Outdoorsy People Break Down The Most Terrifying Experiences They've Ever Had In The Woods
Reddit user Inevitable-Print-702 asked: 'Outdoorsmen of Reddit, what’s your most terrifying encounter in the woods?'
Being surrounded by nature by going camping or hiking is a yearning many people have to escape their everyday metropolitan trappings.
However, as much as a breath of fresh air is a good thing for everyone, not everything encountered in the woods can be utopian or blissful.
Because we just might encounter a wolf disguised as grandma, or even worse things.
Curious to hear what other horrors might be lurking in nature, Redditor Inevitable-Print-702-702 asked:
"Outdoorsmen of Reddit, what’s your most terrifying encounter in the woods?"
Some things are better left undiscovered.
Lost Hearing
"Man I don't even go out that often but the one time I do I found a severed ear on a hiking path."
– hausenbergerdorff
Fertilizing The Grounds
"A grown man taking a sh*t, when I was maybe 8-9. He was squatting in the trees off the trail, dressed in business casual. We made eye contact, he looked absolutely terrified, and I turned and started walking away. For some reason, he said, 'Wait!'"
"I did not wait and took off running."
"He might've been some kind of pervert with a sinister post-dump plan, but I think he just panicked and probably didn't know why he said that. I like to imagine him fleeing through the woods, watching for the police and thinking, 'why the hell did I tell him to wait???'"
– FoldedaMillionTimes
Ominous Dwellers
"In the 90s, I was on a week-long backpacking trip with my uncle in the Colorado high-country. He was a professional rock climbing-trail guide at the time, so he knew his stuff while off-the-grid."
"The second day in, we were following some old trail that hadn't been groomed in years, and came across the outskirts of some random commune deep in the woods. We knew there were people there because we could see campfires and laughing/talking in the distance."
"My uncle immediately freaks out, tells me to keep quiet, and then made us back track nearly five miles, and then around. It was the first and only time I've actually seen him panic off-the-grid."
"Afterward, he lectured me that it was some kind of small sect or cult that had a rep for being very territorial in the area at the time, and was known to shoot at trespassers without provocation."
– Avery_Di_Umbra
Animals are cute...when you're not invading they're territory.
When Comes Mama
"I was all dressed up in a ghillie photographing bee-eaters and then some little boar piglets start getting near me sniffing at me. 10 seconds later I hear a very loud noise and the mom was running towards me. I left there my camera and climbed the nearby tree faster than a monkey. I stayed up there like an airborne turd half afternoon."
– Ares982
Adrenaline Rush
"While on horseback came across a deer carcass. Horse was spooked and about 30 yards away saw a grizzly stand up...... Felt my heart pumping hard."
– Quiet-Cancer
Bear-ly Breathing
"Had an over-curious bear climb up the tree I was in during a hunt and man I almost jumped out of the tree. He just wanted to say hi but sh*t yo I definitely was scared to death."
– MaximumMajestic
Bye, Kitty Kitty
"Face to face with a cougar while making my way to the deer stand. I had to check my drawers afterwards."
– otcconan
Welcome Cow-mittee
"I was on a month-long canoeing trip though the sub-arctic tundra. I was looking for a good place to set up my tent, I hadn't realized I had just accidently stumbled within 10 meters or so of a massive Caribou bull and two cows."
"We all just stared at each other for a minute or so, then they ran off."
– Drach88
Unpredictable dangers befell these innocent Redditors while in the forest.
Open Season
"When I was like 14 I was hunting deer with my dad and heard a weird sizzle. I heard 2 more and my dad screamed at me to get down. It was the sound of another hunter shooting in our direction. He hadn't seen us despite the orange. I will never forget that sound. It's a very different experience being on the other end of the bullet."
– Post-Scarcity-Pal
Close Calls
"Slipped and tumbled backwards head over heels down a rock face. There was about a twenty foot drop after that but I got wedged in between a tree and the rock face. Ended up walking away with just a couple bruises."
"Another time in the Sierra Nevadas I fell through a hole that was covered in snow. My rifle stopped me from falling straight through and I yelled for help. When I was getting pulled out all I saw was a black hole beneath me that covered in snow again. No idea how deep it was or if anyone would have heard me if I just poofed through the snow into a crevasse."
– COCKBLOKALYPSE
Raining Bullets
"Bullets whizzing over my head. Some smooth brains were target shooting in the middle of an established hiking trail. Wasn't a one off experience either!"
– _old_relic_
Woods in general freak me out due to the lack of clear line of sight.
For that reason alone, I tend to avoid wooded areas and prefer prairies, meadows, or a clearing when I go hiking.
So if I find anything that doesn't belong out on my hike, it won't raise alarm because being out in the open somehow makes it less ominous for me.
Now, if I see a wild animal that might want to cause me harm or views me as lunch, I'm pretty much screwed since I won't be able to scamper up any trees or hide behind one.
Well, so much for that.
