People Share The Creepiest Urban Legends They've Ever Heard

People seem to love to be scared by movies or stories, but not so much when they think it might actually be true. It's even worse when the thing that goes bump in the night bumps into them.

Reddit user KilljoySadid asked "What's the creepiest urban legend/folklore you've ever heard?"

People shared not only legends and folklore, they shared their own experiences. Here are the twisted tales they had to tell.

Mothman

Mothman. In a 13 months period between 1965-1966, the town of Point Pleasant, West Virginia reported seeing a winged beast with big red eyes. The last report was the beast standing on the Silver Bridge. And then the silver bridge collapsed. The beast wasn't reported again afterwards.

I drive through all the time to visit family in NC. Stopped there one night, and I didn't know it was Point Pleasant. I wake up, and look at the window the next morning. BAM. There's the bridge.

Beast of the Isle of Jersey

On the little island I grew up on, there was a story of a "beast" that would come into your home at night and mess with kids. And it turned out to be true.

He entered homes at night dressed in a rubber mask and nail-studded wristlets. It went on for a period of eleven years from 1960 as the beast roamed the island.

Caught in 1971.

Ghostly Visit

This is one of those stories that keep your mouth wide open and your eyes bulgy. When my dad was a young adult, before he got married to my sweet mum, he had this very good friend, they met in school and hit it off. This friend we will call John. John's mum had a little store where she sold drinks, food, candy and other groceries, so John was like this cool kid back then if you know what I mean (free food, free drinks if you became John's friend).

So, well he became good friends with my dad and they always met in the shop. God knows what mischief they embarked on being young adults and knowing my dad A LOT. John's mum, sister, and younger brother knew my dad as they had gotten that close.

Then fast forward to a couple of years later, they've both gone their separate ways trying to find their footing being grown men. They hadn't heard from each other in years. So that fateful morning when dad went out and to his surprise saw John at a bus station was really nice... They talked and laughed like old times and then, according to dad, John became sad and said my dad never called on him and his family, that he should have at least gone to check on his mum and sister (sister had a crush on dad then). Dad felt bad and agreed to go say hi to them at the shop. The bus came and he hopped on and went on his way.

A week later he decides to go visit shop, hoping to find John's mum, the sister or John himself. He even bought some gifts (you know, to apologize). He laughed at how foolish he looked with his gifts when he learnt what happened.

So he got there and saw the mum, greeted her and apologized for not coming by to say hi after all these years and she told him it was fine. He proceeded to tell her that he even met John some time last week and they had a good talk, and asked her where he was. This was when the woman looked shocked and white as if she was suffering a stroke. Confused, dad asked what was wrong and when the woman finally came to she said John had been dead months ago and broke down weeping. Dad was even more confused because he had talked to John just last week.

Long story short, John really was dead. He had died in an accident and dad almost fainted when he saw it was true. The experience saddens him and makes him laugh too. He was glad his friend chose to somehow say goodbye to him.

Clownman

Clownman. I lived right outside Pittsburgh, PA as a teenager, in a little, poor, town called Swissvale. The next communities over are Rankin and Braddock, which are steel production heyday ghost towns that have been plagued with poverty. A strip of woods, lined by a train track follow the river upon which our communities reside. Right next to the river looms the decrepit abandoned steel mill I believe once called Carrie Furnace.

As teenagers do, my friends and I used to cut through the park, across the tracks, and to the river to drink, smoke pot, and hang out. Eventually, we started exploring the steel mill. I loved it. The graffiti and sculptural artists, the wildlife that randomly took over, the bums who made it home, etc all made it a worthwhile adventure. I became comfortable there.

Then my friends told me about an abduction of a teenager whose bloodied body ended up strung up on a set of city steps. The killer was an insane man who dressed as a clown with a horrid, bloodstained mask. "He lives in the woods and in the steel mill. He walks the tracks with a butcher knife he hasn't even bothered to clean. Don't come here alone".

I got into a fight with a boyfriend one night and stubbornly decided to walk alone from the river - across the tracks, and through the woods. I got to the tracks, turned and looked at the steel mill. Further down the tracks I saw a figure. I couldn't see a face, but the baggy pants were rather clown like. I ran like you wouldn't believe. I've never felt fear like that before. It was probably a bum. But who takes chances with an urban legend like that?

