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Graveyard Employees Share The Scariest Things They've Ever Experienced

There are few jobs we can think of with more creep potential than working with or around the dead.


Whether you believe in ghosts or not, the setting itself is usually pretty scare-friendly when you think about it. The quiet alone is enough to get minds playing tricks on you.


But are they just mind tricks? Or is something else happening?

Reddit user wildeyephenix asked:

Redditors who work at cemeteries and grave yards, what strange and scary stuff have you witnessed?

From the responses, about half of the people seem convinced there's nothing to fear from the dead. The other half couldn't get out of there fast enough.

We won't pretend to have any real answers, we're just here to relay the information. It's up to you to decide what you believe based on these folks' experiences.

Surrounded By Bodies

My dad purchased a cemetery when I was in middle school, and I worked for him through high school graduation. I did yard work; mowing, weed eating, flower beds, ect. Aside from the occasional shadows seen out of the corner of my eye, seeing people who turned out to not be there, and hearing strange sounds, the cemetery was actually a quite peaceful place.

BUT.

The strangest is when you have a burial in the crypts. Basically, you dig down about 4 or 5 feet to expose giant cement doors. You pull the cement doors off and drop down into a little room. These rooms can fit 2 coffins, OR years and years and years worth of cremated remains. So back in the 50s and 60s, families would buy one crypt and the entire fam would be cremated and put in it. Some just put the cremated remains in it and close her up, but others light candles and leave flowers and souvenirs and pictures and whatnot.

Its freaking creepy opening up one of those bad boys after 50 years and finding melted candles and old pictures of the people inside. Plus when you hop down in there you have a weird realization that you are at the same level and completely surrounded by bodies...

- whiteclawlaw

Soil

I used to do some odd jobs at the 12th century graveyard in my hometown.

12th century, as in the church and its surrounding graveyard had been in continuous use for at least that long. When you keep burying bodies in the same small patch of ground for that many centuries, eventually the soil has been turned over dozens of times and consists mainly of bone fragments.

You can't even plant flowers there without accidentally uncovering some teeth or finger bones or something, it's nothing but fragmented skeletons all the way down under the thin turf. The "soil" sort of resembles seaside shellsand, except on closer examination all the light-colored bits are bone fragments rather than crushed seashells.

Not really scary or unexpected, just a bit eerie until you get used to it. You learn to treat anything recognizable as human remains with respect, and just tuck it away out of sight under the plant or whatever else you were putting there.

- BoredCop

Play Time

I was a tombstone caretaker for a cemetery in rural Georgia. It was an easy summertime job for a 16 year old; nothing crazy, just cleaning off the grime of the elements on tombstones etc.

Now to just put a setting, the cemetery included one building that housed bathrooms for the 5 "staff members." Then there was a small simple mausoleum and other than that, flat earth with tombstones EVERYWHERE. The only surroundings were dense forests in the Georgia country.

Because of the eerie surroundings, I was always a bit paranoid. Plus I watch a lot of scary movies and so on. I know, bad combo.

So one night I was doing my rounds, and I had to go into the small mausoleum. We had some of the richer families in the areas entombed within and I had to go in to make sure all was neat and clean. Standards had to be upheld for these uppity folks.

So I approached and right off the bat something was off. The air was pretty damn cold during the summer in Georgia; that was odd. There was a light coming from the mausoleum and as I approached, I heard voices and laughter. Laughter from a child, a little girl.

I thought it was simply younger folks playing around, maybe? But I hadn't seen anyone enter or leave the cemetery, and the laughter sounded very young. As I got closer, the voices and laughter died - like almost instantly.

I pause. The light I saw had gone out.


I called the lone security officer, cause I'm not gonna go in alone. We will call him Officer Friendly. When Officer Friendly arrives we both go inside. We see one of the doors to the entombed remains of a young girl open. Nothing was disturbed within, but the door was open and a doll lay on the stone beneath it.

Me and officer friendly do a small sweep. We close the door to the girls entombment, and we both leave. As we walk away we get about 30 feet from the mausoleum and then all of a sudden - boom - the voices and laughter are back again.

