
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...
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Clawing
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.
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...
The Mandela effect is when multiple people share the same, incorrect memory.
Its name stems from when paranormal researcher Fiona Broome falsely believed that the future president of South Africa, Nelson Mandela, died in prison in the 1980s.
A false memory she shared with a number of others.
Our memories have been known to deceive us, as we might frequently forget someone's name or one of our numerous online passwords.
But when we share a memory that turns out to be false with many others, convincing ourselves it wasn't the truth can be a very difficult ordeal indeed.
Redditor Mysterious_Boat_1701 was curious to hear people's most unsettling experiences with the Mandela Effect, leading them to ask:
"Which Mandela effect freaks you out the most and why?"
A mysterious gym
"Just had one personally."
"Went to a mall where there was supposedly a gym, asked around and nobody that worked at the mall knew what I was talking about."
"Looked around and couldn't find it."
"Come back a few months later and it’s right there in front of my face, you'd have to be strung out to not notice it."
"idk how or when it just appeared but it freaked me out."- prex320278
A "fruit"ful logo.
"That the fruit of the loom logo never had a cornucopia."
"What’s crazy about that one is that someone emailed the creator of the logo about it and he said even he remembers it having one."- mrcock2·
Less well intentioned than they thought.
"I Mandela effected my whole family once."
"Years ago there was a football player on a rival team that always did a dumb celebration after he got a sack and my family and I always hated it."
"One night after he did it my family started trashing the celebration and I said as a joke 'we are all going to feel terrible when we find out he is doing that celebration as a request from a make-a-wish kid'."
"Fast forward to years later and our team is playing that team again."
"The player got a sack and did the celebration."
"I rolled my eyes and said 'I hate that celebration so much' my mom instantly turned and said 'don't say that, he is doing it for a sick kid'."
"'I actually like it."
"So I was like 'what?'"
"'No there is no sick kid', my whole family then proceeded to argue with me'."
"They all vividly remembered reading articles about it, seeing special report segments before games about it, and other information."
"Some of them even thought they knew the disease the kid had and even extra details about why the kid chose that specific celebration."
"They all had these shared memories that they were sure were true."
"I was floored by all this and insisted none of that was true."
"So we looked it up.'
"Not true."
'No kid like that ever existed.'
"They still have trouble wrapping their heads around this one."
"Turned out human memory is not near as reliable as we think"
"It was American Football and the player was Jared Allen of the Minnesota Vikings and his cattle roping sack celebration."
"This was maybe 10 years ago."- AUSpartan37
His eyesight was better than we thought.
"Mr. Monopoly's monocle."- Additional_Day9903
It's not easy being green.
"I have a personal one that to this day a decade later still destroys my mind."
"I had an old(ish) 2001 dodge neon."
"With BLACK SEATS.'
"I drove this car for years and years, like 80,000 miles.'
'All through college."
"I took work breaks in my car, commuted hours every day total, to college and then the opposite direction to work and back."
"I even lived out of this thing on several occasions.'
'The day I go and trade it in, I'm pulling misc things out of the car at the dealer."
'And the seats are GREEN."
"Not even a little."
'Like very unmistakably GREEN."
"In my black Neon, with black interior, that ALWAYS HAD BLACK SEATS."
"My girlfriend then, wife now, goes oh they've always been green."
"EXCEPT THEY F*CKING WEREN'T DON'T LIE TO ME."
"This is still upsetting to this day..... life is a lie and nothing is real."- ZakuLegion
An urban legend was born.
"Not a global one, just a family thing."
"Back in 2002 my grandma had her 60th birthday, my father took us home at 10.00pm, ready for bed."
"We, me and brother, were 12 and 14 at this time."
'All went well."
"Over the years, a story was made up that we went missing after visiting the local playground after dinner at said grandma's birthday party."
"Some neighbors help to search us, the whole train of 'missing children in a smal village'-thing."
"Fun fact: we never went missing."
"Dad brought us home, put on 'Toy Story' on tv and left."
"My brother and I heard first about this in 2015.'
"From different people on different occasions."
"'Ah your one of the missing boys'."
"I first thought they were mocking me for a different event.'
"I got lost, but it was 2013, alcohol inflicted, different story."
"But then they ALL tell us the same story about us going missing."
'And the stories are damn close to 'true' in every story my mum is driving around the same neighbors to different locations to search, old wine yard, old mill etc."
"Sometimes I think I got lost on the most brutal way."
"I was lost and changed this plane of existence with another one."
