always on edge. I’m sure this will stick with me for the rest of my life.
Image source: DrStubes
#68
I was at a rest stop somewhere in Nebraska or South Dakota along i-29 and I couldn’t sleep so I was kinda roaming around, checking out the rest area ground. Behind the facilities was some woods.
A black lab looking dog came out and sat down, and watched me. I kept my distance and it would reposition when I paced to keep me in front of it. I finished my cigarette, and pulled out my phone and the dog stands straight the f**k up on it’s hind legs like a person and walks backwards into the woods. I’m sure I was just wrong and it wasn’t a dog, but I went right back to the car and didn’t sleep until we were on the road again.
Image source: Madroxprime
#69
Spent a couple years at the South Pole. Firstly, when it’s night and windy with extremely low vis you have to walk via the flag lines. Sometimes the visibility is so bad you can’t actually see the next flag and have to go based on the sound of the next flag flapping. There’s been a few times where the wind has made some scary sounds and I’ve thought to myself that we’ve put a lot of trust into the fact that there’s nothing out there. The second more rational fear is that if I were to trip and break my ankle or get lost in this visibility I would surely freeze to d**th before ever being found. Lights don’t help a lot in thick blowing ice crystals.
Secondly, we have underground arches including the fuel arch, logistic arch etc… people swear they have experienced the ghost of Rodney Marks down there. I’ve never experienced THAT but the ice periodically does make some very scary sounds.
Image source: AStrangerWCandy
#70
Not really creepy but literally d**n near scared the p**s out of me!
I was lakeside camping 9 years ago. Sleeping in a hammock I strung up between a couple of trees.
I got woken up by a black bear that was sniffing me! Luckily it ran off when my dog started barking at it!
I think the only reason it was able to get as close as it did without alerting my dog was because the two of us snore so loudly that a raging bull wouldn’t be noticed over the noise of our combined snoring!
Image source: DuelyDeciesive
#71
Creepiest thing was following a porcupine on a trail at 4 am thinking at what point is this thing going to turn around and come at me. It eventually broke off trail.
Image source: Lochnessfartbubble
#72
When I was 12, I got to walk to my deer stand by myself. It was pitch black in the morning and I hear a group of coyotes howling. I walked faster and they started getting closer. Ran to my dad after that. I’m convinced I almost got eaten.
Image source: FierceDrip81
#73
Was camping with some friends and we were awoken at around 2am by the screaming of around seven or eight coyotes all around our tent. My buddy in the tent had rarely ever camped so he asked me what we should do about this. I laughed and promptly went back to sleep.
Image source: GivemetheDetails
#74
6 years ago I was outside with my telescope at my cottage. I heard branches moving in one of the trees that were only about 40 feet from me. Then i heard a growling purr sound. Then I heard a pack of wolves howling.There had been reports of mountain lions in the area even though they went extinct in Ontario canada. A few days later I checked mountain lion sounds online and that was definitely what I heard.
Image source: anon
#75
Used to go to a survival summer camp, one night we were heading back to our camp site (about 3 1/2 miles from the nearest road, a tiny dirt road leading to the main road for safety reasons) at about 2 in the morning after a long hike (18 miles) we started hearing loud music as we got closer to our site. We thought it might be a party or something (happened quite frequently unfortunately) as we got closer we saw one guy, sitting against his car, obviously very drunk, with a g*n. We ran down the trail about a mile to the only place on the whole property with reception and called 911. It was actually really scary and being a bunch of 14 year olds we freaked. Luckily we had spent the better part of the last seven summers in these woods.
Image source: falconheavy1
#76
Not either of these but I have an interesting experience as a summer school camp participation
From a summer school camp, we will assigned to night walk with the leaders or captain for each group. The detail map was done ahead with the recce scout earlier. When we were at the destination checkpoint, our to be route was to been blocked by a fallen tree. We had no choice but to do the reroute. We will surprised to be the first group to reach the gathering point despite of the fact that we started out later than most groups.
Everyone was surprised that we reached the gathering point first and after a check with them, we were surprised that they did not encounter the fallen tree and hence they stick to the original road.
One group is about 40 students with 3 captain, so there were no ways that 43 pairs of eyes were playing tricks at the same time.
Image source: Yundadi
#77
2x in my life I have been visited by blue orbs in the middle of the night, 20+ miles away from other humans. I think it’s my dad visiting me. The last one I saw, my at-the-time boyfriend saw it too. That morning I woke him up and said *dude I had the craziest dream last night…..* and all he said was *I saw it too* with this look on his face of pure confusion.
I like to think it was just my dad and not an alien.
Also, when I talk about it now, my ex simply says *I dont know what I saw* and that usually starts a whole discussion LOL.
Image source: wanderingdickbutt
#78
I was staying in a cabin in the middle of the mountains of eastern Tennessee alone as part of a solo hiking/camping getaway. Also, to preface the story let me add that this cabin did not have window curtains on any windows and the front door had a glass window as part of the door. My first night at the cabin went as usual, I ate dinner and then laid down on the couch to relax, and eventually fell asleep. In the middle of the night I jolted awake when I heard three incredibly loud thump sounds which I immediately thought were footsteps inside the cabin on the hardwood floors. I looked around the interior of the cabin from the couch and didn’t see anyone and I also didn’t hear any strange noises. I always have my handg*n on me when I go alone to the way, way, way backcountry areas of the mountains because let’s be honest you never really know what’s going to happen and since I was able to have driven to the cabin the extra weight of my g*n was no issue. I also had been sleeping with my handg*n right next to me in its holster, I grabbed it and looked outside all the windows and didn’t see anything, so I laid back down. I didn’t hear anything else out of the ordinary the rest of the night.
The next morning after I had woken up and ate breakfast, I was getting ready to leave the cabin for a hike, so I grabbed all my gear and locked up. As the went to walk down the three steps to the ground I noticed that each step was a bit “loose” and would make a loud stomping sound as you take each step. I immediately froze and I recognized the sound from the steps and the three loud thumps I heard during the night.
Instead of leaving the cabin at that moment I went ahead a drew my g*n and cleared the outside area surrounding the cabin and then also went back inside and cleared each room of the cabin to make sure there was nothing weird inside or outside the cabin, I mostly did that just for my own personal sanity reasons after I correlated the sounds during the night to the sounds of the stairs as you walk on them.
