People From Around The World Reveal Their Weirdest Experiences In Isolated Places


People From Around The World Reveal Their Weirdest Experiences In Isolated Places


There's something hypnotic about isolation. Most of us yearn to get away from the obligations of our daily lives once in a while, to sneak off to the countryside -- alone or with a partner -- and bask in the wonder of nature.  Or else we're led away from the well-trod path by a moment of naive curiosity, a sense of child-like wonder.

Yes, being off on our own can be restorative, but it can also make us feel vulnerable. Most of the time there's nothing to fear. But sometimes...

These people from all around the world recently went online to reveal the weirdest and creepiest experiences they ever had in an isolated place.

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45. Eight-Legged Freaks

This took place in the Australian bush around 10/11 at night.

I was 17, leading a staggered column of about 60 cadets to our detachment campsite. Due to light discipline rules, only myself at the very front of the group and the other flight commander at the rear had torches on. This was so that any vehicles coming along the trail could see us and so that most of the cadets could maintain their night vision(we were camouflaged up and thus difficult to see at night).

As we walked along I periodically looked to my sides, and kept seeing what looked like dew drops on the ground. Almost like tiny blue gems glinting in my torch light either side of the road. I had to maintain my position in the formation, so I couldn't get a good look at what they were.

However, after a while we stopped for a very brief break, and I took the opportunity to have a closer look. Walking over to the side of the trail I spotted a small cluster of the "diamonds" and focused my head torch on them. Rather than seeing diamonds or dew drops or anything remotely pleasant, I instead saw a group of about 5 large spiders just crouching in the leaf litter and staring at me. They looked like huntsmans which are about the size of an adults hand. Sweeping my head around, I realised there were thousands of the things. All over the ground, some on the trunks of trees, and everywhere around me; glaring at the light affixed to my head.

I had a very brisk walk back to the formation and attempted to play it cool while screaming in my head. Being a massive arachnophobe, I have no clue how I managed to set up a tent and spend the next week in that cursed forest.

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44. The Devil Worshippers

Back when I was a kid, some friends and I came across people in robes chanting around a campfire out in the woods on the edge of the town we lived in. We were staying at a friend's house for a birthday party/sleepover and went for a late night walk. This was back in the late 80's during the satanic panic. Looking back now, I'm sure it was just some teenagers goofing around, but at the time it scared the living bejeezus out of us. One of the girls with us had a panic attack and started hyperventilating. Got pretty serious, but we finally managed to get her calmed down.

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43. Stand By Me

I'd been at football training with a few of my cousins when I was about 10 years old.

We decided to take a walk before our parents picked us up, so we went along the canal towpath. My cousin looked down in the canal and say a really nice jacket floating along and being a weird scavenger person decided to reach in to fish it out.

Well, the jacket turned over. And so did the man wearing it.

Not gonna lie, that was rough.

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42. A Harrowing Tail

It's 2 AM. We're in a tent in the woods in Maine. I'm about 8.

"Mom, there's something creeping around outside the tent!"

"Mmmph, you're dreaming, go back to bed..."

"Mom, there really is something out there!"

"No. There isn't."

Just then, something WHAPS on the side of the tent, hard enough to shake the whole thing. And my mother - who is entirely too tired to deal with this nonsense - sits bolt upright and WHAPS right back in the same spot.

And from outside the tent, we hear...

"Meow.."

It was a house cat. We didn't hear anything more the rest of the night.

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40. To Be Ferret...

I was on a week-long camping trip with some friends and I woke up with a weasel sitting on my chest looking at me. I never knew I could scream that loud.

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39. You Can Run, But You Can't Hide

Felt like running at night last year because the park near where I live gets all pretty with the lights on in the dark.

So after 5 mins into this exercise, I feel the need to adjust my shoes because I forgot to wear a longer sock and they were hurting my ankle.

I look up and I see this dark silhouette running towards me at full speed wearing a hoodie, about 50 meters away.

I was on the left side of the street and he was on the right so it was clear he was running towards me.

I legit almost pooped my pants and felt an adrenaline surge. I thought about fighting him if he got any closer, but in a blink of an eye, the person trips, falls face-first on the ground... and starts crawling in my direction again!

I have no idea why he was so determined to get to me because I turn and ran as fast as I could.

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38. Nature Calls

I was a Boy Scout, camping with my group of older buddies and an adult leader in Yellowstone. We had been backpacking for two days and stopped in a beautiful little clearing at the bottom of some huge tree covered hills. The sun started to set, we made a fire, and I began to climb up into the trees to dig a hole and fill it back up. You know what I mean.

As I squat there, basking in moonlight and appreciating the glow of fire among the trees, I looked up to a ridge line a few hundred yards away where the moon was rising, and I kid you not I saw huge cougar crest the hill and just watch our fire. It was likely no danger to me, but seeing that outline, that unmistakable shoulder crawl they do, was haunting.