For many people, escaping to the woods, either in a tent or a cabin, is just what they need to escape from their current realities and reset their mind.
Allowing themselves to be one with nature, and cut off from technology.
Not everyone finds the woods a peaceful place, however.
Indeed, being cut off from the rest of the world, all the while surrounded by wildlife, it's easy to see why some people find the woods scary, and not at all relaxing.
Particularly if their time in the woods included an experience which made them never want to return, ever again.
"Outdoorsmen of Reddit: What is the most terrifying experience you’ve encountered in the woods?"
In The Company Of Wolves
"Walking in the pitch black out to a deer stand."
"So dark you couldn't see your hand in front of your face."
"Heard some circling around me of something large, it was trotting along."
"No big deal, figured it was a deer."
"Then it stopped and let out the most bone chilling howl I have ever heard."
"So loud it was like it was inside of me."
"A few wolves howled back in the distance and it ran off."
"Needed new underwear."- jubstep45
Who's That Cackling?
"I was backwoods camping in Canada with my ex."
"Deep forest, we'd been out there a day or two and hadn't seen anyone."
"That evening we were in the tent playing cards and heard something in the bushes, making a giant racket."
"It was getting steadily closer."
"It got to the area we were in and stopped."
"We debated what to do but finally opened the tent, both completely freaked out, and found... chickens."
"Three chickens, en route home to an organic farm we didn't know was nearby."- Worldly_Salamander_
GiphyIs That Water I Hear?
"An after dark flash flood that roared through camp."
"Twelve of us...five of them were sleeping in the canyon bottom."
"It's amazing nobody died."
"That was 32 years ago and I still sleep lightly and always pack clean underpants."- BrunoGerace
Stranger By The Lake
"When I was about fifteen yrs old me and some of my friends decided to go camping at a nearby lake."
"It was a 3-4 hr hike, and the nearest house was Maybe 3 hr away."
"We brought some homemade wine and drank the whole night and ate poorly grilled hot dogs."
"Life was good."
"We all shared the tent so it was crowded as f*ck in the tent but we all fell asleep around 2 am."
"At 4 I wake up because i can feel someone running their hand down my forearm."
"Not that unlikely that someone brushes up against me since there wasn't any space to move around in the crowded tent."
"But this is the arm that is facing the tent."
"So someone touched me from the outside of the tent."
"I sit up and gets instantly horrified to see that all my friends are sound asleep in the tent with me."
"I put on my deepest voice and shout 'whoever the f*ck you are you need to leave'."
"And a manly low voice answers me 'you should pack up your stuff and leave', not threatening or aggressive."
"Just calmly and in a dead kinda way."
"By now all my friends are awake and are just looking at me."
"No words just pure horror in their eyes."
"I say: 'Okay, we will go, but you need to leave'."
"Hurry up"
"When we get out of the tent this man, who is f*cking huge btw has taken the little row boat that was laying at the bank and gotten into it and is just sitting in the middel of the lake and watching us pack up our stuff and trying to get the f*ck away asap."
"We had to walk around the lake at our way back and he was just sitting there watching us."
"We never went back."
"This was 17 years ago in a rural Scandinavian country."
"We have a 'free to roam law' so we where not trespassing."
"We knew our way around the small town we grew up, everybody knows everybody."
"There have been no people missing and or found dead."
"Never."
"There hasn't been a murder in generations."
"We told our parents who at first tried to calm us down and they said that we where probably overreacting."
"But the way he caressed my arm before he told us to go was not normal."
"When we told them everything and What he said to us we where told to never go back."
"After covid we all met up and the subject came up and we tried to do some digging."
"There are no houses or cabins anywhere near."
"The lake is way too small to fish in."
"When he was sitting dead center in his little boat there was Maybe 60 feet to land on all sides."
"No one has ever seen this man before or after."- Withthisaccountican
Water Band GIF by TennisGiphyLose Lose Situation
"As a Boy Scout, we found a bunch of scorpions in our Adirondack."
"We ran outside screaming our heads off, and then lightening struck a tree like 20 yards away."
"We turned on our heels and ran straight back to the scorpions."- captainkatalis
A Bit Too Much Holiday Spirit
"Many years ago, when I was about 14, I was hiking deep in the woods behind my house with some friends."
"We were miles away from home- further than any of us had ever gone before."
"And we came up to the edge of a clearing and a little further down the tree line, we saw a lump of clothes underneath an old deer stand."
"We got a little closer and we could make out legs and arms and boots."
"They were wet from rain and had been there for a while."
"Obviously, our first thought was that it was a hunter who had an accident and fallen out of his stand and was dead."
"We were freaked out and it took us a little bit to get up the nerve to get a better look."
"It wasn't until we were practically on top of it that we realized that it was a dummy."
"We had wandered all the way up to the edge of a big Christmas Tree farm's property and the dummy was part of their decorations from a haunted hayride thing they did."
"They must have forgotten about it when closing up for the year."