Let’s just say I returned to the cabin well before dark that day and took blankets from around the house and hung them up over all the windows that night for some extra privacy and also “slept” (more like laid there waiting to hear that noise from the steps) on the couch again.
Nothing strange happened after the initial incident. Honestly don’t know what happened/who or what walked on the steps or made the noises but d**n was I happy to leave the cabin after that.
Image source: anon
#79
I’ll always love these threads. Here’s my story from an old one:
> I used to have a buddy that lived in the same neighborhood, a few streets over. One night we were having a couple of beers in his backyard while playing cards. I had some things to do the next morning so just before ten I said my good-byes and shoved off.
>
> It was a short walk (MAYBE 15 minutes door-to-door) so I never drove. Anyway, it was a nice night… uneventful trip. But when I got home, my roommate was coming out the front door, coffee in hand, and dressed for work. He gave me a funny look and said he thought I was asleep since my truck was in the driveway. I told him where I’d been and asked why he was going in to work at night.
>
> That’s when he kind of laughed and asked if I was drunk. We stared at each other for a minute and then he told me it was just after 5 IN THE MORNING and he was going in just like he usually did.
>
> In my entire life, I’d never felt more confused than I did in that moment. I could tell he was dead serious but I KNEW I had just left my friend’s house.
>
> I checked my phone and sure enough… 5-something in the AM. My roommate left for work. I paced circles in the living room for a bit then called the friend whose house I’d just left. He groggily answered and confirmed I’d left at ten the previous evening.
>
> I have no idea what happened during those 7 hours of my life and it gives me chills to think about it all these years later. I wasn’t drunk, I wasn’t tired, no one could have slipped anything in either of the two Coors lights I’d had…no known medical conditions that would have caused me to blackout, and nothing has happened like it since.
>
> I just don’t know what happened to that time.
Image source: DoitAnyway54321
#80
I was driving down an old highway (not heavy usage any more) during a snow storm in 2011. Had a pretty close call on this particular trip.
I was heading to the next town over with my girlfriend at the time, and we behind an SUV on the road. We were behind them for a good while, when they came to a stop. I maneuvered the car around to get a good look at why they stopped.
There was a truck in the road, driver and passenger doors open, and two sets of tracks in the snow leading off to the woods. I got out of the car to make sure no one was injured or needed help, but there were no signs of car trouble.
There wasn’t much snow built up on the inside of the car, so the doors hadn’t been left open for long (it was snowing pretty heavy).
I started to follow the set of tracks into the woods to check, but stopped. Before I could do much of anything else, the driver of the SUV called me over and let me know that the truck had been reported as stolen.
They said highway patrol was on their way, so I went about my business.
A day or so later I found out the owner of the truck was a man who lived nearby that had been missing for over a week. The police went into the woods to look for him, and found his freshly deceased body in a ditch with a single g*n shot to the back of the head.
Whoever took him beforehand must have marched him out there, executed him, and just wandered off into the woods.
I’m still very glad I didn’t follow those tracks. I didn’t hear the shot, so it must have been right before we all arrived at the truck. I don’t even want to think what would have happened to me if I’d persisted.
Image source: anon
#81
I worked at a movie theatre and most often worked the closing shift.
One night me and another manager were sitting in the small office. She was working on the nightly deposit and I was finishing up inventory numbers, We had a CD player that we would listen to at night with a stack of CDs sitting next to it. I stood up and changed the CD and sat back down. About a minute after the entire stack of cds LAUNCHED itself across the room.
One of the CDs hit my co-worker in the back of the head. She looked around and saw me sitting there dumbfounded with the cds scattered all around me and the office. We quickly finished up and left.
A couple of days later one of the other dayshift managers calls me and asks me what we were doing the prior night. She seemed really annoyed which was out of character for her because we were friends. I asked her what she meant and she asked me why we had dumped all of the security tapes onto the floor and left them there.
I told her we hadn’t touched the security tapes at all.
The tapes were stored on top of the CCTV monitor on a small VHS tape shelf. The shelf hadn’t been moved and only the tapes were on the floor. She also said that all of the sleeves from the tapes had been removed and thrown all over the place too.
Image source: dawrina
#82
I don’t really know if it qualifies as scary but I remember getting hit from behind by something while I was stopped in the middle of an intersection in the middle of the night last year.
To this day, I don’t really know what it was. I even saw the traffic cam footage and saw nothing. All I saw was me being stopped completely in the middle of the road waiting for a car in front of me to pass by so I can cross when my car shook like something had hit it from behind and a minute or so later, it showed me parking to the side to check what had happened.
The “accident” didn’t leave any dents nor scratches but it had enough impact to disalign my bumper.
I’ve actively tried to avoid that road since.
Image source: Mist3rTryHard
#83
I came back into my camp from cooking/cleaning/taking a dump, and found an individual digging around in my tent and gear. I quietly watched the person from a bit away while they rummaged around, eventually leaving while taking nothing.
Packed up all my s**t and hiked through the in the dark. There’s zero good things that could come from someone else looking through your gear in the middle of the woods as nighttime approaches. Don’t know what they wanted, don’t want to find out.
Image source: 732
#84
I’m a little late to the party but this one filled my nightmares for a long time after it happened…
A couple years ago, I was living in Colombo, Sri Lanka at a small hostel on the outskirts of the city. The hostel catered to long-term guests so I got to know everyone pretty well who lived there. There was a guy living with us, his name was Raj, and Raj was a middle-man of sorts in the casinos. In Sri Lanka, the casinos are incredibly shady places full of Russian mobsters and other low-life criminals from China and India. The casinos are technically illegal but the continue operation through bribery and government coercion. I went to one of them one time and it was a surreal experience.
Anyway, my friend Raj’s job was to take online bets from Indian clients and make them physically in the casino. He was playing with their money and was simply the vessel to allow individuals to play from another location. He played in some high stakes games and with a lot of money for some powerful people. Basically a recipe for disaster.
One night, he f****d up, BIG TIME. One of his clients managed to gain access to his online system and stole all of the money his clients had deposited to play with, a sum well over $50,000 US, which is a fortune in Sri Lanka.
We only found out about the theft after Raj’s disappearance. A note was left in his bed, very cryptic, saying “don’t look for me” and “I’m leaving” among other things. Dude vanished overnight. We made a police report and waited to hear anything.