I watched it sit there for a good fifteen minutes until I was called back by my worried buds. I pointed the cat out the them when I got done because it was still just watching us. Crazy.

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37. Clothes Call

My girlfriend and I were hiking along some abandoned railroad tracks and we get to a small bridge going over a little creek. I’m about to go explore under the bridge when she points something out. I look over and in the woods across from us I see a guy. I'm like whatever and keep heading down to the creek area. But then the guy stands up and we realize he's not wearing any clothes. We immediately backtracked pretty quickly to get away from there. Once were like 1 minute down the trail I look back and this dude was just standing in the middle of the trail, watching us walk away.

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36. Jumper

Walking on the beach with my boyfriend and we had walked to a giant rocky cliff to make out. Somebody was just gazing at the ocean, crying and shaking. Mind you, this is late at night, like around 9:30 pm. We asked him if he was ok; he just apologized and practically ran back down the cliff (away from the dangerous areas). My boyfriend and I watched him until he reached the public area and decided to call it a night. I'm pretty sure he was going to jump and we inadvertently saved his life.

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35. Fight Or Flight

In order to get back home from a popular kebab restaurant, I need to walk a short path through the woods. Along the way there is an extremely old abandoned, partially collapsed chapel. Occasionally I'll stand there for a few seconds admiring it. It's quite beautiful in its own way.

One day during winter season I decided to rest there for a minute, so I placed my kebab on the bench right next to the chapel and just stood there taking in the scenery. It was already rather dark and the woods were almost completely silent, but right as I was about to continue my walk I heard footsteps rapidly getting louder.

It was a child running towards me and as soon as he realized I was there it started to repeatedly scream: "Run. He is coming."

I was a bit perplexed by the situation so I watched the child run past me without moving an inch myself. It didn't take another second for a much me to hear a much heavier pair of footsteps heading my way. I could make out a silhouette in the distance which seemed to be their origin and at that exact point in time I got really scared.

As opposed to running, I decided to hide in the chapel next to the altar and after tripping over an old broken chapel bench I reached my hiding place. The footsteps got louder and louder but right as they approached the vicinity of the chapel they suddenly went silent. About 15 seconds of complete silence.

Then I heard this man say: "Oi! You idiot. You left your kebab on the bench." Turns out it was a resident of the very same street I inhabit; his nephew was visiting and he wanted to race him to the kebab stand. But for a moment there, I was convinced it was my last night on Earth.

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34. The Vanishing

My friend and I were chilling in the woods one day back in high school and see a dog walking by, later followed by this kid. He looked troubled so we asked if he needed help. He obliged, telling us he was dog sitting for his friend and the dog got loose. So we spent a good hour following this dog and kid around, going deeper and deeper into the woods.

Eventually I finally got the dog to come to me, but it wasn't wearing a collar so I wasn't able to get a hold. My friend and I look away for just few seconds do discuss strategy, and when we turn back around the boy and the dog are both gone. It was like they completely vanished. Keep in mind it was autumn so any footsteps could be heard from quite far away.

But it was just silent. Not a single trace of them anywhere. Still don't really know what happened. Maybe they ran away real quick? Who knows. Was definitely enough to creep us out tho

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33. Crop Circle

I was hiking in northern Quebec, doing some exploration work for geologists. The thing about northern Quebec is that it has forests, mountains, hills. Pretty much all green, black and grey.

Except that in the middle of a forest we hiked through, we found this strange all yellow patch of grass in a perfect circle. About the diameter of a medium sized house. It was almost perfectly flat too. Caught us off guard.

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32. Head Hunters

I was walking with family when I was little and we came across a sheep's head. No body or blood just a severed sheep's head on the path. It was the first time I noticed sheep's eyes have slit pupils and I think my first contact with something so gruesome.

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31. The Midnight Watch

I was jogging at night with headphones on in a park with dense trees and bushes. The overgrowth was taking over the path and it was difficult to see so I turned the flashlight on my phone on.

I started to see a fire burning a head but couldn’t really make it out (I take my glasses off when I jog). As I got closer there’s a clearing and I see a big big fire raging and no one around. So I pause a minute and fish my glasses out and find out that yes, there’s 6 people standing there actually. Perfectly spaced apart from each other and they all turned at the same time to look at me.

I turned 180 and sprinted right out of there.

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30. If You See Something, Say Something

When I was about 7 or 8, my parents sent me to a local summer camp that they would pick me up from in the afternoons. I never really liked it because the kids were mean, everything was either broken or not clean, and the counsellors obviously didn't care.

I remember the girl's changing room had a door that led out to the woods, but the doorknob was gone so it was unlocked all the time and you could see into it. This was primarily where the girls changed into their bathing suits and there was usually someone blocking the view while we changed so the boys couldn't look in.