"We had a good laugh but we were all scared sh*tless for a few minutes."- Ocksu2
season 1 premiere GIF by Jersey Shore Family VacationGiphyThe Bear Necessities
"I work in the bush and sometimes spend months out there."
"Most terrifying was seeing a bear start to circle me right as the helicopter pilot radioed me to say he couldn't get to my location because of the weather."
"Luckily I had a shotgun with me, and eventually the pilot got down to me, but yeah, sitting there in the sleet while watching that grizzly slowly and sneakily try to cut around my position in the fading light was absolutely terrifying."
"The whole time I was trying to come up with possible ways to keep from being outflanked and to keep visual contact with it in case I had to shoot it."
"This was in the late fall, so the bear probably hadn't put on enough fat for the year and was looking to supplement it."
"Spooky stuff!"- Psychological_Put395
Not A Terribly Uncommon Discovery In The Woods...
"I was backpacking with my dog and about 12 miles from the road and trailhead."
"So pretty far from people though popular enough that other hikers might be around."
"Though we saw no-one all day."
"About 2 a.m. my dog started this really low deep growl and wakes me up."
"Turn on my headlamp and see his teeth showing and he's right on top of me."
"I hear heavy footsteps (black bear / moose?) near the tent."
"I leash my dog so he doesn't tear thru the tent and the footsteps move further away, but keep circling my tent."
"All of my food and toiletries are hung in a tree in a bear bag - nothing in the tent to draw a bear's attention."
"I clap my hands - something is still slowly circling - not something a moose would do, and a bear might if he wanted food - but I've got nothing and a really big dog with me."
"I decide to step out of the tent with the leash in one hand and bear spray in the other - yelling 'hey bear'."
"The footsteps stop - dog's nose is in the air telling me to look right - but nothing in my headlamp that I can see."
"Didn't hear anything run off, but it's quiet."
"I give it 5 minutes or so, get back in the tent, and it starts up again - slowly circling maybe 50 feet from me."
"Maybe an hour later, I hear the footsteps wander off into the woods."
"At dawn, I take the dog, and the bear spray, and start looking for tracks."
"I find a clear path in the leaves that had been trampled, but no tracks."
"The dogs nose is on the ground, and I follow his lead - and he follows the loop around our campsite."
"We finally see a few human footprint - not shoe tracks - a regular size (not bigfoot) bare human foot."
"Plus - yup a human turd and toilet paper."
"Some a**hole was wandering around the middle of nowhere, near the tent and circling my tent for an hour or more, and left a dump for me to find."
"Hiking and backpacking is incredibly safe. I've been doing this for decades, and this is the only weird experience I've ever had."
"The hiking community is incredibly friendly."
"The trails have become more crowded since covid, and your definitely seeing more people on trails, and less trail courtesy (litter - leaving dog poop bags, pooping too close to the trail and not burying you poop)."
"Also - I was very far away from civilization. "
"Bad guys don't hike 12 miles to do harm, and I'm pretty sure they don't carry toilet paper."
"I've hiked thousand of miles without a single dangerous human interaction."
"What I think happened?"
"Much as I'd love to say it was a young sasquatch, a skin walker or a wendigo - I'm guessing it was a disoriented backpacker that left their tent to crap, and got confused."
"I was hiking a somewhat popular long loop trail, and I believe someone was probably hiking the opposite way, and stopped somewhere off trail ahead of me."
"I was backwoods camping - not at a campground."
"Regulations are that you need to be 200 feet off the trail and into the woods to set up a camp."
"So they could have been a quarter mile ahead on the trail and I wouldn't have known unless they were noisy (or smelly enough for my dog to let me know)."
"The most likely explanation is that they were heavily under the influence, got up to crap, and got lost on their way back to their tent, and found my site."
"They approach my tent and realized they were wrong, and tried to find their way back to their camp."
"Then they heard my dog, and me yelling to scare off a bear, and either thought we were a risk to them, or too lit to answer back."
"The circle around my camp was several hundred feet - and my tent wouldn't be visible for most of the loop - I was camping between several spruce trees."
"I didn't get back to sleep!"
"I couldn't get back to sleep."
"It was late Sept and sunrise was around 6 a.m."
"When we found the poop pile, I relaxed - I really didn't think there would be anyone nearby as we were in a very tough area to get to - requiring going over 2 mountain summits from my direction, and 6 other mountains in the other direction."
"The total hike was about 40 miles IIRC."
"We were going to be out for 3 nights, and 4 days."
"After I realized it was a human, my first assumption was that there was a lost hiker."
"I texted a friend that does Search and Rescue in the area t see if there were any reports of lost or overdue hikers."
"If there had been, I would have had my dog try to follow that trail to see if I could have found their campsite."
"As no one was missing, we broke camp and went on our way."
"He was the best dog ever."
"I lost him about 5 years ago."
"I knew that dog would die for me."
"Several years after this incident, I got diagnosed with cancer. **(**ETA - I've been in remission for several years and things look good)."
"This dog was so in tune with me that he knew how sh*tty I was going to feel before I did."