In the Trees

At time of my dad's passing he and my mom owned a cabin up in Oregon by Mount Bachelor. The cabin had been put up for sale since my mom could no longer afford the payments and renting it out was not covering the payments either. The cabin was set to go on the market for sale in less than a month and was in the process of finalizing all the paperwork with the Realtor and lawyer. So for that month's time the cabin was not going to be rented out any longer and was going to be vacant. I saw this as a chance to get a way for a while and clear my head in light of all the things going on. I quit work, packed up my snowboarding gear, grabbed my dog and headed up in my dad's car( that he had willed to me) to the cabin.

My first two days at the cabin were normal. The cabin itself was two stories, bottom story had the living room and a side guest bedroom along with small kitchen. Upstairs had another two rooms along with a walk out balcony attached to the master bedroom. Most of my time there was spent either in the living room, kitchen or master bedroom. Third day came around and I was going through my usual routine of playing with my dog, playing games and watching DVD's. That day it was pretty heavy snow fall so I did not feel like trekking down the hill to the main road in my car and decided to stay in. That's when things started getting a bit weird. In our area there were only two other Cabins adjacent to ours. Both these cabins were currently empty. All other cabins were around a mile away from ours. Surrounding us was mostly forest and very tall pine trees. Around midday while outside with my dog I noticed what looked like footprints in the snow around the area surrounding our cabin. It was still snowing so the foot prints looked semi fresh like someone had been there in the last 20-30 minutes before me...alright...whatever, the prints lead away from my cabin and they disappeared in the snow towards the denser part of the trees.... disregarded the footprints and went back inside.

Nighttime came around and decided to head to bed. My dog Midnight was laying on the bed with me when I noticed his ears perk up to a standstill/listening position. This was followed by him quickly jumping off the bed and running downstairs to the living room. I lay in bed and stayed silent (I was kinda freaked out) and could hear him moving around downstairs back and forth. After around 5 minutes he ran back upstairs to me and started to do his doggy dance for the sign that he wanted to go outside. I can't say no to him so we both went downstairs to the outside driveway for him to do his thing. Only, he didn't want to pee. As soon as we were outside he started to pull on his leash trying to drag me to where he wanted to go. He kept looking into the dense part of the trees were the prints had been earlier. But he also kept sniffing the side of the house and looking up towards the roof. After he figured out that I was not going to go to where he wanted he sat himself down and just stared into the darkness...a bit unusual for him but alright, maybe there are forest animals out there that he wants to chase down.

I did not want to chance anything so I pulled him back inside and we both headed back upstairs. Around half an hour later I was lying in bed when I heard what sounded like hooves walking on my roof. It was only a series of around 6 steps and I rationalized that it could be a pine cone falling from a tree onto the roof or maybe a kind hearted forest animal running around. But here's the thing, the steps seemed to be spaced apart like a man length stride. So it was really freaking me out. Midnight also heard the noise and was quick to run to the balcony door expecting for me to let him out. I considered myself strong enough to handle myself.....So I grabbed my coat and shoes along with my cigarettes and flash light and went out onto the balcony. As soon as I was outside I lit up my cigarette and started canvassing the roof with my light....nothing there. Weird, must have been all my head? What about Midnight hearing the noise? Maybe he was feeding off my fear or paranoia. I started to calm down and relax again.

My eyes started to adjust to the darkness and I kept smoking and just staring at the stars and trees next to our cabin. That's when I saw it. In a tree that was a little taller than our cabin and around 20 feet from the balcony I saw what looked like a man crouched in a squatting position in between two branches. It was squatted on one branch and its arms were extended above its head holding onto the branch above it...what the f' is that? I wasn't sure if I was really seeing this thing and stood just staring there motionless. I noticed Midnight stand up and start pacing behind me and lightly barking at the same time. The thing still did not move. I put my cigarette out and was debating on shining the light in the things direction, but something in my head kept screaming not to. So I walked backwards to the inside of the room and pulled Midnight with me.

Once inside I locked the door and shined the light in the things direction but there was nothing there. I shut the curtains to the door and retreated back to bed. But later on in the night I heard light tapping at the door, like someone was tapping on the glass with their fingers. It was consistent and did not stop for nearly an hour. Midnight seemed to stare at the door but he wouldn't go near it anymore.

The weirdest part was that I had a feeling like someone was inviting me to open the door. But at the same time I kept hearing my dad's voice in my head telling me to stay in bed and not do it. I listened to my dad's voice and just stayed where I was. Passed out eventually and woke up in the morning and everything was normal.