I jump and officer friendly looks to me, looking pretty shaken, says to me "You hear it too?"

We look back and, sure enough the lights are back and the laughter is continuing. We don't go back. We just book it and run away. I found out the next morning that the door was open again. This time the doll was on the other side of the mausoleum from where we found it the night before.

I resigned the next day. I'm good lol

- Freddie30234

She Needed To Get Back

When I was in college I worked part time at a Jewish Cemetery in reception/office management. The cemetery was closed from Friday afternoon through Saturday evening for Sabbath. We sometimes stayed a bit later in the office on Friday afternoons to get bills out or checks processed.

One Friday we heard a loud commotion by the cemetery entrance, which was locked and only staff could get in and out. The office manager went to see what was going on and made me come with her. We went down to the gate to find an older woman (probably around 70) dressed to the 9's begging us to let her in. She kept saying she needed to get back.

This was in the suburbs of NJ so you needed a car to get around but we didn't see a car or anything, she was just there in this beautiful dress. We couldn't open the gate without the Cemetery Manager, so we went to go get him. We brought him back to the gate and no one was there.


We looked at video footage of the entrance and you could see us (the office manager and me) talking but there was no one on the other side of the gate. The cemetery manager thought we were trying to trick him. I swear to this day we saw a woman in a fancy dress outside that gate.

There were multiple cameras and not a single one picked up anyone on the other side of the gate and you could see the whole gate. All you could see was us talking. I don't know if it was a ghost or what. The office manager and I decided not to tell anyone else, but we would mention it to each other every once in a while.

- Pof_no

Family Business

Former funeral director for my families business here. One of our workers cleaned up after everyone had left from a visitation/viewing/wake. It was about 9pm or later and he saw one last guest walking around in the visitation room. He went to help escort the gentleman out but when he walked into the room no one was in there.

When he came back and told us the story he described the visitor. His description sounded familiar so we showed him some old pictures. He identified the man he saw in a photo we had at the funeral home; it was my grandfather who had recently passed.

- kittenmcmuffenz

A Different Kind Of Horrific

I work at a graveyard, and I just have one thing to say. Plastic.

Here in Norway graves are protected by law for 20 years, but after that the spots can be "reused". Usually a grave is fine to reopen after 20 years - the body is supposed to be decomposed and pretty much gone. Now back to plastic:

Between the 50s and 80s it was common here to be buried in plastic, to minimize "smell and leakage". I'm sure they thought it was a good idea back then, but once we started reusing graves in Norway we realized it is a curse. A lot of bodies are wrapped in plastic, and I've myself been part of what was supposed to be a burial at a reused site. The body was about 50 or 60 years old, and should be basically gone, but nope it was not. The plastic wrap it was covered by kept the body from decomposing, and it's basically just been marinated it its own juices for 50/60 years. The smell was awful, the sight was even worse.

I'm sure this is not the kind of story you wanted, but it's honestly the most horrific and bizarre thing I've ever been part of.

- ullabr

Screaming All Around You

It's not quite the same, but I had an uncle who tried "working" (as in selling and doing drugs) the graveyards between 10pm and 4am. He only lasted a few nights in that area then never went back.

What was it that scared him so badly that he felt his soul rattle in his bones, as his blood froze cold????

Prairie dogs.... Stupid little prairie dogs....

What's so frightening about simple ground squirrels you might ask? Those cute little fuzz balls that scavenge whatever they can... Well, apparently they like to randomly come out their holes in the middle of the night - and scream. If you've never heard a prairie dog scream, you should know it's high pitched and terrible.

Creepy, but that doesn't sound too bad, right? Imagine being surrounded by dozens of little rodents you can't see, in the pitch black of night, surrounded by the dead, tweaked out of your mind, paranoid as hell, and then suddenly hearing Hellish blood curdling screaming all around you.....

His little group scattered like roaches, and I think someone fell into a ditch, but he was convinced it was an empty grave. He never did that again.