"It sometimes made me think about my whole life."- tjorben123
Memories are a fascinating thing.
They can be changed or altered with even the tiniest suggestion.
And making the truth seem less believable than lies.
One last time. One last meal.
How do you chose a last meal?
Let's hope we never have to find out.
People on death row get that option.
Do they deserve it?
Whose to say?
But they have it.
A steak. A pizza... Burger King.
The food world is their oyster.
Oyster. Also an option.
The menu is endless...
Redditor No-Caterpillar4212 wanted to know what our menu choices would be if we faced the end. They asked:
"You're on a death row, you have one hour left, they ask for your final meal - what is it?"
I'd want 2 hours in a Golden Coral with a bar. Covers it all.
Years
"I want a nice filet mignon, medium rare, a baked potato with everything on it, and a nice Cabernet from a good year - I'm thinking 2135."
cleon42
"'Sorry, we couldn't get the Cabernet from 2135. So instead of what could have been a great wine request from a more plausible period of time, you get this crappy stuff we sourced from Wal-Mart. Enjoy your meal, I hope that maintaining your sense of humor was worth it."'
Until_Morning
Take Me
"Something badly cooked so I will be sick and want to die sooner and have diarrhea so bad it will be a last revenge!"
ratchet0101
"Taco bell it is!"
No-Caterpillar4212
"If Taco Bell makes you poop a lot, it's a sign that you probably need more fiber in your diet."
RDAwesome
The Yuck Factor
"A huge bowl of baked beans, a bowl of shredded wheat, a six egg omelette, and a gallon of apple cider. I'm gonna make it awful for everyone."
"Save yourself the hassle of eating all that, just ask for one pack of sugar free Haribo gummy bears. Should make for an interesting time for the folks watching you die."
MamaSweeney24
"You void your bowels when you die too so that should be lovely."
IDontControlTheFood
Perfect
"Fried chicken with some Fanta."
Aggravating-Year-776
Fried chicken is on the top of everyone's list!
Details
"150mg of MDMA. I’m dying happy."
W0nderfu1W0nder
"This should absolutely be allowed. If our leaders insist on the practice of capital punishment then the condemned should be able to ingest any substance they damn please."
forewontoi
Broken
"McFlurry. Those machine are always broken. I just bought myself some time."
Curiousuk_South9566
"Is this like an American thing? I worked at a McDonald's in Denmark once and our machine was never once broken when i was there."
oliv111
"I saw a video about this once. I'm a little fuzzy on the details but I think it has something to do with the contract that was signed in America. Only one company is allowed to do maintenance on the machines and they basically lock out if it's cleaned incorrectly. It's a crap system."
grilled-pbj
Sorry
"Cabbage!! Add some cabbage. I don’t know if an hour if enough to take effect but there was an old coworker on a cabbage diet. Omg she smelled, like it was coming out of her pores. She knew she smelled and kept apologizing and reminding us of the diet."
ImStillaPrick
The OG Always
"Olive Garden. Unlimited soup and breadsticks."
thegodfaubel
"I saw a sketch once, can't remember who it 2qs from. But a an inmate ordered the all you can eat buffet and had been eating for like 8 years. He's constantly on the toilet and takes micro-naps between bites."
KingOfTheGoobers
"Unlimited for 1 hour. Cool."
anticlockclock
How Golden
"If my grandma is still alive her potato soup and cheesecake. Hopefully I'd be able to cook said meal with her one last time."
ATLAS_IS_LOST
Let's hope none of us has to make this decision.
Most people have friends they've been close to for most of their lives.
But at the same time, friends evolve, and everyone finds themselves losing touch with any number of people they at one point considered their friends over time.
Most of the time, this isn't intentional, but just simply happens.
On rare occasions though, people might realize that their friends were not exactly who they thought they were, and didn't like who they revealed themselves to be.
Redditor One-Refrigerator69 was curious to hear stories of people who realized their friends were not exactly the nicest people to be around, leading them to ask:
"When was the moment you realized that your friends are assholes?"
Compared to others...
"When I started hanging out with better people."- Darklink326
All it took was getting my life together
"When I quit drinking ‘cos it was killing me."
"There were people I literally saw every single day who just disappeared as if by magic."
"12 years ago this week, as it happens."
"I’m not anti-drink, far from it."
"Some people, me included, just can’t enjoy it without it becoming a problem."
"Everyone is different."- bigdaftgeordie
A little perspective goes a long way.