The Whistler

When I was about 8 years old I was taking my dog for a walk through the neighborhood with my mom. It was maybe 11pm. We live next to a swamp/woods area on the edge of our neighborhood in Lansing, Michigan. I remember it being very silent and slightly windy. From down in the swamp we heard somebody whistling at us. It sounded sort of like a bird, but each whistle was different enough where the lack of consistency made it human-like. The whistle sounded higher, then lower. I can't really describe it. My mom had a concerned, slightly terrified look on her face and grabbed my hand and said that we should go inside quickly. I didn't understand because I was too young, but seeing my mom freak out made me freak out too. After a while, though, I kind of forgot about it.

Two years later, I was taking my dog out again, late at night. There is a large bush that could easily obscure a person behind it just next to the front door. As I was finishing the walk, the whistling noise started again, same pitches, same inconsistent, human-like tones. As soon as I heard it, a chill went down my spine as I remembered exactly the feeling of seeing my mom, terrified, looking down into the swamp at something I couldn't see (maybe she couldn't either). I ran inside as fast as possible. Years went by and I thought about it less and less. I told only a handful of people, and eventually it slipped from my mind.

Fast forward to last summer: I'm 24, started dating my girl Sarah. We moved out to South Dakota for work. For Independence day, we decided to go to Pierre, SD and watch the fireworks along the bank of the Missouri river. There was a free camping spot behind a hospital where you could pitch your tent, hang out, and see the fireworks up the river. We were near the end of the campground and there were very few people around us. As it was getting dark, the fireworks began. They were pretty far away, so the illumination they brought was very little. Thus, we had to sit right at the edge of the river to be able to see them. A huge thunderhead was moving in and a storm was imminent, so the air seemed electric and the wind was picking up. The atmosphere was eerie to say the least.

The police boats herded all the other boats off of the river and had left our area to do that elsewhere. Most of the other campers walked up the river to have a better view of the fireworks, but Sarah and I stayed back and were drinking PBR tallboys and kicking it. Suddenly, we heard the sound of a paddle methodically dipping into the water. We saw a figure steering a canoe about 20m off shore. Sarah decided to go get more beers from the car, leaving me alone to stare at this mystery person. And then, of course, they whistled at me. My entire body was frozen and covered in goosebumps. It was the exact same whistler from my childhood, more than a decade earlier. I looked at the figure, but it was much too dark to discern who it could be. They were wearing a hat. When they were perpendicular to the shore from me, they stopped paddling, turned the canoe to face directly at me, and whistled right at me. I was so frightened I stood up and shouted at them "who are you?!?" They didn't say anything, just whistled a couple more times, turned the canoe 180 degrees, and paddled out of sight.

I'm a videographer, so I already had my camera by my side and was taking video of the fireworks. As the canoe was almost out of sight, I grabbed my camera and got a shot of them whistling as they went away. When Sarah came back from getting beers, she was very confused as to why I was so freaked out. When I explained, she was freaked out a bit too. I was convinced we would both be murdered that night. How did this whistling person follow me, after 14 years, all the way to South Dakota? Was it a coincidence? Why was it the same whistling noise?! Who was that person and where did they go?!?! So many questions still unanswered. To this day I'm more afraid of being outside in the dark where I might hear that whistling again.

Skinwalkers

One night driving home, I decided to take the scenic route, listen to some tunes on the way. I was driving home on some really empty back roads from the woods, and there's a deer in the middle of the road. I drive slowly back there, because this isn't uncommon. It doesn't move, so I come to a stop. This was no doe, this was huge buck. It looks at me, I look at it. Just as I was about to flash my high-beams, the thing fucking stands up on two legs and takes off full sprint. I sped the f--- away, probably creepiest thing I've ever seen.

I chalked it up to having been really scared, but like I've said I've come across plenty of deer and that never happened. So then I figured, hmm? Maybe rabies? Got home and googled "deer on two legs." That was the first time I'd heard of "skinwalkers"

The Raven

There was a cemetery about a mile from where I grew up (in the middle of nowhere) that dates back to around 1850. Everyone who died in the area was buried there for awhile, but it's been owned by one family for about 60 years, so they're the only ones who use it now.