Well, one day I'm changing alone and no one was blocking the door. I looked over and saw an eye peeping in through the hole, watching me change. I pulled the rest of my clothes back on quickly and ran out to tell my twin brother. I told my dad that I don't want to go back to that camp anymore and he begrudgingly took us out of the camp pretty soon after because he knew how much we hated it.

Years later, the camp had been closed down for many many years and I was asking my dad about it. He got really grim and told me it shut down because a 13-year-old boy attacked a 7-year-old girl in the woods right behind the girl's bathroom a few weeks after I had told him about someone watching me change.

If I hadn't said anything, if he hadn't taken me out of that camp, that easily could have been me.

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29. Well Spotted

I used to work in a forest in East Africa for a while. One night, it was getting seriously dark and we were hiking back to the car. The wind was quite strong but you could still hear some ruffling in the leaves and as I turned around, I saw something quite big in the shrubs. It turned out to be a freaking leopard. I shrieked and some guy from the group shot into the air to scare the animal away. I am glad he didn't shoot the leopard but was still glad when it bolted out of there.

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28. We're Being Followed

During a YMCA camp (15-20 years ago, was around 11-13 at the time) we were camping in tents in a forrest area. It was the middle of summer so it stayed light until around 10pm and not fully dark until around 11.

So we go on a night walk with the group and are halfway into the forest when we notice someone who definitely doesn't belong to our group following us. Camp leaders rushed us back to camp and put us into our tents with one leader staying up to watch us.

Halfway through the night, I woke up and had to pee like a madman. I shambled out of the tent to walk to the bathroom and saw the leader who was supposed to watch us asleep in his chair by the campfire. I looked around and saw that the guy following us earlier had opened up and is peeking into one of the tents, while fumbling in a bag he had next to him.

I screamed louder than I have ever screamed in my life.

The leader woke up, jumped the guy and held him until the police arrived. Turns out he had a weapons, ropes, and a bunch of creepy stuff in that bag.

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27. The Woodsman

It sounded like babies crying... but it was coyotes. That's always creepy when you're out there camping.

But the creepiest thing was when we saw a lone person just walking through the woods in the middle of nowhere. I don't why thats creepy but it is when you're out there. Someone walking through the forest alone at night with no flashlight... It's probably nothing but it's hard to shake the feeling that they're up to no good.

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26. Un Berable

I was a cook onboard several NOAA research ships. Up in the Bering Sea, I saw what appeared to be a massive, black, triangular shaped craft dive under the water. I viewed it from a distance of maybe 2 nautical miles.

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25. Jabba The Hut

Okay so one time back when I was like 11 me and my friend were walking through the woods because he said he had something he wanted to show me. We walked down the path for a good 20 minutes until he suddenly started walking through some closely planted thin trees.

Despite my confusion I followed him until he suddenly stopped in a clearing and there was a round mud hut infront of us, he told me he was too scared to go inside so I did instead. The floor was lower down then the floor itself and there was a little fire put in the centre, it was surrounded by DIY wooden bench things.

Although that was odd in itself, the real show stopper were the walls, every inch or the mud walls were covered in animal skulls held up by wire, these would range from a small sparrow skull to a deer skull. It was a pretty neat sight tbf. Outside of the hut was another small bench which had the phrase ‘Where heaven and earth meet’ carved into it.

Cut to January of this year and me and my Mum tried to find the weird voodoo hut again in the woods, while we did come across the hut it had sadly been demolished and all but a few of the skulls had been taken. It just kinda looked like someone had jumped on top of it after stealing all of the skulls for the what I can only imagine to be some vulture culture collection. It’s kinda sad it had to go but I still remember like it was yesterday.

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24. Whatever Did That Is Not Your Friend

I was on a camping trip with some friends of mine and we found like 7 or 8 chipmunks and squirrels all in a pile. They were all dead, but without arms or legs.

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23. The Haunted Driveway

In Auburn, AL in 2008. It was halloween and we Googled haunted houses. I can't remember what the website was like or if there even was one, but it was like 45 min away. I know that it wasn't like a big attraction and we figured it was on someone's land and would be like a local deal. We drove out there at like 10pm. This was before iPhones and GPS so we had MapQuest directions.

We ended up going down a country road for a while with no street lights, then turned down a legit dirt road that went through the woods. Pitch black. Went down it for like 10 minutes and finally saw an old house with a sign by the driveway that was handwritten and said “Haunted House”. No other cars or lights or people anywhere We pulled in the driveway and sat there for a second like “alright this is messed up, we should leave”.

All of the sudden, an old pickup truck turned on about 15 feet in front of us, lights shining right in our faces. It started driving towards us (down their own driveway).We backed out and peeled off. It followed us, like almost bumping our rear end. Right on our tail down this pitch black dirt road in the middle of the Alabama woods. We were flipping out. It was Texas Chainsaw Massacre or Hills Have Eyes stuff. He stayed out our tail, blinding us and almost bumping us all the way back home until we got off our exit and he finally let us go. No idea who was driving.