- BloodSpades

Schoolhouse

I worked for a county cemetery department years ago. We would go to all the cemeteries in the county and mow or just do basic upkeep. Occasionally people (mainly farmers) would stumble upon some headstones in a field or a stand of trees and we would come out and prod the ground with dowel rods to find more headstones and reestablish the cemetery.

Shortly after I started working there we got a tip about some headstones a farmer found while clearing out a path through some trees for easier access to his field. It turned out to be the oldest cemetery in the county, dating back to the 1700's.

After investigating some of the names on the headstones it got really creepy. The story is that before the cemetery was there, a school house stood on that spot. The teachers were a husband and wife. It's not clear on what exactly happened but the students and the husband and wife all died in the schoolhouse.

The information we found kind of made it sound like an illness of some kind and they were all quarantined in the school until they all died. After that the school was demolished and the students and husband and wife were all buried right where the school stood. So yeah I'm sure it's haunted.

- BrutalBob1384

Thriller

As a kid in '82, and Michael Jackson's Thriller was on everyone's minds.

One night it was getting late when we got caught in a big rainstorm, so we called it quits on our basketball game and went our separate ways.

The big cemetery I cut through must've closed up for the night and I found the gates locked. Going around would take forever so I decided to climb over the fence, only to land hard on the other side. It was muddy, so I not only wrenched my ankle pretty bad but took a giant mud bath.

I was covered in mud, limping, and groaning from pain when I reached the other side. As I emerged from the darkness, a couple saw me limping and groaning, while trying to squeeze through the cemetery's wrought iron fence.

I remember their screams to this day.

- gramslamx

Click

Former Funeral director here.

My partner and I had just gotten back to the funeral home from a house call for a 31 year old woman who died of cancer. As we were moving her body from the cot to embalming table we heard an audible click and the radio across the room turned on full volume of static. It's one of those old radios you turn the volume dial until it clicks to turn it on.

We both looked at each other. He was an extremely religious man and this event visibly shook him and he left not long after the incident. I shut the radio off as I typically used my phone to listen to music while embalming. When I'd finished the procedure and was attempting to move her from the embalming table to a dressing table I heard that click from that old radio and it turned on full volume yet again.

At that point I was fairly freaked out and made my exit not long after. My partner and I never spoke of it again and nothing like that ever occurred to my knowledge before or after.

- AlcoholicSpaceEater

Knee Deep

I used to mow the lawn at a cemetery as part of my summer job. I always volunteered because it was the only place I could work with my shirt off and try to fight my farmer's tan. Anyway the only creepy thing is that coffins must break and fill with dirt over time because once and awhile you'll be walking and sink up to your knee in a small sink hole on top of a grave. Didn't really bother me unless I was walking at a good pace but some of the other people would get freaked out by that.

- PeaTearGriphon

None The Wiser

My family owned and operated a funeral home and cemetery until my late teenage years. In the summers, I would work the cemetery cutting grass, weed eating, preparing graves for caskets, covering the caskets, assembling and placing granite markers, etc.

People would often come to visit the graves of deceased friends and family, so I thought nothing of it when they would come and go.

On this particular day, I was weeding with headphones all morning for maybe 4 hours. A truck came in pretty early and parked on the other side of the large cemetery. I never even really looked over to see the guy get out or get back in his truck. Didn't pay any attention at all to him.

Around lunch time my grandfather came out to the cemetery, and being the socialite business owner that he was at that time, went over to speak. Apparently the older guy had visited the grave of his wife, got back into his car and shot himself right there in the cemetery while I was none the wiser.

- HootieMane

Clawing

Giphy

I was doing sales at a cemetery, and had lock up the mausoleum at night and make sure no families were in there.

One night I was walking through and heard something. It was gone in an instant but it was a scratching kind of sound.

It sounded exactly like you expect sometime clawing their way out of a mausoleum would sound.

I almost jumped out of my skin and ran out of there like a little baby, but I didn't want to turn around (the sound was behind me).

After about 3 days, and no further sounds I turned around and realized it was the automatic air freshener spritzing the place to not smell like dead.

- asleep-on-the-beach

I See You

Every summer I would work at the cemetery and it was fine most nights until a year ago, summer of 2018.