After a few days, the police come back to visit, asking someone who knew Raj to join them. The locals in the hostel were afraid to go with the police, so I volunteered and was taken to their headquarters. They took me to the back where I was shown photos of a body, cut into pieces. It was Raj. He’d been cut apart and dumped into the sewer canal nearby by someone. They’d brought me there to identify the body. They never found who did it either, and the image of those photos had never really left me. I’ll forever be haunted by it and I left the hostel shortly afterwards. Poor guy was caught up in some shady stuff but he didn’t deserve that.
Image source: bobbo2011
#85
I was sleeping in a hammock on my mountain ranch, and woke up around 4am. After lying there awake watching stars for about 5 minutes, I heard the sound of something *big* urinating nearby. In the night silence, the sound was so clear as to distinctly change as the dirt went from dry to muddy to a small puddle. I didn’t hear any movement afterward. There are deer, coyotes, bobcats, and rarely bears in this area.
Image source: MentORPHEUS
#86
On one night shift dispatch gave us a call about “screaming in (whichever) elevator”. So we go to it, and can indeed hear screaming. We get a person posted at every floor of this elevator. You can hear the screaming when the elevator is moving, but when the doors open there’s nothing. We decide to have maintenance take a look. Maintenance finds nothing wrong.
Image source: TN_Yeti
#87
Not exactly a lonely road, but I was speeding west on I-70 through Colorado near Glenwood Canyon when I decided to slow down and enjoy the view. I notice a State Patrol car in front of me a minute later when he turns on his sirens, and I think he’s got me busted for speeding. Instead, he’s pulling to the shoulder up ahead to help a broken down motorist.
I slow down and remember looking at the motorist who is sitting in the drivers seat with their head down, thinking “man that guy is lucky to get help out here, no cell coverage, etc”. I keep driving west.
A few minutes later I start to notice police cars flying past me headed back east, sirens blaring, going extremely fast through a curvy canyon. One after another for like 15 minutes, ambulances, fire trucks, seems like all emergency response in the country is headed back the direction I came from.
The next day I’m at a hotel in Utah and discover what happened. Turns out the broken down motorist had skipped bail, and after being confronted by the state trooper who was there to offer assistance, exited his car and began sh**ting the officer in his back multiple times. On a normal day, the officer would’ve died as they typically drive alone, but on that day he was headed to training and had a partner in the car who empties his clip and k**led the motorist. Officer almost bled out on the road but survived.
Image source: bliceroquququq
#88
Years ago my work took me to cadaver labs.
There’s nothing like the smell of drill friction and hot bone.
My first time in one, a sizeable chunk of tissue flew out of the body and splatted against the floor.
Raised to pick things up if they fell on the ground, I instinctively grabbed the thick red gunk before realizing I had no clue what to do with it. The looks of dismay were spectacular.
Image source: mindfeces
#89
Hiking in Rocky Mountain National Park in the dark, about 4 am. No lights, just enjoying the terror of being alone in the mountains in the dark.
I smell something. Musky. An animal smell. A BIG animal smell, then I hear movement in the trees off the trail.
I put my hand on my anti bear Bowie knife, ready to stand my ground and st*b whatever is large and moving near me.
Then the hiker coughs.
I walked past some hiker s******g in the woods.
No people or animals were harmed during this hike.
Image source: MostGrownUp
#90
This was actually on a Danish highway with lots of traffic. I was riding my motorcycle, and pulled over at a rest stop. The stop only had a parking lot and a toilet, no gas station or anything, and was hidden from view from the highway by trees.
As I stopped, there was only one car in the parking lot. A man was standing next to it. He came over and I thought he was just a tiny bit strange. He told me he was a German chemistry professor,but did not look the type. He had been sleeping in the trunk of his station wagon, and when he left through the rear hatch he had left the keys inside and the car was locked. He wanted to borrow my phone to call for assistance. And I let him use it.
After the phone call, I was still talking to him and he told me about the trip he was on. I was more or less trying to end the conversation, when a run down van with graffiti on it stopped next to us. Out comes a man who looked…a bit off. Like a mix of 80’s denim jacket gang member and a d**g dealer. He opened with “How much is that motorcycle worth!”. I found that slightly threatening. He kept on talking about how nice my bike was, as well as telling me his life story. He told me he was a West German truck driver in the 80’s, driving a route to East Germany. He had an East German girlfriend who he met every time he was there. But they were discovered by Stasi, and he never saw her again. He was convinced she was k**led by Stasi because of her relationship with him (West German). At that point, he had moved to Norway, and worked there as a butcher for 10 years. “But then some things happened in my life and I joined the foreign legion.”… Now, people don’t just join the French foreign legion… The way he said it made me think he was saying that he did some serious crime, but escaped the police/prison by joining the legion. Which is apparently a thing.
Now, at this point I was 100% convinced he was bullshitting me, I just did not understand what he was trying to achieve. Did he want to steal my bike? Or my wallet, phone? Meanwhile the professor wanted to leave SO bad, but he was still locked out of his car. Me and the crazy dude was speaking partly Danish/Norwegian, so he did not understand what we were talking about, but I guess you could say he understood enough to be a bit frightened.
I wanted to pull on this crazy guys strings a bit, so I asked him about something I’d heard about the foreign legion. That they give you a dog, and you have to care for the dog and have it as a pet, and then they make you k**l it and eat it. He told me “nope, that’s not true. It’s a rabbit, not a dog!”. And then he kept talking about it in a way that was very, very convincing. And then he pulls the ace out of his sleeve. Literally. He pulls up his sleeve and reveals a tattoo of a legioneer of the French Foreign Legion, in uniform, covering his whole arm from elbow to wrist. I mean, non-legioneers don’t have that….
I was still trying to figure out what he wanted. He had still not asked what me and the professor were waiting for. But just then, a roadside assistance truck arrived to help the professor, and the crazy guy realized the situation. And then became annoyed because if he had known, he could have picked the car door lock in seconds. “I have equipment for it in my car!” Anyway, the professor and the crazy legioneer became occupied with the locked car and the arrival of the roadside assistance truck. And I got on my bike and noped the f**k out of there.