I always wonder what would have happened if we got out of the car when we were in that driveway.

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22. The Unseen Monster

This is probably less scary than a lot of the other posts but I was pretty sure I was going to be the nameless victim at the start of a horror movie to show how dangerous the monster is.

Basically, my dad and I were walking through the woods when we came across a young moose leg lying on the ground. It looked like it had been violently torn off with no sign of the rest of the moose anywhere. It was fresh, with blood still on the wound probably no more than a couple hours old.

My dad is a pretty skilled hunter so he handed me his axe that he was carrying and told me to watch for wolves while he started looking for tracks. After a little bit he came back saying, “That’s weird, normally if it was wolves you’d be able to find paw prints but I can’t see any. Also no bear prints so I have no idea what killed this.”

And so I’m like... "you didn’t find any tracks at all?"

And his very reassuring response was, “Well, I did find what appears to be the mama moose tracks headed this way,” showing me the tracks. “You can see how her stride is a lot longer here. Whatever killed her baby she didn’t want to fight it she just took off running.”

He then pulls out his bear spray and holds it at the ready as we kept walking deeper into the woods with the un-named non-track leaving predator, armed with bear spray and an axe.

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21. I Scream, You Scream

I was camping with three girls at a campsite far out in the woods with nobody else around for miles. The temperature had dropped to 39F and we were freezing our butts off after hanging out all day, smoking to keep warm. We heard a weird laughter and then screaming in the woods near us. It was actually terrifying because we couldn’t identify if it was a child or something else. or just our overactive imaginations.

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20. Are You Lost?

I was mountain biking in the woods and I came across an Asian man in a perfectly fitted suit and a briefcase. Just casually walking through the deep woods.

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19. That Feels Like Evidence...

In a patch of trees off of a field near where I keep my horse, there’s one of those big oil drums sealed up with a very heavy boulder on top, the only way it could have got there is being placed by a tractor or some sort of heavy lifting equipment. My partner and I tried to push it off but no luck. I don’t know why but it creeps me out every time I see it. I regularly walk my dogs past it to see if they show any interest but honestly after watching them look for a toy that was in clearly in my lap I’m not sure I have much faith in them anymore.

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18. The Stable Boy

When I was a kid, I used to live on a tiny property in the woods. My house was basically built around where stables were once. My room was, back when it was still stables, where the hay was stocked. Before getting to the creepy thing I need to say some other stuff:

When you were in my room you could sometimes smell hay out of nowhere. My dog was always refusing to go upstairs because something was scaring the crap out of it there. You could sometimes hear knocking on doors (they were 3 entrance doors in my house), sometimes all at once.

Now that this have been said, we can go to the fun thing.

So my room had a big old window that gave a wide view over the woods and my garden was basically a clearing. Once, I heard a kid giggling from upstairs. I ran there only to find my window open, and something running out in the woods. I spent 2 more years in this house and freaking felt insecure the whole time.

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17. That, Or A Latrine

While hiking on the Pacific Crest Trail, I was ready to quit for the night and saw a clear spot with no pine cones or sticks to remove. I assumed someone had cleared it before me but when I stepped on the spot the earth sank like it had just been put there. I slept on the spot but pondered about it. The next morning it became clear that someone had dug up that spot and then covered it. I think I slept on someone's recent grave.

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16. That's Why You Hunt In Packs

When I was younger, I went elk hunting with my uncle and some of his friends and had an experience I'll never forget. One of the days I went on a hunt with his buddy Tyler. Tyler gets an elk down about 30 minutes before dark. We get over to it and as we are cleaning it we start hearing wolves howl in the distance, slowly getting closer. Every minute that passes the smell of death gets thicker, the sky gets darker, and the wolves get closer.

It's dark now. All I can see is what's directly in the beam of my mini maglite and Tyler's hat bill light as he works on the elk as fast as he can while I keep a watch on the wolves. We are surrounded. I don't know how many there are. Feels like dozens, it was probably only a few. I can hear them running circles around us and yelping back and forth at each other. Occasionally I get sight of them in the light and then they are gone. Every once in a while, one would get brave and dart in within a few feet and try snagging a piece of the elk.

Finally the elk is cleaned and we have the "scent circle" around the carcass to keep it somewhat safe. Now all that was left was a three mile hike back to camp, completely covered in blood and being trailed by wolves.

By far the most horrifying experience of my life.

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15. How Romantic...

Went walking in the woods while camping with an old boyfriend to where the road ended and found a giant underground cage. After exploring, we started kissing and suddenly heard little kids giggling all around us. Hightailed it out of there and never looked back.

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14. That's No Crow...

Small town in a relatively rural area. A few years after the fact, I’m now relatively certain it was a Skin Walker (a sort of shapeshifter in Navajo culture).