"He would walk with me to the bathroom, and sit right next to me as a puked my guts up."
"He'd walk me back to bed and let me rest my hand on his back if I needed a little help walking."
"Everyone has a heart dog - he was mine."
"I swear he knew I had cancer before I did."
"He used to sniff me right where my tumor was located."
"I still get teary eye'd thinking of him."
"Rest in peace big guy."- BionicGimpster
What Is It Reaction GIF by Nebraska Humane SocietyGiphyIt's What They Didn't See Or Hear...
"Absolute silence. No wind, no animals, nothing. One second there were all the sounds of nature, then nothing. Lasted for a few seconds that felt like an eternity." Reddit
There's a reason that so many fairy tales and scary stories are set deep in the woods.
For while staying alert and using your best judgment will no doubt keep you safe, the possibilities of what could happen to you are endless, and terrifying.
People Describe The Creepiest Thing They've Ever Experienced That Chilled Them To The Bone
The older you get you realize... there are things that go bump in the night.
There can be danger around every corner.
And yes... somebody may actually be in the closet.
So being constantly creeped out is a norm.
Redditor unripenedboyparts wanted to hear about the horrors we've all been witness to, so they asked:
"What is the creepiest thing you’ve seen in the woods, or in the mountains, or in deserts, or caves, or in small towns, or in big cities, or in hotels, or in remote or rural areas, or while asleep, or home alone, or while on large bodies of water, or while on an aircraft or a nautical vessel?"
I don't camp.
I don't hike.
I don't do wilderness.
And this is why...
Textures
Life Smash GIFGiphy"Coming out of anesthesia from open heart surgery, every time I closed my eyes I could see a perfectly formed brick wall inches from my face. I could see the texture of the bricks through the paint, the mortar, all in perfect detail. Every time I changed rooms, the wall would change colors."
GlobalPhreak
The Wolf
"I was up north. Far North British Columbia, Canada working in a (oil) rig camp out in the woods. I was working as a cook, I went out one afternoon for a smoke on the back deck. It was about 2 o'clock n the afternoon. It was a very quiet, still winter day. It was snowing those kind of big snowflakes that make it look like the world is moving in slow motion."
"So as I was standing there smoking, just staring off in the distance not looking at anything particular... you know looking left right, up down at my feet whatever. I felt something looking at me. Then I looked straight ahead. About 30 feet or less in front of me was the tree line of the forest, and directly in front of me in-between two trees I see the most gigantic wolf I have ever seen."
"This thing sitting looked like it was the size of a man standing. It was massive, sitting there and just staring right at me. We locked eyes, then I looked away for a split second and then looked back and it was gone. I don't know, it just gave me the weirdest feeling. It was definitely like, "hey.. I see you, I could eat you... butttt I won't, k byeee"
"Something I'll always remember."
vatersgonnavate
It’s absolutely unnerving...
"I live in a really remote part of Alaska. I think the scariest thing I’ve ever encountered is how silent the woods/tundra can be in the dead of winter. I’m talking like 'I feel like I am about to go insane' quiet. It’s absolutely unnerving. I become hyper aware of my heart beat and my breathing sounds like a f**king airplane taking off."
"And I know a lot of people will say 'it’s because a predator was near by' nah man, some places up here just have nothing. That’s what really freaks me out. I am absolutely alone in this one spot. I could drop dead and no one would ever find my body."
idontcareilikedogs
The Sow
"I rounded a corner in a trail in the Appalachian Mountains and came face to face with a sow black bear and her cub. Same situation, we locked eyes, she seemed to convey - look dude, I can un alive you in a second, but I’m not about it today so just be patient while I dig these bugs outta this hillside. I sat and watched this bear and cub for prob 20 mins at a safe-ish distance."
m0992104
Who Are You??
Video Games Gamer GIF by Call of DutyGiphy"There must be wilderness dwelling gamers out there, because I found a pile of xbox games in the mountains. Like two dozen in a pile in a remote location."
LittleBkGuy1
Those gamers are sneaky.
It Flies
David Choe Love GIFGiphy"Hallucinated a flying whale alongside the night time flight from Alberta to Ontario when I was 12. It was snow white, seemed friendly enough. Roughly the size of a blue whale."
jakebreakshow
Onto the Rocks
"It happened when me and my parents were on vacation to some place near Spain when I was still little. We went to a little beach at some coastal town where I then immediately jumped into the sea with my swimming goggles on. I then crawled on to some rocks and walked around until I noticed a crab sitting on the rocks."
"I then traversed them carefully while trying to catch it, but it kept crawling away. This continued until I then followed it to a point where the little bay I was in ended and the open ocean began. So then little me decided that it was a good idea to jump into the open water to see if there was anything cool down there. I then jumped in, and I was immediately hit with the cold temperature of actual ocean water."
"But the worst part was that even with my goggles on, I couldn't see anything down there. I was met with a giant black void. No fish, no plants, no rocks. Nothing. I then immediately turned around and began swimming back as quick as I could. And since that moment I haven't gone beyond the shallows ever again."