One of the graves has a big crow carved out of wood, I think, and painted black. It's ominous as hell and always creeped me out as a kid. It was always there, brooding over the grave.

We drove by one Sunday on the way to church, and the crow turned and looked at me! I almost s*** my pants. It flapped its wings and flew away. I swear to god, that thing was perched there in the same position without moving for years, until one day it flew away. I never saw it again. I still have no idea what the deal was. Was it a real bird that always happened to land in the same spot and perch there perfectly still while I was watching, day after day, year after year? Or was it a carved bird that I hallucinated flying away? Or was it something else?

Either way, I'm not setting foot in that cemetery ever. And I'm still irrationally afraid of crows.

The Widow

This was a story that was told to campers at one camp site up near some forest mountains when I was in the Boy Scouts.

A long time ago, before this particular camp site establishment was founded, there was a widow who lived in the area, alone with her child. She had lost her husband from some sort of accident, had no job or family to support her. Eventually lost her house to foreclosure, forcing her to live alone up in the mountains as a hermit with her 6 month old baby. She lived off the land, scraping and salvaging what she could, and despite her conditions, was able to take care of her child. Though one unfortunate night, there was a severely disturbed man who had escaped the local asylum, and fled up into the mountains where the widow lived. The man stumbled upon her campsite in the middle of the night, and in his moment of insanity, attacked her and then slashed her throat with a knife. As she laid bleeding on the ground, dying, he approached the crib where her baby was sleeping, and stood over it. After a brief pause, he began hacking the baby's head off, the widow still alive witnessing the act. When the deed was done, he took the baby's head in one hand, and walked off into the night. Using the last ounces of her strength, she crawled toward her child's lifeless corpse, and cradled it's body till she finally passed. When their bodies were finally discovered, the police launched a three day investigation and search for the man who was still at large in the mountains. On the third day, he was finally apprehended, blood and viscera still caked to his arms and chest (all the evidence that he committed the crime), but they couldn't find the baby's head. Did he throw it down a ravine? Did he bury it in the forest? No one knows.

Although decades have passed since the incident, it was said that on calm nights, the widow's spirit would rise up and roam the mountains and the forests, her cries of pain and anguish echoing through the valleys. It is said that she searches for her child's missing head, though because she has been roaming for so long, she had forgotten what it looked like. And in her grief, if she sees you, she'll charge at you screaming and try to take your head off. And only when she tries to put it back on her baby's body will she realize that it's not the right head. So she'll throw your head away, and keep searching for another head till the break of dawn.

Man-o-woods

In the Northeast U.S., there's a story about Woodspeople or Man-o-woods. When you're driving along a road in the woods and catch a glimpse of what looks like a person in the corner of your eye, but when you look directly at it it's gone, they say you might have encountered a man-o-woods.

They are masters of camouflage and can sense when someone looks at them. They come to a halt so you can't sense any movement. It's speculated that they wear bark, mud, moss, and grasses to blend in. They're supposedly human, but extremely simple-minded; barely verbal. They're very small in stature and avoid contact with civilization mostly. Nobody knows where they live or congregate, but they usually move on if there's too much activity around.

They're also peaceful. Around some farmlands, they will do very simple chores at night or off in the distance. They may sweep a barn floor or stack some wood, but anything more complex is beyond them. They do it in exchange for not bothering them as they sleep in the barn for a night or for some bread and vegetables left out for them to find. They've never been known to steal or kill animals or livestock.

El Silbón

We have one in Venezuela called "El Silbón" (The Whistler) typical of the wetland plains and prairies regions we call "Llanos".

Description is usually of a very emaciated man dressed in cowboy's (llanero) rags with a wide brim hat that hides his skeletal face. He roams the countryside and patches of bush at night, with drooping shoulders, downcast stare and a heavy bag full of bones and half decomposed remains slung over his back.

There are two distinctive features, however, that make him particular: he continuously whistles, a high chord progression C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C that goes higher in tune with every note - and is unnaturally tall and strong, with some accounts describing him as towering over 6 meters in height.

His origin is not clear, with some tales stating him as an accursed parricide. But whatever he is, he is feared by lone travelers. Especially drunk or unfaithful men that travel through the country. Story has it that his ominous whistle is suddenly heard very loud and close, yet the source cannot be pinpointed - and contrary to logic, when the sound gets lower and appears more distant it is an indication of his immediate proximity.