About 10 years ago, I was at my dad’s house for the weekend in Kentucky. The Appalachian people are very superstitious, hailing from the Scots-Irish people and just never losing that side of them. My dad wasn’t superstitious, I thought, and was not one to be easily scared. It was about, I dunno, 10 at night and we randomly decided to go into town to get some McDonald’s.

Daddy always insisted on walking in front of me and I always assumed it was so I wouldn’t accidentally step on a snake but now I don’t think that’s the case. So, he turned on the porch light and opened the screen door. He had put one foot on the porch and there was this God awful sound. I will never in my life forget it. There was a screech followed by the sound of a crow. But it wasn’t a crow. The best way I can describe it is if a person was mimicking a crow call.

My hair stood up on the back of my neck and my dad retreated into the house. He slammed the big door and locked it, something I had never seen him do. Before I could ask a question he said, “It isn’t safe. We can go tomorrow morning.”

And so we did. But the rest of the night, we stayed inside. My dad didn’t even go outside to smoke. He even let the (outside) dogs stay in the house. We never talked about that again but that was one of the scariest moments of my life.

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13. Bag Of Bones

I was walking my dog through the woods and she'd find the odd bone. I thought nothing of it, but then she ran towards a huge black sack and was going nuts for it. I open the bag and it's filled with bones.

Kinda weird but I'm still like... okay there must just be hunters around or something??

But then I walk a bit further and start seeing more and more bags, then a huge cluster of them, at least 20 right there, all filled with bones.

I decided my dog had a long enough walk after seeing that and got out of there as quickly as possible.

Maybe it was just someone who really likes meat illegally dumping bones in the woods. Or maybe...

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12. Bigfoot Has A Big Arm

Cowlitz River. Washington State. Camping with my dad and sister me buddies, early 90s. Something was throwing rocks and sticks into our camp. We shined a flashlight out and caught a reflection of eyes and a silhouette. Very very tall. Kept throwing stuff in our camp randomly for about 15 minutes. We just stoked the fire really high. In the morning I woke up to heavy footsteps in our camp and something reeked. Woke up my dad. He shook the tent and yelled. Whatever it was ran off.

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11. Butt Munchers

Found a deer with its hind end eaten up, a few feet away was a coyote with the hind end eaten up, then another few feet away a fox with its hind end eaten up. Nothing else was there, no bullet holes or signs of a arrow or anything else. Couldn't find any tracks from other people or animals. It was pretty creepy. Found in the hills of West Virginia.

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10. Tasmanian Devils

My boyfriend and I were backpacking through rural Tasmania a few years ago. While on a bus, we were discussing our plans for the ensuing two weeks. The girl in the seat in front turns around and offers us a place to stay in her town. We declined as we were headed elsewhere first, but she gave us her mobile number and said that she and her partner would love to have us.

A few days later we decide to take them up on their offer. We call her, and she says they're happy to host us. So far so good.

They meet us at the train station and immediately something feels off. It's really difficult to explain, but it's that primal, ineffable feeling in your guts that tells you that something isn't right. We ignored our guts and followed them.

They lead us straight out of town. We ask them where we're going and they say that they live on the outskirts. This town is creepy. It's an old mining town that has been largely abandoned, and as we walk the 15-odd minutes to their home the houses get crappier, with boarded up windows, overgrown gardens and no people in sight.

Eventually we reach the house at the very end of the town. It's their house. We go in.

Set up in the middle of the living room is a single mattress with a sheet hanging around it. They show us around the house except for one door which stays closed. When I asked what was behind it they pretended not to hear. Our room has a made bed, chest of drawers and looks like a normal room. It seems weird that they sleep on mattresses in the living room when they have a "guest room".

We go back into the living room and look around. Knives. A lot of knives. My boyfriend asks if they go hunting? No. The partner hands one of the knives to my boyfriend and asks him to open it. My boyfriend laughs awkwardly and sets it down.

They have a tattoo gun - "to practice". My boyfriend asks if they have any tattoos. No. There's a small axe at the door. I ask if they collect wood. No.

Suddenly the guy says he wants to go to the shops. We agree quickly because we're creeped out and want to get back into the town.

The four of us leave and they start walking in the opposite direction to the town. I say that the town is back the other way. The guy says this way would be more interesting because it goes up through the trees. He says that they have never been up the mountain before but he knows the area and it would take the same amount of time.

I tell my boyfriend that I'm freaking out but he thinks it's okay. We follow them into the trees. The path goes up the mountain. We are going in the total opposite direction of the town.

The girl turns around to her partner and whispers -- "so where was the place again?"

My boyfriend and I freeze. I say I want to take the road back to town and start walking.

When the four of us arrive in the one shop in town - no one recognizes the couple. And this is a really small town. We make an excuse that we want to go look at sights and that we'll catch up with them later, and instead book a hotel room and freak out.

