Is it suspicious or just one's wild imagination? You decide.

The Disturbing Roadside View

"This was like 40 years ago. My mom and dad and I were driving in a very rural part of Indiana. I was about 10 years old and sitting in the back seat. As we crossed a short bridge over a stream, I looked out my window and saw a naked woman tied to a tree. I told my dad what I saw, and he reversed the car back over the bridge (to this day i am grateful to him for believing a little kid). Anyway, as we drove back over the stream, we could see that the property owner had tied a mannequin to a tree with a KEEP OUT sign over her head. Sick mofo. That haunted me for years."

– PBO123567

Body In Chains

"Coming back from a New York Giants football game as a 12 year old, we were driving past a bunch of old abandoned factories when I saw a teenager in rags and what looked like CHAINS around his body limping away from one of the factories like he just escaped from a horror movie torture chamber. By the time I told my friends dad we were already past where I saw the kid. VERY STRANGE. I know what I saw that day and it was something serious."

– Ottofetting

Moving Shadows

"I moved into my current home 3 years ago. We originally planned to not have a TV in the bedroom and have a cool hangout spot in the main living room, and the kids had a separate den. This worked out well for maybe the first 6 months to a year."

"I started to not like watching TV at night in the living room. There was something wrong with the lighting in there and it just bothered me. It felt like the normal shadows in there were constantly moving. After a few weeks of just being quiet about that and the weird bumps and noises, I finally said something to my SO. He seemed relieved that I could see it too. It always looked like someone was walking back and forth behind us when we were on the couch, and sometimes we'd see the silhouette of something reflected on the TV."

"Now we avoid the living room at night, but have noticed a weird dark shadow in the shape of a tall person in our bedroom doorway. It never fully comes into the room, but it really creeps us out. Our pets react to it too."

– OnlyPosersDieBOB

There are some recollections, like from the following, you just can't shake from your memory.

Visit With Dad

"God this is terrible but I had a really messed up childhood. My parents were not together and I was being traded off every weekend. It was my dads weekend and I went over to his house. He was acting super weird the whole day but I didn't notice it much as a little kid until I looked back on it."

"I remember him taking me and my little sister to run errands with him. He ran in to different places and me and my sister played in the back seat. He stopped at a friends house and came back flustered and angry and sped out of the driveway."

"The next couple hours were normal and we were fine but our dad was super anxious. I remember it being dark outside when he told me and my little sister to get in the car. We drive to a rundown motel on a bad side of town and get out of the car."

"I asked him what we were doing there and he told me we were hanging out with some of his friends. I didn't think anything of it and we went into the motel room. It was a small room with one bed and a jacuzzi tube beside the tube. Our dad started drinking with the group of guys in the hotel and he told us we could go swimming in the hot tube."

"We didn't have bathing suits so he had us in there with just underwear and a t shirt. After a couple minutes he left without saying anything to us. I asked the guys where my dad went and he told us he would be back in a couple hours. Something in my seven year old brain didn't feel right about the situation."

"One of the guys started talking to my sister and I and acting really friendly. He told us he wanted to get in the hot tube with us and started to undress completely, exposing himself to us. He tried to get really close to us and I held my three year old sister close. This man was completely naked in a hot tube with two little girls and our dad wasn't there to stop it."

"I was really scared and acted like I was taking my sister to the bathroom and went out the front door of the motel, still wet and in our underwear. I held my sister while she cried and we walked down the hallway away from the room. Luckily there was a lady in the hall and she asked if I was lost. I asked her if I could call my mom on her phone to come and get us."

"Thankfully my mom came right away and after that my dad lost visitation rights. I'm so glad that they forced us to memorize our parent's phone number at school as well. I'm grateful that woman was in the hallway before one of those guys found us."

– coreytaylors@sshole

The Former Occupant

"Worked emptying an old house. The house was infested with cockroaches. The whole house felt depressing. When we emptied the basement it always felt like someone was right behind us. There was a cut rope hanging from the ceiling. The woman that lived there had hanged herself. We didn't find out till the last week of work. We never went down to the basement alone after that."

– Revolutionary-Hat688

People Who Made A Lot Of Money From Something Totally Random | George Takei’s Oh Myyy

Not Alone

"I used to sleep in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco and we would hear things most nights. One night someone called for help and we managed to find them, but their assailant had disappeared."

"Other times we would hear loud moaning, almost sobbing, but we had no idea where it was coming and usually just tried to go back to sleep."

– ky-oh-tee

The Wailing In The Woods

"Was checking the cows one morning. And was watching the calf's play and counting them all. When I heard a odd sound in the woods. It sounded like a woman crying. And I walked around. That's when it started screaming at that point. So I said f'k this walked back to the utv. And went home. In all reality I knew it was a mountain lion. I didn't want no part of that crap."

– Fleececlover

The following accounts involved an assault on one of the five senses.