He will then kill by strangling or by concussion and devour the victims and throw the bones in the bag. Can be seen occasionally wading over the high walls of haciendas/fincas and honest prayer should keep him away.

Wendigo

This story relates to the Wendigo. A bunch of friends and I were out one night to do some urban exploring, hiking through woods, etc (what else is there to do when you live in bum-fuck nowhere).

We were walking up a hill towards a connecting public park that was just kind of an open field with walking paths surrounded by dense woods. Standing on the edge of a treeline we looked out into the open field and saw what we all thought was a deer. Not that strange , deer are everywhere. We walk out into the field some more while watching the deer. As we get further out into the field this "deer" stands up on two legs and covers about 100 yards in what seemed like only a few strides. This freaked us the f-- out and we left as fast as we could.

I've been in the woods nearly all my life and I've never seen anything like that. Scary.

Jersey Devil

I lived by the Pine Barrens in New Jersey for a long time, so we would go out and ride the sugar sand trails for hours. One night we're on a deserted stretch of road, sitting in the middle of it with no lights, bullshitting.

All of a sudden, we see this light way down at the end of road where the forest starts up and it becomes a trail. We figure it's not a car, because most cars get stuck in the sugar sand and it's only one solitary light, not a pair of headlights.

At this point, the Pines are silent and pitch black save for this light. We stand up and get to the side of the road, thinking the vehicle should be making it's way to us soon. We wait and wait and wait. The light doesn't move, nothing.

We try to decide on whether or not we should go down and see if whoever it is needs help, but the light goes off all of a sudden and we wait to see if it would come back on. After a while, it doesn't and we become uneasy and decide to leave.

A few days later I told another good friend about our experience and he told me of his mom's story about how the Jersey Devil shines a light that brings in curious people to eat.

White Car

So about my 3rd year in Japan I move to a small town. I am living way up in the woods north of the little town I work in. It is a narrow winding road with a river on one side and a steep mountain on the other. The road is so narrow that there are places to pull over and wait if another car is coming.

One night I am heading home after work, keeping in mind that if I see a car heading towards me I (or they ) have to pull over. I am heading north with the river on my left and mountain on my right. I get to this place that the road curves to the left with a big rock on the left side of the road, right at the curve. I see car lights of a white Taurus type car to the left of the rock (kind of over the river) coming from the other side and so I pull over to wait for them to pass.

I keep waiting for them to come around the rock (which has a small shrine in it) but they never come. Huh. Weird... but there are a few buildings up there. Maybe they pulled in just as the rock obscured my vision of them. I head home without thinking much about it.

Later that night I get the munchies and the only store was back south in the main part of town. So I am driving south this time and come to that same corner. And I see the same white car, past the rock shrine, coming north towards me. This time I am by the buildings and I pull over and wait for him to pass.

But no car comes.

This is really weird because on the north side there are places a car could disappear but on the south side there is no where to go. Only a steep mountain on one side and a river on the other. As I ease around the bend...nothing. No car to be seen.

So this sticks with me until one day in October I am teaching a culture lesson about Halloween in the local junior high school. The subject of ghosts comes up and I jokingly say, "Hey, I think I saw a ghost! Do you know the road that goes north with the shrine in the corner of...

SCREAMS OF TERROR FROM HALF THE CLASS

Like total panic, girls are crying, guys are shouting, and the Japanese teacher has gone deadly white. Some are literally in the fetal position moaning "stop stop" over and over. I was floored at the reaction.

It seems that the rock was a dangerous place but was unable to be removed because of the shrine without offending the gods there. A white car crashed into it and someone died. People freaked because there was no way I could have known about it.

Poinciana Woman

I live in Northern Australia and everyone growing up in my town knows of the legend of the poinciana woman.

A quick google search will elaborate into the many variations to the story but the one I grew up to know is that of a woman who was attacked and hanged herself from a poinciana tree when she had discovered she was pregnant. She is said to appear as a beautiful woman to entice men; with long dark hair dressed in a white gown, and is said to be situated at our army reserve.

When I was around twelve, and my younger brother ten, he had been in his room and I was in the lounge room on the computer. He had come barreling out from his room screaming can you hear that! Can you hear that?! before dragging me over to the window.

There was a faint feminine moan/hum, we could hear it moving from the window we stood at, to the one across the room and back in a clockwise direction. The wind had picked up with the noise despite how still the night had been. The sound became so loud that we were on the floor covering our ears crying, when I've brought it up recently my brother agrees it was almost as if the sound had been in our heads. This went on for about ten minutes before abruptly stopping. No wind, nothing.