I did some snooping. Their house had an extra room (behind the mystery door) and a basement. The path that we were taking led straight out of town and up the mountain. There was no way it could loop back into town.

So yeah pretty sure we narrowly avoided being killed.

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9. The Ghost Pool

I went to college in East Texas. Loads of pine forests/abandoned old houses/trailers etc off dirt roads. On the weekend my girlfriend and I would drive through the back roads and look for abandoned homes to take pictures of.

We found this old trailer, the door wasn't locked, and inside, in EVERY room, from wall to wall, was about one or two feet of books. My best guess is someone owned a used bookstore and used the trailer to maybe store the books? But they'd clearly been abandoned; the windows were broken all out and most of the books were damaged. They were just scattered everywhere.

Years later, while living in rural Mississippi, I found an old mansion that had burned down. It was built on top of an old Indian mound, and it was on acres of land. There were graves on the property (from the white owner's family) and someone still mowed the lawn and planted a big vegetable garden and maintained fruit trees.

But the weird thing was the pool. It was still working. You could turn the filter on and it was still being chlorinated, even though nobody lived within miles of this place. So very late for many nights, I'd go out there in my swim shorts, get in the water and float on my back while I'd stare up at the stars, listening to the night animals wander past me. It was too dark to see anything, so it's was all very surreal.

Eventually whoever was chlorinating the pool stopped and the water soon got green then black with algae and that was that.

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8. The Haunted Toilet

This happened 7 years back. I was living in a rented house where we had two bathrooms. One of them was broken and unusable. It smelled really bad when you open the bathroom door. I always had this one bolted and locked.

One night, a thunderstorm was approaching the city. The power went off since the winds were too strong. I was there sitting all alone in the living room when I heard thudding sound coming from the bathroom. I thought it could be because of the air pressure difference due to the thunderstorm. Continued on to do my assignments. And there was a loud thud and I swear I saw the bathroom door open. I freaked out and left the house and stayed at the terrace until the power came. I don't know where the lock went and how it opened. When I went back in, the door was partly closed. Locked it tight and tied it with a rope.

Obviously I chickened out of that house in a couple of weeks. Never going near there again.

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7. Time Travelers

People will call me crazy but whatever. I was camping once, walked through the woods and ended up coming across two camping young women. They looked like they were from the 1970s. I sat with them for a long time talking and laughing. I noticed she had a calendar with her that said 1975 on it but i didn't say anything because i didn't want her to feel embarrassed about it. Ended up falling asleep and woke up later and both the women and all their camping equipment were gone. I was just lying in grass. Walked back to my campsite and never told anyone about it to this day. I still don't understand what happened to those women, or if that was even real.

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8. A Dream Or A Memory?

My wife and I went camping for our anniversary one year in Payson near the rim.

Went to bed. So eerie to hear nothing but the wind in the pines. Finally fell asleep.

Woke up with paralysis and a red light glowing outside our tent. The light got brighter and something started unzipping our tent. I was frozen in place just staring at the flap being unzipped. When the flap was almost opened, I was able to move my head and look at my wife's face. She had this horrible look of fear, mouth agape and everything. When she started to scream I woke up, with nothing but the wind in and pitch black. Nothing opened our tent, and we were still laying where we fell asleep.

Do I think it was a nightmare? Yeah, I'm terrified of aliens and stories about them. Maybe it was my brain messing with me.

Or was it a repressed memory? Who knows. Scared the crap out of me though. We left the next day.

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7. Are We The Last People Left On Earth?

I was probably about 14 or so on a camping trip with my scout troop out in the middle of nowhere. Literally hiked into the woods for about 40 miles and set up camp. No phones, no way of contacting the outside, just us and some of our parents fishing and hiking etc.

Anyways, the second night into the trip, my dad, myself, and two other parents are sitting around the campfire talking and get on the subject of UFOs. We start talking about different stories we'd seen on TV shows and such.

Right in the middle of a story, my friend's dad points up at the sky and goes, "Holy crap, what's that?!" We thought he was joking around for a good minute until he goes, "Seriously: turn around, theres more."

We all finally turn around and see three massive. And I mean massive fireballs screaming down from the sky towards the earth. They look like they're going in slow motion or maybe time just seemed to slow down, but it took forever for them to disappear behind the tree line.

Naturally we were all freaked out and started talking about what it could be, but there's no way of finding out for at least three more days. The hike out of the woods was the worst. Just walking quietly contemplating what could be waiting and what the world might be like if our worst fears had been realized while we were in there.

Turns out a Russian satellite had broken up and fallen to earth that night and it was seen for miles and miles. Still the creepiest three days of my life.

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6. Never Scout Alone

Used to be an avid hunter and, if anyone isn't aware, "scouting" is a normal part of the process when in a new location. I had become accustomed to doing a night scout in addition to a day scout when I was in an unfamiliar area to better feel out their bedding and feeding trails. I had never hunted this one area before, but saw lots of good sign in a previous season and marked it to come back in a following season.