Olfactory Warning

"I lived way out in the country in the woods several years ago. It was a nice summer night, so I had all the windows open. I was a single female, and men's cologne came wafting through the windows so strong I could taste it. Scared the sh*t out of me. I couldn't shut/lock the windows and the doors fast enough."

– GingerBanger85

A Smoker In The Vicinity

"A woman I once knew was a biologist in Louisiana. She told me that as a 20 something she was out doing field work miles and miles from any road. She had to hike to get to this place and stay awake overnight to study some newts or something. At 2 in the morning she smells cigar smoke wafting on the breeze. She said she turned off her torches and crawled away."

– liamoghh

Hiding From Danger

"I was hiking near Cundiyo NM along the Santa Cruz river when I caught a whiff of cigarette smoke and the body odor of someone sweating out alcohol. It was almost dark and my friend and I managed to hide behind a pinon tree as two guys walked by on the trail. As soon as they cross the river we run as fast as we can back to my car which has had the window shattered and been looted. As we are peeling off we see them running our direction. We didn't stop until we were back in Santa Fe. If it hadn't been for the smell we probably would have been murdered. As a kid I was always told to avoid the hills around Truchas but to be honest the entirety of the High Road gives me the creeps."

– gnghsconbrudadon

Terribly Electrifying

"I love rain and thunderstorms. My mom knew this and on rainy days she'll let me standout on our metal deck. One day when I was five, I was standing on the deck and the rain quickly became a thunderstorm. I said nothing because she would immediately pull me in. Lighting started flashing all around me. Suddenly there was a huge flash of light infront of my eyes and the loudest "boom" I've ever heard. I squatted down and closed my eyes. I could see white even though my eyes where closed, my ears where ringing and I can smell ozone. I swear lightening stuck right in front of me. After what felt like a few minutes I heard my name and open my eyes. Mom was calling for me to go inside. The weird thing is the smell of ozone was gone and everything just looked normal. The next day I went outside to the spot and found the deck deformed but it looked like it had been painted over from years ago. I'm really not sure what happened. Did I just make all of that up in my head?"

– Echo259

Children should never trust adults they've never met before and are asking for help.

Lost Puppy

"When I was like 10 or 11 my friend and I walked to the gas station to get snacks. On our way back a little red car pulled up. The guy driving rolled down his window and told us he lost his puppy and asked for our help finding it. We said we'd keep an eye out. He replied, 'Can one of you get in my car, and I'll drive around, and you look out the passenger side while I look out the driver's side?' That set off immediate red flags, especially as he only wanted one of us to get in. Why are you trying to split up two young girls walking alone? We took off running and he sped off. We told her dad when we got back to her house and he told us we were just making it up."

– Imakefishdrown

Stranger Danger

"When I was younger, I was riding my bike up and down the street when suddenly a car pulled up beside me. Some guy I didn't recognize leaned over and asked me for directions. I honestly didn't know how to get where he was asking, so I said that. The guy responded with 'What? I couldn't hear you, can you come closer and repeat that?' Alarm bells were ringing so I shook my head as I took off on my bike. Luckily he didn't follow me, so who knows, maybe he really was an innocent guy who couldn't hear, but I wasn't going to find out."

– Sloth143

Not all the stories shared here were creepy or scary. This was poignant.

Same Phone Number

"My freshman year in high school I was taking choir class. We were staying after school practicing for our concert later that month and one day my teacher ended up calling practice about an hour early. We all started calling our parents to let them know we were finishing practice early that day. One of the girls in my class had left her phone at home that day. She asked if she could use anyone's phone to call her mom. Of course I offered mine & she called her mom. From behind me (where she was sitting) I hear her crying. She asked me what my number was. I was confused but I recite my number back to her. She still has my phone to her ear. & tells me 'your number is my aunt's old number. She passed a year ago' when she called her mom with my cellphone her mom received an incoming call her from her sister that had passed. It was the craziest/strangest thing. Not scary or bad, but still something I think about."

– Daisylynn_17

Aside from being scared out of my wits and later thankful for surviving, nearly being killed in a traffic accident was a traumatic experience for me.

But in keeping with the spirit of the thread, I have not experienced anything unusually creepy or unsettling off the top of my head.

The only thing that comes close is when my fellow Japanese school classmates and I were playing dodge ball during recess, which alone was truly terrifying for me.

The ball left way out of the court and about three of us ran after it to where it eventually stopped at a building on the part of the campus that hadn't been used.

There was a basement room that could be seen from the side of the fence and there was a random rocking chair that was partially visible in the window.

We scared ourselves by making up stories about a creepy occupant that may be residing in that building. And just as we fabricated stories about dead bodies being stashed there in the unlit room, the rocking chair rocked back and forth once and just stopped.

It was probably a stray cat, or a person in peril, crawling on the floor and trying to signal to the outside world.

We didn't report it for fear of being made fun of.