I was working a night shift and started to feel weak or dizzy if you must and I fell due to it, turns out I was sick and didn't wanna stay the night but previously I have been late, so if I left now.... I'd be fired, so I stuck it out for a few minutes when my phone went off and a text said; "I see you..."

At that point I was scared because this never happened to me before and nobody was around that I could see, so I called out for immediate family like, Mom, Dad and my 4 Younger brothers. Nothing

So I left after no response and moved out a month later, and never went back...

- WizardAcademy

People Divulge The Wildest Cheating Stories They've Ever Heard

Reddit user WCh3L3 asked: 'What’s the wildest cheating story you’ve witnessed or happened to you?'

Paper heart ripped apart
Kelly Sikkema/Unsplash

The people who love you the most can break your heart because of their betrayal of trust.

Cheating is cowardly and inexcusable, but depending on the situation and the couple, it is possible for them to find a path to healing emotional wounds.

But there are some ways in which infidelity is totally unforgivable.

That's the kind of scenario Redditor WCh3L3 was curious to hear about when they asked:

"What’s the wildest cheating story you’ve witnessed or happened to you?"

It must be exhausting leading double lives.

Hospital News

"A friend of a friend found out that her husband was cheating when she got to the hospital to see her husband who had just moments before been brought in by ambulance after a serious car accident only to be denied entry to his room because 'his wife was already in the room with him.'"

"He had two simultaneous lives with two women, neither of which was aware of the other."

– JeBronlLames

The Ruse

"My ex-wife pretended to be admitted to a mental health ward for long term treatment while actually staying with her new man and cheating on me."

– Impossible-Visit-199

"This one is just next level."

– most-royal-chemist

"That’s some Batman villain level of intrigue and machination. His wife missed her calling and wasted her abilities on sleeping around."

– filifijonka

A Separate Life

"My friend's mom was in a relationship with a guy for years and they ended up getting engaged and due to marry."

"The guy was a senior director of a company for which he travelled every week abroad for business."

"Eventually, the guy had a heart attack and when my friends mom turned up at the hospital, his wife and 2 kids were there also."

"Turned out he was already married with children and living a double life the whole time. When he went 'abroad' for business, he was simply going back to his actual family."

– wallbagz

Here's The Story

"My dad did this. He worked nights and would juggle both families that way."

"He came clean after he got admitted to hospital for heart trouble and realised that if things went badly he’d end up in this exact situation."

"I was 16 when he came clean that I have an older brother and sister. They found out about me then too - as did his wife."

"ETA: I’d actually already figured it out before he told me though. Nobody else had."

"EATA: I saw a preview of a text on my dad’s phone from my sister. I didn’t know she was my sister obviously, but it said ‘hi dad, mum says…’"

"At first I was in denial and I thought his friend must have borrowed his phone or something. I started to watch him more closely."

"He had a ringtone (lol the 00’s) that would say the name of the caller. I noticed whenever a certain name rang he’d leave the room. Some tactical eavesdropping later and 15 year old me had it figured out that I had a brother and sister."

"I didn’t clock I had a stepmother though, or that I was family no2 and they were his primary family. But I still think I did pretty well!"

"My whole family on my mum’s side knew - mum respected that it was my dad’s secret to tell and she gave him time to tell it. (Although they did have a few arguments about it as I was growing up, I never knew what they were about at the time.)"

– notemily-

Life is never the same once the truth comes out.

Shameless

"A family friend's husband was having an affair for 20+ years and that woman knew the entire time about his family. He was at her ranch one time and was bucked off a horse and broke his back. The affair partner called his wife to tell her and acted like everything about this situation was normal and the wife had no reason to act all upset at the affair. Some people really just have no shame."

"Guy lived and made a complete recovery, left his mistress and they stayed together since they were working on their relationship. He died a few years ago and the wife finds out he never actually left his mistress just lied."

– SailoLee92

Unilateral Decision

"In a small town the husband kept telling people he had an open marriage; finally someone asked his wife about it, she was unaware of this new arrangement."