In the end of the day, I think he was genuinly a legioneer, butcher and truck driver. I think he was a lonely guy, just looking for conversation, but no longer used to civilian friendly conversation. I’m sure he had hundreds of interesting stories to tell, but I would prefer to hear them in a less isolated place than a Danish rest stop…
Image source: AlfonsoMussou
#91
About two years ago i was hiking at a local national forest by my hometown. My family had a get together, and been hiking there a few times so we were kind of familiar with the area. I have geocached once there so i was gonna try it again because it was a popular area for caching. I split off from my family and it was just me and my friend who i brought. we were both by this giant lake and off to the right we seen a faint unmarked path. We decided to see if it led to anything cool, but about a couple hundred meters ahead we smelt a horrible smell. We looked around being curious what was causing that god awful smell, then my friend pointed up to a limb of a tree to a hanging deer carcass, a split right threw the stomach. The deer also looked a few days old. so it hadnt been there long. there was also a cloth doll nailed into the tree. it had been worn and made things worse. I had a horrible gut feeling and looked over at my friend and said “bro lets get the f**k out of here.” we got out of there faster than we came. it was almost like a ritual. we agreed to not tell anyone there with us about what we found. i havent been to the place since but i really hope no one else had stumbled upon what we found in the woods that day.
(edit: we eventually told people but we didnt tell anyone that was with us at the moment because we didnt want to freak anyone out with the creepy find).
Image source: iSSaF3rr3T
#92
Graveyard shift worker at the time. Won’t go into details, but I stopped a guy from holding me at g*npoint and taking my vehicle while I was pumping gas. Station was closed, it was 2 am. Streets were pitch black. Guy comes walking up out of nowhere. Asks where I’m headed what time it was etc, just getting me to talk. Nothing alarming. Except he’s fidgety and has had his 1 hand in his front leather jacket pocket the whole time. I say f it, was almost done pumping, decided if this was it I’ll make the best of it, guy needs whatever it is more than I do, so I say “need a ride somewhere? Was omw home from work but I’ve got a few dollars we can stop for food because I’m hungry and don’t mind having company. What’s your name? Mine is Mary” I know that if you start getting personal with an attacker it gets harder for them to hurt you. I was thinking “take me hostage, hold me at g*npoint point, yell in my face, I can take this. But please don’t take my life and don’t leave me 2 hours stranded away from home in the middle of the night”.
I got done pumping when I finished, giving him a short amount of time to think on his answer, and in his panic at me offering him the things he was going to take from me, he goes “nah I’m just gonna walk, thanks again”.
Leaves.
I carry a tazer now.
Image source: Entire-Speaker
#93
I was thirteen and would spend summers practically living at my best friend’s house. Often we would sneak out at night and just roam around her area which was an exurb, kind of in the country, but still plenty of houses. We never felt afraid. Then one night we ambled down a road that cut through a field. It ended at a cul-de-sac with a large iron gate blocking a dirt driveway behind it. Everything was fine one minute, but the next we both just looked at each other absolutely terrified and ran as fast as we could back down the road. We had both just felt at the same time an overwhelming sense of fear and dread. If it had just been me, then I would chalk it up to just a kid freaking herself out, but both of us felt it at the exact same time. I still wonder if we avoided something terrible that night.
Image source: LaeliaCatt
#94
This isn’t a late night story or anything but is one that still really creeps me out. Copied from another thread but makes sense here aswell.
When I was younger, probably 13/14 ish, I was cycling up to a park near the local shops to meet some friends. It was one of the first times i had cycled such a long distance on my own but I was always a pretty street smart kid and I had a phone so didn’t think much could go wrong. To get to this park you have to use a pedestrian cut through that is pretty wide and you can see right the way through but is enclosed by trees so is a bit dark. As I cycled through a guy was stood to one side pulling at a branch, but didn’t think much of it. When I rode past he lurched towards me and tried to stick the branch through my front tyre to throw me off or something. Luckily he missed but he just stood there whilst I cycled as fast as I could to meet my friends.
Once I got to the park I told them about it and was pretty shaken up. As I was talking one of my friends had obviously noticed someone staring at us and asked me what he was wearing (all blue tracksuit/kit of a local football team) and when I told her she went “kind of like that guy?”, gesturing behind me. And there he was, sat on the bench just staring at us. I freaked the f**k out and all of us ran to one of the girl’s houses where my dad picked me up, put my bike in the car and drove me home.
I’m pretty sure I saw him again a few years later but to this day I have no clue how he managed to get to the park at roughly the same time as me considering I was on a bike and he was walking. Still makes me feel uneasy.
Image source: anon
#95
Once my friend and I were hiking on an overnight trip to the summit of this peak, in order to get from the campgrounds to the peak you had to (unless you wanted to cross a deep river) walk across the mountain ridges and then desend into a valley in order to climb out of the valley onto another set of moutain ridges. It is impossible to reach the mountain in one day so you have to find a place to camp for the night.
In this area of Alaska, everywhere is tundra and mountains except for the valley between the two ridges. There is cover from the wind there so we decided to set up camp there. It is important to note that the campground has the only road leading to civilzation for miles. To come from any direction other the the one we came from would mean the nearest town is more then a 100 miles away. Also important side note when we arrived we were the only people at the campground.
It is late at night and we are trying to fall asleep when we hear footsteps approching, slow human footsteps and a raspy breathing. It was human for sure, not animal. We were armed with a bolt action rifle for protection from bears so we asked who was out and there was no reply. We then heard them knock over our clothes drying rack. I was scared shitless and warned the person outside that we were armed. The footsteps suddenly picked up as the person ran past our tent opposite of the direction of the campgrounds. There was no shacking of a pack as they ran which I found odd.
It was a sleepless night and when the sun shone on the valley we exited our tent to find our clothes drying rack in tatters and there were small bootprints in the ground leading towards and away from our tent. We made it to the mountain and hightailed it back to the campground as fast as we could. I dont know who that was but I didnt go camping for a while after that.
Image source: arcticredneck10
#96
I’ve posted this on reddit a couple of times, but here it is again, just because it fits. Back in the early 90’s I worked for Domino’s pizza, when this happened I was an assistant manager, but we had to deliver sometimes too. This night, it just after 11:00, I made a delivery to a house in one of our middle income neighborhoods. I get to the house and there is not a light on. If the porch light wasn’t on were supposed to go to a payphone and call the number on the order, that was to prevent robberies. I never did that, I would just go ahead and go to the door.