We found out the next day that our older siblings had been at the army reserve that night before they got home and had been "taunting" the poinciana woman before they left when they heard footsteps assuming it was security.

What creeps me out most is that not long after this happened, I realized that we had a poinciana tree outside of that window.

The Fife Witch

My mum told me this story about the village where she grew up in Scotland.

The village's earliest known settlement is from 3000BC, so it's old. It's been home to the Picts and the Romans. Nowadays there is a small woodland and the rest of the surrounding land is farmland. The woods used to be much larger, they are what survives of a large forest that almost completely surrounded the village. Legend says the forest was home to witches.

When the forest was being cleared for expanding farmland a lone witch came out of the forest to tell the villagers to stop. She said the trees would not forgive man for their destruction and if the villagers did not heed her words then all of their land would become infertile. And all the women.

Frightened, the villagers agreed but asked for a small part of the forest. A deal was made that this, and only this, land could be cleared. The witch also said that for every harvest of every crop grown there, one sack of produce must be taken to the edge of the forest and left.

This practice was followed for hundreds of years until the villagers abruptly tore down much of the remaining forest to grow wheat and build a mill. Again a strange woman came from the forest into the village and threatened the villagers. She said they had broken the promise and would suffer. This time the villagers took the woman and hanged her. Her last words were that the price was now three sacks.

The man who built the mill was scared and after the first harvest he took three sacks into the woods. Unlike his neighbours his crops did not fail and his wife became pregnant. Always he paid the woods their due and before long he was the richest man in the village and had three beautiful, healthy daughters.

Unfortunately the man grew greedy and thought he'd no longer pay his three sacks. The next morning his youngest daughter went missing. The whole village came to help look for her but the man asked that his men run the mill as normal so he didn't lose any money. There was soon a commotion at the mill, some of the workers had fainted others were crying, some were shouting. The man came to see what was happening. A horrified worker told him they had started up the mill as normal, but blood had poured from between the stones. They had found his missing daughter.

Distraught the man sold his land and fled the village with his family. The mill was torn down and years later a silo was built there. By the 1960's the silo was ancient and crumbling. It was also rumoured to be haunted either by the farmer, his daughter or the witch. Sometimes all three.

This part is my mum's story. One day she and her friends had a bet to see who could spend a night in the silo. One boy who was always boasting of his bravery volunteered. Between them, my mum and her friends conspired to keep this a secret from their parents by lying about camping in each other's gardens. That evening the boy, John, climbed the silo loft and mum and her friend gave him a bag of food, a blanket and a torch. They told him they'd be back in the morning but were actually planning on coming back later to frighten him.

They had waited a few hours and snuck back to the silo and alarmingly they could hear John sobbing and crying for help. They found him quite a way from the silo pulling himself along on his stomach. John had jumped out the silo loft and broken his ankles. He was carried back to his parent's house and taken to hospital. After the inevitable week of punishment my mum was allowed to visit John. She said he still looked as terrified then as he had that night. She asked him what happened. He said he told his parents and the doctors that he fell but the truth was he saw something. Not long after he was left on his own he could hear something shuffling around in the loft. He used the torch to see but there was only empty grain bags. He tried to ignore the noise but finally it sounded like it was moving toward him. When he shone the torch on the grain bags again he saw that they were crawling, dragging themselves along the floor towards him. That's why he jumped.

The silo's long been demolished but they've built homes there now. Eeek!

Photos

A friend of mine from college had a project for his astronomy class and he needed to take progression pictures of a constellation over a course of a night. He went out to a field in the middle of nowhere and set up his camera on a timer next to his truck, where he slept that night.

Next morning he's looking through his pictures and he sees a picture of the constellation, picture of the constellation...picture of him sleeping in his truck...picture of the constellation, picture of the constellation.

Montana Hitchhiker

So, I had a football coach back in high school who was also one of my teachers for a semester. He told us one story that freaked us all out pretty bad.

He had a coaching job at a small college in Montana when he was a lot younger and newly married. He said that after practice one evening, he was making his long commute home, and the route ran alongside just fields and fields of hay, grain, whatever. Since it was late summer/early fall, it wasn't even approaching dark yet. His car was an old beat up truck with just a bench seat.