Successful-Seaweed12
Orbs
"This was almost a decade ago; I live in a town outside of Phoenix, AZ. It was late in the afternoon as the sun was starting to set. I went out in the backyard to smoke a cigarette and play fetch with my dog. As I was throwing the ball I noticed a small orb shoot from the ground directly into the sky."
"A few seconds later another one followed, and another, and another, and another. It didn’t stop for a few minutes. At first I thought it was a Roman candle but I just couldn’t hear but you’d normally hear them fizzing as the fly. I couldn’t hear anything. It was dead silent. To this day, I still don’t know what those were."
ThurSTIII
Appendages
"When I was a kid in the early 80's my parents had a house they rented out to people. We were cleaning it out after a set of unsatisfactory tenants and I was going through the kitchen cupboards making sure they were empty. I saw a mason jar tucked way back in the corner of one of the top shelves so I hopped up on the counter, stretched my arm, grabbed it and hopped back down. When I looked at the jar I saw a finger floating in a clear liquid. I set it down on the counter, walked out of the kitchen and called, 'Mom, I found a finger!'"
Narmer_3100
Jiggles
earthquake GIF by James CurranGiphy"I was on a fishing boat just off the Pacific coast and there was an earthquake. The water jiggled a bit as we heard a boom and a quick shake. Only time I was on water during an earthquake."
teebpix
This is why I don't fish. Not even on dry land.
Do you have any bizarre experiences to share? Let us know in the comments below.
There's something about the woods that creeps me out. Listen here, people: I'm a city guy. The idea of getting lost out there freaks me out. No thank you. I wasn't made for that. The rest of you who like to go camping and stuff? You do you. I'll stick with my running water.
But maybe I've seen too many horror movies. After all, if I saw some creepy stuff in the woods I'd definitely run in the other direction. And so would you, right? Right?
People shared their best stories with us after Redditor shantics asked the online community,
"What have you seen in the woods that you can’t explain?"
"I stepped on what I thought was a small rock but it turned out to be weird and gelatinous. I've also seen tombstones in the woods."
his_eminence56
You just suprised it. Rocks are soft and squishy, they just tense up when you touch them! /s
"I was hiking through the remnants..."
"I was hiking through the remnants of a remote, long-abandoned town and the surrounding area. To get to as far into the woods as I was, you had to cross fallen trees over a creek three times. I had just crossed the third "bridge" and was about five miles in and something blue caught my eye just ahead of me."
"There was a man, in his sixties at least, wearing blue satin pajamas, sitting in a tree. The closer I got to him the louder he laughed; it wasn't a maniacal laugh, but it set off all the alarms in my head nevertheless. He also wasn't wearing any shoes and looked well-groomed/cleaned."
"I gave him a friendly nod as I passed and he just kept laughing. Then it stopped. I turned and he was gone. There was no branch cracking, plants rustling, nothing... He was just gone."
"Still rubs me the wrong way. The area I was in was a pretty rough hike, very secluded. Not very many people venture as deep as I was that day. No idea what was going on there."
mrwitch
“Over the Third Bridge” would be a great title for a spooky book or movie.
"Zeus seemed to lose track of the thing..."
"About twenty years ago my wife and our two children (twins, they were about one year old at the time) moved into a house that sat right on the edge of about 40 acres of heavily wooded land in Kentucky. We had a dog. He was a good dog and a great security system. We named him Zeus."
"This dog was a tank. He was a stray. A mutt of some kind, and I don't know what breeds he was made up of, but he was huge. My neighbor told me once that he saw Zeus get hit by a car on the nearby highway and Zeus just walked away like nothing happened. Not a scratch on him."
"Anyway, Zeus stayed outside most of the time and, while he wasn't much of a barker, on some nights he would occasionally bark at the local nocturnal wildlife in the nearby woods."
"One night however Zeus started barking incessantly probably around 11:00 PM. I tried to ignore it for a while, hoping he would stop, but he just would not stop barking. He had a very loud bark and I was afraid he would wake the kids, so I grabbed a flashlight and went outside to see what was going on."
"I found him out back at the edge of our small vegetable garden, barking at the woods. I could tell he was on edge and he barely acknowledged my presence when I stood beside him. He just kept barking. I pointed the beam of my flashlight at the tree line, expecting to see the eyes of a raccoon or a possum or maybe a rabid coyote (healthy coyotes usually stayed well away from the area), but there was nothing."
"Just trees and darkness. I gave old Zeus a good pat and a scratch and this seemed to soothe him for a moment, but as soon as I stopped petting him he immediately started barking at the trees again. I realized the only way to calm him down would be to take him into the woods so he could examine whatever it was that was freaking him out."
"I walked to the head of a nearby trail that cut into the woods and Zeus followed. He seemed happy to be going. He and I had walked that trail many times and he usually stayed right by my side. But on that night, we had only made it a hundred meters or so into the woods when Zeus bolted into the trees to the left side of the trail."