But this night, I sat in my car a minute, and I just had a gut feeling, and I always listen to my gut. So I drove back two blocks to a payphone, and called the number, it was disconnected. I decided to wait just a minute before making the second call we were suppose to make. If they didn’t answer the second time, we were supposed to go back to the store. As I stood there, I noticed a Pizza Hut drive through, but really didn’t think about it, you spot each other while on the road. I call back, still disconnected. For some reason I decide to return to the house, and just see if someone comes to the door.
I get back, and realize the Pizza Hut car is sitting in my driveway, I think “what the hell”. I turn in the long driveway, that is lined on the left side by tall evergreen tree/shrub things. I immediately notice there is something big on the ground next to the open drivers door of the Pizza Hut car. I pull up behind him and park, and realize that it’s the driver. I decide he must have had a heart attack or something, so I run up to see what I can do to help. When I get to him, I realize his skull has been caved in so bad, I can actually see his brains. I run back to my car and lock the door, I drive like 90 mph those two blocks to the payphone, and call the cops, then I call my store and tell them what is going on, and have them call Pizza Hut.
I wait for the cops to come through, and I go back. Eventually the detective comes over to talk to me. He tells me that first in the bushes next to the driveway, they found a realty sign, the power is off, and the house is completely empty. They also found two sets of footprints in the bushes. It appears they ordered from both places and waited for whoever got there first to rob. I was first but because I didn’t get out of the car, they had to wait on Pizza Hut to show up. If only I got out of the car the first time, that would have been me laying on the ground dead. For some reason, a gut feeling perhaps, I did not do what I normally did. I never knocked on another door without the front porch light on, unless I knew the customer really well.
Image source: 1971rk4262
#97
I may be late to the party, but I’ve always wanted to share this story in threads like this one.
6-7 years ago I was still in college living in an on-campus apartment, and my mom was in town visiting. Late at night after she had gone to bed, my boyfriend and I quietly left the apartment for an evening stroll to go smoke. We went to our normal spot and then headed back to the apartment. We’re maybe 60 seconds from the entrance of the lobby when we walk past this 10-12 ft. tall statue that sits at the corner of the street. As we pass it, my boyfriend quietly says “Don’t panic and don’t run, but there was a guy standing in the shadow of that statue and I think he’s following us now.” I make a slight glance over my shoulder and sure enough, some big dude is now following us roughly 20 ft. back. We make a point not to walk any faster and alert him that we’re onto him. I get out my student i.d. and get it ready to unlock the lobby, and as soon as we were through the door, I pulled the door shut instead of letting it close on it’s own (one of those delayed closing doors). Well, right around the time we make it over to the elevator (we booked it once we got inside) there is dude, at the door, rattling it trying to get in. Definitely wasn’t a student and didn’t live there if he didn’t have a card for entry, so I’m fairly certain we avoided being robbed or m******d.
Image source: dabstix
#98
This isn’t really that scary but around 2014 I witnessed what I can only assume could be ball lightning. The weather was clear though and it didn’t seem to emit electricity so I can’t really be sure. But anyway I was taking a walk around sunset and noticed this orange glowing orb roughly the size of a softball slowly drifting about 20 feet in the air. I stopped and watched it for a few minutes until it disappeared behind the trees. I’m still mad I didn’t have a smart phone at the time because I totally would have recorded it.
Image source: Francis-Hates-You
#99
This is a good one and its 100% true. I wont give the exact location but it was in Rhode Island about 10 years ago. I was working overnight security at a boatyard (they assembled tugs) and there were numerous docks and very large warehouses where things were assembled. The job was great as I could essentially play video games / do homework all night, minus a 20 minute walkabout every 2 hours.
The only problem with this job was the totally bizarre and creepy things that continually happened while on shift. You have to understand a large, rusty, foggy industrial yard like this late at night in near total dark minus the lights you turn on (then off) plays tricks on peoples minds. And I for one am a very logical, science oriented person. Yet we went through probably about 35-40 guards in the year and a half I was there, the latter half being lost to other posts despite being paid DOUBLE at this one for much, much less work.
While working there I heard all kinds of stories, but Ill give you some of the ones I personally experienced. One night while patrolling one of the assembly warehouses, I heard something following me from above. It was the strangest thing. I couldnt find the source of the noise but every time I turned around, I could hear something scatter and run. Something big. Go back to the security room and look through the cameras, and its a massive d**n cat. Some sort of mountain lion.
I had to call animal control, and they hunted and caught the d**n thing like 5 hours later. The next night its back. I can see it in the cameras, and call again. This time they couldnt catch it. At one point I was actually directing animal control to the thing which I could see on the camera, and they were walking around right past it. They never ended up with the second catch.
This then happened on a third night. I almost got my a*s in hot water before one of the responding animal control guys sat down right next to me trying to direct his buddy. To this day I still dont know what the f**k was going on with that. We never caught the second ghost lion thing, though it would return when the weather was warm.
Another night I was walking across one of the large, empty sections of the yard and was hit in the leg by a wrench. A large, 5lb wrench. Hit me hard enough where I stumbled and almost went down. Thing is there was literally no place this could have fallen from, the nearest roof a goodly distance away. Someone would have had to of tossed it like a football to hit me with it.
There was one night I was taking a s**t in one of the stalls, and I heard the super large hangar open despite the controls for it being locked. I was weirded out but decided to finish my s**t then investigate. It then closed again. Then opened. Then as Im getting ready to wipe my a*s and troubleshoot this thing the bathroom door RIPS open, slamming hard enough to give me a heart attack and every stall door slams open.
Given we were on the docks there were a lot of seagulls. Occasionally one or two would sit on the end of the pier and watch us do rounds. One night a small flock of them, probably about 5-10 flew into a really compact ball. It was super weird, Ive never seen them do that before. They then proceeded to follow me around at a set distance. If I approached, they went away. When I walked away, they followed. When I went into the guard shack, they all landed on the roof. Weirdest d**n thing.
The last example Ill give was one of the few d**ths that happened on site. A worker not wearing a harness doing a warehouse roof repair fell through and landed on some machinery a good 40 ft below. He was dead by the time the ambulance got there. The following day the roof caved in on the CEO’s office during an international conference call, sending him to the hospital. The weird thing is the main office building was new construction with no maintenance issues whatsoever.