"After I realized that other people don't sh*t on each other on every possible occasion in their circle."
"And that it isn't right when a 'friend' uses every known insecurity as an argument against you when you do not behave the way he/she would want you to."- ViscousPlateman
Lack of respect for other people's things
"I let my friend borrow my ps2 when I went to boot camp."
"When I came back, he said he sold it and gave me $50 I think?"
"This was in 2006."- madmike-86
Lack of mutual respect
"When he does sh*t to me and acts like it’s no big deal, then I do the same back and he gets offended."- Primary-Maybe-2749·
Constantly being taken advantage of.
"They only bothered with me when it suited them."
"I'd rather have nobody than have to deal with that."- zombi33mj
When they literally revealed themselves to be criminals
"When they robbed me at gunpoint."- Ok_Student8032
When they stopped liking them after a change of situation
"Fourth grade, when my parents economical situation went downhill and suddenly no one invited me to their birthday party."
"Until Seven years later no one had never invited me to their birthday, or to anything at all actually."- Justalittletoserious
Not being able to get a word in...
"When they tell me to shut up when I say anything."- the_golden_cheese
Violently playing with emotions
"She got a boyfriend and would let him listen to our phone calls and not tell me, even if I was crying about personal stuff that I would only ever tell her."
"Then they both started lying to me about my crush liking me back, forcing both him and me into awkward positions, telling everyone we liked each other so they'd play along, swapping places constantly to make us sit next to each other, pressuring him into giving me a lap dance, making him kiss the prettiest girl in the room, etc, and encouraged me to shoot my shot more and more."
"All the while they knew he didn't like me, he had told them both directly."
"One night I was crying on the phone cause I was so confused why my advances weren't working, and they just kept explaining it away, blaming some other bullsh*t reason and telling me to try again."
"The next day they told me they were laughing throughout the whole call, because I didn't get it and I was so upset."
"I should add I had no dating experience at all and nobody had ever liked me at this point."- Juliemj
It's always sad when our friends disappoint us.
But when our friends proved to be completely different people than we thought they were, it can be devastating.
As the saying goes, one never truly knows who their friends are.
When visiting any foreign country, one should always be familiar with the laws and customs of the land.
After all, what might be generally accepted on your home turf, might be frowned upon, if not illegal, elsewhere.
For that matter, even locals might need a refresher course on what they can and can't do while at home.
A recent Redditor was curious to hear what tourists and locals alike should avoid doing in the USA, leading them to ask:
"In the United States, what should you never do?"
Stay out of the skies!
"Don't fly a drone in Washington, DC."
"The whole D.C. Area is a no fly zone."
"It's a federal offense."
"Just don't do it."- PeytonCarrK
Cops can't be bribed.
"Don't try to bribe cops when you get pulled over."
"I had some Argentinian friends immediately pull out their wallets and start pooling their cash when they got pulled over once.'
"Fortunately someone in the car noticed and told them to put it away immediately."- PeytonCarrK
"Don't pay off the police."
"My dad has friends from several third-world nations where it is common practice to give the police some cash when you are pulled over."
"However, if you try to bribe a police officer here, you'll get into a lot of trouble."- JohnASmiley
Know your rights.
"Everyone, including foreigners, has the right to be silent and have a lawyer when being questioned."
"Don’t say anything."
"Also, even if you speak English fairly well, ask for an interpreter."- WickedLilThing
Enjoy all that nature has to offer... carefully!
"Don't wander off in the national parks."
"It's very real wilderness and you can get lost and die out there."
"This includes going over railings you aren't supposed to, or off trails."
"People have died accidentally falling into a steam geyser that looked like normal water, mauled by animals or left to the elements."- AlphaOhmega
Allow plenty of time!
"Expect consistency at TSA in airports."- WickedLilThing
Some terminology doesn't translate...
"If you’re from England, they’re called cigarettes here."- Yung_Onions
Make sure your license is up to date.
"If you come from a walkable country don’t come here expecting the same."
"There are some areas with good public transportation and bicycle/pedestrian friendly streets but for the most part, especially outside of cities, the areas are designed to accommodate cars more than anything else."
"The reason a lot of Americans drive everywhere is because, depending on where you live, we have no choice."- The_Cars93
Wait for instructions.
"Get out of your car and approach the cop when being stopped by a cop unless told to."- hildrash
Whether your'e waling down a street in a foreign country, or the street you've lived on for your entire life, it's always wise to be on guard and aware of your surroundings.
Not to mention, obey the law.