Anyway, he's driving along when he sees a hitchhiker on the shoulder. This being back in the day and in small-town Montana, my teacher pulled over to let the guy in without a second thought. The man was described as wearing a really old, outdated style of suit. He also had a big, stylish hat. This guy looked like he was out of the 40's. My teacher thought it was weird that he was so overdressed, it being super hot out. But maybe that was the only clothing he had.

So the guy gets in next to my teacher without a word. Teacher asks him where he needs to go, and the guy just points forward. Teacher drives on.

Later, my teacher tried talking to the guy, just trying to make simple conversation, but the guy wouldn't speak or even acknowledge him. He just pulled his hat down like he was sleeping.

Out of nowhere, the guy just tips up his hat, looks out the window, and says "Stop the car, Now." My teacher pulls over and lets him out, not wanting to offend a possibly crazy man. The guy stands on the side of the road for a second, and then at a dead sprint, just runs off into the field beside the road, until my teacher couldn't see him anymore (granted the crop was fairly tall). He waits there for a while, thinking maybe the guy had to go to the bathroom or something and didn't want to do it next to the road. After a long enough wait, my teacher gets back in the truck and starts to accelerate back on to the road.

The thing about really old trucks is that they don't accelerate very fast. As my teacher got back on to the road, he looked in his rearview mirror to check for a safe merge. But there wasn't a car in sight. What there was, was the hitchhiker, on all fours like an animal, running (crawling?) after the truck at an inhuman speed. Meanwhile, my teacher is beginning to fish-tail as he attempts to go faster. The whole time his eyes glued on the mirror, watching the man chase after his car.

Eventually, he was able to get up to speed and lost sight of the guy in his mirror. When he was able to stop at a gas station to use a pay phone, he called his wife at home to tell her the story, and to lock up the house. She thinks he's just messing with her, and he had been talking to her coworker about the hitchhiker. When he asks why she would think that, apparently at her office in the town she worked in, one of her coworkers told her a story of the exact same thing happening to them. And it is a well-known urban legend in that town. She thought it was just folks playing with the new girl at work, who had to drive home alone at night.

Anyways, my teacher assured her that he was not lying, and she evidently believes him and can vouch for her side of the story, because she showed up to one of our fundraisers and I asked her about it.

So yeah, now I just avoid lonely roads in Montana.

Deathly Protectors

In San Antonio, there was a school bus which broke down on a set of train tracks. After getting stuck there, a train immediately barreled down the tracks and before any of the children could get out of the bus, the train and bus collided and tragically killed all on board. It was such a tragedy, that they eventually named all of the nearby streets after these children.

So, as you drive past a mental institute, on roads named after dead children, you come to a hill. On this hill is where the road meets the train tracks. You park on the tracks and put your car into neutral. For an added effect, you can put white powder on your bumper. Then, you wait.

After a little bit, your car randomly starts moving by itself off of the tracks. It's even more odd, because your car doesn't go down the hill, but instead it goes up the hill. If you put white powder on your bumper, you go and look to find tiny fingerprints. Supposedly, those prints are proof of the reason why your car moved by itself off of the tracks...it's because the ghosts of the children who died in the wreck those years ago are what pushed you off of the tracks - to save your car, and your life, from being hit by a train like they were.

Goatman

Have family down in Alabama. They farm and own a huge amount of land down in Huntsville. Down south cousins suggest that we go out to their camp. We get to the camp and it's obvious something is weird. Air has this weird electric smell like right before a storm, like ozone. All of a sudden some older white guy and a white teenager come out of the bushes. Asks us what we're doing this far back in the woods. Say we're camping out. He tells us we need to be real careful out here and stick together; there was a big animal in the woods. His son, who is my age asks if he can stay and hang out with us. There's me, the white kid "Tanner", five of my cousins, and then four of their friends. In total, there were five girls and six boys. We all were around 15-17.

We head back to the camp. Tanner says he wants to run home and ask his dad if he can come out camping with us. My cousin Rooster says he's going to go with him since it's going to get dark soon. One of the girls also wants to tag along. It's about 7 o'clock, and it's starting to get pretty dark. They take flashlights and take the trail toward Tan's property.