– Long_Strange_Trip_GD

Rehab Romance

"Was in rehab, two people were there for sex addiction one a minister the other a Jewish housewife. They left rehab together early. Woman divorced her husband who sent her to rehab for sex addiction and married the guy she met in rehab. They are still married 10 years later and seem very happy."

– Life-Evidence-6672

On The Case

"I knew a guy years ago that was a private investigator. Many times he was approached by a spouse who suspected their partner was cheating."

"He had a slam-dunk strategy. He would suggest his client sign up for a course, whether a hobby thing, or educational. The key was that the class would happen for a period of weeks, all on the same day of the week, and all at the same time of day."

"Then, while his client was in class, he would follow the spouse."

"Caught them every time."

– PJMurphy

If you have a hunch about an unfaithful significant other, it's there for a reason.

Going For A Run

"Had a coworker who cheated on her live-in boyfriend. She would tell him she was going for a run, put on her shorts without underwear and would f'k her side piece in the apartment parking lot. So then she would come back inside sweaty 30 mins later and needed to shower and it all made sense to her boyfriend, he never questioned it. She was an awful human."

– rashawah

It Made Scents

"A friend caught her husband cheating because he kept coming home smelling like ferrets."

"Hard to play off 'long day at work' and explain that."

"When she found out at a holiday party that one of the young female coworkers owned ferrets, it all made sense."

– benloe7

Special Delivery

"I used to go to a comic shop. And the comic shop owner knew all of the gossip in the area. Nice dude. Remembers all of his regulars and asks about you if he hasn’t seen you in awhile to check in on people. Lot of people in the area grew up with his shop. So he’s got stories."

"Anyways he told us about this story from some years back about this regular. Who disappeared for a few months. Comes back one day. And the shop owner asks him, 'hey, man. Haven’t seen you in awhile?' Kind of like where have you been. The regular was like oh I’ve been getting divorced. I had to move it was a whole thing."

"So naturally the shop owner asks. 'Why are you divorcing your wife?' The regular caught his wife cheating."

"He had picked up a 2nd part time job as pizza delivery man because he was trying to fund to take his wife on her dream vacation. All of the money he earned from that job was supposed to go into that vacation. He had been working this job for like 6 months. It was a whole secret. She didn’t know he was doing that for her. Because he was trying to surprise her."

"He was the pizza delivery man at the motel. She was cheating at him with. The dude she was cheating on him with answered the door with her right next to him."

"He apparently didn’t even go back to the pizza place. He quit on the spot. Went home. Packed his sh*t and left town."

– TheMysticalPlatypus

Those who are unfaithful in their relationships may think they're good enough for more than one person, but they're usually not.

And while you may not believe in it, there's something called karma, and watching it enact justice can be extremely gratifying.

If you were the one being cheated on, know that the person with whom you've fallen in love is not the kind of person you want to spend the rest of your life with and there will always be a better human who will respect you and love you.

And if you were the cheater, watch your back. Because whether you believe in it or not, karma's coming for ya.

Two identical goats stare into the camera while standing in a field.
Photo by Jørgen Håland

When discussing love and relationships, the motto is usually less is more.

But what if there is more of one partner?

Being involved with identical twins can be quite the experience.

Can you really tell them apart?

Is everything identical?

If you're attracted to one, aren't you automatically attracted to the other?

So many questions.

Now we need some answers.

Redditor nicknamesofdaveryder wanted to hear about love and the twin experience, so they asked:

"Redditors who married someone with an identical twin sibling, why are you glad you're not with the other twin instead?"

I've never met a lot of twins, let alone gotten involved with a pair.

I have questions.

Hopefully I get some answers.