Image source: anon
#100
Me and a friend were driving through a highway in the absolute middle of nowhere late at night in southeastern Oregon. I’m talking basically nothing for about a hundred mile radius (well, maybe not a hundred miles, but seriously – there’s nothing out there but dirt, diseased jackrabbits, and brush.) It was pitch black, and all we could see is where the headlights shine. There was no moon that night, and if you looked out the side windows it was just…the void. The only thing that kept me awake was the occasional jackrabbit suiciding into the tires (do you have any idea how long it takes to clean caked-on rabbit brain off of a truck?) Anyway, we came upon this rest stop. It was just a shack with some toilets in it, a streetlight fixed to the top of it, and a little gravel parking spot. We parked and got out, and my friend went to the bathroom, leaving me standing outside.
Because of the light on the shack, my eyes didn’t adjust. So where the light ended, it was just pitch black. Everything was perfectly silent – you could hear a pin drop. And for whatever reason, standing there, I was freaking *terrified.* You know that feeling that something’s watching you, or that certainty that something’s about to crawl out of the shadows where you can’t see and *get* you? That, but with a hefty helping of existential fear and dread mixed in. ‘Unsettling’ was kind of a mild way to put it, to be honest. You literally couldn’t see anything outside of the ring of light from the shack. If everything else in the world suddenly dropped away into nothingness except for that rest stop, you wouldn’t know the difference. It looked and felt like there was just nothing, but at the same time *something* that you couldn’t see or hear watching you and waiting to pounce. It’s really hard to describe, but I was super freaked out for some reason. Like I could just be grabbed and dragged into the silent void with nothing left of me but a scream echoing through the empty desert. The world could end and everything I knew could be gone in an instant, and I wouldn’t have the slightest idea.
I mean, I’m not *really* scared of the dark. I love abandoned places and solitude. I like it at night. I love big, empty places and knowing you’re completely alone. The desert is cool. Literally nothing happened to scare me. But for whatever reason, I was ready to nope right out of there as fast as possible. Maybe my brain knew something I didn’t.
I don’t know, man. Being in the desert in the middle of nowhere in absolute pitch black is a spiritual experience. Especially when you find some form of civilization (even if that’s just a run-down bathroom), you really just feel like you’re *not* supposed to be there. You don’t belong there, but hey, you might be stuck there forever :)))
TL:DR – I have an existential crisis at 2 A.M. for absolutely no reason at a bathroom in the middle of a desert.
Image source: anon
#101
I got this job after my first year of college as a watchman. It was in a remote area overlooking the Mississippi river, there was a lot of floating equipment tied up to the bank, I was supposed to watch a radar screen and visually make sure that none of the equipment was stolen of sinking. To get to this tiny elevated office I had to walk a few hundred feet through a wooded area, I worked from 8pm to 6am, so it was usually dark coming in and going out. I never saw or talked to another soul, I had a radiophone in case I actually saw something.
The previous 2 people doing this quit because they didn’t like the conditions, but it paid very well for a summer job and I got a lot of OT. They didn’t provide one, but they said if I wanted to carry a firearm, I could, but I didn’t have one. Big red flag.
I got used to it and actually liked the solitude, I don’t sleep more than about 4-5 hours, so staying awake was not a problem, A couple of times a night I’d take a big flashlight and go check to make sure all the equipment was OK, not sinking or floating away. One night I see this small crane barge is not tied very well and could easily float away if I passing boat rocked it a little. I am no deckhand, I tried to pull it in tighter, but with the current, it wouldn’t budge. My mistake was getting on the crane barge because I saw a rope I could use, that’s when it came loose. By the time I realized what was happening, it was too late to jump back.
So now I’m in the dark riding a breakaway barge, no lifejacket, no radio, there was very little marine traffic, so all I could do was ride. There were a lot of things we could hit and sink and I likely drown. When I did see a tugboat, he didn’t see my flashlight. I rubbed against a bridge, then hit a large barge and started to go under it, the boom on the crane hit the deck and I was able to scamper up the boom onto the barge deck.
I was stuck on a barge, but at least it was tied securely, the crane barge I was on was now wedged against the bow. By daylight a passing boat saw me and came and picked me up. I had hundred of mosquito bites, but to equipment was actually damaged.
Image source: Disposable70
#102
I mean it’s not super scary but very bizarre and i can’t find an explanation. Was overnight at a d**g rehab. Came across Clients using a makeshift Ouiji board. Now from my understanding, ouiji boards were invented by Milton Bradly and have no actual magical or occult history behind them at all and the only reason they ever move on their own is people subconsciously moving it. I make fun of them and tell them exactly that. They say ” okay, ask it something we wouldn’t know”. Keep in mind Im across the room. I myself am not touching it at all. ”What’s my middle name” They then, correctly spell my middle name. Now I am pretty confused and spooked but maybe it was just dumb luck. I say ” What street do I live on” they then spell that too and after 4 correct letters in I stop them and let them continue to not anger the demons that reside in that place.
Did they just read my badge? No I was not wearing it at the time because at night the bosses were never there so I didn’t have to be in uniform. Even if I did wear it my middle name and address are not on it.
Could a coworker of told them these details to f**k with me? No, because even if they somehow saw my Hr paperwork..I wasn’t living at the address on those papers anymore.
Image source: ImperialSupplies
#103
Back in September of 2017, I loaded some camping gear onto the back of my bicycle and spent the next 20 days riding almost 1,300 miles clockwise around Lake Michigan, starting and ending at my home in South-central Wisconsin. I didn’t really like paying to sleep in the ground, so instead of paying for proper campsites, about an hour before dark I’d just start looking for somewhere I could disappear into the woods or something to pitch my tent.
As the second day neared its end, I was riding on a gravel bike trail that paralleled a small highway between two little towns. I started looking for a place to camp, and before long, I found what I thought would be a decent place. A small grass road crossed the bike trail. To the left, it connected to the highway. To the right, it led to a clearing with maybe eight or so semi truck trailers. Although the trailers themselves were overgrown with grass and weeds, indicating the hadn’t moved in years, there were decently maintained paths between them, and in some places, the trailers blocked those parts from view in three directions, including from the road.