"I called for him, but he ignored me. I could hear him making his way quickly through the thick underbrush, moving away from me. I called for him until he had moved so far away that I couldn't hear him anymore. Sh*t, I thought. I'm going to have to go in after him."
"Bushwhacking in the middle of the night sounded like an awful idea, so I continued down the trail looking for a break in the underbrush where I could pick my way through in the dog's direction."
"A couple of minutes later I stopped walking when I heard something crashing through the woods, coming toward me. The sound seemed to be coming from the general area where I thought Zeus would have been, and it sounded like him, so I assumed he had finished his investigation and was coming back to me."
"The source of the sound grew closer and closer until it was near enough for me to predict where Zeus would reach the trail, which was a spot about 5 meters ahead of me. I focused my light there, but something else came out of the woods instead."
"It came out right where I thought it would and my flashlight afforded me a good look at it, but it's difficult for me to explain what it looked like. It was just a thing. If I had to describe its color, I suppose I would say it was gray, but that's not exactly right."
"I'd estimate it was a little less than a meter in length, but I could see no head, no legs, no tail, no appendages of any kind. Just a kind of amorphous, grayish, seemingly opaque thing. The thing moved across the trail in front of me from left to right, but it never touched the ground."
"It was just kind of gliding through the air at about waist height. Whatever it was disappeared into the woods on the right side of the trail and a moment later Zeus burst onto the path from my left and he followed it. I realized then that the crashing sound I had been hearing seconds before had been the dog and that the gray thing hadn't been making any sound at all as it moved."
"Zeus seemed to lose track of the thing soon after he crossed the path and he came back to me. Afterward, he and I went back home and we never spoke of the incident again."
Old_Crawdad
What a crazy experience! I think it will always be a mystery.
"Neat as a pin..."
"Fully decorated Xmas tree. Middle of summer. Neat as a pin it was, as if it had just been finished. Who ever did it came back at some point and cleaned it up, because it wasn't there next I did that trail a week or so later."
OldWomanintheWoods
This one’s not that uncommon actually. Lots of folks will decorate a tree in remembrance of someone out in the woods. Sucks when they don’t clean them up though.
"It's an interesting..."
"In Japan. A hotel was abandoned before it was ever finished being built. It only became a cement skeleton, about 5 stories high. It was left that way to eventually mold back into the forest around it."
It’s an interesting small building to explore. There are halls that are unlevel to the point of hitting your head on the ceiling (think: Willy Wonka)."
"There are stairwells that lead to nothing and one that leads to an unintentional hole in a cement wall. And on the top floor (but “inside” - as in, under the “roof”), is an old car - all smashed up - with seemingly no reason or method to have been up there."
[deleted]
This reminds me of those old abandoned amusement parks that pretty much exist to destroy me mentally.
"I once walked..."
"I once walked through the undergrowth (i.e. off the trail) with my then-girlfriend when we came across this spot where a few empty plastic bags were lying on the ground (strange because the woods are otherwise super clean), a pair of gloves and, most confusingly, the official ID card (= passport) of a young woman."
Minister_of_Joy
I would freak out and call the cops. That sounds like a murder scene.
"Many plastic bags..."
"Many plastic bags with nothing really in them but random odd things tied to trees. Sure, it could have been a homeless person but us kids att (like 12+) of us lived in those small woods behind the church every single day. We never saw anyone like that, ever. Passing through I guess, but why so many bags...still wonder."
WiseOwlBear
Do we want to know what was in them? Probably not.
"When I was a teenager..."
"When I was a teenager, I worked at a fireworks stand that was run by my friend's family. It was in a rural area: they owned a few acres of land, had the fireworks tent at the front of the property and the house towards the back, but no lights in between. My friend's mother would prepare dinner for all the workers and we'd take turns going back to the house for dinner."
"One night, I was going to the house for dinner by myself. I felt something on my arm. I thought a bug might have landed on me, but it was really dark so I couldn't see anything. I stopped walking for a second. Then I started hearing this low, raspy breathing right next to me."
"There weren't any people around me and it didn't sound anything like a bug. It was like a slow, asthmatic wheeze."
"I started getting really freaked out. I reached my hand down to my arm and felt... something larger than I expected. I furiously rubbed my hands all across my body to try and dislodge whatever this thing was, then ran as fast as I could to the house. When I finally got to the safety of the house, I could see a small red mark on my arm, but that was it."
"To this day, it's probably the most freaked out I've ever been."
[deleted]
Chills reading this! Nooo thank you!
"Several very large holes..."
"Really big holes. Several very large holes, fairly close to each other, that seem to serve no purpose. Ten feet wide, deep enough that if you jumped in you’d have to have help getting out. Was someone preparing to bury a bunch of people? Was someone punishing their kid by making them dig holes? Did they hear there was buried treasure out there?"