About thirty or forty minutes later, there's the smell of ozone again. We immediately think that it's some kind of electrical malfunction. We search the trailers and nothing is on, and we can all smell it. All of a sudden, we can hear people booking down the path toward us, and Rooster, Tan and the girl all come running into the clearing, out of breath. And they don't even break stride; they all run into the trailer, right by where the fire is.

We all get outta there and into the trailers. They end up calming down; even Rooster is crying his eyes out at this point. The fire is guttering lower and lower, so my other cousins are about to go outside to get the generator out of a shed between the trailers.

Tanner goes, "F' no! Lock the front door, ain't nobody else going outside!" He's been crying too, and his eyes are bloodshot and puffy and his pants are dirty.

He goes on to tell us that they went up to his house. His father said sure, he could go out camping, but to make sure they were careful on the way back, and that maybe they should take one of the hunting rifles just in case. A few days before, one of their pigs had come up, ripped up and half eaten. He had gone upstairs and packed his stuff, and told his dad they would be OK without the rifle because coyotes avoid people. So they started walking back toward where we were camping.

So, Rooster finally stops crying and shaking; the girl already had, but she was just staring out the window with a dumb look on her face. He says they had gotten halfway into the woods toward the camp when they started to hear something in the forest. It was almost pitch black by this time, so they weren't sure at first what it was. The girl says that she heard something in the bushes right off the trail and they all beamed their flashlights over there and there was someone standing back in the woods in a little hollow. Rooster said they shouted at him and told him that he was scaring them.

He says that's when he realized that the guy was facing away from them. So they keep walking, and they start smelling the nasty coppery ozone smell. They say that they look off into the forest on the opposite side, and it's a dude standing in the forest, backward slightly closer to the path. So now they start power walking and Tan keeps going, "I should have taken the rifle." As they're telling the story, the smell is still super strong even inside the cabin.

They say that after they started walking faster, a kind of low gibbering had started coming from both sides of the wood. And as they started booking it back to the trailer, the girl said she had flashed her flashlight out into the woods to the side of them and had seen something jerkily walking itself through the woods. The gibbering just got louder and louder, and when they could see the light from our camp fire, something had come out of the woods about 40 yards behind them onto the track, and they had just flat out ran as hard as they could to the trailer.

All of a sudden, my other cousin, Junior, starts going on about how he went to school with a native kid that was telling him about the 'Goatman'. He just keeps going on and on about how it's the 'Goatman,' and how we're in his woods and blah, blah, blah. To sum it up, it's basically a man with the head of a goat and he can shape shift and he gets among groups of people to terrorize them. It's also supposed to be kind of like the Wendigo, and it's bad mojo to even talk about it and even worse if you see it.

So all of a sudden the smell just goes away. Nothing else weird happens that night. And we stay another night, and for the main part of the night nothing happens. At about 1 in the morning, we're outside getting drunk and telling ghost stories. As someone is finishing some spooky story -- I don't remember what about -- the smell comes back. It's so strong, that one of the girls literally starts vomiting.

We all go back inside, and we're standing around. We end up sitting in there for a while; the smell is just as strong, and we're terrified and all huddled in this camper. We end up cooking brats for everybody because nobody wants to go outside. It's one of those packs with four brats. We have a total of 3 packs. I grill them up on the stove and give everybody a hot dog. I get mine. After a while, one of my cousins gets up and goes over to the pot to get another one.

He starts grumbling about about how I get two brats and everybody else only got one, and I look at him like he's stupid. I tell him that everybody only got one because there were only 12 brats, if he wants more he should open up a new pack and cook some more.

That's when the girl that had been out with Rooster and Tan just starts screaming, "OH JESUS, OH LORD, GET IT OUT!" She's crying and shivering, and then it dawns on the cousin standing up what is wrong. Me and him both glance around the room, and then I feel my heart sink. I run out of the cabin and the girl runs out with us. The trailer door is banging against the side of the trailer as everybody books out of the cabin.

One of my cousin's friends ask us what was wrong. I start counting us. There's only 11 now. My cousin verified, there had been twelve people in the cabin. But being that everybody didn't really know each other well, nobody had really noticed the whole time that there was an extra person. And then I realized earlier that I had kind of noticed something was off. You know how when you're just having a good time that you don't sweat the small stuff, and you don't always keep track of certain stuff? I'm dead sure that someone else had been in the trailer with us, and that they had been there for at least a day, eating with us. What makes it worse is, I could figure out which one because I don't think anyone ever actually interacted with the other person/the Goat-man.