So despite my slight uneasy feeling about the place, I set up my tent. In the final few minutes if twilight, I was sitting in the tent, eating dinner and writing in my journal, when suddenly I heard the squeak of an old door hinge, followed a moment later by the banging sound of a door being violently swung shut. Now, I mentioned earlier that I was already a little bit uneasy about the place. It was a bit creepy, but in a cool way. So when I heard that sound, it very much amplified my uneasy feeling about the place. My mind jumped to all kinds of confusions about how it must have been somebody living in one of those trailers coming out, and it was only a matter of a few moments before he’d see my tent.
So I decided to get the hell out of there. I broke down my tent in record time, loaded everything onto the bike, and continued on by the light of my headlamp, as it was now pitch black out. Maybe a mile down the bike path, I found another clearing in the woods –this one without creepy abandoned trucks– and pitched my tent once again, before having a peaceful and uneventful night’s sleep.
In hindsight, I realized they the noise was likely just an unlatched trailer door swinging in the breeze. But even so, the place was f*****g creepy, and I was almost looking for a reason to break down my tent and continue on. That noise ended up being exactly the reason I needed.
Image source: MasteringTheFlames
#104
Something I’ve noticed on a few occasions while driving near the Navajo reservation in New Mexico. The roads are desert roads, lumpy in spots, potholes. It can be a rough ride.
One night, quite late, I was going through one of these rough stretches, and was flipping through the stations on my radio, when I stopped on someone speaking Diné, (sp ?) the Navajo language. I knew from previous trips there’s a station that is in their native tongue, but plays classic country, so I waited a minute for the next song.
When it came on, it was not some George Jones song, but recordings of tribal dance songs. As I’m not knowledgeable in the slightest to the language, I can’t say what it was, but it was beautiful, and different, and I continued to listen.
Slowly, the bumps and humps and undulations of the road… without moving to a different stretch of construction, or moving into a different zone as far as I could tell… ceased.
I felt like someone was standing or squatting beside me in my truck, and having heard tales of skinwalkers, I dared not turn my head. And then I felt like I was decidedly not alone, and I felt hands on my shoulders and arms, and a sense of gratitude came over me and I began to cry.
Through this though, my headlights, which normally seemed so dark and worthless on this stretch of road, shone brightly. Again, this just made it clearer the road was as old and in disrepair as ever… but my truck seemed to float along.
Every time I get close again, I replicate this sensation listening to this channel, when I can find it. And even at times when it doesn’t come in clearly, I feel a presence, and the ride becomes smoother.
Image source: gallo48
#105
Worked in care most of my life, and this seems to involve night shifts quite often.
Working for an agency one time, got sent to a mental health facility for a night shift. Pottered along, to be told that there were 3 night staff, and 2 of them were on one wing, and I, the newbie, would be on the other wing along. I figure this is b******t and it’s just the non agency staff wanting to work together and whatnot, but whatever.
Night shift mostly involved sitting watching s****y television, the place had the basic terestrial telly channels and they all tend to turn off at midnight of 1am.. so yay.
The job requirement was to peek into the bedrooms every hour and make sure the patients hadn’t.. hurt themselves.. or to answer any call bells. The hallway lights were turned off though, so I had to do this with a giant torch.
This sounds like a horror movie set up already right!!
There were a lot of odd noises, like doors opening and closing, and odd tappings, so I kept popping out of the lounge to check if someone was in the hallway. No one ever was.
Anyway, one room check, I peeked into the room and no one was in there, she had been there 30 minutes prior when I had peeked in, so I opened the door and popped into her room, thinking she might be in the bathroom, so I wanted to ear the door to check. Bathroom door was open, no lights on, no patient.. just me and my little torch beam.
I looked under the bed, behind the curtains, checked the bathroom again… lifted the torch to check if she was spidermanning it in the corner of the ceiling.
She was not.
I turned to leave the room, and as my torch swung around to the doorway, there was a white human figure, long long white hair, head hanging forwards, arms hung at her side, highlighted by the weak and white beam.
I let out a little screech of surprise and lets face it.. fear..
and then went to the doorway and escorted the patient back to her bed.
No idea where she was hiding.. her bedroom door was locked from the outside until I opened it.
Image source: confused-leprechaun
#106
An old job I had was located on an industrial estate in the middle of an expansive, abandoned and disused airfield. One of those places that even when the sun shone, if the estate was quiet, it was eerie.
It was a small business, and because of the nature of the work, the main bulk got done in the morning, leaving the afternoons quiet and therefore only manned by 1 or 2 members of staff. On this particular day, it was just me as my colleague was out at a meeting. It was a sunshiney, normal day and I’d been in the midst of doing very little (as you do when left to your own devices in a quiet office), when I decided to take a break to pee. Now, because of the weird layout of the building, to get to the toilets you went downstairs, took a right at a crossroads (the front door on your left), through the (at that point) empty warehouse, and followed the loop, leaving you directly under the main office. So there I am, having a grandiose wee when I hear the front door open and close.
At this point, I’m not fussed. My colleague is due back in, so it’s most likely them, and if it’s not, it’ll be one of the drivers anyway who quite often pop in and out. As I finish up and flush the toilet, I peer out the small window behind the loo to scout our section of the car-park and just see who’s arrived. Only, there’s no cars bar mine. That’s kinda odd, and I’m a little unsettled but I shake the feeling off by figuring it’s a nice day – could just be a driver has walked round. As I move to the sink and start washing my hands, the floorboards above my head start making the very familiar creaks and groans of somebody ascending up the stairs, and I can tell exactly where they are by the sound of which stair they’re putting weight on – so somebody’s definitely in and heading to the office. For some reason, the weird unsettling feeling of earlier starts coming back over me, so I finish up doubly quick time and come out of the toilets, just as the main floorboard of the office creaks. I’m calling out all the time as I take the loop back around, and through the warehouse. As I reach the bottom of the stairs, there’s nobody on them, and as I say – all the time I’ve been walking I’ve been calling out, figuring whoever it is would most likely stop and hang back to wait for me. But.. There’s nobody. Now really creeped out, at the foot of the stairs I call out again, just incase they haven’t heard – expecting somebody to poke their head around the main office door. Nobody does. There’s just silence.