Saved

Comedy Central Wink GIF by Drunk HistoryGiphy

"My late husband's twin was a non-functioning alcoholic and my husband wasn’t. My husband says joining the navy was what saved him from going down that road."

iteachag5

Falling Asleep

"Story time! I am an identical twin (we still look so much alike!) and one night I spent the night at her house. She and I fell asleep in the same bed because we were up late talking, etc. Her husband slept on the couch. The next morning my twin went to take a shower and her husband laid down on the bed with me (thinking it was her of course). I jokingly said 'Hey sailor, looking for a little variety?' He shot off the bed and said 'If I was looking for variety, do you think I'd choose you??'"

tanyagal2

The Good Guy And The Other One

"I didn't marry him but I dated an identical twin. His twin's girlfriend and I used to joke around that she got the evil twin. He was just a selfish, messed-up person. One of the benefits of breaking up with my boyfriend was no longer having his twin in my life. Plus, his ex gf and I are still great friends! The good guy was just the lesser evil. She wanted to get as far away from that family as I did. The best thing to come out of those relationships was our friendship."

super-ro

Love Wins

"My dad's an identical twin. People have a hard time distinguishing them, but to my mom and me, they look like two completely different people because of the way they walk/talk/etc. Obviously, my mom only fell in love with this one person. When you love someone it's actually pretty easy to tell identical twins apart."

michaelsgavin

Issues

Threaten Ashley Olsen GIFGiphy

"The other twin has the same personality as I do. We argue readily and are super competitive with each other. We butt heads on a lot of issues."

why_not_send_a_nude

Personality clashes aren't just a twin thing.

It's a human thing.

We can't help ourselves.

Different People

Triplets GIF by RuPaul's Drag RaceGiphy

"I work with a guy who married an identical triplet, one of the triplets also works with us. I asked him one day if it was weird working with someone who looked just like his wife. He got a little pissed and basically said they are all very different people and he doesn't see much of his wife in her."

LeafMeAlone_99

He's Evil

"We’re not married but known each other since we were 12 and have been together 3 and a half years. His twin is a massive di**head who tried to break us up multiple times, was madly in love with me in his own words, and after 2 years of pursuing me declared I was a terrible person and put him through hell. Because I didn’t break up with his TWIN BROTHER to date him."

xMollyP

Life Choices

"My husband and his twin brother look very different to me, although they are identical and get mistaken for one another all the time. They couldn’t be more different in terms of personality. They have different values and life goals, hobbies, one is introverted and the other is extroverted. If they were two people who didn’t look alike, I would automatically not be attracted to my brother-in-law simply because we are not remotely compatible personality-wise."

"Also they have very different styles. I do not find the way my husband’s twin dresses/grooms his hair attractive. It’s so wild to me when people can’t tell them apart because they couldn’t be more different in my eyes."

lanieeeeeeee

Opposites

"Well, my wife and I have been together for 30 years. She has a 'mirror' twin. Even now, if you don’t know them well or interact frequently you will not be able to tell them apart. They are complete opposites. I married the extrovert, she has never met a stranger, will try anything at least once, and can find a positive aspect in almost everything she encounters, they are also best friends, my wife drags her sister along all the time."

"Once she’s out she enjoys our activities. I love my SIL, all three of them, but so glad I married the one like me. The mirror part even goes for looks, when I see my wife’s reflection I see my SIL, it’s weird sometimes. Also, attitude and personality are everything, I have never been 'attracted' to her twin."

redbonecouchhound

The Look

Sexy Damon Wayans Jr GIF by Global TVGiphy

"I used to date an identical twin. Although I found his brother objectively handsome, I wasn't attracted to him at all. It was cool to directly experience how attraction goes far beyond just the looks."

Liatessa

I've never been intrigued by twins, and now I never will be.

confused man in blue t-shirt

Sander Sammy on Unsplash

My Father was considered a genius.

At 16 he graduated high school as Valedictorian, joined the United States Navy as soon as he turned 17 then was promptly recruited by Admiral Hyman Rickover's team converting the Navy from diesel to nuclear power.

He served as a nuclear and electrical engineer on naval vessels after the conversion project ended, then as a reactor inspector for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission after retiring from the Navy.

He also needed a full time babysitter in order to survive. Things like paying bills, buying groceries, feeding himself all escaped him. He lacked any semblance of common sense.

Really smart people doing very unsmart things isn't uncommon.

And sometimes a person is labeled a genius who's really an idiot with good brand marketing.

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