"We’ve never figured it out."
theyarnilama
How far apart? How neat were the holes? In a plantation or natural wood? Accessible by a small excavator?
"I once saw a huge pile of cat and dog skulls and bones about 100m from my cabin so we sold the cabin as soon as we could. It was creepy."
[deleted]
This definitely sounds like the beginning of a horror film. Did the ghosts follow you? Please report back.
"There's a small patch..."
"There's a small patch of woods where I live. You could walk across it in less than an hour. It's entirely safe and has marked trails. People somehow manage to get lost in there and I can't explain that."
ThadisJones
Did they stumble across the bounds of time and space? That might explain it. But you might be underestimating how many people lack a sense of direction.
None of this makes you want to go out into the woods, huh? Yeah, we thought so. We'll pass the next time we get an offer to go camping somewhere.
Have some stories of your own? Feel free to tell us more in the comments below!
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People Who Claim To Have Seen A Mythical Creature Share Their Experiences
Some people will swear they've come face to face with a Tinkerbell, and they'll swear that were also stone-cold sober. The ethereal and mythical are all around us. Now whether or not they are tangible or merely our imaginations run amok, maybe we'll never know. But some say they may have proof.
Redditor u/fukasetrash wanted to see who has had an audience with "creatures" many of us have only read about by asking.... [serious] People of reddit who claim to have seen a mythical creature, such as faires, elves, gnomes, etc, what is your story?"that was a fairy."
skeleton GIF by KiszkiloszkiGiphyDid not see anything, but every time I tell this story people say "that was a fairy." This is the one and only inexplicable moment of my life.
About 10 years ago I got home from school and threw my car keys on a leather ottoman in my man cave. Every day when I came home I would do this; throw keys on ottoman, turn around and go to the bathroom. When I returned from the bathroom, even though I saw my keys land on the ottoman, keys were gone. I was home alone. Maybe in the bathroom for 30-45 seconds. Looked all around the floor, no keys. Checked under the ottoman and couch, no keys. Lifted the ottoman OFF THE GROUND AND SHOOK IT OVER MY HEAD. No keys.
At this point I convinced myself I imagined throwing my keys and I had for some reason put them on the bathroom counter. No keys in the bathroom. Turn back around... AND THE FREAKING KEYS ARE SITTING RIGHT ON THE OTTOMAN. There's no way. Recalling this incident gives me chills and it is the only thing in my life that convinces me of the existence of the paranormal.
In the Attic
So when I was a kid I got a huge kick out of hiding in various spots around our house and then going out and scaring my mom or my sister whenever they would walk past.
The challenge was finding new spots that they wouldn't see coming, but that I knew they would be at. I wanted to get a good scare, but I didn't want to have to wait an eternity for someone to come by.
This only happened once and it still scares me when I think about it. I had picked a spot in our attic on this day. I knew my mom would be coming up there because she was going to get out props for a church play that we kept up there. So I set up behind a stack of boxes and waited.
About five or six minutes in I heard someone very faintly say, "hmmm", as if me being there was interesting and maybe unexpected. The sound came from almost directly behind me and I immediately froze.
Then I felt breath on the back of my neck. Now I was raised on a farm and the number one rule when encountering something that you assume you have no control over (coyotes, lynx, snakes, and the occasional irritable cow) is to not make any sudden movements. Then you slowly remove yourself from the situation and create distance without provoking whatever you are faced with.
So I sat there for about 20 seconds. Stock still, absolutely terrified. After that I slowly stood up and started to move away. I wasn't about to turn and look behind me. I got two steps and a hand clamped down on my right shoulder.
I screamed wrenched away and ran until I was out of the house. Once outside my mom and my sister came running to see why I was screaming. They had been outside with our dogs the whole time. My dad was at our other property almost ten miles away.
Sure I could've imagined it. It never happened again. Nobody believed me then. My mom and dad both made multiple trips to the attic to show me nothing was up there. I don't know what it was, but it was something.
Tall and Majestic
My daughter and I regularly and reliably saw a "hide behind" from my kitchen window.
This eventually lead to us learning the truth about this midwestern mythical creature.
What we saw was 7-8 feet tall, bipedal, spindly legs, gaunt with protruding rib cage, no horns or protruding ears.
It/they would lean out from behind a tree in the forest behind our house. If you moved about, it would pop back behind the tree.
We never saw more than one at a time, but their seemed to be more than one, as height varied.
We sometimes saw it multiple times a day, the behavior was always the same. It seemed wary of us, but if we stayed out of sight, it would lean out into view for a few seconds at a time.
When we sent the dog out, it would run off into the forest after it, but never chased it into view, so that told us nothing. I viewed it through a rifle scope, and got a good long Look at it silhouetted against the snow behind the trees, it was really creepy, like a Slenderman or something, I could determine height by going out and measuring the trees we saw it next to. I of course did not shoot it, since you should not shoot what you cannot identify, and the only large bipeds hereabouts are people, though nothing human is that tall, or narrow.
We knew the local legends, and this matched the description and behavior.