By this point, I’m petrified. I’m on my own, in the middle of nowhere, and somebody has decided to play peek-a-boo in this building. With my heartbeat pounding in my ears I take the first few steps. Alongside the stairs, there’s a downstairs office and a small window that allows you to peek into the room. I check that. There’s nobody in there. I carry on up, now fully on guard. At the top of the stairs there’s another crossroads: Main office on the right, conference room (with shut door), on the left. I reach the landing of the stairs, fully tensed, with my keys in between my closed fist. I turn the corner. There’s nobody there. The office is empty. But I have 100% heard somebody come in, and up the stairs. The door is so heavy that the sound of it opening or closing is unmistakable, + the same for the floorboards which always give away someone’s movements. All the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. The only place somebody could be is directly behind me, in the closed door conference room and there’s no way I’m opening that – the room is massive and pitch black.
I leg it downstairs JUST as my colleague pulls into the carpark. I explain the whole thing to him, and together we brave the conference room. He pushes the door open, I hit the lights. Nobody. We scour the warehouse – even though there’s no way that somebody could have got out: The shutter doors are down and locked. We check every room, everywhere. Nobody.
To this day it’s the creepiest thing that I ever experienced in the building. I know what I heard. There was no way it could have been wind, or heating, because the floorboards make specific noises when people are on them – I’d know, I’d heard them enough times! There was no way that anybody could have gone past me, whether in the warehouse or not as the corridor is so small I would have seen them, or heard the door click again when they left. I’ve got no explanation, all I know is what I heard.
Image source: charmingdeviant
#107
We have a hunting camp about 40 minutes west of where I live. It’s completely secluded as the nearest town is back the way you came. My cousin and I were watching tv one night during turkey season and there are multiple lodges for family. The camp is made of wood. Heavy wood. Doors and all so it’s pretty loud when somebody opens them. We were sitting on the couch when all of the sudden a door to one of the rooms shut. We both perked up and he gave me a weird look. After investigating each and every room we found nothing. We’ve all had weird experiences in the lodge and strangely enough that wasn’t the only time I’ve ever heard a door slam closed when I was alone.
Image source: theguy4785
#108
Couple years back I was at a cabin with my grandpa, my uncle (only two years older than me), and my cousin out in the middle out the woods on a mountain in north Georgia. At around maybe 11 p.m. we decided “hey, let’s go for a ride” since they had their 4Wheelers and I had my dirtbike and so we did. Well about 7-9 miles up the mountain and we saw a car pulled in the woods about 100 feet from the road so we went to check it out to see if everything was good. We got to it and nobody was there. Car was running, door was open, and there were no tracks leading anywhere and that was odd because it was still soggy because it had rained earlier in the day. Well we decide “yea let’s go” and so we got outa there but after we finished and we were coming back down the road, maybe 13 miles away from the site, we pulled over so my uncle could pee in the woods and while we were sitting and waiting on him to finish up there was this loud a** scream like 300 yards away in the woods and it scared the living p**s outa us. My cousin wanted to look and see what it was but the rest of us said “f***k this we are going back” and so we all hauled a** back to our camp.
And yea we still go there to camp, idk why but we do.
Image source: bacon-patrol
#109
I was once in Goshen, Virginia at Camp Bowman, the Merit Badge camp my BSA troop went to. It was late, maybe 9:30, and I was walking around the beach area looking for my copy of Pokémon Gold (I had lost it earlier). A few minutes into the search, I stepped in something wet and squishy. I thought it was kelp or something, so I passed it off. I found the game on a picnic table, and relieved, I left. When I made it back to camp, I noticed my shoes had blood on them. I couldn’t think of where it came from, so I decided I’d trace my steps in the morning.
The next day, I was retracing my step when I saw what had caused it. The squishy thing I had stepped on was the mauled body of a cat. Disgusted, I ran and alerted the camp staff. It turns out it was a barn cat that had been clawed to shreds by an eagle. Definitely freaked me out.
Image source: anon
#110
So I went outside for walks at night sometimes, it’s not the best habit but I figured it was alright to do that again because I moved to a gated complex. But I was wrong.
One day I went back from a walk and found a stranger in the fountain/garden circle, and he was looking at me as I got closer. I won’t say I know everyone in the neighborhood, but I know a lot of people and their families because I’m part of the women’s association, and yet I never even saw this guy. He could be a guest, sure, but he struck me as odd even from a distance. He was just standing still in the fountain in the middle of the night, so that’s odd enough, but he also looked unstable to me; his eyes were red, he looked like he hadn’t showered for a while and his clothes were full of stains. Did one of the neighbors go through a rough patch or something, I thought, but I haven’t heard anything like that. I decided to walk the long way around. We kept our eyes on each other, then out of nowhere he started screaming.
I couldn’t tell what he was saying, but it sounded horrible. He was really angry, or sad, or whatever intense emotion it was. So I bolted, and he ran after me. He stopped screaming as he was chasing me, instead he got out a knife. I honestly thought I’d die if he caught me. I ran the fastest I had ever run in my life, but I didn’t run straight home, I didn’t want him knowing where exactly I live! So I jumped over fences trespassing into other people’s properties, which was a horrible decision in hindsight, but I didn’t think that far at the time. Got home and hid in my second story, up all night. I belatedly realized I might have invited disaster upon my neighbors, but I didn’t have the guts to get out again.
In the morning I immediately went to look for the security to find out what the s**t had happened last night. Security said there had been complaints about some ruckus and asked me about it, yeah that was probably me. But they didn’t find any guy when they investigated last night, though apparently some people did see someone running… But probably me, not the guy I described. They looked for him for sometime, did night patrols, but nothing. To this day I still have no idea who that was and what was up with him, and I stopped going for night walks.
Image source: turnipheadstalk
#111
One time I was traveling alone and stayed in a motel for one night. It was the night before I flew home so I spend the night putting my stuff together. While doing that I ate some chocolate, but I didn’t like it so I put it aside with most of the chocolate still left in the box.
When I woke up in the morning I realized the box was empty. I checked the doors and both, the front door and the balcony door, were locked.
I went out to get breakfast and then I realized, that I woke up in the middle of the night but went right back to sleep. Usually I have a very deep sleep. I also noticed that my front door was locked by chain, so nobody could have left through this door. I went back to my room thinking that there still is a person inside, maybe underneath my bed. I took my stuff and left right away.
I was a 20yo girl back than and I have never been this scared.
Image source: blackout_throne
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