Anyway, this occurred during my first night scouting to prep for a weekend hunt. At about 12:30 a.m., I'm driving around the general area that I had marked the previous season and take a dirt road off of the main one to see if it leads to a spot with hunting activity (a lot of times you can find gems this way). I'm following the road for a while until I finally get to a dead end with a dirt semi circle (about 3 lengthwise trucks in diameter) with a clearing and foot trail leading into hardwood. I got out, threw my rifle over my back, flashlight and GPS in hand, and trekked in.

Not even 5 minutes and 100 yards into my walk through the woods, my flashlight catches a gleaming about 40 yards out. I start inching forward and eventually see what it was - a chain, tied to a branch, wrapped around a deer skeleton with various messes of flesh decaying on it. The tree it was chained to had knives stuck into its trunk (level to the deer) in a circular pattern and there were some whacko red symbols painted onto the tree.

I quickly spun my flashlight around the area to make sure I wasn't a target in some creepy ritual and spotted a crudely-drawn face on to a tree behind the one described above, also in red. That face had huge, exaggerated, pin-pupil eyes and might have freaked me out nearly as much as the chained deer.

Took me about 1 millisecond after that to sprint my way back out, into the truck, and do a 7 point turn back down the dirt road I came in on.

I also started bringing a partner for night scouts after that, which didn't stop me from accruing a few other creepy experiences!

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5. Out Of Your Depth

I’ve told this before and will stick with me till on my deathbed.

Was a high schooler mid 90s. Went fishing off the coast of Corpus Christi with uncle and cousins. We were about 18 miles out. Been out all day. Was around 8pm and were gearing up to head back in. It was before DST so sun was already going down and getting dark.

I was at the stern bringing in the traps. As I’m pulling it in I see this glow about 100-150 feet off. It’s nothing I have ever seen. Best way I can describe it. It’s like if you stuck a toaster underwater and the orange glowing elements were still working. But still not quite. And it was very large. We were on a 38 ft boat. All I can guess it was 5-6 times bigger. (Kind of hard to judge sizes on open water.)

The water above it is not churning but you can tell that it is disturbing it. It's hard to explain. Almost like it was pushing the water up. This whole time I’m expecting something to break the surface and just frozen. You know like when your walking the dog or something at night not really paying attention and a cat or possum runs out. How you freeze and everything stops? I’m like that the whole time.

Finally I let out a call to my uncle. He comes around stops right by me. He’s not saying anything just kind of like me. This thing object or whatever the hell just jets out towards the gulf. I’m talking like not picking up speed. Instantly jets out.

All I say is "you seen that before?" My uncle just says "nope, let’s go." I say absolutely nothing the way back in he doesn’t either. My cousins ask us what happened. All my uncle says is "nothing."

Now what could it have been? I’ve researched it on and off for past 25 years. Especially when the internet came out. I’ve found a lot of people seeing something very similar. There is a naval base down there but no sub bases we know about. It kind of took over my life for a lot of years. If we have something like that though, we’ve been holding out on technology that could change our lives.

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4. Jeepers Reapers

Went on a canoe trip once in a very remote area. One of the days we were supposed to portage to a different lake, which went horribly in this terribly overgrown trail that was basically all mud.

Whatever, we get to the next lake and start looking for the next portage trail. Can't find it, and it's getting super windy so we decide to find a place to land. And what do we see at the top of this big cliff? A cabin. So we go for it.

Well, first thing we notice at the bottom of some very old steps is a massive pile of bones. Must've been deer and moose. Not too strange. We reach the top, and it's clear we won't be sleeping in the cabin -- it's locked up with metal bars over the door.

The door is open on the inside though, with a note nailed to it. Very old, but it explained that the owner was gone to some other lake, note signed 7 years prior to our arrival. Past that, we see the inside in a condition that was weirdly pristine. No bugs or animals inside, no vegetation, it was all just as he left it despite being open to the elements for years. His table was set for dinner, his old glass lanterns were filled with fuel and the place was very tidy.

Oh well we said, he definitely won't be bothered by us staying here. We might be bothered to do so, however. The grass was so overgrown that it took 6 of us and a flipped over picnic table to flatten out space for our tents, and as soon as we were finished, we turned around and spotted this massive scythe on the roof or the cabin, again weirdly pristine. It should've been rusted beyond recognition by now. No use using it though, we already flattened the grass.

So we settle in for the evening, cook over the fire, looking out over this gorgeous lake from probably 50ft up. We go to bed early, and in the middle of the night, my tent mate and I wake up to a terrifying noise: something (or someone) is crashing through the bush, very slowly. We hear nothing but branches snapping and the heavy steps on the forest floor. It's coming from behind the cabin. He asks if we should check it out and I'm really against that. I'm just hoping if we stay silent, whatever animal it is will leave.