We dug out our trail camera, but solved the mystery before we got a chance to set it up.
Sorry to disappoint folks, but we solved the mystery, as I'm sure many have before us.
As winter sets in the deer like to stand on their hind legs to eat the tips of pine tree branches. They are totes scared of people, and will always do it behind trees. But every so often one that is sick, starving, had twins or gave birth too late in the season, will be desperate... The desperate ones will lean out to get the untouched branches in view of the house, but if they sense movement, they duck away.
A large deer with corvid wasting disease, standing on its hind legs is a bizarre, 8+ foot tall, skeletal looking thing, with a protruding ribs and sunken in gut.
Hippy Dippy Stuff
hello GIF by Sherlock GnomesGiphyMy boyfriend told me this story, and he's someone that normally wouldn't believe in this stuff or other 'hippy sh*t' but he says when he was a kid living in England.
He was in his room doing homework and this little creature walked into his room, like a gnome he described it, and they just stared at each other for a minute and he got up out of his chair to go up to it but it ran away and disappeared into a wall. He ran off and told his mum and she just laughed it off as you would, thought he was imagining it. But a few days later she was over her friends house having coffee and she told her friend the story for a bit of a laugh but then her friend turned to her and said 'Billy (her son) sees gnomes too!'
The Maine Sky
Do UFOs count? I'm not convinced it was a UFO, I'm one of those "there's probably a reasonable explanation" sorta guy when it comes to the paranormal, so I'm like 80% sure I was mistaken/my brain was just short circuiting. Anyway, I was walking down the street one night and it was clear skies. I live in Maine so the stars are out if it isn't cloudy: minimal light pollution. I look up at the sky and there is what looked like a star just chillin' (you know, like stars do).
This thing was stationary for about a second or two when I looked up. All of a sudden it just goes from being stationary to just taking off across the sky. It was fast, too. Just looked like a normal bright star that just decided to zip off somewhere else. I believe in extra terrestrial life. Not necessarily "little green men" type, but some sort of life form has to exist somewhere else. After all: we exist. Never got why some people think would it be unthinkable for some form of intelligent life to exist when we're intelligent, sentient life living here on earth.
As I said, I'm sure it was just a trick of the mind: perhaps it was a meteor or satellite that just appeared stationary when my eyes met it. Either way I was taken aback by it. That's the closest I've ever come to seeing something paranormal with my own eyes.
When at Dunde's...
My friend had Dunde's at her house. I saw just a glimpse once.
There were all sorts of weird experiences but it was like 10 years ago so I don't remember everything.
There were tiny bites taken out of fruit.
It once threw a ball at us down the stairs when no one was upstairs.
Stuff moved/tampered with in rooms no one had been in when we were all together in the house.
One time her son left the house (her dad was at home with him) and he said the Dunde told him to go to the park (a big part of the myth is them trying to lure children away, also not exact words).
I saw it once just for a split second it was an all black gnome.
I don't tell any IRL people about it because it sounds crazy but its got a lot of folklore and sightings in Hispanic culture.
Sara J's
I was eating at a restaurant called Sara J's in Garden City, SC. There's an outside patio that looks out over a little inlet. While I was eating I saw something that looked like a submarines periscope, but with an eye on the top come out of the water. I couldn't believe what I was seeing, and tried to get everyone to look, but being 12 no one took me seriously and when I looked back it was gone. To this day I have no idea what I saw, but I am 100% certain that I did not imagine it.
My Cousin's Joke
Reaction GIF by moodmanGiphyI am sure I saw a ghost in my grandma's house when I was around 12.
I was helping my cousins clean out a room my grandparents were going to turn into a guest room and when my cousins left the room, I saw a man in the corner of the room. I don't remember being scared of him but when my cousins came back in and I asked who the man was they were confused. They probably just thought I was playing a joke on them but I was sure I saw the man. I never told my parents or my grandparents about it and I never saw the man again.
On the Ocean
While up in the San Juans in Washington state off of Orca Island I was drifting in a rowboat when a head and long slender neck rose up out of the water maybe 8-10 from the boat.
My initial reaction was 'is that an eel?' It had a face similar to a moray eel and a dark greenish skin but with red eyes. It rose several feet out of the water, paused and then opened and closed its mouth a few times like it was coming up for air.
The moment I shifted in the boat to try and get a better look at it, it was like it was suddenly aware I was there and slid back under the water.
I've spent a lot of time on the ocean and have never seen anything else remotely like it.
Once in Alberta...
Party Kids GIF by Kochstrasse™GiphyI saw a small ape like thing on a branch, it walked towards me, then turned and walked away.
This was in the middle of Alberta. We stared at each other, and it sort of smiled at me.
This really happened. And I was there for legit scientific research purposes (not Big Foot) and you would generally trust me based on reputation.
I have told many people over the years and am not ashamed about the story. I have never figured out what kind of animal it was or if the thing escaped from a private owner. It did look thin with thinning hair.
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