It doesn't. It comes into the clearing we've made, and we still don't know what it is. There's no huffing sounds, nothing you'd typically hear from a bear which was a massive relief, but we still had no idea what it was. It walks around our campsite for a while, seemingly walks towards the outhouse on the other end of this cliff, and we never hear it again. In the morning, everyone is freaked out. Everyone heard it, but there's no tracks, there's no fur, nothing. Well thank God it's morning, let's pack up and find that other portage.

We're on our way out, and we notice that the cabin door is now shut entirely. You could still open it, but how did it get closed? Whatever, let's just leave. We get to the bottom of the steps, and the pile of bones is 100% gone. No trace of them. Super spooky, ok let's go faster.

Now, that whole situation seemed to be over, we had a great time fishing on the 4th lake we hit, and on the 2nd last day decided we'd return exactly the way we came. One guy in our group was really interested in the cabin, so we made one quick stop for him to go take photos and whatever else he wanted. Well, the door was now locked somehow, so he couldn't get a picture of the inside. He took a beautiful photo from the open faced outhouse that overlooked the lake, he took a photo of the cabin and where we slept, then left his own note slipped underneath the door to thank the owner for letting us stay there.

We get to our next camp site, unpack, cook dinner, and he busts out his phone to show us the photos. Like I said, the view from the outhouse was actually really great, but we all noticed something right away in his next photo. The massive scythe that was on top of the roof wasn't in these photos. It was gone. So during the night we were there something or someone made the bones of at least a few animals disappear, walked through our site, and disappeared on side with a cliff and no trees. The scythe was there when we left, but not on our return trip.

Never again will I go camping anywhere near those lakes. I don't want to believe in the supernatural, but that had me convinced.

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3. The Running Shadow

My boyfriend and I were in a large wooded area near his home, hiking and messing about around midnight. We had gone in pretty deep and it required a good amount of climbing. The closest path was maybe a 5-7 minute climb down, so it was highly unlikely someone could be at that spot at that time of the night, besides us.

When we stopped to share a kiss, my boyfriend thought he saw a shadow move 20-25 feet to the left of us, climbing. But it stopped suddenly when my he looked at it. He told me to be wary and at that exact moment we saw a dark figure climbing a little up but diagonally, like he was trying to get directly above where we were standing.

We didn't move and watched him till he closed the horizontal gap and was directly above us, maybe 15 feet of steep downhill forest separating us. Then he began to come in our direction.

Without skipping a beat, my boyfriend grabbed my hand and we ran downhill until we reached the path. We made it in less than two minutes while still holding hands and listening to the man running behind us. We ran as fast as we could down the path and out of the forest where there was a cafe and some basketball and tennis courts next to the wooded hill, and of course, people.

As we realized we came really close to be mugged or worse, we vowed never to go there at night again.

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2. A Couple Of Dummies

This was quite a few years ago now. But me and my friend had this really cool spot to hang out, in the woods.

You had to walk in the middle of a creek for a few miles and duck through sharp bushes and thistles. The hike was well rewarding though.

The spot was about half an acre across. It was pure green grass on a incline with beautiful clear water ponds everywhere. There was tons of wildlife and the butterflies lived there.

So the story begins on the way to this place.

My friend Levi and I were walking along the river on the way to the spot. It was in the middle of a valley and nobody else ever went down there.

Suddenly Levi stopped moving and ducked into a bush; I did the same because I thought there must have been a large animal somewhere.

I saw him staring up the hill and so I looked up too. There were two people standing at the top of the hill heaving an apparently lifeless body back and forth.

We watched as they threw the body down the hill. It bounced off the trees and eventually got stuck on a tree at the bottom. Then they took off.

Levi and I were terrified and I was shaking so badly I couldn't speak. Eventually we decided we had to check whether or not it was a real body.

Levi got about 4 feet out of the brush before screaming, "IT HAS NOSTRILS! IT'S REAL! RUN!"

So of course we take off running, and I glance back to see the two people run back to the top of the hill. Levi and I ran for miles through thick brush and trees to get away from them.

The next day we were with his parents driving to town. And we saw like 10 firetrucks at the school closest to the forest. Terrified, we told his parents, bawling our eyes out, worried that we were going to get killed ourselves.

His mom started laughing at us and said, "They are training for search and rescue. That was a dummy that the firemen had to find."

I never slept as well as I did that night...

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1. What Do You Believe Now?

My husband and I were driving my sister in law home one early evening. This was a well populated, well used road in the center of town. As we're passing a church, I see what I can only describe as a huge, black dog appear in the middle of the road. It runs toward the church and encounters a fence. The dog like legs then stretch out like arms as it crawls through a wooden slat fence; it's back legs pulling through as a human would.

My husband looked at me and said, "So... You saw that, right?"

Spooked the wits out of him since he doesn't believe in the paranormal.

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